Give me the formuoli. Unashamedly inspired in no small part by my older brother’s (hey Johnny) movie lists, I decided to review the games I played last year. I say review, but it’ll mostly involve me writing about aspects of the vidya in question and noting if I enjoyed them or not. I won’t give any ratings. There will be no order of the titles. Spoilers will happen - I’ll try to keep things spoiler free overall, but if I want to discuss something I will. You’ve been warned.
Also, if you click on the titles of the game I’m speaking of, one my favorite tracks will load up on Youtube. I thought that would be nifty, as the music in a game is one the key ways I enjoy and remember the time I spend on them. Even if the music isn’t noteworthy enough for me to have found time to talk about, I hope you give each tune a listen as you read.
Anyway, I’m sure there’s a lot I’m going to say, so I hope you enjoy my perspective, for all it’s worth. Let’s dive in.
Man, if you were going to tell me that I was going to have a Mario game be one of the top - if not number one - games of my personal year, I’d probably be pretty surprised. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mario games. I always have. They’re always solid in terms of gameplay, and the controls are pure magic. They’re usually what other games aspire to have, and Mario titles have always been emulated by future titles of similar genres. Platformers of the quality of Mario will always have a place in video games.
Odyssey, though, was truly special. Crisp, snazzy, and satisfying. Platforming felt great, the Cappy throw/jump mechanic adding so much to the formula that I honestly don’t know if I’d be able to play a new Mario game without them. It’d be like going back to the days of no triple jumping in 3D Marios (a concept literally unfathomable since it always existed). Considering the amount of freedom those movement options added to the game, Cappy truly feels like a natural progression of Mario’s movement in 3D space.
Worlds felt pretty varied and while some dislike the amount the visual-style can vary, especially compared to Mario himself, I felt it fit with the theme of the game. Since it was all about travel, going to all these different worlds that had such mismatched themes made it feel like you actually did some traveling! Each world also had its own little cast of natives and enemies (the occasional Goomba or Koopa showing Bowser’s influence) adding a little more gameplay diversity and flavor to each. My favorite natives had to be the ones from the Snow Kingdom, little eskimo-bear-seal guys (pictured below) called Shiverians. Gushens were my favorite unique enemy, the mustache’d pentapods reminding me of Super Mario Sunshine due to their powers, using water jets to fly horizontally and vertically. I also really appreciated the new takes on famous Mario themes - the Desert being of Mayan/Aztec inspiration and Bowser’s Castle being a Shogun-style Japanese castle being two of the most notable and refreshing ones.
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They're also the best non-hostile capturable character since you literally
just get to roll and bounce around like a madman.
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The sense of wonder sparked throughout was pretty nice too - each little idea you had almost always resulted in reward, whether it be a Moon, coins, or a pipe to a new area. Trying new things felt expected, which is a great way to encourage me to keep playing a game as sandbox-y as Odyssey. I do understand those complaints of the “gimme Moons” but only to an extent, as for every easy Moon there’s a clever one that rewards you noticing a little gap in a wall, finding a sneaky wrap-around in a 2D segment, or completing a mini-game. The “gimme Moons” only detract from the game if you let them, and there’s plenty to do otherwise.
Despite all of these praises, it’s not perfect. Like any open world game, it can suffer from repetition. Some of those repetitions were okay, the note-chasing or Goombette popping into mind. Those were usually more of a vehicle used to provide a challenge than a pure copycat event, even though the dressings were the same. The Tostarena Slots and memorize-the-picture puzzles though? Other than adding a new slot or using a new image each time, it was pretty much nothing new, just obvious padding. The variations on those could’ve easily been harder levels of the same minigame in the same world, rather than a new spot in a new world.
The Broodals were also an iffy point. While I liked the “totally not the Koopalings but we’re the Koopalings” aspect, their boss fights were easy and almost non-significant (bar the last one, which was a pretty neat fight). Most of the bosses were pretty easy, actually, and while they were mechanically fun and visually interesting, I do wish there was some more challenge, or at least a hard mode. The game does lean a bit too easy at times in general, although this isn’t a huge issue in terms of enjoyment as it’s something you just kind of expect from the main story of a Mario game. Difficulty naturally shows up in side bits and post-game levels. You can also display mastery through your ease of exploration, which allows you to feel the growth of your skill despite the overall lower difficulty - but the bosses don’t have that aspect, really. The three-hit-wonder with a new attack in between each hit can only be perfected so much, especially compared to grabbing a Moon from a high perch at the start of the game versus when you’re nearing the conclusion and have a good grasp on the mechanics.
Overall, Super Mario Odyssey was probably the best game I played this year. Video games aren’t just themselves, though, they’re the sum of the experiences you have playing them. With that said...
Breath of the Wild. How can I start? I spent a month immersed in this game, only stopping to work, eat, and sleep. BotW was the first time in a long while that I just dove into a game. Every time I figured out a new trick, found a new weapon, learned a new recipe, that was me! I felt like a little kid, seeing simple new things shared and posted among others and trying it for myself. Breath was a true return to form of the days before commonly available video game information on the internet in that short window after release. Little details like removing rust with certain Octorocks, carrying an ice weapon keeping you a bit cooler in hot areas, and dropping a ton of food in volcanic areas to let them cook quickly make the sandbox feel interesting. While durability could be annoying, and I wish there were more ways around it (repairs or reforging would be nice), the variety of weaponry and play-styles made it less of a roadblock and more of a bump for myself than it does others.
The game’s difficulty curve was solid if wonky. Link felt nearly powerless in the beginning, gameplay showing that you weren’t “ready to take on the forces of Ganon”, something that most games never even attempt with easy tutorial stages instead taking that place. What felt better, though, was progressing through the game and learning how to take advantage of situations, getting better gear, and upgrading yourself through new abilities, changing unwinnable situations into challenges to surmount. That was when the game was at its best, right in that middle ground, where things would still knock off most of your health bar, but with the right strategies you could get around it. Unfortunately, after a certain point, you begin to understand the game too well and end up with enemies becoming trivial. Perfecting parry timing, upgrading armor so that you hardly take damage, and realizing the cheat code-like ability of Hearty prefix food eventually makes you a god that really has no trouble outside of special challenges that remove all or some of your capabilities. Thankfully, by this point, you’re probably at the endgame, and have enjoyed 90% of the game to its fullest with the otherwise lovely difficulty curve.
Speaking of the endgame, I have to touch on the story. I enjoyed the story overall, with Zelda’s struggle to realize her destined abilities being an interesting take. I honestly enjoyed the story focusing on her, with Link mostly a piece of the greater puzzle. I do wish that there was more to do with the Champions as well as characters like Purah and the other Sheikah - the fact that most of the important story telling occurred in the past, in the flashbacks and memories, wasn’t necessarily bad, but it made me wish there was more to do in the present afterwards. More story-oriented side quests would’ve been a nice way to do this, as well as keep it optional just like most of the story was already, instead of a decent chunk of the side quests being fetch quests (even if some of them were cute, like the firefly quest, a personal favorite of mine).
One thing I absolutely hated, though, was that to experience the whole story you had to conquer the Divine Beasts, which were all well and good on their own. After doing so, you had their help in the fight against Ganon, which was clever, and a fantastic way to encourage exploring the more story-oriented parts of the game, but man, they really overdid it. Not only does Ganon lose his four pre-boss battle shields in the pretty-boring-design-ways-but-ok-gameplay-ways elemental -blights, he also loses half of his entire health bar, effectively making this final boss fight a disappointing joke. Yes, I know there’s the true fight afterwards, but it was effectively a glorified cutscene for all of the danger you were in and how difficult it was. I honestly felt pretty punished for just experiencing the main quest line, which was heartwrenching. The rest of the game isn’t perfect by any means, with the shrines feeling same-y after a while even with unique puzzles due to art-style, bad end-game difficulty curve, and a huge lack of enemy variety, but these are all nit-pick level to me and didn’t sully my massive enjoyment of my time with BoTW. The Ganon fight being so lame definitely did, and left me with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth after such a fantastic experience throughout the rest.
Fortunately, the DLC pack is worth it, and while it may seem unrelated, it definitely is. Not only does it have the best Divine Beast dungeon, which felt unique and had a great sense of progression, it also has an actually fun final boss fight! The Maz Koshia fight is what I wanted the Ganon fight to be like, requiring the use of all of the tricks and abilities you’ve learned until that point. Plus, it requires much more effort to even reach than Ganon’s fight, and it effectively replaces it in my mind as the final boss, despite not fitting story-wise. While I can’t say I count the DLC as part of the base game’s review, it definitely helped to wash the bit of sour taste I had out, and made the game feel much more complete gameplay-wise. Now, speaking of games that felt complete gameplay-wise...
What a blessing this game was. Having grown up as a huge Sonic fan, playing through pretty much every existing Sonic game in middle school and loving every moment, I needed something to reinvigorate that love, and Sonic Mania was it for sure. I felt like I was playing the true successor to Sonic 3 & Knuckles that I always wanted. Controlling absolutely perfectly, having a beautiful take on the classic Sonic art-style with high-quality pixel sprites, and having actually functional multiple paths in each level was just the best. I had so much hope for this game, and they didn’t let me down.
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| Who needs 3D graphics? |
The drop-dash was a cool addition, fitting in nicely with the classic gameplay. Each Act having a unique take on the overall Zone’s theme was wonderful, and made me think a bit of Banjo Kazooie (more on that later). Knuckles having extra areas, bosses, and even an entirely unique boss was absolutely dope and great for replayability. The special stages were the best in the entire classic-style, a nod to Sonic CD, but with its own mechanics and a nice difficulty curve. You even got a reward for doing all of them - not only the true boss but Super mode, just like the old days, and for every character too! References to older games abound, with the Sonic Fighters gang showing up (yes, I spent the time to beat and unlock everyone in that game), and references to Fang/Knack, as well as plenty of other little nods and hints towards Sonic’s history. It’s just such a perfect little package of Sonic love, especially to a long time fan like myself.
As for the bad? I beat it in absolutely no time- it was short, even while doing a 100% run of Sonic, Tails, AND Knuckles each. The price tag being lower than a normal AAA game makes that a non-issue in terms of a cost to value ratio, though, and makes it so the game being short is only an issue because I truly wanted to play more. The other very minor gripe I have with Mania is the re-used Zones from older Sonic games. While only one is even truly reused, that being Green Hill Act 1, with the rest being remixes or even completely new stages in an “old skin”, it’s still a little disappointing.
The Sonic Mania team obviously had brilliant ideas for their entirely new Zones, and had more they could have done if the nostalgia pandering hadn’t been pushed so hard. I do have an inkling that was more Sega than the Mania team, though, and have high hopes that any remixes/re-imagined zones that might’ve been pushed will be new areas in the sequel that needs to exist. You hear me, Sega? There better be a sequel. Speaking of a sequel, though...
What a wonderful surprise. At the behest of two of my best friends, I finally played this beautiful game, and I don’t regret it a single bit. Similar to Sonic Mania, there’s just not a lot to complain about here. The real draw in this game is the hand-drawn art-style, which is absolutely gorgeous. Ori looks even better in motion, animations feeling natural and almost alive with how fluid and bouncy everything is with the stylization they achieved. Environments look great, too, each area feeling pretty distinct while still fitting into the overall world, the “zone” transitions feeling pretty natural. Thankfully, despite this focus on the graphics, the gameplay doesn’t suffer at all.
Ori’s story was endearing, word choice in the narration being an especially important part that I thought was clever. The character animation shows emotion well and sells the things Ori and the other creatures of the forest go through. While I spoiled Zelda’s, it was pretty obvious - you fight Ganon/a Ganon-like. This one, while not containing any massive twists, is pretty integral to your playthrough, and is a story I feel you should experience for yourself. I’ll just leave you with this: I enjoyed it and that you should be ready for a heartwarming feels trip.
The controls are just as smooth as the graphical stylings, feeling snappy and letting you do some dope tricks as you gain more abilities and master Ori’s movement skills. You’ll practically be able to fly by the end of the game, giving you a wonderful feeling of progression. The styling of the game uses little tricks to point you in the right direction in your search for the metroidvania style upgrades that you learn over time, checking for fadeaway rocks and making sure you fill out the map as soon as possible. Upgrades also let you see the locations of the generic upgrades and more as you progress enough. 100%ing the game was a challenge, but didn’t stress or wear me down, it felt just right.
Downsides in this game are few and far between, with only two minor complaints from me. You start without the ability to double jump, which seemed fine until I GOT the double jump. Double jump was honestly how you should’ve started the game, with the map feeling much more natural to navigate that way. The other issue was actually related to the art-style causing a few hitbox issues, with smaller spike-replacements sometimes feeling like their hitbox was slightly larger than the bouncy, stretchy graphics would imply, resulting in some annoyance damage.
Neither of these were a huge issue, though, and I dedicated a few days of my life to beating this game and enjoying it. I’m looking forward to playing Ori 2 and anything Moon Studios puts out in the future. I only wonder what a boss enemy would be like in this game, as the “bosses” are more like time-trials than anything. Speaking of bosses...
Another indie game backed by Microsoft with a fantastic art direction. Phil Spencer has great taste. Built upon the concept of a boss rush, Cuphead does it like no other, each boss being completely unique and drawn frame by frame in a retro-cartoon style. Solid controls and bare-bones gameplay allow the puzzle of figuring out the bosses' patterns to be challenging without significant frustration. The bosses are just that - puzzles, and interesting ones at that, requiring you to solve their patterns and tells to safely shoot them while maintaining the cognizance able to dodge their massive attacks. Honestly, despite the meme, this game is pretty comparable to the Soulsborne series, requiring timing, reactions, and pattern recognition to beat bosses more than any other skills.
Art-style is certainly the biggest draw the game has, but I personally give a lot of the credit to the sound design. Shooting is satisfying, especially with the default weapon, a typing-like clack accompanying each shot and hit on an enemy. Parries hit with a satisfying snap. Bosses each have unique themes that are mostly upbeat have a quick pace, setting the frantic nature of the game perfectly. You die and almost immediately respawn back into the thick of it (after a brief reprieve to show your progress as incentive to get back in there and just beat it) until you learn the boss well enough to get that coveted “A KNOCKOUT!” splayed across your screen.
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Sweet relief when you're on 1 HP and know just how close that victory is.
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One of my (minor) complaints about this game is the addition of the run’n’gun levels. They’re not bad by any means, but the boss fights are definitely best parts of the game to me, and I think the concerns of folks thinking that a boss rush game couldn’t be “enough” was unfounded. The game could have just had a few more fantastic bossfights over having the few decent run’n’guns, and I think it would have probably been an improvement.
Run’n’gun levels definitely don’t sully the game at all, though, and it’s well worth the dosh if you haven’t already given it a shot. Definitely play it co-op if you can - it’s still challenging, but it’s more fun with a buddy. Now, for something that’s not worth anything...
What a disappointment. Fortnite had so much potential. When I first saw the trailers, I thought saw a game similar to the Sanctum series, where you’re more than just a camera in a tower defense isometric world. You’d get to build your own lanes, lined with traps and defenses, to protect some point of the map, with each new level having different limitations for you to work around. That would have been a great time, and I would’ve poured plenty of hours into this theoretical game, particularly with multiplayer elements!
Instead I got “defend a big open area every time with this easily optimized building design that breaks the mediocre AI because they have no interesting pathing besides walking to the defense point” with similar map layouts and boring side-objectives. Foraging for items was the most interesting part this game brought to the table, honestly, but things were so plentiful that it didn’t really matter. I’d like that sort of design in a game where it made you choose between where to use your most durable materials before relying on flimsier stuff when you built a path for the enemies to follow.
I played a few times before I gave up on it, and then they turned it into Battle Royale, which I’ve heard is tons of fun and incredibly popular. It’s not the game I wanted, though, and I don’t think it ever will be even with fixes/changes due to the newfound popularity of the new design. If you want a game that’s got plenty of value, then there’s the next title...
Year of the platformers continues, even if this is one that wasn’t released in 2017. Shovel Knight and its DLCs were spoken highly of so often, but I had put them off for so long - until I got a Switch. I grabbed it on the eShop and played through them in short order. Each level you run through has lovely music, neat hidden areas with plenty of secret loot to find, and a distinctive boss at the end to look forward to.
Boss fights felt pretty evenly matched which I always like in a game - they’re not some massive, overpowered being, but they’re just your equal, allowing each fight to feel more unique, especially in the retro-style the game presents. Difficulty is ingeniously decided by the player without a menu option, each checkpoint in a level containing a stash of treasure you can use to purchase upgrades. You can break the checkpoint to try and gain those items, but then you’ll have to respawn further back. I also enjoyed how the game handles death, giving you infinite lives, but each death dropping a portion of your gold. You can retrieve your dropped gold if you manage to reach it, but if you fail and die again on your way to grab it the gold disappears permanently.
Base Shovel Knight has you play as, well... Shovel Knight, with mostly close-range attacks, a few magic items that you can use for ranged attacks and other tricks, and a short jump you can turn into a Ducktales-style pogo jump with your shovel for platforming. Shovel Knight generally placed equal value on combat and platforming, your short range and commitment to jumps adding risk to both elements of gameplay. Plague Knight’s campaign has you play through the same levels with very mild (some areas with none at all) remixes of stage layout to account for the ranged, explosive-jump based playstyle. Platforming is a greater focus in Plague Knight, with most of the enemies being much less of an issue due to your incredible ability to kite everything with your massive jump distance. Spectre Knight is the most complex of the three current campaigns, with wall jumps, wall running, and context sensitive swipes to gain extra distance when you’re close enough to a targetable enemy or object. The levels are remixed much more heavily than Plague Knight’s, with most seeming to be an entirely new design beyond a very few screens. Each story was simple but effective, with a few twists and turns and nods to each other’s stories that will give you a little smile every time you notice one. Spectre Knight’s campaign is definitely my favorite gameplay wise, but I prefer Plague Knight’s campaign story-wise, with the theme and growth of the characters expected but surprisingly sweet.
If you enjoy standard gameplay with no surprises but with a nostalgic, solid base, you’ll have a great time with Shovel Knight and its DLCs. They’re an insane cost for value, too, with the base game coming with the first two downloadable campaigns and the third one being granted to you whenever it comes out as well. In the immortal words of videogamedunkey, “...if all DLC was like this, EA would be my favorite publisher”. I’d truly recommend it if you love platformers. Now, for a change of pace, let’s talk about something more unique...
Splatoon! One of my favorite fledgling series in recent years, Splatoon 1 and 2 are such great twists on the shooter genre. Control and awareness of your surroundings is more important than in any other shooter, with the turf-capturing capabilities of the weaponry allowing for fast paced movement and traps. The ink’s effects in the game are honestly probably the most exceptional part of the game, a quite literal translation of the value of map control. Covering escape routes with your ink can cause your opponent to slow down that little bit so that you can catch up and finish them off, or prevent them from reloading, forcing them to relocate. Weapons in the game range from the expected to the unique, with the usual assault rifle and sniper-likes mixed in with Kingsman-style umbrella shotguns and weeb-stick inkbrushes, giving every playstyle something to mess with.
Despite being, at first glance, a Call of Duty-esque improvement of the first, Splatoon 2 manages to freshen things up a bit more than that by adding plenty of new weapon types and refreshing how some of the older ones work with new abilities and re-balancing. The addition of a horde-style mode in Salmon Run is also a big deal, as the first Splatoon lacked any serious PvE or cooperative content, with the new mode filling both of those roles quite nicely (although I would enjoy more maps). Campaign content is also much better than the first, containing a much greater variety and amount of levels, use of several of the different weapon types, and replayability since you’re able to swap your weapon upon replaying a stage. The story is also more engaging and involved direct player input from the first game, a Splatfest event determining the roles of two characters. Sadly, the final boss has the same disease every final boss seems to share this year. Disappointing in terms of gameplay, while managing to be solid in spectacle and significance.
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Nostalgic 90's Nickolodeon is the rule of law in Splatoon,
and it somehow manages to feel like a cartoon from that era looks.
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One significant thing I have to say on Splatoon is the Nintendo-isms. The game is, by most every metrics, a grand slam. While the online multiplayer is a massive part of that, though, it’s also my biggest source of issues with the game. You can’t party up to be on the same team in the standard Turf War game mode at ALL. You’re only allowed to exist in the same game, so attempting to play with friends can be frustrating. This issue is amplified in the Splatfest events, where you vote for one of two options and both sides fight for superiority, but despite being team locked, you can only search for a match if you’re a single player or a group of 4 players. Competitive modes allow you to circumvent that somewhat with 2 AND 4 players groupings allowed to go in as teams, but if you’ve got 3 players, you’re simply SOL.
I also have one of those nitpicks that escalates into pure rage with this game, simply because it makes absolutely no sense. In the first Splatoon, they issued a patch to make it so teams had stricter weapon balance, attempting to make it so both teams would have long-, mid-, and close-range weapons in as equal amounts as possible. The second Splatoon seems to be lacking this balance factor for some reason, as I’ve had more than my fair share of matches where one side has 2 or 3 mid- and long-ranged weapons while the other has none. It’s a bit infuriating sometimes, since it should be a non-issue given that the team already fixed it once before.
Despite the issues I just listed, Splatoon 2’s multiplayer is addictive and incredibly fun. Salmon Run is challenging and a great addition to the series, and I can’t wait to see where it goes in future installments. The new weapon types are also getting more and more creative as they run out of standard-style weaponry to clone, and that’s also something I’m looking forward to, both in DLC and the next game. Splatoon has so much potential and was such a happy surprise from Nintendo. If you have the chance, try it out, and support the franchise if you enjoy it. Anyway, let’s keep on talking about nice surprises that aren’t platformers...
DOKI DOKI! I know, some people would argue that a visual novel isn’t a game, but I still want to talk about them. As an ironic^ᶦʳᵒⁿᶦᶜ weeb, I had a wonderful time with DDLC. Doki Doki is a game where you set upon the task of impressing one of four girls in the club you all share in hopes of getting closer to them. It’s definitely one of those games that you can’t research before you play - you have to just dive right into playing. Watching a Let’s Play or reading spoiler-filled reviews will ruin your personal playthrough, since a large part of DDLC’s charm is its story. If you haven’t played Doki Doki Literature Club! and plan to, I recommend you stop reading here and skip to the next review, so you can have the best first experience possible.
So, anyway, Doki Doki is a game where you set upon the task of impressing one of four girls in the club you all share in hopes of getting closer to them, except it’s not really about that at all. Bursting with charming visuals and artwork, an upbeat soundtrack, and a twist that sells it all, DDLC is actually a wolf in sheep’s clothing - a horror/mindscrew type of game hiding in the fluff of romance and anime waifus. The game foreshadows this twist pretty heavy-handedly, including a massive warning at the start of the game, but doesn’t give any hints to how far the twist goes, only heavily implying that “something’s up” if you read between the lines. The story isn’t anything new, but it’s done well, with most of the hints scattered sensibly throughout the themes and content in each character’s poems, allowing story to come out through the “gameplay” which reaches a peak when everything gets Bel-Air’d.
Dialogue is solid through the entire story, with no particular conversation feeling like it overstayed its welcome or sticking out as poorly written. Beyond a necessary repetition of the start of the game for story reasons, at least, Salvato’s writing keeps you interested. Doki Doki tackles some relatively hefty themes, even on the level of issues like depression, with some competent perspective in Act 1. This was definitely a pleasant surprise, especially given how often subject matter like that becomes nothing more than a joke. Act 2 elevates everything into ridiculousness and loses that aspect somewhat, but it’s honestly completely sensible by that point. I didn’t feel like the tonal shift detracted from the tact it uses to handle those ideas in Act 1 in any capacity.
Poem “creation” was one lackluster aspect, needlessly simplified instead of making something more creative with such a key part of the experience. A friend of mine (shoutouts to Nick) suggested that the words you picked should form a sort of Mad Lib poem, which I think could’ve easily worked within the confines of the game. A mechanic like that would make those sections that tad bit more interesting, and make me more invested in trying to pick the best words to woo best girl (Yuri btw) instead of figuring out the words that work and mindlessly clicking them. I do wish that your choices mattered a bit more, though I understand why they don’t. Beyond the initial Act of the game allowing you to chose what girl you’re appealing to with your “poetry”, the choices matter less and less, and in Act 2 they have almost no actual influence on the events that occur. The file manipulation is a cool gimmick that I wouldn’t mind more games toying with, especially as far as DDLC took it, with new files popping up during key points, the necessary player editing to get to the ending, and meta-gaming to get the best possible ending all making the game feel a little bigger than the windowed borders it inhabits.
Despite some shortcomings, Doki Doki Literature Club! gave me plenty of enjoyment. I have to admit, I had never played any games of the Visual Novel genre before it, and it’s quite a doozy. I was fascinated with it after playing it, and went right back in to try the other routes and options until I had seen them all. It was such a wild ride that it had me looking for other VNs to try and see what the genre has to offer...
After DDLC as my first VN experience, Katawa Shoujo was my second, with plenty of major shifts in some ways and not so much in others. Japanese for “Disability Girls”, Katawa Shoujo has you follow Hisao, a young man with recently discovered major heart defects (arrhythmia and congenital heart muscle deficiency) through his final year of school life after moving to Yamaku University, a school for disabled students.
Where Doki Doki utilized a cloak of romance to hide its true nature, KS wears its heart (hyuck) on its sleeve, and you have a little control over how Hisao’s life turns out, notably determining whether he ends up or blows his chances with any of five girls who are in his graduating class. With his condition threatening a relapse on the level of a heart attack or worse, Hisao’s life hangs in the balance while he tries to adapt to his new school, surroundings, and classmates. I’d honestly recommend playing this before reading further if that little blurb interested you, similar to DDLC. Being a VN, Katawa Shoujo is heavily story based with little to nothing most would consider actual gameplay, and any spoilers would detract from your experience.
Of the similarities between the DDLC and KS, one of the biggest is the themes the games tackle. While Doki Doki takes a lighter touch in its approach, Katawa Shoujo’s characters experience their own struggles ranging from trying to cope with whether love hinges on the ability to understand each other, to the difficulty of discerning pity from genuine interest from both sides of a relationship, with each weighted just as impressively in the relevant character’s routes. Honesty, pride, and even something as heavily debated as consent are approached by Katawa Shoujo and handled with respect and care. Some of the issues aren’t even “fixable”, just as they wouldn’t be in a real situation, making the individuals feel grounded and less “game-ified”.
Past the intro section of the game, each girl’s route is massively different, offering almost entirely unique situations and stories minus a few “crossover” situations, with all of them getting their own personal journeys. Seeing moments that change but are otherwise shared between routes is truly special, and sometimes Hisao even reacts entirely differently, reflecting the person he’s become based on the choices you’ve made. Even the supporting cast is crafted with love and full of charm, showing up in the various routes or even showing their stories piecemeal in multiple. I definitely encourage you to play through each route if you’re so inclined, as not only will you see all of the side characters, but you’ll see the main girls in different perspectives and situations as well.
Throughout all of the routes, I grew to care about their problems, and value the times that I saw them grow and overcome hurdles. If Ori is a feels trip, Katawa Shoujo is feelsmageddon, with the wonderful music crafted to put that extra punch in your gut for the saddest moments and make you feel a bit more joy in the happiest ones. Some of the songs genuinely still put a tear in my eye. I don’t think I’ll forget the time I spent with these characters for a long time, because I’ll be damned if I didn’t want to get the happiest endings that I possibly could, especially after getting just one neutral ending halfway through completing all of the routes and feeling absolutely heartbroken.
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One of these girls is not a romance option, and I'm not gonna tell you which one.
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Speaking of endings, there are at least two for each character, with some having three, and boy do your choices matter. One choice can lock you entirely out of even being able to choose something that might matter later, and some will send you on a completely different route or to one of the different endings. Beyond a few obvious choices, it often takes a sharp thought and understanding of the character to pick the “best” option, especially in difficult to read situations in the more complex routes. Choices matter more in this game than they did in the “your choices matter”-touting Mass Effect series, which is hilarious despite my love of the lore and universe of Mass Effect, since this was created by around thirty people in a ragtag group from 4chan rather than a massive AAA studio. Speaking of Mass Effect, I might as well get it out of the way that Katawa Shoujo does have R18+ scenes. You can turn them off in the options, but I honestly felt that were handled well and were more tasteful than any of Mass Effect’s mature scenes even though KS shows much more than “tasteful side boob”. They’re obviously not the goal of the game or the stories of these characters, and I think that’s a huge part of them feeling more natural and not forced or inappropriate, while Mass Effect’s romance plotlines often were a means to an end.
Despite its strengths, I do have a few minor issues with Katawa Shoujo. The art, while generally at least solid, is inconsistent at times, most noticeably in differences between still portraits when you’re conversing with multiple characters at once. The multitude of CG scenes and the animations that play between each major act are gorgeous, though, and overall, I didn’t mind the inconsistency after a bit of playtime. The writing also suffers in a few places, with repetition of phrasing being an issue I noticed a lot, although those repetitions would often be quite a distance apart. The writing in the R18+ scenes also dips into cringy territory plenty of times, although I think that’s just a pothole in writing that kind of situation. I’ve hardly ever read anything with that sort of focus that doesn’t have at least something in it that just makes you squint and utter a good ol’ Hank Hill “do what”.
Issues like these certainly didn’t ruin the game, though, and Katawa Shoujo houses some of my favorite stories I’ve ever experienced. I’ll cherish them for a long time to come, that’s for certain. Just like I’ll cherish the bittersweet time I had with the next game...
Rayman 2: The Great Escape is one of my favorite games of all time and I’ve played it on as many consoles as I have Resident Evil 4, but I had never touched Rayman 3. Not through any disdain at trying it, you know, just that I kinda never saw proof that it existed beyond an ad in a gaming magazine when I was younger. I saw it listed as an Xbox One backwards compatible title by chance and immediately snatched it up for a couple of bucks. Hoping for fond memories to come flooding back, I began my playthrough that night.
Rayman 3 takes a much more comedic and boisterous approach compared to 2’s serious and moody tone, with jokes and goofy voice acting prevalent throughout its entirety. The cheesiness is generally fitting for the already strange concept of the Rayman universe, but sometimes it does just get a bit too weird for its own good. Even the music is generally bouncier to show the stark contrast between the two 3D Rayman games, with 3 having heavy hip hop inspiration in its tracks versus 2’s light, atmospheric music. Rayman 3 derives a lot from its predecessor in gameplay, the fluid movement and floatiness of Rayman feeling familiar and combat containing “lock on and attack at appropriate times while dodging” mechanics.
The biggest departure is the Mario 64 style power-up system, where there are “lager detergeant” cans on the map that contain time-limited abilities. Ranging from making your punches stronger to bear-trap grappling hooks, the abilities are interesting and make for a decent change up in gameplay, especially in enemy encounters where you might have to use several different power-ups to break past enemy defenses. Abilities only felt disappointing in just how short the timer is for them, with plenty of sequences allowing for only minor mistakes or you’d just run out of time on your power-up and have to retry. I’d have liked more opportunities to play around with them without feeling so rushed. Rayman 3 also contains a score-tracking system that is mostly based on comboing enemies, items, or map objects to keep a timed multiplicative bonus active. Scoring never felt relevant to me, but I could see how someone could enjoy it and the system definitely adds some replay value.
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| Best character Globox does return, thankfully. |
I ended up preferring Rayman 2 in the end, but Rayman 3 was still a fantastic time. It’s a fun, lighthearted game and a solid platformer with some decent challenge and not much to complain about. The worst offense Rayman 3 did was remind me that there’ll never be a true Rayman 4 and I’m gonna be waiting forever. If you enjoy Rayman 2, or Rayman in general, I’d recommend it wholeheartedly. Just like I’d recommend...
I know I’ve played a ton of platforming games this year, but each one I’ve played has managed to be surprisingly different and keep me from disappointment or burn out. Despite this, there’s only so many ways I can say “da jumpin’s good” and luckily Rayman Origins manages to accomplish something that I hadn’t experienced before.
Whether this was done on purpose or not, Rayman Origin’s parts are greater than the whole, and it’s such an interesting concept. While Origin’s controls are no slouch, they’re not as fluid as Ori and not as precise as Shovel Knight. They’re effective and just work™ , which in a 2D platformer surrounded by a sea of so many others, usually drops them below the surface. The story is standard fare and has little impact on gameplay or why you’re pushed to keep playing. New abilities don’t feel powerful because Origins never provides circumstances where they would be useful before granting them to you and hardly follow you into the next “world”. Instead, the nymph’s gifts end up feeling more like a part of the levels themselves than changes to gameplay as a whole.
Rayman manages to escape these pitfalls and remain a game I enjoyed with memorability - while if I had to describe the game overall it would sound like nothing special, there are so many levels and moments that stuck out as interesting, fun concepts. Between instances like an underwater level that involves a creeping, deadly darkness held at bay by luminescent creatures that follow you for only a limited time and an autoscroller through pirate ship infested waters that destroy platforms in front and behind you, the game just stuck with me. Tunes carry the game even higher, lovingly goofy music that I still hear in my brain when I think of levels like these, and it’s one of the more memorable soundtracks out of all the games I played this year. Origins is full of these circumstances, the best of which is the optional final level, Land of the Livid Dead. LotLD is tough as nails, has a dope aesthetic, and puts all of your skills to the test in a massive level with few checkpoints.
Origins is truly a wild ride from start to finish, and is something I’ll always remember. While I didn’t feel it was the MASTAPIECE many claim, I feel it’s definitely worth a play if you enjoy a good ol’ fashioned platformer. Unfortunately, the next game is something I’ll always remember as well...
Sonic Forces is a truly mediocre game. People meme about it being horrible, and while I can definitely see that perspective, it’s not as bad as they make it sound. This isn’t necessarily a good thing though - it makes Forces have little to note, as it’s not bad enough to be funny, and not good enough to be worthwhile. I say this as harshly as I can for someone who loves the Sonic series. Someone who can see past the faults in Sonic Adventure 1, 2, and Sonic Heroes and see something special there that I enjoyed as a kid. For all of the issues in those games, they still felt like there was love and effort put into their creation. Even Sonic ‘06 is at least laughably bad, a mistake for sure, but an enjoyable one even if it IS for all of the wrong reasons. Sonic Forces manages to phone everything in harder than any other game I’ve played before it.
Momentum might as well not exist since everything you do other than press into the direction that you’re already heading in stops you on a dime. Jumping feels random and I could never get a consistent distance - an issue that the game almost seems designed around, since almost every jump the game requires provided a massive platform to land on. When it doesn’t provide a massive platform and demands more precision (mostly in 2D segments), it feels impossible. Someone with my veterancy, especially with the 2D Sonic games, shouldn’t die twenty-odd times just trying to make a jump between two small platforms. Enemies had no impact on gameplay because they provided no threat and were so easily disposed of that they were usually lined up in rows of ten to even make them noticeable. Bosses had copy-pasted attack patterns after the first few unique ones, and I don’t believe I was hit by a boss enemy in the entire game because they were so brainless to fight against.
Storywise it feels like a Deviantart fanfiction, with your avatar character, the Rookie, being Sonic’s best buddy, and the primary antagonist Infinite managing to put Shadow to shame in the edge department. The whole story happens because Shadow calls Infinite pathetic, and this somehow results in an attempt to crash the sun into the planet after attaining a reality warping power called the Phantom Ruby with Dr. Robotnik’s help. Out of all of this, though, the music is definitely the worst part. Sonic games have always had such fantastic music, but the only track I enjoyed in the whole game was remixed Sonic Adventure 2 song, with the rest of the soundtrack feeling like a child banging on a Casio keyboard while using the “ambulance” instrument. How can you mess up the one thing all Sonic games are known for accomplishing well?
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This was the "hardest" section in the entire game for me. I mean that with all of my heart.
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Despite all of these things, I can’t say that it’s truly a bad game. It functions and everything fits together, the cheesy Deviantart story meshing well with the simplistic boost right or forward gameplay. Hell, like I mentioned, despite the lack of momentum and terrible control over your jumps, the game was obviously designed to function with these issues. When they give you problems it’s annoying, but they don’t crop up often enough to be a huge issue. The Avatar creation, while heavily limited in the scope you could change the actual model, had plenty of clothing customization, which I was actually surprised by. Forces isn’t a bad game. It’s just a boring one. If you want something a little more exciting, I’d suggest...
After talking about all these platforming games, Resident Evil 7 is a great mix-up to discuss. Understandably I met the change to a first person perspective with heavy skepticism, especially after 6’s passionate embrace with the action aspects of Resident Evil, something I expected 7 to carry to heart a little too much. I’m happy to say that the transition to a FPS format went better than I could’ve ever expected, with RE7 being properly spooky for a major portion.
RE7 starts out slow and then ramps up the intensity quickly. Mia’s section has some bits I could’ve done without and was a exceptionally obvious with scene triggers and jump scares, but it quickly rights itself after a pretty dope boss fight. After that beginning section, the game starts properly, and truly shines during the section inside the main house. Jack stalks you throughout the corridors of the building, with plenty of tricks available to get past him, but thankfully you can’t ever hide from him. This isn’t Outlast, where your answer is “get inside a locker for the forty-fifth time”, which is just mindbogglingly boring. RE7 will let you hide just long enough to find an opening, but if you stay still for very long, Jack will find you. Despite knowing Jack could lurk around every corner, I found myself genuinely not wanting to enter areas like the basement, even though the molded themselves weren’t that frightening. Environments were dim, claustrophobic, and had plenty of corners to cultivate that sense of dread inside the pit of your stomach, because you knew enemies were somewhere.
The middle section with Marguerite is still solid, though not as exciting as the beginning, as she patrols a rather limited section of the already small area and her bugs are mostly just annoyances. Marguerite as a boss is fantastic, though, and probably the best base-game boss fight, with plenty of challenge and she manages to be properly disgusting in just about every possible way. Lucas’ section turns up your paranoia factor in a decent twist on survival horror as a concept, with booby traps and enemies lurking in every nook and cranny. Hidden codes and puzzles change up the pace somewhat, a refreshing reprieve after so many dark spaces full of molded, something I appreciated by that point in my playthrough.
Gameplay notably creeps a bit further towards action by this point, though, and most of the boat section afterward feels like a slightly spooky James Bond film minus the short bits where you are completely defenseless. The mine sequence and ending of the game complete the action-ization. By this point you’ve seen it all and aren’t really scared of anything RE7 can throw at you, though, so the higher focus on action felt appropriate and didn’t detract from the earlier experiences at all. Final boss curse returns in RE7 and manages to produce what I think is possibly the worst boss I encountered the entire year. Luckily, like Breath of the Wild, DLC lends a helping hand to make the game feel a little more complete, with Not A Hero adding a sensible prologue with a fantastic boss fight. End Of Zoe is a little more...nonsensical but a blast to play and keeps the cheese level right in line with some of the previous Resident Evil dairy content while introducing a second final boss type enemy that helps remedy the trash one in the base game.
It’s not perfect by any means, but I enjoyed Resident Evil 7 immensely. I wish the game had more sections that captured the feeling you have during the first main house segment with Jack chasing you around, but the game captures something so hard to do so well in the first place that I can’t be too upset. I could see RE8 being an absolute mastapiece, just like the next game, if it’s built off of this game properly...
I read the books and everything else I could about them, but I never got to play the Resident Evil series until 4 came out on the Gamecube. My interest was spurred by my good buddy Devin into keeping up with the series despite my inability to play them (protective parents of mine didn’t think the novelization counted as graphic, I guess). Since 4 came out I had followed it up with playing 5, 6, and as I’ll get to shortly, 7 - but I never played the first 3 or 0/Code Veronica. I decided to start remedying that fact with REmake, as it had been rereleased on modern consoles recently and that seemed to be the perfect time.
REmake has been praised as much as it has for good reason. The only complaint I ended up having about the game was the difficulty selection, with the rerelease having three total difficulties, “like climbing a mountain”, “like riding a bike”, and “like walking”. You would think these were “hard, normal, and easy”, but apparently they’re “normal, easy, and very easy.” I didn’t find this out until I was a decent way into the game and it was mildly annoying since I had picked what I thought was normal, but in all honesty, the game was still pretty challenging on easy. Difficulty also had nothing to do with the often complained about tank controls and camera angles, which posed no issue at all, even as player new to that control scheme. Sure, it took a little getting used to, but what new control scheme doesn’t?
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Your best friend is your hearing, but even that won't save you when you open a door to this greeting.
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REmake is somewhat like if you had the atmosphere from the main house section of RE7, but it never fades away until the finale of the game. Tight corridors and well-positioned enemies make it tough to avoid encounters despite the necessity to conserve your ammo and more importantly, your health. While there’s no primary antagonist stalking you through most of the game (Lisa Trevor says hello), there’s always the threat of a Crimson Head rising in any room that you don’t headshot or burn a zombie’s corpse, and those are much worse. Nothing induces panic more than realizing that body is no longer prone and is already launching itself at you while you have a dinky pistol in your hands instead of the shotgun you probably should have been carrying.
Spencer Mansion, where you spend most of your time, is confusing at first but the layout quickly becomes second nature as you progress. You begin to feel a little safer - that is, until they drop the Hunters. Hunters viciously hunt you down and repopulate rooms you once cleared, returning the mansion to that state of mystery and previous uncertainty in such a devious, clever way. They’re probably the most frightening enemy in the game, and often you’ll find your head is missing before you even realize what just happened. Once you solve the puzzles and manage your way through the mansion and its outer areas, you finally reach the end. Only after activating a self-destruction sequence does the game shed its eerie ambiance for rushed, action-y feel, with one final adrenaline rush pushing you to escape the hell you’ve been trapped inside of. The Tyrant is a wonderful final boss and is a great cap on the top of fantastic experience, a boss fight that requires you to use those evading skills you learned to survive long enough to finish him off with the heaven-sent rocket launcher.
After finishing the game, REmake left me feeling that everyone should give it an honest shake at least once. There’s not many comparable experiences to a truly great horror game, and horror movies always lack any real scares. Only the tenseness of having to deal with those situations yourself, even if virtually, can give you that pure feeling of desperation, and Resident Evil: Remake delivers on that masterfully. I can only hope that REmake 2 actually comes out, because I know a sequel to the next game isn’t going to happen...
Boy does that make me sad, too. I adore the Deus Ex. The original is one of my favorite games of all time, and I haven’t had a game reach its level in quite a while. Mankind Divided is the 4th game in the Deus Ex lineup, a direct sequel to the prequel of the whole series, Human Revolution. Adam Jensen remains the protagonist, and you follow him through another of his conspiracy-laden adventures in augmentations, stealth, and murder.
Similar to Human Revolution, Mankind Divided is attempting to fill a massive pair of shoes and it doesn’t quite hit that mark. This isn’t to say that it’s a bad game, or that it’s not worth your time, because I certainly enjoyed it enough to think that is is. Gameplay is crisp, with augmentations having some more variety and interesting concepts than they have in past games, including reactive armor and a Mario-esque ground pound. While the choices and routes you can make during that gameplay are definitely simplified versus Deus Ex original, they’re a solid step up from Human Revolution’s “there’s a vent that follows the same direction as the rooms do”.
Enemies are responsive and can see you more easily than you often expect, especially versus the aerial bots, pushing stealth higher in value and more difficult to pull off. At the same time, new, more offensively useful augs allow you to fight against those crowds of enemies when you are found out or if you just don’t feel like using stealth to sneak around. Mankind Divided brings plenty of good to the table, and the parts it falls short on are mostly story based. The only real gameplay issue is how much the invisibility aug trivializes encounters, but it’s entirely optional and can be avoided. Since Deus Ex original had such a fantastic story with precise attention to details the flaws falling on the story side is definitely a disappointment, but as a game, it’s a pretty good time. Especially if you like stealth games.
Those shortcomings in story are at least partially influenced by greed, too. Mankind Divided was supposed to be part of a trilogy that will now never happen due to relatively poor sales. I don’t blame people for not buying into this game, either, as it had such a horrible preorder fiasco that even I waited until it was heavily discounted to purchase it months after release. The sad fact is, though, that a trilogy story was what this game was building towards, and leaves it feeling localized and unfinished, leading into a disappointing ending. This might not be so bad in another series, having a game that’s self-contained and doesn’t follow some grand globe-trotting scheme, but Deus Ex has always been about worldwide conspiracies. Having a game follow a single conspiracy about a train station bombing in a series that normally has such a huge scope feels disappointing. I’m sure it was going to lead somewhere eventually, but it shouldn’t have had to - video games aren’t movies, try as some devs might, and I want a total experience in one game.
Mankind Divided is cheap now, and often goes on sale for even cheaper. I’d recommend picking it up if you enjoy cyberpunk and stealth-style gameplay. The DLC is also worth a play if you can get it cheap, but it’s nothing mindblowing. It’s only a shame that corporate greed managed to not only strip the story but also ruin the sales and doom one of my favorite video game series to, at least for now, a coffin. Fortunately, the next game I’m talking about will probably last forever and I already know the series is getting another game...
Ah, Pokèmon. Definitely a mainstay in my life, and even that’s certainly an understatement. I’ve grown up beside the games and they’ve been there in pretty much every step of my life, cultivating and growing friendships I could never replace and for that I am beyond thankful. My relationship with the series is love (and hate) due to the rollercoaster ride of clever AND moronic changes Game Freak loves to make in each iteration. Ultra Moon is sensibly the latest in my Pokèmon journey since it’s the most recent release, and brings its own positives and negatives.
On the simple end, Ultra Moon wasn’t the Black and White 2 style sequel release that I had hoped it would end up being. Fortunately, it did bring some fresh content to the table and had some changes that I’d love to see come back in the future. Having Move Tutors available early and adding to that as you progress through the main storyline was wonderful, allowing shallow natural movepools to grow in variety with some effort on your part. Every improved release has always added Pokèmon to areas within the games, but this one felt like it had some truly standout additions like Larvitar and Zorua that usually aren’t available early enough to consider using in a main playthrough without breeding or other preparations. Adding new Pokèmon entirely, even with as few as there are, was a huge plus as well, especially since one of them is one my new favorites of all time (shoutouts to Naganadel). Minigames like Mantine Surfing and the new photo booth mechanics were certainly fun to mess around with even if they didn’t have much depth.
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The lack of depth didn't stop me from Mantine Surfing for the fun of it, that's for sure.
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Side quests were featured in a more significant way, with more variety and quantity than any other Pokèmon game. Each generally featured battles, but had their own stories and even varied in length and style, ranging from spooks to humor. Quests like these kept my main playthrough fresh, especially given one of my main misgivings with the game, the retread of the first Sun and Moon’s ground. Since it does retread so much ground that Sun and Moon originally laid out, it definitely makes the game boring at times, since I had already played the first iterations. Thankfully they took some of the fan complaints to heart, shortening the intro tutorial, improving some characters, like Hau’s, storylines, and changing up some of the longer cutscenes and totem fights. The extra storyline with Rainbow Rocket was also a fantastic addition, and was some of the better post game content available in the entire series, with plenty of battles and Mewtwo-using Giovanni finale to finish it all off.
Multiplayer-wise, Ultra Moon came with some surprisingly hefty wrenches to throw in the well-oiled machine. Naganadel the bee-dragon was hit with one of the fastest banhammers in the Smogon OU tier I’ve ever seen, rivaled only by Pokèmon like Marshadow. Stakataka, a literal wall with thousands of eyes, is one of the best Pokèmon to take advantage of Trick Room in the history of the entire series. Ultra-Necrozma is one of my favorite form changes and made me feel like a kid again when I saw it ingame, with the massive upside of being absolutely busted. The biggest and best impact, though, was Defog being reintroduced as a move tutor. Stealth Rocks is the worst thing about Pokèmon, and as Bug-type lover, I’ve been asking for a nerf to it for years. While this isn’t a direct nerf, it’s the closest Game Freak has ever come to doing so, and for that I’m truly grateful.
Generally, if you haven’t played Sun and Moon, I’d say the Ultra versions would be a great place to get back into the series and to pick them up over the originals for sure. They improve upon them in a multitude of ways and are just better, and I’d go so far as to say that Ultra Moon could be one of my top 3 favorite Pokèmon games if I hadn’t essentially played them already, and I still had a great time with it overall. If you aren’t a diehard Pokèmon fan and have played the originals I would recommend skipping out on this one as while it does a lot of new things, a lot of it will leave you feeling like you didn’t buy anything new. If you wanted to buy a rerelease, I’d recommend the next game...
I have little experience in the Metroid series despite being such a huge Nintendo fan, and Samus Returns is the first Metroid I’ve played in its entirety. I’ve started a few others but never finished them due to a period of my life where I had a hard time finding drive to finish games, but that part’s over now. Samus Returns was a great first foray into the series for me, and bolstered my resolve to go back and finish those Metroid games that I started and never finished.
The game looks fantastic for a 3DS game, and they didn’t ruin everything by zooming the camera in too far, an issue that honestly worried me after testing the original’s resolution. Music is fantastic, atmospheric synth-tracks hammering home the alien environment and the odd native life you find yourself combating. You find yourself progressing like any other typical metroidvania, occasionally finding roadblocks that require adding a new tool to your repertoire to remove. Samus Returns features a twist on that formula by requiring you to hunt down the rampant Metroids to unlock entirely different areas, breaking up the “find the next upgrade” goal a bit and giving you more things to be looking for as you explore the world. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about how all but three of the bosses are similar, but there’s five major variations of Metroid with a few minor ones as well, so I never ended up feeling that there was any real issue aside from all of them looking similar. Different forms and attack patterns were also mixed together in later areas as more diverse versions were introduced to keep it from getting stale, something I appreciated.
Upgrades that you find throughout typically find continued use, with items like the grappling hook, morph ball, and ice beam remaining necessary until you finish the game. You find abilities powered by a mysterious power source called Aeion that allow you to perform things like scanning your nearby location for breakable blocks and hidden items like missile tank upgrades, adding more ways to exploit your environment than what could be broken down to “shoot or roll”. Samus Returns also introduced a counter system, where properly timing a melee strike during an opponent’s attack would stumble them and cause vulnerability. The counter system wasn’t necessary in a lot of cases, but felt fantastic to pull off, and rewarded you handsomely with energy and weapon refills if you pulled them off in a boss fight. None of your abilities ever ended up feeling useless, and some felt downright broken, Screw Attack being the GOAT until the final boss.
Samus Returns was a fun metroidvania and I’d recommend it as a entry into the Metroid series, especially with tools like Aeion Scan to help you figure out some of the other tricks the rest of the series will throw at you. It’s challenging but decently forgiving, and a good way to get your feet wet. Plenty of game is offered for the 3DS price tag, and it’s worth every penny. Something else cheap with plenty of content for it could be the next game...
LEGO games are those games that you expect to be absolute trash if you’ve never played them, particularly if you’re like me and expect shlock from licensed titles. Various LEGO games I’ve played, though, managed to buck that trend by a startling amount. You get what you expect based on the tin - button mashing action games with minor cases of platforming. Enemies are thrown at you in boatloads and they’re just there for you to slice and blast through to your heart’s content. LEGO games are simple, sure, but every piece generally works and gameplay is competent with a style that’s best enjoyed with some good old fashioned couch co-op.
LEGO SW: TCS offers up campaigns loosely covering the original and prequel trilogies, so you get plenty of content to run through. Prequel stories are typically shorter and a little rougher around the edges but aren’t particularly bad, with the classic trilogy rightfully being a more complete experience in most cases. Controls are straightforward and function well, with an almost overwhelming amount of auto-aim provided to ensure you don’t miss. You probably won’t experience a struggle while playing through ninety percent of the game, and while LEGO Star Wars is as easy as easy can get, it’s enjoyable enough.
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Now THIS makes me want to crash into a wall at high speed! I mean, uh, this is pod racing.
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That other ten percent, though, is vehicle levels. Vehicle levels combine incredibly fast movement in miniature spaces with the handling of a bar of soap on a buttered hardwood floor. You’ll crash a lot, and most of these levels them require you to lock onto objects with homing missiles that will happily miss if you coast a bit past your target, something that’s deceptively easy to do with how fast you can go with almost no real world input. No level compares to the pod race, though. A special kind of evil made that level. I have no words to put it into, and although it may have just been my brother and I being big dumb idiots, that race...it scares me.
LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga is a good time. If you’re looking for couch co-op, it’s a wonderful option. Except for the pod race. Since it’s an older game it’s dirt cheap, and if you just want simplicity with a bit of fun it’ll bring it in spades. If you want something more complex, try out the next title...
I had played Terraria before, but I ended up playing through it again this year after the new updates with some different buddies. Terraria drops you in a world that seems deceptively simple at first, but rapidly ramps its complexity up as you progress. It’s a Minecraft-esque 2D game with the ability to harvest materials and use those to craft better tools to harvest higher grade items ad infinitum. There’s a lot of content in the worlds you explore, and it can get to levels that are almost overwhelming.
Each higher grade material seems to open the door to three or four more new materials. Shortly after you start, the game starts throwing bosses at you with unique drops and even rarer components that are necessary for your next step in produciton. You’ll find dungeons ranging from just barely big enough to hold a chest to those that take up the entirety of a biome, each packed with new enemies, bosses, and tools to add to your belt. When you’re not exploring you can spend time building homes for the shopkeepers and other NPCs that will help you if you lend them some space, and don’t forget to set yourself up with someplace nice to house your crafting stations and respawn point. Goblin or pirate raids will invade your territory, and highly difficult enemy-rush events can be called upon to hunt for Halloween or Christmas themed loot. Bosses end up becoming gatekeepers to world-shifting events that might add new areas and enemies as you continue to advance throughout the tiers of material you’re working with at that point. Terraria is a game that has no shortage of tasks to do, and you’ll be busy for a good while trying to accomplish everything.
The worst part about Terraria is unquestionably RNG. Sometimes you’ll spend what feels like years to get the drops required to craft an event spawning item, only to have the object of your desires not drop anyway. Terraria also suffers somewhat from being a game entirely about choice and your own personal drive, as it doesn’t point you in any specific direction other than the occasional boss that requires defeating to progress to the next set of upgrades. If you lose interest or don’t stumble upon the correct gear, you can feel like you’re doing a whole lot of nothing. Fortunately, with so much to do, I found myself circumventing fatigue by changing gears often and focusing on the different tasks and goals I could set myself.
Terraria is a game best enjoyed with friends in the end, and is easy to get lost in if you’ve got on of those personalities where you just want to explore every nook and cranny. If you like hunting for the satisfaction of getting that next upgrade and improving yourself to take on greater tasks, you’ll get a massive time sink to put that kind of drive into. It’s also cheap and available on plenty of platforms. If that’s not your style and something more streamlined is your thing, you’d probably like something more along the lines of...
What’s a Zelda title doing all the way down here? It’s taking a backseat to Breath of the Wild for one thing, and also managed to be another one of those sneaky games that snuck into my played-list this year despite having been previously completed. Granted, it is a HD remaster that manages to fix some of the drab and poor textures of the original Twilight Princess, and tone the bloom to a much more acceptable level. Minor gameplay changes and fixes are also present. Nothing major is changed, but these small boosts definitely made my replay of this beloved Zelda title much more visually appealing and less frustrating.
Twilight Princess is one of those Zelda games that struggles to find its own place in the series. Ocarina of Time is so heavily drawn from for its inspiration to the point that it feels more like Ocarina of Time 2 instead of a standalone Zelda title, but it does bring a bit of its own flavor to the mix. Positives start with the quest to learn various sword techniques, a mostly optional sidequest where you hunt down (big surprise) Ocarina of Time Link’s shade and have him teach you tricks to implement in battle. These abilities are all surprisingly useful, and are infinitely more balanced than Wind Waker’s parry system. Dungons in Twilight Princess are also stellar, with two of my favorite dungeons in the whole series originating from this title. Arbiter’s Grounds is thematically wonderful and has one of the coolest minibosses of all Zeldas. Snowpeak Ruins hosts a unique layout where they designed an exaggerated but otherwise feasible floor plan for a house, and then turned those rooms into a dungeon that sensibly connections to each other. Twilight Princess also brought back bomb arrows, a concept I wish the developers would’ve toyed around with more. I legitimately want future Zelda games to feature unique combinations of items, since that could be a great way to make old items useful again.
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Character design in Twilight Princess occasionally leaves something to be desired.
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Speaking of making old items useful again, Twilight Princess has a fantastic problem where it absolutely refuses to do that beyond the series staples like Clawshots, Gale Boomerang, and Bow. New tools like the Dominion Rod and Spinner that were interesting concept wise are dropped almost immediately after usage in their own dungeon, only returning for an occasional overworld chest or minor quest. Wolf Link is also woefully underused for being one of the major features of the game, and never grows or improves throughout your gameplay like regular Link does. By the end of the game you’ll find yourself using new tricks and tools to defeat stronger enemies and accomplish new goals...unless you’re in Wolf form, where you’ll just end up using the same abilities you had at the very start. If Wolf Link could’ve had more gameplay improvements and changes I think it could’ve been something pretty special, and they could’ve tied Midna’s fist-hair to many of those would-be attacks and abilities. This would’ve made her feel more impactful in combat and hopefully prevent combat in wolf form from degrading to “hold AOE attack button, release to win”.
Twilight Princess never manages to find its own identity for me, and honestly seems to shirk some of the new ideas it had a real chance to make work. Despite that, though, if you enjoyed Ocarina of Time, you’ll probably enjoy it. With a few of the most enjoyable dungeons and some of the best combat gameplay in the series, especially if you take the time to find all of the sword techniques, it’s a solid Zelda and definitely offers some great upsides. If you’re a Zelda fan and haven’t played it, Twilight Princess is a great stop to make in your trip. In terms of other games you should make sure to give a try if you generally love video games...
“But Gary”, you say, “I thought you were done talking about platformers”. Well, yeah, I was, but Banjo Kazooie is a collectathon with platforming elements. Banjo Kazooie is one of those rare games that gets seemingly universal appreciation and it’s not without merit. Crafted by golden era Rare, the title shines in a way many collectathons of that time period and even today fail miserably to emulate.
Banjo Kazooie manages to revolve around collecting with almost everything, even bosses, involving collecting an item or object in some form. Jiggies are the most obvious collectable and the goal of the game, each successfully collected Jiggy getting you one step closer to reaching the end of the game. They’re gated behind a variety of different challenges ranging from bosses to timed puzzles, and Rare even managed to squeeze hidden switches and a massive array of minigames in there. Music notes, Mumbo tokens, and new abilities function in a similar fashion, each one allowing you access to previously inaccessible areas in some way to continue your Jiggy search.
Through all of these items to collect, Banjo Kazooie manages to stay fresh and consistent in its rules. Mumbo powers and Bottles’ new attacks provide new ways to explore the environments and while Mumbo’s transformations are locked to their own world, additional abilities like flying and invincibility remain useful for the entirety of the story. The only real issue with Banjo Kazooie is how clunky combat can be, most attacks having horrible range, slowing you down too much, or both. This leaves you with a few mainstay attacks that have any real use, but they function well enough to get you through without much issue and most fights are avoidable anyway.
Music in Banjo is particularly special. While its style is whimsical and fitting for the game’s worlds, it’s not the songs themselves that are special as much as it is the execution. As you traverse landscapes and come across different areas or enemies of note, the themes of a world will subtly switch to have different instruments, effects, and tones. Worlds feel a little bigger due to this, each subsection feeling special and notable due to having their own version of the map’s overall theme. Such a simple change in atmosphere really makes Banjo Kazooie feel like it had a ton of love and care put into it, and that’s definitely, for me, a huge part of why it’s so enjoyable to explore each locale.
Banjo Kazooie is one of those games that should be played by everyone. It’s the Ocarina of Time of 3D collectahons, and there’s a reason so many games try to emulate it to this very day. If you’ve never played it before, I’d suggest fixing that. Regret would be something best left to name Prophets a certain sci-fi series...
Halo Wars 2 was a game I never thought would be made after the disbanding of Ensemble Studios into a supporting role instead of a developmental one. When it was shown at E3 I was beyond surprised and excited to play another Halo RTS! I’ve always been a fan of the RTS genre, the concept fascinating me since I tried Starcraft for the first time, and Halo is one of my favorite series in sci-fi flavor. I had a lot of hope riding on this title, and Halo Wars 2 didn’t let me down.
Halo Wars 2 does a lot of things right with the formula. Blur was brought back to do their fantastic work on the cutscenes which ended up even more gorgeous than their predecessor’s, and despite quality gameplay, they’re definitely the best part of the whole game. Even though I primarily played on PC, the console version’s controls are improved with new shortcuts for selecting various amounts of units and bases, and makes it shine as an example that RTS titles can definitely work on console. Brutes return to the front and are more in line with how they should be, not the naked, nerfed apes they ended up being in Halo 3. They’re the main antagonist you face through the title of the Banished, a nice departure from the standard Covenant coming back again. Multiplayer-wise, alternative units for both alien and UNSC add interesting new gameplay options, and while I wish they had only added new units rather than replace some of them, they all fill specific enough roles. There’s a much greater variety than in the first game, allowing for many additional strategies, especially with the surplus of Leaders to choose from.
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Seriously, the cutscenes are absolutely stunning.
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What HW2 does wrong isn’t anything egregious, but there are a few problems. The Banished faction is an interesting enemy, although they seem to fail to convey how terrifying they’re supposed to be outside of the early cutscenes. Missions seemed to go swimmingly afterward and the UNSC seemed a little too “lucky” for the Banished to feel as powerful as they should have felt. Another issue crops up in multiplayer with the leader system - they’re all meant to be different, with a one or two unique units and a wheel of leader powers you can use to influence the battlefield in different ways. After you get past the units, though, most of the leader’s abilities feel largely similar and there’s a whopping 16 leaders compared to Halo Wars 1’s 6. It honestly felt like a waste to spread out what powers did feel unique across so many leaders and leave them all feeling a bit bland compared to how unique the 6 in Halo Wars felt. Most of these leaders were DLC, too, so I’d be wrong if I didn’t admit that the season pass left me feeling ripped off. Especially since they announced a tower defense DLC separate from the season pass that I would’ve much rather had over any or even all of the leaders.
Halo Wars 2 may not have a season pass worth much, but I think the base game is. I certainly enjoyed the story despite its flaws, and will probably end up playing through it again sometime. If you enjoy RTS games or the Halo series, I think it’s worth your time and think you should give it a shot. If real time strategy isn’t your thing and you’re more a FPS type, the next title might already be something you’ve enjoyed...
Borderlands is a game about lootin’ and shootin’. Lots of it. Another game best enjoyed with co-op, Borderlands was a game I played through with some of my best buds (bestest cakebois). It’s a solid time, with a lot of features from various genres packed into one in a way that makes it feel a bit different from anything I’ve ever played. Despite the similarities it shares with many games, Borderlands manages to do it’s own thing and I appreciate that.
Looting was fun with the major focus being on new guns to utilize, and the game certainly provides enough weaponry to find. I found myself swapping to newer weapons often, each offering different elemental bonuses or firing modes. You constantly stumble into something exciting to try, which was a fun way to keep missions interesting. Missions were also plentiful, although most bordered on the murderous equivalent of a fetch quest, something a FPS-focus game can’t help too much. Story-wise it was fine, but the end boss was an awesome surprise and completely different from any other encounter in the game, even if it was easier than it should’ve been. Borderland’s biggest boon was definitively the co-op, though. I would have probably had a decent time with the game solo, but I dunno if it would’ve been enough to keep me playing.
Most of Borderlands is perfectly serviceable, but I had one huge issue with the classes. I can only speak from experience with the Siren class, but I do know each character comes with one ability that has a cooldown ranging from 30ish to 100 seconds. They’re certainly interesting, and that cooldown can be reduced somewhat, but I can’t help but wish that you could’ve have used them more often and mixed them in more naturally with the gunplay. Each has a skill tree to go with these abilities that introduce passives or extra elements to this skill or their gunplay, but these feel almost impact-less compared to the main skill. Borderland’s FPS mechanics aren’t terrible by any means, but they’re definitely not enough to coast along on.
Borderlands accomplishes what it sets out to do well enough, and gives you a different experience than most shooters can. If you can experience Borderlands with friends, do it. If you can’t, give it a try, but I wouldn’t blame you if it didn’t stick out to you when played that way. I’ve also started the second Borderlands, but haven’t managed to finish it enough to give it a review in the “2017 sector”, so I guess you’ll just have to wait until next time...
After a month and a few weeks of writing as often as my brain could think of words to put down, I’ve reached the end, and so have you. Thanks for spending time reading this massive outpouring of words (fourteen thousand nine hundred and eighty seven words, in fact), even if you skipped around the text at a whim. It makes it all worthwhile, even if I feel that a lot of games didn’t get the full review they should have gotten. I don’t have a perfect memory, after all, and some games I forgot I had played until I did some research using achievements and release dates. Some games I just didn’t have as much to speak about, which is sensible. Some games didn’t even get reviewed, like Pokèmon Gold’s VC rerelease and Pokkèn Tournament’s DX release, due to me just having...nothing to say at all. I pushed myself to write when I didn’t want to just to get it done, something I think shows in some of the reviews I’ve written. All of these combined with my late decision to undertake this task, starting in late December, results in some of my reviews feeling a bit lackluster.
This year I plan on doing better, writing soon after finishing or having had enough playtime to feel like I can properly discuss a title. Doing so should hopefully result in more coherence and each game getting a bigger spotlight! I’ve not decided on how to release them, though I considered doing a collection every three months to make my writing more digestible while still having a decent chunk of content. I think that could work, if that sounds appealing to any of you who read through this load of T R A S H.
Anyway, thanks for reading. I look forward to writing some more about this years titles, and to all of the new games I’ll experience. Play some video games yourself, some of my recommendations if any of them tickle your fancy. Peace.
