Oh my god, such a blast!!!

As someone who does not usually care for point and click games, "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis" is filled with so much adventure, humor, and is genuinely just a gripping Indy story at its core.

I couldn't help but love it.

A fantastic game, simply beautiful progression of the Pikmin franchise. The graphics are incredible, the Pikmin AI is much improved, the areas are varied and expansive, and 100%ing this game took me 50 hours! There are 3 relatively minor complaints that I have: long loading times, too much dialogue (especially at the beginning of the game), and the weird second-long pause when throwing Pikmin onto something when it's reached minimum carrying capacity. There are some minor things here and there that feel like they limit the skill ceiling a bit, but at least that's mostly fixed by end of the game. Nitpicking aside, this is the best game I've played this year and one of the best games on the Nintendo Switch.

Pros:
+ a huge overworld with hidden secrets and a revolutionary approach to progression
+ three-fold gameplay of tank, on foot and overhead action is unique and seamless
+ all levels have their own visual character and hold specific challenges
+ equipment upgrades noticeably change the gameplay and movement options
+ enemies do not respawn and pickups do not disappear after exiting a screen
+ re-entering areas and upgrading weapons as needed is possible
+ health of the main character can be replenished by entering the tank
+ boss fights can be retried again right away
+ controls on foot as well as in the tank are tight and even make strafing possible ...

Cons:
- ... except for the one-hit fall damage on foot that leads to cheap deaths
- continues are secretely limited and their amount is kept from the player
- no save or password system leads to a lot of frustration on death
- losing health and gun power on hit is a frustrating double punishment
- navigating the overworld and knowing where to go is difficult
- entering non-boss areas on foot for upgrades is basically a waste of time
- chances for finding hover and health pickups is not equally distributed
- backgrounds are lifeless and not animated
- grenades are apparently useless (this might be an issue with my emulator)
- late stage bosses appear to have RNG attacks


Magic Moment: Returning to the first screen of the game and realizing that progress was always in plain sight.

Playtime: Roughly 5 hours before dying in the final level and deciding that I was satisfied. Played on a shoddy NES emulator without save states originally released on Playstation 1 but repackaged for Playstation 4. I know.


Verdict:
As someone who grew up without a NES, this is one of those classic games that seems to have become synonymous with the success of Nintendo's first console. From a contemporary perspective, that fascination is easily understood: the controls are tight, the action is difficult without ever becoming unfair, the overworld traversal is engaging and the progression through a complex overworld in search of permanent upgrades predated the modern codification of Metroidvanias. At the same time, the lack of a save feature and the severe punishment of being hit by an enemy leads to a lot of frustration and requires memorisation of level layouts and enemy behaviors (at least when playing this without save states). Despite this criticism, playing Blaster Master still holds a lot of entertainment and gives insights into the origin of what would become an entire series of action games that is till going strong to this day.

Play this once if you want to know what the fuss is about, but an emulator is mandatory.

I love love LOVE the product placement in this game. It was such a cute and creative way for the game to make a connection with the person playing. And seeing all the kinds of names Olimar would make up for them, being artifacts he is not aware of, was so pleasing and funny. Dr. Pepper isn't just a soda, it's a DROUGHT ENDER.

Besides that extremely charming aesthetic, I actually do not like this game very much. It plays and controls fine, but the level design just feels overbloated most of the time. I was already annoyed that the sense of pure survival and the calendar were completely omitted, but if the trade-off was having so so SO MANY CAVES with monotonous tasks? I'll take the original game's design any day of the week.

I liked this game a lot but I thought the structure was much worse than 3 ngl. I think my problem is that once you get blue pikmin and unlock the distant spring (which is not very far into the game) it essentially becomes one giant checklist, since all you're looking for are the ship parts. It makes the progression feel really stagnant and the difficulty curve extremely flat. Still a great game by all means though

(I'm very stubborn as to not giving half stars on here but it I could this would probably be a 3.5/5 lol)

I am so desperate to finish this game good lord I just cannot bring myself to. I never thought I'd ever set down a mainline Pokemon game (remake or not) and just FORGET about it. I cannot even explain exactly what's wrong with it, it's just... a blank slate. It's almost like a demo. I even restarted my file after getting to the fifth gym because I thought maybe my team was just boring and lackluster. So I built a beautiful, unique team, of Pokemon I've always wanted to use, and it's... Still the same. I was so excited. Probably the hardest and most disappointing expectations vs. reality I've ever played.