I know a game is good when getting lost is legitimately fun. When I got to the end it was the first time in a long time I was sad that there wasn't anymore game to play.

Really understands the joy of exploring giant spaces in a 3D platformer, which is mainly asking "can I get over There even if the developer has not intended me to go There yet" and the game answering "YES".

The truth is the 2D Mario series still has not successfully shaken off the New Super Mario Bros stink. In those games, the structure and formula to The Perfect Mario Stage was found and hammered into every single level over and over again, for several games straight, and I can still feel that formula looming over all of this game: Introduce the level gimmick, iterate on the gimmick and make it slightly harder, then combine it with another gimmick for an Unexpected Third Act Twist. An appealing fresh coat of paint and cute animations ultimately can't hide that. It's not like it's a bad way to make a game, but it's nothing compared to how far games like SMB3 and SMW would go to shake up the formula.

The Wonder Flower gimmicks go a long way for mitigating this feeling, as they often do just interrupt the level completely for something genuinely spontaneous. This goes a long way in making levels much more memorable than anything in the NSMB series, that and the new enemies introduced. Every new enemy, from what I remember, compliments the platforming and introduces a new challenge in navigating the levels, and that's really cool. These games definitely need more of that, more weird guys that do cool shit.

Obviously the animations on Mario and Co. look great, as well as their models in general. Mario in particular is the best he's looked in a long while. But I have to say, something is lost in this game's decision to remove unique attributes from each character. As big as this cast is, all the characters feel much flatter than they did in SMB2 or 3D World because of this choice. Badges are a neat system but they're not a substitute for this, as it removes that little bit of charm from each character. While many of the badge powers are neat, I feel like they could have gone farther in allowing you to just totally change how the game is played, rather than being either "here's a neat bonus" or "this is a joke one don't pick it".

I say all this negative stuff but I still would say I like the game! It's still a fun 2D platformer, I like those when they're done well, which isn't often these days. Also, thought it was neat how this game clearly took a couple lessons from games like the DKC series and Rayman Origins/Legends, I like it when Nintendo isn't just completely insular.

I honestly thought this wasn’t going to be that bad. I mean we all like to make our jokes about the Gex series but I thought there would be SOMETHING to like here. It all comes down to the level design. Levels have multiple objectives, but often just place them Wherever instead of having clear sections for different objectives. It’s like if someone translated the level design of bad Amiga maze platformers into 3D, it’s impressive to see someone fuck up the collect-a-thon format this bad. Super Mario 64 had so many mountain levels for a reason, this is like if those were made completely flat and spread out as to be made as tedious as possible. I got my head i my hands here, I didn’t think I would end up preferring Gex 1 to this. Let’s hope Gex 3 has anything worth salvaging or else the next person I see shitposting about Gex is getting fucking choked. I never want to hear anyone invoke that devil.

Bought this at a used games store going "You know what I could go for? A forgettable 7th gen AAA game campaign." I got what I asked for!

It's not like it has nothing going for it, while it has that gray and blue filter everyone loves from this era, some of the environments manage to be quite striking, mostly when it leans more into its horror elements. This isn't a team that doesn't know what its doing, and obviously they would go on to develop a very popular game that proves this. There are bones of interesting ideas, but it's just the bones. I was broken when after beating a really boring boss that uses the exact same mechanic to fight it over and over again, I watched a cutscene and then had to fight a different boring boss that used the exact same mechanic over and over again. There's really nothing here to keep me going, so I have to just stop. In my canon, Hayden Tenno died in the middle of that Russian zombie island, never heard from again.

What a wild set of games here. The Return of Ishtar is its own beast that I should give a chance someday but for now I just like jumping in and being overwhelmed. Same with The Genji and the Heiki Clans, going in without a decent guide is very scary but also cool. Assault is a genuinely neat tank game I had no idea about before playing this, Pac-Land is fun until it isn't, and Ordyne I kind of don't care about but it's also cool. Aesthetic-wise, this one really feels like it goes all out with the unique environments for each game, even if it's still mostly the same presentation. Also, I swear I keep discovering new little things in this series, like how you can strafe with the shoulder buttons? Pac-Man even does a goofy-ass animation for it. You can also turn the robot secretary into a human woman? It's scary, so I'm probably not gonna do that again.

"Okay, we got a nice collection of 8 mini games, all decently substantial and with the fun presentation of all talking place on this one neighborhood street where each is hosted by a different kid. Now what should we do for a story mode?"

"You have 18 days. You must display maximum efficiency if you have any hope of completing story mode. If you don't finish every single task by the end date you will be sent back to the first day and do it all over again. Summer is fleeting, childhood ends as soon as it begins, but regret lasts a lifetime."

"I like it!"

We should have never evolved past vector graphics.

1981

You have no idea how funny it is to be playing this going "oh okay another invaders-like, I get it" and then a fucking Galaxian shows up and its literally called a Galaxian in the game. Also, the arcade cabinet is incredibly loud, and involves a bit-crushed voice yelling at you and when you die it goes "HA HA HA" as slow and robotically as possible. Beautiful.

We need to start letting bands have their own video games, it always results in something good, even if its bad. Played this at an arcade last night and it felt so delightful to be as utterly baffled as I was playing it. I did not finish a single one of the five mini games.

When you play enough bad 3d platformers like I have for the sake of the entertainment of my friends on Discord, you become tempted to start giving games like this much more of a pass than they deserve. Like I'm impressed that I can jump with the A button and move around with the control stick, not everyone gets that part right.

You know, despite ALL the bullshit, the Dimps pits, the instant death traps, the drawn-out boss fights, all these things I was dreading going into this, I had a hell of a time. The stages at first are abrasive and punitive, but on a second playthrough the genius in their design and challenge is much more apparent and enjoyable. The flow state you enter is one of the most satisfying in the series, all about the balance of using boosts while also performing tricks to keep your boost meter up, all while the game is constantly checking you to make sure your not going into autopilot. The style of the game also helps this immensely, with one of Hideki Naganuma's best scores ever and the honestly impressive low-poly 3D on display throughout. And Blaze the Cat is introduced, one of the coolest characters the series has ever produced, although she sadly would never see a role this prominent ever again outside of the direct sequel to this and a bizarre, inexplicable role in Silver's campaign in Sonic 06. Nothing about this game is fully perfect, but I was so happy with how it all turned out, being much better than I could have anticipated. I even ended up enjoying the nightmarish Final Zone boss that took me 4 hours to successfully beat once. Now that I no longer fear the name Dimps, I think I'll give more handheld Sonic games a try, I definitely need to check out the Advance series at some point.

If you thought the titular bad apple from LarryBoy and the Bad Apple was sexy, YOU ARE VALID and GOD LOVES YOU.

Edit: Game sucks btw

Something I've never appreciated about this game before until now is how it models itself after classic cartoons. Obviously there's stuff like the way the music starts and stops with you moving, and the fact that inflating someone to death feels like something right out of Tom and Jerry or Looney Tunes. But also, when I tried hitting an enemy with a falling rock and ended up hitting myself because I was too focused on having the enemy follow me, I felt like Wile E Coyote in that moment. There are lot's of little interactions I had with the Pookas and Fygar that felt very Road Runner esque, and the setting even resembles a desert. And of course the music that plays when you clear a level sounds exactly like the kind of music that plays as an iris centers on the main character's face at the end of a cartoon. It all fairly obvious when you put it all together, but I never noticed until now. I'm always impressed with how many different genres and influences were all over the classic Namco arcade line-up.

Very historically important, and the way players in Japan collaborated in order to collectively figure out all the dungeon's secrets is something I love learning more about, but there's no getting around that it's not very fun to just play on your own with no plan or context going in. I'm content with just hearing other people talk about it. Ki is good though, I'm all about Ki.

Having a better understanding of the Invaders boom in Japan, and after actually giving it a fair shake rather than just disregard it as "slow Galaga", I've come to appreciate this game more than the first time I encountered it. It's basically Space Invaders with a little more excitement, and it's fun. It has the same fun of finding the best shot timing and positioning possible, just with some layers liking dodging incoming enemies and the "escort" bonus when it comes to the enemies at the top of the swarm. Just a nice time, that's all.