Apocynadeae
What I love about Disco Elysium:
-Vast possibility space due to genius feat of design.
-Writing is incredible!
What I don't like about Disco Elysium:
-Do we really need another grimy detective story?
-I'm playing as a generic middle aged white man again, urgh.
I was a game that uses Disco Elysium's same insanely well crafted narrative system and wonderful writing...
...but it's about a young witch trying to solve the disappearance of her neighbor's cat in a small village in the Alps.
-Vast possibility space due to genius feat of design.
-Writing is incredible!
What I don't like about Disco Elysium:
-Do we really need another grimy detective story?
-I'm playing as a generic middle aged white man again, urgh.
I was a game that uses Disco Elysium's same insanely well crafted narrative system and wonderful writing...
...but it's about a young witch trying to solve the disappearance of her neighbor's cat in a small village in the Alps.
This review was written before the game released
zenos was is and will always be THE guy
This review contains spoilers
reality fans vs delusion enjoyers
the silver case
personally if i was there i wouldve gotten anri a girlfriend
1992
the second you get to metropolis zone you shut the game off and never look back
"at least its not sonic 2" sounds mean but its true
This review contains spoilers
I remember someone recently asked, while I was playing this exact game, what my opinion on Uchikoshi was, as a content creator. I think I somewhat summarized it to calling him a good director, but not a good writer. Having played around half of Ever17, Remember11 (which I struggle to call one of his works, but the impact he had isn't something to discard), the Zero Escape trilogy, and now AI, I would say I have a strong grip on the man as the years passed and my tastes evolved, and I would comfortably say that AI is possibly the least Uchikoshi Uchikoshi work, and this is a double-edged blade.
The constant theming between Uchikoshi works is its constrained, smaller casts and isolated settings. Ever17 has about 7 characters of importance, and the Zero Escape series has constantly utilized casts of 9 for their death games, with additional characters depending on a couple of variables. Another one of Uchikoshi's trademarks are his constant twist recycling, his love for dirty jokes and just general writing that's considered perverse, and just the general mystery angle that's always been present. He has, after all, said to write his endings first and then the rest; the key core of his works, more than anything, is mystery. So how does AI work with these concepts and evolve with what is his largest scale work as of now? Well, he kind of does and doesn't change much.
The bigger difference is AI's cast: it's pretty big compared to his previous works. Date, Aiba, Mizuki, Boss, Pewter, Hitomi, Renju, Shoko, Ota, Iris, Mama, Sejima, Moma, Renju, alongside other minor but present variables are all important parts of the chessboard here, having their motivations and actions which all affect the way the mystery works. Given that and the setting being a prefecture than a fixed location, such as the ship in 999, AI's atmosphere evolves less of a feeling that a guillotine grows closer towards your neck, and more of providing various kinds of escape of these guillotines for the ensemble cast that's been presented, and makes it a much more character-centric experience.
So does AI succeed at making you care about the characters? Well, kind of. I will say I found Date's personality to be more charismatic than I thought it'd be, but his actual struggles and characterization I wasn't exactly sold on, more on that later. I would say Mizuki and Boss are both characters I found the most interesting; Mizuki's coping with her parent's death was well handled in her route and I found the found family angle of it nice, while Boss lends to my favorite route in the game, while making her emotions for Date transparent, and thus, found her to be a strong personality that bounced off Date, but also felt as a strong cushion. As for Iris, well, she's my least favorite of the cast. Her route just felt very weird which makes sense when taken into account she has a brain tumor, and Date basically connected to that, but even then I wasn't too big on the family angle between her and Date. I did find him and Hitomi to be nice, but it doesn't exactly salvage it. Ota sucks. Aiba has cool chemistry with Date but not much else.
So while the characters are somewhat hit or miss, and thus makes the actual atmosphere much less consistent than it should, the routes I would say are pretty consistent in quality. I mentioned Ota sucks, but I found his relationship with his mother was nice in his route, while Iris route lends more for the plot in interesting ways. Mizuki route is my second favorite; again, I liked the way she was handled and I'd say that enhanced Date's character much more. Annihilation route was my favorite route, however; seeing the plot unravel and Date be tortured emotionally was a strong rollercoaster, and it led to some fun moments and strong moments of tension.
True route I do consider my third favorite route, so it's a little half and half; it's where I see most of Uchikoshi's flaws crop up and harm the experience. To start somewhere, I really do not like the way that the whole "timeline knowledge" thing works; it's a very present concept from Uchikoshi, where information in Zero Escape is shared by the Morphogenic Field, and Ever17's Blick Winkel, alongside Remember11's SELF. AI opts for a... "fractal" concept, where Date remembers information from other routes via pieces of memory in his body, which frankly, does not make sense. I kind of get it in a way to sidestep constant infodumps, but it's a concept that's just written in and ignored, which is also a constant thing I noticed. Outside of that, I found Saito to be a lackluster culprit. He doesn't have much of a presence, and his motivations were lackluster at best. He does have one of my favorite quotes in the game, but regardless, not too strong. The twist with Date's body and identity works, but it's... a bit of a Phi Sigma situation where it recontextualizes a couple of things to be unfortunate, mostly Date and Iris pre-True having some less than tasteful moments. I also just find the twist to be too complicated for its own good, as well as having a couple of leaps of logic I didn't find too well executed. It really needs a lot of suspension of disbelief to work, and it... kind of, kind of doesn't work.
Side note, Uchikoshi's plot twist reuse isn't as present here as it is usually. At least, nothing really screamed at me that there was something from E17 used, barring maybe the body switching? IDK, not too important, didn't bother me. Nirvana Initiative seems worse with it lol.
The Somniums are interesting, but I never found them to work well as puzzles, and more as interesting interpretations of the characters. I usually just had a guide for most of them because I didn't want to struggle with how the timer works, and a lot of the answers felt either too easy, or too warped with the internal logic utilized. Regardless, cool concept, not too strong execution.
Which, that kind of summarizes my thoughts with AI? I felt affirmed that I can't consider Uchikoshi a good writer when his strongest concepts aren't done so well, when the issue doesn't lie with the direction, but with the raw text itself. It's hard to consider the final twist good when too much of the work is made to justify it, than it fitting naturally. And so, when everything seems strong and detailed by itself, the attempt to jam it in together makes it less than the sum of its part.
At the end of the day, it's not a fractal; it's an uneven jigsaw puzzle. But at least those singular pieces are good occasionally?
small edit because i forgot to put this in but the dance number ending is the best part of the game completely unironically
The constant theming between Uchikoshi works is its constrained, smaller casts and isolated settings. Ever17 has about 7 characters of importance, and the Zero Escape series has constantly utilized casts of 9 for their death games, with additional characters depending on a couple of variables. Another one of Uchikoshi's trademarks are his constant twist recycling, his love for dirty jokes and just general writing that's considered perverse, and just the general mystery angle that's always been present. He has, after all, said to write his endings first and then the rest; the key core of his works, more than anything, is mystery. So how does AI work with these concepts and evolve with what is his largest scale work as of now? Well, he kind of does and doesn't change much.
The bigger difference is AI's cast: it's pretty big compared to his previous works. Date, Aiba, Mizuki, Boss, Pewter, Hitomi, Renju, Shoko, Ota, Iris, Mama, Sejima, Moma, Renju, alongside other minor but present variables are all important parts of the chessboard here, having their motivations and actions which all affect the way the mystery works. Given that and the setting being a prefecture than a fixed location, such as the ship in 999, AI's atmosphere evolves less of a feeling that a guillotine grows closer towards your neck, and more of providing various kinds of escape of these guillotines for the ensemble cast that's been presented, and makes it a much more character-centric experience.
So does AI succeed at making you care about the characters? Well, kind of. I will say I found Date's personality to be more charismatic than I thought it'd be, but his actual struggles and characterization I wasn't exactly sold on, more on that later. I would say Mizuki and Boss are both characters I found the most interesting; Mizuki's coping with her parent's death was well handled in her route and I found the found family angle of it nice, while Boss lends to my favorite route in the game, while making her emotions for Date transparent, and thus, found her to be a strong personality that bounced off Date, but also felt as a strong cushion. As for Iris, well, she's my least favorite of the cast. Her route just felt very weird which makes sense when taken into account she has a brain tumor, and Date basically connected to that, but even then I wasn't too big on the family angle between her and Date. I did find him and Hitomi to be nice, but it doesn't exactly salvage it. Ota sucks. Aiba has cool chemistry with Date but not much else.
So while the characters are somewhat hit or miss, and thus makes the actual atmosphere much less consistent than it should, the routes I would say are pretty consistent in quality. I mentioned Ota sucks, but I found his relationship with his mother was nice in his route, while Iris route lends more for the plot in interesting ways. Mizuki route is my second favorite; again, I liked the way she was handled and I'd say that enhanced Date's character much more. Annihilation route was my favorite route, however; seeing the plot unravel and Date be tortured emotionally was a strong rollercoaster, and it led to some fun moments and strong moments of tension.
True route I do consider my third favorite route, so it's a little half and half; it's where I see most of Uchikoshi's flaws crop up and harm the experience. To start somewhere, I really do not like the way that the whole "timeline knowledge" thing works; it's a very present concept from Uchikoshi, where information in Zero Escape is shared by the Morphogenic Field, and Ever17's Blick Winkel, alongside Remember11's SELF. AI opts for a... "fractal" concept, where Date remembers information from other routes via pieces of memory in his body, which frankly, does not make sense. I kind of get it in a way to sidestep constant infodumps, but it's a concept that's just written in and ignored, which is also a constant thing I noticed. Outside of that, I found Saito to be a lackluster culprit. He doesn't have much of a presence, and his motivations were lackluster at best. He does have one of my favorite quotes in the game, but regardless, not too strong. The twist with Date's body and identity works, but it's... a bit of a Phi Sigma situation where it recontextualizes a couple of things to be unfortunate, mostly Date and Iris pre-True having some less than tasteful moments. I also just find the twist to be too complicated for its own good, as well as having a couple of leaps of logic I didn't find too well executed. It really needs a lot of suspension of disbelief to work, and it... kind of, kind of doesn't work.
Side note, Uchikoshi's plot twist reuse isn't as present here as it is usually. At least, nothing really screamed at me that there was something from E17 used, barring maybe the body switching? IDK, not too important, didn't bother me. Nirvana Initiative seems worse with it lol.
The Somniums are interesting, but I never found them to work well as puzzles, and more as interesting interpretations of the characters. I usually just had a guide for most of them because I didn't want to struggle with how the timer works, and a lot of the answers felt either too easy, or too warped with the internal logic utilized. Regardless, cool concept, not too strong execution.
Which, that kind of summarizes my thoughts with AI? I felt affirmed that I can't consider Uchikoshi a good writer when his strongest concepts aren't done so well, when the issue doesn't lie with the direction, but with the raw text itself. It's hard to consider the final twist good when too much of the work is made to justify it, than it fitting naturally. And so, when everything seems strong and detailed by itself, the attempt to jam it in together makes it less than the sum of its part.
At the end of the day, it's not a fractal; it's an uneven jigsaw puzzle. But at least those singular pieces are good occasionally?
small edit because i forgot to put this in but the dance number ending is the best part of the game completely unironically
i love genocide
2023
I've tried to do multiple writeups on this to try and struggle with how to present my feelings on this while seeming sincere; it's easy to make something impersonal, to try and have that boundary between me as the writer and you as the reader. After all, it already exists; by you reading it through a screen, the words here can't be felt by your hands. You can't change them by yourself. They exist in a different plane, needing technology to observe and interact with it. But to make something that surpasses that boundary and allows you to see my heart, ripped from its cage and displayed for the world requires detail and care, but it also requires a deep understanding of what exactly one is writing. I understand Crymachina as it feels as its heart has been displayed as a gourmet meal, with all the dressings that surround it, but I am not sure how I as a writer am able to deliver this care to you effectively.
But that feels appropiate for Fuyuki Hasashi and FuRyu's newest work; a work that thirsts for and deeply requires for you to see the extent of its love and hate. How it desires deeply for unconditional love yet despises the world it has been brought into, one that detests that love in the macro scale and works towards destroying and minimizing it in the grind to become larger than life. To scam and kill in the literal and figurative in how one gets ahead of others in modern society, and Crymachina understands this and disparages it in a molotov cocktail thrown towards them. Crymachina is both that, but also a tour de fource of love, with how each part of the cast contains love inside them and sprouts in different manners, but never truly considers one irredeemable for harboring that love; because to love is to be human, and to be human is to love, and to love is to exist for it.
Even more impressive is the lengths that Crymachina goes to to be an anti-humanist yet progressive piece of art, as what it truly hates is the humanist ideal represented by contemporary society. Why do we disparage and discriminate against others? We may be carnivores and utilize natural resources to survive in the current age, yet discrimination and to see other intelligent beings as lesser because of a biased criteria is in itself an act against true humanity. Where we are born, who we love, what we eat and what we believe in does not matter to our value as humans, and Crymachina truly despises those who participate in that culture, representing them as hideous horrors. To take some words from the producer's interview with NISa, to claim that people are precious because they're human is willfully ignorant; it is the degree of human they are that matter.
Beyond that, Crymachina's all-female cast comes at its benefit when its story and cast are unmistakeably queer not just in the clear representation of lesbian love, but also in how it compares with modern society's discrimination of it. Mikoto and Ami's relationship are the most clear on this with their unmistakeable codependency, but Mikoto's fear of truly defining it because of its stigma: she'd like to be "cool". Ami, in contrast, being head over heels, desperately wishes to be unashamedly married and in love with Mikoto, and constantly fights against a society that doesn't allow her to be legally married. That is her goal as a Real Human after all: to be a proper family. And that sort of dialogue feels reflective of Japan's current struggle to legalize gay marriage, where Crymachina represents this with two great leads, and yells at the world to accept them.
Leben and Enoa are also a more interesting angle of it in the sci-fi sense in contrast to Mikoto and Ami's unsubtle contemporary dialogue; while Mikoto and Ami are unmistakeably considered to be humans, their label seems more shaky in terms of Leben and Enoa; Leben being a "human" with no past and a hatred for it, while Enoa being a machine with love for humans. This dynamic does continue to evolve in ways I'd not expand on because of spoilers, but their romantic relationship is the peak of Crymachina's representation of love and humanity, becoming representations of Crymachina's entire thesis statement: to be human doesn't matter without love. By experiencing love, by struggling to love, do you become a true human.
And in that framework of love does Crymachina shine. I adored Crymachina's story. I love its environmental design, taking Crystar's similar aesthetic with its coloring and transfixing that on larger scaled sci-fi arquitecture. Its music by Sakuzyo (who I found out while playing made one of my favorite albums!) is also a great accompanying piece, with the boss themes sung by Enoa's voice actress being the standouts. Everything about Crymachina is a true labour of love, and for that, I embrace it through my screen, appreciating it and loving it wholeheartedly.
"Please continue to share your life with us."
But that feels appropiate for Fuyuki Hasashi and FuRyu's newest work; a work that thirsts for and deeply requires for you to see the extent of its love and hate. How it desires deeply for unconditional love yet despises the world it has been brought into, one that detests that love in the macro scale and works towards destroying and minimizing it in the grind to become larger than life. To scam and kill in the literal and figurative in how one gets ahead of others in modern society, and Crymachina understands this and disparages it in a molotov cocktail thrown towards them. Crymachina is both that, but also a tour de fource of love, with how each part of the cast contains love inside them and sprouts in different manners, but never truly considers one irredeemable for harboring that love; because to love is to be human, and to be human is to love, and to love is to exist for it.
Even more impressive is the lengths that Crymachina goes to to be an anti-humanist yet progressive piece of art, as what it truly hates is the humanist ideal represented by contemporary society. Why do we disparage and discriminate against others? We may be carnivores and utilize natural resources to survive in the current age, yet discrimination and to see other intelligent beings as lesser because of a biased criteria is in itself an act against true humanity. Where we are born, who we love, what we eat and what we believe in does not matter to our value as humans, and Crymachina truly despises those who participate in that culture, representing them as hideous horrors. To take some words from the producer's interview with NISa, to claim that people are precious because they're human is willfully ignorant; it is the degree of human they are that matter.
Beyond that, Crymachina's all-female cast comes at its benefit when its story and cast are unmistakeably queer not just in the clear representation of lesbian love, but also in how it compares with modern society's discrimination of it. Mikoto and Ami's relationship are the most clear on this with their unmistakeable codependency, but Mikoto's fear of truly defining it because of its stigma: she'd like to be "cool". Ami, in contrast, being head over heels, desperately wishes to be unashamedly married and in love with Mikoto, and constantly fights against a society that doesn't allow her to be legally married. That is her goal as a Real Human after all: to be a proper family. And that sort of dialogue feels reflective of Japan's current struggle to legalize gay marriage, where Crymachina represents this with two great leads, and yells at the world to accept them.
Leben and Enoa are also a more interesting angle of it in the sci-fi sense in contrast to Mikoto and Ami's unsubtle contemporary dialogue; while Mikoto and Ami are unmistakeably considered to be humans, their label seems more shaky in terms of Leben and Enoa; Leben being a "human" with no past and a hatred for it, while Enoa being a machine with love for humans. This dynamic does continue to evolve in ways I'd not expand on because of spoilers, but their romantic relationship is the peak of Crymachina's representation of love and humanity, becoming representations of Crymachina's entire thesis statement: to be human doesn't matter without love. By experiencing love, by struggling to love, do you become a true human.
And in that framework of love does Crymachina shine. I adored Crymachina's story. I love its environmental design, taking Crystar's similar aesthetic with its coloring and transfixing that on larger scaled sci-fi arquitecture. Its music by Sakuzyo (who I found out while playing made one of my favorite albums!) is also a great accompanying piece, with the boss themes sung by Enoa's voice actress being the standouts. Everything about Crymachina is a true labour of love, and for that, I embrace it through my screen, appreciating it and loving it wholeheartedly.
"Please continue to share your life with us."
wow cool robot!
This review contains spoilers
"1. OOO is authorized to carry out the duties stipulated in articles 2-6, and XXX is in agreeance. 2. XXX shall perform the duties requested of OOO with their true name as collateral. 3. In return, OOO is not obligated to pay XXX in any form. 4. XXX shall bear the cost of any items required to fulfill requests. 5. This agreement shall remain strictly confidential. 6. This agreement shall remain in effect as long as XXX chooses to remain in this world. Revealing your true name will constitute as agreement, regardless of whether you accept the aforementioned articles. If you do not consent to this agreement, you must destroy this document and immediately cease interference within OOO's world."
While the review inherently has a spoiler warning through Backloggd, I'll digress that this review does have spoilers. Don't read it if you want to go in blind: just trust me and play through it. I absurdly reccomend it.
I'll be frank and start this review with the easiest way to display my affinity for this game immediately: I played around 10 hours straight of this game since release, every day, with some exceptions by the last few days. My college was on strike, and I had no assignments due since release, and with my entire family busier than ever due to the nature of the extended weekend, it was a blessing that I was able to have so much free time that I could sink my teeth into this game with extremely minimal breaks, usually just to sleep and occasionally eat. It's rare for me to do something like this: I absolutely abhor binging, and I'm not made for it. I need a few minutes in-between anything or I'll just get extremely tired. None of this applies to Izumi and NIS's latest entry in the Coven series, Labyrinth of Galleria, a game I've been immensely excited for since before the translation was announced. The amount of praise I've heard, not just in Backloggd reviews but overall through the few but avid fans of the game piqued my interest, and while I enjoyed what I played of Labyrinth of Refrain in terms of its dungeon crawling and gameplay, the writing threw me off due to some of the "fanservice"; I intend to return to the game, but for my original playthrough, it was hard to sit through. And it's obvious by this point, but the excitement I had for this work delivered and more, not just in terms of its overall gameplay, but the story of it as well.
"[Pleasure] Good feelings. One of life's purposes. A gift."
The gameplay of Labyrinth of Galleria is exceedingly similar to Refrain's in pure mechanics, as the combat, exploration, and character building at its core are exactly the same as Refrain's, with just some improvements such as the addition of stunning, and the additional facets; adding up to 24 different classes. I'm personally a fan of Gothic Grattonia, the cannon catmaid, and the Am series, the intersex bishoujo damage dealers and tanks. Their designs are very nice, and their style of gameplay was great as well. This adds a lot of variety to character building, thanks to the main slots of the party being 15, compared to Refrain's 10 classes; while it's not a major issue in Refrain, I applaud the variety.
Regardless, while the gameplay at its core is simply an improved version of Refrain's mechanics, the dungeon design is an entirely different beast. Refrain's dungeons are standard; in the sense of an Etrian Odyssey, where it's required to simply climb to the lowest depths, and the mechanics and aesthetics of each strata are varied. The titular Labyrinth of Galleria's dungeons are entirely different, thanks to the design philosophy that this game embarks. Narthex is extremely similar to Refrain's first dungeon, with the first floor having a near 1:1 layout, with a few differences to allow for new mechanics. Apse, however, is where the game completely changes focus. It is a behemoth, working much more as a pseudo-hub where smaller dungeons offshoot from it, teaching you more mechanics to get deeper into Apse. While the aesthetics may get stale as the dungeon itself can take you a good 20 hours, the actual mechanics of it make it so that it's always fresh, as discovering more loot, Curios, and story the longer the player spends in there makes it a much more expansive dungeon than one would believe at first. I never really got tired of backtracking with the sole exception being the Indigo dungeon, because it's a pain in the ass to return to that B3 for whichever needs necessary. Regardless, things such as the Moon Crest hunt had small rewards tied to it, and I enjoyed the way it continued to develop and change as I continued to unlock more mobility.
Outside of that, the other dungeons are also well designed. While Apartments may be disliked due to the procedurally generated nature of it, I had a similar but different feeling to Apse, where the grind to climb these floors was rewarded by the plot. The endgame dungeons are also fun treks, and the postgame dungeon is intentionally designed to be as grueling and long as possible, but the deeling when you've reached the top is unmatched.
"[Courage] To stand up against danger and difficulties. May lead to reckless demise pursuing success."
But regardless, the gameplay is an aspect of Labyrinth of Galleria; its true appeal relies on its plot. While I could happily have played this game without its cutscenes in an Etrian-styled trek for whatever reasons I imagine the puppets and I make, the true motivator and why I stuck so hard with it during that long weekend was thanks to the cast of characters. I loved to see Eureka in action; saying hello to me and making me lunch. I loved to bring Nachiroux her shit, and help her make that fat stack of money. I loved helping Madam Marta struggle through Galleria Manor, to complete her plan. Because at the end of the day, Labyrinth of Galleria is a game about struggles.
Both in pure gameplay and in story, this game is an immense struggle. It's easy to just get completely destroyed in the titular Labyrinth of Galleria, or to have some terrible luck and have your party incapacitated by broken limbs. It's common to fall down a pitfall and get ambushed by 5 consecutive battes. In the same way we struggle to achieve our goals, the cast struggles. Eureka struggles with her insecurities, not being skilled enough to appear worthy to anyone, especially her father, and doing anything to appear useful. Nachiroux struggles with herself, balancing her mother and her magic, which results to one of the most depressing and heart wrenching series of plot beats. And when it eventually spirals out of control, with an unimaginable scale, with multiple issues that these characters just aren't equipped to deal with, at the end of the day, Eureka and Nachiroux work to try and stay together. And that success relies on us, the player.
"[Conviction] The belief in one's righteousness. The will to believe. Eliminate all other possibilities."
Outside the exquisite combination of plot and gameplay, the aesthetics that Labyrinth of Galleria has are beautiful. This one's kind of obvious, frankly; most NIS games are beautiful, thanks to Takehito Harada's art and art direction, but the designs and music this game provides are the best it has gotten. Shoutout to Club Coven, and Emi Evans's tracks. They're definetly the standouts.
A small problem I did have with the presentation was the UI, more specifically, the wording and presentation of some skills and donum abilities. The text box for them is a little small and it's somewhat hard to understand how exactly do they work, and the wording is often vague. There's a couple notes in the GameFAQs guide that points out the hilarity of it, but it wasn't too much of a problem.
Regardless, though, the issues I have with this game are minimum. To other players, I'm sure things such as the insane difficulty and the postgame dungeon are very much terrible with no redemption. But personally speaking? I really loved it all. I loved the grind, the trial and error, the struggle to surpass these difficult foes. At the end of the day, I wanted to persevere.
I wanted to persevere because I wanted to reach Eureka and Nachiroux's happiness. I wanted them to surpass this time of misery and despair, and be able to create their own world: not Alstella or Alluna, but Uru. Not lives full of misery, but lives of joy that could have them live together.
Eureka was willing to work for three thousand years to reunite with Nachiroux. Why shouldn't I dedicate some hours for that?
"[Hope] To hope and pray for the future. A single flower blooms within the pit of despair."
While the review inherently has a spoiler warning through Backloggd, I'll digress that this review does have spoilers. Don't read it if you want to go in blind: just trust me and play through it. I absurdly reccomend it.
I'll be frank and start this review with the easiest way to display my affinity for this game immediately: I played around 10 hours straight of this game since release, every day, with some exceptions by the last few days. My college was on strike, and I had no assignments due since release, and with my entire family busier than ever due to the nature of the extended weekend, it was a blessing that I was able to have so much free time that I could sink my teeth into this game with extremely minimal breaks, usually just to sleep and occasionally eat. It's rare for me to do something like this: I absolutely abhor binging, and I'm not made for it. I need a few minutes in-between anything or I'll just get extremely tired. None of this applies to Izumi and NIS's latest entry in the Coven series, Labyrinth of Galleria, a game I've been immensely excited for since before the translation was announced. The amount of praise I've heard, not just in Backloggd reviews but overall through the few but avid fans of the game piqued my interest, and while I enjoyed what I played of Labyrinth of Refrain in terms of its dungeon crawling and gameplay, the writing threw me off due to some of the "fanservice"; I intend to return to the game, but for my original playthrough, it was hard to sit through. And it's obvious by this point, but the excitement I had for this work delivered and more, not just in terms of its overall gameplay, but the story of it as well.
"[Pleasure] Good feelings. One of life's purposes. A gift."
The gameplay of Labyrinth of Galleria is exceedingly similar to Refrain's in pure mechanics, as the combat, exploration, and character building at its core are exactly the same as Refrain's, with just some improvements such as the addition of stunning, and the additional facets; adding up to 24 different classes. I'm personally a fan of Gothic Grattonia, the cannon catmaid, and the Am series, the intersex bishoujo damage dealers and tanks. Their designs are very nice, and their style of gameplay was great as well. This adds a lot of variety to character building, thanks to the main slots of the party being 15, compared to Refrain's 10 classes; while it's not a major issue in Refrain, I applaud the variety.
Regardless, while the gameplay at its core is simply an improved version of Refrain's mechanics, the dungeon design is an entirely different beast. Refrain's dungeons are standard; in the sense of an Etrian Odyssey, where it's required to simply climb to the lowest depths, and the mechanics and aesthetics of each strata are varied. The titular Labyrinth of Galleria's dungeons are entirely different, thanks to the design philosophy that this game embarks. Narthex is extremely similar to Refrain's first dungeon, with the first floor having a near 1:1 layout, with a few differences to allow for new mechanics. Apse, however, is where the game completely changes focus. It is a behemoth, working much more as a pseudo-hub where smaller dungeons offshoot from it, teaching you more mechanics to get deeper into Apse. While the aesthetics may get stale as the dungeon itself can take you a good 20 hours, the actual mechanics of it make it so that it's always fresh, as discovering more loot, Curios, and story the longer the player spends in there makes it a much more expansive dungeon than one would believe at first. I never really got tired of backtracking with the sole exception being the Indigo dungeon, because it's a pain in the ass to return to that B3 for whichever needs necessary. Regardless, things such as the Moon Crest hunt had small rewards tied to it, and I enjoyed the way it continued to develop and change as I continued to unlock more mobility.
Outside of that, the other dungeons are also well designed. While Apartments may be disliked due to the procedurally generated nature of it, I had a similar but different feeling to Apse, where the grind to climb these floors was rewarded by the plot. The endgame dungeons are also fun treks, and the postgame dungeon is intentionally designed to be as grueling and long as possible, but the deeling when you've reached the top is unmatched.
"[Courage] To stand up against danger and difficulties. May lead to reckless demise pursuing success."
But regardless, the gameplay is an aspect of Labyrinth of Galleria; its true appeal relies on its plot. While I could happily have played this game without its cutscenes in an Etrian-styled trek for whatever reasons I imagine the puppets and I make, the true motivator and why I stuck so hard with it during that long weekend was thanks to the cast of characters. I loved to see Eureka in action; saying hello to me and making me lunch. I loved to bring Nachiroux her shit, and help her make that fat stack of money. I loved helping Madam Marta struggle through Galleria Manor, to complete her plan. Because at the end of the day, Labyrinth of Galleria is a game about struggles.
Both in pure gameplay and in story, this game is an immense struggle. It's easy to just get completely destroyed in the titular Labyrinth of Galleria, or to have some terrible luck and have your party incapacitated by broken limbs. It's common to fall down a pitfall and get ambushed by 5 consecutive battes. In the same way we struggle to achieve our goals, the cast struggles. Eureka struggles with her insecurities, not being skilled enough to appear worthy to anyone, especially her father, and doing anything to appear useful. Nachiroux struggles with herself, balancing her mother and her magic, which results to one of the most depressing and heart wrenching series of plot beats. And when it eventually spirals out of control, with an unimaginable scale, with multiple issues that these characters just aren't equipped to deal with, at the end of the day, Eureka and Nachiroux work to try and stay together. And that success relies on us, the player.
"[Conviction] The belief in one's righteousness. The will to believe. Eliminate all other possibilities."
Outside the exquisite combination of plot and gameplay, the aesthetics that Labyrinth of Galleria has are beautiful. This one's kind of obvious, frankly; most NIS games are beautiful, thanks to Takehito Harada's art and art direction, but the designs and music this game provides are the best it has gotten. Shoutout to Club Coven, and Emi Evans's tracks. They're definetly the standouts.
A small problem I did have with the presentation was the UI, more specifically, the wording and presentation of some skills and donum abilities. The text box for them is a little small and it's somewhat hard to understand how exactly do they work, and the wording is often vague. There's a couple notes in the GameFAQs guide that points out the hilarity of it, but it wasn't too much of a problem.
Regardless, though, the issues I have with this game are minimum. To other players, I'm sure things such as the insane difficulty and the postgame dungeon are very much terrible with no redemption. But personally speaking? I really loved it all. I loved the grind, the trial and error, the struggle to surpass these difficult foes. At the end of the day, I wanted to persevere.
I wanted to persevere because I wanted to reach Eureka and Nachiroux's happiness. I wanted them to surpass this time of misery and despair, and be able to create their own world: not Alstella or Alluna, but Uru. Not lives full of misery, but lives of joy that could have them live together.
Eureka was willing to work for three thousand years to reunite with Nachiroux. Why shouldn't I dedicate some hours for that?
"[Hope] To hope and pray for the future. A single flower blooms within the pit of despair."
A gameplay loop is a concept that permeates thorought every game that has ever been made. WIth the constant sense of progression that exists as more hours of one's lives are spent in the endless march to read the end of a work, you inherently get used to this loop. It may be something erroneously simple or something vehemently more complex to sift through, but the process of finishing a game requires this loop to become second nature. In this sense, these shoot-em-up games are the idea of a gameplay loop solidified into a pure game. You don't "finish" a shoot-em-up. Of course, you could; you can create an arbitrary goal for you or consider it a done deal when you reach the final stage. You can make that goal a 1cc, so on and so forth, but that doesn't solidify "finishing" them. As you reach the ending you create for yourself, there is always a higher ceiling to reach. Thus the only thing that really creates an ending is yourself and your own mentality.
DoDonPachi Resurrection is this very idea of an infinite gameplay loop, seamlessly sewn together with an actual loop with its story. In the fires of its creation, what molds its sense of self is that very relationship between a gameplay loop and an actual loop. As a very, very, very quick summary of its plot, DoDonPachi Resurrection has you, as the pilot, go back in time to stop a war in the future, caused by a rogue AI. However, the real plot kicks in by the end: in the process of attempting to stop this, you yourself have caused the events that lead up to your leap through time. At the end of the game?
"Perhaps the future cannot be changed."
Of course, that's not all that DoDonPachi Resurrection offers. There are multiple modes, multiple ships, an entire second loop if you are good enough to get through a run with the strict requirements it needs to access it. There's Arrange modes, Black Label (best soundtrack), so on and so forth. But despite the amount of modes, the options, how good you are, how far you get, you can never really change the past.
Thus, DoDonPachi Resurrection never ends. You simply constantly go through this same loop, no matter what, constantly. It is a loop of bullets, of organized chaos, and the continuos dance between it all. DoDonPachi Resurrection is a rondo on loop, even if the steps are different, the dance forever starts as it ends.
DoDonPachi Resurrection is this very idea of an infinite gameplay loop, seamlessly sewn together with an actual loop with its story. In the fires of its creation, what molds its sense of self is that very relationship between a gameplay loop and an actual loop. As a very, very, very quick summary of its plot, DoDonPachi Resurrection has you, as the pilot, go back in time to stop a war in the future, caused by a rogue AI. However, the real plot kicks in by the end: in the process of attempting to stop this, you yourself have caused the events that lead up to your leap through time. At the end of the game?
"Perhaps the future cannot be changed."
Of course, that's not all that DoDonPachi Resurrection offers. There are multiple modes, multiple ships, an entire second loop if you are good enough to get through a run with the strict requirements it needs to access it. There's Arrange modes, Black Label (best soundtrack), so on and so forth. But despite the amount of modes, the options, how good you are, how far you get, you can never really change the past.
Thus, DoDonPachi Resurrection never ends. You simply constantly go through this same loop, no matter what, constantly. It is a loop of bullets, of organized chaos, and the continuos dance between it all. DoDonPachi Resurrection is a rondo on loop, even if the steps are different, the dance forever starts as it ends.
I was pretty quick to dismiss Mario Wonder when it was originally announced on July 21, 2023. It screamed all style no substance; the revamped graphics compared to New Super Mario were no doubt some sort of improvement, but I thought it looked somewhat ugly, and the Wonder mechanic especially seemed like a shallow addition, compounded with the talking flower and the very plain level design made it feel as if Wonder, despite aspects of it being promising, would be a disappointment. I didn't really pay attention to the rest of the news cycle other than what I learned from osmosis, but when I heard of a totally legal way to play it early, I decided to give it at least the benefit of the doubt
Two worlds in, I shut off the game. Yep, classic Mario. I thought I saw everything it offered. And after a few minutes, I turned it back on and went back to play it. By the time I left to watch a play, I had left off at World 6 of 7 (sort of 8?), and felt a slight thirst to keep going. It was very small, but a very small part of me was hooked to the game, unable to escape from its appeal.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is both classic 2D Mario action and its own thing. Taking more cues from Super Mario 3D World than it does from the New Super Mario series, it's able to rejuvenate a dead style with a strong combination of excellent level design, new but familiar aesthetics and a new array of powers. A lot of emphasis must be placed on the level design of Super Mario Bros. Wonder as it is bar none some of the best the franchise has seen, with a wide variety of challenges to be encountered. The absolute large amounts of levels with branching paths and secrets to be found is immense, and the levels have a decent balance of challenge; none feel utterly hard, but they aren't always cake walks. If anything is amazing in this game and must not be taken for granted, it is how this game can cultivate such a strong sense of discovery through short levels, making every run through them interesting. The Wonder flower adds to this, as unlike my first impressions, it isn't a cakewalk to reach these always nor are they boring gimmicks, but rather fundamentally change your play style to bring upon a different challenge that couldn't be done without the game wanting to pull the rug from under your feet. A Wonder flower can change the plane to a Sonic 3D Blast ripoff, making it a top-down perspective, or it can change your character to a ball and implement more momentum-based platforming, or it can create a musical that has you play to the beat of it to succeed.
What Wonder does best, as you've probably assumed, is variety. The game is filled with ideas, making every level unique in some way with the unifying tie being the world's motif. World 5 comes to mind as the prime example; where the last few levels are a long stretch in-story of an old temple, and you're required to explore the level properly to find the Wonder flower, or else when you reach the "end" without it, it'll just end early with a "Course Cleared...?". Dialogue with the NPCs will also point out that this search is necessary, and you can't just bumrush your way through the level. Finding the Flower is never hard, but it did trip me up once, and more than anything I respect the dedication there is to making each World its distinct scenario, rather than all of them having Bowser Jr. appear and fuck things up. World 3 is another example, where rather than finding Bowser Jr. and kicking his ass, the leader of that area presents you with various trials to see if you are worthy of the Royal Seed as some sort of tradition. It makes the end goal feel less repetitive as each world is unique in its formation. World 4 had me scratching my head still, where most of the difficulty isn't in the stages, but actually finding the stages in the World Map. I still had a good number missing until postgame and had to ask for help to figure out the location of some.
The World Map in general is interesting as Super Mario Bros. Wonder does not attempt to have a linear structure after the third World, allowing the player to go through World 4-6 in any order, before ending with "World 7", which is more so a hub that connects the other worlds. Alongside that, Wonder introduces "breaks", which are more bite-sized levels that focus on a different style of gameplay other than pure platforming. There's a pretty large variety, but I don't find it too important to point all of them out since they're usually just about a minute or two long, with the exception of the Search breaks, which jesus christ yeah I was only able to do one the others I saw I could not fucking wrap my head around them. Regardless, they're nice additions that give you an extra Seed, and the Badge stages also give you a new badge if you beat them.
Speaking of badges, this is when we veer off from pure praise to more conflicting opinions. The Badge system allows you to equip one badge to vary your options, be it an extra move for traversal, a passive buff like a coin magnet, or one of the Expert badges. I'll be honest and say that for the action badges, I'm more confused on why these are optional equipments instead of proper upgrades to a base arsenal. Your character in this game is barren. Things like the Triple Jump are changed from a basic traversal ability to a badge, and for some like the grappling hook I never used because the level design simply didn't accomodate for it. Some of the passive badges would also be more useful if I didn't use my sole slot for higher speed; if there were more Badge slots than just one, or if you could equip both one action badge and one passive badge I would see this system as something more useful, but as is I felt it a waste because so much possibility for level design is limited by making these movement options optional.
I did think the expert badges to be more of a fun gimmick comparatively, though; I'm only missing one, but all changed the way the game played in a more unique way that makes it more logical that it is an option, and especially one aimed at harder play. I can see myself going back and utilizing the dash, for example. Regardless, the badge system is more of a minor complaint at some missed potential in level design; same goes for the playable characters playing basically the same? As I said, this game takes a bit more from 3D World's controls and style than it does from New, but one thing 3D World had that this didn't is the character variety in control styles. Wonder does have 6 playable characters, and an additional 6 that no one will play, but I do miss the idea behind the characters having more individual styles such as Toad's faster run speed but smaller range in jumps. Maybe it's a bit of wishful thinking to have both the great level design of this and the unique characters of 3D World... but it stuck out to me so I'm mentioning it.
Something else that stuck out to me is the power-up selection. Not counting the Wonder Flower because it's more similar to a Mega Mushroom than anything, there's only four, and only one is a returning one; the Fire Flower. No comments on that, you've played Mario, you know what it does. The other three are the Elephant, the Bubble, and the Drill. I'll be honest I only really liked the Bubble powerup; it goes through walls and you can jump on the bubbles themselves, and they move somewhat slow so lining up jumps with it is doable. It also instantly kills anything the bubble catches, so it's both a great addition to your movement and a great offensive weapon in most situations. The drill is one I would have liked to love, but unfortunately its implementation is a little off. It lets you dig into the ground and the ceiling, as well as being able to hit enemies with your head. It's useful for some stages, but otherwise just doesn't really do much. The Elephant is in theory pretty nice except I hate looking at it. Fuck it. It instills in me a sense of rage I rarely feel. It's also just a little off; it's more of a close range dealer that breaks blocks, but it can also absorb water to rejuvenate some plants, and yeah whatever it works? But I don't like it and I don't like using it.
I also don't like the talking flower. Nintendo strikes back with their my way or the highway mentality because you cannot turn off the flower completely. You can turn off the voice and it somewhat helps but it's still distracting to see text that does nothing but spout Whedonisms. YES I can see that weird shit is happening, I don't need the game to reaffirm that weird shit is happening. It's just an odd addition when the rest of the game is all-in on wanting you to immerse yourself into the Flower Kingdom, seeing the different groups and how you interact with them, to also attract attention to it in an odd, fourth-wall way. They don't give advice or hints. They're entirely there to just tickle your brain if you somehow enjoy the sort of dialogue it spawns.I don't like it. It do not tickle my brain. It does the opposite.
Another small disappointment I have is with the postgame levels in the Special world, only having nine stages and all of them being pretty short and the challenge coming more so from precise application of gimmicks than any strong platforming. I don't mind this approach for the normal levels because part of the appeal is the variety that sprouts from it, but the levels never really felt like a proper challenge because of it. I wish the last stage was longer and harder.
The bosses are fine, there's only really three; Bowser Jr., the ship's, and Bowser himself. Bowser Jr has a pretty set moveset that changes less because of him and more of what the world's general gimmick is. The ship's is more akin to Bowser's fights in Mario 1 where the goal isn't to kill him but to reach the ax. Bowser's fight was a strong and fun spectacle, but not really hard. I wish there were more? Not for every World, I think they all do a good job at variety, but I think there could've been a better way to implement a set piece boss alongside the Wonder flower's effects.
I do think that perhaps Wonder's biggest issue is that it is not a very deep game; not in terms of plot but in terms of gameplay. There's not much avenue for a strong application in gameplay since the game functions much less as something focused on Mario's movement kit and much more on a visual spectacle, pulling the rug off your feet. And Wonder is great for that! But when it also attempts to pose a serious challenge, it starts faltering.
Wonder shows a lot of wonderful spectacle, but stumbles in a few key aspects that still show promise for the evolution of 2D Mario and how it can change and evolve.
Two worlds in, I shut off the game. Yep, classic Mario. I thought I saw everything it offered. And after a few minutes, I turned it back on and went back to play it. By the time I left to watch a play, I had left off at World 6 of 7 (sort of 8?), and felt a slight thirst to keep going. It was very small, but a very small part of me was hooked to the game, unable to escape from its appeal.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is both classic 2D Mario action and its own thing. Taking more cues from Super Mario 3D World than it does from the New Super Mario series, it's able to rejuvenate a dead style with a strong combination of excellent level design, new but familiar aesthetics and a new array of powers. A lot of emphasis must be placed on the level design of Super Mario Bros. Wonder as it is bar none some of the best the franchise has seen, with a wide variety of challenges to be encountered. The absolute large amounts of levels with branching paths and secrets to be found is immense, and the levels have a decent balance of challenge; none feel utterly hard, but they aren't always cake walks. If anything is amazing in this game and must not be taken for granted, it is how this game can cultivate such a strong sense of discovery through short levels, making every run through them interesting. The Wonder flower adds to this, as unlike my first impressions, it isn't a cakewalk to reach these always nor are they boring gimmicks, but rather fundamentally change your play style to bring upon a different challenge that couldn't be done without the game wanting to pull the rug from under your feet. A Wonder flower can change the plane to a Sonic 3D Blast ripoff, making it a top-down perspective, or it can change your character to a ball and implement more momentum-based platforming, or it can create a musical that has you play to the beat of it to succeed.
What Wonder does best, as you've probably assumed, is variety. The game is filled with ideas, making every level unique in some way with the unifying tie being the world's motif. World 5 comes to mind as the prime example; where the last few levels are a long stretch in-story of an old temple, and you're required to explore the level properly to find the Wonder flower, or else when you reach the "end" without it, it'll just end early with a "Course Cleared...?". Dialogue with the NPCs will also point out that this search is necessary, and you can't just bumrush your way through the level. Finding the Flower is never hard, but it did trip me up once, and more than anything I respect the dedication there is to making each World its distinct scenario, rather than all of them having Bowser Jr. appear and fuck things up. World 3 is another example, where rather than finding Bowser Jr. and kicking his ass, the leader of that area presents you with various trials to see if you are worthy of the Royal Seed as some sort of tradition. It makes the end goal feel less repetitive as each world is unique in its formation. World 4 had me scratching my head still, where most of the difficulty isn't in the stages, but actually finding the stages in the World Map. I still had a good number missing until postgame and had to ask for help to figure out the location of some.
The World Map in general is interesting as Super Mario Bros. Wonder does not attempt to have a linear structure after the third World, allowing the player to go through World 4-6 in any order, before ending with "World 7", which is more so a hub that connects the other worlds. Alongside that, Wonder introduces "breaks", which are more bite-sized levels that focus on a different style of gameplay other than pure platforming. There's a pretty large variety, but I don't find it too important to point all of them out since they're usually just about a minute or two long, with the exception of the Search breaks, which jesus christ yeah I was only able to do one the others I saw I could not fucking wrap my head around them. Regardless, they're nice additions that give you an extra Seed, and the Badge stages also give you a new badge if you beat them.
Speaking of badges, this is when we veer off from pure praise to more conflicting opinions. The Badge system allows you to equip one badge to vary your options, be it an extra move for traversal, a passive buff like a coin magnet, or one of the Expert badges. I'll be honest and say that for the action badges, I'm more confused on why these are optional equipments instead of proper upgrades to a base arsenal. Your character in this game is barren. Things like the Triple Jump are changed from a basic traversal ability to a badge, and for some like the grappling hook I never used because the level design simply didn't accomodate for it. Some of the passive badges would also be more useful if I didn't use my sole slot for higher speed; if there were more Badge slots than just one, or if you could equip both one action badge and one passive badge I would see this system as something more useful, but as is I felt it a waste because so much possibility for level design is limited by making these movement options optional.
I did think the expert badges to be more of a fun gimmick comparatively, though; I'm only missing one, but all changed the way the game played in a more unique way that makes it more logical that it is an option, and especially one aimed at harder play. I can see myself going back and utilizing the dash, for example. Regardless, the badge system is more of a minor complaint at some missed potential in level design; same goes for the playable characters playing basically the same? As I said, this game takes a bit more from 3D World's controls and style than it does from New, but one thing 3D World had that this didn't is the character variety in control styles. Wonder does have 6 playable characters, and an additional 6 that no one will play, but I do miss the idea behind the characters having more individual styles such as Toad's faster run speed but smaller range in jumps. Maybe it's a bit of wishful thinking to have both the great level design of this and the unique characters of 3D World... but it stuck out to me so I'm mentioning it.
Something else that stuck out to me is the power-up selection. Not counting the Wonder Flower because it's more similar to a Mega Mushroom than anything, there's only four, and only one is a returning one; the Fire Flower. No comments on that, you've played Mario, you know what it does. The other three are the Elephant, the Bubble, and the Drill. I'll be honest I only really liked the Bubble powerup; it goes through walls and you can jump on the bubbles themselves, and they move somewhat slow so lining up jumps with it is doable. It also instantly kills anything the bubble catches, so it's both a great addition to your movement and a great offensive weapon in most situations. The drill is one I would have liked to love, but unfortunately its implementation is a little off. It lets you dig into the ground and the ceiling, as well as being able to hit enemies with your head. It's useful for some stages, but otherwise just doesn't really do much. The Elephant is in theory pretty nice except I hate looking at it. Fuck it. It instills in me a sense of rage I rarely feel. It's also just a little off; it's more of a close range dealer that breaks blocks, but it can also absorb water to rejuvenate some plants, and yeah whatever it works? But I don't like it and I don't like using it.
I also don't like the talking flower. Nintendo strikes back with their my way or the highway mentality because you cannot turn off the flower completely. You can turn off the voice and it somewhat helps but it's still distracting to see text that does nothing but spout Whedonisms. YES I can see that weird shit is happening, I don't need the game to reaffirm that weird shit is happening. It's just an odd addition when the rest of the game is all-in on wanting you to immerse yourself into the Flower Kingdom, seeing the different groups and how you interact with them, to also attract attention to it in an odd, fourth-wall way. They don't give advice or hints. They're entirely there to just tickle your brain if you somehow enjoy the sort of dialogue it spawns.I don't like it. It do not tickle my brain. It does the opposite.
Another small disappointment I have is with the postgame levels in the Special world, only having nine stages and all of them being pretty short and the challenge coming more so from precise application of gimmicks than any strong platforming. I don't mind this approach for the normal levels because part of the appeal is the variety that sprouts from it, but the levels never really felt like a proper challenge because of it. I wish the last stage was longer and harder.
The bosses are fine, there's only really three; Bowser Jr., the ship's, and Bowser himself. Bowser Jr has a pretty set moveset that changes less because of him and more of what the world's general gimmick is. The ship's is more akin to Bowser's fights in Mario 1 where the goal isn't to kill him but to reach the ax. Bowser's fight was a strong and fun spectacle, but not really hard. I wish there were more? Not for every World, I think they all do a good job at variety, but I think there could've been a better way to implement a set piece boss alongside the Wonder flower's effects.
I do think that perhaps Wonder's biggest issue is that it is not a very deep game; not in terms of plot but in terms of gameplay. There's not much avenue for a strong application in gameplay since the game functions much less as something focused on Mario's movement kit and much more on a visual spectacle, pulling the rug off your feet. And Wonder is great for that! But when it also attempts to pose a serious challenge, it starts faltering.
Wonder shows a lot of wonderful spectacle, but stumbles in a few key aspects that still show promise for the evolution of 2D Mario and how it can change and evolve.
2021
My name is Alan Woke. I'm a translator.