Arus
Spark the Electric Jester 2 is a great feeling hiding inside a merely good game. This is essentially a 3D sonic that ignores everything that subgenre has been for the last couple of decades, emphasising player control above all else. And what beautiful player control. For Mario 64, its designers spent more time developing Mario’s controls over the designing actual levels and that principle feels right at home in Spark 2. Far, the not quite eponymous protagonist, is perfectly controllable in ways that are antithetical to modern Sonic. Fark does not boost but rather walks, jogs, runs and sprints as movement is defined by momentum. Momentum being defined by a well realised physics system that gives meaning to every slope and curve Fark traverses. And a similar complexity exists when Fark leaves the ground as double jumps, dashes, and wall jumping make every distant platform both a realistic destination and means of keeping the flow going. Spark the Electric Jester 2 may have combat but the real combos came from mixing all of these wonderful verbs to play the Sonic Adventure sequel that I never got. This realisation came as I spin dashed off the first stage towards a building in the background. In Sonic, I would have disappeared into the void but in Spark the Electric Jester 2 I landed and discovered another building, then another one, until I was forging a new path separate from the intended one.
The trade-off for that beautiful moment is playing a game that is less a game and more a testing ground for something more substantial. There are large 3d stages for instance full of obstacles, enemies and platforms, 14 of them in fact, yet they largely blend together. Barring one or two, stages don’t really pace themselves to offer interesting ideas or themes. There is no equivalent to Speed Highway’s frenetic cop chase followed by the dawn denouement or playing bumper cars in Twinkle Park and then climbing to the top of its castle. Here, every stage is a wide 3d hallway of floating buildings, roads and platforms and not much else. The commitment to interactivity over automation is admirable but the lack of set pieces and unique little mechanics strip these playgrounds of a sense of place and mood. It doesn’t help that so many of them are reprises from the first Spark game and feel more barren than the lively 2d stages they draw from. In general, this is Spark the Electric Jester 1’s storyline again albeit more sterile and flavourless. A shame because there is a hint of a Triple-Q mashup of revengeance/shadow the hedgehog in the butt-rock vocal songs and bossfights but it’s all so limply executed.
Limp is probably the best word to describe combat. For all the joyous game feel of Fark’s movement, none of it sure translated into hitting things. Fark aims to be a lite version of Bayonetta or Raiden but with none of their friction or capacity for player expression. Just mash parry and attack robot things that don’t react to anything you do and your reward is that you can go back to the platforming. I dislike being so dismissive about the combat because clearly LakeFeperd put a great amount of effort into it yet there is an uncertainty in the game as to what its even there for as for the most part its strictly segregated from the platforming. It does contribute towards an admittedly fantastic score attack mode that I didn't have enough skill to fully complete
So much of Spark the Electric Jester 2 is a rich set of movement options in a game that’s reluctant to structure itself around them. That ambiguity only becomes more pronounced now that Spark the Electric 3 is out and supposedly promises to be a bigger and more fully featured game in every way. Does this make Spark the Electric Jester 2 a less worthwhile experience? I don’t think so. I won’t forget the cathartic joy I’ve felt playing a sonic game that was everything the boost games told me they couldn’t be. I’m glad I got to chase that feeling with Fark. Just wish he’d smile a bit more.
The trade-off for that beautiful moment is playing a game that is less a game and more a testing ground for something more substantial. There are large 3d stages for instance full of obstacles, enemies and platforms, 14 of them in fact, yet they largely blend together. Barring one or two, stages don’t really pace themselves to offer interesting ideas or themes. There is no equivalent to Speed Highway’s frenetic cop chase followed by the dawn denouement or playing bumper cars in Twinkle Park and then climbing to the top of its castle. Here, every stage is a wide 3d hallway of floating buildings, roads and platforms and not much else. The commitment to interactivity over automation is admirable but the lack of set pieces and unique little mechanics strip these playgrounds of a sense of place and mood. It doesn’t help that so many of them are reprises from the first Spark game and feel more barren than the lively 2d stages they draw from. In general, this is Spark the Electric Jester 1’s storyline again albeit more sterile and flavourless. A shame because there is a hint of a Triple-Q mashup of revengeance/shadow the hedgehog in the butt-rock vocal songs and bossfights but it’s all so limply executed.
Limp is probably the best word to describe combat. For all the joyous game feel of Fark’s movement, none of it sure translated into hitting things. Fark aims to be a lite version of Bayonetta or Raiden but with none of their friction or capacity for player expression. Just mash parry and attack robot things that don’t react to anything you do and your reward is that you can go back to the platforming. I dislike being so dismissive about the combat because clearly LakeFeperd put a great amount of effort into it yet there is an uncertainty in the game as to what its even there for as for the most part its strictly segregated from the platforming. It does contribute towards an admittedly fantastic score attack mode that I didn't have enough skill to fully complete
So much of Spark the Electric Jester 2 is a rich set of movement options in a game that’s reluctant to structure itself around them. That ambiguity only becomes more pronounced now that Spark the Electric 3 is out and supposedly promises to be a bigger and more fully featured game in every way. Does this make Spark the Electric Jester 2 a less worthwhile experience? I don’t think so. I won’t forget the cathartic joy I’ve felt playing a sonic game that was everything the boost games told me they couldn’t be. I’m glad I got to chase that feeling with Fark. Just wish he’d smile a bit more.
2001
This review contains spoilers
Most rpgs I have played tend to be maximalist in their structure and presentation, offering a sprawling 30+ hour experience stuffed with loot, quests and maybe some pretty vistas. Having a lot of 'stuff' for the player to mess around is an effective way to solve the problem of replicating a genre that has its origins in the infinite theatre of the mind. But it’s not the only way.
Geneforge has some things in common with that brief description above sans the pretty vistas. But these elements are informed by the fact that Geneforge was primarily coded and designed by one person, the self-described 'bottom feeder' Jeff Vogel who in his long career of annually released shareware has advocated strict economy in production and game design, something that's immediately apparent in how his games look.
It’s something of a running joke among Jeff and his base that his games have never looked or sounded particularly modern with their crude repetitive sprites, sparse repeated backgrounds and absence of an audio palette outside of store-bought sounds. Geneforge, possessing all of the above, wasn’t a looker in 2001 yet while its presentation is hardly immersive, it neither detracts from the experience too. Everything is rendered cleanly and legibly and the repeated ambient sounds emphasise the naturalism of the island setting.
That setting is the key to Geneforge's success and I want to return to what I said earlier about maximalism. Many rpgs try to spread their net as far as wide in terms of scope, offering entire countries, continents or even worlds. The effect of which sometimes only highlight the artificial nature of these worlds. Geneforge firstly does define its world where shapers (basically summoners) are the elite of their civilization due to their ability to shape life and create creatures for whatever purpose they deem fit. Secondly however, Geneforge, almost in the spirit of a microhistory, immediately limits the vast potential of this world to a forbidden island where you, a shaper in training, gets shipwrecked after being attacked by mysterious assailants. Ostensibly the arc of the game is trying to get off the island but this is really just an excuse for the actual journey of self-discovery. Sucia Island defined by a pervasive sense of mystery that feeds directly into a loop of exploration. Instead of creating a continuous game space, Vogel split the island into 80 or so small zones that form an interconnected grid not dissimilar to how Ivalice in FF12 is structured. Nearly every zone has multiple exits and there is rarely one route to a destination in mind. While these zones share the same assets and activities (looting and fighting), they nonetheless feel distinct from one another due to how fast travel works. Every zone has a hidden objective that once fulfilled marks that zone as cleared and free to fast travel to. However, 'cleared' zones need to be beside each other in order to take advantage of fast travel, for instance, you cannot fast travel to a cleared zone that is surrounded by uncleared zone thus encouraging you to create a safe route by fulfilling these objectives. Whilst some of these objectives are as simple as clearing all enemies in a zone, most pertain to something unique within that zone that reinforce the players engagement and understanding of the island. As such, although quite crude Geneforge's world design facilitates a meaningful dialogue between player and environment.
This mechanical relationship with Sucia Island is given further meaning by its narrative implications as a forbidden island. Once another shaper colony, the discoveries made upon the island were deemed sufficiently unsettling enough to recall all shapers to the mainland. In colonial retreat, a more subversive process occurred: the Servile creatures indifferently abandoned by their creators did not perish but lived and indeed thrive in their masters absence. Sucia island is fascinating as a setting then because instead of simply being an easily translatable facsimile of the Geneforge world it instead serves as a twisted mirror of it, a place where the abandoned experiments and industrial ruins shadow the Shapers claim to ascendancy. The Serviles themselves are the flesh and blood of this premise. In many ways, Geneforge is really about them and the world that they have been building for themselves in the absence of their creators. They comprise three sects: the Obeyers, who seek a return to the Shaper overlordship, the Takers who view all Shapers as oppressors to be taken down (my favourite of the bunch) and the Awakened who simply seek acceptance from the Shapers and co-existence on the basis of equality. It is a vibrant ever-changing society whose multifaceted divisions are the natural outgrowth of century long identity formation, a rarity in a genre that often reduces culture and identity to static atavism. And the complexity of this world creates opportunity for richer self-expression. Geneforge starts with the protagonist as an apprentice shaper and thus already comfortable in the shaper worldview. Even your most positive reaction to the first Serviles you meet is reluctant acceptance of their newfound autonomy. Yet as you engage more with this new world, that originally simplistic understanding gradually breaks down with every nuance. Take the Takers for instance. They are the most hostile to your presence and you can’t even enter their territory without being openly attacked. Yet when I persisted in travelling through their wasted lands and gaining an audience with their leader, I discovered a history of ecological collapse and collective trauma. The Takers’ ancestors had the misfortune of living near a dumping ground of toxic experiments that the departing Shapers created as they left, their parting gift effectively poisoning the air and the earth. These Serviles were fatally burdened with the debt of a few indifferent officials who in all likelihood enjoyed comfortable and healthy lives on the mainland. Thus, thus the Takers found their voice and from hearing their tale, my character too. Ruins that I previously considered mysterious and exciting escapades of an unknowably past become recontextualised as reminders of a world that very much still existed, and one that I would inevitably have to return to.
Find a way off the island. From the onset Geneforge constantly advertises its end. Many rpgs are keen on leaving their end goals either ambiguous or contingent to revision so to constantly string the player along their epic journeys. For all that you discover and experience in Geneforge, there is an implicit understanding that it will all have to be left behind. Just as the past of Sucia Island was a constant ever-changing thing, so too is its present. It is similar to Fallout New Vegas in that you are witness to a world that will soon utterly change and become unrecognisable. Even though it’s still a few dozen hours in length, my time in Geneforge felt fleeting and melancholy as I watched the ending slides. In spite of its primitive production values or maybe because of them, I still think about all that I experienced. Shorn of the epic conventions and cruft of other rpgs, I felt I was able to more clearly connect to everything laid out for me. There was so much more I wanted to talk about in this review, however given that it has already turned out to be as bloated and unfocused as Geneforge isn’t, I thought it best to restrict myself to my most coherent observations. Even as I currently play Geneforge 2, Sucia Island is never far from my mind. I will return to it one day.
Geneforge has some things in common with that brief description above sans the pretty vistas. But these elements are informed by the fact that Geneforge was primarily coded and designed by one person, the self-described 'bottom feeder' Jeff Vogel who in his long career of annually released shareware has advocated strict economy in production and game design, something that's immediately apparent in how his games look.
It’s something of a running joke among Jeff and his base that his games have never looked or sounded particularly modern with their crude repetitive sprites, sparse repeated backgrounds and absence of an audio palette outside of store-bought sounds. Geneforge, possessing all of the above, wasn’t a looker in 2001 yet while its presentation is hardly immersive, it neither detracts from the experience too. Everything is rendered cleanly and legibly and the repeated ambient sounds emphasise the naturalism of the island setting.
That setting is the key to Geneforge's success and I want to return to what I said earlier about maximalism. Many rpgs try to spread their net as far as wide in terms of scope, offering entire countries, continents or even worlds. The effect of which sometimes only highlight the artificial nature of these worlds. Geneforge firstly does define its world where shapers (basically summoners) are the elite of their civilization due to their ability to shape life and create creatures for whatever purpose they deem fit. Secondly however, Geneforge, almost in the spirit of a microhistory, immediately limits the vast potential of this world to a forbidden island where you, a shaper in training, gets shipwrecked after being attacked by mysterious assailants. Ostensibly the arc of the game is trying to get off the island but this is really just an excuse for the actual journey of self-discovery. Sucia Island defined by a pervasive sense of mystery that feeds directly into a loop of exploration. Instead of creating a continuous game space, Vogel split the island into 80 or so small zones that form an interconnected grid not dissimilar to how Ivalice in FF12 is structured. Nearly every zone has multiple exits and there is rarely one route to a destination in mind. While these zones share the same assets and activities (looting and fighting), they nonetheless feel distinct from one another due to how fast travel works. Every zone has a hidden objective that once fulfilled marks that zone as cleared and free to fast travel to. However, 'cleared' zones need to be beside each other in order to take advantage of fast travel, for instance, you cannot fast travel to a cleared zone that is surrounded by uncleared zone thus encouraging you to create a safe route by fulfilling these objectives. Whilst some of these objectives are as simple as clearing all enemies in a zone, most pertain to something unique within that zone that reinforce the players engagement and understanding of the island. As such, although quite crude Geneforge's world design facilitates a meaningful dialogue between player and environment.
This mechanical relationship with Sucia Island is given further meaning by its narrative implications as a forbidden island. Once another shaper colony, the discoveries made upon the island were deemed sufficiently unsettling enough to recall all shapers to the mainland. In colonial retreat, a more subversive process occurred: the Servile creatures indifferently abandoned by their creators did not perish but lived and indeed thrive in their masters absence. Sucia island is fascinating as a setting then because instead of simply being an easily translatable facsimile of the Geneforge world it instead serves as a twisted mirror of it, a place where the abandoned experiments and industrial ruins shadow the Shapers claim to ascendancy. The Serviles themselves are the flesh and blood of this premise. In many ways, Geneforge is really about them and the world that they have been building for themselves in the absence of their creators. They comprise three sects: the Obeyers, who seek a return to the Shaper overlordship, the Takers who view all Shapers as oppressors to be taken down (my favourite of the bunch) and the Awakened who simply seek acceptance from the Shapers and co-existence on the basis of equality. It is a vibrant ever-changing society whose multifaceted divisions are the natural outgrowth of century long identity formation, a rarity in a genre that often reduces culture and identity to static atavism. And the complexity of this world creates opportunity for richer self-expression. Geneforge starts with the protagonist as an apprentice shaper and thus already comfortable in the shaper worldview. Even your most positive reaction to the first Serviles you meet is reluctant acceptance of their newfound autonomy. Yet as you engage more with this new world, that originally simplistic understanding gradually breaks down with every nuance. Take the Takers for instance. They are the most hostile to your presence and you can’t even enter their territory without being openly attacked. Yet when I persisted in travelling through their wasted lands and gaining an audience with their leader, I discovered a history of ecological collapse and collective trauma. The Takers’ ancestors had the misfortune of living near a dumping ground of toxic experiments that the departing Shapers created as they left, their parting gift effectively poisoning the air and the earth. These Serviles were fatally burdened with the debt of a few indifferent officials who in all likelihood enjoyed comfortable and healthy lives on the mainland. Thus, thus the Takers found their voice and from hearing their tale, my character too. Ruins that I previously considered mysterious and exciting escapades of an unknowably past become recontextualised as reminders of a world that very much still existed, and one that I would inevitably have to return to.
Find a way off the island. From the onset Geneforge constantly advertises its end. Many rpgs are keen on leaving their end goals either ambiguous or contingent to revision so to constantly string the player along their epic journeys. For all that you discover and experience in Geneforge, there is an implicit understanding that it will all have to be left behind. Just as the past of Sucia Island was a constant ever-changing thing, so too is its present. It is similar to Fallout New Vegas in that you are witness to a world that will soon utterly change and become unrecognisable. Even though it’s still a few dozen hours in length, my time in Geneforge felt fleeting and melancholy as I watched the ending slides. In spite of its primitive production values or maybe because of them, I still think about all that I experienced. Shorn of the epic conventions and cruft of other rpgs, I felt I was able to more clearly connect to everything laid out for me. There was so much more I wanted to talk about in this review, however given that it has already turned out to be as bloated and unfocused as Geneforge isn’t, I thought it best to restrict myself to my most coherent observations. Even as I currently play Geneforge 2, Sucia Island is never far from my mind. I will return to it one day.
2011
With 5 medals per unique-idea-executed-in-four-steps stage and a lovely if extrenuous map screen Kirby Mass Attack is more firmly entrenched in the Nintendo Platformer Design™ space than its more experimental DS predecessor. In contrast to that game's elegant use of the touchpad, Mass Attack's central gimmick mostly amounts to scratching and tapping the screen in stages that sometimes have the tendency to joylessly iterate on concepts that should have remained concepts (Sandy Canyon Stage 6 scares me). Nonetheless, its lavish 2d production values, maybe the last of its kind from a Nintendo pipeline perspective, the pure vibes of the hot air balloon stage and the sheer quanity and quality of subgames gives it an air of sprezzatura in spite of its shortcomings. Its cute.
2020
I don't like top down zelda and I don't like dating sim elements. Surprisingly then, I did end up liking Prodigal. It avoids being self-indulgent with its minimalist approach to design. The overworld is refreshingly small and intimate, favouring ease of traversal over lock and key design. Likewise, the array of tools is stripped down to the bare essentials and granted in full after half an hour of play. Its perspective too is refreshingly grounded (until it isn't) with a simple focus on returning to your roots and coming to terms with the island community you abandoned in your youth. This gives context and meaning to the dating sim elements as besides the abrupt 'marry me' question, conversations have the friction and awkwardness of rekindling old friendships with people you thought you'd left behind for good. The writing and tone shares more in common with the older harvest moon games with its sedentary worldview where standing still and noticing the coming of seasons and individual nuances of an npc's life is just as valuable as exploring uncharted lands. The sheer generosity of post-game content (it really feels like a sequel to itself at times) which continually escalates in scope and complexity in surprising ways does not disrupt this tranquility but only energises it ever so slightly, the equivalent of a crisp winter walk that you undertake at your own pace before enjoying a cup of coffee at home. Definitely better than the sum of its parts.
1995
I love this game. I wish I had something more meaningful to say but god I love this game. I love all killer no filler genesis platformers that pack so much into such a lovely little package of 6 stages. I love these jewel oranges and purples. I love water levels with the courtesy to let you move faster. I love building up as much speed as possible while pole swinging and then pinballing myself across the stage without a care in the world. I love snowball fights, conducting concerts and hugging my dad.
I don't really love the second to last boss but I love turning him into scrap metal with the intergalactic power of long arms.
Sometimes a games comes into your life at the right moment and provides pure and unfiltered happiness. I love Ristar.
I don't really love the second to last boss but I love turning him into scrap metal with the intergalactic power of long arms.
Sometimes a games comes into your life at the right moment and provides pure and unfiltered happiness. I love Ristar.
2005
Despite being a finale to the most story focused Mega man series, Zero 4 is a surprisingly subdued game. Partially that's due to Inti-Creates originally intending for much more bombastic Zero 3 to be the definitive ending before Capcom requested another entry. However, this restraint has a clear throughline in Zero 4's design that goes beyond developmental circumstances. In terms of scope Zero 4 is stripped back to a degree not seen since the original Zero 1. Gone is Neo Arcadia and the Guardians and Resistance who fought over it. Instead of Cyberspace, X and Omega, Zero 4 cuts its scale back to one area: the environment of Area Zero. Past Zero games alluded to the energy crisis that motivated much of the conflict but it was mostly lip-service and tangential to the actual narrative of opposing the fascistic government of Neo Arcadia. Area Zero then, a natural habitat grown out of the wreckage of the Eurasia colony from X5 is an earnest attempt to reckon with this. It is something of an encapsulation of the series wide chronology, representing its past, present and future. Whilst emblematic of the ceaseless conflict that has destroyed most of the Mega man world up until this point, its natural beauty is also reflective of the possibility of renewal. Zero 4 has a particular fixation on sunsets and dimming light in many of its backdrops, making tangible the game's promise of endings and new beginnings. The series’ revolutionary thrust of fighting against oppression has not been dulled by this constricted scope but rather heightened by it, Zero’s struggle has never felt more real to me than here in Zero 4.
I think the importance of Area Zero is reflected well in the game's structure and approach to difficulty. All of the eight stages share the same conflict of a member of the Einherjar trying to disrupt the part of Area Zero's ecosystem they were assigned to. These stages further contextualise the battle over Area Zero, showing the destructive mark of the Einherjar’s terraforming plans on its environs. Nature fused with technology is an iconographic motif that many Mega man games make ample use of but rarely with this environmentalist bent. Each stage has an easy and difficult variant dependant on the weather conditions when entered. Completing the difficult variant of the stage nets you its respective einherjar's ex ability. This is much more accessible than getting an A rank or S rank and it encourages adapting to Area Zero's environment instead of uprooting it like your adversaries. That these stage have deadlier hazards than usual and de-emphasise speeding through them alongside ex abilities being separated from rank means that you're further encouraged to engage with these stages as places I feel.
Unfortunately, the gameplay loop outside eights feels less considered. In lieu of cyber chips and elves, all upgrades are gated behind an extensive crafting system where every enemy in the game has a unique drop and rare materials are secreted throughout stages. Likewise, the cyber elves system has been simplified into a cyber elf system that functions similarly to a branching skill tree that you invest scrap parts into. In theory, I like the intent behind these as they reinforce the relationship between Zero and Area Zero and its human settlement. As you gain the trust of the settlers some of them will offer you recipes as does the cyber elf you raise and learning the stages layouts rewards you with materials for crafting. The crux of the issue is how opaque and grindy the system ends up being. Only a few npcs offer recipes and thus the vast majority of recipes are not revealed in game and experimenting with different combinations is punished as resources get used up regardless of success. I wasn't the biggest fan of the cyber elves system from previous entries but at the very least you usually got a variety of elves to try out and in the case of Zero 3 the system acquired a pleasing generosity. With Zero 4 however, unless you're perusing guides its likely that you'll reach the final stages with barely any extra abilities. That meanness is especially felt after Zero 3 made it so easy to kit out Zero however you want.
Although not originally planned, there is little that is extraneous about Zero 4 to me. It is a thoughtful and deliberative send off to a series that surprised me with how complete it was. It is not my favourite Zero game but it’s the purest distillation of this series’ special qualities.
I think the importance of Area Zero is reflected well in the game's structure and approach to difficulty. All of the eight stages share the same conflict of a member of the Einherjar trying to disrupt the part of Area Zero's ecosystem they were assigned to. These stages further contextualise the battle over Area Zero, showing the destructive mark of the Einherjar’s terraforming plans on its environs. Nature fused with technology is an iconographic motif that many Mega man games make ample use of but rarely with this environmentalist bent. Each stage has an easy and difficult variant dependant on the weather conditions when entered. Completing the difficult variant of the stage nets you its respective einherjar's ex ability. This is much more accessible than getting an A rank or S rank and it encourages adapting to Area Zero's environment instead of uprooting it like your adversaries. That these stage have deadlier hazards than usual and de-emphasise speeding through them alongside ex abilities being separated from rank means that you're further encouraged to engage with these stages as places I feel.
Unfortunately, the gameplay loop outside eights feels less considered. In lieu of cyber chips and elves, all upgrades are gated behind an extensive crafting system where every enemy in the game has a unique drop and rare materials are secreted throughout stages. Likewise, the cyber elves system has been simplified into a cyber elf system that functions similarly to a branching skill tree that you invest scrap parts into. In theory, I like the intent behind these as they reinforce the relationship between Zero and Area Zero and its human settlement. As you gain the trust of the settlers some of them will offer you recipes as does the cyber elf you raise and learning the stages layouts rewards you with materials for crafting. The crux of the issue is how opaque and grindy the system ends up being. Only a few npcs offer recipes and thus the vast majority of recipes are not revealed in game and experimenting with different combinations is punished as resources get used up regardless of success. I wasn't the biggest fan of the cyber elves system from previous entries but at the very least you usually got a variety of elves to try out and in the case of Zero 3 the system acquired a pleasing generosity. With Zero 4 however, unless you're perusing guides its likely that you'll reach the final stages with barely any extra abilities. That meanness is especially felt after Zero 3 made it so easy to kit out Zero however you want.
Although not originally planned, there is little that is extraneous about Zero 4 to me. It is a thoughtful and deliberative send off to a series that surprised me with how complete it was. It is not my favourite Zero game but it’s the purest distillation of this series’ special qualities.
2006
Warning: Alphabet soup
I recently finished the Mega Man Zero series and was surprised by its overall cohesion. Mega Man games are typically formulaic but usually within that formula there is always room for a new collection of enemies, robot weapons and maybe even another playable character to allow for some novelty. In contrast, Zero 1 sets out a design statement that Zero 4 loyally ends with: this is a serialised storytelling character action game starring Zero and you can take it or leave it. From beginning to end, you fight against largely the same foes using largely the same tools alongside allies you've known since the first entry. Each game did provide a different facet to that design goal, but for Zero the name of the game was continuity and it used it to surprising emotional effect.
In contrast, Mega Man ZX comes off as anything but coherent as I started it. All 4 Zero games started with a terse and energetic introduction stage where you’re introduced to the game’s mechanical and narrative beats before being thrown into the stage select screen to start the game proper. Mega Man ZX is more ambitious or rather meandering. You start in a forest stage, followed by slowly completing two tutorial quests in the game’s main hub, before travelling to a secondary hub where you are then teleported to a stage that beat for beat is a replica of Mega Man X’s highway intro stage. Only when that ends are you introduced to your main form, ZX, and allowed to pick the usual four stages. Albeit there is a hitch: you have to manually travel to everyone of those stages as ZX has a large interconnected game world. What followed was probably the most frustrating first two hours of any mega man game I played. I chose Model F’s stage, the fire filled Area G and when I found it, I died enough times to get a game over and subsequently returned to the last place I saved in. When I abandoned that mission, the game reloaded back to just after I acquired my ZX form at the beginning and thus I discovered the most pernicious side of the game: you can only choose one mission at a time and abandoning a mission means reloading to the point just before you took the mission. After the reliable rhythm of the 4 prior Zero games, I was confused by what ZX was trying to be and what Inti-Creates was trying to achieve here.
For my second attempt, after some scouting I chose the frozen Area F as my next mission. Although still difficult it was more managable and I was rewarded with the powers of its boss: Model L, based off of Leviathan from Zero. ZX does not reward individual weapons but new forms that are practically separate characters. One of Model L’s unique abilities are her ice infused attacks. Back in the main hub, there was a running fountain and using Model L, I froze it, platformed over it to a hidden alcove that drained the fountain, revealing a save/transporter point that was conveniently right beside another mission. After choosing and beating that mission, I unlocked Model H, whose attacks were wind infused. I gave Area G another try and recalling the elemental triangle of prior Zero games, I was able to use Model H to put out the fires all over the stage and swiftly beat the boss.
Those first few hours of ZX may have been frustrating, but the next hour clicked with me. It was when I realised that ZX was not really a mega man favoured metroidvania but instead a classic Mega Man game spread out across an open world.
One of my favourite things about classic Mega Man games is their capacity for personalised playthroughs. How I choose the order in which I defeat robot masters gives each stage so many permutations that can change my relationship to it. Flash Man’s stage in Mega Man 2 can either be an adrenaline rush unlike anything else in the series or a more leisurely jaunt depending on whether I got time stopper. It gives the series an addicting quality of mapping out what sort of route I’ll take that is in many ways separate to the main gameplay loop. How Mega Man ZX builds upon this is by making that decision making progress you’d usually make on the stage select screen much of the open world you’ll traverse. As debilitating as the single mission element is, it does encourage scouting ahead and familiarising yourself with the world and where its mission-based stages are. Whilst the non-mission areas are generally less difficult than their mission counterparts, their enemy and hazard placement in addition to the lives system provides enough friction to make this sort of pathfinding meaningful and inevitably satisfying when you confidently finish a mission making optimal use of teleport and save points. You’re always encouraged to think not just of the mission but how it relates to the world as a whole and the forms further reinforce that.
Simply going by the main stages, there are an additional 4 forms you can acquire in additional to the basic ZX form you start with. Each form however is a character in and of itself, showing the mechanical nuance and utility Inti-Creates put into Zero’s basic toolset. Model H is the star of the show for me. Its air dash from the X games can be used in conjunction with ground dashes and aerial slashes that don’t halt movement to rush with kinetic momentum that put most metroidvania double jumps and dashes to shame. Yet its telling that although they come up short, the other models still hold up well on their own. Model L provides graceful swimming controls and fluidity in a franchise that’s been reluctant to commit to either with a trident whirl that both shreds enemies and doesn’t halt underwater movement. Model FX in contrast is a lot less mobile than either of those two, grounding you in place whenever you fire projectiles. The upside is that he is a living cannon that can fire his empowered lemons vertically in addition to horizontally and the pattern of his bullets can be easily shaped by the player. Really the only model that stumbles somewhat is Model P whose excellent visual design does not make up for his inconveniently angled kunai throws and near useless ceiling attachment. Poor Phantom. This synthesis between the varied robot weapons of old and the depth of a small set of tools a la Zero results in the most varied and fun to use set of abilities in the whole franchise. I loved learning the ins and out of each biometal and how I could use both to traverse the world more efficiently and interact with stages in unique ways, such as using Model F to break the ice blocks in Area H or in my case outright skipping chunks of Area I through careful gliding with Model H.
All of this takes place in a game whose presentation is crisp and sparkling. The worn industrial ruins and muted natural environs of the Zero games have been exchanged for a world that is vibrant in every sense of the world, both technically and artistically. Area A’s glades of deep green and blue have a pronounced naturalism with their expert use of backgrounds and foregrounds. The morning touched purples and blues of Area C infuse the game’s main hub with a vibrancy and activity that’s its scattered npc sprites otherwise can’t. The bright pixel cityscapes of Area G once you clear out the fires. The beauty of Area F’s auroras and Area L’s coral depths. The moody ambience of Area I’s rain soaked wastelands or Area D’s highway. Despite their unimaginative names, the areas of ZX are some of the most artistically varied and gorgeous in the entire series. Whether its because the increased specs of the NDS or the opportunities presented by a world set centuries after Zero, ZX aesthetic has a vibrancy to it that makes it my favourite in the series after X4. I haven’t talked much about the story, because in all honesty there is not much interesting to talk about, but one underlying implication I did enjoy was that the beauty of the world I was exploring was in a sense a reward for Zero’s actions centuries ago. In that regard, ZX feels like the highpoint of these games’ environmentalism.
I came out of ZX in much higher spirits than I did coming in. Its flaws are as deep as its narrative is not. Yet in spite of its jagged edges, it is surprisingly holistic in its design offering me something I didn’t know I wanted: a Mega Man game that integrated the route planning I enjoyed so much into the act of play of one of the best looking, best sounding, best playing games in the franchise. It is a high point of Inti-Creates line of mega man games and one I look forward to returning to.
I recently finished the Mega Man Zero series and was surprised by its overall cohesion. Mega Man games are typically formulaic but usually within that formula there is always room for a new collection of enemies, robot weapons and maybe even another playable character to allow for some novelty. In contrast, Zero 1 sets out a design statement that Zero 4 loyally ends with: this is a serialised storytelling character action game starring Zero and you can take it or leave it. From beginning to end, you fight against largely the same foes using largely the same tools alongside allies you've known since the first entry. Each game did provide a different facet to that design goal, but for Zero the name of the game was continuity and it used it to surprising emotional effect.
In contrast, Mega Man ZX comes off as anything but coherent as I started it. All 4 Zero games started with a terse and energetic introduction stage where you’re introduced to the game’s mechanical and narrative beats before being thrown into the stage select screen to start the game proper. Mega Man ZX is more ambitious or rather meandering. You start in a forest stage, followed by slowly completing two tutorial quests in the game’s main hub, before travelling to a secondary hub where you are then teleported to a stage that beat for beat is a replica of Mega Man X’s highway intro stage. Only when that ends are you introduced to your main form, ZX, and allowed to pick the usual four stages. Albeit there is a hitch: you have to manually travel to everyone of those stages as ZX has a large interconnected game world. What followed was probably the most frustrating first two hours of any mega man game I played. I chose Model F’s stage, the fire filled Area G and when I found it, I died enough times to get a game over and subsequently returned to the last place I saved in. When I abandoned that mission, the game reloaded back to just after I acquired my ZX form at the beginning and thus I discovered the most pernicious side of the game: you can only choose one mission at a time and abandoning a mission means reloading to the point just before you took the mission. After the reliable rhythm of the 4 prior Zero games, I was confused by what ZX was trying to be and what Inti-Creates was trying to achieve here.
For my second attempt, after some scouting I chose the frozen Area F as my next mission. Although still difficult it was more managable and I was rewarded with the powers of its boss: Model L, based off of Leviathan from Zero. ZX does not reward individual weapons but new forms that are practically separate characters. One of Model L’s unique abilities are her ice infused attacks. Back in the main hub, there was a running fountain and using Model L, I froze it, platformed over it to a hidden alcove that drained the fountain, revealing a save/transporter point that was conveniently right beside another mission. After choosing and beating that mission, I unlocked Model H, whose attacks were wind infused. I gave Area G another try and recalling the elemental triangle of prior Zero games, I was able to use Model H to put out the fires all over the stage and swiftly beat the boss.
Those first few hours of ZX may have been frustrating, but the next hour clicked with me. It was when I realised that ZX was not really a mega man favoured metroidvania but instead a classic Mega Man game spread out across an open world.
One of my favourite things about classic Mega Man games is their capacity for personalised playthroughs. How I choose the order in which I defeat robot masters gives each stage so many permutations that can change my relationship to it. Flash Man’s stage in Mega Man 2 can either be an adrenaline rush unlike anything else in the series or a more leisurely jaunt depending on whether I got time stopper. It gives the series an addicting quality of mapping out what sort of route I’ll take that is in many ways separate to the main gameplay loop. How Mega Man ZX builds upon this is by making that decision making progress you’d usually make on the stage select screen much of the open world you’ll traverse. As debilitating as the single mission element is, it does encourage scouting ahead and familiarising yourself with the world and where its mission-based stages are. Whilst the non-mission areas are generally less difficult than their mission counterparts, their enemy and hazard placement in addition to the lives system provides enough friction to make this sort of pathfinding meaningful and inevitably satisfying when you confidently finish a mission making optimal use of teleport and save points. You’re always encouraged to think not just of the mission but how it relates to the world as a whole and the forms further reinforce that.
Simply going by the main stages, there are an additional 4 forms you can acquire in additional to the basic ZX form you start with. Each form however is a character in and of itself, showing the mechanical nuance and utility Inti-Creates put into Zero’s basic toolset. Model H is the star of the show for me. Its air dash from the X games can be used in conjunction with ground dashes and aerial slashes that don’t halt movement to rush with kinetic momentum that put most metroidvania double jumps and dashes to shame. Yet its telling that although they come up short, the other models still hold up well on their own. Model L provides graceful swimming controls and fluidity in a franchise that’s been reluctant to commit to either with a trident whirl that both shreds enemies and doesn’t halt underwater movement. Model FX in contrast is a lot less mobile than either of those two, grounding you in place whenever you fire projectiles. The upside is that he is a living cannon that can fire his empowered lemons vertically in addition to horizontally and the pattern of his bullets can be easily shaped by the player. Really the only model that stumbles somewhat is Model P whose excellent visual design does not make up for his inconveniently angled kunai throws and near useless ceiling attachment. Poor Phantom. This synthesis between the varied robot weapons of old and the depth of a small set of tools a la Zero results in the most varied and fun to use set of abilities in the whole franchise. I loved learning the ins and out of each biometal and how I could use both to traverse the world more efficiently and interact with stages in unique ways, such as using Model F to break the ice blocks in Area H or in my case outright skipping chunks of Area I through careful gliding with Model H.
All of this takes place in a game whose presentation is crisp and sparkling. The worn industrial ruins and muted natural environs of the Zero games have been exchanged for a world that is vibrant in every sense of the world, both technically and artistically. Area A’s glades of deep green and blue have a pronounced naturalism with their expert use of backgrounds and foregrounds. The morning touched purples and blues of Area C infuse the game’s main hub with a vibrancy and activity that’s its scattered npc sprites otherwise can’t. The bright pixel cityscapes of Area G once you clear out the fires. The beauty of Area F’s auroras and Area L’s coral depths. The moody ambience of Area I’s rain soaked wastelands or Area D’s highway. Despite their unimaginative names, the areas of ZX are some of the most artistically varied and gorgeous in the entire series. Whether its because the increased specs of the NDS or the opportunities presented by a world set centuries after Zero, ZX aesthetic has a vibrancy to it that makes it my favourite in the series after X4. I haven’t talked much about the story, because in all honesty there is not much interesting to talk about, but one underlying implication I did enjoy was that the beauty of the world I was exploring was in a sense a reward for Zero’s actions centuries ago. In that regard, ZX feels like the highpoint of these games’ environmentalism.
I came out of ZX in much higher spirits than I did coming in. Its flaws are as deep as its narrative is not. Yet in spite of its jagged edges, it is surprisingly holistic in its design offering me something I didn’t know I wanted: a Mega Man game that integrated the route planning I enjoyed so much into the act of play of one of the best looking, best sounding, best playing games in the franchise. It is a high point of Inti-Creates line of mega man games and one I look forward to returning to.
2007
In Sonic Rush Adventure, the Blue Blur faces his most dangerous foe yet: rubberbanding.
1994
Hard Corps idea of an introduction is having you plow through some unsuspecting goons with your truck tank and it doesn't stop escalating for the remainder of its terse runtime. A single one of Hard Corps vividly imagined and gorgeously animated encounters would probably drain a considerable portion of a modern triple a production's budget but here the mega cyclops tearing up half the city in the first stage gets checks notes 30 seconds. That there are multiple characters, paths and endings slathered on to this action behemoth is the cherry on top for me. What a wonderful introduction to the world of run and guns.
1990
I used to find this underwhelming after first experiencing the excess in luxury that was Super Mario Bros 3 back in the Wii virtual console days. Now I find comfort in its cohesion and understated nature. Despite having a set of backdrops that's barely above the original Mario Bros, Dinosaur Land is only behind Delfino Plaza when it comes to the most atmospheric and evocative settings in the platforming series. The way it gradually unfurls in reaction to the route you take and how it often interconnects in surprising ways makes it my favorite platforming overworld and I'm disappointed that no future platformer would build on its capacity for discovery and adventure. That it barely iterates on the ideas it introduces, a stark contrast to Nintendo's other works, only adds to the sense that you're only scratching the surface of SMW's digital depths. Even after completing the Star Road, a never seen before enemy on the credits tease the possibility of even more hidden depths. Platforming never got more adventurous than this.
Surprised by how much I enjoyed this. The sparse yet evocative localisation (collecting victims) and relative lack of guidance and npcs gives the adventure a subdued and forboding edge that's not present in any other Zelda I've played. Whether its an npc suddenly disappearing from the game world or enemies suddenly overrunning the only peaceful settlement in Hyrule, it imparts a sense of danger that is surprisingly implicit in a franchise whose most celebrated entries have done so explicitly. What most surprised me though was how deeply it interrogates its mechanics, enemy encounters were thrilling and unrelenting enough for me to regularly get game overs and push myself to master the tools available to me. I'm not the biggest fan of 2D Zelda but this was the maybe the shot to the arm that might make me reconsider that stance.
2003
This review contains spoilers
Geneforge 2 starts with you, an apprentice Shaper, accompanying your master on a fact finding mission to the failing Shaper colony of Drypeak. The initial thrill of adventure is dulled by scenes of industrial decline; abandoned mines and dusty farmsteads overseen by distrusting adminstrators who view your presence as an intrusion. And then you stumble upon a hidden tunnel whose exit causes your world map to quadruple in size, your master is suddenly kidnapped by mysterious assailants and you, an inexperienced apprentice, find yourself entangled in the lethal politics of a vast hidden world.
The above introductory sequence with its bait and switch reveal of the game world and overarching narrative is perhaps the highpoint of Geneforge 2's ambitions to supercede its predecessor whilst also demonstrating its inability to do so. The Drypeak Mountains are a bigger, fantastical game world with more factions than its predecessors and systemically the new creations, spells and abilities provide both variety and balance. Yet for all its additions, 2 is unfortunately subtractive in one key area. Geneforge 1's Sucia Island was a layered, thoughtfully designed space whose many pasts and nuanced inhabitants created a convincing and multifaceted virtual culture. The Drypeak Mountains fare poorly in comparison as although it serves the same function as Sucia Island, the individual inhabitants, towns and locales lack the same attention to detail and depth. Sucia Island felt like a place whilst the Drypeak Mountains felt more like a video game sandbox. This ends up being more significant as in spite of all its additions, 2 still completely adheres to 1's sandbox structure with the exception of its creative introduction. The Drypeak Mountains, stripped of the rich atmosphere and sense of mystery that made exploring Sucia Island so compelling, is simply a less engaging space to inhabit for dozens of hours. More stuff was not enough to overcome a sense that it was in service to an experience that felt inessential.
2 fares better when it operates outside of its need to compare with its predecessor. Whilst 1 demonstrated the iniquity of Shaper authority largely through its negligence and deliberate maladminstration, 2 does so by showing their awful capacity for violence. Just as 1 was a character study of the the world the Serviles built for themselves, 2 thoroughly investigates the consequences of that world's deliberate atomisation. The Shapers' thorough pogrom of Sucia Island have left generational wounds of trauma and perpetual dislocation and have consequently created a consensus among all creations that they will strike before the Shapers get a chance to find them. Though 1 is the first entry, 2's sense of escalation makes it feel like the beginning of the destructive war between Shapers and Creations that defines this series.
It is a more balanced and feature rich game than what came before with unique themes of communal disruption and revolutionary escalation, however its inability to step outside its predecessor's sandbox structure to better relay its sense of escalation makes it a less considered game overall.
The above introductory sequence with its bait and switch reveal of the game world and overarching narrative is perhaps the highpoint of Geneforge 2's ambitions to supercede its predecessor whilst also demonstrating its inability to do so. The Drypeak Mountains are a bigger, fantastical game world with more factions than its predecessors and systemically the new creations, spells and abilities provide both variety and balance. Yet for all its additions, 2 is unfortunately subtractive in one key area. Geneforge 1's Sucia Island was a layered, thoughtfully designed space whose many pasts and nuanced inhabitants created a convincing and multifaceted virtual culture. The Drypeak Mountains fare poorly in comparison as although it serves the same function as Sucia Island, the individual inhabitants, towns and locales lack the same attention to detail and depth. Sucia Island felt like a place whilst the Drypeak Mountains felt more like a video game sandbox. This ends up being more significant as in spite of all its additions, 2 still completely adheres to 1's sandbox structure with the exception of its creative introduction. The Drypeak Mountains, stripped of the rich atmosphere and sense of mystery that made exploring Sucia Island so compelling, is simply a less engaging space to inhabit for dozens of hours. More stuff was not enough to overcome a sense that it was in service to an experience that felt inessential.
2 fares better when it operates outside of its need to compare with its predecessor. Whilst 1 demonstrated the iniquity of Shaper authority largely through its negligence and deliberate maladminstration, 2 does so by showing their awful capacity for violence. Just as 1 was a character study of the the world the Serviles built for themselves, 2 thoroughly investigates the consequences of that world's deliberate atomisation. The Shapers' thorough pogrom of Sucia Island have left generational wounds of trauma and perpetual dislocation and have consequently created a consensus among all creations that they will strike before the Shapers get a chance to find them. Though 1 is the first entry, 2's sense of escalation makes it feel like the beginning of the destructive war between Shapers and Creations that defines this series.
It is a more balanced and feature rich game than what came before with unique themes of communal disruption and revolutionary escalation, however its inability to step outside its predecessor's sandbox structure to better relay its sense of escalation makes it a less considered game overall.
2021
After a victorious struggle with one of the world's legendary monsters, the mists subsided and he left its watery primeval lair. My Beowulf stumbled into a nearby church where he was promptly put down by a gunslinging priest. Like Skyrim with guns.
Maybe the best rpg on the system. The World Ends with You gets that rpgs are about connecting with other people and growing together. To this end, almost every line of code and piece of the physical hardware is used in insightful and playful ways. Upon completion I was satisfied but also bittersweet. I wish I had played this when I was Neku's age and I wish I had learned the same lessons he did. Nonetheless I don't regret my time in Shibuya.
2022
What a feast of a game. Four playable characters with their own distinct movement and action verbs, nearly 30 stages, a whole world map with lovely hubs where npcs update their dialogue after every story event and an entirely optional arena with minigames and unique challenges. I'm in love with this game's sonic adventure-esque maximalism, I was grinning from ear to ear in the final area when it kept dropping new gorgeously animated and creatively distinct stages in front of me to consume. This game is so confident in itself that it never felt self indulgent or akin to a slog. One stage is an all out war between enemy factions which you're free to participate in whilst the next has you barely escape hordes of enemies to assemble a mech and then proceed to destroy them like the pests they are. It boggles my mind that a game with such nuanced, satisfying and responsive controls and high volume of high quality content can be made by a small team of people whilst larger studios flounder to achieve either of those two. Playing both this and Spark the Electric Jester 3 has sort of convinced me that the Indie is the definitive future of platforming.