Mario Kart World (2025)

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I don’t think there’s been a bigger shake-up to the Mario Kart formula than the changes in Mario Kart World. For decades, every Mario Kart game has followed the same basic formula: grands prix consisting of 4 tracks, each track being 3 laps. There were some exceptions of course, some tracks were long routes that didn’t loop. Mario Kart World takes this concept even further; the whole game takes place in an open world with the tracks being scattered about. Driving from one course to another is part of the races, which is undoubtedly a controversial change. But I appreciate the commitment that Mario Kart World has to its central idea of a connected racing world.

As soon as I opened the game I hopped right into the open world. I enjoyed being able to drive around each track and the surrounding areas, taking in the details and scenic environments. There are characters hanging around, cars driving the roads, and other racers zipping around the tracks. Hunting down collectibles like the Peach Coins and Mystery Panels can be a fun little hunt, but I found myself absolutely absorbed in the P-Switch challenges. Across the world there are hundreds of these micro-challenges, and they are decently varied. They could be small races, timed coin collections, or brief challenges that utilize the new mechanics such as rail grinding. There was even one where my cart transformed into an 18-wheeler and then a helicopter to reach the goal in time.

I think if I was a kid, I would happily spend dozens of hours aimlessly driving around the map of Mario Kart World. Even as an adult there’s something about the design that makes it hard to step away from just driving around and seeing what you can do. The world is so amazingly realized and each major area has much more going on than just the racing tracks. I wish there was a proper adventure mode like most racing games with an open world. A campaign with races and challenges that escalate in difficulty as you progress. Honestly, I would have even been happy with just the ability to play the Grands Prix, Knockout Tours, and Time Trials while in the open world. I would have loved being able to be fully immersed in the world, playing the cups as I found them rather than through a menu.

A huge contributing factor to making the world so engaging to just drive around is all the new mechanics. While you can play Mario Kart World like any other Mario Kart game, you can also choose to try to master things like charging jumps, riding on walls, grinding on rails, and using directional tricks to change your trajectory mid-air. There are tons of opportunities to learn how to string these mechanics together to take unexpected paths and shortcuts. And in the open world, the game can almost be treated like a platformer where you jump, bounce, wall-ride and rail-grind to reach secrets. All these new tricks can also be utilized in the traditional races, but aren’t strictly necessary to win offline. Mastering a new shortcut can be super satisfying, and there are plenty that are totally reasonable, even for casual players.

One of the biggest shocks to me while playing Mario Kart World was during my first Grand Prix. When I realized that most races in the cup would only consist of mostly traveling between the courses and only one lap around the actual track, I was pretty disheartened. The tracks are the interesting parts of the race, both visually and mechanically. Most of the connecting bits are wide open highways lacking any sharp corners or interesting obstacles. As I kept playing the concept grew on me in the context that the races take place organically in the world. I just think the execution needed some tweaking.

I think the most obvious and easiest solution would have been to do at least two laps once you arrived at the actual courses. The races would end up being a bit longer as a result, but a single lap on most tracks is only about 45 seconds long. I think the more elegant solution would have been to really flesh out the areas surrounding the tracks so that the connections would be more interesting. Instead of just having a highway surrounded by snowbanks, I wish we drove up winding mountain roads. Instead of surfing on the top of a wide-open ocean, I wish we raced around coral reefs and underwater caves. I’d love to see more set pieces and spectacle paired with more interesting roads to race on. I suspect that the connecting tracks are generally straighter because a lot of ground needs to be covered to cross the world to the next track. But this could’ve alleviated by either condensing the world a bit, or by having the connecting highways increase your speed like certain sections in Rainbow Road or Bowser’s Castle.

One of the big new additions is the Knockout Tour game mode. Knockout Tour makes the best use of the open world of Mario Kart World as each race consists of one long continuous track through the world, broken up into six segments. At the end of each segment, the four last-placed racers get eliminated. I love the concept, having one long course that progresses through a bunch of different environments really captures the spirit of a cross-country race. And because the race begins with 24 players all fighting to stay out of last place, Knockout Tour plays into the chaotic carnage of Mario Kart. The wide highways are perfect for accommodating a pack of 20+ players all bombarding each other with items. And the roads are full of traffic and obstacles, sometimes hurling their own items to further add to the pandemonium.

The one downside of Knockout Tour is that it isn’t nearly as enjoyable to play offline against CPUs. The mode’s strength is playing with a group of friends or similarly skilled players, leaning into the mayhem of Mario Kart. Everyone is grouped together, fighting for survival. Against CPUs however, it is far too easy to get an early lead and then just cruise to victory. Because the races are fairly long and are on rather direct and wide highways, it can be boring to cruise along in first place for minutes at a time. This isn’t a problem in the traditional Grand Prix because the races are short, you don’t have time to build a substantial lead and even if you do the race will end soon. Moreover, the tracks in Grand Prix are more interesting to drive, even if you are in first place by yourself it can be fun to zip around corners. Knockout Tour’s tracks are built for pandemonium, so if you find yourself to be significantly more skilled than your opposition it can be a boring drive to the finish line.

There’s no question that Mario Kart World has a masterful presentation. The visuals are absolutely stunning; they keep the cartoony style of Mario but have such incredibly high fidelity and detail that it’s hard not to be impressed. The tracks are a mix of new and remixed classics to fuel your nostalgia. But the real star is the soundtrack. Nearly 350 songs total with many of them being brand new live arrangements of classic Mario songs. Genres ranging from jazz, to classical, to bossa nova, to rock and more. The songs lead into each other and effortlessly transform as you drive across the world. I could spend hours driving around the world just admiring the scenery and listening to the gorgeous arrangements. 

Overall, I’m glad that Mario Kart World took the series in a completely new direction. While I would’ve loved to see the open world utilized more with a fully-fledged campaign, I think it was a worthwhile addition. The world is a giant playground filled with scenic vistas and fun mini-challenges. The Grand Prix mode suffers a bit from the over-reliance on connecting highways over traditional tracks. But the new Knockout Tour mode is an excellent utilization of the open world for cross-country races. And all the new mechanics such as rail-grinding and wall-riding are simultaneously accessible and take enormous skill to master. It is for these reasons that I give Mario Kart World an 8.5/10. I think Mario Kart 8 Deluxe perfected the traditional Mario Kart formula, which is why I appreciate that Mario Kart World made huge changes to stand out from its predecessors.

Donkey Kong Bananza (2025)

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The last time Donkey Kong was the star of a 3D game was 1999. The last time Donkey Kong was the star of any game was 2014. Imagine my surprise when the first blockbuster title for the Nintendo Switch 2 is revealed to be Donkey Kong Bananza. Nintendo seems to have a monopoly on great 3D platformers, so I was thrilled to see what they would do with the Donkey Kong franchise. And it does have a unique twist: completely destructible environments. 

The premise is simple; an evil corporation is pilfering the world’s supply of Banandium Gems to power their machinery. Their goal is to dig to the center of the planet and find the Banandium Root, a mythical object said to grant any wish. Donkey Kong teams up with a young Pauline, uncovering their hidden powers and collecting Banadium Gems to reach the planet’s core and find the Banandium Root for themselves.

Donkey Kong Bananza is not a typical 3D platformer; it leans more heavily into being a massive collectathon. There are 777 different Banandium Gems to collect spread across over a dozen humongous stages. Most of these areas have multiple sublayers, each one being the size of a level from Super Mario Odyssey. It cannot be overstated how ginormous this game is, especially if you want to collect everything possible.

The main draw of the game is its core gameplay: exploring, smashing, and collecting. The developers absolutely nailed how moment to moment gameplay flows. The levels are packed with Banandium Gems as well as other collectibles like fossils. As you explore, you can smack the ground to collect bits of gold. This ground-smacking doubles as a sonar, revealing nearby gems and fossils. This leads you to smash through the terrain around you to uncover your prize, being showered with gold. Then you smack the ground to collect the gold, which may reveal even more nearby collectibles. It’s an immensely addicting loop that tickles the brain. The satisfaction of smashing through terrain, hearing that sweet sound of gold, and collecting a Gem is so hard to step away from.

This loop is further enhanced by just how good it feels to play as Donkey Kong. Obviously, having a completely destructible environment is a blast to smash through. Donkey Kong is a huge, lumbering ape and Donkey Kong Bananza captures that feeling. At first, it feels a bit clumsy to control as Donkey Kong isn’t very fast, agile, and cannot jump particularly far or high. But as you master the game, you learn how to make use of your full moveset. You can rip out a piece of terrain, then surf off it or jump on it in midair. You’d be surprised how much distance you can cover combining these tricks with standard somersaults and jumps.

Donkey Kong Bananza is obviously inspired by Super Mario Odyssey in structure. The huge number of collectibles being one key factor, but another being the smaller challenges hidden within each level. There are tons of ruins to find which often act as straightforward platforming or combat challenges. I really enjoyed the more focused challenges. They also often highlight the game’s Bananza abilities, which are short but powerful transformations. They allow you to briefly transform into a different animal, gaining additional abilities such as gliding, sprinting, or high-jumping.

The developers were very clever with many of the challenges. While many are straightforward, some required creative thinking to reach the Banandium Gems. Making use of the destructible terrain to make funnels, walls, or other useful structures is not something that I expected from the game, but I certainly appreciated it. I was worried when the game was initially revealed that the destructible environments would get stale, but that fear was dispelled. The mix of platforming, exploration, combat arenas, and puzzle-like challenges provided a healthy amount of variety to this massive game.

Importantly, Donkey Kong Bananza has a very key difference from Super Mario Odyssey: the skill tree. In the Super Mario Odyssey, completing tasks and collecting Moons garners nothing but personal satisfaction. In Donkey Kong Bananza, each gem contributes to earning skill points which can be spent on new abilities. Some of these abilities are straightforward such as extra health, but others are major additions such as the ability to jump off of held chunks. The skill tree is extensive, meaning each gem is important if you want to fully unlock DK’s abilities. This additional extrinsic reward makes hunting down every gem even more enticing.

The Donkey Kong series has always been top dog when it comes to presentation. Both the visuals and music of the Donkey Kong Country games are absolutely iconic. The music of Donkey Kong Bananza is a bit more understated, but it does have the occasional energetic and catchy tune. I loved how all the different areas looked in the game. Everything is bright, colorful, vibrant, and cheerful. Each area has a little hub of characters with shops and other things to discover. It gives each area a homey feel, cementing the game’s coziness. My only gripe with the game’s presentation is that the camera can often feel clunky, especially when digging through the earth. It can get be a bit disorienting to try to smash your way through certain areas, trying to figure out which direction you are even moving in.

Unfortunately, I do think that Donkey Kong Bananza has a couple key issues, and these issues compound on each other. The first major problem is that the game is just too easy, especially at the start of the game. Donkey Kong has always been known for being the difficult Nintendo platformer franchise, but this iteration doesn’t show its teeth until the post-game. Many of the early areas in the game have barely any hazards, making it easy to just smash your way through entire areas. The game only introduces more dangerous obstacles about a third of the way through the game, which could be over a dozen hours of playtime. Even then, most of the challenges are pretty easy.

I’ve already mentioned how huge this game is. In some ways, having such a massive world to explore is great. In other ways, it’s a detriment. Some of the main layers are comprised of 3 or 4 sublayers, each being a massive level in their own right. I love collectathons, but at some point, spending hours upon hours in the same area gets dull. This is exacerbated by the game’s lack of difficulty; without any friction I often felt like I was just going through the motions collecting gems and fossils with little resistance. The game would have benefited from slimming down some of the larger areas and focusing on more difficult challenges.

Even though I wish the game was a bit more challenging, there’s no denying how much pure fun it is. Running around imaginative environments, smashing through anything in you way as you constantly collect goodies is reminiscent of the glory days of 3D collectathons. The developers nailed the lumbering movement of a hulking ape, but managed to sneak in some tricks to make movement an enjoyable learning curve. It is for these reasons that I give Donkey Kong Bananza a 9/10. It’s a triumphant return for not only Donkey Kong, but collectathons as a genre.

Pragmata (2026)

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As I’ve gotten older and life has gotten busier, I’ve come to appreciate the importance of pacing in games. While many players may prefer hundred-hour-long RPGs, I would much rather play a compact experience that doesn’t pad out its length with sprawling open worlds or endless side quests. Pragmata is the perfect example of a game that masterfully paces out its content, and its unique spin on combat makes it one of my favorite modern third-person-shooters. 

Pragmata takes place in a future where the Moon has been industrialized. A corporation, Delphi, has built a complex that harvests Lunafilament, a unique resource with unparalleled utility in 3D printing technology. Hugh and a team of engineers have been dispatched to the Moon to investigate recent radio silence from the Moon base. Upon arrival, all humans seem to have mysteriously vanished. Hugh quickly discovers that a rogue AI has taken over the base and is manufacturing robots to dispatch his team. Hugh is only saved because he encounters Diana, a specialized robot that takes the form of a little girl.   

While we don’t know why Diana exists quite yet, or why the all-seeing security system has gone rogue, Hugh and Diana form an immediate bond as they set off to investigate. I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of the increasingly common “small child teaches gruff old man to love again” trope. There’s never tension or conflict between Hugh and Diana, just a wholesome father-daughter relationship as she learns what it means to be human. The writing can feel a bit stiff at times, Diana has natural dialogue for a 7-year-old, but I found that some of Hugh’s lines were a little cheesy.

The story itself I think is fine. Most of the plot happens towards the end as the truth of Diana’s origin is revealed, most of the game is just the journey to the finale. The narrative is more about Hugh and Diana and their relationship, which was pleasant, but their instant connection meant that there wasn’t a ton of character growth to fuel the plot. I wish the story explored its worldbuilding concepts a bit deeper. I would’ve loved seeing some commentary on the implications of Lunafilament, the material that can be used to clone anything. What would happen to industry and life on Earth if this was made readily available? The game very briefly touches on how AI displaces workers, which is definitely a poignant topic in today’s world. But it could’ve been far more interesting to explore how AI and the ability to manufacture everything with ease could lead to a post-scarcity society, or if the company in charge had more nefarious goals. As it stands, the story is alright, but it won’t blow anyone away. 

The combat is the highlight of Pragmata. It puts a unique spin on its third-person-shooter gameplay: dynamic hacking. You quickly discover that bullets do negligible damage to the reinforced exteriors of the robot enemies, but Diana can hack them to briefly separate their armor, allowing you to deal real damage. When hacking an enemy, a small grid appears, and navigating to the goal node exposes the robots. It starts simple, 4×4 grids with nothing but a start and end node. But as you progress the grids grow and block off tiles, forming mazes. There are other nodes that you can equip that have additional effects such as stuns, damage multipliers, or mind-control.

In isolation, hacking is a super simplistic mini-game. But the genius is that inserting it into the middle of combat makes the entire experience far more dynamic. Dodging attacks and hitting back is the basis of most action games, so throwing a wrench into that formula was a fantastic idea. My mental bandwidth could no longer only be concerned with dodging and shooting but now I had to contend with solving small mazes, deciding which nodes I wanted to use, and which enemies to hack. It feels a bit awkward at first, trying to teach your brain a new task, but the controls are seamless and the end result is both strategic and immensely satisfying.

Since you need to hack enemies to deal damage, the developers were smart in allowing the player to deal massive damage in the short openings that you get. There are four categories of weapons: primary, attack, tactical, and defense. Primary weapons have infinite regenerating ammo, but the others have limited capacity. Primary ammo regeneration is a bit slow and other weapons drop frequently, encouraging the player to actually use their other tools instead of holding onto them for a rainy day. The non-primary weapons all feel incredibly powerful and satisfying to use. A single shotgun blast or charged laser beam will eviscerate most enemies. That’s not to say that there isn’t a fair bit of challenge, having to juggle hacking, dodging, aiming at weak points, and ammo management makes those moments where you can just blast a robot to dust all the more satisfying.

Additionally, the tactical and defense weapons are fantastic as well. Electromagnetic nets that stop enemies in their tracks, decoys to distract foes, deployable shield zones, and grenade launchers to knock robots to the ground. Pragmata doles out all these tools at a fair pace, letting the player experiment and find out what you like best. Most of the weapons and tools are balanced well and they feel powerful, truly giving the player the choice to select what they like best. There’s also a progression system in which you can upgrade your preferred weapons, making them even more potent as you face tougher and tougher enemies.

What most impressed me about Pragmata was its pacing. I often find that many modern games drag out their campaigns and fill the world with fluff under the illusion of providing more “content”. I see all too often online discussions where players treat a lengthy run time as an objectively good thing. With a full time job, house projects, and now a kid, my gaming time is limited. I love when a game respects my time and doesn’t pad itself out with an unnecessary open world, mindless side quests, or a repetitive campaign. Pragmata briskly moves from zone to zone, each introducing new weapons and enemies. There are some hidden upgrades to find but they aren’t far off the beaten path.

There aren’t any side quests and each area is fairly linear. There is some incentive to explore but ultimately you could get through each main area in only an hour or two. I appreciated how quickly the game was willing to move on. Introduce some new enemies, give the player a couple new weapons to test out, a new biome to gaze on, and a boss at the end to cap it off. It doesn’t linger, and this is the kind of game that could easily overstay its welcome. Hacking enemies during combat is a unique twist, but it could’ve gotten stale and tedious in a poorly paced game. For people who want more out of the game, there is a set of 30 training missions that test your skills, as well as 10 post-game challenges. I enjoyed the game enough to do all of these, but I’m glad that the developers kept the main campaign so lithe and kept some content as an optional bonus. 

The thing that disappointed me the most about Pragmata was how it didn’t quite utilize its setting to its maximum potential. I was drawn in by the prospect of a sci-fi shooter taking place on the Moon, but it feels like so much of the game just takes place in sterile metal corridors. Each area that you progress to is its own biome, and the concepts behind the biomes are great. A neon metropolis showing off the industrial capabilities of the 3D printers, a more naturalistic area with trees showing that even organic material can be printed, and the Lunafilament mines on the surface of the Moon. There are unique ideas here, and when the game shows them off it’s great. But all too often those are just pretty exteriors while most of the actual action takes place inside of rectangular aluminum rooms. And outside of the mining operations biome, you could easily forget that the game takes place on the Moon at all. 

Overall, I had a fun time with Pragmata. I wasn’t blown away by it, but I appreciated its unique ideas and stellar pacing. I hope more developers take note of the niche of not overly long AAA games. I’m tired of 100 hour long monstrosities, unless they really are something special. The hacking during combat was a unique twist that made even simpler encounters feel intense. And even if the game’s setting and story weren’t fully realized, they were a decent hook that got me interested in the first place. It is for these reasons that I give Pragmata a 7.5/10. I can’t wait to revisit the satisfaction of hitting a hacked enemy with a fully charged laser piercer blast in the inevitable sequel.          

Hades II (2025)

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Since starting writing about ten years ago, I’ve found myself valuing novel works. Games that do something different appeal to me, even if they don’t quite nail the execution every time. It’s why I rarely rate sequels above the original; the original is the creative genesis of a series. But in the case of Hades II, despite the foundation of the game to be identical to the first, its execution fixes the major problems I had. To read more about my thoughts on the original Hades, read my review here. 

Hades II takes place decades after the original game, the happy family reunion was short lived as Chronos broke free from his eternal confinement to exact revenge on his captors. You play as Melinoë, the daughter of Hades and Persephone who was whisked away as an infant by a handmaiden to protect her from Chronos. Hades, Zagreus, Persephone, and the rest of the house have been frozen in time while Melinoë has been training in secret as a witch with one sole purpose: to destroy Chronos.

Structurally, Hades II is functionally identical to its predecessor. It’s a roguelite in which you traverse randomized zones to acquire power-ups and make your way towards the final boss. Once you die, the run ends and you are sent back to camp to start from the beginning. What both Hades games do extraordinarily well is meta-progression. Acquiring currencies and materials as you play to unlock permanent bonuses to make future attempts easier. Both games do an excellent job at tying these permanent rewards to your skill level. If you are struggling with the game and dying quickly, you won’t get many materials in each run to bring back to camp for upgrades. This prevents players from getting too strong too fast and beating the game through sheer attrition. But if you are skilled, you will be able to progress to new zones and acquire far more materials to bolster yourself faster. 

The gameplay loop is incredibly similar to the original game, but Hades II shines in its combat. I found the combat in the first game to be a bit simplistic and button-mashy. Spamming the attack and dodge button with some knowledge of enemy attacks was remarkably effective. I rarely used the special and cast abilities since they rarely felt worth the effort to try to weave in outside of specialized builds. Hades II does an excellent job at increasing the power of these abilities to make them necessary to succeed. They become a core function of gameplay that you need to learn. Furthermore, a magic system is introduced allowing you to charge up attacks and abilities to their Omega state for additional effects.

The cast ability in particular is interesting as it places a large circle on the floor, ensnaring any foe that enters. This is incredibly important as Hades II floods the arena with many fast-moving enemies. Mastering the crowd control potential of the cast is critical to success. Briefly charging the cast also causes a huge detonation of damage at the end at the cost of some magic. The extra depth to the combat is definitely appreciated, but the diversity that casts and magic bring to builds is what I enjoyed the most. 

One of my primary complaints with the original Hades was how repetitive the bonuses across runs became. Of course, there were multiple weapons and upgrades that provided some variety, but most boons from the gods amounted to slightly different flavors of the same thing: more damage. Poseidon knocked enemies back, Dionysus provided a damage-over-time effect, and Artemis could critically strike, but ultimately most runs played out the same exact way. In Hades II, choosing whether to prioritize basic attacks, casts, specials, or any of their Omega varieties is important. You could choose to dump all of your boons into basic attacks, but using casts and specials to apply additional effects from gods is critical to succeeding in difficult situations. Many of the weapons even revolve around chaining together all of your kit, making each run feel more distinct. 

The magic system in particular makes builds more diverse as you need to balance increasing your pool of mana, having a way to regain mana during combat, and finding powerful bonuses that consume mana. While Omega attacks, casts, and specials consume mana there are other unique mana-consuming boons and bonuses to find that really broadens the pool of useful upgrades. Each run has so many more variables compared to the first Hades, making for a more replayable experience.

Another major boost to the variety of Hades II is that it has two routes that you need to conquer. The first game had a single route with the same 4 areas and bosses, making the game a bit stale once you had figured out how to defeat every enemy. Of course, there was a fantastic difficulty scaling system to make things more interesting, but even then, I found myself ready to move on after beating the game a few times. Hades II has the player first explore the underworld, attempting to defeat Chronos and reclaim their home. But Chronos has recruited a powerful ally to attack Mount Olympus and distract the gods, and you’ll need to free Mount Olympus to achieve your ultimate goal. The Mount Olympus route is significantly more difficult, and each area has its own environmental hazards and gimmicks to watch out for. 

The combination of more in depth combat, varied builds, and having two routes made Hades II a much more replayable game than its predecessor. For a roguelite, this is an incredibly important quality. It didn’t take me long to notch my first win in the original game, and from there I got bored replaying the same areas over and over without much change outside of my weapon choice. While playing Hades II I had no qualms about beating dozens of runs to complete the story and I was happy to continue playing even after the credits rolled just because of the increased variety and because the combat was so fun.

Hades II carries the torch of stellar art direction and character design. The game is stunning to look at with brilliant animations and detailed depictions of the Greek gods. Their designs are unique and modern; they play into their classical traits but have been made more distinct and interesting. The game is full to the brim with dialogue and banter with the gods, further fleshing out their personalities. Personally, I was a bit overwhelmed with the sheer quantity of conversations to be had. Many can be safely skipped as they are just flavor text, but just talking to characters at base camp between runs takes as much time as actually completing a run.

While an overabundance of text is a shared trait with the first game, I think I found it more tolerable because I was more invested in the story. There was something endearing about trying to escape the underworld, only to be thwarted by the head of the household: Hades himself. There was an air of mystery why Zagreus’ father was so insistent on stopping his son from reaching the surface. While I care about the characters that Chronos froze in time, the story was more impersonal and also less interesting. Sure, Chronos is Melinoë’s grandfather, but they’ve never met each other before the events of the game making their relationship stilted. And the primary driver of the plot is revenge, Chronos wants revenge on the gods and Melinoe wants revenge on Chronos. Overall, I found the plot to be weaker than the original.


Despite my grievances with the plot, I enjoyed my time with Hades II more than the original. The increased combat depth makes moment-to-moment gameplay more intense. The magic system and increased emphasis on casts makes builds more diverse. Having a second route to conquer can break up the monotony of replaying the same areas over and over again. The most important aspects of roguelites are fun gameplay and replayability, both of which Hades II nails. It is for these reasons that I give Hades II an 8.5/10. It may follow the same formula of the original Hades, but Hades II expands and improves upon that base, making for an excellent sequel.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (2025)

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Death Stranding has always been a bit of an odd duck in the gaming community. While many such as myself love the game for its bizarre world and unique gameplay, many players mock the “strand-type” game for sidelining action to focus on traversal. I fell in love with the isolated hikes interspersed with tense action, and the theme of connection was so masterfully woven into every aspect of the game. I spent dozens of hours making optional deliveries and building roads for other players to use. For my full thoughts on the original Death Stranding, read my review. When Death Stranding 2: On the Beach was announced, I was thrilled. I couldn’t wait to dive back into the world. 

Death Stranding 2 picks up with Sam and Lou surviving in hiding near the border of Mexico. After being tracked down by an old colleague, Sam gets roped into another grand mission to connect Mexico to the Chiral Network. During this expedition, a mysterious “plate-gate” opens up, acting as a portal between North America and Australia. Sam traverses the plate-gate and sets out to connect Australia to the network as well. 

Where the original game focused on connection, Death Stranding 2 asks whether it was worth connecting all. Connecting The United States together via the Chiral Network has destabilized other portions of the world, causing rivers of tar to swallow large swathes of the planet. Ghostly BTs have become more common, and terroristic organizations have been emboldened to threaten the last pockets of humanity. This theme of questioning connection extends into personal relationships. Sam was always a loner before the events of Death Stranding, but opened his heart as he connected the continent. Now, Sam has to grapple with the repercussions of connections: grief, loss, and betrayal. 

I really love the idea behind the story and themes of Death Stranding 2. It’s a sophisticated tale of interpersonal conflict and real adult feelings disguised within a wacky sci-fi setting. But I felt the execution was often lacking. Death Stranding 2 is a massive game, having the player traverse dozens of settlements, and it feels like the story often meanders without much purpose. The game falls into a formulaic pattern where you make a deliveries to non-important side characters, and important cutscenes are reserved for when you board your mobile base of operations: the DHV Magellan. But those moments of real narrative progression are excellent, filled with emotional turmoil and heartbreaking reveals.

Part of the reason why the cutscenes are so compelling is due to the state-of-the-art technology used for motion capture and visual spectacle. Kojima Productions is at the top of the industry when it comes to graphical fidelity and animation, only competing with other heavy hitters like Naughty Dog. The amount of emotion that can be read through facial expressions and minute movements is so critical to the game. And having accomplished actors such as Norman Reedus, Léa Seydoux, and Elle Fanning playing these characters further brings them to life.

By now, everybody knows that Hideo Kojima has a penchant for the bizarre. The stories that he writes often have many moving parts and nonsensical elements. There’s a level of campiness that can often feel out of place in a serious story. But I’ve come to love the goofiness that comes with Kojima’s games. They don’t take themselves too seriously. One of the key deliveries in the mid game is to bring special yeast to a Pizza Chef and then deliver his pizzas to nearby survivors to get them to trust you. And the chef is a master of martial arts who teaches you to use pizza dough to incapacitate terrorists. 

When it comes to gameplay, Death Stranding 2 deemphasized the hiking traversal that its predecessor was known for. Making deliveries is still the core gameplay loop, but the sequel introduces vehicles very early on and features far more combat. I think for players that were skeptical about how little traditional gameplay was in the original game, these changes are probably a good thing. But personally, I was disappointed in how easy it was to always use a vehicle to reach your destination. Even when completing story missions, meaning there would be no roads or additional structures, there was never a place where I felt like I had to get on foot and navigate difficult terrain.

The reason I think this is a negative is because I really loved the unique aspect of being a human mule. Every package or piece of equipment you carried contributed to your weight and person. Carrying too much would slow you down, but more critically it shifts your center of balance, making it easier to fall over and damage the goods. You had to carefully consider which route you would take, streams and rivers were massive obstacles, and you always needed to bring ladders and climbing anchors to deal with sheer cliffs. This slow-paced, contemplative gameplay was utterly unique. Managing your inventory, planning a route, and then carefully trudging across the beautiful landscapes made the game almost meditative.

On paper, Death Stranding 2 still has all of the above aspects. It even adds new environmental obstacles such as floods, sandstorms, earthquakes, and landslides to increase the danger. I was really looking forward to these new threats, as my biggest issue with the original game was that it became too easy as the game progressed. But these weather effects are rarely more than an inconvenience. And the world of Death Stranding 2 feels like it was conveniently designed for vehicles. There’s almost always a path for a truck, even in places that should be craggy or steep, there’s always a convenient path to drive on. Using trucks trivializes so much of the challenge of the game. Inventory management becomes a breeze as trucks can carry massive loads, you don’t have to worry about falling over and damaging cargo, and you can zip past many of the game’s threats.

An argument could be made to just not use vehicles, but there’s no reason not to. Vehicles are fairly cheap to fabricate, make every aspect of deliveries easier, and have no downsides whatsoever. The world is massive, making traveling on foot more tedious than challenging. Players are always going to go with the path of least resistance, and vehicles are just too good to ignore. The traversal aspects of Death Stranding 2 are even easier than the original game, which is the opposite direction that I wanted the scales to tip. I wish that there were more sections in which using a truck was completely infeasible. For instance, when traveling to a new location for the first time there should be more obstacles making vehicle use impossible, but afterwards you could build roads to make backtracking with a vehicle possible. 

Instead of traversal, Death Stranding 2 places more emphasis on combat. There are far more camps of enemies as well as boss fights scattered throughout the game. This is by far the most improved aspect of the sequel, as combat was fairly rare in the original game. Having more combat scenarios sprinkled in with the classic traversal missions is fantastic. It increases the tension, knowing that at any moment you could be battling terrorists, robots, or ghostly BTs.

 Kojima clearly took inspiration from one of his previous games, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain when designing the combat of Death Stranding 2. Stealth is encouraged to protect your cargo, but you’re welcome to take whatever approach you want. The game quickly introduces a multitude of different tools for the player to utilize. From assault rifles and shotguns to holograms and catchable monsters, there’s many ways to approach combat. I appreciate the variety, playing around with all the different options is great.

Combat in Death Stranding 2 packs quite a punch because of the game’s focus on real consequences. You aren’t a superhero sprinting and jumping with no regard for anything. You’re a regular guy who trips over boulders, gets weighed down in the mud, and feels the full impact of any damage. This is especially clear in the game’s handful of boss fights. Battling giant autonomous robots while trying to find your footing in a tar pit is a frantic experience. And watching Sam double over with exhaustion, covered in black muck and blood after dispatching a monster is relieving.

Visually, Death Stranding 2 is stunning. Part of what makes traversal-driven gameplay so appealing is just being able to take in the environments. The constant change in elevations gives you ample opportunity to stop and take in the sights of towering mountains, low-lying flood plains, and wind-whipped deserts. Kojima also has a penchant for excellent set pieces and explosive action sequences. One of my favorites being scrambling through the underbrush during a forest fire to rescue a wild kangaroo as hellfire rains from above. The soundtrack is equally great; there’s a fantastic collection of tunes to jam out to while making deliveries. From old timey easy-listening songs to indie folk to modern Japanese pop songs, I loved the variety as I drove across Australia.

Part of the magic of both Death Stranding games is how they drive the player to slow down and enjoy the process. With so many fantastic games being released yearly, it’s tempting to blast through them as fast as possible to have time to play everything. But while playing these games I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to take my time, build up the world full of structures and roads, complete some of the five-hundred optional deliveries. There’s a sense of satisfaction watching the harsh environment be transformed into a network of safe paths and bases. And reaping the rewards of those building efforts by driving your truck miles across the world to deliver some packages is so addictive.

Bigger isn’t always better. I think Death Stranding 2 would have benefited from being scaled down a tad bit. I think the story and the gameplay suffer from having to accommodate for such a massive world. The story meanders for long stretches of time between major outposts. And the large map forces the use of vehicles to minimize tedium. By the time I reached the final third of the game, I was starting to get a bit worn out and just wanted to see the game through to its conclusion. I think cutting back on some of the more unnecessary missions and refining the remaining ones to be more interesting would have gone a long way.

It’s hard to explain what makes the Death Stranding games so enjoyable to play. To an outsider, it may sound like I’m describing the life of a post-apocalyptic Amazon delivery driver. But these games are so much more than that. They’re about connection, meditation, beauty, and grief, with a healthy sprinkling of Kojima’s weirdness to keep you on your toes. Death Stranding 2 doesn’t quite deliver everything I wanted out of the sequel. But it does have its own strengths that I’m sure many will prefer over the original. It is for these reasons I give Death Stranding 2: On the Beach an 8/10. It may not be for everyone, but I spent countless hours roaming the gorgeous and bizarre world that Kojima and his team crafted.

Hollow Knight: Silksong (2025)

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No game may have been more highly anticipated than Hollow Knight: Silksong. Team Cherry surprised the world in 2017 with the debut of Hollow Knight, and one of their Kickstarter funding goals promised a second playable character: Hornet. That promised DLC expanded in scope until it eventually became its own standalone game. It’s been over 6 years since the game was first revealed and after the long wait I wondered if the lightning-in-a-bottle of the original could be recreated. But after playing the game, I can confidently say that Silksong picks up right where Hollow Knight left off. For my thoughts on Hollow Knight, check out my review from when the original was released.

The brilliance of Silksong begins with its world. Kidnapped by religious zealots, Hornet arrives in the land known as Pharloom. It’s inhabited by numerous varieties of bugs, but the common thread connecting them is religious devoutness. It’s clear that Pharloom is a kingdom that has crumbled into dust, only whispers and tradition carry the travelers to summit the peaks where the holy Citadel stands.

As a metroidvania, Silksong frees its players to explore and discover organically. With nothing but the nebulous goal of reaching the Citadel as your guide, you set out on a blind journey. Silksong takes inspiration from the storytelling of FromSoftware’s games such as Dark Souls and Elden Ring. Taking in the dying world around you, piecing together the puzzle of what happened through vague texts and environmental storytelling. Nothing is directly told to you, but the world and its artistry wonderfully communicate what kind of place Pharloom once was.

Take for instance the Underworks, a mechanical nightmare of pipes, gears, and valves beneath the Citadel. The opulence of the Citadel is powered by these dingy chambers. It is here where workers tirelessly labor to maintain the holy grounds that they never see. When they attack you for your intrusion, they only drop a pittance of rosaries, the currency of Pharloom. As you’ve progressed through the game you’ve gained increasingly more rosaries in each area from tougher foes, but the Underworks represent the poor dregs of the Citadel. There’s even a hidden room in which you can run on a treadmill to generate power, only to be rewarded with a single rosary for the effort. And it is here in the Underworks where the benches which have been the universal sign of rest and have acted as your checkpoints of safety incur a cost of 15 rosaries for a single use. Without any dialogue or text, Silksong portrays a dystopian society where a class is exploited and drained to fuel the grandiosity of an empty cathedral.

It’s these vignettes and partial truths of the past that make exploring Pharloom so compelling. The art and sound design of Silksong is also top-notch. An enormous amount of care was put into making each area distinct and filled with details. It’s from these details where the hidden stories are filled with life. The music is equally compelling, often harboring somber moods as you explore this crumbling kingdom. Yet frantic melodies make an appearance when engaging with any of the numerous bosses of Silksong.

The gameplay of Silksong is that of traditional 2D metroidvania. You explore massive areas, fighting enemies, platforming across dangerous pits, and collecting hidden boons to increase your power. The major upgrades that you find act as keys that unlock new paths in the world, as well as being purposeful in combat. What I love about Silksong is its non-linearity and its reluctance to guide the player. It is up to you to figure out where to go, often you have to choose at random between forks in the road. When you enter a new area, you are blind, there is no map until you find the mapmaker. You’re forced to rely on instinct and curiosity. I find this more compelling than being given explicit directions. Each path has something to be discovered, but the further you wander from a resting place, the more risk you incur.

Pharloom is a harsh place, filled with enemies, obstacles, and traps. Resting at a bench acts as a checkpoint, restoring your health and letting you respawn there if you die. And if you die, you lose all the currency you are holding, and you only get a single chance to reclaim it. The game design makes the world incredibly dangerous, and you can take nothing for granted. Every time you hit an enemy, you generate a single pip of silk, and nine pips of silk are required to heal. Getting hit at all is costly, and extreme caution is warranted when traversing Pharloom. I personally love this feeling of playing on a knife’s edge. You can never let your guard down or brute force your way through obstacles. You have to master your movement and your arsenal.

What makes Silksong stand out from its predecessor is the number of tools available to the player. Hornet is a much nimbler protagonist than Ghost from the first Hollow Knight. She acquires many different tools to dodge and evade. But this agility comes at a cost, as she is also much more fragile than Ghost. As the game progresses, many enemies and traps deal two ticks of damage rather than one. This happens fairly early on in the game. While there has been an uproar online about this steep spike in difficulty, I wasn’t offput by this at all. I thought the difficulty was well-balanced to provide an adequate level of challenge. Silksong is the sequel to Hollow Knight, and it was originally intended as DLC. It makes sense that it picks up where Hollow Knight left off. Furthermore, Hornet is swift and has so many more tools at her disposal to make encounters easier. Making use of these tools makes the game so much more approachable.

Not only do you unlock various movement options, but spells, crests, and tools also can be found to customize your moveset. Spells are powerful abilities that cost silk to use. Tools come in the form of both equipped passive bonuses and accessories that you can deploy in combat such as throwing needles or caltrops. And crests are complete game-changers as they entirely alter Hornet’s attacks and innate abilities. For example, the Beast crest modifies the basic heal to instead be a life-stealing effect when you claw at enemies. I found that tinkering with the different options and finding combinations that I liked was immensely enjoyable.

The boss fights of Silksong are the cherry on top of the already excellent gameplay. They all have distinct attack patterns and arenas that make them stand out from one another. But I was most impressed by the lack of restraint shown by Team Cherry. Most bosses only have 3 or 4 attacks, limiting the number of tells and timings that you have to memorize. I was able to easily find openings and gain confidence on the tougher foes, transforming the fights into a dance as Hornet nimbly evades blows and returns damage with her needle. The design of these fights has a knack to seem intimidating at first, but quickly become manageable once you learn the patterns.

As a metroidvania, discovery is a key aspect of the gameplay loop. Finding secrets, uncovering new areas, and remembering where to use your new abilities are part of the fun. For the most part, Silksong nails this. The lack of guidance makes these discoveries more organic and rewarding. But I do have a minor gripe with some of these well-kept secrets. I don’t mind when minor rewards such as health upgrades or tools are well-hidden, they are bonuses for having a keen eye. But I was disappointed by how many major areas were so incredibly concealed. I missed a handful of these areas initially, and only found them when I was aiming for 100% completion. One or two of these areas being secret is fine, but Silksong is a massive game and finding the fake walls leading into these secret zones is like finding a needle in a haystack.

My other minor issue with Silksong is its propensity for dull fetch quests. There are dozens of quests in the game, many of them being fun journeys that result in a boss fight or extra bit of lore. But there are also many repetitive fetch quests that have you slay some number of nearby enemies. The majority of the time these enemies are the same ones you’ve been fighting for hours at this point. These kinds of quests are just dull and act as padding, which the game doesn’t need at all since it is already so huge.

After such a long wait, I was a bit nervous that Silksong wasn’t going to live up to its sky-high expectations. But I was thoroughly impressed with the immersive world and tight gameplay. It is a continuation of Hollow Knight, but it doesn’t feel totally derivative because Hornet plays so differently from Ghost. The ability for the artistry of the world to tell a wordless story is truly special. It is for these reasons that I give Hollow Knight: Silksong a 9.5/10. If you haven’t played either of the Hollow Knight games, do yourself a favor and play the best metroidvanias of the last couple decades.

Silent Hill (1999)

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Horror and terror are not the same emotion. Horror is the shocking, revulsed feeling after witnessing a heinous event. Games like Resident Evil thrive on the sort of disgust caused by its horrifying mutants. Terror, on the other hand, the sense of dread and building anxiety when you know something awful is about to happen. It’s the deep-seated instinct meant to warn you that something is wrong and that you are in danger, even if you can’t see it yet. Terror is the focus of Silent Hill. The thick mist covering the abandoned town, the static of the radio, the disquieting music; everything about the game puts you on edge.

 Silent Hill begins with a car crash on a wooded road in the fog. Harry Mason wakes up in a small-town cafe, separated from his young daughter, Cheryl. It’s immediately apparent that something strange is happening, as there are no residents in the town other than the policewoman who rescued him. Harry sets out to explore the town shrouded in fog, with ominous craters blocking the roads and bizarre monsters stalking him. 

As you progress through the game, you uncover hints as to the cultish conspiracy that has engulfed the town. Demonic symbols are scrawled on the ground and riddles are scrawled in blood on the walls. The few residents that remain whisper of the occult and insinuate sins that swallowed the sleepy town. You track Cheryl to the school, the hospital, the amusement park, and through the eerie streets. The world transforms into a nightmarish reflection of itself, filled with rusty and grimy metal surfaces. The metallic tinkling footsteps and distorted, echoing music is deeply disquieting. 

The story of Silent Hill is solid, especially when compared to its contemporaries such as the early Resident Evil games. The supernatural world and psychological horror are so much more compelling than straightforward zombie or monster plot. You intrinsically know that something is deeply wrong with the town, and there is some connection to Cheryl. The locations you visit seem to indicate traumatic memories, despite never having been to the town before. Every aspect of the game is disturbing and atmospherically oppressive.

At its core, Silent Hill is a survival horror game. You explore the world, collecting resources such as health packs, ammunition, weapons, and items to solve puzzles. The streets are filled with enemies such as rabid dogs, flying leathery screamers, and knife-wielding ghouls. There are far more enemies than there are bullets, meaning you will have to think carefully when you want to fight back and engage the enemy. The game encourages the use of melee weapons such as crowbars and sledgehammers to conserve ammo, but it forces you to get up close to the monsters, risking damage or being overrun with multiple enemies. 

While the individual enemies are somewhat easily avoided, there’s a constant anxiety due to the scarcity of resources. Moreover, the game’s visual and audio design further cause unease. The thick fog obscures your vision; you can’t see more than a few feet in front of you. You have a radio that emits static when an enemy is nearby. You know that there are enemies all around you, but you can’t see them. You have to roam the town filled with dead-ends and maze-like corridors with the persistent knowledge that monsters are right outside your field of vision. The anxiety is further heightened by the distorted and disturbing soundtrack constantly thrumming in your ears.

Silent Hill also contains a handful of cryptic puzzles. These are woven into the themes of the game by using occult symbols, macabre visuals, and strange riddles. These are much more cerebral than the lock-and-key puzzles featured in the early Resident Evil games. You have to discern meaning from seemingly nonsensical texts. While I do enjoy these kinds of puzzles, there was one in particular that I thought was very tricky to work out with many different ways that the hint could be interpreted.

The thing about playing older games like Silent Hill is that you have to be prepared for some clunky controls. Moving around 3D spaces was still in its infancy, and control schemes were not universal. Silent Hill utilizes tank controls, making movement a bit clumsy if you aren’t used to having to rotate to move in different directions. Luckily, the camera does follow the player quite a bit, making it a bit easier to deal with the movement rather than the jarring transitions of the fixed camera angles from Resident Evil. Still, the tank controls are a relic of the past that can be tricky to deal with. 

Silent Hill is the terror counterpart to the horror of Resident Evil. Instead of zombies and gore and bombastic action, there’s a thick fog, static-filled radio, and cryptic riddles scrawled in blood. It’s an incredibly unsettling game, and every decision was made to achieve that goal. It has an uncanny ability to unnerve and cause panic with its masterful atmosphere and hellish soundscape. Despite its age, Silent Hill is a piece of art. It is the video game manifestation of a nightmare.

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999)

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The first two Resident Evil games are known for their dense environments that function as puzzle boxes. In comparison, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is a sprawling action game. The increase in scope leads to a bombastic finale for the original trilogy. It doesn’t just retread the same ideas from its predecessors; it escapes from the narrow hallways of the mansion and police station and sets the player loose in the chaotic ruins of Raccoon City. While I did prefer the tighter experiences of the first two games, I did appreciate how Resident Evil 3: Nemesis expanded the scope and scale of the series.

After returning to the city after escaping the mansion, Jill Valentine finds herself back in Raccoon City. But all of her rescue team colleagues have disappeared, and the city is aflame with zombies roaming the streets. A horrible mutant, Nemesis, is programmed to hunt down Jill as she is one of the remaining members of the team responsible for foiling Umbrella’s schemes.

From the outset, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is far more open than its predecessors. You will be roaming the streets, ducking in and out of numerous buildings to acquire the resources needed to proceed. I appreciated the change in environment, and the expanded scope allowed for a variety of different scenarios. Instead of spending the whole game in a single building, you’ll be heading to workshops, a cozy restaurant, an ominous clocktower, a zombie-filled hospital, and a sinister park. The larger streets allow for hordes of zombies and more action-fueled gameplay. 

The main threat of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is its namesake, the bioengineered mutant Nemesis. He roams the streets, hunting down Jill. There’re quite a few scripted chase sequences throughout the game in which the player can elect to run from Nemesis or fight him. Fighting him is risky and consumes a ton of ammunition, but rewards the player with weapon parts to upgrade your arsenal. And it is in this that the game’s key philosophy becomes clear: an emphasis on player choice.

The first two games in the series of course had some decision making around if and when to consume resources such as ammo, health packs, and save ribbons. But the primary driver of those games were its lock-and-key puzzles. Discovering objects and information to be used elsewhere in the world to unlock a previously blocked path. Of course, that still exists in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, but to a lesser extent. Instead, this iteration of the series constantly wants the player to make choices to alter their experience.

There are the obvious choices like fighting or running from Nemesis, it presents an upfront risk and hefty cost to potentially become stronger later. There are also frequent binary choices presented in quicktime events that lead you down slightly different paths. But there are some more subtle decisions being made as well, none being as crucial as the ammo crafting system. Throughout the game gunpowder is scattered in two main types. Combining gunpowder in different quantities creates different types of ammo. Do you want to spend a ton of gunpowder to create immensely powerful freeze rounds? Or stockpile a few boxes of gunpowder type B to create extra shotgun ammo? Or do you desperately need ammo now so you spend a box of gunpowder type A for a handful of handgun bullets? The player has so many ways to tackle the game, showcasing the game’s strength of player choice.

Having so many possibilities makes Resident Evil 3: Nemesis a prime candidate for replaying, and this is further supported by the randomization aspect of the game. Items and enemies are partly randomized, making every play through a little different. While I think I prefer the multiple characters of Resident Evil 2 that change the route significantly, having randomized aspects and tons of decision making is hugely impressive for a horror game from 1999. 

The increased scope of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, came at a cost. The dense environments of the first couple of games were deemphasized in favor of increased action. Truthfully, I kind of missed the tighter environments. Trying to figure out how to escape the cramped hallways of the mansion or the police station was somehow cozy. It sounds insane for a horror game, but becoming intimately familiar with the puzzle-box worlds was a comforting experience despite the threat of zombies lurking around every corner. While exploring the chaotic ruins of Raccoon City was a welcome change-of-pace, I miss the more atmospheric and oppressive corridors of the first two games.

Paradoxically, despite mixing up the formula, this entry also feels derivative of its predecessors when it comes to horror. While the series stories can often feel like schlock-horror, the real risk of unknown enemies makes traversing the world terrifying. You never know what dangers you will come across, threatening you to lose huge chunks of progress. Careful navigation is imperative, leading to a subconscious fear of any new enemies. The problem with Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is that there aren’t any new enemies. The first game obviously was novel and every enemy stoked fear, and the sequel introduced the hulking super-enemies like Mr. X who followed you around. This time around, you’ve seen all the basic enemies before, and Nemesis himself is a retread of the concept of Mr. X. There aren’t any new threats, and if you’ve played the first two games it’s unlikely that you will be scared by the retreaded ground of the third game. 

As a finale to the original trilogy, I think Resident Evil 3: Nemesis did an excellent job at escalation. The burning city and hordes of zombies make Spencer Mansion look downright calm in comparison. The introduction of ammo crafting as well as randomized enemy and item placement emphasizes the importance of decision making in this entry in the series. But despite these strengths, I missed the denser worlds and more novel experiences that the first two games provided. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis marks a clear shift towards more action and away from the escape rooms of the first games in the series. And even though I enjoy the former, I prefer the latter.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011)

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In the heyday of the Nintendo Wii, everything utilized motion controls. It was the core feature of the console, and of course The Legend of Zelda could not miss the opportunity to implement sword fighting with the Wiimote. And there is no doubt that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword attempts to maximize the use of motion controls. Unfortunately, a handful of issues with the nature of motion controls along with some questionable design decisions make this my least favorite of the 3D The Legend of Zelda titles.

Skyward Sword has an incredibly unique setting in the series. The last remnants of humanity live on a flying rock, high above the clouds. They’ve built a small community and learn to take to the skies by flying on the backs of their loyal Loftwing birds. Rumors of the surface are nothing but folklore until Zelda gets swept into a vortex and plunges below the clouds. The player of course sets out on a journey to rescue their friend by exploring a handful of locations.

The best moments of Skyward Sword are when the player is left to explore, solve puzzles, fight enemies, and conquer dungeons unimpeded. There’s no doubt that the game boasts some of the best dungeons in the entire series. There’s some wildly creative ideas and well-crafted trials that are the highlight of the game. The desert area in particular has dungeons that make use of timeshift stones that create localized pockets of the past. Using these stones to reveal ancient devices and to clear away millennia of sand to progress forward is a phenomenal idea for puzzles. And the dungeons in the forest are wonderfully atmospheric and serene. Even the moments leading up to dungeons are interesting and unique, utilizing new mechanics and ideas that slowly ramp up in the classic The Legend of Zelda fashion.

Unfortunately, moments in which Skyward Sword lets the player play without interruption are fleeting. From the outset, the game bombards the player with text and cutscenes. The game constantly stops in its tracks to spew unnecessary dialogue, breaking the flow of gameplay. The biggest culprit of this is the spirit of your sword, Fi. She regularly will appear, stating the obvious. It often feels like the game is treating you as if you were stupid, halting progress to tell you “I have calculated the place that you are going towards has an 80% probability of being the correct direction”. The excessive handholding not only feels like an insult to the player’s intelligence, but it also actively impedes the player from having fun.

When I think of The Legend of Zelda, I think of adventure and exploration. The structure of Skyward Sword is far more linear and constrained than the other games in the series. Outside of the starting town in the sky, there are only 3 main areas: forest, volcano, and desert. The game revisits these biomes multiple times each, often revealing new areas that were previously hidden. Occasionally these retreads are interesting because there are spirit trials that test your navigational knowledge of these familiar zones. But after the third visit to each area, I was longing for something fresh. And it didn’t help that the last third of the game felt padded out with unnecessary fetch quests, repeated boss fights, and retreading.

It’s worth mentioning that each zone is completely isolated. The only way to go from the forest to the desert for instance is to find a statue, teleport to the sky, fly to the appropriate hole in the clouds, then drop down into the desert. It feels disjointed, and the sky ends up being a giant level select screen rather than its own thing. And it doesn’t help that flying is a dreadfully boring affair. There’re rarely any obstacles or anything to do in the sky, just fly in a straight line. And because of the motion controls, you’re forced to keep your hand pointed straight, waggle the remote to flap upwards, occasionally pointing downwards to gain some speed. It’s tedious and uncomfortable.

The sky itself is completely devoid of anything. There’s a bunch of tiny islands with practically nothing on them. And there’s occasionally a floating rock with an enemy that shoots rocks at you. That’s it. It’s pretty uninteresting mechanically and visually. Flying should be exciting and thrilling but it’s just boring and cumbersome in Skyward Sword. The one redeeming aspect of the sky is that the game’s main town, Skyloft, is amazing. It’s dense, has cozy hobbit houses for its residents, lots of side quests to discover, and a central town bazaar that hosts all of the shops. Skyloft has a ton of personality to it and I love it, even if the surrounding sky is a barren wasteland.

Even though motion controls never really caught on past the Wii era outside of some niche uses, I appreciate how dedicated Skyward Sword is to this control scheme. Nowadays, motion controls are a gimmick, but Skyward Sword was fully committed to maximizing its use of motion controls. The sword fighting, aiming the slingshot and bow, puzzles, and even basic movement all incorporated motion controls in some way. I don’t think it was always successful, but I appreciate that the developers didn’t treat the game’s central mechanic as just a gimmick, but as the guiding principle of design. It’s a unique scheme that helps Skyward Sword stand out from all the other The Legend of Zelda games. When it works, the motion controls are immersive and give a tangible, weighty feel to your actions. You aren’t just pressing buttons, but swinging your arms and aiming your controller like you would a sword and bow respectively. Unfortunately, the motion controls don’t always work.

It’s an extremely common occurrence in Skyward Sword for the motion controls to just not quite do what you want them to do. Many of the game’s enemies and obstacles require specific directional inputs, and having your attacks rebuked because the game reads your stab as a slash is frustrating. Unfortunately, motion controls will never match the preciseness of traditional button controls. When you press a button, you know exactly what will happen. When you try to swing horizontally, the game may interpret a slight diagonal angle and cause a misfire. Despite the fact that Skyward Sword is a fairly easy game, it is consistently frustrating due to the flukiness of the motion controls.

Another factor in the frustration of Skyward Sword is the enemy design. The game clearly wanted to emphasize the motion controls in sword fighting. Most enemies need to be hit from a specific angle to deal damage, and enemies with swords constantly block in different directions, requiring you to attack where they aren’t blocking. This is fine, the problem is that many of these sword-wielding enemies read your inputs and instantly block wherever you decide to attack. If they are holding the sword to their left, you try to swing at their right side, but the game instantly snaps their sword to the right to block your hit. I found it more effective to just flail around randomly rather than take my time to strike precisely because the enemies would just block my attacks if I tried to fight the “proper” way. It really is a shame because the sword fighting is the area where the motion controls could have shined, but it’s way simpler to use other strategies rather than engage in a proper duel.

My final gripe with motion controls is that they make the entire experience mentally exhausting. There is no break from them. You will always be fumbling trying to make the game do what you want it to do. I want to just be able to play for a few hours, get absorbed with the world, and go on an adventure. But the motion controls constantly break the spell of immersion, which is the exact opposite effect that they should have. Even when flying in a straight line you need to focus on keeping your wrist straight. There’s no escape from fighting the controls, which makes the entire game a drag.

I actually quite like the presentation of Skyward Sword. Visually, it’s a middle ground behind the cartoonish Wind Waker and the more realistic Twilight Princess. I think it’s a happy medium, and the impressionist environments are quite pleasant to look at. At a distance, the environments look painted with visible brush strokes and streams of light. I do think the game lacks scenic vistas due to the isolated nature of the areas, but it is pretty nonetheless. The soundtrack is fully orchestrated, and despite it being perfectly enjoyable it doesn’t have that memorable quality that The Legend of Zelda is known for.

I don’t really play The Legend of Zelda games for their stories, but I was pleasantly surprised by Skyward Sword in that aspect. It follows the same good vs evil as every other game in the series, but what makes this entry stand-out is its characters. There’s a handful of character arcs in the game that demonstrate actual growth, which is something rare in the series. I don’t think the story is revolutionary by any means, but I was pleasantly surprised by it.

I played the game in the recent HD remaster for the Switch, which came with a number of quality-of-life changes. The remaster reduced the number of interruptions that Fi forces upon the player. It also fixed one of the most infamous bugs of all time in which every item would halt the game to display a description every play session. I’m glad that the remaster did away with these intrusions, because even in the remaster there are a painful number of halts that kill the pacing. 


Overall, Skyward Sword is my least favorite of the 3D The Legend of Zelda games. Despite having some of the best dungeons in the series, there’s just far too many massive problems that I have with the game. The disjointed world, the constant interruptions, and the imprecise motion controls firmly cement Skyward Sword as the worst in the series. I appreciate its attempts to be unique and have a novel control scheme, but motion controls never reached the level of refinement that would be needed for anything other than some gimmicks. Still, it’s worth playing Skyward Sword for its cleverly designed dungeons.

Katamari Damacy (2004)

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Simplicity. As games grow more complex and incorporate numerous systems that require paragraphs upon paragraphs to understand, it makes me long for the uncompromising simplicity of Katamari Damacy. But don’t mistake simplicity for being dull, Katamari Damacy is one of the most unique and iconic games in history. And it’s quickly become one of my favorites. Once you get the ball rolling, it’s hard to stop playing.

The King of All Cosmos accidentally destroyed all the stars in the sky after having a few too many drinks. He sends his son, the 5-centimeter-tall prince to Earth to roll up anything he can into a ball to create new stars. The Katamari can only pick up objects that are sufficiently smaller than it, requiring you to slowly ramp up into an all-encompassing ball of destruction.

There’s something enormously satisfying about beginning every level with a tiny Katamari, only capable of picking up thumbtacks and coins, and steadily growing in size. That table that used to be an obstacle? It will eventually become part of your Katamari. That car that ran into you, flinging you across the road? Grow a bit more then get your revenge by rolling it up. 

Nothing is safe from the eventuality of becoming part of the Katamari. But bumping into objects larger than the Katamari will cause you to lose mass, requiring a bit of careful planning and navigation. There’s a balancing act of trying to collect the largest items to grow the fastest in the allotted time, but being cautious not to be overly ambitious and bump into objects that are too large, wasting precious time and siphoning off previously collected items. This little bit of friction is necessary to keep the game interesting. And it makes it all the more satisfying when you come across a group of objects that are the perfect size.

Because the core concept is so simple, I think it’s a boon that the control scheme is a bit tricky to master. While some may bemoan the tank controls as being unintuitive, I think they fit the game perfectly. There would be very little challenge and no mastery to be had if the Katamari was easy to control. And moreover, it fits thematically as well. Of course a hulking ball of stuck-together objects is a bit unwieldy to push around. It should be difficult to turn, maneuver, and stop your momentum. Mastering your control of the Katamari and planning out different routes through the levels also provides an excellent opportunity for replaying levels to try to get a max-sized Katamari in the time-limit.

Despite the prospect of a giant sticky ball rolling through communities causing untold destruction sounding horrifying on paper, Katamari Damacy is a light-hearted game. It’s full of whimsy and surreal depictions of Japanese culture. You have to look no further than the game’s introductory video of dancing pandas, singing ducks, and rainbows flying everywhere to get a feel for the game’s style. It’s just a joy to roll around and explore the whimsical world. And it helps that the soundtrack is also superb, filled to the brim with catchy and joyous tunes that are hard to get out of your head.

My one small critique of Katamari Damacy is that I wish there were a handful more areas in the game. There are 19 total levels, but each level takes place in one of 3 areas. I don’t mind revisiting the same places, especially because new portions of the areas open up as the Katamari progressively expands, but I would have loved to see two or three more distinct areas to explore. I actually enjoyed revisiting the same areas a handful of times because I learned more about the areas in each subsequent visit, increasing my mastery and making the world that much more memorable. Truthfully, my request is a bit of a nitpick. Especially because the complaint boils down to “I want more Katamari Damacy”.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Katamari Damacy is one of the greatest games of all time. It’s equally parts unique and playful. It’s unlike any other game out there, and it’s a game that everybody should play. Katamari Damacy is just pure fun, plain and simple. Not every game needs to be a hodgepodge of ideas and systems. Sometimes, it’s enough to just roll a big ball around.