MacBlank
2009
L4D2 is one of my most-played games, and something I come back to all the time with my Sunday night group. I can't claim mastery since we basically only play on Easy or Normal, but I'm at least very, very, very, very, very familiar with the core maps. It tends to be my Sunday night group's gold standard for games, and it's the title we come back to more often than anything else.
Admittedly, I don't think there's much more the game has to offer for me, at least from a vanilla experience. I'll play it with friends and family, because I like spending time with friends and family, but I'd generally be happier playing something else. Not an indictment on L4D2 (goodness knows I haven't played everything the game has to offer), just where I'm at.
But it's my group's gold standard for a reason. Sometimes we just need a simple, arcade-y co-op experience to jump into, and L4D2 has us covered. L4D2 isn't without strategy, far from it, and the randomization element of the horde encounters means there's generally a different angle to approach each run of a map. I like a lot of what L4D2 offers over the original game mechanically: I am basically useless if my secondary weapon is a handgun instead of a melee weapon, crescendo events are a lot more dynamic and varied compared to the first game, the new Special Infected are... annoying, but they're doing their job of keeping you on your toes... and I like all of the new maps, especially Hard Rain. I also like the cast and Southern setting way more than the first game's New England offerings, but that's more down to taste.
Admittedly, I don't think there's much more the game has to offer for me, at least from a vanilla experience. I'll play it with friends and family, because I like spending time with friends and family, but I'd generally be happier playing something else. Not an indictment on L4D2 (goodness knows I haven't played everything the game has to offer), just where I'm at.
But it's my group's gold standard for a reason. Sometimes we just need a simple, arcade-y co-op experience to jump into, and L4D2 has us covered. L4D2 isn't without strategy, far from it, and the randomization element of the horde encounters means there's generally a different angle to approach each run of a map. I like a lot of what L4D2 offers over the original game mechanically: I am basically useless if my secondary weapon is a handgun instead of a melee weapon, crescendo events are a lot more dynamic and varied compared to the first game, the new Special Infected are... annoying, but they're doing their job of keeping you on your toes... and I like all of the new maps, especially Hard Rain. I also like the cast and Southern setting way more than the first game's New England offerings, but that's more down to taste.
1988
For a game/series notorious for its difficulty, it's striking that the original Ninja Gaiden doesn't really get difficult until the tail end. Like it's never easy, but it doesn't get really hard until Stage 5-2/5-3 or so. Of course, the game then gets downright dickish with 6-2 and completely cruel with 6-4, so the game's reputation is well-earned. I just think it's neat that the player is most of the way into the game before the gloves come off. Gives the sense that you can do it, you've already come this far, you just have to rise to the occasion.
(For the record, the only time I called B.S. is having to restart a loop after botching a run on the final boss. Though, I think it's an interesting concession that the game remembers what phase you were on with the final boss between loops. My solution was to savestate at the end of 6-3, reload saves until I cleared a phase, then redo the loop, saving again at the end of 6-3. You can insist I did not beat the god damn game if you must, but that seemed the fairest compromise that still let me feel some of the intended effect.)
Nah, Ninja Gaiden represents probably the closest you could come to a spectacle platformer on the NES. In a lot of ways, Ninja Gaiden feels like a counterpart to the original Castlevania: same brutality, same subweapon system, same love of mean flying enemies, same way of encouraging the player to try again with endless continues. The main difference of course being that Ninja Gaiden is a FAST game, with Ryu Hayabusa being ridiculously agile in sharp contrast to Simon Belmont's plodding slowness.
But while Castlevania merely wears its love for movies on its sleeve, Ninja Gaiden is an early adopter of video game cutscenes. It's not the first - Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man predate it, of course. But you have to love how proud TECMO was of what they were doing, judging by the manual boasting of the game's unique "Cinema Display" system. Plus you gotta love stuff like Ryu dismissing Irene with "Just a girl. Get out of here!", only for Irene to immediately tranq him.
There's a lot of great tonality and presentation to Ninja Gaiden, too. A lot of it is genre work familiar to ninja movies - though, again, seeing any of that in this era is pretty cool - but there's a good amount baked into the cadence of the gameplay. The sheer focus on game world continuity through its level design - how every level starting with Stage 4-1 flows into the next, down to it all being visible in that one shot of Ryu looking at the far-off mountain - is cool.
Plus, there's the striking choice of the game's main theme - "Unbreakable Determination" - first appearing in Stage 4-2, long after most games introduce and iterate upon their leitmotifs. Really gives the sense that everything to that point was prelude, and the real adventure begins there. Considering that's also around when the game starts getting harder, it's justified.
Famously, the game is as hard as it is because the developers got too familiar with it, and kept spicing it up to keep themselves challenged. But I think that also goes to show the sheer confidence and respect the team had for what they were doing. Very much a game worth playing and studying, even today.
(For the record, the only time I called B.S. is having to restart a loop after botching a run on the final boss. Though, I think it's an interesting concession that the game remembers what phase you were on with the final boss between loops. My solution was to savestate at the end of 6-3, reload saves until I cleared a phase, then redo the loop, saving again at the end of 6-3. You can insist I did not beat the god damn game if you must, but that seemed the fairest compromise that still let me feel some of the intended effect.)
Nah, Ninja Gaiden represents probably the closest you could come to a spectacle platformer on the NES. In a lot of ways, Ninja Gaiden feels like a counterpart to the original Castlevania: same brutality, same subweapon system, same love of mean flying enemies, same way of encouraging the player to try again with endless continues. The main difference of course being that Ninja Gaiden is a FAST game, with Ryu Hayabusa being ridiculously agile in sharp contrast to Simon Belmont's plodding slowness.
But while Castlevania merely wears its love for movies on its sleeve, Ninja Gaiden is an early adopter of video game cutscenes. It's not the first - Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man predate it, of course. But you have to love how proud TECMO was of what they were doing, judging by the manual boasting of the game's unique "Cinema Display" system. Plus you gotta love stuff like Ryu dismissing Irene with "Just a girl. Get out of here!", only for Irene to immediately tranq him.
There's a lot of great tonality and presentation to Ninja Gaiden, too. A lot of it is genre work familiar to ninja movies - though, again, seeing any of that in this era is pretty cool - but there's a good amount baked into the cadence of the gameplay. The sheer focus on game world continuity through its level design - how every level starting with Stage 4-1 flows into the next, down to it all being visible in that one shot of Ryu looking at the far-off mountain - is cool.
Plus, there's the striking choice of the game's main theme - "Unbreakable Determination" - first appearing in Stage 4-2, long after most games introduce and iterate upon their leitmotifs. Really gives the sense that everything to that point was prelude, and the real adventure begins there. Considering that's also around when the game starts getting harder, it's justified.
Famously, the game is as hard as it is because the developers got too familiar with it, and kept spicing it up to keep themselves challenged. But I think that also goes to show the sheer confidence and respect the team had for what they were doing. Very much a game worth playing and studying, even today.
1997
Absolutely fascinating concept for a fighting game. You would think boiling down a fighter to its bare minimum would result in an extremely dry game without much of a hook, but you'd be quite wrong. Because any blow can be the killing strike, matches build with tension as they go on, particularly when either side begins sustaining injuries. Easy to fall into the fallacy of thinking an opponent's down and out, only to be caught off-guard by a carefully-timed killstrike from a kneeling opponent.
Of particular note to me are the controls, for how much they visually communicate their own ideas. Lightweight placed extreme consideration for how to represent their fighters' actions, and this is reflected in the layout of buttons on the PlayStation controller. Immediately you have the attack buttons, △/○/X as High/Mid/Low Attack - a descending order matching the buttons themselves. The last face button, □, is used for parries, which is to the left. Looking at it from the perspective of a player on the screen's left - as Player 1 would be at the start - the defensive □ is in a position retreating from the enemy, while the offensive ○ is advancing towards the enemy.
We also see this level of thought placed into the R1 and R2 buttons, which respectively are used to elevate or lower the player. On their own, R1 shifts to a higher stance while R2 shifts to a lower stance. Movement plus R2 makes the fighter crouch, and hitting R2 while the player is crouching makes the fighter go even lower than a crouch and fling dirt. Movement plus R1 lets the player climb a wall, and R1 out of a crouch turns the motion into a leap forward. There's a lot of very careful psychology like this to what the buttons do, and it's this sort of meticulous, deliberate design ethos that permiates a lot of what Bushido Blade is as an experience.
Bushido Blade feels a bit like a tech demo with all its offerings. Its emphasis on realistic weapon simulation, as well as mixing and matching eight weapons with six player characters, is pretty cool, and the game's main hook. Slash Mode is a fun challenge, very much a nod to traditional swordfighter movies. POV Mode is a complete gimmick, but darn if it isn't a cute idea. Link Mode is a cool idea - not a lot of games would make use of the ability to hook up multiple PS1s - but I've never had any Player 2s, so I can't vouch for it.
So, the hook for me has always been Bushido Blade's campaign. The initial draw there is how the game enforces its understanding of Bushido code - strike an opponent dishonorably (while they're talking, while they're vulnerable, etc), and the story admonishes the player with a bad ending. I'm always fascinated when a game bakes its moral code into its game systems, particularly if it's an established real-world code rather than the simple good/evil binary. But the campaign is quite short - potentially only six fights, in a game where every strike is a killing blow - and the endings are all melancholy and don't seem to resolve anything, so there's sort of an empty feeling a player has walking away from it.
...until they realize that there's a puzzle to finding the good ending. I don't mind spoiling it here: first, the player must navigate through the game world, screen by screen, as they look for their exit. Second, the player must clear every fight without sustaining damage. I guess, because each strike is a killing blow, the usual "don't lose a round" approach to a fighting game's true ending is an unrealistic approach?
I spent a couple hours on-stream trying to grind out a good ending, and while I was ultimately unsuccessful, I came away really appreciating the challenge being asked of the player here. That thing about tension building over the course of a match? That gets amplified considerably here, both during the first round escape sequence - even once you have the path memorized, a three-to-five minute run with an aggressive opponent constantly on the player's heels - then in the subsequent six fights. It's weirdly Katze, the first boss character who weilds a firearm, who becomes a breather round - striking, because he's initially the most annoying of the game's bosses for his ability to insta-kill at range. Everything else, including the normal, non-boss characters? Could stop your attempt cold.
There's sort of a weird meditative quality to grinding out the good ending, given that first round escape sequence. There's no music, just the noises of the wintry background as the player makes their escape. Once you solve the puzzle, the player's left alone with the empty nothingness of their flight, of everything being stripped away besides the instruments of death. I know I'm making a broad, sweeping statement on a culture with which I've barely interfaced, but I dunno - it feels like there's something quintessentially Japanese to this experience. Not bad for a game designed after kids beating sticks against each other on the playground.
Of particular note to me are the controls, for how much they visually communicate their own ideas. Lightweight placed extreme consideration for how to represent their fighters' actions, and this is reflected in the layout of buttons on the PlayStation controller. Immediately you have the attack buttons, △/○/X as High/Mid/Low Attack - a descending order matching the buttons themselves. The last face button, □, is used for parries, which is to the left. Looking at it from the perspective of a player on the screen's left - as Player 1 would be at the start - the defensive □ is in a position retreating from the enemy, while the offensive ○ is advancing towards the enemy.
We also see this level of thought placed into the R1 and R2 buttons, which respectively are used to elevate or lower the player. On their own, R1 shifts to a higher stance while R2 shifts to a lower stance. Movement plus R2 makes the fighter crouch, and hitting R2 while the player is crouching makes the fighter go even lower than a crouch and fling dirt. Movement plus R1 lets the player climb a wall, and R1 out of a crouch turns the motion into a leap forward. There's a lot of very careful psychology like this to what the buttons do, and it's this sort of meticulous, deliberate design ethos that permiates a lot of what Bushido Blade is as an experience.
Bushido Blade feels a bit like a tech demo with all its offerings. Its emphasis on realistic weapon simulation, as well as mixing and matching eight weapons with six player characters, is pretty cool, and the game's main hook. Slash Mode is a fun challenge, very much a nod to traditional swordfighter movies. POV Mode is a complete gimmick, but darn if it isn't a cute idea. Link Mode is a cool idea - not a lot of games would make use of the ability to hook up multiple PS1s - but I've never had any Player 2s, so I can't vouch for it.
So, the hook for me has always been Bushido Blade's campaign. The initial draw there is how the game enforces its understanding of Bushido code - strike an opponent dishonorably (while they're talking, while they're vulnerable, etc), and the story admonishes the player with a bad ending. I'm always fascinated when a game bakes its moral code into its game systems, particularly if it's an established real-world code rather than the simple good/evil binary. But the campaign is quite short - potentially only six fights, in a game where every strike is a killing blow - and the endings are all melancholy and don't seem to resolve anything, so there's sort of an empty feeling a player has walking away from it.
...until they realize that there's a puzzle to finding the good ending. I don't mind spoiling it here: first, the player must navigate through the game world, screen by screen, as they look for their exit. Second, the player must clear every fight without sustaining damage. I guess, because each strike is a killing blow, the usual "don't lose a round" approach to a fighting game's true ending is an unrealistic approach?
I spent a couple hours on-stream trying to grind out a good ending, and while I was ultimately unsuccessful, I came away really appreciating the challenge being asked of the player here. That thing about tension building over the course of a match? That gets amplified considerably here, both during the first round escape sequence - even once you have the path memorized, a three-to-five minute run with an aggressive opponent constantly on the player's heels - then in the subsequent six fights. It's weirdly Katze, the first boss character who weilds a firearm, who becomes a breather round - striking, because he's initially the most annoying of the game's bosses for his ability to insta-kill at range. Everything else, including the normal, non-boss characters? Could stop your attempt cold.
There's sort of a weird meditative quality to grinding out the good ending, given that first round escape sequence. There's no music, just the noises of the wintry background as the player makes their escape. Once you solve the puzzle, the player's left alone with the empty nothingness of their flight, of everything being stripped away besides the instruments of death. I know I'm making a broad, sweeping statement on a culture with which I've barely interfaced, but I dunno - it feels like there's something quintessentially Japanese to this experience. Not bad for a game designed after kids beating sticks against each other on the playground.
1994
It's trying really hard to be the Genesis game on Game Boy. In some respects that's commendable, but it's obvious that the Game Boy wasn't geared to handle it. The only way the team found to translate that Disney animation onto handheld was to sloooowwwww the game speed down to accommodate all the extra frames. Levels are fairly minimally updated, so a lot of sequences that benefitted from the extra screen real estate are now needlessly tricky and leap-of-faith-y. This of course means levels that were already dickish like "The Escape" are just even meaner this time around. I do think a better call would've been to take more of the approach Dark Techologies did later on with The Lion King, where the general ideas of these levels are preserved but updates are made to account for the reduced screen space, etc. Not good, but it's at least over and done with quickly enough with the Disney Classics Collection port and its special features.
2003
I no longer remember with confidence how Ghost Master entered my life. I have conflicting memories of it. On one hand, I have a memory of seeing it near the checkout aisle of (of all places) a Menards. On the other hand, I sorta just remember it existing one day on the vanity in my sister's bedroom, the way Calvin & Hobbes inexplicably entered my life through a phantom collection on the bathroom counter. I think what happened was that my mother saw the Ghost Master box at the store and got it for my sister (who, while she hadn't yet evolved into her current form as a comfortably eccentric goth aunt, has always had a taste for the spooky). The Menards memory must just be a later encounter with a game I'd already met. Though, let's not underplay how weird that is: Menards is a place you go to to buy 2x4s, spackle, and pool noodles - not obscure British computer games about commanding ghosts to haunt the living.
I generally did not get along with my sister as a kid. We're cool now as adults, but for the longest time, she had no time or patience for me. This is for a number of reasons that I won't get into here, but it's important to note this for its consequence - a decent amount of my childhood was spent chasing after my sister, trying to get her into my interests. By way of example - at some point, once pigs develop wings, my sister owes me a game of Pokémon Cards.
I mention this because Ghost Master represents one of those rare childhood bonding experiences I was able to share with her.
Ghost Master is a strange, strange game. This probably represents why it was marketed as a "Sims" killer, despite the games being worlds apart - Ghost Master isn't an easy game to really sell people on. It's a real-time strategy game, but it's used for puzzling specifically. But the tone is super campy, only there's a lot of references to traditional mythology mixed in with its horror movie referenced... and there's a shout-out to "Impossible Mission" on the Commodore 64, why not...
In other words, it was the perfect game for us. There's a lot to be said for something that doesn't fall neatly into any sort of lone genre, that kind of has a cavalier approach at what it is and will do whatever it wants in the conveyance of that idea. The hook for my sister and me was the idea that you're orchestrating a ghost haunting - I mean, the intro video does a pretty great job communicating the game's tone and high concept. But there is soooo much more going on that kept us there, and still keeps us coming back after all these years.
For one, the presentation. Ross Mullan does an INCREDIBLE job as the narrator, commanding a ton of presence and adding so much character to the game's myriad silly proceedings. I actually think the cast does a phenomenal job all-around, with so many fun takes and voices. I cannot possibly convey how much joy I get out of some of these line reads. SUCH PREMEDITATED INDIGNITY MUST BE REPAID IN WRATHFUL SPITE. can't do much without electricity, dude. MY ACCURSED HUSBAND BURIED ME HERE IN THE DARKNESS. curse the progeny of monkeys, they who weave the waves, and cast their fellow beings into the deep, their tendrils swathed in stone. A MURDER OF CROWS; ANOINT THE WICKER MAN A TASTE OF BLOOD. make like linda blair and set his head a-spinnin'! I'D READ YOU YOUR RIGHTS, SCUMBAG, BUT YA AIN'T GOT ANY! went and got myself shot. but hey! i'm a professional. IT'S, LIKE, TOTALLY OUT THERE, AND I'M, LIKE, IN A MIRROR, Y'KNOW? betcha never seen a trickster with gams like these, huh? AH, HELLO! I LUCKY, AND THEES LUCKY'S BEEPING TABLE. oh! ah! to be seen! i had forgotten what it was like. such a... tiiiiingly feeeeling. STORMTALON, PRINCE AMONG ELEMENTALS, ANSWERS YOUR CALL OF THUNDER <dramatic inhale> AND LIGHTNING.
You might've noticed from some of those quotes as well, but man, the writing in this game is top notch. There's a ridiculous amount of artistry to how efficiently the game communicates its ideas. Like, to break it down, you have Brigit, the ghost bride. Here is how she introduces herself. This is essentially all information you receive for this character. Yet you learn her whole thing here: she was jilted, her fiancé was a compulsive womanizer, she went crazy and killed herself via electrocution, she's compelled in the afterlife to punish cheaters. Not only this, but it's presented in such a vivid way between the voice and the evocative writing. The mind easily constructs the events that conspired to bring about this spectral, wailing, charred husk of a woman. Every character, every scenario, is written or described like this.
This is without even getting into the game's Fetter system! Summoned Ghosts must be bound to specific Fetters - objects or places that hold a specific affinity. Some are obvious, like locations or elements. But then you get into really specific stuff: "Emotional", "Violence", and "Murder". An Emotional Fetter is a thing that instills or has instilled within it strong emotional responses; a Violence Fetter has caused violence; a Murder Fetter has killed or is a corpse. On occasion, the game will assign seemingly-random objects these qualities, which tells a ridiculous amount of stories. It is never relevant to the gameplay, for example, why the stump in "Summoners Not Included" is a Violence/Murder Fetter, but one wonders what happened there. Likewise for "Weird Séance", which features both a bicycle as a Murder Fetter and a couch as a Violence/Emotional Fetter. Considering the level takes place in a frat house, the implications seem horrible - yet that's what makes them so fascinating.
Since I mentioned Brigit, the most legitimate issue with the game - and the main thing that always holds me back from unilaterally recommending it to the world - is how obtuse its systems can be. Ghost Master has brilliant design, but its systems aren't always able to keep up. There are pathing issues with the mortal AI that makes herding them around imperfect. You can use the exact skills you're supposed to to get whoever where they're supposed to go. Sometimes it'll work like a charm, sometimes you'll be at it for quite some time. My sister swears she can recruit Brigit in like 5 minutes, but I've almost always taken the better part of an hour flailing around trying to get her. Her mission, "Phantom of the Operating Room", is always the lowlight of replays for me, but "Deadfellas" and "Facepacks and Broomsticks" can drag on for similar reasons, much as I love those missions for other reasons.
But when it's firing on all cylinders, the game really comes together. I talked about this with my friends on this Designing For video, but "Spooky Hollow" is a legitimately great time, all the systems really coming together there. When not bogged down on specific objectives and just speedrunning, there's a great cadence to bigger maps - stuff like "Weird Séance" and "Unusual Suspects". Once you know what you're doing, the puzzle maps - "The Calamityville Horror", "The Blair Wisp Project", "Ghostbreakers", etc - have kind of a neat cadence to them, switching it up and relying on a more careful type of resource management. And "Class of Spook 'Em High", for as simple as it is, makes for a great puzzle capstone, really building up the tension as the narrator gradually counts down the timer.
For me, the bottom line has always been the sheer amount of potential the game held. I always felt like there was way, way, way more to this game than existed just within the scope of the game disc. The ideas and how it communicates them, the writing, the acting, the mechanics, the worldbuilding... so much of it, and how effectively it does a lot of that, has mesmerized me over the years. For the longest time, the simple act of thinking about Ghost Master could send me on an obsessive deep dive into the internet, into what fledgeling community existed for the game, trying to scrounge up whatever information I could. I fully attribute my own appreciation for the macabre and for concise worldbuilding, as well as in part my appreciation for irreverence and world myth studies, to how Ghost Master approached damn near everything it set out to do.
And, like I said, it was something I could share with my sister. I dunno that she ever got as deep into obsessing over the game as I did, but I can quote something out of context from the game - even one of the gibberish lines spoken by Mortals - and trust that she'll get what I'm saying. There are very few things in this world where I feel I really got in deep on it, and it's nice to be able to share that with someone else. Especially if it's something that helps you get closer to someone.
...
...SO. I'M UP ON THIS ROOF...
I generally did not get along with my sister as a kid. We're cool now as adults, but for the longest time, she had no time or patience for me. This is for a number of reasons that I won't get into here, but it's important to note this for its consequence - a decent amount of my childhood was spent chasing after my sister, trying to get her into my interests. By way of example - at some point, once pigs develop wings, my sister owes me a game of Pokémon Cards.
I mention this because Ghost Master represents one of those rare childhood bonding experiences I was able to share with her.
Ghost Master is a strange, strange game. This probably represents why it was marketed as a "Sims" killer, despite the games being worlds apart - Ghost Master isn't an easy game to really sell people on. It's a real-time strategy game, but it's used for puzzling specifically. But the tone is super campy, only there's a lot of references to traditional mythology mixed in with its horror movie referenced... and there's a shout-out to "Impossible Mission" on the Commodore 64, why not...
In other words, it was the perfect game for us. There's a lot to be said for something that doesn't fall neatly into any sort of lone genre, that kind of has a cavalier approach at what it is and will do whatever it wants in the conveyance of that idea. The hook for my sister and me was the idea that you're orchestrating a ghost haunting - I mean, the intro video does a pretty great job communicating the game's tone and high concept. But there is soooo much more going on that kept us there, and still keeps us coming back after all these years.
For one, the presentation. Ross Mullan does an INCREDIBLE job as the narrator, commanding a ton of presence and adding so much character to the game's myriad silly proceedings. I actually think the cast does a phenomenal job all-around, with so many fun takes and voices. I cannot possibly convey how much joy I get out of some of these line reads. SUCH PREMEDITATED INDIGNITY MUST BE REPAID IN WRATHFUL SPITE. can't do much without electricity, dude. MY ACCURSED HUSBAND BURIED ME HERE IN THE DARKNESS. curse the progeny of monkeys, they who weave the waves, and cast their fellow beings into the deep, their tendrils swathed in stone. A MURDER OF CROWS; ANOINT THE WICKER MAN A TASTE OF BLOOD. make like linda blair and set his head a-spinnin'! I'D READ YOU YOUR RIGHTS, SCUMBAG, BUT YA AIN'T GOT ANY! went and got myself shot. but hey! i'm a professional. IT'S, LIKE, TOTALLY OUT THERE, AND I'M, LIKE, IN A MIRROR, Y'KNOW? betcha never seen a trickster with gams like these, huh? AH, HELLO! I LUCKY, AND THEES LUCKY'S BEEPING TABLE. oh! ah! to be seen! i had forgotten what it was like. such a... tiiiiingly feeeeling. STORMTALON, PRINCE AMONG ELEMENTALS, ANSWERS YOUR CALL OF THUNDER <dramatic inhale> AND LIGHTNING.
You might've noticed from some of those quotes as well, but man, the writing in this game is top notch. There's a ridiculous amount of artistry to how efficiently the game communicates its ideas. Like, to break it down, you have Brigit, the ghost bride. Here is how she introduces herself. This is essentially all information you receive for this character. Yet you learn her whole thing here: she was jilted, her fiancé was a compulsive womanizer, she went crazy and killed herself via electrocution, she's compelled in the afterlife to punish cheaters. Not only this, but it's presented in such a vivid way between the voice and the evocative writing. The mind easily constructs the events that conspired to bring about this spectral, wailing, charred husk of a woman. Every character, every scenario, is written or described like this.
This is without even getting into the game's Fetter system! Summoned Ghosts must be bound to specific Fetters - objects or places that hold a specific affinity. Some are obvious, like locations or elements. But then you get into really specific stuff: "Emotional", "Violence", and "Murder". An Emotional Fetter is a thing that instills or has instilled within it strong emotional responses; a Violence Fetter has caused violence; a Murder Fetter has killed or is a corpse. On occasion, the game will assign seemingly-random objects these qualities, which tells a ridiculous amount of stories. It is never relevant to the gameplay, for example, why the stump in "Summoners Not Included" is a Violence/Murder Fetter, but one wonders what happened there. Likewise for "Weird Séance", which features both a bicycle as a Murder Fetter and a couch as a Violence/Emotional Fetter. Considering the level takes place in a frat house, the implications seem horrible - yet that's what makes them so fascinating.
Since I mentioned Brigit, the most legitimate issue with the game - and the main thing that always holds me back from unilaterally recommending it to the world - is how obtuse its systems can be. Ghost Master has brilliant design, but its systems aren't always able to keep up. There are pathing issues with the mortal AI that makes herding them around imperfect. You can use the exact skills you're supposed to to get whoever where they're supposed to go. Sometimes it'll work like a charm, sometimes you'll be at it for quite some time. My sister swears she can recruit Brigit in like 5 minutes, but I've almost always taken the better part of an hour flailing around trying to get her. Her mission, "Phantom of the Operating Room", is always the lowlight of replays for me, but "Deadfellas" and "Facepacks and Broomsticks" can drag on for similar reasons, much as I love those missions for other reasons.
But when it's firing on all cylinders, the game really comes together. I talked about this with my friends on this Designing For video, but "Spooky Hollow" is a legitimately great time, all the systems really coming together there. When not bogged down on specific objectives and just speedrunning, there's a great cadence to bigger maps - stuff like "Weird Séance" and "Unusual Suspects". Once you know what you're doing, the puzzle maps - "The Calamityville Horror", "The Blair Wisp Project", "Ghostbreakers", etc - have kind of a neat cadence to them, switching it up and relying on a more careful type of resource management. And "Class of Spook 'Em High", for as simple as it is, makes for a great puzzle capstone, really building up the tension as the narrator gradually counts down the timer.
For me, the bottom line has always been the sheer amount of potential the game held. I always felt like there was way, way, way more to this game than existed just within the scope of the game disc. The ideas and how it communicates them, the writing, the acting, the mechanics, the worldbuilding... so much of it, and how effectively it does a lot of that, has mesmerized me over the years. For the longest time, the simple act of thinking about Ghost Master could send me on an obsessive deep dive into the internet, into what fledgeling community existed for the game, trying to scrounge up whatever information I could. I fully attribute my own appreciation for the macabre and for concise worldbuilding, as well as in part my appreciation for irreverence and world myth studies, to how Ghost Master approached damn near everything it set out to do.
And, like I said, it was something I could share with my sister. I dunno that she ever got as deep into obsessing over the game as I did, but I can quote something out of context from the game - even one of the gibberish lines spoken by Mortals - and trust that she'll get what I'm saying. There are very few things in this world where I feel I really got in deep on it, and it's nice to be able to share that with someone else. Especially if it's something that helps you get closer to someone.
...
...SO. I'M UP ON THIS ROOF...
2019
Textbook example of how to do a faithful remake. Very little's removed from the original experience, every idiosyncrasy from the original's there, the updated art mostly exists to underline a lot of the original game's visual direction. There was very little that needed to be changed from MediEvil, so timeless was the base game, that this revival is mostly a graphical update. ...but, even if that's not to your liking, you can unlock the original game and play through THAT. Now THAT'S a real treat. Admittedly it's gated behind a game-wide sidequest that - I'll admit - I didn't have the patience to play through during either of my playthroughs of the remake, but still cool that that exists.
I guess the main question is if this game needed to exist, given how little it changes the original's experience. Certainly I don't mind the series becoming relevant again, and I guess I'll generally appreciate any attempt to do so on principle - but there's always a certain level of dread that comes with a series' second reboot or remake. Nice to have it back, but are we always just gonna play the hits?
Ah well. Still good stuff, anyway.
I guess the main question is if this game needed to exist, given how little it changes the original's experience. Certainly I don't mind the series becoming relevant again, and I guess I'll generally appreciate any attempt to do so on principle - but there's always a certain level of dread that comes with a series' second reboot or remake. Nice to have it back, but are we always just gonna play the hits?
Ah well. Still good stuff, anyway.
2018
I have played the original versions of each of these Spyros, too. But since I can't be sure of when I beat the first two, I'll use these rankings to talk about both versions of these games. The scores reflect the Reignited version specifically, though.
Spyro's a rare PlayStation series for which I have childhood nostalgia, but I'll cover that with a later entry. I picked up and played this first game much later in my gaming career, late into the PS3's lifecycle. At the time, I was really struck by how lonely of an experience it was.
I'm not sure if it was an issue with my disc or my PS3, or if it was the intended design of the game, but the soundtrack would fail to loop upon each track's completion. Spyro naturally features lots of wandering around open environments, and the first game is pretty bereft of all those NPCs that characterize later games - just the dragons you're freeing here with one-and-done bits of dialogue, often just a stock "thank you for releasing me". So there I was, schlepping about open rolling landscapes, with Steward Copeland's music going away after about 2-3 minutes, eventually with nothing to accompany me. The phrase "liminal space" has become popular as of late, and I suppose that's what these colorful worlds became. Add onto that how the goals of each level are to eliminate other things from these worlds, whether they're enemies, trapped dragons, or treasure, and you're left with the implicit goal of making these empty worlds even emptier.
There's a pervasive sense of isolation I get from some early PlayStation titles - Tomb Raider and Intelligence Qube come to mind - that this experience of Spyro seems to embody. I earnestly doubt this was the intention, but it was my takeaway from my first run of the original. Perhaps that primitive melancholy is to be treasured, but I definitely enjoyed the act of playing later Spyros more by consequence of their not feeling so lonely.
So with this in mind, the main things I had going into the Reignited version were: (1) Does the game still feel lonely, and (2) does it still have a leg to stand on when compared to its follow-ups? And to my way of thinking - no, and yes.
The main draw to Spyro 1, in retrospect, is its purity of form. No moveset expansions, no alternate gameplay modes besides its Flight stages, nothing like that - Spyro 1 is the only game where you do nothing but trot about as a little purple dragon, roaming and exploring rolling landscapes. This is where I felt the original's loneliness, and where the updated aesthetics really enrich the original's play experience (also, the looping background music).
Like, Stone Hill. In the original game, this was a technical marvel and showcase, with this being the first time the player sees that smooth transition of Spyro flying into a new world. Plus, the player "breaks" the expected level design by running around on the hills that form the opening area's walls, showing off the game's amazing ability to render full outdoor 3D environments. Somehow I'd completely forgotten about all this in the time between playing Spyro 1 and Reignited, and replaying Reignited was like discovering this all anew all again. Sure, perhaps this is a testament to my own memory (but it had only been like 5 years between games...), but I think it's as much a commentary on Reignited's creative direction that it doesn't detract from the intended tonality of the original.
Plus, I love that all the dragons have unique designs now. You can sort of tell that the majority of Reignited's focus went towards sprucing up Spyro 1 in particular - though more of that under a later game. Here, though, you really get a sense of the worldbuilding implied in Spyro 1's level named and theming, with each of the dragons serving different roles in the construction of this fantasy world.
I think a fair conclusion is that Spyro 1 is a game of subtlety, one you have to vibe with in order to get a sense for what the team was going for. A bit like Banjo-Kazooie in that respect, where what makes it so good is something nebulous and hard to define on its own. One might also reason that since Reignited Spyro 1 spells out a lot of the original's subtleties, that it's a less confident product, inferior by consequence. I don't know that I'd contest someone who holds that opinion. For me, Reignited Spyro 1 is less "the game is good now" and more "oh, THAT'S what they were going for. Nice!" I'd have to revisit the original to reorient my feelings around that, but I can at least call Spyro 1 a game I really like now, at least through the prism of its remake.
...bosses still kinda suck, though. It's at least the joke with some bosses (Toasty, Dr. Shemp), so I'll let it slide for some of them. Gnasty Gnorc is kind of a limp payoff to the full game's adventure, like, how'd he even pwn all the adult dragons when he's a big dumb two-hit wonder? Ah well, the trade-off at least is Gnasty's Loot being a GREAT victory lap, maybe even the best in the series. Good stuff all around.
Spyro's a rare PlayStation series for which I have childhood nostalgia, but I'll cover that with a later entry. I picked up and played this first game much later in my gaming career, late into the PS3's lifecycle. At the time, I was really struck by how lonely of an experience it was.
I'm not sure if it was an issue with my disc or my PS3, or if it was the intended design of the game, but the soundtrack would fail to loop upon each track's completion. Spyro naturally features lots of wandering around open environments, and the first game is pretty bereft of all those NPCs that characterize later games - just the dragons you're freeing here with one-and-done bits of dialogue, often just a stock "thank you for releasing me". So there I was, schlepping about open rolling landscapes, with Steward Copeland's music going away after about 2-3 minutes, eventually with nothing to accompany me. The phrase "liminal space" has become popular as of late, and I suppose that's what these colorful worlds became. Add onto that how the goals of each level are to eliminate other things from these worlds, whether they're enemies, trapped dragons, or treasure, and you're left with the implicit goal of making these empty worlds even emptier.
There's a pervasive sense of isolation I get from some early PlayStation titles - Tomb Raider and Intelligence Qube come to mind - that this experience of Spyro seems to embody. I earnestly doubt this was the intention, but it was my takeaway from my first run of the original. Perhaps that primitive melancholy is to be treasured, but I definitely enjoyed the act of playing later Spyros more by consequence of their not feeling so lonely.
So with this in mind, the main things I had going into the Reignited version were: (1) Does the game still feel lonely, and (2) does it still have a leg to stand on when compared to its follow-ups? And to my way of thinking - no, and yes.
The main draw to Spyro 1, in retrospect, is its purity of form. No moveset expansions, no alternate gameplay modes besides its Flight stages, nothing like that - Spyro 1 is the only game where you do nothing but trot about as a little purple dragon, roaming and exploring rolling landscapes. This is where I felt the original's loneliness, and where the updated aesthetics really enrich the original's play experience (also, the looping background music).
Like, Stone Hill. In the original game, this was a technical marvel and showcase, with this being the first time the player sees that smooth transition of Spyro flying into a new world. Plus, the player "breaks" the expected level design by running around on the hills that form the opening area's walls, showing off the game's amazing ability to render full outdoor 3D environments. Somehow I'd completely forgotten about all this in the time between playing Spyro 1 and Reignited, and replaying Reignited was like discovering this all anew all again. Sure, perhaps this is a testament to my own memory (but it had only been like 5 years between games...), but I think it's as much a commentary on Reignited's creative direction that it doesn't detract from the intended tonality of the original.
Plus, I love that all the dragons have unique designs now. You can sort of tell that the majority of Reignited's focus went towards sprucing up Spyro 1 in particular - though more of that under a later game. Here, though, you really get a sense of the worldbuilding implied in Spyro 1's level named and theming, with each of the dragons serving different roles in the construction of this fantasy world.
I think a fair conclusion is that Spyro 1 is a game of subtlety, one you have to vibe with in order to get a sense for what the team was going for. A bit like Banjo-Kazooie in that respect, where what makes it so good is something nebulous and hard to define on its own. One might also reason that since Reignited Spyro 1 spells out a lot of the original's subtleties, that it's a less confident product, inferior by consequence. I don't know that I'd contest someone who holds that opinion. For me, Reignited Spyro 1 is less "the game is good now" and more "oh, THAT'S what they were going for. Nice!" I'd have to revisit the original to reorient my feelings around that, but I can at least call Spyro 1 a game I really like now, at least through the prism of its remake.
...bosses still kinda suck, though. It's at least the joke with some bosses (Toasty, Dr. Shemp), so I'll let it slide for some of them. Gnasty Gnorc is kind of a limp payoff to the full game's adventure, like, how'd he even pwn all the adult dragons when he's a big dumb two-hit wonder? Ah well, the trade-off at least is Gnasty's Loot being a GREAT victory lap, maybe even the best in the series. Good stuff all around.
A terrific tribute to classic Scooby-Doo, though the gameplay itself has some rough patches. Collisions and hit boxes are a bit fiddly with certain objects and attacks, something you really notice if you decide to go for all Scooby Snax. I can't tell you how many times I tried to jump into one at the top of Scooby's jump height, only to miss until I figured out how the game wanted me to get it. Usually the trick was that I needed an upgrade or to find some switch in the room to activate some lift or lower a chandelier, such that I'd have a slightly different approach vector on the Scooby Snack. I actually suspect the game is very carefully programmed such that you can only collect certain things in certain ways, which feels very arbitrary to me with the equivalent of Banjo-Kazooie's Notes. It's not even consistent about this - I'm still not sure how you're supposed to collect the Black Knight Costume, since I managed it by abusing collisions and jumping up visible ledges along the manor wall. This is very much a "play to the end, not to 100% completion" game for me; I ultimately gave up on all the Scooby Snax, contenting myself with the Monster Tokens.
I have a couple other minor complaints - music balance is a bit wonky so you can barely hear the boss music, the boss fights are staggered out weirdly so it takes forever to get to the first one, the game could've used a more precise means of tracking down where within an area missing Scooby Snax/Monster Tokens could be found, etc - but I have way more nice things to say about the game than not.
This is perhaps one of the nicest tributes I've seen a video game pull off for a licensed property. The game is a throwback to pre-movie runs of Scooby Doo, styling itself like a lost 70s episode, down to recycling production music, inexplicably featuring Don Knotts and Tim Curry as guest stars, giving every area a fake episode title for a name (my favorite is probably "Misbehavin'? Cause a Cave In!", though I'm also fond of "Doom and Gloom Down In the Tomb"), and even incorporating a laugh track into gameplay. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and The New Scooby-Doo Movies are the clear primary influences, but references are made to everything preceding Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island; even The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo get shout-outs (no Red Herring, sadly). Given the timing of this game's release - months before the live action movie and What's New, Scooby-Doo? - this reads like a send-off to that classic era, in some ways more faithful than the early revival run of movies (as excellent as Witch's Ghost and the others are).
That would have been good enough, but Heavy Iron Studios went the extra mile and made the inspired decision to turn the game into a Metroidvania. That's no exaggeration - there's a big focus on finding the friendly professor's inventions in different parts of the game world to expand Scooby's moveset and open up other parts of the world. It's not an overly-robust moveset, admittedly, but it certainly feels more inspired than something like The Mummy Demastered. Besides, the real fun is seeing how the silly inventions get incorporated into Scooby's model, like the banana-flavored galoshes or plunger boots that appear on his paws when he walks on certain terrain. Or my absolute favorite: the slippers and lampshade combo that let Scooby sneak past enemies. They're not terribly useful, but they're great fun to use.
This is definitely a game I'd recommend to Scooby-Doo fans over general gaming audiences. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing; it's just clear what this game's priorities were. Even so, it's a great example of how a game that exists to celebrate its brand can also be a greatly-inspired title in its own right. The difference between this and its immediate predecessor - the tie-in to Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase - is night and day.
I have a couple other minor complaints - music balance is a bit wonky so you can barely hear the boss music, the boss fights are staggered out weirdly so it takes forever to get to the first one, the game could've used a more precise means of tracking down where within an area missing Scooby Snax/Monster Tokens could be found, etc - but I have way more nice things to say about the game than not.
This is perhaps one of the nicest tributes I've seen a video game pull off for a licensed property. The game is a throwback to pre-movie runs of Scooby Doo, styling itself like a lost 70s episode, down to recycling production music, inexplicably featuring Don Knotts and Tim Curry as guest stars, giving every area a fake episode title for a name (my favorite is probably "Misbehavin'? Cause a Cave In!", though I'm also fond of "Doom and Gloom Down In the Tomb"), and even incorporating a laugh track into gameplay. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and The New Scooby-Doo Movies are the clear primary influences, but references are made to everything preceding Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island; even The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo get shout-outs (no Red Herring, sadly). Given the timing of this game's release - months before the live action movie and What's New, Scooby-Doo? - this reads like a send-off to that classic era, in some ways more faithful than the early revival run of movies (as excellent as Witch's Ghost and the others are).
That would have been good enough, but Heavy Iron Studios went the extra mile and made the inspired decision to turn the game into a Metroidvania. That's no exaggeration - there's a big focus on finding the friendly professor's inventions in different parts of the game world to expand Scooby's moveset and open up other parts of the world. It's not an overly-robust moveset, admittedly, but it certainly feels more inspired than something like The Mummy Demastered. Besides, the real fun is seeing how the silly inventions get incorporated into Scooby's model, like the banana-flavored galoshes or plunger boots that appear on his paws when he walks on certain terrain. Or my absolute favorite: the slippers and lampshade combo that let Scooby sneak past enemies. They're not terribly useful, but they're great fun to use.
This is definitely a game I'd recommend to Scooby-Doo fans over general gaming audiences. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing; it's just clear what this game's priorities were. Even so, it's a great example of how a game that exists to celebrate its brand can also be a greatly-inspired title in its own right. The difference between this and its immediate predecessor - the tie-in to Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase - is night and day.
1998
Alright, so a lot of this score is nostalgia, no point in denying that. But I also think this is a surprisingly inspired 3D platformer. One of those licensed games I had access to early on, when I didn't have access to console games. I tended to assume games like this represented a whole genre of video games that existed on the Nintendo 64 and the like. But no - so far as I know, nothing's really tried playing with the systems that define A Bug's Life.
The game's a 3D platformer, but it spices up its own platforming with its seed system. Throughout different levels are seeds, with some embedded into the ground while others are portable. Jumping on a seed grows a plant. By collecting medals, you can change the seed's color and gradually gain access to different and improved seeds with increasingly more powerful applications. You always start with brown mushrooms (yeah yeah I know not a plant, shh), but collecting more brown medals turns this 'shroom into a spinner fan, a dandelion that lets you glide, and finally a high-firing cannon. Alternatively, collecting green medals and changing the seed's color lets you grow increasingly tall sprout ladders. The idea here being that different environmental puzzles are built around different interactions with these seeds, both in terms of what seeds are used and where seeds are placed.
There's a surprising amount of depth to this system, but it never reads as excessive. The levels introduce the different seeds and their interactions slowly enough that they don't overwhelm the player. Keep in mind as well that this is in addition to standard level gimmicks as well as the game's OTHER systems, tied to other collectables and combat. Yes, this game even features an upgradeable weapon system that dovetails with its seed system, and even that comes across as fairly intuitive. I'm particularly impressed by the fourth boss fight, which tells a mechanical joke based around the interplay of its different network of systems (I asked my friends at Designing For to talk about it here). That the game is so confident in itself to attempt and pull off this type of joke is quite the feat!
I'll say that the platforming and movement is good-not-great when it's firing on all cylinders. Flik himself is a perfectly serviceable character to run and jump as, but he's got this startup and end lag on his run that makes some positioning awkward, particularly the few times the game asks the player to clear a bottomless pit (not much of that in this game, thankfully, and one of the upgraded plants helps with these). There's some screwiness with collisions, too. Not much, but enough that you notice it when trying to land on rounded edges or try to figure out the sweet spot on those leaf sprouts.
Also... Flik talks a LOT. You sorta have to get used to repeated voice clips after a fashion. I'm so used to it myself that I find it more funny than anything (Ahhhh, the life of an ant), but I can definitely imagine it getting old after a while if you didn't grow up on it.
But this is still a game of little moments, even around its interlocking moments. There's some genuinely neat spectacle, insofar as that could exist in a 3D platformer of its era. "Level Four: Dandelion Flight" (or "Cliffside"? I never knew how to refer to these levels) isn't much, but that it places so much emphasis on itself, its change of scenery, the next boss, and the newly-introduced Dandelion kinda gives it its own weight. There are a lot of unique set pieces, like the big tree or the rolling can. That butt slide has no reason to exist, but it's fun. Likewise for those bonus levels in the circus tent...
I dunno. Say what you must regarding the quality of Jon Burton's games, but I feel like he always has something fascinating to offer with his design ideas. If you're there for it, there's really something for you to sink your teeth into. Weird as it is to say about A Bug's Life, given its status in retrospect as a fairly forgettable early Pixar movie, but its video game was an easy highlight for me back when these were the only sorts of games I could play. Even now, I keep finding new things to hold my attention. I can't hate something like that.
The game's a 3D platformer, but it spices up its own platforming with its seed system. Throughout different levels are seeds, with some embedded into the ground while others are portable. Jumping on a seed grows a plant. By collecting medals, you can change the seed's color and gradually gain access to different and improved seeds with increasingly more powerful applications. You always start with brown mushrooms (yeah yeah I know not a plant, shh), but collecting more brown medals turns this 'shroom into a spinner fan, a dandelion that lets you glide, and finally a high-firing cannon. Alternatively, collecting green medals and changing the seed's color lets you grow increasingly tall sprout ladders. The idea here being that different environmental puzzles are built around different interactions with these seeds, both in terms of what seeds are used and where seeds are placed.
There's a surprising amount of depth to this system, but it never reads as excessive. The levels introduce the different seeds and their interactions slowly enough that they don't overwhelm the player. Keep in mind as well that this is in addition to standard level gimmicks as well as the game's OTHER systems, tied to other collectables and combat. Yes, this game even features an upgradeable weapon system that dovetails with its seed system, and even that comes across as fairly intuitive. I'm particularly impressed by the fourth boss fight, which tells a mechanical joke based around the interplay of its different network of systems (I asked my friends at Designing For to talk about it here). That the game is so confident in itself to attempt and pull off this type of joke is quite the feat!
I'll say that the platforming and movement is good-not-great when it's firing on all cylinders. Flik himself is a perfectly serviceable character to run and jump as, but he's got this startup and end lag on his run that makes some positioning awkward, particularly the few times the game asks the player to clear a bottomless pit (not much of that in this game, thankfully, and one of the upgraded plants helps with these). There's some screwiness with collisions, too. Not much, but enough that you notice it when trying to land on rounded edges or try to figure out the sweet spot on those leaf sprouts.
Also... Flik talks a LOT. You sorta have to get used to repeated voice clips after a fashion. I'm so used to it myself that I find it more funny than anything (Ahhhh, the life of an ant), but I can definitely imagine it getting old after a while if you didn't grow up on it.
But this is still a game of little moments, even around its interlocking moments. There's some genuinely neat spectacle, insofar as that could exist in a 3D platformer of its era. "Level Four: Dandelion Flight" (or "Cliffside"? I never knew how to refer to these levels) isn't much, but that it places so much emphasis on itself, its change of scenery, the next boss, and the newly-introduced Dandelion kinda gives it its own weight. There are a lot of unique set pieces, like the big tree or the rolling can. That butt slide has no reason to exist, but it's fun. Likewise for those bonus levels in the circus tent...
I dunno. Say what you must regarding the quality of Jon Burton's games, but I feel like he always has something fascinating to offer with his design ideas. If you're there for it, there's really something for you to sink your teeth into. Weird as it is to say about A Bug's Life, given its status in retrospect as a fairly forgettable early Pixar movie, but its video game was an easy highlight for me back when these were the only sorts of games I could play. Even now, I keep finding new things to hold my attention. I can't hate something like that.
1990
In singleplayer, a decent puzzler, though one prone to screwing over the player on higher levels. The act and cadence of dropping pills and clearing viruses is fine enough, sort of fun to orient your brain around that level of pattern recognition. But the only real way difficulty scales is by increasing the amount of Viruses in the well (on top of the Doc throwing faster pills as the match goes on).
At higher difficulties, the viruses are so high that it feels like a player's ability to clear the well is based on where the Viruses happen to spawn. Hard to stay on good terms with a game that, 9 times out of 10, decides it's gonna give the player an unfavorable game board without anything they can do about it. I think the game is at its best around levels 10-15, where there are enough Viruses that the player has to think about it, but not so many that the above scenario happens.
Decent animation and quite good music, though. "Fever" is of course the enduring classic, but I actually find I like "Chill" better, at least in this original version. Something about hearing that driving groove match pace with the Viruses' dance adds a good deal to the experience.
At higher difficulties, the viruses are so high that it feels like a player's ability to clear the well is based on where the Viruses happen to spawn. Hard to stay on good terms with a game that, 9 times out of 10, decides it's gonna give the player an unfavorable game board without anything they can do about it. I think the game is at its best around levels 10-15, where there are enough Viruses that the player has to think about it, but not so many that the above scenario happens.
Decent animation and quite good music, though. "Fever" is of course the enduring classic, but I actually find I like "Chill" better, at least in this original version. Something about hearing that driving groove match pace with the Viruses' dance adds a good deal to the experience.
2016
This is the first Star Fox game I'm covering here? Huh, all right.
As a unique consequence of buying from video store clearance sales, I own a physical disc of this, but not Star Fox Zero. I've heard folks say that, of these two erstwhile companion pieces, Guard is the less-stinky counterpart to Zero. Admittedly I dunno that I share the sentiment, but Star Fox Guard is a pretty decent time all the same, even if it leaves me with a lot of questions.
Star Fox Guard was announced as "Project Guard", a neutral, nondescript tower defense tech demo. It seems as though Star Fox branding existed even back when the game was first announced, so I'm not sure why Nintendo was coy about the license for two years. At the same time, the game feels like it has very little to do with the series proper. Sure, you're ostensibly working with Slippy's Uncle Grippy (why invent a new character? Was Beltino Toad exorcised from this continuity?), and you get cameos from some of the cast, but otherwise, it's just sort of a generic sci-fi setting.
But it is pretty good. I've never gotten into Five Nights at Freddy's, but I've always respected the micromanagement aspect of it, of having to juggle between different cameras to monitor different entities. I think Guard is a great implementation of that type of design. Switching between cameras is a snap with the GamePad, and it's neat that you're still able to monitor other cameras not in focus, even if if's at a lower frame-rate and you're not able to target enemies with it. There's a nice cadence to gameplay, keeping the player constantly on their toes.
I will say that I don't think it's especially sophisticated as a tower defense game. Past the high concept, difficulty scales through enemies, not increased player abilities. You could make the argument that there's more purity of form to Guard by consequence, but I dunno - it was fun enough to play to credits, but I felt no real incentive to grind out beyond that. Still, within the specific design space Guard is exploring, it's quite good. One of those titles that's emblematic of what the Wii U was going for as a console.
As a unique consequence of buying from video store clearance sales, I own a physical disc of this, but not Star Fox Zero. I've heard folks say that, of these two erstwhile companion pieces, Guard is the less-stinky counterpart to Zero. Admittedly I dunno that I share the sentiment, but Star Fox Guard is a pretty decent time all the same, even if it leaves me with a lot of questions.
Star Fox Guard was announced as "Project Guard", a neutral, nondescript tower defense tech demo. It seems as though Star Fox branding existed even back when the game was first announced, so I'm not sure why Nintendo was coy about the license for two years. At the same time, the game feels like it has very little to do with the series proper. Sure, you're ostensibly working with Slippy's Uncle Grippy (why invent a new character? Was Beltino Toad exorcised from this continuity?), and you get cameos from some of the cast, but otherwise, it's just sort of a generic sci-fi setting.
But it is pretty good. I've never gotten into Five Nights at Freddy's, but I've always respected the micromanagement aspect of it, of having to juggle between different cameras to monitor different entities. I think Guard is a great implementation of that type of design. Switching between cameras is a snap with the GamePad, and it's neat that you're still able to monitor other cameras not in focus, even if if's at a lower frame-rate and you're not able to target enemies with it. There's a nice cadence to gameplay, keeping the player constantly on their toes.
I will say that I don't think it's especially sophisticated as a tower defense game. Past the high concept, difficulty scales through enemies, not increased player abilities. You could make the argument that there's more purity of form to Guard by consequence, but I dunno - it was fun enough to play to credits, but I felt no real incentive to grind out beyond that. Still, within the specific design space Guard is exploring, it's quite good. One of those titles that's emblematic of what the Wii U was going for as a console.
Alternative Title: "Tetris, But It's Rigged In Your Favor".
Decent enough competitive Tetris game, though the central gimmick means that if you have any Tetris know-how, you really can't be stopped. Basically, instead of your opponent dropping garbage blocks down your well on successful line clears, the game will sometimes drop really weird pieces, much larger and oddly-shaped compared to your usual Tetrominoes.
This has the potential for abuse, overwhelming a know-nothing player. But in execution, you run into the opposite issue where this makes the game too easy. See, the weird pieces will always slot neatly into the holes currently on your gameboard. So if you have decent pattern recognition, and you can move quickly enough, you can turn the tables on your opponent and waste 'em. Maybe that's more interesting in competitive, but in singleplayer, it just results in a quick campaign.
The Big Bad Wolf's one of your opponents, tho. Always nice to see him.
Decent enough competitive Tetris game, though the central gimmick means that if you have any Tetris know-how, you really can't be stopped. Basically, instead of your opponent dropping garbage blocks down your well on successful line clears, the game will sometimes drop really weird pieces, much larger and oddly-shaped compared to your usual Tetrominoes.
This has the potential for abuse, overwhelming a know-nothing player. But in execution, you run into the opposite issue where this makes the game too easy. See, the weird pieces will always slot neatly into the holes currently on your gameboard. So if you have decent pattern recognition, and you can move quickly enough, you can turn the tables on your opponent and waste 'em. Maybe that's more interesting in competitive, but in singleplayer, it just results in a quick campaign.
The Big Bad Wolf's one of your opponents, tho. Always nice to see him.
2001
Believe it or not, I consider the silly drunk squirrel game an arthouse project.
Let me state first that I normally have no interest whatsoever in this game's brand of humor. I have never liked South Park, and I can only take Family Guy in small doses. Actually, I've always been a bit surprised how much I like this game, since I enjoyed it enough to run through it in full three times - more than any other Rare game I've played to date. Part of it is my personal connection - I have a fond memory of my mother surprising me with this game as a birthday present my first year of college, since I'd hyped up the game's notorious reputation for her. I played part of the game for my roommate, a guy who'd grown up with Banjo-Kazooie but had never heard of this game, and I remember him being shocked that "They're swearing!!!!" Fun game to surprise people with.
But that's only part of it. A lot of it comes from the journey the game took to become what it is now. It's a well-known story, but for those who don't know - Conker was conceived of as a Tex Avery-style mascot for Rare, but with the runaway success of Banjo-Kazooie, his game's original incarnation (Twelve Tales: Conker 64) was seen as an also-ran of Rare being its kiddy, cutesy self. Development stalled for many years, long enough that the team behind the companion release (Conker's Pocket Tales) was able to finish their work twice over. Frustrated by the lack of forward momentum, Chris Seavor pitched a crass, parodic take on the original Twelve Tales, and Conker became the little bastard we know today.
Consequently, the end product is colored by the accumulations built up over 5-6 years of development. So many of the misanthropic, ill-mannered jokes read as the team taking the piss (sometimes literally) on all of their development struggles to date. There are all sorts of meta nods, like how the baby dinosaur that Conker sacrifices would have been Berri's companion in Twelve Tales, or the condensation of the expansive movesets from Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64 into a generic all-purpose Context Sensitivity Zone, or the key collectable being completely unimaginative wads of cash.
I think that's the start of what makes the game more than just its crass jokes. Like, there's no subtext to Marvin the freakin' mouse critter in Barn Boys; the humor really is just an absurdist punchline rooted around the arbitrary sexism of metal crates that exist as obstacles, and gibbing a flatulent rodent. It's not funny to me because I find those jokes funny; it's funny because of who's telling the jokes and why they're telling it. Rare's pissed off and indulging in some dadaist humor that brings into question the underpinings of what a video game is. Like, why the hell not field a quest by a sentient block involving a cheese farm?
The other half of the equation on its surface level is its referential humor. And I'm not gonna pretend that there is something inherently deep about a video game referencing Bram Stoker's Dracula or Jaws or anything. It is funny, seeing the opening to Saving Private Ryan recreated with adorable squirrel characters getting mowed down, up to and including a grey squirrel retrieving his own severed arm. But I do think that for as inherently ridiculous as its plot cul-de-sacs are, the fact that Conker (the game) treats them as a single continuous narrative lends itself some cumulative weight. Like the speech at the end of "It's War!" is certainly genre work, but that doesn't make it any less poignant. To say nothing of how it all piles up in the ending, and how narrative weight comes crashing back down even in spite of Conker (the Squirrel's) fourth wall awareness.
It's been said before, but Bad Fur Day is much stronger as a third-person shooter than as a platformer. Credit where it's due, the creators realized this and left most of the actual mechanical challenges for the game's Night segments, with the only real speedbumps during the Day portions being "Barry's Mates", Bomb Run", and "Mugged". I also think BFD is very smartly-paced for its variety format, pivoting just when things start getting tedious. Nothing is really given time to overstay its welcome (though "It's War" probably runs a little long, and the final boss, while a fun throwback to Mario 64, is surprisingly fiddly for how simple it is).
And, like, when the game isn't deliberately looking like crap, it looks amazing. You can kind of tell that Conker's model got way more attention than anyone else looking at it side-by-side with the others in multiplayer, but that's not a bad thing. Rare wanted a Screwy Squirrel mascot, and boy did they get it. It's absolutely astounding to think that Super Mario 64 and Conker's Bad Fur Day exist on the same console.
I think, to loop back around to the main point, my love for Conker, and why I consider it an arthouse game, is because of its surprisingly unique place as an auteur project for its place in the gaming landscape. These days auteur games are less of a surprise, with directors' influence being more visible in their work. But for Rare and especially for Nintendo (indirectly, since Ninty was just a publisher, but implicitly since the two were joined at the hip), it feels like it comes out of nowhere. So much of what I see in Bad Fur Day comes from where Rare was at in their company history. There's something poignant in that ending, knowing that this was the end of Rare's heyday on the SNES and N64. Maybe not their last game with Nintendo, but the last major release to have its own clear identity. A swan song, sung in and by scat.
Let me state first that I normally have no interest whatsoever in this game's brand of humor. I have never liked South Park, and I can only take Family Guy in small doses. Actually, I've always been a bit surprised how much I like this game, since I enjoyed it enough to run through it in full three times - more than any other Rare game I've played to date. Part of it is my personal connection - I have a fond memory of my mother surprising me with this game as a birthday present my first year of college, since I'd hyped up the game's notorious reputation for her. I played part of the game for my roommate, a guy who'd grown up with Banjo-Kazooie but had never heard of this game, and I remember him being shocked that "They're swearing!!!!" Fun game to surprise people with.
But that's only part of it. A lot of it comes from the journey the game took to become what it is now. It's a well-known story, but for those who don't know - Conker was conceived of as a Tex Avery-style mascot for Rare, but with the runaway success of Banjo-Kazooie, his game's original incarnation (Twelve Tales: Conker 64) was seen as an also-ran of Rare being its kiddy, cutesy self. Development stalled for many years, long enough that the team behind the companion release (Conker's Pocket Tales) was able to finish their work twice over. Frustrated by the lack of forward momentum, Chris Seavor pitched a crass, parodic take on the original Twelve Tales, and Conker became the little bastard we know today.
Consequently, the end product is colored by the accumulations built up over 5-6 years of development. So many of the misanthropic, ill-mannered jokes read as the team taking the piss (sometimes literally) on all of their development struggles to date. There are all sorts of meta nods, like how the baby dinosaur that Conker sacrifices would have been Berri's companion in Twelve Tales, or the condensation of the expansive movesets from Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64 into a generic all-purpose Context Sensitivity Zone, or the key collectable being completely unimaginative wads of cash.
I think that's the start of what makes the game more than just its crass jokes. Like, there's no subtext to Marvin the freakin' mouse critter in Barn Boys; the humor really is just an absurdist punchline rooted around the arbitrary sexism of metal crates that exist as obstacles, and gibbing a flatulent rodent. It's not funny to me because I find those jokes funny; it's funny because of who's telling the jokes and why they're telling it. Rare's pissed off and indulging in some dadaist humor that brings into question the underpinings of what a video game is. Like, why the hell not field a quest by a sentient block involving a cheese farm?
The other half of the equation on its surface level is its referential humor. And I'm not gonna pretend that there is something inherently deep about a video game referencing Bram Stoker's Dracula or Jaws or anything. It is funny, seeing the opening to Saving Private Ryan recreated with adorable squirrel characters getting mowed down, up to and including a grey squirrel retrieving his own severed arm. But I do think that for as inherently ridiculous as its plot cul-de-sacs are, the fact that Conker (the game) treats them as a single continuous narrative lends itself some cumulative weight. Like the speech at the end of "It's War!" is certainly genre work, but that doesn't make it any less poignant. To say nothing of how it all piles up in the ending, and how narrative weight comes crashing back down even in spite of Conker (the Squirrel's) fourth wall awareness.
It's been said before, but Bad Fur Day is much stronger as a third-person shooter than as a platformer. Credit where it's due, the creators realized this and left most of the actual mechanical challenges for the game's Night segments, with the only real speedbumps during the Day portions being "Barry's Mates", Bomb Run", and "Mugged". I also think BFD is very smartly-paced for its variety format, pivoting just when things start getting tedious. Nothing is really given time to overstay its welcome (though "It's War" probably runs a little long, and the final boss, while a fun throwback to Mario 64, is surprisingly fiddly for how simple it is).
And, like, when the game isn't deliberately looking like crap, it looks amazing. You can kind of tell that Conker's model got way more attention than anyone else looking at it side-by-side with the others in multiplayer, but that's not a bad thing. Rare wanted a Screwy Squirrel mascot, and boy did they get it. It's absolutely astounding to think that Super Mario 64 and Conker's Bad Fur Day exist on the same console.
I think, to loop back around to the main point, my love for Conker, and why I consider it an arthouse game, is because of its surprisingly unique place as an auteur project for its place in the gaming landscape. These days auteur games are less of a surprise, with directors' influence being more visible in their work. But for Rare and especially for Nintendo (indirectly, since Ninty was just a publisher, but implicitly since the two were joined at the hip), it feels like it comes out of nowhere. So much of what I see in Bad Fur Day comes from where Rare was at in their company history. There's something poignant in that ending, knowing that this was the end of Rare's heyday on the SNES and N64. Maybe not their last game with Nintendo, but the last major release to have its own clear identity. A swan song, sung in and by scat.
2012
Part of a Japanese indie RPG Maker horror trilogy that has long existed in my head, alongside Ib and Mad Father. I know "trilogy" isn't quite right; the only real throughline these games have are similar game engines (Mad Father isn't even in RPG Maker) and translator. And anyway, if we're going by that logic, vgperson has handled way more stuff than just those three games. No matter; the trilogy in my head is Ib, Witch's House, and Mad Father. I played Ib many years ago, and now I've played Witch's House.
The Witch's House is predicated entirely around its ending reveal. There is other interstitial stuff that composes the rest of the experience, but the narrative thrust sits entirely within the ending. It's a good ending reveal, don't get me wrong, but the consequence is that everything leading up to it sort of feels irrelevant. Now, since the game's only an hour or so long, that isn't really that much of a strike against it - but it does make the experience feel lopsided in retrospect.
This isn't to say that the grand majority of the game is without merit. I think as a tonal piece, the game's at its strongest earlier on, when you're just doing some unsettling puzzles and the house is starting to go crazy. The third floor in particular is delightfully dark, with great setup and payoff. On the flipside, I kinda think any of the jump-scare chase sequences come across as ridiculous - particularly that giant skull on the fifth floor - but then I've always thought stuff like Ao Oni was more silly than scary.
Yeah, here's where I admit that indie horror projects like this have never been my bag. When I play one of these, the main thing I'm looking for is mood and tone, not spoopiness. I think, since I highlighted it before, I resonated a lot more with Ib when I played that years ago, since that had a lot more consistent tonality and theming between its gameplay and narrative. Witch's House is fine enough, good for its duration, but it isn't really something that sticks with me outside a couple moments and its ending. Its gameplay moments feel more like a fantasia of horror that only occasionally interacts with the character and story moments. No disrespect if that's the stuff that hooked you onto the game, but it isn't personally my thing.
The Witch's House is predicated entirely around its ending reveal. There is other interstitial stuff that composes the rest of the experience, but the narrative thrust sits entirely within the ending. It's a good ending reveal, don't get me wrong, but the consequence is that everything leading up to it sort of feels irrelevant. Now, since the game's only an hour or so long, that isn't really that much of a strike against it - but it does make the experience feel lopsided in retrospect.
This isn't to say that the grand majority of the game is without merit. I think as a tonal piece, the game's at its strongest earlier on, when you're just doing some unsettling puzzles and the house is starting to go crazy. The third floor in particular is delightfully dark, with great setup and payoff. On the flipside, I kinda think any of the jump-scare chase sequences come across as ridiculous - particularly that giant skull on the fifth floor - but then I've always thought stuff like Ao Oni was more silly than scary.
Yeah, here's where I admit that indie horror projects like this have never been my bag. When I play one of these, the main thing I'm looking for is mood and tone, not spoopiness. I think, since I highlighted it before, I resonated a lot more with Ib when I played that years ago, since that had a lot more consistent tonality and theming between its gameplay and narrative. Witch's House is fine enough, good for its duration, but it isn't really something that sticks with me outside a couple moments and its ending. Its gameplay moments feel more like a fantasia of horror that only occasionally interacts with the character and story moments. No disrespect if that's the stuff that hooked you onto the game, but it isn't personally my thing.
Cute! Wallace & Gromit is one of those things where I don't think about it a whole lot, but when I do, I remember just how much I like it. A video game hits a real sweet spot for me, then, particularly a tried-but-true 3D platformer.
The game definitely gets what it means to do Wallace & Gromit in the context of a video game. You play as Gromit and not Wallace; Wallace's contributions are in the inventions and weapons (all food-based, naturally) and in trying but largely failing to be part of the action pieces. There's very little dialogue, with most vocal lines delivered by an unsupportive narrator and Wallace monologuing to Gromit. Feathers McGraw - the penguin from "The Wrong Trousers" - is back, with the game's story acting as a sequel to his debut short. There are throwaway nods to the shorts scattered throughout, like the box of "Meatabix" (completely missed that pun as a kid). And as a cute legacy nod, animal designs are reused from "Creature Comforts" where applicable.
There's also a motif throughout of the game sneaking in nods to other video games. It's all on the sly, so don't expect any big parodic send-ups like you'd see out of Conker or Asterix. But if you're paying attention, you'll catch that the first room of the Panda enclosure is specifically homaging Metal Gear Solid, down to the sight gag involving Mei Ling's Codec number, and the Penguin enclosure boss fight being an Asteroids nod, down to the ice floes having the distinct wedge missing like the original Asteroids. It's my favorite type of reference humor, where they're made unobtrusively, and the game maintains its integrity even if you don't get it.
Like, they have a gorilla throwing barrels - the single most stock "I'm referencing a video game" joke you see in media. But it doesn't feel trite because the gorilla throwing the barrel isn't underlined by the text of the work; it's just part of the tapestry of the game world. It makes sense for the gorilla to throw barrels in the context of the narrative: Feathers has enslaved the other zoo animals to do his bidding and perform menial tasks; mindlessly chucking barrels as an ambiguous part of some machine is right in line with that. Does it matter if it's a reference? Nah, but that just makes it a cute shout-out.
I'll say the game's rarely interesting as a platformer. Platformers tend to be the safest genre you can develop in, and I don't think Project Zoo offers anything unique to the formula outside its theming. The weapons are cute but invite unfavorable comparisons with Ratchet & Clank. Gromit has a decently robust moveset, including an analogue to Mario's side somersault, but most of his moves feel stiff; Gromit definitely jumps more like an Ice Climber than a Plumber. That extended sequence in the Zebra Enclosure(?) is fun, though; running on an endless track through the belly of a great machine makes for a very Aardman set piece. But notice how it leans more on weapon-puzzles than platforming challenges?
Okay, but, like, speaking of that machine, you're spending the whole run trying to keep a cute baby polar bear with glasses from getting hurt. And if you fail, you have to watch the poor little guy get hurt and keel over! It's so heartbreaking!
Alright, alright. If you're looking for more Wallace & Gromit, this game will fit the bill nicely. If you're just looking for a 3D platformer, you could do better. But it ain't bad, and between its short length and solid variety of mechanics and set pieces, it shouldn't have trouble holding your interest.
The game definitely gets what it means to do Wallace & Gromit in the context of a video game. You play as Gromit and not Wallace; Wallace's contributions are in the inventions and weapons (all food-based, naturally) and in trying but largely failing to be part of the action pieces. There's very little dialogue, with most vocal lines delivered by an unsupportive narrator and Wallace monologuing to Gromit. Feathers McGraw - the penguin from "The Wrong Trousers" - is back, with the game's story acting as a sequel to his debut short. There are throwaway nods to the shorts scattered throughout, like the box of "Meatabix" (completely missed that pun as a kid). And as a cute legacy nod, animal designs are reused from "Creature Comforts" where applicable.
There's also a motif throughout of the game sneaking in nods to other video games. It's all on the sly, so don't expect any big parodic send-ups like you'd see out of Conker or Asterix. But if you're paying attention, you'll catch that the first room of the Panda enclosure is specifically homaging Metal Gear Solid, down to the sight gag involving Mei Ling's Codec number, and the Penguin enclosure boss fight being an Asteroids nod, down to the ice floes having the distinct wedge missing like the original Asteroids. It's my favorite type of reference humor, where they're made unobtrusively, and the game maintains its integrity even if you don't get it.
Like, they have a gorilla throwing barrels - the single most stock "I'm referencing a video game" joke you see in media. But it doesn't feel trite because the gorilla throwing the barrel isn't underlined by the text of the work; it's just part of the tapestry of the game world. It makes sense for the gorilla to throw barrels in the context of the narrative: Feathers has enslaved the other zoo animals to do his bidding and perform menial tasks; mindlessly chucking barrels as an ambiguous part of some machine is right in line with that. Does it matter if it's a reference? Nah, but that just makes it a cute shout-out.
I'll say the game's rarely interesting as a platformer. Platformers tend to be the safest genre you can develop in, and I don't think Project Zoo offers anything unique to the formula outside its theming. The weapons are cute but invite unfavorable comparisons with Ratchet & Clank. Gromit has a decently robust moveset, including an analogue to Mario's side somersault, but most of his moves feel stiff; Gromit definitely jumps more like an Ice Climber than a Plumber. That extended sequence in the Zebra Enclosure(?) is fun, though; running on an endless track through the belly of a great machine makes for a very Aardman set piece. But notice how it leans more on weapon-puzzles than platforming challenges?
Okay, but, like, speaking of that machine, you're spending the whole run trying to keep a cute baby polar bear with glasses from getting hurt. And if you fail, you have to watch the poor little guy get hurt and keel over! It's so heartbreaking!
Alright, alright. If you're looking for more Wallace & Gromit, this game will fit the bill nicely. If you're just looking for a 3D platformer, you could do better. But it ain't bad, and between its short length and solid variety of mechanics and set pieces, it shouldn't have trouble holding your interest.