GuiltClause
2002
逆裁1はそんなによかったのに、今回はどうして？
ユーモアは確かにある。最初の編はすごいと思う。そこから急降下…
狩魔冥はだるいキャラだ。御剣に比べなくていられなく、冥の方には個人性ゼロ。
ケースを解けたら物語はすごい楽しいが、ケースを解くのは不可能と近い。攻略を使って、正解な答えをわかっても納得できず「この証拠をこの時点で突きつけても意味はなんだろ」とよく思う。逆裁2は多くの場合、自分のルールを構わず、間抜けた命令をプレイヤーにだす。ある尋問、同じ揺さぶりを何度も繰り返したら出てくるセリフが勝手に変わってしまい、ストーリーが進む。理屈パズルゲームがヒントなしでこのような直感に反した解き方を期待するのが許せない。
Shu Takumi's name is spelled "Skill Boat."
ユーモアは確かにある。最初の編はすごいと思う。そこから急降下…
狩魔冥はだるいキャラだ。御剣に比べなくていられなく、冥の方には個人性ゼロ。
ケースを解けたら物語はすごい楽しいが、ケースを解くのは不可能と近い。攻略を使って、正解な答えをわかっても納得できず「この証拠をこの時点で突きつけても意味はなんだろ」とよく思う。逆裁2は多くの場合、自分のルールを構わず、間抜けた命令をプレイヤーにだす。ある尋問、同じ揺さぶりを何度も繰り返したら出てくるセリフが勝手に変わってしまい、ストーリーが進む。理屈パズルゲームがヒントなしでこのような直感に反した解き方を期待するのが許せない。
Shu Takumi's name is spelled "Skill Boat."
2021
This review contains spoilers
Samus controls fluidly, the game flows quickly, the environment changes constantly to limit the enormous maze of ZDR down to mostly manageable chunks, refill stations are frequent enough to eliminate all need for grinding, enemies are appropriately punishing and bosses are fast and tough.
All of Samus' animations in and out of cutscenes are insanely satisfying.
EMMI sections are very effective at reversing Samus' unstoppable momentum and forcing you into a survival oriented mindset, which at first is a very fun change of pace but as the game progresses this becomes flat out frustrating. The margin for error is necessarily thin, but needing to spend so much time tracking through EMMI zones is not satisfying. Thematically it feels like a mostly pointless reimagining of the SA-X: yes, the EMMI are better executed, but this hunter has been hunted before, for the same reason even.
Burenia is a beautiful zone with fantastic music and atmosphere. Ghavoran is visually memorable. Artaria's music is unique. The rest of ZDR is unfortunately very forgettable.
Adam turning heel for the second time in a row is a really weak plot twist, and it's even worse this time since the "all of your successes were actually my plan all along" thing is very last minute and never foreshadowed this time. The final scene of the X parasites saving Samus also falls totally flat and comes across as cheap strangeness for the sake of intrigue rather than any kind of considered plot point. It's as if Metroid villains need to always have some kind of mysterious emotional side now just because the ending of Super was so memorable. It didn't work in Fusion, so they really shouldn't have tried it again here.
Teleporters and strangely placed elevators make separation between zones feel extremely arbitrary as if the machines were primarily solutions to technical limitations or just attempts to make the map harder to understand. Not the game world, the map. I wonder if the game would be more enjoyable with no teleporters.
It's extremely clear that Mercury Steam's first priorities were to create satisfying gameplay that marries Fusion's storytelling ability with a huge expansion on Super's exploration, and to make Samus feel like a badass. They are wildly successful on this front and I don't think anyone will disagree. Dread's artwork is also very high quality. It's a shame that everything else falls flat, particularly the storyline. Metroid 1's story was cut and dry like a typical 80's sci fi game, Metroid 2's twist was subversive and casted doubt on our actions up to that point, Super's twist tosses morality into the mix with a surprisingly emotional scene, Fusion fully explores Samus' change from a ruthless killing machine to something more reserved and empathetic in an extremely interesting role reversal and confirms our doubts about the authority she's been working under up to this point, and Dread... shows us a few Chozo? Gives us Doom Slayer Samus? What was the goal for the story? The reveal that she's "a Metroid" is only exciting for its mechanical implications of a new superpower, because in all other regards she's been a Metroid for 20 years. Why is she working for the Federation again after they directly backstabbed her and proved that they're just as dangerous as the space pirates? What are we supposed to take away from this, the fact that the Chozo are morally questionable? We've been pretty sure about that since we found out that the Metroids were created by them, so like... Is this just what they thought would be a worthy capstone to the story of Metroids? C'mon, guys, this is not even as interesting as Prime 1's plot.
The final moments absolutely stray into Dragon Ball Z fanfic territoy. But for as showy and shallow and ridiculous as it is, seeing Samus finally let out the violence is extremely gratifying.
All of Samus' animations in and out of cutscenes are insanely satisfying.
EMMI sections are very effective at reversing Samus' unstoppable momentum and forcing you into a survival oriented mindset, which at first is a very fun change of pace but as the game progresses this becomes flat out frustrating. The margin for error is necessarily thin, but needing to spend so much time tracking through EMMI zones is not satisfying. Thematically it feels like a mostly pointless reimagining of the SA-X: yes, the EMMI are better executed, but this hunter has been hunted before, for the same reason even.
Burenia is a beautiful zone with fantastic music and atmosphere. Ghavoran is visually memorable. Artaria's music is unique. The rest of ZDR is unfortunately very forgettable.
Adam turning heel for the second time in a row is a really weak plot twist, and it's even worse this time since the "all of your successes were actually my plan all along" thing is very last minute and never foreshadowed this time. The final scene of the X parasites saving Samus also falls totally flat and comes across as cheap strangeness for the sake of intrigue rather than any kind of considered plot point. It's as if Metroid villains need to always have some kind of mysterious emotional side now just because the ending of Super was so memorable. It didn't work in Fusion, so they really shouldn't have tried it again here.
Teleporters and strangely placed elevators make separation between zones feel extremely arbitrary as if the machines were primarily solutions to technical limitations or just attempts to make the map harder to understand. Not the game world, the map. I wonder if the game would be more enjoyable with no teleporters.
It's extremely clear that Mercury Steam's first priorities were to create satisfying gameplay that marries Fusion's storytelling ability with a huge expansion on Super's exploration, and to make Samus feel like a badass. They are wildly successful on this front and I don't think anyone will disagree. Dread's artwork is also very high quality. It's a shame that everything else falls flat, particularly the storyline. Metroid 1's story was cut and dry like a typical 80's sci fi game, Metroid 2's twist was subversive and casted doubt on our actions up to that point, Super's twist tosses morality into the mix with a surprisingly emotional scene, Fusion fully explores Samus' change from a ruthless killing machine to something more reserved and empathetic in an extremely interesting role reversal and confirms our doubts about the authority she's been working under up to this point, and Dread... shows us a few Chozo? Gives us Doom Slayer Samus? What was the goal for the story? The reveal that she's "a Metroid" is only exciting for its mechanical implications of a new superpower, because in all other regards she's been a Metroid for 20 years. Why is she working for the Federation again after they directly backstabbed her and proved that they're just as dangerous as the space pirates? What are we supposed to take away from this, the fact that the Chozo are morally questionable? We've been pretty sure about that since we found out that the Metroids were created by them, so like... Is this just what they thought would be a worthy capstone to the story of Metroids? C'mon, guys, this is not even as interesting as Prime 1's plot.
The final moments absolutely stray into Dragon Ball Z fanfic territoy. But for as showy and shallow and ridiculous as it is, seeing Samus finally let out the violence is extremely gratifying.
1992
What was that?
Just a bunch of Cute Little Guys? That's it?
Just a bunch of Cute Little Guys? That's it?
I think every time a weird idea was forced into a Sonic game it's because Naka wanted to make this game instead and just couldn't.
Homing attack? Check.
Gun? Check.
Awkward interspecies love triangle? Check.
Also feels like the story is partially inspired by MegaMan or MegaMan X.
It's a shame that Naka got screwed over so badly by the Japanese and English publishers and the game didn't even turn out that good anyways. It's colorful, it's cute, the gameplay is pretty unique, the world design is a good fit, but as much as the game wants to be replayed for score runs, time runs, and exploration runs, it doesn't really play fair on any of those three points. You never really get a sense for which islands exist beyond the playing area and which ones might have hidden medals. The puzzle worlds are frequently set up in such a way that you can lock yourself out of progressing before you even know that that's possible, and a few of the enemies (spike spinners, ring shields, and especially the ring lasers) feel like casinos rather than honest challenges.
The concept of flying to whatever point you can click on seems pretty great, but sooner or later you'll end up so close to an object that you can't see anything else to click on. You'd better hope that you can tank a hit at that point, cause there's nothing for you to do but fall and pray. Also for some reason the cursor is affected by the depth-of-field shader so aiming at distant objects makes it blurry. In 480p widescreen, the Wii chugs down to single-digit framerates on the second bombing mission where many of the worst enemy in the game are waiting to cheapshot you.
Also wish I could plug in a nunchuk and use that to control the camera so that looking to the left and flying to the right was easier.
Played in Japanese, really enjoyed most of the banter during gameplay. Rodea's VA is Gojou Satoru from Jujutsu Kaisen, and Ion is Tut-turuuu from Steins;Gate.
Homing attack? Check.
Gun? Check.
Awkward interspecies love triangle? Check.
Also feels like the story is partially inspired by MegaMan or MegaMan X.
It's a shame that Naka got screwed over so badly by the Japanese and English publishers and the game didn't even turn out that good anyways. It's colorful, it's cute, the gameplay is pretty unique, the world design is a good fit, but as much as the game wants to be replayed for score runs, time runs, and exploration runs, it doesn't really play fair on any of those three points. You never really get a sense for which islands exist beyond the playing area and which ones might have hidden medals. The puzzle worlds are frequently set up in such a way that you can lock yourself out of progressing before you even know that that's possible, and a few of the enemies (spike spinners, ring shields, and especially the ring lasers) feel like casinos rather than honest challenges.
The concept of flying to whatever point you can click on seems pretty great, but sooner or later you'll end up so close to an object that you can't see anything else to click on. You'd better hope that you can tank a hit at that point, cause there's nothing for you to do but fall and pray. Also for some reason the cursor is affected by the depth-of-field shader so aiming at distant objects makes it blurry. In 480p widescreen, the Wii chugs down to single-digit framerates on the second bombing mission where many of the worst enemy in the game are waiting to cheapshot you.
Also wish I could plug in a nunchuk and use that to control the camera so that looking to the left and flying to the right was easier.
Played in Japanese, really enjoyed most of the banter during gameplay. Rodea's VA is Gojou Satoru from Jujutsu Kaisen, and Ion is Tut-turuuu from Steins;Gate.
2007
Surprisingly engaging and self-serious narrative. Why though?
The original character and enemy designs are all very consistent with each other and the backgrounds, and not at all with the Mario characters. It feels like Intelligent Systems wanted to make an entirely different game and ended up tossing Mario and the gang in at the last second.
Actually playing this game is a total chore. I'm fine with moving away from the proven Paper Mario formula as long as we're moving towards something that's fun, but this is not a satisfying platformer. I think IS knows this, too, because as the game progresses it gets farther and farther away from platforming and instead goes to puzzles, which are all based more on tedium than reasoning or anything. Haha, Peach is asleep and you need to feed her a fruit but not that one! Oh, not that one either hahah silly you! I'd be in the mood to be the butt of a joke if you guys stopped reusing the punchline or at least got it over with faster.
And the tedium, dude. Why do the animations for changing characters, changing fairies, using most fairy powers, changing dimensions, and walking through doors take SO long. And why are enemies allowed to reposition during cutscenes and cheapshot me before I get control to dodge them. Only for the most fleeting moments did I catch the sense of wonder that the environments in PM64 or TTYD always gave me, probably because there were only fleeting moments that the camera was pointed at the game's flat and boring level geometry at an interesting angle.
Also what is up with the mouse cursor motif? Is there some kind of digital theme happening here? Is that why the backgrounds are mostly rectangular or abstract? Is that why all the music sounds really compressed? What am I supposed to take away from this?
After being thrilled with TTYD, I've been holding out hope that there was three good Paper Mario games, but it looks like we're up to two and a half tops. There's great moments here but it's such a slog to get to them.
The original character and enemy designs are all very consistent with each other and the backgrounds, and not at all with the Mario characters. It feels like Intelligent Systems wanted to make an entirely different game and ended up tossing Mario and the gang in at the last second.
Actually playing this game is a total chore. I'm fine with moving away from the proven Paper Mario formula as long as we're moving towards something that's fun, but this is not a satisfying platformer. I think IS knows this, too, because as the game progresses it gets farther and farther away from platforming and instead goes to puzzles, which are all based more on tedium than reasoning or anything. Haha, Peach is asleep and you need to feed her a fruit but not that one! Oh, not that one either hahah silly you! I'd be in the mood to be the butt of a joke if you guys stopped reusing the punchline or at least got it over with faster.
And the tedium, dude. Why do the animations for changing characters, changing fairies, using most fairy powers, changing dimensions, and walking through doors take SO long. And why are enemies allowed to reposition during cutscenes and cheapshot me before I get control to dodge them. Only for the most fleeting moments did I catch the sense of wonder that the environments in PM64 or TTYD always gave me, probably because there were only fleeting moments that the camera was pointed at the game's flat and boring level geometry at an interesting angle.
Also what is up with the mouse cursor motif? Is there some kind of digital theme happening here? Is that why the backgrounds are mostly rectangular or abstract? Is that why all the music sounds really compressed? What am I supposed to take away from this?
After being thrilled with TTYD, I've been holding out hope that there was three good Paper Mario games, but it looks like we're up to two and a half tops. There's great moments here but it's such a slog to get to them.
2009
Play the American release, it has some colors. For some reason the Japanese version is completely sepia, no color at all.
How is the audio bitrate is so low? If I heard someone playing this in the other room I'd genuinely think they were playing a Flash game. Were they aiming for a WiiWare release, and switched to disc too late in the development process to remaster the music? Is this just another case of Yuji Naka's Wii projects getting screwed over by publishers?
I didn't expect to fall in love with a physics-focused, Power-the-Animal-titled Yuji Naka platformer but here I am. This is an amazingly simple concept that is executed as well as it possibly can be. Well, outside of the incredibly bad audio quality and the very boring sepia blocks that make up all of every level.
You might play the first few chapters and see your extra life count hit double digits and think to yourself "man, this game has no teeth." Don't worry. Around chapter 8 or so it will bite your dick off.
Too bad Naka is a convicted felon, now. His best mascot platformer needs to be rereleased with a CD-Audio quality soundtrack. And maybe a few more tiles in the tileset.
How is the audio bitrate is so low? If I heard someone playing this in the other room I'd genuinely think they were playing a Flash game. Were they aiming for a WiiWare release, and switched to disc too late in the development process to remaster the music? Is this just another case of Yuji Naka's Wii projects getting screwed over by publishers?
I didn't expect to fall in love with a physics-focused, Power-the-Animal-titled Yuji Naka platformer but here I am. This is an amazingly simple concept that is executed as well as it possibly can be. Well, outside of the incredibly bad audio quality and the very boring sepia blocks that make up all of every level.
You might play the first few chapters and see your extra life count hit double digits and think to yourself "man, this game has no teeth." Don't worry. Around chapter 8 or so it will bite your dick off.
Too bad Naka is a convicted felon, now. His best mascot platformer needs to be rereleased with a CD-Audio quality soundtrack. And maybe a few more tiles in the tileset.
1983
Best minigame in DK64 of all time.
1998
I really liked those gloves though.
Mini game island is also an abstract, good vibe.
Mini game island is also an abstract, good vibe.
2015
3DS feels like the little console that could, and I so desperately wanted more fully 3D games with a third person free camera like OoT and Kid Icarusy Uprising and MH4U that I actually bought this on the eShop back in the day just on the off chance that it would thrill me. I was not expecting much, but I was still disappointed.
But, uh, even though it's bland, it sure looks nice most of the time.
But, uh, even though it's bland, it sure looks nice most of the time.
memes
Metroidvania format with expanded 3D Zelda combat and very punishing. I like shields.
Metroidvania format with expanded 3D Zelda combat and very punishing. I like shields.
2007
Full of awkward silences and more awkward randomized quips. Has cute moments here and there, huge slog to get to them though.
2003
I held forward and tapped Raphael B a lot. Setting and character design captures my imagination, game is easy enough for any of your friends to beat you pretty quickly.
This is like one of those made up games that you see a guy playing in a TV drama. People who have never played video games before imagine that video games are this game.
Got this along with my Wii at launch. It would set the tone for my opinion on the Wii in general. The characters are all so generic that I'm not sure whether they even had names, the monsters are time honored classics like Armored Pig Man and Spider, the songs are unforgettably lacking in identity. Almost every enemy has exactly enough health for you to finish them off with a satisfying three hit combo, which is not satisfying because the motion controls rarely work. Within the first fifteen minutes of the game you get a bizarrely overpowered attack that can wipe out around ten monsters at once, so they immediately start compensating for that by dropping upwards of ten monsters at a time on you. The AI seems to make no considerations like "can the player see me right now" or "if I attack right now will it turn into a stunlock gangbang" so if you don't have the resources to use your super attack then all engagements start with you getting stunlocked by something off screen and end with a gangbang. You would be an idiot not to just run past all the enemies that you're not forced to fight.
Boss fights end with QuickTime events which are pretty laughable even amongst QuickTime events. You see a button prompt and you press it and you expect there to be some kind of satisfying animation of your character being successful in some way right? But in this game, pressing the button just prevents the cutscene from ending. No guarantee that your nameless protag is going to move at all. Also swinging the Wii remote or nunchuck in a particular direction is part of the button prompts, so flip a coin for survival.
Speaking of cutscenes, most of them are the exact same animation of the protag staring at his sword while it text dumps at him. There is often no sound effects in cutscenes too, which adds to the D3 Publisher aspect of this title.
Instead of seeing Puzzle Object instantly react to Correct Technique in some satisfying way, it always just holds its place for a half second before fading to black and playing a cutscene of Puzzle Object's reaction, which makes me feel so unattached to what I'm doing that I wonder if I'm passed out behind the wheel of a Ford that's about to burst through the wall of an orphanage.
The visual effect on the surface of the water in the first few levels is eye popping gorgeous and a really poor fit for the otherwise middling art style.
This game might turn around and become super awesome after the second boss maybe, I'll never know. I'm not even looking up a longplay on this one.
Got this along with my Wii at launch. It would set the tone for my opinion on the Wii in general. The characters are all so generic that I'm not sure whether they even had names, the monsters are time honored classics like Armored Pig Man and Spider, the songs are unforgettably lacking in identity. Almost every enemy has exactly enough health for you to finish them off with a satisfying three hit combo, which is not satisfying because the motion controls rarely work. Within the first fifteen minutes of the game you get a bizarrely overpowered attack that can wipe out around ten monsters at once, so they immediately start compensating for that by dropping upwards of ten monsters at a time on you. The AI seems to make no considerations like "can the player see me right now" or "if I attack right now will it turn into a stunlock gangbang" so if you don't have the resources to use your super attack then all engagements start with you getting stunlocked by something off screen and end with a gangbang. You would be an idiot not to just run past all the enemies that you're not forced to fight.
Boss fights end with QuickTime events which are pretty laughable even amongst QuickTime events. You see a button prompt and you press it and you expect there to be some kind of satisfying animation of your character being successful in some way right? But in this game, pressing the button just prevents the cutscene from ending. No guarantee that your nameless protag is going to move at all. Also swinging the Wii remote or nunchuck in a particular direction is part of the button prompts, so flip a coin for survival.
Speaking of cutscenes, most of them are the exact same animation of the protag staring at his sword while it text dumps at him. There is often no sound effects in cutscenes too, which adds to the D3 Publisher aspect of this title.
Instead of seeing Puzzle Object instantly react to Correct Technique in some satisfying way, it always just holds its place for a half second before fading to black and playing a cutscene of Puzzle Object's reaction, which makes me feel so unattached to what I'm doing that I wonder if I'm passed out behind the wheel of a Ford that's about to burst through the wall of an orphanage.
The visual effect on the surface of the water in the first few levels is eye popping gorgeous and a really poor fit for the otherwise middling art style.
This game might turn around and become super awesome after the second boss maybe, I'll never know. I'm not even looking up a longplay on this one.
2008
I played this on release. Just like everyone else, I was hoping this would be Soul Calibur 2 but with Richter, Alucard, Maria, and Trevor. Instead I got a really bad arena fighter with Yuri Lowenthall Alucard, awkward teenage years Maria, and Trevor (fuck yeah, got one).
It's completely obvious that the people who made this game had no idea what they were doing. If you're going to make a crossover of all the main Castlevania protagonists etc, then why would you also radically overhaul the character designs? Eric in particular is wholly unrecognizable. The gameplay seems untested too: Dracula moves at like half the speed of any other character with basically no way to close the distance and no projectiles that are effective from a full stage apart, so picking him is begging to be love-tapped and timer scammed.
Also I know that "どこを見ている" is a really common thing for anime characters to say when they dodge an attack but a literal translation of that line for three characters is pretty irritating. Where are you looking? Where are you looking?
Aeon's timer-dependent special attacks are a pretty cute idea I guess.
It's completely obvious that the people who made this game had no idea what they were doing. If you're going to make a crossover of all the main Castlevania protagonists etc, then why would you also radically overhaul the character designs? Eric in particular is wholly unrecognizable. The gameplay seems untested too: Dracula moves at like half the speed of any other character with basically no way to close the distance and no projectiles that are effective from a full stage apart, so picking him is begging to be love-tapped and timer scammed.
Also I know that "どこを見ている" is a really common thing for anime characters to say when they dodge an attack but a literal translation of that line for three characters is pretty irritating. Where are you looking? Where are you looking?
Aeon's timer-dependent special attacks are a pretty cute idea I guess.
It's all here: asset re-use, kickin remixes, a soaring difficulty curve, and infinite continues. All the things we want to see in a Classicvania.
The branching paths are really neat, even if they don't branch very far. Second mention to the kickass remixes, they are so good. Gets really hard at the end, but nothing I'd consider to be unfair (but stage 4's boss is shamefully tedious).
If you could backflip, this would be my favorite Classicvania.
This was the first game I played through after HDMI modding my Wii, and, um, how come this game has a bilinear filter over all of the game? But the pause menu and title screen is crispy clear? Can I turn off the bilinear filter please? What about 240p maybe? No?
Also: this game has a penchant for using really inappropriate sound effects. Dracula rereads some lines from the end of SOTN, skeletons make Ape Escape noises when they throw bones, it's pretty cute.
The branching paths are really neat, even if they don't branch very far. Second mention to the kickass remixes, they are so good. Gets really hard at the end, but nothing I'd consider to be unfair (but stage 4's boss is shamefully tedious).
If you could backflip, this would be my favorite Classicvania.
This was the first game I played through after HDMI modding my Wii, and, um, how come this game has a bilinear filter over all of the game? But the pause menu and title screen is crispy clear? Can I turn off the bilinear filter please? What about 240p maybe? No?
Also: this game has a penchant for using really inappropriate sound effects. Dracula rereads some lines from the end of SOTN, skeletons make Ape Escape noises when they throw bones, it's pretty cute.