Wonder Flower gimmicks are cute until they turn repetitious, which they do by the end of World 2. The badges largely make up for a lack of platforming aptitude which, as a seasoned gamester, means I have to play the game wrong to accommodate their use. But I'm not gonna unlearn my Mario skills so I don't remember to use them outside of when they are clearly necessary for side objectives like an over-polished immsim. You mean I should use the Dolphin badge on the levels right after I got it? Wowee Zowee!

Broadly speaking this feels like an attempt to teach the kids that grew up with the Switch what Mario is about. The hypersleek UI elements, mountains of spoken text as a replacement for other markers of design intent, the badges, the Wowee Zowee, the oodles of characters, the gacha elements of the standees, the multiple currencies (and decimalisation of Flower coins to further litter the field with shinies), the little emojis, the lack of points. These additions and subtractions are by no means bad but I won't lie, it feels a little like I'm playing a AAA game from the 2020s. Because I am. It's hard to read Wonder as a creative reinvention and reinvigoration of Mario because I know it took thousands of people to make this. That every decision was subject to board meetings and focus groups. It's the same problem as your New Super games -- the formula must be adhered to. And even if the formula changes, it's still a formula. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not what I look for at this point in my life.

I'll keep playing it, I'll probably finish it. It's like a Coca-Cola Creation, y'know? You see it on the shelf, you think 'what the hell do '+XP' or 'Starlight' taste like, the first sip is novel and enchanting, before long you're still drinking Coke. If I want true innovation, I'll reach for the local-made can of kombucha flavoured with some berry I've never heard of before. Like Haskap. Uhhh, for the purposes of this analogy I guess the random shit I pick up on Steam and itch.io are the kombucha.

And I gotta say, I'm sorry but I can't hear the Mario Gang say Wowee Zowee without having flashbacks to Game Grumps Kirby Super Star Part 2 where Jon and Arin argued for like a minute straight over whether or not Arin had said Wowee Zowee before. Back then life was so simple. I was so young. Games held so much potential. Eleven years, gone in the blink of an eye. In another life, I'm the Mario Wonder kid, growing up on a Switch. Who could have known things would turn out the way they did, that I'd be the person I am today...

Feels like a rebrand to cover up some controversial past half the time.

WOAH JUST LIKE GAME GRUMPS 😱

It is a very opinionated game which is great and works most of the time. Combining rigid puzzles with environmental cues is phenomenal and a blast to figure out - even better once you notice the fully environmental patterns. Or possibly worse, because once you notice them, you don't really want to go back to the hundreds of white square screens which can start to overstay their welcome.

I see the inclusion of audio logs and the theater as an attempt to curate philosophical texts, but to what end? Do I half-heartedly listen to them while actually thinking about where a squiggly line goes around tetris blocks? Do I sit in a dimly lit theater to watch a FMV playback? Do I stare out into the sea while listening like some kitschy screensaver? I think you're better off reading an actual book or view a lecture recording directly.

In the end, putting it all on an inexplicably diverse island out in the ocean is defining. It's isolated and alien, but so are its areas and audiovisual fragments. I don't see it as a philosophical masterpiece and neither as pretentious - it's expecting players to insert their own meaning or none at all more than any other game. But it is strange that it stops being opinionated at exactly this point.

Context is everything.

Without its layer of fictitious languages, Chants of Sennaar would just be another traditional point-and-click adventure game: talk to NPCs, collect and utilize items to solve inventory puzzles, and explore varied landscapes to discover secrets. Yet, that added layer is all Chants of Sennaar needs to stand out, because it fundamentally understands that the act of learning is in itself a puzzle. None of the classic adventure game puzzles are actually that difficult, but conjoined with the underlying problem of deciphering the presented languages at the same time, worldly interactions feel much more engaging and cohesive in the grand scope as learning opportunities, constantly giving you chances to piece together bits of understanding throughout the journey as part of its world-building. It's a fairly simple framework that allows the developers to easily throw new curveballs by simply altering the context to adapt to new surroundings; the underlying objective (learning a new language) never changes, but how other characters/objects interact with the environment around them will differ, so the path to achieve mastery of a new language never feels exactly the same.

It's easy to fault Chants of Sennaar for its limitations. For example, there's only about thirty characters used in each language, and they're all conveniently referring to the same nouns and verbs. However, I'm more than willing to overlook these contrivances, because none of them actually detracted from the game's constructed reality: after all, the game always felt more about the process of learning new languages than the robustness of the languages themselves. Even so, I find that it strikes a healthy medium because of the nuances here and there: for instance, you might find that glyphs often visually resemble the ideas that they represent, or that there are also visual similarities between nouns versus verbs. Still, languages also have enough surface differences to avoid complete analogues (such as how each language implements plural values), even altering structure at times so translation between languages isn't free. You'd think that this would lead to some degree of ambiguity interfering with the game's structure, especially since there's already a processing layer between the player and the game regarding the exact meaning of words (ex: what if you submitted a glyph as "potions" but the game insisted on the term "medicine?"). However, the game assuages this concern by having the player submit glyphs as definitions for sketched ideas (or direct analogous nouns/verbs for some glyphs), so even if players have slightly different interpretations, they'll most likely end up arriving at the same conclusion anyways. As such, the game utilizes sound compromises that lessen overall frustration but still retain the spirit of deciphering and implementing knowledge of foreign languages.

While these contrivances didn't impact my overall enjoyment, there were some external gameplay mechanics such as the forced stealth sections that generally contributed nothing to the premise and interfered with the game's pacing. I can somewhat justify a select few for making sense in-universe (i.e. eavesdropping on others' conversation while they're working to figure out what actions/objects they're referring to), but the vast majority of these forced stealth sections involved no interaction with the fictitious languages and seemed shoehorned-in to just pad out the runtime. It also doesn't help that they're not evenly spaced apart (most of the forced stealth takes place in the 2nd world and during the endgame if you're going for the true ending) and that these sections + a few chase sequences will force the player to restart if caught, with fail-states a rare occurrence throughout the rest of the game. Still, these mostly superfluous elements are but a mere blemish upon the final product, and though the ending feels slightly rushed, the silver lining is that Chants of Sennaar certainly does not wear out its welcome. It's one of the best takes upon the detective/investigation genre with no murder or theft required, and the highest praise I can give this surprise hit is that it made me even more excited for video games in a year already stacked with memorable releases.

Cocoon is a delight. A strange world all based around that joke at the end of Men in Black (1997) where you find out our whole galaxy exists in a game of marbles some alien dude is playing.

This game only really has about 5 levels, but the trick is that all 5 levels coexist and you're constantly traveling between them at a moment's notice. It's a marvel and a technical mystery. I love all the weird designs of the creatures and environments. feels kinda Cronenberg-y sometimes. I hope we get the sequel it kinda teased, cuz this was a really great and I want more.

the general response to scorn i think has been a damning continuation of the games space lacking critical language. puzzles bad, shooting bad, bad game. the baggage of our 2022 reality of having very fun games all the time (and devs getting very good at making them) is we've lost the articulations for games striving to do something else. very reminiscent of the total lack (of everything; in particular: critical interest) in regards to pathologic 2's reception. a struggle against futility time and time again like a pain receptor in a gamer's head. they don't want to be reminded of their involved apathy! next game, already. get me out of this lobby, back into queue, please!

scorn is an utterly immaculate production, almost seven years in the making and it comes through down to the feelings. the dedication is ever present, in every delicate animation to the rich industrial environments taken over by an invasive presence. the total lack of language here is practically taken for granted when the UI more than suffices, it's effortless to the point that it shows a sense of the game constantly iterating around all of its pieces. i think the future will be spoiled to have such a holistic horror experience, if the present is not capable of it.

One of the most emotional journeys a video game has taken me on. It's been weeks and I still think about this game every day. Probably some of the most well-rounded and realistic characters that I've ever seen in any medium.

Plenty of well-articulated criticism has been made towards this game since its release. The missions are repetitive, the gameplay too linear, it's too long, etc. But none of this affected me and if it did, only in minor ways.
I love the balance it strikes between the cinematic story that you're playing through and "Realistic Cowboy Simulator 2018". I thought the gameplay and missions were always engaging enough and although parts felt repetitive, the story always carried it for me. Every time I thought something was starting to drag or take too long some crazy shit happened and all that build-up was worth it.

Every evening I wanted to boot it up and play for a few hours to see what Arthur Morgan and the gang were up to this time. Mostly doing story missions but occasionally taking a breather by hunting and doing side quests. I have memories of camping with my beloved horse under a starry sky. Like a great book, it feels like you were really there.

By the end, I was moved and overwhelmed.
Unfathomably immersive with such an engaging story and fantastic music.
What a journey. Can't wait to play this again when I'm like 60 years old.