i saw the trailer for this and was like "okay, i'm gonna be into this" but man, this is such an insanely unique and fun game with so much flair and style and i absolutely fucking adored it.

visually this game is fucking beautiful, i don't think a game has ever absolutely fucking nailed the cel shaded style as perfectly as this game has. everything was just a huge fucking treat. there's small moments where it's a little visually cluttered and overwhelming but if anything it just gets me even more pumped up. everything has such a fun style to, the effects when you dash, parry, hit enemies is so exciting. the world itself moves along with the music too and it makes it feel so exciting. the cutscenes are animated so well too, was always a joy to see the style change for those.

the character designs are all great and fun! peppermint, korsica, macaron, and CNMN are all stand outs. it makes sense because they're the most prominent characters but they're very great designs. CNMN's little gimmick where he draws faces on himself to indicate his emotions was consistently funny and a great bit. chai is a good design too, just a bit more generic. i really started to like a lot of these characters by the end! i was a bit worried about the writing initially, and it can be pretty corny and cheesy but it works with the style of game this is, it's all very saturday morning cartoon. the voice acting is phenomenal here too, which makes up for any potentially lame lines, the whole cast is great! i hope roger craig smith can do more cocky villain types his voice fits it very well. it picks up near the end as well, characters get much more interesting and fun to talk to/watch interact. the only writing complaint i have is, and it's only a few lines so it didn't bother me much, but i feel like they made chai a little too dumb here and there. i know that's like the cartoon protagonist thing but there were a couple lines where instead of just being naive or oblivious he's straight up dumb and it feels out of nowhere and weird. otherwise i liked everyone a lot, peppermint and korsica standing out the most to me.

the soundtrack is also obviously a standout, it's hard to even pick a standout because they're all amazing but 1,000,000 by Nine Inch Nails and Whirring by The Joy Formidable really got me into the combat and were the most engaging for their respective stages to me. i mentioned it in the visuals section but i love how the world reacts to the songs and i'll mention how genius the combat is related to when i talk about the gameplay but everything about the music is great here and works super well. it's impressive how few songs are in the soundtrack and how no songs feel overplayed and it feels unique the whole way through.

gameplay and level design is great here too! not that rhythm action games are the most popular genre in the world, but the way this game does it is genius and needs to be the standard for any other future rhythm action games. the way you always hit on beat regardless of timing is so smart. giving you rewards and bonus while also enhancing the soundtrack for hitting on beat is the perfect incentive while never making you feel lame/weak if you do miss it. it's super satisfying to hit combos on beat and feels insanely rewarding, but if you're not super great (like me) at rhythm games or you just make a few mistakes the game does a great job at making you feel badass regardless and it just feels so genius. the combos feel satisfying and there's a decent amount, i could see wanting more but i never felt tired of them throughout the whole game. i really like how your allies support you in combat, and the small upgrades you can buy for them. the combo beat finish attacks are animated so well and feel super satisfying. the special attacks are cool too, i didn't experiment with them too much and i wish your meter didn't fully reset after every battle because i had this mindset of holding off if there weren't many enemies but kept forgetting it would be useless to hold onto it (aside from very minimal bonus points) and ended up just not using a super. the one i stuck with was a really cool guitar hero esque mini game and i loved it so i never wanted to swap off! the only complaint i have gameplay wise is, while i like the enemies that require you calling in an ally to help the macaron ones in particular take 2 macaron attacks and he's the slowest to recharge and i found them just a bit annoying. the bike enemy annoyed me too but that felt more like me being bad compared to the macaron shields just being tedious. it wasn't too bad though, there was usually other enemies to distract you i just wish it took 1 use of macaron like the other enemies. i loved exploring each level too, and the automated sections like zip lining was very fun and thrilling! loved whenever those sections showed up. no level felt weak, but track 9, 10, and 11 were so fucking great i was having a blast. the big standout though was the bosses for sure. they were all so grand and exciting and a wonderful time. it was the most low scale but the korsica fight was very unique and fun and one of my favorites. i really liked the visual flair of mimosa's fight and utilizing each ally to take down the final two bosses was really cool and satisfying. i could go on and on about all the other little things i loved and specific moments that stood out but i'd be here forever, just know it's all amazing.

i knew this game would rock but i didn't expect a potential top 5 game of the year this soon and out of nowhere. i played this on game pass, but $30 for a game this wonderfully refreshing and unique and amazing on launch is so great. play this either through gamepass or buying it on steam. regardless you won't regret it. what a delight!

Fenyx Rising does enough to differentiate itself from Breath Of the Wild, the game that seems to be its main inspiration. Unfortunately, while most of what it does different isn't inherently bad, the combination of its changes led the game into becoming quite a generic and boring experience. I look around and see a visually stuninng, beautifully crafted world, full of sights that in most other games would have me running to explore with curiosity about what might lie ahead, and yet, somehow, the game managed to strip me of any interest to actually visit all these places.

In my eyes, the big issue here lies in just how much it feels like a commercial triple A product first and game second. So much in the game just feels like it was inserted just because "big games that sell well usually have this thing!". Skill trees, Quest markers, constant alerts, a combo meter, daily/weekly challenges, a skin shop to spend real money in, constant dialogue to explain to you what you're seeing or where you should go. They take a fully open world and almost streamline the process of exploring it.

The game's map is dense packed with places to discover, things to find no matter where you choose to go and beautiful sceneries. But the game is designed as some sort of collectathon, which doesn't have to be a negative, but it really detracts from the exploration aspect. The game expects you to find a high spot, go into first person and simply look around to reveal everything you can find around you. Weapons, Armor, resources, health and stamina upgrades, challenges and puzzles, it's all there! And it's all in your map now! Enjoy exploring! You see a place in the distance that looks really cool? Wanna know what you might find there? No need to walk! The health upgrade is already tagged, you're welcome!

I get it, you want the players to actually find all that content you put in the game for them, but part of the joy of open world experiences is the mystery of what's out there, it's finding things that were really hidden, or really just knowing that your adventure is different than everyone else's. In fenyx after a handful of hours you know exactly what all types of collectables and resources are. A lot of equipment is found linearly too (different versions of the same equipment pieces are found in different places, always in the order which you're supposed to find them on), so even exploring areas in different orders isn't that exciting.

Don't get me wrong, all of that is different than the usual open world approach, but it doesn't mean it's necessarily bad. And to be completely honest, it's really not. I like a good collectathon and i spent a good amount of time going around the first region gathering everything i could find, crossing everything in my mental checklist. It was fun, it was satisfying, but it also didn't last long, it's when i realized the game would be doing just that for the next dozens of hours that i started losing interest. I quickly made my way to a cool looking distant region i had my eye on since the start and it was all just the exact same kind of content, with the same enemies, the same resources to gather, the same challenges to complete, the exact same gameplay feel. It's beautiful, yes, but it got old in the first region, and at least for now i can't see myself doing it 4 or 5 more times.

Finally, i get that this isn't Breath of the Wild, i can appreciate a game being inspired by something but being its own distinct experience, but i can't not mention how the vaults (this game's version of shrines) poorly compare to their BotW counterparts. They're extremely streamlined, with most of their challenge coming from either executing (rather than solving) the puzzles as well as the sheer amount of patience the game expects you to have just waiting for things to move to the right place for every attempt at something. However my main problem with them comes from how it seems like someone saw how Shrines often had either multiple (intended or not) possible solutions and wanted to do the same for this game but instead of doing so with clever puzzle design or more versatile mechanics they just decided to add skills to the player skill tree that have as their intended purpose giving the player the ability to cheat puzzles. You can gain the ability to carry heavy objects, gain more vertical movement, go through lasers and even literally create a stone statue to press buttons for you. No creativity required, skipping puzzles is also on the house.

All of this, added to all the mess that comes with the mandatory download of Ubisoft Connect and all the microtransactions (including purchasable horses that are functionally better than most mounts in the game due to already having max stamina) make this into a game i can't possibly recommend. It's not devoid of fun, but it's a ton of wasted potential.