@Th3solution The amount of times I would climb up and then have to find another way up that actually went to the top was likely more than certain spots that literally are inaccessible. Still, like you said, I was pretty thorough, but I also probably got lost a bit more often doing certain things (like the already mentioned Relic Ruins) than the average person too.
You'll enjoy it one day when Aloy is old and gray.
@Ralizah Yeah, my spoiler tags are doozies, both in length and story. Good call not clicking on them.
I'd probably put Zero Dawn only behind Spider-Man for Sony exclusives in the last generation, so that would put it at least hovering around my Top 5.
As for the traversal, it's possible that some people who play it will be able to shrug some annoyances more than me. I'll freely admit I get frustrated with things like that easier than some people do, but I still hope they make more strides for Horizon 3: Return of the J... I mean Horizon 3: Return of the Savior. The Glider actually does help, as if you're high enough, you can glide a good 200 yards or more. So does the grappling hook at times when you are climbing, but that obviously doesn't solve being cut off while climbing at times. While I stand by what I said, it's still possible you'll be more ok with it than me.
If I remember correctly, I think it was the eyes making it really obvious it's a video game more than anything in the first game. There's still a rare occurrence here and there where she'll be looking down and to the right during a conversation for no reason really, but they've patched it I believe to the point where it doesn't happen much. Between that and the fact that even basically all side characters are different, they deserve plenty or praise for their efforts. That had to take a lot of work having dozens of people come in to record dialogue, and you're welcome.
@KilloWertz Good write up and I find myself agreeing with a lot of your points. It's one of the best games I've played this year, if not the best and definitely goes one better than ZD in many aspects. With regards to the traversal I don't think I had as big of an issue with the climbing as others and quite enjoyed it compared to the really restrictive climbing in the first instalment, however I can see that there is still room for improvement.
The glider was a great addition though and I found myself using it at every opportunity, well every opportunity that my wife reminded me it was a thing as I just kept forgetting I had the ability. That was also the case with other aspects of the game as well e.g. the food and a lot of the melee abilities. They seemed like unnecessary distractions to me and I was just happy with the core gameplay but I can see how they could be useful.
@RogerRoger Wow, I really am struggling with how to respond to such a wonderfully entertaining peek into your inner monologue, but suffice it to say that I have immediately added The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe straight to the top of my wishlist! I’d have hit the purchase button except I’ve overspent this month already. Cheers for the recommendation… I think? 😄
@RogerRoger Well, you dun good. It sounds like you had fun with it, too.
With that said, knowing not to push a joke too hard is also crucial.
@mookysam The unfortunate thing about ranting about games I dislike is that I feel the need to experience them as fully as possible first.
re TWEWY:
What motivated me to play the original was actually that I scored an amazing deal on the sequel last year ($15 for a brand new copy of Neo: TWEWY). I'd heard people say (regarding the first game) that the Switch version's combat was worse, but having experienced the original, I can't imagine how that's possibly true. It's an interesting game, but the actual design of it is a mess. Pretty much the definitive example of style over substance, as far as I'm concerned.
And yeah, good call on playing it muted. I typically only do that with games where I'm grinding areas or content I've already experienced before, so it's preferable to listen to podcasts or whatever.
re Banjo:
Considering I knew what to expect from some of the other games this developer has made (including the one with the poop monster and the sunflower lady that looks like she was ripped straight out of Eiken), this game's very 90s style of humor didn't really bother me. Literally everything else about it did, however.
The xbox version is the one to play, I think. The big improvement it apparently makes is that it doesn't force you to re-collect music notes if you leave a level and come back.
You've become rather disenchanted with a number of these N64 classics in recent years, haven't you? It hurts to admit, but sometimes the past is best re-experienced through the rosy lens of youthful memory.
All I'm learning from my time with this library is that I was probably right not to delve too deeply into it back in the day! Some PS1 games have fared poorly when being revisited (Crash Bandicoot: Warped was shockingly bad compared to how I remembered it), but a lot of the games I've gone back to in recent years have held the majority of their appeal intact over time. Not true with these N64 platformers.
@RogerRoger He liked my review. He really liked my review.... sniffles.... lol
Yeah, the whole girlfriend thing was kind of out of left field. I wasn't a big fan of the Zo character at first. She kind of grew on me once it was clear she was sticking around (I thought maybe she could end up being bad at some point, but I was obviously wrong). Varl getting really awkward when she invited him for some alone time during one scene was funny though, so at least there was that. I didn't really think that was a clue he was going to die, but obviously you're a better detective than I.
Thanks and same here. I also look forward to figuring out what The Stanley Parable is at some point after your absolutely genius review.
PSN ID/Xbox Live Gamertag: KilloWertz
Switch Friend Code: SW-6448-2688-7386
@JohnnyShoulder Oh no, my bad — I’m out of touch with all the various forms of offensive slang! I’ve corrected it now.
My apologies to @mookysam and anyone who read my inadvertent stumble of words. Hopefully everyone knows I’m an idiot and didn’t think too much of it. 😅
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution Not sure if it is a British thing, but I immediately starting choking on my drink when I saw it! 😂 I doubt anyone on here would be offended seeing as it came from you Sol.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
@RogerRoger I played this to the end a year or so ago and I'd say it is not a cluster of a game but having just replayed the original, I just got tired of the navigation around the city and that meant I didn't bother with a lot of collecticles or side activities. However, you are totally right, it really isn't a terrible but I think it was just average enough to mean we'll never get a sequel.
Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot
@RogerRoger I found your Catalyst review both entertaining and revelatory. Thank you for that!
I’m amazed at how dependent my opinions of a game are to the temporal context in which I’m playing it. A roughly similar thing happened to me on a lesser scale with Horizon Zero Dawn. Sometimes a persons mindset changes and a game is significantly better or worse, depending on the mood at the time. Other things play in too — like the current gaming zeitgeist, our prejudice (overt or subliminal) planted in our minds from reviews or hype, or a games technical state at the time. For this reason, it is useful to revisit a game later on. Wonderful advice there, my friend.
@mookysam Phew! Thank goodness! Purely laziness on my part. I’ve gotten used to being called Sol and using the shortened nickname versions of our regulars like Rog, Ral, colonel, Noisy, etc. Now that I’ve been educated I’ll be certain to at least place the ‘y’ at the end! 😅
And looking forward to your Metroid review. I’ve always enjoyed your writing.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@RogerRoger It's not uncommon for a good-to-excellent game to release and get brutalized by fans because it deviated from their expectations, only to be re-evaluated years later as either being better than expected or even ahead of its time. I don't know to what degree that's the case here, but it sounds like this new entry in the series butted heads with reactionary fan expectations.
Anyway, it's always a good thing to be able to set your preconceived notions and prejudices aside and evaluate something with a clear head, and even admit when you're wrong. It's never easy to say: "Gee, I was being a bit pig-headed about this." Even when we know it's the truth.
With that said, not being able to stop and look around without the fuzz getting up in your business sounds stressful.
I recall reading a few articles about how much developers hated being made to use the Frostbite Engine. Apparently the further a game strayed from the FPS template, the more problems it caused. Although it sounds like this might have just been caused by the lack of hardware grunt on the part of the PS4. Thankfully, I wouldn't expect that to be much of an issue going forward, since modern games are nowhere close to properly exploiting the resources of the current-gen hardware effectively.
Good review!
@mookysam I'm sure Banjo-Kazooie probably feels better when played on an actual N64 controller, if only because the weird button combinations seem more intuitive, but I don't think the sluggishness of the game itself is down to the use of a different controller. So I doubt it feels substantially better on real hardware.
I DO feel, however, that a big issue I've had playing Mario 64 on subsequent consoles (Wii, Switch), is that the analog sticks on those systems' controllers aren't really up to the task of controlling Mario in that game. Nintendo designed the N64 controller primarily around that game, and it shows: Mario's movement is intimately connected to slight inputs with the system's stiff analog stick.
In retrospect, it's why I feel that, N64 aside, I feel Mario controls best in Mario 64 DS when played on a 3DS.
@RogerRoger Obviously another good review, but I'm somewhere in the middle after playing it finally last year. I was a massive fan of the original Mirror's Edge, but while I still enjoyed Catalyst for the most part, I didn't bother going back and collecting more things after I was done with the story wasn't because of the heat you would trigger. It was because the timed package deliveries were ridiculously hard imo. I think I did a handful of them, but for the most part I wasn't able to finish them no matter how hard I tried. I just gave up, finished the story, and called it. Like I said, I still enjoyed it, but I thought the collectable/delivery stuff was easily the game's weakest part.
PSN ID/Xbox Live Gamertag: KilloWertz
Switch Friend Code: SW-6448-2688-7386
@RogerRoger Yeah, playing Miles Morales now, even though I’ve owned it for months, has helped me to enjoy it much more. It feels fresh to me, even though it is hugely similar to Insomniac’s first Spidey game. My mood right now fits better for this kind of game (despite wanting to throw my controller last night while attempting to 3-Star the second traversal challenge. I did finally get it but then with the third one I decided to cry ‘uncle’ after squeezing out 2-Star. It will bug me a little to have it be the only challenge not to max out, so I’ll probably go back later, even if it’s not necessary for a trophy, afaik) whereas I’m not sure if I would have enjoyed it this much 6 months ago.
Back on subject regarding Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst, I played the first game’s demo long ago and just didn’t click with it. The first person viewpoint is easy to blame, but I’m not sure if that was the whole of it. Demos are often misleading and I’ve pondered buying ME:C when it was discounted steeply before, but I’m just not sure. I’m seriously considering trying Ghostrunner since I added it to my library last month through PS+ and it seems kind of similar… maybe? First person parkour / action platformer in a futuristic setting… I dunno, I could be completely wrong in making the connection. Have you played GR or considered it?
@RogerRoger I have little complaints about Miles Morales if I were to critically dissect it, but so far it’s great fun and overwhelmingly positive. I probably won’t write a full review when I’m done, but we’ll see. I’m only about 50% complete and making slow progress because I’m having so much fun just swinging around doing the side content. Which like you say, is of itself telling. I’m a little bummed that my TV doesn’t support VRR like I thought it did. Upon further review of its specs I came to find out that I had misinterpreted it’s features. Alas, I’m not sure my eyes would have been able to tell the difference with the new VRR 120 fps update, but I would have liked to have tried.
Thanks for the info on Mirror’s Edge. Good point about the other influences like Titanfall, which I did enjoy playing Titanfall 2 I feel like the first person platforming wasn’t the big reason I liked it, so I’m probably going to put Catalyst and Ghostrunner on the back burner for now.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Kirby and the Forgotten Land Platform: Nintendo Switch Time to Completion: 15+ hours
Nintendo's surprise reveal of Kirby and the Forgotten Land in late 2021 was cause for celebration for many a Nintendo fan around the world. Even moreso than Game Freak, developer HAL Laboratory's popular and successful series of Kirby games have long counterbalanced their willingness to experiment with a curious lack of technical ambition. Kirby games have often been some of the first to showcase the gimmicks in new Nintendo hardware, as was the case with a multitude of Kirby games on the Nintendo DS: 2005's Kirby: Canvas Curse, for example, was a deeply weird platformer where players controlled Kirby entirely via the touch screen as they drew platforms and made flicking and stabbing motions with the stylus on various objects in order to help Kirby complete his adventure. Kirby Mass Attack in 2011 had players, in a Pikmin-like twist, control large herds of Kirbys across various levels. Even older games with more traditional controls, such as SNES classic Kirby Super Star saw the developer experiment with an unconventional structure that divided content up between a series of smaller and functionally diverse game modes.
It's always been weird, then, that they've been so simultaneously technically conservative. Major gaming icons such as Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, and Sonic saw their first 3D adventures release in the mid-to-late 90s. Some of these transitions took better than others (3D Mario and Zelda titles are mainstays on modern Nintendo consoles and rank among the highest-rated games of all time, whereas Donkey Kong retreated back into the second dimension in his subsequent GameCube, Wii, and Wii U outings; the success or failure of Sonic's transition to 3D, on the other hand, is still a controversial subject to this day), but Kirby never had a major 3D outing before now. The Kirby game on the Nintendo 64 was one of the few non-3D games on the system. Subsequent console outings until now have restricted themselves to the second dimension as well. Technically there was are some 3D spinoffs (GameCube racer Kirby Air Ride and Kirby's Blowout Blast on Nintendo 3DS come to mind) , but these don't have the same weight as a full-fat, mainline platformer entry.
But we finally got a full 3D Kirby game on Nintendo's wildly popular Nintendo Switch hybrid system this March! How does it hold up?
In most respects, quite well! Kirby and the Forgotten Land is possessed of a charm and polish that one would normally associate with Nintendo's own internally developed games. HAL Laboratory has absolutely mastered the task of transitioning the eponymous pink puff into three-dimensional space quite well. There's a fluidity to the experience that's more than a little reminiscent of Nintendo's own italian plumber.
Forgotten Land begins with an almost absurdly beautiful cutscene as a vortex opens in the skies above Dream Land and sucks in Kirby along with the local population of Waddle Dees, spitting them out across the post-apocalyptic ruins of an alternate world. With the help of a mysterious creature known as Elfilin, a small group of Waddle Dees form a settlement, and Kirby is tasked with setting off to rescue the missing ones from the Beast Pack, a mysterious group of superpowered baddies who have kidnapped them. Who, or what, is Elfilin, really? What are the intentions of the Beast Pack? Why is this world so utterly destroyed in the first place?
Kirby has always been a series that de-emphasizes storytelling in favor of a focus on gameplay and its own (weirdly dark) lore, and Forgotten Land is no exception to this. While there are the rudiments of a (genuinely fascinating) story here, little time is wasted on establishing character motivations or fleshing out the nature of this world... explicitly, at least. Reading between the lines, there's a lot to unpack this title, with environmental details and the descriptions for collectible action figures you can find throughout the game. Yes, we are indeed in Dark Soulsian "The plot is in the item descriptions!" territory here. Also worth mentioning that an impressive amount of attention was put into this aspect of the game: there's actually a fictional language in this new world that adorns buildings and signs throughout the ruins of a once-thriving civilization, and fans of the series are already piecing together signs and texts they're coming across. Interestingly, the game's theme song is sung with vocals derived from this language.
When Forgotten Land was first revealed, the footage seemed to be hinting at something more open-ended. Such speculation was quickly dashed once subsequent trailers revealed the game's level-based design, however. The biggest (and only major) disappointment of mine concerning this Kirby game was when I learned how restricted in scope it really was. This is definitely technically a 3D game, but the linear level design, lack of camera control, and smaller environments make it feel very much like a continuation of the design principles of Kirby's previous 2D adventures. This is basically the Kirby equivalent of Super Mario 3D World, except with even less exploration and more tightly-designed levels.
Each level, while, again, exceedingly linear, is also stuffed with secrets and hidden Waddle Dees to find. Progression across Forgotten Land is determined by how many Waddle Dees you've saved leading up to a world's boss. Certain Waddle Dees are obtained just as part of completing a level. Others are optional, but usually hidden in plain view. Others require a significant amount of messing around to find. There will also be optional objectives in each level that award you with even more Waddle Dees. These can be anything from finding and ripping down wanted posters of Kirby posted throughout the levels to gaining access to environmental terrain that's somewhat off the beaten path. These optional objectives provide the game's levels with a significant amount of replayability, and it's not very often you'll complete every single objective in one run. Especially since the descriptions for certain objectives are hidden until the player completes a level for the first time.
Every Waddle Dee you rescue goes back to Waddle Dee Town, and Kirby will gain access to new facilities and functions as the town grows over the course of the game. Despite the linear structure of the game, Kirby is able to return to Waddle Dee town from the world map at any time with a press of the button). The town houses many options that other games would relegate to a menu. The music player, for example, is actually a Waddle Dee band that stands on stage and plays the tune you request. To access the movie viewer, you actually have to enter a movie theater. Kirby has a house you'll want to return to frequently that provides free healing like an inn in a JRPG, and you'll get a cute little cutscene of the little guy sleeping (either with elfilin or Bandana Waddle Dee, depending on whether you're playing single-player or not) in a bed. There's also eventually a gachapon machine you'll be able to pump your star coins into to fill out your collection of figurines (you'll probably be able to get double the hours out of this game if you go full completionist with it, but without trophies, I just stopped playing when I felt like I'd exhausted the substantive content available to me). as well as fun mini-games via a food stand Kirby can work at for more star coins and a gyroscopically-controlled marble minigame where you'll roll a Kirby-shaped ball around a board filled with increasingly dangerous challenges. Eating food will recover Kirby's health (which you can do at home for free), but, usefully, you'll also be able to buy a to-go order to take with you if, say, you happen to need healing in a particularly tough boss encounter. That can even be done in the arena, by the way, a staple of the game's endgame challenge suite which challenges the player with sets of increasingly challenging boss rushes. This sounds fairly optional, but the game actually hides certain bosses within these arena challenges that players will want to confront.
There is one more function in the town, though, and it's arguably one of the most one in the entire game.
Forgotten Land has retained one of the signature aspects of the gameplay that have defined Kirby games since Kirby's Adventure first released on the NES, and that's the gigantic plethora of copy abilities available to him. When Kirby inhales an enemy with a particular attack skill, he can copy that skill and re-fashion it for his own purposes. Almost all of these skills are fun to use, with some being more useful than others. Usefully, in a first for the series, Kirby can actually upgrade these abilities at a weapon shop in Waddle Dee town with blueprints he finds hidden in various levels. These upgrades go beyond increasing the damage dealt, as the outfits donned with the upgraded copy abilities and usually different and can sometimes even function differently to account for their increased usefulness. As just one example, the bomb ability, when upgraded a few times eventually gains the ability to both track the enemy down and explode in a chain, affecting everything in the area. If the player is so inclined, once the upgrade path is finished, they can power up these abilities even further if they have the extra rare stones for it.
Rare Stones are the resource the player will use for all ability upgrades (along with blueprints, which are needed to unlock these upgrades), whether it's turning them into more powerful abilities or just buffing their damage once the upgrade path is maxed out. A few secrets in town and endgame challenges will award rare stones, but, throughout the game, you'll unlock access to them whenever you upgrade your abilities, which give you access to a gigantic array of challenge levels where you'll need to make use of your new abilities to complete different timed objectives. At the end of each of these challenge levels, you'll find a rare stone. These challenge levels were a great idea, since they simultaneously function as a sort of tutorial area for the player to test our their new abilities, and are also different enough from the main levels to provide a welcome distraction when they crop up. Each challenge level can easily be completed in the time limit. They also have sub-goals which task you with completing each challenge level much more quickly, forcing the player to master them. This theoretically adds replay value to these levels as well, but the game unwisely chooses to only reward the player with a handful of star coins for achieving these optional objectives, which makes them, frankly, not worth the trouble of pursuing. Again, trophies could have helped provide some incentive here, but Nintendo doesn't believe in trophy systems, for whatever reason.
I didn't mention them until now, but surely anyone who has paid any attention this title will be aware of the rather unique class of copy abilities unique to this game. Throughout the game, in Kirby will find and inhale particularly large and/or strangely shaped objects such as cars, traffic cones, giant light bulbs, vending machines, and so on. These absurd "Mouthful Mode" transformations often give Kirby something of a ghoulish appearance (particularly Light-Bulb Mouth Kirby, which approaches nightmare fuel territory for me), but they're needed to progress the levels, usually wildly change up how Kirby plays, and often even have combat functionalities (Vending Mouth Kirby, for example, can hilariously pelt enemies with cans of soda, although these are a finite resource; Water-Balloon Mouth Kirby sees Kirby inflating himself to absurd proportions with water so that he can waddle around spraying enemies away with a stream of water he spits out; and so on). These transformations aren't as omnipresent as Mario's cap possessions in Super Mario Odyssey, but they do add more variety to how players will progress through levels.
To complement the focus on copy abilities and tight (and sometimes visually spectacular) combat, Forgotten Land features some of the best boss fights in the pink puff's long history. Most of the main game encounters can be actually beaten without too much issue, of course, but one begins to appreciate the care put into their movement patterns when. for example, fighting them without taking damage, which is an optional objective in all of the main boss stages. The downright horrifying final boss of the main story campaign is surprisingly tough, though, and the difficulty only goes up as players take on the remixed story bosses in the course of clearing this title's post-game world. I mentioned special arena battle boss rushes before, and, for the true masochists out there, Forgotten Land's final cup, "Ultimate Cup Z," culminates with the title's final and ultimate combat challenge, a hidden boss so brutal that it took me a few tries to beat it.
This combat challenge curve, by the way, is pretty standard for modern Kirby games. The majority of the game is accessible to people of all skill levels, but optional content will test the reflexes and determination of completionists and gamers looking for a greater set of obstacles to overcome.
All of this can be made easier, if you like, by having a second player join in as Bandana Waddle Dee. Aside from challenge levels, this second player can join you through virtually the entire game. The implementation of co-op is a little on the slapdash side, though, as full control of how the level progresses is given to the player controlling Kirby. Combined with the tight camera angles, this often means the second player will be dragged along wherever Kirby goes, sometimes even to their detriment (if Kirby falls off into a pit, guess where Bandana Waddle Dee is going!). Whenever Bandana Waddle Dee dies, he's able to be revived after a small buffer period, which makes him a great option if you want to play with someone who is perhaps less skilled at platformers. But the game is clearly single-player oriented, and I imagine some players could become frustrated with feeling like a less than equal partner on Kirby's adventure if playing as the co-op partner. My first run through this game was done with my nephew, and we minimized the effect of this by trading off who played as Kirby each level. It's something to keep in mind, though, especially if you're playing with someone of a similar skill level to you. Co-op is there, and it's reasonably fun, but the game was clearly oriented around following one player on-screen at a time.
Presentation-wise, Forgotten Land mostly excels. While it's a shame the game only runs at 30fps, the developers do make use of the headroom this provides to give us some of the most visually spectacular effects I've seen in a Nintendo game to date. Some of the fully upgraded copy abilities fill the screen with particles and visual effects that would cause most other games on the system to choke. Image clarity also benefits: The game tends to hang around between 900 - 1080p in docked mode, and usually hits a native 720p when undocked, making it a particularly attractive portable title.
More important is the sound, though, and Forgotten Land thankfully features a surprisingly good soundtrack. Probably the best in the entire series to date.
You, of course, get your usual chipper Kirby tracks:
But a lot of tracks in this game surprise. Take this amazing, and very 'Westerny' level theme, for example:
The game also features some stand-out boss fight themes. Really fantastic stuff:
While I don't think this track is a particular stand-out, I did want to link it just because I love the hilarious song name:
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is, in some regards, a safe sequel, but also an exquisitely executed one. The developers at HAL Laboratory really nailed the challenge of transitioning the broad movesets of the iconic pink puff into three dimensions, and even managed to improve combat to such a degree that it stands out among its other 3D platformer peers (particularly for the challenging and intricate boss fights littered throughout). While the level design is a little more linear than I'd like, it's also rich with secrets and optional objectives. Kirby is still in need of his Mario 64 moment where he's allowed to fully embrace the potential of his 3D freedom, but, all things considered, his first major 3D adventure is still a delight, and one I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys the genre.
@Ralizah Time to Completition: 15+ Hours Time to Read Review: 5+ Hours
I honestly didn't read the review because I don't have a Switch, but from the looks of it I'm sure it was actually a really good review. I guess I still couldn't resist though.
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