MelMellon
1995
Listen this game is bad but in an endearing sort of way. I take 1/3rd of health from enemy collision and go "haha oopsie!". I destroy Bilzzard Buffalo's thought processing capabilities by jumping in place in front of him and I'm just smiling through it.
But for real the weapons and music and enemy design are actually pretty fun its just coated in a huge layer of crust
But for real the weapons and music and enemy design are actually pretty fun its just coated in a huge layer of crust
1993
Amazing that with even his positive videos Egoraptor ruined a generation of game criticism by implying that the intro stage is on any level fun to play
2005
After discovering Hotel Dusk, I like many others became enamored by the mystique surrounding its developer, Cing: A tiny team that brought the absolute most out of both the DS and Wii, made 4 Nintendo-published games, and despite that died less than 10 years after being founded.
Out of those 4 games, Hotel Dusk is definitely the most well known, and I absolutely fell in love with it. Beyond the fascinating hardware uses and overall presentation, it was the mood and overall pacing of its story that captivated me. A game relishing in the mundane. Games like Shenmue and No More Heroes captivate me with how they use those chunks of silent, "uninteresting" gameplay to both further enhance the more exciting moments and immerse you more in their everyday worlds. Even Ace Attorney does it in a sense with its investigations.
Long story short: I wanted more Hotel Dusk and decided to try out Cing's first ever Nintendo-published game. And to make another long story short, whilst it definitely shows more rough edges and lack of focus compared to Hotel Dusk, the game's heart is still in the right place.
Its a quirky little game: The textboxes look right out of a flash game, the mouth movements can look flat-out creepy if you pay enough attention to them, and unlike Hotel Dusk most puzzles are moreso there to just...be puzzles, rather than have much of anything to do with the world. Its set up sort of similarly to old-school Resident Evil in that way, I guess. You get a mansion with an assortment of rooms and need to decode how to progress further into the house: Solving a puzzle in the living room gives you a key to a drawer in the office, et cetera.
What really made me draw the Resident Evil connection is the abundance of lore-nuggets sprinkled about: It uses its premise of having two characters with memory issues to let the player ponder over two mysteries at once. Its a neat way to handle the story over its short runtime. Outside of solving that mystery the story isn't all that special on paper, and honestly I mostly played this game as preparation to eventually be able to play Another Code R on Wii.
Yet even in those 5 little hours and all that crust you can definitely feel the Cing spirit here. The atmosphere of Blood Edward Island in general is fantastic, arguably better than Hotel Dusk, due both to the surprisingly large soundtrack as well as the absolutely brilliant use of the two-screen setups. Its straight-up one of the best Adventure game UI's I've ever used, having a 3D-modelled world on one screen as well as 2D stills of the island's most captivating viewpoints on the other. When paired with the music, it creates a kind of immersion I haven't really felt in any other game, and am sad to realize will probably never be seen in any future games given the 3DS' discontinuation. It really does help sell this abandoned mansion's eerieness to both be able to see it at large and see its more detailed spots at the same time.
What also helps with this is that, for as simple as the story is on the whole and as cutesy as the premise seems (A 14 year old goes investigating with her ghost best friend!!), it touches on some surprisingly dark yet very real subjects, with Ashley reacting accordingly. The writer of all four Cing games, Rika Suzuki, has always emphasized that Another Code is specifically about Ashley's mental state first and foremost, and I feel like these moments of discussing betrayal, suicide, abandonment and grief really tie the game together nicely. But really, what'll drive you through the game is its story and atmosphere, alongside the curiousity of how it'll use the DS hardware next.
With its puzzles feeling so deliberately designed to be "DS gimmicks" compared to the more grounded Hotel Dusk puzzles, it end up feeling somewhat self-aware in a really fun way, like "ooh yeah this puzzle is really clever of us", and you yourself cant do anything but go "yeahh youre right", even when they as puzzles are often not anything special. A lot of the time I'd even argue they're too cryptic for their own good.
The story at large is also like a puzzle in of itself, but with its aforementioned short runtime and constant new little pieces uncovered, alongside just generally pretty sweet little character moments, its very fun to just follow along with. Weird, grounded, silly, ominous, crusty, atmospheric: Another Code is most definitely able to be a lot of things in its runtime. At the end of the day I am still very glad I took the time to play it, if only for the memories it gave me.
Playtime: 5 hours
Key Word: Novelty
Out of those 4 games, Hotel Dusk is definitely the most well known, and I absolutely fell in love with it. Beyond the fascinating hardware uses and overall presentation, it was the mood and overall pacing of its story that captivated me. A game relishing in the mundane. Games like Shenmue and No More Heroes captivate me with how they use those chunks of silent, "uninteresting" gameplay to both further enhance the more exciting moments and immerse you more in their everyday worlds. Even Ace Attorney does it in a sense with its investigations.
Long story short: I wanted more Hotel Dusk and decided to try out Cing's first ever Nintendo-published game. And to make another long story short, whilst it definitely shows more rough edges and lack of focus compared to Hotel Dusk, the game's heart is still in the right place.
Its a quirky little game: The textboxes look right out of a flash game, the mouth movements can look flat-out creepy if you pay enough attention to them, and unlike Hotel Dusk most puzzles are moreso there to just...be puzzles, rather than have much of anything to do with the world. Its set up sort of similarly to old-school Resident Evil in that way, I guess. You get a mansion with an assortment of rooms and need to decode how to progress further into the house: Solving a puzzle in the living room gives you a key to a drawer in the office, et cetera.
What really made me draw the Resident Evil connection is the abundance of lore-nuggets sprinkled about: It uses its premise of having two characters with memory issues to let the player ponder over two mysteries at once. Its a neat way to handle the story over its short runtime. Outside of solving that mystery the story isn't all that special on paper, and honestly I mostly played this game as preparation to eventually be able to play Another Code R on Wii.
Yet even in those 5 little hours and all that crust you can definitely feel the Cing spirit here. The atmosphere of Blood Edward Island in general is fantastic, arguably better than Hotel Dusk, due both to the surprisingly large soundtrack as well as the absolutely brilliant use of the two-screen setups. Its straight-up one of the best Adventure game UI's I've ever used, having a 3D-modelled world on one screen as well as 2D stills of the island's most captivating viewpoints on the other. When paired with the music, it creates a kind of immersion I haven't really felt in any other game, and am sad to realize will probably never be seen in any future games given the 3DS' discontinuation. It really does help sell this abandoned mansion's eerieness to both be able to see it at large and see its more detailed spots at the same time.
What also helps with this is that, for as simple as the story is on the whole and as cutesy as the premise seems (A 14 year old goes investigating with her ghost best friend!!), it touches on some surprisingly dark yet very real subjects, with Ashley reacting accordingly. The writer of all four Cing games, Rika Suzuki, has always emphasized that Another Code is specifically about Ashley's mental state first and foremost, and I feel like these moments of discussing betrayal, suicide, abandonment and grief really tie the game together nicely. But really, what'll drive you through the game is its story and atmosphere, alongside the curiousity of how it'll use the DS hardware next.
With its puzzles feeling so deliberately designed to be "DS gimmicks" compared to the more grounded Hotel Dusk puzzles, it end up feeling somewhat self-aware in a really fun way, like "ooh yeah this puzzle is really clever of us", and you yourself cant do anything but go "yeahh youre right", even when they as puzzles are often not anything special. A lot of the time I'd even argue they're too cryptic for their own good.
The story at large is also like a puzzle in of itself, but with its aforementioned short runtime and constant new little pieces uncovered, alongside just generally pretty sweet little character moments, its very fun to just follow along with. Weird, grounded, silly, ominous, crusty, atmospheric: Another Code is most definitely able to be a lot of things in its runtime. At the end of the day I am still very glad I took the time to play it, if only for the memories it gave me.
Playtime: 5 hours
Key Word: Novelty
This was one of the most pleasantly surprising experiences I've ever had finding, buying, playing then beating a game! I went in COMPLETELY unspoiled aside from having played the 3DS Demo and knowing it was sound directed by my beloved Tomoya Ohtani: both of these things left great impressions on me, but I don't think either could've prepared me for the game as a whole.
You can see right from the boxart what this game is about: A story-driven Rhythm game with an immense sense of style and personality. It taps into the energy that games like Professor Layton save for the very end, to instead use for the entire game's runtime.
With every new game I play, pacing ends up being a make-or-break aspect that decides whether or not I finish a game. It was so refreshing to not only play a game with absolutely top-notch pacing, but also one with a genuinely fun story to follow. What I'm getting at is: Just on a game-feel level, these kinds of games don't come often.
And I haven't even discussed the gameplay, which is both where the game shines and falters in the most charming ways possible. Despite being a mostly outsourced game, it channels the feeling of Y2K SEGA through and through: Ambition over polish, emotion over consistency, and a full dedication to whatever silly premise the game is running with. Rhythm games are usually mixed for me, I of course get dopamine from hitting actions to notes but I've always felt like something was missing from the experience. With this, I know now what that something is: Variety and story context both add immensely to the vibe of each Minigame. Are there a few stinkers? For sure, for sure. Mostly the ones using Motion controls, but some of the traditionally-controlled games also suffer from being a bit too ambitious in difficulty. But its hard to care when they're almost always wrapped in a memorable, unique package.
In that way Rhythm Thief is a game better than an analysis of all its aspects could ever tell you. Despite its flaws, its an experience that you can't help but smile through. Raphael, Marie, Charlie, Inspector Vergier and all the side characters are stuck in my head forever now. It shares that in common with the SEGA classics of yore like NiGHTS, Jet Set Radio, Panzer Dragoon, Space Channel 5, Sonic Adventure and Monkey Ball: Weird design choices stop impacting your enjoyment when the confidence and heart on display is just that strong.
Maybe I'm biased toward SEGA's particular brand of jank and an appreciation of over-the-top stories, but Rhythm Thief made me smile in a very earnest, personal way, that very few games have.
That's gotta mean something, right?
[Play time: 20 hours]
[Key word: Birthday]
You can see right from the boxart what this game is about: A story-driven Rhythm game with an immense sense of style and personality. It taps into the energy that games like Professor Layton save for the very end, to instead use for the entire game's runtime.
With every new game I play, pacing ends up being a make-or-break aspect that decides whether or not I finish a game. It was so refreshing to not only play a game with absolutely top-notch pacing, but also one with a genuinely fun story to follow. What I'm getting at is: Just on a game-feel level, these kinds of games don't come often.
And I haven't even discussed the gameplay, which is both where the game shines and falters in the most charming ways possible. Despite being a mostly outsourced game, it channels the feeling of Y2K SEGA through and through: Ambition over polish, emotion over consistency, and a full dedication to whatever silly premise the game is running with. Rhythm games are usually mixed for me, I of course get dopamine from hitting actions to notes but I've always felt like something was missing from the experience. With this, I know now what that something is: Variety and story context both add immensely to the vibe of each Minigame. Are there a few stinkers? For sure, for sure. Mostly the ones using Motion controls, but some of the traditionally-controlled games also suffer from being a bit too ambitious in difficulty. But its hard to care when they're almost always wrapped in a memorable, unique package.
In that way Rhythm Thief is a game better than an analysis of all its aspects could ever tell you. Despite its flaws, its an experience that you can't help but smile through. Raphael, Marie, Charlie, Inspector Vergier and all the side characters are stuck in my head forever now. It shares that in common with the SEGA classics of yore like NiGHTS, Jet Set Radio, Panzer Dragoon, Space Channel 5, Sonic Adventure and Monkey Ball: Weird design choices stop impacting your enjoyment when the confidence and heart on display is just that strong.
Maybe I'm biased toward SEGA's particular brand of jank and an appreciation of over-the-top stories, but Rhythm Thief made me smile in a very earnest, personal way, that very few games have.
That's gotta mean something, right?
[Play time: 20 hours]
[Key word: Birthday]
2017
Been sitting on writing this for a while, over a month now I think. I beat the game with such mixed thoughts that I'm unsure how exactly to formulate them. Its such an uneven yet captivating experience that I don't really know how to approach it.
I'll say this, right off the bat: The game is fun. It has fun characters, it had fun and easy to understand controls, it has fun music: If you want a fun game to relax to, then the game is 100% going to deliver. It oozes charm and you can tell the developers loved piecing it together. But while I can obviously commend the developers' devotion to having fun, the game simultaneously doesn't feel very elegantly thought through. It takes aspects from a variety of different games, old and new, and just kind of...lets them clash. Let me try to explain.
A level like Mafia Town, where you're dropped into, feels taken straight out of a sequel to Mario 64. It feels like the game wants you to snoop around, look for secrets, approach the game in whatever pace you want, like the collectathons of old or even Yooka-Laylee. Yet the game's structure feels like Mario Galaxy through and through. You have one objective, you're shown how to approach it, and you go do it. Point being, there's typically so little reason to explore and yet the game's design, half the time, seems to encourage it above all else.
And yet that isn't even consistent with itself: Dead Bird Studios feels taken straight out of Galaxy 2 with very focused, self-contained missions, and then Subcon Forest right after it feels even MORE open and even MORE aimless than Mafia Town did. Its as if each of the 4 worlds were taken from different games altogether and, playable character aside, are only really loosely connected by the similar sense of humor and writing they have.
Adding onto this confusion, there's stuff like the Hookshot Badge or Time Stop Hat, aping the Mario 64 caps that gate your progression until you obtain them. I already dislike that system in Mario 64 but it at least makes sense: You have an open-ended structure, so by exploring levels you find "keys" to "open" new missions, rewarding you for exploring with things beyond Stars or 100-coin challenges. With A Hat in Time, again, a structurally, seemingly 'linear' game, now asking you to go explore to progress, it feels at odds with itself.
It all feels very...uneven, is what I'm trying to get at. The level quality almost seems to match this as well: Subcon Forest is more or less thoroughly terrible, and then its boss is the best part of the game. Dead Bird Studio is sometimes fantastically paced and laid out, and sometimes just confusing and lacking much of any substance to its challenges.
I know people toss around the term "Style over Substance" a lot as a negative thing, but I feel like this game is one of the cases where I'll try to use it as a compliment. Sure the game has substance, but its messy: Its style and presentation, on the other hand, is sublime. So even when playing through levels that, substance-wise, are mundane (Vanessa's Manor, Picture Perfect, Mafia Town in general), sometimes it feels worth it because its dialogue and sense of humor keeps pushing you forward. Even when the gameplay is mediocre, the game stays fun.
And to reiterate: The base controls are still fun. Despite lacking most of the charm I just mentioned above, the Time Rifts are usually fun regardless due to just being brief, well paced, and infrequent enough to not override the core game's experience. Its in levels like Alpine Skyline, where story and dialogue takes a total backseat to pure gameplay that lasts longer than its able to sustain, where things were most mixed for me. With nothing to hide its design flaws behind, a lot of this level's content felt confusing, mundane and boring. Twilight Bell especially sucks.
Despite earlier praise, there were a lot of aspects of the core controls and gameplay I still found to be really disappointing. Sprint Hat aside the Hats were all really underwhelming, again feeling more like "keys" to "doors" than they did substantial gameplay alterations. I'm not asking for something like Mega Man ZX, where each form has its own strengths and weaknesses, its own tech, its own unique moves and animations and so on, but I was at the least hoping to want to switch to the other hats willingly more often. Really, all it boiled down to was using the Sprint Hat at all times and using the others when the game "required" me to (again: "Keys", like Mario 64 caps).
I feel similarly about the Badges in that most of them don't offer much of anything worth purchasing them for, I mostly just bought them for the hell of it. And when that's the case, the currency kind of loses its meaning, which in turn made exploring the levels lose most if not all of their meaning aside from stitching Hats, which I remind, I only did because the game flat-out requires them rather than because I wanted to.
I hope you're beginning to understand why, despite wanting to love it, I came away from the game feeling extremely befuddled. The baffling 30FPS on consoles and numerous technical issues (clipped through the floor on the final level) didn't exactly help either.
Though I want to clarify that these kinds of, laid-back platformers aren't really my cup of tea to begin with. I enjoy arcadeyness and challenge first and foremost, with Mario Galaxy really being the only exception, mainly due to its very specific brand of atmosphere.
"Atmosphere" isn't exactly what I'd say A Hat in Time has either, and despite its overall "story" feeling extremely half-baked it at least has character in spades. I love all the voice acting, the tone of the humor feels perfect for the game, and the music ties it all together very well. And its not like its ever really "annoying" to get through to see all these great bits, either. The game is really easy all around due to its forgiving yet satisfying controls and the checkpointing feeling so generous it makes me wonder why Hat Kid even has hit points at all. The only times you'll probably ever have issues will be due to the occasionally confusing structure, like trying to figure out where to find the Hookshot or...really where the hell to go in Subcon Forest to begin with (Can you tell I really don't like Subcon Forest at all?)
A Hat in Time is both a comfy, easy-to-love game, and a game that's annoying, unfocused, unchallenging and at times mundane and unfulfilling to play, often feeling like its at odds with itself in what it wants to be. Yet putting up with all of those aspects is worth it for the warmth of its heart.
[Playtime: 40ish Hours]
[Key Word: Endeavour]
I'll say this, right off the bat: The game is fun. It has fun characters, it had fun and easy to understand controls, it has fun music: If you want a fun game to relax to, then the game is 100% going to deliver. It oozes charm and you can tell the developers loved piecing it together. But while I can obviously commend the developers' devotion to having fun, the game simultaneously doesn't feel very elegantly thought through. It takes aspects from a variety of different games, old and new, and just kind of...lets them clash. Let me try to explain.
A level like Mafia Town, where you're dropped into, feels taken straight out of a sequel to Mario 64. It feels like the game wants you to snoop around, look for secrets, approach the game in whatever pace you want, like the collectathons of old or even Yooka-Laylee. Yet the game's structure feels like Mario Galaxy through and through. You have one objective, you're shown how to approach it, and you go do it. Point being, there's typically so little reason to explore and yet the game's design, half the time, seems to encourage it above all else.
And yet that isn't even consistent with itself: Dead Bird Studios feels taken straight out of Galaxy 2 with very focused, self-contained missions, and then Subcon Forest right after it feels even MORE open and even MORE aimless than Mafia Town did. Its as if each of the 4 worlds were taken from different games altogether and, playable character aside, are only really loosely connected by the similar sense of humor and writing they have.
Adding onto this confusion, there's stuff like the Hookshot Badge or Time Stop Hat, aping the Mario 64 caps that gate your progression until you obtain them. I already dislike that system in Mario 64 but it at least makes sense: You have an open-ended structure, so by exploring levels you find "keys" to "open" new missions, rewarding you for exploring with things beyond Stars or 100-coin challenges. With A Hat in Time, again, a structurally, seemingly 'linear' game, now asking you to go explore to progress, it feels at odds with itself.
It all feels very...uneven, is what I'm trying to get at. The level quality almost seems to match this as well: Subcon Forest is more or less thoroughly terrible, and then its boss is the best part of the game. Dead Bird Studio is sometimes fantastically paced and laid out, and sometimes just confusing and lacking much of any substance to its challenges.
I know people toss around the term "Style over Substance" a lot as a negative thing, but I feel like this game is one of the cases where I'll try to use it as a compliment. Sure the game has substance, but its messy: Its style and presentation, on the other hand, is sublime. So even when playing through levels that, substance-wise, are mundane (Vanessa's Manor, Picture Perfect, Mafia Town in general), sometimes it feels worth it because its dialogue and sense of humor keeps pushing you forward. Even when the gameplay is mediocre, the game stays fun.
And to reiterate: The base controls are still fun. Despite lacking most of the charm I just mentioned above, the Time Rifts are usually fun regardless due to just being brief, well paced, and infrequent enough to not override the core game's experience. Its in levels like Alpine Skyline, where story and dialogue takes a total backseat to pure gameplay that lasts longer than its able to sustain, where things were most mixed for me. With nothing to hide its design flaws behind, a lot of this level's content felt confusing, mundane and boring. Twilight Bell especially sucks.
Despite earlier praise, there were a lot of aspects of the core controls and gameplay I still found to be really disappointing. Sprint Hat aside the Hats were all really underwhelming, again feeling more like "keys" to "doors" than they did substantial gameplay alterations. I'm not asking for something like Mega Man ZX, where each form has its own strengths and weaknesses, its own tech, its own unique moves and animations and so on, but I was at the least hoping to want to switch to the other hats willingly more often. Really, all it boiled down to was using the Sprint Hat at all times and using the others when the game "required" me to (again: "Keys", like Mario 64 caps).
I feel similarly about the Badges in that most of them don't offer much of anything worth purchasing them for, I mostly just bought them for the hell of it. And when that's the case, the currency kind of loses its meaning, which in turn made exploring the levels lose most if not all of their meaning aside from stitching Hats, which I remind, I only did because the game flat-out requires them rather than because I wanted to.
I hope you're beginning to understand why, despite wanting to love it, I came away from the game feeling extremely befuddled. The baffling 30FPS on consoles and numerous technical issues (clipped through the floor on the final level) didn't exactly help either.
Though I want to clarify that these kinds of, laid-back platformers aren't really my cup of tea to begin with. I enjoy arcadeyness and challenge first and foremost, with Mario Galaxy really being the only exception, mainly due to its very specific brand of atmosphere.
"Atmosphere" isn't exactly what I'd say A Hat in Time has either, and despite its overall "story" feeling extremely half-baked it at least has character in spades. I love all the voice acting, the tone of the humor feels perfect for the game, and the music ties it all together very well. And its not like its ever really "annoying" to get through to see all these great bits, either. The game is really easy all around due to its forgiving yet satisfying controls and the checkpointing feeling so generous it makes me wonder why Hat Kid even has hit points at all. The only times you'll probably ever have issues will be due to the occasionally confusing structure, like trying to figure out where to find the Hookshot or...really where the hell to go in Subcon Forest to begin with (Can you tell I really don't like Subcon Forest at all?)
A Hat in Time is both a comfy, easy-to-love game, and a game that's annoying, unfocused, unchallenging and at times mundane and unfulfilling to play, often feeling like its at odds with itself in what it wants to be. Yet putting up with all of those aspects is worth it for the warmth of its heart.
[Playtime: 40ish Hours]
[Key Word: Endeavour]
With every Ace Attorney I play, I become more and more aware of just how excellently crafted and set up that first game was with its original four cases. They seem kind of quaint nowadays in terms of scope, but the pacing from case to case was damn near perfect.
A first case introducing characters, relations and game mechanics in a short-and-sweet way.
A second case raising the stakes of the story and setting up things to come, remaining decently tame in solvability.
A third case that introduces somewhat more elaborate schemes whilst also giving you a break from the "main story" with something more zany, in a way helping you swallow the more outlandish murder method. (And also serving as a great opportunity to focus on character dynamics).
And then a fourth case that takes aspects from all of the above and combines them into one climactic final act.
For how tride-and-true the structure seems to be, the only games so far I've played to really follow them are the first two games, arguably Dual Destinies if you merge the second and third into 5-3. With everything else: Trials&Tribulations, Apollo Justice, and indeed the game I'm gonna get to in a second, they've tweaked with this formula a bit. In my opinion its all been to somewhat mixed results, but with some really satisfying highs.
T&Ts changes make it just the right kind of shake-up for a final game in a story arc, but it doesn't feel like it was thought through well enough and leads to a dragged-out middle half. Apollo Justice's opening act is one of the best executed cases in the entire series and earns its far longer length by being genuinely climactic and affecting our characters in a noticeable way, but then the second and third cases are thoroughly mediocre.
All of this is to say that The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures is another one of Takumi's shake-ups to the original structure, likely the biggest one, and while its respectable in its ambition I can't help but feel like it stumbles just like, if not more, than the prior two games in doing so. Now of course all of what I've been talking about has just been pacing and cases: Let me just flat-out say that this game nails almost everything else it sets out to do. I finally do get the appeal and love for these games: The atmosphere of London, Susato and Naruhodo's banter, the music, the Jury system (mostly), the Deductions...Herlock in general! They were all absolutely stellar and it was easy for me to both see and experience why so many people have fallen in love with these games.
Yet everytime I think back to this game, specifically, on its own...it circles back to the story and its pacing, both of which still feel pretty half-baked to me. Don't get me wrong, its not thoroughly rotten or whatever, and Case 3 is one of my new all-time favorites. But then you have Case 1, that feels insanely dragged out despite not really doing anything to earn its length a la AA4. You have Case 2 that pulls a plot-beat that it in my opinion shouldn't have done until far later into the story, is overall mostly boring to play and predictable to watch unfold, and ends on one of the cruelest notes in the series that's just brushed over casually. And then you have Case 4, which is quite possibly the most vapid and pointless case I've ever played in the series. It does nothing to forward any of the characters or raise stakes, it doesn't escalate the possibilities for how cases could be solved like the "typical" third case does...really, it mostly feels like its here for the sake of giving you another Deduction, which comes so early on and is so seemingly unrelated to the case that by the end of it you've pretty much figured out the whole (surprisingly simple) story of what happened.
Case 5 picks things up again as expected yet doesn't really...go anywhere. It takes up some interesting concepts to be sure, has some nice character moments and really funny parts, and parallels Turnabout Goodbyes with your relationship to the defendant. Yet the case itself was so thoroughly bogstandard and simple, with a character you have pretty much zero attachment to or against serving as the big bad antagonist. They did one somewhat-cool thing near the tail end of things involving a side character, but it felt far too late and as if the game could have made Case 2 and 4 build up more smoothly to this moment, rather than have "the core game" basically just be Case 3 and 5.
Character relations in general feel oddly unfinished here and there.
SLIGHT SPOILERS:
-Hosonaga just kind of disappears
-Stronghart doesn't do much other than tell you what to do and be the most predictable villain for the next game I've ever seen (written before playing Great Ace Attorney 2)
-Asogi doesn't get to do much at all before he's out and (unlike Mia) does nothing after that.
And I get that its all for setup to a sequel, and its going to make that sequel a far better game to be sure. But each installment should still be a satisfying package on its own: Those loose threads should look good without being tied up by a separate game. And yeah, it does do a great job of investing me in the universe of these two games, and preparing me for things to come. I love these characters now and I'm already theorizing what all of these loose ends will lead to, but the game on its own, in my opinion needs more than that.
Last note on the pacing: The way there's not a single case with more than one Court or Investigation segment feels extremely bizarre to me, especially given how much it feels like the game's cases could've used more complexity and how Court sections later in the game end up dragging because of it.
Case 3 somewhat makes up for it by making fantastic use of the Examination mechanic, letting you examine the whole crime scene during the trial, but other cases (...4 and 5) feel like they do nothing but suffer from the lack of splitting court sections up properly. It also left me feeling like there wasn't as much investigating as there usually is in the series which, isn't really a complaint per se and Deductions substitute that pretty well, but is just an odd thing to think about considering the game as a whole.
The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures is a weird little game. Simultaneously overachieving yet not doing enough, shaking up the formula yet paralleling past beats, and it has Herlock Sholmes in it.
The result is a game that made me fall in love with The Great Ace Attorney as a whole far more than it did make me fall in love with this first Adventure on its own. And if nothing else, that makes me thoroughly excited to play the sequel.
[Playtime: 30 hours]
[Keyword: Unrealized]
A first case introducing characters, relations and game mechanics in a short-and-sweet way.
A second case raising the stakes of the story and setting up things to come, remaining decently tame in solvability.
A third case that introduces somewhat more elaborate schemes whilst also giving you a break from the "main story" with something more zany, in a way helping you swallow the more outlandish murder method. (And also serving as a great opportunity to focus on character dynamics).
And then a fourth case that takes aspects from all of the above and combines them into one climactic final act.
For how tride-and-true the structure seems to be, the only games so far I've played to really follow them are the first two games, arguably Dual Destinies if you merge the second and third into 5-3. With everything else: Trials&Tribulations, Apollo Justice, and indeed the game I'm gonna get to in a second, they've tweaked with this formula a bit. In my opinion its all been to somewhat mixed results, but with some really satisfying highs.
T&Ts changes make it just the right kind of shake-up for a final game in a story arc, but it doesn't feel like it was thought through well enough and leads to a dragged-out middle half. Apollo Justice's opening act is one of the best executed cases in the entire series and earns its far longer length by being genuinely climactic and affecting our characters in a noticeable way, but then the second and third cases are thoroughly mediocre.
All of this is to say that The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures is another one of Takumi's shake-ups to the original structure, likely the biggest one, and while its respectable in its ambition I can't help but feel like it stumbles just like, if not more, than the prior two games in doing so. Now of course all of what I've been talking about has just been pacing and cases: Let me just flat-out say that this game nails almost everything else it sets out to do. I finally do get the appeal and love for these games: The atmosphere of London, Susato and Naruhodo's banter, the music, the Jury system (mostly), the Deductions...Herlock in general! They were all absolutely stellar and it was easy for me to both see and experience why so many people have fallen in love with these games.
Yet everytime I think back to this game, specifically, on its own...it circles back to the story and its pacing, both of which still feel pretty half-baked to me. Don't get me wrong, its not thoroughly rotten or whatever, and Case 3 is one of my new all-time favorites. But then you have Case 1, that feels insanely dragged out despite not really doing anything to earn its length a la AA4. You have Case 2 that pulls a plot-beat that it in my opinion shouldn't have done until far later into the story, is overall mostly boring to play and predictable to watch unfold, and ends on one of the cruelest notes in the series that's just brushed over casually. And then you have Case 4, which is quite possibly the most vapid and pointless case I've ever played in the series. It does nothing to forward any of the characters or raise stakes, it doesn't escalate the possibilities for how cases could be solved like the "typical" third case does...really, it mostly feels like its here for the sake of giving you another Deduction, which comes so early on and is so seemingly unrelated to the case that by the end of it you've pretty much figured out the whole (surprisingly simple) story of what happened.
Case 5 picks things up again as expected yet doesn't really...go anywhere. It takes up some interesting concepts to be sure, has some nice character moments and really funny parts, and parallels Turnabout Goodbyes with your relationship to the defendant. Yet the case itself was so thoroughly bogstandard and simple, with a character you have pretty much zero attachment to or against serving as the big bad antagonist. They did one somewhat-cool thing near the tail end of things involving a side character, but it felt far too late and as if the game could have made Case 2 and 4 build up more smoothly to this moment, rather than have "the core game" basically just be Case 3 and 5.
Character relations in general feel oddly unfinished here and there.
SLIGHT SPOILERS:
-Hosonaga just kind of disappears
-Stronghart doesn't do much other than tell you what to do and be the most predictable villain for the next game I've ever seen (written before playing Great Ace Attorney 2)
-Asogi doesn't get to do much at all before he's out and (unlike Mia) does nothing after that.
And I get that its all for setup to a sequel, and its going to make that sequel a far better game to be sure. But each installment should still be a satisfying package on its own: Those loose threads should look good without being tied up by a separate game. And yeah, it does do a great job of investing me in the universe of these two games, and preparing me for things to come. I love these characters now and I'm already theorizing what all of these loose ends will lead to, but the game on its own, in my opinion needs more than that.
Last note on the pacing: The way there's not a single case with more than one Court or Investigation segment feels extremely bizarre to me, especially given how much it feels like the game's cases could've used more complexity and how Court sections later in the game end up dragging because of it.
Case 3 somewhat makes up for it by making fantastic use of the Examination mechanic, letting you examine the whole crime scene during the trial, but other cases (...4 and 5) feel like they do nothing but suffer from the lack of splitting court sections up properly. It also left me feeling like there wasn't as much investigating as there usually is in the series which, isn't really a complaint per se and Deductions substitute that pretty well, but is just an odd thing to think about considering the game as a whole.
The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures is a weird little game. Simultaneously overachieving yet not doing enough, shaking up the formula yet paralleling past beats, and it has Herlock Sholmes in it.
The result is a game that made me fall in love with The Great Ace Attorney as a whole far more than it did make me fall in love with this first Adventure on its own. And if nothing else, that makes me thoroughly excited to play the sequel.
[Playtime: 30 hours]
[Keyword: Unrealized]
This has been that kind of game that's been lurking at the back of my mind to play ever since it came out. Its such an interesting piece, a "soft reboot" in an extremely profitable series wherin the reboot wasn't done due to dwindling sales, but because of dwindling reception. With Resident Evil already having gone through a gradual transition from slow, atmospheric puzzle-like horror to gradually becoming more of a horror-themed action game, this game seemed like such a fascinating oddity. It was "going back to the series' roots", but also not really? In a lot of ways I'm really happy with how this game turned out: It carves out its own identity in the series with a setting and theme unique to it, when it could've so easily gone and done a Force Awakens-style retread of the past. But I'm also kind of...mixed, in other areas.
It was especially weird playing this after coming off of RE2 2019 and REmake, both of which are absolute masterclass in map design and creating genuine horror and dread from map and enemy design. Compared to their lofty standards, 7 can't help but feel a little...quaint? It was probably a good call to scale back the scope after RE6, and there's admittedly something very charming about seeing the RE1-style map design on such a miniature scale, divided up into clear segments rather than having so much of it be in one labyrinthine house. Like I said, it gives this game its own identity, and supports its atmosphere nicely. But it also feels like core parts of the reason for RE1 and RE2s map design were lost here. They weren't just scary because they were backtrack-heavy, but because they were both filled with enemies you shouldn't always kill, and filled with tempting diversions in the form of loot and weapons. Aside from lockpick drawers, RE7 has like....the grenade launcher in the storage room? And going after either of those isn't exactly much of a risk/reward choice, as the only thing you typically lose for going after them is...time.
That's in large part because of how enemies are handled in RE7. The Molded, design wise, lore wise, etc, are pretty scary. But aside from the specific gameplay segments where the challenge is about circumventing them, they're not a looming threat across the whole game the same way the Zombies are in RE1/2. A lot of the game feels..."safe", in terms of the feeling the player is put under, because The Molded simply aren't effective at being a threat the player is constantly worrying about, instead being a lot more disposable and coming in far lower quantities in far safer areas. And I do understand the reasons for it to be like this: The focus of each quarter of the game is mainly on fighting the Bakers themselves, who in a lot of parts of the game do stalk you in some genuinely pretty varied, yet always tense ways. That aspect of the game does work! But at the same time I think it turns RE7 a bit too hard into a different kind of horror, different from the kind of "Survival Horror" that RE pioneered and held true to for the first half of its life. To me, its leaning just a smidge too far toward a "helpless" kind of horror. When so little of the game is actually about judging whether or not its worth fighting the threat in front of you, and so much more of it is about hiding, sneaking, and arguably relying on surprise jumpscares, it gives me the feeling that I probably won't be replaying this game any time soon. That's my core issue with the game and why I feel its on the lower end of the ones I've played: It downplays the strengths of the core RE formula, and instead focuses more on being a kind of horror that is to me far less interesting to the player.
The emphasis the game places on gore and general visual horror just furthers this point: Most of the 'horror' in the game makes me think "man, I feel so bad for Ethan", rather than making me as the player feel scared and tense about the gameplay actions I have and will be taking. Almost as if to try and rectify this, the final quarter of the game almost completely changes gears to being a shooter, but it doesn't feel nearly as earned as transitions like this have done in prior titles because fighting back was given so little focus, and was so uninteresting, beforehand.
Pretty much all of these issues, mind you, are ones that I was thinking about in terms of comparing it to the other RE games I played, and how I just prefer their kind of horror. As a one-and-done romp, played for the story and the surprise moments, RE7 does what it sets out to do! It was just a very interesting experience for me to realize that its...by far the least scary Resident Evil I've played, despite theoretically having the most messed up content and the most claustrophobic camera perspective of the series.
I say all that I have with love and its clear from RE2 2019 and RE8 that the team themselves realized what core parts of RE were missing from 7, and I'm glad the series is "back on track". It just sort of leaves 7 at an awkward inbetween. Its a "flashy" kind of game, a lot of well directed first-person scenes, jumpscare moments that are spaced out well from each other, and its paced out super well in general. But substance wise it feels lacking: I've gained everything I can from the game in my first playthrough. Still, I would say that for people who aren't invested in any level in RE lore, and want to get into the series: This game, while not reflective at all of how others in the series feel, would be a great place to start, even for horror newbies! Its easy to understand and progress through, the combat is so simple that you don't even really need to do stuff like Guard, and as I've detailed its brand of horror is far more stress-free than many other games in the series. Its like a gateway game to RE's kind of spooks. Resident Evil 7 is great game and just what the series needed at the time, but just a few years later and I'm seeing why its so rarely talked about anymore. Its a great one-and-done, great story, but a lacking Resident Evil.
[Playtime: 3 days straight lol]
[Keyword: Short-term]
It was especially weird playing this after coming off of RE2 2019 and REmake, both of which are absolute masterclass in map design and creating genuine horror and dread from map and enemy design. Compared to their lofty standards, 7 can't help but feel a little...quaint? It was probably a good call to scale back the scope after RE6, and there's admittedly something very charming about seeing the RE1-style map design on such a miniature scale, divided up into clear segments rather than having so much of it be in one labyrinthine house. Like I said, it gives this game its own identity, and supports its atmosphere nicely. But it also feels like core parts of the reason for RE1 and RE2s map design were lost here. They weren't just scary because they were backtrack-heavy, but because they were both filled with enemies you shouldn't always kill, and filled with tempting diversions in the form of loot and weapons. Aside from lockpick drawers, RE7 has like....the grenade launcher in the storage room? And going after either of those isn't exactly much of a risk/reward choice, as the only thing you typically lose for going after them is...time.
That's in large part because of how enemies are handled in RE7. The Molded, design wise, lore wise, etc, are pretty scary. But aside from the specific gameplay segments where the challenge is about circumventing them, they're not a looming threat across the whole game the same way the Zombies are in RE1/2. A lot of the game feels..."safe", in terms of the feeling the player is put under, because The Molded simply aren't effective at being a threat the player is constantly worrying about, instead being a lot more disposable and coming in far lower quantities in far safer areas. And I do understand the reasons for it to be like this: The focus of each quarter of the game is mainly on fighting the Bakers themselves, who in a lot of parts of the game do stalk you in some genuinely pretty varied, yet always tense ways. That aspect of the game does work! But at the same time I think it turns RE7 a bit too hard into a different kind of horror, different from the kind of "Survival Horror" that RE pioneered and held true to for the first half of its life. To me, its leaning just a smidge too far toward a "helpless" kind of horror. When so little of the game is actually about judging whether or not its worth fighting the threat in front of you, and so much more of it is about hiding, sneaking, and arguably relying on surprise jumpscares, it gives me the feeling that I probably won't be replaying this game any time soon. That's my core issue with the game and why I feel its on the lower end of the ones I've played: It downplays the strengths of the core RE formula, and instead focuses more on being a kind of horror that is to me far less interesting to the player.
The emphasis the game places on gore and general visual horror just furthers this point: Most of the 'horror' in the game makes me think "man, I feel so bad for Ethan", rather than making me as the player feel scared and tense about the gameplay actions I have and will be taking. Almost as if to try and rectify this, the final quarter of the game almost completely changes gears to being a shooter, but it doesn't feel nearly as earned as transitions like this have done in prior titles because fighting back was given so little focus, and was so uninteresting, beforehand.
Pretty much all of these issues, mind you, are ones that I was thinking about in terms of comparing it to the other RE games I played, and how I just prefer their kind of horror. As a one-and-done romp, played for the story and the surprise moments, RE7 does what it sets out to do! It was just a very interesting experience for me to realize that its...by far the least scary Resident Evil I've played, despite theoretically having the most messed up content and the most claustrophobic camera perspective of the series.
I say all that I have with love and its clear from RE2 2019 and RE8 that the team themselves realized what core parts of RE were missing from 7, and I'm glad the series is "back on track". It just sort of leaves 7 at an awkward inbetween. Its a "flashy" kind of game, a lot of well directed first-person scenes, jumpscare moments that are spaced out well from each other, and its paced out super well in general. But substance wise it feels lacking: I've gained everything I can from the game in my first playthrough. Still, I would say that for people who aren't invested in any level in RE lore, and want to get into the series: This game, while not reflective at all of how others in the series feel, would be a great place to start, even for horror newbies! Its easy to understand and progress through, the combat is so simple that you don't even really need to do stuff like Guard, and as I've detailed its brand of horror is far more stress-free than many other games in the series. Its like a gateway game to RE's kind of spooks. Resident Evil 7 is great game and just what the series needed at the time, but just a few years later and I'm seeing why its so rarely talked about anymore. Its a great one-and-done, great story, but a lacking Resident Evil.
[Playtime: 3 days straight lol]
[Keyword: Short-term]
2018
Knows what it is and doesn't overstay its welcome. Its a fun co-op game with a fun mechanic of both parties being tied together and able to use their together-bound thread of yarn to do fun platforming and devious little puzzles. Its laid back with borderline overbearing checkpoints and a punishment-free Hint system for every puzzle in the game.
The Challenge levels and Time/No Death-trials are fully optional but feel a little out of place for a laid back co-op game. Would've been nicer if each level had a variant specifically for playing them solo for those challenges to really test your platforming because the movement and swinging physics do feel super nice, and the level design gets surprisingly challenging at times.
The Challenge levels and Time/No Death-trials are fully optional but feel a little out of place for a laid back co-op game. Would've been nicer if each level had a variant specifically for playing them solo for those challenges to really test your platforming because the movement and swinging physics do feel super nice, and the level design gets surprisingly challenging at times.
2016
Its probably a lot more fun playing on easier difficulties where it becomes a big ol 10 hour powertrip, but trying to play the game on UltraViolence, which I initially thought was the game's "Heoric mode", quickly proved to be exhausting. Fights feel like they reach a satisfying difficulty about 1/4th in but then it just keeps going and going, samey arenas after samey arenas with enemies that can kill you in three hits around every corner and absolutely no safe zones on the map whatsoever. I get that its kind of supoosed to be "the point" of the game but it left me feeling genuinely Exhausted after most fights in the later game, most of which it felt as if I had to memorize through trial and error just to know how to handle them.
Everything other than fighting dudes feels like its wasting your time, and eventually replaying fights again and again felt like it was wasting my time too.
Everything other than fighting dudes feels like its wasting your time, and eventually replaying fights again and again felt like it was wasting my time too.
man you really notice how uncomfortably horny characters are more on the second time through
has a really REALLY cool hook for a story and general gameplay concept respectively but the story gets kind of undermined by how inconsistent the characters are (a solid 4 of the most important characters boil down to "horny lol") and the Somniums are completely terrible to actually play
has a really REALLY cool hook for a story and general gameplay concept respectively but the story gets kind of undermined by how inconsistent the characters are (a solid 4 of the most important characters boil down to "horny lol") and the Somniums are completely terrible to actually play
Playing Dual Destinies hot off of the heels of The Great Ace Attorney Adventures, and about a year after beating and feeling mixed on Apollo Justice, was one of the most interesting experiences I've had with a game considering its context. But: Surprise! I really like this one.
[Very vague, non-specific spoilers mostly. Should be safe to read.]
As AA fans are aware, this game was the point when a new team took over Shu Takumi's darling mainline series. Takumi was occupied with Ghost Trick, vsLayton and later Great Ace Attorney, and the Apollo Justice team had kind of just dissolved: so, the team behind the spinoff series Ace Attorney Investigations had to take the reigns of the main series. Essentially, this marked the first time that two different teams were making "core" Ace Attorney games: The Investigations team now making this game, led by Takeshi Yamazaki, and Takumi's team releasing The Great Ace Attorney just two years later. The reason I want to give this context is because I find the contrast between these games to be fascinating, that despite being fundamentally "the same kind of game" they had such different directions as to lead to two wholly different experiences for wholly different players.
Looking at Takumi's games and history in interviews, its clear to me that he values The Puzzle above all else (he IS a magician in training, fun fact!). The feeling of working things out in your head, drawing conclusions wholly on your own and submitting your answer to see the game react in amazement at your ability. Ghost Trick and the existence of Herlock Sholmes in general make this the most apparent, but in my eyes "The Puzzle" is only a piece of what makes Ace Attorney what it is, and it is only thanks to Takumi's direction that it has become a focus in his games.
All this build-up is just to say this: Yes, Dual Destinies easily has the least interesting gameplay in the series. Yes, it will often make it plainly obvious what the solution to a puzzle is, moments before its time to submit the answer. BUT: I believe this is because Yamazaki's priorities were elsewhere in production. In my eyes, Dual Destinies focuses far more on its own narrative, mysteries and character drama than it does puzzle-solving, detective sleuthing and experimenting with game mechanics. This in my eyes is neither "better" nor "worse": Its just the result of a CHANGE in direction. But it IS a change that's to my preference.
For instance: There's no Soseki Natsume-type case here that, as Takumi loves to do, exists SOLELY to be a fun puzzle to unravel. Instead every case feels as if it has more of a point to it narratively, having them all fit together well thematically. Characters return, dynamics are explored, themes reinforced in interesting ways and generally I rarely got the sense that--story-wise-- my time was being wasted with any of the cases I was playing. This was an issue I felt plagued AA3, despite its attempt to be dramatic and conclusive.
Its mainly because of this new direction that I feel Case 2 in this game is the worst one: It seems intentionally set up like a "puzzle-box" mystery typical of the most devious puzzles in AA1-3, yet as I've explained that kind of focus is not want Dual Destinies typically wants to have.
Because of the baggage that both Apollo Justice and Capcom high-ups gave the team, Dual Destinies' story was almost destined to be one that attempted a lot of things, yet I don't think I could have predicted that it'd pull those things and more off...surprisingly well. I know the whole "Dark Age of the law" setting has been derided by a lot of fans, but what I found especially commendable with this direction was that they used it as a tool to go in and clean up a lot of things that...Apollo Justice just kind of handwaved away. Like...if Phoenix was disbarred and shunned away from the law world for seven years, how was he able to set up all that he does to take down Kristoph in the end of Apollo Justice, including the debut of the wholly untested Jury system? Why was Phoenix so casually doing extremely shady things both in the development of this system and while in court in Case 1? And, of course: Why was a supposedly story about Apollo becoming the new face of Justice instead written to secretly be about Phoenix being this mastermind?
By retroactively framing Apollo Justice as ALSO taking place during this Dark Age, suddenly things begin to click: Apollo defending nothing but criminals in that game becomes more than a neat coincidence, and Case 3 in that game suddenly becomes more about showing that corruption. The grimy world of Apollo Justice aside, I find all the cases in Dual Destinies in some subtle way show how the perception of the law has changed (which is a big part as to why Case 3 is my favorite in the game). The world itself hasn't changed: People's perception of it has. Culprits commit crimes not because they're in a position of power to where they're able to get away with it (AA1) or because they seek revenge (AA2), but simply because they now feel its the easiest way to solve their situation: because the current law system will not catch or punish them. Kristoph in AA4 is an excellent, shining example of this, going to lunatic lengths to commit a crime because he knows that a law world run the way it is in this age will never catch him.
Dual Destinies shows a world where people see little benefit in being truthful because their "champions of truth":
-Used fake evidence in a murder trial
-Defended nothing but criminals
-Would rather want attention as a rockstar than as a lawyer
-Was convicted of murder
That's a really cool yet understated part of Dual Destinies: Almost every character, new or old, are hiding away the truth or their true selves, not because they have done anything, but because they are afraid of what will happen once that truth is revealed. They're scared of what honesty will do to themselves, their relationships, and their careers, and instead keep it to themselves. Because to them, what happened to Phoenix, their guiding light in an unjust world, seven years ago, was the truth about him coming out, and as soon as it did his career and public perception of the law plummeted. This feeds into Blackquill's backstory as well and how he willingly turned himself in as a murderer, rather than having him be exposed: The moment these guardians of the law world come clean about their honest nature, the world came crumbling down, thus a world of secrecy and distrust was seen as the only way to live.
In terms of playable characters, I feel like the 3DS Home Menu diorama best showcases the game's direction: With Phoenix's story now told (and told again) with AA1-4, and Apollo having been introduced, its his and Athena's story now being told with Phoenix as mentor and motivation. Apollo and Athena are shown fighting in court, with Phoenix at home in the office. This is even reflected in the ending cutscene of the game, with Apollo and Athena being the ones celebrating as Phoenix just watches and smiles. The Dual Destinies the title is referring to is the two young lawyers overcoming their inner doubts and no longer hiding from the truth, no matter how scary it may sound, thanks to the help of their mentor, channeling Mia's positive mentorship.
I've heard people (mainly Athena fans) say the game feels crowded because of the trio-setup, but I find everyone gets a very comfortable slot in to tell the cohesive story. Phoenix is a passive figure as the plot delves into Athena's life alongside Apollo's inner turmoil. Given that AA4 didnt really...establish much of any goal for Apollo beyond meaningless family relations, this game works as a springboard for him, with a character moment so perfectly executed and befitting of him that he shot to the top of character popularity polls after launch. Following AA4 up with another game just starring Phoenix and Apollo and..."exploring" those family relations could've been a safe and easy direction to go in, yet Yamazaki's team committed to an ambitious idea of two kinds of character growth: DUAL DESTINIES, so to speak.
This is why I don’t mind Apollo’s “new backstory” in this game being so brief and, in a sense, discardable. Because the point of the backstory is to drive his actions and growth as a character: Not to give him a goal to pursue. You aren't meant to sympathize with him on a personal, "I-knew-how-good-of-a-guy-your-friend-was" level, because you're just observing the mental effects its having on Apollo, and trying to help him from the perspective of two people who really don't know the pain he's going through. Its what starts his internal turmoil and it does that well.
And putting a bow atop of it all is presentation that feels almost a cut above Ace Attorneys typical stellar pedigree: The composer of AA3 paired with the sound director of AA4 leads to whats pretty easily my favorite sound in the series, narrowly beating Great Ace Attorney purely by the element of variety. One of my biggest issues with AA4 was just how...dislikable a lot of the interacting cast was (again, is retroactively made more interesting with the Dark Age framing), and Dual Destinies remedies this with some absolute top-of-the-line new favorites (Simon + Case 3 my beloved) All the characters animate beautifully, and I admire the restrictions the team placed on themselves regardless: Characters like Filch and Fulbright will still snap to animations to retain the snappy timing of the original games, something I felt The Great Ace Attorney was comparatively lacking in due to reliance of "natural" motion-capture.
But then we come back to that point, that interesting contrast in direction: The Great Ace Attorney’s character models have far more detail and a whole new sense of fluidity, giving it more of a sophisticated feel, wheras Dual Destinies’ more simple designs and harsh cuts lend themselves to a different vibe altogether. The game’s anime cutscenes are a great example of this. The simpler designs lend themselves nicely to the occasional shift, and it does wonders to help drive the story. TGAA gets half as much cutscene runtime and accomplishes precious little with it, mostly just feeling jarring and out of place; Again, different direction.
So let's summarize: A fantastic story that retroactively makes the Ace Attorney game I have the most issues with click better and established three Top-5 favorite characters, paired with the best soundtrack in the series and a really nice visual direction for the mainline AA series. And crucially, while as I explained before the game fumbles in puzzle design, it NEVER shows its hand too early. This is my distinction between “the puzzle” mentioned earlier and "the mystery”, and the mystery is always excellently paced out across each case whilst driving a good story to boot. The points at which the game nudges you toward what to pick aren’t several steps before said event occurs, but rather often right after a major new unveiling has happened within the story. THIS is why the handholdy design doesn’t bother me.
Neither Takumi or Yamazaki had an easy task on their hands. Takumi had to introduce and build a whole new world, knowing full well it and its new characters, story and games would likely always live in the shadow of what would occur in the mainline series. Yamazaki, on the other hand, had to tie together the tangled web that Apollo Justice established, and carry the torch of the mainline series forward with a wholly new team with a distinct new flavor for the series, whilst also making an impactful game in its own right for both new fans and old. The results of both efforts are ones that, in a way falter where the other succeeds. Dual Destinies just so happened to land on the side of the pond that I happen to vibe just a bit more with, with all due respect paid to Takumi’s equally impressive effort.
I feel its best summarized with this: TGAA’s new mechanics like the Jury and Herlock Deductions lead to deviously clever puzzles and fun character interaction. AA5’s Percieve/Mood Matrix are very lacking in substance, yet are both used to pull some of the series’ best storybeats with incredibly satisfying ludonarrative harmony. And just the fact that Dual Destinies even HAS those abilities, on top of it all, to me speaks volumes on how passionate the team was to honor and respect the old, push forward with the new, and give it their all.
*[Playtime: 35 hours]
[Key Word: Admirable]*
(This is one of my favorite games to discuss in general, and you'll probably see me in the replies to a good few reviews of the game here, because there are a lot of things people view as flaws with the game that I just flat-out disagree with.)
[Very vague, non-specific spoilers mostly. Should be safe to read.]
As AA fans are aware, this game was the point when a new team took over Shu Takumi's darling mainline series. Takumi was occupied with Ghost Trick, vsLayton and later Great Ace Attorney, and the Apollo Justice team had kind of just dissolved: so, the team behind the spinoff series Ace Attorney Investigations had to take the reigns of the main series. Essentially, this marked the first time that two different teams were making "core" Ace Attorney games: The Investigations team now making this game, led by Takeshi Yamazaki, and Takumi's team releasing The Great Ace Attorney just two years later. The reason I want to give this context is because I find the contrast between these games to be fascinating, that despite being fundamentally "the same kind of game" they had such different directions as to lead to two wholly different experiences for wholly different players.
Looking at Takumi's games and history in interviews, its clear to me that he values The Puzzle above all else (he IS a magician in training, fun fact!). The feeling of working things out in your head, drawing conclusions wholly on your own and submitting your answer to see the game react in amazement at your ability. Ghost Trick and the existence of Herlock Sholmes in general make this the most apparent, but in my eyes "The Puzzle" is only a piece of what makes Ace Attorney what it is, and it is only thanks to Takumi's direction that it has become a focus in his games.
All this build-up is just to say this: Yes, Dual Destinies easily has the least interesting gameplay in the series. Yes, it will often make it plainly obvious what the solution to a puzzle is, moments before its time to submit the answer. BUT: I believe this is because Yamazaki's priorities were elsewhere in production. In my eyes, Dual Destinies focuses far more on its own narrative, mysteries and character drama than it does puzzle-solving, detective sleuthing and experimenting with game mechanics. This in my eyes is neither "better" nor "worse": Its just the result of a CHANGE in direction. But it IS a change that's to my preference.
For instance: There's no Soseki Natsume-type case here that, as Takumi loves to do, exists SOLELY to be a fun puzzle to unravel. Instead every case feels as if it has more of a point to it narratively, having them all fit together well thematically. Characters return, dynamics are explored, themes reinforced in interesting ways and generally I rarely got the sense that--story-wise-- my time was being wasted with any of the cases I was playing. This was an issue I felt plagued AA3, despite its attempt to be dramatic and conclusive.
Its mainly because of this new direction that I feel Case 2 in this game is the worst one: It seems intentionally set up like a "puzzle-box" mystery typical of the most devious puzzles in AA1-3, yet as I've explained that kind of focus is not want Dual Destinies typically wants to have.
Because of the baggage that both Apollo Justice and Capcom high-ups gave the team, Dual Destinies' story was almost destined to be one that attempted a lot of things, yet I don't think I could have predicted that it'd pull those things and more off...surprisingly well. I know the whole "Dark Age of the law" setting has been derided by a lot of fans, but what I found especially commendable with this direction was that they used it as a tool to go in and clean up a lot of things that...Apollo Justice just kind of handwaved away. Like...if Phoenix was disbarred and shunned away from the law world for seven years, how was he able to set up all that he does to take down Kristoph in the end of Apollo Justice, including the debut of the wholly untested Jury system? Why was Phoenix so casually doing extremely shady things both in the development of this system and while in court in Case 1? And, of course: Why was a supposedly story about Apollo becoming the new face of Justice instead written to secretly be about Phoenix being this mastermind?
By retroactively framing Apollo Justice as ALSO taking place during this Dark Age, suddenly things begin to click: Apollo defending nothing but criminals in that game becomes more than a neat coincidence, and Case 3 in that game suddenly becomes more about showing that corruption. The grimy world of Apollo Justice aside, I find all the cases in Dual Destinies in some subtle way show how the perception of the law has changed (which is a big part as to why Case 3 is my favorite in the game). The world itself hasn't changed: People's perception of it has. Culprits commit crimes not because they're in a position of power to where they're able to get away with it (AA1) or because they seek revenge (AA2), but simply because they now feel its the easiest way to solve their situation: because the current law system will not catch or punish them. Kristoph in AA4 is an excellent, shining example of this, going to lunatic lengths to commit a crime because he knows that a law world run the way it is in this age will never catch him.
Dual Destinies shows a world where people see little benefit in being truthful because their "champions of truth":
-Used fake evidence in a murder trial
-Defended nothing but criminals
-Would rather want attention as a rockstar than as a lawyer
-Was convicted of murder
That's a really cool yet understated part of Dual Destinies: Almost every character, new or old, are hiding away the truth or their true selves, not because they have done anything, but because they are afraid of what will happen once that truth is revealed. They're scared of what honesty will do to themselves, their relationships, and their careers, and instead keep it to themselves. Because to them, what happened to Phoenix, their guiding light in an unjust world, seven years ago, was the truth about him coming out, and as soon as it did his career and public perception of the law plummeted. This feeds into Blackquill's backstory as well and how he willingly turned himself in as a murderer, rather than having him be exposed: The moment these guardians of the law world come clean about their honest nature, the world came crumbling down, thus a world of secrecy and distrust was seen as the only way to live.
In terms of playable characters, I feel like the 3DS Home Menu diorama best showcases the game's direction: With Phoenix's story now told (and told again) with AA1-4, and Apollo having been introduced, its his and Athena's story now being told with Phoenix as mentor and motivation. Apollo and Athena are shown fighting in court, with Phoenix at home in the office. This is even reflected in the ending cutscene of the game, with Apollo and Athena being the ones celebrating as Phoenix just watches and smiles. The Dual Destinies the title is referring to is the two young lawyers overcoming their inner doubts and no longer hiding from the truth, no matter how scary it may sound, thanks to the help of their mentor, channeling Mia's positive mentorship.
I've heard people (mainly Athena fans) say the game feels crowded because of the trio-setup, but I find everyone gets a very comfortable slot in to tell the cohesive story. Phoenix is a passive figure as the plot delves into Athena's life alongside Apollo's inner turmoil. Given that AA4 didnt really...establish much of any goal for Apollo beyond meaningless family relations, this game works as a springboard for him, with a character moment so perfectly executed and befitting of him that he shot to the top of character popularity polls after launch. Following AA4 up with another game just starring Phoenix and Apollo and..."exploring" those family relations could've been a safe and easy direction to go in, yet Yamazaki's team committed to an ambitious idea of two kinds of character growth: DUAL DESTINIES, so to speak.
This is why I don’t mind Apollo’s “new backstory” in this game being so brief and, in a sense, discardable. Because the point of the backstory is to drive his actions and growth as a character: Not to give him a goal to pursue. You aren't meant to sympathize with him on a personal, "I-knew-how-good-of-a-guy-your-friend-was" level, because you're just observing the mental effects its having on Apollo, and trying to help him from the perspective of two people who really don't know the pain he's going through. Its what starts his internal turmoil and it does that well.
And putting a bow atop of it all is presentation that feels almost a cut above Ace Attorneys typical stellar pedigree: The composer of AA3 paired with the sound director of AA4 leads to whats pretty easily my favorite sound in the series, narrowly beating Great Ace Attorney purely by the element of variety. One of my biggest issues with AA4 was just how...dislikable a lot of the interacting cast was (again, is retroactively made more interesting with the Dark Age framing), and Dual Destinies remedies this with some absolute top-of-the-line new favorites (Simon + Case 3 my beloved) All the characters animate beautifully, and I admire the restrictions the team placed on themselves regardless: Characters like Filch and Fulbright will still snap to animations to retain the snappy timing of the original games, something I felt The Great Ace Attorney was comparatively lacking in due to reliance of "natural" motion-capture.
But then we come back to that point, that interesting contrast in direction: The Great Ace Attorney’s character models have far more detail and a whole new sense of fluidity, giving it more of a sophisticated feel, wheras Dual Destinies’ more simple designs and harsh cuts lend themselves to a different vibe altogether. The game’s anime cutscenes are a great example of this. The simpler designs lend themselves nicely to the occasional shift, and it does wonders to help drive the story. TGAA gets half as much cutscene runtime and accomplishes precious little with it, mostly just feeling jarring and out of place; Again, different direction.
So let's summarize: A fantastic story that retroactively makes the Ace Attorney game I have the most issues with click better and established three Top-5 favorite characters, paired with the best soundtrack in the series and a really nice visual direction for the mainline AA series. And crucially, while as I explained before the game fumbles in puzzle design, it NEVER shows its hand too early. This is my distinction between “the puzzle” mentioned earlier and "the mystery”, and the mystery is always excellently paced out across each case whilst driving a good story to boot. The points at which the game nudges you toward what to pick aren’t several steps before said event occurs, but rather often right after a major new unveiling has happened within the story. THIS is why the handholdy design doesn’t bother me.
Neither Takumi or Yamazaki had an easy task on their hands. Takumi had to introduce and build a whole new world, knowing full well it and its new characters, story and games would likely always live in the shadow of what would occur in the mainline series. Yamazaki, on the other hand, had to tie together the tangled web that Apollo Justice established, and carry the torch of the mainline series forward with a wholly new team with a distinct new flavor for the series, whilst also making an impactful game in its own right for both new fans and old. The results of both efforts are ones that, in a way falter where the other succeeds. Dual Destinies just so happened to land on the side of the pond that I happen to vibe just a bit more with, with all due respect paid to Takumi’s equally impressive effort.
I feel its best summarized with this: TGAA’s new mechanics like the Jury and Herlock Deductions lead to deviously clever puzzles and fun character interaction. AA5’s Percieve/Mood Matrix are very lacking in substance, yet are both used to pull some of the series’ best storybeats with incredibly satisfying ludonarrative harmony. And just the fact that Dual Destinies even HAS those abilities, on top of it all, to me speaks volumes on how passionate the team was to honor and respect the old, push forward with the new, and give it their all.
*[Playtime: 35 hours]
[Key Word: Admirable]*
(This is one of my favorite games to discuss in general, and you'll probably see me in the replies to a good few reviews of the game here, because there are a lot of things people view as flaws with the game that I just flat-out disagree with.)
Spoilers for TGAA1
Consider this a review-in-progress since I'm only midway through Case 3, but the problems I have with this duology are only getting more muddled now and I feel like I need to get them out of the way right now before the game gets as good as everyone says it does by Case 4 and 5.
My main problem with TGAA1 was that, while it had a likeable cast of characters and a fun concept, it didn't really feel like it was interested in telling a cohesive story or wrapping things up. The best cases in the series and the best GAMES in the series are ones that cohesively and satisfyingly wrap up characters and their events in the courtroom: Think of the entirety of the first Ace Attorney and how Edgeworth is introduced, explored, and given closure by Case 4, or how Gavin and Phoenix get their stories properly told throughout Apollo Justice. TGAA1 lacks that almost entirely: Asogi goes away in a pathetically contrived way, and the only "closure" he gets is being alluded to in flashbacks, Susato...leaves because she has to without any relevance to her character, and nothing is ever really made of Barok van Zieks. The main villain of the game is set up with a mystery that, in the end, just has the characters shrug their arms and go "guess we'll explain that later!", and instead the final case in TGAA1 has to invent a wholly new villain with no real stake or connection to the main cast to really feel satisfying to take down. Gina almost feels like she exists to try and solve all of these issues on her own, butting heads with Case 5's villain and undergoing a degree of change over the Two cases she's featured in, but its too little and far too late.
So with that out of the way, I was told that I shouldn't treat TGAA1 as its own game, and rather as the first half of the whole: that TGAA2 would be the game to start giving things proper closure, proper stakes and proper character growth. I have to say that, with two cases under my belt, I'm really not impressed. Despite this being the first Ace Attorney game that is deliberately tied to a number of cliffhangers left in the last one, it still feels the need to include a boring and mostly pointless Tutorial case, which is then weirdly followed by a filler case that justifies its existence by...being connected to the filler case in the first game, which means that "neither of them are technically filler".
In my mind the filler cases in the series always had some sort of point. In the first and second games, their outlandish nature and convoluted setups felt far above that of the cases before them: It was a gradual stepping-up to teach the player that "yes, cases will get this involved", whilst being wrapped in a sillier bow to still keep the intensity saved for the last case. In Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies, they introduce the Prosecutors among other important characters and tend to play pretty well into the themes of the games to the point where you could argue they aren't filler cases. But Case 4 in TGAA1 achieves nothing: All the important players in the game are introduced in Case 3, a non-filler case that is the best in the game by a country mile, and its one of the most simple and easy to figure out cases in the entire series. And this same issue of lacking a point is still applying to Case 1 and 2 in TGAA2: There's no point in showing us what Susato is off doing if it has no relevance to the things that so desperately need to be fleshed out from game 1, and there's no point in giving us another roundabout with Natsume if its not going to flesh out any sort of gameplay wrinkles in doing so.
I am enjoying Case 3 immensely so far: Important characters are back, elements from the first game are finally being touched on (though, why is Gregson back in the force...?), and it finally feels like the story is being picked back up. But thats just my point: Why do I have to play 1/3rd of the whole game just to get to the game this sequel should have been from the start?
I'm really hopeful this series ties itself up satisfyingly with these last three cases, but the decision to split them up and structure them in this way was nothing short of an absolute mess for their pacing and narrative flow. If they're meant to be seperate games with seperate stories, then TGAA1 is an absolute failure, but if they're meant to be one cohesive story, then the beginning of TGAA2 has no excuse for being as terrible as it is.
Consider this a review-in-progress since I'm only midway through Case 3, but the problems I have with this duology are only getting more muddled now and I feel like I need to get them out of the way right now before the game gets as good as everyone says it does by Case 4 and 5.
My main problem with TGAA1 was that, while it had a likeable cast of characters and a fun concept, it didn't really feel like it was interested in telling a cohesive story or wrapping things up. The best cases in the series and the best GAMES in the series are ones that cohesively and satisfyingly wrap up characters and their events in the courtroom: Think of the entirety of the first Ace Attorney and how Edgeworth is introduced, explored, and given closure by Case 4, or how Gavin and Phoenix get their stories properly told throughout Apollo Justice. TGAA1 lacks that almost entirely: Asogi goes away in a pathetically contrived way, and the only "closure" he gets is being alluded to in flashbacks, Susato...leaves because she has to without any relevance to her character, and nothing is ever really made of Barok van Zieks. The main villain of the game is set up with a mystery that, in the end, just has the characters shrug their arms and go "guess we'll explain that later!", and instead the final case in TGAA1 has to invent a wholly new villain with no real stake or connection to the main cast to really feel satisfying to take down. Gina almost feels like she exists to try and solve all of these issues on her own, butting heads with Case 5's villain and undergoing a degree of change over the Two cases she's featured in, but its too little and far too late.
So with that out of the way, I was told that I shouldn't treat TGAA1 as its own game, and rather as the first half of the whole: that TGAA2 would be the game to start giving things proper closure, proper stakes and proper character growth. I have to say that, with two cases under my belt, I'm really not impressed. Despite this being the first Ace Attorney game that is deliberately tied to a number of cliffhangers left in the last one, it still feels the need to include a boring and mostly pointless Tutorial case, which is then weirdly followed by a filler case that justifies its existence by...being connected to the filler case in the first game, which means that "neither of them are technically filler".
In my mind the filler cases in the series always had some sort of point. In the first and second games, their outlandish nature and convoluted setups felt far above that of the cases before them: It was a gradual stepping-up to teach the player that "yes, cases will get this involved", whilst being wrapped in a sillier bow to still keep the intensity saved for the last case. In Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies, they introduce the Prosecutors among other important characters and tend to play pretty well into the themes of the games to the point where you could argue they aren't filler cases. But Case 4 in TGAA1 achieves nothing: All the important players in the game are introduced in Case 3, a non-filler case that is the best in the game by a country mile, and its one of the most simple and easy to figure out cases in the entire series. And this same issue of lacking a point is still applying to Case 1 and 2 in TGAA2: There's no point in showing us what Susato is off doing if it has no relevance to the things that so desperately need to be fleshed out from game 1, and there's no point in giving us another roundabout with Natsume if its not going to flesh out any sort of gameplay wrinkles in doing so.
I am enjoying Case 3 immensely so far: Important characters are back, elements from the first game are finally being touched on (though, why is Gregson back in the force...?), and it finally feels like the story is being picked back up. But thats just my point: Why do I have to play 1/3rd of the whole game just to get to the game this sequel should have been from the start?
I'm really hopeful this series ties itself up satisfyingly with these last three cases, but the decision to split them up and structure them in this way was nothing short of an absolute mess for their pacing and narrative flow. If they're meant to be seperate games with seperate stories, then TGAA1 is an absolute failure, but if they're meant to be one cohesive story, then the beginning of TGAA2 has no excuse for being as terrible as it is.
Its been a year since I first beat this game, lazily playing it together with my roommate after we'd both individually beaten the original Another Code, and I still have a lot of bubbling thoughts about it. Out of the five games CiNG released in their Nintendo-exclusive era, the two Kyle Hyde games are the obvious critical darlings. Strikingly unique artstyle and distinct identity by way of Hold-DS-Sideways, mature themes tackled by memorable and well written characters, et cetera. Needless to say that the Another Code duology, one a crusty-feeling, short "tech demo"-type game for what kind of puzzles the DS can do, and its sequel locked away from the US and stuck on a region-locked console, was always going to be swept aside in comparison.
And, looking at the games in direct comparison to Hotel Dusk and Last Window, its also kind of understandable why less people are drawn to them. They lack that hook of a mature, intricate story, that feeling that what you're playing is something truly unforgettable. Yet...Another Code R really has been unforgettable, in a way that's been hard to articulate. What it lacks in heavy storytelling and investment, I feel it makes up for with atmosphere and just general vibes, much like the quirky DS game its following up on. The painterly landscapes, the soothing music, the cute bond shared between Ashley and Matthew, all taking you back to a very "human" story, focusing on mental health and who you hold dear in life.
Playing the game is like taking your mindset back to summer vacation, without thoughts on how to pay your fees or what errands to run, what assignments are due...it's a game about you, and a friend, and how you're doing. Talking to each other. Helping each other. As simple as that sounds, it really does do a great job discussing that simple topic. "Friendship" is a broad theme that applies to every heroic story under the sun, and my point is less that Another Code R pioneers it above every one of its contemporaries, but rather that it doesn't also try to focus on saving the world, or uncovering a conspiracy, or so on. Its a slow, meandering, uninteresting, simple game - and I want you to read all of those adjectives as positives, because they're key to the game's cozy, laid-back and warm feeling.
That's not to say there's not some actual game in here too, of course. While a little less puzzle-heavy than the other CiNG games, it uses the Wii remote to some truly fantastic extremes with puzzles I'm now confident in saying no other developer would've come up with. The only thing I can think of this game doesn't utilize about the Wiimote is sending you clues to the mailbox - everything else, and I do mean everything, is up for grabs.
While solving puzzles and reading dialogue, much like Professor Layton, is part of setting the comfy experience, just being able to freely walk around Lake Juliet in general also goes such a long way in making the game truly click. Would the game be more convenient, less slow paced, with a fast-travel system, taking you to every "important" part of the game faster and "wasting less of your time"? Absolutely. But then, in my eyes, you're missing the point of the game: The slow burn of taking in the world.
Thus, there's honestly little I can say this game doesn't do right, because it knows very well what its trying to be. It will never reach the highs of Last Window or Hotel Dusk, because its not trying to do so. And in that sense, the game is perfect. Another Code: R is atmospheric, serene, calming and warm. Like a blanket, the appeal of it is not the grand mystery to be found by digging deeper into it, but the comfort that simply being near it can provide.
Playtime: 22 hours
Key Word: Healing
And, looking at the games in direct comparison to Hotel Dusk and Last Window, its also kind of understandable why less people are drawn to them. They lack that hook of a mature, intricate story, that feeling that what you're playing is something truly unforgettable. Yet...Another Code R really has been unforgettable, in a way that's been hard to articulate. What it lacks in heavy storytelling and investment, I feel it makes up for with atmosphere and just general vibes, much like the quirky DS game its following up on. The painterly landscapes, the soothing music, the cute bond shared between Ashley and Matthew, all taking you back to a very "human" story, focusing on mental health and who you hold dear in life.
Playing the game is like taking your mindset back to summer vacation, without thoughts on how to pay your fees or what errands to run, what assignments are due...it's a game about you, and a friend, and how you're doing. Talking to each other. Helping each other. As simple as that sounds, it really does do a great job discussing that simple topic. "Friendship" is a broad theme that applies to every heroic story under the sun, and my point is less that Another Code R pioneers it above every one of its contemporaries, but rather that it doesn't also try to focus on saving the world, or uncovering a conspiracy, or so on. Its a slow, meandering, uninteresting, simple game - and I want you to read all of those adjectives as positives, because they're key to the game's cozy, laid-back and warm feeling.
That's not to say there's not some actual game in here too, of course. While a little less puzzle-heavy than the other CiNG games, it uses the Wii remote to some truly fantastic extremes with puzzles I'm now confident in saying no other developer would've come up with. The only thing I can think of this game doesn't utilize about the Wiimote is sending you clues to the mailbox - everything else, and I do mean everything, is up for grabs.
While solving puzzles and reading dialogue, much like Professor Layton, is part of setting the comfy experience, just being able to freely walk around Lake Juliet in general also goes such a long way in making the game truly click. Would the game be more convenient, less slow paced, with a fast-travel system, taking you to every "important" part of the game faster and "wasting less of your time"? Absolutely. But then, in my eyes, you're missing the point of the game: The slow burn of taking in the world.
Thus, there's honestly little I can say this game doesn't do right, because it knows very well what its trying to be. It will never reach the highs of Last Window or Hotel Dusk, because its not trying to do so. And in that sense, the game is perfect. Another Code: R is atmospheric, serene, calming and warm. Like a blanket, the appeal of it is not the grand mystery to be found by digging deeper into it, but the comfort that simply being near it can provide.
Playtime: 22 hours
Key Word: Healing
In Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, each level you play has five collectibles. And in each level you play, it is absolutely possible to get every one of those collectibles in your first visit in a level.
That might sound like a weird point to start off the review on, but you need to understand that this kind of thing makes or breaks these kinds of platformers to me. In games in this vein, like New Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong Country, Sonic Colors, Crash Bandicoot or Kirby, actually beating whichever stage you're on can often be more of a trivial matter compared to getting the collectibles within. In my eyes the fun of these games is not to just beat them, but to show mastery of them, both mastery of their movement systems as well as of their general level design philosophy. Yet in so many of these instances, they just screw the process up in one or three ways: Sonic, for instance, can't collect all his Red Star Rings in Colors without first unlocking all of the Wisps, which arbitrarily locks half of the games' collectibles behind beating most of the game. Crash Bandicoot and the original Donkey Kong Country, despite the attention they both place on collecting, make so many of their objectives unnecessarily cryptic, removing most of the fun of feeling like you've solved the game.
I could go on, but my point here is that Playtonic's first endeavor into 2D platformer design absolutely NAILS collectible pacing. Levels are straightforward enough to where you'll always be able to find detours toward collectibles with a keen eye, and the controls of the dynamic duo in question lend themselves beautifully to moving around the environment in fun ways.
I feel like Playtonic is a studio not just made up of people who worked on some of the best platformers of the 90s, but of people who want to recapture the feel of those games without the hassle and standards of todays gaming world. Whilst I have little experience with Yooka and Laylee's first game, you can definitely feel that energy in this one in a lot of ways beyond just the excellent level and collectible pacing. Dedicating a solid 40% of your game to the space used to navigate between levels sounds like a disasterous idea by the standards of today, for instance, as things distracting from the "main gameplay" in many new games today become deephasized further and further, but in Impossible Lair they stuck to their guns and knew how good the team were at making it feel exceptionally well paced. This isn't a situation like Wind Waker where the space inbetween gameplay feels like a waste of time, rather that the developers gave just as much love and attention to the thing breaking up the pace of the main game as the main game itself.
That sense of flow really is the main takeaway I have from this game: The music is quite good, the level design is quite good, the overworld puzzles are fun to crack but not anything to write home about and the trademark Funny Dialogue is servicably Funny, but it really is the quick clip at which all of this is strung together that really elevates it all. The controls are a big reason for this of course, Yooka and Laylee have a fantastic moveset that lets you weave through levels crazy fast yet with enough weight to it to where it feels like you need to properly earn that good-feeling speed. Enemies make satisfying KER-PLUNK - sounds when hit on the head, launching the characters way high, and you can blast off at top speed right after your ground-slam move, and so on. The controls just strike that perfect balance, not just being nimble to let you skip everything to eliminate all actual challenge - though that has its benefits, go read my reviews on the Sonic Boom 3DS games to learn more - yet also not giving you so much restraint for the sake of balancing as to make moving around feel basic and uninteresting.
I feel like the Tonics are the best representation on all of these key points summed together, the pacing, the developers' mindsets and the prominent overworld. Essentially, they're little modifiers that you can equip a handful of to change your gameplay experience: Some flip the screen upside down, some give enemies more health, and some just give Yooka a really big head. There's no consistency to their use, be they difficulty modifiers or silly cheat codes, yet they all have the same value as a set of collectibles. They're one of the main reasons the game has such a great pace, as you're never too many steps away from a new Tonic and a new satisfying reward jingle for unlocking it. It gives the overworld a greater sense of purpose than it probably otherwise would have, and their varied effects makes each one a fun time to find since you never know what to expect. There's a Tonic for every type of player: Me personally, I put on the Tonic that halves checkpoints for a more engaging challenge.
Many of these tonics feel like they'd be toggleable by default in other games, or found in some plain shop, or god forbid sold as DLC, but here they're little fun bonuses to reward you for still playing the game, like a new set of surprises after each level. The game feels like one that respects your time, that wants you to have fun and be genuinely engaged with completing the game, and it was an offer I couldn't help but comply with: I 100%ed this game in a nice and tasty 20 hours and am really glad I did. Even if the individual parts aren't remarkable, and I've seen many aspects of it done better elsewhere, the remarkable flow of it all makes it one of the easiest recommendations for an uncomplicated fun time I could offer.
Also like, yeah, obviously, the music is amazing.
[Playtime: 20 hours]
[Key Word: Pacing]
That might sound like a weird point to start off the review on, but you need to understand that this kind of thing makes or breaks these kinds of platformers to me. In games in this vein, like New Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong Country, Sonic Colors, Crash Bandicoot or Kirby, actually beating whichever stage you're on can often be more of a trivial matter compared to getting the collectibles within. In my eyes the fun of these games is not to just beat them, but to show mastery of them, both mastery of their movement systems as well as of their general level design philosophy. Yet in so many of these instances, they just screw the process up in one or three ways: Sonic, for instance, can't collect all his Red Star Rings in Colors without first unlocking all of the Wisps, which arbitrarily locks half of the games' collectibles behind beating most of the game. Crash Bandicoot and the original Donkey Kong Country, despite the attention they both place on collecting, make so many of their objectives unnecessarily cryptic, removing most of the fun of feeling like you've solved the game.
I could go on, but my point here is that Playtonic's first endeavor into 2D platformer design absolutely NAILS collectible pacing. Levels are straightforward enough to where you'll always be able to find detours toward collectibles with a keen eye, and the controls of the dynamic duo in question lend themselves beautifully to moving around the environment in fun ways.
I feel like Playtonic is a studio not just made up of people who worked on some of the best platformers of the 90s, but of people who want to recapture the feel of those games without the hassle and standards of todays gaming world. Whilst I have little experience with Yooka and Laylee's first game, you can definitely feel that energy in this one in a lot of ways beyond just the excellent level and collectible pacing. Dedicating a solid 40% of your game to the space used to navigate between levels sounds like a disasterous idea by the standards of today, for instance, as things distracting from the "main gameplay" in many new games today become deephasized further and further, but in Impossible Lair they stuck to their guns and knew how good the team were at making it feel exceptionally well paced. This isn't a situation like Wind Waker where the space inbetween gameplay feels like a waste of time, rather that the developers gave just as much love and attention to the thing breaking up the pace of the main game as the main game itself.
That sense of flow really is the main takeaway I have from this game: The music is quite good, the level design is quite good, the overworld puzzles are fun to crack but not anything to write home about and the trademark Funny Dialogue is servicably Funny, but it really is the quick clip at which all of this is strung together that really elevates it all. The controls are a big reason for this of course, Yooka and Laylee have a fantastic moveset that lets you weave through levels crazy fast yet with enough weight to it to where it feels like you need to properly earn that good-feeling speed. Enemies make satisfying KER-PLUNK - sounds when hit on the head, launching the characters way high, and you can blast off at top speed right after your ground-slam move, and so on. The controls just strike that perfect balance, not just being nimble to let you skip everything to eliminate all actual challenge - though that has its benefits, go read my reviews on the Sonic Boom 3DS games to learn more - yet also not giving you so much restraint for the sake of balancing as to make moving around feel basic and uninteresting.
I feel like the Tonics are the best representation on all of these key points summed together, the pacing, the developers' mindsets and the prominent overworld. Essentially, they're little modifiers that you can equip a handful of to change your gameplay experience: Some flip the screen upside down, some give enemies more health, and some just give Yooka a really big head. There's no consistency to their use, be they difficulty modifiers or silly cheat codes, yet they all have the same value as a set of collectibles. They're one of the main reasons the game has such a great pace, as you're never too many steps away from a new Tonic and a new satisfying reward jingle for unlocking it. It gives the overworld a greater sense of purpose than it probably otherwise would have, and their varied effects makes each one a fun time to find since you never know what to expect. There's a Tonic for every type of player: Me personally, I put on the Tonic that halves checkpoints for a more engaging challenge.
Many of these tonics feel like they'd be toggleable by default in other games, or found in some plain shop, or god forbid sold as DLC, but here they're little fun bonuses to reward you for still playing the game, like a new set of surprises after each level. The game feels like one that respects your time, that wants you to have fun and be genuinely engaged with completing the game, and it was an offer I couldn't help but comply with: I 100%ed this game in a nice and tasty 20 hours and am really glad I did. Even if the individual parts aren't remarkable, and I've seen many aspects of it done better elsewhere, the remarkable flow of it all makes it one of the easiest recommendations for an uncomplicated fun time I could offer.
Also like, yeah, obviously, the music is amazing.
[Playtime: 20 hours]
[Key Word: Pacing]
2017
I'm weirdly attached to this game and I can't say I understand why. Its therapeutic in a sense and going for 100% completion is a simple, satisfying affair: No obnoxious backtracking, no excess of cutscenes, no required powerups, just you in a world with collectibles to go get
Also you're a snake and the controls are funny but cool :)
Also you're a snake and the controls are funny but cool :)