When this game was initially re-revealed in late 2020 as a part of the Mario 35 Anniversary Direct, I effectively just took a huge sigh of relief. This was one of the last Wii U ports to make its way over to the Nintendo Switch and it was nice to finally have it, but I knew I did not want to get it when it came out. I liked 3D World but not enough to buy it again. Then the game comes out and I can't stop hearing about how its side mode, Bowser's Fury is one of the most innovative and unique Mario experiences ever. So I pick up a copy and put it in, not really expecting to be blown away but expecting to have a decent amount of fun.

With all of that introduction out of the way, I do have to say that Bowser's Fury is literally my favorite Mario experience of all time. Everything about this small little 6-hour experience is perfect to me and leaves me craving this formula more. First off, those controls that I absolutely hate in 3D World feel so nice here. Something about the way Mario runs and jumps feels so much more intuitive in a wide-open environment as opposed to a tight platform collection. Running up walls and bouncing off of enemies has never felt better.

It really has never looked better either. This game is so pretty, from the glistening water to the particle effects on the rain, the sludge effects on Bowser look magnificent. This is still effectively just 3D World's style but when you have time to stop and take a look at the world around you, you realize how pretty everything is. The cat references everywhere make for perfect secrets as well, discovering what does and does not have cat ears makes for perfect little rewarding secrets. Everything about the environment makes it feel as though the game was modeled with nothing but passion.

Speaking of those environments, just everything about exploring them is amazing. I have played Super Mario 64 and Sunshine an infinite number of times more than I have for this game but everything about this game's environment looks and plays so much better. I forget certain areas in Sunshine exist sometimes but there was never an area that felt forgettable to me here. Most 64 areas have certain puzzles or challenges that just play like garbage but none of that is present here. Whether you are climbing on a tower that you cannot see or moving around a fortress that is entirely surrounded by clear pipes, the challenges will always have you wanting more.

Unfortunately, that is the worst part about this game, that there is not enough of it. It is the shortest 3D Mario experience, even shorter than Super Mario 64. Areas are tiny and compact and it all takes place on one world the size of a single location in Odyssey. There are only 100 main collectibles and getting them all does not unlock some ultra-hard final challenge or even more collectibles. This game is very limited in its content and once you have played through it fully, you've effectively seen everything.

However, that is what makes me love this game so much is the idea that we may get more. If we get another 3D Mario game some time from now in the same formula with a new unique system then I am sure it will become my new favorite Mario but for now, this small slice of heaven will have to do.

Minecraft Dungeons was actually a really promising idea to me. When it first came out I was asking friends who had played it on GamePass if they enjoyed it and they said it was alright but I really did not hear much more. I see now why after playing and I don't think it takes much to see the flaws in the game.

I bought this game for the Switch because it was cheap, had some of the DLC and I wanted to play local multiplayer since I knew it was multiplayer. Little did I know the Switch version is actually broken. The game would crash randomly, have constant slowdown issues and it was just a pain to play sometimes. I had to play a single level three times because of the crashing problem with this game. It's one thing to not port a game to another console because it cannot handle it, it's another to allow the game to exist and do nothing to fix its issues.

Outside of general graphics issues that really bogged down my experience. The game just does not understand how these kinds of games work. The leveling system is incredibly dumb because it's based on the level of your items, not of your character. Effectively, it's better to play items that are stronger in level, whether or not you like them, and whether or not they are actually optimal for the battle. So you can either play the game levels below where you actually are and play on baby mode, but at least you get to play with the items you want, or you can play with items that you don't like and play at a difficulty that will actually challenge you. And of course, they can't allow you to upgrade your old items, because that would be too simple a solution to this problem. Even though making your old gear better is a focal mechanic of Minecraft, we couldn't bother to add anything like that here. Well of course there are options to play at higher levels with weaker items but I would strongly advise against that seen as the game has no idea how difficulty scaling works. My girlfriend and I ran through this game with variances in difficulty everywhere. Some levels we would cut through like butter and others we would get stuck on one boss or group of enemies that would tear us apart, even though we played on the same difficulty rating all the way through.

So now we come to what I believe is the most egregious fault in this game, the level design. The levels are very vibrant and beautiful. There are some places that I really wanted to explore that were just out of reach and at first, it was so fun to run through each area and see what we could find. So why is this a problem? Well because Mojang's developers don't actually want you to look at the different places they developed, they just want you to get to the end. There are so many dead ends in this game that lead to nothing, it became tiring to walk down long corridors only to come to nothing. Occasionally there would be a treasure chest with some emeralds and a few enemies in those halls but most of the time, you would walk down a route way off the beaten path, find nothing, and have to turn back around. This made it really tedious to enter a new level knowing you were most likely going to run through, get nothing you like, scrap all of your old stuff for emeralds in hopes that one of the villagers at camp would give you something better.


To be fair to the game, bosses and enemies are interesting to fight, designs are good, weapons are diverse, the soundtrack is meh, and all--around the presentation is what you come to expect from a Minecraft experience. It's just hard to justify calling something good if it just looks pretty.

Minecraft Dungeons was an alright experience because they did the bare minimum and allowed multiplayer but if you have no one else to play this with, I would not give this a shot. Decent multiplayer game if you have someone as dedicated to it as you are, but it's a sub-par experience everywhere else.

Metroid Dread is one of the most unique games to come out of a first-party Nintendo IP in a very long time. I love when Nintendo does something different with my favorite franchises, and here is a title that has really changed up gameplay and storytelling in its own way that makes this title really stand out. However, thats not to say it does not come with some of the flaws of previous Metroid games.

Firstly, the gameplay loop is simply fantastic. Explore dark caverns, fight increasingly difficult bosses and upgrade your weapons to become as strong as you can. That is inevitable with any Metroid game and you will certainly get that same satisfaction from this title. Puzzles are fun, but challenging enough to make players feel that gratification from beating one; bosses are hard and while a few are confusing, it is easy to figure them out once you understand their attack patterns; and upgrades always feel earned and enjoyable additions to your arsenal. However, the weakest point of the gameplay loop (and by extension, the gameplay loop of all other Metroid-Vanias with similar problems) is the feeling of getting lost, which happened a lot during my trek with this game. Not just once, but multiple times throughout my experience with this game did I feel as though I was making steady progress and then suddenly felt as though I was wandering around aimlessly for an hour. I understand that the exploration is part of the point of the game, and I certainly do not want that taken away from players, some way of telling the player where to go or what to do without explicitly telling them is part of good game design. Many times, vital enterances or exits are blocked by hidden walls that have little-to-no visual differences from other walls. There is no way to explicitly tell the difference until way into the latter part of the game, and by then you feel entirely burnt out by the hidden wall mechanic. While I love secrets, and exploring is what makes the genre of the title so strong, its hard to say the game is perfect when I had to look up multiple walkthroughs simply to find out where I needed to go next.

Finally, with my only complaint of the game over, the presentation of the game can truly shine. This game is downright gorgeous. Environments look so real and lived in, creatures look like they breathe and eat as though they are real animals and even something as miniscule as cave ambience feels like it was perfected to a science. Additionally, these excellent looks are backed by beautiful sound design and tracks. Music feels mysterious, yet alluring and each individual sound adds that bit more tension. Just hearing an EMMI click as it attempts to hunt you down sends shivers down my spine. MercurySteam really went all out to earn that "Dread" subtitle, because each sound and enemy design in this game is absolutely horrifying.

Conclusively, I think Metroid Dread is an almost flawless game, with just a few minor annoyances that kept me from keeping up with it all the time. It did start to fall to the side as I got a bit fed up with more difficult bosses, such as the final boss, and left me annoyed by excessive backtracking. But, the morbid curiosity of what was going on within the depths of ZDR, kept me coming back for the thrilling narrative ride of a lifetime.

Cuphead is a literal miracle in game design and it's surprising that it managed to stand out in 2017. With a year that was filled with ambitious titles including Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Persona 5, PUBG, NieR: Automata, The Crash Bandicoot remakes and many more, Cuphead stood out as an indie darling with the love and care that's necessary to make a splash hit in the industry. While it did have the backing of Microsoft to really get its leg in the door, it was that original concept that really struck the company as a must-have title.

Obviously, the big detail about this game that stood out was difficulty. This game is not easy at all and was the first mainstream instance of game journalists being treated like a joke. Whether or not you have played the game, you know of this difficulty and sometimes it gets to you. There are some bosses that are not designed fairly at all, such as Dr Kahl's Robot or Sally Stageplay which just make you feel cheated out of victories at every corner. However, I have always been under the belief that the difficulty ties in well with the game's main theme of the 1930s.

As someone who absolutely loves history and animated cartoons, this game really struck a sweet spot as all themes, bosses, songs, attacks, dialogue come back to the 1930s. Bosses will take inspiration from everything in that time period, whether it's the rapid spike in urbanization, the beginning of spiritual beliefs outside of religion, or prohibitionist style debauchery. The art style all works beautifully and has the look of your average American cartoon of that time, with some of the backgrounds sneaking into the gameplay to add to the already immense difficulty. Music will break out into swing and jazz tones that immerse you in the world and the action. And that action will kick in hard, making you really feel the need to strategize.

All of the strategy to action loop makes it possible for anyone to beat the game with enough time. While I mentioned that the game is difficult, it rarely feels unfair, bar for my previous examples. Even your bout with King Dice or the Devil will make you wanna throw down your controller or keyboard, but you always want to come back just due to how addicting that gameplay is. Strategy is key, but so are your reflexes, and a good mix of the two lead to the most satisfying victories. While you can buy the best charms and weapons, your victories will always make you say "I did that!" and that's what makes a difficult game a good one.

So while Cuphead's difficulty may turn away more casual gamers, if you don't mind sinking in a good 20 hours and getting lost in the 1930s then this is definitely your game. I hope that time remembers this game as the action-packed sensation it stands as on it's own, and not just the "1930s-inspired Souls-like" because Cuphead deserves it's own place in gaming history.

Super Mario Odyssey is still one of my favorite games of all time so be aware of my bias when going into this review obviously but I have my reasons for loving this game. I have now played through the game around 5 times and each time I have played it, I loved it and yearn for the days when I experienced this game blind for the first time.

Super Mario Odyssey returns to the various small sandboxes that were beloved in both Super Mario 64 and Sunshine. While 64 failed to truly capture what was possible with those sandboxes as it effectively invented them and Sunshine could not quite capture the magic of 64's better levels, Super Mario Odyssey does its best to combine the two, as well as elements of every other Mario game before it. Taking the Sand Kingdom as an example, as I believe it's one of the best in the game, and allows me to analyze these levels without spoiling anything. The Sand Kingdom drops you off as it's being placed under attack by Bowser and it's up to you to figure out why the Kingdom has frozen over. To your right is a small pond area which you can explore freely with few enemies and a few platforms, also allowing you to get used to the ice mechanics, the flower springs, and even a few secrets to discover. To the left, is a vast wasteland filled with hills to run and jump over, and a few secrets to discover. But immediately in front of you and where most players will look and move towards a small, yet vibrant town, where villagers can explain the main conflict, how to get there and what you may face. This gives new players a direction to go and a framing as to what they should do while allowing experienced players to really go wherever, as the pool of poison or large structure in the background may already have the mind of an experienced player racing. The platforming is simple, yet open which lets experienced players make their own fun, while funneling new players so they do not feel lost. This seems to be a lesson that Super Mario 3D World had taught the devs, with its very linear platforming that left experienced players feeling alienated in certain levels. Finally, there are multiple challenges and even a boss beyond the main boss which leaves the world feeling fresh and explorable, and leaves more to do for completionists without alienating standard players.

Movement is literally heaven in this game and when it combines with the platforming. Mario moves at just the right pace, and with the variety of movement options at your disposal, it becomes hard to remember they even exist. Fortunately, there is a movement guide and Cappy reminds you of each move between kingdoms, which while it can be annoying for experienced players, it can be very helpful for newcomers and even intermediate players alike.

Of course, the new capture mechanic is one of the most important aspects of this game, and honestly, it's hard to miss the old Mario power-ups with these around. They offer so much variety to the already diverse moveset in the game that the movement never gets boring. Capturing something new will always see you have a fun new way to solve puzzles or cross the sandboxes. It does add probably the only negative part of this game, which is the motion controls, which start to get invasive when playing in handheld mode. Moving as fast as possible requires shaking the entire console in handheld mode, and making a save could have you throwing your remote around like an Uncle playing Wii Sports for the first time. While it's hard to say this ruins the game, it certainly brings down what was advertised of the Switch, which was an accessible console where you can play all the games you would play at home, on the go with no restrictions.

The presentation in this game has finally been mastered, as we are officially out of the period where Mario looks like a toy and more like a real person exploring real worlds. The environments are beautiful, the soundtrack is addicting, effects look so lifelike and it has never been more fun to watch Mario get hit by a cactus and get needles caught on his nose as it produces accurate jiggle physics.

This game is all-around beautiful and while I believe the new Bowser's Kingdom mode in the Super Mario 3D World port has topped it in terms of a fun sandbox Mario experience, I will always have good memories with this game. It will always be my immediate recommendation for a must-need Switch game.

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What can I say about this game that has not been said before? This is quite literally the ultimate Mario experience, with so much content and quirks that it makes the game hard to hate at all. The gameplay is easily the best in the series, with solid fluid movement that makes the game fun to just run around in, which is good for a game with so much to do. You can run right to the end in the blink of an eye or you can stop and truly enjoy the world and it's environments. Each environment is filled with different content, characters and charm that it is an absolute blast to play this game. The collectibles are great fun to find and the amount you have to find is about 1/8 of the actual amount of collectibles in the game. Nothing feels restrictive, however some paths such as how you make your way through each area of the game can feel linear but rarely detracts from the overall experience. I completed and did everything this game has to offer about two years ago and I still return to it just to play around with the physics. The story is limited but good for a Mario game, while just barely missing the mark as the grand plot of Galaxy. Overall, this is an absolutely amazing game with some blemishes here and there but it's nothing that detracts from the overall experience.

This game is an odd one to me. I originally played this game as I played it fondly as a kid but see it for it's flaws now. The game is nothing extraordinary, especially compared to older and newer 3D Mario games. That being said, this is still a game that saved the 3DS as it began to flop in it's early years. The gameplay is obviously the meat of a Mario game and in this entry it plays fine but lacks any real excitement or precision. I often find myself wishing a move like a true version of the long jump or triple jump were in this game as along with the speed that Mario and Luigi run at makes the game slow to play. The difficulty in the gameplay is less so about actual difficulty and more so limitations that are arbitrarily put in place, such as the collectibles that make the game just that much more tedious to play as a portion of them are required. The story is incredibly lackluster and just makes you question what the point of it is but the way it's told is fairly nice. Most of the post game content is really unnecessary and just there to pad out an already short experience. This game is good if you like Galaxy or the New Super Mario Bros. series but if you are someone looking for a good 3D platformer, this is about as generic as they come.

This is quite literally, the ultimate Mario Kart experience. It's no surprise this game was rereleased on Switch as it was effectively perfect on Wii U, just needed a few tweaks. It's a great experience, whether online with friends or on your own completing the different cups. The driving is great and never feels clunky or awkward. The items always make for good fun and add plenty of strategy into the game and there's not that one that makes the experience too hectic. However, that's also my biggest problem with this game, it's focus on skill. Skill has always been a big factor in Mario Kart, no matter what entry you play but this one focuses so much on it that once you've mastered the game, it becomes almost impossible to be beaten which can detract from the fun occasionally. The older entries are a lot more chaotic and are typically better party games but as the best portable entry, it does well. A great time though, and will be playing this one with friends for quite some time.

This game really puts the 'Ultimate' in the Super Smash Bros. franchise. This game has just about everything you could ever want out of a fighting game. The battles are able to be freely customized to fit whatever type of game you want to play, along with the silly modes that have become a Smash Bros. staple. There's tournament modes, challenge modes, stage builders and a full fledged Adventure mode that's almost as good as fighting games get. The gameplay finds a nice balance between the slower styles of Smash 4 and Brawl, while still keeping that action-packed pace that everyone loves from Melee. The Adventure mode is lacking in some major content and is fairly stale but is better than any other games Adventure mode, aside from the obvious Subspace Emissary. Many will say that it does not quite live up to Melee but when you consider Melee as a full fledged game, this does everything that game did and more. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is easily the best entry in the franchise, no questions asked.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is the first instance of 'underrated gem' on the Switch. This game is so packed full of stupid humor and clever gameplay that makes this game an absolute blast to play through. The gameplay is fun and simple but can quickly become challenging as you begin to meticulously plan out each individual move. The game never feels unfair in any instance but never makes it too easy. Humor is pretty good, obviously a little childish because of the Rabbids character but definitely some funny moments. The story is pretty good, nothing too crazy complex but enough to keep you strung along through each battle. If there is anything that I truly believe is a problem is the memorability. The game doesn't entirely resonate with me in the way many other Mario games do and perhaps it's the different developers but there's also the fact that locales are fairly plain, enemies are generic and characters are about as complex as Mario characters come. Still a great time and definitely worth a shot if you're big into grid-based strategy games.

Link's Awakening is a game I have really enjoyed in the past, so when I found out that there was going to be a remake of the game coming to the Switch, I was excited to find out what it would be like. Turns out, it's not exactly the game I remember, especially with an upres and an art style change, it made this game feel much more cheap. The gameplay is overall fine but as the game goes on, it becomes incredibly cryptic as to what you are supposed to do. I found myself painstakingly going through puzzles or desperately searching for another item because I HAD to in order to do the things I actually wanted to do, and not because I wanted to actually do the tasks. This game just feels like fetch quest after fetch quest to solve puzzles that would be fun if they weren't designed by a master locksmith. Not to mention, compared to the puzzles, the actual action is a breeze. Most bosses are easy to defeat and take no real time at all to understand. This is not inheritley a bad thing but I would love for the bosses to be more challenging, so the puzzles would not feel like the bulk of this game. Not to mention, the way this game feigns an open world. Most of the world is open to you from the beginning of the game, but it is very limited on what you can do until you actually complete the dungeons in linear order. The art style is my last gripe with this game has while it has some original quality to it, the toy art style always feels like when Nintendo does not really care. They did it with Super Mario 3D World, they did it here and it just feels gross. Obviously, there are some good parts to the game, the story is good, characters are okay for the most part, Link's movement and attacks feel natural and it's a fun game to run around in. This game should have really been changed in a lot of ways because the game feels outdated in many ways, which is a great appeal for some, but I would personally call it bad game design.

Super Mario 3D All-Stars is quite the complicated case, with a multitude of issues and controversies but I am going to preface this review with this: I will be reviewing the collection in itself based on how good it is as a collection and less so the games inside said collection. If I were to base this game on how good it is as 3 of the greatest games of all time, it would walk away with an easy 5 stars.

That being said, this is a pretty awful collection, especially when it's being marketed as the big event for Mario's 35th anniversary. Nothing here is all that different from how you would play these games on the Nintendo 64, GameCube and Wii and there is no included extras outside of the soundtrack, and in an era where you can listen to videogame music for free online, it basically just means that you are paying that 60$ for the games. There's no artbook, no exclusive developer interviews, no betas, no unused content, nothing but some soundtracks and some decent emulation.

Let's talk about that emulation, shall we? It's actually really good. I played through all of Mario Galaxy with no problems in framerate or quality and even in handheld mode this thing can take a beating. Some of the quality of life improvements are nice, I like being able to use my JoyCon for picking up starbits and the way they handled the lack of pressure sensitive triggers in Sunshine is really good in my opinion. I always had a hard time trying to get the water pressure just right so Mario would actually stand in place while I was aiming. But then there's the things they really messed up on. As anyone who has played Super Mario 64 will tell you, the camera is inverted automatically, with no way to change it, and it feels awkward. I often have to swivel my camera all the way around because I mess up one button press and then I just mess up the jump because Mario 64's camera controls are still mapped like they are buttons, which was my biggest problem with that game and something I was really hoping they would fix in this collection.

However, having all three of these games in the same place, upscaled and put on a console that you can take anywhere makes this a good buy if you can pick it up in the limited time that it is out. If you just want to play one of these games, then I would just get a Wii and play Sunshine or Galaxy, or wait for Mario 64 to inevitably get released on Switch as a standalone title, but if you want to play at least two of them, it's worth your money.

Luigi's Mansion always stood as that oddball game in the Mario franchise to me. Of course it only just recently got some sequels but ever since I had heard of the game, I wanted to give it a shot. Overall, this is a really fun experience. The setting is confined which makes the game feel claustrophobic and scary but expansive at the same time giving a sense of mystery and exploration. However, some mechanics could use tweaking and a good portion of this game feels like it's padding out and already short experience. Collecting Boos would be fine if there was more than a vague clue as to where they are and they couldn't escape from the rooms you were in because backtracking through half the mansion to get one collectible is not that fun. The Boo collecting doesn't even amount to anything as you can complete the game without them. Some of the puzzles get confusing as you are given few clues as to what to do, which helps feed into exploration in some places and just annoys in others. The good in this game is strong, though. Addicting gameplay loop that has you coming back for more, creative character and gameplay designs and a simple story helps keep the mystery. For a short, quick Halloween title, this is so much fun, but as an extensive game or even a collectathon, it could use some expanding.

Super Mario 64 DS is a game I grew up personally and picked up recently as the nostalgia bug urged me to jump back into it to complete the game. When thinking of this game, I had to ask myself two questions: how does this game expand upon the original, as well as how does this game function as a standalone experience. Some say this is the inferior version of the game which is an understandable point of view.

The controls are just as bad and arguably worse than they were in the original, as precise platforming becomes much more difficult to perform, your hand can get incredibly cramped while playing, and just the fact that Super Mario 64's level design was not made with a D-pad in mind. I do personally believe that the level design is the biggest flaw for this remake, as the precise platforming, especially in later levels, makes the game unnecessarily difficult. Platforming becomes a chore, whereas open-ended levels (or those with less bottomless pits) feel a lot more fun to play. Even levels like Tick Tock Clock, Snowman's Land, and Wet Dry World feel good to play because platforming is much freer. Compare this to Rainbow Ride, Tiny Huge Island, or Tall Tall Mountain and the difference is drastic, as it becomes a nightmare to navigate, and one slip-up where the character loops around instead of snapping to the desired direction means falling to your death. The point stands that controlling Mario is not as fun as it was on the Nintendo 64, even if there were design tweaks made. One of those design tweaks being the new characters which spread out Mario's moveset.

This setup is honestly not too bad as it gives you a specific way that you play the game, but it does get tiresome wanting to run through the whole game as one character and having to compromise that just to do a mission. While we are on the bad, I'll say that Wario seems like the most worthless addition to this game as if it weren't for the black bricks and the fact that only he can use the metal cap, he would be completely unnecessary to 100% complete the game. This is where I believe that splitting the moveset failed in some regards. However, on the brighter side, I do believe that this split was one that made each character feel distinct, aside from the aforementioned Wario. Yoshi has a significantly better grab and has the flutter kick which can leap across larger gaps, Mario has the wall kicking and much less floatier controls, while Luigi has a superior backflip and a slower descent when falling, allowing for better mid-air course correction. Each of these different movesets makes each character feel different and fun, even if you do just want to run through the whole game as Mario.

Finally, we come to the new content, which is really what's advertised as the big new features for the game and it varies in quality. The graphical overhaul is greatly appreciated and still holds up well today. Comparing this game to its Nintendo 64 original, the two look like they were created decades apart. Other than that, it's mostly all the same game you remember. Music is the same, with a few variations in the way themes sound, however the sound design, especially voices, sounds so bad, as though everything was recorded underwater. In terms of actual substance, there's one star removed from every level and two in its place, most of which are switch stars or silver star collecting and get old pretty fast. Six new areas were added but they are fairly small and only contain secret stars and linear platforming sections. Along with all of this in the main game, there's a collection of minigames and multiplayer mode included. The minigames give a lot of extra weight to the game and there are a few that are fun to play over and over, trying to get a new high score. The multiplayer is absolutely fun with friends as complete chaos will break out as everybody tries to beat each other for stars, even if the levels aren't original and the mode does lack depth. All of this is completely avoidable from the main game, aside from collecting all the bunnies required to unlock the minigames, so do not worry. Overall, it meets the requirement for new content without taking too much away from the original. Obviously, storage was a concern as all of the previous game, along with the new content had to fit onto a DS cartridge in 2004.

Now, for the questions I proposed at the beginning of this review: does the remake expand upon the original? Yes, and no. There was plenty of new content, however, most of it was monotonous and repetitive but it does give the player more to do. Does this game hold up well as it's own experience? Absolutely and if someone wants to give this version a shot and has no way to play the original, this is absolutely worth it. All of this extra content and the feel of the original given new life deserves to be held up next to the original as games that launched their new systems in a way that seemed technologically infeasible.

I have a complicated history with Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon. Luigi is one of my favorite Mario characters and I had always heard of an elusive game known as Luigi's Mansion online, and it always sounded like a game I would love. Then this game comes out around the time that I am deeply in love with Nintendo. I never get it, play it, or even see much of it online but knowing of its existence always made me want the game. Fast forward about 7 years and I finally decide that for October 2020, I wanted to play all 3 games for Halloween. I beat the first one and wasn't incredibly in love with it but it was still a good time and then get to the one that I know its gonna be rough. This game which I got stuck on for about 3 months and boy do I hate this game now.

However, I want to start with the things I can praise this game for, such as graphical prowess. Holy crap this game is beautiful! Even if the art style is jarring between the standard Luigi and cartoony ghosts and environments, this game is the most graphically impressive 3DS game I have ever seen and really set the standard for 3DS games in the future. The music is very well composed and even fits in with the sound design at certain points. Little touches like Toad's feet sounding like a squeaky toy as he trudges through the mansions are good attention to detail. The Scarescraper mode is kind of fun although lacks any depth for it to be something I want to come back to again and again. Some puzzles are actually pretty interesting and well-paced with a unique physics engine that makes the game fun to mess around with from time to time. However, I do wish some puzzles were a bit more streamlined, which brings me to my problems with this game.

My biggest issue here is the mission structure, which many say is not inherently bad but just is not as fun as the open-ended version of the original. I disagree entirely as I think the mission structure is an integral flaw in this game that actively ruins the experience with its inclusion. Much of this game is spent in cutscenes between levels as the game tells you where to go and what to do. That gives the game a Super Mario Sunshine experience, where the game feels the need to boot you out after every level instead of letting you discover things as you go. However, unlike Sunshine, this game feels the need to drag you where you are meant to go, point to the room you need to be in, and then give you no further instruction. "Need to figure out how to rescue a Toad? Here's the room he's in, here's the item you need to get him out but watch out, a big venus fly trap is guarding the painting." But the game stops there, making it unclear how to get rid of the flytrap with only vague hints. "Been going through a long gauntlet of ghosts and you keep getting stuck at this point that's really late into the mission. That sucks, how does start all the way at the beginning of a 30-minute mission sound?" I swear this game wants to give you no sense of progression whatsoever.

Speaking of progression, let's talk about how the game makes you feel good for completing a mission; it doesn't. The only feeling I ever got after a mission was "thank goodness, that's over." Reusing locations is abundant in this game and it leaves you feeling like you didn't actually clean any rooms out, you just temporarily cleared it so the game could set up some kind of puzzle for the next mission. Collectibles are abundant in the game but none of them give you any feeling of progression. Boos no longer feel like a special collectible because most of the time you just stumble upon them and then get no reward apart from a medal on the home screen. Gems feel less than worthless as I feel I was cheated out of some money by completing a tricky puzzle and all I got was one more rock to go into E Gadd's trophy case.

The plot feels like a continuation of the progression problem, as it too never feels like it's advancing. As opposed to the GameCube game, it's really only revealed that the ghosts have trapped Mario in the last quarter of the game. The only reason you really help E. Gadd before is because he wants some research done on the Dark Moon, the main McGuffin of the game that serves no purpose to the player outside of 'get it because I told you to.' The game tries to set itself up like it's some kind of grand heist but it is literally just the plot from the first game. Ghost designs are entirely too boring to be interested in actually capturing these things (about 3/5ths of the way in they give up on making actual new ghost designs and just add cracks to the models of the original designs), boss battles have no relevance to the plot and are usually just 'wait until this thing happens, go through tedious gameplay portion that could just be a cutscene and it would have the same effect, repeat 2 more times.' This game just outright refuses to do anything unique. It tries to have this emotional ending but it falls flat because the game never takes itself seriously, constantly cracking some slightly funny jokes and then moving on.

All around, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon feels like a funhouse distortion of the original, lacking in everything that made that game unique and interesting and putting it on a form factor that just does not fit the Luigi's Mansion series. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon is disappointing, flawed, and almost killed my love for a franchise that has intrigued me since before I even knew what it looked like.

I have to come out and admit this to start, I was once scared of traditional JRPGs and used to be a Fire Emblem hater. While the announcement of Byleth in Smash Bros certainly did not infuriate me the way it did to others, I was not too happy about another generic anime swordsman. Fast forward a few months and my girlfriend tells me that I should pick up the game and it may be my thing. Needless to say, I positively love this game, but it has some flaws that really cause it to stumble in some areas.

I suppose I should levy my criticisms on the game to begin and then get to the positives. The biggest thing that bogs this game down is the main gameplay loop. Not the combat, but everything outside of the combat can be an absolute bore. Running around the monastery is fun at first but then you do it again and again which just makes you sick of it by the end. Even in the shortest possible route, you will have to run around the same location about 20 separate times to get information that could be explained to you elsewhere. I want to explore the great world established, visit the mountains and learn of the lore that way but instead, I am restricted to the same people I can talk to, in the same places I can talk to them. That weighs in a much smaller problem that is less a criticism and more so just an improvement that could have been made to the game; choice. The game gives you many dialogue options to choose from, but most of them just lead back into characters saying the same thing and it leaves some characters feeling more robotic than others, such as minor characters like Ann, the shopkeeper who really wants me to come back soon.

Voice lines like those lead me into the padding this game feels the need to put in. At so many points does the game feel the need to halt all story progression and send you through another month of training just so you can get on with the story. At the point where the game reaches its climax, it forces you to stop, go back through that main gameplay loop again, do another month of training, and then you get to proceed with the story which really slows story progression down. My final gripe with the game is a simple one and it's the graphics because this just does not look like a first-party Nintendo game. At some points, backgrounds look like a basic png was slapped on a sphere, trees are murky, and objects constantly clip through each other.

So obviously I hate this game, right? I just went on for two whole paragraphs about how awful this game is, and yet I still find myself loving it. Even if that main gameplay loop really deterred me from playing on some days, the combat is so enjoyable that it's hard to not love it. Fighting becomes so akin to war tactics, having to plan where you route each character so your weaker units will be shielded by your stronger ones. Each fighting style is unique and while some are better than others (ahem magic ahem) combining them all to make a well-balanced team became the most fun part of the game for me. The idea that you are a professor always comes back nicely into the progression because at every battle, as you always feel so proud of your students for getting the critical hit that wins the battle or avoiding the attack that could cost you the game.

On that note, I have to talk about the characters and worldbuilding. Despite my extended playtime with the game, I did only get through one route (I like to take my time, leave me alone), but I have to say that each character I ran into was positively beaming with charm. Each character interacts with another differently and their personalities change and grow as time goes on. So many nuances are written in that make you feel bad even for characters you hate. The death of a certain tyrant really hits hard as she speaks her last words to you, even if you do come to despise her for what she did to the world's people. That world becomes constructed around you along with the characters and it makes you yearn to see more of this world explored. Watching Prince Dimitri attempt to fight to reclaim his homeland or watching Commonwoman Dorothea attempt to find her place in the noble world makes you feel for these real people as they struggle with real lives in real places and watching that world come to a close brought tears to my eyes, knowing full well that my students would go on to lead their own lives.

In conclusion, how did I actually feel about Fire Emblem? I see it as a game with great potential. It was greatly held back by being a lower priority title in the Switch's library and while I hope that a sequel comes with a greatly expanded world and options, this game has so much good about it, it's hard not to love it. Would I recommend it to just about anyone? No, the typical RPG hater would see no merit in this game and hate everything about it. But to an average RPG fan, especially those who are a fan of war or grid-based strategy, then this is a must-play on the Switch. A sequel to this game could not come quick enough.