kokoko0064
5 reviews liked by kokoko0064
I was almost tricked into thinking this was a proper, intentionally designed video game. Then I hit mission five, where that facade was torn apart by a pack of angry bears.
The stealth mechanics aren't too shabby, even when presented alongside what's essentially an official pack of custom levels. It's still satisfying to learn the layouts of these small levels and use your stealth skills to complete them efficiently. Just...watch out for the bears.
The stealth mechanics aren't too shabby, even when presented alongside what's essentially an official pack of custom levels. It's still satisfying to learn the layouts of these small levels and use your stealth skills to complete them efficiently. Just...watch out for the bears.
I fought my brother, who played as Bob and Slim Bob cosplaying Mario and Luigi respectively, as Kazuya cosplaying Link and Lili cosplaying Princess Peach, while Snoop Dogg rapped about Tekken in the background and cars with insane hydraulics bounced past.
What more could you ask for in a video game?
What more could you ask for in a video game?
Persona 5 Royal
2019
holy crap
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has cemented Xenoblade as my favorite series of video games of all time. Meeting my every expectation and more, we're never getting a game this special for a long time, that's what my gut's saying anyway.
As of writing, I have finished the game, but am doing post-game. I'm planning on replaying it again so I can do a follow-up review that goes more in-depth on my feelings. For now though, my initial thoughts.
The story is an emotional roller coaster from start to finish. I've never felt more connected to a cast of characters in Xenoblade, or really any game in a long time. It got me choked up on several occasions, which is rare. It does have shortcomings, definitely, but I can overlook all of it because this game made me feel something that I'm never going to forget.
Gameplay that is slower and strategic like the first game, yet still fast and always something to set up for, or to pay attention to, never a dull moment, like the second game. Combining both battle systems with even higher satisfaction and how they work together without any issues seems impossible, but they did it. Easily my favorite combat system ever, took everything I loved from both games, and added on top of it to make this game stand out. Variety is also as strong as Xenoblade 2, but not nearly as overwhelming, and everything you gain access to is viable and useful in their own ways, which encourages way more experimentation. Concepts and weapon types that felt under-baked or under utilized from the past two entries have been updated and are fantastic as well!
The world is so vast, and so much fun to explore. I adored almost every setting this game had to offer, while it certainly wasn't as whimsical as prior games, it's still worth exploring and easy to get immersed into. Actually exploring it is so much easier and fun now too. Field skills from Xenoblade 2 return, but they made them progression based, and not a stat check, and it's wonderful. They also fully utilized these field skills in this entry with a lot of the world design, and I'm a huge fan, genuinely a substantial leap forward in almost every shortcoming exploration had in the past two games.
Music is just as amazing as it's always been. While I do think there are more forgettable tracks this time around, the tracks that do stick became some of my favorite in the series, and that is no small feat. I will relinquish some music that plays in the different areas is the weakest part of the soundtrack to me, music played in cutscenes and battles are phenomenal, much more cinematic and grand, like a movie almost, I was honestly a huge fan of the direction they went with it.
Most beautiful Switch game I've ever laid my eyes on almost. This to me is in the running between Breath of The Wild, and Luigi's Mansion 3 for best looking Switch game. Has the same vibrant colors and expressive character designs from Xenoblade 2, but has the more mature and grounded designs of the first game, basically the best of both worlds. These character designs are awesome, I love all of them so much, there truly isn't a weak character design in this game to me, they're all incredible, fixing a major issue once again from its predecessors.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will forever be a favorite of mine, and a game that means so much to me, and will likely only deepen as time goes on. I'm planning on doing a way more in-depth review of this game after playing through the story one more time, so I can collect all my thoughts on it, as well as the game in general. I also have not yet rated this game, or marked it as complete as of making this review, but just know it's 5 stars from me, and will likely go on to 100% this game, as well as the DLC in the future.
As of writing, I have finished the game, but am doing post-game. I'm planning on replaying it again so I can do a follow-up review that goes more in-depth on my feelings. For now though, my initial thoughts.
The story is an emotional roller coaster from start to finish. I've never felt more connected to a cast of characters in Xenoblade, or really any game in a long time. It got me choked up on several occasions, which is rare. It does have shortcomings, definitely, but I can overlook all of it because this game made me feel something that I'm never going to forget.
Gameplay that is slower and strategic like the first game, yet still fast and always something to set up for, or to pay attention to, never a dull moment, like the second game. Combining both battle systems with even higher satisfaction and how they work together without any issues seems impossible, but they did it. Easily my favorite combat system ever, took everything I loved from both games, and added on top of it to make this game stand out. Variety is also as strong as Xenoblade 2, but not nearly as overwhelming, and everything you gain access to is viable and useful in their own ways, which encourages way more experimentation. Concepts and weapon types that felt under-baked or under utilized from the past two entries have been updated and are fantastic as well!
The world is so vast, and so much fun to explore. I adored almost every setting this game had to offer, while it certainly wasn't as whimsical as prior games, it's still worth exploring and easy to get immersed into. Actually exploring it is so much easier and fun now too. Field skills from Xenoblade 2 return, but they made them progression based, and not a stat check, and it's wonderful. They also fully utilized these field skills in this entry with a lot of the world design, and I'm a huge fan, genuinely a substantial leap forward in almost every shortcoming exploration had in the past two games.
Music is just as amazing as it's always been. While I do think there are more forgettable tracks this time around, the tracks that do stick became some of my favorite in the series, and that is no small feat. I will relinquish some music that plays in the different areas is the weakest part of the soundtrack to me, music played in cutscenes and battles are phenomenal, much more cinematic and grand, like a movie almost, I was honestly a huge fan of the direction they went with it.
Most beautiful Switch game I've ever laid my eyes on almost. This to me is in the running between Breath of The Wild, and Luigi's Mansion 3 for best looking Switch game. Has the same vibrant colors and expressive character designs from Xenoblade 2, but has the more mature and grounded designs of the first game, basically the best of both worlds. These character designs are awesome, I love all of them so much, there truly isn't a weak character design in this game to me, they're all incredible, fixing a major issue once again from its predecessors.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will forever be a favorite of mine, and a game that means so much to me, and will likely only deepen as time goes on. I'm planning on doing a way more in-depth review of this game after playing through the story one more time, so I can collect all my thoughts on it, as well as the game in general. I also have not yet rated this game, or marked it as complete as of making this review, but just know it's 5 stars from me, and will likely go on to 100% this game, as well as the DLC in the future.
This may very well be the biggest scope that a 2D Mario game has had in 20-30 years. Every world has distinct theming, with winding, unpredictable paths on the overworld and secrets abound. You can finally play as Daisy in a mainline Mario game for the first time since her debut in Super Mario Land, 24 years ago. It's so funny looking back at what we've had visually since 2006's New Super Mario Bros. on the DS. Mario and company barely even emote in those games. Compare that to Wonder, where every few seconds got a chuckle out of me due to just how much personality they crammed into this game. The devs forbade themselves from using conventional Mario ideas for a certain period of development, and they came out of that period swinging with over 2000 fresh ideas. I was in a GameStop for about two whole minutes recently, but in that brief moment, I overhead the person playing the demo kiosk and laughing, their exact words being "He turned into an elephant? What kind of game is this?" I'd consider that a successful endeavor. Every level gave me something to be surprised by, like how stupid the dumbass flower is.
Okay, I don't hate the flower as much as everyone else does. There's some occasional Whedon-ism, and at other points it feels like they're backseat gaming me, but they're not really offensive. If anything, I think the English voice is just kind of weak. I swapped it to Italian, which gave them some panache, but even then, I kinda just don't trust them. Why are there so many of them, and why do they all share the same voice? I swear I expected these flowers to be revealed as the true villains at multiple points in this game. They're like an invasive species. The Poplins probably need to invest in some pest control ASAP, lest they get overthrown as the dominant species.
Even still, at the end of the day, this game is what it is, a 2D Mario game. Outside of the Wonder Flower segments, even with the original enemies and level elements, it's still Super Duper God Damn 2D Mario. The bosses are extremely weak (excluding the final boss, why weren't they all like that), which sucks because they pale in comparison to the creativity on display with literally everything else in the game. The music also doesn't leave much of an impact at all, which is a surprising misstep for a game that has several musical and rhythm-oriented stages. Also, screw the "Search Party" stages. I'm not paying for Nintendo Switch Online, which left me playing these "little timmy's first troll level in super mario maker"-tier levels by my lonesome. Fuckin' pick-a-pipe invisible-block bullshit.
Grievances aside, I'm just really happy this game exists as it does at all. 3D Mario has been allowed to be weird and experimental for its whole life, whereas Nintendo dedicated the past 17 years to making 2D Mario something that your grandma could pick up and enjoy, at the cost of being the most milquetoast experience that money could buy. Wonder feels like a game that we should've gotten at least ten years ago, but hey, I'm super happy it's here now.
Okay, I don't hate the flower as much as everyone else does. There's some occasional Whedon-ism, and at other points it feels like they're backseat gaming me, but they're not really offensive. If anything, I think the English voice is just kind of weak. I swapped it to Italian, which gave them some panache, but even then, I kinda just don't trust them. Why are there so many of them, and why do they all share the same voice? I swear I expected these flowers to be revealed as the true villains at multiple points in this game. They're like an invasive species. The Poplins probably need to invest in some pest control ASAP, lest they get overthrown as the dominant species.
Even still, at the end of the day, this game is what it is, a 2D Mario game. Outside of the Wonder Flower segments, even with the original enemies and level elements, it's still Super Duper God Damn 2D Mario. The bosses are extremely weak (excluding the final boss, why weren't they all like that), which sucks because they pale in comparison to the creativity on display with literally everything else in the game. The music also doesn't leave much of an impact at all, which is a surprising misstep for a game that has several musical and rhythm-oriented stages. Also, screw the "Search Party" stages. I'm not paying for Nintendo Switch Online, which left me playing these "little timmy's first troll level in super mario maker"-tier levels by my lonesome. Fuckin' pick-a-pipe invisible-block bullshit.
Grievances aside, I'm just really happy this game exists as it does at all. 3D Mario has been allowed to be weird and experimental for its whole life, whereas Nintendo dedicated the past 17 years to making 2D Mario something that your grandma could pick up and enjoy, at the cost of being the most milquetoast experience that money could buy. Wonder feels like a game that we should've gotten at least ten years ago, but hey, I'm super happy it's here now.