The Thirty-Five Best Games I Played in 2023
The Third Annual Top Thirty-Five, at last.
Every Note contains a Review.
Feel free to read as much or as little as you like.
Thanks for dropping by!
Every Note contains a Review.
Feel free to read as much or as little as you like.
Thanks for dropping by!
35 Games
Here’s the top of the tower – the end of the list. It’s perfectly fine if you want to start here and work your way back down to the others, but why not check out the one about Magic Toenail? Final Fantasy X? A little exploration might help give this an air of finality.
WARNING
WARNING
WARNING
警告
(warning)
- 1 -
May You Attain Enlightenment
___
__
_
At the conclusion of the previous installment in this trilogy, I promised to turn over a leaf and have myself a Vagabond-style “Farming Arc.” The idea was, I’d jog a few paces from the person I currently am and toward the ideal. The existence of a new, even more laboriously-written Top Thirty-Five might suggest that didn’t happen. Even so, in the year and some months since the start of 2023, life has changed.
I don’t live in New York anymore. Several jobs have come, gone, and come again. Some people entered my world and others left. It was a bad time to be networking in the games industry. I started some projects, some of which almost got somewhere. Lost some hair. I spent some time in Japan and started taking Japanese a little more seriously. I pivoted to work in animation. I took a photo with a Joe Yabuki statue. I’m one of the luckier people alive.
But thanks to some gene that nobody else in my family appears to possess, I remain an unquenchable student of art and fiction. That’s just a halfway fancy way of saying that I can’t stop playing videogames, watching movies, listening to music, reading manga, and “challenging my taste as an artist” (mostly by consuming lots of stuff that just happens to be from Japan). I write a lot about these things, most of which goes unfinished and unpublished. I chip away at my own work, but I’ll never feel as prepared as I want to be to pursue the things I’d like to have done before I die. Even knowing this, I keep coming back for more, different, ephemeral things with which to color my life.
And as I’ve clung to this cycle, my desires have poisoned my mind.
Ignorance.
Attachment.
Aversion.
Feeding these unwholesome thoughts has only led to more suffering.
_
__
___
In 2023, that cycle brought me to ZeroRanger.
I’ve talked up a bunch of games on here using the same few rhetorical devices (it’s got this, this, even this! Go back and check, I like asyndeton), so it might look like ZeroRanger had a rough time landing at the peak of the pack. Lots of contenders going around, and it wasn’t my most-played game, or even shoot ‘em up of 2023.
No.
Even with some haunting reputations rounding out the lineup, ZeroRanger was born to be its crown jewel. So many of the strengths I described in Gunstar Heroes, Ridge Racer Type 4, NieR, Elevator Action Returns, Pocky & Rocky, Hyper Demon and the rest – they apply here. It possesses the dramatic gravitas of a Final Fantasy, it wields the gameplay/story synergy of Fading Afternoon, it has the ongoing, unstopping, explosive wonder of Sonic and RayForce and Contra, and matches the philosophical aspirations of Chrono Cross and NieR using its structure. In reviewing all of these games, I was reviewing ZeroRanger. Except for Boku no Natsuyasumi 2, there’s no angle with that one.
But do I mean that? Am I sure?? I didn’t know it was going to be anything special! I went in with nothing! Then I hit Stage Three. Then I reached [REDACTED]. The Sea Returns. I should’ve seen it sooner. The villain’s name is GREEN ORANGE.
There’s a chance 2023 would’ve gone down as Jordan Resin’s Year of the Shoot ‘em Up regardless of ZeroRanger. With it, my love for RayForce, ChoRenSha, Garegga, and so many others became guaranteed. It belongs to a rare pantheon of generous games which elevate entire genres with them. The reason for this is that ZeroRanger doesn't actually rewrite or attempt to undermine the blueprint of its genre, but intelligently reinforces its conventions with the added context of an ongoing mystery. It has more lenient extend and chaining systems along with a level select, but resists brute force with careful checkpoints and limited continues. This game equips its players with the tools to appreciate shoot 'em ups, and shows them why to take that plunge.
Radiant Silvergun might’ve attempted ZeroRanger’s themes long before – could be that the pros, maybe System Erasure themselves, spoke of their favorites in these terms – but post-ZeroRanger, all STGs are about the Wheel of Samsara. The cycle of death and rebirth into suffering is an implication across games, but it’s best expressed in those predicated on deathless runs, where the player is born, struggles, lives or dies within a single sitting. It’s better expressed in ZeroRanger, where that cycle can be well and truly broken.
No part of the videogame animal is wasted. It conveys the depth of a world within quirks of its rules and interface. It showed me that I’d underestimated the potential of this genre for displays of directorial ingenuity. Several of its plants and payoffs are elements which I, personally, dreamt of in high school. Others are moments I dream of now. I’ve become a true believer in any game where the player’s failure is canonical. All of this is more true of System Erasure’s 2023 title Void Stranger, and it’s arguably better for it. The stakes are higher, the fabric of the game is always hanging in the balance. Engaging with Void Stranger feels like breaking it. More than ZeroRanger, Void Stranger successfully develops the impression that it lives inside of the player's computer.
Still, I think ZeroRanger’s tricks are more gracefully executed. Less obtuse, more open to expression. It’s friendlier than many of its peers, and leverages that friendliness to its advantage. More consistently rewarding, less punishing. By no means “easy.” The only bet it has to make is that the player will lose, and to be frank, that’s a safe one. It doesn’t force this to happen. I do not believe you understood ZeroRanger at all if you managed to run through the entire sequence without dying on your first attempt.
Because, as far as I’m concerned, the real game of ZeroRanger did not begin until I was killed by its True Final Boss.
It’s devastating. It commits to its promised consequence. Structurally, this is the game's Northern Crater, its Ocean Palace, its Floating Continent, only delivered in a manner befitting this genre. Some players do not recover. In time, the devastation of losing everything became the realization that I had lost nothing. In time, I managed to prove that this was true.
I would recommend this experience to everyone.
ZeroRanger nurtures a healthy relationship with the player. It offers so satisfying a stopping point that you may be happy to let it remain a beautiful, life-affirming memory. I come back from time to time, but never for more than an enjoyable reunion with its fantastic action, its inventive boss designs, its singular aesthetic. Now, the thought of ZeroRanger is an encouragement. Cycles can be broken. No effort, no amount of love, no energy dealt is ever lost. As I’m typing this down, I want to believe that these words are true, and that ZeroRanger has proven this beyond doubt. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be that simple.
I have to believe that my relationship with art can evolve. I must be able to give as much, if not more than I take. I want to draw from more mediums, more life experiences, more friendships I’ve yet to have. Maybe I can make something that helps people. I dunno. Maybe there doesn’t have to be a list of Thirty-Five games next January. It’s April 13th, 2024. Might as well try something.
Thanks for comin’ by, and godspeed.
WARNING
WARNING
WARNING
警告
(warning)
- 1 -
May You Attain Enlightenment
___
__
_
At the conclusion of the previous installment in this trilogy, I promised to turn over a leaf and have myself a Vagabond-style “Farming Arc.” The idea was, I’d jog a few paces from the person I currently am and toward the ideal. The existence of a new, even more laboriously-written Top Thirty-Five might suggest that didn’t happen. Even so, in the year and some months since the start of 2023, life has changed.
I don’t live in New York anymore. Several jobs have come, gone, and come again. Some people entered my world and others left. It was a bad time to be networking in the games industry. I started some projects, some of which almost got somewhere. Lost some hair. I spent some time in Japan and started taking Japanese a little more seriously. I pivoted to work in animation. I took a photo with a Joe Yabuki statue. I’m one of the luckier people alive.
But thanks to some gene that nobody else in my family appears to possess, I remain an unquenchable student of art and fiction. That’s just a halfway fancy way of saying that I can’t stop playing videogames, watching movies, listening to music, reading manga, and “challenging my taste as an artist” (mostly by consuming lots of stuff that just happens to be from Japan). I write a lot about these things, most of which goes unfinished and unpublished. I chip away at my own work, but I’ll never feel as prepared as I want to be to pursue the things I’d like to have done before I die. Even knowing this, I keep coming back for more, different, ephemeral things with which to color my life.
And as I’ve clung to this cycle, my desires have poisoned my mind.
Ignorance.
Attachment.
Aversion.
Feeding these unwholesome thoughts has only led to more suffering.
_
__
___
In 2023, that cycle brought me to ZeroRanger.
I’ve talked up a bunch of games on here using the same few rhetorical devices (it’s got this, this, even this! Go back and check, I like asyndeton), so it might look like ZeroRanger had a rough time landing at the peak of the pack. Lots of contenders going around, and it wasn’t my most-played game, or even shoot ‘em up of 2023.
No.
Even with some haunting reputations rounding out the lineup, ZeroRanger was born to be its crown jewel. So many of the strengths I described in Gunstar Heroes, Ridge Racer Type 4, NieR, Elevator Action Returns, Pocky & Rocky, Hyper Demon and the rest – they apply here. It possesses the dramatic gravitas of a Final Fantasy, it wields the gameplay/story synergy of Fading Afternoon, it has the ongoing, unstopping, explosive wonder of Sonic and RayForce and Contra, and matches the philosophical aspirations of Chrono Cross and NieR using its structure. In reviewing all of these games, I was reviewing ZeroRanger. Except for Boku no Natsuyasumi 2, there’s no angle with that one.
But do I mean that? Am I sure?? I didn’t know it was going to be anything special! I went in with nothing! Then I hit Stage Three. Then I reached [REDACTED]. The Sea Returns. I should’ve seen it sooner. The villain’s name is GREEN ORANGE.
There’s a chance 2023 would’ve gone down as Jordan Resin’s Year of the Shoot ‘em Up regardless of ZeroRanger. With it, my love for RayForce, ChoRenSha, Garegga, and so many others became guaranteed. It belongs to a rare pantheon of generous games which elevate entire genres with them. The reason for this is that ZeroRanger doesn't actually rewrite or attempt to undermine the blueprint of its genre, but intelligently reinforces its conventions with the added context of an ongoing mystery. It has more lenient extend and chaining systems along with a level select, but resists brute force with careful checkpoints and limited continues. This game equips its players with the tools to appreciate shoot 'em ups, and shows them why to take that plunge.
Radiant Silvergun might’ve attempted ZeroRanger’s themes long before – could be that the pros, maybe System Erasure themselves, spoke of their favorites in these terms – but post-ZeroRanger, all STGs are about the Wheel of Samsara. The cycle of death and rebirth into suffering is an implication across games, but it’s best expressed in those predicated on deathless runs, where the player is born, struggles, lives or dies within a single sitting. It’s better expressed in ZeroRanger, where that cycle can be well and truly broken.
No part of the videogame animal is wasted. It conveys the depth of a world within quirks of its rules and interface. It showed me that I’d underestimated the potential of this genre for displays of directorial ingenuity. Several of its plants and payoffs are elements which I, personally, dreamt of in high school. Others are moments I dream of now. I’ve become a true believer in any game where the player’s failure is canonical. All of this is more true of System Erasure’s 2023 title Void Stranger, and it’s arguably better for it. The stakes are higher, the fabric of the game is always hanging in the balance. Engaging with Void Stranger feels like breaking it. More than ZeroRanger, Void Stranger successfully develops the impression that it lives inside of the player's computer.
Still, I think ZeroRanger’s tricks are more gracefully executed. Less obtuse, more open to expression. It’s friendlier than many of its peers, and leverages that friendliness to its advantage. More consistently rewarding, less punishing. By no means “easy.” The only bet it has to make is that the player will lose, and to be frank, that’s a safe one. It doesn’t force this to happen. I do not believe you understood ZeroRanger at all if you managed to run through the entire sequence without dying on your first attempt.
Because, as far as I’m concerned, the real game of ZeroRanger did not begin until I was killed by its True Final Boss.
It’s devastating. It commits to its promised consequence. Structurally, this is the game's Northern Crater, its Ocean Palace, its Floating Continent, only delivered in a manner befitting this genre. Some players do not recover. In time, the devastation of losing everything became the realization that I had lost nothing. In time, I managed to prove that this was true.
I would recommend this experience to everyone.
ZeroRanger nurtures a healthy relationship with the player. It offers so satisfying a stopping point that you may be happy to let it remain a beautiful, life-affirming memory. I come back from time to time, but never for more than an enjoyable reunion with its fantastic action, its inventive boss designs, its singular aesthetic. Now, the thought of ZeroRanger is an encouragement. Cycles can be broken. No effort, no amount of love, no energy dealt is ever lost. As I’m typing this down, I want to believe that these words are true, and that ZeroRanger has proven this beyond doubt. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be that simple.
I have to believe that my relationship with art can evolve. I must be able to give as much, if not more than I take. I want to draw from more mediums, more life experiences, more friendships I’ve yet to have. Maybe I can make something that helps people. I dunno. Maybe there doesn’t have to be a list of Thirty-Five games next January. It’s April 13th, 2024. Might as well try something.
Thanks for comin’ by, and godspeed.
1
Comin' in at Number Two...
As the sort of guy who spends his nights mulling over weird Pasts and Bad Futures, Sonic CD’s gameplay fantasia is a gift. The dream of loop-de-looping into ancient history, nipping the seeds of evil in the bud, and returning to find a kinder, more harmonious world…that’s something I think we all deserve to have at least once in our lives.
The Past
I’ve heard it said that those who played Sonic the Hedgehog games as children, because of their lack of money and therefore choice, persevered past their learning curves. They, unlike so many detractors, didn’t write them off for their quirks, didn’t fling them back in the bin for failing to immediately satisfy their need for speed. Well, not me. The “classic” Sonic games were some of my first, thanks to the Mega Collection on GameCube. I fell for every beginner’s trap, failed every skill check, ran out of lives and went back to Lego Star Wars. They did not survive the purge.
But I’ll give Sonic credit, he’s more patient than his idle animation would suggest. Waited the decade it took for Mania to teach me how it’s done. You can’t enjoy a Sonic the way you might a Mario. These aren’t games about charging forward through obstacles – asserting your presence with power-ups and projectiles – but going with the flow, allowing the geometry to carry you where it will, dexterously reacting to keep the ride going. The challenge of harmonizing with progressively jagged, unfriendly zones is not just the point, it’s the joy. After that, Sonic 3 & Knuckles became my favorite, and I figured that was just about the end of that. In 2017, I concluded that the highs of Sonic’s dynamic movement are fantastic, but it’s dependent on the strength of its level design, and those lows are just distracting enough to take it down a peg. An ideal Sonic playthrough occurs as a single unbroken thought, and a big enough blunder can compromise the current.
Fans will tell you that 3 and Mania represent the series’ most successful “balance” of forward momentum and exploration. I bought that; it’s the reason I prioritized those games. Here’s the thing. Why burden either one of these goals with the needs of the other? If the issue is that these level designs become unfocused, draw themselves out, fail to wholly satisfy either inclination…well, why not have one built entirely around speed, and another based on explor– OH WAIT THEY DID??
The Present
Last year, I called Mario World a great alternative sequel to Super Mario Bros. 3. Today, I’m crowning Sonic 2 its true successor. I play Mario 3 for the action, for its perfect jump and P-speed antics, and Sonic 2 takes that premise even further – a character whose movement is determined by his relationship to the environment. Even conceptually, Sonic's mechanical direction is inspired. Where 1 didn’t have the know-how to play to its strengths, and my previous favorites interrupted themselves with major gimmicks and a needless mess of boss fights, Sonic 2 is confident in the power of its physics – rolling through concise multi-tiered stages, darting from start to finish without a moment wasted. It's endlessly responsive to experimentation, filled with hidden shortcuts and dynamic skips. I spent ages fiddling around with a loop near the end of Chemical Plant Act 1, being sure to keep Sonic on his feet to better control his trajectory, taking off at just the right angle, through a one-way gate, to finish the stage in under twenty-five seconds. The thrill of tearing through the high route in Aquatic Ruin and Mystic Cave, of picking up speed shoes to launch high above Wing Fortress, bouncing off of a suspended monitor and landing DIRECTLY in front of the boss, is priceless. Emerald Hill Zone’s opening riff doesn’t get enough love, it’s up there with DaiOuJou in its ability to hook me in from frame one. Appropriately, it's as close to an OutRun-like physics platformer as we’ve ever had. It's one of the greats because every frame of its forty-five minute run fizzles with potential energy. Ignore the Emeralds and go.
But friends, I had played Sonic the Hedgehog 2 before the year 2023. My love for it has grown to ridiculous size (Thanks in no small part to Sonic 2 Absolute), but I've respected it for some time. Even finished it.
How ‘bout I take you down to Quartz Quadrant.
The Good Future
Sonic CD shares 2’s place at the top of the heap. Given its reputation, I could not believe how well it clicked. Overly wide, exploratory level design in action games isn’t my thing, but here, it’s less a matter of “exploring” for a number of key objects, and more about enjoying the breadth of what Sonic’s physics are capable of – shooting through massive cascading loops and rebounding up and around towering, dreamlike worlds. Coming off the heels of the first game, with an entirely separate team from Sonic 2, it’s ridiculously forward-thinking. CD preempts the conceit of Mario 64’s 3D game design by a whole three years during an age when every year played host to wild innovation across the medium. It celebrates Sonic's unique movement mechanics like nothing before or since.
I called a perfect Sonic playthrough “unbroken,” but I didn’t say “fast.” Whether you’re flying high or barreling through badniks, movement is its own reward. And while that would’ve been enough for me to give it the thumbs-up, CD does not rest on those laurels. Hit a signpost and maintain top speed, and you’ll time travel between any of three eras of the same stage. Must be the best take on Mario 3’s P-Meter there’s ever been. Smash a robot generator in the past, and you’ve earned a wonderland of a future. Hunting generators is the way the game is designed to be played, and I refuse to ever run the game without them. Beyond the fact that they encourage the intended playstyle, the consequence for failure is too tangible, too well-executed to ignore.
I have to wonder if there was a kid in 1993 whose immediate inclination was to hurl Sonic into the future. When this child finally managed to do this, the coolest thing they could possibly imagine being able to accomplish in any game – Making Sonic the Hedgehog Time Travel into The Future – they wound up in an apocalyptic hellscape. The Bad Future so starkly different, so loud and raucous, that it almost feels like a joke. The stakes are clear; Sega put in the work to make you want to care about the world you're trying to save, if only to find out how great the Good Future's music must be. It'd be sick enough to have this two years ahead of Chrono Trigger, but even now, I can't think of another action platformer that attempts anything like this.
And don’t believe what they tell you, there are no bad Zones (Wacky Workbench is fun, I promise). I could swear the Japanese Soundtrack makes its already vibrant colors even more evocative. It’s exactly as complex as any game in this series should be. Its opening cutscene is everything to which Sonic should ever have aspired.
The Bad Future
Another 2D Sonic game released in 2023. We don’t have to talk about that one.
As the sort of guy who spends his nights mulling over weird Pasts and Bad Futures, Sonic CD’s gameplay fantasia is a gift. The dream of loop-de-looping into ancient history, nipping the seeds of evil in the bud, and returning to find a kinder, more harmonious world…that’s something I think we all deserve to have at least once in our lives.
The Past
I’ve heard it said that those who played Sonic the Hedgehog games as children, because of their lack of money and therefore choice, persevered past their learning curves. They, unlike so many detractors, didn’t write them off for their quirks, didn’t fling them back in the bin for failing to immediately satisfy their need for speed. Well, not me. The “classic” Sonic games were some of my first, thanks to the Mega Collection on GameCube. I fell for every beginner’s trap, failed every skill check, ran out of lives and went back to Lego Star Wars. They did not survive the purge.
But I’ll give Sonic credit, he’s more patient than his idle animation would suggest. Waited the decade it took for Mania to teach me how it’s done. You can’t enjoy a Sonic the way you might a Mario. These aren’t games about charging forward through obstacles – asserting your presence with power-ups and projectiles – but going with the flow, allowing the geometry to carry you where it will, dexterously reacting to keep the ride going. The challenge of harmonizing with progressively jagged, unfriendly zones is not just the point, it’s the joy. After that, Sonic 3 & Knuckles became my favorite, and I figured that was just about the end of that. In 2017, I concluded that the highs of Sonic’s dynamic movement are fantastic, but it’s dependent on the strength of its level design, and those lows are just distracting enough to take it down a peg. An ideal Sonic playthrough occurs as a single unbroken thought, and a big enough blunder can compromise the current.
Fans will tell you that 3 and Mania represent the series’ most successful “balance” of forward momentum and exploration. I bought that; it’s the reason I prioritized those games. Here’s the thing. Why burden either one of these goals with the needs of the other? If the issue is that these level designs become unfocused, draw themselves out, fail to wholly satisfy either inclination…well, why not have one built entirely around speed, and another based on explor– OH WAIT THEY DID??
The Present
Last year, I called Mario World a great alternative sequel to Super Mario Bros. 3. Today, I’m crowning Sonic 2 its true successor. I play Mario 3 for the action, for its perfect jump and P-speed antics, and Sonic 2 takes that premise even further – a character whose movement is determined by his relationship to the environment. Even conceptually, Sonic's mechanical direction is inspired. Where 1 didn’t have the know-how to play to its strengths, and my previous favorites interrupted themselves with major gimmicks and a needless mess of boss fights, Sonic 2 is confident in the power of its physics – rolling through concise multi-tiered stages, darting from start to finish without a moment wasted. It's endlessly responsive to experimentation, filled with hidden shortcuts and dynamic skips. I spent ages fiddling around with a loop near the end of Chemical Plant Act 1, being sure to keep Sonic on his feet to better control his trajectory, taking off at just the right angle, through a one-way gate, to finish the stage in under twenty-five seconds. The thrill of tearing through the high route in Aquatic Ruin and Mystic Cave, of picking up speed shoes to launch high above Wing Fortress, bouncing off of a suspended monitor and landing DIRECTLY in front of the boss, is priceless. Emerald Hill Zone’s opening riff doesn’t get enough love, it’s up there with DaiOuJou in its ability to hook me in from frame one. Appropriately, it's as close to an OutRun-like physics platformer as we’ve ever had. It's one of the greats because every frame of its forty-five minute run fizzles with potential energy. Ignore the Emeralds and go.
But friends, I had played Sonic the Hedgehog 2 before the year 2023. My love for it has grown to ridiculous size (Thanks in no small part to Sonic 2 Absolute), but I've respected it for some time. Even finished it.
How ‘bout I take you down to Quartz Quadrant.
The Good Future
Sonic CD shares 2’s place at the top of the heap. Given its reputation, I could not believe how well it clicked. Overly wide, exploratory level design in action games isn’t my thing, but here, it’s less a matter of “exploring” for a number of key objects, and more about enjoying the breadth of what Sonic’s physics are capable of – shooting through massive cascading loops and rebounding up and around towering, dreamlike worlds. Coming off the heels of the first game, with an entirely separate team from Sonic 2, it’s ridiculously forward-thinking. CD preempts the conceit of Mario 64’s 3D game design by a whole three years during an age when every year played host to wild innovation across the medium. It celebrates Sonic's unique movement mechanics like nothing before or since.
I called a perfect Sonic playthrough “unbroken,” but I didn’t say “fast.” Whether you’re flying high or barreling through badniks, movement is its own reward. And while that would’ve been enough for me to give it the thumbs-up, CD does not rest on those laurels. Hit a signpost and maintain top speed, and you’ll time travel between any of three eras of the same stage. Must be the best take on Mario 3’s P-Meter there’s ever been. Smash a robot generator in the past, and you’ve earned a wonderland of a future. Hunting generators is the way the game is designed to be played, and I refuse to ever run the game without them. Beyond the fact that they encourage the intended playstyle, the consequence for failure is too tangible, too well-executed to ignore.
I have to wonder if there was a kid in 1993 whose immediate inclination was to hurl Sonic into the future. When this child finally managed to do this, the coolest thing they could possibly imagine being able to accomplish in any game – Making Sonic the Hedgehog Time Travel into The Future – they wound up in an apocalyptic hellscape. The Bad Future so starkly different, so loud and raucous, that it almost feels like a joke. The stakes are clear; Sega put in the work to make you want to care about the world you're trying to save, if only to find out how great the Good Future's music must be. It'd be sick enough to have this two years ahead of Chrono Trigger, but even now, I can't think of another action platformer that attempts anything like this.
And don’t believe what they tell you, there are no bad Zones (Wacky Workbench is fun, I promise). I could swear the Japanese Soundtrack makes its already vibrant colors even more evocative. It’s exactly as complex as any game in this series should be. Its opening cutscene is everything to which Sonic should ever have aspired.
The Bad Future
Another 2D Sonic game released in 2023. We don’t have to talk about that one.
2
「3番」
There’s a brief moment in Isao Takahata’s “Only Yesterday” where a car drives past a throng of bushes after sundown. Fresh rainfall shines over the leaves as the headlights flash by, becoming as stars before twinkling away. This isn’t any kind of turning point in the film, but I remember that image. I remember knowing that someone, perhaps many people working together, must’ve seen this happen at some point in their lives, probably many times, and found it beautiful. They would have had to dedicate a great deal of time, planning, skill and care to share that moment with me, someone they would never meet. And I turned from the screen to notice the way my lamp illuminated the window in my room at night and thought – “...maybe that’s something.”
Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 is more of a Yasujiro Ozu film than a Takahata (check out “Good Morning” and notice how characters cut through room transitions as though they’re navigating the Spencer Mansion), but this impulse to capture and inspire an appreciation for the simple joys of life through the artifice of 3D models and pre-rendered backgrounds – that invokes the latter. It can take a filter of unreality, the lens of an artist’s craft and appreciation, to see everyday moments as worthy of tribute.
Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 takes place in a Japanese fishing village. It’s removed from my childhood in most ways but for the proximity of the ocean – I grew up in a beach town – but you don’t have to have so much as been a child to recognize the authenticity behind its textured atmosphere. You live here within gorgeous art direction and painstakingly invisible sound design, getting to know your neighbors and extended family, appreciating its cinematography and detailed staging. Adults wax on about their lives and share their daily rituals. Major events offer access to further areas or characters as visitors come and go. If you’re me, you worry you haven’t done enough each day to live all that summer has to offer. It’s a game about children, but it’s clear that some amount of perspective is necessary to get the most out of the experience. To pace yourself, to play a day per day, water the flowers each morning and soak in the ambience of an eternal moment. This game can only be a product of wisdom, reflection, and respect.
I swam in the ocean every day using surprisingly excellent underwater controls, collected bugs, trained those bugs in tournaments against my cousins, and won many battles. It reminded me of a brief camping trip on Catalina Island I took with my dad and some family friends one summer as a child. I lost my first tooth there. I pretended the cacti were monsters, which was a great way to get needles stuck in my arms. Some friends and I snuck off after dinner to hunt for treasure at the top of a hill. It’s an experience I’ve found myself coming back to time and again in my writing. There was no treasure, just a fence, behind which stood a machine. Maybe a generator, looking back. Even at that age, this discovery felt like a dead end. Another denial of magic. We turned around to find, not fifteen feet away, a deer walking with her children against the setting sun.
One evening in Boku no Natsuyasumi 2, I found a girl sitting alone on a bed in an abandoned clinic. She was recovering from some manner of unspoken illness. We piece together that she is someone else’s grief. An old man speaks of her in the past tense – the only overtly supernatural element in the game. You can find them sharing a moment together, unbothered by your entry, on another day. It’s the final scene in a story about reconciliation with loss, the whole of which my character had not been alive to witness. The moment was theirs; I was simply allowed to be present for it.
Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 generously offers a child the discovery of something magical, and it’s the emotional vulnerability of a mourning adult. You can leave when you’re ready, whether or not you’ve noticed how the evening light ripples through the curtains.
There’s a brief moment in Isao Takahata’s “Only Yesterday” where a car drives past a throng of bushes after sundown. Fresh rainfall shines over the leaves as the headlights flash by, becoming as stars before twinkling away. This isn’t any kind of turning point in the film, but I remember that image. I remember knowing that someone, perhaps many people working together, must’ve seen this happen at some point in their lives, probably many times, and found it beautiful. They would have had to dedicate a great deal of time, planning, skill and care to share that moment with me, someone they would never meet. And I turned from the screen to notice the way my lamp illuminated the window in my room at night and thought – “...maybe that’s something.”
Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 is more of a Yasujiro Ozu film than a Takahata (check out “Good Morning” and notice how characters cut through room transitions as though they’re navigating the Spencer Mansion), but this impulse to capture and inspire an appreciation for the simple joys of life through the artifice of 3D models and pre-rendered backgrounds – that invokes the latter. It can take a filter of unreality, the lens of an artist’s craft and appreciation, to see everyday moments as worthy of tribute.
Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 takes place in a Japanese fishing village. It’s removed from my childhood in most ways but for the proximity of the ocean – I grew up in a beach town – but you don’t have to have so much as been a child to recognize the authenticity behind its textured atmosphere. You live here within gorgeous art direction and painstakingly invisible sound design, getting to know your neighbors and extended family, appreciating its cinematography and detailed staging. Adults wax on about their lives and share their daily rituals. Major events offer access to further areas or characters as visitors come and go. If you’re me, you worry you haven’t done enough each day to live all that summer has to offer. It’s a game about children, but it’s clear that some amount of perspective is necessary to get the most out of the experience. To pace yourself, to play a day per day, water the flowers each morning and soak in the ambience of an eternal moment. This game can only be a product of wisdom, reflection, and respect.
I swam in the ocean every day using surprisingly excellent underwater controls, collected bugs, trained those bugs in tournaments against my cousins, and won many battles. It reminded me of a brief camping trip on Catalina Island I took with my dad and some family friends one summer as a child. I lost my first tooth there. I pretended the cacti were monsters, which was a great way to get needles stuck in my arms. Some friends and I snuck off after dinner to hunt for treasure at the top of a hill. It’s an experience I’ve found myself coming back to time and again in my writing. There was no treasure, just a fence, behind which stood a machine. Maybe a generator, looking back. Even at that age, this discovery felt like a dead end. Another denial of magic. We turned around to find, not fifteen feet away, a deer walking with her children against the setting sun.
One evening in Boku no Natsuyasumi 2, I found a girl sitting alone on a bed in an abandoned clinic. She was recovering from some manner of unspoken illness. We piece together that she is someone else’s grief. An old man speaks of her in the past tense – the only overtly supernatural element in the game. You can find them sharing a moment together, unbothered by your entry, on another day. It’s the final scene in a story about reconciliation with loss, the whole of which my character had not been alive to witness. The moment was theirs; I was simply allowed to be present for it.
Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 generously offers a child the discovery of something magical, and it’s the emotional vulnerability of a mourning adult. You can leave when you’re ready, whether or not you’ve noticed how the evening light ripples through the curtains.
3
> No. 4
I’ll have you know that I was gonna play Disco Elysium in 2023. Oh well!
I played both NieRs one after the other so, for the sake of this list, let’s allow this entry to stand in for the duology. Because, while I’ve already talked about Automata at length, I came away from the experience more attached to its predecessor.
This, frankly, should not be.
NieR Replicant is, to quote the game, “like a teacup that had survived a shipwreck.” It’s measurably worse than its sequel. Here, the “hack behavior” I spoke of in Automata is a way of life. It’s littered with unearned moments designed to deliver gut-punches which fall increasingly flat. It fails to make the most of its repetitive structure, major forces in the narrative are indecisively written, and it has little issue wasting the player’s time for long stretches between events, especially in the endgame.
Replicant had me putting up with exactly the kind of filler that’d be unforgivable anywhere else. Grinding materials for shallow side quests, replaying vast chunks several times for every ending, acquiring every weapon. Something in Replicant brought that person out of me. Morbid curiosity? Maybe. It’s an idiosyncratic, experimental thing, always switching up its methods to pull the rug out from under the player. I actually liked its slick hack and slash combat system just about the whole way through (in some ways, I think it’s even stronger than Automata). The soundtrack is brilliant, of course. But here’s my read.
NieR Replicant’s repetition, regardless of the devs’ transparent and unabashed efforts to shamelessly buff out the game’s runtime, does something.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Upon reaching the Shadowlord’s Castle, you discover that you’ve been duped. In your arrogance, in your haste, in your blind hatred for the existence of Shades, you’ve all but eradicated what remains of the human race. The two warring factions were not people and monsters, but (put simply) bodies and their estranged souls. For the protagonist, the nature of this twist doesn’t compute. He just wants to save his sister. It’s too late to turn back. It would all have been for nothing.
Then you kill your soul, destroying all potential for reunion, and save your sister.
Then, you’re asked to reload your save file.
To achieve ending B, you progress through an almost identical series of events, beginning after the timeskip. Now, the protagonist is as he was – oblivious to the destruction he’s brought upon the world – but you know. You know, and you do it anyway. This time, still playing as the protagonist, you see events from the Shades’ point of view. You hear their thoughts, you view cutscenes about how each area’s respective boss came to be. The Shades’ broader motivations go underexplored and these segments can come across somewhat heavy-handed, but the intent is clear. These are people. That was a child. That was…someone’s dog, maybe. You know (I knew), but you’re still going. You receive the B ending from the antagonist’s perspective, and then the game tells you to do it all again. Only this time, get every unlockable weapon in the game.
Oh, grant me the mercy of the land.
I thought I’d quit at this point. I didn’t. Getting every weapon means getting a lot of money, so it was here where I decided to actively pay attention to side quests during my playthrough. One quest had me kill a shade who had been friends with one of the village kids. I ran errands for the folks over in Facade. In another, I had to grind robots for a specific item that refused to drop for so long that, by the time I finally had it, I’d gathered enough other stuff to sell off for the required funds. Well, it’s the thought that counts. The thought that, in pursuing this goal, I’d been encouraged to get in touch with the people around me instead of single-mindedly charging to the end, as per usual.
But I still did it all again, with very little left to broaden my perspective now. Maybe you take a moment to muse on whether the Shades have denied Replicants their personhood in kind…but nothing comes of that. What more was there to know? I reached the Castle. This time, Kaine’s curse overwhelms her, and only a newly-revealed thing can stop it from ending her life: the erasure of your existence. No trace of you will be left behind, not even a memory.
After what you’ve wrought, bringing death to this world again and again and again, trapped within the same crimes and mistakes without recourse, it seems fair. I should just die. It would be better for everyone if I was gone. I’m the one thing keeping this world from its future. It seems poetic. It feels right.
You delete your save file, and it’s over.
…But, swept up in that moment, you failed to consider one thing. Something I’ve been holding back.
If Replicant nails anything at all, it’s the party. The friendship between Emil, Kaine, Weiss and the protagonist feels strangely true to life. The way they support one another throughout the game, bounce off of their disparate personalities in overworld banter, fight and reconcile, it all develops a very real impression that these people (and floating book) have come to care deeply about each other. It’s a special quality for any piece of media to achieve. Without them, I don’t think I would’ve had anywhere near the same interest in going back again through the motions. My appreciation for them was only strengthened after three consecutive playthroughs, and here…
You’ve left them all to a life without you, and without each other. The friends who’ve come to depend on you for their will to live. Without you, without any memory of you, they’re left with nothing but a profound emptiness.
I can’t imagine NieR Replicant working half as well without Ending E. I like it so much that I’d prefer you went out and played it if you haven’t. With its addition, the game is complete.
In short, it asserts that you, the flawed you, the one who repeats horrible mistakes and dooms the Earth – despite everything, you still have value. If only for one other person, you give life meaning. You, the person reading this, are not the one who gets to decide whether or not that’s true. It is.
Where in 2010 the noble suicide of the protagonist of a videogame – the removal of you, the root of all evil – may have been a powerful statement amidst a sea of uncritical violence simulators, I feel this new ending speaks beyond the “metatextual”. Commenting on the nature of the medium is a strong gesture, but it stays there, in the medium. Replicant reaches past that. It found me where I was. It caught me in the act.
In 2023, I grasped the steering wheel of my life but failed to shift out of Park. I was dragged through it. I didn't meet my goals, I got stuck in cyclical habits, and I’ll do it again. I felt like the sort of person who could inadvertently doom the Earth.
But I still get to be here, and you do too. We get to be human. I don't always appreciate what a miracle that is.
I’ll have you know that I was gonna play Disco Elysium in 2023. Oh well!
I played both NieRs one after the other so, for the sake of this list, let’s allow this entry to stand in for the duology. Because, while I’ve already talked about Automata at length, I came away from the experience more attached to its predecessor.
This, frankly, should not be.
NieR Replicant is, to quote the game, “like a teacup that had survived a shipwreck.” It’s measurably worse than its sequel. Here, the “hack behavior” I spoke of in Automata is a way of life. It’s littered with unearned moments designed to deliver gut-punches which fall increasingly flat. It fails to make the most of its repetitive structure, major forces in the narrative are indecisively written, and it has little issue wasting the player’s time for long stretches between events, especially in the endgame.
Replicant had me putting up with exactly the kind of filler that’d be unforgivable anywhere else. Grinding materials for shallow side quests, replaying vast chunks several times for every ending, acquiring every weapon. Something in Replicant brought that person out of me. Morbid curiosity? Maybe. It’s an idiosyncratic, experimental thing, always switching up its methods to pull the rug out from under the player. I actually liked its slick hack and slash combat system just about the whole way through (in some ways, I think it’s even stronger than Automata). The soundtrack is brilliant, of course. But here’s my read.
NieR Replicant’s repetition, regardless of the devs’ transparent and unabashed efforts to shamelessly buff out the game’s runtime, does something.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Upon reaching the Shadowlord’s Castle, you discover that you’ve been duped. In your arrogance, in your haste, in your blind hatred for the existence of Shades, you’ve all but eradicated what remains of the human race. The two warring factions were not people and monsters, but (put simply) bodies and their estranged souls. For the protagonist, the nature of this twist doesn’t compute. He just wants to save his sister. It’s too late to turn back. It would all have been for nothing.
Then you kill your soul, destroying all potential for reunion, and save your sister.
Then, you’re asked to reload your save file.
To achieve ending B, you progress through an almost identical series of events, beginning after the timeskip. Now, the protagonist is as he was – oblivious to the destruction he’s brought upon the world – but you know. You know, and you do it anyway. This time, still playing as the protagonist, you see events from the Shades’ point of view. You hear their thoughts, you view cutscenes about how each area’s respective boss came to be. The Shades’ broader motivations go underexplored and these segments can come across somewhat heavy-handed, but the intent is clear. These are people. That was a child. That was…someone’s dog, maybe. You know (I knew), but you’re still going. You receive the B ending from the antagonist’s perspective, and then the game tells you to do it all again. Only this time, get every unlockable weapon in the game.
Oh, grant me the mercy of the land.
I thought I’d quit at this point. I didn’t. Getting every weapon means getting a lot of money, so it was here where I decided to actively pay attention to side quests during my playthrough. One quest had me kill a shade who had been friends with one of the village kids. I ran errands for the folks over in Facade. In another, I had to grind robots for a specific item that refused to drop for so long that, by the time I finally had it, I’d gathered enough other stuff to sell off for the required funds. Well, it’s the thought that counts. The thought that, in pursuing this goal, I’d been encouraged to get in touch with the people around me instead of single-mindedly charging to the end, as per usual.
But I still did it all again, with very little left to broaden my perspective now. Maybe you take a moment to muse on whether the Shades have denied Replicants their personhood in kind…but nothing comes of that. What more was there to know? I reached the Castle. This time, Kaine’s curse overwhelms her, and only a newly-revealed thing can stop it from ending her life: the erasure of your existence. No trace of you will be left behind, not even a memory.
After what you’ve wrought, bringing death to this world again and again and again, trapped within the same crimes and mistakes without recourse, it seems fair. I should just die. It would be better for everyone if I was gone. I’m the one thing keeping this world from its future. It seems poetic. It feels right.
You delete your save file, and it’s over.
…But, swept up in that moment, you failed to consider one thing. Something I’ve been holding back.
If Replicant nails anything at all, it’s the party. The friendship between Emil, Kaine, Weiss and the protagonist feels strangely true to life. The way they support one another throughout the game, bounce off of their disparate personalities in overworld banter, fight and reconcile, it all develops a very real impression that these people (and floating book) have come to care deeply about each other. It’s a special quality for any piece of media to achieve. Without them, I don’t think I would’ve had anywhere near the same interest in going back again through the motions. My appreciation for them was only strengthened after three consecutive playthroughs, and here…
You’ve left them all to a life without you, and without each other. The friends who’ve come to depend on you for their will to live. Without you, without any memory of you, they’re left with nothing but a profound emptiness.
I can’t imagine NieR Replicant working half as well without Ending E. I like it so much that I’d prefer you went out and played it if you haven’t. With its addition, the game is complete.
In short, it asserts that you, the flawed you, the one who repeats horrible mistakes and dooms the Earth – despite everything, you still have value. If only for one other person, you give life meaning. You, the person reading this, are not the one who gets to decide whether or not that’s true. It is.
Where in 2010 the noble suicide of the protagonist of a videogame – the removal of you, the root of all evil – may have been a powerful statement amidst a sea of uncritical violence simulators, I feel this new ending speaks beyond the “metatextual”. Commenting on the nature of the medium is a strong gesture, but it stays there, in the medium. Replicant reaches past that. It found me where I was. It caught me in the act.
In 2023, I grasped the steering wheel of my life but failed to shift out of Park. I was dragged through it. I didn't meet my goals, I got stuck in cyclical habits, and I’ll do it again. I felt like the sort of person who could inadvertently doom the Earth.
But I still get to be here, and you do too. We get to be human. I don't always appreciate what a miracle that is.
4
WARNING
FINAL FIVE APPROACHING
NUMBER FIVE
There are two types of games in this world: those you’d like to have played, and those that live and die today, right now, in the present moment. The ones which are always better to be playing than to think back on some odd years later. The ones that fizzle with an electricity that begs to be harnessed. Channeled. In the words of Treasure:
“HERE COMES THE CLIMAX!!”
I said in 2021 that it would be a “decade” before I called Gunstar Heroes Treasure’s best game. Time sure does fly, doesn’t it. No, it is as good as Alien Soldier and Radiant Silvergun. Sin and Punishment. Find me another run ‘n gun where you can hit a fighting game input to shred bosses into confetti. Name me a moment in history that couldn’t have been improved with the addition of a CRT television, a Sega Genesis, two controllers, and a Gunstar Heroes cartridge. You can’t.
Gunstar Heroes loves videogames more than they love themselves. The Genesis was one of the last strongholds of arcade game design on a home console, and Gunstar celebrates everything that came before while pushing the envelope into overdrive. It’s a Contra where you can grab flying saucers out of the air and toss them spiraling into crowds of cartoon henchmen. You’re up against M. Bison laughing like he’s Ganon from Zelda II. You’ve got transforming mecha monstrosities, a dice palace boss rush, you can hang off the side of a helicopter and flip over to kick a flexing general in the head. The title screen music could be the national anthem. You can combine weapons to form homing flamethrowers.
Gunstar and its legacy owe everything to Treasure's mastery over Game Feel. Ever try Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4? Ever notice how landing a punch has exactly as much kick as a wet pancake? Meanwhile, twenty-five years earlier on the Sega Genesis, belly flopping into a man made entirely out of faux-3D boxes is life-affirming. There's something to be said for that. I can analyze each stage of Gunstar, tell you what makes every one of them as much its own self-contained game as an extension of the whole, but it feels antithetical. Disrespectful.
Maybe you want me to justify why Gunstar deserves to be higher than Street Fighter 6, DaiOuJou, or Baldur's Gate 3. I've directly compared it to Contra: Hard Corps elsewhere on this list. But I couldn't break the spell even if I wanted to. I can invoke the flavor, the texture, but never the ephemeral. Is good-feeling, good-looking, good-sounding action really worth more than my soliloquy on Fading Afternoon, Final Fantasy X, all those words wasted on Chrono Cross?
In 2023? Yes.
Because Gunstar Heroes is not lightning in a bottle, it's just lightning. A flash that can strike me at any point, any day for a duration of around forty-five minutes to an hour, and reinvigorate me with the passion it so generously exudes.
I had the opportunity to share Gunstar with friends on four separate occasions in 2023, and all of them were better for it. In a year filled with games and experiences that dared to ask me what I’m still doing here, Gunstar Heroes had an answer.
“DESTROY THEM ALL!!”
FINAL FIVE APPROACHING
NUMBER FIVE
There are two types of games in this world: those you’d like to have played, and those that live and die today, right now, in the present moment. The ones which are always better to be playing than to think back on some odd years later. The ones that fizzle with an electricity that begs to be harnessed. Channeled. In the words of Treasure:
“HERE COMES THE CLIMAX!!”
I said in 2021 that it would be a “decade” before I called Gunstar Heroes Treasure’s best game. Time sure does fly, doesn’t it. No, it is as good as Alien Soldier and Radiant Silvergun. Sin and Punishment. Find me another run ‘n gun where you can hit a fighting game input to shred bosses into confetti. Name me a moment in history that couldn’t have been improved with the addition of a CRT television, a Sega Genesis, two controllers, and a Gunstar Heroes cartridge. You can’t.
Gunstar Heroes loves videogames more than they love themselves. The Genesis was one of the last strongholds of arcade game design on a home console, and Gunstar celebrates everything that came before while pushing the envelope into overdrive. It’s a Contra where you can grab flying saucers out of the air and toss them spiraling into crowds of cartoon henchmen. You’re up against M. Bison laughing like he’s Ganon from Zelda II. You’ve got transforming mecha monstrosities, a dice palace boss rush, you can hang off the side of a helicopter and flip over to kick a flexing general in the head. The title screen music could be the national anthem. You can combine weapons to form homing flamethrowers.
Gunstar and its legacy owe everything to Treasure's mastery over Game Feel. Ever try Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4? Ever notice how landing a punch has exactly as much kick as a wet pancake? Meanwhile, twenty-five years earlier on the Sega Genesis, belly flopping into a man made entirely out of faux-3D boxes is life-affirming. There's something to be said for that. I can analyze each stage of Gunstar, tell you what makes every one of them as much its own self-contained game as an extension of the whole, but it feels antithetical. Disrespectful.
Maybe you want me to justify why Gunstar deserves to be higher than Street Fighter 6, DaiOuJou, or Baldur's Gate 3. I've directly compared it to Contra: Hard Corps elsewhere on this list. But I couldn't break the spell even if I wanted to. I can invoke the flavor, the texture, but never the ephemeral. Is good-feeling, good-looking, good-sounding action really worth more than my soliloquy on Fading Afternoon, Final Fantasy X, all those words wasted on Chrono Cross?
In 2023? Yes.
Because Gunstar Heroes is not lightning in a bottle, it's just lightning. A flash that can strike me at any point, any day for a duration of around forty-five minutes to an hour, and reinvigorate me with the passion it so generously exudes.
I had the opportunity to share Gunstar with friends on four separate occasions in 2023, and all of them were better for it. In a year filled with games and experiences that dared to ask me what I’m still doing here, Gunstar Heroes had an answer.
“DESTROY THEM ALL!!”
5
For those on the outside of this hobby (and even to me), there seems an insidious quality to games which demand this kind of time to master. Requiring the honing of a skill which applies nowhere else, and can't be easily shared. For better and worse, videogames have become important to me. Maybe too important. It can be easy to forget how little there is at stake, which you might say is the entire point. There’s a reason they call it “play”. These are safe zones for expression, where you can practice without having to crash and burn. Getting good at any game should be done for its own sake (unless you are doing it for a living, in which case, more power to you). Be careful not to blur that line and take it personally.
…Like I do, while playing DoDonPachi.
DaiOuJou is untouchable by human hands. As sparkling and forbidden as the flame Prometheus stole from the Heavens. An anxiety stirs at the press of the start button; it’s impossible to get even that far without knowledge of DaiOuJou’s reputation. But try and tell me you don’t feel a surge of magic bolt through your fingers when you select your ship. All doubt subsides. You’re descending into the city. The music is perfect. This moment is frozen in time, every time.
That euphoria gives way to reality. It’s not enough to live, you have to live perfectly. Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t waste your bombs. Don’t drop your chain.
But then you hold down the fire button and it sends a heat ray screaming up the top of the screen. You earn a Hyper and start plotting over the best place to spend it. You’re gonna tear that first boss apart piece by piece. You’re gonna grab the two Hypers it drops and melt it down to nothing. You’re gonn–
boom
I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, DaiOuJou is evil. It’s what every prospective shmup player fears this genre is, and every reason to dive in. More than any other, this one cemented for me that the biggest obstacle in any shoot ‘em up is Pride. You’ll get better faster if you allow yourself to fail harder. Sink into its rhythm. Be humbled. Your future self will thank you.
DaiOuJou became the first Cave game I played. I quickly realized that it probably shouldn’t have been, but even after I’d mined the depths of their gameography, this one kept on drawing me back. If ever I were a “moth to the flame,” I became one while playing DOJ. It’s factually the single shoot ‘em up I’ve spent the most time with in 2023. And that time has not translated into anything remotely impressive – I think I’ve only ever earned a high enough score to earn an extend once in Black Label, and I can get almost halfway through the game without dropping in another credit – But make an attempt to believe me when I say that this attachment is anything but masochistic, because DaiOuJou, regardless of skill, represents an immaculate experience. The perfect amount of DaiOuJou is exactly as much as you're willing to take. Don't let anyone tell you differently.
I deeply recommend getting ahold of that M2 ShotTriggers port any way you can….just know what you’re getting yourself into. Is it really better than Ketsui? Garegga? ChoRenSha 68K? RayForce? Truxton? Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, and yes.
…Like I do, while playing DoDonPachi.
DaiOuJou is untouchable by human hands. As sparkling and forbidden as the flame Prometheus stole from the Heavens. An anxiety stirs at the press of the start button; it’s impossible to get even that far without knowledge of DaiOuJou’s reputation. But try and tell me you don’t feel a surge of magic bolt through your fingers when you select your ship. All doubt subsides. You’re descending into the city. The music is perfect. This moment is frozen in time, every time.
That euphoria gives way to reality. It’s not enough to live, you have to live perfectly. Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t waste your bombs. Don’t drop your chain.
But then you hold down the fire button and it sends a heat ray screaming up the top of the screen. You earn a Hyper and start plotting over the best place to spend it. You’re gonna tear that first boss apart piece by piece. You’re gonna grab the two Hypers it drops and melt it down to nothing. You’re gonn–
boom
I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, DaiOuJou is evil. It’s what every prospective shmup player fears this genre is, and every reason to dive in. More than any other, this one cemented for me that the biggest obstacle in any shoot ‘em up is Pride. You’ll get better faster if you allow yourself to fail harder. Sink into its rhythm. Be humbled. Your future self will thank you.
DaiOuJou became the first Cave game I played. I quickly realized that it probably shouldn’t have been, but even after I’d mined the depths of their gameography, this one kept on drawing me back. If ever I were a “moth to the flame,” I became one while playing DOJ. It’s factually the single shoot ‘em up I’ve spent the most time with in 2023. And that time has not translated into anything remotely impressive – I think I’ve only ever earned a high enough score to earn an extend once in Black Label, and I can get almost halfway through the game without dropping in another credit – But make an attempt to believe me when I say that this attachment is anything but masochistic, because DaiOuJou, regardless of skill, represents an immaculate experience. The perfect amount of DaiOuJou is exactly as much as you're willing to take. Don't let anyone tell you differently.
I deeply recommend getting ahold of that M2 ShotTriggers port any way you can….just know what you’re getting yourself into. Is it really better than Ketsui? Garegga? ChoRenSha 68K? RayForce? Truxton? Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, and yes.
6
CONTENT WARNING
I talk about Suicide in this one.
If I’d had a car, I could’ve saved Arima.
If I’d saved Arima, I wouldn’t have been stabbed on the bridge by one of our own.
If I hadn’t been stabbed…
I’d reached a point where my heath had all but bled away, having already lost the respect of anyone who might’ve been able pay my medical bills. I was saving all the cash I could pinch for real estate, so I slept on a park bench instead of checking in at a hotel. After more than a few nights of this, I no longer resembled myself. I couldn’t kill the leaders I’d been paid to kill. I started losing fights. Sometimes I’d lose them on purpose. I wound up in the hospital each time, just that little bit more frail. My beard became grizzly and awkward. I stopped combing my hair.
Finally, after a street brawl, I’d secured the funds necessary for housing. I took the train to the real estate agency with eleven million yen in my pocket. Today, the sign read twelve. My mind must’ve been playing tricks on me. I socked another million out of some local thugs and returned. No. Thirteen million now.
I had no reliable source of income, no personal transportation to cut down on the amount of time it was taking to cross town each day, no chance I could hold up against hordes of territorial Yakuza without a crew. What I was expected to do, keep sleeping on the streets and commuting to battles I couldn’t win? I needed it to end, somehow. Anyhow. I could start again, use my newly-acquired knowledge of the game to alter the course of the story. It became an attractive thought.
It feels dishonest beating around the bush like this. The truth is, from the time you acquire a firearm (about five to ten minutes in), Fading Afternoon offers the option to commit suicide. I had my character shoot himself in the head with a pistol.
When his downward spiral began, I’d sort of darkly joked about doing this to wipe the slate. Later, comedy turned to consideration. I should note that you are not required to shoot yourself to reset; you can start a new game from the title screen, wiping any current progress. After the time I’d already spent, it felt wrong to leave my character without an ending. I’ll admit, my brain isn’t always the kindest place to be. Maybe you know what that’s like. It’s hard not to feel trapped in the vices of the present. And what do you know, it’ll always be the present. If you don’t know the feeling, the experience of compounding failure in Fading Afternoon might give you a sense of it. Playing out the action of picking up a gun and holding it to my character’s head, with the risk of game-erasure a mere trigger-pull away…strange though it sounds, it was harrowing to have that kind of control.
In its own way, Fading Afternoon honors the cold, empty result of that choice. I didn’t get closure. No eulogy. The moment after I pressed the kill button, I wondered what I could’ve done if I’d pulled myself together and given it another shot. Let my character live out whatever finale I’d earned him. Find peace on a park bench somewhere. It’s a shame I wouldn’t find the fishing pond until my third playthrough. There is no liberation in suicide, neither in fiction nor anywhere else.
But for all I’ve done since to rewrite it into a tale of underworld drama, love, loss, and real estate purchases, only that first, hopeless effort feels canonical.
I talk about Suicide in this one.
If I’d had a car, I could’ve saved Arima.
If I’d saved Arima, I wouldn’t have been stabbed on the bridge by one of our own.
If I hadn’t been stabbed…
I’d reached a point where my heath had all but bled away, having already lost the respect of anyone who might’ve been able pay my medical bills. I was saving all the cash I could pinch for real estate, so I slept on a park bench instead of checking in at a hotel. After more than a few nights of this, I no longer resembled myself. I couldn’t kill the leaders I’d been paid to kill. I started losing fights. Sometimes I’d lose them on purpose. I wound up in the hospital each time, just that little bit more frail. My beard became grizzly and awkward. I stopped combing my hair.
Finally, after a street brawl, I’d secured the funds necessary for housing. I took the train to the real estate agency with eleven million yen in my pocket. Today, the sign read twelve. My mind must’ve been playing tricks on me. I socked another million out of some local thugs and returned. No. Thirteen million now.
I had no reliable source of income, no personal transportation to cut down on the amount of time it was taking to cross town each day, no chance I could hold up against hordes of territorial Yakuza without a crew. What I was expected to do, keep sleeping on the streets and commuting to battles I couldn’t win? I needed it to end, somehow. Anyhow. I could start again, use my newly-acquired knowledge of the game to alter the course of the story. It became an attractive thought.
It feels dishonest beating around the bush like this. The truth is, from the time you acquire a firearm (about five to ten minutes in), Fading Afternoon offers the option to commit suicide. I had my character shoot himself in the head with a pistol.
When his downward spiral began, I’d sort of darkly joked about doing this to wipe the slate. Later, comedy turned to consideration. I should note that you are not required to shoot yourself to reset; you can start a new game from the title screen, wiping any current progress. After the time I’d already spent, it felt wrong to leave my character without an ending. I’ll admit, my brain isn’t always the kindest place to be. Maybe you know what that’s like. It’s hard not to feel trapped in the vices of the present. And what do you know, it’ll always be the present. If you don’t know the feeling, the experience of compounding failure in Fading Afternoon might give you a sense of it. Playing out the action of picking up a gun and holding it to my character’s head, with the risk of game-erasure a mere trigger-pull away…strange though it sounds, it was harrowing to have that kind of control.
In its own way, Fading Afternoon honors the cold, empty result of that choice. I didn’t get closure. No eulogy. The moment after I pressed the kill button, I wondered what I could’ve done if I’d pulled myself together and given it another shot. Let my character live out whatever finale I’d earned him. Find peace on a park bench somewhere. It’s a shame I wouldn’t find the fishing pond until my third playthrough. There is no liberation in suicide, neither in fiction nor anywhere else.
But for all I’ve done since to rewrite it into a tale of underworld drama, love, loss, and real estate purchases, only that first, hopeless effort feels canonical.
7
Allow me to make a prediction. ChoRenSha 68K might not be my number one game of 2023, but it will prevail. It will outlive my appreciation for NieR, it will defeat Fading Afternoon in the long game, it will eventually trounce ZeroRanger as my favorite in its genre. I don’t care if there’s only one scrolling background, Mom. Does ChoRenSha 68K have some insane, mind-bending addition slated to topple DaiOuJou’s Hyper system? No, it sharpens the basics. It’s clean, and it wields that cleanliness like a razor forged of hot plasma. You have one mode of fire, and it’s perfectly calibrated to function as either your spread or focused shot depending on your positioning. Enemy formations descend in a call-and-response rhythm, large ships in small numbers gliding in and away as though summoned by the soundtrack. Bosses are conducive to multiple strategies which are all openly conveyed in their design, and believe me, you will shriek when you dodge just well enough to send their projectiles careening into their own. Its bullet patterns are insane and intimidating, but also more intuitive than they first appear. It’s as inventive as it is elegant. But if a piece of game design could be called a “cherry on top,” it would be ChoRenSha 68K’s power-up system.
Power-ups appear in rings of three, spinning in a circle. Collect one, and the others evaporate. You can play the whole game this way, carefully selecting the needed power-up for the situation. Increase the strength of your shot, equip a shield or snag a bomb. That would be enough to pepper in some thought, BUT, because this game was made by a beautiful genius, there’s a fourth option: risk dodging through the power-ups, navigate to the center of the circle and stay there for about one second. Adjust as it drifts downward. Do it right, and the ring spins rapidly around your ship until all three power-ups are collected at once with an excellent sound effect. It is an event absolutely every time you knock out a power-up carrier to spawn a ring.
What I learned this year is that Shoot Them Up Games are Action Design in its purest form. Being a fan of the combat found in the likes of Hyper Light Drifter and A Link to the Past, I’ve become cognizant of an invisible chain that binds these genres. ChoRenSha 68K just strips out the room navigation, the need to manually scroll toward conflict, anything that could possibly stand between the trading and dodging of burning dots. Those skeptical of i-frame reliant fighting systems might not realize they’d find what they’re looking for in a game for the Sharp 68000 computer developed in 1995 by one person. If you accept the assumption that everything in game design has at least been attempted once, then become willing to seek out those designers with kindred taste across time and space, you will surprise yourself. Dodging and striking in ChoRenSha 68K is as good or better than in any game you’ll find from the last two decades, because it stakes everything upon those two things. We’d all be better off if we allowed ourselves to dig down into the history of this medium and celebrate the breadth of what's been achieved, rather than disposing of all but the latest hotness.
Maybe it sounds funny to compliment ChoRenSha for having “shooting,” “dodging,” and “power-ups,” but ChoRenSha’s Devil lives, breathes and dies in its details. The tactility of its colorful bullets striking their mark, the explosive bosses and ships that heave and buckle as they blast apart, the lovingly arranged musicality of their flight. It may be another decade before I can properly climb its looping structure, but I’ll have a heck of an elevator track to enjoy on my way there.
Power-ups appear in rings of three, spinning in a circle. Collect one, and the others evaporate. You can play the whole game this way, carefully selecting the needed power-up for the situation. Increase the strength of your shot, equip a shield or snag a bomb. That would be enough to pepper in some thought, BUT, because this game was made by a beautiful genius, there’s a fourth option: risk dodging through the power-ups, navigate to the center of the circle and stay there for about one second. Adjust as it drifts downward. Do it right, and the ring spins rapidly around your ship until all three power-ups are collected at once with an excellent sound effect. It is an event absolutely every time you knock out a power-up carrier to spawn a ring.
What I learned this year is that Shoot Them Up Games are Action Design in its purest form. Being a fan of the combat found in the likes of Hyper Light Drifter and A Link to the Past, I’ve become cognizant of an invisible chain that binds these genres. ChoRenSha 68K just strips out the room navigation, the need to manually scroll toward conflict, anything that could possibly stand between the trading and dodging of burning dots. Those skeptical of i-frame reliant fighting systems might not realize they’d find what they’re looking for in a game for the Sharp 68000 computer developed in 1995 by one person. If you accept the assumption that everything in game design has at least been attempted once, then become willing to seek out those designers with kindred taste across time and space, you will surprise yourself. Dodging and striking in ChoRenSha 68K is as good or better than in any game you’ll find from the last two decades, because it stakes everything upon those two things. We’d all be better off if we allowed ourselves to dig down into the history of this medium and celebrate the breadth of what's been achieved, rather than disposing of all but the latest hotness.
Maybe it sounds funny to compliment ChoRenSha for having “shooting,” “dodging,” and “power-ups,” but ChoRenSha’s Devil lives, breathes and dies in its details. The tactility of its colorful bullets striking their mark, the explosive bosses and ships that heave and buckle as they blast apart, the lovingly arranged musicality of their flight. It may be another decade before I can properly climb its looping structure, but I’ll have a heck of an elevator track to enjoy on my way there.
8
A year ago, I’d have told you that Mario 64’s physics felt awful. Try navigating the slightest incline from a stop, and Mario will slowly, painfully scramble to make his way up and over it. Make a 180 degree turnaround while already in motion. I dare you. Mario will walk in a full circle of his own accord, taking the scenic route and risking a plunge into whatever chasm he’s been precariously positioned against. Couple that with a prehistoric camera, and even the midgame stages can be nightmarishly awkward. Have fun getting around Tick Tock Clock, kids. Even before the release of Mario Odyssey, I found it crusty and unresponsive. When I was eight, Super Mario Galaxy was so friendly and clean that I traded in my copy of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle for maybe five cents of store credit at the local GameStop. Compared to that, even 64’s DS version couldn’t compete.
But times have changed, and Super Mario 64 has survived. I haven’t played Galaxy in years. If your favorite part of Odyssey is pushing your base moveset as far as it can go, using as few capture abilities as possible, then you long for the pastures of Peach’s Castle. In my advanced age, wrangling Mario’s slippery friction to turn side somersaults into triple jumps into wall kicks into dives with increasing finesse to master the geometry of each stage and complete objectives in any order...it's exhilarating. I was shocked by how quickly I managed to zip through my second playthrough, then my third…and fourth. I shouldn’t have been, 64’s speedrunning scene precedes it.
Even repetitive or otherwise mediocre stars are propelled by the dynamism of the game’s controls, how fun it can be to experiment to find faster or more stylish ways to land Mario exactly where you want him. Doesn't hurt that 64, unlike so many successors, is more than happy to drop you into a new game in the space of a minute. Where Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s big innovation was peppering in a bunch of bespoke segments that cut from the core gameplay, 64’s core is strong enough to carry the game and then some. It’s unbreakable.
So I never bought the rhetoric behind Super Mario 64, and now I'm spouting clichés with total sincerity. But considering how far my tastes have trended toward complex movement systems with high skill ceilings, it was really only a matter of time. It’s the 3D Metroid I’ve always wanted. Just go ahead and cancel Prime 4.
But times have changed, and Super Mario 64 has survived. I haven’t played Galaxy in years. If your favorite part of Odyssey is pushing your base moveset as far as it can go, using as few capture abilities as possible, then you long for the pastures of Peach’s Castle. In my advanced age, wrangling Mario’s slippery friction to turn side somersaults into triple jumps into wall kicks into dives with increasing finesse to master the geometry of each stage and complete objectives in any order...it's exhilarating. I was shocked by how quickly I managed to zip through my second playthrough, then my third…and fourth. I shouldn’t have been, 64’s speedrunning scene precedes it.
Even repetitive or otherwise mediocre stars are propelled by the dynamism of the game’s controls, how fun it can be to experiment to find faster or more stylish ways to land Mario exactly where you want him. Doesn't hurt that 64, unlike so many successors, is more than happy to drop you into a new game in the space of a minute. Where Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s big innovation was peppering in a bunch of bespoke segments that cut from the core gameplay, 64’s core is strong enough to carry the game and then some. It’s unbreakable.
So I never bought the rhetoric behind Super Mario 64, and now I'm spouting clichés with total sincerity. But considering how far my tastes have trended toward complex movement systems with high skill ceilings, it was really only a matter of time. It’s the 3D Metroid I’ve always wanted. Just go ahead and cancel Prime 4.
9
I swear, every time I get into a series, no matter how dormant, the next one is just around the corner.
Before that, one last word on the Mikado Arcade in Takadanobaba, Japan. I spoke before about my time with various Sega games, but Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (the Best Game I Played in 2021) was the main attraction. The second time I entered that Game Center, the stench of blood was in the air. The row of professionals on the right side from the entrance was in the middle of inflicting game-trauma upon their opposite challengers. That entire left side was rotating out at record pace, which I didn’t quite grok when I walked up the row on the right and sat down at the one open cabinet. I plunked in a 100 yen coin and received a tap on the shoulder. I’d just entered a little tournament. On the one hand, oops. すみません。
On the other, heck yeah.
I did not get far at all but, upon submitting to my rightful place on the left row, I won three matches against the pros over the course of a long night. One of these times was against Hugo-kun (you need only watch four seconds of this video to know what that means) as Ibuki, so I’d call that something. These people have pushed themselves and this game to the absolute limits of their potential, and it’s both beautiful and scary to behold. Some players are so deeply in tune with its every frame of animation that they can stand completely still, just observing. Invariably, spurred by the clock, their opponent makes the first move, and it’s already been predicted, parried, and rebuked. What a game.
So. What can any sequel hope to offer in the face of that, a game whose every facet is so deeply beloved that it’s inspired this insane level of dedication twenty four (now twenty five) years on? Do people still play SF4? 5 was seeing improvements right up until the release of 6, but it’s all but evaporated from the conversation now. Super Turbo and 3S have endured, the former for being arguably the “complete” version of the most influential game in the genre, and the latter for its technical depth and aesthetic beauty. Aaaaaaaaaand I’m sure Alpha 3 is still kicking out there somewhere too.
Fighting game sequels are tricky. What if James Naismith crawled out from his grave and announced “Basketball 2: Double Dribble”? This isn’t a level pack or a continuation of a story, it’s a new sport based on the rules of the old sport. Sports get revised – we didn’t always have a three-point line – but rarely wholly new variants (though many are “spiritual successors” of Soccer). We don’t yet have the version of Basketball with four-way courts. We do, however, have Street Fighter with air blocking, parrying, focus attacks, V-ism(?), all of which substantially alter the meta of their respective games. But if Naismith bestowed upon us his Basketball sequel, would anyone play it? You can’t force a sport to catch on, and a healthy scene can’t just abandon its game every time the next one shows up.
All of this to say, Street Fighter 6 is a darn good piece of work, but do we need it? Better question, do I need it? Better question, why play Street Fighter 6 in a world where 3rd Strike exists? Well, it feels great to play, offers excellent training tools, features a “modern” control option, has a fun weird single player campaign, cross-play, a reasonably active scene, and I don’t understand how it’s almost a year old already. But it’s also incomplete. New, expensive characters are dropping here and there, the balance is adjusting all the time, so on and so forth.
The only answer to that question I can offer is that I clocked in about 33 hours and haven't offered more since. The honest truth is that I would’ve played more of it if more of my friends had the game, but that’s the rub. The Drive System is gutsy, the increased focus on combo strings makes an exciting change, and it deserves to be recognized for its quality. I love that Street Fighter can still make waves, Capcom’s still makin’ it happen out here with their big comeback story, but I can only study the intricacies of so many video-sports before I wind up in a ditch behind a Mikado Arcade. I’ll circle back to SF6 eventually, but know that it wouldn’t be up here without good reason. I wish 3rd Strike’s Sean had been on the box instead of Luke, but at least I can make him myself in some perverse character creation tool. Say what you may, but 33 hours is 33 hours. I could’ve drawn some decent pictures, written something halfway interesting, volunteered at a Nursing Home, finished Vagrant Story, practiced an instrument, but I spent it with Street Fighter 6 and I don’t think I regret that choice. In the meantime, I’ll be keeping an eye on the scene. We’ll see how this one fares on the stage of history.
Before that, one last word on the Mikado Arcade in Takadanobaba, Japan. I spoke before about my time with various Sega games, but Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (the Best Game I Played in 2021) was the main attraction. The second time I entered that Game Center, the stench of blood was in the air. The row of professionals on the right side from the entrance was in the middle of inflicting game-trauma upon their opposite challengers. That entire left side was rotating out at record pace, which I didn’t quite grok when I walked up the row on the right and sat down at the one open cabinet. I plunked in a 100 yen coin and received a tap on the shoulder. I’d just entered a little tournament. On the one hand, oops. すみません。
On the other, heck yeah.
I did not get far at all but, upon submitting to my rightful place on the left row, I won three matches against the pros over the course of a long night. One of these times was against Hugo-kun (you need only watch four seconds of this video to know what that means) as Ibuki, so I’d call that something. These people have pushed themselves and this game to the absolute limits of their potential, and it’s both beautiful and scary to behold. Some players are so deeply in tune with its every frame of animation that they can stand completely still, just observing. Invariably, spurred by the clock, their opponent makes the first move, and it’s already been predicted, parried, and rebuked. What a game.
So. What can any sequel hope to offer in the face of that, a game whose every facet is so deeply beloved that it’s inspired this insane level of dedication twenty four (now twenty five) years on? Do people still play SF4? 5 was seeing improvements right up until the release of 6, but it’s all but evaporated from the conversation now. Super Turbo and 3S have endured, the former for being arguably the “complete” version of the most influential game in the genre, and the latter for its technical depth and aesthetic beauty. Aaaaaaaaaand I’m sure Alpha 3 is still kicking out there somewhere too.
Fighting game sequels are tricky. What if James Naismith crawled out from his grave and announced “Basketball 2: Double Dribble”? This isn’t a level pack or a continuation of a story, it’s a new sport based on the rules of the old sport. Sports get revised – we didn’t always have a three-point line – but rarely wholly new variants (though many are “spiritual successors” of Soccer). We don’t yet have the version of Basketball with four-way courts. We do, however, have Street Fighter with air blocking, parrying, focus attacks, V-ism(?), all of which substantially alter the meta of their respective games. But if Naismith bestowed upon us his Basketball sequel, would anyone play it? You can’t force a sport to catch on, and a healthy scene can’t just abandon its game every time the next one shows up.
All of this to say, Street Fighter 6 is a darn good piece of work, but do we need it? Better question, do I need it? Better question, why play Street Fighter 6 in a world where 3rd Strike exists? Well, it feels great to play, offers excellent training tools, features a “modern” control option, has a fun weird single player campaign, cross-play, a reasonably active scene, and I don’t understand how it’s almost a year old already. But it’s also incomplete. New, expensive characters are dropping here and there, the balance is adjusting all the time, so on and so forth.
The only answer to that question I can offer is that I clocked in about 33 hours and haven't offered more since. The honest truth is that I would’ve played more of it if more of my friends had the game, but that’s the rub. The Drive System is gutsy, the increased focus on combo strings makes an exciting change, and it deserves to be recognized for its quality. I love that Street Fighter can still make waves, Capcom’s still makin’ it happen out here with their big comeback story, but I can only study the intricacies of so many video-sports before I wind up in a ditch behind a Mikado Arcade. I’ll circle back to SF6 eventually, but know that it wouldn’t be up here without good reason. I wish 3rd Strike’s Sean had been on the box instead of Luke, but at least I can make him myself in some perverse character creation tool. Say what you may, but 33 hours is 33 hours. I could’ve drawn some decent pictures, written something halfway interesting, volunteered at a Nursing Home, finished Vagrant Story, practiced an instrument, but I spent it with Street Fighter 6 and I don’t think I regret that choice. In the meantime, I’ll be keeping an eye on the scene. We’ll see how this one fares on the stage of history.
10
[You decided to read the Note]
[...]
[You get the feeling that you've been here once before]
[...]
[Something is wrong]
[...]
[You get the feeling that you've been here once before]
[...]
[Something is wrong]
11
I hate to beat the tired “visual storytelling” drum of yet another space-based game about alien assailants…
HOWEVER
Am I just supposed to sit here and tell you that RayForce is played out? Has my gushing over “direction” in videogames been overwrought? Listen.
If you’ve tried making anything, you should respect that cohesion between each of the wildly disparate elements that compose a game is nothing to sneeze at. How many things – period – are more beautiful than a piece of music synced with the escalating difficulty of a level-designed narrative sequence? Forget Sonic 3’s level transitions, RayForce is on another plane. Quite literally descending from the vacuum of space into the fiery atmosphere of our planet, though the clouds, beneath “The Fissure of Consciousness” in a relentless pursuit of the Earth’s Core.
Taito’s RayForce, Galactic Attack, Layer Section…Gun Lock – whichever your preference – belongs in The Museum of The Moving Image in Queens, New York. Preferably on an arcade cabinet. No graphical opportunity is wasted here; there’s such an appreciation for parallax that the game’s mechanics force its players to religiously scan its scrolling backgrounds. Painting targets with crosshairs and letting loose a flurry of spiraling rays is as visually arresting here as in my beloved Panzer Dragoon Zwei, equally compelling to master, and clearly its source of inspiration. I at one point heretically preferred Raizing’s Soukyugurentai (or, I dunno, “Terra Diver”), another gorgeous and great shooter, but removing the game’s visual layers flattens the focus. Might be less a matter of concept than execution.
Tough though it is, this is not a game that feels built to stamp down the growing power-levels of shmup-faithful fiends. It introduces its concepts at a fair pace, it’s not here to blindside or pave over you even with a larger hitbox than became standard for this genre.
So videogames may never escape the myth of the lone adventurer, born alongside the conception of the medium. If we’re still around in twenty years, we’ll still be getting interstellar games predicated on visual storytelling, and why not? But they’ll have a lot to live up to. Super Metroid, Another World, Gun Lock.
HOWEVER
Am I just supposed to sit here and tell you that RayForce is played out? Has my gushing over “direction” in videogames been overwrought? Listen.
If you’ve tried making anything, you should respect that cohesion between each of the wildly disparate elements that compose a game is nothing to sneeze at. How many things – period – are more beautiful than a piece of music synced with the escalating difficulty of a level-designed narrative sequence? Forget Sonic 3’s level transitions, RayForce is on another plane. Quite literally descending from the vacuum of space into the fiery atmosphere of our planet, though the clouds, beneath “The Fissure of Consciousness” in a relentless pursuit of the Earth’s Core.
Taito’s RayForce, Galactic Attack, Layer Section…Gun Lock – whichever your preference – belongs in The Museum of The Moving Image in Queens, New York. Preferably on an arcade cabinet. No graphical opportunity is wasted here; there’s such an appreciation for parallax that the game’s mechanics force its players to religiously scan its scrolling backgrounds. Painting targets with crosshairs and letting loose a flurry of spiraling rays is as visually arresting here as in my beloved Panzer Dragoon Zwei, equally compelling to master, and clearly its source of inspiration. I at one point heretically preferred Raizing’s Soukyugurentai (or, I dunno, “Terra Diver”), another gorgeous and great shooter, but removing the game’s visual layers flattens the focus. Might be less a matter of concept than execution.
Tough though it is, this is not a game that feels built to stamp down the growing power-levels of shmup-faithful fiends. It introduces its concepts at a fair pace, it’s not here to blindside or pave over you even with a larger hitbox than became standard for this genre.
So videogames may never escape the myth of the lone adventurer, born alongside the conception of the medium. If we’re still around in twenty years, we’ll still be getting interstellar games predicated on visual storytelling, and why not? But they’ll have a lot to live up to. Super Metroid, Another World, Gun Lock.
12
Sonic the Fighters is a video game developed by Sega AM2 in 1996 for their Model 2 arcade system. Between it, NiGHTs into Dreams and Panzer Dragoon Zwei, I’m gonna have to call Sega the Main Character of 3D Graphical Innovation that year. Impressively, these three games all look great for different reasons. Just think: Sonic Team, Team Andromeda, and AM2 were all pulling out some of the best work of their careers at the same time. Sonic the Fighters draws from the well of its series’ influences to shake joy buzzer-equipped hands with Tom and Jerry. Oh yeah, and within a month of its release, the folks at AM2 put out some other game called Virtua Fighter 3.
Do…people know that? Does any discussion regarding Sega in 1996 not begin and end with NiGHTS into Dreams (and the lack of any “real” Sonic game on their flagship hardware)? We were still a couple years out from Shenmue and Sonic Adventure, and the “West” wasn’t putting much stock in post-Genesis endeavors. But Japan didn’t care for Sega’s blue rodent nearly the same as the Western market. Out there, the Saturn was flourishing off of Virtua Fighter’s reputation. Imagine becoming a cultural phenomenon in your home country and still failing because you didn’t satisfy an audience on the other side of the planet.
With Virtua Fighter 1, Sega put out something of a Super Mario Bros. for the burgeoning 3D Fighting Game genre. Other attempts had been made, even within the company, but VF proved it could be more than a fad. Watching several dedicated masters spar through Virtua Fighter 5 over at the Mikado Game Center in Ikebukuro, Japan (just one floor above the F-Zero AX machine), it occurred to me why that was. In developing this series, Sega’s AM2 hadn’t just made a fighting game, but a digital Martial Art.
I mean that in both positive and negative respects. 3rd Strike is still my favorite video sport, filled with dynamism and depth, but I’d hesitate to describe it the same way. Tennis doesn’t possess the qualities of a “Martial Art.” Virtua Fighter 5 does. Tekken is more loose, more like a back alley brawl. Virtua Fighter demands discipline. Each iteration of the game had filled in the cracks just that little bit more, deepening the form and losing the fluff. As in Shotokan Karate, one must first make second nature of its demanding stances, teach their whole body to move together with intent. It appears rigid and limiting, but those who practice are blessed with dizzying freedom. It’s tricky to explain why without falling into hyperbole – I could tell you that every character is viable, every action is susceptible to a range of reversals, the game lacks supers or projectiles to fall back on. I could describe the giant move lists which are necessary to account for the massive number of possible strategies, parrot the pros’ talk of “yomi” as a basis for the game design (each character’s capabilities are so varied that understanding the roster is far less important than reading the mind of one’s opponent).
But I still have yet to experience the opening of my third eye. I can only tell you the disparity between what I was able to perform, and what I witnessed that day in Ikebukuro. I believe what they say about Virtua Fighter 5, and consider it an immense accomplishment of design. If Desk can’t convince you of that in this video, I don’t know what could. I hope to graduate from Sonic the Fighters in due time, but even if I stay a spectator, Virtua Fighter 5 will have my utmost admiration.
(I was also surprised to find Buriki One at several arcades in Japan, and I can confirm that it’s perfectly decent. A nifty novelty, if not sport-worthy. I’d like to see SNK take another crack at a wrestling system)
Do…people know that? Does any discussion regarding Sega in 1996 not begin and end with NiGHTS into Dreams (and the lack of any “real” Sonic game on their flagship hardware)? We were still a couple years out from Shenmue and Sonic Adventure, and the “West” wasn’t putting much stock in post-Genesis endeavors. But Japan didn’t care for Sega’s blue rodent nearly the same as the Western market. Out there, the Saturn was flourishing off of Virtua Fighter’s reputation. Imagine becoming a cultural phenomenon in your home country and still failing because you didn’t satisfy an audience on the other side of the planet.
With Virtua Fighter 1, Sega put out something of a Super Mario Bros. for the burgeoning 3D Fighting Game genre. Other attempts had been made, even within the company, but VF proved it could be more than a fad. Watching several dedicated masters spar through Virtua Fighter 5 over at the Mikado Game Center in Ikebukuro, Japan (just one floor above the F-Zero AX machine), it occurred to me why that was. In developing this series, Sega’s AM2 hadn’t just made a fighting game, but a digital Martial Art.
I mean that in both positive and negative respects. 3rd Strike is still my favorite video sport, filled with dynamism and depth, but I’d hesitate to describe it the same way. Tennis doesn’t possess the qualities of a “Martial Art.” Virtua Fighter 5 does. Tekken is more loose, more like a back alley brawl. Virtua Fighter demands discipline. Each iteration of the game had filled in the cracks just that little bit more, deepening the form and losing the fluff. As in Shotokan Karate, one must first make second nature of its demanding stances, teach their whole body to move together with intent. It appears rigid and limiting, but those who practice are blessed with dizzying freedom. It’s tricky to explain why without falling into hyperbole – I could tell you that every character is viable, every action is susceptible to a range of reversals, the game lacks supers or projectiles to fall back on. I could describe the giant move lists which are necessary to account for the massive number of possible strategies, parrot the pros’ talk of “yomi” as a basis for the game design (each character’s capabilities are so varied that understanding the roster is far less important than reading the mind of one’s opponent).
But I still have yet to experience the opening of my third eye. I can only tell you the disparity between what I was able to perform, and what I witnessed that day in Ikebukuro. I believe what they say about Virtua Fighter 5, and consider it an immense accomplishment of design. If Desk can’t convince you of that in this video, I don’t know what could. I hope to graduate from Sonic the Fighters in due time, but even if I stay a spectator, Virtua Fighter 5 will have my utmost admiration.
(I was also surprised to find Buriki One at several arcades in Japan, and I can confirm that it’s perfectly decent. A nifty novelty, if not sport-worthy. I’d like to see SNK take another crack at a wrestling system)
13
"Suddenly, out of the corner of your eye, you spot a glowing, swirling portal,” says the narrator. “A hand juts out, followed by a voice, demanding your help.”
“What do you do?"
There is a talking brain. Do you free it? There is a girl in a pod. Do you help her?
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a human person, and she’s prodding for a response.
In most RPGs I’ve enjoyed, the game’s language is pretty tight. You know roughly what you can do, you just have to figure out how to make use of those commands in the world you're presented with. If I'd just been shown a woman in a pod asking for help, without a prompt, I might not have known there was a way to save her at all. Going out of my way to find a solution to her problem might say a little more about me under those conditions. In, say, Dragon Quest IV, the game makes the limits of your agency clear enough that it can simply present events within the space and trust that the player will engage accordingly.
But to the Western RPG, this approach is too limited. What can the player actually do with the environment in Dragon Quest IV? Move around, talk, interact with context-sensitive objects like buttons and chests, occasionally use a key item? That game’s most interesting questions come down to where the player might choose to explore, which breadcrumbs to follow, how they’ll build their party, how to use their tools to survive combat encounters against Sea Slimes. I like this, I like making choices within an authored piece. These games may branch, but its themes and characters and mechanics are nevertheless developed consistently and with intent. But DQIV’s world and language aren’t built for questions like, “should I help these bandits and follow their whole questline or blow up the pillars of the wooden bridge they’re standing on so that it collapses, sending them all to a fiery grave, OR should I steal all their stuff and leave OR kiss them OOOORRRR etc. etc. etc.?”
It behooves such a game, where the mechanical possibilities are so vast as to drown the player in an ocean of decisions, to offer a pushy narrator from time to time. Even with one, I hadn’t a clue what to make of it when playing alone. As a thief, I was too weak to tackle most obstacles early on. Making routing decisions had less to do with what I wanted to do, and became more about what I could do. I rushed into a burning building to save people in trouble, and wound up with the hostage saved, but an entire party permanently dead after following lazily behind me and charging directly into the flames. I might’ve accepted this outcome if anyone at all had made reference to their meaningless sacrifice, but no, it was simply wrong. Non-canon to the game’s fiction. Thankfully I had plenty of saves to reload, but I wasn’t compelled by BG3’s sales pitch. A game so overwhelmingly about doing anything is a game which can so easily become about nothing.
Two things changed my impression. I restarted the game as a monk, enlisted the help of my friend “Vulture Bag,” and suddenly, Baldur’s Gate 3 took on new meaning. Alone, I found Baldur’s Gate 3 about as much fun as messing about a kindergarten playground by myself. As a multiplayer game, it became the most expressive, fully-realized amusement park imaginable. All of these choices mattered with a friend, the disparity between my (otherwise) lovable party members' individual stories didn’t matter when they became the backdrop of a social experience, and finding inventive synergies between abilities during combat (especially boss fights) made for some of the most rewarding gameplay of the year. I was repeatedly in awe of the fact that its level design seemed as thoughtfully constructed for exploration as for each of its layered battle scenarios. Despite my overall taste trending elsewise, I fault no one for celebrating Baldur’s Gate 3 and its many accomplishments. There’s no question it sets some sort of bar.
I don’t know of another game where you can find a hidden room beneath another hidden room occupied by a bunch of giant spiders, and make some unintelligible hand gestures which convince them to join you in a Spider Rebellion against their Goblin Masters. That seems new.
“What do you do?"
There is a talking brain. Do you free it? There is a girl in a pod. Do you help her?
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a human person, and she’s prodding for a response.
In most RPGs I’ve enjoyed, the game’s language is pretty tight. You know roughly what you can do, you just have to figure out how to make use of those commands in the world you're presented with. If I'd just been shown a woman in a pod asking for help, without a prompt, I might not have known there was a way to save her at all. Going out of my way to find a solution to her problem might say a little more about me under those conditions. In, say, Dragon Quest IV, the game makes the limits of your agency clear enough that it can simply present events within the space and trust that the player will engage accordingly.
But to the Western RPG, this approach is too limited. What can the player actually do with the environment in Dragon Quest IV? Move around, talk, interact with context-sensitive objects like buttons and chests, occasionally use a key item? That game’s most interesting questions come down to where the player might choose to explore, which breadcrumbs to follow, how they’ll build their party, how to use their tools to survive combat encounters against Sea Slimes. I like this, I like making choices within an authored piece. These games may branch, but its themes and characters and mechanics are nevertheless developed consistently and with intent. But DQIV’s world and language aren’t built for questions like, “should I help these bandits and follow their whole questline or blow up the pillars of the wooden bridge they’re standing on so that it collapses, sending them all to a fiery grave, OR should I steal all their stuff and leave OR kiss them OOOORRRR etc. etc. etc.?”
It behooves such a game, where the mechanical possibilities are so vast as to drown the player in an ocean of decisions, to offer a pushy narrator from time to time. Even with one, I hadn’t a clue what to make of it when playing alone. As a thief, I was too weak to tackle most obstacles early on. Making routing decisions had less to do with what I wanted to do, and became more about what I could do. I rushed into a burning building to save people in trouble, and wound up with the hostage saved, but an entire party permanently dead after following lazily behind me and charging directly into the flames. I might’ve accepted this outcome if anyone at all had made reference to their meaningless sacrifice, but no, it was simply wrong. Non-canon to the game’s fiction. Thankfully I had plenty of saves to reload, but I wasn’t compelled by BG3’s sales pitch. A game so overwhelmingly about doing anything is a game which can so easily become about nothing.
Two things changed my impression. I restarted the game as a monk, enlisted the help of my friend “Vulture Bag,” and suddenly, Baldur’s Gate 3 took on new meaning. Alone, I found Baldur’s Gate 3 about as much fun as messing about a kindergarten playground by myself. As a multiplayer game, it became the most expressive, fully-realized amusement park imaginable. All of these choices mattered with a friend, the disparity between my (otherwise) lovable party members' individual stories didn’t matter when they became the backdrop of a social experience, and finding inventive synergies between abilities during combat (especially boss fights) made for some of the most rewarding gameplay of the year. I was repeatedly in awe of the fact that its level design seemed as thoughtfully constructed for exploration as for each of its layered battle scenarios. Despite my overall taste trending elsewise, I fault no one for celebrating Baldur’s Gate 3 and its many accomplishments. There’s no question it sets some sort of bar.
I don’t know of another game where you can find a hidden room beneath another hidden room occupied by a bunch of giant spiders, and make some unintelligible hand gestures which convince them to join you in a Spider Rebellion against their Goblin Masters. That seems new.
14
Matrix Software was early in realizing that Nintendo would never put out their dream Zelda game, and took it into their own hands. Yes, it’s technically a sequel to Landstalker, but spiritually, it’s the logical endpoint of the Zelda series’ game design following Link’s Awakening. Ocarina of Time may not have put a stop to the development of 2D Zelda games the following year, but it did relegate them to a second-fiddle position in the series’ lineup. They’d be developed by third parties, never to be too offensively unique from Zelda’s brand image.
Alundra, meanwhile, is centered around a cursed village. Its people are regularly afflicted with mysterious nightmares that leave them dead before sunrise. Philosophical arguments rage over their absent God. They doubt whether the shipwrecked Alundra has come to save or doom them. Nevertheless, as him, we’re tasked with entering their dreams and eradicating the demons within. Sometimes, we don’t succeed. We cross the world in search of remedies. A nearby tribe of apes grows militant. Mysteries pile on. Motives change. Travelers enter the fold. The curse takes its toll. Detailed pixel art and sound design convey the dark fairy tale atmosphere with peerless precision. This is a two-dimensional videogame whose weather can be felt against your real-world skin.
The strife of its plot is reflected in the challenge of the game itself. Its developers made no secret of the fact that they wanted Alundra to be a tough one, and they weren't talking about the combat. No, it redeems Landstalker's greatest faults. The action is snappy and satisfying, the dash button feels great, you get a Castlevania Flail – it’s the trickery that makes Alundra such a treat for the hardcore adventurer, and a cut beyond what Nintendo’s more accessible approach would afford. The return of Landstalker’s elevation system expands the potential of an already demanding game with an ever-present Z-axis, and it knows how to use it. Its dungeons are devious, its logic is cold. This isn’t a swashbuckling adventure, but a descent into a troubled and dangerous tale.
Around the time of its release, Void Stranger’s almost too-deep-respect for the player’s intelligence had me thinking on the pitfalls of “orgasmic puzzle design” philosophy (as defined in a 2013 article by Hamish Todd on Game Developer Dot Com). Put elsewise, puzzles should not be designed around the single moment of satisfaction gained in their solution, but the experience of working through the puzzle itself. The player should learn something which can then illuminate further possibilities within the game’s world. This doesn’t mean a “good” puzzle is a “difficult” puzzle, but complex puzzles and puzzle-systems offer more to be learned. Like Void Stranger, Alundra lives within this tension. No puzzle is a disposable diversion, and its systems demand close attention. Sometimes, the key you’re looking for requires a layer of involvement you might not have thought possible within the game’s rules. It resists "orgasmic" puzzles (shooting an arrow at an eyeball) in favor of broader interlocking mechanics. But once you understand them, Alundra will not forsake that understanding.
I’d rather not reveal more here because I know that, even among some relatively obscure titles, Alundra is severely underplayed proportionate to what it has to offer. I won’t accuse the game of perfection. It can turn from inspiring to frustrating, items can be overly situational, and the critical path can seem rigid to a fault. But if you’re a Zelda player, I think you owe it to yourself to give it a chance. Alundra is exactly the game I needed after Tears of the Kingdom felt so…toothless. It can be harrowing, it can be bizarre, it can be beautiful.
(If you decide to check it out, I’d encourage you to use the Un-Working Designs patch to restore the game’s balance. I can’t imagine what those guys were on; you do not want to be hacking away at the same Nothing Slime Boss for fifteen minutes)
Alundra, meanwhile, is centered around a cursed village. Its people are regularly afflicted with mysterious nightmares that leave them dead before sunrise. Philosophical arguments rage over their absent God. They doubt whether the shipwrecked Alundra has come to save or doom them. Nevertheless, as him, we’re tasked with entering their dreams and eradicating the demons within. Sometimes, we don’t succeed. We cross the world in search of remedies. A nearby tribe of apes grows militant. Mysteries pile on. Motives change. Travelers enter the fold. The curse takes its toll. Detailed pixel art and sound design convey the dark fairy tale atmosphere with peerless precision. This is a two-dimensional videogame whose weather can be felt against your real-world skin.
The strife of its plot is reflected in the challenge of the game itself. Its developers made no secret of the fact that they wanted Alundra to be a tough one, and they weren't talking about the combat. No, it redeems Landstalker's greatest faults. The action is snappy and satisfying, the dash button feels great, you get a Castlevania Flail – it’s the trickery that makes Alundra such a treat for the hardcore adventurer, and a cut beyond what Nintendo’s more accessible approach would afford. The return of Landstalker’s elevation system expands the potential of an already demanding game with an ever-present Z-axis, and it knows how to use it. Its dungeons are devious, its logic is cold. This isn’t a swashbuckling adventure, but a descent into a troubled and dangerous tale.
Around the time of its release, Void Stranger’s almost too-deep-respect for the player’s intelligence had me thinking on the pitfalls of “orgasmic puzzle design” philosophy (as defined in a 2013 article by Hamish Todd on Game Developer Dot Com). Put elsewise, puzzles should not be designed around the single moment of satisfaction gained in their solution, but the experience of working through the puzzle itself. The player should learn something which can then illuminate further possibilities within the game’s world. This doesn’t mean a “good” puzzle is a “difficult” puzzle, but complex puzzles and puzzle-systems offer more to be learned. Like Void Stranger, Alundra lives within this tension. No puzzle is a disposable diversion, and its systems demand close attention. Sometimes, the key you’re looking for requires a layer of involvement you might not have thought possible within the game’s rules. It resists "orgasmic" puzzles (shooting an arrow at an eyeball) in favor of broader interlocking mechanics. But once you understand them, Alundra will not forsake that understanding.
I’d rather not reveal more here because I know that, even among some relatively obscure titles, Alundra is severely underplayed proportionate to what it has to offer. I won’t accuse the game of perfection. It can turn from inspiring to frustrating, items can be overly situational, and the critical path can seem rigid to a fault. But if you’re a Zelda player, I think you owe it to yourself to give it a chance. Alundra is exactly the game I needed after Tears of the Kingdom felt so…toothless. It can be harrowing, it can be bizarre, it can be beautiful.
(If you decide to check it out, I’d encourage you to use the Un-Working Designs patch to restore the game’s balance. I can’t imagine what those guys were on; you do not want to be hacking away at the same Nothing Slime Boss for fifteen minutes)
15
On release, Wonder was quickly crowned the new king of the 2D Mario series by legions of folks who’d been burned deeply by the New Super Mario Bros. tetrology's shallow and uninspired aesthetic. I was there; I’ve played all of these games. 2D Mario games are important enough to me that I will play them on a TV, even if it means passers-by can look in and clearly tell that I’m not filing my tax returns. I finished Wonder with 100% completion on the weekend of October 20th, 2023 (unless you count the standees, which I don’t). I’ve replayed all of its levels at least twice, with and without grabbing each Wonder Flower. You know I like this game a heck of a lot. Nevertheless I’ve got a lot to say, not all of it good. This is gonna sound a bit dry.
Visually, Wonder is closer to my Dream Mario than any other this side of Yoshi’s Island, and I do hope the next one commits even harder to the cartoonishness of this aesthetic. My first impression was that it had the best control of any game in the 2D series, and in most respects, I do still believe that. The “New” games carried with them this lumbering heaviness that I’m glad we’ve shed away. The elephant power-up is a bit undercooked, but the bubble flower and drill mushroom appropriately shake up the player's relationship with enemies and the environment. Just being able to jump into enemies from below while at a full sprint makes the Drill a treat, even without considering its burrowing ability. The removal of a flight-based power was likely due to multiplayer, but in principle, it helps the game stay centered squarely on running and jumping, and encourages creative use of the Bubble Flower. The Demon’s Souls online feature is welcome; I didn’t see myself playing as a guardian angel in a Mario game, but here we are. Badges are a solid addition too, especially for newcomers. I can play as Daisy. Awesome stuff. Promising. Shame that, to my taste, there’s a lot left on the table here.
Every stage of this game locks its enemies and visuals and stage gimmicks down almost completely; you’re not likely to see much crossover. There’s one rolla-koopa stage, one hoppycat stage, one condart stage. These guys are stuck in their zones. It results in an impressive level of variety, but also prevents the game from meaningfully building on concepts from stage to stage. You don’t get that blending of flavors you’ll find in the series’ earliest entries. In this respect, it’s arguably even more formulaic than the games it’s trying to subvert. Each level’s gimmicks undergo a similar arc before being put away, each of them with a Wonder Flower to find which activates a minigame or setpiece. I don’t think it helps that these stages are threaded together as loosely as they are.
Playing into its save feature, Super Mario World invited its players to revisit levels for alternate exits and hidden secrets. Wonder doubles down on that attitude, with a wide-open map and only a single file per user. You’re meant to dig around in these levels and scour the world, but there isn’t really a whole lot to find. Yes, there are large coins to collect, tops of flagpoles to grab, but – and I hate to grumble – these pale in comparison to the discovery of warp zones, unique power-ups, and routes which alter the trajectory of a playthrough. I think they’d have been better off hiding badges within full stages than keeping them in shops or bespoke levels on the overworld. I’m of the opinion that collectibles should feel immediately tangible and exciting. Wonder sidesteps the checklist school of design for the most part, but I’d like to see it drop outta these games like a bowling ball from a skyscraper.
What I’m getting at here is – I don’t think Wonder is adept at curating its adventure, and I don’t get the impression that its developers made that a priority. There’s a sort of halfhearted effort to add a single story beat to each world, and it's unconvincing. Stages are clustered together with respect to difficulty and theming, but any pretense of a “flow” between them, that levels together form an arc, is rarely suggested. A level is an island unto itself. It’s because the game isn’t concerned with its own replayability, actively obfuscating the option to start a New Game. It’s because Wonder isn’t all that interested in blending ideas between stages. It’s because the “Wonder” gimmick, ironically, requires each level to follow the same beats.
I came for an album, and what I got was a collection of singles. They’re good singles, but I don’t think it comes together as a whole game in the same way each of the old classics did. I hope Wonder is a sign that Nintendo is open to getting even more experimental with the conventions of this series (maybe cut out the world map next time, have one continuous game of back-to-back platforming levels), and I’m glad it was well received. You can feel those seasoned designers stretching their legs with this one, it beats out the New Super Marios on charm factor alone, and I squeezed every last drop I could out of it. I believe greater heights are in sight for this series, but if this is the last for a while, I'll still be more than appreciative that Wonder got its moment in the spotlight.
Visually, Wonder is closer to my Dream Mario than any other this side of Yoshi’s Island, and I do hope the next one commits even harder to the cartoonishness of this aesthetic. My first impression was that it had the best control of any game in the 2D series, and in most respects, I do still believe that. The “New” games carried with them this lumbering heaviness that I’m glad we’ve shed away. The elephant power-up is a bit undercooked, but the bubble flower and drill mushroom appropriately shake up the player's relationship with enemies and the environment. Just being able to jump into enemies from below while at a full sprint makes the Drill a treat, even without considering its burrowing ability. The removal of a flight-based power was likely due to multiplayer, but in principle, it helps the game stay centered squarely on running and jumping, and encourages creative use of the Bubble Flower. The Demon’s Souls online feature is welcome; I didn’t see myself playing as a guardian angel in a Mario game, but here we are. Badges are a solid addition too, especially for newcomers. I can play as Daisy. Awesome stuff. Promising. Shame that, to my taste, there’s a lot left on the table here.
Every stage of this game locks its enemies and visuals and stage gimmicks down almost completely; you’re not likely to see much crossover. There’s one rolla-koopa stage, one hoppycat stage, one condart stage. These guys are stuck in their zones. It results in an impressive level of variety, but also prevents the game from meaningfully building on concepts from stage to stage. You don’t get that blending of flavors you’ll find in the series’ earliest entries. In this respect, it’s arguably even more formulaic than the games it’s trying to subvert. Each level’s gimmicks undergo a similar arc before being put away, each of them with a Wonder Flower to find which activates a minigame or setpiece. I don’t think it helps that these stages are threaded together as loosely as they are.
Playing into its save feature, Super Mario World invited its players to revisit levels for alternate exits and hidden secrets. Wonder doubles down on that attitude, with a wide-open map and only a single file per user. You’re meant to dig around in these levels and scour the world, but there isn’t really a whole lot to find. Yes, there are large coins to collect, tops of flagpoles to grab, but – and I hate to grumble – these pale in comparison to the discovery of warp zones, unique power-ups, and routes which alter the trajectory of a playthrough. I think they’d have been better off hiding badges within full stages than keeping them in shops or bespoke levels on the overworld. I’m of the opinion that collectibles should feel immediately tangible and exciting. Wonder sidesteps the checklist school of design for the most part, but I’d like to see it drop outta these games like a bowling ball from a skyscraper.
What I’m getting at here is – I don’t think Wonder is adept at curating its adventure, and I don’t get the impression that its developers made that a priority. There’s a sort of halfhearted effort to add a single story beat to each world, and it's unconvincing. Stages are clustered together with respect to difficulty and theming, but any pretense of a “flow” between them, that levels together form an arc, is rarely suggested. A level is an island unto itself. It’s because the game isn’t concerned with its own replayability, actively obfuscating the option to start a New Game. It’s because Wonder isn’t all that interested in blending ideas between stages. It’s because the “Wonder” gimmick, ironically, requires each level to follow the same beats.
I came for an album, and what I got was a collection of singles. They’re good singles, but I don’t think it comes together as a whole game in the same way each of the old classics did. I hope Wonder is a sign that Nintendo is open to getting even more experimental with the conventions of this series (maybe cut out the world map next time, have one continuous game of back-to-back platforming levels), and I’m glad it was well received. You can feel those seasoned designers stretching their legs with this one, it beats out the New Super Marios on charm factor alone, and I squeezed every last drop I could out of it. I believe greater heights are in sight for this series, but if this is the last for a while, I'll still be more than appreciative that Wonder got its moment in the spotlight.
16
My grandmother doesn’t live in Vermont anymore. A couple years ago, she and I went back there together and rented a place to stay to relive those days. Naturally, the rental had some similarities to her old place. We drove around, taking in familiar sights, waiting for the rest of the family to join us. I fired up Chrono Cross for the first time one evening, and promptly came down with a case of water poisoning.
If I believed in omens, I’d take that as a bad one. I touched a game about a character who finds himself in an eerie facsimile of home, itself the strange and twisted sequel of a beloved favorite, and it left me hurling into a toilet. The water supply we’d been drawing from was unfit for human consumption. I spent the recovery period with Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest V on DS, beneath the more familiar ceiling of a family friend’s house. I’d later start writing a non-review about how I didn’t have to play Chrono Cross, eschewing the pretense of being some aspiring member of the esteemed Backloggd “videogame intelligentsia”. I don’t need “cred,” right??
Well.
I played Chrono Trigger again in 2023 at least twice, depending on how you define a “playthrough”. The first was because I’d just finished Final Fantasy X and wanted to make some unfair comparisons. The second was because I was three-fourths of the way through Chrono Cross and…wanted to make some unfair comparisons. Even in the thick of it, I was avoiding the inevitable.
So…About the Game
Cross makes every effort possible to be anything but a clean, obedient sequel to its father. And you know what? Good. Trigger’s development was predicated on originality, and should likewise be followed up with another adventurous convention-breaker. The “Chrono Trigger 2” advocated by the likes of Johnny Millennium doesn’t appeal to me; lightning doesn’t strike twice. Still, Cross is Trigger’s opposite even in ways it really shouldn’t be.
With the exception of its original PSX audiovisual presentation, some of the most beautiful I’ve ever experienced, just about every one of its ideas is noncommittal and indecisive. Monsters appear on the overworld again, but you won’t find anything as deliberately paced as Trigger’s level design to elevate this from the status of "mild convenience". The conceit of its combat system is worth exploring – characters deal physical damage to build spell charges — but the deluge of party members and fully customizable spell slots amounts to a game that would’ve been impossible to balance. Level-ups are only granted during boss fights, and the gains acquired in normal battles aren’t worth the effort, so the whole thing snaps in half not 50% of the way through. It isn’t measured to account for the fact that you can take down just about everything with an onslaught of physical attacks by the midgame.
Then again, if the combat had been as challenging as the story is bizarre, I don’t know that I would’ve stuck around all the way to the end. Maybe I wouldn’t have been as gung-ho about swapping party members around and collecting them like Pokémon. Amid its spectacle and ambition, the wonder of sailing the seas and crossing dimensions, I left most events unsure of what to think, positive or negative. It wasn’t ambivalence, exactly.
SPOILERS AHEAD
It’s like this: Fairly early on, you’re given an infamous decision. One of the major protagonists, Kid, is dying of a magically-inflicted illness, and the only antidote is Hydra Humour. If you agree to go after it, you’ll find that it can only be extracted from the Guardian of the Marshes, and its death would mean the deterioration of the ecosystem which relies upon it. The dwarves and all other life in this biome would be put at risk. I weighed my options. I decided to reload a save and refuse the quest. Kid wouldn’t want her life to come at the cost of hundreds, if not thousands of others. So I start down the opposite path…
…Only to find that, in this route, a squad of human soldiers kills the hydra anyway, leaving the dwarves to flee their uninhabitable home to lead a genocidal attack on the fairies’ island to claim it for themselves. Jesus. The dwarves’ manic strangeness did little to downplay how chilling the result of my little coin flip was.
After an effort to defend the few remaining fairies and keep the dwarves at bay — leaving the survivors to process the turmoil of their new reality — after all that…it turns out that Kid is fine. She got over the illness by herself, offscreen.
For as many words as it goes on to spew, no moment of my Chrono Cross playthrough spoke louder than this one. Chrono Trigger’s party was faced with a choice — allow Lavos to erupt from the planet and drive everything to the brink of extinction, or risk everything to prevent the apocalypse. It’s a thousand years away, these three characters can live out the rest of their days comfortably and never have to concern themselves with it. They’re shown an End of Time, proof that the universe won’t last regardless of what they do, and still decide to fight on behalf of the world. It’s worth trying, if only to preserve a few more precious seconds of life for their descendants and their home.
Chrono Cross (eventually) reveals that their meddling allowed Lavos to become an even more devastating monster. We can defeat it, but who can say that won’t result in an even more cataclysmic fate? Because he lives and breathes, Serge’s timeline is worse off. It’s hard to tell whether that’s lore nonsense, self-flagellation on the game’s part, or genuine philosophizing. It wouldn’t be alone in that. As a chronic “downer,” I can’t help wondering if there’s no way to survive in the modern world without directly or indirectly participating in human suffering.
Maybe Writer/Director Masato Kato couldn’t either. He seems bent on reminding the player that they are but a speck in a cosmic puzzle, and there’s no defiant “so what?” answer to that problem. Even the thing we’ve been led to accomplish isn’t revealed until seconds before the finale of this forty hour game (and that's NOT a joke). You can’t see the credits without recognizing that it’s an unfortunate victim of mismanagement and a little too much Evangelion, but that doesn’t mean it fails to resonate. I don't think there’s another game that so thoroughly captures the existential confusion of being alive.
If I believed in omens, I’d take that as a bad one. I touched a game about a character who finds himself in an eerie facsimile of home, itself the strange and twisted sequel of a beloved favorite, and it left me hurling into a toilet. The water supply we’d been drawing from was unfit for human consumption. I spent the recovery period with Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest V on DS, beneath the more familiar ceiling of a family friend’s house. I’d later start writing a non-review about how I didn’t have to play Chrono Cross, eschewing the pretense of being some aspiring member of the esteemed Backloggd “videogame intelligentsia”. I don’t need “cred,” right??
Well.
I played Chrono Trigger again in 2023 at least twice, depending on how you define a “playthrough”. The first was because I’d just finished Final Fantasy X and wanted to make some unfair comparisons. The second was because I was three-fourths of the way through Chrono Cross and…wanted to make some unfair comparisons. Even in the thick of it, I was avoiding the inevitable.
So…About the Game
Cross makes every effort possible to be anything but a clean, obedient sequel to its father. And you know what? Good. Trigger’s development was predicated on originality, and should likewise be followed up with another adventurous convention-breaker. The “Chrono Trigger 2” advocated by the likes of Johnny Millennium doesn’t appeal to me; lightning doesn’t strike twice. Still, Cross is Trigger’s opposite even in ways it really shouldn’t be.
With the exception of its original PSX audiovisual presentation, some of the most beautiful I’ve ever experienced, just about every one of its ideas is noncommittal and indecisive. Monsters appear on the overworld again, but you won’t find anything as deliberately paced as Trigger’s level design to elevate this from the status of "mild convenience". The conceit of its combat system is worth exploring – characters deal physical damage to build spell charges — but the deluge of party members and fully customizable spell slots amounts to a game that would’ve been impossible to balance. Level-ups are only granted during boss fights, and the gains acquired in normal battles aren’t worth the effort, so the whole thing snaps in half not 50% of the way through. It isn’t measured to account for the fact that you can take down just about everything with an onslaught of physical attacks by the midgame.
Then again, if the combat had been as challenging as the story is bizarre, I don’t know that I would’ve stuck around all the way to the end. Maybe I wouldn’t have been as gung-ho about swapping party members around and collecting them like Pokémon. Amid its spectacle and ambition, the wonder of sailing the seas and crossing dimensions, I left most events unsure of what to think, positive or negative. It wasn’t ambivalence, exactly.
SPOILERS AHEAD
It’s like this: Fairly early on, you’re given an infamous decision. One of the major protagonists, Kid, is dying of a magically-inflicted illness, and the only antidote is Hydra Humour. If you agree to go after it, you’ll find that it can only be extracted from the Guardian of the Marshes, and its death would mean the deterioration of the ecosystem which relies upon it. The dwarves and all other life in this biome would be put at risk. I weighed my options. I decided to reload a save and refuse the quest. Kid wouldn’t want her life to come at the cost of hundreds, if not thousands of others. So I start down the opposite path…
…Only to find that, in this route, a squad of human soldiers kills the hydra anyway, leaving the dwarves to flee their uninhabitable home to lead a genocidal attack on the fairies’ island to claim it for themselves. Jesus. The dwarves’ manic strangeness did little to downplay how chilling the result of my little coin flip was.
After an effort to defend the few remaining fairies and keep the dwarves at bay — leaving the survivors to process the turmoil of their new reality — after all that…it turns out that Kid is fine. She got over the illness by herself, offscreen.
For as many words as it goes on to spew, no moment of my Chrono Cross playthrough spoke louder than this one. Chrono Trigger’s party was faced with a choice — allow Lavos to erupt from the planet and drive everything to the brink of extinction, or risk everything to prevent the apocalypse. It’s a thousand years away, these three characters can live out the rest of their days comfortably and never have to concern themselves with it. They’re shown an End of Time, proof that the universe won’t last regardless of what they do, and still decide to fight on behalf of the world. It’s worth trying, if only to preserve a few more precious seconds of life for their descendants and their home.
Chrono Cross (eventually) reveals that their meddling allowed Lavos to become an even more devastating monster. We can defeat it, but who can say that won’t result in an even more cataclysmic fate? Because he lives and breathes, Serge’s timeline is worse off. It’s hard to tell whether that’s lore nonsense, self-flagellation on the game’s part, or genuine philosophizing. It wouldn’t be alone in that. As a chronic “downer,” I can’t help wondering if there’s no way to survive in the modern world without directly or indirectly participating in human suffering.
Maybe Writer/Director Masato Kato couldn’t either. He seems bent on reminding the player that they are but a speck in a cosmic puzzle, and there’s no defiant “so what?” answer to that problem. Even the thing we’ve been led to accomplish isn’t revealed until seconds before the finale of this forty hour game (and that's NOT a joke). You can’t see the credits without recognizing that it’s an unfortunate victim of mismanagement and a little too much Evangelion, but that doesn’t mean it fails to resonate. I don't think there’s another game that so thoroughly captures the existential confusion of being alive.
17
In my ongoing search for “The Princess Bride of Videogames,” well…Monkey Island is the reigning champ, but Shining Force II has to land somewhere in that zone.
Thing is, for the longest time, I never truly enjoyed playing strategy RPGs. I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of why since around Fire Emblem: Awakening. Their gameplay looks fascinating from the outside – having to deeply consider the arrangement and positioning of units and terrain, high-stakes consequences that can ripple through entire playthroughs, achieving the sort of level-designed, setpiece-driven combat that Chrono Trigger gestures towards – but in practice, they’ve historically failed to grab me.
It’s the vast empty spaces which take ages to cross as an army, the threat of a dice roll resulting in game-ruining annihilation, and the amount of stat-based micromanagement required with such a vast number of units at play. I had every intention of approaching these games in good faith, but for years that didn’t seem possible. I considered the Perfect Information available in a game of Chess. The small size of the board which, like Magic Toenail, forces opposing pieces into immediate nail-biting conflict from turn one.
No doubt Chess has stuck around for good reason, but it does have at least one strike against it. It doesn’t have an absolutely VIRTUOSIC overworld theme. Also, it can be perfectly solved. Also, it doesn’t have incredible character designs by Yoshitaka Tamaki (may he rest in peace). Also, you kill Chess in this game.
Thanks for indulging that preamble; of course Shining Force II won me over. It’s a game where a stupid rat thief accidentally unleashes the Demonic Power of Satan, gets tossed into jail, joins the party, and promotes into a ninja capable of slashing goblins in half. It’s an earnest fantasy about an entire kingdom that sails off together, disembarks on a mysterious continent, and then builds their new town out of the parts of their massive boat. Few role-playing games are so delightful, and that's not the only way it takes after Dragon Quest.
The split between town/map exploration and combat means these battles don’t happen in a grid-based dimension segregated from the rest of the story. We’re always going somewhere, these fights feel canonical to the broader adventure. We stumble across narrative events which become strategic gameplay moments. In place of random overworld encounters are brawls that stretch across entire segments of the map. As a newcomer, I was glad to resurrect dead party members for a chunk of change. Made me more inclined to experiment with my units and their capabilities, while still requiring finesse to manage their EXP and make something of those talents. Helps that it’s snappy, but of course, it's the only TRPG I've played with the power of Blast Processing behind it. I won’t go and tell you it’s the best in its genre, it’ll be too streamlined for some folks, but it wisely plays to its niche. Landstalker was my introduction to Climax’s catalogue, but Shining Force II is gonna stick. It did everything it could to prove to me, personally, that this genre might have something I can resonate with. It escalates well, it’s beautifully produced, and it captured my imagination. It’s the reason I, in 2024, am currently in the middle of Tactics Ogre. There may be hope for Fire Emblem yet…
Thing is, for the longest time, I never truly enjoyed playing strategy RPGs. I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of why since around Fire Emblem: Awakening. Their gameplay looks fascinating from the outside – having to deeply consider the arrangement and positioning of units and terrain, high-stakes consequences that can ripple through entire playthroughs, achieving the sort of level-designed, setpiece-driven combat that Chrono Trigger gestures towards – but in practice, they’ve historically failed to grab me.
It’s the vast empty spaces which take ages to cross as an army, the threat of a dice roll resulting in game-ruining annihilation, and the amount of stat-based micromanagement required with such a vast number of units at play. I had every intention of approaching these games in good faith, but for years that didn’t seem possible. I considered the Perfect Information available in a game of Chess. The small size of the board which, like Magic Toenail, forces opposing pieces into immediate nail-biting conflict from turn one.
No doubt Chess has stuck around for good reason, but it does have at least one strike against it. It doesn’t have an absolutely VIRTUOSIC overworld theme. Also, it can be perfectly solved. Also, it doesn’t have incredible character designs by Yoshitaka Tamaki (may he rest in peace). Also, you kill Chess in this game.
Thanks for indulging that preamble; of course Shining Force II won me over. It’s a game where a stupid rat thief accidentally unleashes the Demonic Power of Satan, gets tossed into jail, joins the party, and promotes into a ninja capable of slashing goblins in half. It’s an earnest fantasy about an entire kingdom that sails off together, disembarks on a mysterious continent, and then builds their new town out of the parts of their massive boat. Few role-playing games are so delightful, and that's not the only way it takes after Dragon Quest.
The split between town/map exploration and combat means these battles don’t happen in a grid-based dimension segregated from the rest of the story. We’re always going somewhere, these fights feel canonical to the broader adventure. We stumble across narrative events which become strategic gameplay moments. In place of random overworld encounters are brawls that stretch across entire segments of the map. As a newcomer, I was glad to resurrect dead party members for a chunk of change. Made me more inclined to experiment with my units and their capabilities, while still requiring finesse to manage their EXP and make something of those talents. Helps that it’s snappy, but of course, it's the only TRPG I've played with the power of Blast Processing behind it. I won’t go and tell you it’s the best in its genre, it’ll be too streamlined for some folks, but it wisely plays to its niche. Landstalker was my introduction to Climax’s catalogue, but Shining Force II is gonna stick. It did everything it could to prove to me, personally, that this genre might have something I can resonate with. It escalates well, it’s beautifully produced, and it captured my imagination. It’s the reason I, in 2024, am currently in the middle of Tactics Ogre. There may be hope for Fire Emblem yet…
18
Contra Hard Corps is such a raucous, deadly, hilarious videogame that you might not believe me when I call it the most “measured” of the Genesis Run ‘n Guns. “Measured” may not be the word that comes to mind while – say – converting giant, flailing robots into explosive trash, riding rockets into an alien-infested sky, marrying a monkey. But between Alien Soldier and Gunstar Heroes, a game purely about positioning and shooting is almost radical.
When stood up against its genre-codifying forebears, it most certainly is. The original version allows players to take three extra hits per life with infinite continues, a betrayal of Contra’s insta-kill tradition that facilitates the most inventive bosses the series had yet seen. Nobuya Nakazato proves his chops as a director in the composition of these wild setpieces, making this the cross to Rocket Knight’s jab. Split paths carry the player to any of six possible endings. In a move even God couldn’t foresee, each one comes down to its own unique final boss. You’ve got an i-frame endowed dodge slide which, yeah, predates Demon's Souls by about fifteen years. The four playable soldiers each come with their own arsenals of weaponry. Its character select screen has never been topped. Hard Corps is calibrated glee. A pressurized capsule of unhinged energy.
When stood up against its genre-codifying forebears, it most certainly is. The original version allows players to take three extra hits per life with infinite continues, a betrayal of Contra’s insta-kill tradition that facilitates the most inventive bosses the series had yet seen. Nobuya Nakazato proves his chops as a director in the composition of these wild setpieces, making this the cross to Rocket Knight’s jab. Split paths carry the player to any of six possible endings. In a move even God couldn’t foresee, each one comes down to its own unique final boss. You’ve got an i-frame endowed dodge slide which, yeah, predates Demon's Souls by about fifteen years. The four playable soldiers each come with their own arsenals of weaponry. Its character select screen has never been topped. Hard Corps is calibrated glee. A pressurized capsule of unhinged energy.
19
Yeah, Ketsui’s too low on this list. I feel you, Ketsui fans. “Chrono Cross is better than Ketsui? Sonic is better than Ketsui? Don’t make me laugh.” To a talented few, this game is a way of life. Its scoring system is an incredibly tight knot which knows no end. I think it’s patently more compelling than DoDonPachi’s chaining or even RayForce’s homing shot-based metric. It’s deceptively simple, and rewards only the most daring players.
Put simply – you get in close and fire with your spread shot. The closer you are, the higher the value of the chips that fall. The moment you grab them, a timer starts ticking down. For the duration of that timer, every enemy you kill with your homing laser will drop chips of the same value as your last kill. So charge in, spread shot, homing laser. Got it?
It’s difficult enough to incentivize and reinforce certain behaviors using game design, and to so effectively manage it in a maddening bullet hell is worth applause. How could anyone resist leaping into the fray, guns ablaze, brain filled with delusions of grandeur, only to be shot down immediately. Cave was at the top of their game, battling their greatest players, but I dropped into this conversation a bit late. I didn’t crack Ketsui this year, much as I love it. That glorious soundtrack, the varied enemy designs and bullet patterns, the intensity of that flow state. The military setting might not spark my neurons like the Alien City of DaiOuJou, but I’ll be darned if the game design isn’t at least as solid, if not better. All apologies to Progear, ESP Ra. De. and Mushihimesama for reinforcing the popular consensus, but if you’ve ever No Miss’d Ketsui’s first stage, you’d know it was worth the hype.
Put simply – you get in close and fire with your spread shot. The closer you are, the higher the value of the chips that fall. The moment you grab them, a timer starts ticking down. For the duration of that timer, every enemy you kill with your homing laser will drop chips of the same value as your last kill. So charge in, spread shot, homing laser. Got it?
It’s difficult enough to incentivize and reinforce certain behaviors using game design, and to so effectively manage it in a maddening bullet hell is worth applause. How could anyone resist leaping into the fray, guns ablaze, brain filled with delusions of grandeur, only to be shot down immediately. Cave was at the top of their game, battling their greatest players, but I dropped into this conversation a bit late. I didn’t crack Ketsui this year, much as I love it. That glorious soundtrack, the varied enemy designs and bullet patterns, the intensity of that flow state. The military setting might not spark my neurons like the Alien City of DaiOuJou, but I’ll be darned if the game design isn’t at least as solid, if not better. All apologies to Progear, ESP Ra. De. and Mushihimesama for reinforcing the popular consensus, but if you’ve ever No Miss’d Ketsui’s first stage, you’d know it was worth the hype.
20
While deep in the midst of my playthrough of Final Fantasy X, each of my two brothers gifted me a book. One in person, one in the mail, both regarding a different perspective on Judaism. From my older brother, a tale designed to reaffirm faith in the word of G-d, an evisceration of all skepticism. From the younger, a take on the value of Judaism in post-modernity.
Meanwhile, the first time I took any real look at Final Fantasy X, it was at a friend’s apartment in college years ago. He was smoking weed, and old enough to have played FFX on release. As we casually conversed through the intro, I decided in 2019 that maybe this one required a weed-smoker’s mentality to be fully enjoyed. Seeing as I had not and still to this day have not smoked weed (zero offense intended to those who do), FFX’s leap into immediate nonsense was just too nebulous to inspire me to actually play it (especially following the instant human dramas of IV, VII, and VI). Still, it made for nice hangout fodder, barely scraping the start of Besaid.
____
(it might interest someone to know that later that day, I saw Seven Samurai at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens and embarrassed myself the first of several times before an individual called Tim Rogers. He had a lot to say about the history of Coca-Cola)
____
Then, in 2023, I saw promotional posters for a nine hour-long Kabuki adaptation of Final Fantasy X while on the train in Tokyo, Japan. Seeing this and recognizing that Marijuana is hugely, catastrophically illegal there, I began to reconsider. I came back to a New York apartment (which, incidentally, was stationed directly adjacent to a store called “Wood Vibes”) wondering what it was about FFX that had inspired such a show of affection for a game from twenty two years ago.
My brothers’ two book-gifts were both offered with zero provocation by Final Fantasy X. No knowledge of its religious criticism, no awareness that I was even playing the game. I don’t think they were worried about whether I was smoking weed. Maybe God hates Final Fantasy X. Well, I don’t.
To condense the gist of my thoughts into a shallow paste – My big takeaway from Final Fantasy X is that it could’ve used one more draft. The cyclical plight of Spira and its magics are evocative. Its fashion, culture, and world design cannot be mistaken for anything else (even Squaresoft’s previous island fantasy RPG which appears elsewhere on this list). Once the human drama does begin, I sure did want to see where it’d go. The sphere grid takes a little too long to offer its most interesting decisions, but the battle system is well-measured, and in general, its game design stands on a sturdier foundation than most of its siblings (with the exclusion of The Chamber Dungeons, Blitzball, most of the side content), not that the difficulty doesn’t ratchet up into a wild disaster during the last stretch.
Final Fantasy X is a story that subsists on vibes. I like the simplicity with which it uses a bumbling outsider’s unfamiliarity to help a group examine their culture, their values and their long-held beliefs. Many of its endgame developments fumble beneath the weight of thought, characters go underbaked, the voice acting wobbles between solid and weird. Motivations go from understandable with potential for further nuance to cartoonishly funny. Wakka’s arc is the strongest. Seymour really wants to be the villain. The biggest late-game revelation makes no sense, but I certainly wish it did. Because I’m sure, here, that if I were to prioritize the atmosphere and absorb the feel – if I smoked weed – it could’ve reached me. Any of my friends from around that time can attest that I had a lot of good things to say about Final Fantasy X. Eventually, the ravings turned to revisings(?). I thought often about how I’d rewrite the game. I thought about whether I’d have bought it as a piece of Kabuki theater.
But when I stopped playing Final Fantasy X and read the two books purchased for me by my brothers, it occurred to me that neither of them had any response to Final Fantasy X’s strongest point.
Meanwhile, the first time I took any real look at Final Fantasy X, it was at a friend’s apartment in college years ago. He was smoking weed, and old enough to have played FFX on release. As we casually conversed through the intro, I decided in 2019 that maybe this one required a weed-smoker’s mentality to be fully enjoyed. Seeing as I had not and still to this day have not smoked weed (zero offense intended to those who do), FFX’s leap into immediate nonsense was just too nebulous to inspire me to actually play it (especially following the instant human dramas of IV, VII, and VI). Still, it made for nice hangout fodder, barely scraping the start of Besaid.
____
(it might interest someone to know that later that day, I saw Seven Samurai at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens and embarrassed myself the first of several times before an individual called Tim Rogers. He had a lot to say about the history of Coca-Cola)
____
Then, in 2023, I saw promotional posters for a nine hour-long Kabuki adaptation of Final Fantasy X while on the train in Tokyo, Japan. Seeing this and recognizing that Marijuana is hugely, catastrophically illegal there, I began to reconsider. I came back to a New York apartment (which, incidentally, was stationed directly adjacent to a store called “Wood Vibes”) wondering what it was about FFX that had inspired such a show of affection for a game from twenty two years ago.
My brothers’ two book-gifts were both offered with zero provocation by Final Fantasy X. No knowledge of its religious criticism, no awareness that I was even playing the game. I don’t think they were worried about whether I was smoking weed. Maybe God hates Final Fantasy X. Well, I don’t.
To condense the gist of my thoughts into a shallow paste – My big takeaway from Final Fantasy X is that it could’ve used one more draft. The cyclical plight of Spira and its magics are evocative. Its fashion, culture, and world design cannot be mistaken for anything else (even Squaresoft’s previous island fantasy RPG which appears elsewhere on this list). Once the human drama does begin, I sure did want to see where it’d go. The sphere grid takes a little too long to offer its most interesting decisions, but the battle system is well-measured, and in general, its game design stands on a sturdier foundation than most of its siblings (with the exclusion of The Chamber Dungeons, Blitzball, most of the side content), not that the difficulty doesn’t ratchet up into a wild disaster during the last stretch.
Final Fantasy X is a story that subsists on vibes. I like the simplicity with which it uses a bumbling outsider’s unfamiliarity to help a group examine their culture, their values and their long-held beliefs. Many of its endgame developments fumble beneath the weight of thought, characters go underbaked, the voice acting wobbles between solid and weird. Motivations go from understandable with potential for further nuance to cartoonishly funny. Wakka’s arc is the strongest. Seymour really wants to be the villain. The biggest late-game revelation makes no sense, but I certainly wish it did. Because I’m sure, here, that if I were to prioritize the atmosphere and absorb the feel – if I smoked weed – it could’ve reached me. Any of my friends from around that time can attest that I had a lot of good things to say about Final Fantasy X. Eventually, the ravings turned to revisings(?). I thought often about how I’d rewrite the game. I thought about whether I’d have bought it as a piece of Kabuki theater.
But when I stopped playing Final Fantasy X and read the two books purchased for me by my brothers, it occurred to me that neither of them had any response to Final Fantasy X’s strongest point.
21
Earlier this year, I put together a resume and cover letter for Kojima Productions. One segment asked that I briefly describe a “recent game experience” that inspired me. My answer, unedited and never before seen by the public, went a little something like this:
“Over a week ago, I had the opportunity to experience Taito’s Elevator Action Returns for the first time on an arcade cabinet. Though it was initially released in 1994, I found it remarkable for its ability to radically expand on the original’s setting while staying true to its game feel. It leverages the slow, deliberate movement of Elevator Action as a means of rooting its characters in a believable, though nevertheless exaggerated action movie setting. Its world now feels lived-in and tactile, a place torn apart by escalating political conflicts, and that’s accentuated by its attention to detail. Lights and cameras can be shot out and broken, barrels respond appropriately to projectiles, explosives, and gravity, and visual touches like graffiti reinforce an atmosphere of grit and unrest. Where Elevator Action loops back repeatedly through a barely defined skyscraper, 'Returns' reconstructs that blueprint in the shape of a narrative arc. We naturally progress from that skyscraper into an airport, then a construction site, then a sewer and into a lab, all while observing how the enemy faction has seeped its way into the fabric of this world. As a feature-length game, each of its areas is built with a careful eye for the pacing of an action film. Playing it from start to finish simultaneously feels like exploring a setting, watching a story unfold, and performing its starring role.”
Shoulda written about Death Stranding.
“Over a week ago, I had the opportunity to experience Taito’s Elevator Action Returns for the first time on an arcade cabinet. Though it was initially released in 1994, I found it remarkable for its ability to radically expand on the original’s setting while staying true to its game feel. It leverages the slow, deliberate movement of Elevator Action as a means of rooting its characters in a believable, though nevertheless exaggerated action movie setting. Its world now feels lived-in and tactile, a place torn apart by escalating political conflicts, and that’s accentuated by its attention to detail. Lights and cameras can be shot out and broken, barrels respond appropriately to projectiles, explosives, and gravity, and visual touches like graffiti reinforce an atmosphere of grit and unrest. Where Elevator Action loops back repeatedly through a barely defined skyscraper, 'Returns' reconstructs that blueprint in the shape of a narrative arc. We naturally progress from that skyscraper into an airport, then a construction site, then a sewer and into a lab, all while observing how the enemy faction has seeped its way into the fabric of this world. As a feature-length game, each of its areas is built with a careful eye for the pacing of an action film. Playing it from start to finish simultaneously feels like exploring a setting, watching a story unfold, and performing its starring role.”
Shoulda written about Death Stranding.
22
So dissatisfied was I with Tears of the Kingdom that I was sure Zelda clones would make up the backbone of this list. Alundra, Beyond Oasis, Crusader of Centy, Unsighted and Eastward, but I didn’t get around to quite as many as I’d hoped. Ryan, I’m sorry I haven’t beaten this game yet. Even though I’m the one who put you up to playing it.
It wisely eschews the Zelda route of introducing new pieces of equipment from stage to stage, recognizing that there’s enough going on with its isometric camera and physics properties to carry the playthrough. There’s confidence in the ingenuity of its aesthetic. Leave it to the folks behind Shining Force to capture the vibe of a Saturday Morning Cartoon. But it does more than just that to differentiate its philosophy from A Link to the Past.
Structurally, it has more in common with Dragon Quest than any Zelda game. Landstalker impressively manages to stay scenario-driven almost the whole way through, never content to leave the player with a checklist of objects to wander for. New faces enter the fold in the hunt for King Nole’s Legendary Treasure, some unable to keep pace while others overtake the player. There’s just enough worldbuilding and development to keep the setting alive while staying brisk and breezy, but all this slick presentation makes the snags stick out.
Diplomatically, Landstalker's combat sucks. That wouldn’t be a problem if its dungeon-crawling aspirations didn’t constantly fall back on monsters the game can't properly support. The game knows it drops the ball; it allows players to carry up to nine auto-revival items at a time from the very start. I’d have preferred another solution, maybe even a turn-based combat system to complete the Super Mario RPG comparison, but I understand the move. It has a real-time swashbuckling fantasy to fulfill, and the more time spent navigating its pseudo 3D geometry, the better. At its best, this manifests in wonderful little diorama villages, scenes that make strong use of its dramatic angles – stuff like the Mercator sequence.
On the island of Mercator is a town called Mercator oversought by Duke Mercator. It’s one of my favorite little town stories in recent memory, and I was coming directly off of both NieR games. It’s this cavalcade of plants and payoffs, character introductions and crisscrossing motivations which somehow lands Nigel at a dinner party with the duke (during which they sit down for a moment and listen as the local musician performs his magnum opus). If Landstalker looks at all interesting to you, I’d recommend playing at least through Mercator.
But if you absolutely need proof that Landstalker was a labor of love, if you’re struggling with the controls early on and you doubt that a good time can be had, grant me this: go to any town, stop at any inn, examine the map and wait a second. What you’ll find, by itself, was enough to cement Landstalker as a better memory than last year’s Zelda.
It wisely eschews the Zelda route of introducing new pieces of equipment from stage to stage, recognizing that there’s enough going on with its isometric camera and physics properties to carry the playthrough. There’s confidence in the ingenuity of its aesthetic. Leave it to the folks behind Shining Force to capture the vibe of a Saturday Morning Cartoon. But it does more than just that to differentiate its philosophy from A Link to the Past.
Structurally, it has more in common with Dragon Quest than any Zelda game. Landstalker impressively manages to stay scenario-driven almost the whole way through, never content to leave the player with a checklist of objects to wander for. New faces enter the fold in the hunt for King Nole’s Legendary Treasure, some unable to keep pace while others overtake the player. There’s just enough worldbuilding and development to keep the setting alive while staying brisk and breezy, but all this slick presentation makes the snags stick out.
Diplomatically, Landstalker's combat sucks. That wouldn’t be a problem if its dungeon-crawling aspirations didn’t constantly fall back on monsters the game can't properly support. The game knows it drops the ball; it allows players to carry up to nine auto-revival items at a time from the very start. I’d have preferred another solution, maybe even a turn-based combat system to complete the Super Mario RPG comparison, but I understand the move. It has a real-time swashbuckling fantasy to fulfill, and the more time spent navigating its pseudo 3D geometry, the better. At its best, this manifests in wonderful little diorama villages, scenes that make strong use of its dramatic angles – stuff like the Mercator sequence.
On the island of Mercator is a town called Mercator oversought by Duke Mercator. It’s one of my favorite little town stories in recent memory, and I was coming directly off of both NieR games. It’s this cavalcade of plants and payoffs, character introductions and crisscrossing motivations which somehow lands Nigel at a dinner party with the duke (during which they sit down for a moment and listen as the local musician performs his magnum opus). If Landstalker looks at all interesting to you, I’d recommend playing at least through Mercator.
But if you absolutely need proof that Landstalker was a labor of love, if you’re struggling with the controls early on and you doubt that a good time can be had, grant me this: go to any town, stop at any inn, examine the map and wait a second. What you’ll find, by itself, was enough to cement Landstalker as a better memory than last year’s Zelda.
23
WELCOME TO VIOLENT CITY!
> Manhattan, New York
Batrider is the heart of Raizing as a developer, cut out of its chest and laid bare.
I couldn’t have anticipated the adorkable storybook structure of Sorcer Striker or Soukyugurentai’s hard-edged late-90s sci-fi anime presentation. I’d been eyeing Battle Garegga since at least 2021, and having now thoroughly smashed my head against it, I now finally understand how completely demonic a videogame can be.
Batrider is all of these things at once; absolutely bursting at the seams with wild, Treasure-like energy. It contains eighteen different characters (one of whom is named "Birthday"), each with four variants, of which you must select three to form a King of Fighters-style team. It’s got more devious chaining and dynamic difficulty systems than Garegga, the unique character endings from Sorcer Striker, even the charge shield from Yagawa’s “Recca” on Famicom. Armed Police Batrider is one of the strangest, hardest, and most remarkable arcade games I have ever come across. I don’t know who it was made for, or why it’s filled with unique modes despite never having been given a home release. I don’t think I will ever manage a one credit clear of any of these games....however:
"I leave if Chitta created a sensation in New York afte
rward to your imagination."
> Manhattan, New York
Batrider is the heart of Raizing as a developer, cut out of its chest and laid bare.
I couldn’t have anticipated the adorkable storybook structure of Sorcer Striker or Soukyugurentai’s hard-edged late-90s sci-fi anime presentation. I’d been eyeing Battle Garegga since at least 2021, and having now thoroughly smashed my head against it, I now finally understand how completely demonic a videogame can be.
Batrider is all of these things at once; absolutely bursting at the seams with wild, Treasure-like energy. It contains eighteen different characters (one of whom is named "Birthday"), each with four variants, of which you must select three to form a King of Fighters-style team. It’s got more devious chaining and dynamic difficulty systems than Garegga, the unique character endings from Sorcer Striker, even the charge shield from Yagawa’s “Recca” on Famicom. Armed Police Batrider is one of the strangest, hardest, and most remarkable arcade games I have ever come across. I don’t know who it was made for, or why it’s filled with unique modes despite never having been given a home release. I don’t think I will ever manage a one credit clear of any of these games....however:
"I leave if Chitta created a sensation in New York afte
rward to your imagination."
24
In September, I contributed a segment to Jason Graves’ video about the Top 100 SNES Games of All Time. I highly suggest checking it out (number fifty-two in particular), but if you’d rather stick around, I’ll drop the transcript right here. For the purposes of this list, it says all I’d like to say.
“1986 saw the release of three major Japanese games based on their own folklore. All of them were regionally exclusive. In April, from the minds behind Zelda, came 'The Mysterious Murasame Castle'. In May, the first in what would become Konami’s illustrious Goemon series. Then, a whole four months later came Taito, bumbling in late to the party with a game called 'Mysterious Ghost World.' It’s visually impressive for the era, I guess it pioneered the 'shrine maiden shmup' genre, but I’d easily call it the weakest of the three. It’s after top-down run ‘n gun action, but comes off slow, strict, and unsatisfying. If you were to ask me which two of these games would receive the Super Nintendo treatment, Ghost World wouldn’t have stood a chance.
And yet...
Developer Natsume knew what they had in Taito’s scraggly first draft, playing to the strengths of its art direction and injecting it with a shot of adrenaline. It stays true to Ghost World’s focus on heavy, committed movement, but takes it further. A slide can get you out of danger, but leaves you hopelessly vulnerable. Indecisively swapping between the fire and spread shots will prevent them from upgrading, so stick to your guns. You can no longer move while waving your wand, so deflection can’t be abused. It’s more shmup-like, more whimsical, even more specifically Japanese than the first, with a story about western spirits invading the minds and lands of Yokai. If the game’s arcade difficulty and aesthetic didn’t prevent an international localization, you’d think this would.
But that was nothing a good American paint job couldn’t fix. Sayo and Manuke became Pocky & Rocky, the yokai became…Nopino Goblins(?), slap on some worse box art and the rest is history.
Pocky & Rocky isn’t often thought of as a tentpole in the console’s legacy, but the trajectory of the series is as SNES as they come. Its sequel veered directly into the RPG and Adventure tropes that earned the SNES its reputation, with NPCs, shops, branching paths, throwable partners with special abilities, save passwords, and while I prefer its more tightly-designed predecessor, 2 belongs on this machine. That Pocky & Rocky was reimagined yet again just last year by very the same team only makes it SNESer. And dear god, just look at it. With almost 30 years of hindsight, Reshrined might just be the best of the four. And no, Becky doesn’t count.”
Thanks again for having me on, Jason!
“1986 saw the release of three major Japanese games based on their own folklore. All of them were regionally exclusive. In April, from the minds behind Zelda, came 'The Mysterious Murasame Castle'. In May, the first in what would become Konami’s illustrious Goemon series. Then, a whole four months later came Taito, bumbling in late to the party with a game called 'Mysterious Ghost World.' It’s visually impressive for the era, I guess it pioneered the 'shrine maiden shmup' genre, but I’d easily call it the weakest of the three. It’s after top-down run ‘n gun action, but comes off slow, strict, and unsatisfying. If you were to ask me which two of these games would receive the Super Nintendo treatment, Ghost World wouldn’t have stood a chance.
And yet...
Developer Natsume knew what they had in Taito’s scraggly first draft, playing to the strengths of its art direction and injecting it with a shot of adrenaline. It stays true to Ghost World’s focus on heavy, committed movement, but takes it further. A slide can get you out of danger, but leaves you hopelessly vulnerable. Indecisively swapping between the fire and spread shots will prevent them from upgrading, so stick to your guns. You can no longer move while waving your wand, so deflection can’t be abused. It’s more shmup-like, more whimsical, even more specifically Japanese than the first, with a story about western spirits invading the minds and lands of Yokai. If the game’s arcade difficulty and aesthetic didn’t prevent an international localization, you’d think this would.
But that was nothing a good American paint job couldn’t fix. Sayo and Manuke became Pocky & Rocky, the yokai became…Nopino Goblins(?), slap on some worse box art and the rest is history.
Pocky & Rocky isn’t often thought of as a tentpole in the console’s legacy, but the trajectory of the series is as SNES as they come. Its sequel veered directly into the RPG and Adventure tropes that earned the SNES its reputation, with NPCs, shops, branching paths, throwable partners with special abilities, save passwords, and while I prefer its more tightly-designed predecessor, 2 belongs on this machine. That Pocky & Rocky was reimagined yet again just last year by very the same team only makes it SNESer. And dear god, just look at it. With almost 30 years of hindsight, Reshrined might just be the best of the four. And no, Becky doesn’t count.”
Thanks again for having me on, Jason!
25
When I told Ethan Goldreyer, developer of Magic Toenail, that I would be including his game on this list, he jokingly challenged me to explain why his design was superior to that of Tears of the Kingdom’s Hidemaro Fujibayashi. Well Ethan, I hope you know that I’m not joking with this response. Mostly. Here goes.
“The more, the merrier.” It’s a phrase we know too well, one whose spirit the so-called “gaming community” invokes all too often with regard to resolution, length, mechanics…
…
…
Traversable space.
But consider this. Compelling game design is about challenging a player’s priorities. Look at a chess board. Now imagine it was a thousand times larger, the opposing pieces separated by oceans. The further apart these elements of friction become, the less common it’ll be for the player to find themself in a position where they’ll have to make a meaningful decision.
Now, I seem to recall at least an hour stretch of Tears of the Kingdom spent just scrounging around for something interesting. This will never happen in Magic Toenail, where it takes all of one second to start plotting the three grid squares you must navigate to evade Death. The verb-consolidation of Magic Toenail has the same effect. Shooting happens automatically during movement, and the projectile you’ll shoot during each square of traversal has to be determined before you begin. You’ll always move before your enemies, and you’re given everything you need to solve the puzzle of any particular stage. That level of honesty is rare. It’s a college course on how to think literally three steps ahead of the competition.
Structurally, each level chunk of Magic Toenail exists as a single square within a larger grid (as all things do). It branches from the start, you’re allowed to reach out in whatever direction interests you in your pursuit of the exit. You have the freedom to approach the game as you like, but unlike a certain other game, you’re absolutely guaranteed to find yourself in The Best Part no matter your choice, because Magic Toenail solely consists of The Best Part of itself.
The Tears comparisons might be tongue in cheek, but my praise is not. Magic Toenail is rock-solid and reeks of charm. There were moments while playing Magic Toenail that utterly embarrassed me, where I surprised myself, where I chuckled over the adorable sound effects and visual style.
I generally attempt to avoid dryly explaining the topic (and often fail), but Magic Toenail’s merits bear explaining, because a game like this shouldn’t be taken for granted just because it appears simple. It’s an absolute minefield, no doubt as much to play as it was for Ethan to develop. And what’s the barrier to entry? A mere four dollars, my friend.
Go. Embrace the Toenail.
“The more, the merrier.” It’s a phrase we know too well, one whose spirit the so-called “gaming community” invokes all too often with regard to resolution, length, mechanics…
…
…
Traversable space.
But consider this. Compelling game design is about challenging a player’s priorities. Look at a chess board. Now imagine it was a thousand times larger, the opposing pieces separated by oceans. The further apart these elements of friction become, the less common it’ll be for the player to find themself in a position where they’ll have to make a meaningful decision.
Now, I seem to recall at least an hour stretch of Tears of the Kingdom spent just scrounging around for something interesting. This will never happen in Magic Toenail, where it takes all of one second to start plotting the three grid squares you must navigate to evade Death. The verb-consolidation of Magic Toenail has the same effect. Shooting happens automatically during movement, and the projectile you’ll shoot during each square of traversal has to be determined before you begin. You’ll always move before your enemies, and you’re given everything you need to solve the puzzle of any particular stage. That level of honesty is rare. It’s a college course on how to think literally three steps ahead of the competition.
Structurally, each level chunk of Magic Toenail exists as a single square within a larger grid (as all things do). It branches from the start, you’re allowed to reach out in whatever direction interests you in your pursuit of the exit. You have the freedom to approach the game as you like, but unlike a certain other game, you’re absolutely guaranteed to find yourself in The Best Part no matter your choice, because Magic Toenail solely consists of The Best Part of itself.
The Tears comparisons might be tongue in cheek, but my praise is not. Magic Toenail is rock-solid and reeks of charm. There were moments while playing Magic Toenail that utterly embarrassed me, where I surprised myself, where I chuckled over the adorable sound effects and visual style.
I generally attempt to avoid dryly explaining the topic (and often fail), but Magic Toenail’s merits bear explaining, because a game like this shouldn’t be taken for granted just because it appears simple. It’s an absolute minefield, no doubt as much to play as it was for Ethan to develop. And what’s the barrier to entry? A mere four dollars, my friend.
Go. Embrace the Toenail.
26
I played a lot of the original OutRun last year, for a few reasons. Apparently, OutRun was there on my parents’ first date (least, my dad recalls an arcade game about driving a Ferrari Testarossa). I’ve come to appreciate its aesthetic more than its sequel, the way new locations will wash over the screen, the graphics pushing the tech of its time, the process of climbing its shockingly high skill floor, the wonderful minimalism of its three musical tracks. Outside of its own duology, that kind of attention to art direction and atmosphere in driving games is scarce.
But Ridge Racer Type 4 arguably exceeds OutRun’s directorial ambition. Not necessarily in its game design, but its UI – its menu interface, illustration and sound – they all contribute to a singular whole. Today, R4’s in-game visuals pale in comparison to the world it’s able to build around it, but the music threads it all together. It bet everything it had on a warm, solid yellow backed against an unbelievably smooth soundscape, and now it owns that casino. You cannot convince me that Atlus didn’t rip R4’s aesthetic sensibility wholesale when rebranding the Persona series. Hey, it even features sharp little visual novel sequences which progress according to your performance! Racing games can come down to Mario Kart or Hot Wheels, but R4 puts forth the argument that these are things can be classy.
I took several college courses on the topic of graphic design at Game School, and I now believe they were wholly incomplete without any mention of Ridge Racer Type 4. I’ll concede that it isn’t an OutRun-level revelation or a jaw-dropper the likes of F-Zero GX. The mechanics don’t shock and awe. Doesn’t change the fact that this is some world-class, gallery-grade finesse. It deserves respect, if only in the form of an hour or two of your time. Even a glance has the potential to stick forever.
But Ridge Racer Type 4 arguably exceeds OutRun’s directorial ambition. Not necessarily in its game design, but its UI – its menu interface, illustration and sound – they all contribute to a singular whole. Today, R4’s in-game visuals pale in comparison to the world it’s able to build around it, but the music threads it all together. It bet everything it had on a warm, solid yellow backed against an unbelievably smooth soundscape, and now it owns that casino. You cannot convince me that Atlus didn’t rip R4’s aesthetic sensibility wholesale when rebranding the Persona series. Hey, it even features sharp little visual novel sequences which progress according to your performance! Racing games can come down to Mario Kart or Hot Wheels, but R4 puts forth the argument that these are things can be classy.
I took several college courses on the topic of graphic design at Game School, and I now believe they were wholly incomplete without any mention of Ridge Racer Type 4. I’ll concede that it isn’t an OutRun-level revelation or a jaw-dropper the likes of F-Zero GX. The mechanics don’t shock and awe. Doesn’t change the fact that this is some world-class, gallery-grade finesse. It deserves respect, if only in the form of an hour or two of your time. Even a glance has the potential to stick forever.
27
I was selling coffee machines at retail when a man wearing a Sega jacket walked into the shop beside a pink-haired woman. I gave him the scripted spiel about our proprietary system, then said “hey, that’s a nice jacket.” He said “thanks. It’s my work jacket.”
As it happens, he was (and continues to be) employed as the “Lore Master” of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. I told him I’d been going through the classic games recently. He asked if I was interested in the upcoming entries in the Yakuza series. I told him yes. I did not tell him that I was only interested because of the promise that ONE of these things might contain After Burner: Climax.
Because about eight months earlier, in Japan, at the lovingly maintained Mikado Arcade in the Takadanobaba District, I played it. Being the Sonic Lore Master, maybe this individual was woefully unaware that 2006 was – contrary to popular belief – a great year to be a Sega fan. Virtua Fighter 5, Yakuza 2, OutRun 2006, Yakuza 2, Billy Hatcher, and of course, After Burner; a game which left such a strong impression that I used my leftover change from dinner to come back and play it again.
In and by 2006, AM2 polished its gems into shining beacons of game design. The joy of speed, escape, flight, martial arts, all condensed into beautiful pearls. They’re all just there at the Mikado Arcade. It’s a museum containing the wonders people have made for each other. I had a pretty nice little preschool-level Japanese conversation with someone who was playing the Tokimeki Memorial Arcade Puzzle Game. They had Cosmic Smash over there, which is spiritually the number one game on this list.
All of this to say, that was a pretty nice jacket.
As it happens, he was (and continues to be) employed as the “Lore Master” of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. I told him I’d been going through the classic games recently. He asked if I was interested in the upcoming entries in the Yakuza series. I told him yes. I did not tell him that I was only interested because of the promise that ONE of these things might contain After Burner: Climax.
Because about eight months earlier, in Japan, at the lovingly maintained Mikado Arcade in the Takadanobaba District, I played it. Being the Sonic Lore Master, maybe this individual was woefully unaware that 2006 was – contrary to popular belief – a great year to be a Sega fan. Virtua Fighter 5, Yakuza 2, OutRun 2006, Yakuza 2, Billy Hatcher, and of course, After Burner; a game which left such a strong impression that I used my leftover change from dinner to come back and play it again.
In and by 2006, AM2 polished its gems into shining beacons of game design. The joy of speed, escape, flight, martial arts, all condensed into beautiful pearls. They’re all just there at the Mikado Arcade. It’s a museum containing the wonders people have made for each other. I had a pretty nice little preschool-level Japanese conversation with someone who was playing the Tokimeki Memorial Arcade Puzzle Game. They had Cosmic Smash over there, which is spiritually the number one game on this list.
All of this to say, that was a pretty nice jacket.
28
As a card-carrying fan of the original Prince of Persia, it was a treat to see Jordan Mechner’s debut given probably the greatest official piece of preservation that the industry has ever seen. Karateka itself isn’t a spectacular videogame, but still worth a go for its vibe, for the seed of realistic heaviness that would manifest in stuff like Red Dead Redemption 2 ages later. Karateka is the work of a budding genius, and the fact of its rotoscoped pixel art is itself a testament to that. The level of care taken in documenting even Mechner’s most half-baked prototypes is especially heartwarming, and Digital Eclipse even packed in a revamped “Deluxe” version of Karateka with a combo counter and reimagined graphics. Funny to think about anyone digging up those super amateur Mario and Zelda fangames I made in Multimedia Fusion 2 when I was seven, much less touching them up for a new generation, but Mechner is a man quite willing to publish his own diary so what do I know.
Just remember to swap out of your fighting stance before meeting the princess, or she’ll kill you dead.
(And they got Dave Rapoza to do the cover art for this one! A much-deserved win for Steve Lichman appreciators everywhere)
Just remember to swap out of your fighting stance before meeting the princess, or she’ll kill you dead.
(And they got Dave Rapoza to do the cover art for this one! A much-deserved win for Steve Lichman appreciators everywhere)
29
Eight years ago, the individual known as “Shoogles” posted a video on Youtube titled “Falling in Love with NiGHTS into Dreams…” It explores a trajectory wherein an initially sour impression turns sweet as he comes to understand and master the game and its underlying systems. I’ve liked this video for a long time, both its attitude toward arcade-style design and its conclusion, and I’ve since awaited the day when I too would Fall in Love with NiGHTS into Dreams..
I’m still waiting, but let's call it a crush. I like the idea of NiGHTS plenty. Its earnest premise and art direction, its exhilarating speed and singular design. It's just the slightest bit undercooked. Like any good dream, I'm forced back to reality just as I'm finding my footing. Janky 3D walking sections and collision hiccups, amorphous bosses that succumb to the Saturn's reputation for unfortunate polygon graphics, poorly-communicated rules, they all cloud an otherwise absorbing and wonderful piece. And NiGHTS does earn those adjectives such that those low points don't hit as hard as they should, but another 1996 in-house Saturn game soars too high and too well for me to look the other way.
I’m still waiting, but let's call it a crush. I like the idea of NiGHTS plenty. Its earnest premise and art direction, its exhilarating speed and singular design. It's just the slightest bit undercooked. Like any good dream, I'm forced back to reality just as I'm finding my footing. Janky 3D walking sections and collision hiccups, amorphous bosses that succumb to the Saturn's reputation for unfortunate polygon graphics, poorly-communicated rules, they all cloud an otherwise absorbing and wonderful piece. And NiGHTS does earn those adjectives such that those low points don't hit as hard as they should, but another 1996 in-house Saturn game soars too high and too well for me to look the other way.
30
Hyper Demon is tired of waiting for the good part. If you’re like me, one of the first things you did after starting the game was check the world record replay, only to find you had no earthly idea what you were looking at. Gradually, as you improve, sliding beneath skulls and charging blasts to fly high, stomping monsters, ricocheting your shot off of the edge of the world, you become conscious of the fact that you still have no idea what you’re looking at. But your body…it knows.
But have you noticed that this system, where the player gets faster and faster as they improve, racing against the threat of a decreasing number…it’s the oUTRUN OF–(gets RIVEN)
But have you noticed that this system, where the player gets faster and faster as they improve, racing against the threat of a decreasing number…it’s the oUTRUN OF–(gets RIVEN)
31
Anyone else think “Spark the Electric Jester” sounds more like an execution order than a videogame title? Either that or a vaping euphemism. Maybe that’s apt, seeing as it murders its inspiration in nearly every category (you can choose which of those two is more apt if you like). I “grew up” with Sonic Adventure 2 for a time. The fate of that game will come up again higher on this list, but suffice it to say that Spark redeemed high-speed boost-focused 3D platforming for specifically me. Holding a charge mid-air and letting loose to send Spark hurtling toward distant branching platforms, you wonder where this was twenty years ago. If it were me, I’d have the player jump directly from one racetrack to the next; it suffers from some dawdling in too-long combat scenarios and plot tangents (which I suppose is a Curse of Sonic Adventure-likes), but heck if Spark doesn’t make up for it with the highest of octane action.
In case this placement looks like a slight, you should know I played some Sonic Generations in 2023, and that didn’t even make the list.
In case this placement looks like a slight, you should know I played some Sonic Generations in 2023, and that didn’t even make the list.
32
Lacks the level of verisimilitude I was hoping to find, but its gamey-er take on this genre is more than worthwhile. Put another way, levels, even the bones and mechanics that make them up, adhere more to the rules of conventional puzzle design than the rules you might imagine from this setting. Less simulationist, more formal, but solid regardless. I'm split between whether Lunark or Full Void earns the distinction of Cinematic Platformer of the Year, but I'd call this the best gateway to the genre. Far more Flashback than Prince of Persia or even Another World, and more approachable than any of them by a long shot.
33
While it is…challenged in a number of ways, finally closing the book on a series I'd been playing on and off with a friend for almost a decade was cathartic. Dunno how you guys can call this "the bad one," dude they're all like this.
Look, Zero Time Dilemma’s reputation has been looming over the Zero Escape Series for almost as long as it’s taken me to play through them. Word on the street is that ZTD follows up on the second game’s wild cliffhanger with such a blunder that it taints the entries that came before. MatthewMatosis laments that, for as much as he loves the trilogy, he wouldn’t know how to review this ending without dragging Virtue’s Last Reward down with it. Life is Simply Unfair, and Zero Time Dilemma is proof we ended up on the Wrong Timeline.
And if you’re just talking about the presentation...well, I can't argue with that. There was little reason why VLR couldn’t have used the first game’s 2D art style, but what replaced it there was competent enough. ZTD has no excuse, at least not one that I can make sense of. Not gonna belabor the point, but the game looks stilted at best, and that animation quality ain’t pretty.
With regard to the story, however – just as VLR cranked the sci-fi magic up a notch from 999, so too does ZTD. I won’t pretend the first two games weren’t more grounded, somewhat, but between conspiracy theories, telekinesis, and timeline-jumping, I don’t think the stuff introduced in this one is as far out of left field as it's made out to be. Doesn’t mean I’m in love with the progression, even if I respect the desire to change up the plot structure and adopt an even more nonlinear approach. I don’t know if I fully understand the rules and limitations of this setting, but I’m not convinced the writers do either, so I’m just going along for the ride. Up until I run into a math problem. But hey, this one does feature some of the best rooms in the series — they manage to integrate the story more directly into the puzzle-challenges — and I will die on that hill.
Unfortunately, it pales in comparison to the depth found in Namco’s indelible “Mappy-Land” on NES. Take notes, Uchikoshi.
Miles, I have Paranormasight and I will be playing it in 2024. That I can promise you.
Look, Zero Time Dilemma’s reputation has been looming over the Zero Escape Series for almost as long as it’s taken me to play through them. Word on the street is that ZTD follows up on the second game’s wild cliffhanger with such a blunder that it taints the entries that came before. MatthewMatosis laments that, for as much as he loves the trilogy, he wouldn’t know how to review this ending without dragging Virtue’s Last Reward down with it. Life is Simply Unfair, and Zero Time Dilemma is proof we ended up on the Wrong Timeline.
And if you’re just talking about the presentation...well, I can't argue with that. There was little reason why VLR couldn’t have used the first game’s 2D art style, but what replaced it there was competent enough. ZTD has no excuse, at least not one that I can make sense of. Not gonna belabor the point, but the game looks stilted at best, and that animation quality ain’t pretty.
With regard to the story, however – just as VLR cranked the sci-fi magic up a notch from 999, so too does ZTD. I won’t pretend the first two games weren’t more grounded, somewhat, but between conspiracy theories, telekinesis, and timeline-jumping, I don’t think the stuff introduced in this one is as far out of left field as it's made out to be. Doesn’t mean I’m in love with the progression, even if I respect the desire to change up the plot structure and adopt an even more nonlinear approach. I don’t know if I fully understand the rules and limitations of this setting, but I’m not convinced the writers do either, so I’m just going along for the ride. Up until I run into a math problem. But hey, this one does feature some of the best rooms in the series — they manage to integrate the story more directly into the puzzle-challenges — and I will die on that hill.
Unfortunately, it pales in comparison to the depth found in Namco’s indelible “Mappy-Land” on NES. Take notes, Uchikoshi.
Miles, I have Paranormasight and I will be playing it in 2024. That I can promise you.
34
A phenomenal game that kinda sucks.
Tears of the Kingdom reminds me that Nintendo was a Toy Company. I guess they still are. The reference to Gunpei Yokoi’s “Ultrahand” is apt; this is a game you pick up just to noodle around with. Breath of the Wild represented the promise of new frontiers for this series, of continued reexamination and reinvention. Tears of the Kingdom is just a mathematically better product. It’s a fuller, more robust game with stronger overarching systems and level design, but there’s so little magic in its exploration. Even as I appreciate the engineering behind fusion and construction, I can only ever engage with TotK as a piece of work. I can admire that work, nod when I experience an excellent slice of level design, but I struggle to lose myself in it.
I can’t take the setting seriously, in large part because any attempt to follow up on BotW’s continuity is lukewarm at best. Nothing says “inspired” like wholesale replacing the last game’s ancient civilization and with an even older, ancienter civilization. All trace of the Shiekah has been shamefully buried beneath the dirt that gets swept under the rug. Sounds petty, but that has a substantial effect on the curiosity it’s meant to generate. Why explore a world with so little to say? A world without history, with ruins whose intrigue begins and ends at the pile of tinker toys left by the door?
Here’s the part where I become annoyingly dogmatic about my Zelda series game design beliefs, so feel free to move on if you’ve had your fill:
Since A Link Between Worlds, Zelda has steadily moved away from giving any meaning to the order in which discoveries are made, and I hoped Breath’s sequel would find a way to correct this. For me, the most interesting thing about any vast game world is the opportunity to make connections between locations. You learn a new piece of information or find an item that sends you down a trail of breadcrumbs across the map, and wind up with an entirely new perspective.
Nintendo has proven this can be skillfully done without railroading the player down a specific path or tanking the game’s difficulty across the board. The first three Zeldas all allow objectives to be done out of order without giving immediate access to the endgame. To clear A Link to the Past’s seventh Dark World dungeon, you only need to complete the first and the fourth, and the fourth dungeon can be accessed directly after the first. The only thing holding you back is your knowledge of how to get there, and your ability to retrieve the needed tools. With enough exploration and experimentation, you’ll realize you don’t need the hookshot from the second dungeon until after the eighth. There’s still something to unravel, a mystery to solve, these games make you work for every card in Nintendo’s hand.
For me, just being nonlinear is not inherently satisfying if each goal exists in a vacuum. Tears of the Kingdom’s map markers are even more egregious than A Link to the Past’s, because there’s rarely any wonder about how you’ll get inside. Every objective is a matter of asking the same two questions, being “what’s that over there,” and “how can I finagle my way in”. It’s rarely “where have I seen that before,” or “did somebody mention this,” and there’s never a need to jot down a spot for later. I’m always holding out for some treasure that will ignite my imagination, but it’s all so incremental and dinky.
So it’s a beautiful collage of ideas, pockets of design, but so little of it sticks. We’ve got big moments, insane scale, stronger Dungeon Quests, innovative mechanics, but I failed to care. If there’s any argument for “cohesion” in game design, I guess that’s it.
Tears of the Kingdom reminds me that Nintendo was a Toy Company. I guess they still are. The reference to Gunpei Yokoi’s “Ultrahand” is apt; this is a game you pick up just to noodle around with. Breath of the Wild represented the promise of new frontiers for this series, of continued reexamination and reinvention. Tears of the Kingdom is just a mathematically better product. It’s a fuller, more robust game with stronger overarching systems and level design, but there’s so little magic in its exploration. Even as I appreciate the engineering behind fusion and construction, I can only ever engage with TotK as a piece of work. I can admire that work, nod when I experience an excellent slice of level design, but I struggle to lose myself in it.
I can’t take the setting seriously, in large part because any attempt to follow up on BotW’s continuity is lukewarm at best. Nothing says “inspired” like wholesale replacing the last game’s ancient civilization and with an even older, ancienter civilization. All trace of the Shiekah has been shamefully buried beneath the dirt that gets swept under the rug. Sounds petty, but that has a substantial effect on the curiosity it’s meant to generate. Why explore a world with so little to say? A world without history, with ruins whose intrigue begins and ends at the pile of tinker toys left by the door?
Here’s the part where I become annoyingly dogmatic about my Zelda series game design beliefs, so feel free to move on if you’ve had your fill:
Since A Link Between Worlds, Zelda has steadily moved away from giving any meaning to the order in which discoveries are made, and I hoped Breath’s sequel would find a way to correct this. For me, the most interesting thing about any vast game world is the opportunity to make connections between locations. You learn a new piece of information or find an item that sends you down a trail of breadcrumbs across the map, and wind up with an entirely new perspective.
Nintendo has proven this can be skillfully done without railroading the player down a specific path or tanking the game’s difficulty across the board. The first three Zeldas all allow objectives to be done out of order without giving immediate access to the endgame. To clear A Link to the Past’s seventh Dark World dungeon, you only need to complete the first and the fourth, and the fourth dungeon can be accessed directly after the first. The only thing holding you back is your knowledge of how to get there, and your ability to retrieve the needed tools. With enough exploration and experimentation, you’ll realize you don’t need the hookshot from the second dungeon until after the eighth. There’s still something to unravel, a mystery to solve, these games make you work for every card in Nintendo’s hand.
For me, just being nonlinear is not inherently satisfying if each goal exists in a vacuum. Tears of the Kingdom’s map markers are even more egregious than A Link to the Past’s, because there’s rarely any wonder about how you’ll get inside. Every objective is a matter of asking the same two questions, being “what’s that over there,” and “how can I finagle my way in”. It’s rarely “where have I seen that before,” or “did somebody mention this,” and there’s never a need to jot down a spot for later. I’m always holding out for some treasure that will ignite my imagination, but it’s all so incremental and dinky.
So it’s a beautiful collage of ideas, pockets of design, but so little of it sticks. We’ve got big moments, insane scale, stronger Dungeon Quests, innovative mechanics, but I failed to care. If there’s any argument for “cohesion” in game design, I guess that’s it.
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