I played and beat Knack last night. I know it has had mixed reviews, but I thought it was a decent game. I'm not sure what the public opinion on the sequel is, buti plan to play it sometime this weekend.
Farpoint (PS4/VR) - A Sci-fi themed FPS, where you're out to find your way off an alien planet after crash landing.
As a VR Experience: The few times you rode in a suttle (such as the opening scene where you were flying around a space station, plus the following crash landing) were really cool. The way the jumping spider enemies (the first enemy type you encounter) move is just right enough that they creep out your subconscious and make you jump everytime you encounter them (at least for the first few hours), and the sense of scale during the game's one boss encounter is truly mesmerizing. There is one stealth section that is pretty intense as well, as you'll constantly be looking over your shoulder to make sure a drone isn't swooping down from behind as you hightail it to the next area of cover. However, while there are a few interesting setpieces, most of the game takes place in a sort of canyony desert theme, and while I suppose it makes decent use of the depth effect, it's not a particularly interesting place to be, though a couple of later missions shake things up a bit. Oh, and there are also video logs (at the end of most missions) that make good use of the effect as well.
As a game: It's a pretty standard FPS. Kill things in a larger area, settle down as you walk along the path where you're either treated to a hologram that moves the story along, a setpiece, and or maybe a jumpscare ambush by one or two enemies, before coming to the next open area where you'll fight another large group of enemies, rinse & repeat (later levels tend to have less downtime with more constant large enemy encounters, but I honestly preferred the balance of the early game). It's not particularly great as a game, but they regularly introduce new enemy types & weapons so things never get boring (your gun is tied to the motion of your controller, so you physically have to look down the sight correctly in order to accurately shoot anything, which you'll know you're doing correctly when you see a lazer sight in the middle of your reticule, which is pretty cool). The main story has 8 missions which on average are an hour long each (at least for me), plus there is a challenge mode that sees you tackling the story missions in a time trial like environment, standard online multiplayer, plus a co-op mode of some sort (I assume online for that as well). I wasn't a big fan of how the story ended up, though.
Just finished Deltarune Chapter 1. It was... alright. Definitely a good time for a free game. I wasn't hugely impressed, though. The world that was introduced just wasn't developed enough to give it a sense of character. Most of the new characters, outside of Susie, weren't terribly memorable. Making the sparing mechanic a constant part of the plot itself takes away from the subversion of typical JRPG tropes and the personal responsibility the player felt for behaving like they would in any other game (what unspoiled player didn't initially kill Toriel, only to feel a gut-wrenching sense of guilt when they realized what they had done?). Figuring out how to negotiate enemies out of a battle is still cute and fun, but it's too reminiscent of Undertale's system, and there's nothing quite as memorable as, say, getting the two guards to realize their love for one-another (was very happy to see them later in the game!). And the way you interact with Lancer is far too similar to initial run-ins with Sans and Papyrus in Undertale. It was very Undertale-lite. Diet Undertale.
With that said, I didn't dislike my time with it. I thought Susie's primary character arc was reasonably well-executed, even if it was a bit rushed. The game is still filled with the sort of wonderful humor that was so charming in the original Undertale. I also like how you gain TP when enemy attacks come close without actually damaging you, and there's an interesting risk/reward mechanic there. And the end of the game, where you get to travel around your home town and talk to the townsfolk, many of who return from the original game, was a lot of fun, and helped showcase the great character writing that is clearly the developer's specialty.
Also really liked the creepy cliffhanger at the very end.
If the rest of it was eventually released as a full game, I'd absolutely purchase, play, and enjoy my time with it. But I do feel like it needs to do more to distinguish itself from its predecessor.
I just finished Lifeless Planet, which I picked up on sale. Overall, it's not the best game in the world by any means, but I think it was pretty solid. It didn't review super well, so I have to say I was pleasantly surprised compared to what I expected. It got a 5/10 on this site, and while I can kind of agree with the reviewer's gripes, for me that stuff didn't matter that much. I'd probably give it a slightly-better 6 or 6.5 out of 10 (maybe 7 if I was feeling particularly generous).
The main issue for me was the slightly clunky jumping mechanics. Most of the game did not really require precise platforming, but there was a section or two that did, and it got a little frustrating. I get that you're in space, so the jumping should have some float to it, but I found it kind of hard to accurately judge your jump distance, and many times I actually landed on the intended platform, only to weirdly slide off because I ended up a bit too close to the edge.
Other than that, the story was good in general, though it has some weaknesses if you really start to think about it. The character model for the astronaut (the main character) was good, but the model for the other main character you frequently run into looks off. The environments were pretty nice, and I really enjoyed exploring them. Overall, I'm glad I did not buy this game at full price (I would not recommend it at that price point), but on sale for 50% or more off, it might be worth a shot if you enjoy exploration/walking sim/light puzzle & platform types of games.
Just finished cuphead on my first play through. Moments where i loved the game and moments where I wanted to delete it from my home page😉. But it all seriousness it was probabaly the hardest game I've beaten(not just played for a little while and gave up ). Only ahead of zelda 2 and zelda 2 was tough as nails for me. I feel like there were some cheap shots in the level that were definitely designed to make you fail, or in other words, no matter if you jump, duck or dash you were bound to take a hit which is kind of frustrating considering you only have 3 hits( 4 with a charm).
Other than the cheap shots and the game just being hard as hell , I actually enjoyed it alot. Love the animation, the music, the sound effects and my favorite part was that cuphead and mugman shoot out of their fingers. As hard as the game was, that light hearted nature and comic relief helped alot. You can tell these guys put alot of thought and effort into making this game as unique as possible. If you're a fan of run n gun, or platforming, and don't mind dying over and over, give this game a shot. It's probably a top 15 game for me on switch, maybe top 10, but I'd have to think about it a little more. 8.5/10
What is it?: A remake of the N64 classic Star Fox 64 (which itself was a remake of the much more rudimentary SNES original).
Level of completion: Unlocked all the extra routes, levels, and events, so I've beaten pretty much the entire game. Did not get the highest score on every level, however.
What I liked:
The fun animated short that was included that functions as a prologue to the story in the game. It's not going to blow anyone away, but I always find cross-media storytelling techniques like this to be, if nothing else, quite interesting.
So, in this game, you have two viewpoints: one on the TV that's third-person and gives you a sense of where your ship is, like in a traditional Star Fox game, and then one on the GamePad that's in first-person. Aiming in this game is totally liberated from the manner in which you fly your ship, so you use gyro controls to aim your blaster. And, despite my significant misgivings with this dual-screen set-up, I'll say that I really found the gyro aiming to be responsive and fun to use. As always, Nintendo reveals themselves to be the masters of the effective use of motion controls in gaming.
Ditching single-screen gameplay allows you to pull off some interesting maneuvers, such as shooting at a target while flying away from it, for example. It also allows you to have interesting camera viewpoints in some of the huge boss battles, instead of the game forcing the camera to stay locked behind the Arwing the entire time.
Some of the unlockable content is interesting. For example, there's one level that you can go back to after you receive a certain upgrade to your Arwing, and you can unlock a level where you play as Peppy Hare and take on a gigantic enemy battleship by yourself. It's not the best thing ever, but stuff like this is fun. You can also unlock some extra matches against Star Wolf's crew.
What I disliked:
Oh boy...
So there are problems in virtually every area of this game. I'll just start with the dual-screen set-up, which is the most immediate and obvious issue with this game: the unwieldy dual-screen set-up. Maintaining a sense of awareness of both is crucial, considering aiming is far too imprecise on the TV, but you still need to reference it to make sure you're not into obstacles or whatnot. This makes it where your attention is constantly split between the two screens, which is pretty much constantly stressful, even after you learn to adapt to it somewhat. Unlike a game on the Nintendo DS, where the two screens are extremely close, you're having to look down in your hands to up at a TV, back and forth, as you play. It's extremely unpleasant. What this does is rob this rail shooter of the operational simplicity that is the biggest appeal and hallmark of the rail shooter in the first place. It inserts this big, middling control issue directly in-between you and the game, and even after you learn how to manage it enough to complete levels easily, it definitely saps most of the fun out of the experience. It's even worse in free-range levels, with a lot of movement and dodging, as with certain bosses, where I constantly felt like I was fighting the controls more than the enemy itself.
That's hardly the end of this game's issues, though. For one thing, it's incredibly derivative. A lot of the missions in this game are just straight up lifted, aesthetics and all, from Star Fox 64, and, unlike that game, it almost never successfully introduces new level designs or engaging mechanics. There's a sense of "been there, done that" the whole way through. It's incredibly uninspired.
When the game does attempt to do new things, it's pretty much always to its detriment. One area where this becomes especially clear is when the game introduces new vehicles to the mix. The worst of these is the Gyrowing, which is a clunky, difficult to control, and slow moving helicopter of sorts where you spend the majority of a level awkwardly navigating your way from one boring environmental puzzle to another. I'm not sure what the game is going for in these levels, but it's pretty much the opposite of what you'd want or expect from a high-speed space shooter. The walker (or, as I call it, the Star Chicken, because it looks disturbingly similar to a chicken) itself is a total nightmare to control, and any level that employees it heavily often sees me frequently crash into walls as I try to navigate the level geometry. The game pushes Star Chicken transformations in boss battles, but, more often than not, I find it to be such a hindrance that I'll opt for the Arwing even when its not suited for a level. This becomes especially the case in the obnoxious final boss encounter with Andross, where the challenge really comes from trying to juggle multiple different styles of control simultaneously to even do something as simple as move, aim at the boss, and shoot where you want. Apparently the Star Chicken was introduced in Star Fox 2 on the SNES, but, having never played that, I don't know if it's any more tolerable there.
Visually, the game is bland, and reminds me of what a launch GameCube game might look like upscaled to 720p. This is probably due to the game streaming two different views of the game at all times, which must be costly in terms of resource requirements. Of course, the game doesn't do nearly enough new stuff with this to justify moving away from the series' traditionally single-screen gameplay.
The narrative presentation is especially unambitious and does nothing that the original Star Fox 64 didn't already do decades ago. The music is serviceable, but the best tracks are all taken directly from SF64.It fails as a story, fails as a tech showcase, and even fails the basic test of being a fun, approachable rail shooter.
Final thoughts: Innovative in ways that didn't require innovation and unchanged in ways that make it feel stale, this game represents a solid backward step for the franchise as a whole. I really wanted to like it, but I just didn't. Definitely not the worst game ever made, but I do think it deserved to be savaged the way it did. This lack of polish is totally unacceptable for a major Nintendo property.
Just finished Zelda Breath of the Wild a second time (all Shrines, all Link's Memories, a bit more than 300 Korok Seeds and half of the Side Quests). Got to say the game's Hyrule Castle is one of the best dungeons of all Zelda dungeons.
Undergoing games:
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
Just finished yoshis crafted world. First yoshi game i ever finished and I shockingly loved it. More than I thought I would. Dont really feel like giving a full review but i loved it just as much Mario oddyssey in all honesty. Real talk 😊
It's a bit rough around the edges in spots due to age, but it honestly had me hooked & had me wanting to go back for more every time I had to put it down. It had a fantastic atmosphere (I actually really dug the detailed pre-rendered environments, and I felt that with few exceptions, they still looked pretty sharp, at least on my 32" 720p TV), while the combat wasn't flashy by today's standards I found encounters with regular enemies to be engaging, it was nice to break up the action with the light puzzling elements (really, I quite enjoyed the whole "Metroidvania" structure of the game itself), and while the story is pretty standard, playing it in Japanese (with subtitles) really helped to bring me into it, given the theme. The only disappointment was that, aside from a couple exceptions, I wasn't too fond of the bosses (this is where the aged camera work really came into play). Still, I didn't find any of them too troubling (the last two maybe, but I had managed to find all health upgrades & stockpile the best medicine, so I was able to power through them), so not much of an issue in the end.
Definitely worth a look if you haven't played it before, especially if you like "Metroidvanias".
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - Torna: The Golden Country
Platform: Nintendo Switch
What is it: An expansive DLC prequel to Xenoblade Chronicles 2. You play as Lora, an orphaned Driver who is searching for her mother alongside her two trusted Blade companions, Jin and Haze. Through circumstance, she becomes involved in a wider-scale quest to help save civilization from a legendary Blade called Malos who is intent on wiping out human life.
Level of completion: The entirety of the main plot alongside the vast majority of side-quests. By the end, I logged about 30 hours into the game.
Thoughts:
First, this game is an expansion in the truest sense. While the game's 25 - 30 hour play time (longer if you want to complete everything) is a fraction of the time it'll take you to beat the epic base game (XC2 took me 105 hours to complete, and that didn't include most of the game's side-content; it could potentially take hundreds of hours to see everything), it's still incredibly impressive for a DLC campaign and compares favorably to the playtime of most AAA retail releases. More crucially, the game mostly puts this playtime to good use, and I was enthralled by the story from beginning to end. In any other genre, this would be a full-fat retail game. This feeling of "fullness" extends to almost every aspect of the production.
Arguably the defining aspect of this DLC, and its most controversial feature, is the extreme degree to which it puts an emphasis on side-quests. The two explorable titans in this game (for those unacquainted with XC2, the landmasses in these games are enormous flying creatures called Titans) play host to a large number of characters, and the majority of them are unique, named people who you'll help over the course of the game. The focus on sidequests is so central that there are several times that the game will stop you from progressing the "main plot" until you've completed a certain number of them (this is framed as adding people to your community: helping people via side-quests will win them over to your 'side,' to to speak, and this is depicted in its own sub-menu as an expanding circle of trust). While this is seen as a crippling flaw by some people, it didn't bother me too much.
Speaking of side-quests... they're excellent here. This is easily the best set of side-quests I've encountered in any Xenoblade game to date. Almost every one is substantive to some degree, so there's almost nothing in the way of plain fetch quests here. I mean, you might have to go fetch something, but it's to do something, and it ties into a character's life, and it's incredibly well presented. Also really neat, given this game's focus on community and learning about the lives of others, is gradually figuring out how the people you encounter throughout the game are related. This is all done very organically, so you get a lot of moments where you're surprised by a connection you hadn't seen before. "Oh, so this person is behaving this way because of the person I encountered in a side-quest hours ago." It's very neat.
The battle system has been revamped and streamlined. While combat isn't quite as deep as it was in the base game, it also seems much more intuitive now. Battles are generally faster and more thrilling. There's a cool "tag" system where drivers and blades take turns actively battling with enemies. Their "swap arts" can have different effects (if you've inflicted "break" on any enemy, for example, main character Lora can swap with her Blade, Jin, who will topple the enemy, temporarily subduing them and setting them up for a longer driver combo). Swapping with a character, in a neat, Bloodborne-esque twist, can also help recover recently lost health, encouraging the player to continually cycle between blades and drivers to keep their health up and continually set up new combos, especially for chain attacks. It's all very dynamic.
The weird fanservice moments and more risque character designs from the base game seem to be almost entirely absent. I'm apathetic about this, but it might make some people happy (or, hell, disappointed).
The soundtrack is still high quality stuff, although a bit conservative insofar as it uses a lot of the music from the base game. Still, the new battle theme is positively sexy, and older Gormott has a fantastic remix for its theme.
Torna has seen some sort of change in its graphics engine that has resulted in somewhat more stable performance and a higher level of detail in environments. The game is simply stunning on the TV, and I didn't notice huge resolution and framerate dips when the game was docked. This, unfortunately, is not the case in handheld mode, but it still fares better than the base game when undocked: things could get fuzzy in the midst of really heated battles with multiple enemies and flashy skills going off, but I never noticed the game reducing itself to an impressionistic smear on the screen when just adventuring around a large environment, as happened to frequently in the XC2.
The structure of the game is sort of brilliant, and reminds me, in a way, of the classic Nintendo game "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask." As I mentioned before, a significant portion of the experience is structured around side-quests that allow you to help and befriend the people of (old) Gormott and Torna. The plot is also, as mentioned, building up to an incredibly tragic climax. As in Majora's Mask, it's a game where you continually insinuate yourself into the lives of people you know are soon going to have their worlds quite literally torn apart. This brings a sense of irony and sadness to even the game's silliest segments. The constant harmony between love and sadness, lighthearted reverie and crushing sadness help to give Torna: The Golden Country its very unique feel.
The final main story boss fight is more engaging than it was in the base game, and introduces a neat mechanic that helps boost the sense of urgency as you fight. And then the true final boss fight happens, and it helps bring closure to an element of the game you thought had been abandoned near the beginning. It also helps develop another aspect of the story that becomes more relevant in the base game.
Gort is actually a pretty good villain. Sometimes the most satisfying monsters to slay are the ones who live closest to home, as opposed to the ones who objectively pose the biggest threat.
Verdict: I loved everything about this game. This is the first Xenoblade game I can say I've well and truly fully enjoyed with almost no reservations about the game design. It simply excels on every level and, if it were longer, I would call it my favorite entry in the series. As it stands, I think it has to be considered alongside the base game it sprung from, which certainly elevates my already pretty high opinion of Xenoblade 2.
It does look pretty good visually, and the level variety is much better than 3D Land.
There are many creative ideas, such as the Super Mario Kart inspired level and the shadow play one, but to me the linear design just makes the game feel somewhat limited. The boss fights were also 'meh' to me.
The upbeat jazz soundtrack is really good and I enjoyed the cat suit upgrade (it's actually making an appearance in Super Mario Maker 2)
This blue eye perceives all things conjoined. The past, the future, and the present. Everything flows and all is connected. This eye is not merely seen reality. It is touching the truth. Open the eye of truth... There is nothing to fear.
Bravely Second: End Layer: I absolutely LOVED this game. While I wouldn't say that it's 100% essential to play Bravely Default first, it's a definite benefit; this game often references events in that game, particularly if you engage in the side quests. Two of the playable characters from the previous game also return as part of your party.
Positives
While the plot wasn't award-winning, it was definitely entertaining and well done overall. The nice thing about the Bravely series as a whole is that there isn't a lot of clear-cut good guy/bad guy, black/white scenarios. There are a ton of gray areas. The motives of those in the antagonistic faction, the Glanz Empire, in this game are explored quite well. I also love how they went into more detail about the events surrounding the Great Plague and what led up to it. The plot DOES get pretty weird near the end, but it's by no means bad.
Like the previous game, the main playable characters AND antagonists are fleshed out quite well. Reading their interactions, learning their likes and dislikes, their motives, and their eccentricities really turns them into more than just pretty faces. The side quests also serve to further expand upon some characters from Bravely Default as well.
The side quests themselves are, on the whole, well-written and entertaining in many cases. None of these are essential, but completing them will earn the player jobs that were available in the previous game.
Experimenting with jobs in this title is more fun (and easier, more on that in a sec) than ever. Many of the new jobs are fun and useful. A few jobs from the previous game are missing (I particularly miss Arcanist, but that combined with another job was borderline broken. XD), but the new jobs more than make up for that.
Combat is quite fun for a RPG and can be chained to make leveling the characters and their jobs much faster. The Brave and Default system is back and just as exploitable as ever, and the wild card that is Bravely Second also has its uses...particularly with bosses later in the game.
The musical score is quite a pleasure to listen to, and a couple of tunes jump immediately into my mind: Path to the Celestial Realm, Gathelatio's theme, and Tiz's theme.
This game, as well as its predecessor, is among the most visually pleasing on the Nintendo 3DS. Where the art really shines is when the player is in a city or another important area. Some of these assets are reused from the previous game, but great care was made to portray the vastness, majesty, or foreboding edifices of many areas of the game. This is truly one of those games where I think playing in 3D is to the player's benefit.
The fourth wall breaking. Hoooo boy, this game takes that to a whole new level.
Neutral
This game reuses many dungeons from Bravely Default, but most of these are completely avoidable if the player avoids side quests. Even so, there are items to gather here and, for Bestiary completionists, new monsters to beat up. The game does introduce some new dungeons.
Negative (These are more personal nitpicks than true negatives; clearly some will feel differently.)
I sort of feel like Yoko was shoehorned into the plot. Her backstory is interesting, sure, but I don't feel like she contributed very much overall other than some foreshadowing and her asterisk. The part where she appeared in the main plot sort of seemed like filler.
I wish we had learned more about Ringabel's involvement with the multi-dimensional organization he was in, but that was mostly explored in a side quest. Maybe this could be expanded upon in another game in the series? If I recall, a third game has more or less been confirmed to be in development....
In short, BS: EL is how you do a sequel right. I highly recommend this to any JRPG fan, but I encourage anyone interested in this game to play through Bravely Default first.
Super Castlevania IV - Shorter game, shorter impressions. I enjoyed this game overall, though some later stages seem to exist to annoy you more than anything.
Positives
The music was definitely my favorite thing about this game. The tracks were well-done. Very atmospheric and catchy. Go 90s!
The backgrounds and some of the enemies, when considering the time period this game released in, have aged pretty well visually. They definitely nailed the Gothic atmosphere. Simon himself seems pretty blurry, but that could just be how the game is rendered on my TV screen. (I played this one on the SNES Classic)
They had some pretty cool mechanics in the backgrounds and stages here. That rotating trap level (Stage IV?) was especially cool. The game certainly must've put the original SNES through its paces.
The combat/gameplay here was pretty fun overall. Not only can you throw various weapons and use some pretty cool artifacts besides, but the whip definitely has more functionality here. I'll be honest: I've never been able to get into the first three Castlevania titles due to their sheer trolling difficulty.
Negatives
Minus a few cases, most of the boss fights just weren't that exciting for me; I found them annoying more than anything. There were only two that I truly enjoyed: The lovers/dancing couple and Dracula himself.
Personal nitpick: While I know that this game is by no means meant to be a cakewalk, I still found some of the borderline trolling in later stages to be annoying; I do not enjoy being repeatedly knocked off of a stage and to my death due to a fireball that JUST edged its way in where it wouldn't at other times or because some enemy was lucky enough to throw a bone through the floor. The game usually didn't feel unfair, but there were a few times where that did seem to be the case.
Overall, I recommend this game to someone who's looking for something a bit dark and challenging. Again, it normally doesn't feel unfair, but some later stages can certainly seem that way.
Currently playing: Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr's Journey, Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Switch)
@Tyranexx I played Super Castlevania IV recently too. It was my first Castlevania game and I was expecting it to be unfairly difficult, but it actually had a fairly smooth difficulty curve. It did get very difficult towards the end (that bit with the spiky wheel thing chasing you up a vertical wall section was infuriating), but the save states on the SNES Classic stopped it from getting too frustrating so I really liked it overall.
@Dogorilla This was also my first proper Castlevania game if you disregard a demo I played for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate on the 3DS several years ago. I'm not ashamed to admit that I used save states as well; I avoided them for the most part at the beginning but found that they made progress less of a hassle before long.
I agree: the difficulty curve itself is fairly smooth and tolerable most of the time. Most of my frustration really came from running into things that I couldn't see just off-screen, then getting knocked off. Also apparently only doing so much as sneezing on spikes in this game is an automatic death. That section with the moving/rotating floors and spikes (same section with the spinning wheel, I believe) tested my patience. XD
To this game's credit, it's much, MUCH fairer than the somewhat similar Super Ghouls'n Ghosts.
I finished Pokémon Y yesterday, including the postgame episodes and it had me remember why I enjoyed X so much back then.
I really love the backstory and lore (the war, the whole thing with AZ and Floette and how it ties past and present together), the soundtrack is pleasant, Kalos is pretty and doesn't have any area I found downright grating (Lumiose City is a pain to navigate at first but I think it really captures the overwhelming feeling of being in a huge city for the first time and while Pokémon rides are awfully slow those sections aren't long), I absolutely love the player characters' designs, "older gen 'mon fatigue" wasn't as strong as with other entries, good starters, postgame that doesn't drag on (not a fan of postgame stuff), also it's low on the mandatory HM front.
That isn't to say the game's without issues and it's not my favourite Pokémon entry (that'd be B/W) but I've always had fond memories of it and that's been reestablished now.
Currently playing: ACNL, Pokémon Pearl, Pokémon Art Academy, Minecraft, Mario Tennis Aces
Sidegames: Super Kirby Clash, Overcooked 2, Kirby's Dream Land 3
Looking forward to: Luigi's Mansion 3, Pokémon Swish
Hyped for: ACNH
Easily the worst Bioware developed game I've ever played.
I never thought I'd see the day when I would play an average Bioware game.
Switch Physical Collection - 1,251 games (as of April 24th, 2024)
Favorite Quote: "Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age the child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies." -Edna St. Vincent Millay
@Magician Was ME Andromeda above-average, in your opinion?
Haven't played it yet, and I doubt I will. I was one of the few folks who wasn't upset with how ME3 ended, pre-patch. I checked out on the franchise at that point. So I was spared that less than stellar experience.
However, I had assumed that ME Andromeda only suffered because it was allegedly developed by Bioware's "B" team. The "A" was working on Anthem. Knowing that, surely Anthem was going to be the better game, right? Unfortunately...not so much.
In my eyes, the old Bioware is dead and gone.
Switch Physical Collection - 1,251 games (as of April 24th, 2024)
Favorite Quote: "Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age the child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies." -Edna St. Vincent Millay
What is it?: A 3DS port of a Wii U Yoshi platformer
Level of completion: Everything, apart from not watching all of the shorts. I will eventually, but it's not really content I'd say is crucial to game completion. Completing everything involves collecting all patches, all bundles of wool, all flowers, and getting to the end of all of the levels with full health. It also involves encountering all enemies, finding all secret paths, and, finally, completing the Wonderful World of Wool under all those conditions, the final unlockable level that's extra long and has no checkpoints.
What I liked:
Adorable and colorful visual design. Everything in this world looks like it has been hand-crafted, and the effect goes a long way toward giving this huge amounts of charm.
Excellent level design. There are plenty of alternate paths, hidden objects, and whatnot to access throughout the game. There is a great balance of linearity and openness throughout. Some of the levels are also surprisingly puzzle-heavy, which is not something I'm used to encountering in a 2D platformer.
A cool approach to difficulty and accessibility. While there's the usual easy mode that I didn't touch, there are also badges that you can purchase with in-game jewels that will make levels easier for you in some way. One badge might make all of your yarn balls larger. Another might make it where you can see invisible items. These are a great way to replay levels in different ways (and, if you're going for 100%, you'll likely be replaying these levels a LOT) and a good method for children to make certain challenging levels easier for them without nuking the difficulty across the board.
Adorable extras. One of the new additions in this 3DS re-release is a collection of 31 stop-motion animated shorts featuring Yoshi and Poochy. After each one, you're given an easy quiz about what you just watched and are rewarded if you get the answer right with more jewels that you can spend on badges. The really ingenious thing is how they unlock every 24 hours (after viewing the previously unlocked one), as this gives the player a big incentive to stay engaged with the game for a longer period of time.
Portability. This might seem like a weird thing to like in an inherently portable version of a game, but it's worth mentioning because I think this game only really shines in portable form. You'll be playing a lot of the same levels over and over while hunting for collectibles, and this is a much more enjoyable task on a pick-up-and-play handheld than it is on a home console that I need to clear TV time for. I already owned this on Wii U, but I finally picked up this 3DS version, and I think it was a pretty good decision, all things considered. This version is worth repurchasing just for its increased accessibility.
Creativity and Yoshi Designs. Like in the Wii U version, you can unlock different designs for your Yoshi as you progress through the game. Unique to this version, though, is being able to create your own Yoshi design. Not really anything I care about (I just stuck with Green Yoshi through the majority of the game), but it seems like a great inclusion for children.
What I disliked: Not much, really. Bosses are a bit easy and not up to the high standards of boss encounters in the best DKC games, but they still beat the pants off the boss fights you'd find in any 2D Mario game because they require some level of observation and problem-solving to defeat. Being a 3DS game, the photo-realistic yarn textures are much fuzzier and less detailed now, although, given the hardware, it's hard to really count this against he game. I suppose the presence of badges makes it tempting to cheat and make the game easier than it would otherwise be, but this is balanced by the fact that no single badge is going to make the entire game a cakewalk if you want to collect everything. The worst thing I can say about it is that there's no point in the game that I feel like it becomes singularly brilliant. Instead, it's just consistently polished and excellent, and I don't see that as a bad thing at all.
Final thoughts: A gorgeous, smooth, and consistently excellent platformer that succeeds on almost all levels. While it doesn't do anything to set new standards for the genre, it rivals Yoshi's Island and makes for a fantastic portable time-waster.
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