It's been a pretty long gap between brand new 2D Mario titles with Super Mario Bros. Wonder releasing almost 11 years after New Super Mario Bros. U which launched with the Wii U just 3 months after New Super Mario Bros. 2 had released on the 3DS, the third and fourth entries in the "New" series of 2D Mario, which by that point had burned myself and many others out on the series, leaving us craving for something new and inventive with 2D Mario. Well Wonder is here now and it is exactly what I've been craving from 2D Mario for years.

In every single department, Wonder has taken steps to freshen up the 2D Mario experience, from music and art style, to animation and world design, there is so much new stuff to enjoy here. Starting off, we're now given a choice of quite a lot of characters to choose from. We have our New Super standards of Mario, Luigi, Blue and Yellow Toad as well as Peach and Daisy finally being playable. All of these characters play the same and the moveset has been stripped back a little bit, removing the triple jump but keeping stuff like the spin jump and wall jump. On the other end of the character select screen we have our "easy difficulty" characters which includes a variety of Yoshi colours being playable for the first time as well as Nabbit returning. These characters are all invincible, taking no damage though Yoshi does receive knockback and has his flutter kick jump for gaining extra height. Yoshi now being playable does unfortunately mean that he's no longer available as a mount unless you're playing in local multiplayer and someone picks Yoshi, which is a shame because I've been waiting for the full Super Mario World implementation of him to return since that game where he doesn't leave after every level.
Anyways, while the characters might all play the same now, you can earn badges to equip to your character that changes up the moveset. You want Peach's iconic float after jumping? You can equip a badge that allows a similar glide. You want the Super Mario Bros 2 crouch jump? There's a badge for that. You want to unleash vines to grab and stick onto walls like Spider-Man? THERE'S A BADGE FOR THAT! Basically badges allow the game to keep throwing fresh new challenges at you and change up the gameplay a little bit and I think they're pretty cool. I did stick with the little glide for the bulk of my playthrough because I love using it to guarantee hitting the top of the flagpole better but there's definitely a lot of cool options to switch to that could be better suited to your own unique playstyle and I think it's a great addition to the series.

Ok so for Peach to be playable, Bowser has to be up to something else as a villain so he's off to the brand new Flower Kingdom to steal the Royal Wonder Seeds and turn himself into a castle for some reason and it's up to Mario and the gang to stop him. Being in a new location means the developers have been able to be a little more creative with their level aesthetics so while on the surface you have your grass, desert, snow, lava level themes etc, they all have taken on fresh new looks with absolutely gorgeous background details helping to bring the whole thing alive. The characters are so much more expressive as they move through the levels and even the enemies can show fear when they see their allies stomped on before them or a shell comes flying towards them. These are all little details that yeah, they don't affect the core gameplay at all but they bring so much more life to the series, something that has been missing from 2D Mario for a while. Instead of rescuing Toads, we have new flower kingdom inhabitants to save and stuff like that just helps make this feel like a more unique experience.

Once again we're on a world map for a level select screen but this one has taken some cues from 3D World where there are points where it opens up and you can select whatever stage you want and find secrets hidden away. It's nice to have a more interactive world map and it helps break up the levels themselves a bit more. As for the levels, you've got your standard Mario affair here where reaching the flagpole is the goal. Hidden throughout the levels are 3 purple 10 coins replacing the big gold coins of the New games as well as 1-3 Wonder Seeds depending on the level having a secret exit or a Wonder Flower. Wonder Flowers can only be described as a wild trip as touching one of these completely changes up the level, throwing almost anything your way or even transforming Mario and co themselves into something else. An early one sees Piranha Plants popping out of pipes and seeing or a bunch of new bull like enemies stampeding through a level who can be ridden on to uncover secrets. There's stuff like becoming super tall and having to work through a level like that or even becoming a Goomba where your jump is really tiny but you're impervious to spikes though other things will kill you instantly. You can see a lot of inspiration taken from the Mario Maker games and the team have been very experimental with their level designs in the best ways.

So what are these new Wonder Seeds and purple coins for then? Well on the world map, progression is locked by certain levels needing a number of Wonder Seeds acquired to be unlocked. Each world has its own unique Wonder Seeds so you can't just collect a bunch in the first world and skip to the end but you can collect enough in each world to skip any of the levels that might be giving you a difficult time. Purple coins are used in the shops dotted around the world and can be used on things like extra lives or new badges but also each shop contains a Wonder Seed that can be bought and added to your total, just like the Moons in Mario Odyssey. There's also standees that can be bought but those are more for the multiplayer aspect that I'll touch upon in a bit.

Outside of the regular levels you have a few other types of level to play through. Break time levels that are nice chill bonus rooms that like to play music from a classic Mario title as you collect the coins. Enemy gauntlets that see you defeat a bunch of enemies and if you do so under a certain amount of time you can earn up to 3 purple 10 coins. There's badge challenges that test your skill with a badge and puzzle room levels which are designed more for multiplayer as each playable character can see unique hidden blocks so these levels work best with a group of four helping each other find the hidden blocks to collect the 5 pieces of the Wonder Seed and beat the puzzle together. Again, these levels all help keep the game feeling fresh as new ideas keep pushing themselves forward and it's brilliant.

Now I have mentioned the multiplayer aspect a few times now so let's get into the online side of that because I was genuinely surprised at how much I appreciated it. By connecting the game online, you'll find a bunch of other players playing the game at the same time as you and if you enter a level, up to 3 other players playing that level will be there in real time with you. However unlike Mario Maker or Mario 3D World where online multiplayer put you in the same lobby and relied upon an unreliable connection between players as you interacted with one another and lag kicked in, the players here are more like ghosts or shadows with very limited interaction on your game. You can see each other and emote to each other and stuff like that but you can't throw shells at each other or pick each other up or anything like that. No, instead Nintendo has borrowed a bit form Dark Souls and somehow managed to find a way to inspire cooperative play here. If you die near a player you'll become a ghost and be given around 5 seconds to touch another player to be revived, not losing a life and continue from that point. Now you can still be a menace and deliberately avoid a dead player until their time runs out and heck, some level design makes that almost impossible to avoid but my gosh hearing the little ghost screams and seeing someone desperately try to reach you, you'd have to have a heart of stone to ignore their pleas for help. The standees I mentioned earlier come into play when playing online. You can put these down anywhere in a level on solid ground and if someone dies within range of it, they can touch it as a ghost and be revived. What's even cooler is during my playthrough I saw people putting them down to hint at where there were hidden blocks. The first puzzle room level I found there was a group of us struggling to find one last part of the Wonder Seed but one person had left a standee in an area where a hidden block was so all we had to do was figure out how to hit it. And that's not even my highlight of the online experience because in the very final level, there was a red Yoshi player helping a group of us by waiting for us to catch up and placing standees in areas where we were likely to mess up. It was extremely heartwarming seeing a complete stranger just helping people through the toughest level in the game just because they could and I love that energy.

Moving onto power ups we have our usual staples of Mushrooms, Fire Flowers and Invincibility Stars and outside of that everything else is new. The main new one is the Elephant Fruit which turns you into an elephant. As an elephant you gain access to a trunk attack and you can store water in your trunk to use as a projectile. We also have the Drill Mushroom which is like a 2D incarnation of the drill power up from Mario Galaxy 2. Here you gain a drill on top of your head so you can defeat enemies by jumping under them and also use it to drill under ground or roof structures and move through gaps in walls to uncover secrets. Finally there's the Bubble Flower that does as the name suggests, lets you throw out bubbles. These can capture non spiky enemies and turn them into coins or you can use them to jump off if you time things well. All the power ups here feel very fresh and unique in a 2D Mario environment and I had fun using all of them.

It's been glowing praise so far but I do have one complaint with the game and that is the bosses. For a game full of variety and trying new things, it does suck a little bit that airship and castle bosses are reused every time. They do change up each encounter and I am extremely glad to see absolutely no Koopalings after their overuse in the Wii through Wii U era but at the same time, I was hoping to see a better variety on offer in the boss department.

It's been a long time coming but Wonder absolutely delivers on refreshing 2D Mario after the New series had grown a little tired and overused. As usual with Mario, you're getting a joyful experience that reconnects you with your inner child but you're also getting a top quality Mario game that manages to feel unique in a series that has been going for over 35 years now and that in itself is a testament to the strength of this game. I've managed to get through this review without dipping into the wonder puns but I have to end it with this: I had a Wonderful experience and time with Super Mario Bros. Wonder!

This was a title I was curious about after getting into the Trails series. It was something I saw listed on the Wikipedia page of releases but yet for a large series of interconnected games with one long continuous plot thread, this one seemed to be passed over by a lot of the fans in discussion and was even named differently.
Well that's because The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails is a spin-off that seems to be at this moment (having played the first 5 Trails games) something that has a couple of references to Trails more than anything else. Mishy can be found as a strange creature and the Herschel surname of Nayuta and his family is reused for another character from the Cold Steel games from what I'm aware of. Basically, what I'm saying is despite this carrying the Trails name, it is very much an independent spin off and it's narrative should probably be judged without the expectations of it possibly maybe being intertwined with the mainline Trails series as a whole.

As a spin-off game, The Legend of Nayuta takes the opportunity to change up the gameplay and mix and match a few different elements. You have the RPG elements of leveling up and getting stronger etc with Remnant Isle being your core base of operations where most of the traditional Trails elements can be found. You can cook, take on requests including hidden requests, and meet a bunch of characters whose dialogue changes throughout the story to react to the different events that happen. It's a nice quaint place that feels very homely but it is also the whole of the traditional RPG side of things.

The bulk of the game is actually spent in this mysterious other world where things have gone haywire due to Zechst taking the gears needed to keep this place functioning correctly so Nayuta and Terra's administrator Noi team up to stop him by visiting each of the four continents and freeing the trapped guardians. It's here where we place the action stages where you run through stages taking on platforming challenges and fighting enemies through action based combat. Nayuta fights using his sword and can jump and dodge roll out of the way or guard while Noi has arts that can be used and swapped through as you unlock more equipment slots. For me, despite having a decent amount of things to unlock for the combat, it always felt very shallow, like it was lacking a punch to it. A lot of the enemies felt like I was cutting through paper and once I unlocked the gear spin ability I was literally steamrolling through enemies. The stages themselves are also very short and can be blasted through in a minute or so. They're designed this way on purpose because you can earn 3 stars through multiple objectives so if you miss anything it's quick enough to replay it and find what you're missing. The 3 objectives will always include finding the 3 large purple crystals, the hidden chest (or two chests in the larger two part stages) and a specialised objective different for each stage (defeat X enemies, fall less than X times etc). These stars can be used to further expand Nayuta's abilities through training on Remnant Isle. The other reason these stages are so short is because each stage has four variants - one based on each season. Two can be played through in the main story, one in the after story chapter and the final one unlocks on new game plus. The different seasons vary the stages up slightly but when you're playing through these stages multiple times trying to 100% them, it does start feeling awfully repetitive and draining.

Boss fights are the highlight here. Aside from a couple of really simple ones, boss fights will actually require a little bit of strategy to find when a weak point is available to be hit. The final boss and one of the after story bosses in particular are really cool and spectacular and were more like what I was hoping for from the game. Once the guardians have been freed, each one gives Noi an ability to help Nayuta out and explore previously inaccessible areas of stages. You get stuff like being able to swing to floating gear points or use a shield to traverse through harmful areas and they're pretty fun to use.

The story itself is alright. The characters believe the world is flat and random parts of large debris fall from the sky and people believe that's from Lost Heaven so there's some good stuff that ends up explaining what all that is actually about. I really enjoyed Noi's character growth going from hating humans and being extremely wary of them to growing alongside Nayuta and coming to love people and wanting to protect. It's pretty simple but also effective. Everything else kinda fell a little flat for me though. Like I liked Cygna and Lyra and Eartha but I can't really say I was ever truly attached to them in a meaningful way which was unfortunate. With bouncing between the two worlds so often and neither side having a lot of depth to it, I don't think the game manages to build a deep connection between the player and the characters, definitely not in a way like the namesake it borrows from does.

I don't think The Legend of Nayuta does anything I would call outright bad but I think it lacks the depth to reach the potential it has. It's an enjoyable experience with an incredible soundtrack, and is probably one of the most this is alright games I've played.

The return of the great detective Pikachu has been a long one coming for this spin off series whose entire history has been weird starting as a multipart eshop game in Japan before finally releasing in the West physically as one full version in 2018 and now over 5 years later, long after it was announced, the sequel has finally hit the Nintendo Switch.

At first glance you can tell it's had somewhat of a troubling development history with how bad the lighting is in the game. The Pokémon lack any proper texture detailing either so they all look a little bit like plastic models. High quality models yes, but still lacking a little bit of detail. In a way it really does look like a 3DS game cleaned up and ported to Nintendo Switch, which might explain why it took 5 years to get the sequel. For me personally I didn't mind how the game looked but it's definitely something I can understand where a lot of complaints are coming from. You do get a return of a solid frame rate outside of a couple of action sequences where flashy moves are involved which after having returned to Scarlet/Violet recently for the dlc is so very welcome.

For those that haven't played the original Detective Pikachu on 3DS you're given a very cliff notes recap of what happened in that game. Basically, Tim is still looking for his dad despite having solved the R case two years ago and we're back in Ryme City with our little talking Detective Pikachu as a bunch of new mysteries pop up involving Pokémon. I'm not going to say the plot is this incredible journey through twists and turns, most people will see its main plot points coming from a mile off but it's full of charm which helps work its way into your heart. A rare case of a Pokémon game having voice acting really helps bring the characters to life. We have Pokémon doing anime cries and our great Detective Pikachu is here to steal the show again with his wise cracks and coffee addiction. It does get a little cheesy at times but it's all very light hearted and fun.

As a detective game you'll mostly be going around talking to characters and gathering evidence where possible to make deductions on what's happened. Tim speaks to the humans while Pikachu talks to the Pokémon and together the information they find is used to solve a case. There's also parts where you get to work with another Pokémon, like you can use Growlithe to sniff out and follow scents or Luxray to see through walls and avoid being spotted, which is really nice to see Pokémon use abilities that are often reserved to Pokedex descriptions. There's a lot of charm to be found in just seeing Pokémon doing Pokémon things instead of battling which helps get you into the game and its world. There's also little side quests to be completed every chapter which usually amount to talking to a character and finding what that character is looking for. You'll get a nice little story about it in the following days newspaper which is a nice touch. Ultimately though this is very much a detective game aimed at a younger audience and as such there's nothing to really get the grey matter going and no real red herrings to misdirect you. So much is very obvious and from an early point in the game that I can see a good portion of people being turned off because of how easy it is but again, personally I found myself not caring because I was just having fun going through the puzzles and talking to the characters and seeing Pokémon in this unique environment. It's very much a case of the journey being more important than the destination and if you're willing to accept a light and breezy ride then I think there's plenty to enjoy here even though it is very much an Introductory title to the genre.

Detective Pikachu Returns is not an easy game to recommend to a general audience and I can definitely understand why a good portion of people have their issues with it but for me, even though the likes of The Somnium Files and Danganronpa have spoiled me with thrilling mysteries and unpredictable twists, Detective Pikachu does enough to work its way into my heart and leave a lasting impression. I think it does its job as an introductory title to the genre quite well and I'm sure the younger audience it seems to be targeting will have a great time with it.

The 5th game in the long running narrative of the Trails series and the second half of the Crossbell duology, Trails to Azure sets out to answer the unanswered questions left hanging at the end of Trails from Zero while also building towards a conclusion for the Crossbell arc.

It's easier to dive into the gameplay stuff first here as it's a continuation of what the four games before it laid out, with a few new additions here and there. Your core gameplay loop is still the same tackling of requests that come in while also progressing through the story. It's very much a continuation of the excellent formula the series has had for most of its games so far and it doesn't rock the boat there. We do have new additions to the battle system however, with the Master Quartz being the main attraction. Master Quartz are a fancier version of the regular quartz that the Enigma's use for casting arts, only these ones can be leveled up and provide a variety of stat boosts and include buffs when starting a battle. Once maxed out, the Master Quartz will give you access to a unique and powerful art. They also contribute towards your sepith totals that determine what arts you have access to as well and these totals increase as you level it up. It's a very cool new addition to the battle system that has remained relatively unchanged throughout the series.
The other new addition is a Burst mechanic accessible during climatic points of the story. A guage fills up as you attack enemies and when full you can use Burst to allow yourself multiple turns in a row without reply from the enemies. It's great for when you're in a pinch and need to turn the tide of battle or when you want to fire off arts without the enemy interrupting them.

Heading into the story, there is one pretty big blemish on the game as a whole and that comes with the introduction of a new character called Shirley. Her introduction sees her nibbling on Lloyds ear before moving behind Elie and groping her while everyone else stands in shock and Wazy makes light of the situation. It's horrible. Elie was my favourite character from Zero so seeing her being treated like that was really shocking and was difficult to move past and for many people it could be something that ruins the whole game for them. It's also an event that is annoyingly brought up again another 2 or 3 times throughout the story before being dropped around the second half of the game when things start going down and you start gaining a better understanding of Shirley's role. Thankfully I was able to move past it and enjoy the game despite it. As much as it annoyed me at the time, it's also the only real complaint I have with the game at all so for me personally it wasn't something I was going to let ruin my experience of an otherwise brilliant game so I was able to let it go. Still it is worth mentioning for those who might not be able to do that and give a fair warning of it.

Right, negative part out the way, let's dive into what makes Trails to Azure peak. Being a direct continuation of Zero, Azure is kind enough to include the backstory for that game in the main menu, so if for whatever reason you skipped Zero you can catch up or refamiliarise yourself with that. And it is important because Azure starts off by following up on the direct aftermath of Zero by having Lloyd, Noel, Dudley, and Arios hunt down the last remaining remnants of the DG Cult that have eluded arrest and are on the run towards the Calvard Republic. It's a nice intro sequence to introduce you to the new Master Quartz as well as get you straight into the action. It's also cool having a small part of Calvard playable after hearing so much about the nation. The end of the Prologue section also introduces us to a couple of familiar faces from Sky 3rd and you get that awesome feeling that very few series can give you.

After the Prologue, we're back in Crossbell City and familiar surroundings but a few things have changed since the cult incident. Randy and Tio are temporarily away from the SSS for other errands so we have a couple of new members to help round out our team of four. Noel from the CGF has temporarily joined the SSS on a recommendation to gain experience and Wazy, our gang leader has joined because…. He felt like it (don't worry, it does actually become clear later in the game)
It is a little weird seeing the SSS family change up a bit, especially with how much they actually felt like a family by the end of Zero but our two new members actually fit in rather well. Noel's sister Fran already worked as an operator for the SSS anyways and it's cool seeing this super dutiful and serious person trying to fit in with a group that is much less strict on formalities and more easy going, especially with Wazy bringing the exact opposite type of energy to the team. Wazy is extremely laid back and very quick witted, rarely resisting a moment to tease one of his teammates or flirt with somebody. Both characters greatly add to the dynamic of the SSS and continue to fit in even when Randy and Tio eventually make their return. It's also great that this game gives you so much more time with 6 party members to allow you to make use of the two support slots you have.

Other changes around Crossbell include the completion of the Zemuria's tallest building, Orchis tower, completed by new Mayor Dieter Crois whose ambition is clear from the off as he manages to push through some new reforms to Crossbellean law as well as push for an independent Crossbell free from the influence of its neighbours. Elsewhere the Empire has tried to restore the balance of power that was knocked out of their favour by hiring the most powerful Jaeger group around, the Red Constellation - the Jaeger group that Randy was a part of and includes familiar faces for him to test his resolve against. And let's not forget on top of all that, we have the return of Ouroboros who are putting into motion their Phantasmal Blaze plan which the first step involves Crossbell.
All of this makes for the most exciting paced Trails game yet as it wastes no time on a slow burn and starts setting up multiple threads of intrigue from the off.

Azure takes us through so many high points, from gathering so many powerful leaders and characters in one place for the grand opening of the Orchis tower, an assassination attempt from terrorist organisations working together from both the Empire and the Republic, devastating attacks on Crossbell that hit so much harder because of the attachment you have to the City from the first game as well as how incredibly well Trails does it's npc characters, meaning gut punches still hit pretty hard even when it's npc characters taking the brunt of the damage. There's so many powerful and incredible moments throughout the game that make it almost impossible to put down. They also pick an excellent point for an intermission chapter to let you catch your breath and see the party take a well earned break to rest and have some fun before ramping things way up again for its incredible finale.

Azure's finale is this stunning unravelling of a grand conspiracy that has been years in the making and it takes you this near unfathomable journey as the balance of power shifts in Western Zemuria and revelation after revelation is unveiled. Characters we thought that were allies are now dangerous enemies, and powerful foes we had been butting heads against make for the unlikeliest of allies. Answers surrounding KeA and exactly what happened to Guy Bannings are finally given and there's even some stunning weaponry on display that raises the stakes even higher. And while all this is happening in Crossbell, we're given teasers of what's going down in Erebonia to help whet your appetite for the Cold Steel games. The final dungeon itself is this incredibly large and beautiful labrinth, giving characters like Rixia, Wazy, and Randy some closure to things they have been through and of course the game carries on one of the main themes of the Crossbell arc, found family. There's just so many high points in this game that it helps make it a lot easier to move past the one blemish I had near the beginning of it. The ending does set things up for a difficult future for Crossbell and in turn leaves you wanting to find out what happens next. The door is left open for a return to this wonderful cast and setting with their fate so deeply intertwined with Erebonia.

I played this one on Switch and while for the most part it runs fine, there are somewhat annoying moments where the framerate dips, particularly around areas where the Plemora grass effects are in play. It's mostly like the frame rate dropping for a few seconds as it tries to adapt to a new area and stabilise itself. Not the worst thing in the world but worth mentioning as it is noticeable.

Trails to Azure is a fantastic boiling point of threads that have been woven throughout Crossbell culminating in a spectacular finale and a consistently intriguing and exciting story that few rpgs can maintain throughout 50-60 hours of game time. It knows exactly when to take the foot off the gas for a bit and exactly when to ramp things up again. For those that have played all the previous games, there's plenty of exciting appearances from characters past while those only familiar with Zero still get a lot of mind-blowing revelations that will completely reframe that game in a whole new light for you. It's another excellent Trails game and for me, it's right up there as one of the best in the series.

Nearly 20 years of being an F-Zero fan and feeding on scraps like Captain Falcon being in Smash Bros or Captain Falcon's Twister Race being in Nintendo Land but at last, after all that waiting, after all that suffering, Nintendo has brought F-Zero out of retirement with F-Zero 99, seemingly plotting the best path possible to properly revive the series in the future.

F-Zero 99 marries the two concepts of SNES F-Zero (where every lap you must finish above a certain number of people or you're eliminated) with the 99 series of games (where 99 real people online battle it out to be number 1 like in Tetris 99 or Pac-Man 99).
So F-Zero 99 at its core is built on the foundation of the SNES game where it looks like how you would remember the SNES game only now in HD with various track elements like ramps and mines now built in 3D. You have the same four vehicles of the SNES game along with the tracks all being from that game as well but a few elements have been taken from later entries in the series to help make it play a little closer to F-Zero X and GX. The boost mechanic works exactly like those games where your health is your boost. Boosting requires a portion of your health to be activated and this core mechanic is exactly why I love the F-Zero series so much. When you can lose health from crashing into walls or being attacked by other vehicles, this mechanic brings a huge level of risk vs reward to every race, particularly towards the end of a race when everybody is going gung ho and the slightest tap could eliminate a number of people. To further add to this mechanic, if you knock out another player, you not only refill you own health but also increase your health allowing you to boost even more giving you an advantage over other racers. This is what peak F-Zero is, a thrilling race between life or death where the more aggressive you play the more you are rewarded. Being over zealous comes with the risk of being eliminated early but playing your cards right can lead to the sweetest of victories.

To help with aggressive plays, the other mechanic brought in from X and GX is the spin attack. As the name suggests, this allows you to spin and attack other racers, damaging them while protecting yourself. To accommodate for having 99 players on the track, vehicles are now less slippery than they were in other F-Zero games meaning the spin attack doesn't quite knock people flying and pinballing around like it used to, instead it does a better job at repelling racers around you who are trying to nudge you off course. Unfortunately the side attack hasn't been brought back where double tapping the drift buttons would jerk your vehicle to the left or right to knock other racers flying, but there is a new mechanic introduced that is tied to the spin attack to help pull those further back in the race up the pack a little.

Now many F-Zero fans are probably thinking "a comeback mechanic? In a game all about rewarding skill and punishing mistakes? Why have they Mario Kart'd my F-Zero?" Well that's where you're wrong because this new mechanic has also been designed around F-Zero's incredible risk/reward pull. By spin attacking other vehicles, these little yellow orbs land on the course called sparks. Collecting these fill up a meter that allows you to use a Super Boost which takes you up to a new part of every course called the Skyway. The Skyway is full of boost pads and corner cutting allowing you to fly above the rest of the racers and catch up. This boost lasts longer the further back you are and will not drop you off on a corner or an area where there is no track underneath so more smart thinking players will use it in the most optimal of places but that also comes with the detriment with not being able to use your regular boost so you can end up missing out on the most optimal place to use that boost while waiting for the most optimal place to use the Skyway.

Even with the Skyway catch up mechanic, it still takes skill to actually finish first in a race. The further up in the pack you are the more likely you are to find cpu machines designed to hinder you. Grey vehicles that bump you much further than usual and red vehicles that explode upon contact taking a large chunk of your health away truly test if you deserve to be leading the race or not. There's also blue player controlled vehicles for people who crash out early to cause mayhem for around 30 seconds with spin attacks before blowing up and people further back in the race can find a golden vehicle that fill up a good portion of your super boost meter when collided with. There's a lot of reaction skill needed to navigate these obstacles and they help separate the best from the rest.

Further pushing this as a skill based game is how you start a race. Rather than hope for a good starting point in a traditional racing starting line up, instead all 99 players a lined up across a super wide piece of track that narrows down as you drive along before jumping across to the start line of the actual course itself, meaning if you want to start the race in a good position you have to earn it by forcing your way to the front of the pack yourself. Another cool thing about these portions of the course is that they're sometimes changed up a little bit. Sand Ocean usually starts with two separate courses that cross over each other before merging into one for the jump but sometimes you'll get one that is a bit simpler and ends with a massive strip of boost pads.

In terms of game modes your main mode is the 99 mode itself where 99 racers compete to earn first place. A few racers are ranked out every lap and the course is voted on before a race via the two options given, currently selected from Mute City 1, Big Blue, Sand Ocean and Death Wind. It works for the most part but unfortunately people do tend to gravitate towards Mute City or Big Blue meaning track variety can be an issue in this mode depending on your luck from the choices given. In the 99 mode you're given 4 rivals based on your current level and rank and if you manage to beat any of them you will increase your rank slightly. It's a great expansion of the rank system in X/GX and it manages to give you some satisfaction even if you're struggling to compete for a 1st place finish. Doing well in the 99 mode will earn you tickets which can be used in the prixs.
The other modes rotate in and out and these include a team battle mode where you're put into one of two teams and your team earns points based on position, damaging opponents with spin attacks, destroying opponents, etc and at the end you get a Splatoon style totting up of the points to see if your team's bar makes it across the halfway point for victory. It's a nice side mode to dip into every now and then. There's pro tracks which currently includes White Land and Port Town II from the Queen and King leagues for players to test themselves on in a 99 race. These courses are included as possible finales for the mini prix mode in which you race across 3 courses earning points based on where you finish in a somewhat more traditional style F-Zero grand prix. Ranking out or blowing up eliminates you from the competition entirely so there's a test of skill to see if you can even finish the prix as it cuts down its racers to 60 and then 40 for the end. The rivals system changes a little here where your rivals become the two racers above and below you in the rankings, increasing the tension even further as beating rivals will most likely mean you're moving up the rankings table. Mini prixs cost 1 ticket and are a ton of fun to compete in but the main attraction for me is the mode that is always in a countdown on the main menu…
The grand prix currently cycles in once every hour or on weekends every half hour and currently takes the 5 Knight League courses from the SNES game and has racers compete to earn first place. It works exactly like the mini prix mode but costs 3 tickets and with 2 more races, the number of racers is eventually cut down to 20 for the final race where you start more like a traditional race with each player placed on the starting grid in terms of their table ranking with 20th at the front and 1st at the back. The grand prix is a true test of your abilities as even just making it through all 5 races is a challenge in and of itself. Any extra health you've picked up from destroying vehicles carries over throughout the prix allowing you to boost more and adding an element of strategy. Do you want to spend the first race building up your resources by hanging back a bit and picking off weakened vehicles or do you want to try and race normally, hoping you defeat vehicles along the way. It's thrilling stuff and you can really feel the pressure on yourself after having a good start and sitting near the top of the table. Winning the grand prix is the ultimate test of skill and what I would call the crowning glory of the game.

On top of all this, by completing challenges with each vehicle in the game such as winning a race or making it through a race without bumping off a wall, you can earn cosmetics to change up the look of your vehicle and decorate your user card. It's nice having a few options to give each vehicle your own identity. It is a bit of a shame that there are only 4 vehicles currently. It's hard to say if they'll add any more or not but they do have plenty of options from other 2D F-Zero games like Maximum Velocity and GP Legend on the GBA. Course wise all the SNES courses will be added eventually, which will be great. Seeing how many people who actually make it to the end of Fire Field will be a lot of fun. I think it would be wise to add in GBA courses as well, especially if we're just keeping easier courses in the main 99 mode. It would add more options and avoid the current predicament of the same courses being picked over and over again.

F-Zero 99 expands upon what makes traditional F-Zero so great, essentially feeling like what an online mode of F-Zero would have felt like. In its current form it does lack depth in vehicle and course options but aside from those drawbacks, this is the most thrilling, competitive, addictive, and true to its core series from the 99 style games released so far. It has given me optimism for the future of F-Zero and finally satisfied the craving I've had for a new F-Zero for nearly 20 years.

Samba De Amigo: Party Central, as it hints at in the name, is a party focused rhythm game. Using the Joy Con like maracas, you have to shake them in time with the music to try and get a good score. Notes are sent to 6 different directions on screen (top, middle, bottom, on both left and right sides) and to hit these different notes you have to tilt the Joy Con in the right direction. Straight up for the top notes, horizontal for the middle notes, and titled down for the bottom notes. While this does work to a surprising degree, it does also lead to frustrating moments as notes are missed because the gyro of the Joy Con had become desynced. This issue is more frequent when songs ask you to make big gestures like arcs or zigzags because you don't get enough time to realign the Joy Con once you notice it's been knocked off centre from doing a lot of motion with it.
Now there is an option for button controls which could be helpful for those who don't like the motion controls but personally I found the beat maps to have been designed around shaking which meant the button controls never quite felt comfortable to me.
Despite my issues with the controls, I did manage hit some perfect scores with the motion controls and it nails that rhythm game feeling of achievement when you do manage a perfect.

The song selection is mostly a bunch of greatest hits from recent pop culture with artists like Ke$ha and Carly Rae Jepsen and whether you like that or not is down to personal taste in music. For me the selection was fine, I found a decent amount of tracks that were fun to play along to but the dlc songs were a lot more to my liking with songs from Sega games like Sonic, Yakuza, and Space Channel 5 as well as a Japanese selection with stuff from Jujutsu Kaisen and Hatsune Miku.

There's a bunch of things to unlock through playing the songs like costumes and different styles of maracas as well as a generous amount of online multiplayer stuff and leaderboards to compete in if that sort of thing interests you, so it's a pretty comprehensive rhythm game package.

If you have an itch for a fun party rhythm game, then this should provide a decent scratch for it. However some issues with the control scheme stops this game from reaching its potential, though it still manages to provide a decent experience despite that.

Before getting into Trails from Zero properly, I think it’s necessary to dive into its history in the West a little. The game was originally released in Japan in 2010 on PSP and due to how long localisation was taking with the Sky games, it was skipped over in favour of bringing over the Cold Steel games first. However due to Reverie acting as a finale to both the Crossbell and Cold Steel games, Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure were both quickly localised before the Western release of Reverie to allow fans to catch up. The localisation uses the extremely well done fan translation from Geofront as a base for its work and unfortunately skipped out being dubbed into English which is a shame having played the Sky games which had the battle dialogue dubbed. Knowing the reasoning behind this though does make it a lot easier to swallow so it’s not something I’m too hung up about and the Japanese cast are fantastic, it’s just a shame we miss out on the battle dialogue.

So, after the Sky trilogy Trails from Zero takes place in a new setting with a new cast of characters, acting as a brand new arc for the longer running narrative that the series has. There’s familiar faces and mentions of past events but otherwise the story here is very much focused on new protagonist Lloyd and the Special Support Squad he has become a part of in Crossbell City. The SSS act as a rookie branch of police who have come under fire from the public after not doing their jobs while the Bracer Guild have been gaining all the plaudits because they have actually been helping people. The SSS are basically the police version of the Guild, taking up requests to help people in need while also trying to solve crimes that the wider police force have been letting slip. While the core gameplay loop of solving requests and main story plot points is very similar to how the first two Sky games played, it’s also pretty cool seeing a rivalry form between the SSS and the Guild as well as the little differences in what both sides are allowed to do under their rules.

The SSS squad consists of four members: Lloyd, Elie, Randy, and Tio. Unlike Sky that had a constantly rotating cast outside of Estelle and Joshua for the most part, Zero starts you off with these four immediately and has a few rotating guest party members. It’s a nice approach as the main focus is on the four SSS members and their growth together as they try to take on bigger and bigger jobs to help unravel the corruption that Crossbell is drowning in. Zero has a more focused approach to its narrative dealing with a small party in a much smaller State and it works well with this. In true Trails fashion, the slow burn is real here. The game takes its time to slowly unravel more and more about each of its characters to ensure everyone gets their own moments to shine. Lloyd is the glue that keeps everyone together, often giving cheesy speeches to help lift the others up in their times of need. He’s optimistic and there’s a lovable charm about him as he overcomes the barriers he faces. Elie works hard and is serious about her job but also faces many doubts about the path she chose. Randy is our flirt of the group and is very fun loving, especially with gambling but as you start to uncover his past you grow to understand how hard his life has been. Tio is extremely reserved with her emotions but also incredibly smart with technology. She’s a character who has suffered much in her past so it hits hard when you see her growing more and more comfortable with the group. Together the SSS squad make a fantastic little family of characters and there’s a lot to love as you watch them grow closer throughout the game. However there is a minor nitpick with a new mechanic introduced in this game - bonding. Throughout the game there’s several events and ways for Lloyd to build up his bond with each member of the SSS, including three story events where you can choose a character to accompany him. Once you reach max bond with a character you’ll be able to view a special scene between them and Lloyd towards the end of the game, however you can only do this with one character per playthrough. These events include some important stuff for each character, including Lloyd, so it sucks that you have to be very particular with how you raise bond levels and maintain multiple saves if you want to see everything without replaying the game multiple times. Apart from that the character development is really good and it’s really easy to love each member of the SSS team, especially with how much time you’ll spend with them.

Crossbell State is an interesting setting. Instead of going round in a loop like you did in Liberl, your main hub area is smack bang in the centre known as Crossbell City with routes to the four compass directions leading to towns and other important locations. Because of this you spend a lot of time in Crossbell City and it’s easy to become attached to the place as you explore its various districts and meet its wonderful citizens. Whether it’s the nosy reporter Grace, or the eccentric gangs that grow to respect you, or the wonderful performers of the Arc de Ciel, Crossbell is a very homely place and one you’ll grow into wanting to protect. However Crossbell is also full of corruption and seedy dealings. It’s home to a unique political situation having been born from both the Empire of Erebonia and the Republic of Calvard. Due to this it’s political set up is balanced between those in support of the Empire or the Republic and they prevent any reforms from the Mayor coming through due to their need to not cede ground to the other. This is further emphasised by both sides having a mafia associated with them, Revache for the Empire and Heiyue for the Republic. Due to this, the government members are able to get corrupt dealings done while also having the power to put pressure on the justice system to look the other way. It leads to a wonderful dichotomy where there’s a lot of people who love Crossbell but there’s a house of cards ready to be blown over at any moment that could see the place crumble. It’s a state that is independent in name only as two forces struggle to gain control over it.
Crossbell is also a financially well off place, with Zemuria’s central bank being located here and technology being advanced enough for Orbal vehicles like cars available for the richest members of public and mobile communication being available through Orbments. It might be a small state but there’s a lot going on and it’s a fantastic setting for the game.

If you’ve played the Sky games then you will be aware of a few characters that had mentioned their intentions to go to Crossbell. Well a few familiar faces show up in this game and play a role in a secondary plot that runs alongside the main narrative. Without going too much into spoiler territory, Zero does an incredible job managing these two plot threads and superbly gets them to lead towards the same conclusion in a thrilling finale with a huge payoff for those who have been playing through all the games. I have seen people say you can start with Zero as it’s a new arc and features one of the more standalone stories in the series, which it does, it manages to wrap up with no huge cliffhanger and a few plot threads that the sequel can explore but at the same time, if you haven’t played the Sky games, you’re missing out on a lot of context for the secondary plot and losing out on a lot of impactful moments from seeing characters that you would’ve grown attached to or recognise from those games. I can understand the huge barrier a long running narrative can bring and wanting to find a starting point that doesn’t require a huge time sink but ideally you should probably play these games in release order for the best impact possible.

So Zero features another wonderful cast with a plot that slowly builds up into an epic finale and a supporting cast that are memorable in their own ways, leading to another fantastic experience. On the gameplay side of things this is a minor evolution on what came before it. You now have the ability to attack and stun enemies on the overworld allowing you to gain a better advantage in battle. New turn bonuses have been added, like the team attack where you get a Persona style all out attack sequence where everybody beats the crap out of the enemies on field. Some stuff from Sky the 3rd pops up in certain locations but otherwise it’s the same old Trails you know and love at its core with minor tweaks and adjustments. On the music side of things you’ve got another great soundtrack. I adore the hospital theme as it reminds me a little of the National Park theme in Pokemon Gen 2 and there’s an incredible track during the final day of Crossbell’s anniversary celebrations, so yeah the music side of things is excellent.

Zero is a wonderful start to a new arc, freshening up the cast and setting just as it was feeling a little needed. It manages to balance plot threads old and new and delivers another incredible experience carefully built up that explodes in a stunning finale. The focused approach on a smaller main cast and setting delivers a very cosy and heartwarming adventure where the found family and being accepted despite your past are the order of the day and it works so well. It doesn’t quite manage to hit the highs I had during Sky SC but it does deliver yet another brilliant RPG game to add to the library of Trails bangers.

As someone who has never played Jet Set Radio but was curious about it and as someone who loved Hideki Naganuma's work on the Sonic Rush soundtrack, I ended up picking up Bomb Rush Cyberfunk out of curiosity and excitement for that funky music.

The game is very much a homage to the late 90s / early 2000s, and oozes the aesthetics and style of that era to a lovely degree. The levels and characters really sell what they were going for and even as someone with little knowledge of Jet Set Radio, I could see what they were inspired by aesthetically.

As for the gameplay, it did take a little while for it to click with me but once I learned how to boost the multiplier and carry combos on effectively I finally understood why a lot of people look back on Jet Set Radio fondly. The bulk of your score is gained by grinding on rails, turning into corners to gain speed and multiplier boosts and then finding a way to continue that by hopping onto a different rail or freestyling on the ground to a different rail or wall riding across to different rails. There's a real satisfaction watching your score go up as you find a way to maintain both your combo and your momentum and it was this part of the game that really hooked me.
To diversify the gameplay though, you do end up having to do different things and in each of the game's areas you'll find yourself going through the same tasks.
First you have to build up your REP by finding spots you can graffiti before a rival gang member will issue you a challenge. It's a good way to get you accustomed to each area and the challenges tend to teach you a few tricks to help you get better at the game.
Unfortunately as your REP builds you'll gather the attention of the police. The police will chase you down through levels, starting off with grunts that are easy to deal with before bringing out annoying machines that fire handcuffs at you and snipers that will chip away at your health. For me it ruins the freedom I love about the game and becomes a nuisance when I just want to grind rails and platform around the levels in peace. Having the police harass you just isn't fun at all and it causes you to screw up jumps and fall off platforms that can be quite tricky to get up to.
Once your REP is high enough, you'll be able to challenge the rival gang to a battle where whoever gets the most points in 2 minutes wins. These are really fun and test your abilities and quick thinking as you try to optimise your points as quickly as you can.

Another strange inclusion though is combat. There's boss fights and the police who you can fight back against but it feels pretty janky. Like you can use the trick buttons to hit cops and some bosses see you needing to grind up rails to reach a part you can graffiti but it all feels a little out of place to me.
On the plus side of gameplay though, are the psychedelic mind levels where you have to platform your way across many obstacles to reach a point you can graffiti. These were so cool and really fun to pull off the platforming necessary to make it through the levels. The aesthetics of these areas were a real highlight too, reminding me a little of Splatoon's single player campaign.

Storywise I have to be honest, it did nothing for me. Some guy lost his head and wants it back so he has to challenge these crews to gain control of areas so he can get to All City or something and I don't think I've bounced off a story harder before, like I just did not care at all. The dialogue is very much trying to be street and cool and unfortunately it's the type of thing that doesn't appeal to me at all.
Another negative against the game is performance on Nintendo Switch. Unfortunately during the later chapters I experienced two crashes during loading between cutscenes that caused me to miss part of a cutscene and after I reloaded my game, I'd find myself dumped in the world without a clue what just happened and why the objective is what it is. During the final boss there's a cutscene that is supposed to open like someone is opening their eyes and my game decided to leave the screen blank so I had no idea what was happening and thought my game crashed. Looking up the cutscene and hearing some voice clips when I mashed some buttons, I figured out what happened and managed to get through the cutscene by just pressing A through all the dialogue I could not see. It's unfortunate these issues exist and brought down the experience.

Something more positive though, the funky music! There's a lot of catchy tunes in this which really fit the vibe they were going for and the crew battle victory theme felt like something out of Sonic Rush which was what I craving when I caved in and bought the game.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk may have its flaws but it's also a fantastic homage to a style and era of game we rarely get these days. Issues with some gameplay elements and performance issues aside, the core gameplay of the game really clicked with me and is something I can see myself coming back to, trying to explore more the areas and get better scores on my combos. When everything clicks, there's a really good game here and I can see why people were excited for this one.

The third and final entry in the Sky/Liberl arc of the Trails/Kiseki series, Trails in the Sky the 3rd acts as a sort of epilogue for the trilogy while opening the doors for the future for other games to explore.

3rd once again changes little mechanically from the first two games, same battle system with the same orbment system for magic, etc. New turn bonuses such as Vanish (makes a character disappear when hit) and Death (one hit KO) have been added and these are great to encourage you to pay more attention to how you manipulate the turn order (you haven't felt true pain until you see an enemy hit all 4 of your party members with a Vanish bonus only to see your party disappear and Game Over pop up on your screen)
Other than those tweaks it's pretty much a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" which is fine by me when I enjoy the battle system so much in these games and messing with my orbments to see what spells I get.

What has been changed this time round is the core structure of the game and our protagonist. Following on 6 months after the events of Trails in the Sky SC, this game follows everyone's favourite priest from SC, Father Kevin Graham as he's called to investigate a mysterious relic that he may need to claim for the church with newcomer Sister Ries Argent accompanying him as his new squire. Shenanigans happen with a mysterious cube object pulling Kevin and Ries, as well as many other familiar faces into the mysterious world of Phantasma, a world full of creatures that look like they're straight from Gehanna (hell) and seemingly under the control of a masked new villain who goes by the name Lord of Phantasma along with their masked underling who looks suspiciously familiar. This story setup leads to the biggest structural change to the series so far, making it more of a dungeon crawler.

The world of Phantasma exists on numerous planes that alternate between brand new unique dungeon like areas and returning areas from the previous games that have become more dungeon like in structure. For example, Grancel, a major city in the previous games, has many areas locked off, no NPCs and enemies roaming the streets with chests to loot, turning a once bustling city into a dungeon-like area. This change in structure does mean you lose a lot of the charm I loved about the first two games, exploring the world and falling in love with its NPCs, which is a shame. It's also somewhat understandable as exploring the same world for the third game in a row would've been a bit tiresome so changing things up is welcome despite the drawbacks it brings. The goal of these dungeon areas is to explore and make your way through to the end where you end up fighting a boss and ultimately gaining a Sealing Stone which can be brought back to the hub area where the seal can be undone and a new character will join your party, with up to 16 playable characters being available to choose from.

The change in structure also means sidequests undergo a revamp. No longer are you travelling Liberl and helping out with Guild quests, side quests are now handled by three different kinds of doors you can find during exploration of a dungeon. Moon doors that contain lengthy side stories, Star doors that contain shorter side stories, and Sun doors that are more minigame based. These doors have certain requirements to unlock them (usually having the right combination of characters in your party) and they end up holding some important backstories to characters as well very interesting developments towards potential future plotlines. Moon doors like giving you a deep dive into characters' pasts and will have playable sections in them to help break up what are usually around an hour long story experience. I did find them a bit too long at times, disrupting the quick paced story of the main game a little too much for me, but I did also love seeing the past of characters like Kloe, Estelle and Joshua. What was even more surprising was seeing a new character from Kloe's backstory show up in Olivier's side story in a much more wtf role showing just how much thought has gone into these stories and the interconnectivity of them all.
Star doors are more to the pace that fit this game for me, usually between 15-30 mins and are purely dialogue focused. These tend to offer a view on some events with characters that happened within the 6 months this game skipped over and are pretty fun stories that give closure to some characters' arcs. Some of the later star doors however offer very important insight to events that happened off screen during the games that set up plot threads for future games to tackle. Like one goes through a report the Empire wrote up when their Guilds were being attacked by Jaeger's and Cassius had to step in and help out and seeing how some people high up in the Empire viewed Cassius was a very eye opening moment.
Finally we have the Sun doors which hold little minigames that are nice breathers to the main dungeon crawling gameplay. These are mostly silly fun little stories like Estelle getting caught up in a fishing challenge. The first one in particular offers a really cool minigame that I will leave as a surprise but it caught me off guard.
So aside from some minor pacing issues I had from the Moon doors, these doors offered a lot of compelling narrative elements and character moments that I really appreciated and that were difficult to find somewhere to put them in the main story.

Moving onto the change in protagonist, as someone who became very attached to Estelle from the first two games, I knew leaving her behind for someone else was always going to be difficult for me to adjust to. At the same time I can appreciate that the core element of Estelle's story was wrapped up in SC so moving her to the background a bit and letting someone new take the protagonist role was a very wise decision. Kevin was an interesting choice as he had shown some particularly interesting elements to his character that needed exploring in the end of SC. Three games in and I think I can say now that Trails is an expert in the slow burn when it comes to their characters and story. Things take their time to unravel again and you get little bits of Kevin's backstory with Rufina and Ries at the start of every chapter and little by little you grow attached to Kevin the more you learn. Having Ries with him throughout the story is very helpful as she knows him well enough that she can see through his facade and call him out on his bs as he struggles to be open with the people helping here. It's really compelling stuff and it all culminates in some really hard hitting revelations surrounding why Kevin is the way he is and what exactly happened to Rufina and my gosh it shook me to my core. Kevin and Ries had a hard time matching up to the heights Estelle and Joshua had for me but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I cared about them by the end. There was a lot of moments in the last few chapters that got me to tear up and I think it shows just how well they do the slow burn in these games.

As I mentioned earlier, the game features a playable cast of 16 characters which is quite a lot for an RPG and yet somehow they still manage to find a way to get you to use every single one of them. Even outside of doors requiring specific characters to unlock, throughout the story you'll have one or two characters you are forced to use that changes up every so often and as you find more characters you'll find yourself swapping one or two in or out. Particularly the order you find them in is very clever, with some of the less available party members in previous games being early ones here allowing you to spend more time with characters you otherwise wouldn't have. The finale also finds a way to get you to use every single character which is incredible for a cast this size.
One other thing to point out is the continuation of character strength through level in this trilogy. By the end of Sky FC my party was around level 30 so I wasn't too surprised to see my party start off at level 30 in SC. By the end of SC however, my party was above level 90 so I was genuinely surprised to see Kevin start this game at level 90, particularly when I'm used to games capping my characters at level 99 or 100. What was even more surprising was seeing characters go past level 100 and still level up! By the end of the game my party was over level 130 which outside of the missingno glitch in Pokémon Red/Blue, I had never seen in a game before. That coupled with some returning enemies the characters had struggled to beat in earlier games now being much easier to take down really sells just how much these characters have grown throughout the three games. It really was a pleasant surprise not seeing my characters reset (outside of orbments) having seen the likes of Metroid come up with so many excuses to reset Samus' skillset. It's just really cool seeing that level of care being put into something so small for a lot of people.

Aside from my minor issues with the game being more dungeon focused and some small pacing issues I had, Sky the 3rd is another excellent entry in the series and does a fantastic job at offering its own compelling narrative as well as wrapping up character arcs and moving the pieces in place for future story arcs. The fact it manages to juggle all of these story elements with little issue is a huge testament to what they've been cooking in this series and it has me excited to see how they continue this overarching narrative. I've thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the Sky trilogy as a whole and have loved getting into the Trails series. It will be tough to say goodbye to Liberl and its incredible cast of characters but 3rd certainly did enough teasing for Crossbell to have me very excited and curious to see where these story threads go.

Trails in the Sky SC (second chapter) picks up immediately after the events of the first game so unfortunately it is hard to keep this completely free of spoilers for the first game, so if you want to avoid spoilers then advise to stop reading this after this paragraph. I’ll try and keep spoilers for SC out of it as much as possible. With that out the way, let’s dive into the journey that is Trails in the Sky SC.

Being a direct sequel and continuation of Trails in the Sky, SC carries over the majority of the first game’s gameplay, mechanics and areas. You’ve still got that rpg battle system with light strategy elements, side quests are still tied to the guild, and we’re still travelling around Liberl. A few new elements have been added, such as Chain Crafts that allow multiple characters to use CP to attack an enemy at once and Orbments have been upgraded to allow for more powerful spells to be learned.

While mechanically little has changed from the first game, it’s ultimately been used as the perfect foundation to craft a thrilling and engaging tale which would have been extremely difficult to do without that experience the first game leaves on you. The story picks up directly from where the first game left off. Estelle and her crew managed to prevent a coup, saving Liberl but the mysterious Weissman had revealed himself as the person behind people’s memories being messed up, unlocking Joshua’s memories of his horrific past causing Joshua to abandon Estelle to protect her as he finds a way to try and bring down the mysterious Society of Ouroboros. It leaves Estelle distraught and heartbroken having just realised her true feelings for Joshua and as such she sets out on a new journey to find Joshua as well as fight back against the Society who have done so much damage to the people she cares about. With Joshua leaving her life, it causes Estelle to realise just how much she has relied on him and she sets out on a special senior bracer training course before she sets out on her journey proper. There’s a strength to her character as she grows into the person who she wants to be, learning how to overcome her weaknesses as well as using her strengths better.
Once again the game takes its time to really get going. The bulk of the first half sees you visiting all the towns of Liberl again as you help them deal with mysterious phenomena that have been brought about by the Enforcers, high ranking powerful officers, of the Society. Having been to all these places before in the first game, there’s an attachment you have to their people that spurs you on through these revisits to help each town and take on the sidequests. It’s something strongly helped by the strength of writing that has gone into the worldbuilding and NPCs of this series and you get a lot of heartwarming moments because of it. Like one side quest saw me having to find a lost ring for a young engaged couple and there’s a moment later in the game where you can stumble into the chapel as they’re getting married and it’s beautiful. There’s an attention to detail here with its minor characters that is hard to think of another game that goes to these lengths.
Another strength of SC is how it takes the party members you have grown to love from the first game and adds so much more to them here as they peel back layers you never see coming. There’s heartwarming moments between Agate and Tita, shocking revelations surrounding the lovable Olivier, the difficult past of Schera, and Kloe finding her resolve to take her path forward. Plenty of the characters also have an Enforcer that they have a history with that brings so much more personal gravitas to the conflicts that are fought throughout the game. We also get a few new party members to use like the mysterious travelling priest Kevin as well as a few other surprise people that I won’t spoil here.
SC allows you to choose your party much more often than the first game did but also ends up taking one or two slots for mandatory characters during important story events so you end up with a nice middle ground that allows you to get use out of almost every character while letting you bring along your favourites more often.
With the stakes being much higher this time round, the game does offer a lot of scintillating moments with high action battles and brilliant use of the music to sell these moments as best they can with the little character models. There’s definitely a few moments where I was wishing for cutscenes to be used to further sell the intensity of these battles, but what they did with a limited budget was still incredible.

Let’s get onto my favourite part about the story this game tells: Estelle Bright. There is one surefire way to get me to love a character and that is by making them suffer through losing someone they love and the majority of this game is Estelle dealing with Joshua abandoning her. There’s moments where she visits an area where the two of them had a special moment and the game flashbacks to a scene from the first game and my gosh it brings the tears so easily. Estelle’s journey is full of moments I could relate to on a personal level. The way she keeps so much of her struggles to herself as her friends try to support her, the moments of self doubt and questioning if she’s on the right path, and ultimately the resolve to keep pushing forward despite how much she’s hurting, it’s all wonderful character moments. Her greatest strength is being able to use even the most hurtful and darkest moments to give herself motivation and strength to push forward in her goals instead of giving in to despair like many of the characters who oppose her. Like her mother dying is what inspired her to be a bracer and help others, Joshua leaving her inspired her to find the strength to not only bring him back but also take down the organisation that made him like this. Estelle is just this wonderful ball of optimism and positivity that is so infectious. Her ability to speak from her heart and reach others, no matter how far into despair they’ve fallen, and pull them out of that darkness is nothing short of incredible. At the end of the first game, Joshua described her as the sun, the person who brings warmth to others and he hit the nail on the head, Estelle is on another level with her kind heart. She still has moments of hotheadedness and will act rashly at times, but she’s come a long way from how she was in the first game, gaining much more confidence in her abilities as well as realising her strength in getting through to others. And of course, she still has her plethora of witty remarks and one liners that allows her to steal almost any scene she’s in. The tender moments she has warms my heart every time while her silly moments never fail to make me laugh. All this to say, I think Estelle is one of my favourite characters of all time, if not my new favourite (I need to give it time for my feelings to settle)

The story doesn’t quite wrap everything up. While it does give Estelle a fitting send off, it does leave the trails of plotlines to pick up in future titles, which could be disappointing for some but exciting for others. I wasn’t left feeling unsatisfied from what they left for future games to cover, instead I was enthralled by the journey, given incredible character development for everyone I could ask for and enough tidbits to make me excited for the potential future of other characters.

While there are few new areas to explore, the new areas that are included are genuinely amazing areas, particularly where the finale takes place, bringing in a particular trope I love. Dungeon designs are also a step up, with more interesting layouts to explore and some with traps to avoid. Music wise there are plenty of new songs that live up to the standard of the first game while all the old locations have their original catchy music.

Trails in the Sky SC builds upon the strong foundations of the first game to deliver a truly special and incredible experience that will live long in the memory. Fantastic character driven moments with plenty of surprises and heartwarming moments take this game on a level few can match as it carefully crafts a tale that will see you shed tears throughout its wonderful journey. SC not only left me with another game to add to my all time favourites list but also a character in Estelle Bright that I have grown to love on so many levels. What an experience and one I am so glad to have had.

It's rare for me to get into a series or a specific subset of a series and play through the games in order from the beginning. My only knowledge of the Trails/Kiseki series before picking up Trails in the Sky was of the character Nadia who had intrigued me towards the series and the novel 3 & 9 which a friend recommended to me and it sold me on getting into the series properly. So without any real knowledge of the series played like and without modern expectations from recent titles colouring my viewpoint, I began my journey into the Trails/Kiseki series with The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.

Trails in the Sky begins by introducing us to its charming protagonist Estelle Bright as her father brings home an mysterious injured young boy called Joshua who has little recollection of what happened to him at this point. There's no time wasted in presenting what a fun character Estelle is as she quickly demonstrates how rash and excitable she is by making sure Joshua gets rest, and throwing in witty remarks. The game uses wonderfully cute chibi models similar in style to the Golden Sun series which I adore so much. Dialogue boxes have well drawn 2D character portraits that have an excellent range of emotions shown off to further emphasise how a character is feeling in that moment. The game is adorable and it uses the combination of character models and portraits to detail its scenes very well.
After a timeskip of a few years we're reacquainted with the Bright family, seeing how well Joshua has fitted in and how close the family are. From here the real story loop begins as Estelle and Joshua decide to follow in their father's, Cassius Bright, footsteps and become Bracers, people who take on requests to help those in need and help maintain peace in the nation of Liberl with help of the army when needed. The story is very much focused on Estelle and Joshua and their quest to become full fledged Bracers and a good chunk of it is very cosy and heartwarming as they overcome the hardships they face along the way. It's what many would consider a slow burn, it does take a while to start getting into the big plot points and revelations but I think it's all the better for that. The game takes its time, making sure you get to know Estelle and Joshua, the world they live in and giving you the time to get attached to them so that the stuff that happens by the end truly impacts you. You go around visiting every city in Liberl, taking on missions from each guild, getting to know the citizens with the additional party members being rotated out from place to place. It's great because it gives you so much time to fall in love with its cast while keeping focus on Estelle and Joshua. Party members like Olivier and Tita get to shine in the chapters they're used in and because you have to use every character, you grow attached to their fighting styles and their personalities instead of benching newcomers because you're already taken with your current setup. Your travels see you meeting many people who Cassius has had an impact on and it gives a real sense of just how powerful this man is and how much he has done despite Estelle being unaware and seeing him as just her goofy dad. The fact that for the main story beats Estelle and Joshua often require help from more senior people really helps sell that they're junior bracers in training and as powerful as they are, they still have a long way to go to start solving missions on their own like Agate or Cassius. And I love that side quests are tied to the guilds! Doing sidequests gives you Bracer points which increase your rank so while you do a few simple ones like defeating certain monsters, you want to do them because you want to see Estelle and Joshua climb up the Bracer ranking, it's really neat. Unfortunately sidequests are time limited due to the structure of the game and it can be easy to miss some which is a shame. Everything is very well set up though story wise and they do an excellent job pulling you in.

While on the surface the story takes its time to get going, the game does a good job at adding intrigue to the seemingly simple scenarios that play out. Yeah you're stopping petty bandits but there's many signs of bigger things at play to keep you intrigued. By the time you get to the end a lot of things are tied together but then there's so many revelations that leave you excited for the next instalment.
As mentioned throughout so far, Estelle and Joshua are the stars of the show. The two perfectly compliment each other, she's the sun to his moon, a true yin and yang pair. Estelle is this bright cheerful character, bringing light to everyone she meets but often acts before she thinks and is usually very open with her feelings. Joshua is a lot more reserved, holds a lot about himself back and is great a devising plans on the spot, knowing how to use his words to prevent escalation of situations. He often has to remind Estelle to hold back while Estelle knows she has to be patient with him and his innermost feelings. They compliment each other so well and know each other on a level that they are pretty quick to pick up on something when it feels off. There's so many lovely moments between the two of them that help build up affection towards the two as a pair and it makes it easy to relate to both of them and the things they go through. So yeah, on the story and characters front this game left a huge impression on me.

Gameplay wise this is mostly your typical RPG affair. Visiting towns, going through dungeons, and defeating monsters to level up your party is the bulk of the game. NPCs are all given names and their dialogue is constantly being updated to reflect ongoing story or quest events which is such a neat touch. Most areas have a full 360° rotating camera and maps are well detailed for navigation, with towns having colour coded buildings for stuff like shops and the guilds. For some reason there are no maps for the dungeons. It's not a big deal as they tend to be small enough to commit to memory through exploration but it can be easy to lose your way if you mess with the camera too much.
Battles are a pretty unique affair, blending traditional turn based RPG mechanics with strategy RPG mechanics. These take place in their own battle arenas and you have your characters laid out in a starting position with enemies usually on the opposing side of the map. You can move your characters in a grid like fashion and they all have their own ranges with physical weapons. Estelle uses a staff and has to be pretty close to an enemy to hit it while Tita uses a gun so she can attack from any range while also having an area of effect that damages nearby enemies. EP is used to cast spells from orbments that can hit from any range as well as better spells being able to hit an area of enemies instead of just one. These take time to pull off though with a turn to cast and a turn to fire and can be interrupted by certain attacks. Each character has a number of orbment slots that can be increased and by mixing and matching orbments of various elements you can gain access to more powerful spells. For example I had a mixture of water and wind orbments on Estelle giving her access to both powerful healing spells and heavy damaging wind spells. It's a cool system and one I enjoyed experimenting with once I got a better understanding of it.
Finally there's CP which is built up through attacking and being damaged by enemies. At 100 CP you can unleash a characters unique special move to do heavy damage and at 200 CP you can maximise that damage. Specials can be activated at any time, allowing you to fully strategise heavy damage outputs by jumping in just before an enemy gets its turn. CP is also used for craft attacks, special physical attacks that can interrupt an enemy casting or inflict various status elements. These usually use around 10~30CP and are great in a pinch. Overall it's a pretty fun and unique battle system that I really enjoyed. The game also features overworld encounters rather than random ones, allowing you to have a degree of control of whether you ambush enemies or they ambush you and enemies can be easily avoided if you don't want to fight. It's a very nice design choice that I wasn't expecting going in.
The Steam version of the game also includes a speedup option which is nice to have when there's no fast travelling and want to speed through easier encounters. Exp is also handled really well with dwindling results as you get closer to the recommended level for the area. Once you start getting 1 or 2 exp you know it's time to start avoiding enemies more which is really nice and stops you feeling like you have to grind while also maintaining a difficulty that isn't easy to breeze past

The soundtrack is a joy, featuring many catchy tunes from the standard battle music to my personal favourite for the city of Ziess that perfectly embodies PS1 era RPG music. Each town gets its own unique theme while there's little variance for overworld routes and such. The main theme, Hoshi no Arika (The Whereabouts of Light) is a beautiful theme that perfectly embodies the melancholy adventure this game is. It's a wonderful soundtrack to a wonderful game that gave me so many warm and cosy feelings throughout.

As my first experience of the Trails/Kiseki series, Trails in the Sky provided a wonderful and cosy experience with memorable characters that I've fallen in love with and can't wait to see how their story continues. Aside from a few minor issues, this game provides an excellent foundation both narrative and gameplay wise to build from and I'm excited to see where they take the series from this point as I continue playing the titles. Estelle and Joshua have left such a strong impression on me and I'm so happy that I've finally dipped my toes into the series after seeing so many people talk about it.

With the fourth mainline/numbered entry in the Pikmin series, Nintendo have chosen to do everything in their power to make this the most accessible and content rich game in the series. For those familiar with the Pikmin series, Pikmin 1 and 3 followed a gameplay loop that saw you exploring areas to collect ship parts/fruit to get off a planet before a deadline hit, causing a game over. Pikmin 2 saw you collecting treasure with no time limit and exploring caves as well as the overworld for that treasure. Pikmin 4 follows more closely to the formula of Pikmin 2 while adding plenty of its own new ideas into the mix.

So the core gameplay loop of Pikmin 4 sees you exploring areas and using your Pikmin to collect items lying around the world to collect its sparklium that can be converted into fuel for the characters spaceship that will allow them to explore other areas of the planet and eventually return back home. The story premise is that Olimar has yet again crash landed on a planet containing Pikmin and needs saving, however the Rescue Corps sent to save have also crash landed and it's up to you, a newbie Rescue Corps member to save not only Olimar but the missing Rescue Corps members too. Yes, for the first time in the series you play as a self insert character who you can customise with a limited set of options (which is nice, the character creator is nowhere near overwhelming) that can be changed at any point once you unlock the option in the game. So in addition to collecting treasure, you will also be finding Rescue Corps members to carry back and as the game progresses, random castaways that have gotten stuck on this mysterious planet too. What's cool about this is every character has a profile card detailing a little bit about themselves and what they came to the planet to do, whether it's to research the plant life or do a documentary, there's a varied bunch of characters to meet. They all help flesh out the Pikmin universe too as you meet characters from many different planets like Hocatate and PNF-404 and it shows the Pikmin universe is so much bigger than we realised. These characters once saved can all be found in the new hub area of this game where they will offer side missions to complete like make 300 Pikmin bloom or discover a certain amount of creatures. They're nice extra challenges that help make the smaller tasks you do while exploring a bit more valuable.

Right let's get onto the gameplay itself and all the tweaks Nintendo have made. When Pikmin came to Wii the pointer controls were such a natural fit for the series that it was hard to see an alternate way of playing that was just as good. The Deluxe port of Pikmin 3 on Switch tried to replicate this using gyro aiming but unfortunately the aiming would constantly need reset due to how quickly it would drift. With Pikmin 4 being designed for Switch, Nintendo have opted for a lock on cursor that works pretty well (aside from a few moments where multiple things are next to each other and it's hard to pinpoint what you want). Gyro aiming still comes into play but is only active when whistling or throwing Pikmin meaning you don't have to constantly reset it and you still get to quickly move your aim when needed. They've added a much more dynamic camera this time allowing you to get pretty close to the action on the ground as well as pulling out far enough to get a decent read of your surroundings and you've got shortcuts you can add to the d-pad for stuff like items and character switching which is really nice. While it's not quite at the same heights as the pointer controls during the Wii/Wii U era, Nintendo have managed to adapt the controls of Pikmin into something that is very suitable for both the TV and handheld playstyles of Switch with little compromise. The game also begins with a pretty heavy handed tutorial to help those new to the series and make sure that everything is explained in detail. It interrupts the game a little too often for me as someone who has played the series before but I can understand wanting to make sure people understand how everything works.

The biggest new addition to the gameplay this time around is Oatchi, your very own space dog companion! Oatchi can be used in a variety of ways. The main one I used was as a ride. Oatchi can carry your character and all your Pikmin on his back which is really handy and helps eliminate one of the main causes of lost Pikmin for me: the stragglers at the back being crushed or caught by enemies. Of course there's still enemies capable of knocking you and your Pikmin off causing chaos and leading to lost Pikmin but it is really handy being able to gather them all onto Oatchi's back to try and keep them safe. Oatchi is also able to complete many tasks that Pikmin can like carrying objects and defeating enemies and through upgrades he can become immune to various elements and carry heavier items. Thankfully he doesn't negate the need for Pikmin altogether, he's more of a handy helping hand for dividing up tasks or transporting Pikmin across water who normally couldn't.
We also have a couple of new Pikmin types with the Ice and Glow Pikmin. Ice Pikmin are impervious to being frozen, can withstand cold temperatures and freeze bodies of water if you have enough of them. They can also freeze enemies when used to attack them making fights a lot less riskier but when a frozen enemy is defeated they shatter and you don't get a body to carry back and grow your Pikmin population. It's a nice approach to risk/reward design that also helps make the game a bit easier if you choose to.
Glow Pikmin are mostly exclusive to the new night missions in the game but can also be used in caves. These Pikmin are impervious to all elemental weaknesses other Pikmin have but can still be killed by enemies. They can teleport to your character when they are done with their tasks and at the end of a night mission for every 10 surviving Glow Pikmin you have, you earn a glow seed that can be used to spawn Glow Pikmin in a cave. They're pretty handy if your Pikmin population is thinning out while in a cave and you can't find any more around.

Speaking of night missions, these are tower defence style missions where you are tasked with protecting a Luminol or two to collect a medicine for some of the castaways that are suffering a leafy transformation. These missions see you using Glow Pikmin to collect star bits to carry back to the Luminol to expand their numbers so they can defend against the oncoming onslaught of enemies throughout the night. As they can teleport to whoever you're controlling you can quickly switch between Oatchi and your character to manage defending multiple Luminol. It's a nice change of pace from the main missions and keeps the game feeling fresh. I do think it would've been cool if they had multiple captains like in Pikmin 3 so we could defend 3 or 4 Luminols because of how fluid the switching is with Glow Pikmin but otherwise it's a solid game mode and it's nice being able to explore at night.

The bulk of your game time is exploring the beautifully crafted environments and collecting the various treasures available. Nintendo have made a couple of tweaks to the traditional Pikmin formula. First is the limitation of just 3 Pikmin types at any one time which helps making sure each Pikmin type can have a chance to shine as areas are designed with this in mind and will offer recommended Pikmin types to bring along. There might be a couple of times where you'll want to swap out for another Pikmin type to accomplish a task but for the most part the game is extremely well designed around this, and in caves it is possible to find Pikmin types outwith the 3 you brought in allowing you to play with a larger variety at once for a bit. I think this limitation works well for preventing people from becoming overwhelmed by the amount of Pikmin types to choose from as well as making sure the player has to strategise with a limited amount of resources. Also different this time round is starting with a limit of only 20 Pikmin at once. This can be expanded by finding Farlic onions throughout levels, increasing the limit by 10 every time until you hit the traditional limit of 100. I assume this was done to ease newcomers into the series and not overwhelm them and I think it works well. It's another item to collect and it feels good watching your Pikmin limit expand, being able to accomplish more tasks and fight stronger enemies as your army grows. Another gameplay addition is the ability to rewind time to undo mistakes. It's a pretty comprehensive rewind allowing you to go back to specific points or even all the way back to the beginning of the day. As an optional tool it's great for accessibility and while I tried to avoid using it, it did come in handy during the final boss encounter after having my purple Pikmin wiped out from trying to figure out how best to hit the boss.

There's a very well done balance between overworld and cave exploration that helps keeps both feeling fun and fresh throughout. The overworld has all the usual Pikmin puzzles to solve, walls to break down, tunnels to dig, etc and caves can be found throughout these levels. Caves act much like they did in Pikmin 2, hiding treasure to collect and holding some of the more difficult enemy encounters. These areas have been tightly designed this time, offering very puzzle box like experiences as you work your way through them. They also tend to house the rarer Pikmin types allowing you to add new Pikmin to your army. The caves this time are often around the 5 levels mark so you don't spend as much time in them as you do in 2 allowing a better balance between the areas you're exploring. I loved the caves in this game as they were very fun and tightly designed areas that offer fun puzzles to figure out with your Pikmin.

I've covered so much already but wait, there's more! As well as being able to find caves through the levels, there are new Dandori challenges and battles that can be found too. Dandori, as explained in game, is the art of organising your tasks strategically and working with maximum efficiency to execute your plans quickly and by gosh the game does mean that. The Dandori challenges see you given a set amount of time to collect every single object within a level. You start out with a specific set of Pikmin and must act quickly and efficiently to grow your Pikmin army as well as defeating enemies and clearing paths to collect every item. These challenges are intense and you cannot stop for a second otherwise you're going to miss the target score. These are so much fun and really test your quick thinking abilities as well as how efficiently and quickly your brain can spot how to divide tasks up to get them done. I absolutely loved these challenges and getting a platinum score on my first try was always a delight.
The Dandori battles see you take on a mysterious leafling in a split screen battle to collect the most points before time runs out. It's a bit more chaotic and you can use your Pikmin to mess with your opponent and steal their items from them as well as pick up the traditional Nintendo style multiplayer items to turn the tide of battle. This is also offered as a traditional multiplayer mode in the main menu and it does its job well but the chaotic nature of them leaves them feeling a bit less satisfying compared to everything else on offer.

So yeah, there is an absolute ton packed into this Pikmin, taking me well over 20 hours to get to the credits while 100%ing every area on the way and Nintendo is like you thought that was it? Nah, here's even more content providing one of the meatiest post games in recent memory. We got more areas to explore, a new mode that caters to those who loved Pikmin 1 and a set of Dandori challenges that really test your skills. It's incredible just how much content Nintendo has packed into Pikmin this time around and the way each game style varies things up keeps things fresh. Despite having 9 Pikmin types and Oatchi available to use, they somehow manage to make sure each Pikmin type still has a role to fill without feeling pointless. The story mode also alleviates one of my main criticisms about Pikmin 3 by making sure that every single type of Pikmin sees use. 3 saw purple and white Pikmin go unused in the main story while 4 makes sure everyone gets their chance to shine, particularly through the caves that usually have challenges designed around specific Pikmin types.

The game is just a joy to play and very chill for the most part with late game providing some of the challenges veteran Pikmin fans might be looking for. Aside from heavy handed tutorials and a little bit of jank with lock on aiming, I don't really have much to criticise with Pikmin 4. It's an extremely well designed game that manages to expand upon Pikmin in all the right ways while finding ways to appeal to fans that love the style of Pikmin 1 or Pikmin 2. The sound design is as great as ever, with every Pikmin making unique noises and having cute footstep sound effects that differentiate over different material and there's one boss fight in particular that blew me away with how it played with the music. And of course the game carries the series usual charm with every item having a few logs to go through along with the funny names. It's always fun seeing these characters try to figure out what exactly a GBA SP could be used for.

Pikmin 4 takes the series to new heights while maintaining a delicate balance to try and appeal to as wide a demographic as possible. Nintendo have nailed expanding the various types of strategic gameplay on offer while also making sure that everything is balanced as finely as possible. Somehow they have managed to make this most content rich Pikmin title and kept it feeling fresh throughout making this my favourite Pikmin title so far and one of my favourite games of all time.

1-2-Switch worked well as a launch title for the Nintendo Switch, demonstrating a lot of the unique ways the console could be played as well as the unique tech in the joy cons (HD rumble and IR sensor). It has obviously sold well enough for Nintendo to experiment with a sequel but another tech demoy experience 7 years into the Switch lifespan just doesn't cut it.
They did a similar thing with Wii Play and Wii Play Motion on Wii but those had the benefit of coming bundled with a controller to sweeten the deal, Everybody 1-2-Switch on the other hand has been chucked out at half the price of a regular Switch game without really offering any incentive to pick it up.

This is another collection of shallow minigames for a multiplayer only experience. The twist here is that by using your phone as a controller you can have up to 100 people playing at a time, which is pretty cool but when the games on offer are as shallow as a dried up puddle, it doesn't really offer much of a reason to gather that many people.

You have stuff like a game where you call an alien by moving in a rhythm, or trying to count to a specific number before flipping a cooking ingredient and these are like, cool, neat, they're functional but calling them fun is a stretch.
The best game on offer here is one where you hide your joy con in a room and the other team can press buttons on their joy con to make the hidden joy con vibrate to help find it. It's ripped straight out of Wii Party sure, but it's a game that is really fun, especially when you have a ton of places to try and hide your joy con.

My biggest issue with the game is it's all wrapped up in that corny over the top patronising American style voice over. You know the one where they really want you to have a good time and you can just imagine them asking you over and over if you're having a good time while telling you the lamest of puns and everyone else is putting on that fake over the top laughter. It's the type of thing I feel like you can only really enjoy when you're in a specific mood with a specific group of people. Heck having a horse mascot called MC Horace perfectly sums up the vibe of the whole thing.

Everybody 1-2-Switch is a functional game that is probably best enjoyed in the right setting with the right group of people and possibly a generous amount of alcohol. Otherwise it's a pretty shallow offering of mostly mundane games that get old pretty fast

From the creative minds that brought us Danganronpa, we have a brand IP in Master Detective Archives: Rain Code
A lot of stuff has been lifted over from Danganronpa. A quick glance at the character designs will let you see the unique style from Danganronpa has been carried over with expressive 2D portraits but also beautifully translated into 3D with its character models. Masafumi Takada has returned to do the soundtrack having done murder mystery and detective style soundtracks through Danganronpa and Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth and of course Kazutaka Kodaka is on writing duties.

Rain Code takes place in the mysterious city full of mysteries, Kanai Ward. Our protagonist, Yuma Kokohead wakes up with no previous memories having signed a pact with a death god called Shinigami with only a letter on him telling him to board the Amaterasu Express train to Kanai Ward and we're eased into this games gameplay cycle of story, a murdered body discovered, investigation, and then off into the mystery labyrinth to solve the mystery with the information picked up from the investigation.
It's a gameplay loop very much inspired by Danganronpa while putting its own spin on it.
The lead up to a body being discovered has you running through town, meeting new characters that will be important to the upcoming case and you have the opportunity to tackle quick sidequests that help flesh out the world of Kanai Ward. Having full movement from a third person perspective is nice and the city of Kanai Ward is beautifully realised in Unreal Engine, giving a pretty impressive looking title for the Nintendo Switch. The constant rain soaked and purple lit atmosphere of Kanai Ward is very well realised with the undertones of characters feeling the oppression of the Peacekeepers and the control Amaterasu Corporation has over their lives.

Investigation gameplay sees you going around an area clicking on things to pick up information that can be used as solution keys in the mystery labyrinth later. It's during these sequences that you will often work alongside a master detective who will have a unique forte ability to help you out, like being able to replicate the crime scene as it was discovered or creating 1:1 disguises to allow you to gather information you otherwise couldn't yourself.

Finally we have the mystery labyrinth's where the solving of the case is done. These are otherworldly areas created by Shinigami to get Yuma out of a bind so he can have time to figure out the case. Aesthetically the labyrinths are incredibly beautiful, bringing to life some really weird and unsettling environments. The labyrinths see you playing a variety of minigames in a similar vein to Danganronpa's class trials. You have Reasoning Death Matches against mystery phantoms (phantoms that take the shape of someone obstructing Yuma solving the case) where you dodge statements until you find one you can prove wrong with a solution key you picked up. There's Shinigami Puzzles where you spell out a missing word in a statement by throwing swords at a spinning barrel Shinigami is in. You've got your quick time events and a God Shinigami game where she runs towards a fortress knocking obstacles out of the way and jumping over things. It's clearly influenced by the Danganronpa DNA and very much trying to find its own identity to mixed results. For example the labyrinth's have portions of running in a straight line until the dialogue is finished which seems to be them mostly showing off what they did with the engine as the background constantly transforms but the pacing is hampered by Yuma going over things that are obvious. Likewise the RDMs are cool but are almost always one on one so you don't quite get the same level of intriguing and misleading debate the class trials provided from having a group of people.
It feels like a foundation onto a new thing but also held back a little by the roots of Danganronpa.
Each mystery labyrinth also ends with a deduction denouement which sees you going through the case and filling in blank spots in a scrapbook and once done Yuma will recap the whole case and announce the culprit, very similar to how the Danganronpa cases would end except it doesn't work quite as well when he's talking to a mystery phantom and not the real person. Solving the case requires Shinigami to reap the soul of the culprit, thus killing them in real life which does lead to some interesting internal debate within Yuma.
The gameplay loop works well despite a couple of issues holding it back and by the time you get to Chapter 4 and 5, it feels like they eventually get a good grasp on how to make everything work and flow well, as well keeping the mystery intriguing.

The story and characters are really good too. Each master detective has that Danganronpa brand of zaniness from Fubuki who is a rich girl who is so sheltered she comes out with hilarious stuff like being unable to count past 3, or Vivia who loves laying down in fireplaces or under pianos. Yuma is your typical lead who wants to help everyone with a good drop of naivete and works well as a counterpart to Shinigami who unfortunately straddles the Danganronpa line of juvenile humour. There's points in the game where Shinigami is jealous of any girl who talks to Yuma, calling Fubuki a sheltered skank, or Kurumi a flatty and it's just why? Chapter 2 is at its worst when Shinigami is constantly calling Kurumi names and Desuhiko is being creepy towards every girl he can. Thankfully it doesn't get as bad as Danganronpa 2 did with Mikan but it's still an annoying thing nonetheless. Same with the Shinigami puzzles resulting in her making a suggestive pose in a bikini when you get the right answer. It's bound to put some people off an otherwise really good game.
The story itself is really good once it gets into its swing. I do have some issues with the pacing and characters repeating points over and over, especially when you've already got a good idea of the answer to the case and Yuma is still going through every option trying to piece things together. When the cases are well thought out and subverting your expectations, the game truly shines. There's some good moments in Chapter 2 with its case but it's Chapters 4 and 5 where everything truly clicks and you see the true potential for Rain Code. The mysteries that unravel in Chapter 5 particularly were a highlight for me and exactly the type of thing I was hoping for.

One last issue to discuss is the performance. The Switch is really starting to show its age with some games and while Rain Code does look fantastic for the hardware it's on, it does come at a cost of performance. Most notably in cutscenes with 3 or more character models in view, the framerate takes notable dips. It's nothing game ruining but it is a noticeable distraction. I also had a couple of occasions in mystery labyrinths where when running forward there would be noticeable jumps and skips which again were more distracting than game breaking. The game does perform reasonably well for the most part and provides an enjoyable experience for the most part.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code provides a solid foundation to build a truly exciting series out of. While it leans a bit too often on its Danganronpa roots and has some pacing issues, it does provide a fantastic detective mystery experience that truly shines on its own footing by the late game, showing the potential this series could have if they build off this experience in future.

Once again Sega doing an enhanced Plus version with a physical release a year after a digital only release. Little bit annoying that the physical version comes with a download code for the Plus content as the point of the physical version is to have all the current content on disc/card, especially for a release like this.

So as with the original game, you're getting Sonic 1, CD, 2 and 3K remastered with new playable characters and other neat features to make these (with the exception of Carnival Night, Ice Cap, and Launch Base having inferior new music) the best versions of the main classic Sonic Mega Drive games. Plus adds Knuckles to Sonic CD and Amy to all four games to further enhance the package. Amy is perfectly adopted into the classic one button control scheme, featuring a unique moveset that incorporates her hammer very well.

Aside from that, we also get Sonic's complete Game Gear collection via emulation for another 12 titles which is a nice bonus, and there's a couple of gems in there like Sonic Chaos and Sonic Triple Trouble but it does make you ask a few questions. Like why not use the superior Master System versions of games like Sonic 1 and 2 seeing as the Game Gear and Master System are similar hardware to emulate.
If you're throwing in emulated titles why not finish off the Mega Drive collection with stuff like Sonic Spinball and Sonic 3D Blast? Heck you have some Knuckles' Chaotix songs in the gallery, why not finally bring the game back to provide people like me who are curious about the game a chance to play it?

I do prefer to focus on what the game offers rather than what it doesn't and what it offers is arguably the best versions of Sonic's main Mega Drive games and his complete Game Gear history and I think that is a pretty good collection at the end of the day