In one of its previews, Hideaki Itsuno was deliberately evasive when asked about why Dragon’s Dogma II’s title screen initially lacks the II, saying only “nothing in this game is unintentional.” You can draw whatever conclusion you like from that, but I think I’ve a different interpretation from most – it’s less a signal that this is a reimagining or a remake or whatever else in disguise than a display of confidence in how well he and his team understand what makes it tick.

As much as I’ll never wrap my head around how they got the first Dragon’s Dogma running on 7th gen hardware (albeit just about), I would’ve said it was impossible not to feel how much more II has going on under the hood in even the briefest, most hasty of encounters if it weren’t being so undersold in this respect. While my favourite addition is that enemies’ individual body parts can now be dragged or shoved to throw them off balance, tying into both this new world’s more angular design and how they can be stunned by banging their head off of its geometry, yours might be something else entirely with how many other new toys there are to play with. One particularly big one’s that you and your pawns can retain access to your standard movesets while clinging to larger enemies if you manage to mantle onto them from the appropriate angle, but you’ve gotta watch out for the newly implemented ragdoll physics while doing so, since the damage received from getting bucked off now varies wildly depending on your position at the time and the nearby environment as a result of them. Successive strikes create new avenues of offence akin to Nioh’s grapples, pressuring you to get as much damage in as you can before letting one loose and taking your target out of its disadvantage state, while also enabling you to keep them in a loop if you’re able to manipulate their stun values well enough. Layers of interaction just keep unravelling further as you play – controlling the arc you throw enemies or objects in, tackling smaller enemies by grabbing them mid-air, corpses or unconscious bodies of bosses now being tangible things you can stand on top of instead of ethereal loot pinatas… I would’ve taken any one of these in isolation. To have them all, plus more, every one being wholly complementary and faithful to the scrambly, dynamic, improvisational core of Dragon’s Dogma’s combat? It’s i n s a n e to me that someone can undergo even a confused few minutes of exposure to any of this and reduce it to “more of the first” or what have you.

Your means of approaching enemies or general scenarios which return from the first game’re further changed by II’s more specialised vocations. Having spent most of my time with Warrior in both titles, I love what’s been done with it in particular. They’ve taken the concept of timing certain skills and applied it to almost every move, anything from your standard swings to its final unlockable skill becoming faster and faster as you time successive inputs correctly – this is only the slow, basic version of the latter and I still feel bad for whatever I batter with it – with chargeable skills now also doubling as a parry for attacks they collide with, similar to DMC5’s clashing mechanic. It’s emblematic of the devs’ approach to vocations in general; Archer’s relatively lacking melee options and litany of flippy, full-on Legolas nonsense encourages keepaway where its four predecessors were all slightly differing flavours of “does everything”, Thief trades access to assault rifle-like bows and invites stubbiness for being able to navigate this world’s much rockier terrain like it’s a platformer, Fighter no longer has to waste skill slots to hit anything slightly above your head and has more versatile means of defence in exchange for melee combat being more punishing in general, etc. It’s to the extent that choosing between any two vocations feels like I’m switching genres, man. In a landscape where people are demonstrably content with having no means of interacting with big monsters other than smacking their ankles, how is even a pretty simple interaction like this not supposed to feel like a game from the future?

On simple interactions, much of this would be lessened if it weren’t for the loss gauge in tandem with the camping system and how these accentuate the sense of adventure which the first game built. The persistent thoughts of “how do I get there?” are retained, but only being able to fully recuperate your health via downtime with the lads and/or ladesses fills every step of the way toward the answer with that much more trepidation, bolstered further by the aforementioned verticality and on the more presentational side of things by how your pawns actually talk to each other now. It leads to some very memorable, emergent experiences which are personal purely to you – one I’m especially fond of involved resting after killing a drake, having my camp ambushed in the middle of the night by knackers who were too high up for me to exercise my k-word pass and having to trek all the way back to Bakbattahl with barely a third of my maximum health as my party continually chattered about how freaky the dark is. I take back the suggestion I made regarding potential changes to the healing system in my review of the first game, because even superfans (or, maybe, especially superfans) can, and do, think too small.

I realise in retrospect that even I, on some level, was wanting certain aspects of Dragon’s Dogma to be like other games instead of taking it on its own merits, something II’s seemingly suffered from all the more with how much gaming has grown since the original’s release, the average player’s tolerance for anything deviating from the norm and, presumably, frame of reference growing ever smaller. Look no further than broad reactions to dragonsplague and its effects (which I won’t spoil) being only the second or third most embarrassing instance of misinformed kneejerk hostility disguised as principled scepticism which enveloped this game’s release to the point you’d swear Todd Howard was attached to it – we want consequences that matter, but not like that! Even if you aren’t onboard with this being the coolest, ballsiest thing an RPG has bothered and will bother to do since before I was born, how can you not at least get a kick out of starting up your own homegrown Dragonsplague Removal Service? You thought you could escape the great spring cleaning, Thomyris, you silly billy? I’m oblivious like you wouldn’t believe, had her wearing an ornate sallet by the time she’d first contracted it and still noticed her glowing red eyes every time, so I’m at a loss as to how it could blindside anybody. It vaguely reminds me of modern reactions to various aspects of the original Fallout; a game which you can reasonably beat in the span of an afternoon, designed to be played with a single hand, somehow commonly seen as unintuitive because it just is, okay? Abandon all delusions of levelheadedness: if a Fallout game with a timer were to release now, the world’s collective sharting would result in something similar to that universe’s Great War or, indeed, Dragon’s Dogma II’s own post-game.

For as many hours as I’ve poured into the Everfall and Bitterblack across two copies of the original, they’re not what I think of when I think of Dragon’s Dogma (or particularly interesting, in the former’s case), which is adventuring in its open world. In that regard, I can’t be convinced that II’s post-game isn’t far more substantial, comparatively rife with monsters either unique or which you’re very unlikely to encounter prior to it, changes to the world’s layout beyond a hole in the ground of one city, its own mechanics (one actually a bit reminiscent of Fallout’s timer), questlines and even setpieces. It’s got a kaiju fight between a Ray Harryhausen love letter and a demonic worm thing which, as of the time of writing, roughly 2% of players have discovered, and instead of being praised for the sheer restraint it must’ve taken to keep something like that so out of the way, it’s chastised for it?

I’m not sure any other game’s ever made me realise how divorced what I want out of games seems to be from the wider populace. So much of this is 1:1 aligned with my tastes that the only thing that feels potentially missing’s the relative lack of electric guitars, but even then I’d be a liar if I told you that Misshapen Eye, the dullahan’s theme, the griffin’s new track, the post-game’s somber piano keys or the true ending’s credits song among others haven’t gotten stuck in my head at some stage anyway or didn’t perfectly complement the action through dynamically changing. It manages this despite clearly not caring about what you or I or anyone else thinks or wants from it. It’s developed a will and conviction all of its own. It’s Dragon’s Dogma, too.

It’s not my main gripe about the game because I understand that Xenosaga was going to be a six(?) part series at one point and that it’s hard to judge the characters and story based off of the first entry, but this was actually pushing me to my limits. These are some of the most one dimensional characters and while some of them, such as Ziggy, had their interesting and honestly really engaging startups, right when his section of the game ended, so any hope of furthering his character development did as well. Mere hours after rolling credits, I’m having trouble remembering their names and importance to the story.

The lack of story was hardly an issue but when paired with a nonexistent soundtrack, thats what really did me over. It’s not that the songs that are there are bad by any means and if anything I’m a fan of Yasunori Mitsuda’s work as I’ve even gone as far as playing games solely because his work was in it… but there’s no soundtrack here. Who thought it would be a good idea to have the normal battle theme remain the only constant battle theme throughout the entire game? There’s not even a boss theme, it just plays the regular battle theme. The game wasn’t ever extraordinarily hard but I would have preferred feeling a sense of differentiation when battling special enemies or bosses, but instead I was forced to hear this song the entire game. Tragically, when I wasn’t fighting slow and mundane battles that lasted an eternity (and then some thanks to the music), I was enduring silence. Like actual silence because there’s no overworld music unless there’s a crisis or something. Atmosphere matters and all and you want to show how empty outer space is or whatever underlying value there is to that strange decision, but man I’m seriously not begging to go from silence to that battle theme every 10 seconds. At one point I even preferred the silence because I got so sick of the battle theme and decided to make the silence permanent by lowering my volume to 0. Honestly that made the game just a little more bearable.

Outside of that, while the menus are a fucking monster and I couldn’t ever figure out where which option might lead to, I actually enjoyed the systems. You can extract skills from accessories and then equip 3 skills to characters, there’s a skill tree that while grindy at times, allowed you to “transfer” (the realistic term is copy) skills to other party members which was great since I could put a strong multi-heal skill on multiple characters at once. On top of those, you can also use points to raise your stats manually, which is great for customizing characters, and if you couldn’t tell already customizing is what this game does best without a doubt. I don’t want to make it sound groundbreaking or anything but it was always fun finding ways to break the game. Except when I had to grind. I love grinding but this game made me dread the thought of it.

Exploration in this game consists of either

1. Labyrinth hallways that you constantly get lost in if you have a short attention span and don’t know the exact place your goal resides (the ships)

2. Straight hallways with occasional detours to treasure (the ground levels)

The takeaway? They both fucking suck.

I should add that there are these decoders (keys) to secret doors that you can find and get some pretty good accessories from, and when you’re able to extract the skill from them, combat becomes much more fun because the battles are usually over in a turn or two. You’re able to revisit levels as you progress into the game, so that means you might find decoder 6 in a later level, and you kind of remember seeing door 6 in one of those earlier levels but don’t quite remember where, so you scour the entire level fighting the level 2 galactic hemoglobins to find it. Yes, it’s about as fun as it sounds (it’s not).

I’m sunk cost into this franchise so I’ll play the other two, but man… This fucking blows. Now I’m being told that Xenosaga 2 is even worse… fuck.

So, here we are, again. All six mainline Ace Attorney games finished, with two journeys to Britain taken care of as well. The resting point for the series for over half a decade reached, and the conclusion of the second trilogy. Needless to say, I was really excited to get to this one, and I recommend you read my reviews on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies, The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (in that order) to get a full understanding of my perception and view on these games. But in short: I'm a series-as-a-whole enjoyer and really respect what both Shu Takumi and Takeshi Yamazaki do for the series.

Spirit of Justice had a lot on its shoulders, just as Dual Destinies did before it. It needed to both finish the ongoing trilogy about the law's influence on people and the concept of trust, as well as be a conclusion to Apollo Justice's story arc and provide meaningful content for more characters than you can shake a stick at. It needed to answer crucial, unavoidable questions for a game seeking to end a saga, not just the end of one trilogy but to establish a comfortable resting place for the series at large.

The game had to do all of that, yet it also set out to be the most ambitious, jam-packed, content filled and best Ace Attorney game the series had yet seen. I'm not here to argue that it absolutely succeeded at exactly all of that, but what I can say is that it is definitely close to- or IS, my favorite game in the series, and a near perfect conclusion to Apollo Justice's character arc. Despite the troubled development of this trilogy I believe it still achieved its goals, of telling the story of the new generation of lawyers growing up in a world far more oppressive and distrustful than the storybook tale Phoenix went through. And while it's undeniably more flawed than the original Trilogy, I believe all three games ended up being more interesting specifically due to this ambition. Because, say it with me: A Dragon Never Yields.

After Dual Destinies gave Phoenix such a perfect book-ended tale of rescuing both Apollo and Athena, it feels difficult to imagine a way where he would be able to get story relevance again in the series. Yet he IS the main mascot of the series, the appeal and key protagonist (yes, even in Apollo Justice). So how do we allow this relatively-concluded character to still play an important part in this conclusion to the second protagonist’s story, without just making it feel as if we’re treading on old ground? Simple: Focus on everything around Phoenix, instead of he himself. Thus the defining trait of this entry, Khura'in, becomes the focus of Phoenix's own cases, which gives Apollo and Athenas cases a distinct feel of their own whilst allowing them room to breathe and grow as characters. While I know Khura'in as a whole as a mixed reception with fans, it as a concept is a genius solution to so many things at once. Beyond mostly resolving the Phoenix issues up above, and giving AA6 its own distinct flair in the series, it gives the game a new perspective on the dark age of law theme that AA4 and AA5 established, showing us just what can happen when trust and humanity are forgotten in the law world: The outcome that AA4 very well could have led to, if it weren't for Phoenix's and Miles' efforts. I get that some find Khura'in's intensely aggressive anti-lawyer stance a bit ridiculous: executing all lawyers who align with criminals and all that, but given the traumatic origin of this law I can't help but draw parallels to some very real incidents and their outcome in real world countries. Its over-the-top in typical Ace Attorney fashion of course but I find it really thematically interesting and fitting for a trilogy exploring what happens when the law world fails to be trusted by the people. Its fitting for a law about punishing those who defend possible criminals to be tied to a land with heavy faith, where sin is actually thought of and reviled.

This thematic relevance of Khura'in extends to its main characters, who I almost all adore. People like Ahlbi, Rayfa, Inga and Datz are just plain fun to watch and be with, but then you have characters like Nahyuta, immensely layered with meaning and parallels to our main characters. Just like how Khura'in shows a world where the people completely gave up trust for the law, Nahyuta directly contrasts Apollo as someone who never learned the good nature of being a lawyer, of defending those you trust in. Apollo in AA4 defended weird, shady people he himself didn't trust or like, and it gave him a jaded outlook of his profession that he eventually snapped out of with the case of Clay's death in AA5. Nahyuta, just like his country, never had this revelation, staying loyal to his profession purely out of obligation, out of false hope that what he's doing might one day be leading to something good. His personality also contrasts Apollo really nicely, despite lacking personal attachment to the cases he takes on he's always calm, collected, and very respectful of all the details pertaining to the case. Whenever he snaps during a trial, it's not because he's angry that his argument's been dismantled: it's because he feels genuinely insulted that the defense disrespects the will of the dead to rest in peace. For Khura'in's anti-Lawyer stance seemingly being a gimmick, they weave it into its culture in a really natural way in that sense: Lawyers are seen as disrespectful of the dead by actively trying to twist the truth of their death, refusing to simply let the dead rest. This is why I LOVE Case 4, despite it often being derided as just filler: Its a case where, for once, we actually get to see a truly flawed defense of a client take place, and where Nahyuta and Khura'in's beliefs almost seem understandable for a moment.

I could genuinely go on for two paragraphs more than I just did on Nahyuta with Dhurke. This is the second time I'm trying to write this review, because my first got erased by Twitter acting up, and in that first one I genuinely could not shut up about Dhurke. He's an amazing character in the same way Nahyuta is: He parallels a main cast member, Phoenix, and shows just how different things could have gone had different things been prioritized in Phoenix's life. He's a great person, fighting for what he believes in with unwavering conviction, but in doing so faltered in caring for the new generation, his children: He felt it was his responsibility to save the world for his kids, rather than the other way, making sure his kids would be ready to take on the new world. Phoenix, however, after his defeat in AA4, reached out: He raised Trucy, played behind the scenes to rebuild the law world together with those around him, including seeking out Apollo and Athena to further reach that goal. Dhurke's flaws of being a determined good-hearted man failing in the sense of remembering the importance of our youth, makes him a super cool parallel to Inga, the tyrant of Khura'in who loves his daughter all the same. These kinds of analysies, contrasts, and connections to the themes of the game can be drawn everywhere, and its one thing I think all three games in this trilogy really excel at.

But cool theming and nice character depth can only get your game so far, yeah? Like I just said, I think AA4 nails its themes and meaning, yet I also think its by far the least fun game in the series to actually play. (Go read my AA4 review to find out why, I promise I like the game). Thankfully, I find Spirit of Justice to possibly be the most consistent quality game in the series: the only game where I would, honestly, say that EVERY case is a banger, both in terms of being fun to read but also in terms of being fun to solve. Sure, other games in the series have had far higher peaks than this game: The second halves of both Dual Destinies and Great Ace Attorney 2 are some of the best visual novel content I will probably ever experience, yet they're simply not able to contend with how constantly good and, most importantly, varied Spirit of Justice is. Thanks to the Khura'in setting and three lawyers in play at once, as well as the sheer amount of important characters present in the game, every case feels distinctly its own and goes to extreme lengths to fulfill the most of their potential. In a way it's like an Ace Attorney Greatest Hits album: An intro case that sets up so many mysteries in your head, a case that's very successful in being funny and unbelievable at every turn, a case that subverts everything you thought you knew about how an Ace Attorney case plays out, a case that's like a puzzle box of different interlinking mechanisms at play…these traits are shared with several golden cases in the series before, yet it doesn't at all feel derivative or redundant (except one moment in Case 5: You know exactly what I mean if you've played it, and it's the one part of the story I REALLY wish had been rewritten.)

But let's take a step back. This game at its core, as alluded to at the start, had to answer some very important questions, in order to truly allow the series to rest comfortably at its ending. -Where does Apollo Justice's character arc go and, finally, end, and
-How do we put a capstone on this entire saga of the Dark Age of the Law, after said age was unofficially ended in Dual Destinies? What message do we end the series with?

The game, in my eyes, delivers answers to those questions in the most satisfying way possible: After his Dual Destinies growth, Apollo now only defends people he genuinely cares and empathises with: be they friends like Trucy, complete strangers like Armie, or a mix of both like Dhurke. Unlike Athena, not knowing his client beforehand no longer stops him: He's learned the power and meaning of a mutual trust in your client, regardless of who they are. His newfound faith in others finally lets him take charge with newfound confidence and surpass Phoenix in a way we as players always knew was possible, but that he was just never able to do before due to his mentorship under Kristoph, and the looming distrust under the Dark Age of Law. Basically, he's someone who's risen above the effects of an age of distrust, and has become a more whole person than even Phoenix because of it.

The game, and series, ends on this note: That by not only banding together to solve the problems of the current day, but also ensuring that the next generation is given the help, care, mentorship and understanding that they need, the world will become a better place. If you ignore one, then the other will haunt you. It's a beautiful way to end the trilogy all about the new generation, passing the torch on in wonderful fashion, and putting a bookend on the Dark Age of Law once and for all.

And I have small gripes with how all this is presented, of course. The Case 5 story detailed I mentioned: Phoenix being blackmailed again, instead of them committing to a true moment of having the torch passed to Apollo. There's also the matter of Ga'ran, who for being the "final boss" of the game and arguably trilogy as a whole might not be as deep of a character as she maybe should be, especially compared to Nahyuta and Dhurke. (I still think she works really well as just an intimidatingly authoritative figure to take down). If I really wanted to, I'm sure I could go picking like a fine-toothed comb through Spirit of Justice and find small things to bitch about, yet I'll probably also find half a dozen more things to appreciate. Have you ever noticed, for instance, that every returning character in Spirit of Justice is finally living more or less completely happily, chasing the dreams they've always wanted? Trucy, Maya, Ema, Blackquill, Phoenix…through finding and sticking to the passion of their goals, they're happier than they've ever been, contrasting beautifully with Nahyuta's sorrowful compliance with doing his occupation solely because he believes he's right– okay, I'll shut up about him now, despite those above minor flaws and more…the ambition, consistency in quality, variety, theming and just, overall tons of emotional pathos packed into Spirit of Justice, make it tie very closely at the top of the series' best games for me.

And all of this Ace Attorney goodness, wrapped up in an extremely Takeshi Yamazaki-paced and designed game and story, with all the good and bad that entails. Every case, yes even 6-4, has meaning, has weight that mounts up and builds to the insane finale. Things are foreshadowed at every moment, even in the most subtle ways (Dual Destinies' Case 2 foreshadowing of its biggest twist still haunts me). The game also feels very cohesive to itself and the rest of the series, never directly spoiling things from the previous games but still making damn well sure existing fans are aware this is a continuation. Okay, so the Divination Seances aren't always the most fun, and for as much as I didn't care at all about Forensics in AA4 it and the Psyche-Lockes are painfully underused in this game. Like I've said before, Yamazaki's main weakness is his inconsistency in making fun-to-use mechanics. And that's what I've really grown to love with Ace Attorney: Despite just being ten games of pointing, clicking, reading and solving, their directions allow them to be so good in so many different ways. This isn't like Kirby where I'll gladly say every game in the series is good, but a lot of them are good in similar ways: Every Ace Attorney game is great, and each one can be someone's favorite for its very specific strengths and appeal. Do you love artsy, subversive, meaningful games where maybe the feeling you have while playing them shouldn't always be satisfaction and empowerment? Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney might be for you! Do you love seeing things built up for you over an immense span of time be resolved in the most satisfying manner imaginable? The Great Ace Attorney 2 is like made for you! Do you love a story that can pull the rug under you at the last minute, despite subtly foreshadowing said rug-pull throughout the game's runtime? Justice for All - the one most fans consider the weakest of the original trilogy, is actually my favorite of those three games specifically because of that!

Or did you read this entire, enormous review, and loved thinking about just how well put together a package Spirit of Justice is, not for its high peaks but for its pitch-perfect consistency, for how well it pays respect to the past whilst celebrating a new future ahead? Then yeah, this game may just be a contender. It sure is for me.

[Play Time: 48 Hours]
[Key Word: Ceremony]
[Note: DLC not played]

Marking as shelved as I plan to pick up Another Code R's remake later.
Christ, whoever said this was a faithful remake I think is lying to you. They've changed so much. I'm a diehard fan of this series and especially the original game and I feel like this is a major letdown compared to what I think of the original. I feel the original was a perfectly fine game and I'm confused as to why so many things are different. Ashley seems like a very different person, missing the attitude and strong emotions she had in the original game (which made sense for her age). Some character's stories are so different (I can't get into who without spoiling, but the villain) that I feel like it just messes stuff up. The pacing felt really strange, it either felt like it was moving at super speed or extremely slow and events from the original game were shifted around. It's not that big of a deal, but ended up bothering me.
Major issue of mine is the fact I felt like I couldn't connect to any of these characters in the same way I did for the original, which I think is one of the major things that makes CiNG works so good, and what made this a huge letdown. I feel like you're going to be inevitably missing stuff from the story with this having a shift from 2d to 3d- its sense of scale is much larger and I found myself not at all invested in the story of the Edwards, which is something I very much enjoyed in the original. I did look and notice that they got new scriptwriters for these remakes, which might explain some of my dissatisfaction... but why change up the script of a perfectly fine game and not just focus on adapting it straight to 3D, no need to remake a soundtrack you can find high quality versions of elsewhere (speaking in Another Code R's case), and especially no need to change the script.

I do like the art direction and music here, they're both good. This just isn't my Ashley and sure isn't the Another Code I remember. This is definitely Another Code for a newer generation, but it won't live up to the originals. I can't confidently reccomend this to anyone who actually cares a lot about the original games.

The "New" was only ever entirely literal: disappointingly, that subseries was essentially a Mario highlight reel rather than anything actually new. Of course, novelty isn't tantamount to quality, but it often feels like Nintendo's only strength as a developer in the modern age is their willingness to experiment. We'll never see another first-party Nintendo game that's not painfully easy and overtutorialized, or one that pushes its mechanics and is at all willing to punish you, or even one that feels mysterious, but buy a Nintendo console and you'll still always end up with a handful of exclusives that are at least fresh conceptually. Just... without "Mario" in any of their titles. Galaxy is far from my favorite Mario game, but it's the most recent one that actually felt like something new, which is concerning considering that it released when most of this site's userbase was still in diapers. We're in the mid 2020s now and traditional, lives-and-continues-based 2D platformers are basically dead and buried, but here comes Super Mario Bros. Wonder with what seems to be a singular, concentrated effort to be new and not just New. You can turn into an elephant in this one!

Unfortunately, though, the elephant powerup is even more emblematic of the entire game than anyone could've anticipated. It looks completely unique to Mario, and, I guess, technically, it is, as he's never had an upgrade that requires him to reload his projectiles before, but does it actually change the gameplay in any meaningful capacity? No. It's just another way to break blocks and attack enemies horizontally. The whole game is preoccupied with appearing new instead of actually being new, and, I mean, it succeeded in this regard, considering I actually bought it after skipping both New Super Mario Bros. U and Bowser's Fury. Wonder flowers feel less like a central gameplay hook and more like short bonus sections that are part of already minuscule levels. The only way they were ever gonna work from a mechanical perspective was if they all happened during high-pressure situations and forced you to adapt to unpredictable twists on the fly (although that would just be a rehash of Wario Land 4) and the only way they were ever gonna work from a spectacle perspective was if they actually went all in. For every wonder section that genuinely took me by surprise- switching the point-of-view to top-down or putting me in outer space or making Mario really, really tall- there'd be five that would just turn the level into an autoscroller, or just make the enemies bigger, or just move the geometry around more than usual. Too often, it's weird in the same way that Mario Land 2 is weird: visually, and that's it. Ultimately, it's far prettier than the New Super Mario Bros. games, but it's no less bland.

And outside of the wonder sections, there really just isn’t all that much to talk about. The badge system makes Mario’s moveset loose and flexible akin to something like Yoshi’s Island, but it’s missing the level variety and mechanical experimentation that made that game work. A few stages have bonus exits, but they lack any of Super Mario World’s pseudo-puzzle solving or sense of mystery. What’s left? The fact that it has a handful of decent stage-specific mechanics? (All of the other New games do, too.) Those one-screen puzzle levels? (Didn’t care for them in Mario Maker, still don’t here.) The weird, Dark Souls-ass asynchronous co-op? (I refuse to pay for Nintendo’s online service, so I can’t comment.) How every individual world feels like its own little adventure? (Alright, I admit it, I liked this one.) If you’re not going to be new, you could at least be cohesive- I’m a big fan of both 3D World and Odyssey, but I’d hesitate to call either of them particularly revolutionary, instead focusing on being a conduit for co-op shenanigans and a modernization of Mario 64’s mechanics, respectively. Besides being bright and colorful, is there a similar underlying summary that you could apply to Wonder? More and more, it feels like Mario is becoming Kirby: not striving for anything beyond a vaguely pleasant experience and producing no bad games, but no great ones either. Maybe my standards are just too high- after all, we don't expect Star Wars or The Simpsons or Halloween to be cutting-edge anymore, even though they were at one point, so why should we Mario? But, in 2024, this franchise is unrecognizable from the one that gave us 3's level map and World's secret exits and 64's moveset. And that just saddens me more than anything else.