Hresvelg
2237 reviews liked by Hresvelg
I have heard a ton of great things about the Ori games and since I needed a short game to fill some time in my backlog schedule and was recommended this one, I thought I'd give it a go. It's clear to me now that that was a mistake. While Ori and the Blind Forest was a short experience it was a very miserable and frustrating one.
Lets start out with the good, the game is drop-dead gorgeous to look at. The artstyle and world just look stunning, even with the blurrier graphics of the Switch the game just looks great. The music is also very good and matches the tone of the beautiful environments it plays in. And to give the gameplay a slight compliment, the basic metroidvania elements of getting new powers and exploring the interconnected world were fun and I never once got lost which is a huge plus for me here. And the story, though a bit lacking, is pretty sweet and has good themes.
Despite all these positives, Ori and the Blind Forest falters with its moment-to-moment gameplay and makes for an incredibly irritating experience rather than a fun one. A lot of the game's problems come from how Ori controls. Ori is incredibly light on her (at least I think it's a her) feet and moves around the world in a really loose and fluid way, the problem is the world is clearly not designed around this control style and it leads to much frustration. The game asks for precision in its platforming and that simply not something that's very easy to do with a character that's so floaty, at times it felt like I was playing Super Meat Boy only that I can tell that that's not what the developers intended it to feel like. On top of that the combat is just incredibly awful here. Because Ori is so light and fragile she can't really take a lot of hits from anything before dying, and unfortunately the enemies in this game are really good at hitting you. This wouldn't be a problem of course if you had substantial means to defend yourself, but of course, you don't. What you get is a little orb that can shoot out three light projectiles before having to take a second to recharge, meaning combat boils down to using these attacks and then dodging the attacks the enemies throw at you but since you control so lightly and there's no shield or dodge button you kinda just have to try and jump away from their attacks which I found most of the time just led to jumping straight into them instead. Now clearly combat is not supposed to be a focus here, as proven by a lack of boss fights or enemy gauntlets but at that point I just have to wonder, why make the game a metroidvania at all? Why not just refine the platforming elements (they clearly need it) and make a pretty good platformer? Was it really part of the developers' vision to make a metroidvania that has unfair and unsatisfying combat, or were they just doing it because its what all the cool games were doing? Anyways moving onto my final gripe with the gameplay, the save system is a mess. Instead of just having a button on the menu or a certain room to go to in order to save progress, Ori's way of saving progress comes from an in game ability that has it's whole meter and everything. By holding a button and using one point from the refillable energy meter, you're allowed to save your spot on any flat surface in the game (as long as it's stable and there's no enemies within eyesight that is) and if you die you will respawn back to this point. Because the game provides you with the materials to refill this energy meter often it becomes a main part of the gameplay, this allows you to save your spot before a particularly tricky set of enemy placements or platforming section to make the best of this, which in my eyes kinda confirms that they knew that both of these main aspects were not great and instead of fixing them they gave the player the equivalent of a save state button to try and remedy it. All these things add up to make a game that is truly frustrating to play and makes me forget about all the good aspects it has while I'm playing it.
I wanted to really like this game, its beautiful artstyle, spectacular music, and touching story cannot be understated, unfortunately though the same goes for its unproportionate and unfun gameplay. The problem with Ori and the Blind Forest is that I can tell there was passion behind it, it just wasn't placed into the right areas unfortunately.
Lets start out with the good, the game is drop-dead gorgeous to look at. The artstyle and world just look stunning, even with the blurrier graphics of the Switch the game just looks great. The music is also very good and matches the tone of the beautiful environments it plays in. And to give the gameplay a slight compliment, the basic metroidvania elements of getting new powers and exploring the interconnected world were fun and I never once got lost which is a huge plus for me here. And the story, though a bit lacking, is pretty sweet and has good themes.
Despite all these positives, Ori and the Blind Forest falters with its moment-to-moment gameplay and makes for an incredibly irritating experience rather than a fun one. A lot of the game's problems come from how Ori controls. Ori is incredibly light on her (at least I think it's a her) feet and moves around the world in a really loose and fluid way, the problem is the world is clearly not designed around this control style and it leads to much frustration. The game asks for precision in its platforming and that simply not something that's very easy to do with a character that's so floaty, at times it felt like I was playing Super Meat Boy only that I can tell that that's not what the developers intended it to feel like. On top of that the combat is just incredibly awful here. Because Ori is so light and fragile she can't really take a lot of hits from anything before dying, and unfortunately the enemies in this game are really good at hitting you. This wouldn't be a problem of course if you had substantial means to defend yourself, but of course, you don't. What you get is a little orb that can shoot out three light projectiles before having to take a second to recharge, meaning combat boils down to using these attacks and then dodging the attacks the enemies throw at you but since you control so lightly and there's no shield or dodge button you kinda just have to try and jump away from their attacks which I found most of the time just led to jumping straight into them instead. Now clearly combat is not supposed to be a focus here, as proven by a lack of boss fights or enemy gauntlets but at that point I just have to wonder, why make the game a metroidvania at all? Why not just refine the platforming elements (they clearly need it) and make a pretty good platformer? Was it really part of the developers' vision to make a metroidvania that has unfair and unsatisfying combat, or were they just doing it because its what all the cool games were doing? Anyways moving onto my final gripe with the gameplay, the save system is a mess. Instead of just having a button on the menu or a certain room to go to in order to save progress, Ori's way of saving progress comes from an in game ability that has it's whole meter and everything. By holding a button and using one point from the refillable energy meter, you're allowed to save your spot on any flat surface in the game (as long as it's stable and there's no enemies within eyesight that is) and if you die you will respawn back to this point. Because the game provides you with the materials to refill this energy meter often it becomes a main part of the gameplay, this allows you to save your spot before a particularly tricky set of enemy placements or platforming section to make the best of this, which in my eyes kinda confirms that they knew that both of these main aspects were not great and instead of fixing them they gave the player the equivalent of a save state button to try and remedy it. All these things add up to make a game that is truly frustrating to play and makes me forget about all the good aspects it has while I'm playing it.
I wanted to really like this game, its beautiful artstyle, spectacular music, and touching story cannot be understated, unfortunately though the same goes for its unproportionate and unfun gameplay. The problem with Ori and the Blind Forest is that I can tell there was passion behind it, it just wasn't placed into the right areas unfortunately.
Sand Land
2024
Despite how much marketing this game seemed to have such as sponsored streams by people who aren't even in the anime space, a demo, and so many ads (unless I was targeted because I frequent the DBZ side of the internet), and this being a full multimedia event with an anime, this was probably the hardest time I've ever had finding a game on release day and not because I think the game is flying off the shelves. Amazon had the order delayed to the following Monday, I couldn't find a copy and any video game carrying department store like Wal Mart or Target within a 45 minute drive and even fuckin pawngamestop didn't have copies but Stellar Blade apparently is in abundance. I ended up double dipping and grabbing a digital copy (praise be to whatever god allowed this game to be only 20GB) while the amazon order got situated because goddamn it, I was looking forward to this. I think this is one of those underproduced copy situations but it gave me time to read the manga before getting into this.
Akira Toriyama's work was one of my main gateways into anime back in the day, with DBZ's ocean dub because I'm that fucking old. His artstyle is something I will always enjoy its why I played games like Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest that to this day I think is such a standout in the genre. I'm glad another of his works is getting adapted in game form. I think his artstyle translated well in game, especially in terms of the bots (the machines you use throughout the game). That man really loved drawing vehicles and machines and it shows, especially since Sand Land's inception was because he just wanted to draw an old man with a tank which grew into something he never intended it to. Yes some characters I could see the "building blocks" and traits shared from his other work (I will always see Mr. Satan when I see that long square jaw) but his creature designs are also in full effect with giant cats with sabre teeth, dinosaurs with weird tails and prominent back and head spines, large toothed Pteranodons etc, they stand out even if the designs in game get re-used quite a bit with as much as a pallet swap and maybe one slight addition like a head piece to differentiate unless its a boss. There was also a design that was outright used in OG Dragon Ball that I was happy to see. There isn't as much to say about the style of the environments other than they look good and accurately reflect what they're named, Sand Land is very much a land of sand but I am grateful that it is not the only type of scenery available all throughout the game.
The story of the first half of the game mostly follows the manga, two demons venture out with an old man in a tank to find water, but some parts have had their order changed or elongated and there were brand new things added to what I assume more organically bridge into the second half which is entirely new. As I said in the intro, I read the manga but I did not watch the anime which I'm sure this new stuff is covered there. One of the notable new things added to the first half is the new party member, Ann. Originally it was just Rao, Beelzebub (who you play as) and Thief but she joins as the resident gearhead and a more organic style reason why the characters can get more bots because the manga was ONLY the tank. Well that is technically not true. Rao had a car but in the manga when it gets ruined it doesn't get fixed unlike in the game. I did enjoy the main group and think Ann was a great addition, though I can't say they aren't predictable as characters. Aside from a couple of the villains, the ones you spend the most of the time fighting against, I can't say I share the same feelings towards. They are just as basic, not that its a bad thing but it leads to some disengaging of interest in the narrative when I can predict every single plot beat introduced in the post manga content. I'm not saying I was expecting some Yoko Taro or Kojima level narrative and Sand land's is by no means bad, it just didn't do enough to make the predictability engaging. What you think is going to happen after reading the synopsis, is more than likely what will happen. The voice acting is hit or miss with I think Rao having the worst of it which is bad because he is one of the main characters with more of the important lines. I feel like they were going for the "battle hardened, tired old man has seen some shit" route but he is mostly so monotone it comes off as disinterested and doesn't match the character's emotion that is portrayed by the model's animations a lot of the time. Most other named characters were either good or fine but outside of the actual cutscenes, the stilted line reading that is common in this style of game makes even VA's like Kira Buckland (Ann's VA) unable to reach the levels we know they can. The dialogue that occurred during traversal also repeated a lot, and I mean A LOT. The dialogue updates after story beats but I heard the same line of dialogue three times on average when exploring ruins or doing story based dungeons. Its not as if they're allergic to dead air because there's plenty of times without it but other times they talk like its some first party sony game giving you a hint every 10 seconds. "We could get up here, if we had a bot that could jump" Beelzebub says as I am JUMPING IN THE JUMP BOT. This happens every time. I was also surprised that I enjoyed the music. Make no mistake you get plenty of "Desert Music" but the tracks that play specifically in the dungeons and towns at night were pretty beautiful.
So how's the gameplay then? Does it carry it if the narrative is as standard as I say? Depends. Do you like driving around? Because you will be doing A LOT of that. I would say 75% of the game was me driving a bot across the maps and doing various activities. There's grotto's to explore, hills to jump up (the game calls them hills but they're more like tall rock formations), field bosses to fight, bases to raid where some are stealth based and others are combat, ruins to explore and radio towers to fix, bounties and races. Those radio towers are not something you have to climb don't worry, and their requirement to fix might as well be non existent with how little you need and how plentiful those resources are as never once did I have to take a leave and come back to fix it and yes it does populate the map with undiscovered activities in the area. The grottos are just these small single room caves that have chests or ore deposits, maybe an enemy or two inside and sometimes need rocks destroyed to access. The hills are these tall rock formations that usually have a group of enemies you should defeat before jumping to the top and getting the treasure or ore deposits. Treasure chests have either materials or parts for the bots in them with the latter being in the large variant of chests. Ruins are generally larger than the grottos and sometimes have multiple entrances. Going through them you'll run into enemies, platforming challenges, and destructible rocks while you look for chests and ore deposits where both tend to be exclusive materials which in my case was assorted coins and old variants of metals. Unless I was just being blind, which is possible, the ruins always seemed to just...end. There wasn't really a noticeable "end point" or even a boss outside of specific mission based circumstances. It made them feel pretty limp, I'll be honest. The field bosses are differently designed but larger versions of the dinosaurs, panthers and crocs who's movesets aren't much different from their grunt counterparts. The human bosses are strictly from missions and have a lot more going for them than their animal counterparts or underlings. They are not just palette swaps with basic gear on their bots like what you find in the field, they have unique or specific optional parts for their bots to make the fights a bit more interesting such as emp mines, large missile packs or a grapple that then shoves 4 drills in you for massive damage.
If you aren't doing those then your time is spent driving around in whatever bot of your choice (until you need to swap for a specific feature one has), grabbing materials so you can upgrade your bots, finding fast travel points, shooting enemies and doing side quests whose contents aren't all that engaging outside of what worldbuilding they do and what they reward. The traversal gets a lot better once you get the first "traversal oriented bot" as early on it is pretty brutal with how slow the tank is even with boost. It was a good design choice to have the boost feature of bots be infinite outside of combat but I'd be lying if I said traversal didn't wear on me when those objectives where nowhere near the fast travel points. There is also a water mechanic. NO WAIT ITS NOT WHAT YOU THINK! It is not for thirst, its actually a heal and if your water bottle is full then its a revive should you die outside of your bot. A bot reaching 0 hp is game over though, no matter how many others you have on your person. The water can be refilled at the various water tanks around the map which is one of your discoverable fast travel point options. There were not many frame drops that I ran into while playing either. I only ever saw them when destroying rocks that blocked grottos, though this game does to the "low framerate mobs when far away" thing which never really bothered me to be honest.
Speaking of side quests, I won't call it a meta game but there's this hub you get early on called Spino. This town starts out with nothing, but as you do side quests they usually end with you telling someone "Hey, this town need people. Why don't you come on down?". This gets the town to grow and become more developed, get more facilities and upgrade said facilities so you can in turn upgrade your bots and just give people with nowhere to go a nice place to live in this harsh sandy land. It reminds me of building up colony 9 in Xenoblade Chronicles. Most side quests leading to "Come toBrazil Spino!" however is part of the reason why they aren't so engaging, the other being their standard side quests gameplay of "get this thing" or "find this person" or "kill this dinosaur" which is also not very captivating. I was doing them for what I got out it not because it was more game to play. You also gain access to a customizable room that you can decorate with furnishings you either buy, craft or find and can even put your bots in them which can also be expanded in size. I am not someone who really cares about interior design so I didn't spend much time on it and can't tell you if its good or bad. If you played Yakuza 8, its similar to the room you have on Dondoko Island.
Combat is generally pretty simple but it also tests your threat assessment abilities and if you've been keeping your bots of choice up to snuff. Generally though it boils down to driving around the encounter and taking shots at the enemy bots and using secondary weapons to pick off the foot soldiers as well as shooting down their missiles. You also need to suspend your disbelief because this game does the whole "The MCs don't kill, everyone they ever fought survived being shot by a tank cannon at point blank range and/or survived their bot exploding into a ball of fire". I'll give the game this though, you see the foot soldier enemies either have the dizzy stars or run away after to take down their hp fully (animals seems to actually die though, fuck their lives I guess) but I call bullshit on the ones in the bots. This also makes the times when the game talks about death to hit a lot more than it should which took me aback each time. Story based boss fights are different story as they have their phases the go in and out of and as you would expect, require a bit more actual ability to lead your shots than an normal encounter as they can be very mobile because yes this game asks that as well as having bullet drop for things like the tank cannon. There is also out of bot combat and Beelzebub is no slouch in that regard. He has his light and heavy attacks which as you should expect and the latter can be charged. Pressing heavy after a light will change the combo ender plus he can do ariel combos and the previous combo rules apply. My favorite was the 5 hit with the heavy ender which makes Beelzebub do that Chun Li super move, Tenshokyaku. Not only that, he can dodge cancel attacks even in the air. I LOVE DODGE CANCELING! Him along with the party have abilities they can use with Beelzebub having a meter and his party having cooldowns but otherwise your party will be fighting on their own. Rao has some moves for an old man, I gotta say.
I've brought up bots a lot so I'll get into them now. There are many different bots although there is some overlap between their unique function and those that overlap seem to have one lean more towards combat and the other traversal. If I wasn't doing every side quest as they appeared they would have been gotten in a reasonable flow. The tank is well, a tank. It is slow but has a lot of health, does fantastic damage with its main cannon and will be your bread and butter more than likely though my personal favorite is the Battle Armor and its goofy style punches. Other bots are made to jump high, traverse over unsolid ground, move items or just be a fast traversal bot among other things but can be used in battle with no issues. That doesn't sound like a lot sure but coupled with the overlap, you're coming up close to 20 different bots you can build and upgrade. Yes this does mean this is a game where you're better off engaging in every encounter if you can as not all materials can be found, some must be crafted with what you have on your person (or I guess demon). I am not someone who upgrades anything and everything, only what I use, so I never had an issue with not having materials unless they physically were not obtainable yet at that point in the game. It seems to be the game's way of limiting your power, though it feels like anything that is under your level scales to you (everything in the first Sand Land map was level 18 like I was when I went back for cleanup) while things that were set above stay that way until you out level them (I ran into level 20's when I wanted to go to a previously unexplored map section when I was level 15).
Even with knowing going in that the bots were a large part of the game, I was still surprised with just how much you could do with the upgrading and customization. Each bot has a different amount of parts they can equip and each individual part can be upgraded but using the tank as an example you can change and upgrade the primary and secondary weapons, body, suspension, engine, option (bonus feature, in the tanks case something like extra armor) and then 2 chip slots for bonuses. Each one of these will change the visuals for that part of the tank, not all are unique but there's several different looks you will see. Not only will they change physically, and stats wise, which should be a given, but after a certain point in the game you can customize the paint on your bots and depending on your bot you can have a lot of things to paint as some weapons have multiple color sections you can adjust. There are also several slots for decals with rotation and size options and you can adjust the metallic and glossy finishes on each individual parts. I gave my tank the angry face with sharp teeth look, some Pteranodon emblems and made it black and white. This does cost paint to do each time so its not free, and you can unlock more colors by doing some side quests. I did not see any way to transmog parts so those of you weirdos who put aesthetics above stats will need to either deal with being underpowered, hope you find a stronger version of that part you like or upgrade that part with materials.
This was honestly a type of game that on paper I should not have enjoyed as I am pretty staunch in my stance of "traversal is generally the worst part of large map/open world games". Until the first traversal style bot is build, going around the map was a chore and I recommend not trying to do too much exploring until you get one. Combat while simple is still engaging enough due to the customizable builds of the bots and ability to make them your own with colors and decals, along with out of bot combat being fun as well. The activities could use more variety to them with more worthwhile rewards other than materials 99% of the time but at least fast travel points are plentiful once discovered. The story is by the numbers at every turn and even with enjoying the main cast, it was really Toriyama's art that did the lifting for me which is how I felt after reading the manga. I don't know why this game was giving me such a hard time to track down but I think it was worth the effort. Rest In Peace, Akira Toriyama. I'm glad more of your work is finally getting attention.
Akira Toriyama's work was one of my main gateways into anime back in the day, with DBZ's ocean dub because I'm that fucking old. His artstyle is something I will always enjoy its why I played games like Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest that to this day I think is such a standout in the genre. I'm glad another of his works is getting adapted in game form. I think his artstyle translated well in game, especially in terms of the bots (the machines you use throughout the game). That man really loved drawing vehicles and machines and it shows, especially since Sand Land's inception was because he just wanted to draw an old man with a tank which grew into something he never intended it to. Yes some characters I could see the "building blocks" and traits shared from his other work (I will always see Mr. Satan when I see that long square jaw) but his creature designs are also in full effect with giant cats with sabre teeth, dinosaurs with weird tails and prominent back and head spines, large toothed Pteranodons etc, they stand out even if the designs in game get re-used quite a bit with as much as a pallet swap and maybe one slight addition like a head piece to differentiate unless its a boss. There was also a design that was outright used in OG Dragon Ball that I was happy to see. There isn't as much to say about the style of the environments other than they look good and accurately reflect what they're named, Sand Land is very much a land of sand but I am grateful that it is not the only type of scenery available all throughout the game.
The story of the first half of the game mostly follows the manga, two demons venture out with an old man in a tank to find water, but some parts have had their order changed or elongated and there were brand new things added to what I assume more organically bridge into the second half which is entirely new. As I said in the intro, I read the manga but I did not watch the anime which I'm sure this new stuff is covered there. One of the notable new things added to the first half is the new party member, Ann. Originally it was just Rao, Beelzebub (who you play as) and Thief but she joins as the resident gearhead and a more organic style reason why the characters can get more bots because the manga was ONLY the tank. Well that is technically not true. Rao had a car but in the manga when it gets ruined it doesn't get fixed unlike in the game. I did enjoy the main group and think Ann was a great addition, though I can't say they aren't predictable as characters. Aside from a couple of the villains, the ones you spend the most of the time fighting against, I can't say I share the same feelings towards. They are just as basic, not that its a bad thing but it leads to some disengaging of interest in the narrative when I can predict every single plot beat introduced in the post manga content. I'm not saying I was expecting some Yoko Taro or Kojima level narrative and Sand land's is by no means bad, it just didn't do enough to make the predictability engaging. What you think is going to happen after reading the synopsis, is more than likely what will happen. The voice acting is hit or miss with I think Rao having the worst of it which is bad because he is one of the main characters with more of the important lines. I feel like they were going for the "battle hardened, tired old man has seen some shit" route but he is mostly so monotone it comes off as disinterested and doesn't match the character's emotion that is portrayed by the model's animations a lot of the time. Most other named characters were either good or fine but outside of the actual cutscenes, the stilted line reading that is common in this style of game makes even VA's like Kira Buckland (Ann's VA) unable to reach the levels we know they can. The dialogue that occurred during traversal also repeated a lot, and I mean A LOT. The dialogue updates after story beats but I heard the same line of dialogue three times on average when exploring ruins or doing story based dungeons. Its not as if they're allergic to dead air because there's plenty of times without it but other times they talk like its some first party sony game giving you a hint every 10 seconds. "We could get up here, if we had a bot that could jump" Beelzebub says as I am JUMPING IN THE JUMP BOT. This happens every time. I was also surprised that I enjoyed the music. Make no mistake you get plenty of "Desert Music" but the tracks that play specifically in the dungeons and towns at night were pretty beautiful.
So how's the gameplay then? Does it carry it if the narrative is as standard as I say? Depends. Do you like driving around? Because you will be doing A LOT of that. I would say 75% of the game was me driving a bot across the maps and doing various activities. There's grotto's to explore, hills to jump up (the game calls them hills but they're more like tall rock formations), field bosses to fight, bases to raid where some are stealth based and others are combat, ruins to explore and radio towers to fix, bounties and races. Those radio towers are not something you have to climb don't worry, and their requirement to fix might as well be non existent with how little you need and how plentiful those resources are as never once did I have to take a leave and come back to fix it and yes it does populate the map with undiscovered activities in the area. The grottos are just these small single room caves that have chests or ore deposits, maybe an enemy or two inside and sometimes need rocks destroyed to access. The hills are these tall rock formations that usually have a group of enemies you should defeat before jumping to the top and getting the treasure or ore deposits. Treasure chests have either materials or parts for the bots in them with the latter being in the large variant of chests. Ruins are generally larger than the grottos and sometimes have multiple entrances. Going through them you'll run into enemies, platforming challenges, and destructible rocks while you look for chests and ore deposits where both tend to be exclusive materials which in my case was assorted coins and old variants of metals. Unless I was just being blind, which is possible, the ruins always seemed to just...end. There wasn't really a noticeable "end point" or even a boss outside of specific mission based circumstances. It made them feel pretty limp, I'll be honest. The field bosses are differently designed but larger versions of the dinosaurs, panthers and crocs who's movesets aren't much different from their grunt counterparts. The human bosses are strictly from missions and have a lot more going for them than their animal counterparts or underlings. They are not just palette swaps with basic gear on their bots like what you find in the field, they have unique or specific optional parts for their bots to make the fights a bit more interesting such as emp mines, large missile packs or a grapple that then shoves 4 drills in you for massive damage.
If you aren't doing those then your time is spent driving around in whatever bot of your choice (until you need to swap for a specific feature one has), grabbing materials so you can upgrade your bots, finding fast travel points, shooting enemies and doing side quests whose contents aren't all that engaging outside of what worldbuilding they do and what they reward. The traversal gets a lot better once you get the first "traversal oriented bot" as early on it is pretty brutal with how slow the tank is even with boost. It was a good design choice to have the boost feature of bots be infinite outside of combat but I'd be lying if I said traversal didn't wear on me when those objectives where nowhere near the fast travel points. There is also a water mechanic. NO WAIT ITS NOT WHAT YOU THINK! It is not for thirst, its actually a heal and if your water bottle is full then its a revive should you die outside of your bot. A bot reaching 0 hp is game over though, no matter how many others you have on your person. The water can be refilled at the various water tanks around the map which is one of your discoverable fast travel point options. There were not many frame drops that I ran into while playing either. I only ever saw them when destroying rocks that blocked grottos, though this game does to the "low framerate mobs when far away" thing which never really bothered me to be honest.
Speaking of side quests, I won't call it a meta game but there's this hub you get early on called Spino. This town starts out with nothing, but as you do side quests they usually end with you telling someone "Hey, this town need people. Why don't you come on down?". This gets the town to grow and become more developed, get more facilities and upgrade said facilities so you can in turn upgrade your bots and just give people with nowhere to go a nice place to live in this harsh sandy land. It reminds me of building up colony 9 in Xenoblade Chronicles. Most side quests leading to "Come to
Combat is generally pretty simple but it also tests your threat assessment abilities and if you've been keeping your bots of choice up to snuff. Generally though it boils down to driving around the encounter and taking shots at the enemy bots and using secondary weapons to pick off the foot soldiers as well as shooting down their missiles. You also need to suspend your disbelief because this game does the whole "The MCs don't kill, everyone they ever fought survived being shot by a tank cannon at point blank range and/or survived their bot exploding into a ball of fire". I'll give the game this though, you see the foot soldier enemies either have the dizzy stars or run away after to take down their hp fully (animals seems to actually die though, fuck their lives I guess) but I call bullshit on the ones in the bots. This also makes the times when the game talks about death to hit a lot more than it should which took me aback each time. Story based boss fights are different story as they have their phases the go in and out of and as you would expect, require a bit more actual ability to lead your shots than an normal encounter as they can be very mobile because yes this game asks that as well as having bullet drop for things like the tank cannon. There is also out of bot combat and Beelzebub is no slouch in that regard. He has his light and heavy attacks which as you should expect and the latter can be charged. Pressing heavy after a light will change the combo ender plus he can do ariel combos and the previous combo rules apply. My favorite was the 5 hit with the heavy ender which makes Beelzebub do that Chun Li super move, Tenshokyaku. Not only that, he can dodge cancel attacks even in the air. I LOVE DODGE CANCELING! Him along with the party have abilities they can use with Beelzebub having a meter and his party having cooldowns but otherwise your party will be fighting on their own. Rao has some moves for an old man, I gotta say.
I've brought up bots a lot so I'll get into them now. There are many different bots although there is some overlap between their unique function and those that overlap seem to have one lean more towards combat and the other traversal. If I wasn't doing every side quest as they appeared they would have been gotten in a reasonable flow. The tank is well, a tank. It is slow but has a lot of health, does fantastic damage with its main cannon and will be your bread and butter more than likely though my personal favorite is the Battle Armor and its goofy style punches. Other bots are made to jump high, traverse over unsolid ground, move items or just be a fast traversal bot among other things but can be used in battle with no issues. That doesn't sound like a lot sure but coupled with the overlap, you're coming up close to 20 different bots you can build and upgrade. Yes this does mean this is a game where you're better off engaging in every encounter if you can as not all materials can be found, some must be crafted with what you have on your person (or I guess demon). I am not someone who upgrades anything and everything, only what I use, so I never had an issue with not having materials unless they physically were not obtainable yet at that point in the game. It seems to be the game's way of limiting your power, though it feels like anything that is under your level scales to you (everything in the first Sand Land map was level 18 like I was when I went back for cleanup) while things that were set above stay that way until you out level them (I ran into level 20's when I wanted to go to a previously unexplored map section when I was level 15).
Even with knowing going in that the bots were a large part of the game, I was still surprised with just how much you could do with the upgrading and customization. Each bot has a different amount of parts they can equip and each individual part can be upgraded but using the tank as an example you can change and upgrade the primary and secondary weapons, body, suspension, engine, option (bonus feature, in the tanks case something like extra armor) and then 2 chip slots for bonuses. Each one of these will change the visuals for that part of the tank, not all are unique but there's several different looks you will see. Not only will they change physically, and stats wise, which should be a given, but after a certain point in the game you can customize the paint on your bots and depending on your bot you can have a lot of things to paint as some weapons have multiple color sections you can adjust. There are also several slots for decals with rotation and size options and you can adjust the metallic and glossy finishes on each individual parts. I gave my tank the angry face with sharp teeth look, some Pteranodon emblems and made it black and white. This does cost paint to do each time so its not free, and you can unlock more colors by doing some side quests. I did not see any way to transmog parts so those of you weirdos who put aesthetics above stats will need to either deal with being underpowered, hope you find a stronger version of that part you like or upgrade that part with materials.
This was honestly a type of game that on paper I should not have enjoyed as I am pretty staunch in my stance of "traversal is generally the worst part of large map/open world games". Until the first traversal style bot is build, going around the map was a chore and I recommend not trying to do too much exploring until you get one. Combat while simple is still engaging enough due to the customizable builds of the bots and ability to make them your own with colors and decals, along with out of bot combat being fun as well. The activities could use more variety to them with more worthwhile rewards other than materials 99% of the time but at least fast travel points are plentiful once discovered. The story is by the numbers at every turn and even with enjoying the main cast, it was really Toriyama's art that did the lifting for me which is how I felt after reading the manga. I don't know why this game was giving me such a hard time to track down but I think it was worth the effort. Rest In Peace, Akira Toriyama. I'm glad more of your work is finally getting attention.
Sonic Adventure 2
2012
Oh, Sonic Adventure 2...
At first, the shift from hub worlds to linear storytelling was a change I had to get used to - the pace of doing levels back to back feels way different from walking around Station Squareaimlessly to get to the next stage and I didn't like how it felt here. However, my stance changed about halfway through the HERO story (which I played first), and I began to appreciate the storytelling of the sequel over SA1, because you get the story (on your side atleast) told in chronological order without having to puzzle it together and you constantly switch characters, so it doesn't get boring. So on the HERO side you're already getting a full story about Sonic and his friends alone, but the villains are contextualized in the DARK story. Personally, I preferred the DARK story, it just felt like the more complete package overall and the cast is more interesting.
As for the gameplay, Adventure 2 brought some noticeable changes to the Treasure Hunt stages, put an extended focus on mech levels (which play similar to Gamma from SA1) and also changes the physics and controls a bit from the first game - nothing worse than no longer being able to overly rely on Sonic's spindash, as it's not overpowered anymore. You get used to it fast, but that was a death sentence in the first hours of playing! Concerning the Treasure Hunt stages... I'm not a fan of what they did to the radar, the beeping noise is even more obnoxious (and louder) than before and only having the shards show up in a set order is frustrating. However, sometime during Knuckles' final level it came to me that I've developed stockholm syndrome towards the Treasure Hunt gameplay and after reflecting and replaying the Knuckles stages again, I had a lot more fun with them than before. They're an acquired taste, a guilty pleasure.
You know what else is guilty of being TOO LOUD? The mech levels - just hold down the lock-on button and you'll get a free trial of tinnitus, all while you've got a full Michael Bay movie with thirteen different kinds of explosions going down in the background. Weapons Bed might actually be one of the loudest levels I have ever played in ANY game. It's not like the audio mixing was good to begin with, the volume of sound effects during regular gameplay is so comically overtuned and you might as well believe the conversations in cutscenes were recorded during a rave by how often the voices get drowned out by the music. But generally, the soundtrack of Adventure 2 really delivers. Favorite songs are Escape from the City, Live & Learn and E.G.G.M.A.N.
Not much more to say, except that I missed out on the Chao Garden in this playthrough entirely, just because I had no clue how to hatch the eggs. A shame, cause that's apparently a big aspect of the game - so I'll be sure to check it out sometime. What else, Shadow and Rogue are awesome and this game is a blast to play despite the issues. I'm considering bumping it up to five stars if the Chao part of the game turns out to be good. It's just chaotic and fun.
In which other game can you experience Tails using his special move of crashing the game twice after telling Eggman how powerful he is? I can't think of one.
At first, the shift from hub worlds to linear storytelling was a change I had to get used to - the pace of doing levels back to back feels way different from walking around Station Square
As for the gameplay, Adventure 2 brought some noticeable changes to the Treasure Hunt stages, put an extended focus on mech levels (which play similar to Gamma from SA1) and also changes the physics and controls a bit from the first game - nothing worse than no longer being able to overly rely on Sonic's spindash, as it's not overpowered anymore. You get used to it fast, but that was a death sentence in the first hours of playing! Concerning the Treasure Hunt stages... I'm not a fan of what they did to the radar, the beeping noise is even more obnoxious (and louder) than before and only having the shards show up in a set order is frustrating. However, sometime during Knuckles' final level it came to me that I've developed stockholm syndrome towards the Treasure Hunt gameplay and after reflecting and replaying the Knuckles stages again, I had a lot more fun with them than before. They're an acquired taste, a guilty pleasure.
You know what else is guilty of being TOO LOUD? The mech levels - just hold down the lock-on button and you'll get a free trial of tinnitus, all while you've got a full Michael Bay movie with thirteen different kinds of explosions going down in the background. Weapons Bed might actually be one of the loudest levels I have ever played in ANY game. It's not like the audio mixing was good to begin with, the volume of sound effects during regular gameplay is so comically overtuned and you might as well believe the conversations in cutscenes were recorded during a rave by how often the voices get drowned out by the music. But generally, the soundtrack of Adventure 2 really delivers. Favorite songs are Escape from the City, Live & Learn and E.G.G.M.A.N.
Not much more to say, except that I missed out on the Chao Garden in this playthrough entirely, just because I had no clue how to hatch the eggs. A shame, cause that's apparently a big aspect of the game - so I'll be sure to check it out sometime. What else, Shadow and Rogue are awesome and this game is a blast to play despite the issues. I'm considering bumping it up to five stars if the Chao part of the game turns out to be good. It's just chaotic and fun.
In which other game can you experience Tails using his special move of crashing the game twice after telling Eggman how powerful he is? I can't think of one.
Doom II
2019
A pretty solid doom game, I had only played a few levels on pc when I was in high school but never got to finish the entire game but I'm so glad I did it now after being able to play the other games in the series and being able to compare it. I thought the map design was strong, a little too industrial environmentally, I really prefer hell settings as opposed to city settings (just a personal preference) and I just felt like there wasn't a ton of that in here. There were a lot of "What the hell do I do?" moments in the first game and I felt like the linear design of this game really helped with that, environmentally hinting at the next steps instead of a 'figure it out' mentality. This game really loved to flock with enemies, especially map "Tricks and Traps" (Map 8) was one of the standout moments of this game, utterly terrifying and making me sweat bullets. One of the maps that I wasn't a fan of was Map 24, nothing combat-wise, just environmentally very frustrating, walking along teeny-tiny walls, trying not to fall into poison pits when you cant even look down to see where you are, I just got super annoyed after awhile and it was one of the maps I had to replay a few times because if you fall there is absolutely no way to get out in certain areas BUT this gave added quick saving (which I didn't notice until embarrassingly late) which helped a whole lot. Overall I think Doom 64 is stronger than this one but I had a great time playing it.
Cattie
2023
Looking for a cute cat, retro feel and a little bit of challenge? Then this game is for you!
Cattie is a challenging platformer game with retro pixel graphics. With each level, the difficulty steadily increases, introducing new mechanics and enemies that will put your platforming skills to the test. The game has 100 levels total, but to me that felt a little too many levels. You first play 50 levels and then you play the 50 levels in reverse for a total of 100.
It's definitely a good game, but I feel like its too long. It took me 70 hours and a little over to complete the 100 levels. The art is fun and the soundtrack is great. The cat is very cute.
I do recommend this game, just be aware that it might take longer to complete.
Cattie is a challenging platformer game with retro pixel graphics. With each level, the difficulty steadily increases, introducing new mechanics and enemies that will put your platforming skills to the test. The game has 100 levels total, but to me that felt a little too many levels. You first play 50 levels and then you play the 50 levels in reverse for a total of 100.
It's definitely a good game, but I feel like its too long. It took me 70 hours and a little over to complete the 100 levels. The art is fun and the soundtrack is great. The cat is very cute.
I do recommend this game, just be aware that it might take longer to complete.
Sonic Labyrinth
1995
Labyrinth, come in.
You beat the allegations, my boy. The worst Sonic game allegations, that is. I’m not sure how I should feel about the fact that I had a somewhat decent time playing this game. I played it as a kid and must have never made it past the 2nd stage and all I remember is it feeling SLOW and AWFUL and I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON. Which seemed to be the general consensus among players.
Believe it or not, a big motivation to make me finally throw away the money for Sonic Origins Plus was to have another go at these Game Gear games that haunted me on Mega Collection Plus as a kid, as well as the ones that weren’t included there. When I opened up the menu for them, the first thing that caught my eye was the critically acclaimed masterpiece in question, and you know what? It was alright!!! ?? Bit of a stretch maybe. It certainly was not <good> but it was by no means awful neither.
Laughable story premise aside, Sonic is actually kinda fun to control here? I’m not fucking joking. Slow as shit means spin dash encouraged, and you can go real zoomy zoomy, it’s a satisfying challenge to cancel it at the right time. As a speedrun this could be fun as heck I’m tellin’ ya, the most fun I had here were the couple times where I had just grabbed all the keys and had a small amount of time to bolt it towards the goal. I think if the game was built fully around this concept it could have found a real decent identity.
But this is Sonic LABYRINTH, and hence the levels are LABYRINTHs, with doors taking you to all sorts of places, you gotta keep track of where you’re going, kinda fun right? Like a puzzle or a maze?? NO. This actually describes the level design for about 3 of the 12 regular stages, the rest is just random pointless BS. In general it just feels aimless; questionable teleporters, pointless powerups with straight up bad placement, strange enemies that do not look like they should be in a sonic game (truthfully they do kind of fit I just think this one is really funny), and bosses that really could have been much better had someone but a just a little bit more thought into them.
That said it is mostly just aimless, and not frustrating. The only exceptions being one fuck off hidden platform in 3-3, and the general map in 4-3. I mean f*cking look at this. I understand the vision with this final level to be honest, you gave us our Sonic Labyrinth but it’s just jarring without some semblance of a difficulty curve to precede it. You went from somewhat maze-like levels, to aimless bs, to the world’s most complicated stage that feels like a puzzle in itself trying to figure out where to go even when it’s right in front of you. My mate said we should do a drinking game where we play that level without looking at the map and take a drink everytime you go through a door and I admit that sounds like the best worst time and ohohohohhh I am tempted!!
There is the matter of the true ending being a little obtuse but I forgive that because it added a slight layer of replayability with the hint given at the end. That said, it's still hilariously shallow.
The take home today is that I think the game actually has a solid foundation and controls well, it's just mostly ruined by a number of horrible design decisions that scream like the developers did not give any shits whatsoever. Therefore since it's a Sonic game with “good ideas”, it's actually 5 stars and the most underrated game ever and you guys just don't get it you don't see the vision open your mind for once…
Except it doesn’t have many good ideas, it’s just a worse Sonic 3D Blast.
(Maybe more like a prototype, since this came out first, hm!)
You beat the allegations, my boy. The worst Sonic game allegations, that is. I’m not sure how I should feel about the fact that I had a somewhat decent time playing this game. I played it as a kid and must have never made it past the 2nd stage and all I remember is it feeling SLOW and AWFUL and I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON. Which seemed to be the general consensus among players.
Believe it or not, a big motivation to make me finally throw away the money for Sonic Origins Plus was to have another go at these Game Gear games that haunted me on Mega Collection Plus as a kid, as well as the ones that weren’t included there. When I opened up the menu for them, the first thing that caught my eye was the critically acclaimed masterpiece in question, and you know what? It was alright!!! ?? Bit of a stretch maybe. It certainly was not <good> but it was by no means awful neither.
Laughable story premise aside, Sonic is actually kinda fun to control here? I’m not fucking joking. Slow as shit means spin dash encouraged, and you can go real zoomy zoomy, it’s a satisfying challenge to cancel it at the right time. As a speedrun this could be fun as heck I’m tellin’ ya, the most fun I had here were the couple times where I had just grabbed all the keys and had a small amount of time to bolt it towards the goal. I think if the game was built fully around this concept it could have found a real decent identity.
But this is Sonic LABYRINTH, and hence the levels are LABYRINTHs, with doors taking you to all sorts of places, you gotta keep track of where you’re going, kinda fun right? Like a puzzle or a maze?? NO. This actually describes the level design for about 3 of the 12 regular stages, the rest is just random pointless BS. In general it just feels aimless; questionable teleporters, pointless powerups with straight up bad placement, strange enemies that do not look like they should be in a sonic game (truthfully they do kind of fit I just think this one is really funny), and bosses that really could have been much better had someone but a just a little bit more thought into them.
That said it is mostly just aimless, and not frustrating. The only exceptions being one fuck off hidden platform in 3-3, and the general map in 4-3. I mean f*cking look at this. I understand the vision with this final level to be honest, you gave us our Sonic Labyrinth but it’s just jarring without some semblance of a difficulty curve to precede it. You went from somewhat maze-like levels, to aimless bs, to the world’s most complicated stage that feels like a puzzle in itself trying to figure out where to go even when it’s right in front of you. My mate said we should do a drinking game where we play that level without looking at the map and take a drink everytime you go through a door and I admit that sounds like the best worst time and ohohohohhh I am tempted!!
There is the matter of the true ending being a little obtuse but I forgive that because it added a slight layer of replayability with the hint given at the end. That said, it's still hilariously shallow.
The take home today is that I think the game actually has a solid foundation and controls well, it's just mostly ruined by a number of horrible design decisions that scream like the developers did not give any shits whatsoever. Therefore since it's a Sonic game with “good ideas”, it's actually 5 stars and the most underrated game ever and you guys just don't get it you don't see the vision open your mind for once…
Except it doesn’t have many good ideas, it’s just a worse Sonic 3D Blast.
(Maybe more like a prototype, since this came out first, hm!)
Ico
2012
Ico is the type of game I dread to play, critically acclaimed, landmark classic of the medium, influenced various games and designers I love. I dread playing those because of a fear I have, a fear that's come true : I don't like ICO, in fact, I think I might hate ICO. And now I will have to carry that like a millstone around my neck, "that asshole who doesn't like ICO". Its not even really that external disapproval I dread, its the very reputation that causes me to second guess my own sincerely held opinions. I thought I liked minimalism in game design, and cut-scene light storytelling and relationships explored through mechanics but I guess I don't. There's some kinda dissonance, cognitive or otherwise reading reviews by friends and writers I respect and wondering if there's something wrong with me or if I didnt get it or played it wrong or any other similar foolishness that gets bandied around in Internet discussions. "I wish we could have played the same game" I think, reading my mutuals' reviews of ICO. Not in a dismissive asshole way of accusing them of having a warped perception, but moreso in frustration that I didnt have the experience that has clearly touched them and countless others.
But enough feeling sorry for myself/being insecure, what is my problem with ICO exactly? I don't really know. Genuinely. I wasnt even planning on writing a review originally because all it would come down to as my original unfiltered reaction would be "Playing it made me miserable". Thankfully the upside of minimalism in game design is that its easier to identify which elements didnt work for me because there are few in the game. I think the people who got the most out of ICO developed some kind of emotional connection to Yorda, and thats one aspect which absolutely didn't work for me. As nakedly "gamey" and transparently artificial as Fallout New Vegas' NPCs (and Skyrim and F3 etc) locking the camera to have a dialogue tree, they read to me as infinitely more human than the more realistic Yorda; for a few reasons. Chief among them is that despite some hiccups and bugs the game is known for, you are not asked to manage them as a gameplay mechanic beyond your companions and well, my main interaction with Yorda was holding down R1 to repeatedly yell "ONG VA!" so she'd climb down the fucking ladder. She'd climb down, get halfway through and then decide this was a bad idea and ascend again.
ICO has been to me a game of all these little frustrations piling up. Due to the nature of the puzzles and platforming, failing them was aggravating and solving them first try was merely unremarkable. It makes me question again, what is the value of minimalism genuinely? There was a point at which I had to use a chain to jump across a gap and I couldnt quite make it, I thought "well, maybe theres a way to jump farther" and started pressing buttons randomly until the circle button achieved the result of letting me use momentum to swing accross. Now, if instead a non-diegetic diagram of the face buttons had shown up on the HUD instead what would have been lost? To me, very little. Sure, excessive direction can be annoying and take me out of the game, but pressing buttons randomly did the same, personally. Nor did "figuring it out for myself" feel particularly fulfilling. Thats again what I meant, victories are unremarkable and failures are frustrating. The same can be said for the combat which, honestly I liked at first. I liked how clumsy and childish the stick flailing fighting style was, but ultimately it involved hitting the enemies over and over and over and over again until they stopped spawning. Thankfully you can run away at times and rush to the exit to make the enemies blow up but the game's habit of spawning them when you're far from Yorda or maybe when she's on a different platform meant that I had to rely on her stupid pathfinding to quickly respond (which is just not going to happen, she needs like 3 business days to execute the same thing we've done 5k times already, I guess the language barrier applies to pattern recognition as well somehow) and when it inevitably failed I would have to jump down and mash square until they fucked off.
I can see the argument that this is meant to be disempowering somehow but I don't really buy it. Your strikes knock these fuckers down well enough, they just keep getting back up. Ico isnt strong, he shouldnt be able to smite these wizard of oz monkeys with a single swing, but then why can they do no damage to ICO and get knocked down flat with a couple swings? Either they are weak as hell but keep getting remotely CPRd by the antagonist or they're strong but have really poor balance. In the end, all I could really feel from ICO was being miserable. I finished the game in 5 hours but it felt twice that. All I can think of now is that Im glad its done and I can tick it off the bucket list. I am now dreading playing shadow of the colossus even harder, and I don't think I ever want to play The Last Guardian, it just looks like ICO but even more miserable. I'm sure I've outed myself as an uncultured swine who didnt get the genius of the experience and will lose all my followers but I'm too deflated to care. If there is one positive to this experience is that I kept procrastinating on finishing the game that I got back into reading. I read The Name of the Rose and Rumble Fish, pretty good reads. Im going to read Winesburg Ohio next I think.
But enough feeling sorry for myself/being insecure, what is my problem with ICO exactly? I don't really know. Genuinely. I wasnt even planning on writing a review originally because all it would come down to as my original unfiltered reaction would be "Playing it made me miserable". Thankfully the upside of minimalism in game design is that its easier to identify which elements didnt work for me because there are few in the game. I think the people who got the most out of ICO developed some kind of emotional connection to Yorda, and thats one aspect which absolutely didn't work for me. As nakedly "gamey" and transparently artificial as Fallout New Vegas' NPCs (and Skyrim and F3 etc) locking the camera to have a dialogue tree, they read to me as infinitely more human than the more realistic Yorda; for a few reasons. Chief among them is that despite some hiccups and bugs the game is known for, you are not asked to manage them as a gameplay mechanic beyond your companions and well, my main interaction with Yorda was holding down R1 to repeatedly yell "ONG VA!" so she'd climb down the fucking ladder. She'd climb down, get halfway through and then decide this was a bad idea and ascend again.
ICO has been to me a game of all these little frustrations piling up. Due to the nature of the puzzles and platforming, failing them was aggravating and solving them first try was merely unremarkable. It makes me question again, what is the value of minimalism genuinely? There was a point at which I had to use a chain to jump across a gap and I couldnt quite make it, I thought "well, maybe theres a way to jump farther" and started pressing buttons randomly until the circle button achieved the result of letting me use momentum to swing accross. Now, if instead a non-diegetic diagram of the face buttons had shown up on the HUD instead what would have been lost? To me, very little. Sure, excessive direction can be annoying and take me out of the game, but pressing buttons randomly did the same, personally. Nor did "figuring it out for myself" feel particularly fulfilling. Thats again what I meant, victories are unremarkable and failures are frustrating. The same can be said for the combat which, honestly I liked at first. I liked how clumsy and childish the stick flailing fighting style was, but ultimately it involved hitting the enemies over and over and over and over again until they stopped spawning. Thankfully you can run away at times and rush to the exit to make the enemies blow up but the game's habit of spawning them when you're far from Yorda or maybe when she's on a different platform meant that I had to rely on her stupid pathfinding to quickly respond (which is just not going to happen, she needs like 3 business days to execute the same thing we've done 5k times already, I guess the language barrier applies to pattern recognition as well somehow) and when it inevitably failed I would have to jump down and mash square until they fucked off.
I can see the argument that this is meant to be disempowering somehow but I don't really buy it. Your strikes knock these fuckers down well enough, they just keep getting back up. Ico isnt strong, he shouldnt be able to smite these wizard of oz monkeys with a single swing, but then why can they do no damage to ICO and get knocked down flat with a couple swings? Either they are weak as hell but keep getting remotely CPRd by the antagonist or they're strong but have really poor balance. In the end, all I could really feel from ICO was being miserable. I finished the game in 5 hours but it felt twice that. All I can think of now is that Im glad its done and I can tick it off the bucket list. I am now dreading playing shadow of the colossus even harder, and I don't think I ever want to play The Last Guardian, it just looks like ICO but even more miserable. I'm sure I've outed myself as an uncultured swine who didnt get the genius of the experience and will lose all my followers but I'm too deflated to care. If there is one positive to this experience is that I kept procrastinating on finishing the game that I got back into reading. I read The Name of the Rose and Rumble Fish, pretty good reads. Im going to read Winesburg Ohio next I think.
Oracle of Seasons is a remarkable game for the 2D branch of the franchise. Of the pair of games released for the GBC, the focus of this one is towards a sense of adventure at its purest, setting simple puzzles to solve, but with sections focused on challenge and discovery, making it a highly enjoyable experience.
The novelty that distinguishes this title from the rest, is that here we will travel through a land in which the seasons have gone out of control, so that it can be winter, but from one moment to another can also be spring, summer or autumn, which is not only an aesthetic change for the map, for example, in winter there can be a mountain of snow or frozen rivers, which we can take advantage of to reach places that otherwise would be impossible to reach, but in summer for example, vines grow on some cliffs which allows us to climb them. It's an idea that although not as ambitious as the parallel worlds of A Link to the Past, it's still pretty cool for making exploration more entertaining and interesting, not to mention that exploring Holodrum in different climates/states of the year has its charm. I feel this in turn is also a creative way to expose the difference it makes to have color in a game versus not having it, as in the original GB a concept like this would have been somewhat impossible to execute just having the green/gray scale.
This game takes place in the kingdom of Holodrum, where Din lives, the oracle of the seasons, but after an event is kidnapped and thus the different seasons of the year lose control, so it will be our duty to get the 8 essences of nature of the 8 temples scattered around the kingdom to rescue Din.
The temples generally present a very good and creative design, almost always being quite intuitive for the player, mostly with simple puzzles, but that are still quite entertaining and will require from your part a little ingenuity to be solved, presenting this game also some pretty cool items that have become some of my favorites, such as the magnetic gloves. I especially like the fact how in this game hearts do matter, as unlike most Zelda games, the enemies and boss battles can be a bit challenging, not that it's a difficult game, but if you get overconfident you could end up seeing the Game Over screen on more than one occasion.
Something I love is that the exploration and discovery factor of the early Zelda games is very present in this title. It pays to be curious and attentive, as many times some puzzles or secrets are revealed when we go to a place with a certain season. There are a lot of references to the first Zelda game, like some of the temples, bosses or even some caves with old people inside that have strange dialogues and sometimes can be tremendous trolls, and curiously, there are also references and inspiration from games like Mega Man, which we can notice especially in those 2D platforming type sections. If you played Mega Man X, the final boss will look familiar.
Conclusion
It's certainly a game with a very good design and pacing, it never feels boring, and the mechanics of switching between seasons made the mere fact of exploring more engaging. If you're wondering where the inspiration from the Mega Man games and the references to the first game in the franchise came from, it's because this game was made by Capcom, and started out being developed as a remake of the first title, but then evolved into a completely different game, and in retrospect, I think it was for the best, as it has become one of my favorites.
Secret 1: backloggd.com/u/M----------------
→ The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages - Review
The novelty that distinguishes this title from the rest, is that here we will travel through a land in which the seasons have gone out of control, so that it can be winter, but from one moment to another can also be spring, summer or autumn, which is not only an aesthetic change for the map, for example, in winter there can be a mountain of snow or frozen rivers, which we can take advantage of to reach places that otherwise would be impossible to reach, but in summer for example, vines grow on some cliffs which allows us to climb them. It's an idea that although not as ambitious as the parallel worlds of A Link to the Past, it's still pretty cool for making exploration more entertaining and interesting, not to mention that exploring Holodrum in different climates/states of the year has its charm. I feel this in turn is also a creative way to expose the difference it makes to have color in a game versus not having it, as in the original GB a concept like this would have been somewhat impossible to execute just having the green/gray scale.
This game takes place in the kingdom of Holodrum, where Din lives, the oracle of the seasons, but after an event is kidnapped and thus the different seasons of the year lose control, so it will be our duty to get the 8 essences of nature of the 8 temples scattered around the kingdom to rescue Din.
The temples generally present a very good and creative design, almost always being quite intuitive for the player, mostly with simple puzzles, but that are still quite entertaining and will require from your part a little ingenuity to be solved, presenting this game also some pretty cool items that have become some of my favorites, such as the magnetic gloves. I especially like the fact how in this game hearts do matter, as unlike most Zelda games, the enemies and boss battles can be a bit challenging, not that it's a difficult game, but if you get overconfident you could end up seeing the Game Over screen on more than one occasion.
Something I love is that the exploration and discovery factor of the early Zelda games is very present in this title. It pays to be curious and attentive, as many times some puzzles or secrets are revealed when we go to a place with a certain season. There are a lot of references to the first Zelda game, like some of the temples, bosses or even some caves with old people inside that have strange dialogues and sometimes can be tremendous trolls, and curiously, there are also references and inspiration from games like Mega Man, which we can notice especially in those 2D platforming type sections. If you played Mega Man X, the final boss will look familiar.
Conclusion
It's certainly a game with a very good design and pacing, it never feels boring, and the mechanics of switching between seasons made the mere fact of exploring more engaging. If you're wondering where the inspiration from the Mega Man games and the references to the first game in the franchise came from, it's because this game was made by Capcom, and started out being developed as a remake of the first title, but then evolved into a completely different game, and in retrospect, I think it was for the best, as it has become one of my favorites.
Secret 1: backloggd.com/u/M----------------
→ The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages - Review
Back in my original review, I think I sold Wrath of the Lamb a little short. I had called it one of the most unfun, bullshit things I had ever played coming from Edmund McMillen. But, there was one, small. Perhaps a tiny issue. Maybe with skill? Hell if I know...
Wrath of the Lamb is where The Binding of Isaac truly began, adding all types of new shit into the game. From bosses, to items, and even modes, Wrath of the Lamb is one of the most influential expansions to Isaac as a whole, and solidified the game as a masterpiece. Did 2011 simply not have enough content for you? Well, it's Wrath of the Lamb now, bitches!
This is where the alternate floors come into play, and the greater enemy variety is more apparent here than ever. I didn’t notice how limited 2011’s enemies were until I installed Wrath of the Lamb, because holy shit. This is way bigger! And the bosses? Far more intimidating than before. Each boss is far more devious than the previous Flash bosses, being faster and even more intimidating with the new music, which goes just as hard as the rest of the soundtrack. The difficulty of the game itself is so much higher than before. I nearly died on the first FLOOR when playing, it’s that grueling. In fact, it might be a little... too hard. I do really like Wrath of the Lamb (now that I don’t suck at it), but in GOD’S NAME, at least play Flash for a little bit before downloading it, because the type of shit you’ll encounter far exceeds the difficulty of any expansion to Isaac, and yes, even Repentance. To compensate, Angel rooms have now been added, and you can also manipulate them into spawning, and these have weaker items, like Rebirth, but the pool doesn’t suck now!!! Hooray! And, just like every previous Isaac expansion, there’s new story. There’s the Cathedral, and The Chest. Now, you might say that I already covered these, but Wrath of the Lamb’s Cathedral is NOT the same as Rebirth’s, not by a long shot. It’s a far more challenging area, with enemies being far superior and faster, and the final boss (Isaac) has been completely changed in Rebirth, honestly one of the only things Rebirth did worse compared to Flash. It’s a complete slap fight, with Isaac only firing and firing hundreds of tears towards you. After doing that for a bit, he stands up and starts firing homing tears in a D-Pad pattern, and does it even more frequently, before finally gaining flight, summoning so many enemies and light beams, descending down on the player. And this is where the true fight begins, easily being the hardest part of the battle. And the music, once again, is fucking incredible. After killing him, you get a piece of an image on the title, and I think you know what that means. So after 6 kills, you get The Polaroid trinket, and it drops after killing Mom. Now, go into the Chest dropped from killing Isaac, and bam. You’re in the final chapter of the game. This floor is essentially a victory lap, with every dropped chest being converted into items, and the final boss is Blue Baby. He’s essentially the Hard Mode of the Isaac fight, shooting even more tears, having more health, and having the ability to teleport across the room. And, for the final time, the Chest drops. The final ending shows numerous polaroids, showing Isaac’s memories, as the screen slowly fades to back, while the Library music plays in the background. Nightmare fuel. But, when it comes to the rest of Wrath of the Lamb, there’s not much to say that hasn’t been said already in my prior reviews. All of the new items are pretty cool, there’s even more run variety, and practically everything from Flash is fixed, so yeah. Wrath of the Lamb is pretty damn good, if I say so myself.
Except for ONE, tiny, SMALL issue. 100%ing Wrath of the Lamb is fucking TERRIBLE. Okay, so we all know the usual “defeat every boss with every character” stick, right? I neglected to mention this in my previous review, but Flash Isaac is just as straightforward as Afterbirth when it comes to 100%. But thought Flash was too easy? You sir, have not played Wrath of the Lamb. And it’s all due to a little update in 2015, without Mcillen’s involvement. Wrath of the Lamb wasn’t too taxing of a 100% prior. Sure, Isaac and ??? were pretty hard, but once you got it down the first time, the difficulty only snowballed. And the challenges weren’t so bad either, so 100% was pretty fun and engaging. But... in 2015... oh man, Curse Alert for those who care.
ETERNAL EDITION IS THE WORST FUCKING THING EVER INTRODUCED INTO THIS GODDAMN FRANCHISE. HOLY SHIT, WHERE DO I BEGIN WITH THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT??? There’s NO new items nor anything in this update, only Hard mode, taking most of, if not ALL of the fun out of 100%. That’s the entire fucking POINT of The Binding of Isaac. The achievements are difficult WITHIN REASON! You actually get shit for going out of your way to do something difficult. THAT’S WHY IT’S FUN! I need way more incentive to play Hard mode rather than an achievement on Steam. That’s what made Super Meat Boy 100% so fun. The Meat Ninja is actually a cool unlockable, even IF Leaderboards are disabled with him! Shit, if you couldn’t come up with any new items, just take some from Rebirth, that would be COOL and neat to see in the older version of Isaac. You use Godhead for your achievement icon already, why not go all the way? Oh, and Hard Mode? I kid you not, this is some f the most grueling, unfun BULLSHIT THAT I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED IN THE BINDING OF ISAAC. The D6 got nerfed for no fucking reason, the Eternal Bosses are controller breaking frustration, and the difficulty relies on heavy luck to even succeed. I’m not kidding when I say I had an awesome run but with low HP, and I had over 5 seconds of unavoidable damage that KILLED me and made me start ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the way back to the fucking Basement. Great and fun game design, Himsl. Oh, and whoever designed Eternal Monstro can eat a dick t- OH, OOPS! Eternal Edition isn’t fun. Don’t go for these achievements. Seriously, they’re awful. Wrath of the Lamb is an amazing game, but simply put, Eternal Edition just sucks.
But overall, Flash Isaac as a whole is pretty solid, despite Eternal Edition being far from the greatest. If you’re getting tired of Rebirth, I’d recommend trying out Flash, even for a little bit. It’s shockingly fun, and I think it held up pretty well. Hell, I'd say that it's on the same tier as Rebirth in terms of greatness. But thats enough dawdling. We all know what’s coming next. So it’s time for the finale, the PINNACLE of zeusdeegoose. Until then, my friends.
“Life isn't fair, isn't it? / Wrath forges his fury, his sin / From within he cries” “Wrath” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
Wrath of the Lamb is where The Binding of Isaac truly began, adding all types of new shit into the game. From bosses, to items, and even modes, Wrath of the Lamb is one of the most influential expansions to Isaac as a whole, and solidified the game as a masterpiece. Did 2011 simply not have enough content for you? Well, it's Wrath of the Lamb now, bitches!
This is where the alternate floors come into play, and the greater enemy variety is more apparent here than ever. I didn’t notice how limited 2011’s enemies were until I installed Wrath of the Lamb, because holy shit. This is way bigger! And the bosses? Far more intimidating than before. Each boss is far more devious than the previous Flash bosses, being faster and even more intimidating with the new music, which goes just as hard as the rest of the soundtrack. The difficulty of the game itself is so much higher than before. I nearly died on the first FLOOR when playing, it’s that grueling. In fact, it might be a little... too hard. I do really like Wrath of the Lamb (now that I don’t suck at it), but in GOD’S NAME, at least play Flash for a little bit before downloading it, because the type of shit you’ll encounter far exceeds the difficulty of any expansion to Isaac, and yes, even Repentance. To compensate, Angel rooms have now been added, and you can also manipulate them into spawning, and these have weaker items, like Rebirth, but the pool doesn’t suck now!!! Hooray! And, just like every previous Isaac expansion, there’s new story. There’s the Cathedral, and The Chest. Now, you might say that I already covered these, but Wrath of the Lamb’s Cathedral is NOT the same as Rebirth’s, not by a long shot. It’s a far more challenging area, with enemies being far superior and faster, and the final boss (Isaac) has been completely changed in Rebirth, honestly one of the only things Rebirth did worse compared to Flash. It’s a complete slap fight, with Isaac only firing and firing hundreds of tears towards you. After doing that for a bit, he stands up and starts firing homing tears in a D-Pad pattern, and does it even more frequently, before finally gaining flight, summoning so many enemies and light beams, descending down on the player. And this is where the true fight begins, easily being the hardest part of the battle. And the music, once again, is fucking incredible. After killing him, you get a piece of an image on the title, and I think you know what that means. So after 6 kills, you get The Polaroid trinket, and it drops after killing Mom. Now, go into the Chest dropped from killing Isaac, and bam. You’re in the final chapter of the game. This floor is essentially a victory lap, with every dropped chest being converted into items, and the final boss is Blue Baby. He’s essentially the Hard Mode of the Isaac fight, shooting even more tears, having more health, and having the ability to teleport across the room. And, for the final time, the Chest drops. The final ending shows numerous polaroids, showing Isaac’s memories, as the screen slowly fades to back, while the Library music plays in the background. Nightmare fuel. But, when it comes to the rest of Wrath of the Lamb, there’s not much to say that hasn’t been said already in my prior reviews. All of the new items are pretty cool, there’s even more run variety, and practically everything from Flash is fixed, so yeah. Wrath of the Lamb is pretty damn good, if I say so myself.
Except for ONE, tiny, SMALL issue. 100%ing Wrath of the Lamb is fucking TERRIBLE. Okay, so we all know the usual “defeat every boss with every character” stick, right? I neglected to mention this in my previous review, but Flash Isaac is just as straightforward as Afterbirth when it comes to 100%. But thought Flash was too easy? You sir, have not played Wrath of the Lamb. And it’s all due to a little update in 2015, without Mcillen’s involvement. Wrath of the Lamb wasn’t too taxing of a 100% prior. Sure, Isaac and ??? were pretty hard, but once you got it down the first time, the difficulty only snowballed. And the challenges weren’t so bad either, so 100% was pretty fun and engaging. But... in 2015... oh man, Curse Alert for those who care.
ETERNAL EDITION IS THE WORST FUCKING THING EVER INTRODUCED INTO THIS GODDAMN FRANCHISE. HOLY SHIT, WHERE DO I BEGIN WITH THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT??? There’s NO new items nor anything in this update, only Hard mode, taking most of, if not ALL of the fun out of 100%. That’s the entire fucking POINT of The Binding of Isaac. The achievements are difficult WITHIN REASON! You actually get shit for going out of your way to do something difficult. THAT’S WHY IT’S FUN! I need way more incentive to play Hard mode rather than an achievement on Steam. That’s what made Super Meat Boy 100% so fun. The Meat Ninja is actually a cool unlockable, even IF Leaderboards are disabled with him! Shit, if you couldn’t come up with any new items, just take some from Rebirth, that would be COOL and neat to see in the older version of Isaac. You use Godhead for your achievement icon already, why not go all the way? Oh, and Hard Mode? I kid you not, this is some f the most grueling, unfun BULLSHIT THAT I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED IN THE BINDING OF ISAAC. The D6 got nerfed for no fucking reason, the Eternal Bosses are controller breaking frustration, and the difficulty relies on heavy luck to even succeed. I’m not kidding when I say I had an awesome run but with low HP, and I had over 5 seconds of unavoidable damage that KILLED me and made me start ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the way back to the fucking Basement. Great and fun game design, Himsl. Oh, and whoever designed Eternal Monstro can eat a dick t- OH, OOPS! Eternal Edition isn’t fun. Don’t go for these achievements. Seriously, they’re awful. Wrath of the Lamb is an amazing game, but simply put, Eternal Edition just sucks.
But overall, Flash Isaac as a whole is pretty solid, despite Eternal Edition being far from the greatest. If you’re getting tired of Rebirth, I’d recommend trying out Flash, even for a little bit. It’s shockingly fun, and I think it held up pretty well. Hell, I'd say that it's on the same tier as Rebirth in terms of greatness. But thats enough dawdling. We all know what’s coming next. So it’s time for the finale, the PINNACLE of zeusdeegoose. Until then, my friends.
“Life isn't fair, isn't it? / Wrath forges his fury, his sin / From within he cries” “Wrath” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24
Cuphead
2017
Cuphead’s relentless difficulty and classic cartoon art-design is a recipe to really captivate an audience. The type of audience that hates themselves.
When a truly difficult game comes my way, I often go in with caution. I don’t need everything to be braindead easy, but I do much prefer a relaxed experience over constant enemy placement, boss attack, confusing platform fuckery. Where Cuphead is able to separate itself from the games we know today as “bullshit,” is its fast-paced cutesy style of play.
Too many times in a game like the first Dark Souls, Sekiro, or the hardest modes on most FPS games, enemies are delay merchants, or there’s too many brutal, high damage attacks. Cuphead throws all of this out of the window and says, “Yo, check out this exploding bomb okay now look at this bullet wait actually blue and red bullet okay pink balloon you can parry this hold on pal I wasn’t done it’s time for my ultimate move, a floating head that follows you around. Checkmate, bitch.”
Cuphead’s ability to keep a lighthearted environment while also murdering you in broad daylight is what makes it stand out from its competition. Similar genres like shmups often fail to give you a break, it’s just a constant hellfire for 2+ hours. Cuphead’s boss difficulty can vary, and it isn’t all required to be done in a linear fashion. It’s really like an open world game where you have the freedom of saying fuck this, I’ll come back later.
A few things can really hold Cuphead back for me, though. Hit boxes on certain enemies, like the spaceships in Dr. Kahl, never seem to be all that close to them. Sometimes I’m standing around in what I think is a safe spot, only for a random attack to fly above my head but actually hit me in the process, even though it didn’t look like it did at all. There’s also some awful attacks. Again, Dr. Kahl is a huge blame here. The exploding bombs that follow you around are just ridiculous. I know Cuphead’s whole shtick is that retro feel of NES bullshit design, but when the majority of the game doesn’t feel that way, it’s hard to excuse this one instance.
My absolute biggest gripe with Cuphead, is the fact that the easier difficulty is just there for practice. I have no idea who thought this was a good idea; to add in an easier option but just deem it obsolete in the endgame. It’s not even like it just slows it down, they are completely different attacks with different patterns. What’s the point of adding a “practice mode” if that mode isn’t practice for “Regular” at all?
Also, fuck King Dice. Too long, no heals after levels unless you land on hearts, dumb. Lame.
I think what makes Cuphead so special is the fact that it’s just boss after boss after boss, with killer soundtracks and a great visual design. The difficulty is for the people who love masochism, while the rest of the game is for the people who love good overall game design. 8/10.
When a truly difficult game comes my way, I often go in with caution. I don’t need everything to be braindead easy, but I do much prefer a relaxed experience over constant enemy placement, boss attack, confusing platform fuckery. Where Cuphead is able to separate itself from the games we know today as “bullshit,” is its fast-paced cutesy style of play.
Too many times in a game like the first Dark Souls, Sekiro, or the hardest modes on most FPS games, enemies are delay merchants, or there’s too many brutal, high damage attacks. Cuphead throws all of this out of the window and says, “Yo, check out this exploding bomb okay now look at this bullet wait actually blue and red bullet okay pink balloon you can parry this hold on pal I wasn’t done it’s time for my ultimate move, a floating head that follows you around. Checkmate, bitch.”
Cuphead’s ability to keep a lighthearted environment while also murdering you in broad daylight is what makes it stand out from its competition. Similar genres like shmups often fail to give you a break, it’s just a constant hellfire for 2+ hours. Cuphead’s boss difficulty can vary, and it isn’t all required to be done in a linear fashion. It’s really like an open world game where you have the freedom of saying fuck this, I’ll come back later.
A few things can really hold Cuphead back for me, though. Hit boxes on certain enemies, like the spaceships in Dr. Kahl, never seem to be all that close to them. Sometimes I’m standing around in what I think is a safe spot, only for a random attack to fly above my head but actually hit me in the process, even though it didn’t look like it did at all. There’s also some awful attacks. Again, Dr. Kahl is a huge blame here. The exploding bombs that follow you around are just ridiculous. I know Cuphead’s whole shtick is that retro feel of NES bullshit design, but when the majority of the game doesn’t feel that way, it’s hard to excuse this one instance.
My absolute biggest gripe with Cuphead, is the fact that the easier difficulty is just there for practice. I have no idea who thought this was a good idea; to add in an easier option but just deem it obsolete in the endgame. It’s not even like it just slows it down, they are completely different attacks with different patterns. What’s the point of adding a “practice mode” if that mode isn’t practice for “Regular” at all?
Also, fuck King Dice. Too long, no heals after levels unless you land on hearts, dumb. Lame.
I think what makes Cuphead so special is the fact that it’s just boss after boss after boss, with killer soundtracks and a great visual design. The difficulty is for the people who love masochism, while the rest of the game is for the people who love good overall game design. 8/10.
