2012
"You need to replay Max Payne 3" gotta be in my top ten intrusive thoughts I've acted on, right up there with "fill your whole entire fridge with cans of NOS."
Unlike my fridge full of NOS, the compulsion to revisit this game wasn't as sudden as waking in the middle of the night, drenched in a cold sweat and driven by chemical dependency, though I suppose the fact we both nurse our problems rather than confront them does make Max somewhat relatable (well, that and the baldness.) Rather, Max Payne 3 has ended up in front of my face several times over the past few weeks by pure happenstance, with the untimely passing of James McCaffrey acting as the catalyst to sit down and start it up for the first time since 2012.
McCaffrey's performance is of course outstanding, effortlessly selling you on an older, even more broken version of Max from the second he sets foot in his clean new apartment. Monologuing about the need to move on and start fresh with a few cracks at the expense of his weight and the poor choices that have led him to Brazil. The scene devolves pretty quickly as Max sets aside unpacking and decorating for drinking, stumbling, and self-pity.
The strobing effects, neon after-images, and punctuation of key words and phrases cutting through the cacophony of visual noise places the player right into the middle of Max's delirium, and while I'm sure some people were upset that Rockstar pushed away from the film noir design of the previous games, I am 100% into this sort of Man on Fire "tape roll" editing style, and I think it's used to great effect, keeping the player spinning in Max's fucked up headspace.
Despite how fundamentally broken Max is as a person, there was some real risk in inadvertently casting him as the "white savior," but I think this trope is pretty effectively subverted. Max is notoriously bad at saving anybody, and in fact makes most situations substantially worse by simply being there, drunk on the job and armed to the teeth. He is unwilling or perhaps unable (again, due to his inebriation) to understand any language that's not New Jersey English, frequently resulting in misunderstandings and botched attempts at negotiations, resulting in the loss of human life. I don't see how Max hopes to save anyone when he intentionally blows up an organ farming operation without making sure anyone got out, or by shooting up an entire airport, later revealed to be avoidable had he simply taken a ride offered to him to go directly to the bad guy's private hanger. As he puts it, "I'm a dumb move kind of guy." Sure, he gets the bad guy in the end, but when the game is popping accolades for killing 1000 enemies, you have to wonder if the math shakes out.
The shootout in the favela, which occurs about halfway through the game, feels heavily borrowed from Elite Squad. There are a couple notable moments during this sequence that are lifted from the movie, but one thing Max Payne 3 lacks over Elite Squad is that element of humanization, particularly for those in the favela. There's plenty of lip paid to the class divide and the animosity the rich have for the poor, and vice versa, but the fast pace of the story and action doesn't really provide time to peel back those layers and examine them. That's not what Max Payne 3 is about, it's more action than drama, and to do so would also mean providing subtitles and having Max not go "huh, what?" and immediately shoot dodge into a wall, so Rockstar probably made the right call there, too.
On the more mechanical end of things, Max Payne 3 carries over enough systems from the previous two games to feel authentic to the Max Payne experience and is otherwise just a very refined third person cover-shooter. A bit punishing, but in a way that feels satisfying. The action never dries out, and there's some really great set pieces, especially during the climax in the airport, which includes one of my favorite needle drops in games. At this point it feels trite to say a game feels like playing a movie, but Max Payne 3's action is paced in this very specific way that makes it feel like possibly the best translation of an action movie into interactive media I've come across.
Remedy has announced remakes of the first two Max Payne games, and I've been told there's plenty of allusions to the character in Alan Wake 2, potentially setting up something more. I haven't played that game and my friends have been careful to avoid spoilers until I do, so I really only know the vague points, like Sam Lake's character being voiced by McCaffrey. I'm curious where they go from here, though at the same time I don't want to speculate, as it feels a bit too callous to do so in the wake of McCaffrey's passing. Perhaps the best answer is to not do anything at all. Max Payne 3 is an excellent final chapter to Max's story and maybe my favorite entry in the series.
Unlike my fridge full of NOS, the compulsion to revisit this game wasn't as sudden as waking in the middle of the night, drenched in a cold sweat and driven by chemical dependency, though I suppose the fact we both nurse our problems rather than confront them does make Max somewhat relatable (well, that and the baldness.) Rather, Max Payne 3 has ended up in front of my face several times over the past few weeks by pure happenstance, with the untimely passing of James McCaffrey acting as the catalyst to sit down and start it up for the first time since 2012.
McCaffrey's performance is of course outstanding, effortlessly selling you on an older, even more broken version of Max from the second he sets foot in his clean new apartment. Monologuing about the need to move on and start fresh with a few cracks at the expense of his weight and the poor choices that have led him to Brazil. The scene devolves pretty quickly as Max sets aside unpacking and decorating for drinking, stumbling, and self-pity.
The strobing effects, neon after-images, and punctuation of key words and phrases cutting through the cacophony of visual noise places the player right into the middle of Max's delirium, and while I'm sure some people were upset that Rockstar pushed away from the film noir design of the previous games, I am 100% into this sort of Man on Fire "tape roll" editing style, and I think it's used to great effect, keeping the player spinning in Max's fucked up headspace.
Despite how fundamentally broken Max is as a person, there was some real risk in inadvertently casting him as the "white savior," but I think this trope is pretty effectively subverted. Max is notoriously bad at saving anybody, and in fact makes most situations substantially worse by simply being there, drunk on the job and armed to the teeth. He is unwilling or perhaps unable (again, due to his inebriation) to understand any language that's not New Jersey English, frequently resulting in misunderstandings and botched attempts at negotiations, resulting in the loss of human life. I don't see how Max hopes to save anyone when he intentionally blows up an organ farming operation without making sure anyone got out, or by shooting up an entire airport, later revealed to be avoidable had he simply taken a ride offered to him to go directly to the bad guy's private hanger. As he puts it, "I'm a dumb move kind of guy." Sure, he gets the bad guy in the end, but when the game is popping accolades for killing 1000 enemies, you have to wonder if the math shakes out.
The shootout in the favela, which occurs about halfway through the game, feels heavily borrowed from Elite Squad. There are a couple notable moments during this sequence that are lifted from the movie, but one thing Max Payne 3 lacks over Elite Squad is that element of humanization, particularly for those in the favela. There's plenty of lip paid to the class divide and the animosity the rich have for the poor, and vice versa, but the fast pace of the story and action doesn't really provide time to peel back those layers and examine them. That's not what Max Payne 3 is about, it's more action than drama, and to do so would also mean providing subtitles and having Max not go "huh, what?" and immediately shoot dodge into a wall, so Rockstar probably made the right call there, too.
On the more mechanical end of things, Max Payne 3 carries over enough systems from the previous two games to feel authentic to the Max Payne experience and is otherwise just a very refined third person cover-shooter. A bit punishing, but in a way that feels satisfying. The action never dries out, and there's some really great set pieces, especially during the climax in the airport, which includes one of my favorite needle drops in games. At this point it feels trite to say a game feels like playing a movie, but Max Payne 3's action is paced in this very specific way that makes it feel like possibly the best translation of an action movie into interactive media I've come across.
Remedy has announced remakes of the first two Max Payne games, and I've been told there's plenty of allusions to the character in Alan Wake 2, potentially setting up something more. I haven't played that game and my friends have been careful to avoid spoilers until I do, so I really only know the vague points, like Sam Lake's character being voiced by McCaffrey. I'm curious where they go from here, though at the same time I don't want to speculate, as it feels a bit too callous to do so in the wake of McCaffrey's passing. Perhaps the best answer is to not do anything at all. Max Payne 3 is an excellent final chapter to Max's story and maybe my favorite entry in the series.
1996
I'm not sure who decided to make a game that uses tank controls but requires a ton of precision jumping, but I am calling for their immediate arrest and the seizure of all their assets.
Tomb Raider is another one of those games I was acutely aware of back when it was relevant, but never had the chance to actually play. That's fine, I didn't miss out on much. In fact, the marketing storm around Tomb Raider (and more specifically its lead character) is probably more culturally significant than the game itself. It was the first time people were openly thirsty for a video game character, it was embarrassing and it was everywhere.
The game itself just does not hold up at all, though. I've defended tank controls in the past, I have no inherent issue with them, but there's absolutely a right and wrong way to implement them and Tomb Raider is the kind of game that would have benefitted tremendously from more fluid movement. A lot of your time actually raiding tombs is going to be spent climbing up objects and jumping across chasms, but Lara controls so stiffly that you'll more likely fling her into a pit, pop her ankles like balloons, and lose a bunch of progress. There are 2D platforming games with rigid controls and weighty characters and I've defended those too, but something about translating that into a 3D space is where I draw the line.
Atmosphere is the one area where Tomb Raider really excels. Damp dark caves, subterranean rivers, and of course ominous ancient tombs... The game feels wonderfully isolating, eerie, and mysterious, especially for a Playstation 1 game. Just don't interact with any part of it if you want to remain immersed in the experience. This network of waterways sure is spooky, but now I gotta fuck with the water level and I don't want to be here anymore. I'd rather be outside, or doing my taxes, or hiding underneath a pile of dirty clothes in my closet where nobody can hear me cry.
This was part of my 250 Game Retro Bucket List (it's a clumsy name, I know.) I originally planned to play the first three games in the series, but as soon as I started up Tomb Raider II and realized it was just more of the same, I decided to scrub them off the list and replaced them with both 3D Gex titles.
Addendum 2/27/24: I understand Tomb Raider was probably the first difficult game a bunch of people beat as a kid and is thus unimpeachable, but I'm kinda just tired of going in circles relitigating my opinions on this thing for its ardent defenders. I think it sucks. You know what doesn't suck? Oddworld! Now there's a good mid-90s cinematic platformer. Oh man, I wonder what Lorne Lanning is up to now, let me just fire up the old PC and take a--WHAT!? SOULSTORM SOLD BAD!? LORNE FOUND DEAD IN A DITCH!!? OH NO!
Tomb Raider is another one of those games I was acutely aware of back when it was relevant, but never had the chance to actually play. That's fine, I didn't miss out on much. In fact, the marketing storm around Tomb Raider (and more specifically its lead character) is probably more culturally significant than the game itself. It was the first time people were openly thirsty for a video game character, it was embarrassing and it was everywhere.
The game itself just does not hold up at all, though. I've defended tank controls in the past, I have no inherent issue with them, but there's absolutely a right and wrong way to implement them and Tomb Raider is the kind of game that would have benefitted tremendously from more fluid movement. A lot of your time actually raiding tombs is going to be spent climbing up objects and jumping across chasms, but Lara controls so stiffly that you'll more likely fling her into a pit, pop her ankles like balloons, and lose a bunch of progress. There are 2D platforming games with rigid controls and weighty characters and I've defended those too, but something about translating that into a 3D space is where I draw the line.
Atmosphere is the one area where Tomb Raider really excels. Damp dark caves, subterranean rivers, and of course ominous ancient tombs... The game feels wonderfully isolating, eerie, and mysterious, especially for a Playstation 1 game. Just don't interact with any part of it if you want to remain immersed in the experience. This network of waterways sure is spooky, but now I gotta fuck with the water level and I don't want to be here anymore. I'd rather be outside, or doing my taxes, or hiding underneath a pile of dirty clothes in my closet where nobody can hear me cry.
This was part of my 250 Game Retro Bucket List (it's a clumsy name, I know.) I originally planned to play the first three games in the series, but as soon as I started up Tomb Raider II and realized it was just more of the same, I decided to scrub them off the list and replaced them with both 3D Gex titles.
Addendum 2/27/24: I understand Tomb Raider was probably the first difficult game a bunch of people beat as a kid and is thus unimpeachable, but I'm kinda just tired of going in circles relitigating my opinions on this thing for its ardent defenders. I think it sucks. You know what doesn't suck? Oddworld! Now there's a good mid-90s cinematic platformer. Oh man, I wonder what Lorne Lanning is up to now, let me just fire up the old PC and take a--WHAT!? SOULSTORM SOLD BAD!? LORNE FOUND DEAD IN A DITCH!!? OH NO!
Batman has always been my superhero of choice. I'm pretty sure my mom still has pictures of me absorbing the 1960's show six inches from the damn screen, my eyes like thin sheets separating the Batusi from my brain. This hyper-fixation on Adam West's rippling physique resulted in me developing a very narrow taste in superheroes. Burt Ward's dog food is the only brand I'll feed my pup, that show still has me all fucked up!
One of the few Marvel heroes to break through and leave some sort of impression on me is Spider-Man, which is great because nobody seems interested in making good Batman games anymore. Rocksteady has been engaging in self-sabotage for almost a decade, but at least I can count on Insomniac to put out a good game, even if it maybe trends a bit too close to the previous Spider-Man and it's (better) expansion, Miles Morales. I wasn't on Backloggd dot com when I played them, so I never had a chance to share my thoughts. In short: they're both very good, quite possibly the best Spider-Man games to have been released up to that point.
The first 60% of Spider-Man 2 plays it incredibly safe. It's more of the same, albeit with fewer gadgets and less superfluous challenges scattered throughout New York. Although you now have two Spider-Men you can freely swap between - assuming this doesn't crash the game, which happened to me frequently - Spider-Man 2 feels much more focused than the previous entry. I think Insomniac learned a lot of good lessons from Miles Morales, which similarly trimmed a lot of fat and was far better paced and more manageable for it. There's also a whole lot less time spent paling around with the cops. In fact, they're practically non-existent now, unless you count the ghost of Jefferson Davis haunting the halls of his son's mind.
Things really pick up in the later half, however. The Symbiote suit comes with several new powers for Peter which helps refresh his gameplay, and the story picks up and veers into some very goofy territory that results in some really fun set pieces and battles. My only complaint here is that Venom spends a little too much time as a slobbering rage monster and that Tony Todd is severely under-utilized. Also, you know, heavily basing everything off existing stories and then not crediting those authors is kind of a dirty move. Sorry Donny Cates, all your ideas have been syphoned out of your head and are no longer yours... Just like Riddler's Box from the hit movie Batman Forever! Ohh... Batman...
Traversal is also as good as it's ever been, and I think this was already a strong point of the first game. The inclusion of a wingsuit initially feels as though it might trivialize navigation, but once you understand how it can be used to build or maintain momentum, you can chain it into swings and start doing some really crazy acrobatics. It's also useful for bridging the river that separates the two islands or maneuvering over open spaces like the park and suburbs of Queens, which means no more awkwardly swinging through trees. Everything just feels a lot more fluid.
Side content is more of a mixed bag for me. The Emily-May Foundation quest is dull and is mostly used to support a core plot thread about Peter and Harry's startup. It's a little more believable when Peter is actually helping with the Foundation than simply paying lip to it, but tepid shooting sequences and clunky gene splicing minigames aren't my idea of fun. I am also generally not a fan of the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man missions, most of which I found to be trite in their efforts to tug on your heart strings. The Internet absolutely lost it over Finding Grandpa, but I could not get past Gramps' put-on frail old man voice which sounded about as good as something I'd do as a joke. Perhaps I'm a heartless monster for not getting misty-eyed about it, I ate some of the Burt Ward dog food and it might've done something chemically to my brain.
That said, the mission with Howard's pigeons is a highlight and was actually emotionally moving, and none of the side quests are so abundant or tedious as to be annoying. I was able to platinum this game without it ever feeling inconvenient to do so which is a marked improvement over the first Spider-Man.
Much like the gameplay, the overarching plot of Spider-Man 2 struggles to get going and only really picks up in the second half of the game. Maybe it's because I don't recognize any of these people anymore, but I had a really hard time getting invested in the interpersonal drama of Peter, Harry, and Mary Jane, which the game sinks a considerable amount of time into slowly developing. Some of that is to do with Scott Porter's performance as Harry, which makes the character sound a bit too phoney. He's very chipper, really leans into this "yeah, we're going to save the world! Let's go, team!" attitude that doesn't feel genuine. My friend Larry Davis also pointed out that he looks a lot like Matt Johnson from Nirvana the Band the Show and I can't purge this from my mind, so I need to pass the curse onto all of you. A lot of what Harry's arc is building up to does pay off in the end, but it's hard to unpack all of that without getting into spoilers. Spoiler is a character from Batman, she later becomes Robin and then a corpse.
Mary Jane is at least given more to do, although her atrocious stealth sequences are back, and I don't know who the hell asked for more of them. She's got a stun gun now, but these missions are still so tedious. Just the shallowest take on stealth you could possibly imagine, but even sneaking around as the Spider-Men feels like it has regressed and is nowhere near as enjoyable as it was in the last two games. At least Miles can turn invisible, which speeds things up, and I don't think any of these sections have automatic fail states if you're caught, so nothing's stopping you from getting into a brawl.
Speaking of Miles, I think I prefer his side of the story and find him a far more interesting character than Peter. This has been the case for me since Miles Morales, and I really liked seeing how his character, relationships, and powers evolved in this game. His struggle for revenge against Martin Li threatens to pull him into places just as dark as where Peter goes when dressed in the Symbiote, and this pent-up aggression is explored in more compelling ways. I also think Insomniac has done a better job of embodying what it means to be a "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" in MIles, whereas Peter is a bit more absorbed in his own world. The story does play with the idea of Peter possibly passing the torch onto Miles, and if the third game embraces that more fully by making him the lead, that'd be alright by me.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 might be the best in the series, if only marginally so, but it has left me excited to see where Insomniac goes with the third and presumably final entry. Even if it ends up just being more of the same, that still means we'd be getting a great game. Or they could fuck it all up, give Spider-Man the Spider-Mobile and force you into a ton of shitty tank battles with it under Green Goblin's city-wide fart cloud.
One of the few Marvel heroes to break through and leave some sort of impression on me is Spider-Man, which is great because nobody seems interested in making good Batman games anymore. Rocksteady has been engaging in self-sabotage for almost a decade, but at least I can count on Insomniac to put out a good game, even if it maybe trends a bit too close to the previous Spider-Man and it's (better) expansion, Miles Morales. I wasn't on Backloggd dot com when I played them, so I never had a chance to share my thoughts. In short: they're both very good, quite possibly the best Spider-Man games to have been released up to that point.
The first 60% of Spider-Man 2 plays it incredibly safe. It's more of the same, albeit with fewer gadgets and less superfluous challenges scattered throughout New York. Although you now have two Spider-Men you can freely swap between - assuming this doesn't crash the game, which happened to me frequently - Spider-Man 2 feels much more focused than the previous entry. I think Insomniac learned a lot of good lessons from Miles Morales, which similarly trimmed a lot of fat and was far better paced and more manageable for it. There's also a whole lot less time spent paling around with the cops. In fact, they're practically non-existent now, unless you count the ghost of Jefferson Davis haunting the halls of his son's mind.
Things really pick up in the later half, however. The Symbiote suit comes with several new powers for Peter which helps refresh his gameplay, and the story picks up and veers into some very goofy territory that results in some really fun set pieces and battles. My only complaint here is that Venom spends a little too much time as a slobbering rage monster and that Tony Todd is severely under-utilized. Also, you know, heavily basing everything off existing stories and then not crediting those authors is kind of a dirty move. Sorry Donny Cates, all your ideas have been syphoned out of your head and are no longer yours... Just like Riddler's Box from the hit movie Batman Forever! Ohh... Batman...
Traversal is also as good as it's ever been, and I think this was already a strong point of the first game. The inclusion of a wingsuit initially feels as though it might trivialize navigation, but once you understand how it can be used to build or maintain momentum, you can chain it into swings and start doing some really crazy acrobatics. It's also useful for bridging the river that separates the two islands or maneuvering over open spaces like the park and suburbs of Queens, which means no more awkwardly swinging through trees. Everything just feels a lot more fluid.
Side content is more of a mixed bag for me. The Emily-May Foundation quest is dull and is mostly used to support a core plot thread about Peter and Harry's startup. It's a little more believable when Peter is actually helping with the Foundation than simply paying lip to it, but tepid shooting sequences and clunky gene splicing minigames aren't my idea of fun. I am also generally not a fan of the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man missions, most of which I found to be trite in their efforts to tug on your heart strings. The Internet absolutely lost it over Finding Grandpa, but I could not get past Gramps' put-on frail old man voice which sounded about as good as something I'd do as a joke. Perhaps I'm a heartless monster for not getting misty-eyed about it, I ate some of the Burt Ward dog food and it might've done something chemically to my brain.
That said, the mission with Howard's pigeons is a highlight and was actually emotionally moving, and none of the side quests are so abundant or tedious as to be annoying. I was able to platinum this game without it ever feeling inconvenient to do so which is a marked improvement over the first Spider-Man.
Much like the gameplay, the overarching plot of Spider-Man 2 struggles to get going and only really picks up in the second half of the game. Maybe it's because I don't recognize any of these people anymore, but I had a really hard time getting invested in the interpersonal drama of Peter, Harry, and Mary Jane, which the game sinks a considerable amount of time into slowly developing. Some of that is to do with Scott Porter's performance as Harry, which makes the character sound a bit too phoney. He's very chipper, really leans into this "yeah, we're going to save the world! Let's go, team!" attitude that doesn't feel genuine. My friend Larry Davis also pointed out that he looks a lot like Matt Johnson from Nirvana the Band the Show and I can't purge this from my mind, so I need to pass the curse onto all of you. A lot of what Harry's arc is building up to does pay off in the end, but it's hard to unpack all of that without getting into spoilers. Spoiler is a character from Batman, she later becomes Robin and then a corpse.
Mary Jane is at least given more to do, although her atrocious stealth sequences are back, and I don't know who the hell asked for more of them. She's got a stun gun now, but these missions are still so tedious. Just the shallowest take on stealth you could possibly imagine, but even sneaking around as the Spider-Men feels like it has regressed and is nowhere near as enjoyable as it was in the last two games. At least Miles can turn invisible, which speeds things up, and I don't think any of these sections have automatic fail states if you're caught, so nothing's stopping you from getting into a brawl.
Speaking of Miles, I think I prefer his side of the story and find him a far more interesting character than Peter. This has been the case for me since Miles Morales, and I really liked seeing how his character, relationships, and powers evolved in this game. His struggle for revenge against Martin Li threatens to pull him into places just as dark as where Peter goes when dressed in the Symbiote, and this pent-up aggression is explored in more compelling ways. I also think Insomniac has done a better job of embodying what it means to be a "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" in MIles, whereas Peter is a bit more absorbed in his own world. The story does play with the idea of Peter possibly passing the torch onto Miles, and if the third game embraces that more fully by making him the lead, that'd be alright by me.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 might be the best in the series, if only marginally so, but it has left me excited to see where Insomniac goes with the third and presumably final entry. Even if it ends up just being more of the same, that still means we'd be getting a great game. Or they could fuck it all up, give Spider-Man the Spider-Mobile and force you into a ton of shitty tank battles with it under Green Goblin's city-wide fart cloud.
1998
I don't really have a funny anecdote or some sincere personal history with this game to overshare. I rented it once as a kid and I hated it, then I went most of my whole adult life until a few years ago not really thinking about Banjo-Kazooie at all. When I committed to building a physical N64 collection, I wanted to be thorough. Anything I had played as a kid or that was generally associated with the N64 in particular? Well, I was going to pick that up.
Mostly I think Banjo-Kazooie is mediocre, but I was never enamored with the collect-a-thon genre to begin with. Even during their heyday I was pretty upset that platformers had largely shifted focus from having well designed levels that drove the player forward to sandboxes full of collectables you had to tick off a checklist. But people ate this shit up, and Rare was always ready with another heaping spoonful of slop.
Banjo-Kazooie is at least the least offensive collect-a-thon I've played that doesn't have "Mario" in the title. Rare's unique sense of humor shines through as always, and aesthetically it's not hard to see why people fall for Banjo-Kazooie's charm. It's a pretty good looking game for the N64, and if you hate Grant Kirkhope's excellent soundtrack then I'm afraid I need to check to see if you actually have warm blood running through your veins.
It then almost goes without saying that most of my issues are with the gameplay. This criticism is one that can largely be blown up to encapsulate my issues with the genre as a whole, but I just don't find the structure of these games to be appealing. Running around and initiating dull little minigames to get yet another jiggy isn't my idea of a good time. Having to collect every musical note in one smooth run only highlights some of the design shortcomings of some stages and amplify control and camera issues, and yeah maybe this one is on me trying to get 100% completion knowing full well all it unlocks is an advertisement for a cut feature.
I did really enjoy the gameshow sequence, and while I think there is just a bit too much fat with the amount of things you have to collect, it is comparatively a much more focused game than its sequel.
I am out of things to say about this fucking video game.
Mostly I think Banjo-Kazooie is mediocre, but I was never enamored with the collect-a-thon genre to begin with. Even during their heyday I was pretty upset that platformers had largely shifted focus from having well designed levels that drove the player forward to sandboxes full of collectables you had to tick off a checklist. But people ate this shit up, and Rare was always ready with another heaping spoonful of slop.
Banjo-Kazooie is at least the least offensive collect-a-thon I've played that doesn't have "Mario" in the title. Rare's unique sense of humor shines through as always, and aesthetically it's not hard to see why people fall for Banjo-Kazooie's charm. It's a pretty good looking game for the N64, and if you hate Grant Kirkhope's excellent soundtrack then I'm afraid I need to check to see if you actually have warm blood running through your veins.
It then almost goes without saying that most of my issues are with the gameplay. This criticism is one that can largely be blown up to encapsulate my issues with the genre as a whole, but I just don't find the structure of these games to be appealing. Running around and initiating dull little minigames to get yet another jiggy isn't my idea of a good time. Having to collect every musical note in one smooth run only highlights some of the design shortcomings of some stages and amplify control and camera issues, and yeah maybe this one is on me trying to get 100% completion knowing full well all it unlocks is an advertisement for a cut feature.
I did really enjoy the gameshow sequence, and while I think there is just a bit too much fat with the amount of things you have to collect, it is comparatively a much more focused game than its sequel.
I am out of things to say about this fucking video game.
2017
Sonic has never been a consistent series, but the sixteen years following the death of the Dreamcast and Sega's departure from the console hardware market represents it at its lowest point. Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) nearly killed the franchise where it stood, both episodes of Sonic the Hedgehog 4 failed to live up to its namesake, and Sega couldn't even get a port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog for the GameBoy Advance right. Brief flashes of triumph broke apart dire releases before swiftly returning to the status quo, and games like Colors and Generations seemed almost accidental when followed by the likes of Lost World. At a certain point it became hard not to feel like the series was held captive by a rudderless publisher and a dispassionate developer.
The "Sonic Cycle" became a popular meme during this era both within and outside of the fan community, and constant promises to "go back to what made Sonic special" felt hollow when every subsequent release was decidedly not that. By the time Sonic Boom released, there was genuine debate as to whether or not it was worse than Sonic 2006. It felt like it was time to just pull the damn plug.
Sonic's 25th anniversary party was appropriately disastrous. Audio drops, a delayed start, and constant mechanical whine piercing through the event did not engender much confidence that Sega's upcoming slate of Sonic titles would be anything to get excited over. But seven years removed, the thing I think of when reflecting on the event is the reveal of Sonic Mania. The crowd's reaction to the announcement trailer was infectious. Sure, they may have been diehard fans hopped up on room temperature Totino's Pizza Rolls™, but seeing a proper 2D Sonic game helmed by Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley - well regarded for their contributions to the hacking scene and the excellent mobile remasters of the classic games - felt like this tremendous release of pessimism and anxiety. Finally, a Sonic game worth getting excited about rather than remaining cautiously interested in. oh yeah and Sonic Forces was there, who gives a fuck
A lot of preamble, but necessary context for why people went ape for Knuckles and Tails being playable characters. The oft-touted return to form seemed real now, powered by the Retro Engine, which had previously proved capable of creating a near-perfect simulacrum of Sonic's Genesis era physics and momentum-based speed. Whitehead, Thomley, and PagodaWest were so honed-in on what made the old games work that the Drop Dash, Sonic's new signature move, was indirectly and unknowingly copied from a scrapped mechanic in Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic 3 are the main mechanical inspirations behind Mania, blending Sonic 2's speedy setpieces and knack for pushing the player forward at all times with Sonic 3's large levels, platforming, and rich exploration. This fusion results in the best balance of speed and platforming I've seen in any of the classically styled 2D games, and the way each zone's pathways intersect and split apart never feel like they box you into a single linear route or result in you getting lost. Knuckles once again has his own bespoke routes, some of which are pretty substantive, like a totally different Act 1 for Mirage Saloon and exclusive boss fight at the end of Lava Reef Zone.
My only real complaint is that there's just too much overuse of classic zones. All but four are taken from previous Sonic games, and those that are not directly lifted are referenced in some way, typically by transplanting a gimmick or enemy into another zone, like the spinners from Marble Garden which show up in Mania's Stardust Speedway, or Angel Island Zone's Catakilla Jr. floating around in Chemical Plant. Mania ends up being a remarkably comprehensive celebration of the Genesis games as a result, and while these remixed levels are still a joy to play, the real highlights are the four ground-up zones exclusive to Mania. At least everything looks incredible, the sprite art is brimming with personality and the new coat of paint each of the returning zones are given - especially in the more divergent second acts - makes them feel fresh. TeeLopes incredible soundtrack also features some of the best remixes I've ever heard for these returning levels, but much like the original zones, his new compositions are the real highlight.
According to an April 2017 Famitsu interview, the inclusion of remixed levels came at the behest of Iizuka, though I do not know who is responsible for tying Mania's story in with Sonic Forces. At face value, these creative choices seem like a hindrance, but regardless of any limitations the team faced, they walked away with a game that feels positively energetic and celebratory of a series that no doubt inspired some of them to pursue game development. And, presumably, any follow-up to Mania would feature entirely original zones, right...?
Rumors of bad blood between Mania's former development staff and Sega have been spurred on thanks to the controversy over Denuvo's inclusion in Mania's PC release, and Simon Thomley's negative experience with Sonic Origins. Whitehead has since stated that the Mania team (Evening Star) and Sega are on good terms and that some of their discussions about the direction of the classic series influenced Sonic Superstars. It's easy to take rumors to heart, and I know I certainly have in the past. After all, it's natural for heads to butt on any creative project, and Sega doesn't have the best track record. However, it's more likely Evening Star wanted to make Penny's Big Breakaway and things just didn't work out for sequel. A bummer, as what little of Superstars I've played is certainly lacking Whitehead and Thomley's touch.
Even if proper a Mania 2 never comes to be (like my cynical ass believes it won't) I am still immensely happy with Sonic Mania. It's the Sonic game I wanted for years, and inarguably a capstone entry in the series that is responsible for Sonic's popular resurgence. Well, that and the internet collectively patting themselves on the back for "fixing" what turned out to be a real middle-of-the-road video game adaption by forcing CGI artists back to the office shortly before the liquidation of their studio. In a way, that's perfect. Sonic is back! And he's back because of one fuck-ugly CG model and a single good video game. The duality of Hedgehog.
The "Sonic Cycle" became a popular meme during this era both within and outside of the fan community, and constant promises to "go back to what made Sonic special" felt hollow when every subsequent release was decidedly not that. By the time Sonic Boom released, there was genuine debate as to whether or not it was worse than Sonic 2006. It felt like it was time to just pull the damn plug.
Sonic's 25th anniversary party was appropriately disastrous. Audio drops, a delayed start, and constant mechanical whine piercing through the event did not engender much confidence that Sega's upcoming slate of Sonic titles would be anything to get excited over. But seven years removed, the thing I think of when reflecting on the event is the reveal of Sonic Mania. The crowd's reaction to the announcement trailer was infectious. Sure, they may have been diehard fans hopped up on room temperature Totino's Pizza Rolls™, but seeing a proper 2D Sonic game helmed by Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley - well regarded for their contributions to the hacking scene and the excellent mobile remasters of the classic games - felt like this tremendous release of pessimism and anxiety. Finally, a Sonic game worth getting excited about rather than remaining cautiously interested in. oh yeah and Sonic Forces was there, who gives a fuck
A lot of preamble, but necessary context for why people went ape for Knuckles and Tails being playable characters. The oft-touted return to form seemed real now, powered by the Retro Engine, which had previously proved capable of creating a near-perfect simulacrum of Sonic's Genesis era physics and momentum-based speed. Whitehead, Thomley, and PagodaWest were so honed-in on what made the old games work that the Drop Dash, Sonic's new signature move, was indirectly and unknowingly copied from a scrapped mechanic in Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic 3 are the main mechanical inspirations behind Mania, blending Sonic 2's speedy setpieces and knack for pushing the player forward at all times with Sonic 3's large levels, platforming, and rich exploration. This fusion results in the best balance of speed and platforming I've seen in any of the classically styled 2D games, and the way each zone's pathways intersect and split apart never feel like they box you into a single linear route or result in you getting lost. Knuckles once again has his own bespoke routes, some of which are pretty substantive, like a totally different Act 1 for Mirage Saloon and exclusive boss fight at the end of Lava Reef Zone.
My only real complaint is that there's just too much overuse of classic zones. All but four are taken from previous Sonic games, and those that are not directly lifted are referenced in some way, typically by transplanting a gimmick or enemy into another zone, like the spinners from Marble Garden which show up in Mania's Stardust Speedway, or Angel Island Zone's Catakilla Jr. floating around in Chemical Plant. Mania ends up being a remarkably comprehensive celebration of the Genesis games as a result, and while these remixed levels are still a joy to play, the real highlights are the four ground-up zones exclusive to Mania. At least everything looks incredible, the sprite art is brimming with personality and the new coat of paint each of the returning zones are given - especially in the more divergent second acts - makes them feel fresh. TeeLopes incredible soundtrack also features some of the best remixes I've ever heard for these returning levels, but much like the original zones, his new compositions are the real highlight.
According to an April 2017 Famitsu interview, the inclusion of remixed levels came at the behest of Iizuka, though I do not know who is responsible for tying Mania's story in with Sonic Forces. At face value, these creative choices seem like a hindrance, but regardless of any limitations the team faced, they walked away with a game that feels positively energetic and celebratory of a series that no doubt inspired some of them to pursue game development. And, presumably, any follow-up to Mania would feature entirely original zones, right...?
Rumors of bad blood between Mania's former development staff and Sega have been spurred on thanks to the controversy over Denuvo's inclusion in Mania's PC release, and Simon Thomley's negative experience with Sonic Origins. Whitehead has since stated that the Mania team (Evening Star) and Sega are on good terms and that some of their discussions about the direction of the classic series influenced Sonic Superstars. It's easy to take rumors to heart, and I know I certainly have in the past. After all, it's natural for heads to butt on any creative project, and Sega doesn't have the best track record. However, it's more likely Evening Star wanted to make Penny's Big Breakaway and things just didn't work out for sequel. A bummer, as what little of Superstars I've played is certainly lacking Whitehead and Thomley's touch.
Even if proper a Mania 2 never comes to be (like my cynical ass believes it won't) I am still immensely happy with Sonic Mania. It's the Sonic game I wanted for years, and inarguably a capstone entry in the series that is responsible for Sonic's popular resurgence. Well, that and the internet collectively patting themselves on the back for "fixing" what turned out to be a real middle-of-the-road video game adaption by forcing CGI artists back to the office shortly before the liquidation of their studio. In a way, that's perfect. Sonic is back! And he's back because of one fuck-ugly CG model and a single good video game. The duality of Hedgehog.
2019
Nope. I barely had enough patience for Shenmue and Shenmue II's meandering bullshit, I am tapping out here.
I played about three or four hours of this, maybe less. Might've just felt like I put that amount of time in, it's hard to tell when you're stuck in the Shenmue time-dilation chamber. Not that you need to play much to get a sense of what this game is going for. Shenmue III is incredibly faithful to the previous two entries, and so authentically captures the feeling of those games that you could tell me it's a cleaned-up build of an unreleased 2003 game and I might just buy it. Ryo still controls like a car, you still spend an inordinate amount of time running around asking people for information, and characters still talk in a way that feels like they're engaging in two disparate conversations at once.
"Hi there. Do you know where Shenhua is?"
"Ah, don't tell me that!"
"I am looking for Shenhua, have you seen her lately?"
"I go to bed at 7pm."
"Ok. Thank you."
That may not be line-for-line, but it should give you an idea of what I mean. Yu Suzuki's writing hasn't aged a day, and whoever the voice director is clearly still has The Touch, too. None of the actors sound like they were ever in the same room as one another, even Johnny Young Bosch is giving a performance that feels plucked from the original game. Toe to tip, this is a Shenmue!
That's not to say there haven't been any changes to the formula, however. The Virtua Fighter-style combat is much stiffer this time around, and there exists a sort of disassociation between input and action that really makes it feel crummy. Juggling a ton of enemies at once with Shenmue's lousy camera was never fun, and actually lining yourself up with a target was clumsy, but I actually felt like I embodied Ryo more than I do here.
Ryo also suffers from stamina drain now, and if he doesn't eat eight god damn pears every five minutes he'll whittle away to bone. This is the mechanic that threw me off Shenmue III, and I can't imagine anyone actually likes it. I haven't run across anyone posting apologia for it in the wild, and I'm not going to seek out stamina defenders if they even exist at all. Running around, fighting, and breathing chews away at Ryo's health at a pace I've never encountered in a video game before, the man is straight up hemorrhaging energy. I get it, Shenmue is a series that seeks to emulate the mundanity of life, so naturally Ryo needs to have himself a little snack every now and then, but if someone out there is pulling whole cloves of garlic from their pocket and eating them with half the same voracity as Ryo, I'm gonna assume they have a medical condition.
Early in the game, you have to beat up a carny to get intel, but the dude can chip off nearly a quarter of your health with every blow. Ryo practically destroyed the Kowloon Walled City with his bare hands in the last game, so this dude is just jacked, he's a genetic freak and he's not normal. Every time I lost to him, I had to restore my health before trying again, which meant going back to the store to buy more food that barely heals a pip of energy. Only now Ryo is so low on health I can't run, so I get to take an excruciating stroll up the hill, back and forth, hoping to God I don't run out of money and get forced into a shitty wood chopping minigame so I can earn a few bucks. I'm not Goku, I shouldn't be undergoing intense physical and spiritual training disguised as errands so I can defeat Shenmue's version of Cell, who is some fuckass running an illegal Lucky Hit booth.
A few hours of this and I realized I had to make a choice. I could stick with Shenmue III for another 20 hours or whatever, or accept that the likelihood of the game improving mechanically or actually going anywhere meaningful narratively is slim and that I could spend that time doing something else. Like playing Final Fantasy II. I've slogged my way through two Shenmue games, what do I have to prove at this point? I spent three dollars on this, the price of a delicious hot dog from Tom's, is it really so bad to be out that much money?
I can't imagine Yu Suzuki is ever going to make another one of these, I don't see there being a resolution to Shenmue in my lifetime, and while I do appreciate that he was so uncompromising on his vision that he didn't truncate the story, the fact that all roads out of Bailu Village lead to a dead end is a compelling reason to drop Shenmue III. Helps too that it's just a bad game.
I played about three or four hours of this, maybe less. Might've just felt like I put that amount of time in, it's hard to tell when you're stuck in the Shenmue time-dilation chamber. Not that you need to play much to get a sense of what this game is going for. Shenmue III is incredibly faithful to the previous two entries, and so authentically captures the feeling of those games that you could tell me it's a cleaned-up build of an unreleased 2003 game and I might just buy it. Ryo still controls like a car, you still spend an inordinate amount of time running around asking people for information, and characters still talk in a way that feels like they're engaging in two disparate conversations at once.
"Hi there. Do you know where Shenhua is?"
"Ah, don't tell me that!"
"I am looking for Shenhua, have you seen her lately?"
"I go to bed at 7pm."
"Ok. Thank you."
That may not be line-for-line, but it should give you an idea of what I mean. Yu Suzuki's writing hasn't aged a day, and whoever the voice director is clearly still has The Touch, too. None of the actors sound like they were ever in the same room as one another, even Johnny Young Bosch is giving a performance that feels plucked from the original game. Toe to tip, this is a Shenmue!
That's not to say there haven't been any changes to the formula, however. The Virtua Fighter-style combat is much stiffer this time around, and there exists a sort of disassociation between input and action that really makes it feel crummy. Juggling a ton of enemies at once with Shenmue's lousy camera was never fun, and actually lining yourself up with a target was clumsy, but I actually felt like I embodied Ryo more than I do here.
Ryo also suffers from stamina drain now, and if he doesn't eat eight god damn pears every five minutes he'll whittle away to bone. This is the mechanic that threw me off Shenmue III, and I can't imagine anyone actually likes it. I haven't run across anyone posting apologia for it in the wild, and I'm not going to seek out stamina defenders if they even exist at all. Running around, fighting, and breathing chews away at Ryo's health at a pace I've never encountered in a video game before, the man is straight up hemorrhaging energy. I get it, Shenmue is a series that seeks to emulate the mundanity of life, so naturally Ryo needs to have himself a little snack every now and then, but if someone out there is pulling whole cloves of garlic from their pocket and eating them with half the same voracity as Ryo, I'm gonna assume they have a medical condition.
Early in the game, you have to beat up a carny to get intel, but the dude can chip off nearly a quarter of your health with every blow. Ryo practically destroyed the Kowloon Walled City with his bare hands in the last game, so this dude is just jacked, he's a genetic freak and he's not normal. Every time I lost to him, I had to restore my health before trying again, which meant going back to the store to buy more food that barely heals a pip of energy. Only now Ryo is so low on health I can't run, so I get to take an excruciating stroll up the hill, back and forth, hoping to God I don't run out of money and get forced into a shitty wood chopping minigame so I can earn a few bucks. I'm not Goku, I shouldn't be undergoing intense physical and spiritual training disguised as errands so I can defeat Shenmue's version of Cell, who is some fuckass running an illegal Lucky Hit booth.
A few hours of this and I realized I had to make a choice. I could stick with Shenmue III for another 20 hours or whatever, or accept that the likelihood of the game improving mechanically or actually going anywhere meaningful narratively is slim and that I could spend that time doing something else. Like playing Final Fantasy II. I've slogged my way through two Shenmue games, what do I have to prove at this point? I spent three dollars on this, the price of a delicious hot dog from Tom's, is it really so bad to be out that much money?
I can't imagine Yu Suzuki is ever going to make another one of these, I don't see there being a resolution to Shenmue in my lifetime, and while I do appreciate that he was so uncompromising on his vision that he didn't truncate the story, the fact that all roads out of Bailu Village lead to a dead end is a compelling reason to drop Shenmue III. Helps too that it's just a bad game.
1998
(This is probably going to be a long review. I am not the most eloquent writer and I often say too much about very little. I'd strongly suggest reading FallenGrace's write-up. I agree with a lot of their points and found the way they expressed them to be concise and well-written, and very difficult for me to not parrot. Definitely worth the read.)
I've spent a long time trying to just play Panzer Dragoon Saga. It's well known that this game exists in an extremely limited quantity, having been released during a period in time where the profitability of the Saturn was plummeting and Sega was readying the launch of its successor, the Dreamcast. Though it's a little hard to substantiate, it seems that most agree 20,000 copies exist in America with only 1,000 reaching the PAL market. I am normally surprised by what fetches a high price on Ebay, but Panzer Dragoon Saga's astronomical value at least makes some sense when you consider not only how rare it actually is, but the legacy it's left behind. This isn't even getting into Sega having evidently lost the source code for the game, though their recent trend of delisting classic titles calls into question their commitment to preservation besides.
Since my upper threshold for buying old games is spending 50$ on Mean Bean Machine, getting a genuine copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga was simply off the table. Like most people trying to enjoy Saga in the modern age, I resorted to using an emulator. Except Saturn emulation sucked for the longest time, and there's something about the way the system renders models that I find genuinely hard on the eyes when not being passed through the blur of a CRT, so despite making several attempts I consistently found myself putting the game down after the opening hour. Eventually I just bought a Saturn and soft-modded an Action Replay cart with Pseudo Saturn Kai, which allows you to play burned discs-- except, whoops, Kai didn't support Panzer Dragoon Saga, of all things. Thankfully, only a couple months after getting my Saturn it was announced that a patch was dropping for Kai that would add support for Panzer Dragoon Saga and Zwei. Finally, I could play the game the way Sega Sanshiro intended.
This is a lot of preamble, but I feel it's important to stress how miserable it is to sit down and enjoy this game without jumping through a bunch of hoops. Want to play Saga today on actual hardware? Well at the very least you're opening your console and swapping discs to flash software to your Action Replay, or you're ripping out the disc drive and shoving in a 200-300$ piece of hardware to run games off an SD. That's the barrier of entry for enjoying what some would say is one of the greatest JRPGs ever made. So, is it all worth it? Yeah, I think so.
Panzer Dragoon Saga has a very unique mechanical identity that helps sperate it from the innumerable Final Fantasy clones of the era. For me, having a fun and engaging combat system is probably the most important thing, and I think Saga absolutely nails this. Rather than lining you and the enemy up along rows to take pot shots at one another, Saga lets you strafe around your targets by moving between the four cardinal directions. Whether one of these four zones is safe or dangerous is a factor you have to take into consideration while moving, and often an enemy's weakest point will also place you in the most dangerous position you can be in, and the fact that dangerous and safe zones are constantly shifting requires you to make split second decisions about your position. You also have a total of three gauges that charge sequentially, which allows you to bank up to three standard attacks or make use of more powerful spells. These gauges don't charge while you move, so ideally you're able to hunker down in a safe zone and let them build until you're ready to attack.
A few hours into the game and you can also change your dragon's form, which allows you to redistribute stats to areas you might find more beneficial in combat. For example, you can shift your dragon into strength mode and deal more damage with your basic attacks, though this comes at the cost of magic damage, or you can trade defense for agility and let your gauges charge faster. You also gain passives in each form that trigger once you have all three gauges fully charged, and you can switch between forms mid-battle if the form you're currently in isn't suited to the enemy.
There's a lot going on, and though the game puts you under constant pressure while juggling these systems, they also come together in a way that feels incredibly fluid. There's a lot of depth there, more than I was expecting. It is remarkable too how effortlessly Panzer Dragoon made the shift between being an on-rails shooter and an RPG, perfectly translating the series establish shooter gameplay to something more turn-based. It almost feels like this is what Panzer Dragoon was always meant to be.
The plot is of course more involved than the previous two games and takes time to weave those stories into a larger narrative, contextualizing some of the more cryptic elements of the first two games and resolving loose ends in ways that are satisfying and which help further embed you in Panzer Dragoon's world. You play as Edge (pronounced "Edgy," which is very funny), who early in the story is betrayed by the Empire and left for dead. A dragon soon saves him, and the two set out to seek vengeance against Crayman, the man responsible for slaughtering Edge's comrades and who may or may not be a protagonist from a previous game depending on if you're reading weirdo fan sites like I am. Edge eventually finds himself caught between two warring factions and doing battle with a fellow dragon rider, the mysterious Azel, who appears to have some connection to the ancient technology the Empire has been exploiting.
Saga does a good job of balancing the mundanities of everyday life against the backdrop of war. It's small stuff, but simple acts like helping someone pay off a debt or finding medicine for a nomad's kid go a long way towards giving you a reason to despise what the Empire and Crayman are doing, while also building towards Edge's later doubts and regrets about his role in the fighting. I also think it's just plain interesting to see how people try to get by in this world, often settling right near ancient technology that is outright hostile. Obviously, the game tries to say something about revenge, but it is also very concerned with the cyclical nature of violence in general, and by the end of the game it becomes Edge and Azel's goal to hopefully put an end to it. Of course, Panzer Dragoon Orta takes place after this, and without spoiling Saga's ending, knowing that there's more fighting to be done adds a bittersweet note to the end of this game.
There is also a lot of voice acting. I was legitimately surprised by how talkative the game is, though all the dialog is spoken in Japanese. Makes sense considering the Western release of Saga appears to have been an afterthought. I have nothing against reading subtitles, but the timing for them is a bit off, and there's some lines of dialog that only appear on screen for a second before vanishing. It's never bad enough that you'll lose your place in the story, but it can get a little annoying.
At 16 hours, Panzer Dragoon Saga is very short for an RPG, but it also doesn't feel its length. Normally that would mean it feels shorter than it is, but in fact I found it to be quite the opposite, and I don't mean that as a knock against it. I was just so involved in its world and narrative that I felt I was there for longer than I actually was. I'm glad I finally got a chance to experience this game, and especially thankful that I went through the trouble of getting it going on actual hardware. Definitely check this one out if you like the sound of configuring emulators or ripping open the shell of a Sega Saturn and rummaging around in its guts.
I've spent a long time trying to just play Panzer Dragoon Saga. It's well known that this game exists in an extremely limited quantity, having been released during a period in time where the profitability of the Saturn was plummeting and Sega was readying the launch of its successor, the Dreamcast. Though it's a little hard to substantiate, it seems that most agree 20,000 copies exist in America with only 1,000 reaching the PAL market. I am normally surprised by what fetches a high price on Ebay, but Panzer Dragoon Saga's astronomical value at least makes some sense when you consider not only how rare it actually is, but the legacy it's left behind. This isn't even getting into Sega having evidently lost the source code for the game, though their recent trend of delisting classic titles calls into question their commitment to preservation besides.
Since my upper threshold for buying old games is spending 50$ on Mean Bean Machine, getting a genuine copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga was simply off the table. Like most people trying to enjoy Saga in the modern age, I resorted to using an emulator. Except Saturn emulation sucked for the longest time, and there's something about the way the system renders models that I find genuinely hard on the eyes when not being passed through the blur of a CRT, so despite making several attempts I consistently found myself putting the game down after the opening hour. Eventually I just bought a Saturn and soft-modded an Action Replay cart with Pseudo Saturn Kai, which allows you to play burned discs-- except, whoops, Kai didn't support Panzer Dragoon Saga, of all things. Thankfully, only a couple months after getting my Saturn it was announced that a patch was dropping for Kai that would add support for Panzer Dragoon Saga and Zwei. Finally, I could play the game the way Sega Sanshiro intended.
This is a lot of preamble, but I feel it's important to stress how miserable it is to sit down and enjoy this game without jumping through a bunch of hoops. Want to play Saga today on actual hardware? Well at the very least you're opening your console and swapping discs to flash software to your Action Replay, or you're ripping out the disc drive and shoving in a 200-300$ piece of hardware to run games off an SD. That's the barrier of entry for enjoying what some would say is one of the greatest JRPGs ever made. So, is it all worth it? Yeah, I think so.
Panzer Dragoon Saga has a very unique mechanical identity that helps sperate it from the innumerable Final Fantasy clones of the era. For me, having a fun and engaging combat system is probably the most important thing, and I think Saga absolutely nails this. Rather than lining you and the enemy up along rows to take pot shots at one another, Saga lets you strafe around your targets by moving between the four cardinal directions. Whether one of these four zones is safe or dangerous is a factor you have to take into consideration while moving, and often an enemy's weakest point will also place you in the most dangerous position you can be in, and the fact that dangerous and safe zones are constantly shifting requires you to make split second decisions about your position. You also have a total of three gauges that charge sequentially, which allows you to bank up to three standard attacks or make use of more powerful spells. These gauges don't charge while you move, so ideally you're able to hunker down in a safe zone and let them build until you're ready to attack.
A few hours into the game and you can also change your dragon's form, which allows you to redistribute stats to areas you might find more beneficial in combat. For example, you can shift your dragon into strength mode and deal more damage with your basic attacks, though this comes at the cost of magic damage, or you can trade defense for agility and let your gauges charge faster. You also gain passives in each form that trigger once you have all three gauges fully charged, and you can switch between forms mid-battle if the form you're currently in isn't suited to the enemy.
There's a lot going on, and though the game puts you under constant pressure while juggling these systems, they also come together in a way that feels incredibly fluid. There's a lot of depth there, more than I was expecting. It is remarkable too how effortlessly Panzer Dragoon made the shift between being an on-rails shooter and an RPG, perfectly translating the series establish shooter gameplay to something more turn-based. It almost feels like this is what Panzer Dragoon was always meant to be.
The plot is of course more involved than the previous two games and takes time to weave those stories into a larger narrative, contextualizing some of the more cryptic elements of the first two games and resolving loose ends in ways that are satisfying and which help further embed you in Panzer Dragoon's world. You play as Edge (pronounced "Edgy," which is very funny), who early in the story is betrayed by the Empire and left for dead. A dragon soon saves him, and the two set out to seek vengeance against Crayman, the man responsible for slaughtering Edge's comrades and who may or may not be a protagonist from a previous game depending on if you're reading weirdo fan sites like I am. Edge eventually finds himself caught between two warring factions and doing battle with a fellow dragon rider, the mysterious Azel, who appears to have some connection to the ancient technology the Empire has been exploiting.
Saga does a good job of balancing the mundanities of everyday life against the backdrop of war. It's small stuff, but simple acts like helping someone pay off a debt or finding medicine for a nomad's kid go a long way towards giving you a reason to despise what the Empire and Crayman are doing, while also building towards Edge's later doubts and regrets about his role in the fighting. I also think it's just plain interesting to see how people try to get by in this world, often settling right near ancient technology that is outright hostile. Obviously, the game tries to say something about revenge, but it is also very concerned with the cyclical nature of violence in general, and by the end of the game it becomes Edge and Azel's goal to hopefully put an end to it. Of course, Panzer Dragoon Orta takes place after this, and without spoiling Saga's ending, knowing that there's more fighting to be done adds a bittersweet note to the end of this game.
There is also a lot of voice acting. I was legitimately surprised by how talkative the game is, though all the dialog is spoken in Japanese. Makes sense considering the Western release of Saga appears to have been an afterthought. I have nothing against reading subtitles, but the timing for them is a bit off, and there's some lines of dialog that only appear on screen for a second before vanishing. It's never bad enough that you'll lose your place in the story, but it can get a little annoying.
At 16 hours, Panzer Dragoon Saga is very short for an RPG, but it also doesn't feel its length. Normally that would mean it feels shorter than it is, but in fact I found it to be quite the opposite, and I don't mean that as a knock against it. I was just so involved in its world and narrative that I felt I was there for longer than I actually was. I'm glad I finally got a chance to experience this game, and especially thankful that I went through the trouble of getting it going on actual hardware. Definitely check this one out if you like the sound of configuring emulators or ripping open the shell of a Sega Saturn and rummaging around in its guts.
If there's one thing that can be said about the average Backloggd user, it's that they likely have Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles in their top five games. I can't say that's too surprising, because I too think it's the perfect platformer, and expands brilliantly on every mechanic and design concept of the previous three games. It's so good, in fact, that the entire series earned an extended rest until 2016's Sonic Mania. Yup, it's hard to believe but there were no Sonic games between 1994 and 2016! It's a little something called "going out on top."
Of course, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is two games in one, or rather two halves made whole again. Thanks to the power of Lock-On Technology™, it's literally one game's contents stacked on top of another with a few additional bug fixes, layout changes, and music swaps thrown in for good measure. Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles both have value on their own, but it's hard not to argue that Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the definitive way to play.
Levels are utterly massive, with single acts taking just as long to complete as full zones in previous Sonic games, and yet they never feel like they overstay their welcome. Tails and Knuckles come with their own unique movesets that open additional pathways inaccessible to Sonic, and similar to Sonic 2, special stage portals are scattered throughout levels rather than being an end-of-stage reward for keeping your rings. What you end up with is a game that takes multiple runs to see completely, and each subsequent jog through S3&K's 13 zones feels better than the last. I touched on the importance of exploration in Sonic games without losing sight of the game's pacing, how finding new paths and hidden areas should continue to push you forward, and I think Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the absolute zenith of this design philosophy in the Sonic series. There's always something new to find, but the game just flows in a way that discovery never comes at the expense of progress.
The zones themselves look incredible, with much more richly detailed sprites than anything seen in the series prior. Mid-act set pieces help change the flow and appearance of levels, like Robotnik's bombing run on Angel Island casting the rest of the level in flames, or an attack from the Death Egg heating up the previously cooled off interior of Lava Reef. Sonic 3 & Knuckles is well known for its cutscenes, which tell a story quite effectively without relying on dialog to give context to character actions or plot twists. Even small details in the backgrounds of levels help flesh out the narrative, like statues of Sonic in the upper portion of Hydrocity serving as an early hint of Sonic's prophesized arrival on the island. This focus on story never gets in the way of the game itself and actually does a remarkably good job at making the adventure feel big. I praised Sonic 1's gradual transition from natural to industrial locations for how it makes you feel like you're working your way from the outskirts of South Island towards the heart of Robotnik's headquarters, but Sonic 3 & Knuckles takes that concept and runs with it. Each Zone features an interstitial cutscene that connects the previous level to the next, making you feel like you're actually chasing Robotnik across the island rather than popping up in unrelated locations because video games. Indeed, the entire premise of the story is built off the back of Sonic 2, with Sonic and Tails following the decommissioned Death Egg in their biplane as it crashes on Angel Island. All of this adds so much character, I don't think you can really go back and do a retro style Sonic game anymore and chunk out these narrative elements. It's one of those things that was done so well it effectively becomes part of the series DNA, an expectation rather than a one-off.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles also features my favorite boss battles in the series. Each encounter offers something unique, and are a fair deal more threatening than those in Sonic 2 while still being intuitive enough so as to not be roadblocks. I also really enjoy the mid-bosses and think it was a smart idea to add these as a way to break up each act. In terms of pacing, these serve as climaxes to the first act as well as pallet cleansers, giving Sonic a reason to stop and plant his feet for a second before transitioning into the next act. This is far more effective than simply having him run through a goal post and fading to black, and actually quite necessary given that doing so after a 4 minute level would just kind of feel awkward.
The blue sphere special stages are perhaps the best in the classic series. I've previously commented on how Sonic special stages are just technical showpieces that Sonic Team couldn't be bothered with actually making fun, but I think blue spheres actually manages to be a good time while still looking impressive. If you smack another cart on top of Sonic & Knuckles you can access a new mode where blue sphere levels are randomly generated. I don't recall the exact number of possible permutations, but there's enough content there that you could go grey before completing them all. And yet, there was a period of my life where I would run through a few of them each day just to see how many I could knock out. I love blue spheres. I'm a danger to myself an others.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles is such an incredible game. Thanks to fans, there's also Sonic 3 Complete and Angel Island Revisted which add various tweaks and improvements to the base game, and I think both are definitely worth checking out. It's fun to play around with Complete's restoration of the original intended level order, and AIR provides so many granular options for tweaking the Sonic 3 experience that you can more or less build your perfect version of the game. Plus it has wide screen sport and the music is crystal clear. The Michael Jackson-like voice samples found in many tracks have all their compression removed, it is almost startling how clear they sound. However, I don't want to get too into the weeds on either of these games. Suffice it to say, I think they're worth checking out.
I could talk about this game forever. At the same time, it's also one that I find difficult to discuss in a focused or nuanced way, because every time I start to describe one element I like it ends up reminding me of another I enjoy just as much, and then my thoughts just become scattered until I'm gushing incoherently about how much I love this game. I just think it's that good. I mean, I like Sandopolis for chrissake. Even people who give this a 5 out of 5 would tell you they don't like Sandopolis. That could've been the whole review and it'd give you just as good an idea of how great I think Sonic 3 & Knuckles is without wasting your whole morning on this essay.
Also, it's pronounced high-draw-city. It's not a city! It clearly looks like an aqueduct that's carrying water to Marble Garden, which is the ruins of an ancient city. It's also a water level that focuses on being fast, Hydrocity is a play on the word "velocity!" Yes I know Yuji Naka said it's actually Hydro City, but he made Balan Wonderworld, are you seriously going to tell me that's who you trust!? I will punch you in the nose if you say "Hydro City" to me, I promise you this.
Of course, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is two games in one, or rather two halves made whole again. Thanks to the power of Lock-On Technology™, it's literally one game's contents stacked on top of another with a few additional bug fixes, layout changes, and music swaps thrown in for good measure. Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles both have value on their own, but it's hard not to argue that Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the definitive way to play.
Levels are utterly massive, with single acts taking just as long to complete as full zones in previous Sonic games, and yet they never feel like they overstay their welcome. Tails and Knuckles come with their own unique movesets that open additional pathways inaccessible to Sonic, and similar to Sonic 2, special stage portals are scattered throughout levels rather than being an end-of-stage reward for keeping your rings. What you end up with is a game that takes multiple runs to see completely, and each subsequent jog through S3&K's 13 zones feels better than the last. I touched on the importance of exploration in Sonic games without losing sight of the game's pacing, how finding new paths and hidden areas should continue to push you forward, and I think Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the absolute zenith of this design philosophy in the Sonic series. There's always something new to find, but the game just flows in a way that discovery never comes at the expense of progress.
The zones themselves look incredible, with much more richly detailed sprites than anything seen in the series prior. Mid-act set pieces help change the flow and appearance of levels, like Robotnik's bombing run on Angel Island casting the rest of the level in flames, or an attack from the Death Egg heating up the previously cooled off interior of Lava Reef. Sonic 3 & Knuckles is well known for its cutscenes, which tell a story quite effectively without relying on dialog to give context to character actions or plot twists. Even small details in the backgrounds of levels help flesh out the narrative, like statues of Sonic in the upper portion of Hydrocity serving as an early hint of Sonic's prophesized arrival on the island. This focus on story never gets in the way of the game itself and actually does a remarkably good job at making the adventure feel big. I praised Sonic 1's gradual transition from natural to industrial locations for how it makes you feel like you're working your way from the outskirts of South Island towards the heart of Robotnik's headquarters, but Sonic 3 & Knuckles takes that concept and runs with it. Each Zone features an interstitial cutscene that connects the previous level to the next, making you feel like you're actually chasing Robotnik across the island rather than popping up in unrelated locations because video games. Indeed, the entire premise of the story is built off the back of Sonic 2, with Sonic and Tails following the decommissioned Death Egg in their biplane as it crashes on Angel Island. All of this adds so much character, I don't think you can really go back and do a retro style Sonic game anymore and chunk out these narrative elements. It's one of those things that was done so well it effectively becomes part of the series DNA, an expectation rather than a one-off.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles also features my favorite boss battles in the series. Each encounter offers something unique, and are a fair deal more threatening than those in Sonic 2 while still being intuitive enough so as to not be roadblocks. I also really enjoy the mid-bosses and think it was a smart idea to add these as a way to break up each act. In terms of pacing, these serve as climaxes to the first act as well as pallet cleansers, giving Sonic a reason to stop and plant his feet for a second before transitioning into the next act. This is far more effective than simply having him run through a goal post and fading to black, and actually quite necessary given that doing so after a 4 minute level would just kind of feel awkward.
The blue sphere special stages are perhaps the best in the classic series. I've previously commented on how Sonic special stages are just technical showpieces that Sonic Team couldn't be bothered with actually making fun, but I think blue spheres actually manages to be a good time while still looking impressive. If you smack another cart on top of Sonic & Knuckles you can access a new mode where blue sphere levels are randomly generated. I don't recall the exact number of possible permutations, but there's enough content there that you could go grey before completing them all. And yet, there was a period of my life where I would run through a few of them each day just to see how many I could knock out. I love blue spheres. I'm a danger to myself an others.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles is such an incredible game. Thanks to fans, there's also Sonic 3 Complete and Angel Island Revisted which add various tweaks and improvements to the base game, and I think both are definitely worth checking out. It's fun to play around with Complete's restoration of the original intended level order, and AIR provides so many granular options for tweaking the Sonic 3 experience that you can more or less build your perfect version of the game. Plus it has wide screen sport and the music is crystal clear. The Michael Jackson-like voice samples found in many tracks have all their compression removed, it is almost startling how clear they sound. However, I don't want to get too into the weeds on either of these games. Suffice it to say, I think they're worth checking out.
I could talk about this game forever. At the same time, it's also one that I find difficult to discuss in a focused or nuanced way, because every time I start to describe one element I like it ends up reminding me of another I enjoy just as much, and then my thoughts just become scattered until I'm gushing incoherently about how much I love this game. I just think it's that good. I mean, I like Sandopolis for chrissake. Even people who give this a 5 out of 5 would tell you they don't like Sandopolis. That could've been the whole review and it'd give you just as good an idea of how great I think Sonic 3 & Knuckles is without wasting your whole morning on this essay.
Also, it's pronounced high-draw-city. It's not a city! It clearly looks like an aqueduct that's carrying water to Marble Garden, which is the ruins of an ancient city. It's also a water level that focuses on being fast, Hydrocity is a play on the word "velocity!" Yes I know Yuji Naka said it's actually Hydro City, but he made Balan Wonderworld, are you seriously going to tell me that's who you trust!? I will punch you in the nose if you say "Hydro City" to me, I promise you this.
Sonic the Hedgehog 4 feels bad, looks bad, sounds bad too (uh-huh, that's right).
About the only positive thing Episode 1 did was trigger a mass discussion about Sonic's physicality in the Genesis games, and this deeper analysis of what made them feel so good to play is (I believe) part of what made Sonic Mania so marketable years later. It also resulted in the phrase "momentum based gameplay" getting played out to the point of derision. I've seen people make the argument in the years since Episode 1's release that a 2D Sonic game doesn't need to replicate the physics of the Genesis era, and they're not wrong even if I think it should be part and parcel with a game billing itself as the fourth entry in that specific series. However, Sonic 4's physics are so bad that the lack of momentum directly interferes with the level design and platforming. Muscle memory makes me release my thumb from the d-pad, but Sonic drops like a rock into a pit of spikes. That feels bad no matter what the game is called.
Like, yes, the expectation is there and Sonic 4 is certainly worse for it, but even if you called it by another name, it just isn't good. The reuse of old level themes, badniks, and bosses felt cheap at the time, clearly playing to an audience Sonic Team didn't really know how to cater to beyond surface-level nods. The in-game explanation for Bubbles and other badniks being around is essentially "Dr. Robotnik ran out of fuckin' money," an almost perfect allegory for Sonic Team and Dimps hitting their creative bottom, destitute of ideas.
This desperate pandering went on to define the series for such a long time after, best exemplified by the incessant trotting out of Green Hill game after game. Though I hate to evoke Mania again, it is the game to get this right, and that was the result of bringing in outside blood that actually knew what pieces Sonic Team was missing. Perhaps the comparison is a cheap way to further denigrate a game and developer that has been thoroughly run through the mud, but it's also taken them 13 years to stop reusing old Zones, so I don't really care.
And you all know that already, because Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 is nearly as infamous as Sonic 2006 and Sonic Boom. It's a well-covered laughing stock, wrung so dry of content that it is as brittle as the bones I'm now sucking marrow from. Sonic standing perfectly parallel to the ground with his feet glued to a wall is an image that will outlive me.
About the only positive thing Episode 1 did was trigger a mass discussion about Sonic's physicality in the Genesis games, and this deeper analysis of what made them feel so good to play is (I believe) part of what made Sonic Mania so marketable years later. It also resulted in the phrase "momentum based gameplay" getting played out to the point of derision. I've seen people make the argument in the years since Episode 1's release that a 2D Sonic game doesn't need to replicate the physics of the Genesis era, and they're not wrong even if I think it should be part and parcel with a game billing itself as the fourth entry in that specific series. However, Sonic 4's physics are so bad that the lack of momentum directly interferes with the level design and platforming. Muscle memory makes me release my thumb from the d-pad, but Sonic drops like a rock into a pit of spikes. That feels bad no matter what the game is called.
Like, yes, the expectation is there and Sonic 4 is certainly worse for it, but even if you called it by another name, it just isn't good. The reuse of old level themes, badniks, and bosses felt cheap at the time, clearly playing to an audience Sonic Team didn't really know how to cater to beyond surface-level nods. The in-game explanation for Bubbles and other badniks being around is essentially "Dr. Robotnik ran out of fuckin' money," an almost perfect allegory for Sonic Team and Dimps hitting their creative bottom, destitute of ideas.
This desperate pandering went on to define the series for such a long time after, best exemplified by the incessant trotting out of Green Hill game after game. Though I hate to evoke Mania again, it is the game to get this right, and that was the result of bringing in outside blood that actually knew what pieces Sonic Team was missing. Perhaps the comparison is a cheap way to further denigrate a game and developer that has been thoroughly run through the mud, but it's also taken them 13 years to stop reusing old Zones, so I don't really care.
And you all know that already, because Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 is nearly as infamous as Sonic 2006 and Sonic Boom. It's a well-covered laughing stock, wrung so dry of content that it is as brittle as the bones I'm now sucking marrow from. Sonic standing perfectly parallel to the ground with his feet glued to a wall is an image that will outlive me.
1992
You wouldn't DOWNLOAD a DEMON.
It's hard to overstate the importance of Megaten's PlayStation 2 golden age on the development of the franchise. It was a period of reinvention, one so effective in modernizing the Megaten experience that many of its newly introduced systems remain an indelible part of the franchise's identity. The Press-Turn battle system is still the bedrock upon which every new release builds, often in small, incremental ways. Even Persona owes much of its success due to Persona 3's introduction of time management and social systems.
Like many, I was introduced to Megaten through this era of games. But while Nocturne might be my first Shin Megami Tensei, there were in fact others before it... I mean, you know that. You're on a page for one that came out in 1992, why would I even word the review like this? I'm sorry, it's just that, like, i found out my mom was a demon and it took me to a pretty bad place and i fused the family dog with a pixie and it speaks english now, and i'm just under a lot of stress
CHAOS: I will destroy everything I don't understand.
If modern Megaten is defined by how "difficult" it is, then pre-PS2 Megaten is downright obtuse. This is felt almost immediately in how you interface with the world, which is viewed through a first person perspective. If you've never played a dungeon crawler before, especially one of this era, it can be incredibly overwhelming. Maps are large and labyrinthine, composed of a sparse number of repeating facades and lacking in definable landmarks. You feel like a rat in a maze. A maze which happens to be occupied by other, larger, more mean-spirited rats that want to shake you down for money and call you an idiot. I can't blame anyone for bouncing off of Shin Megami Tensei early, especially if they've never played a dungeon crawler of this era before. In fact, I only made it about an hour in during my initial attempt before getting horribly lost in the starting area and giving up.
Patience and persistence is key, as is unlearning all you understand about these games and opening yourself up to Shin Megami Tensei's idiosyncrasies. You have to learn to rely on your automap, then accept that the automap is useless outside of darkened areas as it doesn't mark teleporters or slippery floors, and then graduate to using graph paper your friend bought for you because she was too sick of hearing you bitch about getting lost in a game from fucking 1992.
Even systems that have carried over into later entries are (understandably) more vague and antiquated. Take the alignment system, which allows you to follow Law, Chaos, or Nautral paths towards one of three different endings. In many of the modern games, your choices and actions during key events influence your standing with each faction. Shin Megami Tensei, on the other hand, gets more microcosmic. Sure, your dialog choices matter, but so does which store you get groceries from. Frequenting establishments with a particular alignment will further associate you with that faction, as does summoning and fusing demons of a particular persuasion. Dismissing, killing, or even conversing with demons can shift your standing ever so slightly before you ultimately hit the alignment lock, so if you want a specific ending you have to be extremely mindful of every action you take, or make efforts to intentionally game the system.
Outside of which ending your alignment earns, you'll open up and potentially block off certain paths in the final dungeon, and come into conflict with the Law or Chaos heroes. Settling on Neutrality will allow you to see the most, however, and is considered the canonical ending. It also happens to be the one I got, because I believe in nothing, I fight for no man.
LAW: Place your faith in the systems and mechanics of the beast.
So you want to make friends with demons, huh? That's great, that's really nice. It's good to have friends. I don't have any because I ran out of Magnitite and they all kicked me in the shins and left me laid out by the Gaia temple. Some might call that a "transactional relationship." You won't be summoning Lucifer through the power of your bonds. No, you pay people to be your friend because you're a sad little loser kid. Not even Jack Frost wants to hang out with you... not unless you got that sweet, sweet Magnitite.
Magnitite has largely been phased out of Megaten, but it plays an important role in the SNES games, acting as a secondary currency used for fusing, summoning, and keeping demons active in your party. Every step you take drains Magnitite proportional to the requirements of your active party, adding a thin layer of resource management. This system sounds great in theory, but in practice it's mostly useless. During the early parts of the game you'll have human companions eating up party slots, reducing the need to have demons summoned. Once your friends start having political opinions and stop talking to you, then you'll need to keep track of Magnitite more, but I found I had so much banked by this point that it was really a non-issue.
Theoretically, managing Magnitite should make the game more tense as a whole given the lack of safe zones and the frequency of random encounters, which some might say is ridiculous. Borderline stupid, actually! Onis are falling out of the walls and from the ceiling and when they get up they're mad as hell and they want to fight, and it's like, dude, I'm just trying to find a cop to report my girlfriend missing, please stop!
The non-stop encounters wouldn't be quite so irritating if Shin Megami Tensei's battle system was more involved, but it's pretty rudimentary and easily gamed. Buffs and debuffs do matter, but weaknesses and defenses are poorly communicated, and you can mostly ignore them anyway and spam Zio since it has a high probability of paralyzing enemies, which is profoundly beneficial. I also believe most enemies are inherently weak to electricity anyway, so there's no reason to not use it constantly. Hey, what do you think a Pryo Jack is weak to? Bufu? No it's Zio. What about Beelzebub? Probably want to hit him with Hama. No! It's Zio!!! FUCK! I JUST TOLD YOU THIS!
A lot of Shin Megami Tensei's systems feel rough, and I'm willing to cut it a lot of slack because it's the first game for the SNES and it goes without saying that it's going to lack some serious polish. It is also a game that is so heavily carried by its atmosphere, writing, and visual design that engaging in battle feels like the cost of admission for everything else, and at worst its other systems don't live up to their potential but also don't hinder you.
Random encounter frequency still sucks, though.
COWARDLY CENTERISM (NEUTRALITY): Dumb bitch is named Louis Cypher.
So I've got my complaints, but I don't hate Shin Megami Tensei. Hate is a really strong word. So is love. No, I like a comfortable middle, and that's where this game sits.
Yet again I have out-maneuvered everybody by having a non-opinion. This is the one true path.
However, Shin Megami Tensei does satisfy a very specific mood. It's the kind of game you might find me playing in the middle of a stormy day, when it's cloudy enough to illuminate the room yet keep it blanketed in a dreary grey, the roar of thunder in the distance and the patter of rain against the window completing that gloomy ambience SMT is so well-suited to. This is a dour game, with fits of levity breaking up long stretches of trudging your way through a wasteland you once called home. Even in its most colorful moments - such as trying to appease Alice, a little girl who would really like it if you just died for her - its humor is distinctly dark.
Though Shin Megami Tensei II is comparatively more complex and insistent upon saying something with its narrative, SMT has enough twists and turns to keep you invested, and similar to Nocturne, the atmosphere of its world is enough to keep you moving forward, motivated to see this bombed out version of Tokyo in full. Tsukasa Masuko's brilliant soundtrack plays pitch perfect to the tone of this demon infested hellscape, earning it a spot among my favorite video game scores. To be fair, SMT2 and If... probably edges it out purely on the basis of them featuring many of the same tracks in addition to others, and there are so many ports of Shin Megami Tensei that offer up their own vibe, it's even debatable which specific version of SMT's OST is my favorite. One of those things that changes depending on the day.
PART 4: Oh no-- I wrote how many words about this!?
Shin Megami Tensei is an acquired taste. Unless you're way into dungeon crawlers, then you'll probably only enjoy it if you sit down and repeatedly tell yourself you want to enjoy it. I'm glad that I remained committed, in any case. This is the Megaten equivalent of a religious pilgrimage, and I am better for prostrating my way from Shibuya to Ginza, but that's not for everyone and that's ok, too. Even among the SNES trilogy, Shin Megami Tensei is the most middling entry, with SMT2 improving upon it in virtually every way, and If... finding a zen balance between being terrible and charming.
I'll get to those soon, but in the meantime I'm going to construct my millennium kingdom right here. Thinking it'll be like, a giant pyramid or something. I sure hope I don't get assassinated.
It's hard to overstate the importance of Megaten's PlayStation 2 golden age on the development of the franchise. It was a period of reinvention, one so effective in modernizing the Megaten experience that many of its newly introduced systems remain an indelible part of the franchise's identity. The Press-Turn battle system is still the bedrock upon which every new release builds, often in small, incremental ways. Even Persona owes much of its success due to Persona 3's introduction of time management and social systems.
Like many, I was introduced to Megaten through this era of games. But while Nocturne might be my first Shin Megami Tensei, there were in fact others before it... I mean, you know that. You're on a page for one that came out in 1992, why would I even word the review like this? I'm sorry, it's just that, like, i found out my mom was a demon and it took me to a pretty bad place and i fused the family dog with a pixie and it speaks english now, and i'm just under a lot of stress
CHAOS: I will destroy everything I don't understand.
If modern Megaten is defined by how "difficult" it is, then pre-PS2 Megaten is downright obtuse. This is felt almost immediately in how you interface with the world, which is viewed through a first person perspective. If you've never played a dungeon crawler before, especially one of this era, it can be incredibly overwhelming. Maps are large and labyrinthine, composed of a sparse number of repeating facades and lacking in definable landmarks. You feel like a rat in a maze. A maze which happens to be occupied by other, larger, more mean-spirited rats that want to shake you down for money and call you an idiot. I can't blame anyone for bouncing off of Shin Megami Tensei early, especially if they've never played a dungeon crawler of this era before. In fact, I only made it about an hour in during my initial attempt before getting horribly lost in the starting area and giving up.
Patience and persistence is key, as is unlearning all you understand about these games and opening yourself up to Shin Megami Tensei's idiosyncrasies. You have to learn to rely on your automap, then accept that the automap is useless outside of darkened areas as it doesn't mark teleporters or slippery floors, and then graduate to using graph paper your friend bought for you because she was too sick of hearing you bitch about getting lost in a game from fucking 1992.
Even systems that have carried over into later entries are (understandably) more vague and antiquated. Take the alignment system, which allows you to follow Law, Chaos, or Nautral paths towards one of three different endings. In many of the modern games, your choices and actions during key events influence your standing with each faction. Shin Megami Tensei, on the other hand, gets more microcosmic. Sure, your dialog choices matter, but so does which store you get groceries from. Frequenting establishments with a particular alignment will further associate you with that faction, as does summoning and fusing demons of a particular persuasion. Dismissing, killing, or even conversing with demons can shift your standing ever so slightly before you ultimately hit the alignment lock, so if you want a specific ending you have to be extremely mindful of every action you take, or make efforts to intentionally game the system.
Outside of which ending your alignment earns, you'll open up and potentially block off certain paths in the final dungeon, and come into conflict with the Law or Chaos heroes. Settling on Neutrality will allow you to see the most, however, and is considered the canonical ending. It also happens to be the one I got, because I believe in nothing, I fight for no man.
LAW: Place your faith in the systems and mechanics of the beast.
So you want to make friends with demons, huh? That's great, that's really nice. It's good to have friends. I don't have any because I ran out of Magnitite and they all kicked me in the shins and left me laid out by the Gaia temple. Some might call that a "transactional relationship." You won't be summoning Lucifer through the power of your bonds. No, you pay people to be your friend because you're a sad little loser kid. Not even Jack Frost wants to hang out with you... not unless you got that sweet, sweet Magnitite.
Magnitite has largely been phased out of Megaten, but it plays an important role in the SNES games, acting as a secondary currency used for fusing, summoning, and keeping demons active in your party. Every step you take drains Magnitite proportional to the requirements of your active party, adding a thin layer of resource management. This system sounds great in theory, but in practice it's mostly useless. During the early parts of the game you'll have human companions eating up party slots, reducing the need to have demons summoned. Once your friends start having political opinions and stop talking to you, then you'll need to keep track of Magnitite more, but I found I had so much banked by this point that it was really a non-issue.
Theoretically, managing Magnitite should make the game more tense as a whole given the lack of safe zones and the frequency of random encounters, which some might say is ridiculous. Borderline stupid, actually! Onis are falling out of the walls and from the ceiling and when they get up they're mad as hell and they want to fight, and it's like, dude, I'm just trying to find a cop to report my girlfriend missing, please stop!
The non-stop encounters wouldn't be quite so irritating if Shin Megami Tensei's battle system was more involved, but it's pretty rudimentary and easily gamed. Buffs and debuffs do matter, but weaknesses and defenses are poorly communicated, and you can mostly ignore them anyway and spam Zio since it has a high probability of paralyzing enemies, which is profoundly beneficial. I also believe most enemies are inherently weak to electricity anyway, so there's no reason to not use it constantly. Hey, what do you think a Pryo Jack is weak to? Bufu? No it's Zio. What about Beelzebub? Probably want to hit him with Hama. No! It's Zio!!! FUCK! I JUST TOLD YOU THIS!
A lot of Shin Megami Tensei's systems feel rough, and I'm willing to cut it a lot of slack because it's the first game for the SNES and it goes without saying that it's going to lack some serious polish. It is also a game that is so heavily carried by its atmosphere, writing, and visual design that engaging in battle feels like the cost of admission for everything else, and at worst its other systems don't live up to their potential but also don't hinder you.
Random encounter frequency still sucks, though.
COWARDLY CENTERISM (NEUTRALITY): Dumb bitch is named Louis Cypher.
So I've got my complaints, but I don't hate Shin Megami Tensei. Hate is a really strong word. So is love. No, I like a comfortable middle, and that's where this game sits.
Yet again I have out-maneuvered everybody by having a non-opinion. This is the one true path.
However, Shin Megami Tensei does satisfy a very specific mood. It's the kind of game you might find me playing in the middle of a stormy day, when it's cloudy enough to illuminate the room yet keep it blanketed in a dreary grey, the roar of thunder in the distance and the patter of rain against the window completing that gloomy ambience SMT is so well-suited to. This is a dour game, with fits of levity breaking up long stretches of trudging your way through a wasteland you once called home. Even in its most colorful moments - such as trying to appease Alice, a little girl who would really like it if you just died for her - its humor is distinctly dark.
Though Shin Megami Tensei II is comparatively more complex and insistent upon saying something with its narrative, SMT has enough twists and turns to keep you invested, and similar to Nocturne, the atmosphere of its world is enough to keep you moving forward, motivated to see this bombed out version of Tokyo in full. Tsukasa Masuko's brilliant soundtrack plays pitch perfect to the tone of this demon infested hellscape, earning it a spot among my favorite video game scores. To be fair, SMT2 and If... probably edges it out purely on the basis of them featuring many of the same tracks in addition to others, and there are so many ports of Shin Megami Tensei that offer up their own vibe, it's even debatable which specific version of SMT's OST is my favorite. One of those things that changes depending on the day.
PART 4: Oh no-- I wrote how many words about this!?
Shin Megami Tensei is an acquired taste. Unless you're way into dungeon crawlers, then you'll probably only enjoy it if you sit down and repeatedly tell yourself you want to enjoy it. I'm glad that I remained committed, in any case. This is the Megaten equivalent of a religious pilgrimage, and I am better for prostrating my way from Shibuya to Ginza, but that's not for everyone and that's ok, too. Even among the SNES trilogy, Shin Megami Tensei is the most middling entry, with SMT2 improving upon it in virtually every way, and If... finding a zen balance between being terrible and charming.
I'll get to those soon, but in the meantime I'm going to construct my millennium kingdom right here. Thinking it'll be like, a giant pyramid or something. I sure hope I don't get assassinated.
1999
I drove like this once and had to make some CUH-RAAAAAAAZY BAIL.
2022
Funny ha ha tee-hee game that seemingly exists for everyone on Backloggd to get their one good joke in on, and that's apparently all the McDonald's corporation puts out. Slop for your slop hole. Well guess what, fuckers, i'm the fattest hog in town
anyway i don't think i loaded the right browser game because my PC is currently locked out and screaming at me to send Ronald McDonald bitcoins to access my files
anyway i don't think i loaded the right browser game because my PC is currently locked out and screaming at me to send Ronald McDonald bitcoins to access my files
2023
Early access streamer bait (derogatory) that I was initially apprehensive about but jumped in on after caving to peer pressure and ended up having more fun with than any other multiplayer game since freaking 1 vs 100.
You probably know how this game operates by now: you and a crew of three others (Apprecations, HaroKid, and TransWithSammy with a few guest appearances by friends of friends thanks to the More Company mod) plumb abandoned facilities, desolate planets, and "MILF mansions" - as they were colloquially referenced by my crew - for treasure... Or trash, as Lethal Company frames old soda cans, whoopie cushions and sheets of metal as items of value in much the same way Pikmin does. Complicating your excursions are violent bouts of inclement weather, natural and artificial hazards, and monsters. Lots of monsters. There are no MILFs in MILF Mansion, just a crackerjack-man with a shotgun looking to blow your head off.
Note: I am aware a nut-cracker is not a "crackerjack-man," I just called him that in a panic (I believe while running away screaming "CRACKERJACK-MAN!") and kinda kept going with it. I'm old and kept playing this game past my bed time. I once tried to explain how I thought Red Bull tastes like perfume, I should be in hospice.
Horror-comedy is pretty well defined even within the medium of video games, but I'm hard pressed to think of many examples that express this genre quite so effectively through their mechanics. Sure, there's some eerie monster designs, and you can buy some very silly items in the in-game store, but moments of genuine tension and comedy are more often borne from how you engage with the game rather than being experienced passively. Being lost in a pitch-dark maze far from your friends - who might be dead for all you know - is dreadful, especially when you start to laugh after a circling monster steps on the whoopie cushion you dropped, alerting it to your exact location. In other words, it's the perfect game to showcase Weatherby's many foibles.
Lethal Company's most interesting feature is how it plays with audio cues. Proximity voice chat places an emphasis on sticking together and coordinating, and becomes vital given the procedural nature of facilities, which are often labyrinthine and steeped in darkness. Monsters are identifiable by the sounds they make, and their distance and placement can be discerned from how their growling and stomping pans between audio channels. Much like every other facet of Lethal Company, proximity audio plays a large role in fostering anxiety and humor, whether it instills panic as the thunderous pounding of an Eyeless Dog's paws spell imminent disaster, or relief as you trek back to the ship from a harrowing expedition only to hear your crewmates blasting Canned Heat in the distance.
Mods add a lot to the game too, allowing players to replace the models of monsters with dumb shit like Son Goku, change the hazmat suits to NOS tracksuits, or expand the total number of allowable crewmates. In a lot of ways, I could see Lethal Company becoming as customizable and well supported by mods as Left 4 Dead 2, if only it would get Steam Workshop support so I don't have to deal with dumping weird dll's into file trees.
Being in early-access does come with a slew of problems. Instability, pieces of geometry loading in wrong, and general issues with mod compatibility are all standard and predictable consequences of being in-development, though Zeekerss does hope to have the game completed "within six months." Given how simplistic the game is, that doesn't seem like an unreasonable target, and it's explosive popularity does engender a lot of confidence that new features will be added over time. I'm not one to buy-in on early-access games, but Lethal Company is worth jumping into for its low asking price, especially given the level of official and community support.
Stating the obvious, you might not have as much fun with Lethal Company if you play it in a random group. Maybe that extra chaos factor of not having a rapport with any of your crewmates is it's own kind of fun, but I was never willing to wade into that part of the game. Call it social anxiety if you want, frankly I think the sound of my voice is as much a horrible burden on my friends as my inability to stay alive longer than two minutes. But with a familiar party, Lethal Company is so perfectly poised to exploit the usual antics of your friend group that it becomes a blast.
(I don't rate early-access games so, no current score for this one.)
You probably know how this game operates by now: you and a crew of three others (Apprecations, HaroKid, and TransWithSammy with a few guest appearances by friends of friends thanks to the More Company mod) plumb abandoned facilities, desolate planets, and "MILF mansions" - as they were colloquially referenced by my crew - for treasure... Or trash, as Lethal Company frames old soda cans, whoopie cushions and sheets of metal as items of value in much the same way Pikmin does. Complicating your excursions are violent bouts of inclement weather, natural and artificial hazards, and monsters. Lots of monsters. There are no MILFs in MILF Mansion, just a crackerjack-man with a shotgun looking to blow your head off.
Note: I am aware a nut-cracker is not a "crackerjack-man," I just called him that in a panic (I believe while running away screaming "CRACKERJACK-MAN!") and kinda kept going with it. I'm old and kept playing this game past my bed time. I once tried to explain how I thought Red Bull tastes like perfume, I should be in hospice.
Horror-comedy is pretty well defined even within the medium of video games, but I'm hard pressed to think of many examples that express this genre quite so effectively through their mechanics. Sure, there's some eerie monster designs, and you can buy some very silly items in the in-game store, but moments of genuine tension and comedy are more often borne from how you engage with the game rather than being experienced passively. Being lost in a pitch-dark maze far from your friends - who might be dead for all you know - is dreadful, especially when you start to laugh after a circling monster steps on the whoopie cushion you dropped, alerting it to your exact location. In other words, it's the perfect game to showcase Weatherby's many foibles.
Lethal Company's most interesting feature is how it plays with audio cues. Proximity voice chat places an emphasis on sticking together and coordinating, and becomes vital given the procedural nature of facilities, which are often labyrinthine and steeped in darkness. Monsters are identifiable by the sounds they make, and their distance and placement can be discerned from how their growling and stomping pans between audio channels. Much like every other facet of Lethal Company, proximity audio plays a large role in fostering anxiety and humor, whether it instills panic as the thunderous pounding of an Eyeless Dog's paws spell imminent disaster, or relief as you trek back to the ship from a harrowing expedition only to hear your crewmates blasting Canned Heat in the distance.
Mods add a lot to the game too, allowing players to replace the models of monsters with dumb shit like Son Goku, change the hazmat suits to NOS tracksuits, or expand the total number of allowable crewmates. In a lot of ways, I could see Lethal Company becoming as customizable and well supported by mods as Left 4 Dead 2, if only it would get Steam Workshop support so I don't have to deal with dumping weird dll's into file trees.
Being in early-access does come with a slew of problems. Instability, pieces of geometry loading in wrong, and general issues with mod compatibility are all standard and predictable consequences of being in-development, though Zeekerss does hope to have the game completed "within six months." Given how simplistic the game is, that doesn't seem like an unreasonable target, and it's explosive popularity does engender a lot of confidence that new features will be added over time. I'm not one to buy-in on early-access games, but Lethal Company is worth jumping into for its low asking price, especially given the level of official and community support.
Stating the obvious, you might not have as much fun with Lethal Company if you play it in a random group. Maybe that extra chaos factor of not having a rapport with any of your crewmates is it's own kind of fun, but I was never willing to wade into that part of the game. Call it social anxiety if you want, frankly I think the sound of my voice is as much a horrible burden on my friends as my inability to stay alive longer than two minutes. But with a familiar party, Lethal Company is so perfectly poised to exploit the usual antics of your friend group that it becomes a blast.
(I don't rate early-access games so, no current score for this one.)
1997
If a monkey flew a plane for real, that would be the most fucked up thing ever.
Kart racers have come a long way, but the landscape in 1997 was largely colored by two Mario Karts and at least a dozen derivatives. Skunny Kart and BC Racers weren't lighting the world on fire, and even Mario Kart 64's main distinction was that it was in 3D now. And then Rare came along and was like "what if we put planes in a kart racer" and everyone cheered, and then they asked "what if there was boats, too?" and everyone screamed "No! NO! That's TOO FAR!!" but they did it anyway.
Diddy Kong Racing's unique features may not turn heads today, but this game was kind of wild in 97. Every established convention of the genre was played around with and pushed forward in some way. Why have a stock list of tracks to run through when you could have a whole hub world where exploration is key to progression? Why not have a story, additional battle modes, and boss fights? Why limit yourself to a kart when you can take to the skies orbounce off everything haphazardly in a hovercraft that makes you want to hold Diddy under water until the life leaves his eyes? boat
Similar to Goldeneye 64, Diddy Kong Racing benefitted from having a small team that was willing to design whatever they thought was fun rather than sticking to a rigid design doc. After all, this started as a real-time strategy game before undergoing a long metamorphosis into what it is today. I love diving into the development history of Rare games, especially during the Nintendo 64 era, because regardless of how their games turned out (god knows I have a lot of mixed feelings on them), the path they took from concept to release is always fascinating. In the case of Diddy Kong Racing, I think their unique approach to designing games paid off in some big ways, but it's not a perfect experience by any means. The balance is way off, and a few missions (especially boss fights) are unnecessarily brutal. Even as an adult who is more seasoned with kart racers, I found myself really bashing my head against a few parts of this game.
However, this is one of several games I played with my grandpa, and that means it's left an indelible mark on me. Its faults may be apparent, but my score should make it just as clear that I have a lot of affection for this one regardless. Is it nostalgic bias? Sure. And hey, when it really comes down to which kart racer I'm willing to aggressively go to bat for, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed takes a lot from Diddy Kong Racing's book and really runs with it. Far better game. It has Danica Patrick. Who does Diddy Kong Racing have? Banjo. I wanna punt that bozo into a volcano.
Kart racers have come a long way, but the landscape in 1997 was largely colored by two Mario Karts and at least a dozen derivatives. Skunny Kart and BC Racers weren't lighting the world on fire, and even Mario Kart 64's main distinction was that it was in 3D now. And then Rare came along and was like "what if we put planes in a kart racer" and everyone cheered, and then they asked "what if there was boats, too?" and everyone screamed "No! NO! That's TOO FAR!!" but they did it anyway.
Diddy Kong Racing's unique features may not turn heads today, but this game was kind of wild in 97. Every established convention of the genre was played around with and pushed forward in some way. Why have a stock list of tracks to run through when you could have a whole hub world where exploration is key to progression? Why not have a story, additional battle modes, and boss fights? Why limit yourself to a kart when you can take to the skies or
Similar to Goldeneye 64, Diddy Kong Racing benefitted from having a small team that was willing to design whatever they thought was fun rather than sticking to a rigid design doc. After all, this started as a real-time strategy game before undergoing a long metamorphosis into what it is today. I love diving into the development history of Rare games, especially during the Nintendo 64 era, because regardless of how their games turned out (god knows I have a lot of mixed feelings on them), the path they took from concept to release is always fascinating. In the case of Diddy Kong Racing, I think their unique approach to designing games paid off in some big ways, but it's not a perfect experience by any means. The balance is way off, and a few missions (especially boss fights) are unnecessarily brutal. Even as an adult who is more seasoned with kart racers, I found myself really bashing my head against a few parts of this game.
However, this is one of several games I played with my grandpa, and that means it's left an indelible mark on me. Its faults may be apparent, but my score should make it just as clear that I have a lot of affection for this one regardless. Is it nostalgic bias? Sure. And hey, when it really comes down to which kart racer I'm willing to aggressively go to bat for, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed takes a lot from Diddy Kong Racing's book and really runs with it. Far better game. It has Danica Patrick. Who does Diddy Kong Racing have? Banjo. I wanna punt that bozo into a volcano.
2022
We all wear masks... metaphorically speaking, Mr. Kratos.
Don't know why I got it in my head that God of War (2018) was the first in a trilogy. Everything's a trilogy nowadays, and every Sony first party title is a narrative action game. I know everyone is sick of it, the people crave Ape Escape, I crave Ape Escape, but having now finished the God of War Duology, I really wouldn't mind another one of these.
I won't dive in too deep on the story, but Ragnarok provides satisfying payoff to basically every plot hook introduced in the previous game and brings everyone's character arcs full circle for a conclusion that feels very earned. I think. Look, I was screwed up on medication and wracked by insomnia before a invasive medical procedure when I played most of God of War, I don't remember much of it. Baldur was there, Mimir's head was smacking off the side of Kratos' ass, Freya was real mad about her failson trying to kill her... I got the broad strokes!
Thor and Odin (played by Richard Schiff, who is mashing every scene between his molars) are perfect contrasts to Kratos and Atreus, both in terms of personal growth and their station in the story. Atreus wants to learn more about himself and the giants but seeks to defy their prophecy to protect the ones he loves, whereas Odin is consumed by a self-centered desire for knowledge and has blinded himself to the cost. Kratos realizes he's been running from who he was, but confronts his past and grows, while Thor feels powerless in the face of his own nature and habitually succumbs to his own anger and self-loathing. The rest of the supporting cast is given plenty of reason to kick old man Odin's door down and beat his ass, too.
Surt's also here, he's gonna cast Agidyne or some shit.
Combat picks up more quickly than the last game, you don't have to wait until halfway through to get the Blades of Chaos, and you eventually get a new weapon that makes use of the draupnir ring in some creative ways. Gameplay is divided between Kratos and Atreus, and I tend to worry anytime one of these games puts me in control of a side character that their gameplay just won't feel as good. Initially, Atreus is tedium manifest, but he really grew on me, and by the end of the game I think I actually prefer his combat over Kratos'.
New weapons and abilities are metered out in a way that keeps the game feeling fresh, but chapters struggle a bit more with pacing and often overstay their welcome. Every chapter has at least one room too many of a particular gimmick, puzzle, or combat encounter, resulting in about 20-30 minutes of your playtime feeling padded out. This is more a problem in the first half of the game, but even some late game chapters still drag on a bit. There are also a lot of side missions, and I eventually had to accept that I wasn't going to do everything, because then I'd only tire of Ragnarok and end up liking it less. I wouldn't even say this is a quantity over quality issue as all of it is still good, there's also just too much of it, and some of your time across Ragnarok's realms could've been better divided.
I wonder if we'll ever get to see Atreus at that age where he's stealing beer out of the garage refrigerator and taking the Blades of Chaos behind Kratos' back and accidentally causing an obscene amount of property damage. Even if we don't, I'm fairly confident in saying Ragnarok is the best game in the series. I've never played any of the other games besides the 2018 one but like, c'mon. It's got Surt!
Addendum: I almost gave this a 4/5 because of its pacing issues, but then started thinking about how Heimdall is basically just Weyoun from Deep Space 9 and that's deserving of a half star at the very least. Now if you'll excuse me, Mimir and I are gonna head to the holosuite in Svartalfheim and pretend to be old WWII British fighter pilots.
Don't know why I got it in my head that God of War (2018) was the first in a trilogy. Everything's a trilogy nowadays, and every Sony first party title is a narrative action game. I know everyone is sick of it, the people crave Ape Escape, I crave Ape Escape, but having now finished the God of War Duology, I really wouldn't mind another one of these.
I won't dive in too deep on the story, but Ragnarok provides satisfying payoff to basically every plot hook introduced in the previous game and brings everyone's character arcs full circle for a conclusion that feels very earned. I think. Look, I was screwed up on medication and wracked by insomnia before a invasive medical procedure when I played most of God of War, I don't remember much of it. Baldur was there, Mimir's head was smacking off the side of Kratos' ass, Freya was real mad about her failson trying to kill her... I got the broad strokes!
Thor and Odin (played by Richard Schiff, who is mashing every scene between his molars) are perfect contrasts to Kratos and Atreus, both in terms of personal growth and their station in the story. Atreus wants to learn more about himself and the giants but seeks to defy their prophecy to protect the ones he loves, whereas Odin is consumed by a self-centered desire for knowledge and has blinded himself to the cost. Kratos realizes he's been running from who he was, but confronts his past and grows, while Thor feels powerless in the face of his own nature and habitually succumbs to his own anger and self-loathing. The rest of the supporting cast is given plenty of reason to kick old man Odin's door down and beat his ass, too.
Surt's also here, he's gonna cast Agidyne or some shit.
Combat picks up more quickly than the last game, you don't have to wait until halfway through to get the Blades of Chaos, and you eventually get a new weapon that makes use of the draupnir ring in some creative ways. Gameplay is divided between Kratos and Atreus, and I tend to worry anytime one of these games puts me in control of a side character that their gameplay just won't feel as good. Initially, Atreus is tedium manifest, but he really grew on me, and by the end of the game I think I actually prefer his combat over Kratos'.
New weapons and abilities are metered out in a way that keeps the game feeling fresh, but chapters struggle a bit more with pacing and often overstay their welcome. Every chapter has at least one room too many of a particular gimmick, puzzle, or combat encounter, resulting in about 20-30 minutes of your playtime feeling padded out. This is more a problem in the first half of the game, but even some late game chapters still drag on a bit. There are also a lot of side missions, and I eventually had to accept that I wasn't going to do everything, because then I'd only tire of Ragnarok and end up liking it less. I wouldn't even say this is a quantity over quality issue as all of it is still good, there's also just too much of it, and some of your time across Ragnarok's realms could've been better divided.
I wonder if we'll ever get to see Atreus at that age where he's stealing beer out of the garage refrigerator and taking the Blades of Chaos behind Kratos' back and accidentally causing an obscene amount of property damage. Even if we don't, I'm fairly confident in saying Ragnarok is the best game in the series. I've never played any of the other games besides the 2018 one but like, c'mon. It's got Surt!
Addendum: I almost gave this a 4/5 because of its pacing issues, but then started thinking about how Heimdall is basically just Weyoun from Deep Space 9 and that's deserving of a half star at the very least. Now if you'll excuse me, Mimir and I are gonna head to the holosuite in Svartalfheim and pretend to be old WWII British fighter pilots.