Blue Reflection (Steam)
On her first day of high school, Hinako discovers that she (as well as a couple of mysterious classmates Lime & Yuzu) is a magical girl called a Reflector that can enter the subconscious of others in order to connect with them & resolve emotional turmoil. Across the events of the game she'll bring her class together, perhaps save the world, and if she plays her cards right may even realize a dream she thought shattered.
Gameplay:
You'll split your time between the real world where you'll go about your day around school hanging out with friends & chatting online, and delving into the "Common", a dungeon built by the connected subconscious of humanity, where you'll battle monsters in turn based fashion.
It actually has some pretty unique systems. The big thing is the Ether gague in the lower left corner. Managing it can be important as if it's full enough you can expend it to give a character extra moves via the "Overdrive" command (up to four moves in one turn if it's full enough). However in-between each character (& enemy) turn you can expend some Ether in order to regen party HP/MP, guard against the next attack, or advance your turn order. A few of a character's skills may deplete (or charge!) Ether in addition to their MP pool, and you can choose to have a character bypass their turn to charge Ether as well (I believe this also regens some of their HP/MP). Unfortunately all this management only becomes relevant during boss battles, as regular enemies become pushovers after the first couple hours. By the endgame I could one shot most mobs with Yuzu's Grapevine attack (this eats up a lot of MP, however HP/MP are fully restored after each fight, meaning there's no incentive to hold back during normal encounters).
Other oddities include not being able to use items during combat (all usable items either permanently or temporarily increase a character's stats), you don't level up by obtaining EXP from battles (rather, you earn skill points at set points or from building affinity with your classmates that can be spent on certain stat profiles for your party members. While all stats increase during level up, you can choose if you want a character's attack, HP, MP, or defense to get an extra boost), and there is no gear to equip (in place of this, you'll obtain emotional "Fragments" from your classmates that you can equip to a character's individual skills, which alter or enhance that skill's effect. For example you can give an attack the ability to inflict a status ailment, or add HP regeneration to a support skill that buffs it's target's stats).
Boss battles are pretty fun (and the only time you really need to get to grips with the unique battle system quirks) and see you facing off against giant Kaiju like foes with some absolutely killer visual design. While you don't gain extra party members throughout your journey, all the new friends you meet along your journey do assist (exclusively) in boss fights providing buffs to your party or attacking the boss. Only annoying thing is that boss phase transitions nullify any extra damage (for example, let's say a boss transitions to it's final phase once it's down to 5,000 HP. If you hit it with an attack that does 5,000 damage while it still has 6,000 HP, instead of starting the final phase with only 1,000 HP left, it'll only take the first 1,000 damage, and still start the final phase at 5,000 HP).
Most chapters have the same gameplay loop and start out with you taking on sidequests (9/10 times just basic stuff like "take out X number of this monster" or "pick up X number of materials in a dungeon") and hanging out with friends in order to build affinity, and once you hit certain thresholds (in affinity points & character level) you can report your progress to Yuzu & Lime to progress the story. Unlike other similar games there is no day or time limit, so as long as you don't report your progress to Yuzu & Lime as soon as the threshold is hit, you can spend as many days as you want hanging out with friends & building affinity. Friends who are located outside won't appear on rainy days, and everytime you go home at the end of a day you are given a few different prep options (take a bath, study, or make lunch) which will occasionally give you a small random stat increase.
Otherwise there is a little Tamagotchi like minigame called "Dark Cave" (although I played it a bit, I'm not sure what if any reward it grants in the main game), a Jukebox where you can listen to music, and once the game is complete you unlock art & cutscene galleries. One of your classmates will also hide a pink bear plush somewhere around the school every other chapter or so, but I'm not sure if there's a point to it (even when found there's no way to interact with it that I discovered), or if it's just for fun.
Visuals:
There's not a lot to the game world, with the largest environment being the school grounds (and even then there are a few rooms like the music room you can't access), and only 4 dungeon environments (though the environments can mesh together, creating more), however it looks lovely all around. The school has a kinda grounded lived in look, while the dungeons are all very fantastical & magical. I'm not even sure how many rooms each dungeon has, as 99% of the time you can complete your objective by simply clearing out whichever room you're dropped in at the beginning (there is some sort of warp point at each end of a dungeon room, and sometimes it'll just send you to the other side of the same room with all enemies respawned, & sometimes you'll go to a different room. I don't think they're procedurally generated though as you'll see the exact same room like 3 or 4 times repeatedly on your dives. You exit the Common from the menu, so I don't think there's even an official begining or end to them either).
It has a lovely "Shojo" looking art direction, which makes the pretty prevalent fan service feel kinda out of place. From a personal standpoint I don't mind it (just look at the outfits I chose to wear in my Fatal Frame & Ys IX review screenshots, lol), but the vibe in general seems much more Sailor Moon and less Senran Kagura, so the fact that the rain makes school uniforms transparent & there's a pretty common amount of bathing/shower scenes as well as shots of the cast mostly undressed in the locker rooms feels kinda random, like I don't know exactly who they were aiming this at. Apparently the sequel tones this aspect down though.
Story:
Story kinda picks up towards the end with a few decent twists & lore revelations, however overall I wasn't too engrossed with it. It's probably 80-90% "cute girls doing cute things" and it's looking more & more likely that it's just not my jam (I felt similarly after playing Atelier Lydie & Suelle years ago, so maybe Gust as a whole isn't for me).
Kinda annoying that the one "gamer girl" archetype in the cast is all about mobile games. I know it's a Japanese game but c'mon, lol. This isn't a serious complaint (or really a complaint at all), but are there really people THAT into mobile games?
Conclusion:
It's by no means a bad game, but I don't think it was exactly for me although it had some cool parts. I understand the sequel is apparently a lot better so I may look into that in the distant future.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Not a review as such and this may be the wrong thread but I'm wondering what if the new Lords of the Fallen (the old one was made by the Surge Devs) reviews better than Atlas fallen (made by the Surge Devs).
I have a feeling that it may well do.
I really want to play FFXVI on FF mode but I just have so many games to play that I don't feel like doing it anytime soon. Alas, I'll have to add it to my to do-list in terms of PS5 titles I should replay (including Returnal).
@HallowMoonshadow Nice impressions piece on Okage. It sounds... like an interesting but also extremely messy mixture of various elements that don't all come together gracefully. But sometimes just being interesting and unique is enough.
It's kind of funny how the main character is such a non-entity. Sort of reminds me of FFXII, where Vaan was ostensibly the main character, but then the better characters come on-scene and even the game seems to forget that the stupid kid exists!
I do miss these sort of weird collaborations Sony used to get up to in earlier years. Their published output was more hit and miss back then, but also more varied IMO.
That soundtrack is definitely a little strange.
@RR529 I like your review of Blue Reflection! I'm still shocked I haven't played either game in this IP, considering I'm a long-time mahou shoujo fanatic. Maybe it is that feeling that it's not... aimed at traditional mahou shoujo fans that got me. The footage looks a little too Compile Heart for my liking. The presence of fanservice kinda reinforces that for me tbh.
I do want to give it a shot at some point, though, especially since the combat seems decent.
And to answer your question, there absolutely are people that into mobile games in Japan. Like, crazy into em. But yeah, I'd prefer a "gamer girl" more like Chiaki from Danganronpa 2.
Ys IX sounds like Ys VIII 1.5, which is sort of the vibe I got from it. Even if it's not as memorable, though, being akin to one of the action-rpgs out there is no crime! I've enjoyed all of the Ys games I've played to date (not something I can say in favor of Kiseki...), and I bet this'll be a good time when I get to it. Another excellent review with some great screenshots!
Super Mario Bros. Wonder Platform: Nintendo Switch Completion Status: 100%
”Wowie Zowie!”
Mario (technically Mario Mario, since his last name is bizarrely also Mario) is one of the most iconic characters in the history of mass media. He has transcended video games in a way that few characters do, going on to become a recognizable icon almost on par with the likes of Mickey Mouse. The character is arguably emblematic of video games in general, and certainly, for most people, is the go-to representative of Nintendo, the Japanese manufacturer that created him in the first place. Despite the omnipresence of this character, though, his 2D outings, which created and continually revolutionized the platforming game genre in the 80s and early 90s, have been weirdly tame and non-descript for almost two decades since Nintendo first revived this series in the form of New Super Mario Bros. back in 2006 on the Nintendo DS.
At the time of its initial release, NSMB was a big deal. The first real 2D Mario platformer since 1990’s Super Mario World! Even if you kicked the ball forward five years to the brilliant, late-gen SNES platformer Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, that’s still an eleven year gap after multiple regular 2D Mario entries. Finally, proof that the 3D outings hadn’t completely replaced the 2D ones! NSMB was well-received both financially and a popular level, and it remains a staple of Nintendo DS game recommendation lists to this day. Then came NSMB Wii. While it was largely the same sort of thing, it also introduced simultaneous four-player co-op, and it made since that the home console entry was similar to the smaller outing on their handheld.
If it had stopped here, the sub-series would likely have been well-received. But then came NSMB2 on Nintendo 3DS, and NSMB U on the Wii U, all broadly the same and playing it safe in terms of aesthetics and mechanics, and suddenly we entered the weird situation where one of the most creative franchises in video game history felt… cookie-cutter and generic. NSMB U back in 2012 was also the last traditional 2D entry for more than a decade. Nintendo innovated with adjacent Mario sub-series, like their out-of-left-field level creation/sharing toolsets in the Super Mario Maker games, or the Super Mario 3D Land / 3D World games, which combined a 3D presentation with design conceits reminiscent of the 2D games, but it felt like the traditional 2D Mario platformer had been swept into the dustbin of history.
That is, until earlier this year, when Nintendo surprised everyone with the imminent release of Super Mario Bros. Wonder on Nintendo Switch. Here was, seemingly, a Super Mario 2D platformer worthy of inheriting the arguably unfulfilled legacy of Super Mario World and Yoshi’s Island: from early trailer footage, this game has showcased a quality many of us thought had disappeared from the series… it was weird! And creative. Add to this an immediately apparent art-style shift that seemed to recapture much of the personality of the classic 2D sprites, and it wasn’t long before people were declaring this to be the true, long-awaited successor to one of Nintendo’s oldest and most formative video game series. Was it worth the wait?
As is typically the case with Mario titles, the game begins with the barest narrative context possible: Bowser is up to shenanigans, and you have to stop him by collecting macguffins from a variety of different worlds. Nintendo’s commitment to providing as little worldbuilding or interesting characterization as possible to its flagship franchise is almost admirable, although it does become tedious when you’ve fully played through all of these games. Super Mario Galaxy was the rare exception, but the development that game provided for space goddess Rosalina literally had to be snuck in under the noses of senior designers! Anyhow, it’s a Mario game, which means, just like back in the 90s, your character will be running around collecting coins, platforming, and crushing enemies mercilessly under their own body weight.
As in Super Mario 3D World, you’ll have a variety of characters to play through this game as, including, in a weird moment of mainline recognition, Princess Daisy, who is typically relegated to the benches except when the Mario crew decide to periodically drop their grievances and rivalries and go kart racing or play tennis together. She’s sort of like that weird relative who gets dragged along to social events, but goes unseen and unheard of otherwise, but I’m sure this is a treat for the couple dozen, probably not very well-adjusted Daisy enthusiasts out there.
The game appears to treat whoever the playable character is as the protagonist. Since I played through the campaign as periodic kidnapping victim Princess Peach, it was fun seeing Bowser greet her as his “beloved” at one point, and also having the narration refer to “Peach’s party,” making it feel more like her adventure and less like she’s merely an alternate skin for Mario. Unhappily, the game mechanics don’t help in this regard, as all of the characters play exactly like one-another, as far as I can tell. This is a pretty big departure from previous games with multiple playable characters, where each would control differently from one-another, giving the player an incentive to experiment with everyone.
The reason for this, I imagine, can be found in the game’s Badge system. Players will unlock and purchase (via in-game currency) special equippable badges throughout that often impact how the player controls the character. These can be subtle (maybe making the player dash a little faster) to extreme (making the player character invisible) in terms of their impact on the experience. It’s an interesting experiment, and more than a little reminiscent of the tonics from Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, but, in my experience, too many of them feel like crutches for inexperienced players, meaning I played through much of the game without engaging too much with the system. The ones that aren’t crutches just feel sort of useless.
The game’s primary gimmick is the unlockable Wonder Flower which can be found in nearly every level. These collectibles will warp the fabric of the level itself, often leading to the creative and wacky setpieces that featured heavily in the game’s marketing. These sequences are unique, varied, and are arguably the big draw for this particular game, as you never know what effect they’ll have. Sometimes they turn the player into another sort of character entirely. Sometimes they cause the game’s enemies to break out into song, like in a musical. Sometimes they lead to alternate challenge areas. It feels like there’s a thousand weird ideas crammed into the Wonder Flower sequences throughout, and it was a genuine joy discovering them firsthand as I played through the game.
Otherwise, the level design itself is… adequate, but a bit on the easy side. Apart from the mind-numbingly brutal final post-game level, this isn’t a game that’ll be giving one too much of a challenge, and I’d argue the levels here often feel less involved than they did in something like New Super Mario Bros. U. That’s not to say they’re bad or poorly designed, persay, but it’s clear the bulk of the love went to the Wonder Flower sequences, and the rest of the game feels a bit vanilla in comparison. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze this is not.
Nintendo does have a few other new additions to help distinguish this entry from previous 2D Marios. For one thing, the game is filled with these… profoundly irritating talking flowers, who will provide commentary as you travel through the game’s various levels and worlds. Thankfully, they allow you to both change the language the flowers talk in, or remove their audio entirely. I switched the language to Japanese and had a much better time. No offense to whoever voiced these flowers in English, but it’s like they specifically scouted out someone with a subtly irritating voice.
Wonder’s coolest innovation, by far, is its online mode, which allows you to see fellow players and communicate with them in a limited manner as they play the game in real time, sort of like the online interactions in Journey. This gives the game world a very… populated feel that’s absent from previous Mario outings. If you die in a level, other players can actually help revive you within a very limited scope of time by touching your ghost as well, making it an addition that has a meaningful impact on the gameplay. I guess you can use this as a sort of crutch as well, but, honestly, this aspect of the game was so cool that I don’t mind at all. And unlike something like Dark Souls, you also don’t have to worry about other players entering your game world and killing you, so there’s very little reason not to just leave the mode on all the time.
It’s just too bad this spirit of innovation wasn’t extended to the game’s bosses. 2D Mario games have very boring, samey boss fights, and Wonder does nothing to break with that tradition. I was hopeful the first time I fought Bowser Jr. and he transformed in interesting, unexpected ways, but nothing else is done with future encounters in this regard. It’s truly weird, since the 3D Mario games since Sunshine have been filled with weird, memorable, unique bosses, while 2D Mario has adopted an almost totally opposite approach. One would hope a game like Wonder would have seen fit to buck this trend, but alas.
Wonder’s new transformations aren’t anything to get too excited about, either. The new elephant transformation is interesting for a few moments, but the game does very little to take advantage of its properties in the same way as, say, the cat suit transformed much of Super Mario 3D World. The drill powerup is cool, and very akin to something from Super Mario Galaxy 2, but, again, the game’s levels don’t do a lot to exploit its potential. Ditto with the bubble powerup, which allows you to blow bubbles that can be used as temporary platforms.
In terms of the presentation, much has been made of the game’s lovingly animated character models, and… yeah, they look great. I was especially stunned the first time I saw the sheer fluidity of the animation when a character was electrocuted. It’s reminiscent of a somewhat higher budget Rayman Legends. Nintendo has injected life and personality into the game visually in a way that we haven’t seen since the 16-bit era. The game’s lighting and general aesthetic is also just lovely to look at. And at a crisp 720p, this looks pretty awesome in handheld mode, and especially on the Switch OLED.
The music is less… impressive. Yet another way this doesn’t deviate from traditional 2D Mario. Considering the often incredible effort put into the soundtracks for the 3D games, it’s a little weird to me that Nintendo insists on making such basic OSTs for its 2D mainline titles. It’s better than what you’ll hear in other 2D Marios, but… c’mon.
I know the tone of this review is a bit negative, but it really is a fun game. Quite fun at times. It’s a good experience, and, unlike a lot of recent games, one you can fully complete in 15 - 20 hours. I’m only down on it insofar as it could have been a legendary game. As it stands, it’s absolutely a solid entry in the series, but it won’t set the world on fire in the same way previous entries did, or even some of the more recent 3D games have. Still, if you enjoy the gameplay loop of these titles, you’re in for a beautiful game that’s a joy to play.
@HallowMoonshadow It doesn't help that the few really loud Daisy enthusiasts I've met have been people who won't shut up about her. Like people who join a new religion. Or vegans.
It's a good platformer, but my standards are rather high with Mario. Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Odyssey, and Super Mario 3D World are three of my favorite games of all time. For some reason, the 2D games just aren't on the same level. Nintendo is a company almost synonymous with amazing, memorable boss fights, so I don't know why they feel the need to make literally every boss except for the last Bowser Jr.
In comparison, in Super Mario Odyssey, at one point you turn into a tank and fight against a gigantic Mecha-Wiggler that creates wormholes in the space-time continuum.
@Ralizah I'm just glad it was Daisy catching strays and not Rosalina! You gave her the compliment she deserves. Unfortunate to hear of your experience the game overall though. At least it was mostly just a case of disappointment rather tthan he game itself being totally unfun. Somewhat surprised however as I've seen many tout it as one of the best iterations of 2D Mario there is, but it doesn't sound like any of your criticism was necessarily undeserved. Wish you'd have had a better time with it, but I'm glad you can still appreciate it for what it is! I'll have to give it a go at some point when the price goes down a bit, haha.
It is kind of a shame Rosalina isn't here. Although I guess it wouldn't have mattered too much, since characters don't really control differently. And I suppose the less Nintendo dilutes Galaxy's legacy by using Rosalina as spare cast fodder, the better.
I think it's a decent game when put up against other 2D Marios. Currently, I'd rank them:
Yoshi's Island > SMB 3 > NSMB U Deluxe > Wonder > NSMB U > SMB 2 > NSMB2 > Mario Land 2 > NSMB > World > SMB > Mario Land
It's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. Things just... should have evolved more since the 90s, like they did with 3D Mario.
@Ralizah This reply made me wonder what games Rosalina does even show up in as a playable character. I've only ever seen her in Mario Kart, though I have to admit I haven't played all that many Nintendo games of the last decade. I've been playing bits of Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope over the last few weeks and there I've finally been introduced to Rabbid Rosalina. I was... disappointed to say the least I did not get the real Rosalina as a character, but I guess a version of Rosalina fused with Rabbid DNA will have to do? Eh? At least she puts Rabbid Peach in her place. That little... 😉
@Tjuz She's in the majority of spinoffs. Mario Party. Mario Golf. Mario Tennis. Mario Strikers. Mario Kart. etc.
She's also in Smash Bros. and a playable character in Super Mario 3D World.
Thankfully I ignore almost all of the spinoffs. Don't like sports, and Mario Party is something that requires a very specific environment to be enjoyable.
Currently Playing: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
@Ralizah I suppose I'm just unlucky having bought the Mario Party on Switch that doesn't include her then! Like really, they included Birdo? I have no words to describe how that makes me feel. Never really played any of the sports ones like Golf or Tennis though, so makes sense they would've passed me by. I think the only sports game I've played would've been way back on the DS with Mario & Sonic Olympics. Smash Bros is sadly a franchise I've never really gotten into even though I've been interested. Mostly because anyone I know would not have a great time playing that, haha.
@NeonPizza PC games on Steam don't need to be updated to support gyro. If you're using a controller that supports gyro, you can configure pretty much any game to support it through Steam, and then customize the settings to your exact liking. That's what I did with RE2R, for example. Made headshotting zombies so much easier.
IMO if this is an important thing to you, you're doing yourself a massive disservice not getting a gaming rig.
@NeonPizza I use the DS4 for my gyro-controller needs. Works well. I've never used a Dualsense.
I'm growing to really like the Series X controller, so I'm pretty stoked they're finally making them gyro-enabled. At last, I'll be able to play all of my PC games with the same controller!
Currently Playing: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
@HallowMoonshadow lol I'm into fasting and keto and am probably insufferable about it, so, you know, I can't judge too much.
It's not uncommon with fans of niche characters like that. Or niche products. There's a hipster-ish appeal to being really devoted to something that's not popular, and it tends to make it where the fandom gains fervor over time.
Yeah, it is. Not just among the Mario fanbase, either. Most people like to act like the SNES was this absolute goldmine, and I think it's primarily nostalgia tbh. We went with SEGA that gen, and coming back to the SNES years later, some games absolutely deserve their hype (Yoshi's Island and Final Fantasy VI immediately come to mind), but others just seem sort of... mid. Super Mario World is the epitome of mid. The music is dinky and weird. The worlds aren't nearly as creative as in SMB3. There are way fewer power-ups than in SMB3. The boss fights still suck. Ghost Houses were the worst addition ever to a platforming series (yeah, dude, I really wanna spend ten minutes figuring out how to escape a room in a MARIO game). Fewer minigames. The controls are weird and feel much less tight. I 100%'d that entire game, and I just don't understand the love for it.
And, being brutally honest? While I put it ahead of SMB1 and SML in the interest of objectivity, I will happily replay those games over SMW any day. It's just such a disappointment.
Odyssey is filled with cool boss fights tbh. I have a few issues with it (the forced motion gesturing to pull off certain moves can bite me), but the more time goes on, the more I'm impressed with it.
I could get into how Super Mario 64 is also an overrated POS compared to later 3D Marios, which is also controversial, but I at least recognize its place in history. The game quite literally was one of the first to show off the potential of 3D movement from a third-person perspective in a major release. It was practically an 'inventing sliced bread' moment for the industry. And it got SO MUCH right out of the gate. So while I have a love/hate relationship with it, I do deeply respect what its creators accomplished with it.
SMW, though? It did almost nothing better than SMB3, and a lot that was worse. I don't think it'd be half as loved if most of the people who moan about it hadn't grown up with it.
@RogerRoger lol thank you. A Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker 2 would be a day one buy for me. Absolutely loved the original. And yes, as much as I enjoyed this, 3D World still stomps this game. It's crazy to me people were angry about it on the Wii U. Now that people got their sandbox Mario with Odyssey, I've been happy to see folks going back and appreciating it for the wild, creative game it is.
I guess the thing for me is that you already have Nabbit, who literally can't take damage, from what I hear, so I'm not sure why they needed a second layer of accessibility mechanics. Or have the badges available in a separate mode. It's such a bummer that the characters all play the same.
With regard to the level design, it's hard. Like, the levels themselves are nothing special, but literally every one has a Wonder Flower that does something crazy, which kinda makes every level memorable? I dunno. I prefer when the creativity is injected into the stage design itself versus setpieces, personally. Designing levels around setpieces is something I've always criticized Naughty Dog for, and I won't stop just because Nintendo is doing it now with my beloved plumber.
"written a harsh review about a delightful experience" is about as good a summation as any of what I wrote. I stand by everything I said. But... it's Mario. It's fun. And it's beautiful. I enjoyed pretty much every moment with it. So despite walking away being pretty happy with it overall, there's still so much to criticize.
I guess I feel like a 2D Mario game in 2023 shouldn't have some of the shortcomings this one does. Especially the total lack of boss diversity. Is there some unwritten law somewhere that states that 2D Mario games have to have crappy boss fights? Because the people at Nintendo adhere to it like someone is gonna shoot them if they inject an ounce of creativity in those. It's weird. Especially when the 3D games do such a good job with it.
New 2D Mario and Sonic games releasing so close together is very funny in general. I was kinda curious about your reaction to Superstars. Have you not played it yet? You're about as devoted a Sonic aficionado as anyone I've ever met, so I kinda expected you to be all over it.
Thank you for reading, and the delightful commentary!
Currently Playing: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
@HallowMoonshadow I hated the All-Stars versions of the NES trilogy lol. Something about the music and controls on SNES vs. the NES originals just feels bad. Def. try SMB3 on the NES instead one day if you get a chance.
I've always been a gamer, although I will say the PS1 is also when I became more passionate about it. Still a top three console overall for me. I LOVED the early days of the Playstation brand.
lol come on, don't do FFVII like that. SMW does almost nothing to improve itself over its predecessors. FFVII is, at the very least, more of a SM64-style experience: a radical, groundbreaking release that arguably aged poorly in a number of respects, and people who grew up with it will never truly understand the criticisms of people who played it years later, because it's their gaming safe space.
@RogerRoger Yeah, it can be... illuminating going back to older games. Some stuff never took off, but it aged SO well. Like the bizarrely good and prominent voice acting in cult PS1 survival horror JRPG Koudelka, for example, on a console where you got precious little of that. And then other stuff you remember loving can be... so bad. That was my experience with Crash Bandicoot: Warped. I was shocked at how bad it was when I replayed it several years ago.
Building games around certain gameplay features is always how Ninty does things. They said it quite explicitly when talking about Splatoon. It's why they cobbled together the fairly strange setting where you're playing as intelligent squid people in a post-post-apocalypse, since they thought up the movement/battle mechanics first. It's a style of design I tend to think is good in terms of leading to cohesive experiences, but... I dunno. I play Mario for fun levels, not for constant weird gimmicks.
"As a long-term fan of its first-party games, do you feel that Nintendo listen to fan feedback, and incorporate it into their sequels?"
Depends on the property. They've quite clearly taken the reaction to previous games into consideration when designing new Zelda games, for example. Twilight Princess' dark, realistic style was explicitly a response to the outcry over the cartoon stylings of The Wind Waker, for example. And it does strike me that the Zelda game we got immediately after Skyward Sword was Breath of the Wild. Skyward Sword was heavily criticized for how little room there was for player agency or freedom. Whereas BotW... well, I think everyone knows by now that it's one of the most free-form AAA gaming experiences ever.
Monolith Soft is also pretty good about this, I think. Xenoblade Chronicles 3, for example, addressed nearly every issue people had with the previous game.
Broadly, though, I think Nintendo just sort of does what it wants, and players go along with it. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't. They're definitely the least crowd pleasing of the big three manufacturers.
Well, I look forward to your eventual Superstars review. I'll probably grab it myself once it drops in price a bit, since it looks more like what I want from the series than recent 3D games OR something like Mania.
Currently Playing: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
Alan Wake remastered review. - A very solid scary action title from Remedy Entertainment
Right so first some background. So Alan Wake remastered is an action game from Remedy Entertainment, the developer behind the first Max Payne games and some other titles such as Quantum break and Control. Now Alan Wake was first released in 2010 as an Xbox 360 exclusive game. As Alan Wake remastered was released in 2021, the title came to the PlayStation platform for the first time which was very good news to me as I did not own a Xbox 360 but was interested in the title back then. Now what do I think about Alan Wake remastered?
I think the game did not disappoint me at least. I did not have very high expectations but I was delightfully surprised by what I found out to be a delightful experience.
I think in general the game reminded me quite a bit about an early and maybe more elaborate version of an entry in the Silent Hill series which is a very good thing in my opinion. I think the game keeps you on your toes most of the time. I in general find it cool that at least I became more and more interested in the characters and the Bright Fall location as the game progressed. I don't think that it is an overstatement to state that Bright Fall becomes almost the main attraction of the game in the end actually.
Maybe the main drawback of the game I would say is that some combat encounters can feel a bit frustrating, mainly because of a lack of ammunition in some places. But it does not bring the game down much in my opinion.
@oliverp I enjoyed what I played of the game back in the 360 days. Currently have Alan Wake, the American Nightmare DLC, and Control in my Steam library, and will probably be exploring those on Steam Deck soon. Like Silent Hill, the setting is definitely a focus of the game, and both tap into a vein of inspiration from the work of Stephen King (although AW definitely moreso than SH).
Thanks for sharing!
Currently Playing: Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition
Finished up Valkyrie Elysium (PS5) yesterday. It's a bit brief by RPG standards (I finished it in just about 20 hours, & I believe even managed to get the best ending), but that wasn't a big deal because there's not much story to it (most world building & background lore is relegated to environmental pickups called Hollow Blossoms & Verdant Blossoms which give you notes about the state of the world, and the latter particularly are important for getting the best ending. Also, you learn most of the deeper aspects about your party members by completing each of their own side quest lines, though I don't think these effect ending outcome).
Combat is really quite fun & snappy (you can lock on & zip to enemies from quite a distance away), and there's a lot of different ways to get the edge on your enemies (each enemy type is weak to one of the ten or so different weapons you collect, and each also has one of 5 elemental weaknesses, which you can take advantage of with magic attacks. Also, each of your party members has an elemental affinity & summoning them to fight by your side will coat your weapon with their element & amp the effectiveness of your magic attacks of the same type), with bosses usually having different points you can attack & dismember from them. That said, at least on Normal I was able to get by easily enough just by taking advantage of element weaknesses (I usually only took the time to take weapon weakness into account as well during boss fights).
It has a few small issues, like the fact that it doesn't feel buttery smooth 100% of the time (this is a very mid budget cross gen title, so the PS5 shouldn't have any issue at all), but the drops weren't as noticable as they were in Star Ocean: the Divine Force (which I also really enjoyed, BTW), so not a big issue. Also, you can only have so many weapons, magic, items, etc. equipped to their various quick access slots, so in the latter parts of the game I often had to pause at the start of nearly every single combat encounter in order to reassign slots (usually magic, since there are only 4 quick access slots, but 5 element types + healing magic, the latter you'll want to have equipped to a slot at all times since use of healing items negatively affects your mission completion grade if that matters to you. Grades don't effect which endings you have access to though, so it's not a big deal if you don't grade well).
Also not really an issue, but I get the feeling that a 5th party member was planned but cut at some point. There are enemies that are weak to Darkness, and while you do have access to Dark magic to counter them, there is no Dark element party member you can team up with to get the boosts you can get with the other element types. Plus, none of the bosses are weak to Darkness, even though there are a few that aesthetically/thematically SHOULD be (they're usually weak to something random like Lightning, or even weirdly enough Light, which is thematically their own element).
Anyways I picked it up during the PS Store's Black Friday sale for $30 (it also came with a free copy of one of the older Valkyrie Profile games, which I'm not sure if I'll play), and am glad I gave it a go.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
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