This game is really a sleeper hit. one of the best 3D platformers I've ever played, elegantly combining the Metroidvania style with Super Mario 64-esque movement and level design, it's a really well put togehter and a must play for any fan of the genre.

However, there are a good few snags that keep my overall score for the game low, to start, the current version of the game lacks a map, and while it's easy to figure out where you're going without it, it's a convenience that would have gone a long way, it really makes it feel like you're just totally stuck but it was just a matter of not having explored a specific room.

The combat sucks, just straight up sucks, but after you've gotten a few abilities you're able to avoid it or just dance around your opposition, but due to this the very beginning of the game is a total drag (especially the tutorial boss, a lot of shitty hits you'll be receiving) and the final boss, the only real boss battle of the game, ends up feeling boring and tiring.

Some of the abilities as well are a bit awkward to control, particularly the wall run and the wall kick.
The wall run just performs very awkwardly, not going forward if you're facing the wall too much, but not making up for this by having a larger range from which you can start wall-riding from, on this one section where you had to wall-ride a long distance, I had more consistency doing a sequence break jump over the intended route.
The wall kick is just annoying, you're intended to use it for a bit of extra air-time, but if you use it and you connect with a wall at any point during the animation, you'll kick off of it, instead of only kicking off the wall if you click while/right before you hit the wall, it's easy enough to learn how to deal with this but it makes comboing wall kicks into wall-rides nearly impossible.

But back to the praises, the level design is just phenomenal, it's really fun to jump across all the areas, and the level design has a (potentially) unintended ability to allow you to sequence break quite often, but not soft-locking your game due to either feasible jumps or carefully placed save-points, and it adds a lot to the movement of the game.

The art-style is gorgeous, really making everything feel hazy and dream-like, whilst not feeling like a mess thematically, with my biggest criticism being that the protagonist not wearing any leggings just looks... weird (Which you thankfully can change in the settings, looks great!)
And on-top of all that, the soundtrack is great, a very, again "dream-like" feel for a lot of the tracks, but still catchy and unique enough to give each area it's own "feel"

There's not much story to speak of and what does exist is a
[SPOILER WARNING]
very VERY abrupt ending with no fanfare, just being kind of a hand-wavy "the final boss was the personification of the dreamer creating this world and your victory was merely just letting them know they need to wake up and move on from whatever is holding them back from their real life"
[SPOILER WARNING END]
but it's not a big deal as the story isn't really the hook for this type of game, but rather is just a dressing to give it all a nice theme.

Not sure what the mix with art-deco and medieval castles is about though, probably just something stitched together because it looked cool or whatever.

Anyways, I recommend this game big time, and I'll probably be upping my score on this if I get back around to the game after they add a map to it (and maybe some QoL changes)

Wonder Flower gimmicks are cute until they turn repetitious, which they do by the end of World 2. The badges largely make up for a lack of platforming aptitude which, as a seasoned gamester, means I have to play the game wrong to accommodate their use. But I'm not gonna unlearn my Mario skills so I don't remember to use them outside of when they are clearly necessary for side objectives like an over-polished immsim. You mean I should use the Dolphin badge on the levels right after I got it? Wowee Zowee!

Broadly speaking this feels like an attempt to teach the kids that grew up with the Switch what Mario is about. The hypersleek UI elements, mountains of spoken text as a replacement for other markers of design intent, the badges, the Wowee Zowee, the oodles of characters, the gacha elements of the standees, the multiple currencies (and decimalisation of Flower coins to further litter the field with shinies), the little emojis, the lack of points. These additions and subtractions are by no means bad but I won't lie, it feels a little like I'm playing a AAA game from the 2020s. Because I am. It's hard to read Wonder as a creative reinvention and reinvigoration of Mario because I know it took thousands of people to make this. That every decision was subject to board meetings and focus groups. It's the same problem as your New Super games -- the formula must be adhered to. And even if the formula changes, it's still a formula. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not what I look for at this point in my life.

I'll keep playing it, I'll probably finish it. It's like a Coca-Cola Creation, y'know? You see it on the shelf, you think 'what the hell do '+XP' or 'Starlight' taste like, the first sip is novel and enchanting, before long you're still drinking Coke. If I want true innovation, I'll reach for the local-made can of kombucha flavoured with some berry I've never heard of before. Like Haskap. Uhhh, for the purposes of this analogy I guess the random shit I pick up on Steam and itch.io are the kombucha.

And I gotta say, I'm sorry but I can't hear the Mario Gang say Wowee Zowee without having flashbacks to Game Grumps Kirby Super Star Part 2 where Jon and Arin argued for like a minute straight over whether or not Arin had said Wowee Zowee before. Back then life was so simple. I was so young. Games held so much potential. Eleven years, gone in the blink of an eye. In another life, I'm the Mario Wonder kid, growing up on a Switch. Who could have known things would turn out the way they did, that I'd be the person I am today...

Feels like a rebrand to cover up some controversial past half the time.

WOAH JUST LIKE GAME GRUMPS 😱

GRAAAAAAAAAAH I LOVE THIS GAAAAAAME
Ive played this game so many times, even double dipped because my mac at the time ran it at 12fps. This is the first time i played it on insane mode and it was definitely the way to go. I think hard mode is the definitive experience, and playing this on easy or medium afterwards seems like i might as well have cheat codes on.
I love pretty much everything about this game having played it so many times so theres not much point just saying i love the enemies art etc so i will talk about my main dislike:
Fennel. She is such an obvious highlight of the game and of its design. This is the hardest boss in the game, but also the most fair. On your first play through, her fight feels like a genuine battle between warriors on even terms. If you do her early (i somehow always do this game in a different order) she’s definitely a lot harder, but it still feels fair. Her theme is absolutely beautiful, and the story around her is really good (as far as a game with as little story as this one gets). Hell, even the hidden superboss (who is far easier) is based around her. Shes the only boss people talk about both in game and out. Hell, someone modded her into a kaizo super mario world. None of the other bosses really keep the same flow as her going, and it makes them feel a lot more disappointing in comparison, despite them mostly being great bosses in themselves. However, on your second playthrough, you will absolutely shred her because the best way to get any no-damage bonus item is to annihilate them in 15 seconds with arrow spam LOL.
this was the first metroidvania i liked, and ive always sworn by it but i do understand why some people wouldnt like it. With 5 coming out soon i felt it was time to replay all of these, so next up is minoria, another game i double dipped on (because the switch ports lighting is so heinously bad) (i am so glad o got rid of my switch)

Although the game is pretty unostentatious, the game feels a little too bloated. When hearing of the game, I expected a five hour experience in the same vein as bloodstained, However the game clocked in at 15 hours, 80% of which felt like side quests getting a single piece of treasure that was blocked on a map.

Realistically, there is one issue that stands out and that is the simple fact you can't dash in Town. This may sound silly but as I said, a majority of the time, you're just manueviring around 15 maps in the town and in town, that means you are spending the majority of it moving half, maybe more, of the speed you can zip through dungeons. If this was a shorter game, you could forgive issues such as simple gampeplay and low difficulty but when it hits this length, small problems can become genuine annoyances. Unfortunately, because of this, the game becomes hard to recommend, other than knowing at least one character will be avaliable in the upcoming RPG

"There's no room for logic in the realm of dreams, Professor."

I like it when a game is just consistent enough to make you stay up at night thinking about how it could be better, and that's basically what happened with this game. It's a great time if you want stories that you don't think about too hard (which I did want. I literally only played this because I thought 'oh, Hikari is going to hit every single overdone trope that I love so much in RPGs', and then his story did exactly that and I clapped and cheered).

Other than the storytelling (which starts out generally surprisingly strong, and then has most of the individual stories end very predictably, if not straight up fall apart into nonsense), the game delivers in almost every other aspect. It looks great, sounds fantastic (the voice acting feels awkward sometimes even by my low standards, especially a few sections where the recordings were clearly poorly mixed and the volume didn't match the rest of the game; but when it's good, it's good), and the battle system is a joy to figure out and break in half.

I feel like I will have more agonizing thoughts about this game than I probably should. Now to pray that one day there's a third game that refines things even further...

reposted from my Cohost

I tried to play HwbM the first time on mobile while I was a private tutor in a big city. I am a nervous transit rider and constantly am peeking at what stop is next, so this was a bad environment for a very introspective, metaphysical game. Idk what character I even picked, this was yeeears ago.

I played it all the way through later, (maybe a year, this was after I left the city to go back home) as Luna-Terra and remember thinking ‘this all sounds really rad, but my brain does not feel like it can piece together anything precise.’ According to itch, that was 3 years ago. I was like ‘maybe this game just isn’t for me and that’s okay.’

A friend mentioned they wanted to play it for the first time, and I was excited because I wanted to actually talk to someone about it, maybe see if that would help me see what other folks like. So on wednesday, I sat down and did a playthru as Pluto, had already decided I was going to have my notebook open and jot down notes as I went and—wow? hey. fuck. This game finally clicked for me and clicked so hard. To the point that I have no idea what happened that it did not click for me before?? Maybe the LT narrative has a different approach to the lore, or maybe I was just not focusing back then. But whatever, shit happens.

Anyway, HwbM is fucking so good. The metaphors… it has me thinking a lot about space, like literally the cosmos and also metaphorically what I think of as one aspect of sci-fi. It can be dystopic, but it can be optimistic, too. Escapism, basically. This earth sucks, what if we do something as a people that makes it rad for the coming generations? And that feels good. It’s the hope for a better future that escapes the influence of all the bullshit we’re in now; the fantasy that we can find something better beyond this planet’s pull.

I am a public school teacher. I am visible and part of a community, and I love and hate that. I am viscerally aware of how I am perceived when I do things like grocery shop or run errands, or just go for a walk.

I have this dream of a life where I can dress how I want and love who I want and not care about what people think based on a different me that they used to know. I think about how I can do my hair, and what I can say without worrying about what midwestern parents will say about the person teaching their kids, or how they might react, because it seems like the church here is so tall that it sees everything.

And that’s Culture, in HwbM, exerting itself physically; its gravity.

It constantly pulls me down, and I let it. I gingerly roll onto my tip toes, wondering how high I can jump without attracting the wrong attention. I’ve always been afraid of standing taller than everyone else. The entire time, I look up at the stars and hope there’s a place without any gravity at all—or where the gravity pulls in a different direction entirely, or every direction at once—or where all of us have our gravitational fields, and we can choose to orbit each other indefinitely, or sail briefly by like comets.

These are things I haven’t really been able to get off my mind since starting this job here; since recently coming out to a select few friends and family members, that HwbM acted sort of like a totem for. Something to focus my thoughts. Like the game’s multiple endings, I don’t know what the solution is: fight to make a place home, recreate a new one, or settle into the stars themselves. And that’s okay, because honestly, it just feels good to remember I’m not the only one trying to figure it out. That even though gravity pulls us to earth, it brings us together, too.

A 3-star game if ever there was one, this role-playing game turns a fetch quest into the entirety of its scope. The grind features retreading old stomping grounds for resources and picking up items for villagers, to give to other villagers.

It can be infectious to get lost in the chores, mostly as it is broken up by periodic, rhythmical combat and the odd platform puzzle. Some serviceable writing equally breaks up monotony enough to trudge through the next section.

Still, the visibly low budget is very apparent, making the full release unable to stand against peers like Monster Hunter. It's just kinda okay.

At the time of writing this I'm about 6 hours into it and honestly the thought of trying to finish it is kind of depressing. Let me explain, back in the PS1 era getting a hold of Suikoden 1 and 2 was extremely difficult. A lot of JRPGs back then had pretty limited runs in Europe and games weren't digital then. It took me a few years to track them both down as I didn't have a lot of money as a teenager but I did manage it and I loved both of them dearly. Fast forward to 2020 with the Eiyuden Chronicle Hundred Heroes Kickstarter and seeing a series I loved being revived by some of it's creators in such a stylish way was like a dream come true I threw my weight behind straight away as did a group of my friends. Having it's spin off prequel title land with all the impact of a deflated balloon is depressing not because the game itself is bad (it is) but because of what it potentially represents for Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes itself when it finally comes out.

As for Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising itself, as I said, it's bad. Not bad as in anger inducing, glitchy or unbearable but just bad in the fact it's insanely boring and I'm struggling to find the motivation to finish it at the moment. I am finding myself watching TV or playing other shorter games to avoid playing it. It feels almost like an unwanted chore which is a terrible way to describe a game.

It's sort of a mix of 2D platformer, RPG and Castlevania in one and it's just awful at all three aspects. The combat is incredibly shallow, a few attacks, a dodge and some link attacks with other characters. Each of the three characters is mapped to a different button that jump in when you press it but it's incredibly cumbersome and except the main character CJ they feel awful to use so except for a big damage hit you'll only use her anyway. You can upgrade your armour and abilities in the town normally by completing side quests to unlock more upgrade options but they add a terrible feeling double jump, a charge attack and other stuff you won't really use.

As mentioned the double jump feels bad but then the level design is just awful anyway. Each dungeon is like maybe 12 rooms with nothing interesting, there might be the odd platform or crystal that blocks your way to return to later but it feels so hastily thrown together are so bereft of interesting design choices, it's just completely forgettable or utterly pointless in the crystal's case because there is almost never anything interesting except to make you come back for materials. And come back you will, this games quest system or more specifically the quest design is possibly the worst of any game I've ever played. They are so tedious it blows my mind. "Talk to this character 3 screens over and come back," "go get 4 bits of lumber from the forest" etc. They are bottom of the barrel fetch quests and many of them are actually forced as part of the main game to proceed. It's agonizing. The sad part is the general set up idea is good of adventurers helping develop a struggling town in the middle of nowhere in return for exploring old ruins. This should develop the town unlock new options and enable good character interactions but every single aspect of it is delivered in the most bland way possible.

It does have some positives, the visual design generally is pretty good, I like the graphics and art design of the characters though even trying to write a positive I'm reminded of how bizarrely poor the animation is (Reminds me of the paper figures you make move with pins in school as a kid) and how the 4 enemy designs seem to be endlessly repeated. Still the music is pretty nice I guess?

As a first showing of the series by the team this has been an absolute let down, the biggest complement I can give it is it's at least technically playable but having thought about it, I think I'm just going to drop it. It just isn't fun gameplay wise.

+ Nice art design and music.
+ Great idea for adventurers helping build a town whilst exploring ruins...

-....implemented terribly with soul crushingly boring quests.
- Combat is shallow.
- Level design and platforming feel low effort.
- Enemies just palette swap.
- Animations are a little weird.