Kinda runs into the same problems as most puzzle games in that it is definitely fun, but it gets to the point of being too hard or complex for me to find any enjoyment from the experience. I was smart enough to stop this time around, and there fortunately doesn't really seem to be a negative to this. There's no story, so the only thing driving you forward is harder puzzles, so when they got too hard, dropping the game entirely felt natural. The narrator who speaks to you about donuts is very cringe though, and perhaps if it weren't so bad I may have been inspired to push through some of the more challenging puzzles. Sorry, I'm just not lonely enough to feel comforted by a pre-scripted voiceover. Why the fuck are the reviews so high for this anyway? 3/6

I dunno, maybe it's because I've been playing so many retro platformers lately, but this game really isn't all that hard. The old-school challenge of this game was marketed so heavily by the developers and critics that the end result is kinda just lame. The difficulty that is there is poorly paced, with the game starting out at it's hardest and slowly getting easier as you progress. Regardless, the game is pretty fun, I'm just kind of burnt out on difficulty being a marketing tool, especially when it's either not entirely there or it works as a detriment to the experience. I try to save any thoughtful or thought-provoking commentary on yearly games for the end-of-year list, but Infernax is a pretty solid platformer with a lot of annoying flaws. The controls are tight and the combat is satisfying, but design-wise and tonally it's a bit too messy to ignore. I do think these developers are onto something good though. The game feels great to play and the ideas are pretty cool, just needs a bit of polish to really make something shine. 3/6

I was certainly excited to get around to this one, especially given how much of a cliffhanger Phantasy Star II left me on, with Phantasy Star III choosing not to elaborate on that at all. Unfortunately, I don't think Phantasy Star IV does much to bring me the satisfaction I oh-so desired. Phantasy Star IV is a tough game to talk about because there are aspects of it which I love, but they combine with aspects which infuriate me, and the culmination is something I struggle to really have any strong feelings about on the whole.

The story is probably the biggest success here. I feel the first three games had wildly experimental ways of delivering their tales, which was cool in it's own way, but kept them from feeling complete. I mean, hell, the aforementioned Phantasy Star II ends at the climax of it's plot. Characters, as well, were all pretty standard, without any qualities beyond some basic characteristics. Phantasy Star IV is such a wild improvement here, as everything from the cast cohesion to the presentation within the cutscenes feels far removed from the amateurish feel the prior entries had. The writing is obviously not on par with the standards of today, but this is some bold and layered storytelling for a 1993 Sega Genesis game.

Actually playing through Phantasy Star IV is where the trouble arises. For the most part it's solid, however, the further you get into the game, the more some of the cracks start to show. The encounter rate doesn't feel consistent, which can lead to battles occurring far too frequently. This is especially troubling in some of the later dungeons which are exhaustingly long and complex. The Macro system is helpful for this, but so many of the best abilities have an extremely limited amount of uses without resting, whether that be because of MP cost or an actual number of times you're able to use something. Boss fights probably wouldn't be appropriately balanced if these were made easier to use, but it really takes a lot out of the fun I could have with random battles to be so limited. The Macro system also allows you to set up combo abilities, which is awesome, but not implemented in the best way. Whether or not your inputs trigger the combo attack seems to be random, so they can't really be used strategically, and from what I could tell, there isn't anything in-game to tell you what combos you can actually create. I could have just missed something though?

I think what really dug at me the most was the late-game difficulty spike. Towards the end of the game, you start operating with a party of four after having operated with a party of five for many hours. The game feels like it's still been balanced around having five members, as I was constantly running out of skills and MP to use to get through these battles. Worse was that Rune's HP had not grown with the rest of the party, so he kept getting one-shot until I put two shields on him to help him survive at least one hit (This didn't always prevent a one-shot death still). That the game insisted you operate in this fashion for so long, aside from one dungeon where you get a weak-ass party member who you don't even keep for that dungeon's boss, made me fucking tired. Like, not mad or upset, just exhausted from all the micromanaging I was forced to do. I get this appeal to an extent, but it killed the pacing of an otherwise great experience. The silver lining is that once I did get the option for a fifth character, I could pick Raja, who is overpowered as fuck. Maybe it was all worth it in the end. 3/6

So previous Wonder Boy games I'd played were pretty dull and uneventful. Not entirely sure why I decided to start playing this series to begin with. I think it was the strange naming convention which intrigued me the most, since the chronology of everything makes no sense when viewed from the perspective of an American citizen. From what I can gather, Wonder Boy is it's own franchise lying separately from the Monster World franchise, but the original Wonder Boy franchise failed to gather as much popularity as the Monster World games, so they just continued the Monster World IP utilizing the pre-established Wonder Boy icon. I don't think this is the easiest way of going about things, but the standard consumer probably doesn't give a shit. I am not the standard consumer, so I am rightfully pissed with Sega's lackadaisical attitude toward their properties. Except I don't even think Sega owns the games anymore, so the decision to call this 'Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap' instead of 'Monster World: The Dragon's Trap' was the decision of some other assholes. I'm probably making this sound more confusing than it actually is, but what makes it even worse is how the incredibly mediocre 'Wonder Boy in Monster Land' functions as both the second Wonder Boy game and first Monster World game, which isn't any more confusing than something like 'Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3'. But then you have shit like 'Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap' being the fourth Wonder Boy game and the second Monster World game. It is not the third of anything and I want the people in charge of this to burn for mildly confusing me for a short bit of time.

This would all be completely pointless conjecture if the Wonder Boy franchise was bad and not worth being remembered in any way. And it almost was! I did not write about any of the three Wonder Boy games which came prior to this one because they are drab and uninspiring pieces of shovelware not fit to pick the plaque in between my top molers, both of which I payed so little attention to that they needed to be filled with metal to avoid being removed from my gum line. Wonder Boy can best be described as a video game I think? Wonder Boy in Monster Land can best be described as okay this is actually a video game but it's not very good. Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair can best be described as why did they make this. So, evidently, the standard for me going into The Dragon's Trap was exceptionally low, and perhaps that's why I'm viewing it in such high regard? I don't know, nor am I asking you. I ask myself these questions and never anticipate an answer because I will forget in about three more hours. The main point is that 'Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap' and it's 1:1 remake 'Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap' is even better.

To start off with, it's important to understand that the first of the Monster World games had a strange identity crisis, insisting on keeping the arcade feel of the original Wonder Boy while designing it around a game which focused on exploration and combat. You were constantly having to collect fruit to survive because that's just how Wonder Boy worked. The Dragon's Trap settles into it's identity, removing all layers of what Wonder Boy was and simply being it's own thing. As such, this feels nothing like the twitchy arcade experience from it's roots. Instead, The Dragon's Trap asks you to explore a world intricately crafted to take advantage of the sprawling level layouts. One of the key points of interest here is that you are required to take on a number of forms as you move through the world, each with their own methods of such traversal. After the prologue, you will begin as a dragon, slowly making your way through a couple of areas and doing cool dragon things, only to turn into a mouse, which is less cool, but offers a new mechanic of fitting through small spaces and being able to cling to certain walls and ceilings. This method of form-switching to unlock new parts of the world is constant, and it's pretty fun to learn the mechanics of each new form as you continue through the game.

The world itself is actually quite small and linear, but it is designed in very cool ways. I've seen this described as a Metroidvania, which makes sense from the perspective of needing to return to areas you were previously, but none of these places truly loop back into themselves. It does, however, succeed in creating the type of full and connected world typically found in such games, despite the fact that it isn't really doing much to separate it from a game with level-based progression. Moving from objective to objective feels good, and it's constantly changing thanks to the swapping of forms. Both progression and combat feel as if theey evolve, even if that evolution is only slightly there. It's only, like, 3-5 hours long too, which is great, because it ends before this type of play becomes tedious. And it definitely would have become tedious after a couple more hours.

The remake probably isn't actually that much better than the original. You can change all the settings at the press of a button to completely emulate the classic Master System version. From what I can tell, the only legitimate change to the way the game plays is the removal of a charm mechanic, which locked you out of buying equipment regardless of how much money you had because I guess the shopkeepers think you're just a bad and dumb boy as opposed to a wonder boy. This mechanic is shit and I am glad it's not in the remake. The remake has one of the best makeovers I've ever seen given to a classic game. They completely overhaul the dated, and frankly ugly, sprite-work from 1989 and turn it into what I think is fully hand-drawn models and backgrounds, with brand new animations that make everything in the game look cute as fuck. This art style is immaculate. Every video game should look like this. This is probably my favorite art of all time. Fuck you Salvador Dali, you have not made anything close to as mesmerizing as 'Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap', and that is legitimately not as pathetic as you would think. It's just that good. The remake also makes changes to the music, which is unfortunately not the best. I get that they were trying to make the songs feel more complex and layered, but the thing about chiptunes is that they are created to thrive under their limitations by producing snappy and catchy melodies. Transition that snappiness and catchiness to the more complicated versions found in the remake and you get songs which just feel a bit out of place. There's no song quite as wonderful as Side-Crawler's Dance, and that didn't change when they made it sound the way they did in the remake. Fortunately, you can press a button at any point to jam out to the original, because this is a remake that respects it's source rather than trying to overtake it.

Anyway, there are some problems that are probably much larger than I would like to admit, so I just won't bother admitting to them. I will say, the bonus challenges, which you probably won't find without a guide anyway, really show the cracks in this game's physics. By no means is platforming tight or the combat clean, it just hides it well within the standard gameplay loop. I recommend you don't do the side stuff, and also that you look up where the secret shop that has the form-changing sword, because holy shit why would you put such an important item in a secret shop with no indication on how to get there? This game is actually kind of bad isn't it... 5/6

I got a bit of whiplash going from Echoes to this, which I guess is to be expected, since, you know, this is an older game. It still holds the same general formula of speedy combat and quick growth, and is still highly addicting, but it misses the mark in a few areas, namely in it's story and character interactions. This is a direct sequel to Shadow Dragon, which itself has a fairly dull plot. Despite how unmemorable the game's story was, it was wrapped up quite succinctly and felt like an appropriate conclusion. New Mystery, as a result, just feels like it retreads the exact same ground. It's especially unfortunate given how strong the story was in Echoes. While I haven't played Gaiden, from what I understand it retains the major story beats in it's transformation to it's remake. New Mystery is a massive step down in creativity and intrigue.

And this leads to what the game's biggest flaw is, at least to me: The characters. One thing which was added to this version of the game was a new main character, Chris, who I can best describe as "a person". Chris is meant to take the mantle of the player's avatar/self-insert, which is fine to an extent, but doesn't work in this case because Chris is completely pre-written without a chance to give the player any sort of choice in how they engage the world of the game. So what exactly is the point of their inclusion? Well, it seems they are put in as a method of fleshing out every other character, because Chris is the only character who has a significant number of support conversations. I think, throughout my playthrough, there were only two couples who had support conversations without Chris. Because Chris has no legitimate personality, all of the dialogue given to these characters feels wooden at best and nonsensical at worst. I did play a fan translation, but I can't imagine it's not been thoroughly revised and made to be as close in tone to the Japanese original as possible. This cast of characters is incredibly bloated, and all are defined by simple, one-dimensional traits rather than any actual development. I can't honestly say I remember anyone's personal stories, though I didn't see all of them to be fair.

And because the cast is so massive, it further cements how my ability to enjoy these older games is quite limited. New Mystery has such a large cast because it was meant to be a game where allies would die permanently. This is a series staple which has been phased into an optional setting in the modern day, and New Mystery is the first game to actually allow for ally revival upon map completion, and it shows. Newer titles have put a lot of effort into establishing their characters as capable of being fully fleshed out. The removal of required permadeath made for a higher need to keep players engaged, and this is done through the fun character interactions you achieve by experimenting with your units and allowing individual relationships to blossom. New Mystery has so little in the way of intriguing character interaction that it hardly assists in allowing the player to grow any sort of attachment to the cast.

It's evident to me that Fire Emblem is just a different breed of game for me. For my money, Fire Emblem's most important qualities are the character interactions and speedy statistical growth. But these earlier titles aren't meant to represent that ideal. Old Fire Emblem is about careful decision-making and optimizing your combat potential, things which I don't actually care about in the context of the series. Neither interpretation is incorrect, there's just a pretty clear divide between the old and new, and the inability to initially capitalize on what a removal of permadeath could do for the franchise only serves to show how wide that divide is. Of course, I have not played any version of any game 4-10 so who knows, maybe I'm just talking out of my ass? 3/6

I feel like, for a good amount of my life, Secret of Mana was heralded as this somewhat forgotten classic from the SNES era, comparable with the likes of the Final Fantasy games and Chrono Trigger. There was always this mysterious aura surrounding the game, and I could never play it because I was born a generation too late and never owned a SNES. Once I finally got around to playing a number of SNES games, it just kinda fell out of rotation, partly due to the staggering number of games I had never experienced, but also because the narrative feels almost if it has started shifting recently. I feel like I see Secret of Mana receive far more hate than praise these days, which is kind of weird, since I'm not exactly sure what could have spurred such a drastic shift. Perhaps word of mouth had a negative effect, introducing more people and exposing the game's flaws? I can definitely see that since the game does kind of suck. I do have to mention that I think there's a lot of cool and positive stuff here despite how much it does suck, but I can definitely get why so many people are as upset as they are.

For one, this is not some epic fantasy tale comparable to Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger. It's like, not even close. The storytelling in Secret of Mana is about as good as the game itself is, and that's best described as "not very". There isn't much done to develop any of the characters, with numerous important plot beats just being tossed in without context. The dialogue has the same translation issues which are present in a number of these older games. I don't know that it's as detrimental as something like Breath of Fire II, which had a good story which just got botched by unqualified translators, but the awkwardness of the dialogue only serves to enhance how weak the story is as a whole. These issues are made worse by the fact that the game is just entirely too long. The game makes this issue of not having enough story content to fill out the game when you find a random NPC who just tells you to go certain places only to be wrong about you having needed to go there. Secret of Mana is evidently more concerned with it's gameplay than it's storytelling.

The biggest factor which separates Secret of Mana from other games of this era is the diversity in weapons you're able to use. You have eight different weapon types, all of which are meant to feel unique, and each with their own growth potential as far as upgrading maximizing efficacy. I say they're meant to because I don't really think most of them feel any different. Swords, axes, and spears function in the exact same way, and I can't tell much of a difference in any of the ranged weapons. The gloves and whip both feel unique, but the gloves also suck, so you're basically just left with the whip as far as having a truly unique-feeling weapon. Of course, this doesn't actually matter, because once you get to hte midpoint of the game, the only truly reliable way of defeating enemies and bosses is to spam magic attacks. The only way to do this is to menu hop, so you essentially turn an action RPG into a regular old JRPG, except worse because it's easy to stunlock almost everything in the game. Towards the end, the rooms become so congested with tanky enemies that it was quicker to just run past in hopes that my party AI would either follow despite their terrible pathfinding, or die so I wouldn't have to be slowed down by them getting stuck in a corner.

All of these problems need to come with the caveat that I played this game alone, and I'm just going to guess a lot of people who didn't enjoy the experience are in the same boat. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume a lot of people who played and didn't enjoy the game probably did so the same way as I did, i.e. through an emulator and alone and also probably with social anxiety. Secret of Mana isn't really meant to be a solo experience though, and that is evident by how little effort was put into making the AI not suck ass. It doesn't excuse the poor design choices made, but it feels more like I'm finding and answer to the real-life head-canon I've established for myself as to why reception has so drastically shifted, and I'm not going to allow any proof you give me to convince me otherwise, because I don't like it when my beliefs are challenged.

Regardless, can we just continue to appreciate how beautiful this game is? This is some of the most beautiful spritework from the era, and the care put into crafting the unique animations for all the characters is wild. I adore Popoi's walk cycle and you get to experience that shit for almost the entire time, so there's no way this game is actually bad. It then gets upped by the flying animation for your dragon, and holy wow that is a satisfying loop. And the music is phenomenal. The songs each have so many layers to them and it honestly doesn't sound like it's coming from a SNES game. Underappreciated YouTuber Nerrel has a video where he goes into depth about why the game looks and sounds so good, so just watch that. Anyway, I'm giving Secret of Mana a 3 because it is too long and kinda sucks but also I had fun? That's a pretty normal critique, right? 3/6

Absolutely massive step up from the archaic Maniac Mansion. Day of the Tentacle barely feels like a sequel to that one beyond a few characters. The concept of exploring three different eras of time and using the items you obtain through each time period is great, if only a bit overwhelming. I'm sure I could have cracked it open for the most part (aside from that skunk puzzle because what) =, but I went to a walkthrough relatively early on and don't necessarily regret it. These games are less about puzzle-solving and more about the dialogue for me, and this one does not disappoint. I said in my Monkey Island write-ups that I found the voices a bit annoying and it took me out of the experience, but here the voices are essentially perfect. All three playable characters have unique ways of interacting with the world and providing some hilarious dialogue. I especially loved Hoagie, who's entire arc is just trolling the United States. Dude literally destroys the entire concept of the American flag. I bet the boomers got triggered back in the 90s or actually they probably didn't care because this shit only started mattering to people once social media came into existence. I'm all for finding creative ways to shit on the United States and I'm allowed to say this because I live in Indiana and it's still better than at least 10 other states. What the hell? Anyway, the game is basically just non-stop entertainment if you use a walkthrough and allow the pacing of the writing to work it's magic. I imagine it's far more annoying if you are actually smart and figure the skunk puzzle out on your own. 4/6

Playing this in place of the original game because I refuse to play a third-generation strategy game. Abusing the hell out of the integrity of playing franchises in order, especially since the fandom seems to refer to this as Fire Emblem 15. Screw fandoms, I'll do things in whatever way I want, but only to a certain extent as I need corporations like Nintendo to tell me what the proper order of games is. This rant likely doesn't make any sense, but it's thematically appropriate given the amount of sense put into the map design of this game. Holy crap these suck and/or are boring. Massive landscapes with single entry points is never fun, even if that's how actual battles would work. Not to mention the consistency at which it begins throwing maps which have tiles that heed your movement about 75% of the way in. This game was just annoying to play at some times, and it was furthered by the dungeon-crawling, which felt pretty half-baked as a whole.

But I would be lying through my teeth if I were to suggest I didn't have a blast doing all of this. Fire Emblem games have a knack for their addictive progression and quickly-paced battles, at least the newer ones do. As someone who came into this series with Awakening, this one does feel a step down in regards to how much content there is to unlock. This is especially hard to swallow given how I've played Three Houses as well, and that has literal hundreds of hours of dialogue and gameplay options to experience. But this isn't really on the same scale, and it would be inappropriate to judge it for such. Where Echoes lacks in it's character interactions and player choice, it makes up for in having a wonderful story to tell. You follow two characters, both with different party members. Based on light research (Google) I've done, the characters received huge changes to make each other distinct. It helps that each character you recruit will almost always be usable in battle, helping to further one's attachment to each of them individually. While they don't get as much development as characters in the aforementioned titles, the excellent voicework and outstanding character design help to shape this cast into one which is truly memorable. My favorites were Clair and Leon. Definitely appreciate the overtness of Leon being gay too, fuck you.

As a whole, the struggles present within the design and structure of the game are carried by the numerous positives I can't help but acknowledge, even if those positives are more emotionally based than actually critically thought out. I will never be the type of person to enjoy playing these games for their strategy, so it'll be interesting when I enter the era where there are no remakes for the older titles and permadeath is ever-present. And by interesting I mean I will probably not finish them and not write any more of these because FUCK I suck at strategy games. 4/6

Over a decade ago I played Superstar Saga and thought to myself, "I should try out some oter Mario RPGs." I never did follow that thought, that is, UNTIL NOW. Super Mario RPG isn't breaking any new ground through it's mechanical depth or design. In fact, the lack of systems to work with turn this into a fairly repetitive adventure on the whole. If I were attempting to look at Super Mario RPG from the standpoint of a real critic, aka something that doesn't exist, I would probably look down on the rudimentary roleplaying mechanics on display here. However, I am not a critic, and I enjoy having fun with video games, and despite the many shortcomings Super Mario RPG has relative to other Japanese RPGs of the time, it churns out a memorable, magical, hilarious, and charming adventure. From the very beginning, Super Mario RPG lets you know this will be a family-friendly adventure. Bowser and his minions are written with such absurdity and with so little competence that it soon becomes clear this is not the same Bowser who has been so successfully devastating the Mushroom Kingdom without Mario's intervention. It flips the concept of Bowser as a major villain by having him lose almost immediately, and then eventually become a party member. That's cool stuff right there. I don't know that there was any other game to pull something like this off at the time, yet it feels so natural. Only similar thing I can think of is King Dedede, but you never actually played as him in your efforts to save Dream Land. Please tell me if there's another established-villain-turned-playable-hero character in video games before Super Mario RPG, I must know.

Back on topic, though, the writing is where most of the joy I found comes from. The same absurdity which Bowser holds drips into every arc in the game. You are constantly bombarded with silly jokes, most of which aren't even very funny, but all completely capable of putting a smile on one's ugly face. I think it reaches it's peak with Booster, the greatest villain of all time, but there are lots of laughs to be had with every storyline. It does run out of steam at the end when everything has to be super serious, but even this part is so well done from a dramatic angle that I can't be upset in any fashion.

Gameplay-wise this is pretty basic stuff. You have primary attacks and gradually learn special attacks as you level up. It injects some activity into this, however, with some attacks requiring you to time a button press or to wiggle the directional pad to reach the attacks full potential. It's fun at first but sort of loses it's appeal shortly after. Regardless of how simple this is, the level of polish is insane. Square tried to dumb JRPGs down for Americans with Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, which was very boring albeit good enough for what it was. What that game lacked was the incredibly clean interface and dynamic animations present in Super Mario RPG. JRPGs were already experimenting with more nuanced art and animation, which would be realized as the main draw for players with the PlayStation. But the SNES didn't really have anything that looked this clean. The figurine-like appearance of the characters which gave a smooth 3D appearance combined with the brief action required beyond selecting a menu option makes Super Mario RPG feel less like an RPG and more like... I dunno, maybe an action game? Not really that either. But it peels enough of the scariness away. Super Mario RPG isn't about complex numbers and large swathes of text, it's about silliness and action. Obviously most JRPGs aren't actually all too complex, but from the standpoint of someone who doesn't play them, I would imagine Super Mario RPG is far more accessible than anything else from that era.

I've probably rambled on enough, but this game is awesome and deserves ramblings of it's quality. There's so little I can say bad about it, but I do wish the special attacks weren't so consistently useless? So many times it just makes more sense to do a regular attack and that's kinda lame, given how you have shared MP and it could've been neat to struggle with how to effectively manage that. But then again, it may have just been annoying? Also, hot take, Geno is pretty boring and does not deserve to be in Smash Bros. Uh... yeah, that's really it? I have a feeling if I played this as a child it would be among my favorite games ever, so it's unfortunate I played it as a jaded, cynical old man. But perhaps I am only noticing the beauty of this game because it directly attacks that same negative energy I put forth throughout my daily life? Who's to say. 5/6

Mixing wildly different genres or modalities of play into a singular experience feels fairly common for the late 80s and early 90s of gaming. Just immediately coming to mind are titles like Blaster Master, the Contra franchise, Rygar, Zelda II, Castlevania II.... I'm sure there are others but I swear this is a common design decision. However, few are as striking of a shift as ActRaiser is, with its blending of side-scrolling action platformer with RPG, simulation, and shooter mechanics. Like, the amount of concepts thrown at the wall here should result in a fairly messy game, but it actually works out quite well. My theory is that each individual piece is fairly rudimentary when compared to it's contemporaries, allowing the ideas to be malleable enough to work in conjunction. The quality of your play in the shooting segments will strengthen your ability to manage various cities, which will in turn strengthen your ability to fight in the game's action stages. This is because you gain more citizens at a quicker rate the better you are able to defend your people, and the amount of people you have effects your level, which is tied to your health and magic bonuses. Similarly, ensuring the safety and happiness of your people helps to unlock various consumable rewards, and sometimes even new abilities to use in the platforming areas. If each part of this game were standing on it's own, it actually wouldn't even make sense because of how well everything ties together. It's incredibly short and the ideas feel more like ruminations as opposed to fully fleshed out concepts, but it's an intriguing and entertaining game in spite of this. 4/6

Initially wasn't feeling this due to the voicework. Just felt stilted with the way the script was written. Not sure if the remake changed the script at all, but still... Regardless, you can change to old person mode with the press of a button and I honestly like having the pixel art more than the updated visuals. I'm curious if I'm the only one who enjoys them better without having ever played either version, but also I'm not actually that curious. But this game was great, specifically the first half. The process of exploration and puzzle-solving mixed together with a comedic script works quite well. There's a number of great jokes and clever scenarios created with the incredibly specific lore they crafted. I had a blast just roaming around and speaking to the many entertaining locals. The game is far less fun when you make it to the titular island, unfortunately, with puzzles becoming more obtuse and writing becoming much less engaging due to a lack of character interactions. It's a shame, but not necessarily surprising, since that first half was just so damn good. Either way, solid game, well worth a play. 4/6