Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@crimsontadpoles I'm the same with (most) languages, so I get you. Beyond the localised quirk of which buttons have traditionally been used to confirm and / or quit menus, there's something to be said for standardised layouts and intuitive game design!

@timleon I'll definitely talk about it whenever I happen to get to it. At this point, I think I'm just waiting on a good sale before picking it up now.

@crimsontadpoles Interesting! I think I've seen the title for this before, but never looked into what it actually was. Actually, being someone who sucks at rhythm games, but enjoys them nonetheless (my favorite one of all time being Elite Beat Agents on the NDS), it's encouraging to hear that the difficulty is lower than what you can expect from your typical Hatsune Miku game, since that difficulty is what has kept me from getting most of the Project Diva games. LOVE the concept and aesthetics, but when the game is eating my lunch even on lower difficulty settings, I'm discouraged from pumping more time into it.

Congrats on the platinum, and good review overall.

Super Mario 3D World
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Completion Status: 100% complete across all characters; all stars and stamps collected; all golden flagpoles achieved; 40+ hours in 5+ playthroughs

I actually played this on Wii U a decent length of time ago. It was around half a year after it initially launched, so I want to say... mid-2014. The public response to this game was kind of up-and-down at the time. First, it was: "Nintendo's wasting the 3D Mario slot on Wii U by making an HD 3DS game." Then, it released, and the narrative became: "Oh... this is quite fun! Not a proper 3D Mario game, but it's a lot better than 3D Land was." So, having picked up a refurbished Wii U for the amazing price of $200 online, I decided it was worth buying at the premium price all Nintendo games tend to sit at.

And it was... fun. But it was difficult to become fully invested. Aside from the controller gimmicks that required Nintendo's bulky, Fisher Price tablet-like Wii U GamePad, it always struck me as a game that would benefit from smaller play sessions, and, when I go through the ritual of clearing out time to sit down in front of a TV, I want to be good and immersed for hours. The game's levels are frequently super short, and the endgame grind is structured around replaying the same levels as every character, and, for me, that just wasn't conducive to staring at a TV screen for hours.

I guess some people might have opted for the Wii U's Off-TV functionality in that case (where the console would stream the game image to the screen on the tablet), but considering you could never take the controller very far away from the TV, it always struck me as a fairly pointless gimmick. The one use case it seemed to address was if you were sitting in a room playing a game, and someone else came in and wanted to interrupt your session, and then you'd pick up the game on the tablet screen, but honestly, that just seems like it's enabling unhealthy relationship dynamics, doesn't it? If someone sees you having fun and decides: "Oh, hey, your enjoyment actually isn't as important as mine, so I'm going to co-opt the screen now," then that's a relationship worth re-evaluating in some respects, in my opinion, because there's clearly a crucial imbalance in the power dynamic there. So, anyway, I played through the game, and basically enjoyed it for the five to ten hours it lasted, and then went on to something else. But I always knew I was missing out on the experience of completing the game's famously frustrating final level that only unlocks when you collect all of the green stars, and, for whatever reason, I've been on a completionist kick with Mario games as of late.

Enter the Super Mario 3D World port for the Nintendo Switch. At first, I was like: "Pfff! I already bought this game seven years ago for full price. You ain't gettin' my money again." But, well, they got my money again. Because I realized I wanted to re-experience 3D World, but was just never gonna touch it on my Wii U. 3D World always struck me as a game that'd be more at home on a handheld due to the way it's designed, but I figured that wouldn't happen because of the HD presentation. Lo and behold! Nintendo releases what amounts to an HD handheld that can be hooked up to the TV. It was the perfect device for this game.

Actually, the first time I saw the Switch reveal, I thought to myself: "They gotta put 3D World on this thing. That was a Switch game before the Switch was a thing." Certain other changes swayed me as well, though. Unlike a lot of their lazier re-releases, this one came with significant balancing changes to the base gameplay as well as a pretty sizeable expansion on the side that was exclusive to the Switch version. I've already talked about Bowser's Fury in relatively explicit detail, but what about the changes to 3D World? Well, here's the thing: Super Mario 3D World on Wii U is slooooooooooooow. I didn't realize that at the time. It seemed like the pace of the gameplay was fine. But I could never go back to the Wii U version after playing it on Switch. Nintendo boosted the speed of every character significantly, to the point where Peach, the slowest character, runs as fast in the Switch port as the fastest character, Toad, ran in the Wii U version. This boost in speed probably doesn't do any favors to the short levels, but it sure as hell makes the game feel significantly snappier.

Another minor change worth mentioning is the addition of a Photo Mode similar to what was included with the new Bowser' Fury expansion, although, given the difference in game design, there's arguably less to be experimented with her. It's still fun to mess with filters, though.

3D World on Switch also does us the favor of dispensing with level elements reliant on GamePad gimmicks. I mean, yes, there's a small part of myself that's entertained by the idea of having to blow on my controller to move a wind-based platform. But, in general, this is still weird and gimmicky. And gross. Do you really want peoples' spit all over your controller? Imagine multiple people playing that level. I can't be the only person who would practically want to bleach the thing after someone played with it. Anyway, this allows us to focus more on the level design itself, which, as I alluded to before, is a bit... slight. They're not really any shorter than most levels in 2D Mario games, though, which should be the real comparison point design-wise. 3D World feels like what the series would have evolved into on N64 if Nintendo's visionary designers hadn't been so taken with the idea of complete 3D freedom. Even down to the level theming, which is a bit generic and traditional, for the most part.

Nintendo mostly abandons consistent worldbuilding with this entry. It's like the opposite of Sunshine, where everything was connected and logically consistent in-universe. Where it made sense how new areas connected to the hub, and so on. Level designs often have no consistency within worlds. The upside of this is that the game is allowed to play with a lot of interesting level gimmicks and power-ups. You'll have levels that are designed around tearing across terrain at high speeds using regularly spaced boost pads to maintain momentum, or levels where your character will don a cat suit (truly the most useful AND inherently fetishistic of the new power-ups) and race around a miniaturized savanna, hunting rabbits, and so on, a level that subverts expectations by making you chase down the flagpole, or even the Mystery Houses, which crop up throughout the game and feel like Warioware minigames and force you to complete a series of challenges super quickly (you've given around ten seconds for each challenge). While the theming of the worlds can be a bit generic (it really feels like a New Super Mario Bros. game in 3D at times), Nintendo goes out of its way to consistently introduce new ideas and mechanics to the fray. In that respect, it feels a bit like the Rayman Legends to 3D Land's Rayman Origins, or even like how Super Mario Galaxy 2 related to the original Galaxy: less conventional, and feeling almost like a gigantic level pack, where ideas that were left on the cutting room floor for the previous title were instead utilized here.

Of course, a lot of what's done here would have been impossible in its predecessor. 3D Land was hugely impressive as the first 3D Mario game designed from the ground up for a dedicated handheld, but the game design was still crafted around the often rather strict technical limitations of the host platform. One major way in which 3D World distinguishes itself is with its support for local (and online, in the Switch port) multiplayer. In a very explicit call back to Super Mario Bros. 2 (which was actually just a reskin/official romhack of Japanese platformer Doki Doki Panic, but that's a story for another day), you're able to choose from four characters, initially, and their balance of strengths and weaknesses is largely the same as it was in that NES classic. Luigi jumps higher, but is harder to control. Toad runs the fastest, but he also falls faster than the other characters thanks to how small and aerodynamic he is, and also takes the longest to break into a full sprint. Peach is the slowest of the bunch, but she's able to do this weird hovering thing in mid-air for a few seconds which makes it much easier to recover from poorly-judged jumps, and also sprints the soonest. Mario is, as usual, the jack-of-all-trades character.

Multiplayer gameplay is initially no different, but if you're competitive, there's one small wrinkle that will utterly change the balance of how the game is played. You see, while the gameplay is ostensibly cooperative, when playing with multiple people, the person who scores the most points in a level will earn a crown. The results screen shows the player wearing a crown on their head and, in the next level, the character's head will be adorned with a crown, and, if they manage to keep it, it'll add extra points to their score, giving them an unfair advantage when it comes time to tally the score. Incidentally, the crown can actually be stolen from the victory by another player in the following level.

You see where this is going, right?

It won't be a surprise to anyone who has a familiarity with Nintendo's long tradition of subtly turning multiplayer modes into mean-spirited competitions, but the fact that the crown is in player and you're competing for limited resources every level turns this cute, friendly co-op experience sour, because you're either going to upset the other person you're playing with by continually winning and having the results screen rub that in their face, or because they're competitive and 3D World is suddenly going to turn into a vicious bloodsport where you're continually trying to sabotage one-another and claim the crown as your own. And I fully believe Nintendo knew what they were doing here.

Players share the same pool of lives, so they're thankfully not incentivized to kill one-another, but this is its own problem, because if you're playing with someone who struggles with the game, it's going to create a dynamic where they start feeling guilty very quickly.

Despite the levels being built with the possibility of co-op gameplay in mind, things start getting super hectic if you play with more than one other person, and if you're doing this with a group of similarly competitive players, this cutesy 3D platformer suddenly turns into the world's most chaotic and stressful 3D brawler. Additionally, the game doesn't feature split-screen support, as far as I can tell, so it especially sucks if there's one game who just books it to the end of the level, because the game's camera always seems to focus on the person closest to the foreground of the level, and if you're shunted off-screen, the game will wrap your character up in a bubble and drag you back to where the tracked player is, so good luck with trying to explore unless you have everyone on the same page.

I've not tried out the online multiplayer, unfortunately, so I can't speak to the strength of the netcode, but the way it's designed seems inherently kind of limiting. You can't play with randoms, so you have to arrange a group of people to play with in the first place, and then progress through the game when playing in co-op only saves for the host. You can play through most of the game in co-op, but if you're not the host, then you're stuck with whatever progress you managed to make while offline.

So, yeah, multiplayer kinda sucks unless you're looking to turn the game into a constant warzone (or upset the people around you). The addition of multiplayer introduces another issue as well, though: level design. Now, don't get me wrong: the levels in this game are extremely creative and, in general, quite fun to play. But, especially after coming off of 3D Land initially, it struck me how much... bigger everything was. 3D Land on 3DS was a single-player experience, so it benefited from tighter level design, smaller platforms, and a camera that was close in to the action, but 3D World's camera pulls out as far as it can to accommodate the wider level design and possibility of multiple characters being on-screen at the same time, so levels can often feel extremely... spacious, and not in the same way something like Bowser's Fury was. The funny thing here, of course, is that these same spacious spaces seem simultaneously cramped when playing with multiple people, so the co-op kind of screws up the level design no matter which way you go.

3D World's power-ups game is on point, at least. Most of the 3D Mario games before Odyssey had disappointing power-ups, but the same can't really be said here. The headliner here, of course, is the forementioned cat suit, which allows the characters far more freedom of movement by allowing them to climb up walls, in addition to being the best transformation in the game in terms of its offensive capabilities, but you also have fire flower Mario, raccoon suit Mario, boomerang Mario, a variety of wearable headpieces that grant Mario the ability to fly, glide, shoot cannons, etc., and the new Double Cherry item. The Double Cherry is more of a level gimmick than anything, but it's still pretty neat. Collecting one will immediately clone your character, making it where you have to control multiple copies of the character at once. Usually levels featuring the Double Cherry will have multiple ones scattered throughout, and you'll be challenged with commanding an army of four or five characters simultaneously to the exit point, which is harder than it sounds when you consider the clones disappear if they take damage, and it can be difficult coordinating everyone in levels with significant platforming elements, as all of your clones respond to your every input at once. Successfully coordinating your clones to the end is usually a precondition for collecting one of the green stars in the level.

And, while we're at it, I should discuss green stars, and the game's overall metrics for completion. Every 3D Mario game has featured some sort of collectible that's needed to unlock levels further into the game, up to and including the final challenges in the game. In 3D World, those take the form of green stars, which are hidden throughout the vast majority of the levels in this game, often requiring exploration and some mastery of the game's platforming challenges, and resemble the star coins from the New Super Mario Bros games in function. In general, for the person just interested in casually completing the game, every green star won't be needed, and you can probably finish the main game while having collected only half of the green stars in the game.

There are also stamps hidden throughout the levels. In the Wii U version, you could use these stamps on Miiverse posts and when leaving messages for other players in the game. The designs are fun, and generally feature Mario characters engaging in a variety of activities. For the purposes of a normal playthrough, though, they're unnecessary: purely a cosmetic thing.

Finally, while not a collectible, if you finish a level by touching the top of the level exit flagpole, the completion flag for the level will be golden instead of a normal color representing whatever character you last completed the level as. Again, for a normal playthrough, this doesn't matter.

They don't even really matter for the first two post-game special worlds in this game, which you can access after the credits roll, and which features surprises (the coolest of which is the reveal of a new playable character), new level themes, and remixes on older level designs.

They do matter if you want to complete every level in the game, though. They very much matter. 3D World, like 3D Land and Super Mario Galaxy 2 before it, features a final, super-challenging endgame course with no checkpoints that tests every skill you've developed up until that point. In order to unlock it, though, you're going to hope you haven't ignored the things I mentioned before, because you'll need to have collected every green star and stamp in the game, and also have unlocked every level's golden flagpole.

This might seem a bit excessive, but if you've made a point of not trying to play poorly, chances are that you've already at least half-completed your goal. Anyway, it's all unique content, and it comes together to form a fun post-game campaign, and you're rewarded with access to World Crown, which features the hardest level in the game. Also the hardest Mystery House and Captain Toad courses (more on that last thing in a bit), but the final level, Champion Road, is really a thing of terror and beauty.

Champion Road is like a factory designed to burn through your lives as quickly as possible. Much like with previous 3D Mario games, it's not that the challenges it presents are unreasonable This isn't Kaizo Mario in 3D. While difficult, any one challenge in the level, when looked at in isolation, can easily be mastered with practice. And practice you shall get, because the challenge comes primarily from having to engaging in numerous challenging platforming sections for five to ten minutes without screwing up. If you die, you're kicked back to the beginning of the level, and everything starts over. The cumulative effect when you first start challenging this level is the feeling that you're facing an almost insurmountable task. But, as with anything else in life, you eventually learn to succeed at clearing the level because you throw yourself at it and fail more times than most players have even tried to beat it. Eventually, inevitably, you'll get that one lucky run where everything is going your way, and you clear whatever that last hurdle was that kept you from achieving sweet, sweet victory.

So, you've beaten it. Probably spent 100+ lives in the process and numerous hours doing so, but you saw the game through its final challenge and feel like you've done everything there is to do in this game. Except... it's curious... you'll likely note that you're missing four or five of the stamps. But how could that be? You had to collect every stamp in the previous levels to unlock World Crown and the final challenge. You've collected all of the stars and made all of the level flagpoles golden. What else IS there?

This, my friend, is what will define the experience of the completionist with this game. I guess you could cheese this requirement with a dedicated group of friends playing through the levels with you, but, assuming this is primarily a single-player venture for you, then you're in for a rough ride if you want to do everything. Because the final set of stamps are only awarded when you beat every level of the game with every character. Completing all of the levels as Luigi will earn the Luigi stamp, and so on. You have to complete the game five five times (the four normal characters, and then the secret unlockable character) in order to really be able to say you did everything. That includes Champion Road, by the way. You'll have to beat Champion Road a minimum of five times to unlock all of the stamps.

So, there's no way to get around this: the endgame completionist grind for 3D World is INSANELY repetitive. Thankfully, after a certain point, the UI will change a bit, and the game will tell you which levels you've completed as which character, making the sheer grind of it all as painless as possible, given the circumstances. For your trouble, once you've completed the game as all five characters and done absolutely everything there is to do, you'll earn five stars on your player profile. One star for beating the final boss and seeing the game through its end credits, one star for collecting every green star, one star for collecting every stamp, one star for making all of the flagpoles golden, and, finally, one star for unlocking the final set of stamps via completing the game at least five times over. Additionally, if you completed all levels without the help of the invincibility leaf, your five profile stars will sparkle. This is worth absolutely nothing more than bragging rights. Actually, on the subject of the invincibility leaf, I'd like to complain a bit, because I feel it to be one of the game's flaws.

Nintendo has a bad habit of trying to tempt players who are struggling with a challenge to grab ahold of crutches instead of allowing the process to play out. In this case, if you die six times or so in the same level, Nintendo will make it where a golden super leaf block spawns near the starting point of the level. When collected, the white tanooki suit you equip makes you invincible to all damage (although you can still die via falling into pits or lava). Now, I'm not opposed to the idea of an assist mode of sorts existing for less skilled players. What I hate is how Nintendo rubs your nose in your own failure. It'd be a simple thing to give the player the option to disable the ability for the white tanooki suit to appear at all, but instead, it'll appear after six deaths, regardless of your unwillingness to use it. It's easy to accidentally collect it, in which case you're forced to replay the level again if you don't want it to permanently taint your run by disabling the sparkles on your profile stars, and even if you make a point of never touching it, it's still annoying, standing as a mocking beacon of your failure every time you go back to the checkpoint before you died, pulsating ostentatiously as if to say: "Pick me up! You know you can't beat this level without me. Quit lying to yourself and give in."

The characters control tightly, and there's a level of polish to the way movement and platforming are balanced here that was frankly missing in the earliest 3D Mario games. The downside of this is that Mario's platforming freedom is a bit restricted here even compared to the Super Mario Galaxy games which streamlined his moveset. As a result, this is the least nimble 3D iteration of Mario and friends, which, I imagine, is to account for the limitations of the level design and lack of free camera movement, which aren't conducive to giving the player the freedom to experiment with the game's platforming physics. There are still things to play around with, of course: favorites like the spin jump, side jump, long jump, ground pound, etc. all return, and Mario additionally has the ability to roll, which, when combined with a jump, allows the player to activate something like an improved long jump. All of this plays into the game's tight focus on momentum and speed. More useful, although a bit difficult to reliably trigger, is the mid-air roll, which can allow you to reach otherwise inaccessible secrets more easily and/or cancel out of ground pound animations that would otherwise lead to your death.

3D World, in certain ways, feels like as much of a successor to the Galaxy games as it is to 3D World. References to the Galaxy games crop up throughout, including via level gimmicks, the extra unlockable character (Rosalina!), music, and especially the inclusion of Captain Toad levels. In one of 3D World's greatest innovations, Captain Toad from Super Mario Galaxy is given his own set of stages to complete across the game. Unlike the rest of the game, these stages function more like a puzzle game. Captain Toad is unable to jump or defend himself, and will be tasked with adorably waddling around dense, diorama-like stages in order to unlock and collect all of the hidden green stars. While the levels included here don't match up to the fleshed out concepts explored in the subsequent spin-off game, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, they're adorable and a great change of pace from the usual Mario levels, and add greatly to the variety offered by this often incredibly creative little game.

It shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that SM3DW performs like a champ on the Switch, given it was previously optimized for weaker hardware. As it stands, this runs at 60fps without a hitch in both docked and portable modes. It's 720p undocked and dynamic 1080p when played on the TV. While it doesn't sound like this should make a tremendous difference, I did notice the game is substantially nicer looking when played on the TV, even taking the smaller size of the Switch's tablet screen into account. With that said, the design of the game being the way it is, I pretty happily played it undocked for the majority of my playtime, and it looked fine.

On the music front, SM3DW is fine, and a solid upgrade on its 3DS predecessor, but after the operatic heights that the Galaxy games reached, I can't say this game is hugely impressively aurally. It's probably the best of the Mario games musically when you remove Galaxy/Galaxy 2/Odyssey from the equation, though. Some tracks, nevertheless, manage to impress more than others.

Like the Hisstocrat's theme. Even though you only hear it in one boss fight, it's a funky, jazzy beat that I found particularly memorable:

I also really like this new rendition of the Super Mario 3D Land theme, which accompanies a fun level designed to replicate the unique look of that game:

And here's a fun circus-themed track that changes depending on where you are in the level. I quite liked it:

The game also brings back and/or remixes a couple of tracks from Super Mario Galaxy near the end for World Crown and the final level. Considering how many times I've thrown myself at Champion Road overall, you'd think I'd be sick of hearing this, but Galaxy's music never gets old, even when remixed:

Super Mario 3D World undoubtedly plays it safe with its game design in many respects compared to its weirder and more exploratory siblings on older consoles, but it also maintains a design consistency that most of those games lack as well. In this respect, it, even more than Super Mario 3D Land, can be thought of as being akin to the New Super Mario Bros. of the 3D games. With 3D World, you won't be getting the massively ambitious new game that wows you and flogs new console hardware like Super Mario Odyssey, but you will be getting a simple, very fun, highly replayable, and back-to-basics sort of Nintendo platformer that still experiments around the edges and has actually pushed the series forward in certain respects (multiplayer support; Captain Toad levels, which inspired a spinoff; thrusting characters other than Mario and Luigi into starring roles for the first time in a 3D Mario game). 3D World is an almost perfect game for what it is, and even if it doesn't shoot for the stars, the moon can be nice as well. With that said, as per the review, I do feel certain aspects of the multiplayer make it difficult to recommend in that regard unless you're playing with a very particular sort of friend group. This ultimately makes 3D World strongest as a solo experience, which slaps a bit against the ways in which it differentiates itself from both 3D Land and the other 3D Mario games. Super Mario 3D World, thus, gets an 8.5/10 from me, and comes highly recommended to anyone who loves the platformer genre.

@Ralizah I must have been the one person who found off-TV play useful. If my mum was going to watch Eastenders or something then I could continue playing on the Gamepad while the TV was in use.

Super Mario 3D World I just find OK. It’s alright. It would be a great 3DS game but for the Wii U it was a sign of things to come. The charm felt a bit forced and the gameplay was solid, if not exactly going to set the world on fire.

@nessisonett That use case just feels alien to me, but considering Off-TV play is probably what eventually morphed into the full hybrid approach of the Switch, I can't be too mad at it.

It's definitely one of my top five Mario games overall, but I can appreciate that sentiment. Like I said, there's a sense that Nintendo was really opting for the familiar with this entry. That's part of the appeal. I think the initial reaction to it would have been better if it had launched after Odyssey.

@Ralizah If Super Mario 3D World on Switch was its first release then I think I would probably have enjoyed it more. We had Odyssey after all so this would have been a more traditional entry. Whereas coming after New Super Mario Bros. U, it felt like a total step back from the last gen’s 3D games, the Galaxy duology. Plus the increased speed on Switch makes the game so, so much better.

Played Hood: Outlaws and Legends a bit last night. Really fun if you have a couple of buddies to play with. Sadly, I can't really recommend going in solo (unless you are willing to voice chat with your teammates). The game is a bit light on content currently, but the developer has laid out plans to expand it in the future. This is technically season 0, so I don't hold this against them. Definitely, one to watch in my opinion. It has a solid base to expand from. I can see myself returning to it quite often.
A weird bug showed up for me though. The preorder DLC wouldn't appear in the PS5 version of the game. I had to download the PS4 version to unlock/equip it.

@Ralizah Properly impressive stuff up there; one of your best-ever pieces, hands down. It helps that I've recently played through Super Mario 3D World on the Switch, so I could vividly recall the examples you highlighted. Even so, your slight increase in conversational style, balanced with your usual systematic evaluation and analysis of the game's component parts, made for a very convincing and evocative read. You also raised issues I hadn't even considered (such as the multiplayer's engineered edge, and the post-story content that I haven't gone anywhere near, and likely never will) although, in all honesty, my actual "live" reactions can be effectively summarised as...

Me at the beginning, worried that you might criticise Captain Toad:

Me halfway through, wondering when you were gonna get to the Captain Toad bit:

Me at the end, entirely satisfied that you did Captain Toad justice:

Briefly separating myself from my obsession with that little bundle of perfection, though, there's no denying that I found your conclusions about the game are spot-on. Even with my limited knowledge of the Mario series, 3D World definitely felt safe, and that's okay. It's gaming comfort food. Nothing wrong with that in the slightest; in fact, I'd encourage more people to experience such, er... experiences, because I think it'd lighten them up a little in the long run. Not everything has to reinvent the wheel.

@nessisonett Yeah, given the speed boost alone makes this solidly the best version of the game. I'm never going back to the Wii U version. Especially now that the integration with Miiverse is broken.

@RogerRoger Haha, you really love that little bugger. I'll confess: a Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker 2 would be a day one purchase for me. Where are you even finding these adorable gifs?

And thanks! I definitely tried to opt for a more conversational tone this time around. I was originally going to make it a lighter piece, but, as you clearly see, I got lured into the 'systematic analysis' approach regardless. I guess that's just my style.

But yeah, I think 3D World is the perfect example of a game that aims lower but solidly hits its goal. That isn't compelling with every style of Mario game (for example, by the time the Wii U came out, Nintendo's base was exhausted with the steady stream of solidly decent New Super Mario Bros. games), but the hybrid style of game design seen here was only really explored in Super Mario 3D Land, and this pulled in elements from Super Mario Bros. 2 and Galaxy 2, making it feel simultaneously familiar yet fresh.

As always, I appreciate the feedback!

@Ralizah, fantastic piece on Super Mario 3D World! I can't say much on the multiplayer as I have no one to play it with, but for everything else I feel largely the same.

@Ralizah I have quite a collection of random nerdy GIFs, thanks to a winning combination of insomnia and Google Image Search. At least being an active member on PushSquare gives me somewhere to put them to work, otherwise they'd just be stored for my own entertainment!

Well, it was a systematic analysis presented in a conversational way, which is the best of both worlds. I think, above all else, you've got a dedicated eye for detail, which lends itself to a forensic examination of each game. It's been real interesting seeing people's styles develop over the course of this topic; in case I haven't said it frequently enough, I'm real grateful to you for creating it.

Ys: The Oath in Felghana
Platform: PSP (via PSVita)
Completion Status: Beat game with all upgrades, armor, and weapons collected in roughly 14 hours

Ys: The Oath in Felghana was originally released on the PC in 2005 before being ported to Sony's PSP in 2010, and later localized on both platforms in North America. This is another remake, this time of the third game in the series, first released in Japan in 1989 for the PC-88 and PC-98 as Ys III: Wanderers from Ys. Despite being the third game in the series, this is actually set after Ys IV, for some reason. With that said, you miss out on nothing if you play most of these games out of order. In Oath, intrepid adventurer Adol Christin and his faithful sidekick Dogi visit the latter's hometown of Redmont in the region of Felghana after encountering a caravan of gypsies who warn of a strange darkness emanating from the land. They become entangled in an elaborate mystery: monsters have mysteriously begun appearing in the region, making daily life in Redmont increasingly dangerous; a despotic nobleman, Count McGuire, has been levying heavy taxes on the citizens of Redmont and closed the local mine they rely on for employment in his search for a set of mysterious statues; and Chester Stoddart, twin brother to Elena Stoddart and, like his sister, a childhood friend of Dogi's, disappears from the town and resurfaces as one of Count McGuire's knights months later, seemingly changed and hostile to his former friends. This being an Ys game, these circumstances of course converge into a larger supernatural plot with world-ending stakes (considering these games all take place a few years after each-other, it's a bit alarming how often some demon, sorcerer, or God is on the cusp of rending the planet asunder; the World of Ys is screwed if Adol ever dies or decides to retire), although the focus on an intimate village setting and Dogi's relationship with his childhood friends makes the story feel a little more intimate than it did in Ys I & II.

The original Wanderers from Ys shifted from the overhead view and bump combat system in the first two Ys games (where you literally collide with enemies at an angle in order to damage them instead of pressing a button to attack) to a side-scrolling adventure that was inspired by Nintendo's Zelda II, which similarly opted for side-scrolling level navigation. This change fundamentally altered the feel of the gameplay, though, and Wanderers from Ys was reportedly poorly balanced and brutally difficult. The Oath in Felghana, thankfully, doesn't opt to stick with that system. The gameplay and level design were COMPLETELY remade to go for the isometric look, similar to the first two games. In this sense, as a remake, Oath in Felghana represents a much larger project, as Falcom effectively created a new game from scratch while maintaining the broad plot outlines of the original Wanderers from Ys.

Combat has changed to a refined version of the combat first introduced in Ys VI on the PS2, and the difference is pretty revelatory when it comes to the moment-to-moment experience of it. The combat in Oath is responsive, fluid action gameplay, and, frankly, it's a blast having Adol run around jumping and slashing at enemies. The controls are incredibly basic, with more advanced movements made dependent on timing. For example, Adol has the ability to both swipe upward with his sword and to thrust his blade downward when he's recovering from a jump. Instead of locking these movements behind combinations of inputs, their activation instead depends on when the player presses the attack button. Pressing the attack button when Adol is still flying into the air will activate the upward swipe, and attacking when Adol is at the apex of his jump will activate the downward strike. Admittedly, the timing does take a bit of practice, but it all feels fairly intuitive in practice.

Like in Ys II, Adol also has access to special magic attacks, which he can either use quickly in succession, or charge up to do more damage. These are unlocked over the course of the game by finding special bracelets. Magic attacks will drain a meter that restores itself automatically, but charging larger attacks doesn't expend extra energy, so the player is incentivized to use magic carefully instead of mindlessly spamming attacks. Oath does a MUCH better job of balancing magic and physical combat than in Ys II, where it felt like the bump combat was largely brushed aside in favor of magic, especially when it came to the boss battles.

The player is encouraged to play more aggressively as well (as if charging Adol headfirst into monsters like a cocaine-addled bumper car while the old video game equivalent of thrash metal played in the background wasn't already inherently pretty aggressive), as there is a mulitiplier system in this game. If Adol is able to attack and kill enemies quickly enough, he'll gain boosts to attack, defense, and experience points earned, and, of course, to keep the multiplier going, he needs to feed on blood as soon as possible. The behavioral incentive works well, and I found that I rarely stopped to take in the lay of the land before charging into battle if my multiplier from a previous area was still active. Adol has an energy that wouldn't be be alien to the Doom Slayer as the player has him charge through dungeons, wildly hacking and slashing at the unwitting and probably terrified population of monsters in his path.

The bosses were a bit hit-or-miss for me in this game, unfortunately. Despite the game's terrific combat system, only a small number of bosses actually force you to fight them with your full arsenal of moves. These encounters are wonderful, and are among the most challenging fights in the game. Too often, though, bosses will be more gimmicky and force the player to figure out how to even damage them, and then to repeat one or two repetitive tasks over and over again in order to win. The first 'real' boss in the game was particularly annoying, as she continually casts spells that covered the entire area. The player is supposed to jump over and over and over to avoid these attacks while shooting fireballs at her. Another, much later game boss is shielded all over and can only really be damaged by downward sword thrusts to his backside at particular moments. It's not that I don't appreciate the appeal of puzzle bosses, but I feel like they're not particularly well done here, and it conflicts with the lightning fast and aggressive pacing of the gameplay overall.

Moreso than in the first two Ys games, Oath feels distinctly Zelda or Metroid-esque in terms of how Adol is able to explore previously inaccessible environments using equipment and upgrades obtained from dungeons. One of his magic attacks, for example, causes him to whirl around violently with his sword, which is necessary to kill some enemies and great when the player is surrounded. But you also quickly discover that Adol can use this ability to briefly hover in the air when he jumps, allowing him to cross chasms that stymied his exploration before. Surprisingly, though, the amount of forced backtracking in this game is fairly limited, and if the player wants to avoid optional content and barrel through the core story, they can do so without much in the way of revisiting older environments. This isn't the optimal way to experience this game, though, as progressing directly from plot beat to plot beat will both render certain upgrades and optional items inaccessible, and will cause the player to miss out on time-sensitive side quests.

The backtracking can be a bit irritating in the first few hours of the game, as it gets annoying having to run back through entire dungeons AND the overworld to get back to Redmont in order to buy a new sword or talk to certain characters, but, thankfully, a key character gives you an item fairly early on that allows the player to fast travel between key locations at pretty much any time, totally eliminating half of the tedium associated with backtracking. It's just one of the variety of ways in which Oath skillfully incentivizes the player to thoroughly explore and revisit its small but dense environments.

I do wish the dungeons themselves were more memorable, but they're still massively improved from the confused labyrinths of Ys I. There still aren't dungeon maps, which is annoying, but they're more well-designed in general, with plenty of hidden areas to access but also a greater overall sense of logic to how everything is laid out. Mostly, anyway. Certain upgrades and areas in this game are only accessible to Adol if he falls down into holes in certain parts of the dungeon (environments are all extremely multilayered in this game, so falling through the floor will just land you into another layer of the dungeon), which is a bit ridiculous, as it's impossible to know that you'll need to fall through them beforehand. IN GENERAL, though, they're not nearly as baffling as environments in the first two games, which were often incredibly easy to get lost within.

Possibly the best aspect of Oath in Felghana overall is the pacing of it. Like many of the classic games of the 8 and 16-bit eras, Oath feels exactly as long as it needs to be. It slows down a bit for big story moments, but never for too long; dungeons don't seem to go on forever like they did in the first two Ys games; and, in any given play session, it's possible, and even likely, to make significant progress. While I wasn't enthralled with it from the word go, there was never a moment where I felt like the game was wasting my time. Additionally, the game is good about letting the player know what they need to do next to progress the plot, which means of minimum of running around looking for the stray bit of dialogue needed to activate the next stage of the story. It's a bit difficult to verbalize, but Oath is compulsively playable, and I could see it being a title I return to in the future if I want something simple and fun.

Like in the first two games, this simplicity broadly extends to how items and equipment are handled as well. There are multiple sets of armor and weapons you can buy throughout the game, but they're unambiguous upgrades on what came before, and, other than using chunks of Raval Ore you'll find through dungeons and gain as side-quests rewards to upgrade the efficacy of your gear (each piece of gear can be upgraded three times), there's no customization to be done. Additionally, there's only a small amount of consumable items in this game. Most of your inventory slots will be filled with gear that passively benefits you in some way, such as making it easier to gain gold and whatnot. You also have a handful of optional accessories that are, in my opinion, absolutely vital, such as a piece of clothing that allows you to stand still and regain health in dungeons (without that, you either have to warp back to a save point to heal or pray that you level up soon, which automatically restores your HP as well).

Funny story: throughout much of the game, I often felt like enemies were much faster than my character, and struggled with certain mid-to-late game bosses. At one point, I went online to look up footage of how other players were beating a certain boss, and noticed that their character was moving significantly more quickly than mine was. I couldn't figure it out, but after an embarrassingly long time, I discovered that a consumable item in my inventory that I'd ignored until then actually permanently gave Adol the ability to dash. I'd been playing through almost the entire game without being able to run! The description made me think it just gave Adol a temporary speed boost and, like with all RPGs, I tried not to use it for as long as possible. It seems like a janky way to permanently upgrade your character with a necessary speed boost, but I guess I should have read the description more closely.

Musically, the game lacks a lot of the atmospheric or symphonic tracks that made the OST in the first two games so memorable, but it really outdoes itself with the more hype/blood-pumping tracks. A trade-off, I suppose. I like the soundtrack a bit less in this game than I did in the Ys I & II collection, but it's still really, really good as far as this style of video game OST goes.

The overworld exploration music, for example:

Probably my favorite boss fight theme:

And, of course, as mentioned, some strong dungeon tracks:

The presentation is a bit of a mixed bag. The version I played was on PSP, so, of course, the low resolution looked a bit muddy on my PS Vita, thanks to the heavy presence of dark dungeon environments. I was also a bit disappointed to see that the detailed, gorgeous full screen character illustrations that appeared whenever you talked to an important NPC in the first two games was absent, sans the item shop screen, and replaced with more generic character portraits next to the dialogue boxes. The introductory video is also sort of bland compared to those games, and it's lacking in cutscenes until the very end of the game.

On the other hand, Oath is impressively almost fully voice-acted. Now, this isn't always... amazing voice acting. There was actually a character or two I was tempted to turn the volume down on whenever they'd start talking. But, in general, the voice acting helped liven up the presentation and bring many of these personalities to life. You get the impression that the actors had a LOT of fun recording their lines, and it really comes out in the game. I'll admit I laughed at a lot of it, though: particularly the narrator, who occasionally pipes up when our silent protagonist says something in-game, because he sounds like he should be narrating a nature documentary or something.

The localization is also strong, and the game is filled with well-written dialogue that rolls off the tongue. This all helps to humanize the cast of ordinary townsfolk you'll come to know over the course of the game (especially if you do side-quests and help them with their lives). Some of the characterizations could be better (there is, for example, a fat dude in town, and literally all of his dialogue relates to food somehow; I get the humor, yet, admittedly, it's a bit much), but, overall, a strong portrait is painted of the good folk of Redmont, and even the game's antagonists are fleshed out just enough that they are sometimes sympathetic (which leads to some strong tragic story beats in the final hours of the game).

Despite my slight misgivings about the presentation, I was really happy with the performance. Oath sticks to a rock-solid 30fps throughout, no matter how many enemies are on screen, which, IMO, was really necessary for this style of action gameplay to land. Loading times are surprisingly short as well. The PC version is the place to be if you want the best image quality and performance, of course, but I think this works really well as a portable experience, especially given the late game grinding I did before the final boss to gain enough money to have the best armor in the game crafted for me.

Once you're done with Oath in Felghana, there's a variety of post-game content to engage with. My favorite is a short (15 minutes or so) and beautifully illustrated storybook prologue that fleshes out the circumstances that led Adol and Dogi to Felghana in the first place. The game actually just sort of starts when they get to Redmont; the stuff about gypsies and whatnot is fleshed out in that post-game prologue. I kinda wish it had been integrated into the game, though. I guess Falcom didn't want to hit players with a ton of reading at the start, but it feels like it should have been in the game itself.

If you fancy playing through the game again, the game incentivizes engaging with it via higher unlockable difficulty settings, a time attack mode, and a boss rush mode. I didn't really mess around with this, because I prefer to beat a game and move on most of the time, but it's fair to say that this is possibly one of the most replayable games that Falcom has ever made.

Ys: The Oath in Felghana comes together remarkably well by the end. Its design flaws seem mostly insignificant given how much Falcom got right with this entry, which explains why its so highly regarded by Falcom's small but hardcore fanbase worldwide. While I do think there is room for the series to improve (Ys VIII remains my favorite game in the series so far, of the four I've played), and there was never a point where any aspect of it really blew me away, Oath is nearly the definition of a good, solid, satisfying game, and I'm excited to see how the series evolves over time. 8.5/10

@Ralizah Very nice review! Despite having little-to-no personal interest in the subject matter, I really enjoyed reading it regardless, which just goes to show how skilled a writer you are. I remember you wrote about the previous Ys games before, right?

It always surprises me when games with such charming visuals push aggressive gameplay, but then I suppose that's my own fault for pre-judging on looks. It's a shame that the boss battles didn't always work well in conjunction with the combat system, though. There are quite a few games which commit this sin, thinking a boss has to be uniquely gimmick-riddled, and it's never not frustrating. I'm still glad it managed to reel you in, thanks to its perfect pacing (and in spite of Adol's actual pace being slower than it should've been; don't worry, your story about missing his dash upgrade sounds oddly familiar to me, I just can't immediately place the game... seriously, I think I've done exactly the same before, somewhere)!

I just wanted to draw out this...

...and say that, in the small selection of localised Japanese media I've consumed, such things are unfortunately common. I'm not sure whether it's the fault of the localisation teams, or whether (speaking from a purely analytical perspective) Japanese humour is generally more crude, but the example you give above doesn't surprise me in the slightest. As much as I'm all for preserving artistic integrity and cultural understanding, I do sometimes wish localisations filtered for such things.

And holy heck, that music is awesome! I love all of it, thanks for embedding those tracks! Makes me wanna seek out a playlist of the full soundtrack!

Really great stuff, as always! Thanks for sharing!

@RogerRoger Thanks!

Yeah, I reviewed Ys I & II (they're a connected duology and even shorter than Oath in Felghana, so I decided to review them together) a while back. My intention is to play and review all of the games in this series up to Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, which came out this year. Although I'll have to skip Ys V: it's the only game that has yet to see a remake, and I've heard it's the worst entry in the series anyway.

The interesting thing about playing these games in number order is that, since most of them have been remade over the years, some of the earlier games are more polished than later entries. For example, Oath in Felghana, which is a remake of Ys III, has more polished gameplay than Ys VI, which wasn't remade. Ys IV's remake, Memories of Celceta, elaborates upon a system first introduced in Ys VII. And even if you do that, you're not guaranteed chronological progression, since, as I pointed out, the altered continuity of the remakes means Ys IV takes place before Ys III.

It'd be a mess if these games were more closely connected, but since they're almost all disconnected adventures that only lighten reference each other, it doesn't really matter what order you play them in.

I think the intention was to force players to actually learn the combat system instead of just being able to wildly slash their way through the game's bosses, but it doesn't work well, IMO. The best bosses in this game force you to engage with the entire combat system by adjusting their tactics and making it dangerous for you to attack outside of certain windows of opportunity. That one boss that forced me to jump over and over was the worst, though. Most boring fight in the game.

Lemme know if you figure out what game you're thinking of.

I don't mind crude or somewhat offensive humor (within reason) if it's done well, but repetitive, one-note jokes drive me up a wall. It's why I didn't like Disgaea 3: the game had exactly one joke, and it grinds it into dust over just the first few hours of the game.

The best and worst thing about XSeed, the localization company that worked with Falcom's games until NIS swooped in and offered them a better deal by agreeing to port their games to Switch and the PC for free, is that they're accurate to a fault. They want to offer audiences experiences as close to the original as humanly possible, and only get less literal in their translations when it comes to localizing jokes or wordplay that just wouldn't make sense in English. I really do admire them, though: they've pushed back against censorship for years, and refuse to allow their own personal biases to alter a localization.

On the other hand, this can lead to worse English-language scripts. A good case study for this is the first Lunar game. A company called Working Designs localized the Sega CD and PS1 versions of the game, and they took a LOT of liberties with it, up to and including heavily altering the lyrics to the game's songs. But... these changes worked well.

Years later, XSeed localized Lunar: Silver Star Harmony, a PSP remaster of the first game, and translated the game much more faithfully. This led to a game that was much less funny, because the snarky scripts from the older iterations were largely thanks to the efforts of Working Designs' localizers, and the song lyrics didn't flow as well in English.

In general, I'm a proponent of XSeed's localization philosophy, but there are instances where it benefits a game to take some liberties with the script. Especially when it comes to humor.

Yeah, literally every Ys game to date has had fantastic music, it seems. Going back a long time, actually. I found a playlist for music from the PC-Engine version of Ys I & II back in the late 80s, and it's unbelievably good. It sounds generations ahead of its time.

Unsurprisingly, some of Falcom's talent has gone on to be quite successful outside of the company, like famous Japanese video game composer Yuzo Koshiro, who started working at Falcom as a teenager, and defined the 'sound' of Ys with his work on the first two games.

Here's a video with the entire OST of Oath in Felghana on it:

This should link to a playlist with the tracks separated:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzFTGYa_evXiQUDpjYjUIB...

Thanks for reading!

@Ralizah If you think having to jump over and over to fight a boss is boring, welcome to Ys VI! Seriously though, that’s a pretty fair review of Oath. The games aren’t really groundbreaking but there’s a lot of fun to be had. It’s probably my favourite outside Origin.

@nessisonett Yeah, my hopes aren't massively high for that one. It's telling when you go to an Ys fanpage, and their recommendation is basically: "Uh, maybe consider playing Oath in Felghana or Origin instead."

VIII seems to be the high water mark for most people, as far as I can tell. It's certainly my favorite.

Have you started Ys VII yet?

@Ralizah I’m maybe about 3 hours into Ys Seven but I haven’t touched the Vita in a while. I’m 30 hours into Xenoblade with the end firmly out of sight so that’s been my ‘in bed game while binging Naruto’ for now lmao

@Ralizah, fantastic Ys review, as always. Hopefully it makes it's way to Switch one of these days (though, this reminds me I haven't played Origins yet).

@Ralizah Nice, an ongoing series! I'll look forward to the others, then (sans Ys V, of course). Have you ever been tempted to play the original versions of the earlier games, and not the remakes? I know some people might have an opinion on that kinda thing, but I'm usually of a mind to make the most of modern technology and experience the ostensibly "better" version of a game.

Still haven't figured out where I know that example from! Thought it might've been an old Naruto RPG that I've got on NDS, but I did some Google and couldn't find what I was looking for. Argh!

Yeah, localisation is such a tricky thing to get right. I agree with you in principle, that XSeed should be praised for maintaining the integrity of the original scripts, and that localisation teams shouldn't have a free pass to change whatever they want (I think we've discussed those altered song lyrics before; you embedded a couple of videos, and the difference was quite dramatic!) but I also think that there's a common sense cultural line which shouldn't be crossed. Don't get me wrong; there are plenty of Western games which make bad, insulting or crass jokes, but I feel like the localisation process is yet another chance for somebody to speak up and say "Hey, this really isn't on. Can we tweak this?" But then I'd probably be the first to complain if somebody translated something I wrote into another language and took liberties with my meaning whilst doing so, so... yeah, like I said, it's a tricky thing. I don't even know where I stand on it, because my opinion shifts so frequently.

Thanks for the link to the playlist there, was kind of you to include! Am listening to it now, and was surprised by the comparatively peaceful nature of the first couple of tracks. I very much approve. This is definitely gonna be my jam for the next couple of days!

@RR529 Thanks. Yeah, these older Ys games would, to use the now overworn phrase, be perfect for the Switch.

I bought Origin when it went on sale for $10 or so on my Switch. Also bought it on PC. Never played either version. I think Origin will likely be my next stop in the series, especially given its gameplay similarities to Oath in Felghana.

@RogerRoger

I want to play the PC Engine version of Ys I & II one day. I'll get my chance if I ever snag that TurboGrafx-16 Mini console that released a while back, which includes those Ys games alongside a bunch of other games I've never heard of. Although, looking at how prices of the console have exploded, that seems unlikely to happen.

I've also heard good things about Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys. The history of Ys IV is actually really interesting, and I plan on tackling it a bit when I play the remake. Also a PC Engine game, actually. There wasn't an official translation of it, as far as I'm aware, but Falcom has the most dedicated fans, and, in this case, they translated the game and even created an english dub track to replace the Japanese vocals in the original version.

With that said, the remakes are excellent, readily available, and officially canonical, so I'll be sticking with those for the immediate future.

I actually had no idea there was a Naruto RPG. That's interesting!

Yeah, I've discussed those songs before. It's starting to sound like I'm fixated on them, I suppose. They're just such a great illustration of how "accurate" translations aren't always necessarily going to result in the best possible outcome.

In general, I'm not a fan of altering documents and media from other cultures to align more closely with our norms and values, though. The practice feels very culturally imperialistic, especially when the English localizations of games, movies, etc. often become more commonplavr than the originals they're based on. I'm not a cultural relativist, but I also think it's important to understand and tolerate different cultural traditions instead of overwriting their values with our own. If we're going to do that, then what's even the point of importing and/or localizing movies, books, games, etc. from overseas?

Moreover, as (an amateur) student of history, I recognize that censorship almost always turns out to be short-sighted and regrettable. No censor in their day feels like they're removing access to or are altering material that will one day be seen in a different light, but that's usually what happens. It also doesn't help that there's no common set of moral principles to work from, in this regard, and altering a localization along one's own moral faultlines is de facto imposing them on every person who pays money for the resulting commercial product.

But, look: I'm not denying the reality of big business. Sometimes changes need to be made when a product is going from one market to another, if only so that products don't violate existing laws in different regions, or to ensure that said products are able to be distributed as widely as possible. It's easy for me as a random person with no skin in the game to sit back and condemn any company that makes choices I disagree with when they're bringing over something potentially contentious, but they've invested time, money, talent, and have even staked their public reputation on the products they're bringing to market. It's a complex issue, and, frankly, I don't think it can be said that any one approach will be correct 100% of the time. But, in general, I think it's advisable in every sense for people to interrogate the necessity of their censorious impulses.

Ys I & II maintained a better 'balance' of track types, IMO, but yeah, the music still rocks.