VoltageVO
1997
[Like Dating Someone Unafraid of Being Themselves]
"'[Linda] has this combination, this dangerous combination, of being an anime girl with capable skills who also knows exactly how hot she is. That is not- uh, that is just not a good scenario for any mediocre dude to get himself into." - Tim Rogers [1]
There is no one perfect, attractive person that can attract every other single person. And yet, for every person, there does exist a match, somewhere out there in this universe. What might be considered a physically attractive feature to one person might be an absolute turn off for another. But what matters is that for a given human, there exists someone out there on this weird, strange, wacky planet of ours that will be a compatible match, someone who loves every single little imperfection and curious trait owned by another, that makes a complete pair. They just have to be found.
Linda Cube Again defies genre both in story and in gameplay. Its story is broken up into three primary Scenarios, each with its own story beats and retellings of potential events that could take place. Scenario A involves rescuing Linda from Ken's evil twin brother, Nek who is clad in a Santa suit, Scenario B, features an unfortunately designed mad scientist who really really wants you to like his daughter, and Scenario C throws all of that character-driven drama to the wayside and tells you the tales of the planet of Neo Kenya (yes, the planet is called Neo Kenya) itself. By the end of Scenario C, you'll be rolling at just how many self-indulgent reference the game makes at its own stories. The gameplay is also one that that defies classification. At points it's an animal collecting game with an open world (eat your heart out Palworld and Pokemon), the point of the game after all is to collect a certain number of animals (one of each sex) on a giant Ark that can travel the cosmos sent by GOD HIMSELF. At other points it's a traditional turn-based menu-focused, Dragon Quest-y-Shin Megami Tensei-y puzzle role playing game with a half baked set of attacks. Yet still it is a psychological horror game with thrilling moments of suspense, disgusting body horror, considerations of life in the shadow of a looming apocalypse, and traumatic themes and events that constantly leave the player on their toes. But in full, this game is about Linda.
Linda! Linda! Linda!
Linda Cube Again is not a game for everyone in the same way that Linda herself is not for everyone. Linda is zany and crude, but utterly confident in herself and her ability to do what must be done. Likewise, Linda Cube Again is a game that wears its own quirks and design decisions with such confidence, that one cannot help but be attracted to it even if only for a moment. Linda defies a classification of a person. She is a wholly deep, fascinating human character, with her fair share of flaws.
The player's relationship with Linda over the three story scenarios is one of a blossoming relationship. While Ken knows Linda from their childhood experiences, the player has no context of who this "Linda" character is, or what she's supposed to mean. Therefore, her amnesia in Scenario A allows us, the player, to develop a more organic relationship with her. By the end of the scenario when we rescue her from Nek, the Santa Claus costume-garbed antagonist of the scenario, the player and Linda have had the opportunities to each mutually write upon their otherwise blank slates. In Scenario B, now Linda is your (read Ken's) fiancee, complete with a simulated marriage ceremony. But again Linda is taken away by intruders, and is physically deformed. In parallel, the game and the antagonist of the scenario introduces a second, more submissive and traditionally appealing, lady, Sachiko. Sachiko is a temptation for the player, but the player quickly realizes that Sachiko, both in the story and in combat, pales in comparison to Linda. The scenario continues on with Ken and Linda reaffirming their relationship to fix Linda by whatever means necessary, and continue their promises made as children to be together. By the third Scenario, Ken and Linda are married (albeit with some slipping-on-banana-peel-blacking-out-and-entering-a-coma-and-getting-married-during-this-period hijinks), and the gameplay reflects this union through a consistently powerful party both in combat, and through playful and friendly dialogue options throughout various gameplay circumstances. You're supposed to fall in love with Linda.
But maybe you don't like Linda that much. Maybe she doesn't appeal to you. Maybe her bombastic declarations of emotion and passion are a bit too much for you. That's okay, she appeals to Ken at the very least. But at the very least, Linda is a reliable party member in whom you can place your trust over the course of the gameplay. You can trust her to be exciting, yet rational when it counts. You can trust her to hit you on the back of the head with a two-by-four by then nurse you back to health.
Linda Cube Again is a lot like Linda. Linda cube Again is a wholly deep, fascinating game with its fair share of flaws.
The process of collecting animals takes on a variety of forms which range from mindlessly mashing the O button to do a basic attack to chip down an animal's HP to under 10% of its maximum HP to capture it, to carefully executing a plan so as to not do damage that exceeds 150% of an animals health, lest you destroy the animal, fail to capture it and gain no experience points. This mechanic of essentially destroying the enemy is unique to Linda Cube Again, and forces the player to be considerate of their strength and how it compares to the world around them. For example, animals like Monkeys might chase after you in the first hour of play and pose a significant threat, but after Ken's level surpasses 7, these monkeys will now pose minimal threat, and by level 15 the player has to take care that Ken doesn't just annihilate these monkeys with a basic slash of a weapon. While there are no other mechanical changes from what is otherwise a pretty standard turn-based RPG, the game presents a constantly changing gameplay loop on a micro level that forces that player to think about what they want to do on an encounter-to-encounter basis. Remember: the goal of the game is to RESCUE animals, not kill them. The game is about preserving life. If you want to kill the animals, just leave; there's a giant meteor coming to wipe out any forms of life in about eight years. But hey, if you find this gameplay loop of hunting down animals boring, I don't blame you. The game is essentially turning grinding into its core gameplay focus.
But that diminishes one of Linda Cube Again's greatest strengths: its unpredictability. I promise no spoilers in this review, but the quantity and quality of depth of exploration I've encountered in this game rivals almost no game I've played before. Capturing each animal is its own puzzle: some animals are basic and found on the overworld, but others are a bit more tricky. One species of animal only appears when Ken's HP is below half of its maximum. another only shows up once you've exterminated 20 different from of a different species during a specific season. Even more complex, one species of animal is thought to be extinct , but as it turns out there's an old man who collects endangered species and has them cryogenically frozen but he's also on his deathbed and craves turtle egg soup to recover, and then will also ask you to somehow find eggs of a protected species, and then after that will accidentally BOIL the animals, forcing you to find a flower that revives any animal, but can only be obtained from completing a DIFFERENT sidequest which involves finding "Hot Dung" (not Warm Dung, mind you), yes HOT DUNG to act as a fertilizer to revive a garden of wilted Cherry Blossoms so that a young girl can help convince her grandpa that he should leave the planet with her and not die alone on the planet when the meteor crashes in eight years. Then, and only then, can you obtain this species of animal (assuming you can't find it anywhere else on the planet), oh and by the way you'll need to somehow find a second set of this specific species to unlock access to ANOTHER HIDDEN ANIMAL. For what its worth, you can figure all of this out just from talking to NPCs and playing with every skill in Ken's arsenal, but hoo boy. Let me tell you, 100% completing this game is not for the faint of heart. But this all returns to the idea of exploration and unpredictability. It is the player's duty to explore the world placed before them to save the lives of at least a pair of every animal, no matter how big, small, useful, dangerous, cute, or ugly, and the game has to make this process feel exciting and surprising when and where possible so as to not make a task of this magnitude not feel overwhelming nor boring. And really, it's best to play this game without guide, as scary as that might seem in the year 2024. You're supposed to fall in love with Linda Cube Again.
(also it's important to note that there is a dogfighting area but actually doing dog fights is entirely optional and I did not partake in any myself. If dogfighting is against your morals even in video games, the game respectfully allows you to abstain, thanks Linda Cube Again, very cool).
I'd be remiss if I did not compliment the fan-translation team for their efforts on adapting everything in this game into English. It is clear from my near fifty hours in my initial playthrough that Cargodin, Esperkinght, Mr. Nobody, Mono, Gwendolyn, MatatabiMitsu and Radicaldreamerr but an incredible amount of care into translating presenting the game's absolutely bananas textual presentation. NPCs are as informative as they are hilarious to talk with (that is to say they actually made me have to pause the game from regular fits of laughter), and that's not something that any uncaring translation team could dream of accomplishing. Beyond the work of the original creators, this team's efforts help propel an otherwise menial game about collecting animals to new unhinged heights, and I must applaud everyone involved.
So take Linda out on date, see if you're compatible. Play Scenario A, it takes no more than 10 to 12 hours to play if you play with intention (you might even want to take notes while you play). See if it's for you, and if it is, play through Scenario B and C while keeping track of what you find in the world, and where you found it. And if you decide the game's not for you, that's okay. There is no truly perfect game that will appeal to every single gamer on the planet, so it falls to the gamers of the world to find the right game for them. If you're not compatible with a game or a person, it's better not to force it. I know this game will not appeal to everyone, but it doesn't need to. But with all of its inspired design choices and imperfections, I found myself absolutely obsessed with and devoted to this game. And to that end, I'm lucky enough to declare I've found a new favorite game.
Linda! Linda! Linda!
______
[1]: This is where I'd link to the source of the quote, but Mr. Action Button said he'd yell at me if he ever saw me if I did link the source and I don't want that to happen. So I'll just say that this comes from a Patreon-specific backer reward and leave it at that. Maybe you can make like Ken and go exploring for yourself, maybe see what you can find.
"'[Linda] has this combination, this dangerous combination, of being an anime girl with capable skills who also knows exactly how hot she is. That is not- uh, that is just not a good scenario for any mediocre dude to get himself into." - Tim Rogers [1]
There is no one perfect, attractive person that can attract every other single person. And yet, for every person, there does exist a match, somewhere out there in this universe. What might be considered a physically attractive feature to one person might be an absolute turn off for another. But what matters is that for a given human, there exists someone out there on this weird, strange, wacky planet of ours that will be a compatible match, someone who loves every single little imperfection and curious trait owned by another, that makes a complete pair. They just have to be found.
Linda Cube Again defies genre both in story and in gameplay. Its story is broken up into three primary Scenarios, each with its own story beats and retellings of potential events that could take place. Scenario A involves rescuing Linda from Ken's evil twin brother, Nek who is clad in a Santa suit, Scenario B, features an unfortunately designed mad scientist who really really wants you to like his daughter, and Scenario C throws all of that character-driven drama to the wayside and tells you the tales of the planet of Neo Kenya (yes, the planet is called Neo Kenya) itself. By the end of Scenario C, you'll be rolling at just how many self-indulgent reference the game makes at its own stories. The gameplay is also one that that defies classification. At points it's an animal collecting game with an open world (eat your heart out Palworld and Pokemon), the point of the game after all is to collect a certain number of animals (one of each sex) on a giant Ark that can travel the cosmos sent by GOD HIMSELF. At other points it's a traditional turn-based menu-focused, Dragon Quest-y-Shin Megami Tensei-y puzzle role playing game with a half baked set of attacks. Yet still it is a psychological horror game with thrilling moments of suspense, disgusting body horror, considerations of life in the shadow of a looming apocalypse, and traumatic themes and events that constantly leave the player on their toes. But in full, this game is about Linda.
Linda! Linda! Linda!
Linda Cube Again is not a game for everyone in the same way that Linda herself is not for everyone. Linda is zany and crude, but utterly confident in herself and her ability to do what must be done. Likewise, Linda Cube Again is a game that wears its own quirks and design decisions with such confidence, that one cannot help but be attracted to it even if only for a moment. Linda defies a classification of a person. She is a wholly deep, fascinating human character, with her fair share of flaws.
The player's relationship with Linda over the three story scenarios is one of a blossoming relationship. While Ken knows Linda from their childhood experiences, the player has no context of who this "Linda" character is, or what she's supposed to mean. Therefore, her amnesia in Scenario A allows us, the player, to develop a more organic relationship with her. By the end of the scenario when we rescue her from Nek, the Santa Claus costume-garbed antagonist of the scenario, the player and Linda have had the opportunities to each mutually write upon their otherwise blank slates. In Scenario B, now Linda is your (read Ken's) fiancee, complete with a simulated marriage ceremony. But again Linda is taken away by intruders, and is physically deformed. In parallel, the game and the antagonist of the scenario introduces a second, more submissive and traditionally appealing, lady, Sachiko. Sachiko is a temptation for the player, but the player quickly realizes that Sachiko, both in the story and in combat, pales in comparison to Linda. The scenario continues on with Ken and Linda reaffirming their relationship to fix Linda by whatever means necessary, and continue their promises made as children to be together. By the third Scenario, Ken and Linda are married (albeit with some slipping-on-banana-peel-blacking-out-and-entering-a-coma-and-getting-married-during-this-period hijinks), and the gameplay reflects this union through a consistently powerful party both in combat, and through playful and friendly dialogue options throughout various gameplay circumstances. You're supposed to fall in love with Linda.
But maybe you don't like Linda that much. Maybe she doesn't appeal to you. Maybe her bombastic declarations of emotion and passion are a bit too much for you. That's okay, she appeals to Ken at the very least. But at the very least, Linda is a reliable party member in whom you can place your trust over the course of the gameplay. You can trust her to be exciting, yet rational when it counts. You can trust her to hit you on the back of the head with a two-by-four by then nurse you back to health.
Linda Cube Again is a lot like Linda. Linda cube Again is a wholly deep, fascinating game with its fair share of flaws.
The process of collecting animals takes on a variety of forms which range from mindlessly mashing the O button to do a basic attack to chip down an animal's HP to under 10% of its maximum HP to capture it, to carefully executing a plan so as to not do damage that exceeds 150% of an animals health, lest you destroy the animal, fail to capture it and gain no experience points. This mechanic of essentially destroying the enemy is unique to Linda Cube Again, and forces the player to be considerate of their strength and how it compares to the world around them. For example, animals like Monkeys might chase after you in the first hour of play and pose a significant threat, but after Ken's level surpasses 7, these monkeys will now pose minimal threat, and by level 15 the player has to take care that Ken doesn't just annihilate these monkeys with a basic slash of a weapon. While there are no other mechanical changes from what is otherwise a pretty standard turn-based RPG, the game presents a constantly changing gameplay loop on a micro level that forces that player to think about what they want to do on an encounter-to-encounter basis. Remember: the goal of the game is to RESCUE animals, not kill them. The game is about preserving life. If you want to kill the animals, just leave; there's a giant meteor coming to wipe out any forms of life in about eight years. But hey, if you find this gameplay loop of hunting down animals boring, I don't blame you. The game is essentially turning grinding into its core gameplay focus.
But that diminishes one of Linda Cube Again's greatest strengths: its unpredictability. I promise no spoilers in this review, but the quantity and quality of depth of exploration I've encountered in this game rivals almost no game I've played before. Capturing each animal is its own puzzle: some animals are basic and found on the overworld, but others are a bit more tricky. One species of animal only appears when Ken's HP is below half of its maximum. another only shows up once you've exterminated 20 different from of a different species during a specific season. Even more complex, one species of animal is thought to be extinct , but as it turns out there's an old man who collects endangered species and has them cryogenically frozen but he's also on his deathbed and craves turtle egg soup to recover, and then will also ask you to somehow find eggs of a protected species, and then after that will accidentally BOIL the animals, forcing you to find a flower that revives any animal, but can only be obtained from completing a DIFFERENT sidequest which involves finding "Hot Dung" (not Warm Dung, mind you), yes HOT DUNG to act as a fertilizer to revive a garden of wilted Cherry Blossoms so that a young girl can help convince her grandpa that he should leave the planet with her and not die alone on the planet when the meteor crashes in eight years. Then, and only then, can you obtain this species of animal (assuming you can't find it anywhere else on the planet), oh and by the way you'll need to somehow find a second set of this specific species to unlock access to ANOTHER HIDDEN ANIMAL. For what its worth, you can figure all of this out just from talking to NPCs and playing with every skill in Ken's arsenal, but hoo boy. Let me tell you, 100% completing this game is not for the faint of heart. But this all returns to the idea of exploration and unpredictability. It is the player's duty to explore the world placed before them to save the lives of at least a pair of every animal, no matter how big, small, useful, dangerous, cute, or ugly, and the game has to make this process feel exciting and surprising when and where possible so as to not make a task of this magnitude not feel overwhelming nor boring. And really, it's best to play this game without guide, as scary as that might seem in the year 2024. You're supposed to fall in love with Linda Cube Again.
(also it's important to note that there is a dogfighting area but actually doing dog fights is entirely optional and I did not partake in any myself. If dogfighting is against your morals even in video games, the game respectfully allows you to abstain, thanks Linda Cube Again, very cool).
I'd be remiss if I did not compliment the fan-translation team for their efforts on adapting everything in this game into English. It is clear from my near fifty hours in my initial playthrough that Cargodin, Esperkinght, Mr. Nobody, Mono, Gwendolyn, MatatabiMitsu and Radicaldreamerr but an incredible amount of care into translating presenting the game's absolutely bananas textual presentation. NPCs are as informative as they are hilarious to talk with (that is to say they actually made me have to pause the game from regular fits of laughter), and that's not something that any uncaring translation team could dream of accomplishing. Beyond the work of the original creators, this team's efforts help propel an otherwise menial game about collecting animals to new unhinged heights, and I must applaud everyone involved.
So take Linda out on date, see if you're compatible. Play Scenario A, it takes no more than 10 to 12 hours to play if you play with intention (you might even want to take notes while you play). See if it's for you, and if it is, play through Scenario B and C while keeping track of what you find in the world, and where you found it. And if you decide the game's not for you, that's okay. There is no truly perfect game that will appeal to every single gamer on the planet, so it falls to the gamers of the world to find the right game for them. If you're not compatible with a game or a person, it's better not to force it. I know this game will not appeal to everyone, but it doesn't need to. But with all of its inspired design choices and imperfections, I found myself absolutely obsessed with and devoted to this game. And to that end, I'm lucky enough to declare I've found a new favorite game.
Linda! Linda! Linda!
______
[1]: This is where I'd link to the source of the quote, but Mr. Action Button said he'd yell at me if he ever saw me if I did link the source and I don't want that to happen. So I'll just say that this comes from a Patreon-specific backer reward and leave it at that. Maybe you can make like Ken and go exploring for yourself, maybe see what you can find.
2016
Here's where I'm at with Pokémon Uranium: I think I'm someone who is more or less perfectly suited to discuss this game in a macroscopic sense. I am currently working on a PhD in Radiation Detection and Measurement, so I work with radioactive material, nuclear science, and even some energy and non-proliferation policy on a regular basis. I played this on stream with a number of peers who are all very well-educated in nuclear science, and we spent our time commenting on some of the nuclear-related things we saw. We did not finish the game, we dropped it around Gym #5, and I went and watched some of the gameplay on the internet to see what the rest of the game has to offer.
As previously noted, I have a degree in Nuclear Engineering, and I am working on a doctoral thesis related to radiation detection and measurement. I therefore, take umbrage with the way much of the science in this game is conveyed. It's a fictionalized game, sure. It's relatively unrealistic to expect the game devs to understand what the Klein-Nishina Cross-section is. But I really, really dislike how the "Nuclear Pokemon" are essentially just different Shadow Pokemon seen in the Gamecube Pokemon games. I think from a gameplay mechanic perspective, this is a really interesting take on the type chart, but from a story and flavor perspective, I just can't take it seriously. I understand it's not necessarily fair to critique a game strictly on its story and presentation, but the foundation of nuclear being presented as this mystical miasma of power is just plain faulty, and it really paints nuclear energy in a questionable light at best.
One example that generally stood out to all of us took place at Nuclear Plant Epsilon before the third gym. Not only is it entirely unrealistic that a new nuclear plant would be sited right next to an old site that had had a significant nuclear accident only 10 years prior, but the way that radiation is shown as this weird green gas is flat out wrong. I get that your player passes out from radiation sickness, and is later "treated" for it for the sake of a story, but that's just not how it works. If the game is going to lean into something that is extensively researched as nuclear science, I personally feel like there should be at least some responsibility from the devs to make sure that they get it a little closer to reality. It really feels like a few devs were really interested in what happened in Chernobyl and explored the idea of "what if this but in the Pokemon world?". I might be being a little too hard on the game for not being entirely accurate, but in a world where nuclear energy still struggles to be widely accepted by the general public through concerns of safety, Pokemon Uranium does little to assuage those concerns and instead leans into the idea of a modern "mystical corrupting ether power".
There's another factor that I want to bring up related to the presentation of "nuclear", the fact that there's an item that allows you to talk with Pokemon in English in this game. Generally, I feel as though it's a bit of a cop out to have the magical fantasy creatures to be able to suddenly speak English with the help of some device. I preferred the abstraction of people being able to understand their Pokemon through a serious of verbal cries. With the inclusion of the P.E.S., suddenly you can have Pokemon monologue which feels really weird. Then there's the fact that on Route 6 you have to knock out a series of Owten, that you can now understand. It gave me a weird ick feeling that I'll have to generally explore more, but in short I felt really uncomfortable attacking these animal-like Pokémon that could speak English. It's like if a Slime in Dragon Quest could suddenly demonstrate extreme intelligence. It's the exact problem Undertale demonstrates: "would you attack innocent creatures if you could understand them?". Ultimately, I won't dwell on this ethical concern too much, but I had to roll my eyes when I learned that Nuclear Pokemon (or "irradiated Pokemon", which agian, not how that works) are menacing killing machines who can only say something to the effect of "CRUSH KILL DESTROY".
As a Pokemon game, it's quite similar to the early 2010s Pokemon games where you REALLY have to grind to get Pokemon that can stand a chance. I think there's something to be said that the team was able to make a variety of relatively interesting fan-Pokemon, and it's great that they have a lot of ideas of what could be done to shake up the standard play loop. But at the same time, I really have to wonder why some obviously frustrating features were carried over, HMs being the prime example. Then there's also the fact that some Pokemon are hilariously intrinsically broken. Inflagetah, which I used for maybe an hour, is so obviously better than anything I had used up to that point that I have to wonder if it was worth using anything else, especially given how long I often took for anything to level up. I'm not expecting an Exp. All here, but fighting countless numbers of Smores and Minyans gets old quickly. I can't fault them for this too much though, this DOES feel like a Pokémon game, and quite impressively so.
From a pure Pokemon fan perspective, Pokemon Uranium is a really interesting and exciting fan game that presents a lot of interesting ideas, and creates a world that feels lived-in, and fleshed out. Design-wise the Pokemon are interesting, the world is interesting, and the story is nothing we had seen in a Pokemon Game until maybe until Sword and Shield. But I cannot get past my many gripes with the experience. It wasn't terribly fun to play, and I couldn't get into the story when it mattered most (mainly because of my own mental blocks).
Play it if you'd like, it's a really well-made fangame from a technical perspective, but I didn't really enjoy it.
As previously noted, I have a degree in Nuclear Engineering, and I am working on a doctoral thesis related to radiation detection and measurement. I therefore, take umbrage with the way much of the science in this game is conveyed. It's a fictionalized game, sure. It's relatively unrealistic to expect the game devs to understand what the Klein-Nishina Cross-section is. But I really, really dislike how the "Nuclear Pokemon" are essentially just different Shadow Pokemon seen in the Gamecube Pokemon games. I think from a gameplay mechanic perspective, this is a really interesting take on the type chart, but from a story and flavor perspective, I just can't take it seriously. I understand it's not necessarily fair to critique a game strictly on its story and presentation, but the foundation of nuclear being presented as this mystical miasma of power is just plain faulty, and it really paints nuclear energy in a questionable light at best.
One example that generally stood out to all of us took place at Nuclear Plant Epsilon before the third gym. Not only is it entirely unrealistic that a new nuclear plant would be sited right next to an old site that had had a significant nuclear accident only 10 years prior, but the way that radiation is shown as this weird green gas is flat out wrong. I get that your player passes out from radiation sickness, and is later "treated" for it for the sake of a story, but that's just not how it works. If the game is going to lean into something that is extensively researched as nuclear science, I personally feel like there should be at least some responsibility from the devs to make sure that they get it a little closer to reality. It really feels like a few devs were really interested in what happened in Chernobyl and explored the idea of "what if this but in the Pokemon world?". I might be being a little too hard on the game for not being entirely accurate, but in a world where nuclear energy still struggles to be widely accepted by the general public through concerns of safety, Pokemon Uranium does little to assuage those concerns and instead leans into the idea of a modern "mystical corrupting ether power".
There's another factor that I want to bring up related to the presentation of "nuclear", the fact that there's an item that allows you to talk with Pokemon in English in this game. Generally, I feel as though it's a bit of a cop out to have the magical fantasy creatures to be able to suddenly speak English with the help of some device. I preferred the abstraction of people being able to understand their Pokemon through a serious of verbal cries. With the inclusion of the P.E.S., suddenly you can have Pokemon monologue which feels really weird. Then there's the fact that on Route 6 you have to knock out a series of Owten, that you can now understand. It gave me a weird ick feeling that I'll have to generally explore more, but in short I felt really uncomfortable attacking these animal-like Pokémon that could speak English. It's like if a Slime in Dragon Quest could suddenly demonstrate extreme intelligence. It's the exact problem Undertale demonstrates: "would you attack innocent creatures if you could understand them?". Ultimately, I won't dwell on this ethical concern too much, but I had to roll my eyes when I learned that Nuclear Pokemon (or "irradiated Pokemon", which agian, not how that works) are menacing killing machines who can only say something to the effect of "CRUSH KILL DESTROY".
As a Pokemon game, it's quite similar to the early 2010s Pokemon games where you REALLY have to grind to get Pokemon that can stand a chance. I think there's something to be said that the team was able to make a variety of relatively interesting fan-Pokemon, and it's great that they have a lot of ideas of what could be done to shake up the standard play loop. But at the same time, I really have to wonder why some obviously frustrating features were carried over, HMs being the prime example. Then there's also the fact that some Pokemon are hilariously intrinsically broken. Inflagetah, which I used for maybe an hour, is so obviously better than anything I had used up to that point that I have to wonder if it was worth using anything else, especially given how long I often took for anything to level up. I'm not expecting an Exp. All here, but fighting countless numbers of Smores and Minyans gets old quickly. I can't fault them for this too much though, this DOES feel like a Pokémon game, and quite impressively so.
From a pure Pokemon fan perspective, Pokemon Uranium is a really interesting and exciting fan game that presents a lot of interesting ideas, and creates a world that feels lived-in, and fleshed out. Design-wise the Pokemon are interesting, the world is interesting, and the story is nothing we had seen in a Pokemon Game until maybe until Sword and Shield. But I cannot get past my many gripes with the experience. It wasn't terribly fun to play, and I couldn't get into the story when it mattered most (mainly because of my own mental blocks).
Play it if you'd like, it's a really well-made fangame from a technical perspective, but I didn't really enjoy it.
2022
It's like you're "playing" eight/nine different movie scenarios, and it's such a novel way to do a JRPG. Really enjoyed this game
A golf game that has Mario in it :U
Double Dash isn't the game I'm gonna play on my own, but it's definitely the game I'm gonna drunkenly play with friends. It's the perfect Mario Kart / racing party-game. While I prefer all the games that came after it, I cannot deny that this game is wacky and silly and a perfect encapsulation of the Gamecube Mario aesthetic.
But there are two problems for me:
1. I didn't grow up playing games in the Gamecube era
2. I like playing Mario Kart both with friends AND alone.
But there are two problems for me:
1. I didn't grow up playing games in the Gamecube era
2. I like playing Mario Kart both with friends AND alone.
A quality game that doesn't inspire me, but is still a very fun game all the same. It's absolutely weaker tha n3 or World, but I don't mind. I'm glad Wii expended on the New Soup idea enough before it inevitably went stale. The way they handled accessing Worlds 4 and 7 was novel and I will give credit to the creative bosses and attempts to bring the older "Mario Bros." gameplay into the identity of Mario in the mid-2000s.
It's hard to come back to Explorers of Time when Explorers of Sky exists, a game which outdoes "Time" in almost every single way. Does that make ""time" bad? Hell no. Am I ever going to replay "Time" over "Sky"? Hell no.
comfy game that requires little thought, just what I need in the year 202X
It's not as good as Emerald, but that doesn't make it objectively bad. That said, once you beat the game, there isn't really that much to do, but again, that doesn't take away from the main campaign still being quite a lot of fun.
[Dammit Larry, You're Hard to Love, But You're Harder to Hate]
Gates to Infinity is definitely the weakest game in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon franchise due to its inconsistency in quality save for one notable aspect. Does this make it a bad game? Well, yes and no. For every good thing I can say about Gates to Infinity, I can point to an equally opposite bad thing.
- "Oh cool, the graphics are in 3D!"
- "But this makes the dungeons feel far less distinct, and characters far less expressive".
- "I love the fact that I don't have to worry about hunger in this game!"
- "But I hate having to navigate the dungeons in this game because the hallways and floors are much less interesting to explore."
- "I love that my party members get experience and eventually level up even if I don't bring them along on missions!"
- "But combat in dungeons is so awful because of the zoomed in camera that I can never even try to generate strategy when I approach a given room in this game."
Every time I think I can award points to Gates, it finds a way to immediately earn a demerit, but every time I think the game does something really really bad, I'm surprised at a cool decision the designers made. The plot is overly simple and reductive in its simplifications of tropes about friendship and trust that we've come to expect from the first two Mystery Dungeon games, but then it uses those predictable tropes to create a plot twits that genuinely surprised me. The dungeons presented a really interesting way to break up the pace of the mystery dungeon layout with the overworld floors, but then these same floors provided little to no challenge and were more or less abandoned beyond one or two dungeons late in the game (not that I particularly enjoyed these breaks in the gameplay, they really didn't fit with the gameplay loo I came to expect from mystery dungeon). The Paradise was ultimately an overcomplicated hub zone that I didn't find myself developing whatsoever just because the game made it nearly impossible to efficiently complete missions, but Post Town, despite being nearly pointless beyond flavor reasons, won me over as a genuinely comfy spot in a video game. And speaking of missions, I found myself really frustrated that I couldn't select many missions at once in the same dungeon (a clear attempt by the game to not allow you to grind), but then at the same time, I found myself feeling relieved that I was finally done with a single mission after 4-6 floors because I really really didn't enjoy the dungeon crawl with more than two party members (but also the game was definitely balanced around you having four party members at once which is cool UNTIL THEY START RUNNING OFF AGAIN). So between all these positives and negatives I sit here struggling to consider how I really feel about this game.
At this point in time, the only part of the game I can unequivocally vouch for is its soundtrack. Almost every piece of music in this game after the first few dungeons is simply perfect for its respective application. Dungeon themes are filled to the brim with explorative passion and capture the exact feelings of excitement, anxiety, determination, and dread one might feel when exploring places named "Forest of Shadows" or "Great Glacier". I am particularly fond of the musical leitmotif that carries through each Magnagate dungeon (Telluric Path, Kilionea Road and Tyrian Maze) as the same musical notes carry through each piece representing the mysterious ability to travel through the ley lines of the planet. Keisuke Ito absolutely knocks this soundtrack out of the park and makes even the most grueling, unpleasant dungeon crawls slightly more manageable. I had heard the soundtrack long before playing the game, and I found myself struck at just how much I could still enjoy the game having listened to the official soundtrack in a vacuum. There was nothing quite like being ejected from the mysterious Kilionea Road and finding myself potentially without a single reference point in the forest of Shadows, having only my instincts and the music of "Forest of Shadows" playing. What a great feeling.
I struggle to outright recommend this game to anyone beyond those who would care to play every mainline Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game. It has the weakest gameplay loop by far, and its story takes a lot of effort to really take seriously. While it might be the case that I am just too old for what is essentially a YA-literature piece, I just couldn't make myself care about the plights of Emolga and Dunsparce. But then again, I found Virizion's arc to be pretty interesting and I really enjoyed Espeon and Umbreon as characters, as simple as they were. Once again, the duality of Gates rears its two-faced visage. For every good there is a bad, and for every bad, there is a good. This is the Gates to Infinity experience.
Gates to Infinity is definitely the weakest game in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon franchise due to its inconsistency in quality save for one notable aspect. Does this make it a bad game? Well, yes and no. For every good thing I can say about Gates to Infinity, I can point to an equally opposite bad thing.
- "Oh cool, the graphics are in 3D!"
- "But this makes the dungeons feel far less distinct, and characters far less expressive".
- "I love the fact that I don't have to worry about hunger in this game!"
- "But I hate having to navigate the dungeons in this game because the hallways and floors are much less interesting to explore."
- "I love that my party members get experience and eventually level up even if I don't bring them along on missions!"
- "But combat in dungeons is so awful because of the zoomed in camera that I can never even try to generate strategy when I approach a given room in this game."
Every time I think I can award points to Gates, it finds a way to immediately earn a demerit, but every time I think the game does something really really bad, I'm surprised at a cool decision the designers made. The plot is overly simple and reductive in its simplifications of tropes about friendship and trust that we've come to expect from the first two Mystery Dungeon games, but then it uses those predictable tropes to create a plot twits that genuinely surprised me. The dungeons presented a really interesting way to break up the pace of the mystery dungeon layout with the overworld floors, but then these same floors provided little to no challenge and were more or less abandoned beyond one or two dungeons late in the game (not that I particularly enjoyed these breaks in the gameplay, they really didn't fit with the gameplay loo I came to expect from mystery dungeon). The Paradise was ultimately an overcomplicated hub zone that I didn't find myself developing whatsoever just because the game made it nearly impossible to efficiently complete missions, but Post Town, despite being nearly pointless beyond flavor reasons, won me over as a genuinely comfy spot in a video game. And speaking of missions, I found myself really frustrated that I couldn't select many missions at once in the same dungeon (a clear attempt by the game to not allow you to grind), but then at the same time, I found myself feeling relieved that I was finally done with a single mission after 4-6 floors because I really really didn't enjoy the dungeon crawl with more than two party members (but also the game was definitely balanced around you having four party members at once which is cool UNTIL THEY START RUNNING OFF AGAIN). So between all these positives and negatives I sit here struggling to consider how I really feel about this game.
At this point in time, the only part of the game I can unequivocally vouch for is its soundtrack. Almost every piece of music in this game after the first few dungeons is simply perfect for its respective application. Dungeon themes are filled to the brim with explorative passion and capture the exact feelings of excitement, anxiety, determination, and dread one might feel when exploring places named "Forest of Shadows" or "Great Glacier". I am particularly fond of the musical leitmotif that carries through each Magnagate dungeon (Telluric Path, Kilionea Road and Tyrian Maze) as the same musical notes carry through each piece representing the mysterious ability to travel through the ley lines of the planet. Keisuke Ito absolutely knocks this soundtrack out of the park and makes even the most grueling, unpleasant dungeon crawls slightly more manageable. I had heard the soundtrack long before playing the game, and I found myself struck at just how much I could still enjoy the game having listened to the official soundtrack in a vacuum. There was nothing quite like being ejected from the mysterious Kilionea Road and finding myself potentially without a single reference point in the forest of Shadows, having only my instincts and the music of "Forest of Shadows" playing. What a great feeling.
I struggle to outright recommend this game to anyone beyond those who would care to play every mainline Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game. It has the weakest gameplay loop by far, and its story takes a lot of effort to really take seriously. While it might be the case that I am just too old for what is essentially a YA-literature piece, I just couldn't make myself care about the plights of Emolga and Dunsparce. But then again, I found Virizion's arc to be pretty interesting and I really enjoyed Espeon and Umbreon as characters, as simple as they were. Once again, the duality of Gates rears its two-faced visage. For every good there is a bad, and for every bad, there is a good. This is the Gates to Infinity experience.
2023
what a greasy experience
1983
ironic playthrough attempt leads to unironic rage quit after the fifteenth one-hit kill from borf's laser gun
2007
[That time a knight in shining armor shoved the princess into a random pillar and then never returned]
Super Paper Mario is a game that earnestly believes in itself and its ability to capture fans of the Mario series, especially those were fans of the previous two games in the franchise. It boldly asks the player to accept that this game is going to be playing in 2D for about 90% of the whole game, that the combat is going to be more action-platformer than JRPG, that the story is going to actually be quite deep (even more so than its Gamecube predecessor), and that the game prioritizes its best parts and as a result leaves a lot of padding and flat characters, all of which add to one of the most fascinating games in the Mario franchise.
Of the four playable characters, only one, Mario is able to shift between 2D and 3D. The other characters also have little tricks that make them unique and helpful as well: Peach is able to float across gaps, Luigi can jump super high, and Bowser can break the game! These characters, of course, aren't Mario, and as such only work in a 2D space. You wanted 3D gameplay? how about only with Mario? Why else would anyone use Mario otherwise? The game does a great job at using the 3D mechanic and it's clear that there were plenty ideas of how this flipping between 2D and 3D mechanic could work, while still keeping the gameplay unique and fun. I'm particularly impressed by the maze in 8-3 where one has to appropriately navigate the path top take with Luigi, but the arrows are only visible in 3D with Mario.
Super looks at these fans of Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and dares them to play something different than before. And to Super Paper Mario's credit, its attempts at a different take on gameplay were still quite manageable, dare I say still even fun, unlike the later games in the franchise. That, of course, isn't fair to Super Paper Mario; the development team absolutely took a risk in ditching the JRPG turn-based combat for something closer to a story-based platformer, and I think they got a really good amount of mileage out of it. There are, of course plenty of other parts of the combat and overworld exploration that I wish were slightly different (having the game not be broken by Bowser + Carrie, having fewer motion controlled mechanics for healing items, giving Peach more movement moves beyond invincibility frames and a hover mechanic), but alas, it is what it is. It's not like these concerns of mine actively detract from Super.
The plot is something that feels as though the scenario was written for an entirely different game, and then by some strange miracle it was retconned to have Mario characters. The love story between Blumiere and Timpani, especially given its unconventional method when considered against other video games of the day, is astonishingly well-executed. I love how in every chapter, the story leading up to the events of the game regarding Tippi and Bleck is methodically revealed to us solely with dialogue, a literal memory of the previous events. I love the way that it made me confused at the start, like I had been suddenly thrown from a goofy wacky Mario game with a character named O'Chunks who farts to fly off screen to a story of two nameless voices falling in love was so jarring, but also wonder, and I'm glad that it was presented to me in this whiplash-like contrasting way.
Super's weakest aspect is no doubt, its supporting cast. Beyond the main cast and the villains, everyone else is notably quite forgettable. Barring perhaps Luvbi and Francis, the rest of the "so-called" characters are either obnoxiously or otherwise silent after their initial dialogue. I am, of course, talking about the Pixls. While listening to Slim clearly go off his rocker with non-sequiturs, Thudley investigating the party's "girth", and Fleeps's bizzaro need t sing in faux-Italian to alert the party they need toilet paper are all amusing in their own rights, after this initial conversation, Pixls are little more than quite literal upgrades for Mario, rather than unique and distinct characters. The fun in exploring the world with characters like Lady Bow or the baby Yoshi in the previous two games did not carry over into Super and it's a real disappointment I have with the game.
I kept track of the number of times this game elicited a genuine reaction out of me, whether it be laughter, disgust, frustration, or a singular tear rolling down my cheek. These moments totaled to around 40 through the course of 32 chapters. Whether they be positive (the cutscene after beating the Chapter 7 boss), negative (the 5-1 passwords and almost all of 7-3), or anywhere in between (finding Flopside to be just a worse version of Flipside made me laugh for some reason), Super kept me interested and engaged for almost all the time, even when [I was holding left on my controller to run while an NPC designed like an Egyptian slave master ways a whip back and forth]. In what other Mario game can you say that? You could replace that sentence with any of the following bulleted scenarios and the game would be just as wacky.
- A giant cybernetic dragon emerged from the desert and quoted Zelda II and used the Wii Shop searching icon
- A mansion's maid is able to transform into a mechanical spider by channeling 'The Exorcist'.
- A nerdy salamander otaku boots up Swoon.exe, a dating sim texting interface to talk with Princess Peach
- An outhouse in space is out of toilet paper, and your companion REALLY has gotta go. (also I did laugh at that the fact that there finally is a "toilet paper" joke in the Paper Mario Franchise)
- A surfer dude caveman named Jasperoid asks you to type out the word "Please" five times
- THE WORLD ENDS
- MARIO GOES TO HELL AND THEN ASCENDS INTO HEAVEN TO FIGHT SATAN
I state again, in what other Mario game do situations like these actually happen? Who cares if the pixls are quite literally flat characters when you have Luigi being the apocalypse maiden? The game's short enough to finish in a couple sittings, each chapter is pretty accomplishable provided that one knows which items to pick at which spots (again, 7-3), so why not give it a shot. It isn't 64 or TTYD's gameplay, but it is it's own fantastic and unique story with a LOT of memorable moments.
Play it wherever you can find it, and enjoy the ride, even through the padding.
Rating: [89]
Super Paper Mario is a game that earnestly believes in itself and its ability to capture fans of the Mario series, especially those were fans of the previous two games in the franchise. It boldly asks the player to accept that this game is going to be playing in 2D for about 90% of the whole game, that the combat is going to be more action-platformer than JRPG, that the story is going to actually be quite deep (even more so than its Gamecube predecessor), and that the game prioritizes its best parts and as a result leaves a lot of padding and flat characters, all of which add to one of the most fascinating games in the Mario franchise.
Of the four playable characters, only one, Mario is able to shift between 2D and 3D. The other characters also have little tricks that make them unique and helpful as well: Peach is able to float across gaps, Luigi can jump super high, and Bowser can break the game! These characters, of course, aren't Mario, and as such only work in a 2D space. You wanted 3D gameplay? how about only with Mario? Why else would anyone use Mario otherwise? The game does a great job at using the 3D mechanic and it's clear that there were plenty ideas of how this flipping between 2D and 3D mechanic could work, while still keeping the gameplay unique and fun. I'm particularly impressed by the maze in 8-3 where one has to appropriately navigate the path top take with Luigi, but the arrows are only visible in 3D with Mario.
Super looks at these fans of Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and dares them to play something different than before. And to Super Paper Mario's credit, its attempts at a different take on gameplay were still quite manageable, dare I say still even fun, unlike the later games in the franchise. That, of course, isn't fair to Super Paper Mario; the development team absolutely took a risk in ditching the JRPG turn-based combat for something closer to a story-based platformer, and I think they got a really good amount of mileage out of it. There are, of course plenty of other parts of the combat and overworld exploration that I wish were slightly different (having the game not be broken by Bowser + Carrie, having fewer motion controlled mechanics for healing items, giving Peach more movement moves beyond invincibility frames and a hover mechanic), but alas, it is what it is. It's not like these concerns of mine actively detract from Super.
The plot is something that feels as though the scenario was written for an entirely different game, and then by some strange miracle it was retconned to have Mario characters. The love story between Blumiere and Timpani, especially given its unconventional method when considered against other video games of the day, is astonishingly well-executed. I love how in every chapter, the story leading up to the events of the game regarding Tippi and Bleck is methodically revealed to us solely with dialogue, a literal memory of the previous events. I love the way that it made me confused at the start, like I had been suddenly thrown from a goofy wacky Mario game with a character named O'Chunks who farts to fly off screen to a story of two nameless voices falling in love was so jarring, but also wonder, and I'm glad that it was presented to me in this whiplash-like contrasting way.
Super's weakest aspect is no doubt, its supporting cast. Beyond the main cast and the villains, everyone else is notably quite forgettable. Barring perhaps Luvbi and Francis, the rest of the "so-called" characters are either obnoxiously or otherwise silent after their initial dialogue. I am, of course, talking about the Pixls. While listening to Slim clearly go off his rocker with non-sequiturs, Thudley investigating the party's "girth", and Fleeps's bizzaro need t sing in faux-Italian to alert the party they need toilet paper are all amusing in their own rights, after this initial conversation, Pixls are little more than quite literal upgrades for Mario, rather than unique and distinct characters. The fun in exploring the world with characters like Lady Bow or the baby Yoshi in the previous two games did not carry over into Super and it's a real disappointment I have with the game.
I kept track of the number of times this game elicited a genuine reaction out of me, whether it be laughter, disgust, frustration, or a singular tear rolling down my cheek. These moments totaled to around 40 through the course of 32 chapters. Whether they be positive (the cutscene after beating the Chapter 7 boss), negative (the 5-1 passwords and almost all of 7-3), or anywhere in between (finding Flopside to be just a worse version of Flipside made me laugh for some reason), Super kept me interested and engaged for almost all the time, even when [I was holding left on my controller to run while an NPC designed like an Egyptian slave master ways a whip back and forth]. In what other Mario game can you say that? You could replace that sentence with any of the following bulleted scenarios and the game would be just as wacky.
- A giant cybernetic dragon emerged from the desert and quoted Zelda II and used the Wii Shop searching icon
- A mansion's maid is able to transform into a mechanical spider by channeling 'The Exorcist'.
- A nerdy salamander otaku boots up Swoon.exe, a dating sim texting interface to talk with Princess Peach
- An outhouse in space is out of toilet paper, and your companion REALLY has gotta go. (also I did laugh at that the fact that there finally is a "toilet paper" joke in the Paper Mario Franchise)
- A surfer dude caveman named Jasperoid asks you to type out the word "Please" five times
- THE WORLD ENDS
- MARIO GOES TO HELL AND THEN ASCENDS INTO HEAVEN TO FIGHT SATAN
I state again, in what other Mario game do situations like these actually happen? Who cares if the pixls are quite literally flat characters when you have Luigi being the apocalypse maiden? The game's short enough to finish in a couple sittings, each chapter is pretty accomplishable provided that one knows which items to pick at which spots (again, 7-3), so why not give it a shot. It isn't 64 or TTYD's gameplay, but it is it's own fantastic and unique story with a LOT of memorable moments.
Play it wherever you can find it, and enjoy the ride, even through the padding.
Rating: [89]
2002
[Holding Right To Win Isn't So Bad!]
Sonic Advance 2 is a game where you hold right to win the game. You occasionally do other things like press the A button or have the game expect you to know some bullshit-ly niche "trick" mechanic out of nowhere in the fifth zone, but even then you’re still more or less holding right all the while. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this—in fact, it’s encouraged by each level’s design. Notably, every single level in Sonic Advance 2 goes by quickly simply by holding right as the game leads the player down a very fun and direct path. From an outside perspective, this previous sentence probably sounds like the dumbest sentence ever written. “Of course you beat the level by holding right. It’s a goddamn two-dimensional platforming game about going fast for crying out loud. If you were to go slow, then what the hell would be the point?” But think about it: when have you ever gone to the left LEFT in a 2D for a majority of the stage in a Sonic game? In a not very fun, Marble Zone Act 2, that’s when.
So yes, you really only need to hold right to beat Sonic Advance 2. But isn’t that inherently what you’re doing in every Sonic game anyway? And if the game is going to give you speed, it needs to make sure that the speed feels good and doesn’t stop abruptly, which Sonic Advance 2 rarely ever does. Playing as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Cream, or even the secret character Amy, the player is whipped through a rollercoaster of zones with each stage introducing something new to keep them going quickly. Leaf Forest uses gigantic loop-de-loops, Music Plant has giant sets of parallel piano keys, and Sky Canyon is littered with various fans and windmills. Course design choices such as these keep the player moving from one checkpoint to the next, all while ensuring that traveling through each zone never feels especially viscous. You feel fast. There’s not really a better way to put it. There’s even this mechanic that is present when the player has sustained movement in a direction for a long enough period of time called “Boost Mode”. As its name implies, this allows the player character to move literally so fast they leave after-images. It’s cool as hell. Holding right implies you will eventually go fast. And going fast in a Sonic game is fun. If we believe in the commutative logic of these two statements, then holding right is fun.
Sonic Advance 1 is too slow. It valiantly tries to reintroduce a lot of the platforming mechanics and level design present in the original Sonic the Hedgehog, but it simply doesn’t work for me. The game can be unbearably slow at times, and the Gameboy Advance screen does it no favors—good luck trying to figure out where the hell the next jump in Egg Rocket Zone is. Advance 3 tries to combine the aspects of Advance 1 and 2 into a single game, but its level design is arguably worse. Route 99 is a crime against level design with its fast-paced sections leading immediately into devilishly-placed enemies or instant-death crushing blocks, and it's the first zone in the game. And by the time the player gets to Chaos Angel, the game has conditioned them to move very quickly while holding a certain direction, inevitably leading to their demise at the start of the first act with the falling platform section.
Meanwhile, Sonic Advance 2 is consistent with what it's trying to be: a fast-paced platformer with fewer precise platforming sections in favor of fast paced action moments. The only asspull Sonic Advance 2 pulls is that previously referenced spot in Sky Canyon Act 1, but even then the momentum of the required mechanic still keeps the player moving at a breakneck pace. I’m not going to say that otherwise instant-death section of Sky Canyon Act 1 isn’t bullshit, it absolutely is. And to be honest, Sky Canyon Act 1 is kind of a bullshit level all around. My favorite bullshit level, but still awful all the same. It’s got this whole, “clouds covering the bottom of the screen so you can’t see the platform or know exactly what’s beneath you” thing going on, and it’s a real hassle to manage when you’re ascending the bounding platform tower section at the end of Act 2. And the boss has like two different attacks that instantly kill you if you get slapped. Which, to me, is incredibly obnoxious. But honestly, to me it’s easily the most memorable zone in this game for these reasons. That little section of learning the trick mechanic, or knowing that I can chain bounce off these platforms in a certain way to keep my momentum with these fans, or how I have to not in fact jump at the upside down section every single time lest I die. Again. Even then, Sky Canyon is one of those incredibly memorable levels because of how cool it is to beat while going quickly. I’d even argue that the fun in Sky Canyon comes from the satisfaction of clearing the zone at a breakneck pace, thanks to the reflective, speed-welcoming, level design.
That’s the thing about Sonic Advance 2 overall, despite its simplicity in mechanics and player interaction, it’s ultimately very fun. It’s fun to blast through Hot Crater and get 100 rings in under a minute simply by following the inherent path laid out by the designers. It’s fun to zoom up and down the seizure-inducing slopes of Techno Base. It’s fun to let the gravity mechanics of Egg Utopia carry the player from one platform to the next. The only true portion of the game that isn’t “fun” in my eyes is some of the musical instrument obstacles that slow down the gameplay in Music Plant, and the ridiculously anti-concept Final Boss though the latter is a conversation for another time. Simple mechanics can be fun if the level design flows well around said mechanics, and I believe this fact applies to approximately 90% of Sonic Advance 2.
I asked some people in a game dev server I’m in about this balance of oversimple controls and gameplay vs. player enjoyment, and I got some interesting responses with one that I really found compelling.
“[Games] are mainly about having fun and entertaining the player. As long as that is fulfilled, I don't think it matters how simple it is.” - ForlornAlex
Complicated platforming mechanics can be an absolutely lovely time when the player eventually figures them out. I think of these mechanically-rich action platforming games that are “hard but fair” like Celeste and Metroid Dread. They don’t expect the player to know the complicated movements they theoretically have access to from the very start of the game. With Celeste in particular, there are plenty of movements like ultras, wavedashes, and even demo dashes that are clearly doable by a knowledgeable player at the very start of the game, without the game teaching them. These fast-paced movements are also incredibly fun to execute, but in contrast to Advance 2, require extensive practice. While pulling off a “reverse extended hyper” can be incredibly satisfying, for some, the grind to master this movement is decidedly not fun. In comparison, Advance 2’s most difficult mechanic for new players to grasp is the “Trick” movement, which simply involves pressing the right shoulder button “R” and a direction on the D-pad.
This simplicity, of course, raises a new question: “Is there any challenge in this game that isn’t a totally unfair surprise?”. Truthfully, the answer to me is no. At least, not in the levels themselves most of the time. The final zones of the game, Techno Base and Egg Utopia, do feature parts that involve quick reactions in order to ensure that when the player is moving quickly to the right, they’re not also moving quickly downwards towards their death. But even then, these sections are pretty well-telegraphed by the game with Techno Base featuring cyan hexagons and Egg Utopia having a space background to signify when the player is above bottomless pits. The true challenge comes in some of the later bosses, mainly Egg-Go-Round, and its terrible RNG-based attacks. Ironically, my disdain for this boss comes from its difficulty which hilariously stems from knowing when NOT to hold right.
So yes, you really only need to hold right to beat Sonic Advance 2. But is that a bad thing? The game is still very fun despite the mechanical simplicity. Advance 2 is not necessarily a hard game, but it isn’t really trying to be either. Rather, it is trying to be a game where the player can recklessly abandon any speed limits and rollercoaster through a series of incredibly appropriately designed levels. They do go by quickly, yes, but they happen to be memorable excursions that have their own identities throughout the franchise. Advance 2 is simple enough to pick up and play through in a short burst while still being very fun to play, and to quote a man who knows a lot about video games, “If it isn’t fun, why bother?”
Rating: [85]
Sonic Advance 2 is a game where you hold right to win the game. You occasionally do other things like press the A button or have the game expect you to know some bullshit-ly niche "trick" mechanic out of nowhere in the fifth zone, but even then you’re still more or less holding right all the while. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this—in fact, it’s encouraged by each level’s design. Notably, every single level in Sonic Advance 2 goes by quickly simply by holding right as the game leads the player down a very fun and direct path. From an outside perspective, this previous sentence probably sounds like the dumbest sentence ever written. “Of course you beat the level by holding right. It’s a goddamn two-dimensional platforming game about going fast for crying out loud. If you were to go slow, then what the hell would be the point?” But think about it: when have you ever gone to the left LEFT in a 2D for a majority of the stage in a Sonic game? In a not very fun, Marble Zone Act 2, that’s when.
So yes, you really only need to hold right to beat Sonic Advance 2. But isn’t that inherently what you’re doing in every Sonic game anyway? And if the game is going to give you speed, it needs to make sure that the speed feels good and doesn’t stop abruptly, which Sonic Advance 2 rarely ever does. Playing as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Cream, or even the secret character Amy, the player is whipped through a rollercoaster of zones with each stage introducing something new to keep them going quickly. Leaf Forest uses gigantic loop-de-loops, Music Plant has giant sets of parallel piano keys, and Sky Canyon is littered with various fans and windmills. Course design choices such as these keep the player moving from one checkpoint to the next, all while ensuring that traveling through each zone never feels especially viscous. You feel fast. There’s not really a better way to put it. There’s even this mechanic that is present when the player has sustained movement in a direction for a long enough period of time called “Boost Mode”. As its name implies, this allows the player character to move literally so fast they leave after-images. It’s cool as hell. Holding right implies you will eventually go fast. And going fast in a Sonic game is fun. If we believe in the commutative logic of these two statements, then holding right is fun.
Sonic Advance 1 is too slow. It valiantly tries to reintroduce a lot of the platforming mechanics and level design present in the original Sonic the Hedgehog, but it simply doesn’t work for me. The game can be unbearably slow at times, and the Gameboy Advance screen does it no favors—good luck trying to figure out where the hell the next jump in Egg Rocket Zone is. Advance 3 tries to combine the aspects of Advance 1 and 2 into a single game, but its level design is arguably worse. Route 99 is a crime against level design with its fast-paced sections leading immediately into devilishly-placed enemies or instant-death crushing blocks, and it's the first zone in the game. And by the time the player gets to Chaos Angel, the game has conditioned them to move very quickly while holding a certain direction, inevitably leading to their demise at the start of the first act with the falling platform section.
Meanwhile, Sonic Advance 2 is consistent with what it's trying to be: a fast-paced platformer with fewer precise platforming sections in favor of fast paced action moments. The only asspull Sonic Advance 2 pulls is that previously referenced spot in Sky Canyon Act 1, but even then the momentum of the required mechanic still keeps the player moving at a breakneck pace. I’m not going to say that otherwise instant-death section of Sky Canyon Act 1 isn’t bullshit, it absolutely is. And to be honest, Sky Canyon Act 1 is kind of a bullshit level all around. My favorite bullshit level, but still awful all the same. It’s got this whole, “clouds covering the bottom of the screen so you can’t see the platform or know exactly what’s beneath you” thing going on, and it’s a real hassle to manage when you’re ascending the bounding platform tower section at the end of Act 2. And the boss has like two different attacks that instantly kill you if you get slapped. Which, to me, is incredibly obnoxious. But honestly, to me it’s easily the most memorable zone in this game for these reasons. That little section of learning the trick mechanic, or knowing that I can chain bounce off these platforms in a certain way to keep my momentum with these fans, or how I have to not in fact jump at the upside down section every single time lest I die. Again. Even then, Sky Canyon is one of those incredibly memorable levels because of how cool it is to beat while going quickly. I’d even argue that the fun in Sky Canyon comes from the satisfaction of clearing the zone at a breakneck pace, thanks to the reflective, speed-welcoming, level design.
That’s the thing about Sonic Advance 2 overall, despite its simplicity in mechanics and player interaction, it’s ultimately very fun. It’s fun to blast through Hot Crater and get 100 rings in under a minute simply by following the inherent path laid out by the designers. It’s fun to zoom up and down the seizure-inducing slopes of Techno Base. It’s fun to let the gravity mechanics of Egg Utopia carry the player from one platform to the next. The only true portion of the game that isn’t “fun” in my eyes is some of the musical instrument obstacles that slow down the gameplay in Music Plant, and the ridiculously anti-concept Final Boss though the latter is a conversation for another time. Simple mechanics can be fun if the level design flows well around said mechanics, and I believe this fact applies to approximately 90% of Sonic Advance 2.
I asked some people in a game dev server I’m in about this balance of oversimple controls and gameplay vs. player enjoyment, and I got some interesting responses with one that I really found compelling.
“[Games] are mainly about having fun and entertaining the player. As long as that is fulfilled, I don't think it matters how simple it is.” - ForlornAlex
Complicated platforming mechanics can be an absolutely lovely time when the player eventually figures them out. I think of these mechanically-rich action platforming games that are “hard but fair” like Celeste and Metroid Dread. They don’t expect the player to know the complicated movements they theoretically have access to from the very start of the game. With Celeste in particular, there are plenty of movements like ultras, wavedashes, and even demo dashes that are clearly doable by a knowledgeable player at the very start of the game, without the game teaching them. These fast-paced movements are also incredibly fun to execute, but in contrast to Advance 2, require extensive practice. While pulling off a “reverse extended hyper” can be incredibly satisfying, for some, the grind to master this movement is decidedly not fun. In comparison, Advance 2’s most difficult mechanic for new players to grasp is the “Trick” movement, which simply involves pressing the right shoulder button “R” and a direction on the D-pad.
This simplicity, of course, raises a new question: “Is there any challenge in this game that isn’t a totally unfair surprise?”. Truthfully, the answer to me is no. At least, not in the levels themselves most of the time. The final zones of the game, Techno Base and Egg Utopia, do feature parts that involve quick reactions in order to ensure that when the player is moving quickly to the right, they’re not also moving quickly downwards towards their death. But even then, these sections are pretty well-telegraphed by the game with Techno Base featuring cyan hexagons and Egg Utopia having a space background to signify when the player is above bottomless pits. The true challenge comes in some of the later bosses, mainly Egg-Go-Round, and its terrible RNG-based attacks. Ironically, my disdain for this boss comes from its difficulty which hilariously stems from knowing when NOT to hold right.
So yes, you really only need to hold right to beat Sonic Advance 2. But is that a bad thing? The game is still very fun despite the mechanical simplicity. Advance 2 is not necessarily a hard game, but it isn’t really trying to be either. Rather, it is trying to be a game where the player can recklessly abandon any speed limits and rollercoaster through a series of incredibly appropriately designed levels. They do go by quickly, yes, but they happen to be memorable excursions that have their own identities throughout the franchise. Advance 2 is simple enough to pick up and play through in a short burst while still being very fun to play, and to quote a man who knows a lot about video games, “If it isn’t fun, why bother?”
Rating: [85]
2017
[The Sun Sets, the Ultra Sun Rises]
It's hard to consider a review of Pokemon Ultra Sun without immediately thinking about to Pokemon Sun which had released only 364 days prior. If you ask the average Pokemon fan the different between this game, Pokemon Ultra Sun, and the vanilla version of Pokemon Sun, odds are they'll probably say "Uhhh there's Necrozma, right, and there's an Ultra in the title?" If you go one step further down the fandom hole, the above-average fan might respond, "They made the gameplay better, but absolutely butchered the story that Sun and Moon set up." And they're right, of course.
The worst thing (and also the best thing) I can say about Pokemon Ultra Sun is that it's a lot like Pokemon Sun. The game is still as consistent from a performance perspective, Alola is only slightly more interesting with its locales in the main story (Ultra Space being something that you only unlock in the post-game), the Pokemon selection is nearly identical, and there are only some minor additions to the plot which somehow make this game's story actually worse than Pokemon Sun. But beyond the story, what Ultra Sun brings to the table from a gamplay perspective is what might make a curious party play this game after having originally played Sun just a little while ago. If you like Mantine surfing as an idea, then sure, go for it, it's a fun little distraction. If you want a watered down Battle Factory mode (randbats rogue-like style) then alright, bring it on I guess. If you felt like the lack of gyms in Pokemon Sun was an issue or perhaps the fact that there weren't any obvious call backs to everyone's favorite region, well you're in luck, Lt. Surge's gym is just recreated for some reason.
In terms of the main game, the only net positive I can think of that separates Ultra Sun from Sun is the genuinely difficult fight with Ultra Necrozma. I personally don't care how one plays their games, especially on their first playthrough of a game (like, for example running a Nuzlocke ) but I can wholeheartedly say that Ultra Necrozma is a genuinely hard encounter, even without any arbitrary additional rules. the fact that they were willing to make this fight a genuine challenge really makes me appreciate this singular addition, and I wish that the original games, Sun and Moon, were willing to take more chances like the encounter with Ultra Necrozma. Also, as an aside, I am a nuclear engineering Ph.D. student studying radiation detection and let me be the first to tell you that Ultra Necrozma (and Necrozma to a lesser extent) is a horrifying Pokemon and those Ultra Recon folks better be wearing suits made of water, and some super duper high Z material. I am telling you right now that your player really shouldn't be alive after engaging with Ultra Necrozma's use of moves like Photon Geyser and, perhaps the hardest move of them all both in name and energy, LIGHT THAT BURNS THE SKY. Both human and Pokemon would likely experience countless double DNA strand breaks in their cells which would incite almost immediate cell death, which would methodically kill all creatures within, I dunno, a couple very painful days? It's not lost on me that Steel type Pokemon resist these moves though (for more scholarly information, read Shultis and Faw's Radiation Shielding and Radiological Protection).
In truth, Pokemon Ultra Sun is at its best when its at its weirdest. Beyond the encounters with Necrozma and company, I found the fact that Ultra Beasts were a much more important part of the story to be much more interesting. it's clear that for a while now, the Pokemon Company has longest to break from the shackles of a traditionally game and do something really weird, and I admire their attempts to shake it up, not once, but twice in Alola. I just wish that they had only tried to shake up the franchise once, just with the magnitude of both of these games in a single package.
I struggle to have a good strong opinion on which game, between sun and Ultra Sun is the "definitive version" of the game. Unlike Pokemon Emerald or Pokemon Platinum which are still the definiteive ways to play through the Hoenn and Sinnoh regions in my opinion (remakes be damned), Pokemon Ultra sun is a bit of a different (ultra) beast. In truth, if you played Pokemon Sun, and didn't really care for it, odds are you won't find Ultra Sun any more entertaining, perhaps even less so, compared to with the aforementioned third versions which are just genuinely better games than their initial duologies. If you wanted more out of the gameplay in Pokemon Sun, and you're willing to commit another 20ish hours to this game's hand-holding, then be my guest, play through alola in a new way rather than just buying a copy of Moon. But if you weren't impressed and enamored by Pokemon Sun and the journey through Alola, it's really hard to convincingly tell you that ultra Sun is a better, more worthwhile experience. as someone who considered Pokemon Sun "fine", I came away from Pokemon Ultra Sun convinced that I didn't need to play through any more Alola games for an entire decade. They're fine Pokemon games, never mind the fact that they're what a lot of people were expecting when they heard "3D Pokemon game" back in 2013, but when you release in the same year as Breath of the Wild, AND LITERALLY ONE DAY LESS THAN A YEAR AFTER THE ORIGINAL GAME, it's really hard to be satisfied with these games. I wish Sun and Ultra Sun had been one singular game. I wish the Pokemon company had given the dev team a more meaningful production schedule, and I wish that Ultra Sun was a more meaningful experience.
So here's my unenthused review of Pokemon Sun: yeah, it's alright, could be better, but it could be a lot worse too.
haha did you catch that? I just said what I said about Sun and not Ultra Sun! And you probably didn't notice, I bet you feel real dumb right now. And that, folks, is the Pokemon Ultra Sun experience.
Play it on Citra
Rating: [75]
It's hard to consider a review of Pokemon Ultra Sun without immediately thinking about to Pokemon Sun which had released only 364 days prior. If you ask the average Pokemon fan the different between this game, Pokemon Ultra Sun, and the vanilla version of Pokemon Sun, odds are they'll probably say "Uhhh there's Necrozma, right, and there's an Ultra in the title?" If you go one step further down the fandom hole, the above-average fan might respond, "They made the gameplay better, but absolutely butchered the story that Sun and Moon set up." And they're right, of course.
The worst thing (and also the best thing) I can say about Pokemon Ultra Sun is that it's a lot like Pokemon Sun. The game is still as consistent from a performance perspective, Alola is only slightly more interesting with its locales in the main story (Ultra Space being something that you only unlock in the post-game), the Pokemon selection is nearly identical, and there are only some minor additions to the plot which somehow make this game's story actually worse than Pokemon Sun. But beyond the story, what Ultra Sun brings to the table from a gamplay perspective is what might make a curious party play this game after having originally played Sun just a little while ago. If you like Mantine surfing as an idea, then sure, go for it, it's a fun little distraction. If you want a watered down Battle Factory mode (randbats rogue-like style) then alright, bring it on I guess. If you felt like the lack of gyms in Pokemon Sun was an issue or perhaps the fact that there weren't any obvious call backs to everyone's favorite region, well you're in luck, Lt. Surge's gym is just recreated for some reason.
In terms of the main game, the only net positive I can think of that separates Ultra Sun from Sun is the genuinely difficult fight with Ultra Necrozma. I personally don't care how one plays their games, especially on their first playthrough of a game (like, for example running a Nuzlocke ) but I can wholeheartedly say that Ultra Necrozma is a genuinely hard encounter, even without any arbitrary additional rules. the fact that they were willing to make this fight a genuine challenge really makes me appreciate this singular addition, and I wish that the original games, Sun and Moon, were willing to take more chances like the encounter with Ultra Necrozma. Also, as an aside, I am a nuclear engineering Ph.D. student studying radiation detection and let me be the first to tell you that Ultra Necrozma (and Necrozma to a lesser extent) is a horrifying Pokemon and those Ultra Recon folks better be wearing suits made of water, and some super duper high Z material. I am telling you right now that your player really shouldn't be alive after engaging with Ultra Necrozma's use of moves like Photon Geyser and, perhaps the hardest move of them all both in name and energy, LIGHT THAT BURNS THE SKY. Both human and Pokemon would likely experience countless double DNA strand breaks in their cells which would incite almost immediate cell death, which would methodically kill all creatures within, I dunno, a couple very painful days? It's not lost on me that Steel type Pokemon resist these moves though (for more scholarly information, read Shultis and Faw's Radiation Shielding and Radiological Protection).
In truth, Pokemon Ultra Sun is at its best when its at its weirdest. Beyond the encounters with Necrozma and company, I found the fact that Ultra Beasts were a much more important part of the story to be much more interesting. it's clear that for a while now, the Pokemon Company has longest to break from the shackles of a traditionally game and do something really weird, and I admire their attempts to shake it up, not once, but twice in Alola. I just wish that they had only tried to shake up the franchise once, just with the magnitude of both of these games in a single package.
I struggle to have a good strong opinion on which game, between sun and Ultra Sun is the "definitive version" of the game. Unlike Pokemon Emerald or Pokemon Platinum which are still the definiteive ways to play through the Hoenn and Sinnoh regions in my opinion (remakes be damned), Pokemon Ultra sun is a bit of a different (ultra) beast. In truth, if you played Pokemon Sun, and didn't really care for it, odds are you won't find Ultra Sun any more entertaining, perhaps even less so, compared to with the aforementioned third versions which are just genuinely better games than their initial duologies. If you wanted more out of the gameplay in Pokemon Sun, and you're willing to commit another 20ish hours to this game's hand-holding, then be my guest, play through alola in a new way rather than just buying a copy of Moon. But if you weren't impressed and enamored by Pokemon Sun and the journey through Alola, it's really hard to convincingly tell you that ultra Sun is a better, more worthwhile experience. as someone who considered Pokemon Sun "fine", I came away from Pokemon Ultra Sun convinced that I didn't need to play through any more Alola games for an entire decade. They're fine Pokemon games, never mind the fact that they're what a lot of people were expecting when they heard "3D Pokemon game" back in 2013, but when you release in the same year as Breath of the Wild, AND LITERALLY ONE DAY LESS THAN A YEAR AFTER THE ORIGINAL GAME, it's really hard to be satisfied with these games. I wish Sun and Ultra Sun had been one singular game. I wish the Pokemon company had given the dev team a more meaningful production schedule, and I wish that Ultra Sun was a more meaningful experience.
So here's my unenthused review of Pokemon Sun: yeah, it's alright, could be better, but it could be a lot worse too.
haha did you catch that? I just said what I said about Sun and not Ultra Sun! And you probably didn't notice, I bet you feel real dumb right now. And that, folks, is the Pokemon Ultra Sun experience.
Play it on Citra
Rating: [75]