The landscapes are the star of the show. The stunning environments slowly unravel and become more and more interesting as you navigate through the game. The game's symbolism is littered all over the island with breadcrumbs for the player who takes the time to stop and zoom in. The island itself changes meaning throughout the game, but the abstract nature of the story leads to many of the clues you discover becoming a dead end in a way that I'm conflicted about. As background ambiance the story didn't need much scrutiny early on, but as it becomes more prominent it also becomes more heavy handed, and it's easier to fixate on the flaws in the writing. I do not like the story or necessarily how it was told, which is unfortunate because you can tell it benefits from multiple playthroughs, but I have no desire to go back and fill in the gaps that I missed.

The game makes great use out of limiting the player to just walking, listening, and looking in order to create the atmosphere of helplessness and lack of control. The game teases the player with exploration but is actually quite linear, and unfortunately there were a couple of chapters I circled back to the beginning without really understanding where to go next. But you can't get too mad at a game that tried something and took some chances and did something very new and refreshing at the time.

Sega bass fishing is the best game that redefined the sega bass fishing genre. Sega bass fishing games like sega bass fishing 2 have been trying to catch up for years but to no avail. Sega bass fishing is the quintessential game that was ever made by sega, so much so that even their other games have failed to top it. Sonic adventure, persona 5, and yakuza 0 have not even come close to this level of expertise. It has been so highly regarded that it got the company’s official mascot: ‘that bass from the cover of sega bass fishing’. That bass is a universal symbol that shows love, hope, and above all else: bass. And you can’t spell bass without the letter A. And A is also a letter that reminds me of the word perfect, and that describes sega bass fishing.

Sega bass fishing begins with your protagonist: ‘the guy from sega bass fishing’. As the game goes on this man learns the most valuable lesson that can ever be taught in life: how to fish for bass. Sega bass fishing gives time for the characters to really think about who they are and challenge themselves to their limit, by fishing for bass. They get more and more bait as the game goes along which helps them in their effort to discover themselves and fish for bass.

Gameplay is what makes this game the perfect game in the sega bass fishing genre. For the absolutely perfect and problem ridden Dreamcast version, you have the fishing rod which is the best controller to ever grace mankind. It even contains some of the best motion controls to ever grace the sega bass fishing experience. Even with a normal controller the game is still just as perfect as ever because nothing can change how perfect sega bass fishing truly is. It is after all, the best sega bass fishing game.

Bass, Bass, Lots of Bass, Can’t get enough of the Bass, Bass everywhere, Bass in your walls, BASS

Marvelous. Outstanding.

This is simply put the best game I have played this year. This title understood the iconic "Inside" and build upon its brillance.

Story, gameplay, visuals, lore. You have all here.

Just. play. it.

Zone of the Enders: The Twin Snakes.

This game might be the poster child for the law of equivalent exchange. Virtually everything that was bad or half-baked in the original has been fixed, but a lot of what's been added is subpar.

Two years may not seem like a lot, and in the world of video games, it isn't. Even then, that was all the time it took for Konami to actually take Zone of the Enders into the sixth generation; the previous entry into the series came out a little over a year into the PS2's lifespan, but it looked like the first Armored Core. It probably wouldn't be hard to trick someone who wasn't aware of the franchise into believing that Zone of the Enders was on the same console as Metal Gear Solid rather than Sons of Liberty. The first thing you'll notice about 2nd Runner is the massive facelift. The game looks stunning. Some choppy faux slow-motion and ghosting frames distract a little from the polish on display here, but these are just occasional strange editing choices more than anything else. Gonzo, Anime Roman, and DR Movie all contribute their work for the hand-drawn cutscenes, which were an inspired decision over the rather mediocre 3DCG shots to be found in the original.

Jehuty also feels significantly less like a flying jalopy and more like the magical mecha that the series has claimed it to be, with a complete overhaul of the controls and battle mechanics. Now introduced to the mix is an increased emphasis on environmental combat, encouraging the player to slap enemies into walls, floors, and ceilings to deal bonus damage and lock them into stun states. Dash missiles now track dozens upon dozens of enemies at once, giving you the tools to instantly mow down hordes of Mosquito drones. Grabbing an enemy still gives you the option to chuck them into terrain, but now also lets you swing them around as weapons and use them as meat shields. Combat is fast, intense, and swarm-heavy; a far cry from the dash-slash dash-slash dash-slash loops of old.

The open-world backtracking segments are out, now replaced by linear level progression. This was one of the more interesting aspects of the original game, even though it could have used some tweaking; it's all been thrown out in favor of some atrocious objective checklisting. If you thought the backtracking felt bad before, you haven't felt the padding in 2nd Runner. Fly through a canyon to get to blow up a generator, fly back through the canyon with all of the enemies respawned, fly through an identical-but-mirrored canyon to blow up a second generator, and then fly back through the second canyon with all of the enemies respawned. This exact same pattern gets repeated about two more times in the game's six-hour runtime, just replacing "canyon" with "basement", or "slightly different basement". You get two escort missions, and they're both awful. One boss fight requires you to do nothing but parry sword swings and then grab the other frame over the course of about five minutes. Another just asks you to throw rebar. A third asks you to grab a steel plate and use it as a shield. In case you can't figure these out on your own, ADA will helpfully interrupt in the middle of combat to tell you exactly what you need to do to progress. Sometimes she'll interrupt while you're actively doing the thing she's telling you to do.

What's clear is that the heavier emphasis on setpieces takes precedence over all else, to mixed results. The massive battlefield sequence is impressive in terms of scale, though marred somewhat by the extremely limited render distance and endless, rapid-fire ally barks begging to be hit with GEYSER. Unloading the VECTOR CANNON (all caps) into an airship's engine for fifteen straight seconds is cool once, and then you have to do it four more times without dying to the anti-air defenses or you have to start over from the first ship. Inhert turning the lights out in his second phase and forcing you to rely on ADA's verbal guidance is awesome, but the fight goes for nearly five extra minutes even though it stops being interesting after the first two cycles. Bosses keep doing that trick where they have a seemingly-absurd amount of health, but you only need to hit them a couple of times before the game automatically ends the fight.

The translation is somehow even worse than the original. It's shocking how bad it is. Like, it's distractingly bad. There are more than a few lines in here where I knew they weren't written by native English speakers because of how rudimentary some of the grammatical errors are. One character, while establishing a timeline, drops the phrase "half year ago" to start their sentence. "Half year ago". Not "half a year ago", or "a half-year ago", or even the stiffer "one half-year ago". Half year ago. You cannot write something this blatantly wrong unless English isn't your first language, or you're in first grade.

A little digging through the credits revealed the answer: while noted Kojima yes-man Scott Dolph — perhaps best known for filling in on the later Metal Gear Solid games in place of Jeremy Blaustein after the latter delivered one of the best translations ever written and was fired by Kojima for not adhering literally enough to the script, but I digress — is here as a translation assistant, the bulk of the work seems to have fallen on the Japan-based translation company SPROUT. SPROUT proudly advertises that they can fully translate a work from Japanese into English in as little as three days, though they admit averaging out at five. It shows. While Zone of the Enders had a rough translation, 2nd Runner's is often so bad that I struggled to understand what some of the characters were even attempting to say. Even then, Ken and Nohman's actors really seem like they're trying to make these lines work, and they kind of save the dub by themselves.

It's certainly a more technically impressive game — faster, bigger, prettier — and yet it feels directionless. 2nd Runner is a game that seems like it's trying to cram everything into a single package, and it winds up making its constituent parts feel half-baked. I'm watching Buster Keaton plugging the holes in his boat with his fingers; for everyone one issue that Konami addressed, they introduced another.

Without the angel effect of including a bundled Metal Gear Solid demo disc, 2nd Runner released to poor sales and resulted in the halting of all momentum the series had going. With the potential for a third game now firmly dead and buried, it's a shame that we may never get to see this series fully realized.

I cannot get over how ROUMBD the ship you control in this game is, look at that chonky boy. Very visualy enjoyable

This game has all the charm and grace of a developed who has stumbled into the SHUMP genre several years late and reckons they know what the genre needs. The facinating little descions like said ROUMBD ship being a clear indicator for the hitbox. Also taking literal interpritations of abstract insect shaped enemies of it's contemporaries like Galaga, resulting in giant bug-shaped metal spaceships.

It's super charming and gives a basic SHUMP a little of it's own identity in this early chapter of Capcom's life.

~ Muzu

While I’d still give a slight edge to Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow for the award of ‘best Metroidvania on the Gameboy Advance’, Metroid Fusion is an extremely close second.

It’s true that this is a more linear, story-based affair, but it still employs a winding structure with plenty of secrets and things to find. In fact, I don’t think the linearity is this game’s biggest drawback. I found that they lean a tad too hard into using invisible blocks as a main funnel for progression. Get ready to use that morph ball bomb.

But that’s really my only complaint, as this is a buttery smooth and beautiful game with excellent pacing and tight controls. It’s challenging but not overly frustrating, easy to navigate without being simplistic, and atmospheric & creepy without being a retread of what came before. A perfect mobile entry that would have been considered one of the greatest SNES titles ever had it been released on that platform, and that should likewise be considered one of the best games on the GBA.

It also gave me an even greater appreciation for Metroid Dread, which is very much a sequel and follow-up to this game, expanding and improving on ideas introduced here without forgetting what made this one work.