2021
This review contains spoilers
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 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.
This review contains spoilers
Begins off a little disappointing as it takes you out of the wide open world you’ve been used to and throws you into a much smaller area, while also stripping you of all your resources, weapons and armour (you can still use them as skins, but not for their abilities). The only things you get to keep are your upgrades and your mounts. In fact the DLC removes potions entirely, along with any mastery you gained on your stats from upgrading past the cap in story mode.
I was confused why the game would even let me keep my abilities if it was going for a soft reset. It even tries to trick you into thinking it is giving you a tutorial, which is an odd choice for a DLC that warns you it has story spoilers making it end-game content by default, by telling you the controls and making the first vault a 1 star difficulty vault (something that hasn’t been seen since the prologue). But when you play the vault you realise there’s no way this is made for newcomers. The very first vault in the DLC is on par with a high 2 star, or low 3 star vault in the main game. The thing is though that even when the vaults get to 3 stars in this DLC, the difference is negligible relative to the difference between a 1 star and a 3 star in the story.
The Vaults are also much longer here, but they don't let you save either. Now while you couldn't always save in vaults, they did allow auto-saving in the longer vaults (the ones at the end of a God's questline). Many of these ones match those in length, if not surpass it, while also being harder. It's not unusual for a vault to last for 45 minutes or more, so if you have to turn the game off for whatever reason, the power goes out, the game crashes, or if you just get bored, you lose a ton of progress.
Anyway the reason I'm talking about vaults so much is that that's ALL there is in this DLC. It's basically a vault content pack thrown into a barebones story and a barebones area. There is still some fighting, but it's also delegated to small parts inside of a vault and is never the main focus.
What made the main game so great was the blend of puzzles, action and exploration, all done in a way so that you never spent too long doing one thing. This time it's 95% puzzles, 5% action and 0% exploration. If the vaults were your favourite part of the main game, or better yet the only part you liked, then you'll probably love this. Otherwise that lack of variety can lead to burnout on puzzles really fast.
They didn't even give that same sense of progression, as despite stripping you of ALL your weapons and armour, you can only find a total of one brand new thing for each equipable item (sword/axe/bow/armour/helmet), and each one can only be upgraded once. The majority of chests in this game contain a "relic" which by themselves do nothing, but when you collect 24 you unlock a secret....vault. Yeah, another vault. To be fair that secret vault is probably the highlight of the DLC, it's just a rapid fire of creative mini games, many of which take inspiration of arcade games like Frogger or Donkey Kong.
So basically my closing opinion on this is that while the vaults in this game are fun, and have a ton of mind-teasers, I feel like too many of them in a row is just overwhelming and misses out on a huge part of the game mechanics (the entire combat system). And starting you with an almost empty equipment list just seemed pointless.
I was confused why the game would even let me keep my abilities if it was going for a soft reset. It even tries to trick you into thinking it is giving you a tutorial, which is an odd choice for a DLC that warns you it has story spoilers making it end-game content by default, by telling you the controls and making the first vault a 1 star difficulty vault (something that hasn’t been seen since the prologue). But when you play the vault you realise there’s no way this is made for newcomers. The very first vault in the DLC is on par with a high 2 star, or low 3 star vault in the main game. The thing is though that even when the vaults get to 3 stars in this DLC, the difference is negligible relative to the difference between a 1 star and a 3 star in the story.
The Vaults are also much longer here, but they don't let you save either. Now while you couldn't always save in vaults, they did allow auto-saving in the longer vaults (the ones at the end of a God's questline). Many of these ones match those in length, if not surpass it, while also being harder. It's not unusual for a vault to last for 45 minutes or more, so if you have to turn the game off for whatever reason, the power goes out, the game crashes, or if you just get bored, you lose a ton of progress.
Anyway the reason I'm talking about vaults so much is that that's ALL there is in this DLC. It's basically a vault content pack thrown into a barebones story and a barebones area. There is still some fighting, but it's also delegated to small parts inside of a vault and is never the main focus.
What made the main game so great was the blend of puzzles, action and exploration, all done in a way so that you never spent too long doing one thing. This time it's 95% puzzles, 5% action and 0% exploration. If the vaults were your favourite part of the main game, or better yet the only part you liked, then you'll probably love this. Otherwise that lack of variety can lead to burnout on puzzles really fast.
They didn't even give that same sense of progression, as despite stripping you of ALL your weapons and armour, you can only find a total of one brand new thing for each equipable item (sword/axe/bow/armour/helmet), and each one can only be upgraded once. The majority of chests in this game contain a "relic" which by themselves do nothing, but when you collect 24 you unlock a secret....vault. Yeah, another vault. To be fair that secret vault is probably the highlight of the DLC, it's just a rapid fire of creative mini games, many of which take inspiration of arcade games like Frogger or Donkey Kong.
So basically my closing opinion on this is that while the vaults in this game are fun, and have a ton of mind-teasers, I feel like too many of them in a row is just overwhelming and misses out on a huge part of the game mechanics (the entire combat system). And starting you with an almost empty equipment list just seemed pointless.
1986
Pros:
+The music is pretty good
Cons:
-Absolutely zero direction, with no map and everywhere looks exactly the same. There isn't even any indication of where you've already been, which would have been simple by just leaving the doors you've already opened, well, open.
-There appeared to be a lot of random dead ends, although I never finished so maybe they do have a purpose...
-Game has terrible frame rate issues.
-Annoying enemy placements and infinitely re-spawning enemies, and relative stiff movement means you're often just forced to take damage. Although I don't think the game ever had any straight up unfair enemies like in Kid Icarus (although I didn't get that far here).
Notes:
•Gave up after about 2 hours of what felt like little progress. If the game was more linear or the bare minimum had a map you could see that would let you know where you've been, it'd be a decent NES game. I may try again one day with a walkthrough, but for now it's going in the abandoned pile.
+The music is pretty good
Cons:
-Absolutely zero direction, with no map and everywhere looks exactly the same. There isn't even any indication of where you've already been, which would have been simple by just leaving the doors you've already opened, well, open.
-There appeared to be a lot of random dead ends, although I never finished so maybe they do have a purpose...
-Game has terrible frame rate issues.
-Annoying enemy placements and infinitely re-spawning enemies, and relative stiff movement means you're often just forced to take damage. Although I don't think the game ever had any straight up unfair enemies like in Kid Icarus (although I didn't get that far here).
Notes:
•Gave up after about 2 hours of what felt like little progress. If the game was more linear or the bare minimum had a map you could see that would let you know where you've been, it'd be a decent NES game. I may try again one day with a walkthrough, but for now it's going in the abandoned pile.
2009
A lot of improvements over the past games, including a bunch of new towers catering to different playstyles (I especially liked the idea of a tower that shoots where your mouse is - giving direct interaction with the player for each round), interesting map types that demand different tactics, making some towers useless on some stages but vital on others. There's also finally a fast forward button.
One thing I'm mixed on is the upgrades. While I do like that each tower now has an extra, super-powerful upgrade, I dislike how they turned 2 upgrade trees into one big one, so you have to buy upgrades you won't necessarily benefit from (like boomerang monkeys being able to pop frozen balloons in stages you have no ice towers). Some of the final upgrades are also so ridiculously priced that there's no way you'd realistically get them by the general completion-criteria point for a stage, only really able to use them in free mode or sandbox mode.
The game is also SWARMING with microtransactions, holy shit. Literally everything in the game has an option to be paid for. More lives? You can buy that. Exclusive tower upgrades? You can buy that. Premium courses? You can buy those. Double money mode? You can buy that. While you never need it for completing the game, the fact it's always there, constantly shoved in your face makes this game feel so damn sleazy.
Still a fun game, but not quite the leap it could have been if many of those ugly freemium choices were either gone, or able to be unlocked in other ways. I mean the game even has a challenge mode (which I assume isn't updating any more). Instead of forcing me to buy the ability to sell my towers for 100% of the price (instead of 80%), or the ability for dart monkeys to throw exploding darts, why not let me earn them instead? Bleh.
As an aside, the quality of this game looked awful when I played it. I doubt it's the games fault since I'm playing this via the Ninja Kiwi Archive on steam, but compared to the previous games it's just to pixelly and low quality.
One thing I'm mixed on is the upgrades. While I do like that each tower now has an extra, super-powerful upgrade, I dislike how they turned 2 upgrade trees into one big one, so you have to buy upgrades you won't necessarily benefit from (like boomerang monkeys being able to pop frozen balloons in stages you have no ice towers). Some of the final upgrades are also so ridiculously priced that there's no way you'd realistically get them by the general completion-criteria point for a stage, only really able to use them in free mode or sandbox mode.
The game is also SWARMING with microtransactions, holy shit. Literally everything in the game has an option to be paid for. More lives? You can buy that. Exclusive tower upgrades? You can buy that. Premium courses? You can buy those. Double money mode? You can buy that. While you never need it for completing the game, the fact it's always there, constantly shoved in your face makes this game feel so damn sleazy.
Still a fun game, but not quite the leap it could have been if many of those ugly freemium choices were either gone, or able to be unlocked in other ways. I mean the game even has a challenge mode (which I assume isn't updating any more). Instead of forcing me to buy the ability to sell my towers for 100% of the price (instead of 80%), or the ability for dart monkeys to throw exploding darts, why not let me earn them instead? Bleh.
As an aside, the quality of this game looked awful when I played it. I doubt it's the games fault since I'm playing this via the Ninja Kiwi Archive on steam, but compared to the previous games it's just to pixelly and low quality.
This review contains spoilers
So much better than the previous DLC's.
For one thing, since this acts as a standalone story, the level scaling problems of the previous expansions aren't present. It's not a case of blowing through the early game just to fight the super strong extra boss at the end. Now it's a full on story that you level up with naturally. And the amount of content here blows the other 2 expansions out of the water five times over. This is basically an entire extra saga, complete with the little extra padding and giving focus to little things that the original story may have skimmed past.
One of my favourite parts was when it used the ui to creative effect during Future Gohan's last stand, and his final attack completely breaks the ki bar, and then the following battle has you basically unable to do anything. Neat little touches.
I especially like that they didn't just stop at the Androids, and added a little post-game for the Babidi stuff that was told in Super.
For one thing, since this acts as a standalone story, the level scaling problems of the previous expansions aren't present. It's not a case of blowing through the early game just to fight the super strong extra boss at the end. Now it's a full on story that you level up with naturally. And the amount of content here blows the other 2 expansions out of the water five times over. This is basically an entire extra saga, complete with the little extra padding and giving focus to little things that the original story may have skimmed past.
One of my favourite parts was when it used the ui to creative effect during Future Gohan's last stand, and his final attack completely breaks the ki bar, and then the following battle has you basically unable to do anything. Neat little touches.
I especially like that they didn't just stop at the Androids, and added a little post-game for the Babidi stuff that was told in Super.
1995
Solid run and gunner. Feels smooth to control. Very nice aesthetics for the sega mega drive/genesis, particularly the stage art.
The graphics can make some enemies quite hard to see coming though, especially the little bug-like robots that swarm all over.
The TV system is a really nice way to give identity for the game. Breaking the various TVs throughout the stage can reward you with various things like points, health, lives, a permanent extra hit point, temporary gun power-ups, or even transformations. Finding a TV and blasting it to see what you'll get out of it is always fun. Even though 90% of the time it's just something useless.
Some cool bosses too, my personal favourite being the group of vector-people who transform into various objects like a spring, or a bigger vector-man.
One of my least favourite parts was that each level is timed, despite the fact the aforementioned TV-hunting system seems to encourage players to explore as much of the level as possible. It feels weird to have half the game telling you to take your time and explore, and another half telling you to hurry the fuck up.
It also suffers from some problems that many games from this era did, like enemy placements that just fuck you over before you can really see them (though far less than many others of its type), or the lack of continues (God bless save states).
But it's a generally positive experience overall. Feels good to play, feels fun to explore and find the secrets as long as you don't watch that timer too much.
The graphics can make some enemies quite hard to see coming though, especially the little bug-like robots that swarm all over.
The TV system is a really nice way to give identity for the game. Breaking the various TVs throughout the stage can reward you with various things like points, health, lives, a permanent extra hit point, temporary gun power-ups, or even transformations. Finding a TV and blasting it to see what you'll get out of it is always fun. Even though 90% of the time it's just something useless.
Some cool bosses too, my personal favourite being the group of vector-people who transform into various objects like a spring, or a bigger vector-man.
One of my least favourite parts was that each level is timed, despite the fact the aforementioned TV-hunting system seems to encourage players to explore as much of the level as possible. It feels weird to have half the game telling you to take your time and explore, and another half telling you to hurry the fuck up.
It also suffers from some problems that many games from this era did, like enemy placements that just fuck you over before you can really see them (though far less than many others of its type), or the lack of continues (God bless save states).
But it's a generally positive experience overall. Feels good to play, feels fun to explore and find the secrets as long as you don't watch that timer too much.
Better than the first game, but also much easier (going by their relative difficulties of course, I'm sure the hardest difficulty in this game would still provide a really hard challenge but I'm not trying that). And apparently it's even easier in the deluxe version. I'm not sure I'd call it an "easy" game, but playing on normal was more like a standard platformer than you'd maybe expect.
Anyway I liked the level themes this time, they were mostly unique such as a board game land, a sewer land, a Japan land etc. The ghost theme was the only "common" one, and even that has an old black and white movie aesthetic to make it stand out. Unfortunately it's also a super short game, there's only a total of 4 worlds, not including the tutorial and final level, and each world has 3 levels and a boss. Each level can be beaten in about 5 minutes, even as low as 1 minute in some cases.
Instead of 4 characters it's now just the Nerd and he collects power-ups throughout, all of them hidden except the first one. This does mean if you're an avid AVGN it might bother you to lose those characters...maybe. But for someone who just played this for the platforming element, it was an improvement.
The wall jumping mechanic sucked though, I could never get the arc right, which is pretty bad when the game demands near perfect jumps between saw-blades across both sides of the wall. I swear half the time it just didn't work at all. I spent ages trying to get a single collectable because it required jumping on a wall and my character just would NOT stick to the wall to allow a wall jump. All this while a buzz-saw, a fire bar and a bat were trying to kill my ass.
One big improvement over the original is that lives reset on death now. No more having to kill myself 5 times before starting a level because I wanted to start with full lives. Although ironically despite this change happening, this game makes it much more possible to get through a stage with 5 lives than the original ever did, where I felt like I needed all 30 to trial and error my way through.
The humour is just AVGN humour. If that's your thing, great. For me it amounted to just a lot of cuss words appearing at the bottom of the screen every now and then. Apparently the game is heavily based on, or at least references, the AVGN movie, which I've never seen so many things went over my head. But there were some references that were still fun, I liked the sewer boss being a parody of the TNMT.
I wasn't sure if I should set this as completed or mastered - I did manage to collect all the power-ups and NES carts in my normal difficulty playthrough, and usually I don't count extra difficulties as needed for "mastered" unless it unlocks something in-game (which I don't think is the case here), but it'd still feel wrong to claim to have 100% a game like this without beating it at its hardest more so than any other game. Plus I didn't perfect all levels, which, again, doesn't unlock anything, but does have a visual indicator on the map so...
Anyway I liked the level themes this time, they were mostly unique such as a board game land, a sewer land, a Japan land etc. The ghost theme was the only "common" one, and even that has an old black and white movie aesthetic to make it stand out. Unfortunately it's also a super short game, there's only a total of 4 worlds, not including the tutorial and final level, and each world has 3 levels and a boss. Each level can be beaten in about 5 minutes, even as low as 1 minute in some cases.
Instead of 4 characters it's now just the Nerd and he collects power-ups throughout, all of them hidden except the first one. This does mean if you're an avid AVGN it might bother you to lose those characters...maybe. But for someone who just played this for the platforming element, it was an improvement.
The wall jumping mechanic sucked though, I could never get the arc right, which is pretty bad when the game demands near perfect jumps between saw-blades across both sides of the wall. I swear half the time it just didn't work at all. I spent ages trying to get a single collectable because it required jumping on a wall and my character just would NOT stick to the wall to allow a wall jump. All this while a buzz-saw, a fire bar and a bat were trying to kill my ass.
One big improvement over the original is that lives reset on death now. No more having to kill myself 5 times before starting a level because I wanted to start with full lives. Although ironically despite this change happening, this game makes it much more possible to get through a stage with 5 lives than the original ever did, where I felt like I needed all 30 to trial and error my way through.
The humour is just AVGN humour. If that's your thing, great. For me it amounted to just a lot of cuss words appearing at the bottom of the screen every now and then. Apparently the game is heavily based on, or at least references, the AVGN movie, which I've never seen so many things went over my head. But there were some references that were still fun, I liked the sewer boss being a parody of the TNMT.
I wasn't sure if I should set this as completed or mastered - I did manage to collect all the power-ups and NES carts in my normal difficulty playthrough, and usually I don't count extra difficulties as needed for "mastered" unless it unlocks something in-game (which I don't think is the case here), but it'd still feel wrong to claim to have 100% a game like this without beating it at its hardest more so than any other game. Plus I didn't perfect all levels, which, again, doesn't unlock anything, but does have a visual indicator on the map so...
2014
An okay f2p platform fighter. Kind of wish most of the unlockables weren't locked behind paid currency.
Nice variety in character designs, but not much else stands out. I mostly just play it when I'm waiting for a download patch for the game I actually wanted to play.
Nice variety in character designs, but not much else stands out. I mostly just play it when I'm waiting for a download patch for the game I actually wanted to play.
2016
Pros:
+Tight and responsive controls controls
+You can feel yourself improving and it's satisfying as hell.
+There's an addicting mini-game you can unlock
Mixed/Not important enough to be a pro or con:
~It's an extremely short and simple game. I got it from PS+ a long time ago, and I don't think I'd ever have been happy paying for this, but it was a fun little thing to get for free
Notes:
•I played this solely because there's one day left until Animal Crossing comes out and I needed a super short game to play in the meantime. This was at the very top of my list of PS+ games and it fit that bill nicely.
+Tight and responsive controls controls
+You can feel yourself improving and it's satisfying as hell.
+There's an addicting mini-game you can unlock
Mixed/Not important enough to be a pro or con:
~It's an extremely short and simple game. I got it from PS+ a long time ago, and I don't think I'd ever have been happy paying for this, but it was a fun little thing to get for free
Notes:
•I played this solely because there's one day left until Animal Crossing comes out and I needed a super short game to play in the meantime. This was at the very top of my list of PS+ games and it fit that bill nicely.
I was expecting just a literal continuation from the last game, with the only difference being new areas, but I was wrong. Not by a lot, but still. They added a couple of things like adding more unique abilities (such as Arthur being able to repair stuff) and some quality of life changes, the biggest and best by far for me was how the new polyjuice potion works.
Unfortunately most of the flaws of the original remain, like your team members getting in the way of the annoying targeting system. Bosses are still one of the worst parts, but now instead of all bosses being a simple "press square and toss item back" minigame they've added a new boss method, which is a dueling system that's pretty neat at first but ends up being way too slow and easy to do it as much as this game does. And to make it worse, boss fights will tend to use a combination of BOTH of these so boss fights are both incredibly easy and even more dragged out than before.
The first mission kinda misleads you into thinking this game will be more daring with new gameplay ideas, as the very first mission involves a flying segment unlike anything seen in the first game. It never shows up again even at places it could have (thestral flight to London?), and the amount of tweaks in gameplay remains way too small, with most stages still just being "click things until you are able to use wingardium leviosa for the way forward". Even some of the "new" things are just repeats of old ideas, like the new parsletongue system being a 1 to 1 copy of the rune book system, which is still in this game so why bother with both? While it's better than the first in terms of creativity in mechanics, it's still way too low for what it could be, especially when the scope has opened up so much due to all the new types of environments.
And speaking of new areas, this one definitely stands out more in that regard even if it was bound to just due to the nature of the books.
Once again, music pulled from the movies which for me is just an automatic great soundtrack.
The puzzles are still super easy in this game, albeit maybe a biiit harder. But the combat is actually a lot harder, at least when playing solo as it's clear many sections are made for co-op so trying to multitask killing enemies while completing tasks can be pretty tough. The thing is...there's literally no downside to death in this game except losing a bit of money; you just instantly respawn where you were. So even if you do die more than the first game, it only really sets you back mere seconds than it would by not dying.
Decent enough game for a HP fan. Probably best played co-op with a younger person who is less experienced with games though.
Unfortunately most of the flaws of the original remain, like your team members getting in the way of the annoying targeting system. Bosses are still one of the worst parts, but now instead of all bosses being a simple "press square and toss item back" minigame they've added a new boss method, which is a dueling system that's pretty neat at first but ends up being way too slow and easy to do it as much as this game does. And to make it worse, boss fights will tend to use a combination of BOTH of these so boss fights are both incredibly easy and even more dragged out than before.
The first mission kinda misleads you into thinking this game will be more daring with new gameplay ideas, as the very first mission involves a flying segment unlike anything seen in the first game. It never shows up again even at places it could have (thestral flight to London?), and the amount of tweaks in gameplay remains way too small, with most stages still just being "click things until you are able to use wingardium leviosa for the way forward". Even some of the "new" things are just repeats of old ideas, like the new parsletongue system being a 1 to 1 copy of the rune book system, which is still in this game so why bother with both? While it's better than the first in terms of creativity in mechanics, it's still way too low for what it could be, especially when the scope has opened up so much due to all the new types of environments.
And speaking of new areas, this one definitely stands out more in that regard even if it was bound to just due to the nature of the books.
Once again, music pulled from the movies which for me is just an automatic great soundtrack.
The puzzles are still super easy in this game, albeit maybe a biiit harder. But the combat is actually a lot harder, at least when playing solo as it's clear many sections are made for co-op so trying to multitask killing enemies while completing tasks can be pretty tough. The thing is...there's literally no downside to death in this game except losing a bit of money; you just instantly respawn where you were. So even if you do die more than the first game, it only really sets you back mere seconds than it would by not dying.
Decent enough game for a HP fan. Probably best played co-op with a younger person who is less experienced with games though.
It's a pretty good lore-focused story and the Crown Tundra itself is decent to roam around.
It doesn't seem as focused on QoL upgrades as the Isle of Armor (things like resetting EVs or Dynamax soup). Instead they added an entire new game mode, which is basically boss rush of raid battles. It's pretty neat, and a great way to get any legendary in any Pokéball of your choice.
It also has more new Pokémon than Isle of Armor. Though I really really wish they put more non-legendaries than just Galarian Slowking.
It definitely brings to light how much of a pain in the ass catching legendaries really is though when you need to do it 10 times in a row.
It doesn't seem as focused on QoL upgrades as the Isle of Armor (things like resetting EVs or Dynamax soup). Instead they added an entire new game mode, which is basically boss rush of raid battles. It's pretty neat, and a great way to get any legendary in any Pokéball of your choice.
It also has more new Pokémon than Isle of Armor. Though I really really wish they put more non-legendaries than just Galarian Slowking.
It definitely brings to light how much of a pain in the ass catching legendaries really is though when you need to do it 10 times in a row.
2021
This review contains spoilers
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?
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?
Multiple improvements to the first, like a proper story mode, way more characters, a level up system. Ai are a cheap son of a bitch though.
Could have been a fun game if it was its own thing and fleshed out. Being stuck as an afterthought in another game made it very forgettable and hard to invest in to.
1998
This game plays like a bunch of people who don't know exactly how to play Mario Party so they make up the rules as they go along.
Half the minigames are pure shit. Why are there team based 4 player games? Why are there 1v3 games where the 3 literally can't do anything, like the pipe choosing one?
Mario Party did not start out with its formula properly refined.
At least the boards are good.
Half the minigames are pure shit. Why are there team based 4 player games? Why are there 1v3 games where the 3 literally can't do anything, like the pipe choosing one?
Mario Party did not start out with its formula properly refined.
At least the boards are good.