GameClub Game #1:

Mystical Ninja starring Goemon denies me of my usual stream-of-consciousness style for reviewing by positioning itself right in the middle of the quality scale. It excels at nothing, attempts nothing to excel at, and sleeps well in the warmth of anti-critical faux-nostalgia from those who did or don't have fond memories of the N64. I always say that boring games are worse than straight up bad games because they siphon every interesting quality out of a video game and instead of ruining them or bolstering them, mitigate them with a mind numbing lack of knowledge or ambition. This game is exactly that; a stepping stone for more ambitious devs to use as a reference point in what to avoid in design.

Every area in Goemon is stretched a mile long in an attempt to pad playtime. This would be fine, if Goemon and his peanut gallery had any sort of movement options to offer the more interested player a more enticing relationship between world and control, but they don't. Every ability and action is supplemented with 4 useless button presses in order to initiate when they could be delegated to 1- and are even further delayed by pointlessly long unattractive animations. This would be fine if the abilities and actions served any other purpose than to open locked doors in different ways or cease the delay of your movement forward, but they don't. Even when you do get abilities that allow you to circumvent the intended solutions for said lock-and-key puzzles, you're about 30 minutes from being rid of the game. On top of that, you can't enact any ability while moving, even ones that Make the player Move. It's pretty darn silly and I can only assuming intentionally stifling. I would be able to forgive these bouts of boring, standardized gameplay if the game kept up its witty, absurd comedy that is present within the first 10 minutes, but it doesn't. What I thought might be a middling gameplay experience upheld by its writing and gags immediately becomes a middling package wrapped up in a tone deaf bow.

The best joke in the game is when it introduced its secondary protagonist by throwing him out of a restaurant for streaking. That's the first cutscene. Everything else the game considers funny is on part of the pressured, underpaid localizers to erase any kind of marginalized hate terms slung at minority groups that Japan loves to hate. I can appreciate this game's dedication to recreating and paying homage to Japanese culture, accurate depictions of real locations, but it all falls apart when I look up "Mystical Ninja Goemon Okama."

The game isn't worth it and only offers a couple catchy songs, nicely baked-in cool bounce lighting in some areas, and it's overall visual dedication. Other than that, everything about Mystical Ninja Goemon deserves to be ignored. It brings to light no interesting conversation and even trying will be a waste of energy as I could just spend that energy forming a cooler conversation about a better game.

I don't really have much interesting to say, but neither does the game.
So middle fingers up, this shit is Goemid. It's not Mario 64 meets Ocarina of Time. You don't even know what that means. You don't even want that shit. Go to work.

Magic is real. If you didn't know that yet, I'm sure it just rocked your world. This previously fictitious concept of a bottle-able, anti-reality force that opposes our predefined sense of nature is actually tangible. Inch toward grappling with this new reality until you can make peace with it, understand how things have changed, and tackle it head on. Magic, to you, was once intuitive. Santa was able to deliver gifts to all the children of the world in just one night. Magicians could bend spoons, vanish rabbits, or walk on water. There was a profit to be made from knocking all your teeth out on purpose and banking with the Tooth Fairy. I understand if you need to sit down for a second. While you're sitting, you might wanna do something to relax. It might help you parse the shattering information you just learned. Everyone has different techniques to relax, so go ahead and choose your favorite. Maybe you indulge in a favorite snack, or just lay your head to rest.

I, personally, play video games- no matter the mood.

Corn Kidz 64 knows magic is real. It transforms the reality of magic into a confident display utilizing a true, relatable, childlike wonder; indulgence with an edge. The emo goat-duo that the game follows speak with a bit-tongue's amount of Lulz. It's just the right amount of a personality anyone playing this game is definitely familiar with: it never gets grating or "cringey." It's obvious the game's solo-dev holds this kind of early internet culture close to his heart, as the game lacks any kind of deathly serious motive or secret agenda. The playable character wants Nachos, and Nachos are a funny food, so we run with it. It's all an excuse for cute interactions between characters, which is as noble of a goal as any. It harkens back to any adult's deviantart childhood in a non-punishing way. This reflective purity is also displayed through the game's obviously 5th generation iterative visual style, something also close to home to the dev, evident through its perfect execution. The vast, supernaturally colored skyboxes, misty textures, and oddly specific architecture offers a unique impression through a familiar lens, it's fantastic and needs no discussion past this.

The game's visuals and writing is a match made in heaven, as it isn't baiting the player along its path. Corn Kidz is more than the memory of a trident controller, as it brings the sharp, cutthroat "edgy"ness of teenaged creation with it, and it's completely welcome. The goats complain about being "developmentally crippled mutants", there's cartoonish gore, and gothic theming all over Wolloh's Hollow. Allusions to religious satire and ethically dubious acts tie the game's presentation in a nice, torn up, black bow. I wanted to say early it's a match made in hell, but that would've sounded like an insult lacking context. The whole package is so relatable to me. It isn't just this "fantastical" sense of childhood or Wonder, it's the unexpected intensity. The slapstick fluid animation that binds it, the seemingly inappropriate theming, I am into this stuff.

But above it all, Corn Kidz is aware of magic's rules.

It's secrets lie within conviction- the power to do things because you know you can. Belief in "corn powers" and the supernatural.
If you don't think you can make a jump and chicken out, you're lacking the faith that fuels the magic. This game has mastered what I call the "skin-of-your-teeth" jump like I haven't seen since Mario 64. Every jump will have you sucking air through your teeth until you exhale. Some jumps seem impossible without the fated "upgrade" or "different ability" you'll never get. It's all a matter of analyzing your seemingly unintuitive surroundings, thinking about your approach, and executing. It's very satisfying. "Unintuitive" is really the name of the game here, especially when it comes to puzzle solving, as every solution has a very cryptic, yet retroactively obvious, solution. It encourages the player to study every option in the toybox they roam and leads them to the discovery that no room, no object, is unneccessary. If something seems menial or strictly humorous, the odds are its an incredibly important piece to a multi-step puzzle. This would usually bother me, but since Seve is so fun to control, it doesn't matter. Just as jumps are tailored, Seve's turn radius, speed, and limited moves leave so much room in their simplicity and effectiveness for wonderful player-interaction with the world. While his wall jumps, sidling, and homing attacks are simple on paper, there are iterations on them that further encourage a unique thought directive in the player. For example, you jump higher on walls when you push against them, so "impossible" distances actually just require some prior proximity. Seve's air-boost homing attack magnetizes to distant objects, but blasting off of them isn't attached to your control stick or inherent to your previously chosen direction. This impressed me; It's actually initiated through an extra button input after colliding with an object, which gives you slack time to continually boost wherever you want again while airborne. I play a lot of Sonic games, and the "answer" to flow-stopping homing attacks has always alluded me, and this serves as a more than functional alternative. It's COOL. There's room for experimentation within Seve's base movement too, there are faster ways of travel other than walking if you're willing to take the time to try; but frankly, the game doesn't need it. Everything is so close together and you unlock so many shortcuts around the areas that travel is never obnoxious. The hands off camera functionality works wonders for the game's flow, and additives to it like a "look directly down" button and distant option make it even better. Old 3d platformers have gotten a lot of flack for their cameras, but I've always been a proponent of the camera being a mechanic just as much as a moveset or obstacle is. It's something you need to tackle and understand, and often times, trust for the best experience. Corn Kidz 64 is no different if you're willing to sit down and shut up.

Magic lies in confidence and confidence is as real as you're willing to display. If you didn't know that yet, I'm sure it just rocked your world.