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I've been waiting for years for ArcSys to make a game like this. They've had the visuals down since Xrd, but they finally made a game that's easy to pick up, but not too simple for long-time fans to enjoy (unless you actually just wanted to keep playing Xrd or +R), and has top-of-class rollback netcode.
It's not perfect (looking at you, lobbies and lack of frame data and combo trials in training mode), but it's solid enough in the aspects that really matter that I've been having an absolute blast actually learning a fighting game for once instead of bouncing off of it after a month because the online is so bad or the gameplay is so impenetrable.
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What can I say, I'm a fucking sucker for this type of game, especially one as polished and high-production value as this one is.
Outside of the boss fights, which I think are some of the best in the entire genre easily, I wouldn't say this game is doing much outside of what's expected for this type of game. But man, just seeing a traditional sidescrolling Metroid with a decent budget in 2021 is so great.
Hopefully this game will do well enough to convince Nintendo they can make these games more than once every decade. And who knows, maybe this game will mean other devs get to take a chance on a sidescroller with a budget?
*cough Castlevania cough*
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Bowser's Fury is a really cool experiment. Short and to the point, neat gimmick with the Bowser fights. All around a cool initial idea for an open world Mario that I'd love to see them expand on in the future. Wish they'd built it in Mario Odyssey's engine rather than 3D World, which has dramatically less interesting movement options. It also just doesn't look as good as Odyssey, which is extra weird when you remember Odyssey was essentially a launch game for Switch, and that was 4 years ago.
3D World is neat, but ultimately limited by the decision to keep the perspective the same as the previous game that was built for a console with a 3D screen. Some really cool ideas, but god just let me move the camera. You just end up having to stare at your character's shadow the whole time. All the actually cool stuff is hidden behind a bunch of fine but boring levels, so by the time I got to them I was ready to be done with Mario for a while.
Didn't help that the multiplayer makes all the issues this game has that much more apparent. It's even harder to tell where you're going to land when the camera's zoomed way the eff out and your shadow is like 10 pixels on screen. Also maybe don't make the grab button the same as the run button if you can pick up other players. It's funny at first, but infuriating when you've accidentally thrown your partner off the same cliff 5 times now and oh my god I just wanna make it through the dang level, please.
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Doesn't measure up to the scares of REVII or the general greatness of the RE2 Remake, but still a fun enough Resident Evil experience. The unbelievable return of the completely forgettable protagonist of the last game being played for essentially slapstick humor is an incredible choice and absolutely made the game for me.
More than anything, I'm reminded once again that Resident Evil does new game + content better than just about anyone. Running (twice as fast thanks to the movement speed upgrade) through a second time on a harder difficulty with an infinite ammo assault rifle is a real dumb/good time, and more games should let you break them after you get through them once.
If I had any critique of the NG+, it'd be that they make it too hard to get most of the really dumb stuff. I enjoyed running through it again, but not enough to grind out the challenges and get infinite ammo on the really strong weapons to completely break the game.
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Painfully short, but an absolute joy. Controlling characters moving around the screen could have been a big misstep, but they design around it in a truly fun way.
Not to mention the art and specifically the cutscenes remind me of Katamari Damacy, and there's no higher praise I could give it than that.
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A super cute little Link to the Past tribute with an anti-capitalist bent that you can play through in one sitting without too much trouble. Just a nice time.
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Hitman 3 confirmed what I always figured I'd think about these games, which is that I'd rather experience this game by watching others play instead of playing myself. It's fun enough to play through each map once or twice, but nothing about the clunky mechanics and controls pulls me in enough to feel the desire to master it.
Could I memorize the entire map to pull off a really creative kill? Sure. But what if I just watched Vinny or whoever play it instead? (Fuck I wrote that before May. Fuck. I'm sad again.)
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Nice excuse to spend some more time with the cast of Persona 5. It's a bummer the game doesn't take into account the new plot points added in Royal, but it's enough of a side story that it doesn't super matter.
I definitely miss the layer of choice around which characters and activities you want to spend time on, though. In Royal I rarely felt annoyed by a large amount of dialogue playing out, because on some level I had chosen to see that dialogue at that moment. Not ready for the next big story point to play out? Go hang with a friend for a bit. Tired of the story? Go grind in the dungeons for a while. This game has none of that, layer of the game, which is too bad, but understandable.
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Played this again this year. Man, what the fuck is up with the bosses in this game. It makes no sense. You make it halfway through the game and suddenly they expect you to 1. Grind like, 2 hours longer in every area than you could imagine you'd need to to get the ideal spell for the fight, and 2. Know how it works and how to use it immediately. What a poorly balanced game.
The most insane part of this game is how little anything other than boss fights requires you to do anything other than cast your strongest spells and attacks. No one talks about how these games were built to sell strategy guides. X-2 is even worse in this aspect. It's insane how much of that game you'd never see if you didn't follow a guide every step of the way. Missable shit that you need to even understand the story everywhere. Bad.
Also Blitzball is still terrible. This time I actually spent the time to try to learn how it works and I even beat the mandatory game it makes you play. It seems like it could be fun in theory, but holy hell is that first game about the most frustrating and terrible way to introduce a minigame I've ever seen. Just get crushed by this team no matter what you do unless you have an incredibly specific strategy you'd never know the first time you play? Perfect, nailed it guys.
Anyway, this is still the best cast of characters in any Final Fantasy I've played. Everyone has distinct personalities, even when they're annoying, and the group dynamic works. That is all to say, Auron still rules.
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Tried and failed once again this year to finally make it through this game. I'm afraid Austin Walker's love for it might always be a mystery to me, I just can't do it man.
The game just feels awful, even in 60 fps on PS5. It's missing the snappiness of the rest of the series. Dodges feel mushy, I'm never quite sure when I'm going to get hit or make it through an attack. Hitboxes on enemy attacks are all over the place, along with active frames on said attacks. Backstabs feel mushy and unsatisfying too.
Not to mention that in general I feel like it somehow manages to look worse than Dark Souls 1. The last-minute lighting changes before release are infamous, of course, and I have to wonder if the texture work would look less insane if the lighting was better, but as is, it honestly gives me a headache to look at for too long. And there are rooms within the first 3 hours of the game that look like they just forgot to make art for.
In conclusion, Dark Souls 2 is a mess. Majula is cool though.
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