It's not quite the "explore the maps and work everything out by yourself" game that many were expecting. It's more of a "explore the maps and you'll find things the game will then tell you how to use". I don't mind it too much. At first it seemed way too hand-holdy, but honestly by the end of the game there's just SO MANY notes, audio logs, eternalist conversations etc that I doubt most people would be able to piece this game together by themselves.

It's also hard to tell exactly how much the game tells you where to go. Through exploring I found a ton of things that the game made notes of, which were then later important parts of a quest. Would the game have told me where to find this step 4 part of the quest if I hadn't found it before, or would I have still had to look for it myself? You just find so much stuff out of order that should feel rewarding, but instead it makes you think "did I really find it myself, or did I just find it earlier than the game would tell me where it is?". It's that kind of thing that makes it hard to judge exactly how immersive this game truly is.

Gameplay is extremely fun though. After a slow tutorial, you start being able to customise your loadout. There's not a whole ton of stuff to unlock, but it's always nice finding a new trinket that fits your playstyle, and the slabs are consistently exciting to get. The problem comes from how limited the loadout slots are. There's only 3 weapon slots, so chances are you'll find your preferred weapons early enough that every other weapon will just be left on the ground since you have would have sacrifice one of your main weapons (for the rest of the run) in order to pick up this new weapon and infuse it.

The game does seem to hint at a different loadouts for different missions idea, but I found using a versatile loadout that kinda does a bit of everything but master of nothing worked for 90% of the game, only requiring to be changed for specific trophies or optional missions.

I did really like the maps. After playing through them all so many times they felt like home. The little touches done between times of day to make the maps feel different are nice, but honestly the majority of the time it still feels like the exact same map as any other time of day, just with enemy placements switched and certain quests only being available now. There's a few exceptions, the one that comes to mind off the top of my head is the complex at night which strips away most enemies and instead turns the level into a booby trapped obstacle course.

The one thing I wish maps had more of was environment variety. I get that the plot of the game kind of requires a lot of laboratories and big imposing areas full of science equipment, but the most fun places to explore were always the one-offs, like Charlie's live action role playing game, or, well, most of Fristad Rock. I wanted way more of that.

The visionaries had some effort put into developing them and making them stand out, but most of it falls into "tell don't show" as it comes in the form of notes, email chains etc. I do appreciate the ones that they put the personalities into the actual locations they're at though, like, again, Charlie's role playing game, or Aleksis's mask party. I guess that's a problem that goes hand in hand with the idea that most of the visionaries had to be scientists though, since labs are where you'll find a lot of them.

I also wish more of them stood out from regular enemies, rather than just being slightly stronger versions. Wenjie is the only one who gets any kind of real mechanic implemented into her battle, as she's cloned herself so you have to kill all the clones. For other characters it's just a case of fight/stealth your way to them and then kill them. So the worst visionaries are by far the ones that have no mechanics AND are just in boring lab locations (like Fia or Egor). If you wanna know anything about them other than "they're scientists" you really need to look for it.

Basically I found the game super fun to play, it's fast paced, full of fun details, a ton of content spread across relatively small maps, and I even grew to enjoy Colt and Juliana's banter. It just feels like it missed its full potential.

Also the online mode is garbage. It uses the concept of invading other players games to try and kill them, but like...most people are going to play in single player mode to avoid losing all their progress from having someone invade their game and kill them. I really can't think of a worse thought out mechanic in my life. Nobody WANTS to have other players come and reset them back to the start of the day, devs?? Why would you think people wouldn't just turn that off as soon as possible?

Everyone and their mother has made the comment about how this is an Odyssey world mixed with 3D World, but as an Odyssey level it feels kinda messy. There's no real theme here (except "cats" I guess), it's just a bunch of islands, each with their own gimmick. It reminds me more of Galaxy in that sense. So I guess it's kinda like Odyssey's style of collection in Galaxy-esque stages, using 3D World's mechanics.

The whole growing giant mechanic is kinda fun...the first time or two. But after that the initial power trip wears off and the slowness of movement in that form wears on.

I wasn't a fan of how many shrines were hidden behind blocks that only fury-Bowser could break. I'd often find them when the world was calm, and then had to rush back to them as soon as the rain started. I get that it was probably the intention, and if there were only a couple it'd be fine, but it felt like a good chunk of my time playing was dropping whatever task I was working on so I could make use of Bowser to break some blocks. Like it stopped being "Hey that's a pretty fun way to make the player remember island layouts" and started being "oh god another set of bricks I need to remember to bring Bowser to".

It was neat to have Bowser Jr. as a partner. I played solo but I still got a little use out of him by using the point-and-click thing. I found him mostly to be useful for taking down the shadow Luigi's, who would stay in one place when he got far away enough.
Having these ? blocks on walls that Jr. could paint on was a good idea in theory, but power ups and so abundant in this mode that I rarely ever felt rewarded for finding them.

And for characters with an upgrade in role we have Plessie, who is not only your main transportation here, but even plays a crucial part in the final boss fight. Hopefully we'll see more of her in the future. Too bad she's too big and generally not human-shaped enough to fit into spinoff games.

Overall it is a fun time. It just doesn't do anything that "wows" me, so I guess that's another Mario game I can compare it to - 3D Land.

But like since it's just a bonus game in a re-released title, it makes sense that it's not exactly trying to break ground. Maybe the next Mario game will take the formula and do something huge (no pun intended) with it.

The story part of it is pretty short, but in general it's a pretty neat addition. The area feels far more like what the wild area should have been in the first place, although the abrupt weather changes still exist and are jarring.

I like that there's some story and gameplay integration going on here. The super fast Slowpoke's have priority in battle, and another character cheats in a match by placing toxic spikes at the start of the match.

There's a decent amount of quality of life stuff here too, such as a character who will reset EVs to 0, a way to turn any compatible Dynamax mon into a Gigantamax mon, ability to make apricot balls etc.

Following Pokémon also make a nice comeback, although it feels a little unpolished.

It also suffers from level scaling. I guess it's supposed to be accessed directly after beating the champion in the main game, but due to when it came out, most people will have level 100's by now, making it a breeze to sweep through. They did get by this by making Kubfu the only Pokémon you can use in the final gauntlet, but it's so easy to get to 100 with EXP candy that grinding is no longer needed, kinda ruining the whole "bonding" thing you're supposed to do.

For the first half of this I was wondering why everyone thought it was by far the worst. I thought it was on par with the 2nd honestly, and far better than the first. The second half though...is a mixed bag. Still better than the first game overall though imo.

The main complaint I see is that this game has too many gimmick levels, which...is true, but so did the second game. And it's not like the gimmicks in either game were too intrusive, they both made clever use of mechanics, enemies, items or otherwise DKC themed obstacles. Of course, the last couple worlds happened and then we get shit like reversed controls, or the weird sniper stage. One of the boss fights is even a freaking snowball fight - which tbf was based on a minigame you had a chance to play many times, so it didn't come COMPLETELY out of nowhere...but still.

These types of gimmick levels were in the minority, and some of them were pretty inventive if nothing else, but they did kinda spoil the endgame.

I have no real problems with Kiddy Kong. While I prefer Diddy overall, I think he and Dixie made for a good duo that made neither objectively better than the other, although admittedly Kiddy was mostly just good for finding secrets via his higher throws, or water bouncing ability. DIxie is definitely the best as far as just general completing stages goes.

Also in the decision to get rid of animal buddies why remove the freaking Rhino and Snake, 2 fun ones, but keep the damn bird. Flying and water levels still suck ass.

Still a few problems with enemies coming too fast to react, mostly in stages that force you to move fast. The worst of it was in that stage where you had to climb the burning rope.

Overall I'd put it between DKC 1 and DKC 2