My unofficial hiatus hasn’t been from a lack of gaming time; rather, I’ve just been too scatterbrained to organize a coherent string of thoughts. Let’s just blast out quick hits on as many titles as I can.

Tower Climber!

Since the start of the year, I have competed in MinnMax’s Trivia Tower competition every month. With my schedule, I need to furtively play while at work. That said, I’m surprised at how strong my performance has been. I consistently make it to the last round, even winning the whole thing once. Feeling smart is nice, but the real reward is the chance to win game codes. My first time competing, I won a code for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, which I am finally getting around to now. Playing it is just as fun as everyone says. Sargon is super responsive, and the combat system has a lot of room to experiment. I can already see how you can vary your playstyle using the charms you unlock. I’m only a few hours in, but right now I’m not ranking The Lost Crown on the top tier of troidlikes. Ori has better movement, Hollow Knight has better world design, and Metroid Dread has better bosses. Of course, things could change. The real standout to me is The Lost Crown’s platforming. Already, the game has presented some tricky sequences, yet I can always put Sargon exactly where he needs to go. I will definitely stick with the game if for no other reason than I love platformers. The worst part of the whole affair was needing to reinstall the Ubisoft launcher.

I also won a code for another surprise hit in a popular genre: the poker-themed roguelike Balatro. After my first play session, I wrote down the note that it was interesting, but I wasn’t quite getting it. The next time I looked, somehow 20 hours had gone by and I was thinking about Balatro every moment of the day. I’ve had my frustrations with certain roguelikes over the years, and it’s impressive how Balatro avoids every pitfall in its design. In a run-based game, you ideally want to be making interesting decisions all the time. At the start, constructing each poker hand is a game of weighing what can get the most points with the cards in your deck. What I really love is the shop between each round. Whether it’s with jokers that change the rules, special cards with enhanced abilities, or any number of tarot cards, strategies can shift in an instant. The best thing Balatro does is give you information. Where some roguelikes require a wiki on the second monitor, everything is clearly explained here. Just as importantly, success is built on planning instead of twitch reactions. Anyone can finish a run of Balatro, and I had far more success early on than with any other roguelike I’ve played. But I eventually realized I had to quit cold turkey so I could have time for anything else. Even writing this paragraph has made me feel itchy.

And, in more games I wouldn’t have bought for myself, we have Granblue Fantasy Relink (which I haven’t played yet) and Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story. The latter is part of Digital Eclipse’s Gold Master series of “interactive documentaries.” Aside from a few tidbits in the old Giant Bomb days, I really knew nothing about Jeff Minter. It speaks to the success of the collection that by the end, I was able to understand why Minter is an important figure to the industry. Individually, I don’t really… enjoy… any of his games. It’s summed up in a statement from the man himself on his design philosophy. Minter’s games aren’t designed to be “beaten,” instead asking the player to return over and over to last longer. It runs counter to my backlog battlin’ self, but that’s okay. The insights on the gaming industry, especially in the British region which I had overlooked for so long, are worth it. Like when I researched the early years of Rare, I was in disbelief at how Minter could ship a new game every few weeks throughout the ‘80s. It’s taken me months just to write one blog post! Once the ‘90s roll around, the focus shifts to how funding for indie developers dried up overnight, which is eerily similar to stories we’re hearing at the current moment. The real draw of Digital Eclipse titles is the supplemental material. For your perusal, they’ve included scans of Minter’s original notebooks, advertising materials, and even the paintings used for Llamasoft’s box art. You also have many issues of the Llamasoft newsletter, which inspired the format I’m using right now. If I had one criticism of the collection, it’s that it yadda-yaddas the last 25 years of Minter’s career. I get that including newer games is more complicated, but things abruptly crash to a halt after Tempest 2000. Oh well, some folks will be happy to play that one indefinitely.

There’s one last big fish I won in Trivia Tower, but I will save that for later. Let’s head back to the backlog for a bit…

Phantom Nostalgia!

You can get great discounts on last generation games, but nearly anything from the 360 era can go for a song if you find the right sale. The perks of our digital future, I guess. When these games were coming out, I was pretty much Nintendo-exclusive. So many titles skipped me by and yet… when I play them now, I have this intense nostalgic feeling for something I’m experiencing for the first time. This is really the flashpoint between retro and modern games. Control schemes have (mostly) standardized and the core concepts continue to be used now. However, the graphical fidelity is not trying to compete with Avatar and game design hasn’t become quite so bloated. Experiencing the cutting edge of 15 years ago is fascinatingly quaint, though I’m sure the developers at the time didn’t feel that way.

With Grand Theft Auto VI set to become the biggest pop culture event in human history, it’s the perfect time to go back and try Grand Theft Auto IV. When I said (mostly) standardized, I was referring to this game. I can’t stand the shooting controls and mechanics in GTA 4. By the time I found where to fix them, I had already gotten used to them and had to deal. When the game isn’t throwing you into a firefight, exploring Liberty City is plain enjoyable. It feels sufficiently big, but not overwhelmingly so. This is my preferred type of open world game, that sends you back and forth in a single, thought-out location. I have found the missions to be as hit-or-miss as my bullets, with some thrilling and some maddening. At the very least, you can instantly retry after failing instead of hoofing it all the way back to the start point. I have also come to fully lose patience for Rockstar’s writing in these games. It is not funny, but it is delivered with the confidence of the greatest comedian on Earth, which only makes it more grating. I can’t switch off the radio fast enough during a commercial, always cycling back to my custom music. It feels inevitable that the game after 6 will be back in Liberty City. After all, it could conceivably be close to a 30 year gap between 4 and 7. Part of me isn’t thrilled about the series circling the same three locations forever, but far be it from me to tell them how to run their business. Except they should release PC versions more quickly. Come on, guys.

Iterative refinement is all well and good, but what about a fresh stab at something new? I’m always more lenient on the first game in a franchise because of all the groundwork it has to set. Such is the case for the first Assassin’s Creed. By the time I got interested in the series, it was already popular to hate it. And I have no interest in the modern style of Assassin’s Creed, which is the type of open world I don’t like - an endless sea of blah. This first one, though, is quite ambitious for the time and decently fun to play now. Parkour, combat, and stealth are not particularly thrilling on their own, but they coalesce into something that kept my attention. As far as open world design goes, it’s a bit of a faceplant. I played the 360 version, which only has a handful of activities repeated frequently. Yeah, the towers are repetitive. I agree, saving citizens is braindead. Of course, hunting down flags is both stupid and about the biggest waste of time one can fathom in this lifetime. But you know what? I still did it all. I’m not going to pretend like I’m too good for this crap anymore. Sometimes you just feel like zoning out and checking boxes, and Ubisoft has made a mint catering to that impulse. I would much rather see more stuff like The Lost Crown, but I can’t hate them for Assassin’s Creed at the same time. I own a few more entries in the series, and I expect to have progressively less patience with them. But even after it was iterated on so many times, this first game was still novel to me, which says something about someone, somewhere, and okay let’s move on now.

Lastly, what Xbox owner hasn’t at least tried some Halo in their day? It’s very easy with the Master Chief Collection bundling the essential games in one place. I used it to play the original game before Infinite released, then played Infinite, and then I guess I was good for a few years. I hadn’t gone back. I finally tried Halo 2 and… I guess it’s fine. It felt very familiar to me. Still doing your thing as Master Chief, still shooting lots of Covenant and Flood. The main new enemy type isn’t introduced until the last few levels, which is a mistake in my eyes. New in 2 is the Arbiter, who has his own set of levels. What I like about him is his camouflage ability, allowing you to run past enemy aliens unseen. You can abuse this to ruthlessly speedrun levels, and eventually I just started running past everything as Master Chief, too. That speaks poorly to the combat design, but I had my own form of fun, so we’ll call it a wash. At the same time, I was switching to Halo 3: ODST just for something different. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the spinoff considerably more than the numbered sequel. While it’s essentially the same Halo gameplay loop, ODST at least branches out in more interesting ways. I think Halo Infinite soured me on the whole Master Chief/Cortana nonsense, so playing a game where they aren’t a factor at all is refreshing. And rather than a far-flung alien world, the action is all in a single city on Earth, albeit a science fiction one. Between big missions, your character wanders around the city streets and retraces his unit’s steps. I was immediately taken with the atmosphere. The evocative color palette and somber piano music rooted me in place as I took in the environment. This is what really sparked that phantom nostalgia - artistic choices made 15 years ago are still just as effective, even as technology has left the 360 far behind. Like I said, Halo is still Halo, but between the two games I will recall ODST far more vividly.

RPGs: Regarding Popular Games

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Persona 3 Reload and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. These three gigantic RPGs were where the bulk of my gaming time, and free time in general, went in the first quarter of 2024. They were also the biggest roadblock in putting any writing into the world. Each is already complex, but trying to synthesize the experience of all three into something coherent proved beyond my current abilities. So I’m just going to take them one at a time and see what happens.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth was easily my most anticipated game of 2024. If you don’t already know that Ichiban Kasuga is the greatest protagonist in the history of fiction, you need to educate yourself pronto. His return alongside Kazuma Kiryu, now in Hawaii with all the silliness that entails, was more than I needed. The things that make this series great continue to be very strong. Whether it’s a party of returning characters or new ones, the personality in dialogue is top-notch. There’s this guy Eric who joins early on, and at first I was like, “screw you, Eric,” but pretty soon I was like, “ahhhhh, you’re all right, Eric.” Chitose is another new party member, adding to the small but growing list of female Like a Dragon characters with good writing. As you increase your bond with each party member, it only makes combat encounters more of a blast. The system from Yakuza 7 has received a full overhaul, with the biggest change being more control over positioning. Lining up a move to send a goon flying into the environment, other enemies, or a party member for bonus damage is always electric. Mix in an even better job system, and you’re looking at the best purely turn-based battles I’ve seen in years. Of course, the “main” mechanics in a Like a Dragon game are just a small part of the overall package. Side stories continue to be a huge selling point. Whether it’s Ichiban’s ridiculous antics or Kiryu’s encounters with nostalgic friends, they run the gamut of emotions. Among the many, many minigames are way-too-fully-featured Pokémon and Animal Crossing clones which will extend the game length even further if you wish. These can be a double-edged sword because the early game continuously stops to tutorialize all these systems which some players may never engage with again. That doesn’t help the issue of a somewhat underwhelming story that stalls for extended periods before ultimately squandering a promising hook. As character pieces go, though, the new faces of Like a Dragon are perfect, and Kiryu gets a suitably touching last note for his final, final, for real this time guys, final game. I’m still on the ride with this studio as far as they want to take me.

While this was all going on, SEGA thought it was a great move to put out a second gigantic JRPG a week later. Persona 3 Reload is an effective modernization of the original Persona 3 that makes it more inviting to newer fans like me. When I was starting out, I thought that this would probably be my least favorite Persona game so far. Compared to 4 and 5, the early hours have a lack of driving force and feel directionless. Characters are easily defined as archetypes that would be better developed by their successors. And at the time, I was fine with that. I mean, you would hope sequels would improve on things, right? But the more time I sunk into Persona 3 Reload, the more those same characters grew on me. If things start out a little stilted, it’s because they take that time to develop bonds organically over the story. By the end, I fully bought into this group of kids as comrades. Realistically, I only have time for one playthrough of Persona 3, so I went full checklist mode to see everything. I’m honestly glad I did, because maxing out every social link was tremendously rewarding. For the last 10 hours or so, I was superglued to the screen, and the ending wrecked my whole life for at least a week. Could they have tightened up the beginning more? Sure, but I wasn’t thinking about that after a while. For the RPG part of this RPG, it’s all about the randomly generated dungeon, Tartarus. They switched away from this style for a reason, but it works well enough, with events thrown in every few floors to keep your attention. The truth is, I play these games on easy because I’m just not here for that. Really, I just want to hang out with digital friends and listen to the soundtrack. And wow, Persona 3 Reload does not let up in the music department. Not only are the new songs fantastic, but all the arrangements breathe new life into the original compositions. If there is a single thing that will carry over from my gaming in 2024 to the rest of my life, it will be the music from this game.

After all of that, I was hesitant to jump into yet another huge RPG. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was out and in the zeitgeist, and while I was looking forward to it, it wasn’t $70 worth of passion. But then, I won a code on Trivia Tower! What the hell, might as well. Rebirth is such a challenging game for me to sort my feelings about. There are things that it does incredibly well. Combat is a thrilling dance of action. The music is so wonderful, I’m seeing it in concert later this year. On the flip side, there are so many places it just whiffs from its own sense of self-importance. I haven’t yet finished the 1997 game, but I highly enjoyed the 2020 remake. This sequel is stuffed with more, more, more, to the point where I don’t really feel like doing any of it. It’s now an open world game, with towers and everything, plus a hundred side quests, a full collectible card game, and ten thousand other minigames. I was fine to keep up with the main story, but nothing in the sea of ancillary content was inviting to me in the least. But every time I thought that, I thought about Like a Dragon, and how those same complaints were once positives. And lest we forget the flag-chasing in Assassin’s Creed, I am down for open world filler at times. So what’s the deal? Am I just a hypocrite? Is this burnout? Or is there a chip on my shoulder? I was really struggling with this problem and not coming up with anything. After wrapping up the game and giving it some time, this is the best I could come up with.

I love Aerith. I love Barret. I love Yuffie. Tifa is pretty cool. Red XIII is okay. Cait Sith can kick rocks.

I hate Cloud.

I have never, ever in my life, thought Cloud Strife was cool. Not his stupid hair, his stupid sword, nor his stupid attitude. This was top of mind in my Remake playthrough, but he does go through a character arc in that game. Here, if he’s not an emotionless husk, he is straight-up evil. This guy gets progressively unstable mentally, to the point where “liability” is an understatement. And the fact that his friends pretend this isn’t happening starts to reflect poorly on them. It makes no sense for Cloud to be down for these ridiculous minigames. He doesn’t even know how to smile. Before anyone tells me about all his trauma and how it will be better in the third game, I don’t give a shit. Cloud’s whole deal tainted my experience with Rebirth. I don’t like being him, so I don’t want to faff about in this half-baked open world as him. Once the story finally gets any form of direction, it’s an unintelligible mess of alternate timelines and ill-defined magic. The fact that there is no clear consensus for the sequence of events that even happened in the ending only deflated my interest in the last part of the trilogy. I know everyone will have their own reaction to this game. But I got it for free, and I still felt ripped off.

The Actual Best JRPG I Played in 2024…

is Mother 3. It was added to the Switch in Japan, so it was high time to return to the fan translation. Look, I’ve rung this bell continuously. But in the context of the last section, I was floored this time at how Mother 3 contrasts the monolithic JRPGs above. You want a gripping, devastating story? Mother 3 packs it into less than 20 hours. What about a game that shows off the power of its hardware? The graphical polish, animation quality, and musical style is far above anything else on the GBA. I was constantly wondering how they fit it all onto the system and noted, with a hint of guilt, that I never had that thought playing Rebirth on the PS5. I won’t say the battle system is better, of course, but building on the style developed in EarthBound with attacks timed to the music makes it engaging. The difficulty level is pitch-perfect throughout, too. Lastly, humor is subjective, but every single attempt here got a laugh out of me. It all coalesces into what I am finally ready to declare as my favorite game, period. I guess where I’m going with all this is that it’s the heart, not the budget, that matters when making art. I feel like the industry has lost sight of that.

In Conclusion…

Thanks for reading. Like I said, this was a bit of an experiment, but ultimately a necessary one to get me out of my funk. I may or may not ever do it again! Hopefully this blog answered anyone wondering, “what happened to that guy?”

Video Games, Son.

Around this time last year I drew up a huge list of games I wanted to play. Well, wanted may be a strong word. I filled it with titles that slipped through the cracks. Some of them I had started in the past and forgot for one reason or another. Others sat in my Steam account for a literal decade without ever getting installed. Throughout the year, I kept digging away at the mountain. Liberating these titles from my backlog felt good, sure. But more often than not, the games themselves failed to live up to expectations. If I didn’t have a psychological condition about rolling credits on everything, I would not have put myself through it.

Despite turning my hobby into a job where I don’t get paid, I still found time for games “for fun,” and perhaps unsurprisingly, that’s where my excitement revved up. I loved running through Mirror’s Edge for the first time. Plopping down in front of a tiny CRT with Ridge Racer Type 4 one random Sunday was a delight. And how can you describe binging Remedy’s back catalog before Alan Wake 2? Why aren’t more people talking about Quantum Break?? I didn’t realize until now the importance of spontaneity. Going forward, while I’m still laying out goals for myself, I’m going to be a lot more lenient than before. If I can’t finish The Witcher 3 by the end of next year… well, few people actually have, so it’s fine.

Luckily, the new releases in 2023 had plenty to get excited for. Most of my favorite developers dropped something new to enjoy. I could have stayed with that and still be happy, but I also stuck my toe out to try some new things. As you’ll see below, I was rewarded for it.

First, the obligatory “games I missed” section. I'm sure the remake of Resident Evil 4 is great, but I finally finished the original version for the first time this year and it didn't make sense to double dip like that. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was certainly appealing, but the technical problems at launch kept me from pulling the trigger. Finally, Baldur's Gate 3 looks like the type of game I could obsess over. But with my commitments, the time just wasn't available to give it its due. Don't worry, this isn't a protest move like with Elden Ring last year. I'm looking forward to hearing everything your characters got up to.

Even with those omissions, 2023 was stacked. Let's relive it. (Potential spoilers)

10. Storyteller

After trying so many puzzle games, I eventually got tired of feeling stupid and backed off. Baba Is You? More like Dumbass Is Me! Storyteller, though, has you drop elements of a narrative to fit given prompts. That's a logic I can follow. A chapter starts with a simple love story, but before long jealousy and murder are added to these adorable comic strips. Later levels riff on monsters, mythology, and royal intrigue. Even as your options grow, everything is limited to one screen. The immediate feedback on each drop means there's always a clear result to work with. Only a handful of puzzles really stumped me, and the bonus objectives that require out-of-the-box thinking are very rewarding. It's all wrapped up in a storybook presentation complete with a hammy narrator and low-key renditions of famous classical music. I played on mobile, and the experience was addicting for the week or so I poked away at it. Sadly, there was a memory leak or something that crashed the game every few puzzles. That didn't even deter me, which speaks both to the quality of the game and to my strength of will to slack off at work.

9. Street Fighter 6

I almost hopped into Street Fighter 5 when it came out, but the vibe just wasn't right. This time, Capcom made nearly every correct decision to attract more people like myself. That starts with the modern controls. I have never felt comfortable with traditional fighting game controls, and the idea that they’re the objective best way to play is dumb. The new option in Street Fighter 6 feels so much more intuitive, and I could finally get past the flailing around stage to start thinking about mechanics more fully. Every character on the roster is imbued with powerful style. It's the most appealing batch of new characters in years. But once I landed on Ken, I never looked back. The single-player World Tour mode is way more in-depth than it has any need or right to be. And once I did start messing with online matches, I was surprised at the results. I did lose, often, but the high volume of players meant that I could go against people at my skill level and feel myself improve. I eventually had to hang up my fighting gloves because I’m still not the person who plays one game for a thousand hours. But for the period where I was in, Street Fighter 6 convinced me that fighting games could be for me.

8. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Insomniac’s latest Spidey game was never going to live up to the expectations set when I bought a PlayStation 5 for it. The story here is sloppy, requiring every character to have 350 IQ and zero common sense. Also, I’m not sure expanding the open world by 50% actually added that much to the experience. But when Insomniac is on their game, no one can compete. Every story mission sends Peter or Miles to a beautifully rendered location which inevitably blows up with spectacular bombast. It succeeds in the smaller moments, too, with character arcs that reward players who paid attention in past games. I made the decision to finish the entire story before tackling side content. That was a mistake, but unwinding as the friendly neighborhood superhero was tremendous. Three years into the generation, instantaneous fast travel continues to blow me away every time. And anyone who’s played this series knows that web-swinging is a thrill like no other. Anyway, even though I still think Venom is stupid, Spider-Man 2 was an engrossing thrill ride from start to finish.

7. Persona 5 Tactica

Before this came out, I was half-convinced that I was over these Persona side games. Then I tried the Persona 5 Dancing title - just about the most vapid, pointless, baffling spinoff content you can imagine - and ate it up happily. Yeah, guess my Phan-dom is still going strong. Tactica, for its part, does more than just play the hits. This grid-based tactics game plays fast and smartly integrates Persona's systems without sacrificing strategy. A lot of these stages only take a few minutes, so clearing them feels like throwing back popcorn. My favorites are the challenge quests that ask you to push the mechanics and win in a single turn. The main issue is the hefty downtime between those tactical bites. This story is far from bad, but still verbose in the Persona tradition, with the Phantom Thieves becoming supporting acts for the two new characters. The soundtrack is also surprisingly forgettable. It doesn't change that Tactica became a dark horse obsession late this year. The more hours I dump into this franchise, the more I just want to wrap myself in a warm blanket and live in it.

6. Like a Dragon (The Series)

It's become a trend for me to blast through an iterative series over the course of the year. In 2022, it was LEGO, and 2023 was the year I sunk way too many hours into Yakuza. You need to hear me preach like Kiryu needs another bullet to the pec, so I'll just focus on what the series meant to me this year. I started out expecting only to play the new remake and localization of Like a Dragon: Ishin. Instead, it just whetted my appetite for more. I marathoned game after game until I finally caught up with the current story in Like a Dragon Gaiden. Each entry has broad similarities while offering something totally unique. Therefore, it’s totally valid to say any one of them is your favorite. In 2023, I sliced up ronin with a katana, destroyed a shopping mall, managed a cabaret club, punched through solid rock, and raced a taxi to the Daytona USA theme. But that’s all nothing compared to how choked up I got over the endings to Yakuza 7 and especially Gaiden. I booted up the demo for Infinite Wealth, which releases in January, and immediately got so excited I had to shut it off. Even as I debated my game of the year for this list, I was already sure of what 2024’s will be.

5. Pikmin 4

Until now, I had equated Pikmin with Indiana Jones’s trajectory as a franchise. They got it right immediately, did something weird and dark for the second entry, and brought it back to what I liked in the third. Thankfully, Pikmin 4 didn’t do anything as divisive as Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Instead, it revisits the discordant ideas of Pikmin 2 and makes great strides to streamline them and the series at large. Oatchi is the best companion of the year. Endlessly functional from a gameplay standpoint, he single-pawdly removes almost all the lingering frustration with Pikmin AI. Oatchi’s power and the rewind function makes Pikmin 4 the most forgiving to date, which is a boon. For the purists, though, there is plenty of challenge to be found in the dandori sections and the hunt for every last treasure. They even included a side mode that’s basically a remake of Pikmin 1. Everyone with a passing interest in the series will be able to try Pikmin 4 and come away satisfied. Let’s hope that the next game lands with more impact than The Dial of Destiny movie.

4. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line

You wouldn't expect me to get into a Final Fantasy fanservice game, as I'm not exactly a Final Fantasy fan. I have next to no context for whatever the background events are supposed to recreate in Theatrhythm. But the part of my brain that sorts through Smash Bros. soundtracks was attracted to the massive catalog of songs spanning 35 years of history. Final Bar Line is also just an excellent rhythm game. There's a high degree of customization; you can play the game one-handed if you want, or you can crank up the difficulty so that you regret being born. It's not uncommon to plow through dozens of tracks in a row without even thinking about it. The automatic RPG battles that play out really don't matter, yet I spent actual time optimizing my party of people I only knew by name. Even once I finished the hundreds of songs in the base game, new DLC rolled out during the year until just a few weeks ago. It was always a lovely surprise to see it arrive and spend a few minutes with my favorite tunes from Chrono Trigger, NieR, and more. For lifelong fans, the game is probably one massive nostalgia blast. Even I'm starting down that path - Theatrhythm is partly the reason I finished my first “real” entry (if you don't count 7 Remake) with Final Fantasy 6.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

When I gathered Link’s pals from the four corners of Hyrule, the game told me to go to the castle. I assumed this meant the chasm below it. I dove down and raced all the way to the door before Ganondorf, fighting a fierce enemy gauntlet that… didn’t let me progress after they all died. This was a bug, but I wasn’t positive, so I looked up a walkthrough. That’s when I saw that I had missed an entire fifth temple and companion! It was certainly an unusual circumstance, but Tears of the Kingdom is full of memorable surprises. What makes it different this time is the freedom in navigating the game’s challenges. I probably abused Ultrahand and Ascend to jank past as many puzzles as I solved “correctly,” but that’s why it’s fun. In this specific open world, I think a maximalist playstyle is going to suffer. It was a lot more enjoyable for me to cruise around doing what I pleased and checking up on locations from Breath of the Wild. Tears of the Kingdom kept my rapt attention in a way that few games do. When I was finally ready to beat the game for real, I had to leave for work. I brought my Switch and destroyed Ganon on my lunch break, in my car. It was awesome.

2. Alan Wake 2

In Alan Wake 2, the story splits into two branches that you can switch between at will. I decided to stick with Saga’s story all the way through first. It’s a gripping mystery set in gorgeous and haunting locales with standout characters. The branch’s climax is against a horde of enemies set to a face-melting rock concert. Alan Wake 1’s best moment had the same setup, with the same band, and it’s a tradition that Remedy continued into Control with the Ashtray Maze. When I finished "Dark Ocean Summoning," I figured that was it. Then, the game put me back in the shoes of Alan Wake. Immediately, it launched into a fully staged FMV musical number with close to 15 minutes of guitar wailing. I watched the game’s actors - which include its creative director - spin around in exaggerated mime. In hindsight, it should have been obvious that Remedy was building to this exact moment for 13 years. At that second, though, it took me out of nowhere. Instantly, it became my favorite sequence in a video game, ever.

The game also crashed for me during that section, which is kind of the Alan Wake 2 experience in a nutshell. There are many rough edges on top of an endlessly fascinating work of art. I had visual and audio bugs pop up frequently and I got turned around more than they probably wanted. But the game’s ambition and execution more than make up for those shortcomings. Compare to Spider-Man 2, a game which also happened to crash on me once or twice. Spidey is great, but it could be fairly accused of playing it safe. No one could say that about Alan Wake 2. From surreal yet lived-in spaces, the many layers of meta story that unravel, and the shockingly successful integration of past Remedy games, they sink their hooks in you and don't let go. It’s not a game, it’s a universe.

1. Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew

Hear me out. In a year of legendary releases, Shadow Gambit isn't the most revolutionary. But before too long, there will be another Zelda, Spider-Man, Street Fighter, etc. The incredible work of Mimimi Productions, on the other hand, may never be replicated. In a year where thousands of devs unceremoniously lost their jobs, it's perhaps a small mercy that Mimimi's closure had enough runway to let the devs finish DLC and hopefully find new employment. Still, for us fans of their unique stealth strategy titles, it’s an undeniable loss. Shadow Gambit is the studio's most ambitious game, with more than 10 playable characters and unlimited ways to vary your experience. No two playthroughs of a mission will be the same, depending on which crew members you bring, your entrance and exit strategy, and what challenges you attempt. Knowing that I could spend probably a hundred more hours with Shadow Gambit does lessen the blow a little.

Despite observing them from the perspective of an omniscient god, the time I spent in Mimimi’s worlds will stick with me for years. This studio was so good at boiling down a complex character into a set of unique and useful mechanics. In Shadow Gambit’s case, the crew gets even more depth through their crew tales and unique storylines. The DLC that released just a few days ago brings back Yuki from Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. I’ve noticed that companies often bring back an old character to prey on a player’s emotions and squeeze more money out of them. It doesn’t feel like that this time. Adding Yuki (and Kuma!) to Shadow Gambit feels like a final gift to the fans and brings Mimimi’s stealth strategy tale full circle. I wrote more about my experience here, when my emotions were particularly raw, and I think it still conveys what their games have meant to fans. The book on Mimimi is closed, but I can recommend Shadow Gambit to any and everyone. I know my game of the year has a weight to it, and I want to use the opportunity to elevate a game that never got its due.

That’s what we did, that’s how we lived

Once a mighty crew, now without a ship

Thanks for everything, Mimimi.

I'm also aware that this is the second straight year where I gave the top spot to a game about pirates. If I gush about Skull and Bones next year, please don't let me get away with it. All kidding aside, I don't really know what my plans for 2024 will entail. Regardless, thanks to everyone who's supported the blog by reading and commenting over the years. Peace out.

By 2011, I was done with the Wii. At the time, I was more focused on building my Steam library with games that wouldn’t be played until this very backlog battle. I skipped out on The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword despite my fandom for the series. In the following decade, I saw the standard “Zelda Cycle” take place in popular opinion. There was the initial hype, followed by legions of haters, and eventually a reevaluation saying it was good the whole time. All of that commotion is probably what kept me away still until the HD remaster for Switch came out a few years ago. I got it slightly discounted and sent it directly to my shelf.

I wasn’t sure of the right moment to play Skyward Sword until I devoured Tears of the Kingdom six months ago. That game, if you forgot, is one of the most impressive sandboxes ever. It pushes you to go in any direction you choose and rewards you for thinking outside of the usual boundaries. In other words, it’s the polar opposite of Skyward Sword. As someone who does miss some of the traditional elements in newer games, I was curious to see how I would rate the “old Zelda” formula today. I also wanted to evaluate Skyward Sword based on what it is instead of what it isn’t.

The biggest change with the HD release is to the controls. Infamously, the Wii edition used motion control for almost every action. Waving the remote in different directions would theoretically be reflected in Link’s sword swings. On the Switch, they added the option for a regular controller. The sword is now mapped to the right analog stick, and you have to flick it at the proper angle to replicate the function. I wanted to use the Joy-Cons for my playthrough because the game was designed for motion control. Unfortunately, my Joy-Cons drift so badly so as to be unusable. I went for the Switch Pro Controller instead. That probably allowed me to play for longer sessions without getting tired. Flicking the stick worked decently well, but it wasn’t 100% reliable. I can’t say if the other method would be better, but at least I was able to do everything asked of me without too much difficulty.

Skyward Sword has the reputation of being the most linear Zelda game of them all. That is absolutely true. There are scant few moments when you are let off of the leash and allowed to explore. That’s enforced with the level design itself. The world is not seamless - instead, you have the overworld in the clouds with three entrances to the world below. These are the grass, fire, and desert levels, which Link continuously revisits over the course of the game. Once you’re on the surface, you’ll find a lot of moments where you’re funneled down hallways. Sure, there are puzzles to solve, quests to complete, and shortcuts to activate, but you will not have any room to poke around at the edges. And you know what? That’s not necessarily a bad thing. After Skyward Sword came out, “linear” became a dirty word for Zelda. But there’s something to be said for a tightly controlled adventure. At their best, these layouts allow for momentum and escalation of challenge that just isn’t possible in a wide open world. I wouldn’t want every game to be like this, but the mechanics of items and combat are strong enough to support it here.

Unfortunately, I can’t say “tight” is a good descriptor for large portions of the game. Skyward Sword is stuffed with egregiously bad filler. Nothing is ever simple - if the story asks you to open a door, it’s not enough to find the key. You’ll have to find the guy who can make the key, who will ask for a latte, but they’re out of beans, so you need to gather them from far-off corners of the land. It’s that kind of thing. My play time ended up being pretty slight, so I can see Nintendo trying to extend the length of the game. All this backtracking, though, only bogs it down. Traversing the skies is probably the worst part of the experience. Aside from the town of Skyloft and a few scattered minigames, it’s just some floating rocks with chests on them. These chests won’t activate until you find the corresponding cube on the surface, which just feels like an extra step on both ends. The distance between things is vast, and your bird moves quite slowly. Empty overworlds are a regular problem in 3D Zelda games, but this one is surely the most anemic of the bunch.

To flip the script, the open world Zelda games have caught a lot of heat for their dungeons. They got better atmosphere in Tears of the Kingdom, but the nonlinear design can make them feel scattershot. The dungeons in Skyward Sword blow the modern version out of the water. Once the game stops fooling around and finally lets you in a temple, the pacing problems go away. These aren’t sprawling labyrinths. You’re still dealing with a mostly linear set of challenges, but that allows for a natural and rewarding difficulty curve. Skyward Sword contributes ideas like Timeshift Stones, which change an area’s state in real time, and memorable set pieces like a giant statue that alters the dungeon depending on its position. Each level is remarkably solid, and with the best stuff coming later in the game, there’s always something to look forward to. Even the items are smartly implemented - there aren’t too many, and few totally new ones, but the game won’t let you go too long without whipping each one out.

The adventure is important, but the surrounding elements also go a long way to making a memorable Zelda game. I’m mixed on the story and characters in Skyward Sword. To be sure, this incarnation of Link is infinitely more expressive than the emotionless shell we have now. He still travels with a robotic pal, though. Your companion character is Fi, the soul of the Master Sword. It’s not a bad idea to stick the hero with a cold, calculating entity. In most stories with this pairing, though, the detached character slowly becomes more open over time. Not really the case with Fi. A lot of her dialogue from the original release was made optional in the HD version to minimize the interruptions to gameplay. While that kept me from hating Fi, as many did, it’s not like they replaced that with anything to win me over. In the end, I don’t have any sort of opinion on her. A shame, because her design and animation are really solid. Many of the other NPCs are strictly functional, telling Link where to go and what to fetch. The big standout, of course, is Groose. We love a reformed himbo.

Presentationally, the choices in art direction have kept Skyward Sword looking good 13 years later. They sort of mushed the bright colors from Wind Waker onto the geometry from Twilight Princess, and the results are appealing. There are some low-poly objects, though, that don’t look great in this resolution and remind you of the hardware they were working with at the time. Fortunately, the music performed by a live orchestra is totally insulated from aging. There are some great songs and some that aren’t as memorable, but the score always underlines the emotion of the scene. The most thrilling moment of the whole game is the explosion of brass at the start of the credits. It launches into the game’s main leitmotif, then to the most triumphant rendition of the series theme heard yet. It’s undeniably classy, a sensibility that extends to the UI design as well. I really dislike the minimalist interface of the open world games. Skyward Sword goes the other direction with pleasing gold and purple. Even the pink hue of the heart display contributes to the message Nintendo is trying to send: Zelda is prestige.

It’s too bad that the argument was unconvincing for a lot of people who played Skyward Sword. For my part, I found a lot to enjoy in my first playthrough. At the same time, its frequent limitations and sluggish tendencies make me unlikely to return to it before any other Zelda game. Still, I will keep beating the drum that this style of Zelda has a lot left to offer. Nintendo turned towards open design with A Link Between Worlds, and they haven’t looked back since. I still have a tremendous amount of fondness for Tears of the Kingdom and everything it does to flip the series on its head. I just hope we haven’t seen the last of this version of the legend.

Is anyone actually happy with where things are right now?

Microsoft has finally completed its gargantuan acquisition of Activision Blizzard King. After so many months of drama, my own feelings on the subject have turned to malaise. The biggest Xbox fans are anticipating Activision's hits on Game Pass. But will that move the needle on subscription numbers in the way the execs are hoping? Gaming and TV subscription models alike have stalled in growth, causing prices to jump up across the board for customers. The Hollywood strikes of this year have emphasized just how broken the model is beyond what we already knew. Yet, with Best Buy starting to phase out physical media, it seems inevitable that this model will be the primary one remaining before too long. Is a $70 billion merger able to fix systemic issues with how the subscription model was built? I'm not convinced.

As you can tell,, my feelings on Xbox Game Pass are a lot different than they used to be. But there are more reasons I haven't gotten the most out of my subscription this year. The continuing backlog battle and my other pursuits keep me busy. And, unfortunately, I haven't found a Game Pass release that I've truly loved in 2023. Looking at my Xbox history, the closest contender was Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer. This spinoff of Hypnospace Outlaw is a fun romp for boomer shooter FPS fans. The presentation and humor are on point, but it was still out of my wheelhouse for genre. I almost wrote a review, but never got around to it. Other day one indie releases were Venba, a narrative cooking game that sadly didn't move me much, and Sea of Stars, which I still have on the back burner but have spent little time with.

Older indie games also pop up regularly on Game Pass. Credit where it's due, these are always high quality selections. If you didn't play the titles when they were new, it's a nice bonus. A Short Hike was a pleasant exploratory adventure game. I thought the cute photography game Toem was a delight and achieved 100%. And Game Pass was where I finally finished Hollow Knight... a game I already own on Steam. These games were already on my radar, and I would have gotten to them eventually regardless. But having them included in my subscription feels good.

Many people judge Game Pass on Microsoft's first party contributions, which haven't kept me rapt. Hi-Fi Rush held a lot of promise. It's a game I should and wanted to love, but quibbles with pacing and writing stopped me from getting very far. I gave Minecraft Legends a chance, but it didn't hold my attention beyond a single play session. Ditto for Redfall, though that's a whole different can of worms. The new big ticket items are Starfield and Forza Motorsport. I'm a fake gamer because I never had any interest in these. I acknowledge that they've had mostly positive reception, though. It's funny - the point of my backlog battle is to finish games I wound up with, even if I don't care for them. Meanwhile, the Game Pass model leads to me trying games for an hour, then putting them out of my mind completely.

Despite all the studios under Xbox, I still feel like we're always waiting for the next thing. Is Activision Blizzard going to change that? To be honest, it won't for me. I'm not a Call of Duty player. I have never touched any Blizzard brand product. I don't see why I should start now. I already own the excellent revivals of Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, and Tony Hawk. The studios responsible got absorbed into the CoD machine and I don't know if they can return. What else are we looking at... a new Guitar Hero? King's Quest? For decades, Xbox has sat on a treasure trove of IP, and if there's one constant in that time, it's coming up short of their potential. Just look at everything that happened to Rare. After the Crackdowns and Redfalls and Halo Infinites, I just feel like this leadership and business model is leading to games that come out underbaked. It's great for smaller scoped projects, but the math doesn't make sense on the scale they want.

Despite my concerns, I still love using my Xbox Series X. I have so much accumulated stuff that I would be set even if there was nothing on Game Pass for the next year. There are exciting things coming, though. Cities: Skylines 2 is already installed and waiting. I probably wouldn't have paid full price for the upcoming Persona games, but I will be able to dabble to my heart's content when they come out. If Hollow Knight: Silksong is ever a real product, it too will be on Game Pass. Then there's Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. This title is not getting a physical release in the west. But the pricing worked out that it was the same to import a PS5 copy from Asia, which is what I was planning to do. Then, they announced that it's launching on Game Pass. Forget the PS5, I'll be there. It's only now that I realize I played out the exact script they were hoping for. I abandoned my physical principles and contributed to the digital-only future. If that's the way it has to go, I guess I can live with it. There isn't much room on my shelf anyway. But if I'm to fully embrace the world shareholders want, there have to be serious conversations about fixing this model. If it all goes belly up and I'm in a bunker with no internet, I'll be stuck with my damn backlog again.

I don’t know what else I could have done.

The first experience I had with Mimimi Productions is with 2020’s Desperados III. It was basically on a whim. I didn’t have any experience with the isometric stealth genre it belongs to. Frankly, I wasn’t even aware there was a Desperados I or II. But giving the game a chance paid off tremendously. The expertly tuned mechanics, masterful level design, and endearing characters showed me that Mimimi wasn’t messing around. I immediately went back to Desperados’s predecessor, Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. Trading the cowboy setting for a samurai one, I was just as impressed with the studio’s first attempt at the genre. I was there for the Shadow Tactics expansion in 2021, and after that, I waited for the next big thing.

That project was finally revealed as Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, applying the stealth strategy formula to ghost pirates with fantastical designs and powers. More than Zelda, Pikmin, or Spider-Man, Shadow Gambit instantly became my most anticipated release of 2023. I desperately wanted the game to be a hit. It went on my wishlist immediately. Then, I signed up to the company’s Discord server and email newsletter. I devoured the demo that was released a few months ago. Everyone I know politely put up with me as I shilled for the title. On release day, I bought the more expensive “supporter edition” because that’s exactly what I wanted to be. For the first time, Mimimi self-published its game, and I needed to be behind them every step of the way.

Shadow Gambit didn’t disappoint. It boasts the most refined and customizable iteration of stealth strategy to date. The expanded cast of characters is delightfully unique. And the visuals and music are more breathtaking than ever. As I do, I was drafting a review in my head as I played through the campaign. I debated how to measure the changes to the formula and how granular I should be when dissecting them. I wondered if I could give a fair review without coming off like a total fanboy. But, not for the first time, my slowness in putting together my thoughts allowed for something to happen that totally changed my approach.

It was during the final level of the game. I was having some difficulties with the mission and realized that even the multiple hours I had allotted wouldn’t be enough. Then, I got a ping from my phone. I saw the words I never wanted to see: Mimimi is shutting down.

I was crestfallen. For one thing, the website wasn’t actually working at the time, so I couldn’t even read the post. More to the point, I was left with the oppressive feeling of failure. I’m not so naive to think that my sole actions could have changed a company’s fate. But I had hoped that I was just one of many who would make Shadow Gambit Mimimi’s biggest success ever. I guess we don’t know that it isn’t. It launched with excellent word of mouth and “overwhelmingly positive” Steam reviews. The founders are concerned that the next game would be the one to break them. They cite family priorities, financial risk, and the threat of burnout. Instead of dealing with those stresses again, they chose to go out on top.

Is this a common thing in Germany? I’m not used to game studios ending this way. I’ve been conditioned to think that in this industry, the end goal is to get acquired by a megacorp, then slowly wither away until you’re “restructured.” Still, the way this closure was announced leaves me with more questions than they answered. For it to come less than two weeks after Shadow Gambit’s release, the decision must have been made a while ago. However, the post is written by and from the perspective of the company’s co-founders. What about the rest of the employees? When did they find out? Did they get a say in any of this? The post confirmed that everyone is getting a bonus and assistance in the job search. And while I’m grateful that my contributions can help with that, as a fan, I can’t help wondering what paths, if any, could have avoided a closure.

With all that said, we’re left with Shadow Gambit as the studio’s swan song. In the Lost Caribbean, ghostly Cursed Pirates sail the seas on ships with souls of their own. The most legendary of these ships, the Red Marley, has the power to rewind time (canonizing quick save and load) and a link to an irresistible treasure. In pursuit of the treasure, the Inquisition ensnares the Marley and destroys its captain. The ship is finally freed by aspiring pirate Afia Manicato, and the two strike a deal. Their goal is to revive the rest of the Marley’s crew and follow the captain’s clues to keep the treasure out of Inquisition hands.

If you’re familiar with Mimimi’s previous stealth games, almost everything is just the way it was. Swarms of guards stand between you and your objective, viewcones furiously searching for aberrations. Your job is to sneak by or pick them off one by one with your characters’ powers. In all of their games, every Mimimi character is a ton of fun in personality and utility. The eight members of the cursed crew are:

• Afia - Navigator. She can do a Dishonored-style blink to evade or quick kill guards and freeze foes with a magic pocket watch.
• Toya - Cook. He lures guards with his flute and can place a marker to teleport to at will.
• Teresa - Lookout. This game’s sniper class. She can also momentarily blind enemies.
• John Mercury - Shipwright. In what’s possibly the most broken ability, he can dive out of sight and pop up leagues away for a kill. He’s also got a distraction in fishy companion Sir Reginald.
• Quentin - Treasure Hunter. His fishing line pulls allies to him or activates traps from afar. Plus, he has a lure - his own golden skull.
• Pinkus - Quartermaster. He can possess guards to infiltrate their ranks undetected.
• Gaelle - Cannoness. Not the quietest option, she loads bodies into her cannon and shoots them at other soon-to-be ammunition.
• Suleidy - Ship Doctor. As a plant person, she sprouts leafy cover anywhere and sends guards on the move with spores.

The catch with this bunch of pirates is that, after choosing between Toya and Suleidy, the order in which you unlock them is up to you. It takes most of the game to have the full crew available, so you should prioritize which ones seem the most fun. Your away team for almost every mission will be three crew members chosen by you. Whatever you pick will entirely determine your approach to that level and how it plays out. With all that in mind, no two playthroughs of Shadow Gambit will be exactly the same. That makes it the most replayable Mimimi game to date. Whenever you’re in a tough spot, you might think about how a certain crew member could make things different. You’ll hopefully keep that in mind should you replay the mission.

When I heard about this system, I was conflicted. The sandbox approach is exciting. At the same time, one of my favorite aspects of Shadow Tactics and Desperados was the carefully constructed missions. In both games, you had five characters compared to Shadow Gambit’s eight. The variety came from each mission changing things up. In one level, you might have characters 1, 2, and 5, while the next level would give you 3 and 4. Some missions would have your team start split up with the goal of converging. Or, a character would be captured, and saving them would add them to the party. The scenarios were varied, but more importantly, it forced the player to adapt to the tools they had available and use them in ways they otherwise wouldn’t. From a story perspective, tons of characterization was developed with mission-specific dialogue. Finding out what came next made the campaigns exhilarating.

Inherently, the sandbox approach of Shadow Gambit strips much of that away. While you can choose your entry and exit point for each mission, your trio will always start together and likely stay together for the duration. Afia and the Red Marley will comment on what’s going on, but because no other crewmate is guaranteed to be there, they don’t have anything special to say. More importantly, you aren’t forced to change up your tactics. You’re encouraged to change your team each time, as characters not taken on a mission will generate extra XP next time they’re used, but there’s nothing stopping you from sticking with the same squad every time. I guess that’s fine if you want to play that way, but I feel a little sad for what was lost. But the moment to moment gameplay is as refined as it’s ever been, and that’s what matters in the end.

The missing characterization is still in the game, thankfully. Between missions, you’re sent back to the Marley as your hub. That’s where you can play through “crew tales.” These essentially show a day in the life of each crewmate over five parts. There’s no gameplay reward for doing these, but the cutscenes can be a blast. If you wanted to see Toya train a talking fish in assassination or gloomy Teresa forced to work with pompous Pinkus, these are for you. Once you get towards the end of the game, you unlock what are essentially loyalty missions for each crewmate. This unveils their backstories. Did you expect the goofy golden skull man to have daddy issues? I didn’t. The narrative component of these is solid, but the mission design leaves a lot to be desired. All the ones I played involved running back and forth on previously explored locations. They felt overlong, even as I consciously picked the shortest ones. Since the game forces you to finish four before unlocking the last level, it sadly comes off as padding.

So, Shadow Gambit’s focus means that not everything lives up to the bar set by Mimimi’s other games. However, some elements are better than ever. I am in love with the art style. The main color palette includes a minty green accented with purple and a dark background. It’s very pleasing to the eye and is the perfect match for this eerie setting. The crew’s designs are fantastic, too. You’ll see missing body parts, skeleton limbs, and ghostly energy in different places. Some of those are given explanations later, while others are left mysteries. Whenever a character portrait pops up, it’s a joy to scan it for little details. Environments are also highly pleasing, with wind effects that make them more alive. Seeing locations differ from day to night is its own reward beyond the gameplay variations. Last but not least, the voice cast does an amazing job bringing this multinational cast to life. Whether it’s John Mercury’s cheerful brogue, Pinkus’s haughty attitude, or Red Marley’s authoritative demands, it’s always a joy to listen to.

Spending time with these great personalities during the game gave me flashbacks of other good times with Mimimi’s characters. Mugen and Hector. Takuma and McCoy. Yuki-chan and Isabelle. These games are light on plot, but rich in character, and that’s the type of story I always prefer. Welling up all those memories only made the news of the closure hit harder. We all have weird reactions to losing our favorite entertainment. I’m usually not too hurt when a show I like is canceled because I’m used to living without it for months on end. But when you’re so embedded in the thing, it becomes a lot harder. I feel the same every time a Giant Bomb staffer says goodbye. By the end, Shadow Gambit’s story deals with the same themes. Red Marley has to learn to let go of her captain, which her power makes all the more difficult. But our favorite people live on through what they’ve left behind. In Mimimi’s case, that’s a handful of awesome games that no one else was brave enough to create. And Shadow Gambit, as replayable as it is, will tide us over for some time. I still haven’t finished the last mission. I’ll probably go back to it as soon as I post this.

It’s going to be a lot harder than it already was.

Look, I screwed up. I got sidetracked. I’m supposed to be playing Advance Wars, but I’m also dealing with the uncomfortable truth that I don’t actually like Advance Wars as much as I thought. Instead, I spent this summer gorging on multiple titles in the Like a Dragon franchise. The series became one of my favorites in just a few years. The storytelling is often great, but even more appealing to me is the madcap comedy that the games do so well. You’re rarely bored in a Yakuza title because there are dozens of activities to grab your attention at any given time.

This all started in 2018 after the Giant Beast playthrough of Yakuza 0 got me to play it myself. Then I followed it up with Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza 6. Then there was Judgment in 2019 and Lost Judgment in 2021. By last year, I had purchased the rest of the games in the main series because I knew I would play them all eventually. But the typical Like a Dragon game takes time to get through, so I tried to avoid burning myself out. In February, Like a Dragon: Ishin was released in English for the first time. I finished and enjoyed it quite a bit, but I’ll touch on that more during GOTY season. I still had an appetite for more, so I blitzed through Kiwami 2 as well. And I was fully expecting to leave it there for 2023 while I dealt with the backlog battle.

But in June, the teaser trailer for the eighth main game, Infinite Wealth, debuted. I am being completely sincere when I say that it was my favorite game trailer ever. It’s simply the protagonist waking up on a beach buck naked as different objects humorously cover his junk. The confidence in your product if that’s the first impression you send is incredible. But it still raises questions, as any trailer should. The other beachgoers are speaking English, leading to most thinking it takes place in Hawaii. The subtitle itself is amazing on its face and sends the mind racing with what it implies. A clip they released later has the typically chaste Kiryu about to discuss a lost love. I am in for all of this. Infinite Wealth instantly became my most anticipated game, and that’s when I saw a problem.

It’s great that Like a Dragon’s popularity is bigger than ever, but the resulting speed of releases is difficult to match. Hell, there’s still another game coming out between now and 8. At my pace, I was never going to catch up. Even now, I strongly want to play 7, and I don’t know where I’ll find the time for that. I had to kick things into high gear. That meant going back to fill in some gaps. I beat Yakuzas 3, 4, and 5 in the Remastered Collection on Steam.

In Yakuza 3, Tojo Clan legend Kazuma Kiryu has taken a new career path. It was probably a fluke that his adopted daughter Haruka was kidnapped multiple times, so he takes over an orphanage with nine kids. Unfortunately for them, their orphanage sits on an important piece of land for a resort deal sought after by yakuza, politicians, and foreign agencies alike. Kiryu has to go papa bear and, with the help of some Okinawan allies, protect his new family. It’s straightforward as far as this series goes. Once the plot gets moving, it actually goes at a pretty quick clip. Before it gets moving is another matter. Like a Dragon has a consistent issue with slow opening sections, and 3 is the most egregious. The player spends over an hour solving problems for each kid in the orphanage. It’s not an action-packed sequence, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It’s important to establish who the kids are so you can react to the story’s stakes like Kiryu does. Plus, seeing Kiryu in dad mode is a nice reprieve from the merciless thug-beating we normally get. Still, I don’t blame anyone for hating the game’s start. It’s sadly not the only thing worth complaining about in Yakuza 3.

Anyone getting into Like a Dragon in the 2020s is likely to experience the first few games through their Kiwami remakes, which bring the gameplay to a more modern standard. These remastered titles, though, are mostly the same as when they were released on the PS3. That means that Yakuza 3 is the oldest game in the series available on modern hardware. I deal with jank on a regular basis, so I was prepared for it. That didn’t stop some of the clunkiness from dragging down my experience. Kiryu’s speed around town is quite slow, and the random encounters only makes getting to your destination more arduous. Combat in 3 is also unwieldy. Now, I wasn’t going out of my way to look for upgrades this time, so that might have been part of it. Still, most encounters felt like chipping away at a hunk of granite. Enemies in 3 block your attacks almost all the time. It’s hard to get any momentum going for combos when openings to even connect are so rare.

The side content, as well, is not up to the level modern fans might expect. I hardly engaged with any of it, blasting my way through the story in just over 15 hours. Few substories are memorable to me two games later, and most minigames failed to interest me. Realistic golf games aren’t my thing, so that was out. The hostess maker is introduced in 3. The kindest thing I can say about it is that it’s optional. To 3’s credit, it also brings us karaoke, which on its own is responsible for thousands of sales. Mainlining a Yakuza game is usually a bad sign, but I found a svelte playthrough to be refreshing. Yakuza 3 is Steam Deck verified, so I could soak up the story while lounging on my couch. And I got an action-packed ride through memorable set pieces like a love hotel chase and a bullring showdown. While the gameplay has evolved far past 3’s offerings, the story and atmosphere is unique to the series and still worth experiencing.

It’s slightly surprising, then, that so few threads from 3 are continued in later entries. To be sure, Kiryu’s orphanage is his status quo for the rest of his saga. But the writers feel obligated to come up with an excuse for him to leave. Okinawa is yet to be explorable in another game. The kids, aside from Haruka, only make cameo appearances until Yakuza 6. The other surviving new characters don’t return, aside from one villain in 4 who is unconvincingly redeemed. I’m not sure where the impulse to bury 3 comes from, but since 3’s opening hastily writes out my favorite character from 2, perhaps it’s deserved.

If you were a fan of 3’s tight focus on Kiryu’s journey, I have bad news for you. Yakuza 4 expands the playing field to four protagonists and weaves a far more interweaving tale. Of course there’s another conspiracy. Why would you even need to ask? It draws in rags-to-riches moneylender Shun Akiyama, who falls for a “femme fatale” at the same time his friend disappears. Meanwhile, Majima’s sworn brother Taiga Saejima escapes execution for the murder of 18 men, determined to find the truth. Corrupt cop Masayoshi Tanimura starts his own investigation, hoping to uncover his father’s murderer. And the events trace back to Kiryu’s past, which (eventually) drags the dragon out of retirement once again.

I was concerned about a Sonic’s friends scenario, but I like all the protagonists in Yakuza 4. Saejima is probably my least favorite due to his pigheadedness and his awful hair in this game. However, he serves a valuable role in the story. With an even more extreme rap sheet than the OG, Saejima can behave and react like Kiryu would in older games. His combat style, which relies on charge attacks, is tough since enemies still have a penchant for blocking at inopportune times. Tanimura especially surprised me from a narrative standpoint. Since he never appears after 4, I assumed his arc would be unimpressive. Instead, he won me over with his cocky attitude and his aiding the underserved. He probably didn’t come back because his story is complete. Tanimura’s fights revolve around parrying.

Akiyama is certainly my favorite addition in 4. He went from financial wiz to homeless when his company framed him. But after a lucky break, he has the knowhow to rise to the top and become filthy rich. That makes him a walking contradiction. He’s a slob who procrastinates the most basic parts of his job, yet he’s always the smartest and most rational person in the room. In a world full of hotheaded yakuza, he’s the guy who will slow down and come up with a plan. He’s also got a highly entertaining dynamic with his assistant, Hana. She’s a great foil to him and a badass in her own way, which ensures that he doesn’t come across as aloof to the audience. Akiyama’s moves are all kicking-based. That by itself differentiates the man from the other playable characters, visually and in attitude. It’s also the fastest style, which is a big help in this engine. You play as him first, then you sort of have to trudge through the rest of the game until Kiryu comes back. It’s like waiting for Goku to show up.

That desire to get back to Kiryu may have been the reason I also rushed through Yakuza 4. I hardly did any substories, though the ones I finished weren’t bad. There aren’t many minigames to crow about aside from some new karaoke bangers. Despite what seems like a more complex story, my hour count was roughly the same between 3 and 4. I was still encountering a lot of the quirks from the former, albeit to a lesser degree. That said, I remained interested in the story all the way through, some typically bad decisions notwithstanding. These guys seriously need to stop leaving the gun in front of the bad guy. I don’t know what they expect. Yakuza 4 is a solid entry that does a lot of things well and introduces several fan favorite characters on a high note. It was the first to prove that the series can indeed evolve past Kiryu… even if he’s gotta return by the end.

Clearly, the writers took the Kiryu withdrawal into account when crafting Yakuza 5. You start the game as him, only in a totally new place. Now, he’s a taxi driver. And Haruka is on TV as an idol? Say whaaaat? An unexpected visit from the sixth chairman pulls Kiryu right back into the madness. Meanwhile, Saejima breaks out of jail again to find the truth. Akiyama pops around because he’s tangentially related to everything and wants to find the truth. And washed-up baseball player Tatsuo Shinada has his own adventure as he struggles to (can you guess?) find the truth - and more importantly, pay his loans.

I’m curious if anyone else has this problem, or if it’s just a me thing. I’m vague with my story synopses partly to avoid spoilers, but mostly because I can’t remember the fine details of what happens in a typical Like a Dragon plot. These stories are based around reveals and double crosses, so it’s hard for me to pin down the A-to-B events. Also, I’m a dumb English speaker who has trouble keeping track of all the Japanese names. If someone is referring to a character who isn’t on-screen, chances are I’m going to need help putting a face to the name. None of this stops me from enjoying the big dramatic moments in each game, where people scream at each other and dramatically throw off their tops. But once the moment has passed, I have trouble remembering why they were on that rooftop to begin with. All of this applies to the best told stories in the Like a Dragon universe, so there was really no hope for Yakuza 5.

5 is certainly the most fun game in the Remastered Collection, but its story is incomprehensible. The problem stems from the pacing. In 4, while everyone was going through their individual stories, there was at least a sense that an underlying plot was advancing. They even crossed paths a few times. In 5, that connective tissue is much more tenuous. With every new protagonist, it feels like you’re starting a new story at act one. That kills the momentum. And when the game finally brings back plot points and characters from 20 hours earlier, I have no hope of even remembering what happened, much less the significance of it. Around 80% of the way through, I gave up on following the plot.

It doesn’t help that the story asks you to take some big leaps to begin with. Kiryu is in hiding because talent manager Mirei Park showed up at the orphanage and basically forced him out. Being associated with a yakuza wouldn’t do Haruka’s career any favors. But did Haruka want to be an idol that badly? Or at all? There’s a section in Yakuza 2 where she’s nearly recruited into that life, but I don’t think they wrote that as intentional foreshadowing. She’s always maintained that being with Uncle Kaz is the most important thing to her. I find it hard to believe she would go along with this in the first place. People talk about Haruka’s dream like it’s The Muppet Movie or something. But it’s clear that Park is the one trying to live out her own failed ambitions through Haruka. Initially, I thought this was shrewd commentary directed at a very common thing in the entertainment industry. The player is set up to hate Park for tearing Kiryu’s family apart. When they show Park establishing a mother-daughter bond with Haruka, I figured this was an act so she could better control her. Then I remembered that the previous game wanted us to sympathize with a man who stabbed Kiryu in the gut, and I realized that we’re supposed to go along with this. Indeed, this is the case, and everyone inexplicably becomes dedicated to carrying out Park’s dream. I don’t think she’s a bad character, but they were afraid to follow through with what could have been a great storyline.

I could go on - like how the final boss is seemingly pulled out of a hat - but I’d prefer to talk about the gameplay of Yakuza 5, which reminded me why I love the series so much. The engine has gotten a facelift, and with it comes smoother combat. I loved finding new avenues for combos and heat moves in this entry. Exploring a combat system for its own sake is rare for me, but each style is refined in 5 so that tearing up fools always feels great. The clunkiness is gone. Each character has an additional super move as well - Akiyama can do air combos, Shinada can charge tackle, and so on. They add even more depth and consideration for how to use heat. The encounter rate on the streets is out of control in 5, but I didn’t mind so much because the fights are always fun. I sought out all the masters to give myself a bigger toolkit. Seeing how powerful that made me, I then wondered how much I had been missing out before.

Side content is another astronomical step up from previous games. Not only are there more enjoyable minigames and entertaining substories than ever before, but there are also four “side stories” that combine the best aspects of both. You advance through a character-specific minigame and get entire plot arcs as a reward. This setup is common in newer entries, but it starts here. Kiryu’s taxi quest is a blast, especially once you get classic SEGA music blaring on the speakers. Saejima’s hunting… okay, that was bad and I stopped at the first opportunity. But Haruka’s idol tasks were neat if repetitive, and Shinada’s baseball training was a great showcase of his sleazy personality. They aren’t the best-constructed sections, but they lay the groundwork for the highs of Pocket Circuit in the future.

My hour count with Yakuzas 3 and 4 was around 15, but Yakuza 5 reached close to 60. This is mostly because of a quirky design decision that sent ripples through my experience. It’s common in the series to have both a freeroaming postgame and a new game plus with an extra difficulty option. Usually, you can carry your save from the former into the latter. In Yakuza 5, though, only your save from beating the game is eligible for new game plus. I don’t have any plans to replay the game, but I might years from now. I wanted to set myself up as best as possible for that eventuality, so I went out of my way to power up before finishing the game. I finished every substory, grinded to level 20 with everyone, and even fought the superboss Amon for the first time. All of this ballooned my playtime. There are five characters and five cities in Yakuza 5, and if you’re wondering if that gets overwhelming, it very much does. But each has something to enjoy that’s not found with the others. I had a great time seeing just how much is packed in here. It’s a shame that it can’t be backed up with a worthwhile story, but at least later games have the full package.

I was very satisfied once I finished the Remastered Collection, but I felt that I needed a refresher on how the story bridges to Yakuza 6. I booted up that game and watched some scenes in the cutscene viewer. Then, I realized that I had gotten shockingly close to the platinum trophy in my playthrough five years ago. Why not go for it? I had to grind out some minigames and experience, which took a few sessions, but I guess I really didn’t want to play Advance Wars. And during that process, I realized that I needed to adjust my series rankings. I thought 6 was awesome when it came out because it was new and pretty. Now, though, I think 5 has the edge in both combat and content. I don’t recommend any title in the Remastered Collection as someone’s first Like a Dragon game (any of the others would probably be better choices), but I’m really glad I gave them the time. Now, I’m finally ready to tackle Yakuza 7… eventually.

Go figure, the game I cover after Tears of the Kingdom is Nintendo’s next big release. I can’t help it. I’m in the bag to play the new games in both series whenever they come out. In Pikmin’s case, that’s only once about every 10 years, so it’s not that tough of a commitment. For a stretch of time, I was more excited about Pikmin 4 than Zelda. Where Zelda first took a subtle approach with its trailers, Pikmin was upfront about demonstrating new mechanics and how they would change the game. On a broad level, you’re still doing what you’ve always done: grow a small army of plant creatures and steal as many shiny things as you can before time runs out. Every new concept in 4, though, is explicitly designed to ease the process. Nintendo hopes this will finally attract new players like flies to honey. I think the path is cleared to succeed in that. Pikmin 4 is a great game and easily the entry with the most options for nervous newcomers. But as someone who’s collected every item in all 4 games, I still have to give the edge to 3. Some of the changes didn’t sit right with me, and by the time I was done, I was gorged on a series I thought I could play forever.

We open on Captain Olimar crash-landing his spaceship once again - actually, scrap that “again.” For some reason, Pikmin 4 is a story reboot. I’m not sure why they felt the need to do this, since there wasn’t exactly a sweeping narrative before, but there it is. The intergalactic Rescue Corps is dispatched to save him, only to crash themselves. It’s up to the rookie - your created character - to get everyone back safe and sound with the help of the Pikmin. The number one big new thing in 4 is the doggie companion, Oatchi. In lieu of multiple captains, he accompanies you at all times, with a swath of abilities to take advantage of. His nose can lead you to items of interest, you can assign him tasks while you do other things, and he can break certain obstacles with a charge move. Most importantly, though, you and the Pikmin can ride on his back. Old-school fans of the series often have vivid flashbacks of trying to move a large number of troops, only to have a few Pikmin get stuck behind a wall or fall off a ledge. It’s so, so, annoying. Now, that problem is gone forever. I wanted to keep the Pikmin with Oatchi as much as possible. He can also gain skill points and level up abilities, which is totally new to the series. When you invest in the right things, Oatchi becomes more powerful than God. He can carry things with the strength of up to a hundred Pikmin. He can develop immunities to environmental hazards. And his charge attack can become the single deadliest option in the game. When you charge an enemy with Pikmin on Oatchi’s back, they all jump onto the thing at once and start wailing on it. Once the tackle can stun enemies, fuhgeddaboudit. Even bosses can go down with a single impact provided you have enough Pikmin. Did it get boring to use the same strategy for 90% of enemies? I won’t deny it, but the combat in this series has never been why I like it. I’m here for the puzzles and micromanagement, which is also a large component of Pikmin 4.

The fourth entry finally gives a name to the series’ plate-juggling action: Dandori. If you missed that, they will be sure to repeat the word hundreds of times. You’re tasked with finding castaways in distress, treasures to power your ship, and onion bulbs to increase your Pikmin cap. There are also stones you can collect to use to build structures or trade as currency for items. The most useful of these tools let you direct Pikmin to your location or back to base. The single biggest improvement in Pikmin 4 is to Pikmin A.I. They will automatically move to nearby tasks when idle, and merely walking close to them will send them back to your party. When throwing a mess of Pikmin at an object, the throwing will pause after the correct number. No more counting in your head. Pikmin are also much better at pathfinding and keeping up with you. These improvements are critical because to collect the maximum amount of trash, good Dandori is the key. I was psyched that this concept was codified because rerunning the mission mode in Pikmin 3 was highly addicting to me. They integrate that concept into the story mode with Dandori challenges, rooms where you must puzzle out the optimal strategy under a time limit. Bingo Battle, Pikmin 3’s tertiary mode, is given a successor with Dandori battles. Against the computer or another player, you try to collect the most things while Mario Kartish powerups cause chaos. Both modes were more fun to me in 3 - especially the head-to-head mode, which loses something without the bingo card. It also seems totally random how well you do - I got a platinum medal on the hardest one without really paying attention. I have a friend who could never gel with Pikmin because this Dandori business stresses her out. So let me say that for all its big talk, Pikmin 4 doesn’t require you to become a multitasking master. For one thing, you have as many in-game days as you need to finish the story. If you waste your entire day and accomplish nothing, it’s no problem at all. For the first time, the series has a “rewind” feature, which takes you back to periodic checkpoints should you make too many mistakes. As far as the dedicated Dandori modes go, you only need a bronze score to progress. You can retry as often as you need until you get it. The game cries “Dandori” until its throat is sore, but it’s more accommodating than ever.

Your regiment of Pikmin itself has seen some additions and changes. Immediately, your squad is more limited than before because you start with only 20 Pikmin on screen at a time. As I alluded to, you must find items in the field to restore the traditional cap of 100. Moreover, while every Pikmin type from the series is back in 4, which is great to see, only three types can be on the field at once. I found these limitations tiresome as a longtime player. The game will always suggest the Pikmin needed for each area, smoothing out what could be a tedious process in the past. From where I’m sitting, however, the designers placed these boundaries for their own sake instead of the players’. The most prominent new Pikmin type in 4 is the Ice Pikmin. They can freeze water and allow allies to cross it unharmed. Once Oatchi can swim, though, it loses a lot of utility. When pounding on enemy creatures, ice Pikmin can freeze them in place and give your army an opening for huge damage. That can break encounters even more depending on the situation. The supposed tradeoff is that the enemy won’t leave behind a body, but that’s hardly something that made me pause before employing my charge strategy. Of course, Ice Pikmin can also demolish walls and obstacles that are icy in nature, but those were only invented to give them something else to do.

The other new type is Glow Pikmin. These are totally unbalanced. They have their own stun move which is even stronger than Oatchi’s, and they’re immune to all hazards. To make up for that, they’re only usable in certain situations, namely the night missions. I was excited about finally seeing what happens on the planet after sunset, but I didn’t love the results. The night expeditions are short tower defense sections where you have to juggle collecting more Glow Pikmin and guarding their luminescent anthill. These had the potential to be frustrating, but I never felt like I was in danger. Strong-looking enemies show up, but Glow Pikmin prove too strong for them. While the monsters may change, with the franchise’s scariest foes making appearances, there’s little to force you to find new strategies. It doesn’t quite live up to the deadly environment I was told to expect.

That mode is ultimately a distraction from the real structure of Pikmin 4 - which is essentially a remake of Pikmin 2. Sure, there are things to do in the overworld, but the majority of treasures will be found in caves underground. Pikmin 2 is a game that only gets worse the more you play it. Its caves are brutally hard by the end, and the placement of items is randomized so you can never fully get comfortable. Pikmin 4’s take on the concept reads like an apology. For one thing, floors are fixed, meaning you can put your faith in Nintendo’s level designers. The caves are (usually) on the shorter side. And thanks to the many playability improvements explained above, you are better equipped to handle tough situations. Okay, by the end of Pikmin 2, I never wanted to see another cave as long as I live. Even I have to admit that they are much more tolerable this time around. They even redid the most infamously hard cave from Pikmin 2, and it’s no big thing. But no matter how improved they are, caves are simply not what I want from my Pikmin games. The stated goal with Pikmin 4 was to unify the warring Pikmin 1 and Pikmin 2 fans. In the end, they only heightened the disparity by also including a remake of Pikmin 1 in this Pikmin 2 remake. There is a side mode where you play as Olimar and, under a strict day limit, have to collect 30 ship parts in remixed areas. The game warns you that you’ll need good Dandori to succeed, and in this rare instance, that’s actually true. The ticking clock is the extra push needed to incentivize thoughtful play. I’m not so pushy as to demand that this more difficult playstyle be the only one when Nintendo is trying to grow the series. Rather, I’m just happy that it was included as an olive branch to the old-schoolers.

No matter what mode of Pikmin 4 you’re playing, time slips away. I was engrossed for hours on end, barely cognizant of how much time was passing in the real world. That’s also because I was unprepared for just how much stuff was in the game. Every time I thought I was nearing the end of it, the game would drop some new area or challenge I wasn’t prepared for. I love Pikmin, but by the time the game finally wrapped up, it was beginning to wear thin. I should have paced myself more. You don’t want to smoke the entire pack all at once, but that’s what I did. The biggest annoyance was not anything with the gameplay, but your “teammates” who are on the radio at all times. The dialogue is incessant and always telling you about something you can see right in front of you. You’re being backseat gamed by a half dozen people at once, and it’s exhausting. I don’t care that I have to fight this boss for the third time, but you don’t need to tell me where its weak point is again! Stop freaking out that I lost three Pikmin! Do you have no concept of acceptable losses? You only wrote 10 lines for the night missions, so why are you repeating them every 20 seconds?! If there’s an option to turn these idiots off, I didn’t think to look for it because Nintendo has been failing at this for decades.

Shortly before Pikmin 4’s release, Nintendo put out ports of 1 and 2 onto the Switch. Now that 4 is finally out, I can tell you to ignore those ports if you’re new to the series. Pikmin 4 is a total replacement for the GameCube games, updating the concepts from both titles for a modern audience. The improvements to Pikmin behavior will make any regression hard to swallow. You are totally in the clear to stick with 4 unless you’re a freak like me who goes out of his way to play the first Hitman from 2000. The last question to be answered is if Pikmin 4 is substantial enough to last a decade until the next release. I clearly had some quibbles with the game, but the answer is still yes. If one doesn’t condense the entire breath of the game into a few days, there is a refined offering of strategy that can carry any player for as long as they require. It’s very likely I will return to my 100% file and aim for better scores in the challenge modes. But right now, I see the game whenever I close my eyes, so I think I’m going to take a break and touch some grass in the real world.

DISCLAIMER: This post does not contain any story spoilers outside of a dedicated spoiler block, which even then is not specific. However, this is unfortunately one of those games where it’s best to keep as many surprises for yourself as possible, and I will write in detail about mechanics and structure that is best discovered on your own.

Also, this post is based on a 50-hour playthrough where I completed the full main quest line and beat the game. However, there are still dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of content I did not see. It is possible that some of that content contradicts or recontextualizes an argument made here, but I am only drawing from my own experience for this one.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild released close to the time I started my quasi-regular gaming blog on this site. Considering the flippant way I threw out takes back then, I’m thankful I never tried to review the game when it was new. The closest I came was a two-sentence aside in my top 10 list, where I said that I liked the game but Wind Waker was better. I replayed Breath of the Wild last year, and my opinions didn’t change very much. BotW did some incredibly novel things for the open world genre, but major design decisions limited my incentive to fully engage with every system. It barely cracked my top five in 2017, and every time I’ve since heard it claimed as the literal best game ever made, I raise at least one and a half eyebrows.

I’ve also noticed a worrying trend in the past few years with big-budget sequels to popular games. Namely, that the developers do next to nothing to fix the most glaring flaws with the previous entry. God of War’s overreliance on gearscore? Horizon’s unsympathetic characters? Fallen Order’s janky behavior? All problems that look even worse in the sequels which I, to be fair, have yet to touch. I get it, building out teams to create all these complex mechanics is difficult. But the lack of flexibility in AAA iteration is killing the opportunity for creativity.

So when I saw that Tears of the Kingdom would carry over BotW’s characters, world, gameplay loop, music, and even UI… yeah, I was worried that everything I found lacking in the previous game would come back as well. However, I wanted to make that judgment for myself. I avoided as much information as I could, which meant skipping trailers and clicking off any online theorizing. Shortly before release, I scribbled a list of BotW’s most glaring problems, with plans to judge TotK against those standards. That’s the purpose of this post. I’ve transcribed the list below to spare you my handwriting, but I was really tired when I wrote it, so it may not make sense regardless.

Bad Things in Breath of the Wild:

• Boring “past tense” story
• Truly godawful voice acting
• No incentive for combat with breakable weapons
• Holding forward and looking at a green circle
• Generic shrines/dungeons
• Climbing in rain (not really)
• Not using the Wii U GamePad!!

I’ll explain what I meant by each of these points in turn. Overall, if our sole definition of a good sequel is how well these problems are fixed, things get murky. Nothing on that list was totally excised from Tears of the Kingdom. However, every single one was addressed in some way that unilaterally makes the game better. TotK accomplishes this in two ways: First, by layering an open world denser than I have ever experienced before and making every inch worthwhile to see. Second, by opening the possibility space so wide that the world becomes a true playground for the most creative players. To accomplish these goals so well simultaneously is nothing short of jaw-dropping, and the result is a game with flaws that are far less irritable than before. Nintendo has fully supplanted Breath of the Wild, a game which I can never imagine playing again.

So by that measure, TotK is an amazing sequel. But if your definition of a good sequel includes building on the plot of the original, well… you may be disappointed.

The story structure of TotK is much the same as BotW, but executed better. There’s a bad guy at the castle, four towns on the map corners to investigate, and flashback sequences dotted throughout the world. From my notes, I clearly wasn’t invested in the memory sequences in BotW. Here, I actually like them. Yes, the events are taking place in the past, but they drive the plot of the present forward instead of reiterating information the player already knows. Whereas the BotW memories were often just things happening, the TotK story has things like twists, setup, and payoff. The game won’t be nominated for best narrative, but there is a good effort that I appreciate as someone who found the near-total absence of story in BotW maddening. Following up with the various returning characters was nice, too, even if their individual stories were still basic.

TotK’s English voice direction is no longer what I would call “embarrassing,” but it is still “bad.” The actors are willing to put in up to 15% emotion this time. I was most disappointed by Ganondorf, who deserves a chilling vocal performance but doesn’t surpass standard angry bad guy energy. That criticism applies to the character’s usage as a whole. I love his design in this game, which looks like a young version of Wind Waker’s middle-aged incarnation. Unlike in Wind Waker, though, there’s never an attempt to give him pathos. This Ganondorf relies on brute force first and foremost, only rarely resorting to obvious schemes that only work because most people in Hyrule are stupid. I understand that some people are tired of the tragic villain type and want more bad guys we can hate outright. In that case, though, I question why Nintendo reintroduced Ganon’s human form when he doesn’t act much different than the mindless monster from the last game. Actually…

[This section is for Zelda story nerds only]

With that tangent over, the changes to BotW’s systemic gameplay are the most noteworthy ones to discuss. Weapon durability is the single biggest flashpoint in discussion about these games. You either hated it or you got over it in the last one. And if you’re not prepared for the adjustments here, the problem may seem even worse. I was very uncomfortable when an NPC said that all the weapons in Hyrule had become decayed and fragile. I understood this to be a way to funnel me into using the fuse system and stick random junk on the weapons. There are plenty of clever things you can do with this system, but for most of the game, I was just sticking weapons to other weapons. This was because I again ran into far more weapons than I had slots in which to carry them, and because it was the quickest way in my mind to increase their strength. That still wasn’t enough to make a dent in many foes, and I still found myself sprinting past enemy encounters to avoid wasting my weapons. It wasn’t until later that I discovered what the game actually wants you to do. The main monsters will always drop horns that give a big power boost to whatever they are fused to. And since the fused material breaks before the weapon does, you usually won’t lose anything big from a standard fight. The game usually funnels you into using fuse creatively instead of practically, but once I found this out, combat became less of a punishment.

I do wish fuse was less awkward to perform, which ties into my seemingly bizarre complaint about the Wii U GamePad. What I actually mean by this is that I didn’t think the UI navigation in BotW was very good. I played it first on the Wii U, where the HD ports of other Zelda games benefited immensely from the second screen. BotW was demoed with GamePad functionality, but once the decision was made to launch it on Switch, they couldn’t exactly make the Wii U version better, so that was stripped out. It made me resentful every time I had to struggle with BotW’s blocky menus just to change my weapon or clothes. TotK’s menus regrettably follow the same philosophy, but they are better. You can see more at one time, which cuts out a lot of scrolling. The powers are now in a radial menu, which feels nicer to navigate. And most blessedly, you can replace equipment when you open a chest without having to back out, drop it on the ground, and open the chest again. No joke, the moment I saw this was one of my happiest in the whole 50 hours. There are still issues, though. Chiefly with the materials section - the hundreds of items you can use and fuse. By endgame, scrolling through this list is arduous. Doing it from the “quick” select menu can take 20 to 30 seconds, which is hilariously annoying. You can sort the listing by fuse power, most used, and category, but that’s only so helpful when you’re trying to find the one item for your recipe like Where's Waldo. If you want to pull out flint and wood to start a fire, you have to scroll to somewhere in the middle for flint, then all the way to the bottom where the wood is. It’s not elegant at all, and dare I say, un-Nintendo.

I would not describe myself as someone who stops and smells the roses in open world games. I’ll find a destination that interests me and make a direct line there. That’s why I described BotW as looking at a green circle, which you do whether you’re moving horizontally or vertically. Because I’m terrible at finding Korok seeds, much of the map in BotW felt like empty space to sprint through. TotK solves this problem, and by doing so eradicates my typical open world play style. The game has everything. Hyrule now has hundreds of cave systems with goodies inside. The overworld from Skyward Sword was done right this time, with mysterious islands and archipelagos beckoning. The depths, which I had no idea existed, gave me the feeling I assume everyone who played Elden Ring got at the equivalent moment. This underground is a dark and dangerous wasteland that heightens every discovery. And most importantly, TotK has actually good side quests! I left so many of them unattempted because I didn’t want to play the game for the rest of my life, but that’s nothing against them. The amount of times I found something that surprised and delighted me by sheer wandering was greater than any game I’ve ever played. You can’t go three seconds without finding a shrine, a Korok, the dumbass sign guy, or some other thing that makes you forget whatever you were just trying to do. It’s a veritable buffet of gameplay that works like magic.

Even more incredible is how diversified that content is. There was definitely a point in both of my BotW playthroughs where I felt that I had seen everything the game had to offer. Here, in spite of my playtime being longer than either of those runs, I know that I have seen a mere fraction of TotK. The shrines in BotW felt stale after a few dozen, but I didn’t get that feeling here. The assets are recycled between shrines again, but their layouts are fresher. I don’t know why there are so many random tutorials within the shrines, but whatever. Dungeons are another unqualified improvement. With unique looks to each, it goes a long way to supporting their returning nonlinearity. I stumbled into the worst temple first, but after that, I was very happy with the quality of atmosphere and puzzles. The buddy mechanic was a fun novelty each time, and that Nintendo then lets you use all of them at once with no limitations was a gigantic shock.

Now that the taste of Divine Beasts has been cleaned from our mouths, the only widespread complaint about BotW left is the dreaded rain. You know, I did find this annoying whenever I ran into it, but it was never the dealbreaker that it became for others. In TotK, you have several methods to circumvent sliding down the slippery slopes. For one, slip resistance is a status effect you can apply now. It barely works, but it’s something. More likely, you’ll be using the ascend power to squeeze by. I never, ever got tired of using this power because it felt like I was getting away with something each time. And yet, it never breaks the game. Most crucially, there is a way to avoid climbing altogether. This is where we marvel that I got to the end of the post without once mentioning TotK’s Big New Thing, the Ultrahand.

A lot of the time, I didn’t incorporate Ultrahand into my toolkit when exploring the world. I know that people are using it to create mech suits and catapults and I’m sure you’ll be able to play DOOM with it soon enough. However, I don’t have the patience or vision to follow suit. I only tried to build vehicles as a last resort to get where I needed to go. If you’re worried that you won’t get everything out of TotK without going wild with contraptions, you can relax. That being said, the shrines are what make the mechanic sing. You don’t have to worry about battery juice or limited equipment there, and the puzzles are great. Sometimes I figured out the blueprint right away, and sometimes I couldn’t get the hang of it and finagled my own solutions. That both are valid in the game’s eyes is fantastic. Taken in with everything else in the game, TotK becomes a unique cocktail of Skyrim-meets-Minecraft that works better than I ever could have dreamed.

Tears of the Kingdom is a game that will continue to surprise me even though I’ve rolled credits. The weight of every absurd concept stuffed into it is unthinkable, yet it all works. We’ve endured game after game of bloated, broken messes. That I can speak so highly about TotK after finding plenty of complaints in its predecessor is miraculous. Is it a good sequel? Of-freakin’-course it is. I can’t see a single argument against that. But is it better than Wind Waker? Well, my favorite things about Wind Waker were traversing a wide world, finding secrets, and drinking in the atmosphere. Tears of the Kingdom is more successful at each of these things. If we remove nostalgia as a factor, I have no choice but to conclude that it’s my new favorite Zelda game. And considering that last year I ranked Wind Waker as my second favorite game of all time… oh no, what have I done?

CAVES! We’re going into caves this time! No light! Damp rocks! Huge bats! Let’s GO!

Cave Story

I hope I don’t upset you by saying this, but Cave Story, the game that inspired every modern indie game and therefore transformed the entire industry, will be turning 20 next year. I had my own personal moment of crisis when I saw that my most recent Steam achievements in the game were from March of 2013. For 10 years, it’s just been sitting in my library, waiting for someone to finish the job. Well, it’s as good a time as any.

Cave Story presents as a troidlike, but that’s not really true. It’s a largely linear sidescroller where you blast your way through hallways. You do revisit levels on occasion, but that’s because the story has advanced and not because of a new item you found. The narrative is fairly robust, with well-paced reveals. There might be a habit of introducing some weird new element and hoping you go along with it, but there is also juicy drama that newcomers wouldn’t expect from such a cute game. The original version of Cave Story was done by a single guy, and the talent is impressive even today. I’ve always been jealous of solo indie devs who not only design a game but also draw appealing characters and compose iconic tunes. Renaissance folk right there. Cave Story is not as polished as it could be, I suppose. The jumping doesn’t always feel great and the early game has some padding issues. Also, I’ve always been a little miffed whenever your weapon loses power after taking damage. But I enjoy the arsenal of guns that each serve a different purpose. Throughout the game, there are several choices between powering up in the short term versus getting even stronger later on. Even if it’s totally unintuitive in a blind playthrough, I like the hidden depths.

In the end, though, I bit off more than I could chew with Cave Story’s best path. I held out for the best weapons easily enough. After you do that, though, you’re tasked with getting through a harder version of the final stage. That was taxing but doable. Then, regardless of difficulty, you have a four-phase final boss sequence with no reprieve. I was starting to doubt myself at this point, but I soldiered on and eventually made it to the normal ending’s cutoff point. But I was trying to get the best ending, so I hopped down into a further cave to try the super hard gauntlet level. This starts with some devilish platforming around spikes, but I beat Celeste, so no biggie. Then there’s a hallway with randomly falling blocks to take a meaty chunk off your health bar. Annoying, but I could tank through it with some luck. Then, there is a very long corridor with tough enemies, more spikes, and a high level of stress from not wanting to do everything over. I slogged through this section, trying to preserve myself, before I got to a surprise boss fight that annihilated me in two seconds. Then I checked the guide, which noted that the superboss following that has four phases of his own, and I decided the normal ending was plenty good enough for me. If Cave Story was more like Celeste, with very tight controls and constant checkpoints, I would be more willing to try. As it stands, I have more worthwhile uses of my time. I’m slowly getting better about knowing my limits and being better for it. I still have the save if I change my mind, plus the limited healing item I stupidly didn’t use on the normal final boss. So, Cave Story: Still a good game, but more than a little demanding if you want.

Pikmin 2

Pikmin 4 is one of my most anticipated games. After Pikmin 3 was pretty much a perfect execution of the idea, I wanted them to get experimental with the next one, which is exactly what it looks like. Curiously, 4 appears to bring back the cave mechanic from Pikmin 2. So, after yet another playthrough of 3, I thought I would give 2 its due so I could say I’ve played all the numbered entries.

With this game, Captain Olimar becomes one of Nintendo’s most tragicomic characters. He’s just survived a month stranded on an alien planet, and he’s sent back before he can even say hello to his wife and kids. All because his coworkers are incompetent. Anyway, the objective this time is to cultivate Pikmin and retrieve the garbage humanity left behind: things like our fruit, yo-yos, and Duracell batteries. This is pretty realistic, only it should be nothing but Funko Pops. Because there’s no imminent danger of starvation, you have as many in-game days as you need to gather enough treasures and pay off the company’s debt. I wonder if this was a response to criticism of the 30-day time limit of the first Pikmin. Regardless, the time you spend in the overworld, the areas of which are remixed from the original game, is limited. It’s where you’ll grow your army and pick up a few treasures, but the real meat of the game is underground. Here, Pikmin’s RTS gameplay is applied to a dungeon crawler concept. Each floor of the cave will have the same elements, but their exact placement will be a little random each time. This is where you’ll find the toughest enemies, but also the highest volume of treasures to collect.

Now, is this what I want from the series? Not really. While you’re in a cave, time stops. You also can’t grow any new Pikmin while you’re down there. So that’s the whole gameplay loop tossed. With no time management aspect, the caves are highly focused on combat, which I’ve never found to be Pikmin’s strongest suit as a franchise. Things are friendly enough at the start, but by the late-game caves, you are put up against enemies that in function and number resemble romhack levels of difficulty. This being the case, Pikmin 2 funnels you into a very specific style of play. The game saves at every floor, so any time things go wrong, there is no reason you shouldn’t reset the console and try again. If you lose any Pikmin of the new types, which can only be obtained in these caves, you are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t try again. It is tedious, but losing your numbers is only going to put you at more of a disadvantage later, then force you to spend time getting them back. I’m not a fan of dungeon crawlers in the first place, so this was probably never going to work for me.

After you get enough money to pay the debt - which is easy - you see credits roll as Olimar’s partner Louie I guess forgot to get on the ship and is left behind. The objective then changes to saving him. Whether Louie deserves to be rescued is another question, seeing as he’s worse than the literal trash you’ve been collecting this whole time. Sometimes my strong moral compass can be a detriment. At this point in the game, the best advice is to run ahead without any Pikmin and punch creatures to death by yourself. Something is broken with this game. They do give you multiple captains, which is meant to encourage multitasking. It comes in handy on a few occasions, especially in the overworld, but in the cramped caves it does little. Like all of Pikmin 2’s best ideas, it was perfected in 3. So I sent the President running on his own through the last dungeon, ignoring everything, because I needed all my Pikmin for the last boss guarding Louie. It was a slaughter, but I eventually made it through. And… I was put back outside with no fanfare. At this point, I’m confused at what “beating the game” actually entails. I got credits hours ago at this point, but that didn’t feel conclusive, and now Louie is just locked in the ship like he deserves. I guess I’m meant to collect the 70-some remaining treasures, but I don’t want to do that. Especially once I tried the water dungeon with the invincible Nemesis steamroller monster. Out of the first three Pikmin games, Pikmin 2 is the longest, the most punishing, and in my opinion, the least fun. But that’s due to my own favorite aspects of the series being underrepresented. I think the timed treasure-collecting missions in Pikmin 3 are the best thing ever, and there’s nothing in Pikmin 2 that wants you to play that way. Pikmin 3 is basically Pikmin 1-2, so I’m fine that Pikmin 4 looks like Pikmin 2-2. A lot of fans who like different elements than I do have 2 as their favorite. Plus, there has been 20 years of advancement in roguelike design since then. I’m confident that Pikmin 4 will be miles better. After all, it has a doggy.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

Let’s start with how goofy that subtitle is. Imagine if they called a movie Rocky II: The Rise of Rocky. But there are more substantial issues at work. I played the original Max Payne for the first time last year, and it was still a unique and worthwhile experience. The graphic novel presentation, though born out of budget constraints, has insulated the game from aging. The gunplay is solid and the bullet time ability adds empowering flair. And even on the Xbox, there is quicksaving that eases any incoming frustration.

All of this is still present in Max Payne 2, but everything feels somehow diminished. Despite turning half of New York into swiss cheese in the first game, Max doesn’t seem to have suffered any consequences at the start of 2. He is working as a detective in the NYPD which seems to me like a pretense for his gunslinging mania. But after a few run-ins with femme fatale Mona Sax, the rest of the story is the two chasing after each other while dozens of goons fruitlessly try to “Get Payne!”. Is the game strictly about caves? Not exactly. It takes place in and around various buildings. But Max keeps monologuing about falling into big holes, so it spiritually counts. Is the titular Fall of Max Payne really all that, though? Let’s look at the facts. Max starts the story miserable, and he ends it miserable. Because it opens in media res, we know what causes The Fall of Max Payne: Max’s killing of a detective and Mona dying in his arms. Only, the detective turns out to be a bad guy, and Max already lost his family, so get over it, buddy. The whole narrative hinges on whether you buy Max and Mona’s relationship. Which I don’t. Sure, I understand the adrenaline-fueled sex, but they don’t sell an emotional connection, if that’s what they were going for. Even including Mona’s brief appearances in the first game, the pair share the same room for like, less than an hour. And they can’t stop sniping at each other long enough to progress very far. I think Mona’s character could still be interesting if she could shine more. You play as her in two segments, both of which are about saving Max’s butt. She is supposed to have her own motivations, but we don’t see them. Time spent exploring that would be welcome, even if it meant breaking Max’s first-person narration.

I talked about the story more than usual because it’s such a big focus of Remedy’s games. But Max Payne’s other strength is the dramatic combat that emulates John Woo flicks. In the sequel, it’s pretty much untouched, so there is a good baseline of quality. I underutilized bullet time in the first game, so I might have overcompensated this time. I like playing shooters to inhabit an action hero, and on this, the game and I align. However, it’s time to introduce my grand theory about Max Payne 2. Max Payne 2 should be Max Payne 1, and vice versa. Here’s the big issue: I played Max Payne 1 10 months ago, and I still remember tons of moments from it. I can picture fighting through the shipping yard, escaping the government building, and the climactic ascent up the skyscraper where you beat back an army of special forces. I played Max Payne 2 yesterday, yet my memory is a lot hazier. I can still recall some scenes: the fun house, because you visit it three times, and escorting the guy in the mascot suit, because that one’s hard to ignore. But these scenarios are a lot more pedestrian when it comes to their environments. An abandoned building is lacking a lot of drama compared to a satanic nightclub, for example.

The story stakes are higher in the original Max Payne, as well. It deals with government conspiracy and control through a drug epidemic. There are traces of those elements in the sequel, but the real conflict is “scumbags try to get rich.” A lot more appropriate for a first story than a second. I have made the game seem reserved so far, but there is evidence that Max Payne 1’s success led to a higher budget. For one thing, the sequel leans much more heavily on in-engine cutscenes and reduces the number of comic-book sequences. Despite interesting framing at times, the cutscenes are pretty unappealing by current graphical standards. The stylized panels, of course, don’t have that problem. This is also where Remedy stepped up their TV-within-the-game content, as several fake shows can be overheard throughout the game. I do think these are funny and flesh out the world to an extent. But in a game about combat momentum, I don’t always feel like staying still and waiting for the routine to end.

Max Payne 2 is shorter than the original, which many would see as a problem, but it’s a positive to me. With the game we got, it’s good that they didn’t try to overextend it. I made it through the story in an afternoon, and that’s the perfect length for the scope of story they tried to tell this time. There was no time I was angry at Max Payne 2 or felt that I could make a better game. Compared with the freshness of the original, though, I was hit with some diminishing returns. Don’t let my opinion dictate yours, though: I have a friend who called it a masterpiece. But he has some weird tastes.

What’s Next: I’m finding that I’ve taken so long to get to these games that some of them have remakes in development. I couldn’t finish Resident Evil 4 in time to beat that coming out, but at least I could for Max Payne. Next, it’s time to tackle… The Witcher. But, uh, probably don’t need a full blog post about that. I can just say “it’s janky” and you get it.

In a moment of FOMO-induced delirium back in 2017, I desperately secured a preorder for the Super NES Classic Edition. It's a novelty miniaturized console with 21 SNES games built-in. I liked the thing quite a lot, but the fact that it’s not currently in my house should say something about its longevity. Nevertheless, something was eating at me recently. I have enjoyed most of the console’s must-have classics, but I had yet to fully explore a chunk of the mini’s selection. That’s what I did this month. Only I played them on the Steam Deck, which is a lot more convenient.

F-Zero

Like many people, I’ve spent far more time playing as Captain Falcon in Smash than I have trying any of the F-Zero titles. They always struck me as too intense and punishing. That said, I can appreciate the technical prowess of each entry. The original F-Zero is more of a tech demo than anything, but it’s a strong showing for what the SNES can do. If you jumped from an 8-bit machine, I’m sure that your jaw would go slack at the sight of this blistering Mode 7. The game runs really well, which can’t be said for a lot of SNES titles. The art direction is not a total success, though. I think they’re trying to convey space-age racetracks suspended high above the planet. But they can’t really sell that distance, and the graphics outside the tracks are a muddled pile of pixels. It can look more like a carpet than a city.

My intense and punishing assumption turned out to be mostly correct. Even on the beginner difficulty, I struggled with surviving later tracks. If you hit a corner wrong, your machine can pinball between walls with devastating results. There was one instance where my car wasn’t fast enough to make a jump, and I plummeted to my fiery death over and over. Being the stubborn person I am, I kept reloading until I finally scraped by, using a boost on subsequent laps to send me over safely. Oh yeah, the game gives you the equivalent of a Mario Kart mushroom with every lap you finish. The way these tracks are designed, you can only really use it on rare straightaways. It’s fine for what it is, but the later games’ ingenious use of health as boost dulls the mechanic here. One thing that’s certainly not dull is the music. No one can take away the head-bopping melodies that permeate F-Zero. But while I can listen to the soundtrack forever, playing F-Zero gets stale pretty quickly. There aren’t enough variables or sparks of personality to draw me back, at least for this first game. In that way, it’s very unlike…

Super Mario Kart

Super Mario Kart was a big seller and the start of one of Nintendo’s biggest franchises, but I still classify it outside the SNES essentials today. The bones of Mario Kart are mostly here, but so are plenty of strange choices and inconsistencies. It was made as a follow-up to F-Zero, yet Super Mario Kart ends up highlighting the hardware’s limits rather than its potential. For one thing, the game is permanently split-screen. I recognize that this was to support the new two-player mode, but if you don’t have anyone to play with, you end up wishing you had a better field of view. The bottom half of the screen is an intrusive map that isn’t that useful considering the AI will just rubberband anyway. The SNES also apparently can’t process items fairly. The player will be the only racer throwing out shells and bananas from the roulette. Whoever’s closest to your position will instead periodically activate a character-specific item. And these will affect only you, if the numerous times I saw Bowser hover over his own fire trap is any indication. Even before they invented the blue shell, Mario Kart was finding ways to punish you for doing well.

Despite those quirks and more, I was able to settle into Mario Kart a lot easier than F-Zero. The pace is more easygoing, the tracks are often wider, and items can be a help when they work for you. My biggest piece of advice is to pick the Princess. For one, her acceleration is high, which makes it easier to recover. More importantly, it halves the likelihood of being targeted with shrinking mushrooms, the biggest headache out there. Once I found my character, most of the races weren’t too bad. Unlocking and defeating the special cup was a big challenge, of course. But I really enjoy this version of Rainbow Road, so it was okay. To nitpick some more, there are too many courses in the Mario Circuit and Bowser’s Castle locations, while other themes only have one or two tracks on offer. Also, the character sprites are uncomfortably off-model. Yoshi, my guy, please put the tongue away and close your mouth. But the soundtrack is full of jams and items make the race unpredictable in a fun way. I’m glad elements of this game are preserved in sequels that I’m much more likely to revisit.

Super Punch-Out!!

Following up an all-time great like the NES Punch-Out is not easy. That’s why the SNES version can be forgiven for having a less notable legacy. Even without that status, it’s still Punch-Out. It’s a thrill to learn the patterns and beat back boisterous boxers. While the control feel is very familiar, there are tweaks to mechanics that don’t ring as either good or bad to me. First, blocking punches is now essential. Opponents, just like you, can throw out high or low attacks, and matching them with your defense will nullify the damage. The perspective makes it hard to distinguish where punches will land, so I just reloaded until trial and error let me learn each sequence. Additionally, the star punch mechanic is replaced with a special meter that fills as long as you do well. I like this change because it simulates the momentum of a real fight. Keep the offense up and you’re rewarded with more power. You’ll need it, because the matches are now one-round affairs, and there’s no winning by decision. That ticked me off a little, but seeing the in-game push towards speedrunning, I can accept that Super Punch-Out has a slightly different focus.

Mechanics aren’t everything in Punch-Out, though. You also need to go against opponents who deserve a good glove to the face. On this front, the SNES game isn’t perfect. There are a few winners, like Bear Hugger and Super Macho Man, who would be improved further in the Wii version. A lot of the cast, regrettably, is stuffed with uninteresting boxers. There’s less chance someone will get offended by national stereotypes, which is a positive, but most of these guys don’t have the stuff. Ending the game with a generic musclehead, then his identical brother, sucks the air out of the room. Despite the graphical leap, the facial expressions sometimes feel less animated than the NES version. The fact that there are good designs here makes the uneven application more disappointing. If you can get past that, Super Punch-Out has many of the strengths common to the series. The snappy controls have proven virtually age-proof. While it’s not the first Punch-Out you should run out and try, it shouldn’t be so overlooked, either.

Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts

This was the only game I had strong feelings for before the playthrough. And those feelings were intensely negative. I hated so many things about it. The cheap enemies! The unbearably stiff double jump! The eye-straining slowdown! I never know what emotion I should be feeling with this series. Obviously, I’m supposed to struggle, but am I supposed to soldier on, or are the developers laughing at me? I know there are fans out there, and that’s cool. This kind of game design doesn’t agree with me, however, so I just save-state-stitched my way to a perfect run. When I did this, I got to look past the problems and enjoy the game underneath it all. I could see things I never would have otherwise. The game’s frame rate may dip like a drinking bird, but at least the sprites are big and detailed. Each level’s scenario is varied and offers its own challenge made fun to conquer by the safety net. I got to see the game without wanting to break anything, which is why I love save states.

If you get the knife and the best armor, there’s not much in your way that you can’t melt. Ghosts 'n Goblins infamously makes you do a second run to “finish” the game, and this one is no different. I couldn’t discern much that changed on that loop other than a new weapon you need to find. The true final boss was a step above anything else in difficulty, and I’d really rather not fight it again. Listen, if I could have left Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts off of the SNES Classic, I would have. There’s already a better horror-themed action sidescroller on there, and that’s Super Castlevania IV. But if nothing else, I got a glimpse of what the faithful few like about the series. You masochists.

Kirby’s Dream Course

I have to watch golf for my job, and it’s just about the most vapid and pointless sport out there. Golf video games, on the other hand, are usually a good time, as are Kirby spinoff titles. So, here’s Kirby’s Dream Course. You knock Kirby around these isometric arenas bumping off enemies until the last one becomes the hole. I tried it out numerous times before, but almost always in the fantastic versus mode. Definitely look up some videos of that for some friendship-ending hilarity. The single-player, though, always lost me after a few holes. Perhaps the slow pace had something to do with it. When you sit down and give it the time, Kirby’s Dream Course is pleasant, but it’s more puzzle than sports. Since you can kill enemies in any order, the levels appear to be freeform. In reality, there’s an optimal route planned out for every one. Figuring that out is fun, but screw up a shot and you screw up your run. I found it more engaging to save after every shot and dial in the perfect angle. The amount of control you have over Kirby’s direction ensures that there’s a way out of nearly any spot.

Some enemies will give traditional Kirby powers when defeated. The applications of high jump or fireball to golf is exciting, but these are often liabilities. Unless they’re a prescribed part of the puzzle route, the copy abilities will usually send you into the abyss. It’s hilarious when your friend does it in versus, but not so much on your own. And while the play field is very readable, the graphics are desaturated, losing some of the Kirby appeal. I also recommend you take breaks if you go through the single player. There are some 64 holes, so it drags on after a while. But Kirby’s Dream Course is a neat little game. I would be happy to see it come back since there are more Kirby games coming out than we can keep track of. If you try it, though, make sure to bring a friend.

What’s Next?

I’ve made it through all of the bite-sized games on the SNES Classic. That leaves only two titles I haven’t even booted: Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy III. That’s entirely due to a lack of time, not a lack of interest. I’m going to fit them in somewhere, but I’m pretty confident that I won’t be writing about them. For one, these are some of the most discussed games on the internet, so finding a new angle would be impossible. More importantly, people get really touchy about them. I randomly brought up that I would play them elsewhere, and someone immediately tried to preemptively backseat me. I really don’t need the grief of people in the comments telling me I didn’t… optimize my leveling, or whatever. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

You can follow the games I beat this year In Real Time!