A good but overrated game.

Super Mario Bros Wonder has the ambition I have been hungry for from 2D Mario for the past 15 years. However. while the quality is never sub-par, the creativity shown in the trailers which I was sold on rarely hits expectations. The way the game was advertised, as having no deadline, having countless ideas fed into it... this is the same game they've been relitigating since 2006 but mostly good and with a dozen or so good ideas and a couple of lazy ones. Wonder felt sold to me as a way of reinventing a stage. In practice it means a lot of the time an extra act to it. Or everything moves fast. Or slow.

I'm writing this review now because I've just beaten Bowser for the first time and, while I've enjoyed the game plenty, from the 95/100 reviews I was honestly expecting a rug pull. Maybe I'm Zelda-style only HALFWAY through! Maybe there's so much more content.

There isn't.

This is a good game. It's a 7, maybe 8, out of 10. Not a 10.

Enjoyable enough but a fairly generic Kirby experience. The super copy abilities aren't as fun as the game seems to think they are and can be quite intrusive to the freedom of choosing your copy ability. The Magolor epilogue content is good - while other player characters have always been fun enough to use, it's enjoyable to build magolor's unique skillset. My main critique is length. The main campaign can be comfortably beaten in a day, and the levels are not individually particularly memorable or replayable. Would suggest renting if you can.

Let me set this review out by making clear I mainly rented Forspoken to make a joke about playing "the Wizard Game". My expectations from what I had seen, mainly videos of cringe dialogue on Twitter, were not especially high. This was not helped by the first half hour of the game basically being a walking simulator. And yes, the dialogue is indeed consistently cringe throughout the game, though Frey's VA Ella Balinska really gives her all and there are some poignant scenes throughout.

However, while the game does make some truly baffling choices, the simple fact is that the gameplay is very good. While Frey's movepool is initially rather shallow, it expands with each major story boss, introducing layers of increasingly fun spell loadouts. All of the different styles of magic bring their own playstyle and quirks beyond their element, such as a focus on close-range combat, or detonating spell primers. This prevents the feeling of that expanding movepool from feeling like you're just getting the next option of a game of elemental rock-paper-scissors. Combat is not excessively challenging on Normal mode, but is difficult to master and I imagine certain encounters would be a nightmare on higher difficulties for those who want that.

On a lot of fronts it is standard open-world fare, with traversal options also unfolding over the course of the game and various side-quests and rewards for exploration. A minor aspect I really appreciate is that waypoints on your minimap are explicit about the reward you'll receive for completion, it's refreshingly honest.

I must also say I've found the critique that the game is too short to be not entirely unfounded but certainly exaggerated. I beat the final boss with 23 hours logged, doing some side-quests but only ones which I thought 'on the way' to my next main goal, and I have post game to come.

In fact, I came in with a score of 3.5 stars but my heart lies somewhere between there and a 4 really. But this is much better than its reception would suggest and is worth a look.

N.B.: 8 hours logged, just beat the 4th major (has big cutscenes) boss. I have been told it gets worse.

If, like me, you're a huge fan of From Software's soulslike games, this is by some distance the best attempt at recreating their energy. It broadly avoids most of their imitators pitfalls: It has its own aesthetic perspective, feels sincerely concerned about creating a coherent world, and a few exception aside it understands that the appeal of soulsborne was never "it's hard lol".

However, it is mechanically a bit rough around the edges. Certain builds and playstyles are a bit too objectively better than others. Some enemy attack animations are a bit too trolling for the parry system the game operates. And this might be muscle memory from other games talking but I don't think it really articulates when you should be guarding vs trying to perfect guard vs just dodging very well. This may not bother you, and it didn't necessarily bother me either I found it quite funny, but there are several set pieces and even entire areas which wear their influences a bit too on the sleeve.

I can see myself falling off this if what I've been told about a certain status effect is true, and I would recommend playing on game pass or renting if you have that service available to you, but I wouldn't play full retail price for this game. Having said that I'm glad I have played it and I'm very excited for what this team come out with next.

Edit: Ultimately shelved at the first major boss of the final area. Glad I persevered to the point I did.

Time and technology have been very kind to Unleashed. I always found the Werehog levels pretty good anyway, but at 60 fps on the Series X|S, the smooth combat and platforming shine not as chores between day levels, but engaging levels in their own right. The day levels too hold up well; with no frame drops, they hold up as some of the most visually stunning and fun to speed run levels in the franchise. Rooftop Run and Dragon Road in particular are endlessly replayable. Even the fiendish difficulty of Eggmanland is a thrill. If you have the opportunity to play with boosted performance I implore you to give this another go.
The werehog battle music remains annoying though. I will give you that.

One of those games where you're probably better off just playing the sequel when it comes out. You spend most of the game acquiring basic moveset skills and while it is consistently enjoyable it desperately needs to learn some lessons from its reception. I don't think it's coincidental that one of the first things I learned about the sequel was "don't worry, it's got fast travel this time."
Hopefully the sequel will make less baffling choices like introducing force pull several hours after force push, explains the relative but arbitrary advantages of going single vs dual lightsaber, and gives more meaningful texture to combat with melee enemies.

Always a joy to replay Final Fantasy 5. Love the camp, tongue in cheek script and even think the characters become unironically quite compelling. Of the classic final fantasy games it is easily the most replayable thanks to its versatile job system, and the quality of life improvements like autosave and boosters make doing so even easier. In fact it encouraged me to step out of my box a bit more and try more than just my standard "Spellblade/Rapid Fire, Time Magic/Mix, Blue Magic/Summon, and Throw/Zeninage" builds and experiment with other ways of breaking the job system! After all, if I can quadruple ability points, why not see what bards and dancers could bring to the table.
However, it is a bit disappointing to see the bonus dungeon added in the Advance version removed from the game. Not because it was particularly good, but in an age where its pretty common knowledge how to breeze through even the games toughest superbosses, the lack of optional endgame content is felt.
That said, I don't feel especially short changed by this version and will have little issue playing it as the definitive version in future.

When I reviewed Jedi: Fallen Order I said that it was okay but a solid foundation for a much more ambitious sequel, and Survivor certainly delivers that. I was pleased to see that no key jedi abilities were lost between games, and the additions to Cal's moveset throughout the game lend themselves well to exploration. You actually feel empowered as a Jedi from the start, none of the abilities you gain feel like they're specifically missing before you acquire them,
Combat is improved somewhat over Fallen Order, mainly through the addition of different stances, building on the double blade. All of the styles are viable and the strengths of limitations of each are clearly explained. Though the 'heavy' stance does feel a tad too sluggish for most use cases.
Perhaps controversially I think the story is an improvement on Fallen Order. The issue in my view with the period the game is set in is that any conflict focused exclusively on the Empire feels fundamentally futile, so exploring other options is a pleasing move. The cast are incredibly likeable, I enjoyed returning to the hub to catch up with them.
Cons: Performance is an issue. I've seen various accounts of crashes, softlocking if you try to remap certain controls, pop in, and frame dropping on performance mode to the extent it runs worse than in quality mode. This introduces major issues for the combat, given the focus on tight parry windows. Bad enough that I turned the difficulty down to Padawan to widen the window. It's disappointing that a game with such attention to detail runs like this.
A sequel could also have more meaningful rewards for exploration. I have enjoyed exploring throughout the game but having now beaten the main story I don't feel much incentive to as most rewards are cosmetic. I think I'll seek out any additional unique boss fights or interesting side stories but I feel no need to achieve 100%.
Overall, a very enjoyable game and a massive improvement over its predecessor. I imagine for someone who is a big fan of Star Wars this could be an easy 5 stars game of the year with improved performance. But even as someone with no real attachment to the series, this is a very strong action RPG.

While I enjoyed Breath of the Wild plenty, I never really fell in love with it the same way it seemed everyone else did. I have already spent nearly three times as long playing Tears of the Kingdom than I ever have Breath of the Wild.

The first thing I noted to be an improvement were the selection of rune abilities the game gives you. I found some of BotW's somewhat restrictive or situational. Instead, all of TotK's runes have extremely versatile use cases and excellent creative synergy. Ultrahand boldly asks: "what if magnesis, but you could control anything AND stick them together". Which is a goldmine of creativity in itself, especially with new Zonai Devices like fans, rockets, flamethrowers etc., but becomes truly bonkers when combined with other runes. To give a very simple example, if you need to climb a sheer cliff, you could build a simple T shape with wooden panels, and ascend through it. Higher still? Raise the structure with Ultrahand first, then use recall once you've ascended. It is truly astounding how flexible the system is, and I've really enjoyed finding 'unintended' solutions to the games shrines.
(The game also removes those dreadful motion control shrines BotW had thank god)

Traversal is also improved, in my view. BotW did a great job of zoning its landmarks such that there is always something to surprise you around a corner. But I often felt a bit limited to how high my stamina bar could carry me. In addition to the runes, TotKs Zonai devices let you easily create off-roaders, wind powered wings, hell you can strap a rocket to your shield and shoot into the sky. Even the game's equivalent of the towers send you soaring into the air. Getting to your destination is much easier, where I don't think I ever even visited Tarrey Town or Lurelin Village in BotW, there isn't a corner of TotK I haven't found myself in. It gives TotK a more expedition feeling where your time is spent less getting to point B and more time exploring caves, the skies, and the depths.
(Incidentally, realising the secrets and connections to the Depths... extremely satisfying)

Dungeon design is improved from the Divine Beasts, though none reach the franchise's peak and there is no real equivalent to BotW's Hyrule Castle. They also benefit from the versatility of the runes and devices. One dungeon I'm pretty sure I didn't complete a single puzzle the way I was supposed to. The bosses are all fun, build upon the dungeon's gimmicks well, and some fairly challenging. One recurring boss I went from dreading to looking forward to.

Fusion has radically changed and improved combat. No longer do you need to stock up on Fire Arrows, you can just stick a fire fruit or red jelly onto a normal arrow. Weapons do still degrade quickly, but you can fuse a monster horn on to increase the power of any old sword. Not only does this again open the game up in terms of versatility, it makes elements of the gameplay more meaningful. I found myself avoiding combat in BotW, because I was saving my good weapons for boss fights. I didn't make much use of elixirs and I didn't see much point in going out of my way to fight Lynels. In TotK, everything is useful yet almost nothing falls into the 'too good to use' trap.

Finally the story is exceptionally well done. It relies heavily on you already knowing and having some investment in the Hyrule and its people of BotW. The game's equivalent of the captured memories are easier to find and lay out breadcrumbs of story which colour events in the present in an interesting way and might even tip you off to some of its twists.

This game is a masterpiece. Simple as really.