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organ-market · 9 months

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Unconventional Detective Games

Return of the Obra Dinn, 2018

The maritime mystery game Return of the Obra Dinn by Lucas Pope is almost entirely subversive for a detective game. Everything in the game from its core premise to hyper stylized presentation, is all ambitious and experimental. Every person aboard the Obra Dinn has mysteriously died and you assume the role of an insurance investigator piecing together the horrific events using a magic watch that delivers to you a front seat viewing of a vignette of each person’s demise. Using these dioramas of death, you are charged with recording the manner of death of each and each crewmember and passenger aboard the ship.

Return of the Obra Dinn and its addictively satisfying detective puzzle gameplay left me hungry for more. Playing the game instilled in me a deep love for a good mystery and a desire to solve them. While I love games like Disco Elysium, which stars detectives as its protagonists, the investigation was never really the point. Moreover, a love for the unconventional detective was entrenched in my heart and as an interactive medium, video games are perfect for aspiring would-be detectives.

Overboard! , 2021

The year is 1935, aboard the S.S. Hook, Veronica Villensy throws her husband overboard under the foggy shade of night. In Inkle’s devilishly clever puzzle/visual novel, Overboard! you have eight hours before reaching the ports of New York and in that limited time you must relieve yourself from suspicion and guilt for your husband’s death at any cost. It’s a sort of anti-detective puzzle about getting away with murder which forces you to learn your fellow passenger’s schedules, plant evidence, and be consistently careful with your language lest your words betray you much later.

The DNA of time loop games such as Majora’s Mask and The Sexy Brutale is woven into the gameplay loop of Overboard! It’s a fairly short game taking around 2-3 hours to finish the story but at the benefit of allowing an immense amount of player agency. There is a wide variety of solutions to evading the mighty hand of justice, you are free to travel around the ship on a whim with no direction from the game itself. The only hint system is visiting the chapel and praying to God which is both cleverly diegetic and hilarious.

The nonlinearity of your objective incentivizes logical thinking and experimentation. The puzzle is rewarding much like learning each map and NPC routines in the Hitman: World of Assassination trilogy is. At first you clumsily trip over your words when Major Singh interrogates you but eventually you can get away with murder in style along with netting some pocket money from the life insurance if you pull it all off just right!

The nonlinearity of each puzzle in Overboard! is incredibly refreshing, it just feels organic and natural. Going achievement hunting in this game is its own little puzzle and I still haven’t figured out some of the little secrets it hides from us. It’s a game I can’t put down and haven’t yet been able to stop thinking about and I really recommend giving it a shot since it’s only $15 and only $6 if you catch it on sale.

Pentiment, 2022

Obsidian Entertainment’s Pentiment was my favorite game of 2022 and enraptured me for long nights as I obsessed over its rich dialogue and gorgeous medieval illumination manuscript inspired art. So much love and research was put into the historical setting, it takes place in 16th Century Bavaria within the town of Tassing is filled with life and character. You play as Andreas Maler, an artist working in an abbey on a hill and whilst attempting to finish your masterpiece, your co-worker and friend, Brother Piero, is falsely accused of the murder of a wealthy Baron who was staying in town. You are sprung into action as you only have a limited amount of time to clear Brother Piero’s name.

You are given a limited amount of time to wander around town, attempting to conduct interviews, deduce motives, and eventually gather enough evidence to bring the culprit to justice. Because of the impending trial, time is ever so precious in Pentiment and you will never have enough time to do everything you want at your leisure. Every moment dwelling on conversation or recreation is time you could have spent digging for answers. In order to pin a suspect you must hone in on what you think is most beneficial for your case like a true detective.

Brother Piero’s freedom is always at the cost of another’s conviction, in Pentiment you must push the blame onto someone else. During your investigations, you find that Sister Matilda, a nun at the abbey, had been assaulted by the late Baron many years ago. This is one of the clearest motives in the game but most physical evidence points in other directions, all the while every nun in the abbey will assure you of her innocence.

Saint John's Eve Festival Bonfire

Convincing the archdeacon (the head of the trial) of Sister Matilda’s guilt is perhaps the easiest of all the suspects to accomplish and Pentiment will not tell you outwardly that Matilda didn’t do it but it doesn’t have to. In a clever subversion, the game never tells you if you caught the culprit in the end. Pentiment, brilliantly, left me to wonder if I made the right choices as the totality of the lethal consequences of my actions weighed on my mind. You can easily convince the archdeacon of someone’s guilt but are you able to convince yourself?

The brutality of the executions should not be understated. You look on helplessly as someone you convicted meets an unwieldy end as they plead, cry, and eventually die. The executioner’s sword rises and falls as it lodges itself into the neck again and again until the head breaks free from the neck. Whether you like it or not, your choices matter in Pentiment and the consequences stare you down with a harsh disposition.

While playing Pentiment I was continually reminded of a line from Rian Johnson’s murder mystery film Knives Out. The titular detective Benoit Blanc (he’s so me by the way) notes that, “...the complexity and the gray lie not in the truth but what you do with the truth once you have it.” The complexity of truth is captured beautifully by Pentiment. In many regards it is a conventional mystery but by weaponizing the player’s need for clear answers it infected my mind for many hours after the credits rolled along with the minds of many others. There are fierce debates and chatter surrounding who really did the killing. Pentiment wasn’t as well talked about as it deserved, with all the games releasing it was overlooked by most. Well, it isn’t exactly for everyone but for the price of $20 it gave me a wealth of dialogue to mull over and wonder about.

Phasmophobia, 2022

A multiplayer ghost hunting spookfest is not exactly what you’d think of when discussing detective games but Kinetic Game’s Phasmophobia is deeply investigative by nature. Intense inspection is at the beating heart of the game with an important twist. Where ordinarily a detective chases after a suspect after the fact, here your suspect is reacting to your every move and can (and will) kill you on a whim. In the game you and up to three other friends venture into a haunted house and gather evidence and clues to determine which of the twenty four ghosts in the game is currently residing in your location.

You and your team will wander out of the safety of your van and into cold, darkened rooms to find clues by checking thermometers, speaking into spirit boxes, and throwing salt all over the floor in hopes of getting the ghost to step in it. Not only can you gather evidence with your camera and UV lights but another layer in your investigation is the behavior of the ghost. Knowing how aggressive each ghost is or how fast it is, is a tremendous asset in your deductive arsenal. The more you know, the more you can whittle the possibilities down until you have your culprit.

But finding the ghost and gathering evidence is just one thing, surviving the ghost is another. Being in the dark and bearing witness to paranormal activity will deplete your sanity and eventually the ghost will target you for a hunt. The front door slamming shut marks the beginning of a hunt, the ghost will manifest physically and chase you down and kill you if you don’t hide in time.

Corpse of my friend, deceased. Moments before I run out of the house in terror.

Phasmophobia is a dangerous balancing act of facing your fears by delving into the darkness in order to find clues and trying desperately to find the ghost type as fast as you can so you can get the hell out of there. The reactivity of the ghost keeps you on edge as you wander the halls gathering data. Speaking into the spirit box may prompt a raspy whisper into your ear or the candle you just lit may be blown out moments after. More interestingly though, is the voice recognition AI that takes advantage of the communication players rely upon. Everything from saying you’re scared to a simple curse word can lead to the ghost favoring you as prey. Even players who stay in the van for too long get targeted by the ghost!

Within Phasmophobia is one of the most unique investigative experiences on the market and definitely a one of a kind multiplayer experience. The comfort of having a buddy to share your terrors with is stripped away when they stop responding to your radio! It’s truly unlike anything I’ve ever played and the developers are constantly updating it, two big thumbs up from the afterlife.

The satisfaction from my first time getting away with murder in Overboard! and the despair when I find out I had the ghost type completely wrong in Phasmophobia are some of my most memorable experiences in gaming! And Pentiment proved to be one of the most well written games I’ve had the pleasure of reading. I sincerely hope you check them out if you haven’t already! They’re all pretty cheap anyway. And once again begging for recommendations in the comments/reblogs so if you know any good, and hopefully weird, detective games let me know! Thanks in advance everyone and I’ll catch you on the flip side :P

-Ghost Emoji 👻

#organmart #om-ghostemoji #writing #video games #video game recommendations #detective games #return of the obra dinn #overboard!#overboard game #pentiment #phasmophobia

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radellama · 4 months

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Games I played 2023 - Part 1

As yet another year closes, I have been looking back at the games I’ve played over the year, and spent about a month trying to write them up. I feel like I got the system down for this, as it’s a fun tradition I’m glad my friends have encouraged. With refinement of my note-taking, and being heavily opinionated, comes very lengthy retrospectives/reviews. So elongated, in fact, that I need to split this year’s goty list into two parts. It didn’t feel like I played many more games than I have in previous years, but I certainly have a lot to say. Also, I skipped my Resi breakdowns last year for reasons you can read about when I post it, but it’s back this year >:)

I’m still not sure what to call these, but I lean more towards retrospective- so be warned! Spoilers of varying degree and strong opinions moving forward.

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Hitman: World of Assassination Trilogy, PS4

So... IOI did a complete overhaul of the Hitman trilogy, renaming it the World of Assassination trilogy, and streamlining all purchases to two primary options - base game and DLC. No more complicated bullshit! (Also their patch notes were some of the most entertaining I have ever read lmao) One thing that came with this massive overhaul was that everyone who has the base game can now access a few things - for free - that you couldn't before. Mainly, the freelancer mode. With this mode, we have access to 3 of the DLC maps and get to play a campaign that's a kind of mix between the story campaign and elusive target mode. Elusive Target missions are ones I didn’t really cover in last year’s review, and that’s because I didn’t play them enough to feel I should speak on them lmao.

In the elusive target mode, you're given a brief with a target to kill, dropped into the map, and you have to find and kill the target with no further assistance. It was pretty fun, but they are tied to real time- in that there is something like a 3 day window to take on the elusive target, and once it's over you can't retry. If you die, you're locked out from attempting again. It's a one and done kinda thing. I appreciate that- it makes the stakes much higher and places a huge focus on the stealth and recon aspects in particular; especially due to the fact that you cannot use your hitman senses to highlight the target in this mode. However, getting only one chance is a little sad, as the first few times I played last year felt a little discouraging when I’d made a simple mistake (or even had my controller give up on me) and I’d be locked out from trying until the next mission drops. And while I appreciate the ‘real time’ sense of these missions… Man, it just sucks if you’re an adult who gets busy between work and life and just don’t have an hour or two to sit and dedicate to figuring out these targets within the allotted time. They’re really fun challenges and it just seems like a bit of a shame that the accessibility I’m whining about goes directly against the point of these missions in the first place lmao. There is still a gallery where you can replay old elusive targets, but I haven't played that much... Cause what I have been addicted to, is the freelancer mode.

Compared to the story mode, in freelancer mode, you don’t have any story missions to help guide you into setting up a kill. And, just like the elusive targets, the stakes are higher and more self driven – you need to take down syndicate members in various levels leading up to a ‘boss’ level, where you’re required to pick out the syndicate leader based on limited intel and kill them.

It’s fantastic.

As I’ve played through the year, I’ve seriously levelled up the way that I play and approach kills. At the start of the year when this mode just dropped and I was utterly addicted to it, I sucked so bad and often had to restart campaigns after fumbling too badly – and I didn’t care! It was still super fun and it felt like I was learning more about the way the game worked so that I’d be more prepared for next time.

The targets aren't the same as the main story campaign the elusive targets; in the missions leading up to the syndicate leader, your targets are just randomly selected NPCs. When you do get to the leaders, they're more similar to the story targets, but due to there being so many (with the intent to confuse you and make you more observant while you identify the correct person) and them not being as basic as an NPC, there's still that free-er feeling as you play. It's honestly up to your creativity with tools/items/weapons and your knowledge of the levels to be able to pull these off. Some levels I’d be able to speed through in under 10min, others would take over an hour, or anywhere in between. Levels that I really enjoy, and therefore know pretty well by now, are SUPER fun to play because I already know the floorplan, I just need to figure out how to get to my target and how I'm going to kill them. It's completely up to you if you wanna try and get through it without getting caught, or try and make a mad dash after making some VERY public executions. While freelancer mode is very free-form, there are also mission objectives that reward bonus xp and currency for completing. Each level will have three objectives based on the type of syndicate you’re fighting, and a special objective you choose before each level. These are all optional, but in hard mode, the special objective becomes compulsory. I quite enjoy this, and I’ll often pick campaigns based on what maps and objectives I’ll be tasked with and strategise around that.

The other massive thing within freelancer is that you have a hub. A really nice hub. Its a big swanky house in the middle of nowhere, and the more you progress and gain xp, the more you get to play interior decorator. The focus of the place is the weapons storage area, which is where you’ll also be selecting and setting up your missions. Any weapons and items with rarity that you find or buy while out on missions will be taken back home and stored for later, and as you unlock and dress up other areas of your house, some tools and items will be lying around for you to take with you too. These are things like gardening tools, a stethoscope to be used as a fibre wire or a banana to help create distractions and accidents. It was really fun to work hard and bring home a bunch of awesome weapons, and it really hurt when I failed and lost all of my favourite gear.

I believe this is my first time playing a rougue-like style game, and once I got a grasp on how it generated targets, it was incredibly addicting. I also found it quite fun to play through the handful of DLC levels that are freely available here, as I haven’t bought the DLC and played through their missions yet myself. One of my favourite maps to play was the Bank in New York, and I quickly found a little exploit that I loved using. You usually spawned in the underground parking garage near the security room and the vault, and on the wall next to the security room was a locked cabinet with a bottle of chloroform. You could start every level by gassing all the security guards in the room by pouring chloroform in their air conditioning filter, pinch the vault keycards and unlock it, and then treat yourself to a nice handful of the in-game currency. Like, you could pick up 3 coins that were worth a couple hundred dollars each, and then pull the server and wire a couple thousand to yourself, and all before you actually started killing anyone. Unfortunately, about halfway through the year, this was ‘corrected’ by devs and there’s no longer chloroform near the security, and no more coins. I don’t know if its just misremembering, but I swear that it’s a little harder to get into the vault now too. I get it, sanctity of the game and whatever but… this is a completely single player mode. There was a patch added to change the wording of the stock market thing you unlock in your personal vault at home to make it clearer that you’re essentially playing a coin toss where you could lose most the money you’ve accumulated, but thats another element that has the potential to give you heaps of money if you’re lucky. This isn’t a huge and genuine complaint, but it is annoying and I miss starting off my bank missions by looting the vault. I still loot it almost every time I play, but it doesn’t hit the same anymore…

Anyway, all this to say that the new freelancer mode is awesome and that I’ve been having fun playing it all through the year. I’ve also been slowly chipping away at hidden objectives and such during the story campaign, which has been interesting. There’s so many ways to set up kills for all of the targets, and there’s heaps of funny easter eggs to unlock too. I also wanna mention how much I appreciate the sound design of the game, the game actually does a great job at communicating info with the audio cues – so much so, that when trying to play the game muted while I’m on the phone with a friend, I fail miserably because I’m missing important cues without that audio.

Overall, this has been a game that I’ve been playing a lot over the past two years now, and I enjoy heaps. It’d definitely crept up towards the top of my personal favourites, and I can’t wait to keep playing more.

Freelancer Safe house Theme

Safe house Outdoors

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Mario’s Super Picross, SNES

I mostly played this around the Christmas and New Years period last year, struggling and losing my mind in the summer heat! (It reached 40°!! I don’t have air conditioning in my apartment it was hell!!! And we can expect similar this year!!!! I hate summer!!!!!)

I really like picross as a concept, it’s like if sudoku had a baby with colour by number puzzles. It’s simple! And it allows for some pretty challenging puzzles, especially when you get to bigger canvases.

Mario Picross was fun enough, and the unlockable Wario Picross was certainly a challenge! I just felt a bit disappointed by the fact that all the puzzles were just random things, and nothing related to or even resembling anything Mario. Like?? I dunno, it think it would’ve been fun to have the puzzles be the sprites of various items and characters from Mario games, and even recreating scenes from certain Mario levels in the larger puzzles. The only Mario element here is that the man himself congratulates you at the completion of every level, which is nice, but man. I really wish I could’ve been filling out a mushroom or a power star or something, that would’ve been fun.

The general UI and controls were fine, but I still like the Twilight Princess Picross the most out of all. Also the music was kind of annoying, so I barely played with volume. I’d just have my switch on the couch and play muted while I watched video essays or Bob’s Burgers lol. The exception is Wario Puzzle 1, CERTIFIED BANGER!

There’s not much more I can really say. If you’ve played Picross, you know what to expect. It’s a good brain teaser, I wish it was Mario themed instead of random general stuff, but it was fine. I played it and enjoyed it for the most part.

Wario Puzzle 1

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Nonograms Prophecy, Switch

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME, IT IS A SCAM. IT IS ACTIVELY HOSTILE TO PICROSS PLAYERS AND CONTAINED PUZZLES THAT WERE UNSOLVABLE.

I initially bought this as a cheeky little impulse buy for my birthday. I like picross, what can I say? It was on sale on the switch store and I took it as a sign – unfortunately, it was a bad one.

At first glance it is a pretty simple, if bland, Greek God aesthetic in a black and gold cut out style. I’ve never really been particularly interested in the mythos, and never more than a passing interest- but this is literally just using the aesthetic for a game that has absolutely nothing to do with Greece or it’s religious historical culture.

Same goes with the soundtrack, a nice and simple acoustic guitar, but it is the ONLY song in the entire game.

Onto gameplay; due to the limited colours, it was incredibly difficult to see which square I was hovering over to mark, and when the numbers are greyed out they are practically invisible due to the value being almost the same as the background colour it is on top of. To make matters worse, the numbers grey out arbitrarily, which fucks up the literal point of playing the game. How are you supposed to play the puzzle if you can’t see the number of squares you’re supposed to fill out?

There’s also little things that should be standard on all modern digital versions of picross that are absent or poorly implemented here. You can’t press and hold to fill in multiple tiles, you cant x out a square you’ve coloured and instead have to clear it first and then x it out (and vice versa, why add that extra step in?) and the coloured puzzles have multiple of the exact same colour, with the only difference being inside the code and not visible to the player. How am I supposed to know which of the THREE SEPERATE BUT IDENTICAL SHADES OF PINK I’ve placed in the wrong pink zone?

There are some things that were interesting qol, like when filling out a chain of squares, a number would appear to show you how many you have filled. This would be an interesting and helpful addition to gameplay IF IT WORKED CORRECTLY. There was also an option to fill out an entire row with the L+R buttons, if it was one that had to be completely filled. That’s about the only thing in here that worked and was appreciated.

I gave up when getting past the piss easy early levels, and then realising that the puzzles were fundamentally broken and showing an incorrect number of tiles to fill. It was so shit, and this was noticed on my second or third day of playing, so I contacted Nintendo for a refund. I don’t usually ask for refunds, but this time I did.

Fuck this game, put effort into making a real picross before putting it on the eshop, fuckers.

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Zelda Picross, 3DS

I’m pretty sure this is a fangame, and considering that – it’s pretty nice! Though, I am of the opinion this would be better on PC, as there were times where I could barely see the details of the puzzle, despite playing on a 3DS XL.

The whole game looks like a mix between the SNES and GameBoy Zelda aesthetics, with covers of various songs across the series in a similar sound. It definitely feels like a passion project, and for that, I can only commend it.

Now, onto the meat of it. This is actually a solid Picross, and a great taste to wash my mouth out with after the shit I had to get refunded. It’s not perfect, by any means, but it was good fun and I enjoyed my time with it, which is all that matters, right?

To play each level, there is an over world where you select and unlock levels to progress further. And, surprise surprise, the puzzles you fill out are all generally related to the Legend of Zelda! This traversal made it kind of feel like a massive Zelda dungeon, which was really fun! Another charming aspect is that you have hearts- except instead of enemies attacking you, you lose a heart every time you hit an incorrect square. I actually really liked this, as it feels so linked to Zelda, but also feels appropriate here. As you progress, you can unlock more hearts too, which is helpful for the boss levels. They entail two large back-to-back puzzles- which means if you use up most your hearts fumbling in the first boss puzzle, you better be extra sure you know what you’re doing in the second. To get to the bosses and unlock more paths, you’ll often have to travel through the over world maps and collect items. To unlock them, you’ll need to solve a picross puzzle depicting the item you’ll be getting. THAT’S ALL I WANT BABBBEEEEEYYYYYYY!!!!

Apart from it getting a little cramped and hard to read in later levels, my only other criticisms are that the colour palettes are pretty muted and a bit bland looking, which can be detrimental in some levels. Each of the puzzles have a different theming based on where you are, which is a great touch- but on levels like the ones in Death Mountain, there’s not enough visual change to tell the difference between filled and unfilled squares. Some are worse than others, but I think forgoing some of the fancy details here for readabilities sake would’ve worked in their favour. There’s nothing wrong with having cute details and art in the borders and background, but I think it ended up being too cluttered as it is currently. Another part that got a little frustrating, particularly near the end, what that the cursor doesn’t stand out enough and I get lost! I can’t see it most of the time, there’s not enough contrast for it to stand out, and even with the rows and columns highlighted, I’d still fudge choices cause I’m one square off!

Overall, considering my main issues with this game are that it’s visually not polished enough for my tastes, I’d say this was a pretty great game. I had a lot of fun playing, and it reignited my old ideas to make a pircoss fan game of my own someday… I’d honestly recommend playing just for the interesting way they’ve presented adventure mode, it was really good!

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My Nintendo Picross - The Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess, 3DS

Ahhh… My favourite picross game…

There is just a certain polish to this game that makes it stand out above the rest for me. I don’t feel like I even have to say much- you just read my other reviews. You know what I’ve complained about, and the kind of things I value in a picross game. I’m sure you can assume this one is pretty good.

I don’t really care for the second mode here where the numbers are semi obscured by covering two rows and columns, instead of each set of numbers being their own. It’s playable, but not my favourite, I vastly prefer the classic picross experience. That said, I would’ve loved more than just one level of the massive level, as it was quite fun to zoom in onto chunks and solve a picross that is just one square of a larger one.

Controls handle well and feel intuitive, the puzzles are fun and fit the theme. I like this game a lot.

Tutorial / Inside a House

Hyrule Field Main Theme

Ganondorf Main Theme

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Castlevania, NES

This has got to be the most fun I’ve had with an NES game… like, ever. I thoroughly enjoyed so much about it, and in a way I feel that it reinvigorated my love for video games.

Despite not knowing what to do for the first few hours that I was playing, and not realising I could save within the collection I’ve been playing on to pause and pick up later, I didn’t care that I kept starting over every time I jumped back into the game. It’s a classic 80’s game, after all. How else are you supposed to play if you don’t continually replay the early levels as you try to push forward a few more screens?

However, I am glad for modern conventions like state saves and the like, as although I was loving it, I do have sensitive eyes and was struggling to play for my usual extended gaming sessions. Towards the end of my playthrough, I took advantage of save states and a few cheeky walkthroughs to get the best experience, as the game IS filled with a bunch of 80s bullshit, too.

The plot is VERY simple, and that’s something I enjoyed- as though there wasn’t much text (or subtext, for that matter) it was easy enough to follow along with. Dracula is the big bad, and we gotta storm his castle and take him and his monsters out! The visuals of the game are more detailed than I expected them to be, filled with a charming mix of monster movie and early gothic horror styles. While simple, the sprites for both Simon Belmont and the various enemies and bosses you encounter are filled with character, and with backgrounds that were filled with details- I only wish I could’ve played this on a CRT to experience the full depth! I find the CRT filters on LCD TV’s never truly mimic the way the pixels would bend and blur on those old screens, and simply opt for simple scan-line overlays that barely cut it.

As expected for a controller that consisted of basically a d-pad and two action buttons, the controls for this game are stupidly simple. This didn’t stop it from having an interesting weapons system, one that was surprisingly more complex than I initially understood it to be! Your main attack is your trusty whip, which can be upgraded a few times to have a longer reach, which is SUPREMELY helpful, and definitely felt when it’s taken away as you get hurt. The other method of attacking is via the subweapon system, which drop at various points from enemies or interactable elements of the levels. Along the way, you can collect hearts that are dropped- but these are not health. This took me a bit to figure out, as I kept dying and wondering why my health was so whack if I had been collecting so many hearts! Turns out, the hearts are more of an ammo counter for your subweapons. Once I figured this out, it really changed the way I approached the combat, and soon figured out which subweapons I enjoyed the most. I really liked the range of throwing the crosses like boomerangs across the screen, and throwing holy water to stun enemies while I whipped the hell out of them. There’s a bunch of other subweapons, those were just what I used most often, but it leaves room to experiment with what you want to keep on you, or where you want to swap out as you come across more subweapons. The more I played, the more I began to build strategies around what kinds of subweapons I had, and found that this system is actually a lot more nuanced than I assumed it to be in my early hours of play! Btw, if you want health, instead of hearts, you need to find a delicious roast leg in secret compartments in the wall. Mmmmmmm wall meat~

While the combat makes up the ‘action’ part of this game, the other part of it is platforming. Now, I really liked it once I got a feel for the controls, but it IS filled with a good dose of 80’s jank that is hard to get used to with modern gaming fingers. However, maybe it’s just because I am a cranky gamer, or because I grew up playing stuff of this era from my dad’s hand-me-downs… I loved the platforming here! I wanna reiterate just how detail filled the locations are, as it’s just dripping with character and creates a fun atmosphere to platform across. Although some stages had areas that were difficult to figure out what exactly was part of the platform I could walk across, you start to pick up cues and understand the visual language the devs are talking in. The platforming was a genuine challenge, there were times where I felt that 80s jank getting in my way, but there were also plenty of times where I felt I was so close, and that I just messed up what I was supposed to do. It helped that I could change the window boxed borders around the game, and had the gorgeous illustrated game cover to the side. It was me and Belmont’s mini skirt against the world!

And, it would be remiss of me to go this whole review without mentioning the music. IT’S GORGEOUS. I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW HARD IT WAS TO JUST CHOOSE 3 SONGS TO LINK AT THE END, THERE’S SO MANY INTERESTING TRACKS!! Considering the limitations of the 8-bit era, there is such a depth and masterful composition to these songs that it was a genuine treat to listen to. Of course I’ll be linking the classic Vampire Killer, but for such a small OST, there are so many bangers! It was so nice hearing familiar motifs across various songs, and honestly just fun hearing what I consider to be amongst the best of NES’ sound. I feel like I could listen to some of these tracks for hours, but I already have with how much I spent in some levels!

Maybe this earlier era of gaming is just something easier for me to connect with quickly, but I can confidently say that I have no nostalgia clouding my vision, as I never got the chance to play this growing up. It’s something that I always wanted to play, and it’s a series that has come to mean a lot to me the more I play and learn about it- but seriously. What a game. It’s difficult, but not in a way that makes it impossible to just pick up and start playing. If you want a challenge, and haven’t already, I cannot recommend this game enough.

Stage 01 Vampire Killer

Stage 13 Heart of Fire

Stage 16 Out of Time

~~~

Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, NES

This game fucking sucks. I love it.

In a similar style to Zelda II being a strange semi-rpg side scroller, Simon’s Quest is a bit of a departure from the simple action platformer it’s predecessor was. Though, I’d argue that this strange shake up feels more at home here than it did in Zelda II, as Castlevania was already a side scrolling game. Expanding it to exploring a whole world instead of exclusively Dracula's Castle is an interesting step, and despite the fumbling that is mainly down to poor translation and console limitations – this game was a surprising hit for me.

We continue on from the last game, following Simon as he deals with a curse placed upon him in the previous game when he defeated Dracula. To lift the curse, we must travel across the lands and retrieve Dracula’s body parts in the hopes that reassembling and defeating him once and for all will cure Simon. To do this, we must travel the land and find helpful hints and items within the various villages scattered about, and fight our way through the castles of Dracula’s loyal followers, who guard his body parts from people like Simon. The clearest way that the curse shows itself in this game through the day/night cycle, where enemies are twice as strong (or Belmont’s twice as weak), zombie-like creatures invade the villages, and all the villagers lock themselves away. I find this so fascinating because the sheer ambition of this narrative style is really pushing the limits of the NES – whether or not it was successful is to be elaborated on, but they tried and I love that.

This leads me to the perfect place to start discussing the gameplay itself, which is… ehhh… a bit of a mixed bag. As I just mentioned, the transitions from day to night are ambitious- but not great in practice. The cycle lasts about 3 minutes real time, which is far too frequent and actively destroys any and all pacing or momentum you have going. It also feels disproportionate for a cycle, the nights drag on FOREVER and the days barely last. It especially sucked when I was trying to get to a specific town with the express purpose of trying to talk with someone or buy something, only for it to turn to night just as I’d arrived. It’s just so poorly implemented due to the hardware limitations, and regardless how interesting or narratively involved it is, I’d estimate a good third of my playthrough was spent sitting in a village corner away from beasties and writing notes for this very write-up. This is THE biggest roadblock that turns people off this game, followed closely by the piss poor translation – which is a shame, because if you’re willing to trudge through all it’s failings, I actually think this is an awesome game.

There were definitely moments where I really got into this game, and even spent time thinking about it when I wasn’t playing. The enemy sprites are so cool and expressive for 8-bit, the music is even more banging (who doesn’t love bloody tears!) and there are occasional clever things to do that make it easier to progress, like throwing holy water to see where the false floors are. I also appreciated ‘quests’ like the crystal exchange, it was easy enough to follow despite the weird translation, and it was very clear that I was supposed to buy and trade them once I came across villagers who adamantly DIDN’T want to trade with my lame ass crystal. Even things as simple as coming across the house where you find the morning star merchant was really fun – I never played this as a kid, but that moment felt like a shot of pure nostalgia.

As I mentioned earlier, the translation fucking sucks here; which sucks even more because this has a few rpg elements thrown in, so it is important to actually talk to villagers and see what they have to say. One of the most well known things about this game is the botched translation regarding the red crystal; where, in the Japanese text it was clearer that to activate it and progress, you need to equip it and hold down in the right place. In English, it’s utter nonsense, and I only knew what to do as I had knowledge of this exact scenario. I wish it was translated clearer, as I had already figured out that pressing down was a good way to use the shield, and would bounce back fireballs if I stood still. It already had set up an understanding of the kind of button inputs to use with items, so it’s a shame that the instructions on what to was botched. There were some characters that had funny things to say through the strange choice in words, and I found it particularly amusing going through the village where everyone hates you. I keep repeating it, but I just need to keep saying it, I WISH THE TRANSLATION WAS BETTER. I’d recommend looking up fan translations/translation notes, as there’s a fascinating discrepancy between the two, and the JP version was more successful at setting up a certain tone and vibe amongst the villagers that helped get it just that much closer to successfully pulling off their ambitious ideas.

I can say for certain that the music helped tremendously, and this maaaaayyyyyy be my favourite soundtrack out of the trilogy. Let me replay it a thousand more times and I’ll get back to you. There’s such a bombastic feeling to the tracks when you’re walking around during the day, and at night it feels a little more subdued, but still in a kind of action-oriented way, if that makes sense. It’s dangerous for Simon to be out at night with his curse, but it’s still dangerous for the enemies at the other end of his morning star whip. I also liked the kind of eerie and adventurous vibes the castle themes have- I linked castle 1 cause its a banger, but if you’d be so inclined to check out castle 2, highly recommend.

Platforming in the game is pretty much the same as in Castlevania I, though there were more sections that felt like classic 80s bullshit. I even got stuck in a really weird spot and I found it quite amusing. It sucks a bit that water is an insta death, especially when there are some precarious platforms to jump across, but it wasn’t so bad. With regards to dying, I’m not sure I fully understand it, as you seemingly get three chances before you’re given a game over with the choice to continue. Continuing respawns you where you died, which is great, and the L is that your hearts are reset as punishment for sucking. That’s fine with me, as you’ll quickly rack up the hearts you need again when killing enemies, especially when you have the morning star, as there’s not much else to do during the night.

Before I get into the endgame stuff, I should talk about the rpg shit that’s here. When you kill enemies, you get hearts and experience points. You can level up in every castle, and doing so will expand your health and defence. There are also merchants in most towns, and a strange hooded person selling something special in each castle. Hearts aren’t just weapons ammo here, they are also currency, so there’s definitely an incentive to kill enemies instead of trying to outrun them. It was interesting to see such a basic NES system, but it worked, so I can’t complain. I’d be curious to see a modern take on this game, not only to get a chance for the original intent and ambitions to shine- as well as a more accurate translation for those of us overseas -but also to see if this rpg system should be expanded upon, or left the same. I’m not sure if I have a preference, but it is something I thought about a few times while playing (despite not generally being one for needless remakes and reimaginings lmao)

As the whole deal of this game is to collect pieces of Dracula, reassemble him, and then kick his ass for good, I found it quite interesting that you can actually equip pieces of Dracula! Using his claw and eye were particularly cool when thinking about them in-universe, not to mention they were just practical. Once you’ve collected all the pieces and make your way to Drac’s castle, I thought the set up was awesome. See, the village nearby was completely empty, save for one old lady who says “let’s live here together.” If I’m not mistaken, the town where everyone hates you is also en route to the castle, so it makes sense that they’d recognise and blame their supernatural troubles on the Belmont. By the time you get to the titular Castlevania, you’ll find that it’s completely empty.

How eerie.

I loved this, it was so unnerving, and at this point in the game, you will have battled many enemies and gotten used to keeping an eye out for them – so to enter the final castle and have it be completely devoid of life was something that stood out to me. All you have to do is find your way to the final chamber, and reassemble Dracula. His fight is piss easy, but going with the narrative in-universe, I’m fine with that! Overall, I think what made me connect with this game was how compelling the tid bits of narrative were. Not because it was outrageously complex and ground breaking – but because it gave a fitting, if tragic, context and justification to go on this journey. With the success of the Netflix Castlevania series, and the generally positive reception towards it’s spin off- Castlevania: Nocturne, I’d be incredibly interested in seeing the tale of Simon adapted and elaborated upon. Whether this is through a modern remake or animated adaptation, either would scratch that curious itch for me- but I may just have to write my own fan adaptation in the meantime, ahaha!

Near the end of the game, I did find myself getting lost as I struggled to orient myself. The ‘open’ exploration being horizontal in nature is the main reason for this, but despite this, I found it quite cool how large they were able to make this world feel for a 2D sidescroller. What sucks balls though, is that your ending will change depending on how long you take to gather up Dracula and kill him again – and most players will go through multiple day/night cycles while they play, locking themselves in for the ‘bad’ ending. That’s the one I got, though the way the text was worded didn’t seem all that bad to me. It was a positive, if tragic, outcome, all things considered. Thankfully, in the age of the internet, it’s really easy to look up the other endings – but a few years down the line when I get ACTUAL nostalgia for this game, and not just the feeling that I should've had nostalgia for this as I would've adored it as a kid; I’m certain I’ll be attempting to get the good ending for myself.

It’s clear that despite it’s many flaws, I loved this game, and consider it to be a misunderstood gem. I’d highly encourage putting in the effort to look past it’s shortcomings, find a good walkthrough for backup, and give it a try. It didn’t quite hit all of it’s lofty ambitions due to limitations in hardware, and was also undercut further in the west with the poor translation, but I truly felt the passion the team put into this, and enjoyed it all the same.

Stage Theme Bloody Tears

Castle Theme 01 Dwellings of Doom

Day Time The Silence of Daylight

~~~

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, NES

The opening ‘cinematic’ of this game says everything you need to know about this game: Castlevania is back, and better than ever.

I found it quite charming that the intro had an old film look, with the visuals of the tape rolling to make it feel all the more grand. By this point, the devs knew what they wanted to make- confident in creating the gothic horror imagery they want to portray, and succeeding! I said it eariler, and I’ll say it again – I am so surprised and excited to see just how much detail they managed to put into an 8-bit NES game, and Dracula's Curse is a step up once again.

The gameplay is a return to the familiar style of the first game- though, the second hasn’t been completely forgotten, as at the completion of areas, you have to choice on which path to take as you continue your journey. It’s interesting, and though it doesn’t feel as open as Simon’s Quest, the world here still feels very large.

This is also helped by the fact that there are so many innovations on the gameplay to keep it feeling fresh. There are new gimmicks to certain levels, like swamp water acting like quicksand, water rising levels, and more complexity to boss fights. There are also some quality of life changes I noticed: in Castle II, I often died when platforming as my jumps would be compromised by hitting my head on a block above me and falling directly into water below. Here in Castle III, I noticed that when you jump under some platform bricks, you can jump through your full arc instead of hitting your head on them. Clearly, I died enough this way in II that it was noticed and appreciated here.

The main new thing to this game, however, is the buddy system going on. While you journey, you have the option to come across some friends who will join you. There’s Grant Danasty; a pirate guy who can climb walls and ceilings, and uses a short dagger to attack- Sypha Belnades; a powerful magic user who is weak at everything else- and Alucard, the son of Dracula and bearer of PENIS BLAST!!!!

Okay… He can turn into a bat and fly around the level, and use magic fireballs, it just looks like he’s throwing it from his penis. Out of the three recruitable characters, Sypha is the only one who doesn’t have a boss fight. Grant was turned into a monster by Dracula, so you have to fight and knock some sense into him- after which, he joins you. And Alucard challenges you to a battle, of which he’s using as a gauge to see if you are strong enough to help him with his patricidal agenda. Trevor Belmont is the guy you start with, and who is always available to switch back to, though he’s exactly what you’d expect from a Belmont. This character switching system is quite fun, though I don’t think it’s any secret that I love Alucard and therefore mainly played as him or Trevor for most the game. I did start a replay to make sure I recruited everyone and try out their move sets- everyone has a special ability that uses the hearts as ammo, and has different strengths and weaknesses compared to Trevor’s more well-roundedness (especially when you’ve upgraded his whip!)

The music here is absolutely stunning, people love the Castlevania soundtracks for a reason, and it’s due to the masterful composition of this trilogy. There’s even a familiar deja vu to enjoy amongst all the new tracks.

I honestly don’t have much more to say on this game, I just enjoyed playing it and didn’t feel the need to take many notes, as it’s a solid step up and refinement for the series. My only real criticisms are that some of the sprites readability isn’t very good, and detracts from the detail filled world. The background blended in with intractable objects and resulted in times where I couldn’t clearly see where the stairs and platforms I’m supposed to be using actually were. I found this the worst in 9-01, and struggled with eye strain the most in this game. As I’m playing on a modern tv, I do wonder if playing on a CRT would’ve made this critique a moot point, but I’ll just have to chalk that up to the sacrifice of detailed pixel art in the 8-bit era.

Oh, and I guess I should mention the fight with Death, as it was definitely a challenge- one I found harder than the Dracula fight. So hard, in fact, that my only note on it was: DEATH ON 8-03 WAS INSANELY HARD! SAVE STATE FUDGE FOR DESSERT!

This was just a great time, and I’m tied between recommending this or Castle I as the definitive experience for new players wanting to try the og stuff. I’d say just play the whole trilogy, but I had such a great time with all of these games, and it was super fun playing the game that the Netflix Animated series was mostly based on.

I love Castlevania.

Beginning [Level 1]

Mad Forest

Riddle

~~~

Super Mario Odyssey, Switch

The first time a friend got me to try Odyssey was in late 2019. It was his favourite game at the time, and he really wanted me to play it. I gave it a good 40 min or so, but I really wasn’t enjoying it. I commented that I felt that it was trying too hard to recapture the style of Mario Galaxy and failing, and that I’d rather play galaxy instead. Obviously, 40 min isn’t enough time to truly understand WHY I didn’t click with it, but now, after 25+ hours, I can tell you exactly why.

It’s shit.

I was selling old switch games I never played and was able to take advantage of a deal to get Odyssey relatively cheap, and it was the only switch game in stock at the time that seemed somewhat interesting. I thought I may as well give The Mario Title for the switch a go- and give it a fair go at that. I played through every world until I finished the game, exploring and collecting as much as I could, but there was no way I was going to attempt 100% completion.

The basic rundown of the game is the base Mario formula you’d expect. Peach is kidnapped, it’s Bowser’s fault, go save the Princess. The companion character, your hat, joins you as his sister has been kidnapped with Peach; so you both have a common goal. There’s other details to it, but I really couldn’t get invested and I often found myself very lost plot-wise. In 3D Mario fashion, every new instalment seems to stray further into that vague open-ended, pseudo open world style of gameplay. Having such a loosely connected plot and not much more of it connected to the main goal of collecting power moons lacked the clear motivations I needed to get through the game. Like, what am I doing? Am I just collecting power moons? To upgrade my ship and travel to a new kingdom? To do what…? Collect more power moons?

There wasn’t any charm here for me, and I constantly felt as though the game were hollow and devoid of the Mario characteristics I’d expected as a bare minimum. Perhaps thats a failing on my part, but I DO enjoy games where there’s not strictly a reason why the game is happening, just that it is – but you see… those games are usually mechanically interesting, or just plain fun enough that it outweighs my need for plot to help suck me in. This game was not fun, I don’t think I enjoyed myself at all, maybe save for moments where I was desperately trying to look for positives and begrudgingly noting that one area isn’t that bad… I guess. It just feels shit, and I had a similar problem with BOTW. It may be something as simple as outgrowing the target audience, or being a nostalgiaphille who prefers the games from decades ago ‘just cause;’ but I really feel that there is a disconnect in this era of Nintendo and I’m struggling to enjoy any of it, despite generally wanting to enjoy them.

The main gimmick of this game is your hat friend (who’s name is Cappy, despite being a top hat?), and their ability to possess creatures all over the various Kingdoms and utilise their unique skills to complete platforming puzzles across the levels.

I HATE THIS.

All the possessions are functionally the same thing. The fucking onion that I hate. The octopus with a butthole. The fire thing. THEY JUST JUMP. YOU KNOW WHO ELSE CAN JUMP? MARIO. GIVE HIM A FUCKING IRON CAP OR FIRE FLOWER TO CROSS THE DOMAIN AND LET ME JUST JUMP AND DO ACTUAL PLATFORMING. Some of the possessions are really stupid too. I can be a slab of meat, or a manhole, but I can’t be a spiny? There’s hammer bros, AND FIRE HAMMER BROS, BUT MARIO CAN’T JUST BE MARIO BUT WITH A FIRE FLOWER?? I CAN BE A PIRAHA PLANT IN THE LUNCH LAND, BUT NOT IN DONKEY KONG CITY??? WHAT IS GOING ON!?

I remember complaining about the arbitrary and limiting nature of the possessions to my friend, and he said, “If these were flowers you ran into to absorb their powers the same way you do in Galaxy you wouldn't be bitching.” Yeah, cause then I wouldn’t be some big stone guy with glasses to use bad version of the lens of truth, or some fucking onion. I don't want to be an ONION I want to be MARIO. Power ups in Mario are ADDITIONAL powers using MARIO as a base. These possessions are REMOVING Mario and ONLY letting me use the new power. THAT’S SHIT! I would rather deal with power ups like in Mario Galaxy where it’s an addition to the Mario abilities, or a strategic gain one lose another (like the bee mushroom, you can fly and walk/climb on honey, which Mario cannot, but if you touch water you’ll lose the power, unlike Mario who can swim) Said friend brought up the spring mushroom in galaxy, but I hated that power up for the exact same reasons I hate these possessions! They’re dumb gimmicks that don’t do anything!! Most the possessions are various forms of limited jumping, and if it’s not that, it’s some dumb one (maybe two) trick gimmick thing that controls poorly!! Whoop dee doo!!!

To top it off, the base Mario controls suck too. They felt terrible and really weird for me. The depth perception is the worst I’ve experienced in a 3D Mario; I’d often try to jump off things and be flung in a direction no where near where I directed it, and I couldn’t get the hang of the motion controls. The motion controls on the switch are the worst I’ve ever played; and I asked friends and went through various forums trying to make sure my joycons were calibrated properly, but I can only conclude that the controls just suck. They suck badly. I was never able to perform the cap jumps with any consistency, so I avoided using them and had to get creative in other ways (or just give up on trying to get to particularly difficult-to-reach areas). One thing that WOULD’VE HELPED would be if you were still able to access those particular moves with button controls, HOWEVER you’re fucked if you wanna play handheld only, or just can’t seem to figure out the motion controls. This is yet another reason why I will never understand the switch lite (or the fact that the switch is touted as a hybrid console to play docked or handheld, but it’s clearly meant to be docked with game design that actively fucks over players in handheld modes or are just otherwise unwilling or unable to use motion!), but to not even have a toggleable option to play with button only or motion controls is baffling. WHY IS ONE OF THE MAIN DRAWS OF THE GAME LOCKED BEHIND MOTION CONTROLS!? I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND.

The camera was also incredibly frustrating. It was locked onto some kind of predetermined path (one that felt specifically designed to yank away from where I was TRYING to position it) which made exploring even more frustrating. Half the moons of each level that you need to collect are hidden in corners and strange areas that you’re intended to find through exploration, which you do in part with the camera controls. If I’m constantly in a battle with the camera, despite it being one I can supposedly control, what the hell am I supposed to do!? Even when I’d position it where I wanted, as soon as I started walking, it’d reposition itself, but never in ways where I could leave the camera and just trust that it would generally point to where I wanted. What’s the point.

And, not that boss fights are anything stand-out to me in a Mario game, but all the fights FUCKING SUCKED. I hate the controls and I hate these ugly rabbids looking fuckers! I don’t even like the extended Bowser clown kid lineup, but that’s preferable to random ass rabbit characters. GROSS. What’s wrong with Bowser and Bowser Jr? The lack of Bowser’s presence felt sucky to me as well, I missed him and feeling the looming threat and consequences of his actions if we don’t step up and punch his dick. It’s just a wedding. Oh no. A wedding that Peach doesn’t consent to and even though Bowser is evil and pushy, he still has some minimal form of respect to leave Peach alone when she walks out. (Also, did anyone else feel a bit weird when Mario joined in on trying to propose as an alternate option for Peach? Just me?) When we finally got to Bowser’s dick-punching… THAT SUCKED TOO! Shitty icing on the shitty cake. Fart_Reverb.mp3

While I’m complaining about game mechanics, I want to talk about the main collectables – coins and moons. Theres… not really a difference between them, to be honest. Moons are the same deal as the power stars from Galaxy… but dumb. They’re just hanging out in the levels, free for the taking the same way coins are. Even if there were little mini game things to complete before getting a moon, they felt more like an obligation on the game dev’s part to ‘spice it up’ with ‘varied methods of collection.’ Some moons are more special than others for reasons I cannot see- why are some moons given a cutscene when you collect them, but others aren’t? Why is the ‘grand star’ of moons just three moons at once, which feels even more un-special. I also don’t like that there’s no intrinsic stakes to collecting the moons, it’s the exact same value to find a moon by simply walking up to it, or doing a simple ground pound, to something more complicated that actually requires platforming or some other kind of challenge. Some of these moons are easier to find than coins, which is why they feel as devalued as them. I vastly prefer the way this was handled in Galaxy, where there are different tiers of stars to make it feel proportionate to the effort you put in to collecting them. There’s the power stars themselves, which are usually the main goal of any mission and require some traversal and platforming or puzzle solving of some kind to find and unlock. There’s the power stars that are broken up into bits, where the challenge is much easier but spread out so you have to collect all the bits before unlocking the star, and there’s the grand power stars that were usually locked behind a boss fight. There were easily understood stakes with that system, but here in Odyssey, there’s not a single difference between finding a single moon or a cluster of three, other than the physical number. It’s dumb, and it feels lazy and almost insulting that they’d strip it down to something so basic. Kids could understand Galaxy, why do you feel the need to make it even more basic and like a participation trophy?

The thing with the moons being the same value as coins, is that the coins don’t matter either. Coins are the health currency of the game, but also the economic currency. If you die, coins are deducted and you respawn. If you die with no coins… nothing happens. Your health isn’t even restored when you collect coins, which breaks any connection between coins and health to me. If they’re taken away as punishment, shouldn’t they also reward health when collected? There’s not even the classic 100 coins = 1up here. (Did you also notice that there’s not a single mushroom item in the game? Way to go on skipping more Mario iconography!) Coins being as perfunctory as they are, and in some cases even rarer to come across compared to moons, completely deflated any value either of them have to me. Why am I collecting either? Sure, I can unlock more levels if I collect enough moons, and I can buy stuff with my coins, but every level has a seperate local currency that you have to collect to spend within that world anyway! WHAT IS THE POINT OF ANY OF IT!!

Lastly, I want to touch on the visual and audio vibes of the game, of which I feel disappointed in both. Visually, yeah, there’s a lot of detail and it’s pretty and whatever… but it all felt very bland and hollow to me. So many levels are surrounded by a sprawling abyss of nothing, which felt really uninspired and made me miss when efforts were put into skyboxes and distant parallaxed background elements to make it feel dense and detailed without overwhelming the player or the system. A particular example for me is Bowser’s Weeb Ass Castle – for the end goal of the game, it REALLY felt like something you could slap together in Unity (derogatory). Where’s the spectacle, the theatrics? I can’t even recall anything feeling particularly Bowser about it, it’s just a Japanese inspired level…

I couldn’t even enjoy levels that were technically fuller and more detailed, due to recognising characteristics of other bland levels that come before and after. It felt like an illusion, that the levels had so much shit there, yet there was barely anything to do. Gripes with previous 3D Mario entries, warranted gripes, are ‘fixed’ by… doing the same thing. It’s just that it looks prettier with modern graphics, so it’s technically better enough for the devs to say, “nuh-uh! We fixed it!”

Take for example, a big issue many people have had with all 3D Mario games since Mario 64, is how the pacing feels choppy with continually getting spat out at the end of a level when you collect a star. That’s something frustrating that stayed all the way until Galaxy, where even when you could reasonably collect two or more power stars within the one level, you’re forced to exit the level and re-enter it fro each individual star. I can say similar things about botw, and them taking on the criticism of “there’s too much text!! We want voice acting!!” to become a game that had poorly voice acted cutscenes, ALONG WITH WALLS OF TEXT TO READ ANYWAY. In Odyssey, there are STILL issues with the pacing of collecting stars and still being forced to come to a halt while you watch a cutscene or need to re-enter a level, but because it’s not the same explicit getting-spat-out-of-a-level as previous games, it’s somehow the ‘fix’ players have been asking for. Do you see how that’s a non-solution dressed up as the fix made in response to criticism, without the devs actually addressing or even understanding WHY complaints were made about it in the first place? But cause it’s been ‘fixed’ in a weird way, its not only ‘innovative’ for the newest era of 3D Mario, but its alllll better.

So much of this game felt like a very empty identity crisis, barely resembling Mario or the Nintendo polish I’ve come to expect. Mario has always been a weird series with things that really push what it means to BE a Mario game – but I feel for most previous entries in both his 2D and 3D adventures, there’s always been enough recognisably Mario within the game that it’s easier to roll with whatever whacky thing they’re introducing. Galaxy was already pushing it as a ‘recognisably Mario’ kind of game, but at least it was charming with some solid NPCs and a decent, if simple, plot to follow and tie everything together. I’m more than willing to admit that rose-tinted nostalgia glasses may be fuelling the way I’m digging my heels in on this during comparisons to Galaxy, but I feel that Galaxy was the furthest I can appreciate the pushed boundaries of what makes a Mario game, and where I draw the line in no longer being able to connect with and appreciate it.

Apart from looking bland, the game often sounded bland too. The first couple of worlds have very ambient and minimalistic music, which sucked in my opinion – and although there are some great tracks later on, it just made me feel even more like this game lacked the Mario charm I’d been told to expect. The top 3 tracks I’ve linked at the end are all really nice songs, though they sound like they’re from completely different games, and none of them a Mario one. I felt saddened by the fact that I had to play through 5 worlds before I came across a track that I enjoyed, and even then, it was just enjoyable in a general sense, and not in a way that felt like it belonged in a Mario game. When I listen to the tracks I don’t even know WHICH LEVEL they belonged to for most of them, they don’t sound like the music that should be playing when you’re playing, and more like I just muted the game and put on a playlist of other music.

There’s a lot of elements in Mario soundtracks across the games that can be drawn on to further refine and evolve for a new game, but again, I can only describe the soundtrack as an identity crisis. While there are some of the classic tracks we all know and love rearranged for the game, it was so few and far between that it actually felt jarring to hear Mario music in what is supposedly a Mario game. One of the last worlds you unlock is a massive reinterpretation of the outside of Peach’s Castle from Mario 64, and thats the main area that you hear anything that sounds like traditional Mario in this game. It was disappointing, and I found myself too burnt out and cynical to enjoy something that felt like too much like nostalgia bait instead of loving homage. Overall, while listening to the soundtrack again as I write this, it is genuinely and objectively a nice collection of songs.; it just lacks a certain je ne sais quoi and the specific Mario-flavoured cohesion to tie it all together in my opinion.

One thing that I did enjoy- for the most part -were the 2D platformer sections present in every world. In these sections, you go through a pipe and get turned into an 8-bit Mario to platform across an area and get a power moon. In the early hours of my playthrough, I considered this the highlight of my playthrough… but the more I played, feeling frustrated with the intended platforming and level progression of the game, the more I felt jaded towards these sections. They’re genuinely nice, a short section that’s a return to form for cranky old gamers like myself, and accompanying them is an 8-bit remix of the level’s theme, and Mario will be wearing pixel interpretations of whatever outfit you had on. It’s fun! I want to love it more than I do, but towards the end of my playthough, it began to feel like pandering in order to secure old fans as part of the target audience, while also capturing kids and new fans that are more easily excited by putting a hat on a dinosaur and being able to run into things with bad controls.

They’re spreading themselves thin, in a way that feels non-committal in a way that’s overly safe. I would’ve rathered they put more effort into buckling down and making the possession concept a lot stronger, or whatever other weird direction they wanted to go in, and just believe in it. They’ve already built games around the concept of ‘Mario but he has a water gun,’ and ‘Mario but there’s weird gravity;’ but where those games felt more successful is that they felt like they put more effort into exploring that concept in multiple ways – whereas I feel that theres not really anything fun, interesting or innovative about the possessions in this game. For a game that’s only defence against most of my critiques being, “but it’s for kids! And people new to Mario!!” I want to ask, what exactly is this promising for the future of 3D Mario? The whole game wasn’t that memorable, and that mechanic felt so all-over-the-place that it didn’t get a chance to really shine. I can’t really visualise any levels or gaming moments when I hear the soundtrack or think of this game, and I’m a more visual thinker- that should be easy for me! It’s a glorified tech demo, and even that is a generous description in my eyes. It’s just so epic to play a Mario game where you’re encouraged to not play as Mario for most of it! (But it’s all still Mario, because you have his hat and moustache! Duh!)

I feel like I have so much more to say, but it would be getting even more nitpicky and whingy than it already is. I’ve cut back a lot of what I wrote down when playing, this is the SHORT version!

Well, ok it’s the shorter-but-still-a-classic-Rads-review-slash-retrospective. I’m not really sure what to call these, retrospective feels the most appropriate, but yeah. That’s all I’ll say about Mario Odyssey for now. My copy has found a much better home being regifted to my younger cousins who got a family switch last Christmas. They enjoy it very much, and I fucking hated it and what it represents.

Fuck you, Mario Odyssey!

Steam Gardens

Bubblaine

Bowser's Castle 2

#rads reviews #goty #not tagging individual games again. it can be a surprise when you read more :P

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