[Average Reading Time: 8 Minutes]

A mute, a drunken womanizer, a french fashionista, and a momma's boy are working together to take down a big bad guy. Surely they would work better together if the game worked at all!

I discovered my love for the Dragon Quest series of games a little over half a decade ago when I downloaded the mobile version of the first game on a whim. Since then, I've always been excited to see the future of the series, as well as the spin-offs released in the past. One spin-off that caught my attention was the Wii game, Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors. That's a mouthful, so from here on out, I'll simply refer to it as Dragon Quest Swords.

Dragon Queest Swords offers a very unique gameplay experience. It's what I would call a rail action RPG. Imagine a rail shooter. You're constantly moving forward until you have to stop to shoot at enemies. Now, replace shooting enemies with slashing a sword at monsters. On paper, it sounds interesting. Not many games opt for a melee focus when being on-rails. As interesting as it is though, we must ask an important question: Does it stick the landing?

Sadly, I can't say that it does. So, to attack, you must swing the Wii remote. Of course, it's not as simple as just swinging the remote. Moving the controller in specific directions executes slashes in specific directions. Swing vertically for a vertical slice, horizontally for a horizontal slice, you get the idea. You also have a stab move, which requires you to thrust the controller towards the screen. This all sounds simple, but you must also remember that this was a Wii game that released in 2007, which means it's less than accurate, to say the least. Sometimes you'll swing the sword and wind up stabbing. Sometimes you'll stab and wind up swinging. This gets highly annoying, especially as you begin to encounter monsters that are more effectively taken down by specific moves.

Along with slashing, you are also able to focus your strikes on a specific area of the screen by moving the cursor to a specific spot and hitting A. This helps with targeting, allowing you to have vertical and horizontal slices go through areas that they normally wouldn't and allowing for stabs to hit a specific spot when the input feels like being read by the game.

This also helps with targeting specific enemy attacks that can be reflected with a sword strike. Many enemies will shoot projectiles that you can either only block with your shield, can either block or deflect with a sword strike, or reflect back at a foe with a sword strike. This all depends on the color of the move as the prompts appear to you before they make contact. At first, it's as simple as seeing the telegraph, highlighting the area the move is going to land and hitting A, and then swinging the sword when the timing is right to send it back. As the game goes on, though, you'll begin encountering scenarios where you're on the receiving end of multiple of these moves rapidly, requiring you to react accordingly quickly. Many times I've been hit with multiple deflectable moves because I was only able to deflect one and didn't have enough time to set up for another deflection.

You'll also have times where the deflection zones line up with where a slash would go without doing the A button setup, and other times where you're getting hit by multiple deflecting moves at once in a line and now you need to hope that when you do the specific sword strike the game is asking for, it registers properly. Input delay is very real with this game, as well, which does not help with these moves that require specific timing.

Thankfully, this isn't all the game offers in terms of combat gameplay. At any time, you can open your inventory to use a healing item, or have your party member (when you get one) use an attacking, restorative, or buffing spell to even the odds. You also have access to "Master Strokes", which are your special moves that deal big damage to all enemies on screen. By hitting foes, you build up a meter that allows you to execute these moves. Fill it up and you can activate these at any time during combat. Of course, in order to do the move you need to move the Wii remote in whatever directions they ask for. Fail to do so properly, and you'll either do less damage with the move or the move will fail to execute!

Despite my problems with the combat, when you're fighting anywhere between 1-3 enemies at a time, it's manageable. Not good, but manageable. It's when you're in scenarios where there's 4+ enemies on screen and you're slashing away at one while the other's readying an attack and now you have to get your shield up and oh no, the enemy you were wailing on moved away from you and now another enemy is healing them and whichever enemy you're now focusing on while any other enemy on the screen can do something to ruin your life...

...is where the game truly falls apart.

It truly is a shame that the combat wound up like this. The Wii was home to a plethora of motion based games, and as I played this game, I began to understand more and more why casual games for the console required less-specific motions with the controller. Motion controls simply weren't at the proper point for a game like this. In an era where VR has lead to an era where motion controls in games are more reliable than ever, leading me to want to experience them more, I can only say that Dragon Quest Swords was ahead of its time. Had it released in this generation as a VR title, I feel that it wouldn't have suffered from these problems. At the very least, I would be able to stab at an enemy and actually pull it off on the first try.

So, outside of the combat, we also have a town to explore. Here you can buy items to restore health, as well as equipment to raise your stats. You can also temper your sword, making it more powerful and allowing you access to more Master Strokes. It's also here where the bulk of the plot happens, which is very basic, for the most part. There are twists here and there and there are stakes, but it never really feels too compelling, sadly.

What is fun here are the character designs and the voice acting. I'll start with the voice acting first. The cast is pretty well-directed, and the actors pull off their lines very well. Hearing people speak to me in this world was one of the highlights, since there are some fun writing bits here and there.

Since this is a Dragon Quest game, we have Akira Toriyama (RIP) doing the designs for the cast. The enemies are wonderful looking, as always. The main party also hosts a number of interesting designs. One of my favorites has to be Claymore, who's the protagonist's father. As you explore the town and fight baddies, you see a number of familiar designs all getting the 3D model treatment, and they all translate really well! It's because of this that I find Fleurette's design to be funny in comparison since she clashes so much with the world around her. It's a great design, don't get me wrong, but she looks like she walked into the wrong game and just kinda hung out there!

As much as I enjoy the characters and world here, it does not save the gameplay. Through some effort, you can get far and beat it, but I found myself stopping right at the final boss. Without spoiling ANYTHING SPECIFIC, here's why. So, the final boss has a special move they can pull off, and when they do you are prompted to slash repeatedly at the screen to reduce damage as much as possible. Despite almost filling the meter keeping track of my strokes on the side of the screen completely, I was one-hit killed by the move! This never happened at any earlier point in the game. This also happened after a long session with intent of beating the game, which did not add to my mood that night.

Despite being a spin-off, it still has that Dragon Quest blood and wants you to grind! Want cash for better armor or levels to keep your stats beefy? Better go spend a non-specific amount of time grinding for it! Before facing the final boss, I never even considered grinding. The difficulty curve was adjusting properly as I played, so I felt no need to ever go back and boost my stats before any stage. Now, right at the end, the game is telling me to go back and do all that? If this were a normal RPG, I would've. However, grinding in Dragon Quest Swords means any additional amount of time flailing your arm around to boost stats. Just thinking about returning to old areas to spend hours swinging that sword around strictly for levels and cash sounds exhausting, physically exhausting. No thanks.

Overall, I can't in good faith recommend anyone play this game. The world is pretty and the characters are fun, but the story is unengaging and the gameplay is dreadful. If this game were to get a remake for VR headsets that took advantage of the developments that have occurred over the 17 years since its initial release, though, I'd happily give it another shot. As it is now, though, I can't implore you enough to STAY AWAY!

One last thing I want to note before I end this review. I want to talk a little more about Claymore. His backstory is that he fought the evil demon five years ago and lost the ability to use his arm to fight as a result. The more I looked at him and thought about him, the more I began to realize that his story is similar to that of Dunban from Xenoblade Chronicles, who also lost the ability to fight with his dominant arm in combat. Then, I began to notice that his voice sounded similar to Dunban's, and I thought to myself "Did they really get this guy to do Dunban's voice for that game? That would be very funny." I then make my way to the MobyGames page for the voice actor, Wayne Forester. As I scrolled though his roles, I did find that he offered his talents for Xenoblade Chronicles. However, it wasn't for Dunban. It was for someone else. It was for... HIM!

[Average reading time: 10 minutes]

A challenging platformer wrapped in a very pretty package.

This isn't my first foray with Croc. I distinctly remember attempting to play through this game a number of years ago and then quitting in world 3 due to a crazy difficulty spike. Now, a few years later, my brain spiders command me to once again control the lovable green reptilian and try to beat this game for good. Of course, I knew what I was getting into, and decided to make one small, yet absurdly essential change to make this game more fun.

Now, anyone who's read my Billy Hatcher review knows my opinions about lives systems in games, and that opinion of mine isn't going away. Because of this, I implemented an unlimited lives cheat for this run. As I go further into detail about my time with Croc, it will become clearer as to why I did this, but I did want to state this early on, just for the sake of clarity regarding my experience this time around.

Now, Croc has a simple story. You witness Croc floating in a basket towards a group of Gobbos, who then adopt and raise him. Soon, Baron Dante makes his presence known, sending his troops to kidnap the Gobbos. The Gobbo King bangs a gong to have Croc sent away from the chaos, allowing Croc the chance to fight back and save his friends!

A simple plot for a simple game. However, the instruction manual gives way more detail about the Gobbo world. Reading it will teach you more about the Gobbos as a species, the Gobbo King, referred to as "King Rufus the Intolerant", Croc's experiences growing up with the Gobbos, and even information about Baron Dante's evil group, referred to as "The Dantinis". It's also a bizarrely funny read, with a lot of jokes that stick the landing very well. If you want to read something that will make you constantly double take, read the Croc instruction manual!

Once you take control of Croc, you'll immediately notice a point of contention regarding this game: it's a 3D platformer with tank controls. Needless to say, not the most comfortable platforming experience. Even using an analog controller does not fix this issue, sadly. You'll often find yourself stopping to turn yourself to line up a jump, and jumping feels very stiff. Whatever direction you plan on moving in the air is the only direction you're moving, with little room for adjustment. Over time, of course, you'll get used to the platforming mechanics, but you'll never find yourself saying "this feels great to play!"

Aside from running and jumping, Croc has a few extra moves at his disposal. One of the most vital moves he possesses is his ability to turn around! Using a dedicated button, Croc can do a 180 degree turn whenever he wants, which is a godsend for re-orienting yourself to line up another jump. If you do it while he's on the move, he'll do a really cool flip that made me react like this when I first saw it.

As for Croc's combat ability, he has two moves to use. First, he has a tail swipe move that's great for deleting enemies from existence. His other move is a ground pound, performed by hitting the jump button twice. Aside from dispatching enemies, this move will allow Croc to bust open crates and objects blocking tunnel passageways. Gonna be honest here, I don't like that you have to hit jump twice for this. I wish it was mapped to a different button, because I would often have scenarios where I was doing a precision platforming section that required me to jump as soon as I landed on a platform, and if my timing was off slightly it would result in Croc stopping in midair, asserting the ground-pound position, and plummeting to his death. Not fun.

It's also worth noting that when Croc performs his attacking moves, he has a number of onomatopoeia's he can blurt out, such as "yazoo!" or "kersplat!" You would think this would get annoying after a while, but honestly it never bothered me. I think it adds to Croc's character, being a young croco on a big adventure to save a tribe of people who have a tradition of shoving kitchen utensils down their pants (PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL I PROMISE I DIDN'T MAKE THAT UP)

Speaking of Croc as a character, oh man, would you take a look at these little guys! This game is filled to the brim with scrimblo-type characters, little dudes that you're gonna want plushies of as soon as you see them. They're EVERYWHERE! If you love little weirdos and want to catalogue them all, this is the perfect game for you. Absolutely loved seeing each new creature emerge on my screen as I played.

Okay, so we have cute characters in a fuzzy 32-bit world clearly made for kids. The controls take some getting used to but surely the main game doesn't get too taxing, right? Oh, how I wish I could say yes. For the first two worlds, it's honestly a pretty comfortable romp. Level design is highly forgiving, featuring non-intimidating level design unless you're going after collectibles. Once you hit world 3, though, you'll start seeing much more difficult stage layouts requiring you to perform more precise movements to get by. For me, this is where Croc begins to fall in terms of quality.

So, Croc behaves like Sonic the Hedgehog when it comes to taking damage, in that he'll drop this game's ring equivalent (gems) when getting hit. Get hit without them and you'll lose a life. It's around world 3 where you'll begin facing much more challenging platforming over damaging floors and bottomless pits. Because of this, it is incredibly easy to lose lives. Thankfully, you're given a checkpoint at every door/tunnel you exit, which means a death won't set you too far back. Getting a game over, however, sends you back to whichever stage you last saved at, which means starting a level over again from the beginning.

Now, on paper this doesn't seem like too bad of a punishment, but after getting game over's over and over again due to how easy it is for Croc to die I began to find it intolerable, hence why I opted for the unlimited lives cheat. I can accept dying and having to re-do a small section but having to re-do a stage over and over due to game overs, especially when you get close to the end of a stage, just feels intolerable in the modern era. If you want to tackle this game without such assists, then all the power to you. Just be prepared for a lot of level attempts in the back half of the game and lots of visits to specific stages to grind extra lives hidden away in secret spots.

When it comes to collectables in stages, you really only have two to worry about: Gobbos and colored gems. There are six Gobbos hidden in each stage, and collecting all of the Gobbos in the game allow you to access some secret levels that unlock even more secret stuff. Throughout the stage, you'll find five of these Gobbos hidden in boxes, cages, and on hard-to-reach platforms. "Wait hold on five? I thought you said there were six Gobbos in a stage!" So remember when I mentioned colored gems? You can find five of these in each stage either disguised as regular gems or hidden in boxes. Collecting all of these unlocks a door near the end of each stage, where you will either complete a platforming challenge or a minigame to rescue the last Gobbo.

The platforming challenges are straightforward enough. However, it's the minigames where I take issue with this system. While most minigames are perfectly fine, there's one that I dislike immensely. Basically, you have a cauldron that you control by jumping on two arrow buttons. Your goal is to catch the gems descending from the sky. Catch them all and you're awarded a Gobbo. The problems here are that this minigame goes on way too long, and if you miss even one, the mini game ends. You may think "Oh, if I die I can reset the mini game and try again." A smart idea, but sadly not the case. Losing any minigame without securing a Gobbo will require you to beat the entire stage again to retry it. This means re-collecting every Gobbo and colored gem along the way, which is a frustrating process if it happened in a more difficult level, even if you know what you're getting into.

With how difficult the stages can get, you would think the boss fights would also prove to be challenging. Surprisingly, the bosses in this game are absurdly easy. It's your typical "wait for them to attack and hit them when they're vulnerable" type of fights throughout the game, and dodging attacks is as simple as running in a circle around the boss while they do their thing. Also, almost every boss does this thing where they just stop animating and freeze after you deal the final blow, which is always funny to witness.

The more thing I want to touch on is the music. The soundtrack is pretty good! There's some leitmotif sprinkled throughout the stages, with overworld and underground areas sharing some melodies. The title screen is also pretty catchy and may or may not have had a chunk of its melody lifted from it to be a part of a main theme for a Nintendo game.

Speaking of Nintendo, it's worth noting that this game began life as a pitch for a 3D Yoshi game. After the pitch was turned down, it became Croc, and you can kinda see some of that Yoshi blood in here a little bit. You have a green reptile protagonist who can ground pound (a move Yoshi had in Yoshi's Island) as well as a bad guy who uses magic to make smaller creatures into tough boss enemies. Swap the characters for Yoshi's Island ones and add a tongue move and flutter jump to Croc's arsenal and you basically have a Yoshi game, which is fun to think about as you experience this game.

Overall, I didn't hate Croc. I love his design, and the Gobbo Archipelago is fun to explore. The enemies you encounter are all cute and charming, and hearing Croc exclaim things like "Wazoo" never gets old. However, the stage design, especially in the back half of this game, combined with the awkward controls make this a difficult game to clear. I recommend giving this game a shot, despite the difficulty.

The aesthetics of this game invoke an aura of childhood innocence and succeeds at taking you back to a time where things felt simpler, even if the game isn't the easiest around. For that reason alone, I feel that Croc is worth visiting today. Even with the rise of low-poly indie 3D platformers, there's none that I am aware of that really capture the welcoming aesthetics of Croc.

Still the king, baby.

Now, I already reviewed Super Mario World in the past and feel that I said everything I needed to say about this game there. However, as I replayed this game over and over throughout my life, I have yearned for ways to make each new playthrough feel unique. For a while, the randomizer did just that for me, and later on I would experience the joys and hilarity of the ROM hack where the game's stages and music were remade from memory. Now, I return to Super Mario World once more for another twist, focusing entirely on the soundtrack.

For this playthrough, I implemented a ROM hack titled Super Mario World MSU-1 Plus Ultra. For those unaware, MSU-1 is a custom coprocessor designed by the late Near that allows Super Nintendo games to play CD quality audio and full-motion videos. Many modders have taken advantage of this coprocessor to do insanely impressive things with Super Nintendo games. Look at this video of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, for example. This is what the coprocessor looks and sounds like in action!

Many games have been given MSU-1 upgrades over the years, and Super Mario World is no exception to this. In fact, MSU-1 mods for this game have had an interesting development history. At first, there were just mods that swapped the music for more orchestral sounding remixes of the music tracks, which is the standard protocol for these mods. Following these would come a more ambitious mod, titled Super Mario World MSU+, which not only swaps the original tracks for CD quality music, but also introduces voice clips for characters and implements the use of different remixes of the overworld music depending on which region of the map you're currently in. I've played that version and loved it, finding it to be a refreshing way to experience this game.

Years later after the release of this mod, however, we would be gifted with an even more ambitious mod in the form of Super Mario World MSU-1 Plus Ultra. Not only did this mod implement everything from Super Mario World MSU+. It also made it possible for every stage in the game to have its own unique remix. This means that the soundtrack of Super Mario World has been expanded to 130 unique tracks!

Needless to say, I've been dying to get into this mod and hear all the music within, and after a breezy 96 exit run of this game, I can say genuinely that this is an amazing way to experience (or re-experience) Super Mario World. It's exciting to drop into a stage and hear an entirely new remix. It could be orchestral, jazzy, rock, or something else! Your ears are certainly in for a treat with this mod!

The best part of this and other MSU-1 mods is that they are fully playable on the most recent models of flash carts, such as the FXPak Pro, for example. You're going to be hearing CD quality music and voice lines from characters in a day 1 Super Nintendo game all on real hardware! It's beyond impressive, and every so often as I play mods like these, I can't help but think of how much these advancements blow me away.

If you love the Super Nintendo and want to see what their games would be like if they had a bit of that Sega CD energy (complimentary) in them, I highly implore you to check out the MSU-1 Hacks Database and try some of these mods for yourself! They take a bit more of set-up to get running than your usual ROM hack, but the extra work is worth it to see and hear how these games get enhanced by this technology!