The Mario RPGs have undoubtedly had a shaky legacy. While Super Mario RPG (SNES), the first two Paper Mario games and the first and third Mario & Luigi games were critically acclaimed, there have been many entries into the series which have been quite middling, especially as of recent. You can debate whether they are good or not all you like, but it's undeniable there is a market for people who liked those games, and are displeased with the modern entries. There have been games that directly cater to this demographic, and probably the most notable of these is Bug Fables.

From the get go, I have to say, there was a ton of heart and passion put into this game. Seriously, just walking around the overworld you can see how many unique character designs there are. It basically never reuses assets even for extremely minor characters. This is absolutely a step up from the newer Paper Mario games, which are content with reusing the same enemies and toads but with "unique" names. It gives the world of Bug Fables a really "lived-in" feel, these are people and they're living their lives separate from the main plot; definitely huge for not only a game, but an indie game at that.

This is a good segue into the world building and general story, which is pretty good. That might not sound like much, but keep in mind, I usually hate video game stories. Relying too much on cliches and heavy handed storytelling, which is expected. It's hard to have a focus on subtle character writing in a medium where taking control away from the consumer is viewed as a bad thing. But Bug Fables manages to mostly avoid this through good use of foreshadowing and a consistent tone; it's a little goofy but it knows when to get serious. It isn't entirely devoid of tropes but it takes the time for them to feel genuine, so I'm fine with it personally. For spoiler reasons, that is all I'll say about the story, so if you want a deeper dive, check out this video by Max Dunevitz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEMGOaOJF0o

However, what a lot of people like about Paper Mario and the Mario RPGs, me included, is the gameplay, and Bug Fables is no slouch, I haven't played TTYD yet, but I'll say this is a step up from Paper Mario 1. You have your action commands alongside the simple to grasp low number stats, you only have 3 party members which are always active, rather than having to switch them out, but it makes up for this with a few unique mechanics. The first one is the Relay mechanic, where you can sacrifice a turn for one party member to give another party member an extra turn, with the caveat of lower damage on the extra turn; it adds a new layer to strategy and the game's enemy design is good enough to incentivise it. Secondly, it also introduces Bros. attacks from the Mario & Luigi series, which take a turn from two party members, and if you use a turn for one party member and then use the attack, the party member will be unable to do anything for the next turn. For the latter portion of the game, it definitely adds some depth to the numerous boss encounters.

Another great addition is having numerous optional bosses. You have the bounties as well as quest specific bosses that are very challenging if you don't understand their mechanics. At a certain point, they do become much easier, but I appreciate the side content, which is another thing I like about this game. The Mario RPGs had great main plots but outside of that, there wasn't much to do. You had the challenge node and a couple of attack based minigames in Bowser's Inside Story, alongside some optional bosses in BiS as well as TTYD, but nothing to write home about. Bug Fables blows all of them out of the water by having a lot of quests, each varying in what you have to do, and they're worth doing too thanks to rewards ranging from just more currency to badges and even entirely new abilities.

So if I've sung its praises so much, why is it only a 4.5/5? Well, the graphics and sound design leave a little to be desired. Now, I'm not a graphics whore, I mostly play older games, but there was a lack of detail which I think could've elevated the areas in this game, considering how competent the worldbuilding is, but to the game's credit, it does have a lot of variety in visuals. The sound design is slightly better off with having a good few tracks, but there are some I don't enjoy as much, and the sound effects aren't that satisfying; these are just nitpicks and they didn't sour my enjoyment of the game too much.

Bug Fables is a great game for those who wanted more of the classic style of Paper Mario, I had a great time with it, and I hate turn based RPGs. It's 20 USD (or just over 15 pounds/euros) on Steam, and it's also on Xbox One, PS4 and Switch, and it definitely earns its price tag. I look forward to whatever Moonsprout Games does next.

Wasn't intending to review this game but ever since I finished it I can't stop thinking about it, so here we go.

I am a holder of many hot takes and now I'm adding a new one into the collection: RE5 is better than RE4. Before I get into this game proper, I need to emphasise that you really need to play this with a friend because it is much better, the AI in singleplayer isn't nearly as good as having another human by your side.

To begin with, the inventory system has been drastically improved, as while the Attaché Case wasn't a bad inventory system, it being in an action game just wasn't a good fit for it; constantly stopping and starting, it was a massive pace breaker, alongside some elements such as green herbs and grenades not stacking would mean your inventory would be bloated. RE5's inventory is a straight upgrade, it's much smaller, relegated to 9 slots, but almost everything stacks and you don't have nearly as many menial things such as attachments holding you down, on top of it not pausing the game which creates a lot of tension and emphasises my favourite thing in action games: on-the-fly decision making, which you will need.

The difficulty of RE5 is a drastic improvement over RE4, the dynamic difficulty of 4 does make it a very smooth ride from start to finish, but it meant that people like me who wanted more of a challenge couldn't get one consistently as my victories didn't feel entirely deserved; while dynamic difficulty isn't completely gone from RE5, it has been downplayed to a point in which I am comfortable with, since the only things which are effected by it are only some enemy placements and item drops. It's very minor and playing on the Veteran difficulty gave me and my friend a hard but fair challenge and the few dynamic elements never detracted from the core gameplay and that core gameplay is a ton of fun; aside from the previously mentioned inventory system, all the core mechanics from RE4 have been carried over and improved, you can still stun enemies, shoot certain projectiles out of the air and perform context sensitive melee attacks, but then you also have combo strings of melee attacks you can do with your partner, as well as an execution for when enemies are laying on the ground. The melee attacks can now be performed by both players at once to do extra damage, and while that may initially seem like overkill, it is very good for taking out mini-boss enemies, because there are a lot more of them compared to RE4.

This is where the co-op element really comes into play as having 2 people simultainiously making on-the-fly decisions and helping each other adds so much to the combat, a massive improvement over Ashley whom, while not bad (and I'd argue overhated), didn't really add anything to the game. Let me give you an example: it was in the final hours of the game and I was on a raised platform while my friend was down below where a large enemy was, and it was one of the more dangerous large enemies, I had a magnum which will stun any large enemy and open them up for a melee attack, so I shot the large enemy in the head and began a stunlock string of me shooting it and my friend melee attacking it, doing a ton of damage and finishing off the fight. It was such a brilliant sequence of events and it was all intuitive, all my friend had to say was "gimme another one (opening)" and I knew exactly what he was talking about, and I'll say right now, games that have depth in gameplay and have that depth be intuitive is one of my favourite things ever.

Another complaint I had with RE4 was level design, not because of how linear it was, but because of its basic nature; many arenas are just hallways or large circles, there was nothing to manipulate enemy AI or really outsmart enemies, the game is a borderline shooting gallery because of this. RE5 manages to distinguish itself by having way better arena design as a whole, it's really good to the point where it actually made me like cover mechanics when they were used later in the game; it's got more verticality, more space to move around, there's much more room for interesting interactions and decision making. However, that doesn't mean every level is consistent, as many of them also fall into the trap of hallway shooting, and there is an entire turret section chapter which was mediocre; RE5 has lower lows than RE4, but it compensates by having higher highs, as the final hours of the game are great, some of the most co-op fun I've ever had in fact, and chapter 6-3 is such a well design and well paced conclusion that I couldn't think of a more perfect way to end a video game. This is on top of having various open ended sections throughout the game which game you more freedom to explore which I definitely appreciated as they added some much needed variety.

Weapon variety was a big positive of RE4 for me, and I'm glad to say that it's mostly still here, with a few more issues; whilst RE4 had a lot of weapons, each of them had a small amount of customisation to them with attachments, and they're basically all gone in this game, alongside the fact that a lot of weapons in the same class mostly feel the same to use with too few changes to distinguish themselves. This isn't a massive issue however because I think having the inventory be improved over having a little more weapon variety is a worthy sacrifice, and there's enough weapon types and a few select variants that do set themselves apart so that this game isn't lacking in weapon variety, but on that same topic, its enemy variety is pretty good also.

Enemy variety was probably my biggest criticism with RE4, you're fighting mostly the same enemies throughout the entire game and the little variation there is wasn't really that good. RE5 does also have a similar issue but it is far better than RE4, as many enemies have different ways to approach them, such as the aforementioned large enemies, on top of the different enemy types like the townsfolk, the tribal enemies, the tough as nails bug enemies, as well as some ranged enemies among others. I was initially not fond of those ranged enemies but as the game went on, it started to use them in more creative ways and ultimately I came back around on them. All this makes for a gameplay experience that is just far more enjoyable than RE4's gameplay for me, there's so much more going on and way more stakes at play. However, despite having overall better enemy design, the bosses are kind of bad for the most part; uninteresting bullet sponges with little going on, they're not terrible, aside from the 2nd Ouroboros Mass fight (genuine Z tier fight), but the last few bosses were a genuine surprise, they had some unique mechanics and a decent amount going on in them; they're not fantastic but for shooter standards, they are a cut above most of what the genre offers, without a doubt.

However, that's not what makes me give this game such a high rating despite its reputation as one of the "bad resident evils", counting all of this game's pros and cons and I'd think I would feel the same way I do about Quake 4, a competent shooter that has a few bumps in the road, but is overall well designed, and kept my attention from start to finish (for more of my thoughts on that game, read: https://www.backloggd.com/u/mirphy/review/304849/). My affinity for this game would be thanks to its DLC. Lost in Nightmares isn't anything to write home about, it's a throwback to the original Resident Evil games with some neat ideas but it ultimately feels like a fart in the wind dude to repetition and being far too short. Desperate Escape on the other hand is excellent, fucking incredible even. The difficulty curve picks up right where the main game left off, and it just keeps going and going, it's a great experience from front to back, putting everything you and your partner have learnt to the test in an exhilirating rollercoaster ride. It's the perfect example of DLC done right, so much so that I struggle to find a single thing wrong with it.

RE5 and Desperate Escape are, together, a brilliant co-op experience. There's good gameplay, good level design and a lot of content on display, I thoroughly look forward to dumping many hours into the Mercenaries mode. I know this review will not click with a lot of people, and that's fine, but hopefully I've shed light upon how some people can view RE4 in a bad light, and maybe have put the thought of giving this game a 2nd chance into your minds. If I did, I hope that you finish the game feeling,

S A T U R A T E D.

I finished this game the other day and ever since I've been collecting my thoughts about it. It's odd, usually when I finish a game, I have a concrete opinion on it, I've seen basically everything the game has to show me and my memory is usually pretty good, so I'm able to form a full opinion pretty quickly, which is also why I don't like leaving games unfinished. But Galaxy 2 is different, in my opinion, it doesn't really feel like a whole new game. Its development started out as an expanded version of the original game called "Super Mario Galaxy More" but later became its own thing, it's an innovative sequel on the same engine, similar to Doom II: Hell on Earth, Thief 2: The Metal Age and Far Cry 4. But, similar to games that follow this philosophy, I feel as though it doesn't quite live up to the original. Let me explain.

I like the original Galaxy for a few key reasons. For one, it was incredibly consistent. Before putting down the game I had gotten around 90 stars, I didn't bother to do the purple coin missions, though I may go back now, and I think that the motion control levels are pretty terrible; trust me, I actually like motion controls (more on them later). However, I did like a vast majority of those 90 stars. I don't think many of the levels were particularly excellent but the fact that the only ones I disliked were ones based around poorly implemented mechanics is a testament to how consistent the general gameplay is.

This is also mostly true for Galaxy 2, with some caveats. Level design is pretty good across the board, to explain how great it is, I'll use two examples: Fluffy Bluff Galaxy and Melty Monster Galaxy. Fluffy Bluff Galaxy begins with a small, but open area filled with shallow water, and within that water are various coins and star bits to collect; this is important as this Galaxy's main gimmick is the Cloud Mushroom, and the Cloud suit will disappear upon contact with water. Having the area be open is also a plus because, anyone who has ever watched or read a review of Mario 64 will know what I'm about to say, it allows the player to get familiar with the unique mechanics, this being how the Cloud Suit making Mario much more floaty as well as giving him placeable platforms, giving Mario significantly more distance and height. After this, Mario is either lead onto a large cloud platform or up onto a cliffside, with some cloud platforms along the side, but even if the player fails at platforming up these cloud platforms, the area below is mostly solid ground, so there is little reason to worry about falling down. This cliffside stops at a bottomless ravine which would kill any player if they fail to cross, with a couple of cloud platforms along the way, so therefore, these elements incentivises the use to the cloud suit to pass. However, players with a keen eye will notice that a well timed long jump can make it across the already placed cloud platforms, which creates some level of a skill gap. After a pretty mediocre section where we collect launch star pieces, we reach another section with a bottomless pit, however now we have platforms that disappear into the wall after a certain amount of time. This further incentivises the use of the cloud platforms whilst also adding a sense of urgency, which is then finished off by another pretty bland section that's basically just a repeat of the section with the ravine. This is level design 101, introducing a mechanic and then increasing the stakes as you go along the level.

If you couldn't tell, the game has an issue with levels becoming redundant after a while, where they figuratively repeat sections; not every level suffers from this but there is another thing to praise about the level design. Going back to that large cloud platform from the beginning of the level and feeding the Hungry Luma 100 coins (which rewards players whom had explored the open area below) we gain access to a brand new area, which is a 2D section with moving platforms. The moving platforms are important since it asks more of the player with their timing and tests their knowledge of the Cloud Suit more closely, whilst also utilising different mechanics than the primary star to do so. This is what I like to call "tree-like" level design, and it's most prominent in 3D Mario game, where you have a singular mechanic taken in one direction for one star, but taken another way with another star, and it is a major strength of the Galaxy games.

But Galaxy 2 doesn't just offer tree-like levels with branching evolutions of its ideas, it also features level design that does continuously innovate and expand upon its core ideas within singular stars. Melty Monster Galaxy star 1 is probably my favourite star in the entire game for just how good the level design is. We start off at a very basic pull star section with Lava Monsters attempting to damage us and in turn, kill us, lava and these "melty monsters" are this level's main mechanics; it's not too hard and even if you are hit, you can fairly easily pull yourself back to safety. We then blast off with a launch star, where we come across a trope of the Mario series: rising lava. It comes in waves and isn't too difficult, but it still requires a tiny bit of skill and patience to cross. This leads into a section without that rising lava (more on that later), replaced with rotating platforms which float like icebergs upon lava, but they only start rotating once you start moving on them, which is then intertwined with those lava monsters from early; this keeps the level fresh and interesting whilst also going back to the central mechanic. This then leads into an entirely different section with tornados, seen before in a previous game, where once you spin you activate a sort of "helicopter" form and slowly descend to the surface below, which happens to be lava. Once again, fresh and interesting. The final section involves a bunch of those lava monsters acting similar to the rising lava from before, in one final test of patience and platforming skill, where you have to traverse small planetoids, all with their own gravity, and then eventually break the star free whilst under constant pressure from the lava monsters.

This star shows everything great about Galaxy 2, it's got a lot of variety and it's consistently fun to play. But, there's two issues with this level. For one, see how there are many mechanics that are just placed in and never brought up again? Yeah, Galaxy 2 does this a lot. It's not bad, it stops levels from getting repetitive, but it also results in a lot of the mechanics feeling shallow. Perhaps this is simply because I've been spoiled by Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze which continuously innovates upon mechanics whilst intertwining them with entirely new ones, but I definitely think more could've been done in Galaxy 2. The second issue is, do you notice how I only mentioned the first star? That's because the 2nd star of Melty Monster Galaxy is easily one of the worst. Why? because Galaxy 2 has a major issue with theming, as many secondary stars are just trivial minigames that have barely anything to do with the primary star, and nowhere is this more evident than Melty Monster Galaxy Star 2, where it's essentially just a challenge course with the rock mushroom. It's a fun level and pretty good for grinding star bits, but how the fuck is this related to the first star? Why would you put a minigame involving a power-up that was barely present in the original level? Of course, it was in the original level, but it was only present in a "hidden" section where you play... bowling. Do you see the problem here? Both of the negative points with the galaxies I've analysed can be lead back to one central problem: consistency. The game really does have some great levels but they're placed alongside these underwhelming levels that have little to no theming, and/or are just rip-offs of galaxies from the first game. But this sadly isn't the only issue with this game.

The progression in Galaxy was also another highlight of that game. I have not finished Mario 64, and that's because I don't like that game's progression. While levels were generally open, I didn't like a lot of them, and felt that only about half of the levels were competent, for one reason or another, but because of its consistency, Galaxy 1 comes out on top. I mention this because the progression is basically the same as 64, you can only play a select few levels at a time before fighting a boss and moving on, and only when you have reached a certain amount of stars can you progress. In Galaxy 1, it's way more lenient, so it doesn't feel like a chore getting those last few stars. There's 119 stars to obtain before you fight Bowser for the last time, and you are only required to obtain 60 of them to actually fight him. It's not that much less than the 70 of 64, but it's a welcome change nonetheless.

This is where my third complaint with Galaxy 2 lies, the progression isn't as good as the first game. This was an issue with Mario at the time, because ever since NSMB Wii, the series had begun to simplify itself to a very severe degree, some may argue that it started with the first NSMB game but that's not important; the progression goes like this: You must complete one star in a Galaxy in order to progress forward. This, of course, once again raises the issue of consistency, as if there is a level you don't like, you will still have to play it regardless. This was an issue solved by 64 and Galaxy (which was apparently absent in Sunshine but I haven't played that one yet) by having your progress be dictated by how many stars you have, and you're pretty much free to do what you want in that case. Thankfully, the game doesn't have any particularly bad level which would warrant this sort of criticism, the closest one I could think of is "Rolling Coaster Galaxy" from World S, which forces you to use motion controls. It's thankfully very short and isn't very difficult, I beat it on my frist try, but to some people it may be a much bigger issue, and because of that, I think it would've been better if they retained the structure of Galaxy 1.

From my previous statement, it would be reasonable to infer that because of the motion control levels, getting 100% in Super Mario Galaxy 2 would be tedious. This is true, but motion control levels were also present in Galaxy 1 and they were still pretty bad, and there is another major issue, but for the sake of being fair, I'll go into why the motion control levels are so bad. Simply put, the technology wasn't there at the time. The gyroscope in the original model of the Wii remote wasn't very advanced and really could only pick up on whether you were waggling the controller, which is why waggle was used so frequently in Wii titles, they literally couldn't do much else. "Wii Motion Plus" was supposed to be an answer to this, but it came near the end of the Wii's lifespan and, as far as I could tell from my research, it isn't compatible with Wii games outside of a few select titles; I say this because Wii Motion Plus specifically has to be calibrated, and Galaxy 2 has no such feature (plus there is also a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_that_support_Wii_MotionPlus). This is completely fucking baffling to me, Galaxy 2 was released a whole year after the launch of the Motion Plus accessory and a few weeks after the release of the "Wii Remote Plus" which had Wii Motion Plus built in. Similar to the Classic Controller on the Wii and the Wii U Pro Controller (to a lesser extent) it seems Nintendo has a habit of just straight up not using its technology for absolutely no reason. Okay, maybe you don't want to alienate consumers by making them buy more things with the console they already brought, but why make it in the first place then? Even if it does help the motion controls , they still feels like shit, which only furthers the point that the technology wasn't there at the time.

Okay, this has been very conflicted so far but I would like to mention, up until you defeat Bowser, this game is pretty much on par with the first game, and for those first 6 worlds, I recommend this game regardless. However, the straw that broke the camel's back on whether this game was better than the first game comes after you've defeated Bowser, in the post game. It's terrible. Now, the first game was also tedious to 100%, simply because of the motion control levels, but this game takes it way too far. In the first game, once you've defeated Bowser, you unlock some purple coin missions; they're basic collectathon missions but they add some good variety to the game. In Galaxy 2, you have the green stars. Fuck the green stars. They are the most blatant, most unashamed form of padding I have ever seen. Okay, re-using levels for stuff like prankster comets is fine, it is a form of padding but at least they add something new with new challenges and sometimes adding entirely new elements to levels; the green stars however are way too excessive and don't add nearly enough to the game to warrant there being so many of them. They're basically how stars in Mario 64 worked, where you collect one, get kicked back to the level select, and are forced to go back and find more of them in the exact same level. They're very bad for the game's pacing and they make getting 100% a chore.

I've been pretty harsh on this game but that's only because its shortcomings are really major considering the expectations I had going into this game. This is heralded as one of the best platformers of all time, and I kind of see it, but even if I do think most of the game is pretty good, I can't say I think its praise is entirely deserved. I do overall recommend this game, but don't do the post game if you don't want to, because it's not good.

I haven't played Eternal yet but even if the combat in that game is better and anywhere near as good as anyone says, I don't think Eternal can live up to the perfect balance of grit and exaggeration. 2016 has so many things that should be goofy in theory, like the Cacodemons just floating around like little meatballs, watching a Mancubus explode from shoving a part of itself down its throat or watching as this regular sized man rips the limbs off of enemies 3x his size.

But it all just... works. Everything down to the visual design, the music, the general audio design and even the more subtler movements of the Doomguy all work towards making this admittedly dumb setting and story work extremely well. It's more than just a heavy metal album come to life, it's an entire discography.

Doom 2016 holds a special place in my heart. I may prefer Doom 64 for its level design and Plutonia for its challenge and visual variety but 2016 was so influential to my taste in media that I don't know where to begin. It got me into retro shooters, it reminded me of my love for Metroid-like progression and level design, its OST got me into metal, its world led me to finding series I love such as Chainsaw Man and Berserk, its main character got me into series with cool protagonists who don't quip every single second, like John Wick and Samurai Jack.

This one is a bit odd for me since I'm very much a gameplay-first kind of guy but Doom 2016 is so irrationally important to me and my tastes that I have to give it special treatment.

Doom 64 is a mostly praised game, though there are quite a few detractors, and a lot of those detractors say that Brutal Doom 64 fixes a lot of the issues they have with the game by adding in more enemies, "improving" the animations and making the game more difficult. Now, if we're not counting Plutonia, Doom 64 is my favourite Doom game, so this is coming from a place of bias, but I don't believe any of the additions this mod brings improve Doom 64 at all.

Also, no, I will not be talking about SgtMark in this review.

To begin with, the changes SgtMark made to the weapons are meh overall. He adds new sounds and effects which are nice in theory, but a lot of them sound flaccid as compared to the original; while it is more high quality, it doesn't have the kick that the original sounds have. He makes the pistol and the shotgun slightly better, which is nice, but he adds this strange delay to the Super Shotgun's firing animation, on top of not making it automatic, as now you have to press the fire button again after the reload animation is finished. While these changes are small, they become very irritating as the game continues on. The rest of the weapons are handled decently by the standards of this mod, aside from probably the biggest sin of this mod, which is how it turns the Unmaker into the most boring weapon in possibly the entire Doom franchise. Not the worst, but easily the most boring. Instead of being the overpowered, high rate of fire weapon that it was, it becomes this incredibly slow, railgun-like weapon and it sucks. It sounds like shit, feels like shit and is balanced like shit, now there's no reason to use this weapon over the BFG.

Something that also really, really bothers me about the guns in this mod is that they all have recoil, and you can't turn it off. I'm a no vertical mouselook enthusiast, which I won't get into here, but while I can understand wanting vertical mouselook since it's what literally every other fps fan outside of the Doom engine games is familiar with, having it be a necessity is where I draw the line. Doom, and by extension Doom 64, wasn't designed with vertical mouselook or recoil in mind. Recoil adds nothing to the game. Sure, the rocket launcher does have push-back in the original game but that serves to balance this weapon since it's quite powerful, fuck, I wouldn't mind that as an alternative to recoil on some of the other weapons. But having recoil on ALL the weapons makes playing this mod insufferable.

Then there's the added monsters. Doom 64 was never designed with the monsters that SgtMark re-implemented into the game. While not having the complete Doom 2 roster sucks and I would've preferred it if Midway had implemented them in the first place, adding them back in without changing the level design nor properly balancing them around the levels is infinitely worse. The revenants specifically really piss me off since their projectile speed is tied to the same projectiles the Mother Demon uses and they are WAY too slow for these tight corridors. I also don't like how, even though he didn't add the Archvile, he felt the need to rip the Hellhound straight from Blood? I know that it's a scrapped enemy concept for Doom 64 but ripping it straight from Blood? C'mon, Mark. I love Blood, but the Hellhound does not belong in Doom 64.

I also really dislike the effects on the Spectres and Nightmare Imps. Now, the Nightmare Imps aren't exactly the greatest enemies in the world, they're basically just Shotgunners for Imps, but now they're an absolute pain to fight.

While Brutal Doom 64 is far more faithful to the original game than Brutal Doom is to Doom 1 & 2, pretty much all of the changes it adds are either unnecessary or outright make the game worse. I genuinely do not understand what people see in this mod; is it the gore? The "better" sound effects for the guns? It just feels like superficial fluff, there's barely anything this mod has that the original doesn't. I'll take worse sound effects and being less gory over worse balance, worse feeling weapons and more visual clutter any day.

Initially, when I saw a few people really didn't like this game, I thought they were exaggerating, how the game's fighting mechanics weren't that great and the level design was kinda balls.

Nah, they were right. Nothing particularly bad about this game, but calling it a Metroidvania is an insult to the genre. It's extremely linear, the platforming is okay and the fighting mechanics were alright up until the later game where it starts throwing a bunch of bullshit at you. Also the final boss sucks. I'm not gonna give this bore-fest a proper review.

2012 was a dark year for gaming - perhaps a controversial opinion but here me out - Far Cry 3 was released, marking a turning point in Ubisoft's design philosophy, Call of Duty fans were just about to turn on their own franchise, the Wii U released to much criticism and started a dark age for Nintendo, FPS games were still in the "brown and linear" military phase, Mass Effect 3 divided fans, Resident Evil was still in its action phase, I could honestly keep going but I hope you see my point. There were good releases in this year but a lot of the releases are marred with general disappointment and anger. Mark of the Ninja was certainly a highlight for me, as was Prototype 2 and Hotline Miami, but I feel as though one entry in this year that is often overlooked is The Darkness II, developed by Digital Extremes.

The Darkness II is not the best game ever made, nor is it the best game released in 2012, but I do believe more people should appreciate it way more. It’s unfairly compared to games released after it, and those comparisons are very surface level. I highly recommend this game to people who like games like F.E.A.R. or Vanquish; those tactical shooters that don’t let themselves be carried by cover mechanics or regenerating health.

To begin with, the game looks... alright? Not off to a good start, but I believe this game has aged fairly well graphically; it's not a pretty game but I don't believe it's supposed to be, the story follows Jackie Estacado, a Mob Boss who contains within him a powerful and corrupting force known as "The Darkness", and the game is in general "Dark". The grungy visuals, while not always pleasant to look at, do help keep the game's tone consistent. Plus, the game does have a lot of visual variety, going from DIY hallways to open scrapyards and even some marble based architecture from time to time.

The story is a major complaint for many people, as it is apparently a step down from the first game. I will be completely transparent, I have not played the first game, but I would like to defend this game quickly: while the story is probably a step down, I don't feel like prioritising story in a game that is clearly action focused is the best way to experience it. While they are valid criticisms, this game should still be taken on its own merits, because there are two factors in determining if a sequel is good; is it functionally good and is it contextually good?

If a series is going to go in a new direction, as long as that direction is good, I'm fine with it. For example, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night takes a very different direction from the "Classicvania'' titles of old; rather than being a linear series of hallways with impressive art and simple but engaging combat, Symphony of the Night spices things up by adding various elements from Zelda titles, namely progression. The new direction does pay off, as the game - alongside Super Metroid - paved the way for an entirely new genre, Metroidvania. While it is a little sad that Classicvania titles became much more scarce after SotN's release, we can still appreciate the Metroidvania titles for what they bring to the table. If this game were just a shallow slog then yeah, I'd probably understand people's grievances more. But this game is much more than the Call of Duty clones it's lumped in with, and I'd like to articulate why.

Now, how exactly do we review a game based on action? Well, I think these parameters should be fine: Depth, pacing, level design and enemy design. First, let's define what "Depth" means. Depth is a term thrown around a lot when talking about various forms of media, not just video games and whilst depth can be more easily defined in other mediums, it doesn't really have a "set in stone" definition for video games. One interpretation of depth is "adding new elements to influence decision making", for example, adding a new enemy type that can only be taken down once a certain requirement has been met, like taking out a weak-spot. However, another interpretation is "adding meaningful options to change how you get from point A to point B", and which could be adding a new weapon that changes how you approach a scenario, for example, a shotgun vs a sniper rifle; this definition is different because one is adding a new element that limits options, but adds variety, and the other one adds another option. I think arguments could be made for both of these definitions and I personally lean more towards the latter, but it's not like that entirely matters because The Darkness II actually does both of these things.

For starters, it frequently introduces new enemies into the various combat encounters, such as enemies that teleport or have shields. The shield guys in particular are hard to deal with because you usually have to damage the shield before you can rip it off, but once you do, you can use it for yourself and on top of that, you can use it as a projectile; that's actually one of the biggest parts of this game, being able to throw stuff at enemies on top of using guns. This singular system, the ability to remove the protection of enemies and use it for yourself, is already a showcase of the depth this game has to its combat.

While we are at this point, I think it's time I address a personal grievance, not with this game, but with its genre, I strongly dislike tactical shooters. The gameplay loop isn't inherently bad or shallow, it does have depth as "good" tactical shooters give you the ability to outsmart the enemy through flanking and manipulating AI. The issue with a lot of tactical shooters can be boiled down to one, singular, fundamentally flawed mechanic: regenerating health. This is a big problem because it heavily lowers the stakes in combat, you don't have an opening to flank the enemies and outsmart them? Don't worry, you can just hide behind a chest high wall and gain all of your health back, and then play a game of whack-a-mole and continue onto the next area. That's not to say that simply removing this mechanic somehow fixes this, it also relies on good enemy design and arena design, but removing it and replacing it with health packs and/or incentivising movement to avoid damage is a better playing experience, because it encourages movement and motivates you into using the game’s various mechanics. The Darkness II does have regenerating health, however it's used sparingly, as it only regenerates up to a certain threshold. The way you replenish health in this game is by consuming hearts and executing enemies, which is good because both of them encourage you to go out and get back into the fight rather than laying back and waiting for things to miraculously get better. This allows the tactical gameplay to shine through and is overall a more gratifying gameplay experience than most tactical shooters, in my opinion.

But why go for these options, why not pick off enemies at a distance and then move onto the next combat arena? There are two more reasons for this aside from the one I listed, the first one being the light mechanic; The Darkness cannot maintain itself whilst it is in the light, meaning you lose out on all your special powers that come with it. It also comes with the caveat of blurring your vision - now, in most games, I don't like restricting player vision, because there isn't much challenge to be had in it. Vision is so integral to gaming that once you take it away, you're kind of fucked and it doesn’t really feel like it’s your fault. I think there is a little bit of that in this mechanic, but it's used much more tastefully, as if your vision weren’t blurred, then taking out lights would be trivial and the mechanic would basically be useless. Plus, the light mechanic rewards spatial awareness, which then, in turn, puts you into the mindset best suited for a tactical shooter.

The second reason is ammo, because this game purposefully restricts ammo - not to the extent of something like Doom Eternal though. If you only shoot people and don't use any of the other mechanics, you'll start to run out of ammo much quickly and you'll be left scrambling for resources, and the game incentivises you to go head first into combat because of this. For one, enemies drop ammo upon death, which you can only pick up during fights once you start playing more aggressively, but there are also ammo stashes placed around the levels, which, one again, encourages movement and smart play.

Another way you can replenish ammo is the execution mechanic. Now, I hear a lot of people compare this game to Doom 2016, and I guarantee this is the only reason why. Sure, Doom 2016 is generally a better game but I think the comparison is surface level; for one, the executions in Doom 2016 only served to replenish your health, and while that is also true for The Darkness II, once you've upgraded yourself enough, you get access to 3 other types of execution, those being ammo replenish, ability replenish and creating a shield, which you can use for protection or as a projectile, as previously stated. This leads into my first complaint with this game, however, and that's the issue of progression in the skill tree. You level it up through "dark essence", which you collect by just generally playing the game. The problem is that it takes way too long to level up; it took over 2 playthroughs for me to finally max out the skill tree. It's okay if you're willing to stick with the game, but frustrating nonetheless.

There are many more things that add to the depth of this game, first of which being the 2 abilities you obtain, Swarm and Gun Channelling; Swarm is a crowd control ability, it releases a Swarm of presumably bugs that stun a couple of enemies, which can be integral for getting out of a tight spot; Gun Channelling, however, is a little overpowered. For about 3 seconds, it allows you to see and shoot enemies through walls with increased damage and doesn't use up any ammunition. I don't use it very regularly, but it could be seen as a fallback option. This is on top of a unique "Black Hole" mechanic, where certain enemies will drop a Black Hole that can be used as a crowd control option.

This all culminates into a combat system that is both unique and doesn't lack on options, everything you need to finish the combat arenas are at your disposal (provided you've put the time into maxing out the skill tree). But, speaking of those combat arenas, how are they? Well, they're decent, good but not great. Believe me, this is no F.E.A.R. when it comes to arena design or enemy design. It is fairly consistent but some of them just devolve into hallways with a little bit of space. However, they do serve the game well enough, on top of doing the Half-Life thing of spreading various objects such as exploding barrels or projectiles for you to use all over the levels.

There is, however, one part of the game that does certainly bother me: the difficulty. Now, once you're in the "fun zone", playing aggressively and using all the mechanics you have at your disposal, the game can be quite challenging, but oftentimes you can still feel as though you are too powerful. I bring up those linear hallway sections again as they are the main culprits of this. It would be awesome if this game was challenging on top of being fun and deep, but it is inconsistent to say the least. At the end of the day, I will take an easy game that has a lot going on rather than a hard game that is incredibly shallow. Sometimes, fun is more important than difficulty.

But only sometimes.

I hope I've communicated how good this game's combat really is. As stated before, many people write this game off as a "Call of Duty clone" or a "lesser Doom 2016" but I don't think that's doing this game justice. Yes, the story is worse than the first game and it does have a heavier emphasis on action; however, when taken on its own merits, The Darkness II, ironically, manages to stand out in the dark age of FPS games.

Honestly pretty amazed at how good this is, I would argue that this is probably the best piece of official Quake content out there.

It manages to differentiate itself from Quake 2 by having a completely different mission structure, as well as higher difficulty, more weapons and even, occasionally, having more atmosphere.

Ruined Earth is probably my all time favourite Quake level and maybe even favourite level from an id Software shooter. It manages to convey a real sense of place and feels so lonely a lot of the time, combined with an awesome use of music and enemies.

This is on top of the many changes brought to Quake 2 through the Nightdive Studios re-release, remaster, port, whatever you want to call it, where they've added brand new enemy AI, new enemies and even new weapons.

If this was the Quake 2 we had back in 1997, I would think that there would be a much greater argument for Quake 2 being the best Quake. Please give this a shot.

Played up until right before the last proper level. This game was a frustrating mess. The sound mechanics were oversimplified, the controls felt awful, the level design took a massive dip in quality and the visual design leaves a lot to be desired. There are some legitimately good parts, and if you do end up playing this game play with a controller because it feels much better, but the previous games do basically everything this game does but 10x better, except for atmosphere, but that's literally it.

Played through the Metroid Prime Trilogy on Wii U.

Metroid is a franchise very near and dear to my heart. It's my favourite franchise and one of my favourite things ever (under yogurt and leather jackets) because of its atmosphere, the impeccable level design, the satisfying core gameplay; I could honestly gush about the series for hours at a time, but for now, I'll keep it reserved to the most underrated entry in the series, Metroid Prime 2.

The reception of this game at launched as a resounding "yeah it's good", but to quite a few people, it was a step down from the first Prime game. But, why exactly? There are reason and I'll get into them later, but issues that people had with the first game, including me, were excessive backtracking even for the standards of the series and an uncomfortable control scheme, the latter of which makes a lot of sense considering Prime 1 came out after the first Halo game changed how shooters were played on console.

That's not to say the Metroid Prime games are shooters however, far from it. Anyone who thinks that the Prime game are shooters are looking at it from a surface level perspective; you wouldn't call Ocarina of Time a Character Action game simply because it has a third person camera and you need to use mostly melee weapons, would you? You wouldn't call Mario an action platformer simply because you defeat enemies, right? The main draw of the Prime series is the immersion, something that is present in the 2D games but not on the same level, there are many details that give you a sense of realism that wasn't present at the time, such as raindrops dripping off of Samus' visor, steam clouding your vision at times and being able to see Samus' face if you fire a charged shot close to a wall.

This is all well and good but I would wager that the first Prime game is far from perfect, perhaps even a little overrated; it's a great game, don't get me wrong, and being a good Metroid game already puts you above most of the medium, but elements such as the aforementioned backtracking and controls, on top of boss design that could get tedious after a while and how the game rips a lot of its environments from Super Metroid, it left a little to be desired.

Metroid Prime 2 solves most of these issues, and the Wii port even more so; let's start with controls, in the Wii port, you use the Wii remote to aim, A to shoot and B to jump, you use - to select your visor and + to select your beams, Z to lock onto enemies and C to enter morph ball mode. If you plan on playing this game, I strongly recommend you go into the options and switch around A and B, it's a lot more comfortable if you've played other shooters on the Wii and it makes using Super Missiles much easier. The IR aiming of the Wiimote does wonders for this game, many bosses in the original game required you to clunkily stop moving and aim upwards at awkward angles, which is completely solved by the free look the Wiimote offers. This is also present in the other Prime games via the Prime Trilogy, but I think this game in particular benefits from it. (Pro tip: if you have a different beam/visor selected, you can press - or + respectively to return to the normal visor/beam. Very useful.)

Let's cover the originality of the world next; many people have criticised Prime 2 for looking too dull or same-y. I actually think it makes a lot of sense because of a couple of reasons. For one, these areas are very close together in the context of the world, it wouldn't make logical sense for a desert to be sat right next to a rainforest and volcanic tunnels, unless under some extremely specific circumstances. Prime 2 offers consistency over variety, the colour palette does stay at the same dusty yellow/brown colour for most of the game but I believe it adds to the atmosphere of the game; this is a planet that has been long abandoned by its people, forced to go into stasis to stop some unrelenting, uncaring army from completely eradicating their species. Not to mention, the fact that a lot of the game is so dry adds to the moments where it becomes more visually varied, namely the Sanctuary Fortress.

Another way this game improves on the original is the boss fights, to keep with the momentum of this review, lets use Quadraxis as an example and compare it to the Omega Pirate from the first game. The Omega Pirate is a very "stop and start" kind of boss, which is emblematic of the boss design in Prime 1, you have to draw him into making specific attacks before you damage his weak points, and after that you have to fight some generic enemies before he allows you to damage him. Rinse and repeat, the fight is over. It's engaging, sure, but it feels a lot more like a video game fight rather than an actual fight between two beings. Quadraxis, by comparison, is a very organic fight. You start off by bombing its feet and doing what every single 14 year old does in response to an opinion they don't like and destroy its kneecaps, which may sound boring but Quadraxis is constantly keeping you on your toes by creating shockwaves with its feet, firing lazers and sometimes drawing you in with a whirling attack. After that, you need to use the echo visor to disrupt the single from the main body to the head, which is now detached and flying around, after which you can then cause it to go haywire and bomb its head to destroy it. You're mostly in control of this fight, you're not waiting for the boss to allow you to destroy it for the most part, and the pure spectacle of it brings back the point I made about immersion. Sure, you could do a fight like this in a 2D game, but because you're seeing this through Samus' eyes and you can genuinely get the impression of just how huge it is in comparison to her, there's a reason why this fight is one of the most acclaimed in the entire series.

However, despite me saying all this, this isn't the best part of this game; no, that would be the level design. Maybe this is a hot take, but in my opinion, this game has the best level design in any Metroid game, right next to Dread. Backtracking on a large scale is all but absent from this game, you only need to backtrack within the various areas (with a few exceptions) and it usually doesn't take too long. It's so efficient but it doesn't take away from the world Retro Studios have built up here. A lot of what you explore in the game is made by the Luminoth, so it only makes sense why everything would be so convenient to navigate. This is, ironically, also present within Metroid Dread, as ZDR, the planet you explore in that game, used to house one of the Chozo tribes, the Mawkin, so it makes sense why both of these games are very intuitive when it comes to progression. This makes for near perfect pacing in both games, everything feels like it takes just as long as it needs to and nothing ever overstays its welcome.

So, I've sung the praises of this game pretty highly so far, but why is it only a 4.5/5? Well, it's not the ammo system. A controversial addition to the game, but I think its negligible; I have the same feelings towards it as I do Ashley in Resident Evil 4. It doesn't take away from the game nearly as much as people say it does, but it doesn't particularly add anything either; if you were to remove it and have the new beams function as normal, nothing would change.

No, the one major flaw with this game is the end game fetch quest. You need to collect some keys that were hidden throughout the game and only visible when you had obtained the Dark Visor, which is access after you've defeated the boss of Torvus Bog, also known as two thirds into the game, and on top of that, most of the keys can't be access until you have the Light Suit, which you get after you defeat Quadraxis, the penultimate boss. It does mean you have the opportunity to collect a lot of the items along the way but, in my opinion, that should always be a side objective, and the main reason why you're looking for them, in this context, absolutely sucks.

Metroid Prime 2 is my 3rd favourite Metroid game, right behind Dread and Super. It does so much right, but is just on the edge of perfection. I love the art design, the worldbuilding, the boss fights, the pacing, the characterisation of Samus in this game, it's so stellar, so well built, and yet, despite me saying it's underrated at the beginning of this review, I totally understand why people prefer Prime 1. Prime 1 was a much better experience than it was a game, it was slightly more immersive and the atmosphere was so enchanting; it was special to a lot of people. But, to me, gameplay is what matters most, and I hope if this game gets re-released on the Switch, people can give it another chance. If you want to try it now, it's available on the Wii U through the Metroid Prime Trilogy. See you next mission, bounty hunters.