As an homage to games like Ninja Gaiden, it’s a challenging throwback with some platforming and traversal mechanics to keep it original. As a metroidvania, it’s bog-standard.

Once the game starts as a Ninja Gaiden-esque 2D sidescroller, it rarely lets up the fun. It throws all its best material at you: gliding, grappling hooks, a kickass chiptune soundtrack, and constant forward momentum. However, that momentum comes crashing to a halt afterwards.

When the game switches genres from 2D action sidescroller to metroidvania, you’re crammed with so much backtracking and aimlessly running from time warp to time warp that you start choking. Most of the game’s backtracking stems from the time travel mechanic. If there’s a way you’re supposed to be going and there’s a wall blocking the pathway, you’re in the wrong timeline. But instead of just switching timelines on the fly, you have to run back to a gate or hole in time to jump timelines and THEN you can proceed. This is just padding.

Bosses range from alright to annoying. A lot of them force you to wait for an opening to attack them instead of bosses from games like Mega Man or Shovel Knight that are almost always open to hit.

I 100%-ed the game and the reward is an honestly inferior item to its counterpart. It felt like the developers wanted to make two different kinds of games and Frankenstein them together rather than carefully blending the two genres. I would’ve preferred they stick with one or the other, particularly the Ninja Gaiden gameplay.

It's one of THOSE games. Much like Tetris Effect, I'd describe it as more of an audiovisual experience than a game. Whereas Tetris Effect was puzzler with musical elements, Sayonara Wild Hearts is an arcade rhythm game.

The story- while basic in concept- is brought to life with brilliant execution in the aesthetic. This is one of the coolest looking indie games I've ever played, which is made all the more impressive given the small team at Simogo, who only have experience with mobile games.

Obviously the crown jewel is the audiovisual spectacle. If you like poppy colors (mostly purple) and synth-y pop music, you're gonna go nuts for this. The music is very much that style of 80s pop with modern synth-tech instrumentals.

The style of the game is like Scott Pilgrim meets Persona with a blue-purple filter. Travelling through subspace portals and battling arcana cards using your own arcana cards- like turning the Chariot into a sports car and Wheel of Fortune into a motorcycle- is mad kino.

As for the gameplay, it's actually pretty fun. While most levels are basic finger-sliding gameplay with the occasional rhythm-timed button press, the level design rarely gets creative. Only a few times did the game wow me with something I haven't seen recently or before.

Biggest issue with the game is the length. Like most audiovisual experiences, since it takes a lot of planning and effort to make the music and game feel sync up, you can blaze through the game in two hours at most. For $5/month on Apple Arcade that's fine, but $13 on console? Granted, there is replay value in aiming for gold medals, extra modes and in-game achievements. But if you're someone like me who values new experiences over replaying the same game but a little different, it won't reflect nicely on the game-price ratio.

Sayonara Wild Hearts is the kind of eyecandy game you sit back in the dark with a drink and just let wash over you. It's too short to leave a lasting impact, and you should wait for a sale of around $8-$10 before getting it, but it'll make for a jamming time.

REVIEW OF REMAKE
Kid Icarus: Uprising is my favorite game of all time. It is also a game that may never get a sequel, and maybe not even a Switch port. The worst part is, its such a unique specimen, there aren't even any "Uprising clones" that have been made since, at least to my knowledge. It took a while for Dark Souls to get a series of clones and now even Breath of the Wild is seeing duplicates start to crop up. So until an Uprising clone can come out in the future, I'm going back to the past to play as many Uprising-like rail shooters as I can.

Panzer Dragoon has always been on my radar since I started searching for Uprising-likes and I always thought it looked like a cool fantasy alternative to Star Fox. And to its credit, it has a pretty cool aesthetic. It's like Nausicaa meets Skies of Arcadia with a touch of sci-fi. Flying from desert canyons to lush green forests to a dimly-lit underground facility to a military city floating on the sea keeps things interesting. The gameplay, while straightforward, is pretty good, too. You point and shoot or hold the fire button to lock on and fire a homing attack. Girls und Panzer Dragoon's big gimmick is four-direction shooting. Your dragon will always fly forward, but you can turn yourself around to shoot enemies and projectiles that come at you from the left, right, or behind. Two downsides to this, though. One, your reticle moves with your dragon, so in order to shoot at things, sometimes you need to put yourself in their line of fire, resulting in you getting hit. Two, not being able to move your dragon when not facing forward makes getting hit a common occurrence, especially on the rare occasion when enemies are shooting from two sides at once. Thankfully, your dragon is made out of Elon Musk polygon cyber car. I played on normal and ate all kinds of shit yet only died once because running into obstacles hurts you more than projectiles.

The story has a neat premise but the opening cutscene drags for way too long and the story is more an excuse to take us from one cool landscape to the next. Loading times are the biggest problem with this remake. I don't know how it was on the Saturn and other consoles, but on Switch, it would take at least 30 seconds for a level to load, and even then, some of the lighting and shadow effects are wonky. Also imagine my surprise when I found out this game is only one hour long. Yeah you can replay it on harder difficulties and with a bevy of new cheats, but there's no real reason to outside of increasing your shot-down ratio. Music is entirely unmemorable; point a gun at my head and I couldn't remember a thing.

While a decent time, Panzer Dragoon is not worth $25 on modern systems. If you're interested, I'd say wait for a sale of around $10. I heard the sequels are more in-depth and that the same guys behind the remake are doing Zwei this year, so hopefully it goes over better.