As a follow-up to Pikmin 1, Pikmin 2 makes an incredibly strong statement. And that statement is "we know that we're spreading ourselves thin between score attack-style survivalist gameplay and slow-burn exploration and worldbuilding, so we've destroyed the worldbuilding and put it in a little book and now the game is all about not dying in caves". It's a change that honestly the Pikmin series probably needed to take in one direction or the other, and the game commits to its more arcade-style gameplay fairly well! Without having to worry about navigating a more complex terrain in favor of labyrinths, control of the Pikmin generally feels a lot more consistent, combat challenges can be placed in a player's way methodically and deliberately, and overall the spikes in difficulty and memorable moments are a lot more controlled than in Pikmin 1. Unfortunately, the very limited exploration offered from seeing Pikmin 1 environments change does end up feeling very rote and obligatory by comparison, which makes a lot of the game's opening stretch seem pretty performatory; Pikmin 2 can't be mean enough in its opening to really grit its teeth due to needing to reteach Pikmin 1's mechanics and introduce its new ones. Additionally, returning bosses like the Burrowing Snagret, Beady Long Legs and Emperor Bulblax are shadows of their former selves due to appearing at the end of dungeons where a player can't be assured to have a full squad like Pikmin 1, creating this really unfortunate deflating feeling after clearing the first game. I'd cleared the debt and was ready to write the game off as a technically superior, but ultimately short-sighted version of Pikmin 1.

Then the Water Wraith happened.

I cannot tell you how wonderful of a turning point the Water Wraith is. Every cave up to that point (discounting backtracking to the first area's harder dungeons) could be handled with just a simple measure of patience, with taking things slowly, step by step, and throwing the right colored Pikmin at the thing they're good at stopping. Water Wraith takes every bit of that away from you, demands you scramble, puts you in the position to make mistakes, has no weaknesses for a majority of its dungeon. This is Pikmin 2 at its best: throwing you into cruel situations where one lapse in attention or assuming that your little guys will be fine will end up with a squad crushed, exploded, or eaten by a jumpscare of a bomb rock or bulbear. Where the first game had you try to figure out how to solve each creature individually, Pikmin 2 is glad to mingle its enemies together, forcing you into incredibly uncomfortable situations to try and keep your most precious fellas alive, cursing the name of the Dirigibug or anything that happens to shoot lightning as they attempt to one-shot your lil' boy army. Bosses take a significant step up, with Man-At-Legs being an especially fantastic upgrade of needing to figure out spacial awareness, positioning, and just how fast your Pikmin can duck into cover to avoid machine gun fire. The midgame of Pikmin 2 is absolutely exhilerating in attempting to expect its cruelty and react.

... and unfortunately the endgame is where Pikmin 2's flaws become most apparent. The caves that you delve into are somewhat randomly generated, with layouts tending to be similar, but a lot of enemy placements and exit placements in those rooms being random. This leads to a lot of scenarios that aren't so much difficult, but unfun, especially if something REAL dangerous like a groink or bulbear spawns directly outside your starting area and leaves you little time to react. I do think the game is significantly more fun not resetting or leaving caves, just trying to do your best with the limited resources you have (I actually managed to beat Submerged Castle on the back of seven total Pikmin remaining, and it was an absolute blast maneuvering that!), but I'll admit it's not the optimal way to play the game compared to resetting. Sitting there watching your 'min get blown over and over again because the blowy man is behind a wall you need to break while a snitchbug takes swipes every so often is hardly a fun time, and these kinds of scenarios are abundant the further you get into Pikmin 2. Add in things like bomb hitboxes extending through walls with no real indication, cutscenes for items interrupting gameplay, and treasures sometimes glitching out if at a bad angle, and Pikmin 2 ends up an experience as unintentionally frustrating as it is intentionally.

Overall, Pikmin 2 is my favored Pikmin game of the Gamecube duology. It's a wildly inconsistent game, but its peaks are utterly fantastic, its writing some of the best on the system even though it's tucked away in its own little section, and the moments it creates as you barely make it through a tough challenge or scenario are legendary. I will never forget sending my army of Pikmin to gank the Empress Bulblax while the President of Hotocate Freight personally punched out an army of her spawn with his bare hands until they could all mob her face and guarantee a win, or slowly tricking Dweevils into getting a stack up disc out of the water because I lost all my Blue Pikmin. It is not the ideal sequel to its original game, and has to sacrifice a lot to make its own fun, but what it does uniquely it does superbly, and there's a stretch of about eight hours of game in here that's utterly incredible. The other surrounding eight hour chunks on either side are still pretty good, too, just with their very obvious drawbacks!

Olimar should not dump his wife for a cool marble, though. That's weird, Olimar.

Final Fantasy IX plays with some themes similar to NieR: Automata, and I think Vivi is the storyline that got me the most out of any of the party members. I fully didn't expect it to. The existential dread thematic there was fantastically written. For such a colorful and whimsical-looking Final Fantasy game, it's quite dark when it comes to its story despite having the usual Final Fantasy silliness at times. Which I adore. I believe most of Final Fantasy IX's shortcomings are counteracted by how well the plot is pulled off, and although I don't find it the most fun Final Fantasy to play, I think it's firmly the best one.

Score: 96

The tragedy of Undertale is that it's become so well-known as a game that its schtick becomes almost rote. Every bit of wit and cute, small subversion practically expected. It's become an originator of a style, and as such, faces the same sort of scrutiny of such titles, where you can see every little thing it does in its imitators and all it inspired, but done to a more specialized degree in those titles.

Fortunately it's still really GOOD at being subversive and fun. Undertale is a game that wants to throw a little moment at you, a little something to remember it by, in every single second, and it does so with a little cheek and a knowing smile that it's gonna be a bit silly. It's a highly sincere game, irreverent but never disrespectful of its world, and willing to show vulnerability and care with all of its characters once all of the jokes have landed or gone off-course. All of its attacks a cute way of trying to surprise the player and get them invested in every individual encounter. It uses the simple premise of a punch-line as its way of expressing both challenge and sincerity, and while it's perhaps a tad clumsy and limited in how exactly it delivers its gameplay on the whole (facing new things all the time naturally leads to some vulnerability that doesn't work as well in an RPG compared to its bullet hell roots... and it also doesn't do the RPG stuff particularly well), it's exactly that amateur humbleness that makes Undertale feel like such a special experience, that has caused so many people to want to praise it, defend it, bond with it, and explore it even further. It's simultaneously a fantastic game and a beautiful template of creativity by staying altogether playful and relatable.

... anyway this playthrough I fought sans for the first time, since I felt guilty doing it on my original computer. Actually really brilliant fight, plays with Undertale's limitations incredibly well, the weight of failure is entirely on the player and their stamina and that's the entire point the fight's trying to make, but it's so mechanically fascinating and addictive in the sheer speed required of it at times that you can't help but go in repeatedly. In spite of everything, it's a good time. And it knows it, and it hates it. And that's GREAT.

Diddy Kong is the best 2D platformer character to control from a base level. While other characters like Zero or Alucard have multiple extension options that mingle with their enemies in fascinating ways, Diddy is just pure fundamental controls, looking to perfectly preserve momentum. And if you charge forward with him, every single level in DKC2 not focused on swimming or an animal buddy can be adeptly handled with him weaving through stages in a beautiful, seamless chimpy charge. The way that DKC2 organizes its levels to play with this, placing enemies that Diddy juuust has time to either avoid or use to extend a cartwheel, is absolutely immaculate. On that merit alone, the game is superb and deserves play.

But DKC2 isn't satisfied with this. If Diddy's technical ceiling is too high, Dixie exists to help ease you in and find new ways to abuse levels. Every high ground now becomes a new vantage point to blaze through levels from, and her obvious strengths are well taken into consideration. Teaming up is required to plunder every secret, making maintaining both kongs paramount in a way that DKC1 simply never achieved, and DKC3 perhaps was a bit too overzealous to toy with. Animal Buddies are given their own unique sections, and each one combines a level of absolute freedom with a new level of trepedation, having either very obvious horizontal or vertical strengths with great weakness in the other deparment in the case of Rambi, Enguarde, and Rattly, or having incredible versatility but being terribly pressured up close in the case of Squawks and Squitter. AND there's the incredible amount of character work and writing and world design to make everything feel so vibrant and lived in and funny and the bosses don't suck anymore!

DKC2 is the golden standard I judge all other 2D platformers on. It's scary at first, it rewards you for mastery pretty quickly, it makes you feel in control of your own destiny at all times, only challenging you to maintain it in the roughest of circumstances. Is it flawless? Nah, Glimmer's Galleon ain't the best and camera tracking on Squitter specifically wasn't given the most elegant solution. But it's a lot damn closer than anything else in its genre has gotten, and also I really like it!

I tried. I really did. I wanted to like this game so bad. The character designs are great, the music is fantastic! But the story was not interesting to me and the gameplay bored me. The worlds are vast but not interesting. The combat is ok. Not the best in my opinion. I got a quarter of the way through and just couldn’t continue there’s a lot to do but a lot of it to me we’re tedious fetch quest. I did not enjoy myself and I played for hours and got to a point where I thought to myself, “If I’m not having fun, then why am I playing this?”