Turquoisephoenix
2021
Wytchwood is a beautiful idyllic game with a unique storybook art style where you play as a justice-driven witch who has to compulsively grab every single useful twig, loose rock, and patch of grass off of the ground because by god, she's going to need it later, she can feel it.
The core mechanic of the game is exactly what you see in the trailer - you are a crone from the swamps and you will wander through the various locales, scoop up exotic ingredients by crafting various items that will allow you to find rarer items, and use them all together to reap punishment on the twelve horrible souls that definitely deserve it. (well, one soul is three people working together, but details, details) By the end of the game, you'll have morphed into a fairytale witch yourself because you'll have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of what is found where in the world and what it's all used for.
The game isn't being coy when it says its genre is Capital C Crafting over anything else - the biggest gameplay loop is "pick thing off ground, use thing to make a second thing, use second thing to gather third thing, use third thing to craft important item with other third things in a chain" and if that sounds overwhelming, then you will hate the later portions of the game where every step of the way is filled with like ten different Things To Get. Finding all the things isn't THAT difficult but there certainly are some reagents that will get on your nerves. I for one learned to hate jars of water! Perhaps you'll hate crab claws or mosquito needles!
But don't worry, it's not just digging up rocks and gathering bundles of straw. The game's story is where Wytchwood really shines, and it's what pushed me to keep going as I checked off each item in my woodland gathering shopping list. The main character is a wonderful grumpy little witch full of piss and vinegar and there's little dabs of dry wit in every written line and description. The dialogue and the storylines are all so distinctive and interesting, with each character getting a very stylish dialogue portrait, with a fun biting dark humor to them that fits the amazing art style.
It wouldn't be fun to be a witch casting dark magicks on someone who doesn't deserve it, and the game's twelve animal-themed antagonists all have interesting stories and a variety of reasons as to why you'll feel good about killing them and reaping their souls to give to Maybe Satan We Don't Know. The first villain I dispatched was a humanoid leech who was faking a plague outbreak so that she could fill an entire wine cellar with poisoned blood because, in her words, "black fever adds a certain nutty quality", and I did it because an old lady asked for me to find her missing husband. It's the little touches to the story that make all the relentless twig-gathering worth it.
But that does not stop the twig gathering from being relentless (oh god you need so many twigs), and so you craft craft craft until the game ends about 8-10 hours later, and the ending just kinda ends on a vague little plot twist. The words "repetitive" and "slog" are often used to describe this game, and I'd be lying if I said these were unfair. But! If you're the kind of person who finds peace in gathering up a stock of supplies and then gets a short burst of joy from being overprepared for the current fetch quest and being able to make the complicated object right then and there, this is definitely worth a try. No one is going to judge you if you decimate the forest's population of fireflies. Honest.
P.S. During the first four souls, I assumed that the reason there were animal people is because their wickedness had corrupted their form and they were all wearing the skin of beasts as the result of their hubris (especially with the Ox, who has a normal human family), only to enter a village and find out that no, there's also friendly animal people and this is just a setting similar to Shovel Knight where the humans and the animal men live together in harmony.
The core mechanic of the game is exactly what you see in the trailer - you are a crone from the swamps and you will wander through the various locales, scoop up exotic ingredients by crafting various items that will allow you to find rarer items, and use them all together to reap punishment on the twelve horrible souls that definitely deserve it. (well, one soul is three people working together, but details, details) By the end of the game, you'll have morphed into a fairytale witch yourself because you'll have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of what is found where in the world and what it's all used for.
The game isn't being coy when it says its genre is Capital C Crafting over anything else - the biggest gameplay loop is "pick thing off ground, use thing to make a second thing, use second thing to gather third thing, use third thing to craft important item with other third things in a chain" and if that sounds overwhelming, then you will hate the later portions of the game where every step of the way is filled with like ten different Things To Get. Finding all the things isn't THAT difficult but there certainly are some reagents that will get on your nerves. I for one learned to hate jars of water! Perhaps you'll hate crab claws or mosquito needles!
But don't worry, it's not just digging up rocks and gathering bundles of straw. The game's story is where Wytchwood really shines, and it's what pushed me to keep going as I checked off each item in my woodland gathering shopping list. The main character is a wonderful grumpy little witch full of piss and vinegar and there's little dabs of dry wit in every written line and description. The dialogue and the storylines are all so distinctive and interesting, with each character getting a very stylish dialogue portrait, with a fun biting dark humor to them that fits the amazing art style.
It wouldn't be fun to be a witch casting dark magicks on someone who doesn't deserve it, and the game's twelve animal-themed antagonists all have interesting stories and a variety of reasons as to why you'll feel good about killing them and reaping their souls to give to Maybe Satan We Don't Know. The first villain I dispatched was a humanoid leech who was faking a plague outbreak so that she could fill an entire wine cellar with poisoned blood because, in her words, "black fever adds a certain nutty quality", and I did it because an old lady asked for me to find her missing husband. It's the little touches to the story that make all the relentless twig-gathering worth it.
But that does not stop the twig gathering from being relentless (oh god you need so many twigs), and so you craft craft craft until the game ends about 8-10 hours later, and the ending just kinda ends on a vague little plot twist. The words "repetitive" and "slog" are often used to describe this game, and I'd be lying if I said these were unfair. But! If you're the kind of person who finds peace in gathering up a stock of supplies and then gets a short burst of joy from being overprepared for the current fetch quest and being able to make the complicated object right then and there, this is definitely worth a try. No one is going to judge you if you decimate the forest's population of fireflies. Honest.
P.S. During the first four souls, I assumed that the reason there were animal people is because their wickedness had corrupted their form and they were all wearing the skin of beasts as the result of their hubris (especially with the Ox, who has a normal human family), only to enter a village and find out that no, there's also friendly animal people and this is just a setting similar to Shovel Knight where the humans and the animal men live together in harmony.
As a loser adult who quotes The Simpsons pretty frequently on a regular basis both on and offline and thinks one of the greatest scenes in all of comedy is when Homer's sitting in his underwear and eating 64 slices of American cheese, it's with a heavy heart that I must announce that I am the target audience for this game and that I think this game is a very cromulent experience. There are flaws, but I choose to ignore them, because one of the game's collectibles is a Smarch calendar.
I liked it when Nintendo released an update for this game that suddenly made it incompatible with my current phone, meaning I would have to buy a new phone in order to continue playing this already microtransactions-heavy game. Thanks but no thanks, I'm good.
This game is the biggest argument against having the Zelda Timeline because this game's attempt at writing The Deep Lore™ for several of the Legend of Zelda icons like the Master Sword and Ganon are all clumsy as hell and honestly I hate this game's writing far more than anything to do with the motion controls. I probably would've liked this game a lot more if it wasn't trying so hard to be an origin story for everything Zelda including small things like Link's outfit. I'm good, Nintendo. I didn't need to hear that the Royal Crest of Hyrule was based off the nameless red Loftwing in this game like that really means anything. It's fine.
I also loved that they teased the whole "fly on a Loftwing and explore flying islands!" thing a lot in trailers but ultimately the Loftwing gameplay just feels like a glorified level select screen with the occasional optional island to land on and find 20 rupees on. Beautiful. I love the giant yellow-grey cloudy void that Link lives in and I love constantly looking at it between levels. At least now I know the Master Sword used to be a character that constantly reminds Link about dungeon doors he just opened so clearly this game earned its spot at the beginning of the timeline. 10/10 Epic Lore.
However, paradoxically, while this game is indeed my least favorite console Zelda game, it also contains some of my favorite bosses and dungeons in the entire franchise. I guess I shouldn't be too hard on the game if it gave me the Koloktos fight and the Ancient Cistern dungeon, but god, this entire game just felt like a slog and I hate all the unnecessary fluff this game attached to the Zelda franchise when they already had Groose in this game. Did we really need all that shit with Demise when Groose was right there? Did we?
I also loved that they teased the whole "fly on a Loftwing and explore flying islands!" thing a lot in trailers but ultimately the Loftwing gameplay just feels like a glorified level select screen with the occasional optional island to land on and find 20 rupees on. Beautiful. I love the giant yellow-grey cloudy void that Link lives in and I love constantly looking at it between levels. At least now I know the Master Sword used to be a character that constantly reminds Link about dungeon doors he just opened so clearly this game earned its spot at the beginning of the timeline. 10/10 Epic Lore.
However, paradoxically, while this game is indeed my least favorite console Zelda game, it also contains some of my favorite bosses and dungeons in the entire franchise. I guess I shouldn't be too hard on the game if it gave me the Koloktos fight and the Ancient Cistern dungeon, but god, this entire game just felt like a slog and I hate all the unnecessary fluff this game attached to the Zelda franchise when they already had Groose in this game. Did we really need all that shit with Demise when Groose was right there? Did we?
2017
My biggest disappointment with this game is that the art style, the music, and the general presentation all kick ass and it's the best Bomberman's ever looked in years but then you actually play the game and it's just kinda mediocre.
2020
It's always a delight to play a quick and breezy little puzzle game that makes me question my own brain's spatial perception during its 2-3 hour runtime and ends before it overstays its welcome.
There's some good use Dualsense haptic rumblies in this game on PS5, although I'm not sure if it's a decent reward for having to move the playing fields and lines around with control sticks instead of a mouse.
There's some good use Dualsense haptic rumblies in this game on PS5, although I'm not sure if it's a decent reward for having to move the playing fields and lines around with control sticks instead of a mouse.
By all accounts, a game with less than a year of development time, with a lot of resources and manpower diverted to making an online mode in the PS2 era, even more resources and manpower diverted to working on a separate game engine, and all the fun horror stories of cut features arising from this game's development cycle should've made a complete trainwreck of a game but instead this is one of the best games in the franchise and ended up creating the franchise's most iconic villain so clearly some black magic was at play at the Insomniac studios in 2004. The cut side-games of this game - the races and the ship battles - don't hinder the game so much as trim the fat and as a result I think this game has a more streamlined experience than Going Commando and brought me the gameplay that I enjoy the most from this series.
But mostly, I must reiterate, this game brought us Dr. Nefarious, who feels like he was created mostly for Insomniac to flex on the competition and go "look at how cartoonishly animated this PS2 character is", and I'm glad he's survived well into the PS5 era where they can raytrace that doofus and make him lavishly animated on modern hardware. Am I speaking from a bias? Possibly. But I think this game's faults would've been way more noticeable if the villain wasn't good and if we didn't get that banger of a song from Courtney Gears midway through the game.
But mostly, I must reiterate, this game brought us Dr. Nefarious, who feels like he was created mostly for Insomniac to flex on the competition and go "look at how cartoonishly animated this PS2 character is", and I'm glad he's survived well into the PS5 era where they can raytrace that doofus and make him lavishly animated on modern hardware. Am I speaking from a bias? Possibly. But I think this game's faults would've been way more noticeable if the villain wasn't good and if we didn't get that banger of a song from Courtney Gears midway through the game.
1994
The following is a true story that's also going to make me sound really goddamn old. The first time I played this game was at a friend's house because they had a Sega Channel subscription. So this game occupies a funny space in my brain as the One Thing I played on the now mythical Sega Channel service. Not Wily Wars, not Pulseman, not the Garfield Lost Levels. I played Mega Bomberman.
Do I regret this decision? ...yyyeah a little.
Back then, before I realized I was squandering the chance of a lifetime, I liked this game well enough, and had fun with this neighborhood kid since there was a multiplayer mode and we could Blow Shit Up while riding giant bunnies that were definitely Bargain Bin Yoshis, but now that I'm older and actually played this game through to the end, I know of things like "this is a downgraded version of Bomberman '94 with worse graphics and music" and "this game has a hilarious amount of lag in the later levels, lag that gets so bad that it becomes an actual joke".
At this point in time, if you have access to Mega Bomberman, you probably also have access to Bomberman '94. Just play that. And don't play it on the Sega Channel back in 1996 when you could be playing Wily Wars.
P. S. - the final boss is nowhere near as hard as that vampire bat boss that shows up after Stage 4. Fuck that vampire bat boss.
Do I regret this decision? ...yyyeah a little.
Back then, before I realized I was squandering the chance of a lifetime, I liked this game well enough, and had fun with this neighborhood kid since there was a multiplayer mode and we could Blow Shit Up while riding giant bunnies that were definitely Bargain Bin Yoshis, but now that I'm older and actually played this game through to the end, I know of things like "this is a downgraded version of Bomberman '94 with worse graphics and music" and "this game has a hilarious amount of lag in the later levels, lag that gets so bad that it becomes an actual joke".
At this point in time, if you have access to Mega Bomberman, you probably also have access to Bomberman '94. Just play that. And don't play it on the Sega Channel back in 1996 when you could be playing Wily Wars.
P. S. - the final boss is nowhere near as hard as that vampire bat boss that shows up after Stage 4. Fuck that vampire bat boss.
I have played flash games made by 14-year olds on Newgrounds in the year 2005 that had a better understanding of how side-scrolling beat-em-ups were supposed to play than this game.
The only reason you're going to hear about this game nowadays is because it's one of the rarest Game Boy Advance games of all time and, let's be real, if you're going to spend $150 on a GBA cartridge, the better option is Urban Yeti.
The only reason you're going to hear about this game nowadays is because it's one of the rarest Game Boy Advance games of all time and, let's be real, if you're going to spend $150 on a GBA cartridge, the better option is Urban Yeti.
You know those isometric Spyro games on the GBA that everyone just kinda agrees are just average at best?
This game is like that, only much worse since there's a lot of combat in this game and the combat sucks ass.
This game is like that, only much worse since there's a lot of combat in this game and the combat sucks ass.
The sensible, good taste part of my brain: This is painfully average and nowhere near as good as the PS3 games that come before it.
The part of my brain that loves Dr. Nefarious: Holy shit, I can play as Dr. Nefarious!
The part of my brain that loves Dr. Nefarious: Holy shit, I can play as Dr. Nefarious!
1995
I'm trying to articulate my thoughts on this game, mere hours after beating it, and the best I can manage is "well, it exists, I guess".
Prehistorik Man - it's a video game. It's got great sprite work, but that's really all it has going for it.
Prehistorik Man - it's a video game. It's got great sprite work, but that's really all it has going for it.
1990
I mean it's nice that Konami went through all the trouble towards finally translating this game to put in their Castlevania Anniversary collection like that but this game is honestly pretty mediocre even by "2D platformers with a shooting mechanic released on the NES" standards. There's cute sprite work but that's really it.
John Leguizamo is a great voice actor and his vocal performance in this game is pretty amazing, but it also acts like a double-edged sword where, once you notice that Globox's sounds exactly like Sid the Sloth from Ice Age, you can't unhear it. There is no escape.
Great game otherwise though.
Great game otherwise though.
I kinda miss that era of video games where sometimes the liscensed movie adaptation gave absolutely zero shits about the source material and just did whatever. Rex gets to go to the zoo, throw rocks at construction workers, and fight giant robots because fuck you, that's why. We don't care if it's nothing like the movie.
Too bad this game also looks and controls like ass so it's hard to recommend even on a "point and laugh at this game" level.
Too bad this game also looks and controls like ass so it's hard to recommend even on a "point and laugh at this game" level.