Trades in the more complex and varied copy abilities of the prior 2D entries for a huge step up in level design and a great amount of variety by other means. Introducing the hidden missions in every level was a pretty genius move and incentivizes exploration far more than prior entries. Helps that the reward, building up the town, is such a joy! Tons of passion and love was put into this project and it really shows. Also the postgame is fantastic and the music is superb. Didn't feel like doing a more deep dive/analytical review for this one even though you absolutely could because hey, it's Kirby! The perfect series to just have a fun chill time with.

“Well then, Mr. Mondo, from everything you have experience so far… how would you explain all of this?”

“Does it have to be explained? I don’t believe it does.”

Beautiful game. While for whatever reason I didn't feel quite as much of an emotional attachment as I did with The Silver Case, this is every bit as thematically dense and quite a bit more hilarious. Truly one of the funniest games I've played, and most of that fun is being had at the player's expense. Despite this, the game never twists the knife after it stabs you, providing in my opinion just enough antagonism to make you feel like a moron for playing it, but not enough to make you stop playing.

Especially when the story here is as gripping as it is! While my aforementioned lack of any big gut punch emotionally did have this fall short of being a total revelation for me story wise, the mystery of what exactly is going on, the greatly enjoyable characters, and the relaxing, contemplative vibe of the setting absolutely kept me hooked on it. Going to go with a hackneyed Lynch comparison again but Suda seems to understand mysteries in the same way he does. By not conclusively solving the mystery, or by presenting conflicting, dense layers of information, it invites the audience to think more about the characters and themes.

Again I invite people to talk about their own interpretations and thoughts on this game in the comments! Until next time,

I'm getting that DS feeling...

Something I wanted to love a lot more than I did.

First the positives: ThorHighHeels/Adolf Nomura created a fantastic, irreverent soundtrack for this thing that surprised me constantly. The Jet Set Radio influences are apparent and that's certainly not a bad thing, funky beats abound. The soundtrack can also be surprisingly funny at points, oftentimes when a new track started I would pause for a moment just to listen to its weird off kilter groove or the often hilarious text to speech stuff.

The visual aesthetic is also great. I was one of those people who not so long ago thought "who would ever make retro games with a PS1/N64 aesthetic as we do with NES/SNES games, the early 3D era has aged so poorly graphically" and I have to say I was an absolute fool. The more recent crop of early 3D inspired indie games have tons of charm and especially in its later levels this game does some incredible things with its aesthetic.

The story here is a mixed bag for me. I think the critiques on display here of neoliberalism and concerns over climate change are pointed for sure, but pretty surface level too. On a personal level the game really never made me feel much of anything except for in the final level. I do appreciate the insights into New Zealand history that this game provides and felt those elements were some of the most personally interesting (I already know the world is fucked, give me an actual take on it). But this brings me to my biggest problem...

The gameplay and the context. The game's tutorial emphasizes that art is subjective and then the actual game design is so railroaded. For each level the game gives you a list of things you must take photos of, often with a specific type of lens. This is so infuriatingly arbitrary and not interesting, especially in the later levels. I think the intent for some of those later levels was for it to be a "puzzle" of sorts to figure out what sort of insane angle you'll need to line up 3 lanterns with a telephoto lens, but this runs totally counter to all the game's punk sensibilities! It's not enjoyable or engaging and most of the bounties aren't even getting you to think of your surroundings in a different way or getting you to engage with the story. They feel so forced.

This is why I think the context is also a problem. Who am I in this world and why am I doing any of this? If I had the freedom to express myself through photographing this place I certainly wouldn't be choosing to take a picture of 3 lanterns. You have a 10 minute time limit to get a bonus on each level, which also runs counter to the game's design (how am I supposed to explore and soak in all the details of this world if I'm constantly under time pressure) but even worse, it's not justified? Once you've taken all the photos you have to "deliver the parcel" to complete the level. Who am I delivering these photos to? Are they the ones paying me? Why do they want these arbitrary pictures and why do they want them in 10 minutes? The actual gameplay of this game feels so far removed from the world the game takes place in.

So this ended up being a bit of a long one. It was a game I really vibed with but had so many frustrating choices that it ended up disappointing me a bit. The biggest indictment I think is that the game felt shockingly limp emotionally despite it's charged messages. I am still glad I played it though and plan to play the Macro DLC in the near future, which people seem to have very polarizing opinions about. Hope I enjoy that more!!

EDIT: I did not :/ review for Macro can be found here (a lot shorter) https://www.backloggd.com/u/Hylianhero777/review/156218/

First time playing this game and while you can tell that the combat is compromised from the original DS version, what they cooked up here manages to mostly capture that same spirit and ended up really clicking for me in its own way once I got the right pin loadouts going. But the real standouts are of course the aesthetics and the story.

Love the character designs and especially the music. While sometimes hearing the same vocal themes over and over can be a bit grating, I appreciate that they seemingly understood this and didn't stick to one set theme for any area of Shibuya or every single regular battle as most JRPGs would. Instead, the entire soundtrack (outside of boss fights, which fittingly have their own unique tracks) feels like it could pop up anywhere at any time, like you put a favorite album on shuffle. I also really appreciate how much the game remixes its own vocal tracks, again often for boss fights or for special in game days, which makes them that much more impactful in the same way a reprise in a musical can be.

The story also worked surprisingly well for me. Somewhat typical shonen fare especially at first - which may be a sticking point for some but which I love when executed well, and this is! Characters have lots of personality, big goals, go through major arcs that give them new outlooks on life, all the good stuff right there. The plot knows exactly how to create stakes and pull the rug out from the main cast at the most cruel times which feels genuinely impactful. One minor complaint is that the cutscenes are clearly extremely limited by budget, and while I think they did a great job with what they had you can feel that the ambitions of the story they wanted to tell could have been enhanced by improvements to the presentation in this aspect. Even with the changes to the controls in Final Remix making things feel frustrating in the early game, I'd still recommend this to just about anyone.

Certainly not "another showcase of Valve's world class game design" or anything, you literally just sit and watch real time cutscenes for half an hour interspersed with occasional extremely barebones shooting mechanics that are obviously meant to acclimate you to the Steam Deck controller. For that reason it's not great, but I also don't hate it because it's not trying to really be anything more than that. The humor was also less consistently solid than the prior Portal games (which themselves did not have a perfect track record).

But as a way to kill half an hour? Sure, might as well. Mostly just reminded me that gyro controls rule and should be standard on all games that require you to aim with any amount of precision.

I think this is the game Sam Barlow has been trying to make his entire life. Another game in the "objectively messy but works for me specifically" trend of 2022. A bit too on the nose perhaps and feels like it toes the line between loving homage and straight up stealing, but if you're gonna steal, steal from the best, I guess. With one simple trick this thing innovates on the FMV game in a way that I think could spawn an entire subgenre. One of the best performances of the year in games (you know The One) and one or two moments that are going to stick with me for a long time.

Very serviceable if somewhat unambitious sequel to a solid first game. By far the best part is the fact that it's a modern RPG that's absolutely bursting with towns, secret areas, and cool turn based abilities to unlock - just proves that this old school style still has its place. The combat system is also tuned just about perfectly, and the ending encounters genuinely force you to consider all of your tactical options in a really fun way. Story is still nothing to write home about which has so far been the biggest flaw of this series.

Wuhu Island + Miis is just way too sterile of a vibe for a game like this. SNES Pilotwings, mainly through its incredible soundtrack, managed to create a great atmosphere despite having other issues holding it back. 3D is a great feature for a game primarily centered around landing your aircraft just right, but the music consists mostly of uninspired, tepid remixes of prior Pilotwings tracks, and the mission design is far too basic and uninteresting. I think a great Pilotwings game could absolutely exist, but it doesn't seem like the sort of thing Nintendo would ever put the time and effort into getting right.

This game is tough as nails, and not necessarily in an interesting way. Having a guide is practically required in order not to pull your hair out navigating these maps, the encounter rate is absolutely ridiculous, and this is one of the first RPGs I've played in ages where I just had to do some honest to god grinding at times. While all that is perhaps rightfully considered outdated design by modern standards, I think enough distance has been put between me and this era of games that I can view it simultaneously as frustrating and charming. For a game that prioritizes being charming, that's a plus!

Though I will say that in comparison to its successor, Earthbound Beginnings doesn't quite reach that same level of charm and emotional impact for me. I think a lot of this is just due to the game being a bit more sparse dialogue wise in general than Earthbound, but even the NPCs that do have something to say don't manage to be quite as entertaining. Curious to know how much of that is due to translation work as well.

So yeah, it's very much Proto-Earthbound as many claim, but as a huge Earthbound fan, seeing where a lot of those ideas first gestated was a great experience for me. Also, the soundtrack is just wonderful, and this game's version of Eight Melodies is one of the few NES songs to give me goosebumps. Would recommend first playing Earthbound and seeing if you enjoy it before going back to this, and it's not for the impatient, but I walked away with a lot of respect for this project.

You can see after beating this why Synergy Interactive had so much cred in the western film scene. Definitely a capital A "Art game," forgoing most gameplay mechanics in favor of surreal atmosphere and storytelling around two decades before it was cool to do so.

The game was never quite as engaging as I wanted it to be story wise and a lot of its threads never quite came together in a way I found satisfying, but I think this game's true strength is faring surprisingly well in the moment to moment. Being in these locations just soaking up the eerie, ambient noise mixed in with brutal industrial music and architecture. Beautiful use of the limitations of computer graphics at the time as well, every human character is just about as uncanny as can be and they knew just how to lean into it.

At only around 2 hours, this is definitely something I'd recommend to anyone willing to give it a try! While I don't think the story ultimately will stick with me much, the tone it sets definitely will.