Oven
53 Reviews liked by Oven
You have chosen to read my Princess Peach: Showtime! review. This is on you, now.
I think it's worth reflecting on how Peach wasn't really even a character in the original Super Mario Bros. She was a destination. The MacGuffin you needed to reach in order to rightfully claim you'd won the game. The idea to expand beyond that in any way was largely an act of convience, as Fuji TV's Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic was rebranded as the second Super Mario game. They needed a roster of four heroes, and there had only been four sentient things in the Mushroom Kingdom that weren't enemies. They took the spritesheet for Lina and drew "The Princess" on top.
I don't point this out to demean or belittle Princess Peach. Far from it. The act of repurposing and rebranding is at the very core of what videogames are. Mario, himself, was the result of seeing what could be done with an unwanted Radar Scope arcade board, and missing out on the opportunity to use Paramount's Popeye characters. OXO, Tennis for Two and Spacewar! were all experiments to see if large-scale supercomputers designed for complex business calculations and global warfare could be used for the purpose of fun. Peach has quite rightly earned the title of Princess of Videogames. A direct descendant of the cathode-ray tube amusement device.
From her first playable appearance in Super Mario Bros. 2, she was treasured by little sisters, cartoon studios, and boys who valued the float-jump more than the societal pressures of homophobia and gender stereotypes. By Mario 64, her significance to the Mushroom Kingdom was fully fleshed-out, positioning the entire game within her castle, and illustrating her unwavering benevolence, ethereal presence, and also, her sense of fun with the introduction of her personally-commissioned Secret Slide. She was a true representative of videogames, and a welcoming presence for audiences who may have felt uninvited to the games gang.
In 2024, I feel Nintendo are more aware of the weight of their history. Back when they last tried this, with 2005's Super Princess Peach, there was an air of carelessness. It was a throwaway game, fobbed off to Chubby Cherub/Shrek: Reekin' Havoc devs, Tose, and launched to a market whose respect for Nintendo had already taken a beaten from the likes of DK: King of Swing, Super Mario Ball and Classic NES Series: Ice Climber. Now, Nintendo treat Peach with due reverence, having her host Universal Studios meet-and-greets in her own personal bandstand, as the highlight of millions of holidays. People are thrilled to meet her, regardless of how much spaghetti she's made for them.
Right now, we're in a very odd period for the Mario brand, overall. Nintendo have embraced the idea that there's no unified vision of what Mario is. In the last year, we've had a mainline 2D entry closely modelled on the art direction of Masanobu Sato, a major Hollywood movie that denied post-1994 backstories and reinstated the NES-era US canon, a remake of a very of-its-time mid-nineties Mario RPG, and the announcement of the remake of a very distinctly eccentric fan-favourite GameCube RPG. Mario has become Mr. Video again, appearing in all sorts of different projects, merely as a comforting presence. He's a doctor and an artist and a kart racer and an umpire and we're not supposed to take any of it very seriously.
The dynamic sits awkwardly in relationship to why New Super Mario Bros. took its iconography so seriously in the first place. Back then, it was a relief to see the series discard all the bullshit and get back on target, reinstating what was Real Mario Shit. Goombas were Goombas again, and if there were any weird offshot baddies, fans would need to adopt such convoluted nomenclature as "Mega Para-Biddybuddies". It felt like the programmers had taken more control, with the world defined by hard parameter references. There's a stiffness to that approach that I have a lot of affection for, and it was the lifeblood of the Wii U era (particularly in Europe and Japan). It brought us closer to the logic of the software, subconsciously making us better equipped to appreciate and understand it. It was fiercely objective. It's easy to see why this approach wouldn't resonate with the wider public, though. If Nintendo wanted to catch on to mainstream appeal, they'd need to foresake the concrete utility of their playing pieces and expand their surface-level appeal. During the promotion of the New Super Mario Bros. sequels, developers explained that Peach hadn't been made playable in the game because of how her float-jump would affect the balance of the level design. In Showtime, she doesn't even have the float-jump.
Ah - Here we are.
I don't really like Princess Peach: Showtime very much.
I could come out with excuses, justifications, characterisation discrepancies... I just think it's boring to play. Levels are formulaic and repetitive, there's little dexterity to its gameplay, the rewards system feels like you're playing the game wrong if you're not constantly digging at the scenery to find every hidden item, performance and presentation is way below where it ought to be for a game with this focus, yada yada yada... I don't think it really matters. I just didn't want to play the game very much. The first couple of days I had it, I was telling myself I was too busy to calm down and enjoy it. I spent multiple days away from it before completion, and only went back to it out of obligation. I really wanted to care less, and not bother coming back.
As much fondness as I may have for the character, I'm clearly not the target audience for this. And I don't mean to imply that it's a game strictly for young girls, either. But it probably is for fans of recent Yoshi games. I'm certainly not one of them. As I dodder around, looking at the nice artwork, but wondering what I'm supposed to be getting out of it. It's a bit of a shock to see Mystical Ninja's Etsunobu Ebisu come back to a directing role to make something so devoid of spark or humour. Though the different costumes grant Peach a range of diverse abilities, the structure of each introductory level is largely the same, and the bulk of her more intricate actions are automated. In a move that recalls Metroid: Other M, all core actions have been distributed between two face buttons, and if there's anything particularly acrobatic or impressive, it doesn't often feel like you were very involved in performing them.
Showtime is fun in theory. The level themes are bold and exciting, Peach's costumes and in-character voice clips are cute, there's a lot of great art and punny design. I saw one review compare it to Kirby and the Forgotten Land and became incensed. That's a game that loves being a game. It celebrates the medium, embraces all the tropes that come with being a platformer, and sets up young audiences to embark on a future, exploring many wonderful videogames. Showtime is like Paper Mario with all the jokes, strategy and compelling gameplay stripped out. It's an RPG without story or combat. If you wanted to dedicate a budget to having a team design a bunch of charming adventures for Princess Peach to go on, I can totally get behind that, but why make this game when your passions and energy were better suited to a series of YouTube shorts, or a pop-up book?
There's definitely things I wanted to like. I felt like I should have liked. There's several parts of the concept that feel like they're paying off on things they established with Peach's character years ago. The fact that Odyssey ended with her setting off to explore the world in a bunch of cute outfits feels like it was leading up to an idea like this. They're making a game with Cowgirl Princess Peach, for god's sake. How haven't I come away raving about it? It's just all so tame. Mermaid Peach sings underwater to guide helpful fish, and that sounds like something I should have adored, but they never take the next logical step with one of those trademark Nintendo Switch vocal themes. Why didn't they want this game to be brilliant?
Something that surprised me is how bothered I was by the stageplay concept. The notion that to some level, this was all pretend. That Peach is taking on the role of a character for each level. Her voice sounds different for a bunch of them. I don't really feel like this is a game about Peach. It's about her playing the part of generic characters. I didn't feel any sense of drama until the very end, when she emerges outside of the Sparkle Theatre, as herself. It was the first thing since the intro that the game was trying to convey as authentic. Maybe if I just believed in the game - like there was a real throughline that meant each level was an important new part of a story - I wouldn't have been so bored with it. You really don't have to do a lot to get me with this stuff. I honestly found myself crying when I first heard Odyssey attempt to finally convey Peach's perspective on her relationship with Mario. Is this what a good story has to offer a game? As it is, it felt like I'd bought a colouring-in book, and for some bizarre reason, it was important that I finish every page.
This is very much a 'me problem'. I hope I've established my criticisms as fiercely subjective. I can see some folk getting a lot out of this. I've heard some say that they loved Yoshi's Woolly World. I certainly don't want to convince Nintendo that people don't like Princess Peach games. It's just that I had to play through Sexy Parodius and Third Strike before I'd gotten through this, just to remind myself that I do enjoy playing videogames.
I think it's worth reflecting on how Peach wasn't really even a character in the original Super Mario Bros. She was a destination. The MacGuffin you needed to reach in order to rightfully claim you'd won the game. The idea to expand beyond that in any way was largely an act of convience, as Fuji TV's Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic was rebranded as the second Super Mario game. They needed a roster of four heroes, and there had only been four sentient things in the Mushroom Kingdom that weren't enemies. They took the spritesheet for Lina and drew "The Princess" on top.
I don't point this out to demean or belittle Princess Peach. Far from it. The act of repurposing and rebranding is at the very core of what videogames are. Mario, himself, was the result of seeing what could be done with an unwanted Radar Scope arcade board, and missing out on the opportunity to use Paramount's Popeye characters. OXO, Tennis for Two and Spacewar! were all experiments to see if large-scale supercomputers designed for complex business calculations and global warfare could be used for the purpose of fun. Peach has quite rightly earned the title of Princess of Videogames. A direct descendant of the cathode-ray tube amusement device.
From her first playable appearance in Super Mario Bros. 2, she was treasured by little sisters, cartoon studios, and boys who valued the float-jump more than the societal pressures of homophobia and gender stereotypes. By Mario 64, her significance to the Mushroom Kingdom was fully fleshed-out, positioning the entire game within her castle, and illustrating her unwavering benevolence, ethereal presence, and also, her sense of fun with the introduction of her personally-commissioned Secret Slide. She was a true representative of videogames, and a welcoming presence for audiences who may have felt uninvited to the games gang.
In 2024, I feel Nintendo are more aware of the weight of their history. Back when they last tried this, with 2005's Super Princess Peach, there was an air of carelessness. It was a throwaway game, fobbed off to Chubby Cherub/Shrek: Reekin' Havoc devs, Tose, and launched to a market whose respect for Nintendo had already taken a beaten from the likes of DK: King of Swing, Super Mario Ball and Classic NES Series: Ice Climber. Now, Nintendo treat Peach with due reverence, having her host Universal Studios meet-and-greets in her own personal bandstand, as the highlight of millions of holidays. People are thrilled to meet her, regardless of how much spaghetti she's made for them.
Right now, we're in a very odd period for the Mario brand, overall. Nintendo have embraced the idea that there's no unified vision of what Mario is. In the last year, we've had a mainline 2D entry closely modelled on the art direction of Masanobu Sato, a major Hollywood movie that denied post-1994 backstories and reinstated the NES-era US canon, a remake of a very of-its-time mid-nineties Mario RPG, and the announcement of the remake of a very distinctly eccentric fan-favourite GameCube RPG. Mario has become Mr. Video again, appearing in all sorts of different projects, merely as a comforting presence. He's a doctor and an artist and a kart racer and an umpire and we're not supposed to take any of it very seriously.
The dynamic sits awkwardly in relationship to why New Super Mario Bros. took its iconography so seriously in the first place. Back then, it was a relief to see the series discard all the bullshit and get back on target, reinstating what was Real Mario Shit. Goombas were Goombas again, and if there were any weird offshot baddies, fans would need to adopt such convoluted nomenclature as "Mega Para-Biddybuddies". It felt like the programmers had taken more control, with the world defined by hard parameter references. There's a stiffness to that approach that I have a lot of affection for, and it was the lifeblood of the Wii U era (particularly in Europe and Japan). It brought us closer to the logic of the software, subconsciously making us better equipped to appreciate and understand it. It was fiercely objective. It's easy to see why this approach wouldn't resonate with the wider public, though. If Nintendo wanted to catch on to mainstream appeal, they'd need to foresake the concrete utility of their playing pieces and expand their surface-level appeal. During the promotion of the New Super Mario Bros. sequels, developers explained that Peach hadn't been made playable in the game because of how her float-jump would affect the balance of the level design. In Showtime, she doesn't even have the float-jump.
Ah - Here we are.
I don't really like Princess Peach: Showtime very much.
I could come out with excuses, justifications, characterisation discrepancies... I just think it's boring to play. Levels are formulaic and repetitive, there's little dexterity to its gameplay, the rewards system feels like you're playing the game wrong if you're not constantly digging at the scenery to find every hidden item, performance and presentation is way below where it ought to be for a game with this focus, yada yada yada... I don't think it really matters. I just didn't want to play the game very much. The first couple of days I had it, I was telling myself I was too busy to calm down and enjoy it. I spent multiple days away from it before completion, and only went back to it out of obligation. I really wanted to care less, and not bother coming back.
As much fondness as I may have for the character, I'm clearly not the target audience for this. And I don't mean to imply that it's a game strictly for young girls, either. But it probably is for fans of recent Yoshi games. I'm certainly not one of them. As I dodder around, looking at the nice artwork, but wondering what I'm supposed to be getting out of it. It's a bit of a shock to see Mystical Ninja's Etsunobu Ebisu come back to a directing role to make something so devoid of spark or humour. Though the different costumes grant Peach a range of diverse abilities, the structure of each introductory level is largely the same, and the bulk of her more intricate actions are automated. In a move that recalls Metroid: Other M, all core actions have been distributed between two face buttons, and if there's anything particularly acrobatic or impressive, it doesn't often feel like you were very involved in performing them.
Showtime is fun in theory. The level themes are bold and exciting, Peach's costumes and in-character voice clips are cute, there's a lot of great art and punny design. I saw one review compare it to Kirby and the Forgotten Land and became incensed. That's a game that loves being a game. It celebrates the medium, embraces all the tropes that come with being a platformer, and sets up young audiences to embark on a future, exploring many wonderful videogames. Showtime is like Paper Mario with all the jokes, strategy and compelling gameplay stripped out. It's an RPG without story or combat. If you wanted to dedicate a budget to having a team design a bunch of charming adventures for Princess Peach to go on, I can totally get behind that, but why make this game when your passions and energy were better suited to a series of YouTube shorts, or a pop-up book?
There's definitely things I wanted to like. I felt like I should have liked. There's several parts of the concept that feel like they're paying off on things they established with Peach's character years ago. The fact that Odyssey ended with her setting off to explore the world in a bunch of cute outfits feels like it was leading up to an idea like this. They're making a game with Cowgirl Princess Peach, for god's sake. How haven't I come away raving about it? It's just all so tame. Mermaid Peach sings underwater to guide helpful fish, and that sounds like something I should have adored, but they never take the next logical step with one of those trademark Nintendo Switch vocal themes. Why didn't they want this game to be brilliant?
Something that surprised me is how bothered I was by the stageplay concept. The notion that to some level, this was all pretend. That Peach is taking on the role of a character for each level. Her voice sounds different for a bunch of them. I don't really feel like this is a game about Peach. It's about her playing the part of generic characters. I didn't feel any sense of drama until the very end, when she emerges outside of the Sparkle Theatre, as herself. It was the first thing since the intro that the game was trying to convey as authentic. Maybe if I just believed in the game - like there was a real throughline that meant each level was an important new part of a story - I wouldn't have been so bored with it. You really don't have to do a lot to get me with this stuff. I honestly found myself crying when I first heard Odyssey attempt to finally convey Peach's perspective on her relationship with Mario. Is this what a good story has to offer a game? As it is, it felt like I'd bought a colouring-in book, and for some bizarre reason, it was important that I finish every page.
This is very much a 'me problem'. I hope I've established my criticisms as fiercely subjective. I can see some folk getting a lot out of this. I've heard some say that they loved Yoshi's Woolly World. I certainly don't want to convince Nintendo that people don't like Princess Peach games. It's just that I had to play through Sexy Parodius and Third Strike before I'd gotten through this, just to remind myself that I do enjoy playing videogames.
Sonic Superstars
2023
There's been this notion around the Sonic games that if Sega just stopped making stupid decisions, it'd be perfect and we'd all have a great time. You know, I don't buy that. Maybe I'm just a little sick of Sonic.
Despite everything else, the old Mega Drive games are still fairly precious to me, and I have some affection for a half dozen other Sonic titles, but I wasn't as bowled over with Mania as most seemed to be. There wasn't a lot of truly new stuff in it. I just don't know how fertile this formula is. If running around rollercoaster tracks and jumping when necessary is all that captivating, or if it can really be taken to interesting new places without a radical shake-up.
Don't get me wrong, Superstars is pretty crap. They've been understandably keen to promote the physics they've pulled from Sonic Mania, but that doesn't save the poor collision models, the rotten level design or the dogshit mechanics. Even if Sonic runs up hills properly now, it doesn't prevent the game from being tedious as all get out. It just doesn't seem to have been designed with much insight. Sonic Team have included a Fantasy Zone level in here, solely because they didn't get the joke when they saw Mania's Mean Bean Machine boss. I struggle to recall any moments where I had fun. Mostly, I remember the shock when I saw they thought to bring back the bouncy floor from Sonic CD's Wacky Workbench.
Oh, and everybody's already talked about it, but those bosses are truly appalling. I couldn't bring myself to replay a single level, knowing one of those were at the end of it.
There's pockets of positivity in the project. Basically all aesthetic. The character models are generally pretty nice, but their limited animation makes them look like they were extracted from a better game and dumped onto a Steam community page. Sonic Mania/Shredder's Revenge boy, Tee Lopes, has composed a few typically great tracks, and they stand out alarmingly in among the synthesised dredge from Sonic Team. The 2D animation sequences are nice too, as is typical of all the post-Mania stuff, and like those, they're let down by lacklustre music.
At its best, it's a halfhearted retread. It's attempting to mine nostalgia from a source that's been tapped out relentlessly for decades. Bold, youthful confidence used to be Sega's whole thing. They'd speed into new potential anywhere they saw it, and all their most beloved projects carried a sense of boundless energy. Now, they're sitting in the paddling pool, trying to make Samba de Amigo a thing again, and too scared to do a Yakuza game without Kazuma Kiryu.
I wasn't even excited for this, and I'm still bitterly disappointed. They've really fucked this one up, and if you bought it on launch day, you might have paid £55 for it. I can't recall the last time I've been this upset with a new game, and I'm in the middle of playing Flashback 2 right now.
Despite everything else, the old Mega Drive games are still fairly precious to me, and I have some affection for a half dozen other Sonic titles, but I wasn't as bowled over with Mania as most seemed to be. There wasn't a lot of truly new stuff in it. I just don't know how fertile this formula is. If running around rollercoaster tracks and jumping when necessary is all that captivating, or if it can really be taken to interesting new places without a radical shake-up.
Don't get me wrong, Superstars is pretty crap. They've been understandably keen to promote the physics they've pulled from Sonic Mania, but that doesn't save the poor collision models, the rotten level design or the dogshit mechanics. Even if Sonic runs up hills properly now, it doesn't prevent the game from being tedious as all get out. It just doesn't seem to have been designed with much insight. Sonic Team have included a Fantasy Zone level in here, solely because they didn't get the joke when they saw Mania's Mean Bean Machine boss. I struggle to recall any moments where I had fun. Mostly, I remember the shock when I saw they thought to bring back the bouncy floor from Sonic CD's Wacky Workbench.
Oh, and everybody's already talked about it, but those bosses are truly appalling. I couldn't bring myself to replay a single level, knowing one of those were at the end of it.
There's pockets of positivity in the project. Basically all aesthetic. The character models are generally pretty nice, but their limited animation makes them look like they were extracted from a better game and dumped onto a Steam community page. Sonic Mania/Shredder's Revenge boy, Tee Lopes, has composed a few typically great tracks, and they stand out alarmingly in among the synthesised dredge from Sonic Team. The 2D animation sequences are nice too, as is typical of all the post-Mania stuff, and like those, they're let down by lacklustre music.
At its best, it's a halfhearted retread. It's attempting to mine nostalgia from a source that's been tapped out relentlessly for decades. Bold, youthful confidence used to be Sega's whole thing. They'd speed into new potential anywhere they saw it, and all their most beloved projects carried a sense of boundless energy. Now, they're sitting in the paddling pool, trying to make Samba de Amigo a thing again, and too scared to do a Yakuza game without Kazuma Kiryu.
I wasn't even excited for this, and I'm still bitterly disappointed. They've really fucked this one up, and if you bought it on launch day, you might have paid £55 for it. I can't recall the last time I've been this upset with a new game, and I'm in the middle of playing Flashback 2 right now.
Johnny Bazookatone
1996
Jobby Bazookatone
I see you whining about the Master Collection. "Oh, poo. Where's my 4K Snake Eater? Wah wah wah." The real intelligentsia among you have little interest in how modern technology can warp and twist games that were very intentionally built for specific, old hardware with all their limitations. No, we're in it for convenient access to the dregs of the series.
No man alive will ever bother their arse replaying VR Missions on a PS1. If anyone was going to, it would be me, and I very much fucking am fucking not going to do that, thank you very much. But as I played Splatoon 2's Octo Expansion, chased higher ranks in Resident Evil 4's Mercenaries mode and witnessed how much the console's pick-up-and-play nature benefitted my patience for twitchy eShop trash like REKT and Marble It Up, the game has remained in the back of my mind, and the bottom of my Switch port wishlist. Being able to pick up the console and put it to sleep whenever the mood suited me got me through some of the biggest pains in the arse that videogames could throw at me.
Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions, or Metal Gear Solid: Special Missions, or Metal Gear Solid: Integral - Disc 3 (it doesn't matter what you call it, as they're all present as separate, barely distinct ISOs in the Master Collection), is a very annoying game with little modern relevance. It was a little side-project put together in an alarmingly short amount of time by the software specialists at KCEJ, while the ideas guys were busy drawing up plans for MGS2. I've got a lot of respect for the no-name devs who put my favourite game together, and I'm empathetic to the notion that its mechanics could be explored in interesting ways outside the constraints of a story-based campaign. This game is my punishment for that trust.
Metal Gear Solid is mechanically rich. There's all sorts of unique weapons, items and enemy characteristics that don't get much play in a typical run through the campaign. When do you ever find a reason to plant a Claymore? Is that seriously your Vulcan Raven technique? It's often pretty fun to see these things explored with more direct intent. There's some interesting stuff with footstep noise, the cardboard box and infrared motion sensors. Interesting, but not often fun. The missions can often feel like internal tests, or technical showcases, not intended to be consumed by a paying audience. Some are so finicky, that you have to stop on exactly the right pixel before the intended solution plays out. Some require so much crawling that you start looking for tricks to complete the missions that the designers never intended. It doesn't help that so much of the 300 Missions list is padded out with both PRACTICE and TIME ATTACK variants of the same levels. The game is presenting you with horseshit, and having you obediently wade through it.
MGS1's controls and mechanics serve its main campaign well. Outside of that context, you really bump up against their quirks and restrictions. It's not a game that makes great use of analogue control, with movement restricted to eight directions, and no control over speed or momentum. It makes first-person weapons like the Stinger missile launcher and PSG-1 sniper rifle incredibly finicky to control. Shifting your aim is always at a pre-defined speed that you have little influence over, and chasing moving targets or attempting to pinpoint an angle can be infuriating. Again, it works well enough in the main campaign, where its utility is mainly limited to a couple of boss fights with complementary design. In big challenge arenas, with targets shifting behind cover in every direction, they're torture. Alzheimer's patients may want to use this game to help the public understand how debilitating it can be to live with their disease.
There is fun in VR Missions. Some of the more explosive weapons tests can feel quite gratifying after a series of fiddly stealth missions and physics challenges that require you to play them with robotic accuracy. I've perhaps focused on the frustration in the handful of surgically strict missions a little too much, here. The majority of missions are simple and underwhelming. Quite often, I'll finish a late-game level and think "Oh, was that it?" when I'm told I completed it in record time. It's kind of fun to see these tools get used more than the original game ever asked you to. C4 is particularly fun to play around with, strategically placing each explosive and detonating at the precise moment they're lined-up to do the most damage. Not something you'd allow yourself to do too often in MGS1, where alert phases and limited rations are more of a concern, but pocketed off to consequence-free missions, they're a fun tool. Western fans were relieved they wouldn't be asked to buy MGS1 again to experience this content, but I think they make most sense as a bonus disc in an expanded release of the original game. They're kind of a neat bonus for hardcore fans, but have extremely limited appeal outside of that audience. Like the soundtrack CDs or art books. It's merchandise. I'm siding with Substance's approach on this one.
If you make it all the way to 85% completion, you'll unlock the NINJA missions, allowing you to play as Gray Fox, with big jumps and twirling sword manoeuvres. Back in 1999, this was the shit, and understandably a big feature the game advertised prominently, but I don't know if it retains much of its original thrill in a post-Metal Gear Rising world. I think his animations and poses are still really cool, running down corridors brandishing his HF Blade out the bottom of his fist like a killer's dagger, and it's definitely the part of the package I was most nostalgic for, but it's clear the MGS1 engine is buckling under the pressure of trying to present fluid gameplay. I love games with restrictive, predictable movement, but it's best suited for situations where you can get a good view of your environment and make plans before attempting them. With something faster and more fluid, you're constantly running into enemies, missing shots and overshooting jumps. As much as I advocate for a more consistent approach to controls, I think it's clear why Mario 64's style had more influence in fast-paced action games than Tomb Raider did. The final of the 3 NINJA missions is an assassination mission, with you avoiding detection as you seek your target. It's my favourite of the bunch, as you take the time to scout your target and dodge patrolling guards, but it's set in the same room as the other two, and it's twenty seconds long. I'd have loved to have seen more of that kind of thing, but I imagine KCEJ exploded a few PS1 devkits attempting it.
Past that, the final rewards in the game mainly concern the PHOTOGRAPHING mode, where high-poly models of Dr Naomi Hunter and (after a bit of effort on the Sneaking Mode times) Mei Ling, sit in the middle of a VR arena, slowly playing out subtle, bored animations, and you're given the opportunity to dedicate two memory card slots to a highly-compressed photo of whatever you manage to capture within the time limit. This was always weird, and I feel like I'm exorcising long-held trauma by explicitly addressing it. The camera in MGS1 was a bit of a technical achievement, but they didn't give it a real purpose within the campaign, so it became something of an easter egg for those willing to go all the way back to the B-2 armoury after they acquired a LEVEL 6 PAN card. The devs who worked on it likely wanted to give it more of a showcase, which lead to capturing illicit details of Metal Gear RAY in MGS2, but their first answer was to take pictures of a lady, as objectifyingly as possible. They're not posing like supermodels, invested in their own image and making decisions on how to come across well in picture. They act unaware of your presence, and it feels really uncomfortable. There's no purpose to this mode. It exists outside of the main set of missions, and there's no reward for playing them. It's not even titillating, with Naomi and Mei Ling dressed in their office uniforms, just kind of standing there. Their models are fairly impressive for the PS1 though, and you can see the direct lineage from them to the characters in MGS2. Maybe the tech demo angle is the best justification for its inclusion. Maybe some folk really get off on this kind of thing, and it's good they can restrict their activities to a stupid PS1 game. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather play with the Demo One T-Rex.
Mind you, this is the impertinent scrutiny of a 2023 videogame player. Someone who could just as easily access the wizz pop bang thrills of a Grand Theft Auto V or broadband internet we can browse on our telephones. We didn't even have DVD collections to turn to when this came out. We were just sitting in our bedrooms with the promise of a PlayStation 2 future, and a hypothetical continuation of the Metal Gear story. Gnawing away at this diverting chewtoy made sense to devoted MGS fans in 1999. Would I recommend anyone try to get through it today? God no. You've probably got some new emails to read or something. This game was made for people whose wildest dream was 24 hour access to bored.com
No man alive will ever bother their arse replaying VR Missions on a PS1. If anyone was going to, it would be me, and I very much fucking am fucking not going to do that, thank you very much. But as I played Splatoon 2's Octo Expansion, chased higher ranks in Resident Evil 4's Mercenaries mode and witnessed how much the console's pick-up-and-play nature benefitted my patience for twitchy eShop trash like REKT and Marble It Up, the game has remained in the back of my mind, and the bottom of my Switch port wishlist. Being able to pick up the console and put it to sleep whenever the mood suited me got me through some of the biggest pains in the arse that videogames could throw at me.
Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions, or Metal Gear Solid: Special Missions, or Metal Gear Solid: Integral - Disc 3 (it doesn't matter what you call it, as they're all present as separate, barely distinct ISOs in the Master Collection), is a very annoying game with little modern relevance. It was a little side-project put together in an alarmingly short amount of time by the software specialists at KCEJ, while the ideas guys were busy drawing up plans for MGS2. I've got a lot of respect for the no-name devs who put my favourite game together, and I'm empathetic to the notion that its mechanics could be explored in interesting ways outside the constraints of a story-based campaign. This game is my punishment for that trust.
Metal Gear Solid is mechanically rich. There's all sorts of unique weapons, items and enemy characteristics that don't get much play in a typical run through the campaign. When do you ever find a reason to plant a Claymore? Is that seriously your Vulcan Raven technique? It's often pretty fun to see these things explored with more direct intent. There's some interesting stuff with footstep noise, the cardboard box and infrared motion sensors. Interesting, but not often fun. The missions can often feel like internal tests, or technical showcases, not intended to be consumed by a paying audience. Some are so finicky, that you have to stop on exactly the right pixel before the intended solution plays out. Some require so much crawling that you start looking for tricks to complete the missions that the designers never intended. It doesn't help that so much of the 300 Missions list is padded out with both PRACTICE and TIME ATTACK variants of the same levels. The game is presenting you with horseshit, and having you obediently wade through it.
MGS1's controls and mechanics serve its main campaign well. Outside of that context, you really bump up against their quirks and restrictions. It's not a game that makes great use of analogue control, with movement restricted to eight directions, and no control over speed or momentum. It makes first-person weapons like the Stinger missile launcher and PSG-1 sniper rifle incredibly finicky to control. Shifting your aim is always at a pre-defined speed that you have little influence over, and chasing moving targets or attempting to pinpoint an angle can be infuriating. Again, it works well enough in the main campaign, where its utility is mainly limited to a couple of boss fights with complementary design. In big challenge arenas, with targets shifting behind cover in every direction, they're torture. Alzheimer's patients may want to use this game to help the public understand how debilitating it can be to live with their disease.
There is fun in VR Missions. Some of the more explosive weapons tests can feel quite gratifying after a series of fiddly stealth missions and physics challenges that require you to play them with robotic accuracy. I've perhaps focused on the frustration in the handful of surgically strict missions a little too much, here. The majority of missions are simple and underwhelming. Quite often, I'll finish a late-game level and think "Oh, was that it?" when I'm told I completed it in record time. It's kind of fun to see these tools get used more than the original game ever asked you to. C4 is particularly fun to play around with, strategically placing each explosive and detonating at the precise moment they're lined-up to do the most damage. Not something you'd allow yourself to do too often in MGS1, where alert phases and limited rations are more of a concern, but pocketed off to consequence-free missions, they're a fun tool. Western fans were relieved they wouldn't be asked to buy MGS1 again to experience this content, but I think they make most sense as a bonus disc in an expanded release of the original game. They're kind of a neat bonus for hardcore fans, but have extremely limited appeal outside of that audience. Like the soundtrack CDs or art books. It's merchandise. I'm siding with Substance's approach on this one.
If you make it all the way to 85% completion, you'll unlock the NINJA missions, allowing you to play as Gray Fox, with big jumps and twirling sword manoeuvres. Back in 1999, this was the shit, and understandably a big feature the game advertised prominently, but I don't know if it retains much of its original thrill in a post-Metal Gear Rising world. I think his animations and poses are still really cool, running down corridors brandishing his HF Blade out the bottom of his fist like a killer's dagger, and it's definitely the part of the package I was most nostalgic for, but it's clear the MGS1 engine is buckling under the pressure of trying to present fluid gameplay. I love games with restrictive, predictable movement, but it's best suited for situations where you can get a good view of your environment and make plans before attempting them. With something faster and more fluid, you're constantly running into enemies, missing shots and overshooting jumps. As much as I advocate for a more consistent approach to controls, I think it's clear why Mario 64's style had more influence in fast-paced action games than Tomb Raider did. The final of the 3 NINJA missions is an assassination mission, with you avoiding detection as you seek your target. It's my favourite of the bunch, as you take the time to scout your target and dodge patrolling guards, but it's set in the same room as the other two, and it's twenty seconds long. I'd have loved to have seen more of that kind of thing, but I imagine KCEJ exploded a few PS1 devkits attempting it.
Past that, the final rewards in the game mainly concern the PHOTOGRAPHING mode, where high-poly models of Dr Naomi Hunter and (after a bit of effort on the Sneaking Mode times) Mei Ling, sit in the middle of a VR arena, slowly playing out subtle, bored animations, and you're given the opportunity to dedicate two memory card slots to a highly-compressed photo of whatever you manage to capture within the time limit. This was always weird, and I feel like I'm exorcising long-held trauma by explicitly addressing it. The camera in MGS1 was a bit of a technical achievement, but they didn't give it a real purpose within the campaign, so it became something of an easter egg for those willing to go all the way back to the B-2 armoury after they acquired a LEVEL 6 PAN card. The devs who worked on it likely wanted to give it more of a showcase, which lead to capturing illicit details of Metal Gear RAY in MGS2, but their first answer was to take pictures of a lady, as objectifyingly as possible. They're not posing like supermodels, invested in their own image and making decisions on how to come across well in picture. They act unaware of your presence, and it feels really uncomfortable. There's no purpose to this mode. It exists outside of the main set of missions, and there's no reward for playing them. It's not even titillating, with Naomi and Mei Ling dressed in their office uniforms, just kind of standing there. Their models are fairly impressive for the PS1 though, and you can see the direct lineage from them to the characters in MGS2. Maybe the tech demo angle is the best justification for its inclusion. Maybe some folk really get off on this kind of thing, and it's good they can restrict their activities to a stupid PS1 game. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather play with the Demo One T-Rex.
Mind you, this is the impertinent scrutiny of a 2023 videogame player. Someone who could just as easily access the wizz pop bang thrills of a Grand Theft Auto V or broadband internet we can browse on our telephones. We didn't even have DVD collections to turn to when this came out. We were just sitting in our bedrooms with the promise of a PlayStation 2 future, and a hypothetical continuation of the Metal Gear story. Gnawing away at this diverting chewtoy made sense to devoted MGS fans in 1999. Would I recommend anyone try to get through it today? God no. You've probably got some new emails to read or something. This game was made for people whose wildest dream was 24 hour access to bored.com
Pikmin 2
2023
I believe in Pikmin. I am certain that human life will end through nuclear war or ecological negligence, and someday a funny little man will land here on a spaceship and pluck doting vegetable guys out the ground to fight mutant spiders and frogs. I think the setting raises interesting and prescient ideas about the nature of survival and social hierarchies. It's the central reason I have such a problem with Pikmin 1 receiving a staight-to-VHS comedy sequel.
Having survived the first game by the skin of his teeth, Olimar arrives home and is immediately sent back to Pikminland because his boss is skint. I hate this miserable coda. I hate that his longing to see his family again is put on hold to chase money. I hate that earth is immediately seen as a place to mine for resources. I think there's a kind of dark satire about capitalistic greed in it, but I do not enjoy this part of the fantasy. I feel sick.
Pikmin 2 isn't a game about survival anymore. There's no time limit, except the daily clock, which seems more of an irritation here than the structural grounding it served as in the original game. The game's more willing to kill off your Pikmin now, because you can just go farm more. Olimar and Louie can stay here as long as they want, and seemingly, the only reason to rush is to complete the game with a score you can boast about. There's still the familiar Pikmin gameplay, but that's largely relegated to the overworld sections. The bulk of Pikmin 2's content is found in the caves; RANDOMLY GENERATED dungeons with a series of floors to excavate treasures from. Pikmin 2's quite antithetical to 1's carefulness. The Pikmin are fodder now. If they die, tough luck. Fuck your wasted time. Go find some more and try again. They probably don't have souls, right?
I've got as much distaste for randomly generated content and roguelikes as anyone, and it's a big sticking point with the game for me. It's tempting to lay it on too thick. In reality, Pikmin 2 is generating content from a fairly well-crafted library of pieces. There's still humanity in the product. Some cave floors are clever and creative. One uses a toy train track to create a central barrier that Pikmin can walk on top of without falling off, but they can walk under the drawbridge. It's cute and smart, even if it does undercut the game's setting pretty dramatically. Random elements generally come in the form of enemy and item placement, and it never creates anything unplayable, even if there are a few too many dead ends and groups of explosive nightmares.
This review follows the new Switch release of the game. It's an awkward thing. I became a Pikmin fan through the original Wii U release of 3, and the New Play Control versions of 1 and (to a lesser extent) 2. To me, pointer controls are just how Pikmin is supposed to play. I'm aware there's GameCube folk who think being able to aim all over the screen messes with the intended balance, but it's just a much more deliberate aiming system than wobbling a cursor based on where your character's facing. I think 4's implementation of a lock-on system was a decent compromise, but Nintendo's already come up with the solution to this problem. Going back to the classic controls feels like playing an FPS on the Dreamcast. There is motion control support in here, but it's the airyfairy implementation from 4, where you can manipulate your cursor within the character's throwing range, and it doesn't feel any easier or more intuitive than just accepting the rudimentary 2001 standard.
In an act of curious apathy, Nintendo have chosen to base the widescreen implementation on the Wii version's clumsy presentation. While gameplay and cutscenes are presented in a native 16:9 aspect ratio, menus and text are consistently stretched to fit the dimensions of modern TVs. As the traumatised Captain Olimar is sent back to PNF-404, I'm being dragged back into the horror of friends' 2004 living rooms to suffer wrong-looking Simpsons.
I'll admit I've had a better time with Pikmin 2 on Switch than I did on my initial Wii playthrough. Knowing this is the one I didn't have much emotional attachment to helped warm me to the idea of the Pikmin gameplay grab-bag. It's a shallow pleasure, and I'd be callous enough to suggest its biggest fans have shallow appreciation for the games' setting. That said, previous releases of the game featured licensed products as its "treasures", and I've always felt a bit of a thrill from their subversive implication. The human race is dead, and the only remaining evidence of their civilisation is capitalistic waste. The Duracell batteries and Haribo bags are, understandably, not in this new version, I'll always have a bit of respect for Pikmin 2 for how it egged corporations into painting themselves as the problem.
Some people think Pikmin 2 is the best in the series. Who am I to say otherwise? Maybe you'll love it. I just hope I helped you understand why I really don't.
Having survived the first game by the skin of his teeth, Olimar arrives home and is immediately sent back to Pikminland because his boss is skint. I hate this miserable coda. I hate that his longing to see his family again is put on hold to chase money. I hate that earth is immediately seen as a place to mine for resources. I think there's a kind of dark satire about capitalistic greed in it, but I do not enjoy this part of the fantasy. I feel sick.
Pikmin 2 isn't a game about survival anymore. There's no time limit, except the daily clock, which seems more of an irritation here than the structural grounding it served as in the original game. The game's more willing to kill off your Pikmin now, because you can just go farm more. Olimar and Louie can stay here as long as they want, and seemingly, the only reason to rush is to complete the game with a score you can boast about. There's still the familiar Pikmin gameplay, but that's largely relegated to the overworld sections. The bulk of Pikmin 2's content is found in the caves; RANDOMLY GENERATED dungeons with a series of floors to excavate treasures from. Pikmin 2's quite antithetical to 1's carefulness. The Pikmin are fodder now. If they die, tough luck. Fuck your wasted time. Go find some more and try again. They probably don't have souls, right?
I've got as much distaste for randomly generated content and roguelikes as anyone, and it's a big sticking point with the game for me. It's tempting to lay it on too thick. In reality, Pikmin 2 is generating content from a fairly well-crafted library of pieces. There's still humanity in the product. Some cave floors are clever and creative. One uses a toy train track to create a central barrier that Pikmin can walk on top of without falling off, but they can walk under the drawbridge. It's cute and smart, even if it does undercut the game's setting pretty dramatically. Random elements generally come in the form of enemy and item placement, and it never creates anything unplayable, even if there are a few too many dead ends and groups of explosive nightmares.
This review follows the new Switch release of the game. It's an awkward thing. I became a Pikmin fan through the original Wii U release of 3, and the New Play Control versions of 1 and (to a lesser extent) 2. To me, pointer controls are just how Pikmin is supposed to play. I'm aware there's GameCube folk who think being able to aim all over the screen messes with the intended balance, but it's just a much more deliberate aiming system than wobbling a cursor based on where your character's facing. I think 4's implementation of a lock-on system was a decent compromise, but Nintendo's already come up with the solution to this problem. Going back to the classic controls feels like playing an FPS on the Dreamcast. There is motion control support in here, but it's the airyfairy implementation from 4, where you can manipulate your cursor within the character's throwing range, and it doesn't feel any easier or more intuitive than just accepting the rudimentary 2001 standard.
In an act of curious apathy, Nintendo have chosen to base the widescreen implementation on the Wii version's clumsy presentation. While gameplay and cutscenes are presented in a native 16:9 aspect ratio, menus and text are consistently stretched to fit the dimensions of modern TVs. As the traumatised Captain Olimar is sent back to PNF-404, I'm being dragged back into the horror of friends' 2004 living rooms to suffer wrong-looking Simpsons.
I'll admit I've had a better time with Pikmin 2 on Switch than I did on my initial Wii playthrough. Knowing this is the one I didn't have much emotional attachment to helped warm me to the idea of the Pikmin gameplay grab-bag. It's a shallow pleasure, and I'd be callous enough to suggest its biggest fans have shallow appreciation for the games' setting. That said, previous releases of the game featured licensed products as its "treasures", and I've always felt a bit of a thrill from their subversive implication. The human race is dead, and the only remaining evidence of their civilisation is capitalistic waste. The Duracell batteries and Haribo bags are, understandably, not in this new version, I'll always have a bit of respect for Pikmin 2 for how it egged corporations into painting themselves as the problem.
Some people think Pikmin 2 is the best in the series. Who am I to say otherwise? Maybe you'll love it. I just hope I helped you understand why I really don't.
I think what fans value about the GameCube is its cruelty. Not presenting a challenge with fair parameters and sending you off to give it your best shot, but tripping you up and hammering at your skull every step of the way. The warping, shifting eyesore levels in Super Monkey Ball, or seeing thirty Pikmin fall off a cliff and destroy your entire playthrough, or every aspect of F-Zero GX's design. It's a hostile format, and it's unlikely you'll accomplish much on there without becoming emotional. Double Dash is absolutely the GameCube's Mario Kart.
This bastard game.
There's malice in its code. Opponents can out-drift your red shells, while attempting to nullify an opponent's red shell by dropping an item almost never works. If an opponent bumps into you, your items are gone. There are traps and narrow, winding walkways that are tricky to drift over, and if there's a single surprise element like an opposing racer with a speed boost, or a rogue obstacle, you can guarantee that you're going in the drink and getting your items taken away from you. This is anecdotal, but I don't hear many people say they loved Double Dash as a kid. This was the game for college-aged competitors, with players going outside afterwards to swing punches.
The pain comes from the fact that Double Dash isn't actually hard to play. It's a fairly simple Mario Kart, lacking the coins and ramp tricks that fans of the newer games have developed instinctive responses to. If you're lucky, winning a race doesn't feel like a big deal. Not something you had to put a lot of effort into, and quite often it goes that way. It's when you're going for those Gold Trophies and 100% completion status where they'll throw in the last-second 8th place finishes.
The game's tone seems designed to irritate. The origin of Baby Park and "HI I'M DAISY!!". Garishly saturated colours, and constant noise from co-pilots switching positions. Hell as a theme park. The bitterness in your Spice Orange.
When you win, though, you are the bastard. The world's worst man. Death is coming, and has been earned. Enjoy these fleeting moments on your throne.
I dearly love Double Dash.
This bastard game.
There's malice in its code. Opponents can out-drift your red shells, while attempting to nullify an opponent's red shell by dropping an item almost never works. If an opponent bumps into you, your items are gone. There are traps and narrow, winding walkways that are tricky to drift over, and if there's a single surprise element like an opposing racer with a speed boost, or a rogue obstacle, you can guarantee that you're going in the drink and getting your items taken away from you. This is anecdotal, but I don't hear many people say they loved Double Dash as a kid. This was the game for college-aged competitors, with players going outside afterwards to swing punches.
The pain comes from the fact that Double Dash isn't actually hard to play. It's a fairly simple Mario Kart, lacking the coins and ramp tricks that fans of the newer games have developed instinctive responses to. If you're lucky, winning a race doesn't feel like a big deal. Not something you had to put a lot of effort into, and quite often it goes that way. It's when you're going for those Gold Trophies and 100% completion status where they'll throw in the last-second 8th place finishes.
The game's tone seems designed to irritate. The origin of Baby Park and "HI I'M DAISY!!". Garishly saturated colours, and constant noise from co-pilots switching positions. Hell as a theme park. The bitterness in your Spice Orange.
When you win, though, you are the bastard. The world's worst man. Death is coming, and has been earned. Enjoy these fleeting moments on your throne.
I dearly love Double Dash.
Splatoon 3
2022
SPLATOON 3 - YEAR ONE REPORT
There's probably no game that I'm more "into" than Splatoon. There's games I like more, things that have been and gone, but Splatoon is its own scene. A subculture, and a massive push of energy from a new generation of remarkably talented Nintendo devs. Building on the lessons taught by the Marios and Zeldas, but it's a socially conscious online shooter that embraces new players. I love that while other monolithic multiplayer icons were collaborating with movie studios to promote a new release, Splatoon was collaborating with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, to encourage fans to take interest in the real-life species of aquatic creatures that the games take inspiration from. It's also a refreshingly progressive title from a safe, Japanese family brand like Nintendo, with its embrace of street art, Octo Expansion's overt anti-racist themes, and 3's abandonment of gender classes. It's quite encouraging to see how much a young queer fanbase have adopted the game as a positive community, in contrast to hostile, masculine spaces like Call of Duty and Gears of War. I think it does a great job of representing contemporary Japanese pop culture too, showcasing regional pop idols as fun, positive icons that fans can bond over, and not the icky, fetishised exploitees that the west tends to view them as. There's just a lot that Splatoon does that I think is really cool, and I'm consistently supportive of it.
It's a shame then that Splatoon 3 doesn't really seem to have as much of a voice as the previous titles. The energy seems to have diminished somewhat. Whether through complications with the pandemic, a less experimental, more efficient design structure, or developer burnout, I don't get as much sense of direction with the new game. Map designs seem reined-in and conservative in their approach, while previous games were introducing new mechanics and distinct playstyles with each new drop. Deep Cut haven't had the same impact as the Squid Sisters or Off the Hook, with the game's DLC allowing oldheads (me) to regress into Splatoon 1's Inkopolis lobby, largely ignoring the direction of the new title. New seasons bring back maps from previous titles, many of them from Splatoon 2, which players could access just as easily on their Nintendo Switch already. It just seems to have plateaued. Splatoon isn't pushing at the boundaries anymore. They're digging up nostalgia for games that came out a few years ago.
I don't think it's dead, though. There's encouraging signs that Splatoon 3 is still just finding its shape. Deep Cut's three-piece presents a fundamentally different dynamic from what's come before, presented as petty, bickering bumpkins from a smaller town, and it's great to see how that's been incorporated into their new track, Big Betrayal (their biggest banger so far). Their disappointingly restrained performance at Nintendo Live 2022 seems to be behind them, and I think their next concert could be a lot of fun. At time of writing, Deep Cut's Splatfest is currently in session, with the winning member seemingly becoming the leader of the group. I want them to stick to whatever the result is, and I think it would be a lot of fun to see Shiver's resentment if she has to take orders from either of the other two. While I moan about how relatively regressive 3 has been, I will die a hardcore Squid Sisters devotee, and it's been great to see how much the new game has catered for those who got invested in Callie's disappearance before 2's release. I want the series to continue to present them as the icons who started all this, and 3 has largely been following the trajectory I'd hoped to see, in that regard.
I just feel very precious about Splatoon. There was a time when each new development felt like a step into the future. How exciting it was when Camp Triggerfish first dropped, with its multiple base territories converging in central hot zone. Even as a Team Order voter, I feel concerned about Side Order's revisionist theme, turning its back on the significance of Splatfest results. If we were going to see both the Chaos and Order timelines anyway, what was the point in taking part in the Final Fest? It doesn't seem like the kind of move Splatoon 1 would have made.
Splatoon 3 is still the best place to play Splatoon today. The pre-match practice lobby and skippable Anarchy Splatcasts make it a much more inviting option on your Switch's home menu, and the active season rewards keep active players invested in returning regularly. It just doesn't feel like we've really got the game it's supposed to be yet. It's safe, and that's not something I value in Splatoon. I want them to see the big swings, and weird experiments without worrying about the impact to its established playerbase. I know a lot of people who bought it at release, and I think I'm the only one who hasn't dropped off playing it regularly. I know what this team can do. I'm telling them now's the time to do it.
There's probably no game that I'm more "into" than Splatoon. There's games I like more, things that have been and gone, but Splatoon is its own scene. A subculture, and a massive push of energy from a new generation of remarkably talented Nintendo devs. Building on the lessons taught by the Marios and Zeldas, but it's a socially conscious online shooter that embraces new players. I love that while other monolithic multiplayer icons were collaborating with movie studios to promote a new release, Splatoon was collaborating with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, to encourage fans to take interest in the real-life species of aquatic creatures that the games take inspiration from. It's also a refreshingly progressive title from a safe, Japanese family brand like Nintendo, with its embrace of street art, Octo Expansion's overt anti-racist themes, and 3's abandonment of gender classes. It's quite encouraging to see how much a young queer fanbase have adopted the game as a positive community, in contrast to hostile, masculine spaces like Call of Duty and Gears of War. I think it does a great job of representing contemporary Japanese pop culture too, showcasing regional pop idols as fun, positive icons that fans can bond over, and not the icky, fetishised exploitees that the west tends to view them as. There's just a lot that Splatoon does that I think is really cool, and I'm consistently supportive of it.
It's a shame then that Splatoon 3 doesn't really seem to have as much of a voice as the previous titles. The energy seems to have diminished somewhat. Whether through complications with the pandemic, a less experimental, more efficient design structure, or developer burnout, I don't get as much sense of direction with the new game. Map designs seem reined-in and conservative in their approach, while previous games were introducing new mechanics and distinct playstyles with each new drop. Deep Cut haven't had the same impact as the Squid Sisters or Off the Hook, with the game's DLC allowing oldheads (me) to regress into Splatoon 1's Inkopolis lobby, largely ignoring the direction of the new title. New seasons bring back maps from previous titles, many of them from Splatoon 2, which players could access just as easily on their Nintendo Switch already. It just seems to have plateaued. Splatoon isn't pushing at the boundaries anymore. They're digging up nostalgia for games that came out a few years ago.
I don't think it's dead, though. There's encouraging signs that Splatoon 3 is still just finding its shape. Deep Cut's three-piece presents a fundamentally different dynamic from what's come before, presented as petty, bickering bumpkins from a smaller town, and it's great to see how that's been incorporated into their new track, Big Betrayal (their biggest banger so far). Their disappointingly restrained performance at Nintendo Live 2022 seems to be behind them, and I think their next concert could be a lot of fun. At time of writing, Deep Cut's Splatfest is currently in session, with the winning member seemingly becoming the leader of the group. I want them to stick to whatever the result is, and I think it would be a lot of fun to see Shiver's resentment if she has to take orders from either of the other two. While I moan about how relatively regressive 3 has been, I will die a hardcore Squid Sisters devotee, and it's been great to see how much the new game has catered for those who got invested in Callie's disappearance before 2's release. I want the series to continue to present them as the icons who started all this, and 3 has largely been following the trajectory I'd hoped to see, in that regard.
I just feel very precious about Splatoon. There was a time when each new development felt like a step into the future. How exciting it was when Camp Triggerfish first dropped, with its multiple base territories converging in central hot zone. Even as a Team Order voter, I feel concerned about Side Order's revisionist theme, turning its back on the significance of Splatfest results. If we were going to see both the Chaos and Order timelines anyway, what was the point in taking part in the Final Fest? It doesn't seem like the kind of move Splatoon 1 would have made.
Splatoon 3 is still the best place to play Splatoon today. The pre-match practice lobby and skippable Anarchy Splatcasts make it a much more inviting option on your Switch's home menu, and the active season rewards keep active players invested in returning regularly. It just doesn't feel like we've really got the game it's supposed to be yet. It's safe, and that's not something I value in Splatoon. I want them to see the big swings, and weird experiments without worrying about the impact to its established playerbase. I know a lot of people who bought it at release, and I think I'm the only one who hasn't dropped off playing it regularly. I know what this team can do. I'm telling them now's the time to do it.
Oh, gosh. I ate the whole thing!
Like a lot of people my age, I have a personal history with Pokémon. Enough to know what an alt gr key does, anyway. I was about 11 when it first started to hit in the UK, and I was as captivated by it as anyone else. Pokémon Red was the first handheld game I played that seemed like more than a passing novelty. It was a big adventure, with layers of depth that would keep you enthralled even after you'd beaten the Elite Four. I'd wake up early and play as much as I could, awkwardly tilting my Game Boy Pocket towards my bedside lamp, until either my family woke up or I developed shoulder cramps. As I got older, it remained a series I respected and had an enduring nostalgia for, but I didn't really get much out of the games anymore. It was just too basic, repetitive and tedious. I didn't get excited about labyrinthian caves and grand levelling systems anymore. It was Game Freak pushing their 373 kilobytes in the right spots to keep kids playing for weeks on end.
I also had the Game Boy Pokémon Trading Card Game back then. I recall always feeling a little weird about it. There was the shallow illusion of a proper Pokémon game, but it was a trick. You walked around gyms and talked to NPCs, but there wasn't an overworld. There was no adventure. You weren't getting your bicycle and barrelling down Route 16, or figuring out how to get into Saffron City, or walking aboard the SS Anne. It didn't have any of those big, memorable moments. And it wasn't as fun as the real card game. Everything was obscured behind menu options, and it took about ten minutes to assemble your deck. You couldn't just buy more cards when you lost, either. You had to do everything its way, including flipping a coin to see if you'd just Paralysed a Pokémon you had clearly just knocked out. I didn't have much regard for it. I still 100%ed the thing, obviously, but I didn't feel a lot of affection for it.
Now I'm - god, what has it been now - TWENTY-TWO YEARS older, it hits a little different. I sold all my cards many years ago, and wouldn't ever think of playing again unless it was a one-off with a good friend. I'm more cynical about the claws of the trading card game scene, and how ludicrously Creatures Inc have expanded upon the familiar limitations to excite new generations of players. It's all mad multi-piece holo cards that have 600 HP and shit. I wouldn't want to look at anything past the Team Rocket set. I was ready to turn my back on it when they introduced Steel types. Going back to the 90s version of the game seems welcomingly quaint now. And in those intervening years, I fell deeply in love with SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters Clash. A TCG videogame works for me, now.
I think the concept of fighting Pokémon is much more interesting as a card game than how it's presented in the mainline series. It's not just making the best choice of four moves. There's far more versatility and ways to win. You can knock out enough Pokémon to get all your prize cards before your opponent does, but you can also exploit their bad draws. If they only have one Pokémon on the table, and you can knock them out before they get another, that's an instant win. If you can hold out until they've drawn every card in their deck, that's a win. You can hasten that, or play the long game with status effects disabling their moves. Every attack needs to be powered up with energy cards, Pokémon can be evolved mid-fight, and it's a bit of a gamble trying to line up some absurdly powerful move when you don't know which cards you'll draw. Luck is a big component, but if you build a deck that you know how to use, there's always the potential that you could turn things around when it's looking bad for you.
It's inherently addictive. Each time you win a match against a new opponent, you're given new cards. New options. Maybe you'll get some incredible card, but you'll need a long evolutionary line and a bunch more energy cards to utilise it. You can't go over 60 cards in your deck, and it's up to you how much you'll prioritise hail mary victories over modest, balanced choices that ensure you've got options even when you're drawing weak cards. There's so many ways you can approach each match, and it goes so far beyond the experience point chase of the mainline Pokémon series.
Nostalgia plays a part in any interaction with Gen 1 Pokémon stuff, but the Game Boy Color Trading Card Game serves as such a specific time capsule. Seeing cards you have foggy memories of owning, represented by 64x48 sprites is very charming. Creatures Inc really went to town in illustrating the cards, utilising diverse art styles and techniques, and seeing an old 1998 CGI Pikachu translated into Game Boy pixel art taps into a very specific moment in our shared history.
I still don't think the GBC game is ideal, though. The card game wasn't designed with this kind of adaptation in mind, and it shows in how awkward it can be to play here. They can't display all the information on a card at once, and you have to navigate menus to access crucial details. When your Pokémon is knocked out and you have to select one from your bench, you can't even look at them to consider whether they'll be a great choice for the situation you're in. A lot of variables in the game are dependent on coin flips, and the results in the GBC game somewhat little suspicious. It feels much more like there's an algorithm determining when a successful flip will heighten the excitement, and not a random 50/50 chance. Using the NSO emulator's rewind feature, you can see that the code pre-determines a lot in these battles, and you can throw the AI into repeating bad decisions by making use of unusual strategies. It doesn't feel like playing against a real person, and unlike Card Fighters Clash, the game hasn't been designed with the limitations of a handheld console in mind.
When are you ever going to play the 90s Trading Card Game with a real person, though? Is that ever going to happen again? If you put a lot of energy into seeking vintage cards and like-minded people, you might be able to get that together, but it's going to be a lot more work than just turning this game on. And even though all the buzz is behind the new Switch Online release, it's worth considering if you're looking for games you'd actually want to play on an old Game Boy too. The ghosting effect on those screens aren't nearly as well suited to high-action as you remember, and it's games with static screens that really sing on that device. You're definitely going to have a better time playing a cartridge like this than something like Gradius or Contra (though options are levelled out a little more if you're using something like the Super Game Boy). This is a good Game Boy game, and you likely have more reason to play it than you'd think.
The following paragraph will detail the game's ending, and I suggest you stop reading here if you want to avoid Pokémon Trading Card Game (GBC) spoilers -
Up to this point, the game has played it fairly straight. A card game simulation, albeit one with a cute Game Boy RPG frontend. After beating all the gyms, the four elite Pokémon Trading Card players and the ultimate Pokémon Trading Card Game Master, Ronald, the character "Rod" casually congratulates you with a shocking revelation. "The Legendary Cards seem pleased to be passed on to you". Yes, these cards are sentient. One of the biggest last-minute plot twists I've ever encountered. This isn't Darth Vader being Luke's father. It's his fucking lightsaber. You walk through the door and the £2.50 booster pack gives a speech. "A true Pokémon Card Master is one who has the skull to use the abilities of the different card and the courage to duel powerful opponents, and most of all, the ability to love the Pokémon Trading Card Game." Go suck a shit, Shyamalan.
Like a lot of people my age, I have a personal history with Pokémon. Enough to know what an alt gr key does, anyway. I was about 11 when it first started to hit in the UK, and I was as captivated by it as anyone else. Pokémon Red was the first handheld game I played that seemed like more than a passing novelty. It was a big adventure, with layers of depth that would keep you enthralled even after you'd beaten the Elite Four. I'd wake up early and play as much as I could, awkwardly tilting my Game Boy Pocket towards my bedside lamp, until either my family woke up or I developed shoulder cramps. As I got older, it remained a series I respected and had an enduring nostalgia for, but I didn't really get much out of the games anymore. It was just too basic, repetitive and tedious. I didn't get excited about labyrinthian caves and grand levelling systems anymore. It was Game Freak pushing their 373 kilobytes in the right spots to keep kids playing for weeks on end.
I also had the Game Boy Pokémon Trading Card Game back then. I recall always feeling a little weird about it. There was the shallow illusion of a proper Pokémon game, but it was a trick. You walked around gyms and talked to NPCs, but there wasn't an overworld. There was no adventure. You weren't getting your bicycle and barrelling down Route 16, or figuring out how to get into Saffron City, or walking aboard the SS Anne. It didn't have any of those big, memorable moments. And it wasn't as fun as the real card game. Everything was obscured behind menu options, and it took about ten minutes to assemble your deck. You couldn't just buy more cards when you lost, either. You had to do everything its way, including flipping a coin to see if you'd just Paralysed a Pokémon you had clearly just knocked out. I didn't have much regard for it. I still 100%ed the thing, obviously, but I didn't feel a lot of affection for it.
Now I'm - god, what has it been now - TWENTY-TWO YEARS older, it hits a little different. I sold all my cards many years ago, and wouldn't ever think of playing again unless it was a one-off with a good friend. I'm more cynical about the claws of the trading card game scene, and how ludicrously Creatures Inc have expanded upon the familiar limitations to excite new generations of players. It's all mad multi-piece holo cards that have 600 HP and shit. I wouldn't want to look at anything past the Team Rocket set. I was ready to turn my back on it when they introduced Steel types. Going back to the 90s version of the game seems welcomingly quaint now. And in those intervening years, I fell deeply in love with SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters Clash. A TCG videogame works for me, now.
I think the concept of fighting Pokémon is much more interesting as a card game than how it's presented in the mainline series. It's not just making the best choice of four moves. There's far more versatility and ways to win. You can knock out enough Pokémon to get all your prize cards before your opponent does, but you can also exploit their bad draws. If they only have one Pokémon on the table, and you can knock them out before they get another, that's an instant win. If you can hold out until they've drawn every card in their deck, that's a win. You can hasten that, or play the long game with status effects disabling their moves. Every attack needs to be powered up with energy cards, Pokémon can be evolved mid-fight, and it's a bit of a gamble trying to line up some absurdly powerful move when you don't know which cards you'll draw. Luck is a big component, but if you build a deck that you know how to use, there's always the potential that you could turn things around when it's looking bad for you.
It's inherently addictive. Each time you win a match against a new opponent, you're given new cards. New options. Maybe you'll get some incredible card, but you'll need a long evolutionary line and a bunch more energy cards to utilise it. You can't go over 60 cards in your deck, and it's up to you how much you'll prioritise hail mary victories over modest, balanced choices that ensure you've got options even when you're drawing weak cards. There's so many ways you can approach each match, and it goes so far beyond the experience point chase of the mainline Pokémon series.
Nostalgia plays a part in any interaction with Gen 1 Pokémon stuff, but the Game Boy Color Trading Card Game serves as such a specific time capsule. Seeing cards you have foggy memories of owning, represented by 64x48 sprites is very charming. Creatures Inc really went to town in illustrating the cards, utilising diverse art styles and techniques, and seeing an old 1998 CGI Pikachu translated into Game Boy pixel art taps into a very specific moment in our shared history.
I still don't think the GBC game is ideal, though. The card game wasn't designed with this kind of adaptation in mind, and it shows in how awkward it can be to play here. They can't display all the information on a card at once, and you have to navigate menus to access crucial details. When your Pokémon is knocked out and you have to select one from your bench, you can't even look at them to consider whether they'll be a great choice for the situation you're in. A lot of variables in the game are dependent on coin flips, and the results in the GBC game somewhat little suspicious. It feels much more like there's an algorithm determining when a successful flip will heighten the excitement, and not a random 50/50 chance. Using the NSO emulator's rewind feature, you can see that the code pre-determines a lot in these battles, and you can throw the AI into repeating bad decisions by making use of unusual strategies. It doesn't feel like playing against a real person, and unlike Card Fighters Clash, the game hasn't been designed with the limitations of a handheld console in mind.
When are you ever going to play the 90s Trading Card Game with a real person, though? Is that ever going to happen again? If you put a lot of energy into seeking vintage cards and like-minded people, you might be able to get that together, but it's going to be a lot more work than just turning this game on. And even though all the buzz is behind the new Switch Online release, it's worth considering if you're looking for games you'd actually want to play on an old Game Boy too. The ghosting effect on those screens aren't nearly as well suited to high-action as you remember, and it's games with static screens that really sing on that device. You're definitely going to have a better time playing a cartridge like this than something like Gradius or Contra (though options are levelled out a little more if you're using something like the Super Game Boy). This is a good Game Boy game, and you likely have more reason to play it than you'd think.
The following paragraph will detail the game's ending, and I suggest you stop reading here if you want to avoid Pokémon Trading Card Game (GBC) spoilers -
Up to this point, the game has played it fairly straight. A card game simulation, albeit one with a cute Game Boy RPG frontend. After beating all the gyms, the four elite Pokémon Trading Card players and the ultimate Pokémon Trading Card Game Master, Ronald, the character "Rod" casually congratulates you with a shocking revelation. "The Legendary Cards seem pleased to be passed on to you". Yes, these cards are sentient. One of the biggest last-minute plot twists I've ever encountered. This isn't Darth Vader being Luke's father. It's his fucking lightsaber. You walk through the door and the £2.50 booster pack gives a speech. "A true Pokémon Card Master is one who has the skull to use the abilities of the different card and the courage to duel powerful opponents, and most of all, the ability to love the Pokémon Trading Card Game." Go suck a shit, Shyamalan.
Sin and Punishment
2000
holy fuck
Sin and Punishment
2000
I don't have a clue what happened, but it was sick as hell.
Sin and Punishment
2000
Waited until I could get my hands on a Switch N64 controller before playing this on NSO. Good god this game rules. So good that you can completely overlook not having a clue what’s going on, and not being able to hear a word anyone is saying. I’ve played it through twice more since finishing it. I want to go again.
Sin and Punishment!
Sin and Punishment!
Metroid Prime is an incredible achievement. The similarities of Zelda and Metroid's structures meant Retro Studios had the ability to copy a lot of Ocarina of Time's homework, but Metroid utilises 3D space far more than Zelda ever has. Samus is fundamentally a platforming hero, who spends most of her time jumping and shooting. In Zelda, verticality is so rarely an aspect of traversal that there's not even a proper jump button. Prime opts to further explore the geometry with use of multiple visors that change what Samus can see and interact with. There's always the possibility that you're missing something if you don't explore all your options at any given time.
The new Switch Remaster of Metroid Prime has been met with sweeping positivity. Press outlets doubling down on their decades-old commitments to Prime being one of the best games ever made and dishing out 10/10s left, right and centre. Competing to see who can show it the most deference, like the audience at Star Wars Celebration. Look, that's fine. I'm quick to dismiss valid criticism of my favourites as if my identity is at risk, too. Call Dig Dug crap and I'll bite your head off. I'm just a little weary of seeing these nostalgic appraisals plastered onto an Accolades Trailer. There's aspects of Prime that I hope Retro have reconsidered as they move forward with 4.
Prime is so excited about being a 3D Metroid. It revels in it. Its puzzles frequently hide solutions in unsuspecting walls and crevices, far away from the glowing doors and luminescent 2002 enemies. Sometimes puzzles rely on you remembering that one of your abilities that you gained two hours ago and haven't had a use for since, has some crucial secondary function. That's an issue with its open design. It doesn't necessarily teach its lessons in a way that the player can immediately understand and adopt.
I originally played most of Prime when I got my GameCube around 2003 and eventually completed it via the Wii's Metroid Prime Trilogy release. The Switch release was my second full playthrough, but I still came up against situations I remember getting stuck at years ago. The Super Missiles that don't work with the only gun you've had to use for the last two hours. The dead electrical points that you have to fire a Wave Beam at. Points of progression that hinge on you remembering a door you left locked on the other side of the map. I could have previously assumed it was my fault that these parts caused me trouble, but the fact that I can approach this game multiple times over several years and still come up against the same roadblocks makes me think that the game could have presented this stuff a little better.
Then there's the sacred loneliness. You don't want to mess with that. It's crucial that Samus is alone. But see if I'm stuck in a Zelda game? It's quite nice that I can talk to an NPC who might give me an idea on where I ought to be going. In Prime, you're sometimes going over the same familiar territory, just begging for the game to get bored with you and alert you to a hidden room on the map. There's no deliberate way to get these hints. You just have to waste time until they happen, and sometimes the game thinks you've already been given enough help, and won't alert you no matter how long you backtrack. Sometimes, you're quite happy backtracking and looking for hidden upgrades, but the game will still nag you with some new revelation on your map. Maybe making these tips something you could access if and when you wanted would be preferable.
I don't like to throw around the word "dated", but there's aspects of Prime that just wouldn't be in there if it had been designed for the current market. Every release of the game after the initial one has addressed the stiffness of its controls and the lock-on system, but the game depends on their use. Whether you're pointing with a Wii Remote or using gyro with a Pro Controller, enemy hitboxes are directly tied to their lock-on points, and if you attempt to take a shot without using that, it's likely that it won't count. Even if the lock-on point isn't attached to the enemy's character model. The weakpoints on the underwater tentacle creatures are pretty bad for this, and you often have to shoot somewhere near them to make contact. You'll just have to use the lock-on system for combat, even if the other way feels better to you.
The 3D puzzles often feel rudimentary. It's obvious that the developers haven't played Portal yet. Points where Metroid Prime frustrate, underwhelm or obfuscate a solution that should feel instinctive are too frequent. Some rely on achieving enough momentum, rolling the Morph Ball back and forth on a halfpipe. Sometimes you need to get Big Air off the lip to reach a higher platform. It doesn't feel deliberate. It feels like you're pushing the game's systems to its limits and sequence breaking, but it's the intended solution. It's perhaps why so many of Metroid Prime's biggest fans have transitioned so naturally into speedrunning. I don't think it reflects great design, though.
The artifact quest is a part of the game that gets a lot of criticism. It's kind of overblown, but I understand. Before the final stretch of the game, Samus is tasked with searching the whole map for 12 artifacts. Many see it as padding for padding's sake. Lots of games use large maps that you can fully explore at any point, but you never had to follow a series of clues to find hidden trinkets scattered throughout Vice City's most unassuming alleyways before Sonny Forelli would recognise your right to a duel. It's something I found frustrating when I previously played the game, but I've gained some appreciation for it now. It's Samus making fuller use of all her abilities, and that includes the map. A last farewell to Tallon IV, and a last opportunity to stumble upon upgrades you missed. The hints give you just enough information to determine where you need to go and what you need to do. There's no modern day conveniences like a user-determined waypoint marker, and the artifact hints are buried quite deeply within a submenu on the pause menu. It's the kind of unintuitive design that Grezzo would have addressed in a Zelda remake, but Metroid Prime Remastered hasn't been approached with the same kind of intention. It's the old game, but the controls and visuals are better. You're buying the 21 year-old experience.
Retro Studios naturally imbued Metroid with more of a western sci-fi atmosphere, and it's something I have a kind of uneasy relationship with. Samus herself doesn't feel so much like a tokusatsu hero, but an astronaut doing her job. A grown up. Her animation and design often comes off as joyless and bored - I kind of like that. It's like the deeply un-special working class interplanetary miners of gritty, frightening 70s sci-fi. I do miss the spark she has in Dread though. The incredible energy she displays in the big fights, and the unfazed sarcasm as she points her arm cannon at Kraid. I really like thinking Samus is cool, and getting excited to see how she takes on some mad new threat. In Prime, she often comes off as just some lady (even if all the Chozo lore and the spoken-word intro prop her up as some fabled galactic saviour). I'd hope Prime 4 can balance out a dour atmosphere with a Samus Aran who totally fucking rules.
I'm sorry to level so much criticism at Prime. It really is a fantastic game, and I love it. There's few games as deeply engrossing and exciting. It's its own world. When all the wheels are turning and you're just eating up all the ambience and creativity, it's like little else. I just don't want the developers to think they've totally nailed it already and uncritically apply its design philosophy to Metroid Prime 4. There are aspects that ought to be reworked if Metroid is going to have a future alongside Mario and Zelda. I can see the younger crowd looking at the Metacritic rating, buying into it, and then abandoning all hope of ever liking the series when faced against its 2002 nonsense. Mind you, they all seemed to get into Demon's Souls just fine, so what do I know.
The new Switch Remaster of Metroid Prime has been met with sweeping positivity. Press outlets doubling down on their decades-old commitments to Prime being one of the best games ever made and dishing out 10/10s left, right and centre. Competing to see who can show it the most deference, like the audience at Star Wars Celebration. Look, that's fine. I'm quick to dismiss valid criticism of my favourites as if my identity is at risk, too. Call Dig Dug crap and I'll bite your head off. I'm just a little weary of seeing these nostalgic appraisals plastered onto an Accolades Trailer. There's aspects of Prime that I hope Retro have reconsidered as they move forward with 4.
Prime is so excited about being a 3D Metroid. It revels in it. Its puzzles frequently hide solutions in unsuspecting walls and crevices, far away from the glowing doors and luminescent 2002 enemies. Sometimes puzzles rely on you remembering that one of your abilities that you gained two hours ago and haven't had a use for since, has some crucial secondary function. That's an issue with its open design. It doesn't necessarily teach its lessons in a way that the player can immediately understand and adopt.
I originally played most of Prime when I got my GameCube around 2003 and eventually completed it via the Wii's Metroid Prime Trilogy release. The Switch release was my second full playthrough, but I still came up against situations I remember getting stuck at years ago. The Super Missiles that don't work with the only gun you've had to use for the last two hours. The dead electrical points that you have to fire a Wave Beam at. Points of progression that hinge on you remembering a door you left locked on the other side of the map. I could have previously assumed it was my fault that these parts caused me trouble, but the fact that I can approach this game multiple times over several years and still come up against the same roadblocks makes me think that the game could have presented this stuff a little better.
Then there's the sacred loneliness. You don't want to mess with that. It's crucial that Samus is alone. But see if I'm stuck in a Zelda game? It's quite nice that I can talk to an NPC who might give me an idea on where I ought to be going. In Prime, you're sometimes going over the same familiar territory, just begging for the game to get bored with you and alert you to a hidden room on the map. There's no deliberate way to get these hints. You just have to waste time until they happen, and sometimes the game thinks you've already been given enough help, and won't alert you no matter how long you backtrack. Sometimes, you're quite happy backtracking and looking for hidden upgrades, but the game will still nag you with some new revelation on your map. Maybe making these tips something you could access if and when you wanted would be preferable.
I don't like to throw around the word "dated", but there's aspects of Prime that just wouldn't be in there if it had been designed for the current market. Every release of the game after the initial one has addressed the stiffness of its controls and the lock-on system, but the game depends on their use. Whether you're pointing with a Wii Remote or using gyro with a Pro Controller, enemy hitboxes are directly tied to their lock-on points, and if you attempt to take a shot without using that, it's likely that it won't count. Even if the lock-on point isn't attached to the enemy's character model. The weakpoints on the underwater tentacle creatures are pretty bad for this, and you often have to shoot somewhere near them to make contact. You'll just have to use the lock-on system for combat, even if the other way feels better to you.
The 3D puzzles often feel rudimentary. It's obvious that the developers haven't played Portal yet. Points where Metroid Prime frustrate, underwhelm or obfuscate a solution that should feel instinctive are too frequent. Some rely on achieving enough momentum, rolling the Morph Ball back and forth on a halfpipe. Sometimes you need to get Big Air off the lip to reach a higher platform. It doesn't feel deliberate. It feels like you're pushing the game's systems to its limits and sequence breaking, but it's the intended solution. It's perhaps why so many of Metroid Prime's biggest fans have transitioned so naturally into speedrunning. I don't think it reflects great design, though.
The artifact quest is a part of the game that gets a lot of criticism. It's kind of overblown, but I understand. Before the final stretch of the game, Samus is tasked with searching the whole map for 12 artifacts. Many see it as padding for padding's sake. Lots of games use large maps that you can fully explore at any point, but you never had to follow a series of clues to find hidden trinkets scattered throughout Vice City's most unassuming alleyways before Sonny Forelli would recognise your right to a duel. It's something I found frustrating when I previously played the game, but I've gained some appreciation for it now. It's Samus making fuller use of all her abilities, and that includes the map. A last farewell to Tallon IV, and a last opportunity to stumble upon upgrades you missed. The hints give you just enough information to determine where you need to go and what you need to do. There's no modern day conveniences like a user-determined waypoint marker, and the artifact hints are buried quite deeply within a submenu on the pause menu. It's the kind of unintuitive design that Grezzo would have addressed in a Zelda remake, but Metroid Prime Remastered hasn't been approached with the same kind of intention. It's the old game, but the controls and visuals are better. You're buying the 21 year-old experience.
Retro Studios naturally imbued Metroid with more of a western sci-fi atmosphere, and it's something I have a kind of uneasy relationship with. Samus herself doesn't feel so much like a tokusatsu hero, but an astronaut doing her job. A grown up. Her animation and design often comes off as joyless and bored - I kind of like that. It's like the deeply un-special working class interplanetary miners of gritty, frightening 70s sci-fi. I do miss the spark she has in Dread though. The incredible energy she displays in the big fights, and the unfazed sarcasm as she points her arm cannon at Kraid. I really like thinking Samus is cool, and getting excited to see how she takes on some mad new threat. In Prime, she often comes off as just some lady (even if all the Chozo lore and the spoken-word intro prop her up as some fabled galactic saviour). I'd hope Prime 4 can balance out a dour atmosphere with a Samus Aran who totally fucking rules.
I'm sorry to level so much criticism at Prime. It really is a fantastic game, and I love it. There's few games as deeply engrossing and exciting. It's its own world. When all the wheels are turning and you're just eating up all the ambience and creativity, it's like little else. I just don't want the developers to think they've totally nailed it already and uncritically apply its design philosophy to Metroid Prime 4. There are aspects that ought to be reworked if Metroid is going to have a future alongside Mario and Zelda. I can see the younger crowd looking at the Metacritic rating, buying into it, and then abandoning all hope of ever liking the series when faced against its 2002 nonsense. Mind you, they all seemed to get into Demon's Souls just fine, so what do I know.
Super Mario Land
1989
BOMB JACK ROM HACK
The hero of videogames - our 1-UP Boy - appropriated into the world of sloppy, accidental 80s platformers. Mario can be anything, and here he proves that includes "a bit shit".
Super Mario Land plays like a joke aimed towards anyone who's ever felt something significant about a Mario game. When you get a Starman - the McGuffin of Universal Pictures' current megahit - it plays kitty kitty cancan. You idiot. You fool. They should have packed dunce caps in every box.
In territories where the NES/Famicom never really took off, this game served as many peoples' introduction to Mario, subsequently inspiring many people to either get really into Tetris or submit fanart to Sega Power of Sonic and Tails commanding a firing squad against the man. This is the game Sega thought they were up against when they made Alex Kidd.
Once you swallow the bitter medicine, get the Galaxy and World out of your head and start viewing this in the context of stupid old platformers like Dangerous Dave and B.C.'s Quest for Tyres, you can start to appreciate what Mario Land has to offer. A game with sphinxes who turn around on the spot when you run past them, and big bouncing flies. OH! DAISY
Is it any wonder that Shigeru Miyamoto personally commissioned the tie-in rap single and had the music video shot in Chessington World of Adventures? Hip Tanaka's soundtrack's a stone cold groove, man. The shift to minor chords on the third bar of 2-1 before the resolve? That's fear and romance. That's adventure. Beauty itself. What better accompaniment for jumping over firebreathing seahorses?
There's something enjoyably pathetic about the Superball. How it bounces off the ground, one step from Mario, and uselessly flies off into the air forever. Yes, it has unique utility, but those flubbed shots are very funny. The ozone layer over Sarasaland cluttered with petrol station footballs. Seeing them bounce around uselessly in the bonus rooms while the universally-recognised "look at this fucking idiot" themesong plays is grade A stuff.
The shmup levels interject themselves into the game just to reassure you there's no interest in making an actual Mario game, here. They're more welcome than SMB1's water levels, and the goatbleat sound effect when you shoot the bosses is a lot of fun.
The game feels horrible. Enemy hitboxes are fuckin' anywhere, and you drop like a rock when you let go of the d-pad. There is no chance the game would be elevated above a Sunsoft cartoon license if not for the fondness gamers have for the jumping man. It does retain a funny charm, though. Where else are you going to see Mario fight against jiangshi? All fans have to subject themselves to this 40 minute running time, and see how that distorts their impression of The Children's Hero. Nintendo are too embarassed to put this on NSO and have players compare it to Jelly Boy, and honestly, I sympathise with them. It's probably right that new audiences will have to go digging before they can play this version of Mario.
You have to, though. "There ain't no place like Super Mario Land."
The hero of videogames - our 1-UP Boy - appropriated into the world of sloppy, accidental 80s platformers. Mario can be anything, and here he proves that includes "a bit shit".
Super Mario Land plays like a joke aimed towards anyone who's ever felt something significant about a Mario game. When you get a Starman - the McGuffin of Universal Pictures' current megahit - it plays kitty kitty cancan. You idiot. You fool. They should have packed dunce caps in every box.
In territories where the NES/Famicom never really took off, this game served as many peoples' introduction to Mario, subsequently inspiring many people to either get really into Tetris or submit fanart to Sega Power of Sonic and Tails commanding a firing squad against the man. This is the game Sega thought they were up against when they made Alex Kidd.
Once you swallow the bitter medicine, get the Galaxy and World out of your head and start viewing this in the context of stupid old platformers like Dangerous Dave and B.C.'s Quest for Tyres, you can start to appreciate what Mario Land has to offer. A game with sphinxes who turn around on the spot when you run past them, and big bouncing flies. OH! DAISY
Is it any wonder that Shigeru Miyamoto personally commissioned the tie-in rap single and had the music video shot in Chessington World of Adventures? Hip Tanaka's soundtrack's a stone cold groove, man. The shift to minor chords on the third bar of 2-1 before the resolve? That's fear and romance. That's adventure. Beauty itself. What better accompaniment for jumping over firebreathing seahorses?
There's something enjoyably pathetic about the Superball. How it bounces off the ground, one step from Mario, and uselessly flies off into the air forever. Yes, it has unique utility, but those flubbed shots are very funny. The ozone layer over Sarasaland cluttered with petrol station footballs. Seeing them bounce around uselessly in the bonus rooms while the universally-recognised "look at this fucking idiot" themesong plays is grade A stuff.
The shmup levels interject themselves into the game just to reassure you there's no interest in making an actual Mario game, here. They're more welcome than SMB1's water levels, and the goatbleat sound effect when you shoot the bosses is a lot of fun.
The game feels horrible. Enemy hitboxes are fuckin' anywhere, and you drop like a rock when you let go of the d-pad. There is no chance the game would be elevated above a Sunsoft cartoon license if not for the fondness gamers have for the jumping man. It does retain a funny charm, though. Where else are you going to see Mario fight against jiangshi? All fans have to subject themselves to this 40 minute running time, and see how that distorts their impression of The Children's Hero. Nintendo are too embarassed to put this on NSO and have players compare it to Jelly Boy, and honestly, I sympathise with them. It's probably right that new audiences will have to go digging before they can play this version of Mario.
You have to, though. "There ain't no place like Super Mario Land."
Resident Evil 4
2023
This review contains spoilers
What are we doing here? You know the Resi 2 remake was only made because the fans were begging for everything to play like Resi 4? Resi 4 already is Resi 4. What is this?
Resident Evil 4 (2005) isn't its story. It isn't its setting or characters. It doesn't have much interest in them and abandons any notion of reverence towards them within the first couple hours. It's a tightly defined ruleset explored thrillingly through a riotous campaign that jumps the shark, then proceeds to jump over Fonzie, and then jumps over the guy who jumped over Fonzie. New areas weren't added out of any consideration for the story, but because the team were having too much fun coming up with things to put in the game. It's a million little ideas that all complement each other. I think a big part of what made me so emotional when I played Breath of the Wild is that I'd given up on there ever being a new game like Resident Evil 4; a radically new and invigorating approach to an old formula, where each component felt beautifully designed and embraced by the surrounding framework. A game you were just dying to pick up the controller and be a part of. Nothing between 2005 and 2017 gave me that gut punch. Trying to inject modern game design standards into its structure would be missing the point of what that game was.
Frustratingly, Capcom haven't really proven my case here. The Resident Evil 4 remake is a well-considered endeavour that expands on curious ideas that the original may have glossed over too soon, and celebrates the game's most loved qualities with the right balance between taste and wreckless abandon. The current-day Resi staff are talented designers and incredible technicians. It shouldn't be a surprise that when they took on a project as prestigious as Resident Evil 4, they made a good game. It's clear that the remake was created by people who genuinely like the original and think about it often. I'm reticent to admit that they got away with it, but shit, man. The game's good.
That demo really rubbed me the wrong way, though. All of my worst fears were realised in front of me. That initial villager who approaches you with his neck already impossibly broken, instantly washing away any thought that maybe these are just regular people, long before the classic transformation scene. The hideous tonal clashes between the gritty new environments and Leon jumping through windows and quipping about bingo. The glowing reverence for the village's structure while adopting gameplay that fundamentally changes its purpose. It felt pointless, stupid, and ignorant of what made the original game work so well.
Prior to that, while I wasn't keen on the principle of remaking Resident Evil 4, what I was expecting was a good game that I'd have a litany of massive frustrations with. After I played that demo, I was expecting a bucket of shite. I'd only be playing it so I'd have something to say if I was ever asked about it. Just miserable.
It's odd, because the game I received was pretty much in line with my initial expectations. I liked it more than that, even. It's embracing me as an endlessly devoted Resi 4 lover and presenting a game that I'd enjoy.
I still hold up the 2002 Gamecube Resident Evil as the best remake ever made, and subsequent remakes in the series have been conscious of what it achieved. The little surprises that work more effectively because of the fans' familiarity with the original. There's clever wee moments in the Resi 4 remake that work the same way. The thudding as you approach Luis for the first time isn't the sound of him struggling to force his way out of a cupboard, but a villager hammering down nails in the trap door he's detained under. It's not a massive jumpscare, but an effective subversion of your expectations if you've played through Resi 4 about twenty times. Wee things like that. The old insta-knife defence seems to be the connective mechanic through all the remakes. The way it works here helps justify the controversial knife degradation, and while I'm not a big fan of that, I'll give anything a pass if it reminds me of the single Mikami-directed remake.
A big point in the game's favour is how they've handled Leon. Even a single oneliner that seemed either a bit too cool or too much like Will Ferrell bullshit, and I'd have taken a hammer to the disc. I can see a version of this game that set out to meme. I'm delighted to say that it just feels like they've continued writing more dialogue for Resi 4 Leon. He's a delight. He's survived Raccoon City, so he thinks he's the shit, but he has all the wit and self-awareness of an 8 year-old who's just watched Die Hard. Leon seeing a 20 foot hammer and sarcastically retorting "good luck finding someone big enough to use that" had me completely sold. I love this man to pieces.
There's directions that the remake takes that I don't like, too. It frequently lifts iconic environments from the original with only the barest of tweaks, and that clashes against the more aggressive AI and greater range of movement. They often just feel too cramped here. The Resi 2 remake's more dramatic shift in design gave the designers the opportunity to play around with the scale to complement these changes, whereas 4's locations often feel like they've been dragged and dropped into a DeepLearning upscaler. You're constantly dogpiled upon in corners, just hoping for a lapse between the attack animations to push your way through. It feels clumsy and due some further revising, but they've like-for-liked big stretches of a game that played dramatically differently. I died countless times on the siege with Luis, but one-shotted my way through the Big Cheese fight that takes place soon afterwards, because they had the sense to make the barn about twice as wide this time. I don't know.
Oh- don't play on Hardcore. This experience may have been the thing that dropped this from a 9/10 to an 8. I always pick Normal for my first time with a game, but telling me that it was the mode for those in the audience who had played Resident Evil 4 was such a coy ruse. It's not the game. It's the bullshit Challenge version of the game. The one that had me play through the whole of the Regenerators' chapter with zero ammo. It's not tense, it's not scary, it's not a challenge. It's the software not functioning properly. It's seeing elaborate new locations and knowing you won't really get to play a game there, because you've just got to run through it until they decide you're allowed another bullet. Whoever presented that as the mode for established fans deserves a fucking hanging.
If this tars my reputation, I'll accept it, but I think QTEs can be good. When used well, they can add a sense of personal stakes to moments that can't be replicated in regular gameplay. Shenmue fans know this (though the sequel's Yellow Head Building can fuck right off), and Resident Evil 4 had some good ones. I bring it up constantly, but the Resident Evil 2 remake really ought to have utilised it to make the alligator chase something more dynamic than the half-hearted Crash Bandicoot horseshit we were given. The new developers have taken a hardline stance against QTEs, and I don't support it. Many of those big moments remain, but they're just cutscenes, and they fall flat without the risk of death. The Krauser knifefight always felt like an odd choice to present as QTEs in the original, and the biggest point of dread for QTE skeptics, and the boss fight that replaces it is okay here. Just okay. You can hammer away at L1 to parry everything, and there's little skill or strategy to it, but fine. What were they supposed to do?
I played this game while in the middle of moving house, packing endless boxes with every single item I own. Please forgive me for using the auto-sort function in the inventory screen. I honestly didn't mean to, but I accidentally activated it once, and when the arrangement of my items lost any sense of personal touch, my inventory was effectively dead to me. It's a welcome tweak for less patient players, but it undercuts an aspect of the game that was widely loved. Something that made item management more playful. I'm a Tetris fan, so I've always been fond of it, but I guess some folk will be coming to this from Gears of War, so I understand the compromise.
I'm kind of mixed on the "crafting" system. I did not welcome them abandoning the old "combine" terminology to appeal to the Markus Persson generation, but given the new complexity of the system, it's justifiable. The game's full of different weapons, and players will find their own combinations of problems and guns, so it makes sense to give the player a hand in the kind of ammo they end up with. There's a little risk/reward dynamic in whether you cash out immediately for shitty pistol shots or save up for shotgun shells and grenades. It's Resi 3 stuff, but it's not absurd to suggest it can work in 4. I don't know how much I like it in effect, though. I didn't have a problem with the old ammo system. It encouraged making better use of the full range of your arsenal and gave you something to sell to the merchant if there was a gun you just plain didn't find useful. Now, I've got to visit a window and make a decision every time I run out of bullets. I don't love it, but I can see its utility.
I did encounter a few technical hiccups in my playthrough. Character models deforming under gunfire, and Ashley slipping through the environment constantly until my next "You Are Dead" screen. Leon even slipped through the gameworld and died in the middle of the last boss. I know Digital Foundry have had harsh words for the PS5 port's presentation. It doesn't really bear making a point of. A game like this is going to be patched in about an hour, and the launch issues will only remain in funny videos. We can pretend it's not there, because it almost certainly won't be for long.
The tone is really uneven early on. I'd likely hold more against it, but they've done such a good job giving Resi 4 Leon more stuff to do and say that I'll give them a pass on how awkwardly the one liners and Jackie Chan bullshit clashes with the sight of young women's bodies hacked away on bloody altars. There's an attempt to explore the subject of murderous cults with some degree of seriousness, but it doesn't work when they're busy filling their homes with whimsical clockwork nonsense. I didn't want the fun taken out of Resi 4, so I'm glad that they stuck the landing on that, but the grizzly, grim stuff sticks out very uncomfortably in the middle of it. Like someone taped over 5 seconds of Roger Rabbit with videocamera footage of themself masturbating. Thankfully, the game forgets this intention as soon as you get to the castle, and it's back to funfair.
Ashley has been changed significantly, and in ways that I expect will rile up some oldheads. The representation of female characters is something that has been dramatically reconsidered since the mid-2000s, and while the intentions are positive, I'm not convinced she needed to be a more competent and less bratty character. I do welcome them making the power dynamic between her and Leon a little more even, but I don't expect a president's daughter to jump into being a pro Resident Eviler against her will. The series had already established a range of likeable, capable women before Ashley. Many of the biggest fans of the early games I know are women, and I don't think they'd be nearly as keen on them if Jill and Claire had been presented as regressively as many typical PS1 heroines. Regardless, I quite like the new Ashley. When she's actively coming up with ideas and getting Leon out of trouble, I'm quite warmed by it. It feels like she's grown up a little. She just feels a little more boring without her old personality flaws. 2005 Ashley was somebody that was quite fun to pair against the cocksure buffoon, Leon Kennedy. I don't think they had to get rid of her identity in order to show respect for her gender.
In relation to that, I quite like how they've played up the threat of Ashley's contamination. It does a better job of highlighting the baddies' intentions than just having her fall into mechanical traps and shit. There's effective dramatic stakes, and I think it's one point that the remake does a better job at than the original. Good work.
Ramon Salazar used to be the pinnacle of the game's absurd high camp. I guess he still is, but that doesn't really seem to be the case until his boss fight, which he berates Leon throughout. It's a relief when he drops back into his old familiar bullshit, but there's so much noise masking his distorted voice from the rooftop, I had to switch on the subtitles to understand anything he said. It's a good laugh when he drops his high-fulluton nonsense about scriptwriting and gives it the old "Die, you bastard". He never hijacks the comms line from Hunnigan this time, though, and it's all a bit much when it's condensed into one boss fight. I don't know if those who haven't played the original will think much of him. He's just a big, noisy boss. Bit of a shame. It's a fun boss, at least. One that I used to save a rocket launcher to skip, it actually feels kind of like a Metal Gear boss now. All the running around and reading attack patterns. Scratches an itch.
They easily could have overegged the famous moments and totally ruined them, but I think it mostly delivers them fairly well. The beautiful, divine white dog emerging to save the day from a mountaintop, accompanied by a lightning strike really worked for me. There are moments that were determined to be too stupid to reappear without some tweaking, but there's little references in easter eggs and the trophy list that show the team is fond of that stuff too. In the broader context of the remake, I'm kind of glad the bingo line's still here. It'd be a shame to lose it.
If anyone was holding out for me to give this game a thorough slagging, here's some quick points about things I really didn't like:
THE STEALTH KILLS: Wishy washy shite. They're nothing. There's nothing natural about their incorporation into the game. Just occasionally, you'll come up to some enemies who are locked into a very artificial patrol route, and you'll have the opportunity to stab them from behind to conserve your ammo and make the inevitable swarm of bodies easier to deal with. It's like the stealth bits in GTA: San Andreas; Really fucking crap. And they've put them in a game called "Resident Evil 4". It's like they put tailing missions in Burnout.
FALLING THROUGH WOODEN FLOORS: It's a trick that could be scary. It's rubbish, irritating, and they do it multiple times. Having to scrap your old plans and reorient yourself in an instant is a surprise that could work in a scary action game like Resi 4, but redoing the flimsy wooden boards with no prior indication of their fragility is just crap. Have a big man pick up Leon and chuck him out a window or something. Have a monster pop up from beneath the floorboards and drag Leon down, fine. Hell, just present a surprise and don't do it a bunch of times. Just crashing through perfectly good timber again and again is crap.
SPOOKY GRAFITTI: This is an element of environmental horror design that I just hate. Bloody writing on the walls, talking about death. It's rubbish. Unless you're doing Danny Torrance or something, where an innocent is possessed into writing something fucked up, there's just nothing to it. There are far better, subtler ways to indicate that something horrible has gone on than having a monster man write "Grr, I'm going to kill you!" on their front door. It's the kind of shit that The Evil Within 2 ought to be too good for. What do they think they're doing putting it in Resi 4?
CHECKPOINTS: The game encourages going back to find equipment and treasures you missed, but only sets a new checkpoint the first time you enter a new location. This lead to me assuming I had done jobs or got equipment, and only realising that the game hadn't counted it once I couldn't go back. It's the kind of oversight I think might get addressed in a patch, and it's only a temporary issue, but it's something I feel I have to warn people about, for now.
THE GAME IS TOO KEEN ON ME KILLING THE ANIMALS: You've always been able to kill crows and fish for quick bonuses in Resi 4, but you were never explicitly encouraged to. Now the merchant has a bloodlust for rats, and I'm the mercenary weighing up whether I care more about the ethics of blasting apart virtual vermin or gaining exclusive weapon upgrades. Sometimes I'll kill them on the assumption that I'll be asked to go back for them later, and it doesn't pay off. And what the fuck is up with setting the cow on fire? Have some fucking decency, Resident Evil.
SHOOTABILITY: This is probably going to be a little tough to explain, but the original Resident Evil 4 was a very shootable game. If you fired a shot, it probably did something. Breaking down doors to fire at swarming enemies on the other side, or shooting down the chain holding up the drawbridge. Leon was approaching gun ownership with the same level of restraint as Homer Simpson. That stuff just isn't in the remake. Usefully breakable items are typically covered in yellow paint now to grab the player's attention. That drawbridge now asks you to damage a couple of weights covered in yellow paint. It's helpful, but it loses that sense of fun. Not that I wanted to piss around experimenting with gunfire when the ammo is so punishingly scarce, but it feels far less visceral and exciting when playing around with your guns solves fewer problems.
Leon does sidle through a lot of narrow passageways, but I think that's just a prerequiste if you want to submit your game to be verified for release on PlayStation 5. Maybe that would upset you, and I can already see the sarcastic YouTube compilations, but it didn't really bother me.
I think the most upset I can get with this game is if I think about those who will opt to play this and never touch the original, but those "newer=better" folk would never touch the thing anyway. I'm not really worried about how the remake will affect Resi 4's legacy beyond that. It's an adaptation. It's merchandise. It's a big, loud reason that a million people are talking about Resi 4 again, and the right folk aren't going to stop loving the original because of it. Why would I ever care about the assertions made in a fucking IGN review?
I feel untouchable now. Go ahead, remake Metal Gear Solid again. God Hand. Turn Super Mario World into a crap touchscreen mobile game with microtransactions. Whatever. I can't be hurt anymore. Nothing is sacred. They put lipstick on Jesus Christ's corpse, and I frenched him.
Resident Evil 4 (2005) isn't its story. It isn't its setting or characters. It doesn't have much interest in them and abandons any notion of reverence towards them within the first couple hours. It's a tightly defined ruleset explored thrillingly through a riotous campaign that jumps the shark, then proceeds to jump over Fonzie, and then jumps over the guy who jumped over Fonzie. New areas weren't added out of any consideration for the story, but because the team were having too much fun coming up with things to put in the game. It's a million little ideas that all complement each other. I think a big part of what made me so emotional when I played Breath of the Wild is that I'd given up on there ever being a new game like Resident Evil 4; a radically new and invigorating approach to an old formula, where each component felt beautifully designed and embraced by the surrounding framework. A game you were just dying to pick up the controller and be a part of. Nothing between 2005 and 2017 gave me that gut punch. Trying to inject modern game design standards into its structure would be missing the point of what that game was.
Frustratingly, Capcom haven't really proven my case here. The Resident Evil 4 remake is a well-considered endeavour that expands on curious ideas that the original may have glossed over too soon, and celebrates the game's most loved qualities with the right balance between taste and wreckless abandon. The current-day Resi staff are talented designers and incredible technicians. It shouldn't be a surprise that when they took on a project as prestigious as Resident Evil 4, they made a good game. It's clear that the remake was created by people who genuinely like the original and think about it often. I'm reticent to admit that they got away with it, but shit, man. The game's good.
That demo really rubbed me the wrong way, though. All of my worst fears were realised in front of me. That initial villager who approaches you with his neck already impossibly broken, instantly washing away any thought that maybe these are just regular people, long before the classic transformation scene. The hideous tonal clashes between the gritty new environments and Leon jumping through windows and quipping about bingo. The glowing reverence for the village's structure while adopting gameplay that fundamentally changes its purpose. It felt pointless, stupid, and ignorant of what made the original game work so well.
Prior to that, while I wasn't keen on the principle of remaking Resident Evil 4, what I was expecting was a good game that I'd have a litany of massive frustrations with. After I played that demo, I was expecting a bucket of shite. I'd only be playing it so I'd have something to say if I was ever asked about it. Just miserable.
It's odd, because the game I received was pretty much in line with my initial expectations. I liked it more than that, even. It's embracing me as an endlessly devoted Resi 4 lover and presenting a game that I'd enjoy.
I still hold up the 2002 Gamecube Resident Evil as the best remake ever made, and subsequent remakes in the series have been conscious of what it achieved. The little surprises that work more effectively because of the fans' familiarity with the original. There's clever wee moments in the Resi 4 remake that work the same way. The thudding as you approach Luis for the first time isn't the sound of him struggling to force his way out of a cupboard, but a villager hammering down nails in the trap door he's detained under. It's not a massive jumpscare, but an effective subversion of your expectations if you've played through Resi 4 about twenty times. Wee things like that. The old insta-knife defence seems to be the connective mechanic through all the remakes. The way it works here helps justify the controversial knife degradation, and while I'm not a big fan of that, I'll give anything a pass if it reminds me of the single Mikami-directed remake.
A big point in the game's favour is how they've handled Leon. Even a single oneliner that seemed either a bit too cool or too much like Will Ferrell bullshit, and I'd have taken a hammer to the disc. I can see a version of this game that set out to meme. I'm delighted to say that it just feels like they've continued writing more dialogue for Resi 4 Leon. He's a delight. He's survived Raccoon City, so he thinks he's the shit, but he has all the wit and self-awareness of an 8 year-old who's just watched Die Hard. Leon seeing a 20 foot hammer and sarcastically retorting "good luck finding someone big enough to use that" had me completely sold. I love this man to pieces.
There's directions that the remake takes that I don't like, too. It frequently lifts iconic environments from the original with only the barest of tweaks, and that clashes against the more aggressive AI and greater range of movement. They often just feel too cramped here. The Resi 2 remake's more dramatic shift in design gave the designers the opportunity to play around with the scale to complement these changes, whereas 4's locations often feel like they've been dragged and dropped into a DeepLearning upscaler. You're constantly dogpiled upon in corners, just hoping for a lapse between the attack animations to push your way through. It feels clumsy and due some further revising, but they've like-for-liked big stretches of a game that played dramatically differently. I died countless times on the siege with Luis, but one-shotted my way through the Big Cheese fight that takes place soon afterwards, because they had the sense to make the barn about twice as wide this time. I don't know.
Oh- don't play on Hardcore. This experience may have been the thing that dropped this from a 9/10 to an 8. I always pick Normal for my first time with a game, but telling me that it was the mode for those in the audience who had played Resident Evil 4 was such a coy ruse. It's not the game. It's the bullshit Challenge version of the game. The one that had me play through the whole of the Regenerators' chapter with zero ammo. It's not tense, it's not scary, it's not a challenge. It's the software not functioning properly. It's seeing elaborate new locations and knowing you won't really get to play a game there, because you've just got to run through it until they decide you're allowed another bullet. Whoever presented that as the mode for established fans deserves a fucking hanging.
If this tars my reputation, I'll accept it, but I think QTEs can be good. When used well, they can add a sense of personal stakes to moments that can't be replicated in regular gameplay. Shenmue fans know this (though the sequel's Yellow Head Building can fuck right off), and Resident Evil 4 had some good ones. I bring it up constantly, but the Resident Evil 2 remake really ought to have utilised it to make the alligator chase something more dynamic than the half-hearted Crash Bandicoot horseshit we were given. The new developers have taken a hardline stance against QTEs, and I don't support it. Many of those big moments remain, but they're just cutscenes, and they fall flat without the risk of death. The Krauser knifefight always felt like an odd choice to present as QTEs in the original, and the biggest point of dread for QTE skeptics, and the boss fight that replaces it is okay here. Just okay. You can hammer away at L1 to parry everything, and there's little skill or strategy to it, but fine. What were they supposed to do?
I played this game while in the middle of moving house, packing endless boxes with every single item I own. Please forgive me for using the auto-sort function in the inventory screen. I honestly didn't mean to, but I accidentally activated it once, and when the arrangement of my items lost any sense of personal touch, my inventory was effectively dead to me. It's a welcome tweak for less patient players, but it undercuts an aspect of the game that was widely loved. Something that made item management more playful. I'm a Tetris fan, so I've always been fond of it, but I guess some folk will be coming to this from Gears of War, so I understand the compromise.
I'm kind of mixed on the "crafting" system. I did not welcome them abandoning the old "combine" terminology to appeal to the Markus Persson generation, but given the new complexity of the system, it's justifiable. The game's full of different weapons, and players will find their own combinations of problems and guns, so it makes sense to give the player a hand in the kind of ammo they end up with. There's a little risk/reward dynamic in whether you cash out immediately for shitty pistol shots or save up for shotgun shells and grenades. It's Resi 3 stuff, but it's not absurd to suggest it can work in 4. I don't know how much I like it in effect, though. I didn't have a problem with the old ammo system. It encouraged making better use of the full range of your arsenal and gave you something to sell to the merchant if there was a gun you just plain didn't find useful. Now, I've got to visit a window and make a decision every time I run out of bullets. I don't love it, but I can see its utility.
I did encounter a few technical hiccups in my playthrough. Character models deforming under gunfire, and Ashley slipping through the environment constantly until my next "You Are Dead" screen. Leon even slipped through the gameworld and died in the middle of the last boss. I know Digital Foundry have had harsh words for the PS5 port's presentation. It doesn't really bear making a point of. A game like this is going to be patched in about an hour, and the launch issues will only remain in funny videos. We can pretend it's not there, because it almost certainly won't be for long.
The tone is really uneven early on. I'd likely hold more against it, but they've done such a good job giving Resi 4 Leon more stuff to do and say that I'll give them a pass on how awkwardly the one liners and Jackie Chan bullshit clashes with the sight of young women's bodies hacked away on bloody altars. There's an attempt to explore the subject of murderous cults with some degree of seriousness, but it doesn't work when they're busy filling their homes with whimsical clockwork nonsense. I didn't want the fun taken out of Resi 4, so I'm glad that they stuck the landing on that, but the grizzly, grim stuff sticks out very uncomfortably in the middle of it. Like someone taped over 5 seconds of Roger Rabbit with videocamera footage of themself masturbating. Thankfully, the game forgets this intention as soon as you get to the castle, and it's back to funfair.
Ashley has been changed significantly, and in ways that I expect will rile up some oldheads. The representation of female characters is something that has been dramatically reconsidered since the mid-2000s, and while the intentions are positive, I'm not convinced she needed to be a more competent and less bratty character. I do welcome them making the power dynamic between her and Leon a little more even, but I don't expect a president's daughter to jump into being a pro Resident Eviler against her will. The series had already established a range of likeable, capable women before Ashley. Many of the biggest fans of the early games I know are women, and I don't think they'd be nearly as keen on them if Jill and Claire had been presented as regressively as many typical PS1 heroines. Regardless, I quite like the new Ashley. When she's actively coming up with ideas and getting Leon out of trouble, I'm quite warmed by it. It feels like she's grown up a little. She just feels a little more boring without her old personality flaws. 2005 Ashley was somebody that was quite fun to pair against the cocksure buffoon, Leon Kennedy. I don't think they had to get rid of her identity in order to show respect for her gender.
In relation to that, I quite like how they've played up the threat of Ashley's contamination. It does a better job of highlighting the baddies' intentions than just having her fall into mechanical traps and shit. There's effective dramatic stakes, and I think it's one point that the remake does a better job at than the original. Good work.
Ramon Salazar used to be the pinnacle of the game's absurd high camp. I guess he still is, but that doesn't really seem to be the case until his boss fight, which he berates Leon throughout. It's a relief when he drops back into his old familiar bullshit, but there's so much noise masking his distorted voice from the rooftop, I had to switch on the subtitles to understand anything he said. It's a good laugh when he drops his high-fulluton nonsense about scriptwriting and gives it the old "Die, you bastard". He never hijacks the comms line from Hunnigan this time, though, and it's all a bit much when it's condensed into one boss fight. I don't know if those who haven't played the original will think much of him. He's just a big, noisy boss. Bit of a shame. It's a fun boss, at least. One that I used to save a rocket launcher to skip, it actually feels kind of like a Metal Gear boss now. All the running around and reading attack patterns. Scratches an itch.
They easily could have overegged the famous moments and totally ruined them, but I think it mostly delivers them fairly well. The beautiful, divine white dog emerging to save the day from a mountaintop, accompanied by a lightning strike really worked for me. There are moments that were determined to be too stupid to reappear without some tweaking, but there's little references in easter eggs and the trophy list that show the team is fond of that stuff too. In the broader context of the remake, I'm kind of glad the bingo line's still here. It'd be a shame to lose it.
If anyone was holding out for me to give this game a thorough slagging, here's some quick points about things I really didn't like:
THE STEALTH KILLS: Wishy washy shite. They're nothing. There's nothing natural about their incorporation into the game. Just occasionally, you'll come up to some enemies who are locked into a very artificial patrol route, and you'll have the opportunity to stab them from behind to conserve your ammo and make the inevitable swarm of bodies easier to deal with. It's like the stealth bits in GTA: San Andreas; Really fucking crap. And they've put them in a game called "Resident Evil 4". It's like they put tailing missions in Burnout.
FALLING THROUGH WOODEN FLOORS: It's a trick that could be scary. It's rubbish, irritating, and they do it multiple times. Having to scrap your old plans and reorient yourself in an instant is a surprise that could work in a scary action game like Resi 4, but redoing the flimsy wooden boards with no prior indication of their fragility is just crap. Have a big man pick up Leon and chuck him out a window or something. Have a monster pop up from beneath the floorboards and drag Leon down, fine. Hell, just present a surprise and don't do it a bunch of times. Just crashing through perfectly good timber again and again is crap.
SPOOKY GRAFITTI: This is an element of environmental horror design that I just hate. Bloody writing on the walls, talking about death. It's rubbish. Unless you're doing Danny Torrance or something, where an innocent is possessed into writing something fucked up, there's just nothing to it. There are far better, subtler ways to indicate that something horrible has gone on than having a monster man write "Grr, I'm going to kill you!" on their front door. It's the kind of shit that The Evil Within 2 ought to be too good for. What do they think they're doing putting it in Resi 4?
CHECKPOINTS: The game encourages going back to find equipment and treasures you missed, but only sets a new checkpoint the first time you enter a new location. This lead to me assuming I had done jobs or got equipment, and only realising that the game hadn't counted it once I couldn't go back. It's the kind of oversight I think might get addressed in a patch, and it's only a temporary issue, but it's something I feel I have to warn people about, for now.
THE GAME IS TOO KEEN ON ME KILLING THE ANIMALS: You've always been able to kill crows and fish for quick bonuses in Resi 4, but you were never explicitly encouraged to. Now the merchant has a bloodlust for rats, and I'm the mercenary weighing up whether I care more about the ethics of blasting apart virtual vermin or gaining exclusive weapon upgrades. Sometimes I'll kill them on the assumption that I'll be asked to go back for them later, and it doesn't pay off. And what the fuck is up with setting the cow on fire? Have some fucking decency, Resident Evil.
SHOOTABILITY: This is probably going to be a little tough to explain, but the original Resident Evil 4 was a very shootable game. If you fired a shot, it probably did something. Breaking down doors to fire at swarming enemies on the other side, or shooting down the chain holding up the drawbridge. Leon was approaching gun ownership with the same level of restraint as Homer Simpson. That stuff just isn't in the remake. Usefully breakable items are typically covered in yellow paint now to grab the player's attention. That drawbridge now asks you to damage a couple of weights covered in yellow paint. It's helpful, but it loses that sense of fun. Not that I wanted to piss around experimenting with gunfire when the ammo is so punishingly scarce, but it feels far less visceral and exciting when playing around with your guns solves fewer problems.
Leon does sidle through a lot of narrow passageways, but I think that's just a prerequiste if you want to submit your game to be verified for release on PlayStation 5. Maybe that would upset you, and I can already see the sarcastic YouTube compilations, but it didn't really bother me.
I think the most upset I can get with this game is if I think about those who will opt to play this and never touch the original, but those "newer=better" folk would never touch the thing anyway. I'm not really worried about how the remake will affect Resi 4's legacy beyond that. It's an adaptation. It's merchandise. It's a big, loud reason that a million people are talking about Resi 4 again, and the right folk aren't going to stop loving the original because of it. Why would I ever care about the assertions made in a fucking IGN review?
I feel untouchable now. Go ahead, remake Metal Gear Solid again. God Hand. Turn Super Mario World into a crap touchscreen mobile game with microtransactions. Whatever. I can't be hurt anymore. Nothing is sacred. They put lipstick on Jesus Christ's corpse, and I frenched him.
Splatoon 3
2022
GOTY 2021 & '22 - NUMBER 4
(Video version available here)
Splatoon 3 irritates me. In 2017, when Nintendo were backed into a corner and pulling out all the stops, we got Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey - two of the best games they've ever made. On top of that, we got Splatoon 2 - A bit of a compromised retread of the previous game, but that was fine, because this was the Switch now, and it was more exciting for the established fanbase to receive a sequel than an expanded port. Octo Expansion showed the fantastic directions the team were pushing out towards, and the next sequel would surely develop on that potential. Well, no, not quite.
Now Splatoon's at the top of the charts, what we've been presented with is largely a Quality of Life refresh. Getting everything presented nicely for the active community, but doing little to shake things up. The big takeaway from Octo Expansion's positive response seems to have been that people liked it, so let's do it again. Upon launch, Splatoon 3 became the fastest selling game in Japan ever, but it's one that I can't really recommend to those who bought the previous game, unless they were really, really into it. How many people have to buy Splatoon before Nintendo will let it get as good as their Marios and Zeldas?
Despite this, I love Splatoon 3. It feels a lot like buying into the Mario Kart 9 buzz at the announcement of each new Nintendo Direct for the last few years, and being met with retro track DLC for 8, but this is the best place to play Splatoon. The team have taken their experience from Animal Crossing: New Horizons and ensured that if you want to play Splatoon, there will always be a reason to. Beyond the Turf Wars and Ranked matches, there's now a permanently available Salmon Run, a Turf Wars-based card game, customisable lockers, season-long item catalogues and a whole bunch of cosmetic nonsense to tool about with. The gaps between online matches, which were given diverting little minigames in the first title, and basically nothing in the second, now allow you to practice your techniques and loadouts in a controlled environment. They're taking the idea of playing Splatoon well as seriously as Capcom do for Street Fighter.
This doesn't feel so much like The New Splatoon as our old friend, Splatoon, has moved to a new house. They haven't totally settled in yet, but there's clear advantages to living here, and a few of those things they had to give up in their last place are back. It's not as immediately impressive as Splatoon 2, but there's new potential here. That's part of the frustration of putting Splatoon games on these lists. They never rank as highly as my love for the games would suggest, but they're not all the way there in their first year. At the time of writing this, we've only had two new maps and a Big Run, and I can't judge it on the potential of nebulous upcoming content.
Have the developers become too complacent? That's the risk. I was happy to give Splatoon 2 a pass as a hasty emigration to a more promising platform, but I'm not sure 3 even has as much of a sense of identity as that game. Is this the fate of Splatoon fans? Making excuses for missed potential and abandoned initiatives? Are we the new Pokémon fans?
No - that's an absurd suggestion. I can only be this critical of Splatoon because I love it so dearly. And I believe in the potential. Splatoon 2 didn't launch with Octo Expansion. Splatoon 1 didn't launch with Camp Triggerfish. Hell, look at what this team launched the last couple of Animal Crossing games with, and what they turned into years later. Time and again, the mantra of 'the best is yet to come' has been proven correct. I only hope they want it as much as I do.
(Video version available here)
Splatoon 3 irritates me. In 2017, when Nintendo were backed into a corner and pulling out all the stops, we got Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey - two of the best games they've ever made. On top of that, we got Splatoon 2 - A bit of a compromised retread of the previous game, but that was fine, because this was the Switch now, and it was more exciting for the established fanbase to receive a sequel than an expanded port. Octo Expansion showed the fantastic directions the team were pushing out towards, and the next sequel would surely develop on that potential. Well, no, not quite.
Now Splatoon's at the top of the charts, what we've been presented with is largely a Quality of Life refresh. Getting everything presented nicely for the active community, but doing little to shake things up. The big takeaway from Octo Expansion's positive response seems to have been that people liked it, so let's do it again. Upon launch, Splatoon 3 became the fastest selling game in Japan ever, but it's one that I can't really recommend to those who bought the previous game, unless they were really, really into it. How many people have to buy Splatoon before Nintendo will let it get as good as their Marios and Zeldas?
Despite this, I love Splatoon 3. It feels a lot like buying into the Mario Kart 9 buzz at the announcement of each new Nintendo Direct for the last few years, and being met with retro track DLC for 8, but this is the best place to play Splatoon. The team have taken their experience from Animal Crossing: New Horizons and ensured that if you want to play Splatoon, there will always be a reason to. Beyond the Turf Wars and Ranked matches, there's now a permanently available Salmon Run, a Turf Wars-based card game, customisable lockers, season-long item catalogues and a whole bunch of cosmetic nonsense to tool about with. The gaps between online matches, which were given diverting little minigames in the first title, and basically nothing in the second, now allow you to practice your techniques and loadouts in a controlled environment. They're taking the idea of playing Splatoon well as seriously as Capcom do for Street Fighter.
This doesn't feel so much like The New Splatoon as our old friend, Splatoon, has moved to a new house. They haven't totally settled in yet, but there's clear advantages to living here, and a few of those things they had to give up in their last place are back. It's not as immediately impressive as Splatoon 2, but there's new potential here. That's part of the frustration of putting Splatoon games on these lists. They never rank as highly as my love for the games would suggest, but they're not all the way there in their first year. At the time of writing this, we've only had two new maps and a Big Run, and I can't judge it on the potential of nebulous upcoming content.
Have the developers become too complacent? That's the risk. I was happy to give Splatoon 2 a pass as a hasty emigration to a more promising platform, but I'm not sure 3 even has as much of a sense of identity as that game. Is this the fate of Splatoon fans? Making excuses for missed potential and abandoned initiatives? Are we the new Pokémon fans?
No - that's an absurd suggestion. I can only be this critical of Splatoon because I love it so dearly. And I believe in the potential. Splatoon 2 didn't launch with Octo Expansion. Splatoon 1 didn't launch with Camp Triggerfish. Hell, look at what this team launched the last couple of Animal Crossing games with, and what they turned into years later. Time and again, the mantra of 'the best is yet to come' has been proven correct. I only hope they want it as much as I do.