MacBlank
1986
The original, and... not quite the best, but a gold standard all Classicvanias strive for. Unapologetically difficult by the end (mostly that accursed Stage 15, with all the Medusa Heads and Axe Knights), but one of those games where retrying is easy enough that it's easy to dust yourself off and come back at it for another try. Some day I will be cool enough to clear Stage 15 without using savestates (only so I didn't have to replay Stages 13 and 14 between Continues... I think). But I did beat Drac all on my own, doing nothing but trying and trying again until I got good at the video game.
Castlevania's just one of the coolest damn high-concepts for a video game, man. Count Dracula and all the other Universal movie monsters have teamed up, and a lone Conan the Barbarian-looking emmereffer is bringing them all down with just Indiana Jones' bullwhip and the power of God. That's, like, damn near every high concept that appeals to me. How cool is it that it was one of the first megaton third-party hits on the NES? How cool that Castlevania has legendarily terrific music, how it's grimy and gritty but also plenty colorful, how it's careful to put detail in all the places it's needed? Hell, how cool is it that Ninty let Konami get away with letting the player graphically behead a guy on the NES??? Castlevania's honestly one of those games that's so thoroughly baked into my DNA that I kinda just assume that everyone knows and "gets" Castlevania's whole thing. Like... it's weird to me that a bullwhip is not considered standard vampire-hunting gear. Whaddya mean, Castlevania's where that came from? In all respects, a great start to a series that, even at its worst, I can't help but love.
Castlevania's just one of the coolest damn high-concepts for a video game, man. Count Dracula and all the other Universal movie monsters have teamed up, and a lone Conan the Barbarian-looking emmereffer is bringing them all down with just Indiana Jones' bullwhip and the power of God. That's, like, damn near every high concept that appeals to me. How cool is it that it was one of the first megaton third-party hits on the NES? How cool that Castlevania has legendarily terrific music, how it's grimy and gritty but also plenty colorful, how it's careful to put detail in all the places it's needed? Hell, how cool is it that Ninty let Konami get away with letting the player graphically behead a guy on the NES??? Castlevania's honestly one of those games that's so thoroughly baked into my DNA that I kinda just assume that everyone knows and "gets" Castlevania's whole thing. Like... it's weird to me that a bullwhip is not considered standard vampire-hunting gear. Whaddya mean, Castlevania's where that came from? In all respects, a great start to a series that, even at its worst, I can't help but love.
I reviewed the collected titles here here and here, so I'll just use this spot to comment on the collection as a whole.
I think this was the remake collection I was most hopeful for, after Crash Bandicoot's N. Sane Trilogy proved there was a market for these sorts of nostalgic throwback remakes (holy moly was there ever). In retrospect I have some quibbles with N. Sane Trilogy, which I'll come back to some other time, but these were largely addressed when Toys for Bob took a swing at Spyro Reignited. Each game retains its mechanical identity, with quality-of-life updates rolled back where beneficial but everything otherwise left good enough alone. The art direction is a ton of fun, adding a lot of personality while generally not compromising the original games' personality. The collection helped me better understand a lot of the appeal to Insomniac's original trilogy, in particular helping me "get" Spyro 1. The game isn't exactly a technical marvel anymore, though I think that's a pretty unrealistic expectation to have for most of these remake compilations.
I will especially commend Toys for Bob for remaking the trilogy without access to the original games' source code (as Insomniac had lost it over the years), meaning they had to reconstruct everything from the ground up. Like... dude. I would've expected way more differences than what we got, but Toys for Bob busted their chops getting the game feel just right. Huuuuuge respect.
I do wish Spyro Reignited had more of a legacy than it did. Perhaps it's too early to say just yet, but I dunno - N. Sane Trilogy was only a year earlier, yet it's resulted in something of a renaissance for Crash, between Nitro-Fueled, 4, and Team Rumble. Spyro's really only appeared in a cameo capacity in Crash's revival games. And yeah, that's been really cool, seeing Crash and Spyro continue to be brother series like in the old days, but I get more and more worried that this is to be Spyro's legacy as time goes on. Ah, well, maybe he'll fly again some day...
I think this was the remake collection I was most hopeful for, after Crash Bandicoot's N. Sane Trilogy proved there was a market for these sorts of nostalgic throwback remakes (holy moly was there ever). In retrospect I have some quibbles with N. Sane Trilogy, which I'll come back to some other time, but these were largely addressed when Toys for Bob took a swing at Spyro Reignited. Each game retains its mechanical identity, with quality-of-life updates rolled back where beneficial but everything otherwise left good enough alone. The art direction is a ton of fun, adding a lot of personality while generally not compromising the original games' personality. The collection helped me better understand a lot of the appeal to Insomniac's original trilogy, in particular helping me "get" Spyro 1. The game isn't exactly a technical marvel anymore, though I think that's a pretty unrealistic expectation to have for most of these remake compilations.
I will especially commend Toys for Bob for remaking the trilogy without access to the original games' source code (as Insomniac had lost it over the years), meaning they had to reconstruct everything from the ground up. Like... dude. I would've expected way more differences than what we got, but Toys for Bob busted their chops getting the game feel just right. Huuuuuge respect.
I do wish Spyro Reignited had more of a legacy than it did. Perhaps it's too early to say just yet, but I dunno - N. Sane Trilogy was only a year earlier, yet it's resulted in something of a renaissance for Crash, between Nitro-Fueled, 4, and Team Rumble. Spyro's really only appeared in a cameo capacity in Crash's revival games. And yeah, that's been really cool, seeing Crash and Spyro continue to be brother series like in the old days, but I get more and more worried that this is to be Spyro's legacy as time goes on. Ah, well, maybe he'll fly again some day...
My thoughts from the original generally hold true for Reignited, so see my original review here. It's obvious that Year of the Dragon made for the template that the rest of Reignited was based on (i.e. game feel from Year of the Dragon was backported into Spyro 1/Ripto's Rage), so this is more directly just a straight graphical upgrade more than anything else. Therefore, I'll just keep this as a quick lightning round of thoughts:
- Yeah I don't love the new Sheila design. It's all right, and honestly Sheila probably benefits from not just being a nondescript cartoon animal, but I dunno, there's something plainly cute about the original design that's lost with the hair and the reproportioned body.
- The other redesigns are great, though. Agent 9's fangs really add something, and I LOVE how beastly Bentley looks this time around, really highlights his original joke even more.
- Thanks to the Elora redesign, the ending, hinting at a budding relationship between her and Spyro, actually landed for me! Nice!
- The Rhynocs look like such freaks, what the hell. Those over-the-top smiles as they wind up that clubbin' they're not gonna make, you gotta love it.
- I love that so many of the original jokes were kept! Definitely would've expected to lose the Nancy Kerrigan Polar Bear or Tara, but no, there they are, fully-realized and better than ever.
- I really kinda loathe that the Reignited Trilogy uses the same credits for all three games. Like I get it, the same team probably worked on all three of them, so staggering it out would've been more trouble than it was worth. But you're missing all the charm of the original credits sequences. No epilogues, no touring the individual worlds, no nice little send-off from the team... Like, was there really no way to get some sort of unique acknowledgement at the end of each game? Ah, well.
In short - a good alternative to the PS1 version; I probably prefer the original, but this is more of a close match for me.
- Yeah I don't love the new Sheila design. It's all right, and honestly Sheila probably benefits from not just being a nondescript cartoon animal, but I dunno, there's something plainly cute about the original design that's lost with the hair and the reproportioned body.
- The other redesigns are great, though. Agent 9's fangs really add something, and I LOVE how beastly Bentley looks this time around, really highlights his original joke even more.
- Thanks to the Elora redesign, the ending, hinting at a budding relationship between her and Spyro, actually landed for me! Nice!
- The Rhynocs look like such freaks, what the hell. Those over-the-top smiles as they wind up that clubbin' they're not gonna make, you gotta love it.
- I love that so many of the original jokes were kept! Definitely would've expected to lose the Nancy Kerrigan Polar Bear or Tara, but no, there they are, fully-realized and better than ever.
- I really kinda loathe that the Reignited Trilogy uses the same credits for all three games. Like I get it, the same team probably worked on all three of them, so staggering it out would've been more trouble than it was worth. But you're missing all the charm of the original credits sequences. No epilogues, no touring the individual worlds, no nice little send-off from the team... Like, was there really no way to get some sort of unique acknowledgement at the end of each game? Ah, well.
In short - a good alternative to the PS1 version; I probably prefer the original, but this is more of a close match for me.
Hey, I played this one recently enough that I have its completion date listed, cool. I'll cover this and the remake separately.
Spyro: Year of the Dragon was the first Spyro game I played. I played a little bit of it at a friend's house in middle school on his PS One, alongsite Crash Team Racing and Crash Bash. I think I've mentioned before that before my family owned game consoles, we used to rent them (mostly PlayStation 2s) from Blockbuster, so I have a lot of extremely scattered nostalgia for various PlayStation games. Before you get too excited, said PlayStation titles were all for the PS1 (this being right after the PS2 dropped, PS1 games were most of what we had access to) and were all licensed titles (PS1 Harry Potter, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, etc). This would've fallen in a very particular sweet spot, coming after I had regular access to non-computer video games on my GBA but before I had regular access to console games on my GameCube. Thus, this one throwaway visit to a friend's house, in which I played a little Hot Air Skyway on CTR, the first few mini-games of Bash's story mode, and a couple levels of Year of the Dragon, constituted the last possible time I could have that mysterious, magical experience I always had, playing PlayStation games at a time I couldn't have regular access to them.
This is getting off-topic, but I don't really see any other opportunity to mention this on this website - I think the PS1 has my favorite video game bootup sequence. Something about that low, digital bass note on that white logo screen, the ambient beats, the shift to the pure black screen with the colorful alternate logo while the bass note sustains itself, and the digital chimes kicking in, becoming the main notes... I dunno. To me, there's wonder behind that opening. Like, I associate that sound with the rare experience of renting games (well, the back half of that, given how PS1 games boot up on PS2), so there's always the promise of, "you're about to go on a strange and marvelous adventure, the likes of which you've never been on before". It's... hard to explain, I think, but I think people who grew up with the PS1 in their lives in some way understand this. I of course love the GameCube's bootup, and the PS3 goes the easy route of starting with an orchestra tuning itself, but those don't replicate the same emotions I get from the PS1. Maybe I'll never again feel that way, and maybe that's okay.
Anyway, back to Spyro. Like I said, we played a little bit of Year of the Dragon that day. I wanna say my friend (good kid, hope he's doing all right) started a new save to show off, but I also remember us playing specifically Sunny Villa, Sheila's Alp, and Icy Peak? Definitely remember the hockey game, and how much of a silly juxtaposition that was in the middle of the standard adventure. It wasn't a LOT, but it was enough that the experience stuck in my head (even if it'd take me years to remember the specific game we played) and that it colored a lot of my fondness for Spyro overall. Probably not much of an exaggeration to say that this single day is why I'm more of a Spyro fan than a Crash fan; yes, CTR kicks ass, and Crash is excellent overall, but... I dunno. 6 times outta 10, I'd rather be playing classic Spyro than Crash.
With all this said, this is probably my least favorite of the original trilogy. The Sorceress is far and away the least compelling of the original three villains (Gnasty Gnorc sucks, but he's at least funny), and her fights kinda drag on and on. Also, she's trying to suck the magic out of these dragon eggs so she can live forever, but she was around when dragons were booted out of the ForgottenRealms Worlds a thousand years ago? Sure you need the extra juice, Sorceress?
The game also constantly gets distracted from playing Spyro levels, so if all you want is to scamper around as the li'l guy, you're gonna have to wait your turn. These days I know why - Insomniac was struggling with new things to have their quadrupedal protagonist do, so they distracted the point by inventing new characters and gameplay modes (notice how all four new animal friends are bipedal? Or how you first get playable Sparx AND Hunter in the same game?). And I don't mind too much, since the friends are all fun to play as and are over and done with fairly quickly. But it's not hard to see why Insomniac was happy to step away from the series at the end of this game.
I'm... sorta torn on Super Bonus Round, too. I kinda love it as a do-or-die, one-last-time encore victory lap, showcasing some final combinations of mini-games and power-ups. But ending on another Sorceress fight? I guess that's what you SHOULD do, reprise the final boss, but...
Ah, well. The core of it is still a ton of Spyro goodness. Even moreso than Ripto's Rage, there's a real "anything goes" sense to this title. Like, there's a world where everyone talks exclusively in haikus, apparently as some sort of compulsion. There's one sequence that's just straight up Insomniac recreating DOOM in their silly fantasy platformer, complete with a first-person perspective and a UI change. There's a shout-out to Tomb Raider, a 2D platformer segment, and you have to keep Nancy Kerrigan Polar Bear from getting kneecapped by Rhynocs. Why? Why not?
Actually, on the subject of Rhynocs, whaaaat the hell even are those guys? In the grand tradition of having weird gobliny blah-thingies as your 3D platformer enemy minions, now you have a buncha rhino-lookin' guys. What's their relationship with the Sorceress? Why do they keep showing up in post-Insomniac games??? Ah, whatever, they're fun little weirdos.
This has kinda been a rambly review, but the main of it is that Year of the Dragon is a great game, even if it's not my favorite in the series. I think it makes for a great ending for the original trilogy. As many bones as I might make of Super Bonus Round and stuff like that, I like the very very end of it, hinting at budding relationships and future adventures. That little message at the end of Insomniac themselves thanking the player and bidding them farewell, implicitly acknowledging that Insomniac themselves were gonna step away, is a nice little good-bye, closure the likes of which you don't really see anymore in major game releases. I dunno, there's something sweetly poignant to all of it. It's a game where the very start and the very end are some of my favorites in any video game, relics of things that no longer are what they are and can never be what they were. I think, even if these aren't our favorite things, these are the things that are most important to remember and to hold onto going through our lives.
Spyro: Year of the Dragon was the first Spyro game I played. I played a little bit of it at a friend's house in middle school on his PS One, alongsite Crash Team Racing and Crash Bash. I think I've mentioned before that before my family owned game consoles, we used to rent them (mostly PlayStation 2s) from Blockbuster, so I have a lot of extremely scattered nostalgia for various PlayStation games. Before you get too excited, said PlayStation titles were all for the PS1 (this being right after the PS2 dropped, PS1 games were most of what we had access to) and were all licensed titles (PS1 Harry Potter, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, etc). This would've fallen in a very particular sweet spot, coming after I had regular access to non-computer video games on my GBA but before I had regular access to console games on my GameCube. Thus, this one throwaway visit to a friend's house, in which I played a little Hot Air Skyway on CTR, the first few mini-games of Bash's story mode, and a couple levels of Year of the Dragon, constituted the last possible time I could have that mysterious, magical experience I always had, playing PlayStation games at a time I couldn't have regular access to them.
This is getting off-topic, but I don't really see any other opportunity to mention this on this website - I think the PS1 has my favorite video game bootup sequence. Something about that low, digital bass note on that white logo screen, the ambient beats, the shift to the pure black screen with the colorful alternate logo while the bass note sustains itself, and the digital chimes kicking in, becoming the main notes... I dunno. To me, there's wonder behind that opening. Like, I associate that sound with the rare experience of renting games (well, the back half of that, given how PS1 games boot up on PS2), so there's always the promise of, "you're about to go on a strange and marvelous adventure, the likes of which you've never been on before". It's... hard to explain, I think, but I think people who grew up with the PS1 in their lives in some way understand this. I of course love the GameCube's bootup, and the PS3 goes the easy route of starting with an orchestra tuning itself, but those don't replicate the same emotions I get from the PS1. Maybe I'll never again feel that way, and maybe that's okay.
Anyway, back to Spyro. Like I said, we played a little bit of Year of the Dragon that day. I wanna say my friend (good kid, hope he's doing all right) started a new save to show off, but I also remember us playing specifically Sunny Villa, Sheila's Alp, and Icy Peak? Definitely remember the hockey game, and how much of a silly juxtaposition that was in the middle of the standard adventure. It wasn't a LOT, but it was enough that the experience stuck in my head (even if it'd take me years to remember the specific game we played) and that it colored a lot of my fondness for Spyro overall. Probably not much of an exaggeration to say that this single day is why I'm more of a Spyro fan than a Crash fan; yes, CTR kicks ass, and Crash is excellent overall, but... I dunno. 6 times outta 10, I'd rather be playing classic Spyro than Crash.
With all this said, this is probably my least favorite of the original trilogy. The Sorceress is far and away the least compelling of the original three villains (Gnasty Gnorc sucks, but he's at least funny), and her fights kinda drag on and on. Also, she's trying to suck the magic out of these dragon eggs so she can live forever, but she was around when dragons were booted out of the Forgotten
The game also constantly gets distracted from playing Spyro levels, so if all you want is to scamper around as the li'l guy, you're gonna have to wait your turn. These days I know why - Insomniac was struggling with new things to have their quadrupedal protagonist do, so they distracted the point by inventing new characters and gameplay modes (notice how all four new animal friends are bipedal? Or how you first get playable Sparx AND Hunter in the same game?). And I don't mind too much, since the friends are all fun to play as and are over and done with fairly quickly. But it's not hard to see why Insomniac was happy to step away from the series at the end of this game.
I'm... sorta torn on Super Bonus Round, too. I kinda love it as a do-or-die, one-last-time encore victory lap, showcasing some final combinations of mini-games and power-ups. But ending on another Sorceress fight? I guess that's what you SHOULD do, reprise the final boss, but...
Ah, well. The core of it is still a ton of Spyro goodness. Even moreso than Ripto's Rage, there's a real "anything goes" sense to this title. Like, there's a world where everyone talks exclusively in haikus, apparently as some sort of compulsion. There's one sequence that's just straight up Insomniac recreating DOOM in their silly fantasy platformer, complete with a first-person perspective and a UI change. There's a shout-out to Tomb Raider, a 2D platformer segment, and you have to keep Nancy Kerrigan Polar Bear from getting kneecapped by Rhynocs. Why? Why not?
Actually, on the subject of Rhynocs, whaaaat the hell even are those guys? In the grand tradition of having weird gobliny blah-thingies as your 3D platformer enemy minions, now you have a buncha rhino-lookin' guys. What's their relationship with the Sorceress? Why do they keep showing up in post-Insomniac games??? Ah, whatever, they're fun little weirdos.
This has kinda been a rambly review, but the main of it is that Year of the Dragon is a great game, even if it's not my favorite in the series. I think it makes for a great ending for the original trilogy. As many bones as I might make of Super Bonus Round and stuff like that, I like the very very end of it, hinting at budding relationships and future adventures. That little message at the end of Insomniac themselves thanking the player and bidding them farewell, implicitly acknowledging that Insomniac themselves were gonna step away, is a nice little good-bye, closure the likes of which you don't really see anymore in major game releases. I dunno, there's something sweetly poignant to all of it. It's a game where the very start and the very end are some of my favorites in any video game, relics of things that no longer are what they are and can never be what they were. I think, even if these aren't our favorite things, these are the things that are most important to remember and to hold onto going through our lives.
The original was my favorite of the Insomniac trilogy, back when I played through those, but I actually think the remake feels the least touched up of the three in Reignited.
It's in little things. It probably would've been too much to expect every NPC get a custom redesign this go-around, but I feel like besides the major players, there's mostly only token updates to the character models, with obviously necessary changes to stuff like the NPCs of Scorch. Animations of characters talking loop more obviously than they did in Spyro 1. The Easter Eggs involving Insomniac staffer/kids are absent (though I guess that'd be a bit weird to preserve as a different company). The reference to Hunter's birthday wasn't updated, so either he's 43 or that one skeleton is flossing in 1999. Stuff like that. I'll acknowledge that it's ultimately nitpicking, but given how much care Spyro 1 (and Year of the Dragon, kinda) got in Reignited, it really jumps out at you if you're looking for it.
But maybe Toys For Bob didn't mess with Ripto's Rage too much because the base game was so rock solid. This is where Insomniac started experimenting with alternate gameplay modes and other odds and ends to spice up the experience of each of the worlds. There's a lot to love here, with the increased emphasis on scenarios and eccentric NPCs - of course Spyro playing both sides of the war between Breeze Builders and Land Blubbers is great, Handel and Greta are a ton of fun, Robotica Farms makes for a fun contradiction, etc. You still mostly have the purity of form that made Spyro 1 good, but you also have a variety of mini-games to spice things up. The boss fights are unilaterally improved from Spyro 1, and while Gulp and Crush are just kinda there, Ripto is perhaps the closest a PS1 platformer ever came to the brilliance of Gruntilda in Banjo-Kazooie.
I got a couple complaints, but the only substantial one is that you have to unlock the new moves. I didn't mind it playing the original version, but replaying it in Reignited after "getting" Spyro 1, it sorta feels stifling, having chunks of the levels cut off because you don't have all the moves. At least in Year of the Dragon, tying level chunks to absent characters makes it feel a lot less arbitrary when you're unable to do everything on your first run. At least that's sort of the joke they're playing up here, with Moneybags coercing you into giving him all your hard-earned Gems.
Dragon Shores is the least interesting of the original trilogy's victory laps, but even then there's some cute stuff, like the Skill Shots, the dunk tank with the most annoying NPCs, and the permanent flame upgrade. Could be worse.
Also, on the subject of the remake, I definitely fall into the camp of preferring Original Hunter. Surfer Dude Hunter's a cute enough take, but I feel like it's juuuuuust a little funnier to have Hunter be just some guy who's a dopey moron. On the flipside, everyone else's redesign does wonders for them, especially Elora. Took her from an easily-disposable character rightly forgotten in later games to... maybe my favorite supporting character? Holy moly.
With the original games, Ripto's Rage was definitely my runaway favorite. But I dunno, I think it's about on-par with the first game on revisit. The flaws are a lot more obvious this go-around, but it's not enough to detract from the overall experience, which I still find quite excellent. Good comfort food game, through and through.
A random story to close this out - I had never never never never never never never never never understood the European name, "Gateway to Glimmer", until this playthrough. Like, I dunno, it'd be like assigning Gen 1 Pokémon the subtitle "Grass Outside Pallet". But while playing this game with my father watching, he made a reference to the overall game world as "Glimmer". Obviously he meant Avalar, but since the game places so much focus on Elora/Hunter/The Professor warping Spyro in to the Glimmer subworld, I get where the confusion comes from. ...still a silly name, though.
It's in little things. It probably would've been too much to expect every NPC get a custom redesign this go-around, but I feel like besides the major players, there's mostly only token updates to the character models, with obviously necessary changes to stuff like the NPCs of Scorch. Animations of characters talking loop more obviously than they did in Spyro 1. The Easter Eggs involving Insomniac staffer/kids are absent (though I guess that'd be a bit weird to preserve as a different company). The reference to Hunter's birthday wasn't updated, so either he's 43 or that one skeleton is flossing in 1999. Stuff like that. I'll acknowledge that it's ultimately nitpicking, but given how much care Spyro 1 (and Year of the Dragon, kinda) got in Reignited, it really jumps out at you if you're looking for it.
But maybe Toys For Bob didn't mess with Ripto's Rage too much because the base game was so rock solid. This is where Insomniac started experimenting with alternate gameplay modes and other odds and ends to spice up the experience of each of the worlds. There's a lot to love here, with the increased emphasis on scenarios and eccentric NPCs - of course Spyro playing both sides of the war between Breeze Builders and Land Blubbers is great, Handel and Greta are a ton of fun, Robotica Farms makes for a fun contradiction, etc. You still mostly have the purity of form that made Spyro 1 good, but you also have a variety of mini-games to spice things up. The boss fights are unilaterally improved from Spyro 1, and while Gulp and Crush are just kinda there, Ripto is perhaps the closest a PS1 platformer ever came to the brilliance of Gruntilda in Banjo-Kazooie.
I got a couple complaints, but the only substantial one is that you have to unlock the new moves. I didn't mind it playing the original version, but replaying it in Reignited after "getting" Spyro 1, it sorta feels stifling, having chunks of the levels cut off because you don't have all the moves. At least in Year of the Dragon, tying level chunks to absent characters makes it feel a lot less arbitrary when you're unable to do everything on your first run. At least that's sort of the joke they're playing up here, with Moneybags coercing you into giving him all your hard-earned Gems.
Dragon Shores is the least interesting of the original trilogy's victory laps, but even then there's some cute stuff, like the Skill Shots, the dunk tank with the most annoying NPCs, and the permanent flame upgrade. Could be worse.
Also, on the subject of the remake, I definitely fall into the camp of preferring Original Hunter. Surfer Dude Hunter's a cute enough take, but I feel like it's juuuuuust a little funnier to have Hunter be just some guy who's a dopey moron. On the flipside, everyone else's redesign does wonders for them, especially Elora. Took her from an easily-disposable character rightly forgotten in later games to... maybe my favorite supporting character? Holy moly.
With the original games, Ripto's Rage was definitely my runaway favorite. But I dunno, I think it's about on-par with the first game on revisit. The flaws are a lot more obvious this go-around, but it's not enough to detract from the overall experience, which I still find quite excellent. Good comfort food game, through and through.
A random story to close this out - I had never never never never never never never never never understood the European name, "Gateway to Glimmer", until this playthrough. Like, I dunno, it'd be like assigning Gen 1 Pokémon the subtitle "Grass Outside Pallet". But while playing this game with my father watching, he made a reference to the overall game world as "Glimmer". Obviously he meant Avalar, but since the game places so much focus on Elora/Hunter/The Professor warping Spyro in to the Glimmer subworld, I get where the confusion comes from. ...still a silly name, though.
I picked this up completely by chance; I just happened to be at a GameStop (out of town, no less) that just happened to be carrying a physical copy of a pretty obscure Kickstarter project helmed by an independent Montreal-based studio. Of course, at the time, I knew none of this about this game. All I knew was that I'd never even heard of this game, and that I liked the boxart.
It doesn't really happen anymore, now that I've committed myself to mostly playing games up until a certain era, but for the longest time I loved taking this sort of gamble. Sometimes it shook out, where I'd have yet another completely unheard-of also-ran title to hype up to my friends, like the sorts of things that represented the sum total of my gaming experiences as a kid. Didn't really matter; the fun was taking the plunge and seeing if it shook out.
I really wish I had more enthusiasm for the game itself, but I sadly don't have much to report. I feel like the game that exists is the start of something quite strong. There's a great high-concept with the dynamic between Girl and Robot, where the Robot is more combat-oriented but less flexible in its movements while the Girl is able to get around more easily but is completely defenseless. I don't think the Robot is super compelling to fight as, though given that ICO (ICO a nae) is a key influence, and combat isn't strong in that, I guess it's okay?
But the main thing is the cliffhanger ending, and the insistence that this is Act 1 of something bigger. Sort of a gutsy called shot on Flying Carpet's part, particularly knowing it's a Kickstarter project that didn't hint at this and the, um, lack of a second part. Definitely screams of something going wrong and the team needing to get the game out the door, at the most charitable interpretation. Doubly so since the follow-up effort is a card game ("inspired by concepts from Russian roulette", which is a really weird way to say a player can be eliminated at any time). Nothing wrong with the change of medium, it's just sort of a sign that this approach wasn't working.
Actually, speaking of the Kickstarter, that maze at the end that sort of comes out of nowhere and has little cohesion with the rest of the adventure was a stretch goal. Hmmmm.
The soundtrack is quite good, though. Sort of feels out of place in-game, but it's definitely worth the listen.
It doesn't really happen anymore, now that I've committed myself to mostly playing games up until a certain era, but for the longest time I loved taking this sort of gamble. Sometimes it shook out, where I'd have yet another completely unheard-of also-ran title to hype up to my friends, like the sorts of things that represented the sum total of my gaming experiences as a kid. Didn't really matter; the fun was taking the plunge and seeing if it shook out.
I really wish I had more enthusiasm for the game itself, but I sadly don't have much to report. I feel like the game that exists is the start of something quite strong. There's a great high-concept with the dynamic between Girl and Robot, where the Robot is more combat-oriented but less flexible in its movements while the Girl is able to get around more easily but is completely defenseless. I don't think the Robot is super compelling to fight as, though given that ICO (ICO a nae) is a key influence, and combat isn't strong in that, I guess it's okay?
But the main thing is the cliffhanger ending, and the insistence that this is Act 1 of something bigger. Sort of a gutsy called shot on Flying Carpet's part, particularly knowing it's a Kickstarter project that didn't hint at this and the, um, lack of a second part. Definitely screams of something going wrong and the team needing to get the game out the door, at the most charitable interpretation. Doubly so since the follow-up effort is a card game ("inspired by concepts from Russian roulette", which is a really weird way to say a player can be eliminated at any time). Nothing wrong with the change of medium, it's just sort of a sign that this approach wasn't working.
Actually, speaking of the Kickstarter, that maze at the end that sort of comes out of nowhere and has little cohesion with the rest of the adventure was a stretch goal. Hmmmm.
The soundtrack is quite good, though. Sort of feels out of place in-game, but it's definitely worth the listen.
2015
Cute, pretty straightforward racing platformer. I've seen other games tackle the central gimmick here, of scrolling colors representing scrolling layers, but this is probably the smoothest implementation of it. I like all the different costumes, character models are nice and easily modular. I do worry that a given player will have an automatic benefit based on port priority/which spot they spawn in, but there's not a TON you can do about that in the context of a 2D platformer.
I will say, I was surprised at how little trouble I had with this, given my colorblindness. If I hadn't gotten it in a bundle, I wouldn't have picked it up because I would've figured that it was unbeatable for me, but actually no. There's generally a goodly amount of attention put into using high-contrast colors for ease of readability, such that the transitions are more obvious. The colors themselves aren't especially important, save that they are different, which I think helps, too; the game can just randomize color palettes for each given stage. I'd still suspect someone with more severe colorblindness than me (i.e. someone who can't see given colors, rather than someone who mixes up colors) might still struggle with this, and even with this in mind there were a few instances of greens/yellows/oranges that gave me a little trouble - but I appreciated that I was able to manage it okay. Thanks, 13 AM.
I will say, I was surprised at how little trouble I had with this, given my colorblindness. If I hadn't gotten it in a bundle, I wouldn't have picked it up because I would've figured that it was unbeatable for me, but actually no. There's generally a goodly amount of attention put into using high-contrast colors for ease of readability, such that the transitions are more obvious. The colors themselves aren't especially important, save that they are different, which I think helps, too; the game can just randomize color palettes for each given stage. I'd still suspect someone with more severe colorblindness than me (i.e. someone who can't see given colors, rather than someone who mixes up colors) might still struggle with this, and even with this in mind there were a few instances of greens/yellows/oranges that gave me a little trouble - but I appreciated that I was able to manage it okay. Thanks, 13 AM.
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.
Here's the good stuff. Hot damn, do I love this entire package. Far and away my favorite game(s) in the series when I first played them back in '05, and the only games that have since superceded them have been newer releases. Sonic's one of those series I've been into since before I owned game consoles - I have to thank demo kiosks at stores for Sonic Adventure 2: Battle and Sonic Heroes for that - but I was never sure about 2D Sonic going into the GameCube Mega Collection. Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 lost me after a bit, but from the moment I tried Sonic 3, the game had me.
...of course, a big part of that was that Sonic 3 is the first game in the series to have a proper save feature, so when I was inevitably bad at the video game, it was easy to pick up the pieces and try again. I actually had a slightly harder time getting into the Sonic & Knuckles half for precisely that reason; yeah, it's more Sonic 3 goodness, but no save meant I had to start over at dumb ol' Mushroom Hill when I doofed up.
Save feature or no, though - both halves of Sonic 3 & Knuckles are great games in their own right. If Sonic 2 represented a start of understanding what made Sonic compelling in 2D, Sonic 3 & Knuckles represented full confidence in this knowledge. Levels are huge and expansive, naturally integrating spectacle set pieces with exploration and gameplay mechanics. Of course the most obvious thing is how each Zone shifts between the first and second Acts: Angel Island catches fire, the power goes out in Carnival Night, the magma cools in Lava Reef, etc, all complete with melodic progressions as the composition shifts from the first to the second Act's version of the music. But there are things baked into the levels, too, like the slopes of Marble Garden, the jets and hydroplaning in Hydrocity, the turns and outdoor segments of Flying Battery, the ghost chase in Sandopolis, etc... So many things that naturally invite the player to explore and experiment with the game's physics systems, so many things smartly built into the makeup of the worlds. I'd argue that the mobius strips and loop-de-loops that characterize key moments of Sonic 1 and 2 felt like they were shoehorned into the levels (I'll be honest, the loops in Green Hill look unnatural to me), while everything in S3&K feels like something that might incidentally exist within the parameters of this world, gleefully being subverted by Sonic & friends. I really do love just about every set piece here.
...and, yes, I include in that the infamous drums in Carnival Night. I don't think I had issues figuring those out? What, kids in the early 90s never thought to pump the D-Pad up and down on their own?
Another show of confidence is the expansion of playable characters. Tails now has a fully expanded moveset, with his flight being naturally integrated into level design (and something that translates into swimming! The animation of him paddling is adorable). Knuckles becomes playable with Sonic & Knuckles, presenting a slower but more exploration-oriented approach to levels. Not to be outdone, Sonic gets access to the Insta-Shield (which I never really experimented with, admittedly), plus those nifty elemental shields' secondary functions. Having a full 4 different ways to play the game adds a ton of replayability to the experience, particularly since the routes themselves through the game change bit by bit. Tails is good for cutting your teeth on the game (though good luck with that Marble Garden boss), Sonic solo/Sonic & Tails represent a standard run, and Knux is sort of a bonus round.
And those bonus stages, though! Not content with the standard 1 Special Stage archetype, the team ultimately wedged FOUR of them suckers in here! Even my least-favorite of these, the glowy sphere one, is a solid enough time. But, like, Blue Sphere? Hoh baby, I love love love Blue Sphere. Finally, a bonus stage that represents a completely different challenge from the usual cadence of 2D Sonic gameplay but derives its difficulty from the same sort of speed and careful planning that high-level Sonic play asks for. I love that feeling of slowly-building panic I get as the game speed picks up, and I try to track down whichever Blue Spheres I've missed. It's a completely fair game, one that has lots of regular means of optimization - not just route-planning overall, but also that question of how best to turn each grid of Blue Spheres into Rings. And the music builds and builds and grows faster and faster with each loop, and... man! I love love love it. And I love that there are over ONE HUNDRED MILLION different variations! Yeah, I know they're semi-randomly generated, but still!
It's genuinely hard for me to find things to complain about with Sonic 3 & Knuckles. If I had to complain, I guess I don't love Mushroom Hill? It makes sense if you're playing Sonic & Knuckles alone, but in the context of a combined game, it feels like a second Green Hill wedged into the game's midpoint. There's also something to Sonic & Knuckles that makes it feel way shorter than Sonic 3, even though the two halves have roughly the same amount of stages. Maybe it's that the Special Rings go away after Lava Reef, so playing after that without all Chaos/Super Emeralds feels like an extended failed run? Um... I sorta think Sonic 3 ends on a weird place, like it's pretty obvious that Launch Base is a fake final level in retrospect, with Big Arm cobbled together as something that can approximate a final boss...
Oh, actually, speaking of Launch Base - I think it's a bit mean to have the timer running for that extended sequence where Sonic and/or Tails rides an Egg Mobile over to the bottom of the Death Egg. I got screwed over in an early run at that point, clearing the Ball Shooter with like 9:30 on the clock. I had to slooooooowly run out the rest of my lives with Time Over after Time Over, trying fruitlessly to see the cutscene through. In retrospect it's a minor thing, but it was pretty annoying at the time!
Most of the time, when Sonic does throwbacks to its Genesis roots, it does so specifically to Sonics 1 and 2. There are a number of reasons for this - the first entry tends to win out with these sorts of throwbacks, Sonic Team was more heavily involved with those games, Spin Dash was introduced in Sonic 2, Sonic 3 proved to be less of an evolutionary throughline for the series, Developer SEGA Technical Institute was kind of an internal punching bag, etc etc etc. I get it, but there's a part of me that qualifies how good a Sonic game is based entirely around if its throwbacks harken to Sonic 2 or 3. Sonic Heroes, Sonic Rush, Sonic 4? Bah! Sonic Mania? Now THAT'S where it's at. This is reductivist, of course, but I mention it mostly to represent how GOOD I think S3&K is. If Donkey Kong Country is a series that unquestionably hit its stride in 2 and spent its third title with lower-stakes experiments, Sonic the Hedgehog is a series that hit its stride in 2, then redoubled its pace and really hit its stride in 3 & Knuckles.
...of course, a big part of that was that Sonic 3 is the first game in the series to have a proper save feature, so when I was inevitably bad at the video game, it was easy to pick up the pieces and try again. I actually had a slightly harder time getting into the Sonic & Knuckles half for precisely that reason; yeah, it's more Sonic 3 goodness, but no save meant I had to start over at dumb ol' Mushroom Hill when I doofed up.
Save feature or no, though - both halves of Sonic 3 & Knuckles are great games in their own right. If Sonic 2 represented a start of understanding what made Sonic compelling in 2D, Sonic 3 & Knuckles represented full confidence in this knowledge. Levels are huge and expansive, naturally integrating spectacle set pieces with exploration and gameplay mechanics. Of course the most obvious thing is how each Zone shifts between the first and second Acts: Angel Island catches fire, the power goes out in Carnival Night, the magma cools in Lava Reef, etc, all complete with melodic progressions as the composition shifts from the first to the second Act's version of the music. But there are things baked into the levels, too, like the slopes of Marble Garden, the jets and hydroplaning in Hydrocity, the turns and outdoor segments of Flying Battery, the ghost chase in Sandopolis, etc... So many things that naturally invite the player to explore and experiment with the game's physics systems, so many things smartly built into the makeup of the worlds. I'd argue that the mobius strips and loop-de-loops that characterize key moments of Sonic 1 and 2 felt like they were shoehorned into the levels (I'll be honest, the loops in Green Hill look unnatural to me), while everything in S3&K feels like something that might incidentally exist within the parameters of this world, gleefully being subverted by Sonic & friends. I really do love just about every set piece here.
...and, yes, I include in that the infamous drums in Carnival Night. I don't think I had issues figuring those out? What, kids in the early 90s never thought to pump the D-Pad up and down on their own?
Another show of confidence is the expansion of playable characters. Tails now has a fully expanded moveset, with his flight being naturally integrated into level design (and something that translates into swimming! The animation of him paddling is adorable). Knuckles becomes playable with Sonic & Knuckles, presenting a slower but more exploration-oriented approach to levels. Not to be outdone, Sonic gets access to the Insta-Shield (which I never really experimented with, admittedly), plus those nifty elemental shields' secondary functions. Having a full 4 different ways to play the game adds a ton of replayability to the experience, particularly since the routes themselves through the game change bit by bit. Tails is good for cutting your teeth on the game (though good luck with that Marble Garden boss), Sonic solo/Sonic & Tails represent a standard run, and Knux is sort of a bonus round.
And those bonus stages, though! Not content with the standard 1 Special Stage archetype, the team ultimately wedged FOUR of them suckers in here! Even my least-favorite of these, the glowy sphere one, is a solid enough time. But, like, Blue Sphere? Hoh baby, I love love love Blue Sphere. Finally, a bonus stage that represents a completely different challenge from the usual cadence of 2D Sonic gameplay but derives its difficulty from the same sort of speed and careful planning that high-level Sonic play asks for. I love that feeling of slowly-building panic I get as the game speed picks up, and I try to track down whichever Blue Spheres I've missed. It's a completely fair game, one that has lots of regular means of optimization - not just route-planning overall, but also that question of how best to turn each grid of Blue Spheres into Rings. And the music builds and builds and grows faster and faster with each loop, and... man! I love love love it. And I love that there are over ONE HUNDRED MILLION different variations! Yeah, I know they're semi-randomly generated, but still!
It's genuinely hard for me to find things to complain about with Sonic 3 & Knuckles. If I had to complain, I guess I don't love Mushroom Hill? It makes sense if you're playing Sonic & Knuckles alone, but in the context of a combined game, it feels like a second Green Hill wedged into the game's midpoint. There's also something to Sonic & Knuckles that makes it feel way shorter than Sonic 3, even though the two halves have roughly the same amount of stages. Maybe it's that the Special Rings go away after Lava Reef, so playing after that without all Chaos/Super Emeralds feels like an extended failed run? Um... I sorta think Sonic 3 ends on a weird place, like it's pretty obvious that Launch Base is a fake final level in retrospect, with Big Arm cobbled together as something that can approximate a final boss...
Oh, actually, speaking of Launch Base - I think it's a bit mean to have the timer running for that extended sequence where Sonic and/or Tails rides an Egg Mobile over to the bottom of the Death Egg. I got screwed over in an early run at that point, clearing the Ball Shooter with like 9:30 on the clock. I had to slooooooowly run out the rest of my lives with Time Over after Time Over, trying fruitlessly to see the cutscene through. In retrospect it's a minor thing, but it was pretty annoying at the time!
Most of the time, when Sonic does throwbacks to its Genesis roots, it does so specifically to Sonics 1 and 2. There are a number of reasons for this - the first entry tends to win out with these sorts of throwbacks, Sonic Team was more heavily involved with those games, Spin Dash was introduced in Sonic 2, Sonic 3 proved to be less of an evolutionary throughline for the series, Developer SEGA Technical Institute was kind of an internal punching bag, etc etc etc. I get it, but there's a part of me that qualifies how good a Sonic game is based entirely around if its throwbacks harken to Sonic 2 or 3. Sonic Heroes, Sonic Rush, Sonic 4? Bah! Sonic Mania? Now THAT'S where it's at. This is reductivist, of course, but I mention it mostly to represent how GOOD I think S3&K is. If Donkey Kong Country is a series that unquestionably hit its stride in 2 and spent its third title with lower-stakes experiments, Sonic the Hedgehog is a series that hit its stride in 2, then redoubled its pace and really hit its stride in 3 & Knuckles.
2020
People are tepid-at-best on this one? Man, I had a great time with it.
Playing this as my first foray into the series definitely felt like I was missing something. You can sorta infer what you missed through pop culture osmosis (I think most folks who pick up Battletoads these days will know what Turbo Tunnel is), but I know that a couple of the levels and remixes benefit from having experience with the NES game and knowing what a particular sequence is supposed to be referencing. Still, this had just come out, and a 3-player co-op game was perfect for my friends at Designing For and me to play on-stream (you can watch our playthrough here).
Battletoads is sort of a beat-em up. I mean, that's definitely the main hook, with the belt-scroller levels and the arenas and the big movesets with supers and such, but that's really only about half of what you're doing over the course of the game. Sometimes you're doing Turbo Tunnel, sometimes you're playing Toadshambo, sometimes you're participating in a decathlon... the game likes to switch things up, mostly because it can, and it's grown bored of whatever the hell else it was doing. Makes for a great party game, honestly, when it keeps you guessing on what it's gonna throw your way next.
And it's not pulling punches, either! When it's a platformer, it's kind of dickish. When it's Turbo Tunnel, it's unapologetically brutal. There's embarrassing footage of me screaming in unbridled fury at one point, grinding out a particular late-game sequence. I... sort of love the game for that? Please, by all means, make me work for it. You're a Battletoads, game, you have a reputation to uphold.
Dlala definitely had a ton of fun writing this, too. I think the art style - which I'm starting to see is Dlala's signature touch, first and foremost, if Disney Illusion Island is anything to go by - does a lot for these characters and this world. Yes, the Dark Queen is unrecognizably different, and yes, I'd probably miss the old design if I knew that one better. But I kinda like this take on her? Especially her being a bit older and kinda put-upon, surrounded by these three crazy brothers ("Are we brothers? We don't really talk about it!"). Surprised that my favorite takeaway character was Pimple and his comparative gentle calm, contrasted with Zitz and Rash-rash-rashrash. All are fun all the same (though I could've done without seeing Zitz in a diaper).
I dunno, if you have exactly two friends who are down to clown and a ton of time to grind stuff out, I kinda think this is a pretty great time. Try not to be disappointed when the game decides it doesn't want to be a dedicated beat-em up, and just enjoy the ride.
Playing this as my first foray into the series definitely felt like I was missing something. You can sorta infer what you missed through pop culture osmosis (I think most folks who pick up Battletoads these days will know what Turbo Tunnel is), but I know that a couple of the levels and remixes benefit from having experience with the NES game and knowing what a particular sequence is supposed to be referencing. Still, this had just come out, and a 3-player co-op game was perfect for my friends at Designing For and me to play on-stream (you can watch our playthrough here).
Battletoads is sort of a beat-em up. I mean, that's definitely the main hook, with the belt-scroller levels and the arenas and the big movesets with supers and such, but that's really only about half of what you're doing over the course of the game. Sometimes you're doing Turbo Tunnel, sometimes you're playing Toadshambo, sometimes you're participating in a decathlon... the game likes to switch things up, mostly because it can, and it's grown bored of whatever the hell else it was doing. Makes for a great party game, honestly, when it keeps you guessing on what it's gonna throw your way next.
And it's not pulling punches, either! When it's a platformer, it's kind of dickish. When it's Turbo Tunnel, it's unapologetically brutal. There's embarrassing footage of me screaming in unbridled fury at one point, grinding out a particular late-game sequence. I... sort of love the game for that? Please, by all means, make me work for it. You're a Battletoads, game, you have a reputation to uphold.
Dlala definitely had a ton of fun writing this, too. I think the art style - which I'm starting to see is Dlala's signature touch, first and foremost, if Disney Illusion Island is anything to go by - does a lot for these characters and this world. Yes, the Dark Queen is unrecognizably different, and yes, I'd probably miss the old design if I knew that one better. But I kinda like this take on her? Especially her being a bit older and kinda put-upon, surrounded by these three crazy brothers ("Are we brothers? We don't really talk about it!"). Surprised that my favorite takeaway character was Pimple and his comparative gentle calm, contrasted with Zitz and Rash-rash-rashrash. All are fun all the same (though I could've done without seeing Zitz in a diaper).
I dunno, if you have exactly two friends who are down to clown and a ton of time to grind stuff out, I kinda think this is a pretty great time. Try not to be disappointed when the game decides it doesn't want to be a dedicated beat-em up, and just enjoy the ride.
My last Mario RPG for ages was Super Paper Mario (I didn't like Partners in Time, so after Super Paper, I just had no interest in pursuing later MaRPGios), so this was a chance to see what I'd been missing. Origami King had just come out, and I'd been inundated with discourse surrounding Sticker Star for years, but I actually knew little of what to expect for Color Splash. More of what people disliked about Sticker Star?
Well... probably... but I do think it's a fine enough game on its own.
The main thing is that you basically have to treat Paper Mario before and after Sticker Star as different series. A shared aesthetic lineage, to be sure, but the goals of each sub-sub-series is so different as to be incomparable. Color Splash has no interest in matching the world-building of Paper Mario, the scope of Thousand Year Door, or the tragedy of Super Paper; it just wants to be a silly series of incidental adventures with some Mario characters. And that's perfectly fine! I don't need every game to be a deceptively expansive RPG or anything like that. Simple li'l adventurey deckbuilders are okay, too.
Not that combat is especially interesting. Deckbuilding at least naturally encourages the player to experiment with the standard cards, but there really aren't too many, and you're likely to settle into something after a while. The ridiculously-named "Things" are the main bit of spice, essentially being one-off summons. They're... I guess it's cute how they change things up, but being one-and-done, it's hard to get real jazzed up about experimenting with them, especially knowing that some puzzles and some fights require some of the Things, and it's not always telegraphed what you'll need. You can at least grind 'em out if you need one you already used, but, like... was this really the easiest way to handle this mechanic?
Nah, you're definitely mostly here for the scenarios and writing. And there's a good deal of variety there! To name a few, there's a pirate adventure, a [muffled Shy Guy voice] BATTLE ROYALE, a Metal Gear Solid-esque infiltration sequence, a cooking challenge... to my knowledge, this is even the first Mario game to have the dubious honor of a Hot Springs Episode. Not to bring up a tired conversation point, but would this all be better with distinct Paper Mario OCs? Perhaps, but I'd argue that it's more effective in some ways to have some no-name Shy Guy randomly confide in Mario his own existentialist ennui. Anyway, it's fun to see how this game develops established supporting members of the Mario cast. Being a former Lemmy's Land Tourist, I'll frankly take any characterization I can for the Koopalings. And Birdo's reinvention as a lounge singer just... feels right for her. Definitely my current headcanon for her day job.
Also, without giving it away - the Green Power Plant was such a cool surprise. Holy moly.
My main emotional takeaway from this game is that it ended at precisely the right time. I had a lot of fun with its scenarios, and its mechanics were enough to lead me through them, but I think any longer - even one or two more stages - and the game would've worn out its welcome. Maybe that's a sign that tracking down each and every one of those Toads was a bit much? Whatever the case, while I definitely am more of a fan of the original Paper Mario series, this at least showed me that modern Paper Mario has its own merits. Solid enough time.
P.S., Thank you for remembering the Super Mario Land Staff Roll theme existed, game.
P.P.S., Another entry for the "when the hell else will I be able to recount this" list. This was my first regular livestreamed game for Designing For (viewable here), following our experiment with Live-A-Live. I didn't already own it, so I ordered a physical copy off GameStop's website (since I generally prefer physical media as a rule). I was confused when the disc wouldn't work on my Wii U, like the console simply couldn't read the disc. I had to check over and over again before I finally caught it - inexplicably, I'd received the German copy of the game in the mail from GameStop, and my Wii U was region-locked. I actually did try looking for a copy at physical stores (while observing social distancing, this being in the middle of COVID), but I ultimately just bought the game digitally off Wii U eShop. Still own that German copy, tho.
Well... probably... but I do think it's a fine enough game on its own.
The main thing is that you basically have to treat Paper Mario before and after Sticker Star as different series. A shared aesthetic lineage, to be sure, but the goals of each sub-sub-series is so different as to be incomparable. Color Splash has no interest in matching the world-building of Paper Mario, the scope of Thousand Year Door, or the tragedy of Super Paper; it just wants to be a silly series of incidental adventures with some Mario characters. And that's perfectly fine! I don't need every game to be a deceptively expansive RPG or anything like that. Simple li'l adventurey deckbuilders are okay, too.
Not that combat is especially interesting. Deckbuilding at least naturally encourages the player to experiment with the standard cards, but there really aren't too many, and you're likely to settle into something after a while. The ridiculously-named "Things" are the main bit of spice, essentially being one-off summons. They're... I guess it's cute how they change things up, but being one-and-done, it's hard to get real jazzed up about experimenting with them, especially knowing that some puzzles and some fights require some of the Things, and it's not always telegraphed what you'll need. You can at least grind 'em out if you need one you already used, but, like... was this really the easiest way to handle this mechanic?
Nah, you're definitely mostly here for the scenarios and writing. And there's a good deal of variety there! To name a few, there's a pirate adventure, a [muffled Shy Guy voice] BATTLE ROYALE, a Metal Gear Solid-esque infiltration sequence, a cooking challenge... to my knowledge, this is even the first Mario game to have the dubious honor of a Hot Springs Episode. Not to bring up a tired conversation point, but would this all be better with distinct Paper Mario OCs? Perhaps, but I'd argue that it's more effective in some ways to have some no-name Shy Guy randomly confide in Mario his own existentialist ennui. Anyway, it's fun to see how this game develops established supporting members of the Mario cast. Being a former Lemmy's Land Tourist, I'll frankly take any characterization I can for the Koopalings. And Birdo's reinvention as a lounge singer just... feels right for her. Definitely my current headcanon for her day job.
Also, without giving it away - the Green Power Plant was such a cool surprise. Holy moly.
My main emotional takeaway from this game is that it ended at precisely the right time. I had a lot of fun with its scenarios, and its mechanics were enough to lead me through them, but I think any longer - even one or two more stages - and the game would've worn out its welcome. Maybe that's a sign that tracking down each and every one of those Toads was a bit much? Whatever the case, while I definitely am more of a fan of the original Paper Mario series, this at least showed me that modern Paper Mario has its own merits. Solid enough time.
P.S., Thank you for remembering the Super Mario Land Staff Roll theme existed, game.
P.P.S., Another entry for the "when the hell else will I be able to recount this" list. This was my first regular livestreamed game for Designing For (viewable here), following our experiment with Live-A-Live. I didn't already own it, so I ordered a physical copy off GameStop's website (since I generally prefer physical media as a rule). I was confused when the disc wouldn't work on my Wii U, like the console simply couldn't read the disc. I had to check over and over again before I finally caught it - inexplicably, I'd received the German copy of the game in the mail from GameStop, and my Wii U was region-locked. I actually did try looking for a copy at physical stores (while observing social distancing, this being in the middle of COVID), but I ultimately just bought the game digitally off Wii U eShop. Still own that German copy, tho.
I don't think it's any surprise to call Phoenix Wright a great game, and Ace Attorney by large a great series. Gripping mystery series, fantastic writing, terrific characters (there isn't a single major character I don't love here), great music, super fun gameplay... a lot of Ace Attorney, and the first game in particular, are easy recommendations from me.
The first game probably ends up being my second favorite in the series overall. In some respects it feels the most "average" experience you'll have with the series, with a great early finale in "Turnabout Goodbyes" and no real clunker cases ("Turnabout Samurai" runs a little long, but I can't hate Wendy Oldbag and Sal Manella). The offset is how simple it is, with "The First Turnabout" and "Turnabout Sisters" resolving themselves so quickly. Not surprising, since they're introductory cases, and later games have little need for that sort of thing by contrast. If anything, it's all the better for the series to start on such an approachable tone. It's made the series super super easy for me to introduce to people, be they casual gamers or (in the case of this replay - my third time through the game) a friend group of experienced gamers.
"Rise from the Ashes" tends to be pretty divisive, being both a radical gameplay shift (incorporating mechanics from the then-in-planning Apollo Justice - remember that the first four cases represented the original GBA release, and Cacpcom wanted to throw in something extra to help justify the DS port) and far and away the longest case in the series. I think the game would've benefitted greatly from labelling it a bonus episode or something, since that's really what it is, as much as an attempt is made to neatly slot it into the themes and timeline of the first game. I also definitely fall into the camp of calling "Rise from the Ashes" pretty great, essentially being an entire Ace Attorney 1½ snuck into the scope of a single episode. Sort-of why I'm not completely opposed to it occasionally being paid DLC in later releases/compilations, since I think that at least better conveys the intent of the case. Plus, hey, this has to be a contender for one of the best breakdowns in the series.
Case rating, I probably go 4 > 5 > 2 > 1 > 3, with none bad and 3 being a'ight at worst.
NOTE - I wrote this misremembering that I'd played this myself back in 2017, only confirming in my notes afterwards that I'd only watched a friend play it at that time. As a rule, I only log stuff on Backloggd if I have a confirmed or approximate date to represent a playthrough, which is why I mostly focus on games I (re)played after 2015 (the year I started recording dates for my video game playthroughs). I didn't want this write-up to go to waste, and I've played through the game twice on my own, so I just took my best guess on a date here.
The first game probably ends up being my second favorite in the series overall. In some respects it feels the most "average" experience you'll have with the series, with a great early finale in "Turnabout Goodbyes" and no real clunker cases ("Turnabout Samurai" runs a little long, but I can't hate Wendy Oldbag and Sal Manella). The offset is how simple it is, with "The First Turnabout" and "Turnabout Sisters" resolving themselves so quickly. Not surprising, since they're introductory cases, and later games have little need for that sort of thing by contrast. If anything, it's all the better for the series to start on such an approachable tone. It's made the series super super easy for me to introduce to people, be they casual gamers or (in the case of this replay - my third time through the game) a friend group of experienced gamers.
"Rise from the Ashes" tends to be pretty divisive, being both a radical gameplay shift (incorporating mechanics from the then-in-planning Apollo Justice - remember that the first four cases represented the original GBA release, and Cacpcom wanted to throw in something extra to help justify the DS port) and far and away the longest case in the series. I think the game would've benefitted greatly from labelling it a bonus episode or something, since that's really what it is, as much as an attempt is made to neatly slot it into the themes and timeline of the first game. I also definitely fall into the camp of calling "Rise from the Ashes" pretty great, essentially being an entire Ace Attorney 1½ snuck into the scope of a single episode. Sort-of why I'm not completely opposed to it occasionally being paid DLC in later releases/compilations, since I think that at least better conveys the intent of the case. Plus, hey, this has to be a contender for one of the best breakdowns in the series.
Case rating, I probably go 4 > 5 > 2 > 1 > 3, with none bad and 3 being a'ight at worst.
NOTE - I wrote this misremembering that I'd played this myself back in 2017, only confirming in my notes afterwards that I'd only watched a friend play it at that time. As a rule, I only log stuff on Backloggd if I have a confirmed or approximate date to represent a playthrough, which is why I mostly focus on games I (re)played after 2015 (the year I started recording dates for my video game playthroughs). I didn't want this write-up to go to waste, and I've played through the game twice on my own, so I just took my best guess on a date here.
This review contains spoilers
These write-ups will fill out a lot more as the series goes along, but the first game just gets a quick write-up because it's been a while. Also because the first Uncharted is easily the worst (depending on how you qualify Golden Abyss).
Not a bad time, though, just rough compared to what the series would become. You can see the hallmarks of what would make the series so strong here: its character dynamics, its set pieces, its natural flow from jumpy-climby stuff to cover shooter stuff, etc. But I do feel like there's something missing yet. Nate and Sully have an instantly fun dynamic, but we don't get to spend nearly enough downtime with them to really feel their connection. Elena needs the second game to really tease out the extent of her relationship with Nate, but the start's there. The set pieces are great conceptually - the long-lost U-Boat in the middle of the Amazon is certainly striking - but it's rare for the game's spectacle to be used in a way that shakes up the gameplay experience. The search for El Dorado is a great high-concept, but I feel like the game's too quick to let Nate and Sully find SOMEthing.
I do sorta miss the focus this game has on its supernatural twist, given how supernatural elements get de-emphasized as the series progresses. I feel like it's almost genre work, so not having it in later games is a bit odd to me. ...at the same time, "zombies" is perhaps a bit too off-beat. I know it's a super-virus that's been sealed away forever blah blah blah - I dunno, I'd think that the virus would've gone extinct in the time between the Nazis showing up and Nate et al. showing up. Never mind the idea that the infected Spaniards could still be running around after 400 years, or that the preserved corpse would still be a vector. Ah, well.
Also, lobbing grenades with the Six-Axis motion controls is poopy. I get why it's there, Uncharted being so early in the PS3's life cycle, but still. Definitely glad later games moved away from it.
It's a modest start to what would become a great series. In a way, that's sort of perfect, given how much import the series places on the Sir Francis Drake motto "Greatness from Small Beginnings". But don't be too thrown if you don't love this game. This one's the stepping stone.
Not a bad time, though, just rough compared to what the series would become. You can see the hallmarks of what would make the series so strong here: its character dynamics, its set pieces, its natural flow from jumpy-climby stuff to cover shooter stuff, etc. But I do feel like there's something missing yet. Nate and Sully have an instantly fun dynamic, but we don't get to spend nearly enough downtime with them to really feel their connection. Elena needs the second game to really tease out the extent of her relationship with Nate, but the start's there. The set pieces are great conceptually - the long-lost U-Boat in the middle of the Amazon is certainly striking - but it's rare for the game's spectacle to be used in a way that shakes up the gameplay experience. The search for El Dorado is a great high-concept, but I feel like the game's too quick to let Nate and Sully find SOMEthing.
I do sorta miss the focus this game has on its supernatural twist, given how supernatural elements get de-emphasized as the series progresses. I feel like it's almost genre work, so not having it in later games is a bit odd to me. ...at the same time, "zombies" is perhaps a bit too off-beat. I know it's a super-virus that's been sealed away forever blah blah blah - I dunno, I'd think that the virus would've gone extinct in the time between the Nazis showing up and Nate et al. showing up. Never mind the idea that the infected Spaniards could still be running around after 400 years, or that the preserved corpse would still be a vector. Ah, well.
Also, lobbing grenades with the Six-Axis motion controls is poopy. I get why it's there, Uncharted being so early in the PS3's life cycle, but still. Definitely glad later games moved away from it.
It's a modest start to what would become a great series. In a way, that's sort of perfect, given how much import the series places on the Sir Francis Drake motto "Greatness from Small Beginnings". But don't be too thrown if you don't love this game. This one's the stepping stone.
Maybe silly to admit, but the start of COVID saw me shotgun a bunch of extremely disposable licensed games that had nevertheless been on my to-do list for years. I realized that I was gonna be home a lot, and I decided that I was gonna need a lot of light entertainment to buck me up. Do keep in mind that I was playing a lot of these around re-listening to Larry Correia's Monster Hunter International (a favorite comfort series), so you sorta have to imagine me playing these while listening to ultra-violent urban fantasy to get the full effect of my early pandemic experience. I suspect a lot of folks have similarly weird tonal clashes like this in the media they consumed around that time, for one reason or another (see also: all those memes about Isabelle and Doomguy being best friends).
Anyway, Land Before Time. This was sort of a weird one to play, because while I watched the first like six or so as a kid, I haven't directly revisited any of the movies in decades. Also, because this game is kind of nothing, and I don't think I would've gotten much out of it even when I was a kid. There's something kind of hollow and lifeless to a game that is just a footrace. No modifiers, few obstacles, no significant strategy - just pick a character and go. At least in something like Sonic R, you have the fun soundtrack and the novelty of what the game is exactly. Great Valley Racing Adventure just feels like a small set of Crash Bandicoot levels without the crates to crash into. An inoffensive but perfectly bland experience, in other words.
I dunno, is there something else I can randomly bring up to pad out this write-up? There's genuinely so little to this game that there isn't much to say.
Anyway, Land Before Time. This was sort of a weird one to play, because while I watched the first like six or so as a kid, I haven't directly revisited any of the movies in decades. Also, because this game is kind of nothing, and I don't think I would've gotten much out of it even when I was a kid. There's something kind of hollow and lifeless to a game that is just a footrace. No modifiers, few obstacles, no significant strategy - just pick a character and go. At least in something like Sonic R, you have the fun soundtrack and the novelty of what the game is exactly. Great Valley Racing Adventure just feels like a small set of Crash Bandicoot levels without the crates to crash into. An inoffensive but perfectly bland experience, in other words.
I dunno, is there something else I can randomly bring up to pad out this write-up? There's genuinely so little to this game that there isn't much to say.
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.