banjo78910
BACKER
I bounced off Return of the Obra Dinn, something about having to walk around the 3D environments and remember everything was too much for me. This kind of deduction game was much simpler and therefore easier for me to handle. It made me feel smart in the ways the best of these sorts of games do. I had to use a few hints but I got there in the end.
2022
This review contains spoilers
I really liked the writing in this, and the pixel animation was cute and expressive. I was a little let down by it towards the end because what I suspect was a bug kept me from developing the photo properly for my mom. I was so invested I downloaded a hex editor to try to edit my save file to fix it! It didn't work, and then the game basically yelled at me for not completing that task. That didn't feel great. I liked it overall well enough, though I wish the game didn't feel so beholden to point and click adventure trappings, a lot of times i didn't know what to do because I had clicked on the obvious stuff but it turned out i was like a pixel off or whatever. Excited to see what the sequel is like!
2022
Cute! A nice tech demo for the SteamDeck. Love that they got JK Simmons back.
2001
I liked this a lot! It The animations are all really expressive, and it's fun to see Luigi and Mario and Bowser in the days just before they got super consistent models and brand identity. The music is great, it's fun to hear the original versions of tracks I know from years of Super Smash Bros.
The lack of modern game niceties is my biggest gripe here. I never got used to the inverted analog stick controls to aim the Poltergust, and though the bosses weren't exactly hard, I lost a lot more because of that. And then when I did lose, I had to start from the beginning of the mansion, make my way all the way back to where I was, and watch the intro cutscene again. I also had to consult a guide a few times to figure out where to go, since there's basically no signposting if you've missed a key in a previous room. These are all rough edges that modern games have more or less sanded down, and though its hard to fault a 22-year old game for that sort of thing, it still made getting through it more irritating.
I still did really like it, and it got me to dust off my 3DS so I can go right into the sequel.
The lack of modern game niceties is my biggest gripe here. I never got used to the inverted analog stick controls to aim the Poltergust, and though the bosses weren't exactly hard, I lost a lot more because of that. And then when I did lose, I had to start from the beginning of the mansion, make my way all the way back to where I was, and watch the intro cutscene again. I also had to consult a guide a few times to figure out where to go, since there's basically no signposting if you've missed a key in a previous room. These are all rough edges that modern games have more or less sanded down, and though its hard to fault a 22-year old game for that sort of thing, it still made getting through it more irritating.
I still did really like it, and it got me to dust off my 3DS so I can go right into the sequel.
2023
This game solidified that I am just not a fan of combo-based action combat games. I wanted to love this so badly from the moment I saw the trailer. I love games that use music in non-traditional ways, so a whole game with a combat system based around music? Should be exactly my thing. I couldn't get fully into it. Everything here is so great, the comic-book graphics, the animation, the writing, all stellar. And I did mostly enjoy the gameplay for basically all of it! But I think I'm just not built to memorize combos and remember which ones are the best for each situation. I sort of just ended up button mashing through the game, which was not very satisfying, even if I was mashing to a beat.
This is a probably a silly complaint, but I do wish the game had more licensed music. I wasn't a huge fan of the original songs made for the game, and I also didn't recognize most of the licensed songs that were here. The level towards the end that uses The Prodigy's Invaders Must Die was by far my favorite part of the game, and where the gameplay most clicked for me. I think if there were more songs I recognized it would have done more for me. Again, this criticism says more about me than the game, but there it is.
It's weird when a game comes around that is so solid in every respect, it's just not for you at all. Even though I didn't fall in love with this as much as I wanted, and even though it probably won't make my top 5 at the end of the year, I can't bring myself give it less than 4 stars.
This is a probably a silly complaint, but I do wish the game had more licensed music. I wasn't a huge fan of the original songs made for the game, and I also didn't recognize most of the licensed songs that were here. The level towards the end that uses The Prodigy's Invaders Must Die was by far my favorite part of the game, and where the gameplay most clicked for me. I think if there were more songs I recognized it would have done more for me. Again, this criticism says more about me than the game, but there it is.
It's weird when a game comes around that is so solid in every respect, it's just not for you at all. Even though I didn't fall in love with this as much as I wanted, and even though it probably won't make my top 5 at the end of the year, I can't bring myself give it less than 4 stars.
2016
So I played this after loving Like a Dragon, and I gotta say I was disappointed. I understand this was a relatively faithful remake so it’s not really fair to compare a game’s seventh entry to its first, but I just found so much more to like in that game. Kiryu is just not as interesting a protagonist, and that made it hard to care about the narrative. The side content the series is famed for also mostly passed me by since I never was sure when the best time to do it was? It felt like every time I was dropped into the city where I could choose to go off and do side stuff, there was some pressing objective on my map. This girl I’ve been taking care of has been kidnapped, but hang on let me go play slot car racing for a bit.
I did like the combat once I unlocked enough skills for it to click. The Majima side quests were also fun, the zombie one in particular was the exact kind of zany that I hoped the rest of the game had. There were definitely glimmers of what I loved about Like a Dragon in here, and I can only hope those continue to come through as the series progresses.
I did like the combat once I unlocked enough skills for it to click. The Majima side quests were also fun, the zombie one in particular was the exact kind of zany that I hoped the rest of the game had. There were definitely glimmers of what I loved about Like a Dragon in here, and I can only hope those continue to come through as the series progresses.
2022
I haven't watched Rick & Morty since like season 3, but when that show was good it was good. There are glimmers of that here, its particular brand of pathos mixed with absurdity comes through sometimes. Most of the time though, it's just tiring. Many people seem to have found the writing actively grating, I generally didn't. My bigger problem was so much of it seems pulled directly from mid-2000's style "isn't it so funny how the NPCs in this level are teddy bears, but these ones say fuck!!". It's the kind of subversion that hasn't been novel since 2011. There's 2 different, otherwise unrelated objectives that have you find some character that's implied to be really cool and impressive, only for them to be lazy and rude. Satire!
At one point a character you previously saved from literal enslavement says "Wow thank you for saving me before, but now another villain has enslaved me again! Please help! Or don't, I don't actually care". So many interactions in this game end in some version of "or don't, I don't actually care". Then why should I, game??
On the positive side, maybe I'm basic, but the meta moments in the game did really work for me, generally. The penultimate boss that tries and fails to channel Psycho Mantis was particularly good, IMO. Kenny just straight up telling you to go play Donut County immediately bumped my rating up half a star.
All this being said, the gameplay is actually very good. I'm no shooter buff, but the different gun powers were all interesting and fun to play. It feels very Doom 2016 inspired, with an emphasis on movement and flow over precision. The level of difficulty was perfectly tuned for my taste, allowing me to play through most levels without dying but still having to strategize my play style against different enemies. The bosses were all well designed too.
Mixed bag, but I liked it! I'm very interested to see what a sequel would look like given the shockingly divisive response this one got.
At one point a character you previously saved from literal enslavement says "Wow thank you for saving me before, but now another villain has enslaved me again! Please help! Or don't, I don't actually care". So many interactions in this game end in some version of "or don't, I don't actually care". Then why should I, game??
On the positive side, maybe I'm basic, but the meta moments in the game did really work for me, generally. The penultimate boss that tries and fails to channel Psycho Mantis was particularly good, IMO. Kenny just straight up telling you to go play Donut County immediately bumped my rating up half a star.
All this being said, the gameplay is actually very good. I'm no shooter buff, but the different gun powers were all interesting and fun to play. It feels very Doom 2016 inspired, with an emphasis on movement and flow over precision. The level of difficulty was perfectly tuned for my taste, allowing me to play through most levels without dying but still having to strategize my play style against different enemies. The bosses were all well designed too.
Mixed bag, but I liked it! I'm very interested to see what a sequel would look like given the shockingly divisive response this one got.
2022
This game is deeply frustrating. When it works, it really works. Sonic games are best when it strikes the right balance between rollercoaster and reflex test, and there are moments here where it hits that past the point of any Sonic game before it. There are also moments where tilting the stick half a degree in the wrong direction sends you careening off a cliff, or into a boost pad sending you directly backwards.
The controls are just weird here, Sonic feels really heavy, which makes it feel great when you're boostign and have good momentum going, but then for some reason jumping resets that momentum? And you can't chain light dash into boost without coming to a screeching halt, which feels awful. Again, when it works, its great, but when it doesn't, really doesn't.
Same for the combat, which never really clicked for me. Sometimes, mostly the larger set piece encounters, I felt like I understood what the dev team was going for, but most of the time I just felt like I was mashing Square until I won.
The idea of a Sonic game story that tackles some more serious themes is a nice one, but the dialogue doesn't really live up to the promise of the narrative structure. I never really cared that much about the arcs my friends were going through, and for a relatively lengthy game (by Sonic standards) those character beats felt pretty rushed.
Simultaneously much better and worse than I expected before going in, which is almost comforting. If they ever do make a Breath of the Wild scale game in quality as well as scale, like they were clearly trying to here, would we even enjoy it?
The controls are just weird here, Sonic feels really heavy, which makes it feel great when you're boostign and have good momentum going, but then for some reason jumping resets that momentum? And you can't chain light dash into boost without coming to a screeching halt, which feels awful. Again, when it works, its great, but when it doesn't, really doesn't.
Same for the combat, which never really clicked for me. Sometimes, mostly the larger set piece encounters, I felt like I understood what the dev team was going for, but most of the time I just felt like I was mashing Square until I won.
The idea of a Sonic game story that tackles some more serious themes is a nice one, but the dialogue doesn't really live up to the promise of the narrative structure. I never really cared that much about the arcs my friends were going through, and for a relatively lengthy game (by Sonic standards) those character beats felt pretty rushed.
Simultaneously much better and worse than I expected before going in, which is almost comforting. If they ever do make a Breath of the Wild scale game in quality as well as scale, like they were clearly trying to here, would we even enjoy it?
2022
This review contains spoilers
Hoo boy does this game make a bad first impression. Clunky controls, an empty open world, and graphics/performance as bad as everyone says. I put it down for several weeks because I just could not get into it at the start.
And then, around 3-4 hours, a funny thing happens. Your robo-pokemon-motorcycle gets the ability to jump higher and therefore explore more of the map. You start to realize that, while there are no side quests, the developers have put little touches in obscure corners of the map to encourage exploration. You realize that maybe the graphics aren't so bad after a- no jk the game looks like an n64 game most of the time, it doesn't get any better.
By the middle of it I found myself putting off getting to the next quest marker so I could find out what's behind that ridge. I found myself delighted at the bespoke world animations for Pokemon I've seen a hundred times (seeing a Cloyster flap its shell like a clam to move was more thrilling than it had any right to be). I did all the academy classes for god's sake, and those were mostly boring! But the fact that I felt invested enough to see what the game had in store is a testament to how much they packed in here.
And then the last third. Pokemon Black and White were the last Pokemon games to have any real investment in their narrative, and even then it was pretty skin deep. Here though, just by virtue of it doing something mildly ambitious, I found myself actively caring about the characters. The final mission where your three companions are following you down into danger while having conversations around you about how you met? Genuinely great stuff.
And that ending. From a pure presentational perspective, absolutely the capital-C Coolest thing Pokemon has ever done. The animation of AI Turo pulling a Master ball out of a friggin time machine, and then casually dropping it into battle ? I was pumping my fist in real life. I'm a sucker for when a game subverts the systems it's taught you to use during the whole game, so the part where you try to start a battle but you can't, and clicking fight tells you "You can't fight without a Pokemon on the field"? So cool.
The Pokemon designs themselves are the strongest they've been, maybe ever? Definitely since Ruby/Sapphire.
It's a crime that this game will be remembered for its (very real) graphics and performance issues. I was so into this game by the end that it managed to have an Ed Sheeran song over its end credits and it isn't cringe somehow!! If this had come out in the spring exactly as is but with 6 more months of polish, this would go down as the kind of franchise defining hit that Breath of the Wild was for Zelda. What an accomplishment. What a shame.
And then, around 3-4 hours, a funny thing happens. Your robo-pokemon-motorcycle gets the ability to jump higher and therefore explore more of the map. You start to realize that, while there are no side quests, the developers have put little touches in obscure corners of the map to encourage exploration. You realize that maybe the graphics aren't so bad after a- no jk the game looks like an n64 game most of the time, it doesn't get any better.
By the middle of it I found myself putting off getting to the next quest marker so I could find out what's behind that ridge. I found myself delighted at the bespoke world animations for Pokemon I've seen a hundred times (seeing a Cloyster flap its shell like a clam to move was more thrilling than it had any right to be). I did all the academy classes for god's sake, and those were mostly boring! But the fact that I felt invested enough to see what the game had in store is a testament to how much they packed in here.
And then the last third. Pokemon Black and White were the last Pokemon games to have any real investment in their narrative, and even then it was pretty skin deep. Here though, just by virtue of it doing something mildly ambitious, I found myself actively caring about the characters. The final mission where your three companions are following you down into danger while having conversations around you about how you met? Genuinely great stuff.
And that ending. From a pure presentational perspective, absolutely the capital-C Coolest thing Pokemon has ever done. The animation of AI Turo pulling a Master ball out of a friggin time machine, and then casually dropping it into battle ? I was pumping my fist in real life. I'm a sucker for when a game subverts the systems it's taught you to use during the whole game, so the part where you try to start a battle but you can't, and clicking fight tells you "You can't fight without a Pokemon on the field"? So cool.
The Pokemon designs themselves are the strongest they've been, maybe ever? Definitely since Ruby/Sapphire.
It's a crime that this game will be remembered for its (very real) graphics and performance issues. I was so into this game by the end that it managed to have an Ed Sheeran song over its end credits and it isn't cringe somehow!! If this had come out in the spring exactly as is but with 6 more months of polish, this would go down as the kind of franchise defining hit that Breath of the Wild was for Zelda. What an accomplishment. What a shame.
As a rhythm game, pretty good! I liked the wide variety of songs from across the series. Some of the more difficult songs felt basically impossible though, both because the moving enemy targets made it hard to tell when to hit the button but also because I never felt like I fully dialed in my display lag settings. Some of the progression missions also felt really difficult, though luckily you only need about 2/3 of them to unlock every song in the main campaign, and even fewer than that to finish the story.
The interstitials with Kairi summarizing plot points from past games were fully incomprehensible, even by Kingdom Hearts standards. If I hadn't played all those games within the last few years I'd have absolutely no idea what she was talking about, and I feel like these take away more than they add.
The end bit of story however is exactly the sort of Kingdom Hearts nonsense I live for. Of course a spin-off rhythm game that presents itself as a retrospective of the music of the series is actually plot-critical, why would we think anything else?
The interstitials with Kairi summarizing plot points from past games were fully incomprehensible, even by Kingdom Hearts standards. If I hadn't played all those games within the last few years I'd have absolutely no idea what she was talking about, and I feel like these take away more than they add.
The end bit of story however is exactly the sort of Kingdom Hearts nonsense I live for. Of course a spin-off rhythm game that presents itself as a retrospective of the music of the series is actually plot-critical, why would we think anything else?
2022
This might be the best a video game narrative has ever been. Kratos and Atreus have an arc that made me laugh, cry, and cheer out loud multiple times in my playthrough. The expanded cast is so well realized and acted; Odin as a mob boss with a family that obeys him out of fear is so well done.
The visual design is a treat with so much variety, and the set pieces are stunning. The scene of the wolf chasing an arrow into the sun as the sky parts into nighttime might be my new favorite single visual moment from a game, ever.
The gameplay lives up to its narrative too, with a steady balance of challenge and progression. I found the optional bosses to be as difficult but much less frustrating than the first game. Exploration is a delight, clearly the developers took the positive feedback about the first game's boat conversations to heart. The amount of contextual dialogue here is extremely impressive.
I have extremely minor quibbles with some of the upgrade systems, and one of the post-game quests in particular, but when 99% of the game is such an out and out masterpiece, its hard to dwell on any of that. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.
The visual design is a treat with so much variety, and the set pieces are stunning. The scene of the wolf chasing an arrow into the sun as the sky parts into nighttime might be my new favorite single visual moment from a game, ever.
The gameplay lives up to its narrative too, with a steady balance of challenge and progression. I found the optional bosses to be as difficult but much less frustrating than the first game. Exploration is a delight, clearly the developers took the positive feedback about the first game's boat conversations to heart. The amount of contextual dialogue here is extremely impressive.
I have extremely minor quibbles with some of the upgrade systems, and one of the post-game quests in particular, but when 99% of the game is such an out and out masterpiece, its hard to dwell on any of that. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.
This was good, but doesn't come close to the first one in my opinion. I really liked the snowboarding sections, and the level design is as good as ever. The story interruptions were way too frequent, and long. You can't mash to speed up dialogue either, though you can at least skip cutscenes which makes seeing repeat ones less tedious. The story itself is a lot more confusing too, and the ending doesn't hit as hard.
Overall a solid platformer, but it just can't reach the heights of the original.
Overall a solid platformer, but it just can't reach the heights of the original.
2022
This was really great! Loved the art style and level design. The 2D character design makes the game extremely crisp looking and stylish. Each level is large and full of detail and interesting things to do, and the steady curve of upgrades and Tinykin gathering keeps them from getting overwhelming. The narrative was also really well done, with some interesting lore and explorations of faith and myth. Really looking forward to a sequel, or whatever this studio does next.
This was so good! Wish this was easier to get on an original disc, but emulation worked fine. The sprites mixed with PS1 level polygons is a really cool aesthetic, and the gameplay is surprisingly polished for the era. I've played a lot of 2.5d platformers but I've never played one that plays with the 0.5 as much as this, and it works really well. The story is also great, and sad! Exceeded my expectations, even with all the hype I've seen online.
2022
An extremely faithful remake of the PS1 game, for better or worse. A lot of early 3d platforming jank, but ultimately a charming adventure that doesn't overstay its welcome.