It’s rare that a long-awaited product meets expectations, but the final iteration of the languished Metroid Dread is here to great acclaim. While I haven’t heard from anyone who fully dislikes the game, I found it interesting which criticisms did pop up. One group of people thinks the game is overly difficult and leaves players to get lost without any help. Another group wishes Dread didn’t hold their hands so much and allowed them more freedom to explore. How can both realities exist simultaneously? Furthermore, how is it that I count myself in neither of these camps? By some miracle, Metroid Dread hits the exact sweet spot where I can enjoy its progression without hitting my head against the wall. It’s not too hot, not too cold – just right.

But it’s been a long journey to this point. We aren’t born enjoying this type of game. The search action genre (known by freaks as “metroidvanias,” known by one guy as “troidlikes”) is very popular among The Gamers. They are very happy to talk online about Super Metroid and Metroid Prime as some of the greatest things to ever grace the Earth. I, coming to these games late, had these expectations of life-changing epics. And while I gave it an honest effort, I just couldn’t get down with a lot of troidlikes.

To speak generally about things I didn’t like:

1. I hated getting lost. These games often obfuscate where you are supposed to go next, and they just make you figure it out yourself. In older ones, especially, it comes to either luck or institutional knowledge from playing the game a bunch of times already. Which led to my opinion that:
2. These games were not “nonlinear” at all. To me, a true nonlinear experience is Breath of The Wild – you are free to explore the world in any order. In most troidlikes, there is still a direct sequence of events you need to trigger to advance. That made the lauded openness feel like a lie to me.
3. Your path forward is so often hidden behind “Metroid surprises,” by which I mean stuff like hidden blocks. That always felt more annoying than rewarding to uncover.
4. I didn’t like how the character controlled, and finally:
5. Dying and losing all progress from the last save point, which means re-exploring what I’ve just done.

I could spend all day going over the pros and cons of various troidlikes I’ve played, but in short, I’ve grown to like them a lot more in the past year or two. Marathoning the four-game 2D Metroid series gave me a better appreciation for their progression, and games like Ori show how to advance the genre with their incredible movement. When Metroid Dread was announced for October, I was legitimately excited. With the finished game in hand, it’s undoubtably from the same DNA as its predecessors. However, it addresses my five complaints brilliantly, leading to an experience in the upper tier of modern troidlikes.

Dread starts in a damp cave – where else – and Samus has once again lost the majority of her abilities. But moving through the tutorial section, the upgrade to her speed is instantly apparent. I’ve never felt this level of control over Samus, who was previously floaty and unwieldly. Here, she’s snappy. Already, the developers have cleared one of my hurdles to enjoying a search action game. This movement would be fun no matter the genre. Returning from Mercury Steam’s previous project is Samus’s 360-degree aiming and melee counter. These make the combat as fine as the movement. Certainly, it’s better than the locked angles we dealt with before. With better control over your weaponry, enemy encounters can step up and become something great – but more on that later. The biggest new thing off the bat is a slide move. Since Samus’s abilities are so tied to trinkets scattered around the universe, it’s a little funny that she just decides she can slide now. That said, it’s a great move for preserving momentum and slipping into tight spaces.

With the basics out of the way, things quickly fall into a familiar rhythm. Explore the environment, destroy anything you can, and find upgrades. The pace of progression feels noticeably faster than in previous entries. It sometimes felt like I had barely any time making use of the latest ability before stumbling into something else. Dread asks you to master every tool you have by the game’s end, but some of them are less significant than they could be. Still, each new power contributes to the fantasy of the unstoppable bounty hunter quite well.

Most abilities have been seen before, but there are a handful of new concepts. They are often cool in theory, but ultimately situational. The exception to this is the phantom dash, which has a high level of utility in combat. But a dash move has been part of modern platform design for a good while now. Limited credit for that. Ultimately, a more intuitive control scheme could have been found for managing all these powers. Nearly every button on the controller is put to use, and in tense moments it’s very easy to panic and forget which inputs are required for certain maneuvers.

Exploring the alien planet, on the other hand, has never been more intuitive. The biggest contributing factor to this is the upgraded map. The days of abstracted squares are behind us; instead, the world is represented with its actual geometry. Every interactable object is labeled as soon as you find it, including doors, pickups, and even hidden blocks. This is such an improvement on how old troidlikes handled things. If you get a new door-opening ability, you can quickly check for that icon and start your way there. The game doesn’t have to put a waypoint to lead you by the nose, but it subtly lays out the path forward. The system is so robust that the option to add your own markers feels unnecessary.

That said, the map is doubly helpful because navigating without it would be a pain. I was unable to mentally map out the world like I could before. Certain rooms stick in my memory because I visited them multiple times, but generally the layouts of each area were in one eye and out the other. I couldn’t even tell you the themes of each area. What’s the difference between Dairon and Cataris and Gabagul? I couldn’t tell you offhand. It might be the quicker pace through the environments or the art direction, but that’s just how it is.

The pace of the exploration is controlled intelligently by limiting where Samus can go at any given point. You’ll be locked off from backtracking much of the time, all in the service of funneling you towards the next step of the journey. This is where the frustration comes for veterans who have played these games for 30 years. Personally, I think it’s brilliant. If you’re totally lost, you still know that there’s a limited area that hides the solution. Even when that solution is behind those stupid breakable blocks that are still around, at least you weren’t scouring the entire game world. They hit the exact right point for me to enjoy discovery without being overwhelmed.

All of that applies to the standard Metroid portion of the game, but there is another portion that gives Dread its subtitle. When Samus arrives on the planet, there are seven EMMI robots causing trouble. These are too powerful to fight head-on, so going through their territory requires running and hiding. You should just run; hiding isn’t very fun or effective. These sections play more like timed obstacle courses. I suppose they test knowledge of platforming like boss fights test combat ability. The EMMI zones aren’t bad, but if the goal was to inspire Dread, they don’t succeed. The robots are not visually scary, and the animation for stabbing Samus reads more like swordplay at a community theater. So, the threat is limited. Despite the EMMIs’ supposed prominence, they won’t immediately come to mind when I think about Metroid Dread.

Where the game really shines, however, is with boss battles. Bosses have never been a series highlight until now, where they command focus and mastery. They have more in common with Cuphead than with any previous Metroid game. To win, you must zip around dodging every attack, because they hit hard. Bosses near the end can deal close to 300 damage with a single hit! I struggle to think of an enemy doing even 100 in a past game. After you see that game over screen, though, they drop Samus right outside the boss’s house. Finally, no more trekking through all that previously covered ground just for another chance at the fight! The near-instant retries make learning boss patterns gratifying. By the time you fell a boss, you will have practically done so while taking no damage. It’s difficult for sure, but never crosses the line into unfair. I wouldn’t have expected the bosses to be my favorite part of Metroid Dread, but, again, that’s just how it is.

Finally, the story presence is typically sparse in Dread. It’s limited to just a few larger cutscenes, but each feels monumental. As the final game in the Metroid timeline, there were a lot of story opportunities, and the writers take most of them. I was shocked how closely the plot follows my own expectations for what a Metroid 5 could be. I don’t think the best moments are even worth alluding to, so pick up the game and experience the nuttiness firsthand.

Troidlikes are dominant in a way they weren’t when the last Metroid game came out. I was doubtful that a new Metroid could live up to its progeny, but not only is Metroid Dread a reinvigoration of the franchise, it stands toe to toe with the best in the genre. I doubt that troidlikes will ever be my favorite genre. However, it’s games like Dread that show how wrong I was to dismiss them out of hand.

Psychonauts 2 is a game so good, I’ve had dreams about it. Every second is brimming with wild imagination, instantly classic characters, and unstoppable joy. Not only does the sequel quell any concerns that arose during its protracted development, but it signals the start of a golden era for the studio that brought it to life.

Which actually makes my job harder, because it’s tricky to structure a review that’s nearly 100% positive. Especially in this case, where the premise takes a lot of explaining for those new to it. If you don’t know anything about Psychonauts, it might be hard enough to accept the concept of psychic secret agents diving inside of people’s brains. The sequel opens with a cute “previously on” video to refresh players, but how well it works for newcomers I can’t say. To save time, I’m assuming some familiarity going forward.

The first game came out 16 years ago, but for Raz, it’s only been a few days since he ran away from the circus to become a Psychonaut. After proving himself at summer camp, he finally arrives at Psychonauts HQ. But there’s no time to rest – intel suggests there’s a mole in the spy ring, and they’re trying to revive the Psychonauts’ deadliest enemy, Maligula. It’s up to Raz to uncover the truth behind the plot and stop it before Maligula drowns the world.

It’s a more involved story than before, and it does a better job at linking together the brains you explore. In the first game, some of the best levels were in the minds of people who just happened to be around. Here, pretty much everyone is a Psychonaut, and they all have connections to the larger backstory. On one hand, you lose some of the discovery that comes with more independent characters. It’s inherently less surprising seeing different perspectives on the same events. But the picture that emerges is satisfying, and the level theming itself never suffers for it.

In fact, I can guarantee that every level in Psychonauts 2 will show you something you’ve never seen before. No matter how great a platformer’s mechanics are, I’m a little let down if the game sticks to the standard fire world, ice world, desert world, etc. Setting the game in abstract mental planes bypasses the need for these tropes. When the tutorial takes place in a horrifying toothy landscape, you know that some wild stuff is ahead. The game’s personal mission is to surprise and delight the player with ideas that exceed the highs of the original. In one section, you run on giant bowling balls in a city full of irate germs. In another, you compete in a cooking game show where the animate, enthusiastic ingredients are also the studio audience. Anything more, I don’t want to spoil. And while the concepts are amusing at a glance, it’s the full-hearted commitment to them that makes them unforgettable.

The scope of each brain is well-split between expansive worlds, where mechanics and ideas evolve over time, and shorter experiences that are none the less fun to explore. Double Fine knows exactly how long each concept should last before moving on. Keeping the element of surprise is essential for a narrative game, and Psychonauts 2 masters the craft. I was constantly anticipating whatever insane place came next. Happily, I can report that there’s no Meat Circus-level calamity at the end of this one.

When it comes to exploring these one-of-a-kind environments, platforming feels solid and modernized. Being an acrobat, Raz can do all sorts of athletic feats. Whether it’s swinging on bars, walking on tightropes, or bouncing on trampolines, it leads to engaging level design to traverse. Raz picks up a few new powers in this one, and each gets some pretty good use. My favorite is the archetype, a little two-dimensional helper that has an endless supply of quirky lines. The returning powers are smartly updated. They work on cooldowns instead of needing ammunition, and their area of effect is made much clearer. Levitation, the most mobile ability in the series, has been scaled back, but it’s in the service of more varied platforming challenges that can’t be bypassed.

Fans of the collect-a-thon are in for a treat – it’s returned in full force. Across the game, there are hundreds of figments to pick up. I’ve always loved these drawings because they tell a story about the mind where they are found. I think the developers got annoyed by chasing down the really fast figments in the first game, so they are thankfully a lot better behaved here. And plenty of pun-tastic larger collectables are hidden throughout: Half-a-minds, emotional baggage, memory vaults, and more. The overworld has its own set of goodies to turn in for extra quests and upgrades. If Raz went in my brain, it would be stuffed wall to wall with collectables because that’s just what I like to do. Collecting EVERYTHING is a big ask, but it’s doable. Invariably, you will have just a handful of figments left in a level and no idea where they could be. I had to comb through a guide for certain brains, but I got there. It’s a great sign that, unlike the original, this game actually incentivized me to go back and pick everything up. It wasn’t even that much of a question. I beat the game and simply wanted to keep playing for as long as I could.

If the Yin of Psychonauts is wildly inventive levels, its Yang is hilarious characters. There are dozens of lovable people to meet here. When Raz gets to the Mother Lobe, he’s promptly assigned to the intern program. The other kids pick on him, of course, but they’re still fun. My favorite is Sam, the sister of Dogen from the first game, who has tense conversations with animals and seems to be living in a different reality from the rest of us. But the game’s real highlight is Raz’s acrobatic family who visits partway through the game. Right away, they embarrass Raz in front of the interns in one of the game’s best-choreographed scenes. Each Aquato is distinctly funny, and they give insight to Raz’s backstory and weight to the greater narrative. The amount of writing in the game is staggering, just like the original. Every character has plenty of dialogue and hidden lines for using different powers on them. Schafer’s adventure game lineage is preserved because he planned for using everything on everyone. It’s always a kick to use clairvoyance and see how each character views Raz.

The plot is twisty and revelatory in an enjoyable way, even if a few moments had me like the blinking white guy. It’s curious because, on paper, it’s a darker storyline. However, the writing has a slightly lighter touch than the 2005 game. Not only has comedy evolved over the years, but so has the visibility of and conversation around mental health. From what I can gather, Psychonauts 2 is successful in creating a lighthearted yet respectful representation. In the process, though, it’s lost a little of the edge that made the first so subversive. Ultimately, this is a net good, and replicating the exact tone would feel inauthentic.

So, Psychonauts 2 is a triumph. It’s Tim Schafer’s best game in 20 years and my current game of 2021. But I think we need to look at the context surrounding it to see where we go from here. I was emotionally prepared for the sequel to be yet another compromised, limited result of crowdfunding – something we’ve seen many times with old-school revivals and from Double Fine themselves. That would have been the case had the studio not been acquired by a megacorp. I don’t like cheering for artists losing their independence, but it’s undeniable that Psychonauts 2 is a better game because of Microsoft’s resources. And, knock on wood, Phil Spencer and Xbox have been playing to their new studios’ strengths and giving them what they need to excel so far. This makes Psychonauts 2 the herald of a new age for Double Fine, where their funds have finally caught up to their ambition. It’s a game that promises a glorious future in the way that, say, Grabbed by the Ghoulies did not.

The biggest problem is that I found it even harder to leave Psychonauts this time. Is this the last word on the franchise? The continuing adventures of Raz are tailor-made for an animated series. Better yet, make True Psychic Tales into a real comic book. While these prospects are exciting, they aren’t especially realistic. Right now, the studio is probably starting from scratch on their next project, which may be so unique as to be unguessable. I doubt they want anyone else putting their hands on the series. Even if there is no more Psychonauts, whatever comes next from Double Fine is just as exciting. Decades from now, developers will look back at Psychonauts 2 as a career highlight. For Schafer and the other industry veterans, it’s an affirmation that they’ve still got it. But pay attention to the younger names in the credits and follow them closely. These are the people that will shape the most memorable experiences of gaming’s future. Great things are in store.

If anyone saw footage of Cris Tales before release, they were arrested by its striking, colorful art style and exciting time travel mechanics. The game promised the opportunity to explore its world’s past, present, and future all on the same screen. With listed influences including the best role-playing games in history, Cris Tales quickly earned my attention. I hoped for a light adventure to enjoy during the summer days. Sadly, the scope of the game is beyond the grasp of its small team of developers. While the work on display is evident on each screen, there are problems in almost every area of the game, and no one component is great enough to rise above. Ultimately, Cris Tales does not meet its potential, making it difficult to recommend to the average player.

Crisbell, our protagonist, is an almost-too-sweet girl living in an orphanage. When she follows a little yellow frog to an altar and awakens latent time mage powers, her destiny is set in motion. Now, Crisbell can see into the past and future. She witnesses disasters that are yet to fall and can act to stop them. But of course, every adventure needs a villain – here, it’s the Time Empress, who is waging war across the world’s kingdoms and won’t stop until everything is destroyed. With the help of Matias (the frog) and some more motley party members, Crisbell sets off to – what else? – save the world.

If there’s one place that Cris Tales totally succeeds, it’s art. Even screenshots of the game capture attention, and it looks just as good in motion. The entire game is rendered in vivid color. At least once, I had to take a knee and soak in the gorgeous environments. Backgrounds draw much from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, noticeable in the color palette and the tall, skinny trees. Character designs come from a different source. The style may originate in cartoons I haven’t watched, but it reminds me of a type of artist you see on Twitter – the kind that exclusively draws cute girls. That’s what we get here. Every character has big puppy-dog eyes and rosy cheeks. On one hand, this choice pulls the fairy tale atmosphere together and gives a sense of cohesion. On the other, when even the most despicable villain would make for a cute plush, there’s room for more diverse character design. Cris Tales’s artists should be proud of what they accomplished; their work, however, is not enough to overcome the game’s more nagging problems.

Time travel was what hooked me into playing Cris Tales, and despite some fun ideas, its implementation doesn’t meet expectation. In town areas, the screen is cut into three triangles. Crisbell runs around the present, in the middle section, while the left and right sides show the past and future, respectively. At once, the game displays the area in its prime, its current state, and the depressing future that awaits if the crew doesn’t intervene. You can run by every NPC and see how they hold up between the eras. An adult in the present will be a child in the past and elderly in the future. It doesn’t sound like a revolutionary concept, but it’s no less cool to see what everyone looks like through the years. It meant the developers had to draw three versions of almost every character, which couldn’t have been easy on the workflow.

Once the initial excitement has worn off, though, your interaction with the timeline in these sections is limited. Crisbell can’t go into the past or future herself, but Matias can. This gives us the incredible visuals of him as a tiny tadpole and a fat old frog. However, there’s just not a lot for him to do. It’s mostly pilfering items from treasure chests and bringing them back to the present, butterfly effect be damned. Quite often throughout the story, there will be a plot-critical item needed from a different time, but these never lead to an interesting obstacle. The following exchange will always happen: “We need this item. But oh no, it’s destroyed… Wait a minute! We can time travel to get it!” This quickly gets stale, and the game generally lacks exciting challenges to be solved with time travel.

Occasionally, you can get clues by listening in on conversations in other time periods, but this is always a scripted story beat. Outside of those cases, you can’t interact with anyone’s past or future selves. That means you’re left with statues who are tragically destined to stand in the same spot for their entire lives. Time travel in towns isn’t nearly as dynamic as I hoped, but it’s the still the most robust application of the concept in the game.

That’s because it takes even more of a back seat in battle. Enemies will attack from the left and right sides, and by using time crystals, Crisbell can send them to the past and future. Yes, nearly every enemy has three versions of itself, all with varying stats and abilities. But in my whole playthrough, sending enemies through time was almost never worth doing. First, the stat differences are minor enough that they scarcely matter. Your party will probably take down an adult wolf in about the same time as a wolf cub. But say that for whatever reason, you’re determined to kill that wolf cub. It needs to be on the left side of the battle so it will be sent to the past, not the future. One party member can move enemies to the opposite side, but between him and Crisbell, that’s now two turns you’ve spent for that setup when both characters could just kill the bigger wolf together. This scenario plays out in every single battle, and in cases where the game does ask for a specific strategy, it never involves this mechanic. The only exception is… the tutorial.

Three party members can be active at a time, including Crisbell. They include Cristopher, who can do alright damage in the early game and has magic to target enemy weaknesses. Wilhelm, another time mage, has variations on all his spells that can either affect one target immediately or an AOE a few turns down the line. These add more tools to play with the time crystals, but again, the short-term play is always the better option. JKR, a robot (because why not), can perform a litany of attacks, but in doing so fills up a heat gauge that can cause the party damage. Zas, a goofy airhead, has for some reason the unequivocally best damage output in the game. When she gets added to the party, don’t take her out. Newer characters generally outclass the old, so poor Cristopher spent the entire back half of the game bench warming.

Difficulty fluctuated often in my playthrough. In the first hours, I was often scraping by because options were so limited. After a while, though, the game was giving me a good amount of challenge. One midgame boss was a potent difficulty spike. After a small amount of grinding, I defeated the boss, and following battles were pathetic. However, the final bosses were such an intense step up that I hit my head against them for some time. The key to victory in these cases was more about using one specific move than anything else.

Time spent between battles isn’t much more engaging. While every area looks beautiful – even the sewer dungeon to a limited extent – the experience of exploring is flat, literally. Level geometry consists of connected rectangles, with elevation coming only from 45-degree ramps that lead to more rectangles. Split paths have the traditional treasure chest with an unnecessary item at the end. The lack of variety probably comes from the amount of pretty art covering the basic shapes. Nevertheless, environments can be tedious to explore. In later dungeons, there are some basic puzzles to add complexity. This is appreciated, but it is also the point where the game’s random encounters become most infuriating.

For all the problems I have with RPGs as a genre, I’m surprisingly not put off that much by random encounters. True, none of my favorite RPGs have the mechanic, and I think it’s always a worse way to go. In this case, they committed to that choice, which is fine on paper. But it really highlights the problems in the way I played the game. I bought Cris Tales on the Nintendo Switch for one simple reason: I wanted to play it on vacation. It certainly served that purpose, but on the whole, I think it was the wrong choice. The Switch port is trapped between exceptionally long loading times for every screen and every battle. This is tolerable in towns, if annoying, but in the field, it only amplifies the inherent frustration of random encounters. Imagine playing Final Fantasy, but instead of a flashy screen transition before battles, it faded to white, held there for 20 to 30 seconds, all while playing the same music, before moving to an unimpressive battle scene. From what I understand, RPGs of the past could have long loads, but presentation is everything. In Cris Tales, it feels even more like a red light in the way and makes me wish I had just played on a different, faster platform.

The tone and story of the game similarly stick perhaps too close to RPGs of old. In other words, the plot goes through a parade of tropes and storylines you have no doubt seen many before. The way arcs unfolded did nothing for me, but as I often say, a good party dynamic can make up for a weak narrative. Sadly, this is not the case here. Wilhelm and Cristopher have one of those fake rivalries where one thinks the other is an idiot and they get snippy with each other. But this antagonism doesn’t have anything to anchor it – the party never disagrees about their goals, so they’re insulting each other just to do it. JKR is not only a robot, but has missing memories, which is about the billionth time I have encountered that particular character. Zas brings levity – while her dialogue is not as funny as they think, it at least spices things up. Strangely, she joins the party just when the game pivots to more serious subject matter, which makes her comedy an unnatural fit much of the time.

When the game starts, the tone feels soft in a way that is typical of RPG beginnings. So, while I was seeing familiar beats, it at least meshed well with the presentation at that time. But as the game goes on and things get darker, it comes apart. Zas joins only after there’s been discussion of public execution, followed by references to genocide and Killing the Younglings by game’s end. The writers suddenly decide to get more serious, but every character is still an adorable cartoon. Without any attempt to rectify this contrast, the tone is unearned.

Clearly, I am in the mood to complain, but most of this is forgivable. For a small team to deliver a complete RPG experience is no easy task, especially since Cris Tales is fully voice-acted in English. But there is still a distracting lack of polish. Attacks are often missing sound effects that would help sell their impact. The script has an alarming number of typos. I once had textures not load, so I ran across a featureless white void. The in-game clock continues ticking while the console is in sleep mode, and the game crashed after one of the penultimate boss fights. Had there not been a save point in between, the rage would have flown.

However, Cris Tales’s absolute biggest failure is the way it handles its ending. As a time mage, Crisbell wields the power to make choices that dictate the future of each kingdom. Each big choice comes at the end of each chapter, and they are not even a little compelling. This is because by doing every side quest, you gain a third option, which is just “why not both?”. Firstly, this undermines any dilemma the decision may have carried. Second, I have a major aggravation with the side quest requirement. Before each chapter boss, there is a point of no return that tells you to finish up the quests if you want the best option. Sounds fine, except that is a lie. By the time the first of these warnings came up, it was already too late for me to finish the quests. Important characters had disappeared due to story reasons. I was locked out of the best choice for the region, and the game’s best ending, just a few hours in. To be sure, this did not distress me that much – as I said, my investment in the story is limited. But to miscommunicate such a critical juncture to the player is a major error that should have been addressed. When my ending was incomplete and unsatisfying, I knew it was the game’s fault, not mine.

But to even get to that ending, there was more frustration to endure. Obviously, what appears to be the final boss is not the final boss. I was fully expecting this, and the boss rush to follow. What I didn’t expect was the game to force me to backtrack to all its previous areas not once, not twice, but three times in a row before I could fight the true final boss. Again, grand revisit tours are not uncommon in JRPGs, but this is such blatant padding it becomes offensive. Had it not been for the late-game item that turns off random encounters, my Switch might have gone out the window. All the while, you are getting backstory heaped onto you, the worst kind that a story can give, the kind that introduces completely new storylines and characters and hastily develops them in the final hours. I buttoned through all of this exposition because, at this point, I just could not care. The pool of my goodwill had run dry.

Like I said way at the top, this is a case where the developers’ ambition outpaced their budget. Cris Tales has many problems, and they drag down everything that was promising about the title. I can’t recommend it without heavy reservations. The team’s second or third game, however, will be worth paying attention to. I believe that with better focus and planning, something special could come from these developers. But for now, you are better served revisiting the classics that inspired them.

When I played Persona 5, I was enchanted by its eye-popping visual style, phenomenal music, and hokey yet resonant story. When credits rolled after 75 hours, I wanted to spend even more time in that world. But of course, I didn’t. Not only is the game a mammoth time investment, turn-based RPGs just aren’t my primary genre of choice. What I really wanted was for Persona 5’s unmistakable spirit to be transplanted into a comparatively short action game. Shockingly, Koei Tecmo hit that bullseye with Persona 5 Strikers, a faithful yet fresh take on the world of the Phantom Thieves.

Dynasty Warriors gameplay has a bad reputation in some gaming circles. I hadn’t tried one for myself, but I’m not opposed to some good old button-mashing. After all, I can wring a decent amount of enjoyment out of LEGO games. Had Persona 5 Strikers been a simple reskin of the Warriors formula, as they have done before, I wouldn’t be upset. Instead, the game far exceeded my expectations for the amount of care and effort that went into preserving every aspect of the original. This is a legitimate sequel to Persona 5 that just so happens to be an action game.

It’s summer vacation, and our pal Mike Persona is back in Tokyo to meet up with his Phantom Thief buddies. But their relaxing plans are quickly shuttered when a new change of heart epidemic sweeps the nation. The Thieves must redon their masks and infiltrate metaphysical Jails that have warped the desires of the masses. Their investigation takes them on a cross-country road trip through Japan’s most beautiful cities, even as the puppet masters behind the incidents become increasingly sinister. Of course, this is a Persona game, so it’s the distilled essence of the cliché, “the real treasure was the friends we made along the way.” Team bonding and self-discovery is just as important as the machinations of any given evil overlord.

In addition to all your favorites from the 2017 game, two new companions are added to the Phantom Thieves’ circle. First is Sophia, an amnesiac artificial intelligence (say that five times fast) who joins the team in order to learn more about the human heart. Fortunately, this remains metaphorical, so we don’t have any Kingdom Hearts-type nonsense in this storyline. It’s great that everyone is totally on board with Sophia from the jump. The Phantom Thieves are nothing if not supportive of each other, and whenever she has self-doubt, they instantly jump in to boost her back up. Next is Zenkichi, a PubSec officer assigned to the case, specifically to see if the Thieves are responsible. Of course, he doesn’t believe that for a minute, so he forms an uneasy alliance with the team. Interestingly, it’s a new angle for the protagonists to be this open to and trusting of an adult character. The developers could have easily relied on marketable Sophia, but we also have this goateed loser hanging around.

I’m into it because the running storylines for both new characters are very meaty, far beyond the norm for a Musou game. Sophia is a really endearing companion, and the writers make the “robot wants feelings” arc feel fresh and fitting. Zenkichi has an estranged tween daughter who comes in midway through the game. It’s reminiscent of the Nanako storyline, but if she was a few years older and a lot more confrontational. To be sure, the way these narratives climax is overly theatrical in the same way the original game could get. However, the total result of the character work is two allies I would be glad to see return.

Not to be forgotten, the original Phantom Thieves get plenty of screen time and development. This was the first clue that Strikers is more than it seems. I was worried that we would see pared down, flanderized versions of characters from a series where people already have one defining “thing.” There’s a scene where everyone stands in a circle, introducing themselves to Sophia by explaining their “thing.” This, and the amount of “For real?!”s that they give Ryuji, made my fears seem all but confirmed. However, those fears were quickly and strongly abated. The Phantom Thief members jump off the screen with personality. At this point, everyone knows each other well, and they can bounce off each other like real friends. You often have the opportunity to seek out your team members in the overworld, and they’re happy to offer their thoughts on the city or recent events. Each will give you a side quest at some point with a personal goal for the road trip, which means everyone gets time in the spotlight. The amount of voice-acted dialogue is seemingly endless – not just in story scenes, but for every conceivable situation in combat. What’s more, the voice actors are having the time of their life stepping back into their roles. They interject a lot of flair into the lines and sell the youthful energy of their characters completely. Thanks to the strength of their interactions, the Phantom Thieves feel more like a cohesive group than even in the original, where I thought the swelling roster crowded some members out.

But the smartest thing the story does with the Thieves is single them out for dungeons. This is standard practice for the series, where each dungeon has a new guy join the party. In Strikers, we start with everyone plus Sophia. However, each boss character has some sort of kinship with a specific member of the Phantom Thieves. The teammate recognizes similarities in their “things,” see how their own path could up, and become extra invested in changing their enemies’ hearts. Most of the bosses have no direct connection to the Thieves, so this is an inspired move that bolsters both the team and the enemy. They also make more of an effort to give them tragic backstories to justify their behavior. At first, this makes narrative sense, but it loses its effectiveness when the villains become more and more evil.

There’s a reason I’ve put down over 1,000 words without even touching on the gameplay. In the early hours of the game, in the midst of a cutscene session, I realized that I had forgotten this was a Musou game. The narrative and presentation thereof are so lengthy and so faithful to the original Persona 5 that I have no qualms about labeling this a proper sequel. I was planning to do an exposé here about whether writers were shared between the projects, but I didn’t catch those names in the credits and they aren’t listed on MobyGames. But believe me, they’re on the same level. The work done here totally met my need to spend more time in this world and cemented Ryuji as my canonical favorite Phantom Thief.

The gameplay style, while theoretically opposed to an RPG system, also carries over much from the original game. As I said, Strikers is not exactly a reskin of Dynasty Warriors in every way. For starters, you are not fighting over territory with thousands of enemies on a giant battlefield. Instead, enemy encounters are very similar to Persona 5. You will see Shadows roaming the environment. They will attack if they see the party, or the party can sneak up on them for an ambush. Once combat initiates, the Shadow will multiply into anywhere from three to a couple dozen enemies to fight. It’s essentially the same as most RPGs; you’re just fighting more enemies on average at a time. There are battles where hundreds or more foes descend on you, but those are scripted story fights.

The nuts and bolts of battle is admittedly pretty simple. If you are familiar with the genre, you’ll know the two-button combat which lends itself to a lot of button-mashing. You can switch to your current party members at almost any time, and they technically have different attributes and combos. In practice, I was never compelled to actually put in the time and learn them because mashing will get you most of the way there. The game opens up after the tutorial by dropping eight playable characters in your lap, which can be somewhat overwhelming. It’s another example of how this game is really for fans of Persona 5 – newcomers would probably have a harder time learning the ins and outs of what each Thief can do. But if you remember their abilities from that game, you will be in very familiar territory.

Like in the main Persona series, elemental combat is the name of the game. Each party member has an affiliated element to their Persona, and Joker can hold them all because he’s a Pokémon Master. Just like the party, enemies have strengths and weaknesses that can be exploited. Knock them down and you can perform the flashy all-out attack that has become one of Persona 5’s most iconic images. You’ll especially want to be heeding this for bigger enemies and bosses, where button-mashing is less effective. One criticism that goes with this system is that you won’t really know a boss’s weakness the first time you fight them, so you have limited knowledge with which to prepare. Bringing certain party members instead of others can make or break a fight. To further emphasize the similarities to the original game, your teammates learn the exact same spells when they level up. When choosing a Persona spell, the game will freeze, so some of that turn-based rhythm is preserved in this combat system.

This is all to say that despite the genre change, combat will be intensely familiar to those coming from the RPG. That’s not the only returning system, either: Persona fusion is back and nearly the same as before. Joker can collect and equip a slew of Personas to cover the bases and make sure he’s prepared for whatever surprises await. An entire pillar of the series is transferred almost verbatim and feels totally natural in this game. For that reason, I don’t feel compelled to explain it in depth, but I will say that I was far more engaged with it in this game for whatever reason. I barely touched it in Persona 5. The cast of demons are all familiar faces, too. Admittedly, I don’t have much knowledge of the greater Megami Tensei history, but it feels like these guys have been around forever.

When not fighting, you will be traversing the Jails in the same manner as Persona 5’s Palaces. They are mostly linear dungeons, albeit with more open areas than before. They follow similar rhythms of taking out progressive obstacles in the way of the bad guy’s lair. Here, something else is carried over from Persona 5, but it’s not something I like. Whenever the team runs into an obstacle, three or four people have to comment on it, then they suggest a solution, and there’s a too-long camera pan to where you need to go. This slows the momentum and it’s overly handholding to the point where the sense of exploration is gone. There are even points where the Phantom Thieves say they need to explore to find the correct path, but an objective marker will always be on screen right where you need to go. The solutions are never so obtuse that you couldn’t just find it yourself, which would make dungeons a little more rewarding outside of combat.

Visually, the Jails are hit-and-miss. Each represents a city, so the majority overlay whatever theme on top of a city environment. The color palette of the Metaverse is already drab, and most of the level design doesn’t exactly capture the imagination. Because this is still a Musou game, every area must be wide enough to fit a bunch of enemies. As a result, there are fewer fun setpieces than the original game by far. Some of the dungeons are more exciting than others, especially one towards the end, but I wish they were more consistent.

To get the most out of Strikers, you will be heading back into these dungeons quite often. This is not only to grind if you want to, but to take on the many side quests alluded to earlier. I must say that these won’t blow your mind – defeat X of Y, find this item, reach point Z – but I still completed the majority of them because they are usually quick and breezy. As you play more, you earn Bond experience, a separate thing to level up. This gives you points you can spend on a skill sheet for passive bonuses. Some of these are objectively more useful, so be sure to prioritize those for your playthrough. It’s a fair attempt at retaining that social aspect of Persona, but I do miss more one-on-one time with each character. I know that wouldn’t have much place in this kind of game, so I’ll be grateful for the mammoth amount of writing that’s already here.

Persona 5’s major hooks, as I said, are its art and music, both of which are diligently retained. Especially the art – I mean, they’re using the same PNG files and everything. The style is just as flashy as the original (and the menu attempts to one-up even that). It is the glue that holds everything together and connects this game so closely with its progenitor. I also enjoy the soundtrack. It was done by Atlus, so it’s similar stylistically. There aren’t as many new tracks that will stick in your head long-term, but it’s all enjoyable with some hype remixes of favorite tunes.

Persona 5 Strikers ends saying that we’ll all be back for the next adventure, and I hope that comes true before too long. Every inch of the game is filled with reverence for the source, resulting in a game that fits right in while its gameplay sets it apart. I’m very happy that this turned out so well, and fans who were turned off because of the Musou reputation should absolutely give it a shot anyway. This is a sequel merely disguised as a spin-off. Whatever does come next, I hope it’s just as surprising and exciting. Next stop, Persona 5 Arena?

Welcome back!

I do have a big review-style blog coming soon, but in the meantime, I thought I’d bring back the E3 Watchlist this year. I went in with general excitement but no major expectations. There aren’t that many games that strongly grabbed me, but I’m definitely anticipating some new visions and updated favorites.

METAL SLUG TACTICS

As it turns out, pretty much any property can become a tactics game. Metal Slug is a series I appreciate for the animation as I quarter-spam my way through. Translating that excellent style into a tactics system? It’s not something I would have thought of, but it looks very cool! It’s certainly prettier than the Advance Wars remake (which I’m also looking forward to). Metal Slug Tactics goes to show that franchise revivals don’t always have to be identical if the spirit carries on.

GARDEN STORY

Cozy management games have really taken off in recent years, as evidenced by the presence of multiple similar titles in a single presentation. While the broad strokes of these games are pretty identical, but Garden Story stood out to me the most. I don’t know why exactly other than I like the art and I don’t think I’ve played as a fruit before. This is one genre that is made for the Switch, and I imagine that I’ll enjoy it quite a bit.

BEHIND THE FRAME

Behind the Frame looks gorgeous and joins the army of games putting forth overwhelmingly chill vibes. Poking around and discovering the hand-painted environment should really let you enjoy every inch of it. I don’t expect it to be the biggest experience, but every minute should be nice and relaxing. Unless it turns into a Cry Game. Oh no, I bet it’s a Cry Game, isn’t it?

PSYCHONAUTS 2

I feel silly putting Psychonauts 2 here because I’ve done so multiple times before. Amidst all the delays, it’s transitioned from somewhat shady crowdfunding project to major first-part Microsoft release. I really like what I’m seeing, and it’s finally approaching release. From the trailers, it looks confident in bringing the unflinching creativity of the first game into the modern era. There’s no meat level in this one, but there is a teeth level. Seems like a lateral move to me.

FORZA HORIZON 5

I was unbelievably excited when Microsoft showed this game, to the confusion of my friends. I’ve only just dipped my feet into Forza Horizon 4, but I’m in love with the Horizon festival’s attitude. We’re just here to have fun driving in some of the most gorgeous environments on the planet. The footage of Mexico here is absolutely jaw-dropping, from the cities to the cliffs to the fields full of cacti to smash. With getting a new console being what it is, I’m thrilled that I can enjoy this on PC.

METROID DREAD

This was a huge surprise. I spent last year getting a new appreciation for Troid-likes, but I had given up hope of a Metroid 5 being made. Not only is it happening, but the developers are following my own hopes pretty close to the letter. It’s furthering the lite horror elements from Fusion, where Samus is as much the hunted as the hunter. I think it’s really smart to focus in on something specific like that because in 2021, plenty of indie teams have out-Metroided Metroid. I doubt Dread will be my favorite Troid-like, but I’m curious nonetheless.

An introspective reflection on passion, self-forgiveness, and dedicated fart buttons

It’s safe to say that my life has completely transformed in the last six months. In 2020, I was unemployed and bored, so I put away over 60 games. In 2021, I have a full-time job, not to mention I now live in Florida, where it reached 100 degrees this week, and most days I just want to watch TV and sweat. The short of it is that I have less game time than I used to, which I expected. What I didn’t expect was that my drive to play anything and everything, was once hyper-strong, has dried up. Obviously, if I can’t game, I can’t blog!

Of the 17 games I’ve finished this year, most are 2-3 hours long. And the gaps between entries on the list are enormous! What’s happening to me?! Am I fading from my primary passion in this fleeting residence on planet Earth?!?!? Yeah, I don’t think it’s that dramatic, but I want to get into the meat of this blog by talking about my experience with the original Oddworld game.

In 2020, I decided to put some serious progress into my cavernous backlog. At the start of the year, I scheduled one “important” game to play each month. Over the initial quarantine, I actually pulled far ahead of my itinerary and got to play through some real classics. To contrast! I set the same plan for 2021, and by May I had yet to finish even one of my self-assigned games! And one of these games, a game I had allotted an entire month of time, was Abe’s Oddysee.

I picked up the original Oddworld games the same way I’ve acquired so much of my backlog: a random Steam discount opportunity. They were offering all four titles for like five bucks or something. You’d be stupid not to get it!! Never mind that I was unlikely to ever make it a point to buy these games otherwise. The Oddworld franchise sat in my Steam library for over two years, biding its time. Hell, Abe was even installed on my old computer for months, but I never came close to launching it. It was long overdue for a playthrough, I thought.

Before I started Abe’s Oddysee, I was looking forward to it! I heard internet opinions from people who hold the series in very high regard. Everyone knows that you can always trust internet opinions. I watched a lengthy video from Ars Technica where series creator Lorne Lanning went through its history, which I found fascinating! I finally launched the game literally months ago, not expecting to love it but to at least appreciate it. I only reached the credits yesterday. My feelings are scattershot and hard to piece together. I think that I appreciate it. But did I have fun? Would I recommend the game to you? Both answers are mostly no.

Abe’s Oddysee is technically my first “cinematic platformer.” That isn’t terribly surprising because the sub-genre is pretty sparse, and also those games tend to look kinda ugly? I don’t know, but as someone who grew up with three square Nintendo platformers a day, the focus on fluid animations and naturalistic environments is a strange sight. The PC version of this game specifically is handled pretty well, visually, but there are shortcomings. I could tell that the backgrounds are higher quality renders than the original release. There are some instances where the game “seamlessly” goes from in-game graphics to a pre-rendered cutscene transition, and these look absolutely disgusting, but that’s less than two minutes total. As for the character models, there are noticeable discolored pixels near some of their edges. It truly looks like these characters are green-screen actors composited into the shot – which is essentially true – but the keying is off, so you can see some green outline.

But in 199X, playing Abe on your PS1 off a CRT, you wouldn’t notice any of that stuff. The hazy obfuscation would let your brain become immersed in what was, at that time, one of the more detailed game worlds available. That’s where I can find some of the appreciation I do have for Abe’s Oddyssee. The port itself is over ten years old, so expecting it to look like a modern game is just silly. Still, it would be incredible if they could dig up those old models and do a true HD remaster, Double Fine style. But this game already has a faithful remake, so count that out.

The smartest thing Oddworld does is give its “collectables” humanity. The 99 Mudokons enslaved at RuptureFarms have it rough. They get beaten, shot, and exploded every five seconds. Saving them is obviously the point of the game, but your empathy makes that something you want to do. Digging around for red coins in Yoshi’s Island? There is no feasible way for me to give a crap. Leaving a Mudokon behind? Hell no! Herding these stupid creatures is finnicky and arduous more often than not, but I still felt compelled to do it. I wanted to live out my own Moses story.

So, I played through the initial RuptureFarms part of the game, making it a point to save every Mudokon I came across. Oddworld is transparent about what kind of game it is, so I went in expecting some amount of prerendered puzzley nonsense. There was a learning curve to be sure, but I was getting accustomed to the game’s mechanics and doing pretty well in my mind. Then, I got to the end of the first section, where the game told me that I had missed half of the Mudokons! If I progressed, those slaves would be murdered. How did this happen? It was time to consult GameFAQs and start over if need be.

I love the art of the FAQ for janky old games. The author typically knows the game inside and out, but little bits of attitude poke through in certain annoying moments. I’ve powered through some obtuse “classics” with the help of one of these seasoned guides. Since I do, in fact, have other things to do, the time saved is appreciated. The author of Oddworld’s FAQ is clearly a superfan because their guide is methodical.

Now, what’s the first sentence written when the player gains control? “You know this is going to be a great game when there's a secret on the very first screen!” Oh. In other words, I was doomed from the word go. Yep, this is one of those games where they want you to poke your head everywhere looking for secrets. In this instance, a barrel in the foreground obscures a ledge that takes you down, where three Mudokons wait. In my good old college try, I had missed all six of these secret areas.

Well then. This changes things. This is now officially a GameFAQs playthrough. In the game’s defense, the secrets are pretty explicitly meant for second and third runs – they ask for mechanical knowledge that you wouldn’t have initially. But there is no way on Earth that I play Oddworld more than once. I kept the FAQ tab up the whole time and crept along to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Honestly, it was a good feeling. I really don’t have patience for stupid secrets like that. But knowing what to do is only half the battle. You still have to execute.

This is a good a place as any to talk about the controls. Well… I’m not a fan of ‘em. Here’s how I think they work: When you press a button, Abe responds, but he has to play through that whole animation. It can’t be interrupted with a different input. The playable area is divided into equal units that are as wide as Abe (or any other character). Pressing right once will move Abe exactly one unit, and if you’re moving continuously, he has to stop exactly in line with that unit. Does that make any sense?

So – say you’re being chased by a fierce beast and you need to jump across a wide gap. In most platformers, the character would jump the instant the button is registered, but with the way animation works in Oddworld, the game can cruelly ignore your input if it’s not timed just right. Abe will run right off and splat into that pit. How do I know this? It happened to me at least a dozen times. The controls are built for the slower puzzle-style gameplay that comprise much of the game, but you are put in fast-paced action moments with some frequency. The game just isn’t built for them.

I am not mincing words: Oddworld is a trial-and-error game. Each room you walk into contains a multitude of heinous traps to contend with. You will be watching Abe explode hundreds of times as you internalize the one specific set of actions required to progress. That goes double for rescuing your fellow Mudokons. I’m not that angry at the design itself. I mean, that’s the game they’re making, it’s at least clear about that up front. But when that already frustrating gameplay loop is combined with unresponsive controls that lead to cheap failure, blood can boil very easily.

This would be mitigated if the game was better about saving your progress. Most of the time, I didn’t mind that checkpoints are spaced pretty far apart. But finally nailing a challenging secret room, dying on the main path, and having to go back to that secret again was a major pain in the tuchus. Trial and error, unresponsive controls, unforgiving checkpoints. Oddworld is an even more abrasive experience than I had anticipated.

While these problems are pervasive, the Oddworld itself remains compelling. The pretty basic environmental message is bolstered by strong character designs. One look at the Mudokons, Sligs, and Glukkons immediately conveys their societal structure. They’re ugly but have an intentionality that is not without appeal to me. RuptureFarms itself is presented in greater detail thanks to the wonders of compact disc technology and prerendered backgrounds. It had the potential to be one of gaming’s most iconic settings, but I have some structural issues with the game that prevents this reality.

Once Abe gets out of RuptureFarms, he putters around The Forest Moon of Endor for a few hours, doing some trials to gain new powers before returning to his former prison. The middle part of the game is where it really fell into a lull for me, and it was here that I dropped the game while I dealt with more important real-life stuff, only picking it back up many weeks later. Firstly, these environments, while maintaining strong visual design, just aren’t as exciting as the meat plant (and that Yoshi thing sucks). Secondly, it undercut much of the dramatic stakes that the game first held.

I think it was a mistake to take Abe out of the factory in the first game. True, the developers had a whole world in their heads and wanted to show it off as much as possible. There is variety from switching up locations. But for comparison, look at Half-Life. Most of the game is trying to escape from Black Mesa, but the complex is so gargantuan and houses so many facilities that a sense of progression is always maintained. Oddworld, a franchise with two feet firmly planted in fantasy, could absolutely have done the same with RuptureFarms. A factory environment lends itself to all sorts of varied areas Abe could have progressively conquered before the explosive ending. That would have preserved the threat of the Glukkons for the whole experience. Yes, Half-Life came out the year after Oddworld, but this is Imaginary Land, so I can say whatever I want.

I was seriously leaning towards not picking the game back up, but I eventually changed my mind. Surprisingly, I started enjoying the game a lot more in the last few hours, once Abe did return to RuptureFarms. I finally felt confident in the controls, or else I was spurred on by the light at the end of the tunnel. Even if secret-searching led me back through old areas, the atmosphere was so strong that I didn’t really mind. I successfully finished the game with 100 Mudokons rescued and no desire to reinstall it ever again. Abe farted at the end. Cool.

So, my time with Oddworld wasn’t as wonderful as I had hoped. But if I can learn something from the experience, that makes it worthwhile. And learn something I did. By assigning myself games to play, I made my hobby into work. And work sucks. Fighting the backlog can be a noble goal, but it’s easy to get tunnel vision and stop having fun. Slowly, I’m feeling my excitement to play games come back. And since I’ve done so poorly with my schedule so far, maybe I’ll just throw it out and play what I feel like! So, in the end, I’m glad for having finished Oddworld. And the other games in the series must be better, right?

For transparency, I should say that I had no idea Omori existed until this January. I wasn’t following the game’s interminable development from its Kickstarter in 2014 to its release last Christmas. After finishing the game, however, I really should have. The game is lauded from those in the know, yet I never heard a mention of it until I saw Nitro Rad’s video. He’s one of my favorite game critics, and his review of Anodyne 2 got me hooked on what became my game of the year in 2019. With Omori, that scenario may just repeat itself.

Omori is an outwardly simple game with a multitude of hidden layers. It balances psychological horror, comical role-playing hijinks, and emotional gut punches in equal measure. Taking the form of a dreamy RPG, Omori puts the player through increasingly tough moments where it explores how old traumas lead to new tragedies. One could take any number of angles when discussing the game’s themes and symbols, but given my personal area of expertise, I want to tackle a specific one in depth:

By expanding on the signifiers found in its progenitors with greater depth and maturity, Omori is not only reminiscent of the Mother series, but the true successor that fans wished for.

Woof. And I thought I was done with college essays.

You don’t have to look hard to find echoes of Earthbound in Omori. Its pixel art and coloring is the same style that game publications derided in the 90s but adore now. A present with a red bow sits in one of the first rooms (though watermelons are this game’s treasure chests). There’s a race of wacky bulbous oddities that, sans the big honker, look just like Mr. Saturn in silhouette. The game’s premise, a dream world where real-life friends and neighbors live in fantasy, is essentially an expansion of the Magicant concept.

My love of Earthbound has taken me to a fair number of its imitators. One I remembered just now is Citizens of Earth, which crammed in tons of direct references while also just not being that fun. Slavish imitation of Earthbound’s surface-level identity is so misguided that it becomes ironic. The Mother trilogy is beloved decades later because its unapologetic weirdness was a unique trait in the dragon-slaying RPG landscape. There are enough SNES RPGs to fill a swimming pool, but Earthbound’s urban setting and quirky humor lead to an unmistakable identity.

Omori may stick a little closer to those roots than Undertale or Lisa, but it expands on nearly every central idea to the point where it, too, carves out its own space. Most striking is the frequent use of hand-drawn sketch animation that conveys more personality than traditional sprite art, while also opening a window into Omori himself. The world, a more fantastical setting than even Mother 3, allows for constant exposure to strange characters that look like they wandered straight off the doodle pad. Omori also has a vast soundtrack that runs the gamut of instruments and tones. Buyer beware, there are some serious earworms in here.

These elements are all great, but to me, any game following in Mother’s footsteps absolutely must maintain its spirit of writing. If you hadn’t noticed, comedy in games is really frickin’ hard to write! Very few can pull it off, and even then, jokes hit everyone differently. Thankfully, Omori maintains that sense of humor, and I love it. It takes the form of endless one-liners born from weird premises, where inscrutable NPCs sum up their whole being in one non-sequitur. Hilarious visual gags include a distressed enemy variation that simply has a huge axe duct-taped to its side. Most importantly, a huge amount of content is derived from character interaction.

Sense of character is one area that is unquestionably improved from what came before. The biggest weakness of the first two Mother games is how cardboard their party members are. They will get some establishing traits but are largely mute after that. Ninten and Ness are blank slates that can be hard to connect to. In the third game, this issue was fixed, but Omori takes it even further. The principal characters have clear personalities that lead to emotionally stirring arcs over the course of the game.

Omori himself is still a silent protagonist, but he has a lot more to latch onto. From the game’s first minute, we can see that he is an isolated, depressed kid with some uncomfortable images living in his mind. By the second minute, we see his fluorescent dream world, where his supportive friends constantly work to help him out of his shell. Digging into enemy descriptions, we can find that he has a bit of a judgmental streak. We’re encouraged to look into everyone’s tone when they address Omori. What makes a quiet boy like him stick with this group of outgoing kids? Omori’s difficulty reciprocating gestures from his friends is a charming and investing trait.

The other party members are constantly chatting. Exuberant Aubrey and sporty Kel compete and squabble, and it falls to charming Hero to be the adult of the group and reign everyone in. The writing really reflects how kids look at the world, accounting for subtleties like age difference. With a dream world setting, the conceit of the imaginary playground adventure has been perfectly captured. Initially, the main characters may seem defined by just a few things, but they are increasingly endearing. By the time things go south in the first hour, you would do anything to help these kids. You may or may not cry your eyes out when credits roll.

While party interactions play well in text boxes, they are also incorporated into the battle system in a refreshing way. When attacking, characters can use recharging energy to perform an additional action with a friend. Aubrey and Kel can egg each other on and get the angry status effect. Hero can offer quick healing with homemade cookies. Kel can get his attack powered up, hitting a single target with Aubrey or all enemies with Hero. Omori doesn’t work with his friends. Instead, he can attack twice or trip the enemy. When the party tries to help him in battle, he is humorously unreceptive at first. However, when the energy bar is maxed out, Omori can unleash the ultimate team-up attack, where we see his rare smile as he joins his friends. You probably won’t need to use it very often, so it’s a heartwarming moment when it happens.

Of course, all of the above is just part of what has kept the Mother series popular. Much of the rest are the decidedly bleak moments that tend to show up. Everyone who has finished Earthbound will never forget the unsettling imagery of the final area, and Mother 3 is an out-and-out tragedy. These moments take the games from “kiddy nonsense” to some of Nintendo’s darker titles. And if there’s any idea that Omori turns to eleven, it’s the creepy factor.

It’s billed on Steam as a psychological horror game with RPG elements. I would say that it’s vice-versa, as you can go hours at a time without finding anything unsettling. Still, it’s important to set those expectations on the store page and before the title screen. Plenty of disturbing imagery lurks around the game, increasing in frequency and discomfort as the climax approaches. Stuff happens in Omori that is truly fucked-up, but it is never played for cheap shock value. There is always a meaning behind the darkness. While it may not have been especially “scary” to me, it was constantly fascinating and motivated me to play to the end. A significant amount of content lies on the path to darker endings, which I will never experience because I cannot bear any more sadness for Omori and friends.

This is why I call Omori a “successor” to the Mother series. If unlikely circumstances ever lead to an official Mother 4 from Nintendo, they would still never be able to tackle these themes so directly. The games do a great job implying mature elements, but by dealing with them so prominently, Omori is all the more resonant as a piece of art. The juxtaposition of comedy and heartbreak is just as powerful today, especially with generations who grew up during and after Earthbound’s release. If you’re curious about the game, I think I’ve given it a pretty strong recommendation here, and somehow without talking about the story at all! The game is better the less you know, so I’ve tried to be sensitive. Beyond its resemblance to one of my favorite series, it’s a moving tale that stands on its own feet. Like the Mother series before it, the memories of Omori will stay with its players forever. For those who had worried that lineage would end, it’s a beautiful thing to see.

If you’ve read my work before, you know that I make an effort to look at things optimistically. Yes, it would be ludicrous to call 2020 anything other than a shitshow. The Forces That Be seemed determined to hurt as many people as possible. The bright-eyed predictions I made 12 months ago are now laughable.

But you don’t need me to tell you that. Instead, I’m going to remind everyone that we made it. We were pushed harder than anyone could have expected, but we’re still here. That in and of itself is worth celebrating. Take a moment, then let’s move on to the lighter stuff.

I beat more than 65 games this year, a ludicrous number that I’ll probably never reach again. Key to this accomplishment, if you want to call it that, was avoiding those super long games that drain hour after hour. The only RPGs I played were of the Mario variety. I honestly think the variation in titles was what kept me sane. I also notice that my choices became “safer” as the pandemic progressed, essentially filling the role of comfort food.

As far as new games go, I was pleasantly surprised with the offerings this year. Some of my favorites were totally off my radar, which was a nice contrast to the overhyped big-budget releases. I’m very glad that my blog posts pumping up these smaller games were warmly received. Now, let’s see where they landed among everything else.

10. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

This is the Animal Crossing game of my dreams from around ten years ago. New Horizons feels like it finally has the space for expression found in similar games. Most of the time. The amount of control over your island is staggering compared to previous entries. Players turned their game worlds into art installations, theme park experiences, or simply the coziest town in the world.

I can’t imagine a single person with a soul being unaffected by the game’s gorgeous presentation. When I first saw the trees blow in the wind and the soft texture on the animals… are you kidding me? Nintendo shows once again they are the masters of doing a lot with a little.

Walking into the museum for the first time was breathtaking, and I made it a goal to fill the whole thing out for the first time. Well, I made surprisingly good progress for a few months, but come August I had become frustrated with the lack of return for my efforts. I felt like I was on a losing streak at the slots, and that sort of sucked away a big reason for me to keep playing.

When you don’t have a goal, it’s easy to fall off the train, especially since there are some problems that become more apparent the further you play. The quality-of-life shortcomings really start to stand out, and the villagers in this game are no more interesting than the furniture you choose to decorate with.

But the happenstance of this game’s release will always give it a place in cultural history. In many ways, it was the perfect game for its moment. The monumental success is well-earned.

9. Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time

I’m of two minds with Crash 4, but in every way that counts, it’s exactly what I was hoping for. Toys for Bob thoroughly understand what makes this type of platformer fun. It’s without a doubt the most thoughtful level design in the series. All of my problems with gimmicky levels were avoided because the new mechanics build on the main gameplay in substantial and fun ways.

In particular, the four masks are great pace shakers and my favorite addition. Platforming junkies will recognize the concepts, but seeing them in the context of Crash is fresh, and they never outstay their welcome. Chaining between the masks in the final area is immensely satisfying when you pull it off. And it’s quite a while before you get to that final area. The game is surprisingly long, and its level variety remains impressive. If the game were just the campaign, it would still be worth the price. But for better or worse, the campaign is barely scratching the surface of Crash 4’s content.

Take it from a guy who spent an entire day of his life getting the time trial on the N. Sane Trilogy’s Stormy Ascent: Do not attempt to 100% Crash 4 for any reason! If you play with the intent of smashing every crate you can find, you suddenly enter a very different game. In this game, the designers laugh at you with boxes placed totally out of view. They mock you for every hour spent combing through levels for that one last crate. This happens every time, without fail.

But that’s not nearly bad enough. You’ll also need to do all of that without dying, which means frequently enduring the torturous load times. Then, you’ll have to do all of that a second time! Plus time trials! On one hand, I feel like it was my choice to muck down my playthrough with some of this stuff. On the other, as someone with three platinum trophies from the original games, I don’t think it’s outrageous to go into Crash 4 wanting to complete it. The sooner you disavow yourself of that notion, the better. It tragically gets in the way of an otherwise fantastic platformer.

8. Spelunky 2

Oh, Spelunky 2. You wound me with your tricks and traps. You make me scream with your blindsiding bullcrap. You drive me to throw my controller with your mean-spirited mockery. Yet, despite it all, I can’t seem to quit you.

Every run in this game ends in humiliating failure for me, but putting it down is harder than I expected. That might be because it’s such a pure experience. It gives the impression that each run is less reliant on luck, though I don’t think that’s true in practice. In any case, I always come up short in the skill department. Imagine you took your driver’s test and kept ramming into the same telephone pole.

I’m sure that you could fill a library with everything I don’t know about Spelunky 2. I have the weird sensation that I’m somehow not worthy of this information until I prove further mastery. However, the stuff around the edges is what most differentiates Spelunky 2 from the first. In a lot of respects, it’s Spelunky “for super players.”

So, my feelings about the experience are obviously conflicted. It may end up being something I can only appreciate from a distance. But for now, I’m still pushing that boulder with screaming determination.

7. Creaks

The first of the lesser-known games on this list, Creaks is an atmospheric 2D puzzler with a surreal style. But, in a rare case for the genre, I never wanted to tear my hair out at a puzzle. The puzzle mechanics involve weird animal creatures that have unusual behavior in various situations. However, Amanita Design does a great job introducing these concepts so that they aren’t overwhelming.

One element I should have discussed more in my review is character interaction. It’s very sparse at first, with occasional vignettes of bird folk squabbling. Even though the game is nonverbal, the birds are rather expressive with clear personalities. When you start to interact with them more directly, it leads to some satisfying moments.

Creaks’s world in general is quite enjoyable to inhabit. The decaying wooden structures and mysterious interactive paintings really did it for me. By the end, I had an appreciation for this outwardly bizarre and hostile culture. It’s not the horror game I was anticipating, but Amanita is making a horror game next. It makes me very uncomfortable, but given how much I enjoy Creaks, I might just give it a go.

6. Resident Evil 3 (2020)

Look, objectively, I can see that this remake is not as satisfying an experience as last year’s Resident Evil 2. But for whatever screwy reason, I got way more into this one! Yes, the game is truncated, but that made me replay it a bunch of times for the sign of domination that is the infinite rocket launcher.

This is the Aliens to RE2’s Alien. There’s very little real horror to be found, but I had a lot of fun with it as an action game. There are also like zero puzzles, which is a little disappointing. Still, the pace of the game is always pushing you forward. That’s probably why so many people found it abrupt.

Where RE3 actually outdoes its predecessor is in characterization. Resident Evil dialogue has always felt wooden to me until now. Jill’s portrayal in this game is really strong. And I went in fully expecting to hate Carlos, but the opposite was true. The two have a buddy dynamic that actually feels natural, which isn’t as common as I’d like.

While acknowledging that this game doesn’t live up to RE2 in a lot of respects, the animosity towards it is totally overblown in my eyes. If you go in with the right expectations, it’s a blast.

5. Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales

When I was playing Miles Morales, I often had to take a step back and think about how lucky we are. We get a sequel to the best-playing superhero game of all time and we take it for granted! I absolutely adore Insomniac’s version of Spider-Man, and it was refreshing that the plot doesn’t involve a deadly pandemic this time.

My favorite Spider-Man stories have always been the Friendly Neighborhood variety, and Miles Morales embodies them. The conceit of the Spidey app makes quests more personal. Helping out a small business owner, then seeing them cheer Miles on in a cutscene hours later is truly heartwarming. Focusing on Miles and his family fills out the character, expanding on what was in the original game to make him a rounded, conflicted, and thoroughly rootable person.

And whenever we get Spider-Man in the snow, it’s an absolute treat. I played on the puny PS4, but the environmental detail is still gorgeous. It’s a wonderful backdrop for a story that puts personal connections at the forefront. Yes, to be reductive, Miles Morales is “more Spider-Man.” But there’s nothing wrong with a second helping of a perfect meal.

4. Kentucky Route Zero

I truly had no idea what to expect when I went into Kentucky Route Zero so many months ago. What I got was a challenging narrative with complex characters, striking environments, and haunting music. The game will have you read more than anything else, but it also loves throwing you unexpectedly into quiet moments where you must sit with your thoughts. Every time this happened, the evolving story left me in a different state of mind.

Playing a prolonged episodic game all at once is an interesting experience. In this case, the growing skill the developers gain for story and design is palpable. The first episode seemed quite basic to me, but by the end I saw things that I never could have imagined. I especially loved the interstitial episodes, where Cardboard Computer gets wild with the format. Where else is a naturalist's phone tree considered gameplay?

When I reached the credits of Kentucky Route Zero, I was satisfied narratively but still pined for more. I thought of all the writing I had potentially missed during my playthrough and how it might have changed my perspective. It’s absolutely a game that I’ll play again. I suspect that I’ll feel different every time I do.

3. Ori and the Will of the Wisps

I considered myself ambivalent to Troidlikes. I was frustrated by my first playthrough of Super Metroid, I bounced off of Hollow Knight, and my preference for linear Castlevania games is so strong that I leave the “vania” off the genre’s name. But this year, I (re)played the good 2D Metroids, which made me more appreciative of Troidlike design. That culminated in Ori and the Will of the Wisps, which is plainly best in class.

The sequel is often reminiscent of the Blind Forest, but every flaw in the original has been ironed out. I’m especially glad they nixed the manual saving because the Switch version crashed on me a few times. Generally, though, I’m absolutely floored by the wizardry Moon did to make Nintendo’s platform feel uncompromised. Every frame of this game is worthy of being your desktop wallpaper. I found myself standing still, enraptured by the smallest background details.

In a lot of Troidlikes, the double jump is a sign that you’re reaching the end of the power curve. Ori gives you the double jump very early on. Okay, I thought, I better see some crazy abilities. Sure enough, mobility is an art form in its own right. Whipping through the air, bashing off of projectiles, and drilling through the sand all have the perfect energy and weight. Combat incorporates more movement, and it’s actually fun this time. Of course, all of this enhances exploration and makes searching for goodies consistently enjoyable. Even the ideas shamelessly taken from Hollow Knight add to the experience.

The people behind Ori and the Will of the Wisps are geniuses, and it’s shocking that I haven’t seen the game get the appreciation it deserves. It’s on Game Pass, for crying out loud! Just play it!

2. Desperados III

In contrast, Desperados III is in a genre that I had no experience with. That didn’t stop me from appreciating everything the game does beautifully and sinking dozens of hours into its missions. A wild west stealth game, you control up to five distinct characters with their own abilities. Using these powers to their full potential is what turns this RTS into more of a puzzle game for me. It’s utterly satisfying to conquer a challenge thinking outside the box.

Desperados III also has a bevy of extra content to enjoy, from challenges to extra missions to a new debug mode. Thankfully, I learned my lesson after Crash 4, and I can appreciate this content without being neurotic about it. Every moment I spent with the game told me that Mimimi loves what they do. This isn’t just a title for strategy lovers. In fact, playing it might turn you into a strategy lover.

I wrote a bunch more words about the game here, so I don’t want to repeat myself too much. All told, Desperados III reaffirmed my belief that the best experiences can come from the least likely places.

1. Hades

Everyone knows how good this game is by now, and after talking about it so much with friends, I don’t know how much more I can say about it. But I can still try.

Hades is the culmination of Supergiant Games’s work since their origins. I played through their first two titles this year, and the leap to their latest is jaw-dropping. I have no doubt that the time in early access refined the combat into the studio’s best ever. Add the countless variations of playstyles that develop over the course of each run, and you're hard-pressed to get bored of smashing shades. Steering Zagreus into a build that melts opposition is literally divine. Then, you unlock more and more modifiers, and you realize just how much meat is on Hades’s bones.

When it comes to Supergiant’s take on Greek mythology, the smaller figures are what captured my interest. The residents of the House of Hades have a lot of implied history with Zagreus. Every conversation further endears them to the player, and they’re what keeps you playing much of the time. My only disappointment with the story was the ending. It oddly felt both too neat and too inconclusive. It was the sole time I felt the narrative constraints of a Rougelike take a serious toll.

That stumble aside, Hades is an endlessly replayable game that belongs on the highest peaks of Olympus. Everyone on the team is clearly at the height of their power. They’ve always been great, but this is seriously another level. If you’ve also put Hades as your number one, you have good taste, my friend. If you haven’t played it, buy it right now, and the soundtrack while you’re at it. We all deserve to go into 2021 with high spirits. For my money, there’s no better way.

***By the way, DOOM Eternal used to be number 10 on the list. Now it's number 11. But I'm not going to NOT put Mick Gordon on here, y'know?

I’ve always had a soft spot for underdogs. It could be a hopelessly outmatched sports team, a musician rising from obscurity, or, in this case, a great game that isn’t getting the recognition it deserves. Desperados III would have completely passed me by if not for an internet reviewer praising it enthusiastically. After finishing the game, I have to pay it forward and tell you everything that makes it so fun. As Game of the Year season picks up, it’s my duty – as with Hypnospace Outlaw and Anodyne 2 last year – to advocate for the smaller guys.

Desperados III is a prequel and asks for no familiarity with the series. I certainly didn’t have any, and judging by the gap in game releases, most won’t. This is a real-time strategy cowboy stealth game. It may sound like an odd cocktail, but the game leverages the setting for approachable, engaging mechanics. The developer is Mimimi, a German studio that previously released Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. I haven’t played that one yet, but they look very similar. You’ll be commanding your characters around enemy viewcones, employing specialized skills to advance through the level. For a relatively new studio, Mimimi feels like it’s punching above its weight here, packing in an impressive amount of content and showing a high level of presentation.

The game has a heavy emphasis on story. It’s a standard revenge mission for John Cooper, who lost his father as a boy at the hands of a criminal known only as Frank. Years later, he gathers up a crew of friends to take down Frank’s gang and the nefarious DeVitt Company once and for all. The plot is quite basic, but I am always willing to look past that if the characters are well done. Fortunately, this is very much the case. The playable characters are larger than life, and their interactions never get stale. The camera never gets closer than a god’s-eye view, but the performances are convincing enough to convey everything that’s needed. Their quips during gameplay are varied and change depending on where the story is. All told, they come together as a well-rounded, highly enjoyable cast.

You’ll be playing as:

• Cooper: Your typical cowboy archetype, he wields dual pistols, a handy throwing knife, and distracting coins familiar to any stealth game fan.
• McCoy: A doctor-turned-mercenary with limited mobility, he carries blinding tools and a sniper pistol that comes in clutch often.
• Hector: This boisterous big boy can take down the strongest enemies single-handedly, and he can combo his bear trap with a lure that easily mops up the small fry.
• Kate: She lacks lethal options, but with a disguise, she can infiltrate enemy camps and distract horny guards so the others can get to work.
• Isabelle: You won’t play as her until halfway through the game, but she has some exciting tools, including chaining and mind control powers, and she runs circles around the others.

After introducing what each character can do, Desperados III mixes and matches their abilities in a very smart way. Every level will give you different combinations of the five. You might tear through enemies with Hector at one point, but you’ll have to come up with a different strategy when he’s absent. Constantly giving and taking away options forces you to examine the situation from all angles and internalize what every character can do. Putting them in different groups also organically develops relationship dynamics. It’s a great source of variety that works for the whole campaign. If every character were in every level, it would get boring fast.

The same can be said for the enemies – there are only three main classes of human foes, with some guard dogs thrown in rarely. Differentiation couldn’t be simpler: thugs and gunmen will fall for anything, ponchos are much more discerning, and long coats are beefy and eagle-eyed. Also worth noting is the guards’ genders, as women are immune to Kate’s charms. I guess the DeVitt Company is decidedly heteronormative. When guards are grouped up, the highest ranking one takes precedent; you’ll need to wait for a gunman to leave a poncho before he becomes vulnerable. Again, it’s the placement of enemies in combination that keeps things fresh. While the game would benefit from another type, the variety is sufficient as is.

With the way levels are designed, I began approaching them in a more puzzle-like way. You will typically have a few strongholds between you and your objective, each crawling with guards. Investigating viewcones gives the impression that the whole zone is covered. If each area is a defensive wall, the game is about finding the one loose brick that lets you tear it down. You will be creating openings for your characters, finding out what works and does not, and methodically taking out your opposition. Like the game itself, your team feels like the underdogs. Each time, I wondered if this was the challenge that would stump me, but it never happened. I think that’s exactly what Mimimi wanted, and it’s a great feeling to have on a first playthrough.

The game facilitates this by heavily encouraging quick saves, to the point of flashing reminders on screen when you haven’t done it recently. You can turn these off, but the game seems built on trial and error. I would fail dozens of times before executing each step of my plan, and I think that’s intentional. On the other hand, that’s just how I play stealth games. I know some people prefer a more naturalistic playstyle, and the game allows for that, too. Setting off the alarm brings in more guards instead of causing an instant fail. You have loud options when these encounters happen, but I preferred to quick load until I got through undetected.

Making save scums part of the design is just one of the ways Desperados III is friendly and accommodating to players. You have difficulty options, of course, but you also have a powerful tool called showdown mode. This lets you pause and queue actions for all your characters at once. It’s perfect for executing a sweet double kill or timing a distraction. There’s no penalty or cooldown for using this. My only gripe is technical – sometimes, when I clicked the button to activate it, the game would send the character to where the button was instead of where I wanted them to go. You also have the ability to speed up time with the hold of a button. This eliminates a lot of potential tedium when waiting for guard cycles. All of these touches only make the experience more fun, and it shows that Mimimi understands how people play RTS games and the things that can frustrate them.

A campaign playthrough will take you around 25 hours, but Desperados III has copious replayability. This starts with the extra challenges on each level. These are expected for the genre, but they are actually hidden during the first playthrough. You might do some accidentally, but your first run through a level will be free of those extra pressures. And pressure is right – very often, I looked at a stipulation and wondered how the heck you’re supposed to do it. It will ask you to avoid strategies that were instrumental to winning the first time, go out of your way for extra objectives, and fulfill speedrun requirements. Grinding for these challenges seems like a nightmare to me, but stealth enthusiasts will surely get satisfaction out of it.

There are also bonus “what-if” challenges that put you in the campaign maps with different characters and objectives. I haven’t looked into these much, but they seem thoughtfully constructed, and it’s a nice bonus for sure. I imagine they will be a more appealing option to some than endlessly replaying campaign missions. Finally, there is a trio of DLC levels that I’m eager to get to. I hope they push some wilder mechanics than what’s in the base game.

Fully mastering Desperados III will take no shortage of time, which is a positive in my book. Like all my favorite games, it’s easy to learn and hard to master. I was constantly impressed with the scope and detail put into this technically budget game. How faithful it is to the other entries in the series, I can’t say. I can say that it’s a fantastic stealth game that deserves much more attention. You might be feeling pressure to catch up on your Yakuzas and your Cyberpunks, but I offer this as an alternative. Try out Desperados III, pardner!

(note: I wrote this as a "review," but the way reviews on the site work means I can't format it as one? So this will have to do.)

Once Braid and Limbo kicked off the indie puzzle scene, an arms race of increasingly wild gameplay concepts began. We’ve gone from manipulating time to literally rewriting the rules of reality. Heavy stuff! Creaks from Amanita Design doesn’t have a radical hook to make it stand out; rather, it uses a few intuitive concepts with great proficiency. It may not be the flashiest puzzler out there, but Creaks is an engaging, atmospheric delight that should belong in any indie fan’s library.

Despite what I just said, Creaks has a slow opening which may mislead players. The game begins with the player character trying to get some work done late at night (He doesn’t seem to have a name, but he does bear a resemblance to Braid’s protagonist. Perhaps a cousin?). Rumblings underground uncover a hole in his wall which leads to an underground city that’s dark, seemingly abandoned, and, well… creaky. It’s populated with both hostile creatures and rather quirky bird folks.

Quickly, the game introduces its first puzzle mechanics. The man gets around using hundreds of ladders in the underground megastructure. He can also jump across and down small gaps. Cranky mechanical guard dogs will chase the man down, but they will stop before beams of light and elevation changes. The first puzzles require baiting these dogs to pressure plates or away from switches to progress. When the dogs are caught under the light, they transform into harmless dressers. The man can push them and climb on top to reach high ladders.

Creaks’s visually dark artwork and aggressive enemies give the first hour of the game an uneasy feel. Before I began playing, part of me thought it was a horror game. This is what I mean by a misleading opening. The tone established at the start doesn’t quite match what the game evolves into. Fortunately, it only gets more fun as it continues. After the slow opening, more mechanics and story sequences are peppered in. It wasn’t until the second type of enemy was introduced that I really became invested. Starting then, the pace and variety in the rest of the game is fantastic.

The game is segmented into about 40 puzzle rooms. While this may seem like a step back from the interconnected worlds of previous Amanita games, the result is something that is easy to pick up and play. In fact, compared to some others in the genre, Creaks’s puzzles are downright friendly. The first few building blocks are used every time: ladders, light, and switches. What changes are the creatures that must be manipulated. They interact and compound in engaging ways, so each subsequent puzzle is a fresh experience.

Still, the puzzles themselves are very manageable. I suck at puzzle games, and I only got stumped once, at the midpoint. Even then, it was an issue of not knowing what to do rather than how to do it. The difficulty curves is built so that big thinkers should have little trouble. This keeps the pace quick and stops boredom from ever setting in. As the game progresses, the ladders lead further and further down, with environments becoming ever curiouser.

Between puzzles, there are paintings to interact with. They have mechanical components, which means that some are little minigames. These can be awkward to control, but the stiff clockwork figures inside make it seem intentional. They are neat distractions, showing stories about the bird society interacting with humanity, but they are also totally skippable. I found them more charming than annoying most of the time.

Amanita’s art style has always struck me as inspired by Terry Gilliam, albeit with the surrealism and violence toned down. It works to good effect here. The highlights are the environments, which have a lot of small details, and the very expressive characters. Cutscenes are fun to watch as the birds hop around communicating through body language and short vocalizations. It all culminates in a rather satisfying ending segment that comes at the perfect time.

I’ve tried to avoid writing too specifically about the game to preserve as much discovery as possible. Creaks won’t blow anyone’s mind. However, what it does is executed so well that fun is an unavoidable result. The indie game fire hose is constantly on full blast, but Creaks shouldn’t be ignored in the deluge. Curl up with a blanket, put on some headphones, and enjoy some puzzles down below.