The 3D Platformer is my favorite genre, but that doesn't mean I automatically like every 3D Platformer. Moreso, it means I really love a great one and am annoyed by boring ones. One of the most common annoyances with the genre I have is when a 3D Platformer feels like it's ashamed with the genre. There's a weird amount of '3D Platformers' with platforming that is extremely easy and/or simple, where there's more focus placed on other elements. Banjo Kazooie arguably started this trend, but a few key elements make Banjo a good game, albeit one I personally don't like as much as other people. Despite the lack of difficulty, there's still always a feeling of vertical progression in each level, and platforming challenges often take place in fantastical areas or are contextualized with humourous mini-stories. The moveset ironically de-emphasizes movement, but the level design is so dense that exploring is extremely fun, and the platforming simply compliments that. Tie in some good audiovisuals, and you have a winner of a game.

A lot of games, especially in the late 90's, were influenced by Banjo. This is fine, but many failed to realize what made that game good, and Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage is one of the best examples of this. It does get one thing right: The audiovisuals. The music keeps the fantastical style of the original Spyro, and the visuals are still well animated, even moreso in the Reignited Trilogy rerelease. However, things begin to fall apart after that. You see, there's another element of Banjo I neglected to mention: minigames. I thought the minigames were pretty middling overall, but they're also not the main focus, so I still enjoyed the game. The problem with Ripto's Rage is that the focus is switched from platforming to these minigames. Instead of building a world with platforming challenges and sprinkling in the minigames, Ripto's Rage built a world filled with minigames and put platforming challenges between them.

Honestly, this could've worked as far as I know, but the issue is that neither element is good. The minigames are pretty middling overall and all of them feel extremely disconnected. The platforming takes place in levels with basic level design and a very simple moveset, which leads to most sections feeling very mindless. It leads to a game where each part feels like a chore, because that's basically what it is. Ripto lacks any presence in the overall game, and most substories are completely disconnected from the core conflict, so I never felt much actual importance in what I was doing.

My point is that Ripto's Rage has a lot of the stereotypical flaws of the genre without any particular strengths. The platforming is weak in both level design and movement, the story has some decent characters but the events are disconnected and not entertaining, and the minigames aren't good. You could probably say at least one of those about many decent 3D Platformers, but the fact that all of them apply to Ripto's Rage is what makes it a 4/10 for me.

My endless hunt for good 3D Platformers continues with Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2, yet another game Nitro Rad talked about. However, even he was pretty lukewarm on this one, so my expectations were tempered here.

Firstly, let me say that this is yet another case of IGDB having the clearly inferior box art. The US version's has not only far better use of foreshortening and color contrast, but also a great metacontextual commentary on the game itself. Oh well.

Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2 is by far the most popular game in the series, and you still may not have heard about it. I picked it up at a retro game store near my home despite how cheap the game is on steam sometimes (Once even being free).

I can't really say that this game is all that great. It's a pretty serviceable platformer, but it's not really unique in any way. As inconsistent as a game like Glover can be, I really appreciated the uniqueness of the movement, level themes, and music. Wait, no, Glover is a masterpiece, I meant Demon Turf. Anyway, Kao Round 2 doesn't really do anything unique at all. In fact, it's extremely derivative of Rayman 2. You start in prison, the second level is called 'The Great Escape', you gain a hover ability, etc etc... However, this game also lacks a lot of what I liked about Rayman 2: The great, cohesive variety and the good use of mechanics focused around a simple moveset. In these regards, this game is extremely simple with few interesting mechanics. Like, I can't think of anything interesting right now. The movement is also very barebones, although I liked the infinite roll you can earn near the end of the game. Despite how simple it is, this game holds your hands pretty much throughout the entire game. I guess it is a baby game, and you can skip any dialogue, but this was still somewhat odd to me. I did appreciate a lot of the more obscure collectible hiding places though, even if the gems are pretty much useless.

Despite that, this game does have better combat than Rayman 2. That's not because this game's combat is great or anything, and moreso because the combat of Rayman 2 is so mediocre. We have a 3 hit combo, aerial attack, roll, ground pound, and boomerangs. It's fine as far as 3D platformer combat goes, but the hit detection can occasionally be wonky. It also has boss fights, which was something Rayman 2 lacked. They're fine.

The story of this game is interesting. You have to get 3000 dabloons to go fight the boss, which may make you think this is a collectathon where you're given freedom in your stage choices, but nah. 2000 of these have to be gained through the levels you play through in a completely linear fashion. At that point, I don't get why they didn't just use a different macguffin or something. Also, I don't get why Kao didn't just beat up the guy demanding money like he did with every other guy. He had no problem stealing a guy's money and beating him up, so it's not a moral issue, and the guy doesn't look particularly tough. I dunno.

I know I've been pretty negative here, and honestly the only thing holding me back from giving this a 4/10 is how charming this game can be on occasion. Kao sounds pretty cute and his neck stretches out in water. So, 5/10 I guess. Maybe I'll lower it to a 4/10 later.

You know, I should really play the first one, especially since I have a Dreamcast. Let me go pick up a copy on eba-

O_O

As of writing, I have yet to play any Dark Souls games, or any games spun off from that series. It initially started off as a lack of interest and opportunity, but I think that at this point it's just a personality trait. The thing is, despite never playing any of those games, I can still tell that Blasphemous derives quite a bit from them. The flasks, the tone, the general gameplay, it all seems pretty similar, although feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Whether or not my lack of experience with Dark Souls had an effect on my perspective, I did enjoy this game. There are some issues, as there are with pretty much every game, but as far as Castleroids go this isn't bad. I think one thing this game does very well is backtracking. The map is tightly designed and a pretty good size. It's not too big or small. Even that aside, many in the Castleroid genre simply give very generous warp points for backtracking, unlike Blasphemous. While the opportunity for that does eventually present itself in this game, much of the level design is simply built around making backtracking easier, with switches and doors that will open and make travel more interconnected and convenient.

This also works well with the death system, something else taken from Dark Souls. Now, if there's one thing I didn't like about Hollow Knight, it's dying and having to return to where I died lest I lose all my money. I think that's a pretty annoying punishment for non-linear games where I might just want to explore another area. Blasphemous has a similar system, but I like it a little more because it's not quite as punishing. Honestly, it maybe should've been even more punishing than it is, as a few times I'd just not bother to collect my guilt, even before a a couple of bosses. At the end of the day, I'd still just prefer a flat money decrease upon death to this shenaniganry that seems so prevalent. However, I'll take my blessings where I can get them.

The combat is good, barely above average. You have your basic sword strikes, special attacks called prayers, a ranged attack, and a few more sword attacks, many of which... honestly don't matter. Honestly, aside from using the different prayers I didn't really feel that combat ever actually changed. Most fights I would just do chip damage, see a big opening, raise attack speed, and unleash whatever sword combo I had. There's also a parry and dodge with i-frames. They're... fine, but some enemies are explicitly designed around waiting and parrying, which I don't like, and I'm a bit tired of dodges with i-frames. Generally though, my biggest issue is that I don't think the progression changed my combat approach that much.

That stagnation of gameplay unfortunately extends to any platforming abilities. If you think of most Castleroids, you'll notice that almost all of them have some kind of platforming upgrade. Double jumps, high jumps, grapple hooks, jet packs, high-speed dashes, and more. These are very effective because stumbling across a future area, you go, "Oh, I guess I'll be able to reach that place somehow with some new ability." Different Castleroids have varying focus on this aspect. Metroid has tons of it, whereas a game like Iconoclasts has very little. Blasphemous is one of the few Castleroids where you essentially gain no new abilities that allow you to progress further in the world. Instead, you gain items that will add extra platforms to the world or grant you immunity to poison, along with quest items that open up new paths. The fact is, very little of what you earn in this game actually changes the way you play. This is fine I guess, but I still would've liked something to actually change how I traverse the world, since that can often be the best part of these kinds of games and I can't think of any downside to adding such a thing, especially since the level design rarely feels super specialized or finely-tuned.

What about the story? What's it about? That's a good question.

Anyway, onto the audiovisuals. I say once again, "I'm kinda tired of indie games doing pixel art but this game does it really well". There's clear inspiration from Spanish Catholicism with the imagery here, all of which looked really cool as it went over my head. The music is also pretty good.

All in all, a pretty good game, but I think better progression would've improved it a ton. I'll probably get the sequel not too long after it drops. 7/10, closer to a 6 than an 8.

A while back, I saw a trailer for a game called Momodora: Moonlit Farewell. It looked interesting, seeming a bit more intimate and less empowering than many Castleroids. I would later see this game while browsing the Nintendo eShop and it was on sale, so I bought it.

It's a pretty good game, but it's also lacking in a few key areas. I like the combat well enough. It's very simple at the end of the day, but it's deliberate and can be pretty fun. The bosses seem intentionally designed to be less of an endurance test and more of a short burst of a challenge, as your character can often die in two to three hits. There aren't many items, but the ones here are pretty well-designed and implemented.

The game in general is fairly difficult, and it has the old-fashioned system of 'if you die you lose all progress since save, no and ifs or buts'. I'm fine with that, honestly. There are a few times where save rooms were a distance away from bosses though, and getting back to the boss was usually a cakewalk, so this choice was just tedious.

In terms of ability progression, this game has very little. You earn a midair dash and a cat transformation, and... That's about it. There's a fairly good sense of exploration here but backtracking is very rare, so I feel that there was a missed opportunity with the structure. It lacks the best parts of both linear and non-linear games to me. The level design is good enough but not great and you rarely feel like you're truly exploring because most detours are very accessible and short. Maybe I would've been more accepting of this if it felt in service of story and worldbuilding, but both of those felt pretty underwhelming to me.

An IRL friend of mine read my Tears of the Kingdom review and said, "You talked all about how bad it was and then said it was a great game." I feel like this review would probably illicit a similar reaction, but I still enjoy the game well enough because it was very brisk in pace and had pretty good audiovisuals. If this game was a lot longer, I'd probably dislike it because of a lack of interesting level design or abilities. Ironically though, I think a few of the problems also come from it being underdeveloped and missing a lot of opportunities, opportunities that would probably make the game longer. Oh well. Maybe with the sequel they'll make a true banger.

Overall, a fairly good game. Might play the other ones. 6/10.

Titles like Streets of Rage 4, Shredder's Revenge, Fight n' Rage, and River City Girls have been responsible for a beat 'em up renaissance in recent years. That last one is notable, because two years prior to its release a different River City/Kunio-Kun revival was released! It's... uh... the game I'm reviewing. This game seems to fly under most people's radar, which sucks, because I find it to be a pretty good game, albeit one with a few flaws that keep it from greatness.

One interesting note is that this game follows the western canon of River City Ransom instead of the Japanese canon of Kunio-Kun. Instead of Kunio and Riki, we have Alex and Ryan. This makes Provie and other characters from this game showing up in River City Girls 2 completely nonsensical since those games follow the Kunio-Kun canon but I'll discuss the plot of that game at a later date. For now, I need to discuss the plot of this game. Uh... A gang of teenagers is framed for taking a business tycoon's family member hostage, so the gang teams up with Alex and Ryan from the first game to beat up the bad guys. Some other stuff happens with the military-industrial complex and kittens and stuff, but story really isn't the main draw here. I do think the game can be funny occasionally, and it's less obnoxious as the River City Girls games can occasionally be, but I still wouldn't say it's a strength here.

Instead, the strength is the gameplay. In my opinion, this game has done the best job at combining the Beat 'em Up and RPG mechanics in a satisfying way. I know RPG mechanics seeping into pretty much every genre has been the ire of many gamers (Including me, in many cases), but it does offer a lot of strengths. This game starts you off with enough tools so that gameplay doesn't feel boring, and you unlock moves from there. Personally, it felt like I was being eased into a pretty expansive moveset. Most moves don't feel extraneous and redundant either, which is a common pitfall with this progression style. Pulling off combos takes a bit of effort and you're forced to be varied in the moves you use, which makes linking a string of moves super fun. Although, I never felt like I was rewarded for going above and beyond. To my knowledge, longer combos don't really result in higher rewards. I wish that they implemented a system where longer combos resulted in more money or experience.

There's also a lot of characters here, and many of them play very different. You start off with only 4 characters, but can earn many more as you play the game. I stuck to Glen for the most part, but after playing a bit of the other guys, I can confidently say that most are pretty distinct. Unfortunately, If you want to switch to a different character mid-playthrough, you're going to be underleveled. I'm sure they could've implemented a way to distribute experience to every character or something.

I think playing this and River City Girls 2 back to back made me realize that exploration is often the most fun with a very simple map. When everything's just laid out for you, it's harder to say that you're truly exploring. In this game though, you'll often be told where to go a la A Link to the Past, where you're given a general direction on a pretty simple map and have to find the specific route yourself. I honestly rather enjoyed this element.

Honestly, most of my issues are due to a lack of polish and a few rough patches. Finding bosses can sometimes be cryptic, the game could be a bit more up-front about how different stats work, There's a few big difficulty spikes, and while the exploration was fun, I wish the map was a bit more compact and interconnected. However, it's a really good game aside from those issues, and a sequel could be great. I hope that Provie being in River City Girls 2 will drum up some interest in a sequel, or at least a port to other consoles. For now, 7/10.

Recommended by @LordDarias for this list.

As time has gone on, I've appreciated shorter games more and more. Tet is probably one of the shortest games I've ever played. However, Tet itself is made up of even shorter minigames. There's many layers to the shortness of this game! I've seen comparisons drawn to WarioWare, and while I haven't played that game yet, it seems to be an apt comparison. You have a limited time to understand and finish these extremely brief cooking minigames. They're all fine enough, although not particularly great or anything, especially once you've already figured out how to do them. As short as this game is, I don't think it's particularly replayable because of this.

There's really not much else to say here. The presentation is fine, but it could've been better overall. Honestly, one could ascribe that to the overall game. However, I enjoyed it well enough. It's super short and free, and even gives you the recipes for the food, which is neat. This game is somewhere between a 5 and 6 out of 10, but I'll give it the benefit for now.

Recommended by @Gare for this list.

I think many people are familiar with Little Samson and how even back in the day when retro games were far cheaper, it was ridiculously expensive. This is mainly due to it selling very poorly, only to receive a cult following years later. Sorry Mom, but I think I’ve gotta join the cult on this one.

Little Samson isn’t overtly revolutionary, unlike many beloved NES games. For this game, I think many would agree with the description of “Wonder Boy III combined with Castlevania III.” Certainly, this game takes a lot from the former (Multiple controllable characters, a few RPG elements) and a bit from the latter (Linear stages with a few branching paths, switching characters in-level). However, I think that misses a lot of why this game really works for me. To me, the biggest strength is how well the game is designed around pretty much any combination of your characters. The titular Samson is the all-rounder, the Dragon can fly but attacking and defense is sub-par, the Golem is slow but has the best attack and defense, and even the mouse, while very frail, is also very agile and can be surprisingly effective against some bosses. This isn’t everything that these characters can and can’t do, but it demonstrates the main choices a player will be making. You could fly over many gaps with the Dragon but abusing it too much could cause the Dragon to die which would result in you losing it for the level, inevitably causing problems down the line. The Golem can take a ton of shots before dying, but it also is the only character that can walk on spikes, so is it worth it to use it as a tank all the time instead of waiting for an area with spikes? Which character should I heal or increase the max health of? No matter what though, the level design feels well made for any character(s). What ties this together is that every character goes away permanently before being restored on a game over, which honestly makes replaying levels a little more fun, as your new try at a level will most likely be different from the last. It also creates a natural requirement for players to use each character to the fullest to succeed.

Every character goes away, that is, except Samson himself. He will always be playable. Honestly, I think this was a bit of a missed opportunity. This means the strategy is always to switch to Samson if your other guys are low on health, especially on boss fights. It also means that one of the strengths of the mouse, running on walls and ceilings, is basically null and void as Samson can do these as well and you might as well just use him instead in most cases. It’s not that bad, especially since the revival potions kinda negate the issue, but I do think the game would be better if Samson was treated the same as the other members, although a few challenges would need to be tweaked to compensate.

I also think it’s worth mentioning that this game has an easy mode! It’s far from the best implementation of a difficulty mode in a game (That goes to Armored Core: For Answer and Wario Land 4), but it is well made overall. There are some distinct but not ridiculous tweaks to enemy placement, health, bosses and more. Usually, I wouldn’t care about this kind of thing, and while this game is far from the hardest NES game, it’s difficult enough (Especially near the end, which seems to be a rule for NES games) that I think this option was a good idea.

This was a late NES game, and it’s one of the prettier games on the console. The backgrounds look really good, and the animations are pretty smooth for the NES. This game was released two years after the SNES came out, but I feel it’s still worth mentioning. However, it seems the music took a hit as a result. There aren’t actual stage themes here, but character themes. If you’re playing as Samson, you’ll always hear his singular theme, and the same goes for every other party member. The music itself is solid, but not enough to stave off the repetition.

Overall though, this is undoubtedly one of the best games of the 8-bit era. Is it worth thousands of dollars? Uh… maybe if I was a millionaire, I’d shell out that kind of cash. Although, I did win a bet with @Gare, who said he’d give me a million dollars. I gotta collect soon… anyway, 9/10, definitely closer to an 8 though.

Gotta thank @Galaxy003 for gifting me this along with the entire trilogy.

You see a lot of fourth-gen inspired games, and a decent amount of third-gen inspired games too, but there's not many games inspired by titles from before those eras. Faith is one of the few that actually fits that category, and there is a deliberacy in this stylistic choice. The game is trying to evoke that era, one that housed a 'Satanic Panic' where many Christians in the US would accuse new things of demonic for some reason. Naturally, one of these hobbies was that of videogames. It's not like this sort of behavior is completely gone (I used to live in the Deep South of the US and you could still find multiple people who hold these beliefs there), but it was most prevalent around the early to mid 80s, so making a game styled around that era of games is an interesting choice.

I must confess that I haven't played many Atari games, and the few I have played are just arcade ports. However, this game does seem mostly faithful to that era, no pun intended. The only things you can really do is walk around, hold up a crucifix to scare demons, and open a map. Any important objects are interacted with by either flashing the crucifix or just walking into them. I must admit, I wish this game had some kind of interact button, because most user interaction is pretty repetitive. Walk around, point your crucifix at the creepy guys and anything that looks suspicious, repeat. This is pretty much how the entire game works . One could argue that deeper interaction wasn't really common in the era, but neither was the walls of text that this game tells the majority of its story with. I understand that visual storytelling is probably difficult to do when your game has less detail than Super Mario Bros. I think the game should've made more use of text in the style of the 'Kill her' that was painted in blood at the end. Even if it kinda lessened the impact of such moments, it would've been better on multiple fronts in my opinion. The actual story is fine enough, but I feel that the way its presented hurts it.

I also liked the rotoscope moments well enough. Sure, they definitely wouldn't be on the atari 2600, but it stays consistent with that console's limited range of colors.

Overall, it's fine. I definitely think this game's brevity is a positive, but that doesn't negate a few of the issues I have with it. It's fine, but I'm hoping that the sequels are better. 5/10.

“You take the blue pill... the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill... you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
-Morpheus, The Matrix, 1999
…
Chapter 1: The History of Glover

Near the turn of the century, in 1998, a game was released. Published by Hasbro, it was entitled Glover. It’s a 3D platformer where you take control of a Glove. Of course, like all great art, it was more than that, but we will discuss this later. For brevity’s sake, let’s say that it’s a by-the-books 3D platformer. At the time, the genre was popular, so Glover naturally achieved a level of success, selling over a million units across all platforms (I), but the sequel, which was almost complete, was cancelled. You see, while the game was a success, Hasbro ordered too many cartridges, which retailers didn’t want to stock. This ended up costing the company a significant amount, and the sequel was the scapegoat for this loss. This is all according to a blog post from Hasbro employee James Steele. I would link it in the references, but the main source has been lost when the website it was posted on went down.

However, this cloud had a silver lining. While this overabundance of cartridges was detrimental to Hasbro’s bottom line, it meant the game was far more accessible in the retro market years later. It had high supply, and, unfortunately, low demand. Therefore, copies of this game were affordable on any platform (II).

I think to some extent, I was destined to play Glover. My favorite genre of videogames is the 3D Platformer, and I had recently obtained a Nintendo 64 around 2021 or so. I also was starting college (Studying for a Mathematics Degree), so I wanted to play games without spending a significant amount of money. Of course, now I know even cheaper ways to obtain retro video games, but I wasn’t wise in such ways even just around 2 years ago. I likely heard about the game, likely from someone on YouTube, and I ended up buying the game for only $15. This was a fairly low price for a N64 game, and I ask that you keep that price in mind for later. Anyway, I ended up playing the game not too long after on August 27th, 2021, a day I will never forget. That day was the day my life changed forever.
…
Chapter 2: The Literal Review of Glover

Before I analyze the themes and metacommentary of this game, I’ll do a surface level review. Keep in mind, I played the N64 version, which is superior for several reasons. I may bring up some negative points here, but I’ll explain why they’re actually integral to the game in Chapter 3 of this analysis. The game begins with the Wizard, who has two sentient gloves with which he brews potions in his palace. He seemingly makes a mistake while brewing the potion, which turns him into stone. One Glove falls into a potion, and the other falls out of the palace. The potion turns the former glove (Cross Stitch) evil and the latter glove (Glover) has to stop him, gathering gems that were turned to gems along the way. This is a general summary of the plot.

Now, I think the most transparently good thing about this game is the movement. This game came out in 1998, and still has one of the best and most unique movesets of a 3D platformer. Initially it seems pretty tame, just a jump, double jump, ground pound, and completely useless cartwheel. However, when one takes the ball into account, the moveset is expanded significantly. Glover can dribble the ball to achieve greater height, throw and slap the ball to hit enemies and switches or get the ball to a higher area, run on the ball to float over water, or even ground pound on the ball to do a super high jump. You can also transform the ball into different forms, such as a ball bearing, bowling ball, and its original gem form. It’s an extremely creative moveset in an era when developers struggled to make basic ones.

When it comes to platformers, I think most would agree that good movement is only half of the game. The second half is good level design. This is where many would say Glover falters. In my opinion, the best level design in this game revolves mostly around using Glover’s abilities in clever ways. On my recent playthrough, I got to a level in the first world where these ball guys try and knock away your ball. They’re really good at it. I lost quite a few lives trying to get away from them, as every time they touched the ball it went flying and I lost a life. However, I eventually realized that if I turn the ball into a cannon ball this section becomes doable. I wouldn’t say that this every level has an encounter like this, but pretty much every level does require a mix of normal platforming and puzzle solving, with very little precision platforming thrown in, which I do think is for the best. When you’re holding the ball, the controls are very slippery and loose. The ball will roll down slopes and often bounces a little after landing. Like I said, I think this is fine when the game doesn’t demand precision, but its last few levels do demand quite a bit more, which sucks.

One thing I enjoyed here was collecting the garibs, which are just collectible cards that, while not integral to progressing the game like notes in Banjo-Kazooie or something, do grant points which contribute to extra lives. I like two specific mechanics that contribute to points. One, collecting a lot of garibs in quick succession grants more points, and two, collecting them while the ball is in gem form doubles points. This introduces not only an incentive for speed, but also a risk-reward system that I think is cool.

In terms of the presentation, Glover has a significant amount of style and substance. I’ll mostly talk about the substance in the next chapter, but for now let’s discuss the style and general technical details. For the console, this game looks really good. Everything’s well animated, especially the ball, which seems to be an actual 3D model. However, the draw distance is really short. This is common for the system, but this game in particular has a really short draw distance, which is probably a result of the high poly count. The game also runs at 20fps, which isn’t unheard of at the time, but it kinda stings when combined with the draw distance. Anyway, the music is actually really good. Many tracks have a sort of swing style, although you clearly don’t get the full range of such a song with the midi songs used. I would be remised if I didn’t mention the seagull song (III), which might just be the best song in any videogame ever.

I suppose I should talk about the PS1 version. It’s generally worse. They tweaked a few things with the physics without changing the level design, so the game isn’t as well designed overall. This is a good video (IV)If you want a comprehensive look at all the version differences, sans the recent Steam release.

So overall, on the surface level, Glover is a ambitious but flawed 3D Platformer. Good movement, inconsistent level design, doesn’t perform incredibly well, but good music. I would’ve given it a 6/10, but I couldn’t help but try and look below the surface for this game.

And then, everything changed.
…
Chapter 3: Why Glover is a Masterpiece of Sociopolitical Commentary

I understand the perceived absurdity of the title of this chapter. “How can this videogame where you play as a glove be in any way an intelligent sociopolitical commentary? However, one should remember that many of the most beloved works of art have surface level abstraction and absurdity which hides a deeper meaning. Katamari Damacy and its sequel immediately come to mind, but there are many others. Absurdism has always been combined with profundity to create works of art, and Glover is no different.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier is that before the villain was named Cross-Stitch, his name was Glovel. Clearly, this is a nod to the Wizard’s left hand, while Glover is a reference to his right hand. This is a clever nod, but the actual meaning behind these names goes deeper. I’m sure many of you know where this is going: Glover represents the political right, while Glovel represents the political left. I’m sure many of you are thinking now, as I did when I initially made this realization, “Ah, I see. This game’s story is merely a shallow political statement. That’s unfortunate.” However, I couldn’t help but think that there was a deeper layer to this, so I didn’t write Glover off just yet.

The true breakthrough here came around October of last year. I was in Physics Class, studying very hard, and we had recently started talking about Torque. My professor was talking about Right-Hand Rule, and how it’s a subtle yet clear remnant of mass overt discrimination against left-handed people. I had heard about this discrimination before (IV), but I had not devoted significant thought to it since I played Glover, so only then did I have a realization. Glovel himself is a left hand and meant to represent victims of discrimination. Glovel’s transformation into Cross-Stitch isn’t a bad faith statement, it’s a commentary on how bigotry leads to perceived extremism from oppressed groups. Glovel was oppressed, but when he gained power, he started a revolution. The character designs of Glover and Cross-Stitch represent their differences. See how Cross-Stitch has a mouth. He shall be silenced no more, he will proclaim loudly his desire for equality. Glover, however, has no mouth in most artwork. You can view the box art on this very website to see that. He simply follows his orders unthinkingly, never vocalizing his own thoughts. Yes, now everything falls into place. Maybe Glover could try to compromise or at least listen to Cross-Stitch, but he can only see what’s immediately in front of him, not seeing the greater picture when it comes to Cross-Stitch’s actions. Of course! That’s why the draw distance is so low, to represent this character flaw! It was not a flaw of the game, but a flaw of the character! The same can be said of the more precision-platforming focus as the game continues. As the game goes on, Glover tries to stay on the straight and narrow; unflinching not only physically, but morally. Do you see why this game is such a masterpiece? This game has created one of the most sophisticated sociopolitical narratives in history with no dialogue. There’s such a subtle unity between the narrative and gameplay that one could cry. I have cried. I’ve cried many times, thinking of the tragic story of Cross-Stitch and his pursuit of justice.

But still, we’re missing something here. The Wizard. He is the key to this story, the linchpin. After all, Glover and Glovel were merely his tools, in a way. Is this meant to represent a covert organization that is in true control? I would say so. I’m sure anyone who’s had even a minor interest in politics has heard the proclamation that bipartisan politics are influenced by large corporations, or even a secret society. Many say that these people often practice rituals of sorts. This is not unlike the actions of a conventional wizard, so it’s clear that the Wizard is the true villain of Glover. He has no values, and controls both sides of a bipartisan system, only seeking ‘justice’ when one party is no longer in his control.

It's clear that Glover is a tragedy. Two gloves were manipulated by an evil wizard, but one of them gains power and can actually fight for what he believes in. He even recruits his friends, one of which is another misunderstood being, Frankenstein. Glover, believing that he needs to keep order in the world, destroys his friend. It’s an incredible tale that says so much about life and our world. Maybe one could argue that this game isn’t perfect. That’s true, I don’t believe that perfection can be achieved by humanity, but maybe we can achieve something else: Originality. When I consider many of my favorite works of art, Wario Land 4, Hypnospace Outlaw, Watchmen, Baki Hanma, American Psycho, Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, and so on, I don’t just love them for their lack of flaws, but because they showed my something new.

I can already see it. Several millions of years from now, when humanity has perished or fled the Earth, somehow a new species will arrive, whether it be from the ground or the skies. In the ruins of the world, Glover will survive because of the excess of cartridges. Somehow, these creatures will find a way to play it. They may not understand the sociopolitical commentary, they wouldn’t know what gloves are, let alone hands. But they will learn of those things. Isn’t that the best thing art can do? Is that not the essence of life, to learn? I learned so much from this game. It taught me the beauty of life. In the end, I gotta love the Glove.

There’s just one issue.
…
Chapter 4: How Piko Interactive is Corrupting this Seminal Masterpiece

If you only wanted to hear my thoughts on Glover, you can leave. Certainly, I’ve kept you for long enough already. These next sections are talking about the current state of Glover.

To talk about Glover in the modern day, I must introduce Piko Interactive. Piko Interactive is known for buying the rights to old games and reselling them. I’m not going to say they’re pure evil. They’ve done some cool stuff, such as releasing 40 Winks for the N64, which is an entirely different story, but then they bought Glover. Now, if I haven’t made it clear, I like Glover so I’d hope that the rights holders would treat the property with respect. Unfortunately, Piko made their intentions clear when they started taking down ROMs of Glover.

Now, Piko had announced a re-release of Glover at this point, but it wasn’t actually available to buy. Therefore, aside from roms, you had one option to play Glover: Buy the game for one of its original platforms, preferably Nintendo 64. This decision benefits no one. At this point, Piko was not selling Glover, so any emulation wouldn’t take away from potential sales. Trying to cope with how poorly this masterpiece was being handled, I lied to myself. “Delta, you must calm down. Surely you know, Piko is simply trying to make good on an investment. They will release a great port of Glover to Steam and other storefronts, and the emulation won’t even be necessary.” My lie failed to account for many points, but I wanted to believe Piko cared about Glover, and so I did. However, I couldn’t continue lying to myself when the game was actually released.

If you recall earlier, I stated that I bought my first copy of Glover for only about $15 USD. That’s a good deal for a physical N64 game, but most games from that console generation go for a maximum of $10 on digital storefronts nowadays. The best example is Nintendo’s Virtual Console on the Wii and Wii U, which sold N64 games for only $10, and that was several years ago. Let’s look at other examples of games from that generation on digital stores. We’ll only look at ports/emulation. Quake 1 and 2 are $10, and Quake 3 rides the line at $15. Doom 64 is only $5. Final Fantasy VII is $12. Certainly, it makes sense that a digital rerelease of a game from the past would cost less than a physical version of pretty much any game from that generation.

How about Glover? How much did its re-release cost?

$20.

Yes, the game was released for more money than it cost me to get a physical copy in 2021. I can’t think of many games that were released pre 7th Generation where a re-release costed more than just buying a physical copy. You may say, “But Delta, surely you understand that game prices have gone up since 2021. Don’t rely on outdated data.”

I say, “That is true. However, dear reader, I bought ANOTHER copy of Glover only four months ago. It was only $16.”

You may say, “Delta, you said earlier that you were studying Mathematics, and by extension, at least some level of statistics. Surely you know that only two samples is not reliable data for a population mean. You will need a far greater sample space. I will only accept a population mean value range around or below $20 if the confidence interval is with 95% certainty minimum.”
…
I WENT ON EBAY, SELECTED 50 RANDOM USED COPIES OF GLOVER FOR NINTENDO 64, TOOK THEIR PRICE AND FOUND THAT WITH 95% CONFIDENCE, THE POPULATION MEAN WAS BETWEEN $18.18 AND $21.65. THE MEAN OF THE SAMPLE WAS $19.92, SEVEN CENTS LESS THAN BUYING GLOVER ON STEAM. I WIN, PIKO INTERACTIVE!!! I WIN!!!

(I very well could’ve made a mistake, so if you want to check my work, add me on Discord at ‘cesargarlandouroboros’, and I’ll send you my work. Also, anything I say about Piko is satire.)

But I’m willing to cut Piko a break. They included both the N64 and PSX versions of the game. Yes, the PSX version is far inferior, but you are still technically getting two games. Also, I’m sure at least one of those copies of Glover is a dud. At least, when you buy the Steam port, you know it will work as intended.
.
.
.
…Not really though, because the Steam Port kinda sucks.

How? How did they mess this up? Even Nintendo, who is rightly criticized when it comes to their retro re-releases, usually deliver a fine level of quality when they do re-release a game. For some reason though, this port is a mess! To give Piko credit, they fixed an infamous bug that would delete saves and upped the draw distance (As we’ve gone over the draw distance is important, but I understand why Piko would think it’s an issue and appreciate the effort). However, there’s plenty of issues as well! The game still only runs at 20fps! When it first released, you couldn’t even exit the game without control f-4. When someone complained about this, Piko made fun of the person! There’s tons of other issues that I’m not going to get into, some of which have been fixed, but I think you get the point (If you want a look at some issues at launch, this is a good video) (VI). Piko released a sub-par version of a game for more money than it costs to get physically and removed ROMs of the game meaning that most people wanting to play Glover will buy their middling port and not see it for the masterpiece it truly is. This is quite possibly one of the worst things that could happen to Glover.

Piko Interactive has done a few other things with Glover, such as extremely expensive physical re-releases, but I’m not too concerned about that. Sure, $60 is a lot for a cartridge you can likely get for $18.18 – $21.65, but they do infamously cost a lot to produce, and I guess it is a collector’s item at the end of the day.

However, just like the previous time company interference ruined Glover, there is a silver lining here.
…
Chapter 5: Glover 2

Do you remember when I mentioned 40 Winks, the unreleased N64 game Piko gave an official release? Well, Piko has expressed interest in finishing Glover 2 and releasing it. Now, Piko already kind of goofed with a game that’s already finished, so I’m sure they could do way more damage when it comes to finishing a game, but we’ll see. It would still be really cool if they did it. But please, Piko, if you do end up finishing Glover 2, don’t remove the beta version available right now.
…
Chapter 6: Afterword

If you read the entire review, thanks. I don’t plan to make many reviews in this style, but I thought it would be interesting to do at least one, and maybe I’ll do something else like this one day.

Ever since I played Glover I had an inexplicable adoration for it. Even on this website, you can likely find many examples of me proclaiming my love. When I started this review, I planned to say “Yeah, my love is ironic, the game is mid.” However, as I wrote this review, I began to realize that I do really love this game. There’s no other game I’d go to such efforts to make a review of. Even replaying for this review, while the game does have some obvious rough patches, I still had a lot of fun with it. As such, I decided it was time to put Glover on the throne of my favorites list. Truly, I have lost all credibility.

Anyway, check out Glover. I’m sure you can find a ROM of the N64 version somewhere.
…
References:
(I): https://www.vgchartz.com/game/864/glover/?region=All

(II): https://www.pricecharting.com/game/nintendo-64/glover

(III): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OQzAMDQjGA
Game has three composers (Rob Lord, Paul Weir, Mark Bandola) and I couldn’t find out who composed this specific track :( .

(IV): https://historydaily.org/why-does-left-mean-wrong/8

(V): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EsdyYg8RT0 ‘XP: Glover (N64 Vs. PC Vs. PS1) |
Is It Any Good?’ ExoParadigmGamer. June 28, 2019.

(VI): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYVj3fMuoGY
‘Glover’s PC Port in 2022’. ThumbsUpMaster. May 2, 2022.

Suggested by @AlphaOne2 for this list.

Admittedly, I was a bit concerned in the earlier hours of Dusk. I was enjoying the game, but it would’ve been hard to say much about the early game aside from “It’s like Quake.” That’s just not an interesting review. However, some divergences started about halfway through the first episode, and it improved from there, although it still stuck fairly close to Quake.

First, let’s take a look at the arsenal. The shotgun, super shotgun, riveter, and mortar are pretty much identical to four of the guns from Quake. I’m not gonna fault the game for having a shotgun (Especially when I can dual-wield them), as that’s in pretty much every shooter, but I would’ve appreciated some alterations from the other three guns’ Quake counterparts. Looking at the rest of our loadout, we have a pistol (Which can also be dual-wielded), an assault rifle, a sniper rifle, and a crossbow. Most of these are pretty by-the-books, but I do think the crossbow is rather unique and fun to use. It’s a fairly powerful weapon that passes through enemies, allowing for multiple kills at once if you can line enemies up. However, it also has a bit of kickback, which can be used to gain extra heights from jumps, meaning you can make a few skips if you’re willing to sacrifice a bit of ammo. This is a pretty cool alternative function. Overall, the guns are fairly fun to use, but I wish they were a little more original.

Although, I guess the game also lets you just pick up random stuff and throw it at enemies. I think the best comparison is something like in Half-Life 2 with the gravity gun. You know, you can use objects as a projectile or shield. However, throwing stuff is just… really strong. Why does the barrel do more damage than a shotgun? I dunno, but at the very least it led to me trying to use whatever items I could find. It certainly had an impact on gameplay, but I wish they pushed this a little more. Most items just do the same thing, aside from explosive barrels, which, well, explode, and crystals that cause enemies to attack each other. Throwing barrels and rocks can be fun in moderation, but it’s not particularly gripping gameplay in large chunks. It’s also worth noting that some of the more creative uses of items in Half-Life 2 (Carrying health items, building bridges to advance, etc…) aren’t here in philosophy or in form, likely because they would be a little harder to integrate into a boomer shooter’s level design without making significant changes. Maybe that’s for the better since that kind of stuff would slow down gameplay, but a little more variety of objects and maybe a weapon specialized to object interaction could’ve been great without sacrificing speed.

Even disregarding the previous paragraph, the map design was probably the biggest issue for me in the opening hours. It’s initially very flat, and I mean that literally. Most shootouts would take place in either a cramped building or a flat plain, so verticality wasn’t taken advantage of at all. As the game goes on, the level design becomes far more interesting. The fans that shoot you up into the air were a fun addition that keep things quick, wide-open arenas have many layers but aren’t a hassle to traverse, and levels will usually wrap around themselves to reduce excess backtracking. Later on, even more unique level design elements are introduced, and the game has a greater sense of variety without sacrificing the core appeal of ”HUGGH”-ing everywhere and shooting. The level design pretty much always fits the atmosphere; High-energy levels are wide open and play rock music, while unnerving levels are dark and cramped. The game does use the basic three keys approach that Doom and Quake use, but I really don’t think that’s an issue at all.

The enemy design is pretty good. They’re all distinct and fit the high-speed gameplay. Most enemies are aggressive, but you can always deal with them if you’re skilled enough. “Just keep moving” is the name of the game here, as is in most good boomer shooters. The best examples of this are the wendigo, grand wizard, and cart dog. You just can’t deal with these guys while still in 9 out of 10 cases, which is just how I like it. There are also bosses here. They’re mostly good, but not particularly great. Most of the boss arenas are pretty basic and the most unique one was just filled with bottomless pits, which was annoying. The final boss was the best in this regard though, as the arena is more interesting and there’s more strategy to the fight. The game also does that “The boss is a normal enemy but big!” cliché a few times (Although it also makes a boss a normal enemy but small, which I thought was funny). It’s neat that most bosses can be skipped, but I don’t think it’s a compliment to say the best thing about something is that it’s optional.

One thing I really liked here was that there is a sense of progression here between levels and episodes. You start in this rural area and fight occult enemies, but at the end of the first episode you discover that this rural town is being watched by a high-tech organization. After that, you go into an alternate dimension, where the final episode takes place. It strikes a good balance between keeping momentum in both the story and gameplay. The theming is pretty varied here, but it also feels like this variety is cohesive in how it progresses.

Before I begin wrapping this up, I want to talk briefly about difficulty. In games where you can save whenever, I always impose a limit in terms of how many times I can save. With boomer shooters, I always allow myself a single mid-level save, as well as one before bosses in most cases. There’s something to be said about how easy it is to save scum in games like this, but I never felt the desire to do this, as even at its hardest this game rarely felt cheap. I played on the normal difficulty, and while I felt that health resources were always well-balanced, I consistently had tons of ammo. Maybe it’s just because I consistently would break crates for ammo, look for secrets, and use melee when possible, but I still think there’s a lot of value in being strapped for ammo when it comes to shooters. The game leaned into this a little bit in the third chapter where you start off with very few guns, but I still think ammo should’ve been a little scarcer.

Visually, this game is certainly trying to evoke the low-poly era of games. It looks good enough, but not particularly great to be honest. I do like the creature designs, but the animations aren’t super impressive. While the lighting can be striking occasionally, it also can be jarring when an object suddenly shifts from glowing blue to glowing green. However, I really like the sound design. Not necessarily the music, although the music was good. No, it’s the sound effects that are great. I really love when you must listen in games, and Dusk is a good example. There is a visual tell for Wendigos, but the audio tell will almost always come first. Same with the Mamas, which are probably the most dangerous normal enemies. I will never hear squeaky wheels again without having a fight or flight reaction. Pretty much every dangerous enemy has a distinct sound, which I love.

Overall, it was a fun boomer shooter. It’s derivative of Quake, but there’s enough different here that there’s instances where I’d want to play Dusk instead of Quake and vice versa. The creators have hinted at the possibility of an extra episode, and considering the game improved as it went on, a new episode or sequel could be great. I know New Blood went on to publish Ultrakill though, which is another game I’m playing because of the suggestion list, so I’m looking forward to that. Anyway, Dusk a fun game, and I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys Quake or Doom. 7/10, but I could raise it to an 8.

Been playing a few N64 3D Platformers lately, and I remembered that Nitro Rad talked about this one. I decided to emulate it pay a lot of money for it on eBay, and it ended up being one of the best in the genre.

This game isn't too far removed from a game like Banjo Kazooie, as most progression is gated from tokens and tickets that you collect throughout sandbox stages. However, what really sets this game above other collectathons is that most variety is still focused in platforming, and the more puzzle-focused sections are still really fun. The titular Rocket has a very simple moveset. Initially, all you can do is move around, jump, and pick up and throw items. While your moveset expands as the game goes on, it's clear that the focus here is on two other elements. First is interaction with the environment. The game gets a lot of mileage out of the grabbing and throwing. Aside from just using items as stepping stools for getting to greater heights, some items have unique properties or need to be broken to get something else out of them. There's also the standard "Bring the thing to the thing", but that can also be fun when you remember certain moves can't be used while holding an item. All of this brings a puzzle twist to many platforming challenges, which is true among all of the unique stage gimmicks as well.

The general stage variety is great as well. It's all themed around an amusement park and most levels fit that. The first level is pretty standard, but the second is a paintball fight mixed with ancient Rome. Another is Halloween themed, with the first half being filled with candy and the second with spooky monsters. It also helps that the stages are well-designed in general. While the game is non-linear, most stages aren't necessarily a wide-open field, instead being interconnected areas. Many individual challenges will wrap around to a central location, activating something that makes any backtracking easier, and usually these conveniences persist even if you die. The only real exception is the final level, which is a linear gauntlet. While this is fun, it is a little too punishing. Unfortunately, the final level also doesn't take advantage of the other focus of the game: The vehicles.

Now, if there's two things I dislike in platformers, it's combat sections and vehicle sections. However, this game does the latter very well. Instead of being some random detour from the core gameplay, the vehicles here are something you have to earn, and you drive them in the same areas you can traverse on foot. or uh... wheel. They're also just really fun to use. Not only are they a quick way to travel, but the objectives are usually very simple and platforming-focused. It was the biggest thing I was worried about going in, but they nailed it.

This game also did something kooky. There's no bosses. Not one. Honestly? Good. Even if the final level was a bit too punishing, it stuck to the game's strengths. Not every game needs combat, much less a 3D Platformer.

I do think it's worth mentioning that one way that Banjo Kazooie trumps this one is in its characters and comedy. Gruntilda was a consistent presence in that game, and was a very effective villain. Rocket has a similar setup to Banjo all things considered, but there's not really a focus on characters or comedy at all. I was fine with that, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Overall, this is the definition of a hidden gem. One of the best 3D Platformers I've played. I know that Sucker Punch went on to make the Sly Cooper series, so I'm definitely checking those games out. I'm split between an 8 and 9, but I'll give it the benefit for now. 9/10.

I didn't review the first Chameleon Twist, but I did think it was an alright 3D Platformer. There were better 3D Platformers at the time, but it was unique and mostly fun. I was expecting this game to be more of the same, but I thought it was a much lesser experience for multiple reasons.

Let's start with the moveset. Everything from the first game returns. The jumping and running, tongue pull and twist, and the high jump. This game adds something new though, which is that you can now tongue grapple onto any surface. This is really fun to mess around with, and it's such an obvious idea I wonder why it wasn't in the first game.

So really, most of the issues are with the level design. The first was mostly very compact. Many levels took place indoors, which is pretty uncommon in the genre. It was a short and sweet game. By contrast, Chameleon Twist 2 is short and bitter. Every level takes place in some floating location in front of skyboxes that are pretty poor looking. Aside from that, the levels are a bit bigger in general. This is fine, but it means enemies are usually very easy to avoid. You can just walk past most of them, as you're rarely required to or rewarded for engaging with them. The more open levels may also attribute to an issue where the game would regularly place me at checkpoints to areas that I didn't actually reach yet. Multiple times I would barely miss a jump, but I'd be put ahead in the level when I respawn.

I'm also kind of impressed that despite how short and easy this game is, it seems to waste your time a lot. Levels often involve waiting on or for moving platforms. There's also a lot of trial-and-error sections for some reason. There's also powerups here, some of which are detrimental to you. It's completely random which one you get, and one of them makes you slower. Why?!?! Even when you're not waiting, the level design doesn't take advantage of the core mechanic nearly as well as the first game. It's fun enough, but most of it is pretty basic platforming made a little better by a pretty solid moveset.

I think the bosses are on par or even better than those of the first game. They're still pretty basic, but they can be alright.

Overall, this game sucks. It's worse than the original in nearly every way, and the one positive I had was done far better in Super Sami Roll. 4/10, closer to a 3.

It seems the surprise popularity of Pizza Tower brought a bit of attention to the Wario Land series, and by extension another upcoming Wario Land inspired game, Antonblast. However, did you know that this won’t be Anton’s first adventure? Indeed, he first showed up in Sonic Spinball for the Sega Genesis! Just kidding, he showed up in Antonball Deluxe. There’s no normal Antonball, by the by, just this deluxe version and the beautifully titled free version, Antonball Deluxe Lite.

Antonball Deluxe is basically the arcade age of Mario meets Breakout. That’s an interesting idea, but I must admit that I was deliberate in my reference to Sonic Spinball earlier. That’s another game that combines 2D platforming with ball-based arcade outings, and I think most would agree that it’s not good. Sometimes unique ideas just don’t pay off. However, Antonball Deluxe does succeed for the most part.

You have a very basic platforming moveset: A dash, jump, and high jump. You need to use these to maneuver Anton so he can knock the ball into the bricks. You can also change the direction of the ball by pressing up and down. It’s fairly simple, but as in most arcade style games, the devil is in the details. Generally, I think the level design is very good. The game starts very simple. The out zone for the ball is narrow, the platform layout is very simple, and there’s no enemies or pits. Once these new ideas are introduced, they’re done in such a way that it’s easy to immediately understand, usually being isolated in a simpler stage. Coins that give you extra points are critically placed in locations that are risky to go to. Likewise, dashing is a way to go faster, but dashing into the ball will make it go flying. If you want to finish the stage quickly for the time bonus this is good, but it can also make the ball harder to keep track of. There’s some pretty fun powerups thrown in for good measure too, most of which really do a good job at making the game more complex. The gun is the best example, as you may try to shoot a brick that will spawn a ball. The caveat is that hitting the brick with the ball makes it spawn two balls instead, so you may want to abstain from shooting the multiball brick in most cases. There’s a lot of little things here that really make the moment-to-moment decision making really fun. My biggest issue with the campaign is that sometimes the ball is just bouncing around in the brick area and you kinda just have to wait for it to come back to start playing again. Thanfully, as the game introduces more enemies and hazards, this becomes less of a problem.

Anyway, let’s look at the other stuff in the game. There’s another mode called Punchball. I admittedly didn’t finish this, but it’s basically the Mario Bros arcade game but you throw a ball to get rid of enemies instead of bonking them from below. Not as intriguing of a concept as the main game in my opinion. This is a fun enough game with its own cool ideas, but I’d rather play the normal game. This mode has just as many levels as the main game too, which I thought was odd. Why not just have 50 levels of the main draw instead of 30 for 2 individual games?

I’d talk about Vs Mode here, but I currently don’t have anyone to play with. I’ll leave a comment if that changes, but let’s go on to the characters in the meantime. Yeah, you can play as 23 different characters. I was kinda hoping that this game would do something similar to Crypt of the Necrodancer where each character is basically a really unique game mode that adds replayability and all, but they all play the same unfortunately. Some of these characters are pretty funny though. You can play as the aptly named ‘Ant on Ball’, or maybe you want to play as Anton’s dog for some reason. Among the goofy cast are a few guests, including Peppino himself. Yeah, I liked playing as him. Most of his animations are made to look like those in Pizza Tower too. There’s also Clive from Clive n’ Wrench, which is a game. I was kinda expecting Voodoo Vince to show up too, but unfortunately he didn’t. I thought all of the characters were neat, but some way to differentiate them from each other could’ve been nice.

Overall, this was a really good game I could see myself coming back to a lot. My biggest fear with Antonblast is that it will be too derivative of Wario Land, but if there’s as much creativity on display in that game as there is in this one, I don’t think that’ll be an issue. 7/10, close to an 8.