VixiChrome
1997
It's a shame this style of Bomberman game isn't made anymore, because it's a fantastic foundation. It has neat and varied level setpieces where no two levels are similar. The boss fights are fun and decently challenging.
It mostly falls apart when you try to 100% the game. 5 Gold Cards per level are required to reach the true ending and we can't really see ourselves going for this true ending again. Some of the bosses that were previously fun just become finicky when trying to win all of their Gold Cards in a single run (ESPECIALLY Black City's mid-boss) and the final world, Rainbow Palace, isn't even that much of a reward for going through the headache. It's a series of guide-dangits with bomb jumping puzzles with otherwise no actual substance beyond figuring out the trick.
The multiplayer mode is also a fun amount of distilled chaos, even if you're only playing against CPUs.
It's a far from a perfect game, and is at its most enjoyable if you just forget Rainbow Palace exists and ignore the Gold Cards entirely, but it's still enjoyable in its own right.
It mostly falls apart when you try to 100% the game. 5 Gold Cards per level are required to reach the true ending and we can't really see ourselves going for this true ending again. Some of the bosses that were previously fun just become finicky when trying to win all of their Gold Cards in a single run (ESPECIALLY Black City's mid-boss) and the final world, Rainbow Palace, isn't even that much of a reward for going through the headache. It's a series of guide-dangits with bomb jumping puzzles with otherwise no actual substance beyond figuring out the trick.
The multiplayer mode is also a fun amount of distilled chaos, even if you're only playing against CPUs.
It's a far from a perfect game, and is at its most enjoyable if you just forget Rainbow Palace exists and ignore the Gold Cards entirely, but it's still enjoyable in its own right.
2021
A cozy little game with a cute story to tell, all done very effectively with ALMOST no dialogue. And what really sells it is how this story is expressed almost entirely through the simple act of unpacking after moving house. It's probably one of the best examples of video games as a story-telling medium out there, in that it tells a story in a way only a video game could.
Writing this review in retrospect after completing Pokemon Violet, I do at least hope Legends Arceus here is the start of some more weird, experimental titles that use Pokemon battling as a base in some form or another. We don't think this game's combat system, apart from its brevity, is any replacement for Pokemon's normal combat. Abilities and Held Items simply add a layer that this game doesn't have, and we ultimately feel like this game's actual battle system comes off as awfully shallow.
That said, the adventuring aspect is where this game absolutely shines. The big open vistas are some of the most fun we've had simply absorbing a video game world and its atmosphere. Trying to find which corners rare Pokemon may be hiding in, or hunting down the cry of an Alpha Pokemon we heard. The feeling of getting to physically throw a Pokeball rather than the visual suggestion is also a fantastic gamefeel moment. Its uniqueness in the series is ultimately what makes it stand out as one of the best under the main-series Pokemon name.
That said, the adventuring aspect is where this game absolutely shines. The big open vistas are some of the most fun we've had simply absorbing a video game world and its atmosphere. Trying to find which corners rare Pokemon may be hiding in, or hunting down the cry of an Alpha Pokemon we heard. The feeling of getting to physically throw a Pokeball rather than the visual suggestion is also a fantastic gamefeel moment. Its uniqueness in the series is ultimately what makes it stand out as one of the best under the main-series Pokemon name.
This game is the perfect way to transition Kirby into 3D. While I wouldn't say no to a more Mario 64-style 3D Kirby, I do think 3D "Obstacle course" style platformers are an under-appreciated side of the genre, and I'm glad it's what this game went with. Every level is different and almost wholey unique, even ones that re-use overall themes. Yeah, there are two "Mall" levels in the game, but they're completely different in atmosphere.
This game is also killing it in terms of presentation. We feel like we could easily say this is the most gorgeous Switch game, with it juxtaposing the usual cutesy Kirby aesthetic with the long-abandoned urban locales. The OST is some of the best the series has to offer as well, with tracks like The Battle of Blizzard Bridge and Enter the Fiery Forbidden Lands being some of the tracks that never fails to get us pumped, or track as emotionally moving as Northeast Frost Street or the final boss's battle theme.
Its only flaws are a rather limiting Copy Ability selection (which I don't think ability-upgrading entirely makes up for), and in turn, Mini-Boss encounters that get tiringly repetitive when it's the same four Mini-Bosses the entire game. But it's otherwise so bluntly kick-ass that it barely matters.
This game is also killing it in terms of presentation. We feel like we could easily say this is the most gorgeous Switch game, with it juxtaposing the usual cutesy Kirby aesthetic with the long-abandoned urban locales. The OST is some of the best the series has to offer as well, with tracks like The Battle of Blizzard Bridge and Enter the Fiery Forbidden Lands being some of the tracks that never fails to get us pumped, or track as emotionally moving as Northeast Frost Street or the final boss's battle theme.
Its only flaws are a rather limiting Copy Ability selection (which I don't think ability-upgrading entirely makes up for), and in turn, Mini-Boss encounters that get tiringly repetitive when it's the same four Mini-Bosses the entire game. But it's otherwise so bluntly kick-ass that it barely matters.
2007
Precision platforming in a Metroidvania sounds like an odd and interesting mix, but I'm not entirely sure it works out here. The platforming challenges themselves are mostly sound, but dying feels really painful in this game when the space between two save points can feel huge. Especially since there's often hard bosses far away from save points as well. And despite its nature as a Metroidvania, loads of areas can only be progressed through in a linear way anyways. Imagine if Celeste were built like a Metroidvania without each screen being its own checkpoint, and make of that what you will.
These extra-hard platforming bits also feel really lacking in terms of rewards. Sometimes you'll get something worthwhile like an entire optional power-up, but most of the time you're trying to get through Hurtbox Hell without taking a single hit of damage just for an extension of 10 max HP. By lategame, this hardly means anything when 10 HP is 1/12th of a hit. These Don't-Take-Damage challenges taking on another layer of frustration when ghosts can randomly turn up in most rooms you enter, including these platforming challenges, where they can just swiftly ruin a good run.
That said, its style is really charming and it's a game that's far from afraid of being unexplainably obtuse in terms of aesthetics. Why is there a white abstract void in the middle of the ocean? Beats me! But it's there! It's a game that feels lovingly homebrew, if nothing else. I enjoyed my time with it overall, despite the issues. And ultimately 100% is far from required for a good time, there are some things you can still use the HP system to brute-force certain challenges that don't require getting past a Full-HP gate. Just simply put, I prefer it when "Ultra-Hard" games in the same flavor of this like Meatboy or Celeste, I'd much rather have generous checkpointing to keep me from getting bored of segments I've already played.
These extra-hard platforming bits also feel really lacking in terms of rewards. Sometimes you'll get something worthwhile like an entire optional power-up, but most of the time you're trying to get through Hurtbox Hell without taking a single hit of damage just for an extension of 10 max HP. By lategame, this hardly means anything when 10 HP is 1/12th of a hit. These Don't-Take-Damage challenges taking on another layer of frustration when ghosts can randomly turn up in most rooms you enter, including these platforming challenges, where they can just swiftly ruin a good run.
That said, its style is really charming and it's a game that's far from afraid of being unexplainably obtuse in terms of aesthetics. Why is there a white abstract void in the middle of the ocean? Beats me! But it's there! It's a game that feels lovingly homebrew, if nothing else. I enjoyed my time with it overall, despite the issues. And ultimately 100% is far from required for a good time, there are some things you can still use the HP system to brute-force certain challenges that don't require getting past a Full-HP gate. Just simply put, I prefer it when "Ultra-Hard" games in the same flavor of this like Meatboy or Celeste, I'd much rather have generous checkpointing to keep me from getting bored of segments I've already played.
2021
We can't help but feel like this game has more satisfying web-slinging than any Spider-Man game.
Puzzle-Platformers are quite common in the indie scene but this one really stands out with weird physics puzzles involving stringing objects together in a likely purposefully haphazard way that can produce amusing results. I would mainly just have a concern that certain objects don't reset their position, which feels like it can result in soft-locks if something unfortunate happens. Either way, I'd imagine trying to speedrun this game is a blast.
Puzzle-Platformers are quite common in the indie scene but this one really stands out with weird physics puzzles involving stringing objects together in a likely purposefully haphazard way that can produce amusing results. I would mainly just have a concern that certain objects don't reset their position, which feels like it can result in soft-locks if something unfortunate happens. Either way, I'd imagine trying to speedrun this game is a blast.
2022
Splatoon is a series we've struggled to get into, and a large part of that feels like the fault of some rather boring single-player campaigns that fail to make us interested in learning the ins-and-outs of the game for multiplayer. Thankfully, this game's single-player campaign (After an initial scare!) is a banger with maybe a SINGLE level that feels like dead weight. No longer are there collectibles in the levels themselves, forcing us to look over ledges instead of just playing the levels like normal people would.
The multi-player is also a blast, with the fun Salmon Run mode, the exciting Rainmaker mode, feeling at-home as a former TF2 player in Tower Control, enjoying some classic Splatzones, and avoiding Clam Blitz at all costs. The game feels hilariously out-of-balance when everyone, both casual and ranked players of all skill levels, are forced to queue together into the same games in Splatfests and the name of the game just becomes spawn camping, but there can be fun even in that chaos sometimes. Excellent stuff all-around.
The multi-player is also a blast, with the fun Salmon Run mode, the exciting Rainmaker mode, feeling at-home as a former TF2 player in Tower Control, enjoying some classic Splatzones, and avoiding Clam Blitz at all costs. The game feels hilariously out-of-balance when everyone, both casual and ranked players of all skill levels, are forced to queue together into the same games in Splatfests and the name of the game just becomes spawn camping, but there can be fun even in that chaos sometimes. Excellent stuff all-around.
2017
This game is either being completely mindless or constantly flinging you into pits in clunky 2D segments. These physics just don't feel built for demanding platforming with how Sonic controls like a hot glob of butter with ADHD. And when it's not doing that, it's just boosting through several rows of enemies or watching scripted segments out of your control happen.
We never thought we'd say Classic Sonic was the best part, because his levels are the least likely to go to shit.
We never thought we'd say Classic Sonic was the best part, because his levels are the least likely to go to shit.
2001
This game could've merely been a great experience as a weird Gamecube one-off starring a silver-medal character in a situation he has no business being in. The game is solid enough as an action-horror game with a Mario coat of paint and loads of hidden goodies to find to boost your rank. As well as being short enough to very easily beat in a single sitting, thus making mastering this game fun and easy.
But then it has an ALARMING amount of atmosphere for a Mario game, even when compared to its sequels. It's so surprisingly dark and edgy for a Mario game, but not in an immature creepypasta way. Simply in an earnestly horror-game esque manner that really highlights the themes of Luigi being in over his head and manifesting that in a surprisingly grounded setting. This is one game we can't help but come back to most Octobers.
But then it has an ALARMING amount of atmosphere for a Mario game, even when compared to its sequels. It's so surprisingly dark and edgy for a Mario game, but not in an immature creepypasta way. Simply in an earnestly horror-game esque manner that really highlights the themes of Luigi being in over his head and manifesting that in a surprisingly grounded setting. This is one game we can't help but come back to most Octobers.
2022
This review contains spoilers
This game has its moments, and open-world Sonic at least functions better in execution than it does on paper. But it never really overpowered how honestly bored I was most of the time through. Combat is mind-numbingly repetitive, usually only requiring mashing the X button. The Titan battles would be cool spectacles if they weren't just playable cutscenes most of the time, with X button-mashing occasionally interrupted by a ridiculously telegraphed attack that you have to parry or getting flung into a broken QTE.
The explorable islands themselves are also so nothing. Visually not that interesting, aside from the Ancient's architecture with obstacle courses haphazardly floating in the air that throw you into automated sequences launching you in a direction you didn't want to go. And even when you're going out of your way to do these, they're usually so vapid there's nothing worth talking about. You just do them to get a Memory Token and never think about what you just did ever again.
The Cyberspace levels are just the worst. I really don't care about what story reason there is behind the way they look, I'm so goddamn tired of seeing Green Hill and Chemical Plant. The physics in these levels just bring Forces flashbacks, and worse yet is that you're quite often forced to master these levels at least to some extent, else the next Chaos Emerald vault won't open despite having enough keys for it. When these levels range from original levels with dry level design and copy-pastes of levels from past games, I hate to say that even the main attraction of Sonic for me just isn't here. The exact last thing I want to see from the latest Sonic when I feel like the series has hit a creative slump is Radical Highway frankensteined out of Chemical Plant assets from Generations.
Like, sure, fine, I'll just go play SA2 instead.
At least the story is back to having gravity again, but it keeps falling back on making annoying references that barely make sense and hiding character development from Eggman behind optional, easy-to-miss audio logs. And even then the father-daughter thing Eggman and Sage have going on feels undercooked. The last shot of Eggman realizing Sage isn't coming back should sting but it just doesn't.
Doesn't help that it all ends on a really lame final boss where it feels like nothing is working as intended and QTEs keep breaking.
This game just makes me so, so tired.
The explorable islands themselves are also so nothing. Visually not that interesting, aside from the Ancient's architecture with obstacle courses haphazardly floating in the air that throw you into automated sequences launching you in a direction you didn't want to go. And even when you're going out of your way to do these, they're usually so vapid there's nothing worth talking about. You just do them to get a Memory Token and never think about what you just did ever again.
The Cyberspace levels are just the worst. I really don't care about what story reason there is behind the way they look, I'm so goddamn tired of seeing Green Hill and Chemical Plant. The physics in these levels just bring Forces flashbacks, and worse yet is that you're quite often forced to master these levels at least to some extent, else the next Chaos Emerald vault won't open despite having enough keys for it. When these levels range from original levels with dry level design and copy-pastes of levels from past games, I hate to say that even the main attraction of Sonic for me just isn't here. The exact last thing I want to see from the latest Sonic when I feel like the series has hit a creative slump is Radical Highway frankensteined out of Chemical Plant assets from Generations.
Like, sure, fine, I'll just go play SA2 instead.
At least the story is back to having gravity again, but it keeps falling back on making annoying references that barely make sense and hiding character development from Eggman behind optional, easy-to-miss audio logs. And even then the father-daughter thing Eggman and Sage have going on feels undercooked. The last shot of Eggman realizing Sage isn't coming back should sting but it just doesn't.
Doesn't help that it all ends on a really lame final boss where it feels like nothing is working as intended and QTEs keep breaking.
This game just makes me so, so tired.
2022
A lovely little platformer that has funny characters to enjoy and a cool atmosphere to soak in. A chill experience that isn't too demanding, but rather simply presents big open worlds to explore, each with a cool and imaginative setting between the cool terrarium world and incorporating a child's bedroom as an amusement park for the house's bug inhabitants. It can get formulaic here and there, with the cycle of each level being that you find Tinykin of various colors, and once you have enough, you can usually trounce over any obstacles or puzzles you come across. But still, really liked this one overall.
2022
We have to put the FATTEST asterisk on that score.
This game is a mess. Like, frequently falling apart with obvious visual glitches, frame rate tanking on the regular, various other hiccups, and the game has even crashed on us once. Bugs and issues always get exasperated on social media - the "Whooaaaaaa this game is sooooo glitchyyyy lmao" clips are like. The same 10 clips every time. - But this game REALLY is just blatantly not finished. Like, in a "this is not fit for public consumption" kind of way. This is the game where Pokemon's exhausting yearly release schedule is most obviously killing the series from the inside-out and the corporate higher-ups that need to keep the merch-money-train rolling are the cancer.
But in spite of all this, this is the most fun we've had with a Pokemon game since our favorite games in the series, Black and White/BW2. It's maybe not quite the open world Pokemon we dreamed of but it's at least close. The team-building potential in this game seems off the charts with how open the game is overall. A lot of the new Pokemon's designs are kickass, very much a step-up from Gen 8. And the game has a decent variety of main tasks so you're not doing the same thing for too long. (Though it could use some more interesting minor tasks. Rare Tera Type spawns, raids, and Gimmigouls don't quite carry it.)
This also feels like the best writing in the series since Gen 5 as well. We genuinely love each of the main cast, Arven and Nemona especially feeling like some of the best characters in this series. The ending also takes a twist we didn't see coming. Like for real, how did we go from Lysander and Chairman Rose to Volo and THIS game's villain?
It just SUCKS to know there's a timeline where this game came out next year and it JUST got to be the best Pokemon to date. It was THIS close. But instead, it gets held back by its numerous technical problems that could've been ironed out had this game spent more time in the proverbial oven.
It is - For better AND for worse - The Pokemon Game of All Time
This game is a mess. Like, frequently falling apart with obvious visual glitches, frame rate tanking on the regular, various other hiccups, and the game has even crashed on us once. Bugs and issues always get exasperated on social media - the "Whooaaaaaa this game is sooooo glitchyyyy lmao" clips are like. The same 10 clips every time. - But this game REALLY is just blatantly not finished. Like, in a "this is not fit for public consumption" kind of way. This is the game where Pokemon's exhausting yearly release schedule is most obviously killing the series from the inside-out and the corporate higher-ups that need to keep the merch-money-train rolling are the cancer.
But in spite of all this, this is the most fun we've had with a Pokemon game since our favorite games in the series, Black and White/BW2. It's maybe not quite the open world Pokemon we dreamed of but it's at least close. The team-building potential in this game seems off the charts with how open the game is overall. A lot of the new Pokemon's designs are kickass, very much a step-up from Gen 8. And the game has a decent variety of main tasks so you're not doing the same thing for too long. (Though it could use some more interesting minor tasks. Rare Tera Type spawns, raids, and Gimmigouls don't quite carry it.)
This also feels like the best writing in the series since Gen 5 as well. We genuinely love each of the main cast, Arven and Nemona especially feeling like some of the best characters in this series. The ending also takes a twist we didn't see coming. Like for real, how did we go from Lysander and Chairman Rose to Volo and THIS game's villain?
It just SUCKS to know there's a timeline where this game came out next year and it JUST got to be the best Pokemon to date. It was THIS close. But instead, it gets held back by its numerous technical problems that could've been ironed out had this game spent more time in the proverbial oven.
It is - For better AND for worse - The Pokemon Game of All Time
2021
A triumph of a game. It has everything one would hope for out of a modern 2D Metroid. It has the dense atmosphere, intuitive exploration, cool secrets and sequence breaks to find, and even a fantastic soundtrack that is perhaps only missing a couple bangers to round it out better. Samus controls like a dream in this game, especially with the introduction of a dedicated Morph Ball button.
And what really excels this game into "Masterpiece" territory is the sheer amount of minuscule but nonetheless great details. There are so many interactions that can occur and clearly intentional shortcuts you can take from sequence breaking. Things like how you can see the entire elevator shaft Samus first took into Artaria at various levels throughout the game (geographically accurate, too!), the tiny details in the animations such as how the Chozo Warrior-X's will drop down to the ground in the QTE cutscene if they're defeated while in the air or on the wall. If you defeat the Experiment boss DURING the QTE, they inserted a brief snippet of Samus watching the Experiment just barely miss the jump before continuing the boss-defeated cutscene as normal, all seamlessly. And every minute movement the EMMI can take and the way they creepily slither and crawl around the environment. Seriously, we can't praise this game's animation enough.
The only huge flaws we can really poke at the game is its tendency to quietly railroad you sometimes as opposed to letting you truly run loose like in Super Metroid, and this being probably one of the weakest boss lineups in the series, at least in terms of designs.
The fact that Mercury Steam went from the most mid 2D Metroid to peak 2D Metroid is nothing short of incredible.
And what really excels this game into "Masterpiece" territory is the sheer amount of minuscule but nonetheless great details. There are so many interactions that can occur and clearly intentional shortcuts you can take from sequence breaking. Things like how you can see the entire elevator shaft Samus first took into Artaria at various levels throughout the game (geographically accurate, too!), the tiny details in the animations such as how the Chozo Warrior-X's will drop down to the ground in the QTE cutscene if they're defeated while in the air or on the wall. If you defeat the Experiment boss DURING the QTE, they inserted a brief snippet of Samus watching the Experiment just barely miss the jump before continuing the boss-defeated cutscene as normal, all seamlessly. And every minute movement the EMMI can take and the way they creepily slither and crawl around the environment. Seriously, we can't praise this game's animation enough.
The only huge flaws we can really poke at the game is its tendency to quietly railroad you sometimes as opposed to letting you truly run loose like in Super Metroid, and this being probably one of the weakest boss lineups in the series, at least in terms of designs.
The fact that Mercury Steam went from the most mid 2D Metroid to peak 2D Metroid is nothing short of incredible.
No but like this is genuinely one of the games I dislike the most. I'm not the type to play games she dislikes on purpose because I don't have time for that, but this one absolutely blind-sided me with how atrocious it was.
I remember playing and enjoying The Thousand-Year Door a lot, so I was excited about the prospect of a Paper Mario game that returned to its more RPG-lite roots. The first world felt like such an uninspired drudge that I kept playing expecting there to be a rug-pull. Knowing Super Paper Mario, being boring on purpose and then surprising you would very much be on-brand for this series' sense of humor. Except I kept going. And kept going.
Eventually I found the core loop of the game to be tiring, with a battle system that just does not work. Each attack is treated like an item and is permanently used up. An interesting idea, but this falls apart in scenarios where you encounter absolutely HP-sponge bosses and eventually run out of stickers, at which point you just can no longer use your jump attack. At least a Pokemon out of PP of all its moves can use Struggle! Like what gives?! As it turns out, the "Intended" way to fight bosses is to simply use the right "Thing". Every single Thing sticker, however, 100% turns the boss fight into a joke. So either you're slowly whittling a 300 HP boss down by 7 HP per turn, maybe 14 if you got the coins for an extra attack slot. OR, you just take off 80% of the boss's HP by immediately using the Baseball Bat Thing and it leaves the boss in a pitifully easy-to-beat state. It's just pick your poison.
But even if you fight the bosses the "Hard" way, Kersti has the fucking gall to reprimand you for not taking the easy out. Like, just straight up says "Try a little harder next time!" Fuck off, Kersti.
The most dreadful video game experience I've ever had in my life. And the only reason I finished it is because it was the only thing I had to play during the winter after it came out. Awful.
I remember playing and enjoying The Thousand-Year Door a lot, so I was excited about the prospect of a Paper Mario game that returned to its more RPG-lite roots. The first world felt like such an uninspired drudge that I kept playing expecting there to be a rug-pull. Knowing Super Paper Mario, being boring on purpose and then surprising you would very much be on-brand for this series' sense of humor. Except I kept going. And kept going.
Eventually I found the core loop of the game to be tiring, with a battle system that just does not work. Each attack is treated like an item and is permanently used up. An interesting idea, but this falls apart in scenarios where you encounter absolutely HP-sponge bosses and eventually run out of stickers, at which point you just can no longer use your jump attack. At least a Pokemon out of PP of all its moves can use Struggle! Like what gives?! As it turns out, the "Intended" way to fight bosses is to simply use the right "Thing". Every single Thing sticker, however, 100% turns the boss fight into a joke. So either you're slowly whittling a 300 HP boss down by 7 HP per turn, maybe 14 if you got the coins for an extra attack slot. OR, you just take off 80% of the boss's HP by immediately using the Baseball Bat Thing and it leaves the boss in a pitifully easy-to-beat state. It's just pick your poison.
But even if you fight the bosses the "Hard" way, Kersti has the fucking gall to reprimand you for not taking the easy out. Like, just straight up says "Try a little harder next time!" Fuck off, Kersti.
The most dreadful video game experience I've ever had in my life. And the only reason I finished it is because it was the only thing I had to play during the winter after it came out. Awful.
2022
I might come back to this one, but the main reason my interest dropped off is because I kept having to resort to tiresome grinding because the wild Coromon levels curve faster than you level up. It has a built-in fast-forward function but it only speeds up the process so much. Just kinda gives me a newfound appreciation for modern Pokemon's EXP-all, even if it's too far in the other direction.