One of the better retro action platformers I've played. Controls are really tight, and enemy and level design is very solid. Boss fights are pretty difficult, which I don't really mind in a vacuum, but the continue system making you restart the level got really annoying so I'd often end up savestating before the boss after getting through the level a couple times. I like Richter's moveset overall but I wish his mobility was a bit better. The backflip is cool but feels a little less useful than it should be, and I wish he had the slide he has in SOTN. I think Maria might solve this issue but I missed the unlock for her, will have to replay as her at some point. Dracula was a bit anticlimactic as the final boss, much easier than some of the earlier fights. Overall a very good time though, the only pre-SOTN Castlevania I've been able to get into enough to finish.

Super Mario World is a triumph of a game and is my personal foundational gaming experience.

Super Mario World is clearly crafted with an immense amount of love, exuding a unique kind of charm throughout every level. Mario controls wonderfully, possessing a perfect amount of momentum while still feeling perfectly maneuverable. The levels are tightly designed to complement these abilities, giving the perfect playground to test your skills without ever being so challenging that it bogs the player down. In terms of abilities, the cape in particular stands out. New players can have fun running and easily flying up to new areas, and experienced players can master sustained flight to race through levels, with the cape feeling satisfying in either case. Additionally, the game sports 24 secret exits. With one exception, (Valley of Bowser 2) the secret levels are again the perfect mix of being hard enough to find to be satisfying, but easy enough to not be frustrating. And finding them is truly rewarding, as they eventually unlock a fast-track to Bowser's castle, as well as special challenge levels to test your skills.

It feels like the developers were constantly focused on the most important question when designing this game: "What makes this mechanic fun?" They focused more on how cool it is to ride Yoshi, or how exhilarating it is to fly, without ever worrying too much about the cape trivializing levels or Yoshi breezing through enemies, because flying is fun and riding Yoshi is fun. The levels are well designed around these mechanics, and for the most part mechanics are well balanced, but there were never mechanics that were made less fun in the name of "balance".

SMW also sports a uniquely charming art style. Almost everything has a pair of eyes, including fireballs, blocks, plants, clouds, and hills, making the world feel welcoming and alive. The enemies have personality, from koopas kicking shells to wigglers getting angry and red and chasing you when you jump on them. The animations have enough frames to show personality, but are quick enough that everything feels snappy. The graphics are unique and colorful and exude the wonderful potential of sprite art and the capabilities of the Super Nintendo. The special care put into the art leaves a lasting impression and is a cornerstone of what makes the game feel special.

Finally, Koji Kondo did a banger job with the soundtrack. The songs take full advantage of the SNES's upgraded sound capabilities, doing cool things like adding in a track of bongos whenever the player is riding Yoshi. Of note is the fact that there are only a few core tracks. For example, the overworld, athletic, underwater, underground, bonus room, ghost house, and castle themes are all the same tune, remixed (and sometimes put into minor) to fit the level theme. Remarkably, rather than the tune feeling tired by the end, this choice makes the game feel expecially cohesive throughout, perfectly complementing the gameplay rhythm found in each unique environment.

If I had any criticisms to levy, it'd be against the autoscrollers and the boss variety. There are a few levels that are autoscrollers, or due to having to ride a platform or wait for stage elements to move, function like one. With Mario's movement being as dynamic as it is, these interrupt the pace that is usually dynamically set by the player themselves. In the boss department, there are four fortresses throughout the world, all guarded by the same boss "Reznor". Reznor is a fun boss, but feels old by the fourth fight. Similarly, though there are seven Koopalings to be fought in the world's castles, three of them essentially boil down to slightly harder versions of earlier fights. None of these issues are significant enough to mar the experience, but like any game, SMW has its imperfections.

Ultimately, the supreme quality of the game is exemplified by the fact that I was able to grasp this game enough to beat it as a kindergartener while still having a blast playing it now, almost 20 years later, with lots of fond memories in between. Despite the dozens of times I've beat it before, it never ceases to feel fresh whenever I pick it up, and I expect to revisit it for the rest of my life.

Everybody needs to experience Super Mario World.

Thanks to my partner, I was able to give this game another shot. Good news is that I like it better, bad news is that I still think Oblivion is the better game full stop.

So for context my only exposure to Skyrim was the base game on the PS3 about a decade ago... a decade... crumbles into dust
Many people regard that as the absolute worst version of Skyrim. My god are those load times patience testing. They occur everytime you enter any area (including merely entering and exiting a shop), and the game was as stable as having a game dev job in the western AAA market. You get one of the many crashes and it takes forever to load that last save. Despite all that, I put well over 50 hours into Skyrim as it was the new and exciting game at the time; especially since I loved Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion so much and wanted to fight dragons and have combat that made you feel like you were swinging hunks of metal instead of plastic cosplay swords. Well I got all of that and then some, at the cost of having a manga on standby every single time there was a loading screen. I read and reread so much Naruto and '+ Anima' during those times, that version of Skyrim is dire and should not be approached by any circumstance.

I actually did briefly get Skyrim on Steam last year during my Steam Deck high, but I got second thoughts and returned it even though it was on sale. I wasn't sure why at the time, but I think it's because I could not remember much about Skyrim. I won't say Skyrim is soulless by any means, but so many changes they made in comparison to Oblivion I feel are a step backwards or make the game less memorable.
Fair warning I'll be comparing the two games a lot.

Apparently people got really distracted in Oblivion when talking to a NPC paused the world around yourself as it zooms in onto the NPC's face. Have to say I don't like the alternative where instead Skyrim NPCs just stand in place and are often not taking much, if any, screen real estate (unless you talked to them from very close by). Doesn't help that the NPC models and designs lack a ton of personality that Oblivion had, even if the latter is bordering on the uncanny valley nowadays. Because Oblivion zoomed in on the faces, they had to make the NPCs very expressive and emote with every dialog piece. Their emotions would even change depending on your reputation and affinity towards the player (which can be further changed with bribing, persuasion, or charm spells). Plus nearly every character in a town or city has their own name, their own personal greeting when you first meet them, and you can always ask for rumors they've heard that can lead you to new quests or hints. Not saying Skyrim has none of those characteristics, just that Oblivion has a lot more intimacy with the people you talk to.
And this all without getting into what I feel Skyrim stumbles the most at: Quests. Especially the quest lines involving the factions. Let me paint a picture: you are a mage in Cyrodil. You wish to further enhance your magical prowess, and to do that you want to be enrolled in the Arcane University of the Mages Guild. In order to do that you will need a written recommendation from (almost) every city's Mages Guild. These quests range from pulling a silly prank, recovering a stolen mage staff, thwarting a powerful mage whose also a highwayman with the help of some mage guards from the university, and even discovering that necromancy, that has been banned in this country, still has its claws steeped in the Guild's hierarchy. You have to do so much just to get into the most prestigious and sought-after university any mage would love to be a part of.
In Skyrim you cast a single spell that the gatekeeper gives you and your in the college. Even in context of what the college is, that is so lame and boring.

And that was just one example. The Dark Brotherhood no longer has interesting bonus rewards for completing assassinations in a unique way, the Fighters Guild often has you deal with randomly generated radiant quests for half it's content, and there's not even an arena to speak of. So many quests have such weak storytelling or are extremely basic to complete, not to say Oblivion was perfect in the latter but the former is a key strength of Oblivion to me. To be fair, not every quest is dull. I like how you join the Dark Brotherhood, their version of the Fighter's Guild has werewolves (which are still pretty undercooked from a story perspective, but werewolves are cool), I like how the Daedric god quests can be anywhere in the world instead of at designated shrines, and the conspiracy quest in Makarth is always a highlight with how it changes the rules of how the law normally operates in towns. Still I had to struggle to remember Skyrims quests, whereas I could describe so many of Oblivion's quests off the top of my head... Going inside a artist's painting, calling out the corruption of Cheydinhal with their extreme taxes (which also makes bounties in the town higher till the quest is completed), buying a house that turns out to be haunted with a litch in the basement, thinking your hired to kill some rats when it turns out you have to protect them from mountain lions, discovering the origins of the Arena's Grand Champion which makes him so distraught that he throws the championship match and his life, the unmarked quest at the highest mountain in the game where you discover a invisible monster that slaughtered a couple, killing five guests at a mansion while utilizing their personal biases against one another to divert attention away from yourself; I could keep going you get it already.
My disappointment doesn't end with the quests sadly. So many things that did not return from Oblivion I'm still surprised by, or changes that make playing more annoying then engaging. Like, why can I no longer create my own spells? Why were attributes removed so that I can't increase things such as my carrying capacity or movement speed manually during level ups? Why do merchants have limited number of funds and require me to keep finding new merchants constantly after a dungeon run? And for the love of god, why is the acrobatics stat gone? I love making my character capable of jumping higher then the trees, able to take shortcuts within dungeons and potentially even go out of bounds. Just a lot of fun tools were lost when they made Skyrim and it made playing the game feel far more limiting for a series famous for being able to do what you want, when you want.

And with all that said, Skyrim is fun to play. The way leveling works makes nearly every action feel meaningful. Gold is always in demand, loot can be used for potions, enchantments, crafting, cooking, and smiting which gets you into a mass hoarding mindset. Your consistently working towards something, and growing stronger makes a noticeable difference. Enemies tend to be a lot more aggressive and dangerous then Oblivion, less exploitable A.I. in general (but can still be pretty stupid). Often times though enemies and boss monsters can deal way too much damage and have way too much health. The way scaling works in Skyrim means that there's higher incentives to become strong, but also more frustration when a random dungeon monster has numbers so much better then yours that you have no choice but to leave. That, and the infuriating pre-animated takedowns delivered by the enemies. If you are low on health a enemy can just decide seemingly whenever "Die!" and will lock you into a death animation instantly. It isn't even like it's a grab attack or something, the game just decides to kill you right then and now. The last time I played Skyrim before this was with a mage character, where I didn't invest much into health upgrades. I was fighting this skeleton dragon which was already a tough boss, and I took a lot of damage so I paused the game to fully heal myself with potions. Despite now being at full health, the dragon did an instant-kill animation on my character anyway. Reminder that this was on the PS3 with those grueling load times, and MAN that death was so aggravating that I just stopped playing that character in its entirety. I don't care that these can occur with the player character doing them, these suck so much.
sigh Didn't I say that Skyrim is fun? Well it helped that this playthrough was a sneaky archery build. With the edition of the gane my partner owned I was able to dip my toes into the world of crossbows. I played like it was more of a shooter and it made fighting simple yet enjoyable. I like the variety of crossbow bolts that range in damage and effects. This build especially helped with those dragon fights that are, 80% of the time, just flying in the air. I mean it makes sense from the dragon's perspective, but also I guess get fucked if you are a melee build. But yeah crossbows are cool. I like the perk that allows you to slowdown time at the cost of stamina, able to calmly take out enemies that are making a beeline towards you if you get caught. Stamina in general is a lot more impactful of a resource then in Oblivion, where it affected how often you'd be staggered by attacks and a minor damage bonus depending on how full it is. Using stamina to sprint is a fairly generic mechanic, but if you're in a situation where you have to make a run for it (and you will with how you can randomly encounter powerful foes) then it can get genuinely tense as your stamina rapidly depletes with a angry mammoth breathing down your neck. The perk system is mostly kind of whatever, but it does have a share of interesting abilities that can greatly change how you play the game. The one stealth perk that gives a massive bonus to sneak attacks, but only with daggers, gives that weapon class an interesting niche above others. A heavy armor perk takes the armor rating of your gauntlets and uses that for bonus unarmed damage. Unarmed is not a skill that can be leveled up, but this perk combined with certain races bonus damage with their natural claws can make fun and viable unarmed builds. In fact, that very build was when I first started having fun with Skyrim when I initially played it. Sure it loses viability as the player's level increases, but it's still very silly yet satisfying.
And even though Skyrim is not as much of an RPG anymore, not all of their simplified systems were bad. Consolidating the melee weapon types to just one-handed and two-handed makes more sense then blade and blunt skills, since the former are a lot more understandable in the kind of playstyle they'll offer, whereas with the latter two there aren't slash or bludgeoning damage types in Oblivion that makes a hammer and sword of the same damage values play noticeably different. While speech is very underwhelming when it comes to persuasion checks, combining it with the mercantile skill makes a lot of sense. As Oblivion's mercantile and speechcraft skills were both slow to level up and hardly made a meaningful difference when they did increase. Combining the two allows you to get more out of both while not making things too bloated. I like how bounties are only relegated to each city instead universal across the whole country, which emphasizes how much more isolated the land of Skyrim is in comparison to Cyrodil. The dungeons are a lot more interesting to explore with wider variety of locales, a lot less copy and paste areas (though still not perfect), actual puzzles, and all around greater sense of scale.
Yet with every compliment I have for Skyrim, I also keep thinking about more and more things that bug the crap out of me with this game. Like the menus, I really don't like them. They're too simplistic, boring to look at, and not as intuitive to navigate as they should be. And just... god this game is such a mess to play and write about. I have had sessions where everything is working out and I'm chill, vegging out after a day at work. Just want to play something that ain't too taxing, and Skyrim delivers it's promise. But then I have sessions where the cracks start to get too hard to ignore, and I grow annoyed and bored with the game. For the love of the dragon god, don't play a dedicated mage character on your first playthrough. They are so much work for not enough pay off, just choose a few spells for utility as that's really all you need. And it sucks since magic is so cool in these games but their low armor class, limited magic pool, and lower health doesn't mesh well with Skyrim's design.

Skyrim is cheesy popcorn. Delicious and hits the spot, and then you start biting into unpoped kernels, it gets stuck in your teeth, and your mouth drys from the saltiness. But when its working right its addictive and easy to digest. Just sometimes you want more depth in your foods.

Oblivion Count: 15
Skyrim Count: 24

Drama:

Before I get into the review I’d like to address the obvious elephant(s) in the room.

Firstly, the performance is absolutely terrible. The cities run very poorly and any encounter out in the wilds with a larger NPC count will be less than cinematic. You will not be powering through it with good hardware either; this game struggles even on the top-end. I suggest waiting for a performance patch before even thinking about buying this game.

Secondly I’d like to mention Microtransactions. While yes they aren’t the worst or most egregious MTX to hit the AAA market, bad is bad and bad should be called out. You could come up with any number of excuses but in the end they shouldn't exist in this single-player game end of story. “It’s just horse armor, just don’t buy it lol”... look where we are now.

Anyway, enough of that.

Review:

Dragon’s Dogma 2 isn’t really much of a sequel but more so a second-attempt from Capcom at creating the world that they had envisioned back in 2012: only with better technology, knowledge, and skills than they’d had prior. In a funny way Dragon’s Dogma 2 is kind of like Capcom’s ‘New Game Plus’ attempt at Dragon’s Dogma.

It then goes without saying that if you liked the first game or their expanded version back in 2013: ‘Dark Arisen’, then I can say without a shadow of a doubt that you will absolutely adore Dragon’s Dogma 2. Dragon’s Dogma 2 carries over almost all the features and ideas that you remember from the first game and either directly improves on them or brings them up to modern standards.

The exploration, combat, pawn system, and general quest design all see their return in Dragon’s Dogma 2, for better or worse. I can say that after about 50 hours of playing through Dragon’s Dogma 2 that while there are many complaints that I might have about the game, it is ultimately a great improvement over the first installment and is a pretty good game in general.

As expected the combat is very good. The enemy variety can get tired quickly, especially with the drawn out near tedious exploration experience. Boss fights though are always a treat and are definitely one of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s greatest selling points.

The feeling of jumping on top of a Griffin and having it fly into the sky while you desperately grasp at it's feathers so you don't plummet to your death, only to run out of stamina and drop 30 feet to your death when suddenly your beautiful pawn catches you in her arms like you're a princess... this simply can't be replicated anywhere else.

On the subject of combat though, vocations are a mixed bag, with most vocations feeling great to play but perhaps lacking in variety in terms of skills/spells available to you. This is further exacerbated by the questionable change from having 2 sets of skill slots in Dragon’s Dogma 1 versus the sad singular set of skill slots in this sequel.

They also feel a little unbalanced, with Trickster and Wayfarer being straight up useless while at the same time Mystic Spearhand (the class I use) gets access to a team-wide invincibility shield that they can essentially spam on repeat. I will also say that while I think Magic was generally better in the first game, Dragon’s Dogma is pretty much unrivaled when it comes to Magic gameplay in open-world RPGs.

I’ve already mentioned it but exploration is unbelievably tedious in this game.. I swear I’ve spent at least 10 hours just running from place to place. This was a problem I had in the first game and it’s a bit annoying to see it persist in the second. Maybe some will point to the game’s ‘Hardcore’ nature but in my opinion boring is boring. While fast travel exists alongside Oxcarts, I would’ve loved something like horses because by the time I reached the capital walking around was starting to do my head in.

Quest design has generally been pretty great and while I haven't found myself enthralled by many of the side quests, I've always found them to be relatively well made. There were a few questlines that I found to be absolute standouts and I’m sure those who’ve done them know what I’m talking about. I also appreciate how some side-quests would weave into one another seamlessly, it made my exploration feel rewarded. The main questline was very good too though I don’t have much to say on it.

The pawn system is as great as it was in the first game and is probably the games main selling point alongside the combat system. Having your pawn learn stuff from other players and come back to you sometimes with gifts always feels cool and adds a bit of community to the otherwise single-player experience. Pawn AI still isn’t great though, with pawns regularly getting themselves killed, using the wrong skills/spells, or just standing in bad places during a fight.

As expected pawn’s themselves don’t have much personality, so while in other RPGs you might have a band of interesting companions to get to know (a la Baldur’s Gate 3, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc...) the experience in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a lot more lonely and colorless which speaks to some of the downsides to the pawn system -though ultimately I think in Dragon’s Dogma 2’s case this is a worthwhile sacrifice.

NPCs are also pretty uninteresting with the exception of a few attractive ladies. The whole ‘Inhabitants of the World’ aspect of the marketing definitely feels a little overblown. Any radiant quests I’d gotten from my ‘friend’ NPCs were very boring and felt ultimately meaningless. I suppose they serve the same purpose as radiant quests in other games though so it’s no big deal.

Ultimately Dragon’s Dogma 2 is probably a Dragon's Dogma fan's dream game and I could easily see someone like that giving it a 5/5. For me though as someone who enjoyed Dragon’s Dogma 1 but didn’t love it, I feel much of the same feelings that I did for the first game. There’s some great stuff in this game and there aren’t any real big flaws. All it really comes down to is that a lot of the quests didn’t really grip me which is a big deal for me in open-world RPGs. That alongside the general tedium of a lot of the game stops me from really falling in love with Dragon’s Dogma 2.

All that said though, I still think this is a really great game, especially for the type of player that Capcom are targeting. Just because some of the aspects of this game don’t quite match what I enjoy doesn’t mean they should be changed. Having more variety in the space is a good thing and Dragon’s Dogma 2 doing its own things should be encouraged.

3.5/5

Post Review Addendum:

Just wanted to add that the post-game section is amazing and suffers far less from the issues that I had with the main game. The quests, area, and exploration were all superb. The post-game sequence was also stunning and gave the game the conclusion that it needed.

My opinion on the game still stands as it is but I just wanted to mention how much I enjoyed this section of the game. Really great stuff.