Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@RR529 Sounds like a good process. I always find it helpful to still be playing a series, or still be in the same mindset at least, when writing a review. It's worked for you with these, for sure!

I've told myself in the past that these pieces would be so much easier to write if I'd just do a paragraph or so each night for a week or two while I'm nearing the end of the game.

Invariably, though, I put off everything until the last possible minute and wind up with a couple of stressful writing sessions that last until the wee hours of the morning, and involve a lot of typing, deleting, over-eating, chair-spinning, getting distracted by youtube videos, randomly falling asleep, and, when I'm lucky, long stretches of time where I'm in the 'zone' and am incredibly productive, putting my words to text document exactly as I wished to phrase them.

That's basically how I got through college, too.

@Ralizah Yep, same (chair-spinning and everything). Best I've ever managed is some scattered sentences scrawled on notepaper, but otherwise I just binge-write and then hit "post reply" before I spot anything I'm unhappy with (which invariably ends up being 75% of the bloody thing).

But hey, don't beat yourself up about it, and instead take comfort in the similarity (he says, right before he goes and beats himself up about it).

Super Mario Galaxy HD Remaster (via the Super Mario 3D All-Stars package)

Platform: Nintendo Switch

Completion status: 200% completion across two separate playthroughs; roughly 35 - 40 hours playtime total

Yasss Space Queen!

The third game in the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection, Super Mario Galaxy ("SMG" or "Galaxy" henceforth), is the one I was most eager to revisit when it was first announced. I've mentioned this before, but it's a game I have a special history with, because I attribute my current love of Nintendo and video games in general to my experience with that game. I'd been a moderately-engaged gamer as a youth, but, as time wore on, I found myself becoming less and less enchanted with the hobby, and that interest bottomed-out in the dreadful seventh console generation. Nintendo games were gimmicky and cheap, and the HD twins at the time felt like they were filled with boorish Western AAA blockbusters that mostly didn't appeal to me. That all changed one sleepy Sunday when I chanced to finally play Galaxy and was, frankly, blown away by it. The incredible orchestral soundtrack! The playful platforming mechanics! The gorgeous art design! Afterward, I pulled out my long dormant GameCube, started playing on my PS2 and NDS more, and, a few years later, ponied up the money for a Nintendo 3DS, and the rest is history. I'd fallen deeply in love with the medium again, and particularly with Nintendo, who I'd fallen out with after the NES in favor of Sega and Sony's consoles. Anyway, you can imagine my enthusiasm when I found out one of my all-time favorite games was getting an HD re-release on my favorite platform of the generation, the Nintendo Switch.

Galaxy's release on the Wii in 2007 mirrored my own experience with it, in some ways, because after the explosive entrance of Super Mario 64 in 1996, the plumber went into a bit of a dormancy period when it came to hype new mainline releases. Super Mario Sunshine released on the GameCube, of course, but it wasn't the sort of universally acclaimed, blow-out success that SM64 had been. It wasn't until Galaxy released that the gaming masses fell fully back in love with our titular hero again. As with SM64 on the N64, his new adventure was a streak of brilliance that used exciting new hardware to tremendously successful effect. I've long contended that Galaxy's controls were one of the few almost fully perfect utilizations of the odd Wiimote & Nunchuk controller combination.

The challenge with its re-release, then, was adapting a game heavily reliant on pointer controls and motion gestures to entirely new hardware can could be played on the TV like a home console or off the TV like a Game Boy. I'll admit that, until this point, I never would have thought Super Mario Galaxy could work in portable form, but I had to try it out and judge for myself. The good news there, spoiler alert, is that, yes, it does work fairly well as a portable game in most regards (more on that in a bit). The bigger question, then, was if the game was still as wonderful in 2020 as it was in 2008 or so when I got around to playing it. And it... mostly is. It's still an absolutely wonderful experience. There are some flaws, though, that had been papered over in my memory. This is also the first time I've fully, 100% completed the game, and I'm going to talk about that as well, because the "post-game" content in Galaxy is extensive, but perhaps not in the way one might wish for.

When the game first begins, right at the title screen, it is immediately apparent to the player that the atmosphere and music in this title are going to be significantly different from what you might have encountered in your daddy's Mario game in the past. As mentioned previously, Super Mario Galaxy was the first game in the series to deliver a fully orchestral score, and good lord did Nintendo go all out with it! Galaxy's soundtrack is one of the most unique in the series, as it ditches the reliance on happy-go-lucky tunes and catchy ditties to deliver something more complex, varied, and emotional. A large part of the game's by turns melancholy, adventurous, and playful mood draws from this score. Throughout the review, I'm going to be linking and alluding to various pieces of music that crop up throughout the game, starting with the promised title screen theme above. Music is a big part of this game's identity, and I think it makes good backing audio to my discussion of it.

SMG transitions to a charming introduction where we learn about a Star Festival that takes place once every hundred years when a particular comet passes over the planet. Much as with Mario 64, Princess Peach has invited Mario to the festival, because she has "something she wants to give him." More of the same, er, "cake" that required an intimate trip to the Princess' castle back in '96, perhaps? Either way, the action picks up immediately with Mario arriving in the midst of the enchanting Star Festival, where the music immediately above begins to play. It's an interesting way to begin the game, although the carefree, magical atmosphere doesn't last for long.

Listening to the music above, you might be forgiven for expecting Darth Vader to appear, but it's just a far more menacing iteration of the Bowser airship theme that was first introduced back in Super Mario Bros. 3. Bowser's fleet of airships surrounds Peach's castle and chaos ensues as cannon fire rains down on the terrified crowd. Bowser boasts about creating a new galaxy before a UFO under his control cuts the ground out from under the castle, and the castle, along with the chunk of land immediately under it is literally lifted away. The koopa king's kidnapping game just went up a few notches! Mario attempts to hitch a ride and rescue the princess as Peach's castle is dragged off to space, but, after leaving Earth's orbit, he's hit by enemy fire and goes blasting off into space, unconscious.

It's actually all a fairly quick sequence, but it's incredibly cinematic for a Mario game. Mario awakens on tiny planetoid in the Gateway Galaxy (levels are called "galaxies" in this game, whether they're entire planets or small collections of platforms and space debris), surrounded by strange, rabbit-like creatures, who challenge him to catch them. This is when the game first introduces the player to the spherical level design that go on to define many of the game's levels. As Mario, the player will run around the tiny sphere in all directions, and, if he long jumps at the right points, can even start swirling around entire sections of the environment as the gravity well generated by the cosmic body draws Mario back to land. It's a largely danger-less playground that allows the player to start becoming accustomed to the controls and feel of the game. After catching the star bunnies, they are revealed to be small, star-shaped entities called "lumas," who tell you to go talk to their "mama" at the top of the level. This is where we first meet the mystical, possibly immortal Rosalina, who informs Mario that he will need to travel through the universe to save his "special one." She gives Mario a luma to keep with him, who enables him to use an invaluable technique Mario will need throughout the game.

Perhaps this is a good time to discuss Mario's moveset in this game. Super Mario Galaxy foregoes the complex assortment of movements of its 3D predecessors and offers players a smaller but perfectly balanced moveset. The long jump, somersault, side jump, triple jump, and ground pound all return in this iteration, alongside one new but extremely useful addition: the spin attack. Thanks to the luma who accompanies him on his journey, Mario is able to engage in a dynamic spin attack to knock back and/or defeat enemies, as well as break fragile objects in his environment, and it works out brilliantly. Even as someone who thought the punching and kicking in Super Mario 64 was pointless, I simply couldn't imagine playing this game without a melee attack. It feels great, and, to be honest, it makes controlling the italian plumber in any of his other 3D adventures (other than Galaxy 2) feel just a little bit worse.

In the Wii original, the spin attack was triggered by making a flicking motion with the remote. As someone who isn't typically a fan of waggle, I still found it to be reliable control-wise. Thanks to the gyrometer in the Switch, that functionality remains viable here, but, in one of the biggest control alterations in the Switch port, the spin attack is also now mapped to a face button, which makes precision movements much more viable with the Pro Controller, or especially in handheld mode, where the player would be forced to shake their entire machine.

The other primary alteration comes with regard to the game's ever-present use of pointer controls. In the Wii original, the wiimote pointer would create a cursor on the screen. This cursor was used to both interact with certain on-screen objects (more on this in a bit) as well as to scoop up "star bits," which are tiny, crystal-like objects that rain down from the heavens, explode out of enemies, and generally litter the game's various levels. These star bits are collected throughout the game and can be used both as a form of currency to unlock new levels (specific lumas will eat them, and when satisfied, will generate new, optional galaxies for the player to find) as well as a defensive tool that can be used to stun enemies by shooting at them.

Anyhow, this cursor long struck me as the almost sole reason SMG wouldn't work on future Nintendo consoles, but where there's a will, there is a way. Nintendo found two new ways to replace the wiimote pointer cursor in this HD re-release. The first method, in docked mode, is using the Switch's gyro functionality to emulate pointer controls, and it works... surprisingly well. Granted, the on-screen cursor will often become de-synchronized and wander across the screen after a period of time, but, as with Nintendo's own Splatoon series, one of the shoulder bumpers on the player's controller is a dedicated re-centering button, which realigns the gyro cursor with however the player happens to be holding the controller at that moment. While it's not as immediately intuitive as the Wii's pointer cursor solution, it quickly became instinctual for me to re-center the gyro right before gently shifting my controller to collect star bits. If anything, it avoids both the literally tiresome activity of pointing a remote directly at a sensor bar in front of the player and the issues that would crop up at times where I would have a hard time finding my cursor on-screen because the remote was pointed too high or too low, making this workaround my preferred control method.

In handheld mode, the game forces an entirely different method for collecting star bits. Gyro is abandoned in favor of touch controls! It's so rarely utilized that sometimes it's hard to remember, but the Nintendo Switch features a fully-functional capacitive touch screen. In place of shifting one's hands around, then, the player will literally use their finger to swipe across the screen. It can take some getting used to, given that it requires moving one's hands away from sticks and buttons temporarily, but it works about as well as one could possibly imagine, and even made certain levels easier to complete. I do wish, though, that the player was given an option to opt for gyro or touch controls in handheld mode, as this design choice will be alienating or uncomfortable to some.

Anyway, after initially meeting Rosalina, Mario encounters his first launch star, which, when triggered by a spin, will send him flying to the first real challenge in the game. This initial area, where Mario will have to rescue a Grand Star that is being used to power some enormous and presumably space-bound machine, functions as a sort of extended tutorial for the larger game, as the player will encounter various new mechanics that will keep popping up later in the game, such as collecting star chips that, when all collected, will form new launch stars, freeing lumas frozen in crystal, and triggering flip-switches (panels that alternate between binary states when stepped on; all the flip switches in a given area need to be activated simultaneously to trigger something in the environment, but obstacles, shifting platforms, and variances in gravity will all stand as challenges in these sections).

After freeing the first Grand Star, Mario is taken by Rosalina to the Comet Observatory, Rosalina's starship and what becomes the main hub area of the game, equivalent to Peach's Castle in Mario 64 and Delfino Plaza in Mario Sunshine. We learn that Bowser attacked the Observatory during the Star Festival, causing its power sources (Power Stars and Grand Stars) to spill out across the universe. With the returned Grand Star, a small portion of the Observatory regains power, allowing Mario to teleport to a small number of nearby galaxies to retrieve missing power stars.

This very basic piece is what greets the player when they first start the game proper and explore the small chunk of the Observatory available to them after collecting the first Grand Star. This piece changes and grows in complexity over the course of the game as the player finds more Grand Stars and unlocks more of the starship until, finally, the multi-tiered complexity of the game's hub level is unlocked in full, and the piece full evolves into something more complex and grand.

Super Mario Galaxy is reminiscent of Mario 64 in terms of how its levels are wildly diverse and thematically distinct zones disconnected from the hub area. It's worth talking about the increased focus on linearity at this point. Let's start with the hub area. While atmospheric and lovely, the Comet Observatory is probably the shallowest hub area in the series to date, as there are only a few (very significant) 'secrets' to find, versus the much more multi-faceted complexity of Peach's Castle, which hid all sorts of hidden areas, secret stars, shortcuts to different sections of the castle, and so on. In general, there's rarely much of a reason to explore Rosalina's starship, and it primarily functions as a bit of window-dressing when going between different galaxies.

This focus on straightforward area design and lack of exploration extends also to the game's levels as well. Outside of a few particular levels, where the player will be able to find hidden lumas who will be able to unlock alternative power star challenges, each star mission in a galaxy is an incredibly straightforward affair, reminiscent of 2D Mario games in that there's usually an unambiguous path toward a Power Star at the end of the level. This has disappointed some, who had to wait until 2017 to get another sandbox Mario game. It's pretty much unquestionable that Galaxy's approach to progression and level design, and especially its even more linear and streamlined sequel, anticipated the direction of the 3D games in the Wii U era with Super Mario 3D World.

This focus on linearity isn't really a bad thing, though. What Mario Galaxy lacks in exploration it makes up for with incredibly creative level design, unique platforming mechanics, and fantastic set-pieces. One that struck me immediately about Galaxy is how varied and its level themes are. Nintendo has been pilloried in some quarters in the past for not really experimenting with the types of levels that show up in these games, but the standard fire, ice, field, etc. levels that even littered Mario 64 aren't really present here, or, when they are, see massive twists or alterations. There are ice-themed galaxies, for example, but they are usually built around Mario manipulating both fire and ice to progress through the levels, and, with the ice flower power-up, Mario often ends up skating like a gymnastic professional across larger sections of the levels, or using his ice powers to selectively freeze spouts of water in order to get where he needs to go. There are levels themed entirely around gigantic space toys, or raids on Bowser's airships, or even interacting with a race of massive, sentient bees. It's a creative streak that has largely been absent in the series since Super Mario World.

The music also helps to make these galaxies feel distinct. Individual galaxies can lean hard on the 'epic space music' thing as well. For example, I love the sweeping theme that plays in the Battlerock Galaxy, linked above. Amazing music, but, again, VERY unusual for a Mario game. There is also a lot of music in this game that evokes a sense of adventurous grandeur, as with the deservedly famous theme that plays in the Gusty Garden Galaxy (linked below).

It's also worth mentioning that, while levels are broadly linear insofar as the land tends to direct you one way, many of the levels are very "wide linear." In that sense, Mario Galaxy is less Uncharted 2 than it is Uncharted 4: there's only one place to really go, but there's often a lot of space around you regardless, making it feel more like navigating actual terrain and less like being on rails.

The platforming itself is primarily about interacting with gravity. One common features in more futuristic levels where you're running around gigantic structures or machines in space, for example, is the use of artificial gravity zones, where Mario will be forced to up walls, across ceilings, riding platforms that move across a shifting spectrum of gravity zones while you're made to dodge obstacles, etc. I alluded to this before, but you will also bounce between different spherical bodies, where you'll need to jump high enough to get caught in the gravity wells generated by different platforms. The gravity manipulation gives the Galaxy games a feel that's unlike any other Mario game in the series.

In terms of how levels are distributed, Galaxy is, again, reminiscent of Mario 64. In Mario 64, you'd unlock rooms with power stars to access a variety of paintings, which you could tackle in semi-non-linear fashion. But to access later levels, you still needed to hit certain star thresholds, which helped to direct the flow of the game. Mario Galaxy does something sort of similar. Every time you unlock a new section of the Observatory with a Grand Star, a new set of galaxies will be made available to the player. As long as they hit the requisite number of Power Stars (presumably, the reasoning behind this is you need a certain number of stars to have the power to be teleported out to specific galaxies, which gives progression a nicely organic flavor missing in Mario 64), players can often play these galaxies in any order. Like in 64, though, the game will require the player to complete boss stages in order to unlock further sections of the game (bosses seem to be the ones who are holding the Grand Stars).

This is a good opportunity to talk about the bosses in this game. Mario games have a... rough history with bosses. The boss variety and difficulty in all of the 2D games, and in Super Mario 64 as well were pretty pathetic, honestly. Super Mario Sunshine went a bit further in terms of having more varied boss encounters, but Super Mario Galaxy does a particularly good job of regularly distributing these encounters and making them feel like proper setpieces, whether you're using rock hard boos to smash up a rock monster or pounding the ground at key moments to flush out an enemy that's hunting you from underneath the ground. They're still easy, mind you, and they don't possibly begin to compare to the bosses in series like Donkey Kong Country or The Legend of Zelda, but they still represent another area of clear improvement from preceding Mario titles.

In terms of improvements from previous 3D Mario games, it should be noted that Mario Galaxy features one of the widest range of power-ups in the series (before Mario Odyssey made every object and enemy in the game a potential power-up, at least!), including new additions like Ice Mario, Bee Mario (Mario dresses up in an adorable bee costume and can flitter around), Spring Mario (Mario turns into a spring and can bounce around), Boo Mario (Mario turns into a ghost, hovers around, and can even turn temporarily translucent), and even a form of Mario (unlocked via one of the Observatory's few secret stars) who can fly around. It's like the Wing Cap from Mario 64, except using it's actually fun and easy to use.

There's still a lot to be said about the levels in this game, though. I'll start with a discussion of Prankster Comet challenges. Specific levels in this game, once completed, will unlock the chance for comet challenges to appear. Prankster Comet challenges award power stars and remix aspects of galaxies you visited previously. Speedy comets will require the player to speedrun levels they previously completed, sometimes giving them only a couple of minutes to reach the end goal, which requires a familiarity with the level design. Daredevil Comets will require the player to complete levels, and sometimes even more challenging boss levels, while capped at one point of health (if you're hit even once, you die and have to start over from the beginning of the level, essentially). Fast Foe Comets are exactly what they sound like: you play through the level again, but this time with enemies that move super-fast. Often these comets appear in levels filled with giant enemies that will kill you in one hit.

Purple Comets unlock purple coin challenges, which function very much like red coin challenges in previous games, except now you have to run around some of the more expansive levels in the game collecting 100 purple coins. Some of these are just time consuming, but the timed purple coin challenges can be incredibly difficult, and there's at least one notoriously difficult comet challenge that tasks the player with collecting 100 of these coins in a level where the ground permanently disappears out from under Mario when he steps on it. The most interesting of the comet challenges, though, are the Cosmic Comet challenges. In these challenges, a shadowy clone of Mario very much like the one from Super Mario Sunshine will challenge you to a race to the end of a level. Whoever grabs the power star at the end of the level first is the victor.

That brings us to... sigh... the motion controlled levels. To start with this discussion, I'll link a piece of music. Listen to it, and I think you'll begin to get a sense of where we're going here.

Yes, it's this game's version of the slide theme, the wacky, infuriating, carnival-esque music that portends something terrible. Y'see, Nintendo can never just make a perfect masterpiece. They always, always, always find something annoying to introduce that drags it from the heights of excellence just that little bit. I guess Nintendo thought the price we pay for this game's fantastic platforming is pure game design trolling in the form of motion-controlled vehicle levels.

These were created, I suppose, to show off the capabilities of the Wiimote. The manta ray challenge races task the player with using gyro to control a manta ray as it races down a stream of water suspended over space. This is about as fun as it sounds. Interestingly enough, though, it's the most merciful of these level types, since you have to hold a button to accelerate, which allows you to kind of inch along at your own pace (although still fast enough to get to the goal in time to collect the power star), and it actually works as well or better in portable mode than it does with a Pro Controller on the TV. You, of course, twist your controller or game console to change the direction the manta ray is going.

Now listen to this theme. It's basically insanity in musical form. That's appropriate, given the levels it plays during.

The far more infuriating motion controlled levels are these ones where Mario is balancing on a ball. Holding the controller flat is the default position, and then angling it upwards or downwards sends Mario flying through the course on an unstable ball. Of course, in order to make it as painful as humanly possible, hitting enemies will make your ball elevate, which can easily send you flying off-course. There also aren't any checkpoints in these levels, so, ah, have fun with that. The motion control detection is wonkier here than it was on the Wii, where I believe you held the Wiimote upright when controlling it. There were points where I felt like I was having to turn my Pro Controller almost entirely upside down, and, in general. I must have looked like a tremendous idiot when I was attempting to get through these exercises in suffering.

While we're at it, there are also pointer cursor (or, in the case of the Switch version, gyro cursor) controlled levels, where you have to point at specific points on the screen with the cursor and have Mario navigate to them. Not a problem normally, but then you get these challenge levels where you're navigating obstacles with gyro cursor-controlled movement, and it's just kind of awkward. It works about as well, if not better than it did on the Wii, at least.

Thankfully, these terrible levels make up a very small number of the game's total level count. They stick out a zit on an otherwise clear and beautiful face.

I guess I should mention the in-game camera as well. It's very reminiscent of the camera in Super Mario 64 insofar as it often can't be adjusted, and the game just of positions the camera where it thinks it needs to be. In SM64, this was a nightmare because it would get stuck at odd angles/behind objects/etc. Super Mario Galaxy's camera is what Mario 64's camera wanted to be when it grew up. 95% of the time, despite not being adjustable, it gives you the perfect angle to see what needs to be seen and avoid obstacles. And, in fairness, a full 3D camera would work VERY poorly with this game's focus on smaller, spherical platforms. But 5% of the time, the camera works poorly, and it's what led to the bulk of my deaths in the game, whether through not being able to judge distance adequately, or just getting stuck on the scenery. It's still a mostly excellent in-game camera, but, while I'm complaining, I figured I'd address it.

Super Mario Galaxy is a game full of epic sweeps and adventure and quiet beauty, and a big reflection of that change in atmosphere can be attributed to Rosalina. I haven't had much to say about this game's now iconic new character, but she really was one of the best additions to the entire franchise, for a number of reasons. For one thing, in a series with frankly terrible female representation over the years, she really stands out, insofar as she is a powerful and (by Mario game standards) complex character who stands as Mario's partner in this game. What really made her stick in the memory, I imagine, is her backstory.

Throughout the game after the library section of the Observatory is initially unlocked, Mario will be able to find Rosalina reading a story book to her star children. It quickly becomes apparent that this storybook is actually Rosalina's backstory, and it's... well, I won't dwell on it much, except to say that it's gorgeously illustrated and extremely emotional. It adds a surprising amount of depth to her character, and it's the closest a Mario game has ever come, and likely ever will come, to frankly exploring themes related to love, longing, loneliness, and death. It's a completely optional thing, and interestingly, was never originally planned to be in the game. One of the developers apparently wrote it on their own and just sort of smuggled it in without calling too much attention to it. I'm glad they did, though, as it adds a welcome layer of depth and emotional resonance to the game that simply don't exist in other Mario titles.

I'll link some of the music from the storybook sections below, which should give you a sense of their tone:

I should also mention that the game's climax, after the final boss, is surprisingly powerful and resonant as well. I won't describe it, but it's another very cinematic section of the game, and, while unusual for a Mario platformer, which are usually fairly low-stakes, it fits with the wider cosmic scope of the game. Needless to say, this is likely the only Mario game that will ever touch on ideas related to self-sacrifice or the origin and meaning of life.

Rosalina isn't the only new character introduced by the game, though! Super Mario Galaxy made another great contribution to the larger Mario franchise with the intrepid explorer, Captain Toad, who would play a larger role in Super Mario 3D World before finally getting his own (very cute) spinoff game on the Wii U. With that said, his role in Galaxy is pretty tiny; he primarily shows up in the background a finds a power star or two.

Luigi has a surprisingly large presence in the game, especially if you decide to 200% it. Throughout the game, Luigi will send letters to Mario showing him trapped somewhere in a level, and, to collect the relevant power star, the player will have to figure out what level he's hidden in and rescue him from whatever predicament he's in. Once the player has collected all 120 stars in their initial playthrough and beaten the final level twice (you have to beat it initially after collecting 60 stars to unlock some of the late-game content, and then beat it again to officially 100% a run), a small cutscene will play after the credits, and Luigi will be unlocked as a playable character.

So, if you want to see and do everything, you have to beat the entire game again as Luigi (which gets pretty weird when Luigi starts sending letters to a copy of himself, which is acknowledged but never really addressed in-game, lol). I was excited to see what would be different, but... it really isn't. Luigi is only the tiniest bit more slippery than Mario, so he doesn't really work as a hard mode. So, for all intents and purposes, you're just playing through the same game again.

For my second playthrough, I played entirely on my Switch Lite, which the game works surprisingly well with. It's not often I can play games that run at a locked 60fps on my Lite, and while I wish Nintendo had given me the option, only using the touchscreen to collect star bits still worked out well. I'm not much for replaying games, especially after beating them initially, but I do love this game, and having it on the Switch Lite meant it was easy to play through the game a second time while watching TV and/or listening to podcasts, which helped me to grind through it all again more easily.

And... what is the game's reward for going through this trouble? You get a secret unlockable level, but it's really lame. It's just the star festival, but this time you're running around collecting purple coins. That's it. No challenge whatsoever. It's a bit of a letdown considering how much goes into unlocking it. And it's in this one area where I will grant that the sequel, Super Mario Galaxy 2, is roundly superior: the Grandmaster Galaxy from that game is BRUTAL, and it started the great tradition of Mario games rewarding full completion with incredible gauntlets that test every skill players have learned in those respective games. Alas, the tradition didn't start here, and as much as I enjoy this game, I have to admit that it's not worth completing two full playthroughs. The ideal Super Mario Galaxy playthrough is one 120 star run. But it was fun to do absolutely everything in this game at least once in my life.

I noted that the perfect performance was a highlight of my experience with the game in portable form on my Switch Lite, and this is characteristic of the entire experience, frankly. Super Mario Galaxy was the first 3D Mario to run at 60fps, which set a new standard for the series (Galaxy 2, 3D World and Odyssey both run at this framerate as well). It really is difficult to go back from the locked, smooth framerate of Galaxy to the frame-y performance of previous games. This, of course, carries over perfectly from the Wii original, and performance is basically perfect in the Switch port of the game.

As with the other releases in the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection, not a lot has been done to touch up this game, with the primary improvement being that it runs at a significantly higher resolution on Nintendo Switch, generally aiming for 1080p output when docked and a native 720p output in portable mode. This would be a pretty damning indictment for a port of virtually any other game released back in 2007, but the truly impressive thing is that Super Mario Galaxy, which was an absolute stunner on the Wii, still holds up extremely well on a modern system. It's the only games in the collection that doesn't look or feel old, and it wouldn't take much work at all for it to stand alongside Super Mario Odyssey visually. Most of that is likely down to the game's gorgeous art direction, but character models and environments are extremely clean and reasonably detailed as well.

For a lot of franchises, going to space is a last-ditch effort to revive flagging creative efforts and restore relevancy where it has all but disappeared. It turns out that sending Mario to space was exactly the thing Nintendo needed to do to give the series a new lease on life, though. I can't quite give it a perfect score due to some notable flaws that slightly damage the experience, but Super Mario Galaxy is still one of those touchstone games that remind people why they keep buying Nintendo consoles in the first place. It's a brilliant and creative 3D platformer filled with fun level design, perfectly balanced mechanics, gorgeous music, and ranks as one of the italian plumber's finest outings on any system. It was brilliant on the Nintendo Wii, and it's just as brilliant on the Nintendo Switch. It gets the strongest possible 9/10 from me.

@Ralizah, fantastic Galaxy review! It truly is a special game, and I'm glad I got to replay it on Switch.

Funnily enough, the Manta Ray levels (particularly the first one) were the motion controlled levels that gave me the worst trouble. I died so much on that first one. The "Ball" levels never felt good, but I somehow managed to stumble through them each on my first try (except for that little end stage segment, the one you screenshot with the lava, and even all of my deaths there had to do with me misjudging momentum/depth when it came to jumping on that little platform in the middle with the 1-UP mushroom. Once I managed that I don't think I had an issue with the rest of the segment).

@Ralizah Brilliant review of Galaxy! I honestly don’t have as many fond memories as I do of Sunshine as my Wii disc got covered in silly putty in about 2010 (don’t ask) but it really is a special game. I like the motion controls though, and do really miss motion controls in a lot of games as the Joy-Cons have the capabilities but haven’t had the same push.

@nessisonett Silly putty, huh?

I'm not reactively anti-motion controls (you've probably picked up on how pro-gyro aiming I am by now), but I feel like it's SO easy to integrate them into a game poorly. The motion controlled levels are gimmicky and distracting. When they're more natural, and designed to complement the overall game design, like using the pointer controls/gyro to collect star bits, or using waggle to spin attack, I feel like it works better.

It's one reason why I prefer the smaller 3DS library overall to what was on the NDS: by the time the 3DS came out, developers weren't fixated on putting weird, gimmicky control schemes into their games, and so the touch-screen was utilized when it made sense. Thus, instead of something frustrating like an entirely touch-controlled Zelda game, you got Zelda games with menu and item management integrated into the touch screen, making them easier to manage.

As to capabilities of the Switch that are underutilized... it AMAZES me that almost everyone forgets that the system has a touchscreen. Galaxy is pretty much one of the first major games on the system to use it in any sort of notable way.

@RR529 Yeah, Galaxy is awesome.

I think the primary reason the Manta Ray levels were so much less frustrating for me is that acceleration was controlled by holding a button, whereas the ball levels have you accelerate based on how much you're twisting the controller. Not only do I have more control over my own speed in the manta ray levels, but my only real concern with the motion controls is what direction my character is heading, whereas, in the ball levels, I have to factor in momentum as well.

Although the ball levels are definitely more forgiving in terms of the level design overall. Thank god! Ball rolling controls with manta racing level design would truly be a nightmare.

@RogerRoger I've talked to a lot of creatives, and some level of self-doubt is pretty universal among most of them. On some level, it's healthy, as it forces them to be more self-critical and perhaps more reflective of their actual weaknesses.

With that said, other than an editing pass to check grammar and sentence structure and whatnot, I generally don't make any major changes once I'm done writing a piece for this thread either. Editing is primarily down to making smart cuts that tighten up a piece and remove fluff, and I created this thread less for people to post super-polished final drafts (although they certainly can, if that's what they want to do) and more for people to fully explore their own feelings on games they've played. It's why I'm not terribly worried about how lengthy my posts frequently get in here.

Also, there's a belief I subscribe to that any type of structured writing is effective toward improving one's mastery of the craft overall. I don't mean that writing game reviews makes you good at writing fiction, or visa versa, but it certainly helps to find and establish your 'voice' and rehearse your command of the written form. It'd be interesting to know if there were larger cognitive benefits to this as well, although that'd require the sort of focused research I don't have the will to conduct. There's a reason I never did anything with that psych degree I earned.

@Ralizah Oh, I'd much rather take a beat and question myself than think myself indestructible and walk blindly into disaster, absolutely. I just wish my doubts weren't the 75% and instead the remaining twenty-five, but I'm steadily improving, as they used to be almost total. This topic has helped a lot because (being selfish for a second) it keeps a historical record of our progress and refinements over time, as well as collecting new and different perspectives together. I'm endlessly grateful for it.

Because, as you say, practice definitely makes perfect (whether that be perfecting your "voice" or gaining the confidence to post up an opinion). I'm sure there would be wider benefits and applications but, like you, I think I'd best leave the research to others; that way, it might actually get finished someday!

And besides, if you devoted yourself to such an undertaking, you wouldn't have time to write more superb reviews like the one above, and that'd be a crying shame.

There have been several times where I've found myself drawn in whilst reading about a game I have little to no interest in playing, but I mean this most sincerely: you've just made me want to play Super Mario Galaxy. Not just in a "would be cool someday" kinda way, but in a "I wonder how much I'd have to spend to get my own Switch right now" kinda way. Obviously there's underlying credit to the game's quality, but it's mainly because of your writing. The personal backstory, the franchise history, the detailed descriptions, witty asides and analytical honesty. It's awesome, effective and evocative. Your very best yet.

Your constant embedding of the soundtrack underscores how effective music has become in gaming, and how it's as important to get right as a decent graphical effect or smart bit of level design. I'm gonna find a YouTube playlist of the entire Galaxy soundtrack later on, as the snippets you've shared sound delightful, and have whetted my appetite for more. It's also a step (well, more like a flying leap) closer to my all-time favourite Mario music, which ain't no bad thing.

I'm glad to hear your nostalgia for the game withstood the test of time, and that Galaxy emerged relatively unscathed from Nintendo's slapdash approach to the recent trilogy. I'm also grateful to read a defence of overall linearity which, I agree, shouldn't be treated as a dirty word in game design. Sounds like Galaxy was an early adopter of the fairer "linear-plus" approach which I've come to appreciate in a lot of games. There is absolutely a way to create a sense of scale and freedom whilst maintaining a sense of focus and direction. It's crucial in more story-driven experiences (which I grew up with), but any game which nails the balance will always have my respect. It's a fine art.

A tremendous and utterly convincing read, Ral. Huge thanks for sharing it!

@mookysam Thank you. Yeah, there's so much great music in this game that I wanted to fairly represent a sizeable sample of it. It's easily the best soundtrack to ever come out of Nintendo, IMO, and I really don't expect that to change for a LONG time. They went big with the orchestra.

Some people don't get on with the touch controls, unfortunately, but I didn't have too much of an issue with them. Admittedly, the majority of my first playthrough was docked, and I played in handheld mode on the Lite with Luigi, where it was easy to use my thumbs to swipe the screen when needed. I'm just glad Nintendo remembered the system had a touch screen!

My next Mario game, barring any big announcements, is going to be Bowser's Fury, although I'm not sure I'm up for more Mario right away, given I just 100%ed three of them in a short period of time. Galaxy 2 IS a game I intend to 100% at some point, but I kind of want to wait and see if it gets a Switch port first. My pet theory is that soon after the 3D All-Stars collection is delisted, Nintendo is going to relist the games on the eshop separately, and that'll probably be when they they put a port of Galaxy 2 on the eshop.

@RogerRoger I'm glad to hear you're approaching your writing with a little more confidence now. Irrational fears, concerns, doubts, etc. generally can't be reasoned away, and are only lessened when we expose them to sunlight and fresh air instead of allowing them to fester in the recesses of our mind. To that end, the degree of reflective honesty in your pieces is commendable.

Anyway, I'm relieved the piece on Galaxy ended up being readable. It took longer than normal to write, and I really wasn't sure how I wanted to structure it overall. There was originally a dedicated music section, but once I realized there were too many pieces I wanted to share, and that the pieces were really connected to aspects of the game I wanted to discuss anyway, I decided to distribute them instead. As you say, music is an integral part of modern gaming that connects us emotionally to what is happening on-screen, and I wanted to tap into that a bit via musical accompaniment. Video essays on sites like youtube generally do that anyway to often fantastic effect.

Galaxy's OST is unique, not just because of the orchestra, but also because of how emotional and evocative it is. It feels like the composers put their entire hearts and souls into it, and that's a feeling that I got from the game overall. It makes me wish Nintendo would take more risks artistically and thematically like they did with this game when it comes to the Mario universe.

In terms of linearity and game design, Galaxy is interesting insofar as it kind of anticipates the explicit melding of 2D and 3D design principles in the 3D subseries of Mario games (Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World, that is). But I prefer the balance they achieved with this game. It reminds me a bit of the Final Fantasy series, where the old games achieved the ideal balance of linearity and exploration. Like FF7, which you weren't necessarily a massive fan of, but you'll know what I'm talking about. The way the world is set up, until a certain point, at least, directs the player in one basic direction, but I never really felt like I was being railroaded from one point to the next like I did with FF10 and 13. And then, with FF15, Square-Enix went the other direction, and we got a needlessly massive open world game. And I have to wonder at what point level design became such an all-or-nothing affair for so many companies. The best games, as you point out, combine the feeling of freedom with focused and directed game design.

"Linear-plus" is a cool term for it, btw. With your permission, I might borrow it at some point.

As always, I appreciate y'all taking the time to read the work posted here, and to post feedback, and to offer up your own contributions. And regardless of whether I deserve it or not, Rog, I am a tad vain, so the effusive praise does make me happy.

Next few reviews will be shorter and more concise. I know I've said that before, and it's never true, but I really mean it this time!

@Ralizah I think it's the personal honesty which causes all of my second-guessing (and third, and fourth, and eighth). It's weird how protectionist I can be about my own opinions, especially since I'm a strong advocate of simply liking what you like, irrespective of judgement and regardless of consensus. Ah well. Whoever said the human brain had to make sense, eh?

It turned out more than readable! Each element you discussed worked by itself, and then it all came together as a whole; giving the piece a musical spine was just the rather ingenious icing on an already-sweet cake. Reviews often demand a systematic approach (they need to cover gameplay, story, visuals, sound, difficulty, etc.) and I often have difficulty keeping on top of everything I'm supposed to mention, so I'm always in awe of those who manage to cover all the bases in such a comprehensive way. Coming away feeling like "Boy, I really wanna play that now!" is proof of success.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I have very little connection to Mario, as you know, but the way Fossil Falls' soundtrack in Odyssey made such a powerful impact will stay with me forever. When you linked Gusty Garden Galaxy above, it immediately made me go and search for Fossil Falls again... and the video's top comment? "The Gusty Garden Galaxy of Odyssey." Made me laugh!

It's highly probable that I saw the term "linear-plus" being used elsewhere, and just adopted it as shorthand to describe some of my favourite modern games, so have at it. My feelings towards Final Fantasy VII were not entirely the result of its approach to exploration; there were a few moments where I felt a bit lost, but I chalk those up to me playing an early trailblazer after decades of objective markers and various other hand-holding mechanics (well... that, and it's entirely possible that I simply wasn't paying enough attention). It's interesting to track the trends, because there are great examples of both extremes, and the poor ones seem to come along a couple years later, chasing their coat-tails. All I know is nowadays, when I start a game and it presents me with a sprawling map, filled with a vast variety of objective markers, tasks and side quests, it's kinda a turn-off. Perhaps explains why I don't play that many Ubisoft games!

Not at all; it's a continued pleasure to read what you write (whatever the length). You most certainly deserve praise, at least when it comes from me, because I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it!

@Ralizah wow, that was quite the read! I’m glad I did though. I really appreciate the way you incorporated the game’s music into your review and it made for a particularly memorable moment for me when you began talking about the motion controls. You elicited an audible laugh from me when I fired up the tune and read your well crafted words.

Your passion is evident, thank you for taking me on that journey, excellent review. You made my day better. Cheers!

@RogerRoger Oh man, when I'm writing these things, there's almost always some aspect of the game, after I've posted it, that it occurs to me I haven't tackled, and it's usually something notable enough that I won't be able to stop feeling irritated until I go back in and add a paragraph or two on it. Even after that, it's not uncommon for me to go back over my pieces later on and think: "dang, this all sounded better in my head than how I transcribed it in text."

It's kinda cool that Gusty Garden made you think back to Fossil Falls, and that others sensed that musical connection as well! It does absolutely sound like something that would be a good fit in the first Galaxy.

The tune from that game that'll never leave my head is that weird 1960's stoner rock-esque track that plays in the Steam Gardens (the area that you've pointed out looks suspiciously similar to an area in an older Sonic game).

@mookysam I think it's appropriate to mention. Both because this is about your experience with the game, and because accessibility options matter, even if Nintendo is content to ignore them. Mentioning stuff like that which would never occur to those of us without arthritis taps into the value of hearing multiple perspectives on a thing.

Ah yeah, I forgot y'all got a nifty steelbook. No such luck on this side of the pond. They do seem to be good for sales, considering how Best Buy in North America has been using steelbooks as preorder bonuses for a ton of big releases as of late.

Playing Odyssey and Sunshine in tandem is interesting. Even though I'm a Sunshine defender, I can't imagine it compares favorably in most instances.

@Jimmer-jammer Awesome. I lack the natural wit of some of the talented writers in this forum, and I'm often afraid my pieces can come off as a bit comparatively dry, so it does my heart good to know that I've brought some humor to your day!

@Ralizah Exactly why I've started (or at least, tried to start) jotting down notes. I mean, I'll still forget to add things in regardless, but at least I can then notice my notes before I call it a day, and possibly try to jimmy them in before it's too late (or just throw my arms up in defeat).

And yes, you've touched upon one of my biggest bugbears about the modern age, namely that you can't hear words. So much communication is text-based now, and it's a huge potential pitfall. The amount of times I've written something which has been misconstrued, either in a text message or on a forum like this, because tone and inflection are almost impossible to convey. You can never predict how somebody else, from a totally opposite culture or language (or even just the opposite side of your street) is gonna interpret meaning. I read things back to myself before posting, but I'm reading them in my voice, and interpreting them with my standards... and then yeah, you come back a week later, in a totally different headspace, and suddenly go "Wait, did I really write that?!" I imagine that, if PushSquare were a bar and we were all its patrons, our conversations would take very different paths!

It's crazy you link that Steam Gardens music, because that immediately made me think of a track from Sonic Colours (the game which... let's be kind and say "inspired" Steam Gardens)!

But then it doesn't take much to make me think of Sonic, so I might be wide of the mark.

@RogerRoger Replying here for continuity...
(On the subject of review writing) Thanks for your thoughts and encouragement. I think for me, I’ve had a tendency of late to post impressions in a piecemeal fashion of my gameplay experience. While playing God of War recently, I would post a thought onto the game’s dedicated thread every few sessions. I did the same with Ghost of Tsushima. Furthermore, it seems like the games I’ve played lately are popular games with well-worn opinions already documented extensively in the digital ether. So since I didn’t have a huge amount of unique or dissenting opinion to delve into, I’ve not written formal expanded review pieces. I figure no one really wants to hear how great God of War or Ghost of Tsushima is one more time. My more recent gaming projects are less well-traveled in the public sphere so might make for better review subjects. But like you say, I’ve got to be in the right mood to share, and I had a dearth of mental energy for writing in recent months.

In the past I have taken notes on my phone when a specific aspect of a game’s mechanics or production stuck out to me, and this was a good way to formulate some review thoughts later. It’s useful as a reminder days or weeks later as the overall experience washes over me during the credit roll. I’ll probably get back in the habit of doing that for mental clarity. Even if I never write a review of the experience, it doesn’t hurt to collect fleeting thoughts in the moment, even it it’s only to discard later.

And I like what your said there above about the “voice” of written communication. I heard somewhere that 90% of conversation is non-verbal, not only taking speech intonation into account but also body language. I have had many similar experiences, as you so keenly describe, of reading one of my own posts days later and getting a different interpretation of my own words from their original intent 😅. Hopefully everyone gives me the benefit of the doubt when my posts come across awkwardly or offensively.

@Th3solution Sorry for the delay, my friend. Some of that life stuff happened at me.

Yeah, especially when playing larger games, it can be difficult to sit on your collected thoughts for so long, and then when you start chatting about one seemingly-small element, it can snowball. There are certainly times when I've posted about a game I'm halfway through, ended up discussing it at length, and then thought "Well, at least I won't have to review this one now!" But I wholeheartedly second what @mookysam rightly says; there are many games that've been reviewed multiple times in this topic, and might very well get reviewed again. As long as you can still find that spark of inspiration, that impulse that makes you wanna write, then write, no matter what it's about or what opinion you may hold.

I'm sure some people use their phone calendars for important things, like meetings or anniversaries or shopping list reminders. Mine just seems to go ding with stuff like "wonky gunplay" or "use the sunset screencap" or "glitch at the end of level three" all the time!

And for what it's worth, I don't think you've ever come across awkwardly or offensively! Of course, some kind folks might say the same about me, and I know I sure have before. That's an interesting and believable statistic, that non-verbal 90% (part of why I'm sure videoconferencing has exploded during the pandemic, as many would feel that there's no substitute for seeing somebody's face... me, I'm happy walking the text-based minefield, but I can understand where others are coming from).

***

@mookysam I'm not brave enough to upgrade to a dedicated notetaking app. I fear I'd spend all my time in it, fleshing out a brief thought into a paragraph I'd later need to copy and paste! At least using my calendar forces me to keep my reminders brief.

Super Mario 3D World - Bowser's Fury

Platform: Nintendo Switch

Completion Status: 100%, with 100 cat shines collected, and Fury Bowser defeated in his final form

Bowser's Fury is an oddity in the world of Mario and Nintendo games. While it's tethered to a purchase of the recent Switch port of Super Mario 3D World, it's such a mechanically and structurally unique experience that it works better considered on its own merits than as a part of the larger 3D World package. As such, I'll be treating it as a full game (which it is, even if it's shorter than your average 3D Mario platformer). It's worth mentioning from the start that, while it controls similarly to 3D World, it doesn't seem to have any other connections to that game, and can be played before ever touching the main game.

As usual for most Mario games, the context leading up to Mario exploring the new setting in this game is puddle-deep. Mario happens upon a strange bit of graffiti one day, which opens into a portal that sucks him into another world. After being isekai'd into a strange new world, Mario is thrust into a storm-ravaged, oceanic setting and is immediately confronted by a rather wild sight: a demonic, Godzilla-sized Bowser, who wastes no time in attacking Mario. This opening setpiece, as per usual for a Mario game, wordless teaches the players essential aspects of the gameplay. Fury Bowser summons gigantic spikes that block terrain around Mario, guiding him to a wall adorned with Bowser symbols. When Bowser belches out a stream of fire, the player's natural instinct is to hide behind the wall. We quickly learn that Bowser's breath destroys these bricks, which becomes essential throughout the game, and Mario is able to collect a cat sprite. Doing so activates a nearby lighthouse, the light from which wards off Bowser, who goes back to slumber in the black muck filling the harbor.

After this rather scary series of events, Mario happens upon Bowser Jr. He reveals to Mario that his father is out of control and pleads with his arch-nemesis to help him find a way to return his father to normal (we know from other Mario and Paper Mario games that, for all his evil plotting and kidnapping of princesses, Bowser is, if nothing else, a loving daddy). Mario agrees, of course, because Mario's a hero and would never turn away someone in need of aid. And he also happens to be stuck in this new world with no apparent means of escape himself. In an interesting turn, Bowser Jr. actually accompanies Mario on his adventure.

The most immediately distinguishing feature of Bowser's Fury is the way it's structured. This is the first Mario game to take place entirely across one giant map, which appears to be loaded into memory all at once, leading to no load times across the game. Islands dot the map, separated by large expanses of water. Thankfully, the friendly aquatic dinosaur Plessie from Super Mario 3D World returns to help Mario navigate the world of Bowser's Fury. He'll pop out of the water nearby anytime Mario nears the edge of an island, and a significant chunk of time is spent using him to ride between islands, engage in racing challenges for cat shines, and even take on the final boss.

Bowser Jr.'s role in the game is interesting. The player can change his AI, directing him to help attack enemies and collect items or to stand back and only intervene when the player needs him to reveal hidden pipes/items/etc. For my purposes, I set the AI to only activate when I tell it to, since it felt like his interventions took some of the challenge out of the experience. Bowser Jr. can also be controlled by a second player in local co-op, but I tried this out, and it's genuinely not recommended, given how often Mario leaves him behind. For a serviceable comparison, play as Tails in a 2D Sonic game, and you'll quickly get an idea of how frustrating and limiting it is to play as Bowser Jr. here. Co-op just doesn't work well for this particular Mario game.

Fury Bowser awakens after a set period of time throughout the game, and, as you're adventuring, you'll be able to look into the distance and watch as his enormous spiked shell slowly surfaces out of the water and begins spinning, eventually spinning fast enough that he flies into the sky and awakens. It's a very cool real-time element that helps to maintain a sense of tension throughout, as Fury Bowser will wake up regardless of what Mario is doing at a given time. While this isn't particularly troublesome when Mario is out in the water, it can be incredibly troublesome when Mario is in the middle of a difficult platforming challenge, and is forced to avoid Bowser's projectiles and fire breath on top of the obstacles he's already dealing with. The presentation for these attacks by Fury Bowser is phenomenal and ominous, as the skies blacken, rain begins pouring down, and honest-to-goodness metal plays as an enormous, demonic Bowser lumbers around the stage, dwarfing the islands you're traversing.

As the old cliché goes, though, familiarity breeds contempt, and while I never really grew to dislike these segments, you quickly learn that, for all the sound and fury, to quote the bard, they signify nothing. Or, if not nothing, at least very little. Fury Bowser's attacks are pretty easy to dodge, and it's so easy to regain health in Bowser's Fury that he's never more than an annoyance. As with the blood moon cutscenes in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, these segments quickly stop being scary or thrilling after the second or so time they happen. In fact, so many cat shines are tied to blocks that Fury Bowser needs to destroy with his breath that you'll oftentimes be waiting impatiently for the big lug to do his thing.

When the game begins, only a small section of the full map is accessible. Black goo coats most of the ocean and damages the player if they dare to venture into it. Mario is tasked with collecting a certain number of cat shines by completing various goals, and, once he hits that number, an enormous cat bell will activate alongside the next Fury Bowser attack. Touching this cat bell transforms Mario into a kaiju-sized version of himself in the cat suit, and he'll do battle with Fury Bowser. It's quite wild the first time this happens, because suddenly you're twice the size of the level you were just navigating a few moments before, and you're throwing Bowser's mountain-sized projectiles back at him.

Anyhow, defeating Fury Bowser will open up more of the map, and the player will be tasked with collecting more cat shines before they can engage in this process again. Wash, rinse, and repeat. 50 cat shines are needed over the course of the game before the player can face Fury Bowser in his final form. This only really comprises half of the game, though, because, upon beating Bowser's Fury, the player is able to jump back in and collect 50 more cat shines in the post-game. Although it should probably be said that the game doesn't really reward the player for fully completing it, aside from a very slightly more difficult final boss fight the second time around. No extra cutscenes or story or anything. You're doing it because it's fun, which, honestly, should be reason enough for anyone.

The map, taken as a whole, isn't particularly large compared to something like Skyrim or Breath of the Wild, but the sense of scope is pretty wild compared to even a Mario game known for its large landscapes like Super Mario Odyssey. With that said, it's worth pointing out that, level design-wise, for all its openness and non-linearity, the actual islands housing most of the cat shine challenges are almost exactly like levels you'd encounter in the main 3D World game: linear obstacle courses. It's just that, instead of separating the levels, they're all connected via one overworld. Thankfully, after beating the game initially and going back in to find the rest of the cat shines, the game adds a warp feature that allows you to instantly fast travel to any of the islands you previously visited (and I mean INSTANTLY, which is what leads me to believe the entire world is loaded into memory at once).

Control-wise, it's almost identical to 3D World as well, and this is arguably 3D Mario at his least spry, with only a few basic moves in his repertoire. Also like 3D World, and unlike other 3D Marios, there's a run button. With that said, Mario gets around fine without most of his fancy platforming moves, and, like in the main 3D World game, he's a joy to control.

3D World was notable for its introduction of the cat suit, but Bowser's Fury goes a bit overboard in the cat direction. Almost everything in this game is cat themed: outfits, enemies, the environments are themed around named after cats, etc. There are also these adorable wild cats running around everywhere. They'll ignore Mario when he isn't transformed, but, once he dons a cat suit, they chase after him and nuzzle him if he stops. It's adorable, even if you get the sense that somebody at Nintendo perhaps loves cats a bit too much.

I want to briefly mention difficulty, power-ups, and the role of coins in this game. There's no lives system in Bowser's Fury, so collecting 100 coins randomly rewards the player with a new power-up. Unlike most Mario games, though, the player is able to hoard up to five power-ups of each type at a time, and there's six different power-ups to collect in total. There's also a particular transformation that gives the player a ton of coins when they ground pound from a high distance. In short, this game is SUPER easy to break if you spend even five minutes grinding coins by jumping from high surfaces, and even if you don't, there's almost no fear of death most of the time, because you usually have so many transformations on you that you can take countless hits from enemies (considering a fully transformed Mario takes three hits to kill before he can die, each new power-up used gives him three more hits to tank, and you can store five of each power-up). Interestingly, the lava kills Mario instantly, so there are still obstacles to stymie progress, but, in general, the only challenge here is actually finding and collecting all of the shines. Although it's worth pointing out that hard Mario games are usually hard for the wrong reasons. My favorite games in the series are almost all ones that could be considered easy overall. Still, the ability to abuse power-ups here is particularly egregious, although it can be used to sequence break certain shines by muscling your way through the damaging black muck that surrounds sections of the map that are supposed to be inaccessible at first.

Probably the most damning criticism of the game is that its challenges tend to be fairly repetitive over the course of the adventure. Not that this is unique to this particular game, as Mario 64 and Mario Odyssey had the same issue, to some extent, but a LOT of cat shines involve completing the same basic task across different islands. There are also way too many of these tedious shines that require Mario to track down baby kittens and return them to their distraught mother cat, which recalls the horrible missing Penguin star from Mario 64. Although, unlike that game, the basic act of moving from point A to point B isn't infuriating, so that certainly helps. Six of the 100 total shines also only appear when Fury Bowser does, so that can involve a lot of tedious waiting around if you accidentally leave them until last like I did. There are also a number of interesting shine challenges, though. One of the more memorable ones baffled me for a while. I was tracking a challenge marker on the map for a cat shine challenge, but it kept popping up on different parts of the map, and I never saw anything. Finally, surmising it must be moving, I climbed to the tippy-top of a volcano and, sure enough, watched as a giant floating island slowly inched its way across the sky. Once it passed close enough to the island in its rotation, I was able to climb up the side of it as Catsuit Mario and collect the shine. Instances of discovery like this are what kept me coming back to the adventure.

Musically, the game isn't going for any best-in-series awards, but it plays some really nice pieces as you explore. I already posted the Fury Bowser metal theme that plays when he shows up, but consider some of these charming compositions as well.

Every single OST for a 3D Mario game has been strong since the original Galaxy, and this game is no exception.

One of the more interesting aspects of Bowser's Fury is how rough the game is performance-wise. When docked, the game targets 60fps/720p, but there are some really mad drops when things start kicking off all at once. If Fury Bowser and all of his particle effects show up, and there's enemies surrounding you, and stuff is moving everywhere, the game just slows to a crawl. It's super reminiscent of those old NES games where everything would just slow down and almost feel like it was going in slow motion. Bowser's Fury does this, and it's absolutely fascinating. The game often feels like it was designed to be a stress test for the system, with its huge, interconnected environment, taxing visual effects (it IS a very pretty game), and willingness to throw multiple challenges and moving parts at the player all at once.

In handheld mode, the average framerate drops like a rock. It's playable, but it feels like the game is running at 25fps most of the time, even before the taxing setpieces and whatnot show up. It's surprisingly lacking in polish in this regard, as Mario games on Switch almost always run beautifully.

Oh, and this game actually has a decent photo mode! You can adjust the direction of the camera, zoom in or out, and apply some fun filters for neat screenshots. I'm not the most creative person in the world in this regard, but I could see some really delightful screenshots coming out of this game.

Bowser's Fury is a fascinating reimagining of Mario game design, as it marries 3D World-esque linear challenges and obstacle courses with a huge open environment and a sense of exploration that calls something like Super Mario Odyssey to mind. Some of its challenges are rote and tedious, but others are inspired. What ultimately ends up defining it for me is its creative abandonment of typical Mario tropes in favor of something more experimental, which I suppose Nintendo can do, since the game is really just an add-on to the main course that is Super Mario 3D World. As a supplemental extra in a larger package, it's hugely impressive, as this is so fully realized an experience that it absolutely wouldn't be out of place as a smaller budget experience like Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. The entire game only take 5 - 7 hours to 100%, and half that time to beat it, but, despite its performance hiccups and flaws, I came away fairly satisfied with the experience, even if I'm not ultimately convinced that a level-based approach isn't still the best way for Mario games to be designed. Bowser's Fury gets a solid 7.5/10.

@Ralizah Top drawer review! Enthusiastic but honest. And a quick turnaround, as well; I wasn't expecting to see a write-up so soon but, when I saw the title, I realised that they must've made it a separate little thing, and not something you unlock at the end of the core game.

Shame to hear about the co-op shortcomings (and thanks for the relatable comparison!) because that's something I might've opted for otherwise. The way you describe becoming Kaiju Cat-Mario also reminds me of the sense of scale afforded in certain Katamari levels, which never fails to feel awesome, so I'd be more curious to check that aspect out, no matter how fleeting it may be. The repetitiveness doesn't sound like it'd bother me that much (as a connoisseur of LEGO games) and the decent Photo Mode has me sold. Do you know if it's also available in the core game?

@RogerRoger, I'm currently playing the 3D World portion of the package & yes, it does have a photo mode (though be aware that due to the linear nature of it's levels you can't fully rotate the camera around, and in certain rooms you can't move it at all, other than zooming in & out). There are even stamps to collect in each level that act as stickers you can decorate your photos with (I'm not sure if these carry over to Bowser's Fury or not though).

@Ralizah, fantastic Bowser's Fury review by the way. I can't wait to jump into it once I'm done with the main game.

@RR529 Ah, thanks for the heads-up! I did imagine it'd be partially restricted, from what I've seen of the gameplay and level design. Makes sense, but it'll still be cool to try!

It's the dead of night. You're standing atop a rain-soaked tunnel, overlooking the sprawling grounds of a vast military construction facility. Thunder rolls somewhere in the distance but, turning your head, you realise it's actually the engines of a Harrier Jump Jet, swooping in low to hover over its brothers and sisters. Your phone rings, and you quickly answer the call.

It's your boss. "We suspect the CEO of this construction company has been involved in some white-collar financial crime," he tells you. "Gather enough evidence to secure a conviction. Stay undercover."

Suspicion. Of a financial crime. Need proof. Evidence. Stay undercover.

So, how to proceed? Do you quietly scout for a hole in the fence, and sneak through it to find a computer terminal to hack? Do you take some photographs to analyse, and plan a proper infiltration? Or do you trigger a localised EMP, crashing the hovering Jump Jet into the facility, detonating a chain reaction which kills dozens? And then parkour onto a passing truck, using it to leap headfirst into the resulting carnage so that you can gleefully mow down any survivors?

Well, here's a screenshot of what Activision chose.

And that, folks, is the first thirty seconds of one of the worst videogames ever made.

***

007 LEGENDS
PC, PS3, Wii U and Xbox360 / October 2012

Things weren't going too badly before the release of this five-star turd. Blood Stone 007 may not have decimated the sales charts back in 2010, but Activision had scored a hit with its companion piece, the re-imagined GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo Wii. Blending elements from both the 1995 movie and the 1997 game, it modernised the story by placing a digital Daniel Craig behind a pair of tuxedo-clad hands, and us players behind his eyeballs. It also traded heavily on the return of splitscreen multiplayer mayhem, featuring nods to all the staples of the Nintendo64 classic; a paintball mode, Oddjob's bowler hat and the Golden Gun were all present and correct. "GoldenEye is back," read the tagline. "Get your friends."

It was a slick, if somewhat sanitised affair, but it met with management's lofty revenue targets, especially when they could factor in figures from an HD port which appeared on PS3 and Xbox360 the following year. This made it even more accessible to the Call of Duty crowd, to which its gameplay would most certainly appeal. Here's the launch trailer; you'll get the idea (said without judgement).

Its developers, Eurocom, were at an all-time high. They had contributed a notable amount to Bond's interactive back-catalogue over the years, responsible for The World is Not Enough on N64, the good version of James Bond 007: NightFire on consoles, and the oft-preferred PS2 version of 007: Quantum of Solace. Now that they had added GoldenEye 007: Reloaded to that list, and earned fresh favour with their corporate overlords in the process, their future as a Triple-A studio seemed assured. Sure enough, it wasn't long before Activision came knocking at their door once more.

This would be the big one. The cinematic Bond was about to celebrate his 50th Anniversary. There would be a movie, entitled Skyfall, so there would also need to be a game, but it wasn't allowed to spoil anything. "No problem," is what I envision the brain trust blurted out. "We just re-imagined one old Bond story as a modern shooter, so why don't we pull the same trick again, and adapt five more? In a single game? Whack it out early, and then add a Skyfall mission as free DLC, once the movie's out?"

At which point, I like to think that the Eurocom representative sitting in this increasingly-fictional meeting showered the Activision suits with a coffee spit-take. But that probably didn't happen, because nobody was reported fired; instead, Eurocom set about making 007 Legends in the shadow of this fixed deadline. Ah, the healthiest of working environments.

Right, that's quite enough scene-setting. Join me as I now outwardly snark (and inwardly scream) at each woeful adaptation in sequence.

***

GOLDFINGER

"...and there are five more of these, you say?"

Yep, that was Auric Goldfinger's construction facility you obliterated in the opening. He's now some kind of legitimate arms dealer (?!) who still plans to knock over Fort Knox with a nuke, because... um, I'm not really sure at this point. Who even cares? You've got enemies to headshot and killstreaks to earn because yes, this might be the campaign, but they still count.

Fresh out the box, Bond handles like an octogenarian elephant. He's undergone a purposeful downgrade following GoldenEye 007: Reloaded in service of a tacked-on upgrade system. Want to be able to aim down your sights properly? Kill ten baddies, please, and then spend your accumulated XP accordingly. Fancy a silencer on your shotgun? Need your health to regenerate 10% quicker? Want to actually move quietly whilst crouched? Kill, kill, and kill some more! Of course, this being the game that it is, you'll have slaughtered a small town's worth of identikit enemies in the first few minutes, enough to unlock the two or three useful skills; everything else ends up being filler.

A pattern of predictable pacing is set when you walk into a room mere meters from your apocalyptic entrance and find a bunch of oblivious guards casually sauntering around their pre-determined loops. This must be that "stay undercover" bit you were told about but, naturally, you can just let rip on them if you'd prefer, which is by far the quickest and easiest method (there are mandatory stealth sections in later levels, but they deserve their own dedicated rant, so I'll save my sarcasm for now). Then there's a bizarre chunk of a walking simulator, in which Bond and total-stranger-who-suddenly-trusts-you-for-plot-purposes Ms. Galore (you all know her first name, so I'll spare the staff the inevitable flag for potential bad language) hoover up collectibles in Goldfinger's ostentatious office. Don't worry, though; it isn't long before you're dropped back into all the blasting.

At least, when you're burying bad guys in bullets, the music's mostly on-point. Kevin Kiner (he of Star Wars: The Clone Wars fame) worked with David Arnold on a serviceable score which delivers a lot of generalised spy-themed, er... themes, but then occasionally breaks free to cover a recognisable classic.

Except that, in a push for a near-constant musical presence, an alarming amount of gaps are papered over with excerpts from Richard Jacques' original Blood Stone score. It would've been one thing to reprise samples of Kiner's previous work on GoldenEye 007: Reloaded but no, the aggressive cutting to an entirely different composer, orchestra and style never fails to feel inescapably cheap. The rest of the sound design is cookie-cutter, by-the-numbers cliché (he accused ironically, deploying two clichés to make his point) and, for the most part, the voice acting isn't much better, either. There are one or two highlights which I'll champion when we get to them, but most characters are devoid of any energy or enthusiasm, mumbling their way between awkward, clearly-last-minute edits. They even manage to screw up the single most important line. This is an exact quote from dialogue spoken between Ms. Galore and dear ol' Jimmy, halfway through the Goldfinger mission.

"By the way, I didn't catch your na-"
"jAmES bOnd."

No wonder Daniel Craig refused to voice this debacle of a script. In what's probably the most damning indictment, the incumbent star (and self-confessed gamer) broke a decade's worth of precedence to avoid association with this slapdash cash-in. He couldn't avoid his appearance being used, allowing Activision to tell a half-truth and still write "Starring Daniel Craig" in the credits. Well, newsflash: this is a first-person game. Using the right voice is ten times more valuable than using the right face... and, just to add insult to this crippling injury, the replacement soundalike sounds nothing alike. It's the same actor who dons a dodgy German accent to perform Goldfinger's role, which leads us to the next scene, a confrontation between hero and villain in which the same chap is very obviously talking to himself. "Monotone English, monotone English." "Comedy German! Comedy German, comedy German." "Monotone English?" "Comedy German!"

By the time we finally get to Fort Knox itself, it becomes abundantly clear that 007 Legends is a product fully committed to its own mediocrity. After blowing up a laser-wielding tank with an RPG on the lawn outside, you're stuck behind night vision goggles for a seemingly-endless slog around a maze of filing cabinets. Those hoping to explore the splendour of Ken Adam's famously cavernous vault set will be left disappointed until the very end; this is what the majority of your mission looks like.

What a Load of Bull(ion): Even if this is some kind of meta-commentary about Bond's reputation for certain types of nocturnal activity, I'm still not buying it.

And then it all just... ends. You kill Goldfinger in a cutscene and stagger towards the cockpit of a nosediving plane, and the screen fades out to display your final score. Um, thanks, I guess? No, don't mind me. I didn't wanna know how Bond escaped or anything. Jeez.

Personally speaking, as unsatisfying as these levels are to experience, I'm not massively sour. The movie Goldfinger might be responsible for many of Bond's most famous tropes, but it's also the movie in which our "hero" forces himself on a lesbian, so it's always made me more than a little uncomfortable. 007 Legends is undoubtedly the result of an utterly thoughtless development process, but at least it doesn't feature a QTE of that particular scene.

Hey, I'm grasping for a silver lining here. Any silver lining. No matter how thin.

***

ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE

"Well, look on the bright side; it can't get any worse, right?"

Oh, it gets worse. Trust me.

From that abrupt, unresolved air traffic accident, we find ourselves on a snowy mountainside, mid-conversation with a passable approximation of Diana Rigg. If you're not familiar with On Her Majesty's Secret Service, then I wish you all the luck in the world trying to make sense of such a jarring transition. What's going on here? Wait, is Bond quitting his job for her? Did he just propose marriage before we got here? It's difficult to tell; facial animation was obviously at a premium during development, so this woman (whoever she is) just reacts with a blank stare and speaks for us all with a deadpan "...but why?"

Because we're now coming dangerously close to some actual plot, a bunch of skidoo-riding bad guys show up and start shooting before any of these questions can be answered. What follows is... well, I think it's supposed to be a ski chase. It's tough to be sure, as playing it feels more like being subjected to that sensory overload montage from A Clockwork Orange. You're expected to steer, aim and fire a gun, at maximum speed, all at once. Through a forest. A really dense one. In order to achieve this task, we're given a new control layout, with cramp-inducing inputs that somehow manage to be both tetchy and sluggish. You need to constantly keep the hammer down on an accelerator (for your skis!!) otherwise you'll fall too far behind the digital Diana Rigg. I think you're meant to be protecting her, but she's far too capable, pulling insane helicopter-jumping stunts without any help from me.

Chopper n' Change: Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a well-respected and dearly departed actor soaring on a skidoo! My word, what is this game making me write?!

After struggling to keep pace (and having to restart from multiple "mission failed" screens as a result) you automatically fall behind anyway, and Diana Rigg gets captured by the enemy. Once I'd stopped screaming into a mouthful of my own slippers, I moved on.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I was cautiously optimistic about getting to capture Blofeld's alpine research laboratory. It's named Piz Gloria, and is a stunning real-life location. Its big finale in On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a suitably explosive and chaotic assault. Surely this would fit the gameplay mould far better than Fort Knox...? But no. How silly of me. Of course the game wasn't gonna adapt to fit the source material; not when the source material can be bludgeoned into a pre-existing gameplay mould. So much for dreams of being able to belly-slide along the ice.

Taking the Piz: Because we all remember that famous moment when George Lazenby circle-strafed Blofeld's hideaway and shot all the red barrels with a minigun.

Once on the ground, we head inside and are subjected to yet another extended night vision sequence (was green just a really popular colour in 2012 or something?) before the ever-predictable pacing makes its presence felt once more. Bond shuffles through another optional stealth space, this time with "innocent" scientists who, amazingly, he's not allowed to shoot (but they'll still yell if they spot you, meaning you're forced to initiate a violent physical takedown which loudly snaps their necks; somehow, this doesn't count as murder). Then he has another little walking simulator sojourn around another plush pad, before pursuing a bunch of ever-present checkpoint markers back outside and sliding down a cable car cable to a waiting gondola.

Blofeld pops up...

...quite literally, as you can see, and combat ensues. Yeah, I don't think I can put this off any longer. We need to talk about this game's boss fight mechanic.

When working on the GoldenEye 007 remake for the Wii, Eurocom felt obliged to include some waggle-friendly QTEs during crucial showdowns, and these became straightforward button-mashing affairs when ported to HD consoles. They were only as enjoyable as a QTE could possibly be, but I kinda liked them. The choreography was good, and the inputs were forgiving, so I'm not gonna lie; the idea of coming face-to-face and going toe-to-toe with more famous, more recognisable Bond baddies in a follow-up held some appeal. Not a truckload, but some.

You can therefore imagine my dismay at discovering that here, after two years of technological advancement, equivalent encounters have been robbed of any individuality. Instead, they've been replaced wholesale by a rudimentary Punch Out! minigame. Bond hobbles around his hapless victim as they strike a comedy Queensbury Rules pose, and must lash out high or low, left or right, depending on wherever there's an obvious opening. This happens everywhere, against everyone. Every. Single. Time. Struggling to stop Oddjob in Fort Knox? Check. Doing battle with Blofeld over an alpine abyss? Check. Even some random, self-important guards who wanna mix things up a bit? Check, check and check. Seems like all of Bond's varied villains trained at the same boxing club. One run by arthritic crabs.

From Russia With Shove: It's not like these rogues are known for their creatively-contrived comeuppances or anything... oh wait. Get ready to put 'em up, ol' chap!

I mean, QTEs are lazy enough, but Eurocom have somehow unearthed a whole new level of languid narcolepsy with this rancid tripe. Some encounters attempt to shake things up by adding melee weapons, but this (somehow?!) breaks an already-broken system, either by making split-second changes to the convoluted controls or by simplifying them to the point of pointlessness. Playing with a DualShock or a keyboard makes no difference; they're both as abysmal as each other. The problem is the idea itself.

Eventually, after two rounds of this insult, Bond pushes Blofeld out of the gondola, and we're presented with our XP stats. The death of the Diana Rigg lookalike (whoever she was) is relegated to a compressed FMV which blatantly re-uses a section of level geometry from Blood Stone. It's an ignominious end to a timeless tragedy which deserved much, much more respect than this.

***

LICENCE TO KILL

"I just, I... I can't even."

Next up in this hodgepodge of banality is an adaptation which, on paper, should be the best fit for Daniel Craig's grittier, more mature take on the character. At the cinema, Licence to Kill was a gruesome, cocaine-fuelled revenge drama in which crime lord Franz Sanchez feeds Bond's best buddy, CIA agent Felix Leiter, to a shark. How will 007 Legends handle it, I wonder?

By whitewashing Felix. In the Craig continuity, the character is played by respected African American actor Jeffrey Wright and yet somehow, here in Bond's flashbacks, Felix appears as Generic Middle-Aged Caucasian Male #47. Okay, not everybody was gonna get accurately represented by the appropriate famous face (the legal rights would've been more tangled than an octopus at a Twister party) but, if you must swap somebody out for a cheaper alternative, at least get their ethnicity right, y'know? Otherwise it's just offensive. Particularly since it isn't a solitary slip; there's only one other African American legacy character "updated" in the game, and she's been similarly bleached.

Uncomfortable representation subtext aside, the game does score a balancing bonus point in the casting department, by bringing back Carey Lowell to voice DEA agent Pam Bouvier. The first of three major returning stars, she does as well as she possibly can with the script, shouting and screaming her watered-down dialogue with vigour. You begin the Licence to Kill levels by her side, helping her to run a sting operation against Sanchez. Just like the Goldfinger mission, you're meant to be monitoring the situation and gathering incriminating evidence... and, just like the Goldfinger mission, any notion of sneaky subterfuge is promptly taken out back and shot. Along with enough enemies to fill a football stadium.

Licence to Kill Thousands: I didn't read the secret bonus objective asking Bond to re-floor this place with the dead, but that's alright, 'cause I'm well on my way regardless.

Having said that, it's a little later during this level that you'll encounter the game's longest and most infuriating mandatory stealth section and yes, now is the time to unleash my special, dedicated rage for this detestable mechanic. Don't say I didn't warn you.

With the perspective firmly locked to the first-person, it's almost impossible to maintain a complete awareness of your surroundings. Especially when said surroundings are a bunch of tight corridors and workstations, populated by nosy scientists and passed by wandering guards, and separated by solid, all-obscuring automatic doors. Bodies don't disappear when they fall, a new feature which supposedly adds to the tension, but Bond isn't allowed to move (and therefore hide) them. There must be a clause in his Licence to Kill's legal footnotes: "Out of respect for the deceased and / or unconscious, you are forbidden to disturb a corpse and / or comatose victim for a grace period of indefinite duration. You could also injure your back carrying such a heavy load (see Paragraph 12, Subsection 24 of the Health & Safety at Work chapter). You must follow these guidelines at all times, no matter what threat of catastrophic world domination you may or may not be attempting to defuse."

In other words, you're gonna get yourself (or your immovable handiwork) noticed and have to restart a couple times, which wouldn't be the most unreasonable of demands... providing each loading screen didn't take a full minute to cycle. And then there are the "helpful" gadgets which, of course, are anything but. You're given a watch with a radar ping built into the dial, which calls out the enemies and CCTV cameras surrounding your position, but looking at it takes both hands (why?) and, shock of all shocks, people keep moving when you turn it off. You also have a dart-firing fountain pen as your primary non-lethal weapon, packed with three varieties of darts, but I ended up using it out of Bondian obligation more than anything. Worst of all, lengthy transition animations can make switching out these tools a never-ending fumble. Great. That's just the kind of "help" you need when you've got three seconds to stop a guard from hitting an alarm. Cheers for that.

After inventing some new and interesting swear words, you'll clear this intransigent logjam and, naturally, get rewarded with an uneventful poke around Sanchez's office before a lot of noise happens. This specific shooting gallery really, really drags. There's even a crescendo which simultaneously acts as a sniper section and an NPC escort quest. Because who'd have thought merging two types of universally-hated objectives would somehow make them worse?!

We close out with a point-to-point driving sequence. Unlike the movie, Bond doesn't get behind the wheel of a big rig tanker (because that would've required some effort to execute) and instead merely chases one in a basic, black, legally-not-a-Humvee-honest. It's as haphazardly ridiculous as you'd come to expect of this torture... and where does it lead us? That's right, to a Punch Out! minigame brawl with Sanchez. Which then just ends. With zero resolution. Again.

Trucking Hell: My unshakable adoration for Bond is a matter of record, but even I'm wishing that he'd just let go and fall under the wheels at this point.

I've genuinely had enough of this garbage. My results flash up and there's a big, inviting "Quit" command right there, at the bottom of the screen. I never quit a game halfway through, but I really want to press it. Badly. 007 Legends is actively damaging my respect for this franchise.

The problem is that I know what's coming. The rest of the game (not counting the delayed Skyfall add-on) adapts two of my all-time favourite Bond movies. They're kinda why I'm here. I know that they're gonna get massacred by incompetence, but I've got no choice. The impulse to quit tugs at my weary spirit. I'm clearly desperate to rescue myself from wasting any more time on this travesty... but no. I've come this far. I'm already broken; the damage is already done. I cover my face with my left hand, peek between my fingers with genuine terror, and press "Continue" instead.

***

James Bond will return...