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avengcrwanda · 6 years

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TLJ Commentary

This is just my compilation of the different responses I had to folks who were sharing their metas/interpretations on The Last Jedi. Mainly for my reference since I might do a review/analysis in the future once I’ve got a copy of the bluray.

This will cover the following:

Finn and Rose in Canto Bight is not a useless arc.

Hux and why he can be a Big Bad.

Kylo/Ben and why he’s wrong on “letting the past die.”

Kylo/Ben is not worse than Anakin/Vader, like some people want to believe.

Kylo/Ben was let down by his family, but that doesn’t mean they are bad people.

Paige Tico - she is important.

Poe and his reaction to Holdo’s plan.

Rey’s parentage and why she really is a nobody.

Note: If you choose to read this, please keep in mind that this is my opinion and reflects how I read the movie. You can have a different interpretation.

1. Finn and Rose’s adventure in Canto Bight is not a useless arc, and highlights that we shouldn’t be viewing Star Wars as black and white. Originally posted here, in response to grejedi’s commentary here. @darth--darcy had some awesome points to add which you can find here.

The Canto Bight arc showed us several points: (1) that when you choose neutrality (just like DJ), you choose the side of the oppressor; and (2) that the good guy-bad guy dynamic depends on your point of view. Let’s focus on the second point.

Finn and the Resistance view the First Order as the Bad Guys; therefore, the Resistance is the group of the Good Guys. This is true to a certain extent - after all, the First Order somewhat represents oppression and fascism. But when the Resistance defeats them and the Good Guys win - what happens next? New government, another New Republic. Will it be a rehash of the Rebellion defeating the Empire? And then another form of the FO comes popping out? If I recall correctly, the new government/New Republic didn’t exactly live up to their promises and bring peace to the galaxy. There were still corrupt senators, and the system they established allowed the FO to breed in the first place. And their same system allowed the Canto Bight folks to profit from selling weapons. (And for a bigger picture – Jakku seemed like a forgotten town, with folks there suffering from extreme poverty. Didn’t they care about them?)

Both the FO and the Resistance (as well as the old Rebellion) contributed to the hardships of the galaxy. And maybe both have something good to fight for. Maybe instead of an all-out weapons war, these two groups could meet in the middle. Balance, anyone?

If you recall what Luke said in the teasers, “It’s so much bigger.” He was probably referring to the force, but I think it applies to the whole war as well. I try to understand that maybe some folks just do a surface read and walk away with incomplete tidbits and say, “Oh this is just another war movie: the Resistance is the underdog we must cheer for and Kylo and the rest of the FO are the oppressors the underdog must completely eliminate.”

But - newsflash - even real-life war isn’t so black and white. People need to dig deeper and understand - why did the war start in the first place? Were the "winners” really justified? What were the “losers” fighting for anyway? Because if we just take it at face value - “Oh, this group won because they were fighting for the good thing. Everything else from the losing side is garbage.” - we will just repeat the cycle. If the root cause isn’t addressed, the future will just be the same; the new government will again be ineffective and another insurgent faction will creep up.

Even the characters aren’t so black and white. The sequel trilogy wants its viewers to think and question what we know. Example: Luke, Leia, and Han.

One of the major beefs of the fans of the OT - and I know this has made countless rounds online - is that the original heroes didn’t turn out how they expected, i.e. always pure and good. “Luke was a hero at the end of the OT, he should remain a hero for the rest of his life. Leia and Han resolved their differences and got together, they deserve their happily ever after.” And to go against this will be out of character for them.

But what they need to realize is that people change and evolve depending on their experiences. The major characters of Star Wars weren’t meant to be one-dimensional. How boring will that be? Heroes can’t make good decisions all the time. We must give them room to make mistakes.

People make mistakes. People make bad decisions. People fall off from the high pedestals some put them on. We must be able to accept this. The way they wrote Luke, Leia, and Han made the characters very relatable – they’re people who make mistakes and bad decisions. Han AND Luke were able to accept this before they died. They knew that they failed Ben and confronted and apologized to him for it. And they moved on. But some viewers haven’t, apparently.

2. Just because Hux is not a Force user, and that he had some comedic moments in TLJ, does not mean he cannot be a Big Bad in Episode IX. Originally posted here, in response to daxcat79’s and i-live-in-the-reylo-moon’s post here.

While he had a lot of comedic moments in TLJ, you have to give Hux credit.

It’s been mentioned in various sources and by a number of folks that Hux is cutthroat and ambitious. He also has a delicate ego and is very sneaky. I believe the TLJ Visual Dictionary even states that he has an assassin on command – and that this assassin is afraid of Hux himself.

A see a lot of folks saying that Hux is weak and won’t be able to kill/plot against Kylo/Ben because he doesn’t have control over the Force. But recall Order 66? All those clones did not have any ounce of Firce power yet they were able to successfully eliminate most of the Jedi. The element of surprise + sheer numbers – I bet Hux has control over the First Order officers and troopers – can overpower even the most skilled Force user.

Personally, it will be interesting to see a big bad who cannot use the Force. Just like the Rey heroes-can-come-from-anywhere storyline, Hux can be the villans-can-come-from-anywhere one.

3. Kylo/Ben’s view of letting his past die is actually hurting him rather than making him move on. Originally posted here, in response to reylo11’s post here.

The only way to go forward is to embrace the past, figure out what is good and what is not good about it. But it’s never going to not be a part of who we all are.

This is what Kylo/Ben needs to realize. I feel that he struggles so much with himself because he’s so intent on killing his past (“Let the past die.”), even doing so literally. He wants to create a new version of himself by forgetting where he came from. He looks at his past with so much hatred. I understand that it wasn’t all fun and rainbows given that his parents abandoned him and his uncle and master tried to off him in his sleep (at least from his point of view). But instead of him accepting these experiences, he wants to throw them away as if they never happened. Because his view is these experiences make him weak.

Those who do not know how to look back to their past will not arrive at their future. One has to be able to look back into your past and accept all your experiences if you want to be the best person you can be.

We are made up of all our experiences, even the shitty ones we want to forget. They build character and make us a stronger person. The good things and the bad all contribute to our character. Kylo/Ben needs to accept this so he can finally decide what his future will be.

4. Kylo/Ben is not worse than Anakin/Vader. Originally posted here, in response to @renperor-of-the-galaxy’s post here.

Until the novelization comes out, we probably wouldn’t know what really happened in Luke’s Jedi temple. We just know that (1) Luke thought about offing Ben while he was asleep; (2) Ben misinterpreted Luke’s action as a definite attempt to murder; (3) Ben brought down the hut, rendering Luke unconscious; and (4) By the time Luke woke up, his temple was burning, some of his students were dead, and Ben was gone with a number of his other students.

It’s possible that Ben killed his fellow padawans/knights. It’s possible that he didn’t – maybe the two groups of students just fought it out. The thing is, we don’t know for sure. While Ben is known as “The Jedi Killer,” this could also be based off rumours.

To say that he is worse than Anakin/Vader isn’t quite right. Remember the scene in ROTS where the younglings looked up to Anakin while the temple was being attacked? “Master Skywalker, there’s too many of them. What do we do?” The younglings were so relieved to see him and then Anakin suddenly ignites his lightsaber. They were completely defenceless.

Now, versus Luke’s students – we don’t know if there were younglings. We don’t know if they were defenceless. If we go by the Visual Dictionary, it looks like they were Ben’s age, so would have been able to fight.

To sum it all up – calling Kylo/Ben worse than Anakin/Vader is premature.

5. On Ben’s family, and how it doesn’t mean they are bad people. Originally posted here, in response to a longer thread here (commentary by shallowlethargy, a-heart-of-kyber, and renpressrey).

There’s a difference between calling Luke, Leia, and Han as bad people vs bad parents. Antis need to understand this. Even good people - and heroes - make mistakes. For the Skywalker-Solos, it translated to not being there for Ben enough when he needed love and guidance.

To Antis saying Ben is a grown ass man so he should know better - not necessarily. His formative years weren’t exactly fun and nurturing: parents busy with other things, culminating with (from his POV) attempted murder from his uncle/second father figure could mess someone up. Add in Snoke to the mix and you have a very troubled person (which Kylo/Ben is).

He is still very conflicted (pull to the light, etc.) so this makes me believe he is inherently a good person. It’s just hard for him to reconcile this because of his experiences: the people on the “good” side (his family) didn’t exactly treat him right AND he has Snoke constantly whispering in his head. In a sense, he was sort of conditioned to act a certain way, which is very hard to break, no matter how old you are.

6. Paige Tico is also important. Snippet originally posted here.

I feel like Paige isn’t being talked about enough. Not gonna lie - I was so emotionally invested in Paige. Her death is the second saddest moment of the film for me, after the Reylo throne room conversation.

She gives a face to all the forgotten less-than-side characters who sacrifice themselves so the heroes can go save the day. Versus Holdo, who is a high ranking official, she shows that even the ordinary folks are able to contribute to the big picture.

7. Poe’s big lesson on trust. Originally posted here, in response to a longer thread here (commentary by hunterinabrowncoat, whtwlf, frozenmusings).

TRUST was really a big lesson for Poe.

Some people are complaining that Holdo just should have told everyone of her plan. From an audience standpoint, this would make the most sense; as a viewer, we won’t question the decision, right? And maybe we expect the characters/Holdo’s subordinates to do the same.

But the members of the Resistance are active participants in this. There’s a chance they won’t just “go with the flow.” There will be arguments, just like what happened with Poe. The mutiny could have happened earlier, and the Resistance will still be in a bad shape.

With the clock ticking on the Resistance, they just couldn’t afford drawn out discussions on what to do. Holdo had every right to make an executive decision. Given her rank and experience, as well as that of her team, she more or less knows the direction she should be going.

And guys, this happens in real life, too. You don’t have the leadership teams of various organizations (even non-military ones) broadcasting each and every detail of the plans they have as they go along. There may be a right time for this.

8. On Rey’s parentage. Originally posted here, in response to skysilencer’s analysis here.

Earlier in the movie (shirtless Force Bond scene), Kylo/Ben tells Rey that she can’t stop needing her parents who threw her away like garbage - “It’s your greatest weakness.” And this is true. Rey wanted to go back to Jakku, a backwater planet, because she’s still holding on to the idea of her parents coming back. She was willing to throw away her future and her potential because of this weakness.

As stated above, the delivery (especially the throne room) wasn’t exactly great, but it helped push Rey into the path of acceptance and moving on. I think a lot of people miss that she was the first one to admit that her parents were nobody. And what Kylo/Ben is telling her is that it is okay - okay that she doesn’t have a big background, okay that she doesn’t come from famous parents. And it’s great that she can now move on from the past! She defeated this weakness and can be what she was meant to be, so to speak.

Rian says, “If the answer presented to her was, ‘Your parents are so-and-so, here you go, here’s your place in this story.’ That would be the easiest thing for her to hear. And easiest thing for us to hear! Wish fulfilment. It’s like, ‘Oh, great! That’s who I am. That’s that.’ The hardest thing she could hear is, 'No, you’re not going to get that answer, that definition.’”

A lot of people were shocked over the reveal, which I guess was the point. As mentioned by Skysilencer above (and in other metas), the whole movie was about failure and subverting everyone’s expectations. A lot of folks expected Rey to come from somewhere - just like Rey was in denial and that her parents were coming back - and by revealing that she doesn’t come from an important family, we share her pain.

As talked in this article, Rey is on a journey of self-discovery. Her bigger conflict is not the current war of the First Order vs the galaxy - it’s figuring out who she is and what her place in the story is. To quote from the article, “To have her learn some kind of easy answer about a noble ancestry would not only immediately zap away that important conflict, but would also totally freeze and dismantle her important journey of self-discovery. Without the simple explanation, the heroine must stand on her own and carve out her own path, rather than just follow one already carved out for her.”

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bmaxwell · 5 years

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Top Games of 2018

For me 2018 was the year of Playstation VR. I never felt especially drawn to VR, assuming I’d give it a try one day years from now when the tech would be improved and more affordable. My buddy brought his headset over and I tried it out briefly but wasn’t blown away. My kids loved it though, so when opportunity presented itself, I traded in my Nintendo Switch* for my own PSVR bundle.

Apart from that, 2018 wasn’t as strong a year for my kind of games as 2017 was. Most of the AAA blockbusters of year didn’t quite land for me or weren’t appealing enough to make me want to try them at full price.

That said, I still had to put some games I genuinely enjoyed outside of my top 10. We’ll start off with a couple of categories I’d like to call out before getting into the ones that didn’t quite make the cut, followed by my ordered top 10.

Old Game of the Year: SUPERHOT VR

2018 was the year of PSVR for me. SUPERHOT VR pulled off the triple header of making me feel like a total badass, making me feel like a clown, and reminding me of how wholly out of shape I am.

In the world of SUPERHOT time only moves when you move. The VR stages each take only a minute or two, and are played in batches of ~5. When you are killed, you start that batch over from the beginning. At first, I hated this. I don’t want to replay the same stuff again and again! But then I started getting familiar enough with these encounters to do them really fast, make no-look shots and the such. And it feels fucking awesome.

The game made me feel like a clown when, after finishing a stage where I was ducking behind a low wall for cover, I reached out to put my hand on the wall to help me stand up and promptly fell right on my ass. This happened more than once.

One time I was sweating profusely after a SUPERHOT VR session and my wife asked “You okay?’ the way you’d ask a child if they’re okay after picking up all of their toys. “Superhot is a workout!” was my response. She just looked at me with a smile that said “That’s stupid in an adorable way.”

I amend my statement to “Superhot VR is a workout for people who don’t work out.”

Also very good old games: Persona 4, Transistor, American Truck Simulator, The Lion’s Song

Best Music: Donut County

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Sometimes it’s nearly impossible to separate a game from its music. One feels incomplete without the other. So it is with Donut County.

Also some fine music: Moonlighter, Pit People, Tetris Effect

Honorable mention: Return of the Obra Dinn

This game is such an impressive package. The visuals, the audio design, the entire concept is just cool and unique. I wish I was better at the game. There’s some combination of intelligence, patience, and focus that I lack for Obra Dinn. I have started over twice as of now.

The game casts the player as a sort of insurance claims adjuster auditing a recently-discovered ship that had disappeared 5 years ago (in 1803). You are equipped with a magic pocket watch that lets you see and hear the last moment of each person’s life on the boat, you get to walk around a still scene like a diorama. You're tasked with figuring out each person’s name and how they died. It requires attention to detail, deductive reasoning, and a few minor suppositions along the way.

It is such a neat thing and it is so exhausting and difficult for me. If I could find a way to grapple with it in a satisfactory way, it would be very near the top of this list.

Honorable mention: Yoku’s Island Express

Developer Villa Gorilla threw together Metroidvania gameplay, a light and breezy tropical setting, and pinball of all things and gave us Yoku’s Island Express. It’s a charming, well-made little game. I wasn’t sure it would come together as well as it did. It sounds like a gimmick, but it’s a quality game full of personality. I had it mentally penciled in on my top 10 until very late in the year.

Honorable mention: Dead Cells

Dead Cells is one of those games that appeals greatly to me on paper. The controls are tight, there are plenty of unlockables to work toward, and the game makes it easy to get into a good rhythm flowing from fight to fight. I put a lot of time into the game and, while I enjoy and admire it, Dead Cells never really hooked me the way I thought it would. I still had a great time with it, it just never quite reached my too-high expectations.

Honorable mention: Florence

It’s hard for me to know how to rank a game like Florence. It took me about 30 minutes to complete from start to finish and there isn’t much cause to replay it. I try to judge a game by how well it does what it sets out to do, and by that metric Florence was a huge success.

This largely dialogue-free mobile game beautifully captures the feeling of finding romance and tells a touching story that doesn’t play out in the way I expected. The music is gorgeous, and the game makes good use of the phone’s touch interface.

In this day and age, a short mobile game that you have to pay for ($3!?! *gasp*) is a hard sell for a lot of people, which is a shame because Florence is a work of art that deserves to be played.

10. Gris

Seems like every year there’s one game that sneaks in right at the end of the year and complicates the top 10 list. This year that game was Gris. Gris may be the most artistically beautiful game I’ve ever played. The closest thing I can compare it to is Journey, though they aren’t similar enough to feel like one would make the other obsolete. Gris’ visuals are creative and inspired. They frequently match the game’s melancholy tone, but they are also often vibrant, lush, and playful. It’s outstanding music walks hand in hand with the visuals, with mournful piano and strings.

Something impressed me about Gris is that it doesn’t feel like it’s trying too hard to be a video game, it is content with being a piece of art (something I wish I could say for 2017′s Hellblade, a near-miss for me that failed in this regard). There are no enemies to fight. No pits to fall in. And those elements gave me a freedom to explore with abandon. The game was never going to kill me or punish me for wandering off the track. The game’s puzzles never got complicated enough to fluster me, pulling me out of the experience.

The game tells you very little in the way of story, leaving you to take from the imagery what you will. Because of that, it didn’t quite resonate with me the way Journey did. Gris isn’t a great video game, but it is a great experience that knows how to get out of its own way.

9. Tetris Effect

Tetris is one of the best pure, easy to learn but tough to master video games ever made. The Tetris Effect added trippy visuals and terrific music along with the ability to play the game in VR. I’ve heard plenty of people say “I’m not paying $40 for Tetris.” While I can understand that approach maybe if you’ve bought a lot of the many versions of Tetris to have come out over years, the price tag is justified by how much the additional effects add to the experience

Tetris Effect bills itself as a trippy experience where you can, like just chill out and think about how we’re all connected and just, like, we’re all together, right? Get into a zen place with some Tetris and some chill music and, like, maybe you play Tetris in a dark room where every time you complete a line, the windows open momentarily letting some light in. Or maybe it’s snowy Tetris where each line is accompanied by the sound of snow crunching under winter boots. The game has dolphins, and birds, and windmills and just, like....space....man.

The crazy thing is, that all works. Especially in VR. A game where I’m Tetrissing against a backdrop of hot air balloons and hearing a song about how all of life is connected could have easily come off as tryhardy, hammy, and insincere. But Tetris Effect was a hopeful bright spot in a year that saw a lot of darkness.

8. The Red Strings Club

This game’s themes of control and free will set in a dystopian future really resonated with me this year. The way you pour different drinks to put people in a specific mood during conversations is really inventive and just plain fun. Red Strings Club made me think about my world views and question them, which is rare for a game to pull off. It overstayed its welcome a little bit near the end, but it was still one of the most memorable experiences of the year.

7. Donut County

When I finished Donut County, I was initially a little disappointed. I played the game from start to finish in about 2 hours, and I wanted more. I think that’s a normal reaction, I also believe that there’s value in a game that does what it does well and finishes before it overstays its welcome (see also: Moonlighter). On its surface, Donut County is a game about swallowing things up into an ever-widening hole in the ground. Looking a little deeper, it’s about gentrification and how those with privilege have no regard for those without.

BK is an awful little shit, but he’s also an adorable and well-written little shit. The game’s dialogue is smartly written and conveys conversations sent via text in a believable way. The soundtrack is a toe-tapping joy, and once again this game does not overstay its welcome.

6. Moonlighter

A few years ago I played game called Recettear where you owned a shop dealing in fantasy RPG goods, and alternated between dungeon delving for stock and haggling over prices selling that stock in your shop. I never quite fell in love with that game, but I thought the concept showed a lot of potential. I’m surprised that we haven’t seen more of it. So when Moonlighter came along with its “get shit from the dungeons and sell it in your store” premise and and gorgeous pixel graphics, I was all in. When I heard the music, I knew this would be in my top 10 for the year. 2018′s game music pales in comparison to 2017 (as do most other years) but Moonlighter’s music was among the best of the year.

Everything about the town is peaceful and soothing, which is important in a game like this. Finding respite, and caring about home gives context to everything, and helps anchor me to the game. If the town is uninspired then there’s a voice in the back of my head while I’m fighting in the dungeons asking “Why do you care about any of this?” The dungeon runs have a lovely push your luck element where going deeper means more danger but also more wealth, and I am great/awful about convincing myself to push for one more floor.

The game isn’t without its faults, most glaringly the inventory system. You have to constantly move things around your backpack and throw stuff out, and there was no mouse support so a tedious task became mind-numbing. Which is a shame, because the game gives you good reason to be constantly shuffling things around your inventory. I also would have liked a few more options in the town for upgrades and new buildings, but the flip side of that coin is that Moonlighter took me about 20 hours to complete and never wore out its welcome. It left me wanting more, but I’m not sure that the gameplay loop would have held up for longer. It serves as a good reminder that not every game needs to be padded out to a 40+ hour experience.

5. Dragon Quest XI

My very first RPG experience was Dragon Warrior on the NES. The experience of walking out of the starting village and fighting a smiling blue slime with a cypress stick is big part of my gamer DNA. Dragon Quest has never forgotten its roots - to a fault, some would say. It’s a valid complaint, but not one that I share.

One of my favorite games ever was Dragon Quest VIII on the PS2. I hadn’t played a Dragon Warrior Quest game since IV on the NES, and DQ8 recaptured those crusty old RPG’s that made me fall in love with the genre. Dragon Quest XI feels like more of Dragon Quest VIII, and that is no bad thing.

Give me more turn-based combat set in a colorful world full of the best worst puns, goofy monsters, where I am a mute hero who must save the world from the great evil. It’s tired old Japanese RPG tropes all the way, and I am along for every mile of this ride.

4. Moss

Moss was not my first VR experience, but it was the game that really made me a believer in the medium. The game feels like being inside a diorama. You’re guiding your adorable little mouse heroine Quill on a journey to find her uncle. Much like with Astro Bot, making me fall in love with the character went a long way toward making me fall in love with the game.

The beauty of the forests broken up by moments in the library as the day turns to night and the candle burns lower and lower really made this feel like it was mine in a way that is rare for a game. I felt like a kid again for a few hours, something I never expected to feel again. The moment to moment gameplay is pretty by the book, and it isn’t impressive in screenshots or video. But that feeling of “Holy shit I’m inside this video game!” is something I won’t forget.

3 .Slay the Spire

Slay the Spire is another game that reminds me how futile and silly it is to take these things seriously. How do I compare a card game to an RPG to a racing game to a game about rolling debris up into a giant ball?

If this list were ordered by time spent playing, Slay the Spire would be number one as I am nearing 300 hours. It’s a deckbuilding rogue like with 3 different classes, each with their own unique set of cards. You move from room to room through a map doing combat, buying cards, resting at campsites, and engaging in little story events. Each run has the controlled chaos of doing your best with the choices you are given. Most runs follow an arc where I come up with a plan for how to my deck effective, I feel unbeatable for a short time, then it all falls apart and I can’t believe I lost.

Don’t let the visuals put you off (I don’t think they’re bad but they’re not my style). Don’t be scared off by the term “rogue like”. Play Slay the Spire. It is perfect at what it does.

2. Monster Hunter World

Like a lot of people, I’d never played a Monster Hunter game before and only knew of it as a weird, opaque Japanese game about fighting monsters. World was touted as a more welcoming game in the series, a Monster Hunter for the rest of us. And the fact that the game does a rotten job of onboarding new players to go along with the game’s awful implementation of (fun once you get it working) multiplayer were just enough to help me tip it down into my #2 slot.

Monster Hunter World scratched an itch I’ve had since I fell off PS2′s Demon Souls years ago after a dozen hours or so. It’s a game that made me work at it to appreciate the experience. The Barroth (the 5th monster you hunt) was the first monster to kill me, and it did so repeatedly. It was a point in the game that forced me to decide whether to work at improving or give up. I looked at the Barroth’s weaknesses in my journal, changed my gear accordingly, and loaded up on items before heading back out. This was the moment I fell in love with Monster Hunter World in a way that led to me putting over 100 hours into the game on my own, then more again with a friend playing on PC.

Monster Hunter World is a game where I got more powerful over time not just because of getting better gear, but because I feel myself getting more skilled at the game. Improving mastery is an incredibly satisfying feeling in any game, and this one had me sitting at the end of the bed playing into the small hours of the morning, continuously doing One More Hunt when I knew I should have gone to bed hours ago.

1. Astro Bot Rescue Mission

Monster Hunter World dropped early in 2018 and had me captivated for months. I loved it and, after looking at the 2018 release schedule, mentally penciled it in as my likely 2018 game of the year. That held true for most of the year, until the most unlikely hero of all came along: a corporate mascot in a character platformer. I mean, it’s a robot wearing a fucking PSVR helmet.

The robot rescue portion of Sony’s tech demo-esque Playroom VR was the highlight of that experience, but by no means was the idea of an entire standalone game a slam dunk for me. Quite the opposite. In fact, I would have likely never given the game a second thought had the game not started receiving the kind of praise I couldn’t ignore. People were saying that it did for VR what Super Mario 64 did for 3d platformers.

That elicited one of those “What?! Bullshit!....let me see that.” responses from me. As it turns out, that’s a pretty fair comparison.

Astro Bot isn’t just an excellent platformer that happens to be in VR; it feels more like a well-made character platformer elevated to greatness by way of VR. The world is vibrant and joyous, but it also does an incredible job of integrating the player into the game world. In Astro Bot the player’s perspective is behind the robot you are controlling. He is ever running forward and you are being pulled along with him. This isn’t terribly unusual, the player is the god controlling his tiny avatar and surveying the world before them. And it is so with Astro Bot, at least at first glance.

It doesn’t take long to realize that you are in the game world. You have a physical form. You cast a shadow. Your little Astro Bot buddy will occasionally look up at you and wave excitedly. I wanted to hate this. But couldn’t. He is goddamned adorable. The entire game is goddamned adorable.

The stages are colorful and inventive. And they involve the player in some pretty creative ways. Obstacles and enemies must be headbutted. Your controller will get different modifications from time to time, changing it into a water blaster, or an automatic gun (that feels like it is shooting tennis balls), or a hookshot. The game frequently rewards being inquisitive about its environment. Peeking down over an edge, or around a corner, or standing up from your seat to look around typically pays off with some coins, or a little robot to rescue.

And the little robots are so ecstatic when you rescue them. They fly around the screen and land in the touch pad on your controller. They pop out and wave at you gleefully before disappearing until the end of the stage where all the bots you rescued do a little dance for you. Your Astro Bot does the Carlton Dance. I can’t not love this. I really did try.

*I love the Switch hardware. I really do. And the library of ports is getting more impressive every day. I just wish it had more exclusives I could get into.

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