Gaming

Ori and the Blind Forest (2015)

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It’s no shock to anybody that metroidvanias are an incredibly popular genre in the indie world. But a title that stands above all as a paragon of quality is Ori and the Blind Forest. Every aspect of the game is cohesive. You are the lone forest spirit Ori, and you must revive the dying wilderness which was once a vibrant habitat for all manners of creatures.

Ori and the Blind Forest is not a game with a heavy emphasis on storytelling. Aside from a couple short sequences at the start and end of the game, there is not much focus on the narrative aspects of the game. While the story does pull on the heartstrings, I think it was a great decision not to lean heavily on dialog or cutscenes. You are the last spirit of the forest, and you have to traverse a hostile environment to recover the light which sustains the forest.

The forest is visually stunning. While many other side-scrollers opt for pixel art or other stylized techniques, Ori and the Blind Forest has gorgeously rendered environments. There is a great use of light and shadows that elicits the feeling of being in an ancient forest. There are so many beautiful effects and backgrounds that make Ori and the Blind Forest truly stand out among its contemporaries. Unfortunately, all the detailed visuals and glowing particle effects do come at a cost: visual clarity. I often times found it difficult to quickly parse the environment and decide what was a hazard, an enemy, a projectile, an experience orb, a blob of health, some energy, or any other possibility. I don’t think is a particularly brutal problem, but I often found myself mildly frustrated when what I thought was a safe spot actually damaged me.

Ori and the Blind Forest is unique among its Metroidvania contemporaries. It deemphasizes combat in favor of platforming. Combat is meant to be a last resort, and you’re much better off avoiding and slipping past enemies rather than engaging with them. Attacking is incredibly straightforward, clicking a button will unleash a flurry of low-damage light projectiles that do a little damage to enemies. There is also a charged blast attack that consumes some energy, but it often felt like a waste of a resource that could be better used elsewhere.

One of the key uses of energy is creating save points. A very unique facet of Ori and the Blind Forest is that the player is responsible for deciding where their checkpoints will exist. At any point in the game, you can spend an energy point to create a save point where you will respawn if you die. I think this is an incredibly unique idea, and it has interesting risk and reward potential. If you have a high amount of health, it may be unwise to spend a ton of energy to make frequent save points as you can afford to make some mistakes without dying. Conversely, if you are low on health, you may want to save after every little obstacle. But there is a danger in doing so.

It can be counterintuitive, but saving when you are low on health can be dangerous. I often found myself in situations where a gauntlet of challenges was on the horizon, but I had saved with a low amount of health. A single misstep could cause death. This can be frustrating because you are stuck in a difficult situation with no room for error in a game where taking damage is exceedingly common. While I appreciate the idea for a unique save system, by the end of the game I realized that I prefer the traditional checkpoints that most games have.

The main reason why I believe that a standard checkpoint system is superior to the system in Ori and the Blind Forest is that the game designers have foresight. They know when a difficult section is approaching. They know how long the gauntlet is. They know where there will be opportunities to recover health. The player knows none of this. This is problematic as it leads to guessing games of when you should expend your resources to save. If you know that a difficult section is upcoming, you may not be inclined to save with low health. If you know there’s five or six back-to-back platforming challenges, you may not want to spend your last energy point to save after the first one. Let the game designers use their knowledge to properly place and space out checkpoints for a more consistent experience.

Where Ori and the Blind Forest shines the most is in its platforming. Ori is remarkably nimble, which is cohesive with the character’s design. Interestingly, the player has very little vertical jump height, but this is made up with Ori’s long horizontal leaps and subsequent powers that are unlocked. Springing from wall to wall, climbing trees, gliding around on a leaf, and using enemies to redirect your momentum is a fantastic way to evoke the feeling of being a nimble forest nymph.

What makes the platforming in Ori and the Blind Forest really special stems from a single ability: Bash. This skill is gained relatively early on in the campaign, and it makes the gameplay far more dynamic. Bash allows the player to launch themselves off of enemies and projectiles, knocking them in the opposite direction. You can swiftly rocket through corridors using a mixture of regular platforming and Bash to dodge and use enemies to your advantage. Its this single ability that makes up for the lack of combat, as Bash begs the player to just dash through enemies and launch them into hazards rather than engage with them. It makes sense then why the developers opted to omit traditional boss fights in favor of epic escape sequences. These are adrenaline pumping sections that demand speed and mastery of your abilities, and I love the decision to include them.

As for its metroidvania aspects, I found Ori and the Blind Forest to be passable. There was a rapid pace of unlocking new traversal abilities to reveal new paths. While there wasn’t a ton of necessary backtracking or revisiting prior areas, there were plenty of secrets to be uncovered. Unfortunately, most of the secrets were somewhat uninteresting as they were mostly additional experience or health/mana upgrades. Even though there was a lack of backtracking ala Metroid, Ori and the Blind Forest scratched the exploration itch as it certainly was not linear. There were many branching paths and routes to traverse, making for some satisfying exploration.

It had been a long while since I originally played Ori and the Blind Forest, and I am so glad that I revisited it. There are so many unique ideas here such as the emphasis on platforming, the focus on horizontal movement, the save system, and the use of escape sequences in lieu of bosses. Despite its faults and missteps, Ori and the Blind Forest is a phenomenal metroidvania. There is good reason why even modern indie games are compared to Ori and the Blind Forest, even if few meet the high bar that it set.

Final Fantasy (1987)

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There is a reason why I try not to judge older games by modern standards. For what was revolutionary 30-years ago is now commonplace and often taken for granted. The original Final Fantasy is the textbook example of this. Anyone playing it today would surely find it antiquated in many ways, but Final Fantasy was the epitome of grand adventure and role-playing when it originally was released. That being said, I don’t think it’s a particularly worthwhile adventure anymore, unless you are curious about the series’ history or if you simply want to indulge on nostalgic quest.

The first indication of how dated Final Fantasy is comes from the combat. I personally enjoy the occasional turn-based game, but Final Fantasy has an incredibly simplistic approach to battles. You control a party of 4 characters, and at the beginning of the game you choose which class you want each character to be. The physical attacking characters like warrior, thief, and monk are relegated to using nothing other than a basic attack in combat. The magic using characters are more interesting, but they having stifling limitations.

Spells are assigned levels, and as you progress you unlock more powerful spells. But magic users have a limited number of spell casts at each level before they need to refresh their charges by resting. I found myself holding onto the more powerful spells for bosses or particularly dangerous encounters, which meant that basic battles often were quite boring. Since combat is remarkably simple, the standard encounter is not often threatening. But over the course of navigating a dungeon you have to be worried about attrition. Each battle may only chip away at your characters health, spell casts, and items, but over the course of dozens of battles it adds up quickly.

Since this natural whittling of resources is the major concern of dungeons, I found myself conserving as many spell casts as possible for the boss or emergencies. Using nothing other than basic attacks unless necessary. But this is incredibly boring as there is little strategy or satisfaction is simply mashing the attack button with all four characters. Resource management should be an important aspect of games, but Final Fantasy could’ve afforded to be less restrictive with magic users. Moreover, I wish that non-magic classes had skills that could be used to make battles more interesting.

One aspect that I was surprised by was the story of Final Fantasy. JRPGs are infamous for their often confusing and over-the-top narratives. But Final Fantasy was fairly grounded while also providing a fun series of episodic quests. It’s not a generic adventure. From battling pirates, to curing an elven prince of his curse, to assisting dwarves to blow-up an isthmus, to diving under the ocean into the temple of mermaids, to climbing a desert tower and boarding an airship, Final Fantasy progressively ups the ante with its story.

The series if renowned for its scope and presentation, and that trend obviously began at its inception. For 1987, the world map is massive. As you unlock more modes of transportation to travel to new regions it truly feels like a grand adventure. The sprites and artwork are iconic. Not to mention the music. Everybody knows the Final Fantasy victory theme. There are so many great tracks that got stuck in my head that I was humming along to as I was playing.

One downside of having such a massive world is how easy it is to get completely lost on your journey. Unfortunately, Final Fantasy relies on a ton of trial and error in its quest design. Most of the time, there is a singular character you have to converse with to progress the game. This leads to a ton of aimless wandering as you go from town to town, talking to every character. Occasionally there are hints of where you should be searching, but there’s too many times when that isn’t the case and you are left to purposelessly roam. This wouldn’t be too much of an issue in and of itself, but it gets absurdly frustrating when paired with the game’s other major issue: random encounters.

I honestly don’t hate random encounters. As long as they are omnipresent and there is a method to deal with them. I grew up playing Pokémon, in which random encounters would only occur in specified areas. You could also easily escape from most wild battles in a couple of seconds. Moreover, you can buy repels to prevent them altogether. None of this is the case in Final Fantasy. Random encounters are unavoidable and occur anywhere and everywhere that isn’t a town. They are frequent and disruptive. You can flee from them, but it’s often just as time-consuming as combat since enemies may go first. Leading to you just watching a party of baddies attack while you are waiting to escape. Not to mention that you are going to need to participate in a ton of encounters to acquire enough money and experience to be prepared for later parts of the game.

It’s the combination of archaic quest design and random encounters that makes Final Fantasy unbearable at times. Without random encounters, aimlessly wandering to search for an objective wouldn’t constantly be grinded to a halt. Without the annoying search for what to do next, random encounters would be far less purposeless and feel more manageable. This is where the age of Final Fantasy is felt the most, and it’s this obnoxious combination that hampered my enjoyment of the game.

It’s worth mentioning that I played Final Fantasy in a more modern format: the Pixel Remasters. These are faithful remasters of the classic Final Fantasy games, but with some great quality-of-life updates. Saving is easier, the overworld and dungeons have maps, and your characters will redirect attacks that were destined to hit empty spaces. I’m sure the game would have been even more tedious without these features, the maps especially. A feature that I did not use but I’m sure is handy for veterans of the series is the ability to turn off random encounters and boost experience gain. I wanted to play the game as it was originally intended, but these options would be fantastic for a quicker playthrough if the game. Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention the new orchestral version of the soundtrack. It’s phenomenal.

Overall, I don’t think the original Final Fantasy is worth the time unless you really are curious about it. I would love to see a full-fledged remake, as I do believe it has some fun scenarios for adventuring. The Pixel Remaster version allows for some methods to cut down on the tedium, but the game as it was intended is often a slog. It was fun to see the roots of the series, but it definitely wasn’t the most enjoyable experience.  

Doom Eternal (2020)

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From the first moment I launched the game, it was immediately apparent that Doom Eternal is not just a retreading of Doom (2016). While I did enjoy the straightforward brutality of Doom (2016), I greatly appreciate that Doom Eternal makes the experience much more complex. Running around and shooting demons was a ton of fun, but I am glad that there was some change-ups to make the formula fresh and to keep it engaging through the whole game.

Like its predecessor, Doom Eternal is a fast-paced FPS where you blast through hordes of demons. You have to keep moving and shooting or you will be quickly overrun. There is never a dull moment in combat, as a momentary lapse in judgment will lead to your demise. Doom Eternal is challenging, even on the normal difficulty. I think it suits the game perfectly, high-octane non-stop running and gunning is what Doom should be about.

Part of what keeps Doom Eternal so fast-paced is the sheer number of tools to keep track of and utilize. Weapons have low ammo counts, so you have to constantly swap between guns, hunt for ammo pick-ups, and utilize the chainsaw which causes enemies to spew out extra ammo. Health and armor are also limited resources that can be gained through pick-ups. But you have to actively use the flamethrower if you want bonus armor and occasionally finish off enemies with a glory kill to replenish health.

Additionally, every major enemy has a weakness. What’s interesting is that these weaknesses not only do bonus damage, but the reduce the threat level of the demon as well. For example, you can disable the turret on Arachnotons, or blast off the flamethrower from a Mancubus. I really love this aspect of the game as it encourages, but doesn’t necessitate, intelligent use of equipment and well-placed shots. You could just brute force encounters by gunning down demons with the weapon of your choice, but you will be better off constantly swapping between guns to exploit each enemy’s weakness. This makes combat encounters intense and engaging, even after playing for a dozen hours.

Intelligently making use of the tools at your disposal is the key to success in Doom Eternal. Keeping track of cooldowns on the chainsaw and flamethrower is vital to staying topped up on ammo and armor. Grenades are useful for crowd control when you’re overwhelmed. Each weapon has its use. The minigun is great for sustained damage, the plasma gun makes enemy shields explode, the assault rifle is good for long range engagements and sniping enemy weak points. My favorite was the super shotgun which dealt high burst damage and had a grapple hook for mobility.

Additionally, Doom Eternal has tons of upgrades to augment your play. Most importantly, each weapon has two attachments, and those attachments can be upgraded for additional effects. Truthfully, I was kind of overwhelmed by the sheer volume of upgrades and effects that were present in Doom Eternal. Not only do weapons have upgrades, but there are also suit upgrades, equippable runes, and shards that have unique effects. By the midgame I had gotten comfortable with all the systems in the game, but the first few hours felt like a barrage of informational pop-ups for all the various systems that the game offers.

Many of the resources used for upgrades can be acquired just through naturally playing the game, but Doom Eternal utilizes its downtime to fuel the hunt for more upgrades. The combat is so intense that it’s critical to provide a breather for the player. After clearing an arena full of demons, there are usually hidden items that can be spent on upgrades. While it’s not the focus of the game, I did appreciate that there were some elements of exploration, platforming, and light puzzling to break up the straight up insanity of the combat of Doom Eternal. Even better, if you want to just focus on the combat, you could easily completely ignore most of the game’s other elements and just progress from combat arena to combat arena to kick some ass.

One element that I was not impressed with was the story and lore. Obviously, the story should not be an important aspect of any Doom game. And that’s fine. But there’s a surprising amount of cutscenes and info dumps that spew a confusing story at the player. I felt like the game is attempting to establish some deep lore, but it felt incredibly out of place. Luckily, you can skip cutscenes and not read any of the lore documents. Regardless, Doom shouldn’t spend so much time on its narrative elements.

Overall, Doom Eternal is an absolute thrill to play. It’s an evolution of the run and gun style of play that Doom (2016) introduced. It’s faster, more difficult, and requires more foresight and strategy. It’s the perfect game to rip n’ tear. It is for these reasons I give Doom Eternal a 9/10. If you’re looking for some high-octane demon-blasting action, look no further than Doom Eternal.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023)

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One of the game’s that I wish I spent more writing an extensive review for is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild. Looking back, I really should have highlighted how the game’s design led to organic adventure, discovery, and creativity. I consider Breath of the Wild to be a marvel of game design, and it remains as a barometer of quality for open world games. Predictably, I was endlessly excited for its sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I was optimistic that despite reusing the map and world, Tears of the Kingdom would do enough to differentiate itself from its predecessor. After spending dozens of hours adventuring throughout Hyrule again, I can confidently say that Tears of the Kingdom is a marvelous sandbox to inspire creativity, yet its recycled world stifled the lure of adventure.

There’s no denying that Tears of the Kingdom is a wondrous playground for players to discover. It follows in the footsteps of Breath of the Wild; you can walk, climb, or glide anywhere that your heart desires. This is a level of freedom that I greatly appreciate. The player is left to craft their own path. The environment subtly piques your curiosity, pulling you towards interesting landmarks and mysterious areas. While there are quests to nudge the player along, many will find themselves constantly being sidetracked as they stray off the beaten path. This is the magic of Tears of the Kingdom.

One could make the argument that while Breath of the Wild had a massive world to explore, it was fairly empty. Aside from few major towns, the game was dotted with the same objectives such as the bite-sized puzzles that were Shrines and Koroks. Tears of the Kingdom expands on that same world while also filling it with many more things to do. For example, you can explore many of the new underground caves and wells that exist within Hyrule. These winding passages are filled with valuable resources and dangerous monsters. Moreover, they often play a pivotal role in the expanded quest log of Tears of the Kingdom.

There are a ton of side quests to be sucked into while playing Tears of the Kingdom. Some of them are just short tasks to collect some items or kill some monsters, but I found that most quests were more expansive and told a story. I felt like I was playing a vital role in rebuilding Hyrule by assisting its inhabitants. The quests are intelligently designed to feed into the game’s main attraction: exploration. Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t fall into the modern convention of overusing objective markers and waypoints. Instead, the characters will describe their plight and have the player use their brain to solve the problem.

While it may not be revolutionary, I can appreciate the trust placed in the player to figure things out on their own. It’s far more immersive to be told about a monster camp alongside the mountain road and going to find it yourself rather than simply following a glowing arrow to the objective. The main quests also felt like classic The Legend of Zelda adventures. The dungeons themselves were short and underwhelming, but the quests leading up to those dungeons were superb journeys. They are legendary expeditions through the epic land of Hyrule.

 The key distinction between Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild is the new set of abilities at the player’s disposal. There are four key abilities: Ultrahand, Recall, Fuse, and Ascend. These abilities are cleverly utilized and emphasized to increase the player’s motivation to make use of them. The most pivotal of these skills is Ultrahand, which lets the player attach materials together to build contraptions. The world is filled with Zonai Devices which act as battery-powered pieces of technology that can be used when building machines with Ultrahand. While I don’t have the creativity as many of the engineering-minded players, I still enjoyed building makeshift cars, planes, and other contraptions.

Ultrahand is extremely entertaining to experiment with. This was especially fun during the first hours of the game when I was still learning how everything functioned. There’s a wonderful comedic effect when one of your ideas literally bursts into flames. The outcome of building a sketchy vehicle was gratifying no matter the outcome. I either would laugh at the resulting chaos of my shoddily built mechanism. Or I felt pride and astonishment in the nature of “I can’t believe that actually worked”.

The genius of Ultrahand is how ubiquitous it is throughout the game. Initially, I was a little worried that such a creative idea would not be emphasized, but I was proved wrong. Many of the puzzles present in the game are reliant on Ultrahand. Shrines are specifically designed to teach you new combinations and mechanics. Moreover, you have to build vehicles to transport Koroks, which almost always results in a comedic sketchy-space-program wherein you launch Koroks into the stratosphere via rockets. Even basic traversal throughout the world was assisted by the use of gliders and other vehicles.

Fuse is another one of the key abilities of the game. It allows the player to meld items to weapons, shields or arrows. This is a pretty great concept, as it allows the player to come up with some creative weaponry or tools. Like fusing a rocket or bomb to your shield to blast off above enemies. Additionally, it means that defeating dangerous enemies yields resources are directly useful to crafting powerful weapons. Unfortunately, the implementation of Fuse is a little clunky as it requires frequent navigation through multiple menus to utilize fully.

I’ve never felt that the overarching plot was an important aspect to The Legend of Zelda games. The charming characters, wondrous landscapes, and enchanting towns have always been what made these games feel fantastical. The same goes for Tears of the Kingdom. I loved visiting all the locales and seeing how the various peoples have been faring. Each race is going through a crisis, and I greatly enjoyed the subsequent adventures to assist them. The central plot fits The Legend of Zelda perfectly. The cyclical battle of good and evil is core tenet of the series. However, it had some strange pacing issues due to repeated cutscenes. Additionally, the memory sequences don’t have to be found in chronological order. Which is a fine decision, but there’s a lack of subtlety that makes the major plot twist incredibly obvious if you find certain memories first.

While I do love Tears of the Kingdom, I felt enormously fatigued and burnt out after playing it for a few dozen hours. While that is a solid amount of time to invest in a game, it is paltry compared to the time I spent exploring Breath of the Wild. For a game of this size, I was disappointed by how quickly I felt that I had experienced most of what it had to offer. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a phenomenal game and achievement, but I can’t help but feel that it would have been better served to have its own world rather than reuse the one from Breath of the Wild.

This duology of The Legend of Zelda games hinges on the intrinsic value of exploration. The combat, puzzles, and other aspects are solid foundational pieces, but the main draw of these games is satiating the desire to adventure across a grandiose fantasy land. The world of Tears of the Kingdom is slightly remixed from its predecessor, but most of the major areas and landmarks remain in their general neighborhood from Breath of the Wild. While Hyrule is undeniably denser with quests, caves, and other threads of adventure, it’s still the same world. The feeling of discovery is dampened when I’ve already visited all the major areas a few years ago. I spent over a hundred hours exploring this world in Breath of the Wild, I was not keen to spent another hundred hours retreading the same ground.

There are two new major zones in Tears of the Kingdom, however neither felt comparable to the original diverse biomes of Hyrule. The Depths is the first major area, a pitch-black underground cavern that mirrors the world above it. I enjoyed exploring the Depths and the unique challenges that it poses. Slowly maneuvering through the dark by using whatever means of illumination you can find is a fun departure from traditional exploration. Despite that, I felt that the Depths were fairly barren. There isn’t much to be discovered in such a massive area, and 95% of my time down here spent was gliding between Lightroots to provide some light.

The other major addition is the Sky Islands. Far above the ground are ruins of an ancient civilization. Similar to the Depths, I felt that these were a great concept but they had lackluster execution. The islands are fairly sparse, and many of them follow the same basic templates. Navigating these floating islands is an engaging puzzle, but I felt disappointed by how few unique islands there were. The best and most comprehensive set of islands is the tutorial area of Tears of the Kingdom, which only further set me up for disappointment when no other islands matched that initial standard.

The Sky Islands also exacerbate a returning issue from Breath of the Wild: gliding is too ubiquitous of a travel method. Using the glider to fly over terrain, monsters, and obstacles, is probably the least satisfying way to traverse the world. But it is the easiest. It’s a well-known phenomenon that players often opt for the simplest or most optimal strategy, regardless of how fun it is. Game designers should be well-aware of this fact and ensure that the most optimal strategy is the most entertaining strategy. It’s more appealing to talk to characters, fight monsters, and traverse terrain on foot rather than simply flying over everything. This issue is worse in Tears of the Kingdom is because there are so many methods to ascend upwards: Sky Islands, Skyview Towers, vehicles, and falling debris all provide a simple means of getting far above any obstacles.

 There’s no doubt that Tears of the Kingdom is a magnificent game. But six years after Breath of the Wild, I can’t help but feeling like I wanted more out of its sequel. The new abilities such as Ultrahand are incredibly fun to play with. And the main quest delivers some magical adventure and discovery. But in a game where exploration is king, I wasn’t especially compelled to revisit the same world I had already spent dozens of hours in. It is for these reasons that I give The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom a 9/10. It’s a phenomenal experience and a glorious sandbox, but it’s not as revolutionary as Breath of the Wild.

Resident Evil (1996)

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The genre of survival horror has become synonymous with Resident Evil. It is one of the most storied and recognizable franchises in video games. But I had never played or engaged with any of its numerous titles in any way. With the recent resurgence and renaissance of Resident Evil, I figured I had a unique opportunity to experience not only the series, but survival horror as a whole. I could take a journey through the life and evolution of the genre. Starting with its genesis in 1996.

I was surprised how engaging I found Resident Evil to be, despite its age. The mansion is a terrific environment to explore. Every room is full of secrets that you have to probe for. It’s a labyrinth that you must delve deeper and deeper into if you want to escape. It’s a giant escape room filled with zombies and other horrific creatures. Resident Evil mastered the feeling of tension. Simply walking down hallways or dealing with a single enemy is a stressful affair.

The inventory system plays a large role in the tension. Even playing on Easy Mode, the player only has 8 inventory slots. You have to juggle numerous items such as your weapons, ammo, medicine, herbs, and key items used in puzzles. You can’t drop items, so you should almost always have a free slot or two open in case you find valuable items. The reason this system provides so much tension is that you have such limited resources at your disposal.

Ammo and healing items are relatively sparse. Zombies are threatening as they can deal massive damage if they latch onto you. Every time you encounter an enemy you are given a choice: fight or attempt to dodge. Fighting is a surefire way of making it through without taking damage, but ammo is precious and you could find yourself in situations where you run out of ammo permanently. Dodging enemies is risky, as you could get caught and sustain immense damage. The limited inventory also means you can’t carry everything with you at once, so you have to make strategic choices have how many healing items and weapons you want to bring.

You can only save in designated safe rooms, and depending on which version you are playing, it also requires a limited item to save. Having limited saves means you are less likely to save at every opportunity. Which then means that dying will set you farther back as you are saving less often. This contributes to the feeling of tension and danger as you explore the mansion. It’s a constant balancing act of risk and reward. Will you play on a knife’s edge to preserve resources, but risk dying and facing a massive setback? Or will you engage in combat to guarantee your safety but risk running out of ammunition for later scenarios?

Part of the reason why avoiding zombies is so inherently risky is the control scheme. Resident Evil utilizes tank controls, a system that is antiquated by modern standards. In this scheme, the player controls the character relative to the character’s position rather than the camera. This definitely takes some getting used to, and I still didn’t feel 100% comfortable using this system even after completing the game. But tank controls are necessary when you consider that Resident Evil uses a fixed camera system.

The player does not control the camera. Instead, every room has a few preset camera angles that get swapped between depending where you are standing. Tank controls are almost a necessity when using fixed camera angles, because holding forward will still move your character forward regardless of the camera angle. It would be awkward and jarring to have a movement system based on the relative position of the camera when the camera is swapping angles constantly. The benefit of using fixed camera angles is that it allowed for more detailed backgrounds as they can just be static images rather than rendered environments. Additionally, Resident Evil utilizes its camera angles to hide enemies around corners, leading to additional tension and caution.

Despite it being the first survival horror game, I did not find Resident Evil to be that frightening. And honestly, I’m pretty easily scared when it comes to video games. There were times playing Subnautica or even Outer Wilds that I was petrified of progressing forward. The primary reason that I did not find Resident Evil to be scary lies in the difference between horror and terror. Resident Evil relies primarily on horror. Horror being the shock and revulsion of seeing zombies, giant spiders, snakes, and other creatures.

Terror is a stronger emotion that horror. The initial shock of seeing something horrifying wears off. But the deep-rooted anxiety and unknowing of terror never lessens. It’s hardwired into humans as a survival trait. Resident Evil does have its terrifying moments, like when you enter new areas or have to turn a blind-corner knowing that a zombie is waiting for you. But more than terrifying, I would describe Resident Evil as tense. Navigating the cramped labyrinth of the mansion is stressful. Trying to figure out how to escape while backtracking through narrow hallways is tense because a single enemy can be devastating.

While horror isn’t something that always resonates with me, it’s only fair to mention that Resident Evil is ancient. I wasn’t particularly revulsed by most of the enemies, and I believe a lot of that has to do with the dated presentation. Zombies or giant spiders aren’t particularly scary when you can count how many polygons they are comprised of. The game looks great for its era, but I found it difficult to be truly immersed and horrified by its dated visuals.

Another aspect of Resident Evil that feels like it’s a product of its time is the writing and voice acting. It can be hard to take the cutscenes and story seriously when it feels like a low-budget horror movie where the actors were hired off the street. More often than not, the story sequences are comedic. The voice acting is so bad that it feels like an intentional parody. The overarching plot is decent mechanism to provide context of the mansion and its secrets, but I never felt drawn to keep playing for the story.

Despite its age, I greatly enjoyed playing Resident Evil. While many of its systems today feel dated, they all work in harmony to provide a cohesive experience. In a world of action games, it’s refreshing to play a game where even the most basic of enemy is a real threat. While I did not find Resident Evil to be very frightening, it certainly was tense. I’m excited to play the rest of the series and see how it progresses over time.

Inscryption (2021)

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You are trapped in a dark cabin in the woods, playing a game of cards that determines your fate. Inscryption blends a multitude of genres to deliver a game that you never know where it will lead next. Tension permeates the experience as you attempt to unravel the dark secrets hidden within. Inscryption is a truly unique experiment, and it all revolves around a simple card game.

In every act of the Inscryption, you will be playing some variation of the titular card game. The card game itself starts remarkably simple. Whoever deals five damage more than their opponent first, wins the game. Cards have the basic stats like attack and defense, as well as special abilities. It’s all straightforward and easily understood by anyone vaguely familiar with trading-card-games. While I appreciate that the game starts simple and gradually gets more complex, I also think that it is almost too easy to find the winning strategies that almost guarantee success.

You sit across from a mysterious and deranged figure, who sets up tabletop adventure in which you traverse encounter to encounter playing cards. As you defeat his scenarios, you are also given the opportunity to improve your deck. Gaining new cards, adding stats to existing cards, combining cards of the same type, or sacrificing a card to give its ability to another card are some options that you may encounter.

Once I understood the basics of the game, I found it a bit repetitive. It’s pretty easy to leverage events to power-up a single card or two that let you win each round almost immediately. The central card game is just too simple. I never felt like I was building a coherent deck that relied on a synergistic strategy. Instead, I almost always found myself making use of totems to boost the ubiquitous Squirrel card, as it was needed as the foundation to summoning any other creature. After that, I just needed to stall until I drew one of my boosted cards to wreak havoc.

The game was designed this way on purpose, you unlock powerful boosts, items, and cards after playing a few rounds. It becomes difficult to lose without a blundering horribly. The game was intentionally made easy so the player can progress the story. But when the central mechanic is playing cards, and I master the card game after only completing 25% of the game, the following 75% can get a bit dull. The game does mix up the decks periodically throughout the course of the experience, which is a welcome change to keep things fresh.

While I found the card game itself to be a little too simple, there is more to Inscryption than playing cards. You can explore the claustrophobic and dingy cabin, interacting with objects in hope that they will help you escape. This was the strongest aspect of Inscryption. The atmosphere and anxiety of playing cards when you are trapped. Every draw, every move, every decision brings you closer to being a victim. Your only hope is to use the cabin’s secrets to your advantage.

The card game pairs well with the atmosphere. It’s designed to be tense, to be played on a knife’s edge. The metallic tinker on the scale as you take damage is chilling feedback that you are a single mistake away from having your candle blown out. The nature of sacrificing cards to summon more powerful ones means you are always careful about what cards you are playing, as momentum plays a pivotal role in keeping your side of the board healthy. In the most desperate of situations you can utilize items, many of which have horrifying implications. Even though I knew it was just a game, I always felt a sense of revulsion whenever I used a pair of pliers to rip out a tooth to add a point of damage to the scale.

Inscryption is cloaked in layers upon layers of metafictional storytelling and genre switching. The nature of the game slowly reveals itself as the player progresses. In an effort to remain spoiler free, I will not delve deep into this aspect of Inscryption. I enjoyed going down the rabbit hole of Inscryption and revealing the deep dark conspiracies within.

Uniqueness is becoming more and more of a virtue as I play games. The ability for a game to be different. To be weird. To experiment. Inscryption is that kind of game. It may not have the best deck-building or card game mechanics, but the context around that simple card game is what breathes life into Inscryption. It is for these reasons I give Inscryption an 8.5/10. If you are even vaguely interested in Inscryption, don’t read or watch any more about it and play it for yourself.

God of War Ragnarök (2022)

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Despite its faults, I gave the revival of God of War a glowing review. It was an excellent game in many regards and had masterful presentation. Four years later, I don’t feel nearly as positive about its sequel, God of War Ragnarök. While it’s not uncommon for a sequel to regress or diverge from the original, that’s not the case here. Instead, God of War Ragnarök is a victim of being overly safe and designed-by-committee, with little to give it an identity of its own. Sure, it’s a competent video game and it’s undoubtably well-made, but its lack of originality makes it unremarkable. Moreover, God of War Ragnarök is bloated and desperately needed more revisions and editing to make it a leaner and more cohesive experience.

Before I dive into the individual systems, I want to make clear that many of these exact same flaws also existed in God of War. While it feels unfair to judge the sequel harsher for the same faults, it’s important to recognize that games don’t exist in a vacuum. Context is important. Being a sequel, God of War Ragnarök should have its own identity but instead it just feels like more of the same. In the four years between the releases, I don’t feel like any significant improvements were made. The combat and RPG mechanics are slightly better than its predecessor, but the story and writing definitely took a dip in quality. The pacing in particular feels bizarre.

God of War Ragnarök starts off strong, throwing the player into a thrill ride of exciting story sequences culminating with a spectacular boss battle. After that, the game’s pacing takes a nose-dive. While the first game in this saga had some slow pacing at times, it was far more character driven than plot driven. The singular goal of reaching the top of the mountain always loomed, and everything in between served as a way for characters to grow and develop their bonds. God of War Ragnarök instead tries to cram many plot threads and events into a single game.

The main plot of God of War Ragnarök focuses on its namesake, Ragnarök. The characters of the game desperately attempt to avoid the fated event and its consequences. It introduces tons of new characters, motivations, relationships, and moving pieces. I think this Norse chapter of God of War would have benefited from being a trilogy instead of a duology. While I understand that the developers did not want to stretch this story over a decade of real time, I think the pacing of God of War Ragnarök would have benefitted heavily from this. The first game in the Norse saga was a slow burn, a character driven adventure, so most of the actual plot of the story had to be stuffed into God of War Ragnarök.

While I believe that God of War Ragnarök would have benefitted from having a sequel to scope its story, it admittedly has other bizarre pacing issues. While the game starts strong, it slows down tremendously for dozens of hours then races through the climax. It spends too long on these “slow-burn” character building moments that no time is left for the actual plot. I was let down by the abrupt ending, which was the result of dozens of hours of build-up culminating in a rather lackluster couple of boss fights.

Where God of War Ragnarök does make strides is its combat. While it does not reach the complexity of other character action series like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, or even its predecessors in the God of War series, it does manage to be fun. There’s a beauty in simplicity, and God of War Ragnarök manages to keep things straightforward and approachable while also providing some advanced techniques for more experienced players. While the first game in the Norse saga was debatably too simple, God of War Ragnarök introduces some key changes and combat options. First in foremost, the player starts the game with multiple weapons unlocked, allowing for some more experimentation right at the beginning. Unlocking new techniques using experience makes a return, and you can disable certain techniques if they disrupt your flow.

Being able to stack elemental damage to inflict status effects is emphasized, encouraging the player to swap between their weapons for big damage. Runic attacks make a return but have much higher cooldowns, meaning that they are no longer a spammable win condition but instead supplement your moveset. The most important change wasn’t to the combat itself, but in the boss variety. God of War Ragnarök has tons of bosses. Fighting unique mythological beings is much more engaging than fighting the same troll mini-boss over and over again.

Unfortunately, there are a few returning problems in the combat. First and foremost being the camera. It follows the player too closely in an over-the-shoulder 3rd-person view. You can’t see anything behind you, and you have to rely on directional indicators for incoming attacks. These indicators are unreliable and it’s impossible to tell what kind of attack is incoming. Is it a projectile? Or an area-of-effect blast? Or an unblockable attack? Or a standard strike? All these things require different reactions but you never know which it is or how long it will take to reach you. Once you see one of these indicators you pretty much have to stop your combo and maneuver and dodge away from where you are standing. It interrupts the flow of combat pretty badly.

My other big issue is one that plays a larger role on the higher difficulties. Enemy hyper-armor. The ability for certain enemies to shrug off your attacks and continue as if you were a fly buzzing around them. Enemies that are a higher level than you are have the nasty tendency of being doused in hyper-armor, making it impossible to pull off combos on them. You have to rely on an overly safe style of play to defeat these foes. Moreover, it creates an inconsistent experience because a level 3 draugr will easily be combo’d by the player, but a level 5 draugr does not even react to your hits. This isn’t a huge issue on normal difficulty as you will most often be at similar levels to the enemies, but it quickly gets out of hand when attempting the higher levels of difficulty.

The concept of levels itself is strange in the context of God of War, and I maintain that the Norse saga would have been much better off leaving out the majority of its RPG elements. I think that God of War Ragnarök does better than its predecessor because it has streamlined the enchantments and accessories a tad bit. Furthermore, stats and set bonuses actually feel like they have an impact in combat. However, I still find all of this to be unnecessary in a game like God of War Ragnarök. Shoehorning in RPG elements doesn’t feel like it adds anything except for time wasted staring at your inventory menu. Quests are intrinsically rewarding if they have a fun boss or interesting story line, I don’t need a cooldown-boosting pair of pants to make it worth my while to explore.

One of the biggest sources of the game’s bloat is the traversal. Getting from Point A to Point B in God of War Ragnarök is painstakingly slow. Like its predecessor, God of War Ragnarök makes frequent use of walky-talky sections and wall-climbing to pad out the space in between combat encounters and major story moments. I don’t mind having characters talk to each-other during their adventures, but when time spent in combat is dwarfed by time spent mindlessly climbing walls, it’s gone too far.

I understand that some of these sections are meant to hide loading screens, but this was a poor choice. Consider that the amount of climbing and walking can never be shortened, but load times can be massively reduced by newer hardware. This is blatantly apparent as God of War Ragnarök can be run on both the PS4 and PS5, and the PS5 players have to suffer due to the PS4’s technical constraints. If it takes the PS4 one minute to load a new environment, they had to make the climbing section at least that long to compensate. The PS5 can load in half the time, but it doesn’t matter as the game was designed around the slower load times of the weaker hardware.

While I praised the first game in this saga for its use of the single-take cinematic shot, I think the novelty of this has worn off. The immersion that this effect brings is simply not worth the trade-offs. I think that you could argue that most of my complaints with the game could be attributed to the dedication of maintaining this single shot. The camera being too claustrophobic in combat may be because zooming out would break the consistent over-the-shoulder camera angle. Poor pacing could be a result of not being able to utilize traditional cutscenes to cut out lengthy filler and skip to the point. Traversal is frustrating because you have to go slowly in order to avoid loading screens as that would break the immersion.

Furthermore, the number of resources spent in development to maintain this effect and work around its pitfalls could have been spent elsewhere. More time could have been spent refining core systems rather than being so adamantly tied to a gimmick. In retrospect, I don’t think the cinematic benefit of this single-take camera shot was worth it in God of War either. However, at least that game can take credit for originality. God of War Ragnarök doesn’t have the benefit of being the first game to implement this effect. It’s something that we’ve seen before. It’s no longer new or unique. The effect is frequently broken anyway as the player will constantly being opening their menu at their quest log, gear, and map.

More than anything, God of War Ragnarök needed an editor. Simply put, it’s bloated. The unnecessary RPG mechanics, the time-wasting climbing, the poorly-paced story sequences that went on for far too long, the single-shot cinematic effect, the dozens of collectibles that litter the map; there’s just so much extraneous fluff. Realizing what components exist to serve the core domain and what features detract from the experience is a vital skill that’s necessary when creating any form of media. Addition by subtraction is a well-known concept. All these features could have been iterated on, refined, or outright removed for the betterment of the final product.

Despite all of this, God of War Ragnarök is still a good video game. But not a great one. It is still technologically impressive. It has gorgeous environments and stellar animations. The combat is weighty, flashy, varied, but deceptively simple. The setting and premise are intriguing. The writing, despite taking a step back from its predecessor, is still leagues better than most other games. The plot was captivating even if it was poorly paced and had a rushed final act. But I wish these positives were further elevated, rather than having to sift through hours of monotonous tedium to get to the soul of the game.

God of War Ragnarök is a victim of high aspirations and poor planning. There’s too many systems and ideas at work here, bloating the final experience. Cramming two games of plot into a single game resulted in poor pacing. The insistence on being cinematic hampered many gameplay elements. Solid combat isn’t enough to carry the game when the player has to climb dozens of literal walls to get to it. It is for these reasons I give God of War Ragnarök a 6/10. I wish there was further refinement and editing to remove superfluous aspects, as being a more focused title would have benefitted God of War Ragnarök greatly.

Super Mario World (1990)

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My earliest memories of playing video games were sitting in the back of the car on a road trip playing Super Mario World on my Game Boy Advance. While I hold more nostalgia towards GameCube games like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, and of course Super Mario Sunshine, there’s something about Super Mario World that is special to me. Surprisingly, I have never revisited the game over the years, but after replaying it recently I was blown away with how excellent it was. Many games from its era are dated, overly difficult, and hard-to-control relics that are better left in the past. But Super Mario World is a joyful masterpiece.

Everything about Super Mario World exudes charm and personality. Being the launch title of the SNES, it made use of the expanded color palette and sound system. There’s a plethora of enemies and characters, each wonderfully designed to fit their environment and taking on personalities of their own. Super Mario World was Yoshi’s first appearance, and there’s a reason why everybody loves Mario’s dinosaur companion.

Yoshi is now an iconic character, and much of that can be attributed to how integral he was in Super Mario World. The game takes place in Dinosaur Land, the home of all different kinds of Yoshi. Mario travels from section to section, comedically toppling castles and rescuing Yoshi eggs. The world itself is vibrant, colorful, diverse, and full of secrets. While each world has an overall theme, the levels themselves also distinct archetypes. There are traditional levels, underwater adventures, fast-moving contraptions with ropes and saws, castles with lava and deadly smashers, and mysterious ghost houses. This variety keeps things fresh and avoids the repetition that may come from themed worlds.

Another aspect that really sets Super Mario World apart from its predecessors is how it handles secrets. While early Super Mario games did have secrets within levels, you could only hope to get some coins, a 1-Up, or to find a Warp Pipe to let you skip to future worlds. Super Mario World instead focuses on secret exits that reveal hidden levels. Finding all the secret levels is a great motivator for exploring and engaging with stages instead of blazing towards the finish line.

 These secret levels make the overworld of Super Mario World feel more interconnected. Secret levels can open up alternative paths through the world, which is a great reward for discovering hidden exits. Moreover, there are five routes to Star World, which acts as a central hub that makes it faster to travel around the map.

For being an early SNES title, I was surprised with how smooth the gameplay was. The controls are fantastic as they balance precision and the momentum-based movement that Mario is known for. In the early Super Mario games, Mario would have a hefty amount of momentum, making precise jumps more difficult. While momentum is still present, it does not feel like you are slipping around on ice at all times anymore. Super Mario World is easier than its predecessors because of this, but I wouldn’t say the game is a pushover either. There are plenty of more challenging levels that will test your mastery of platforming.

The biggest strength of Super Mario World is its simplicity and charm. It makes full use of the expanded color palette and music capabilities that the SNES offered. It’s easy to take these things for granted today, but at the time Super Mario World was so much more vibrant, colorful, and visually pleasing than other games. The levels are absurdly creative, making use of a huge variety of enemies, obstacles, and settings. Every single level is memorable for its own reason, and there was not a single level that I disliked. Not to mention the music from Koji Kondo is masterful as always. The catchy and famous main melody of the game is frequently reused in recognizable but unique ways depending on the level’s setting. An echoey version is used in caves, a slower-tempo and grandiose version is used in castles, the athletic piano version that we all know as quintessential Mario is used in the obstacle courses.

While Super Mario World may seem simple by today’s standards, it set the gold standard for platformers going forward. It’s just pure fun to explore the levels, uncover secret bonus levels, and master the movement and courses so you can speed through. The vibrant visuals, memorable music, imaginative environments, and clean controls make Super Mario World the purest kind of game. It’s a classic game that has aged gracefully, and its one that everyone should experience.

Bowser’s Fury (2021)

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After playing Super Mario 3D World, my primary complaint was how disjointed the experience felt. Other 3D Super Mario games felt like a coherent adventure, while Super Mario 3D World feels a series of fun but unrelated obstacle courses. Bowser’s Fury is a game that was packaged alongside the Switch port of Super Mario 3D World, but that’s not the only game that it takes inspiration from. Bowser’s Fury is a glorious marriage between the platforming excellence of Super Mario 3D World and the open-ended collectathon adventure of Super Mario Odyssey. It’s a relatively short game, but Bowser’s Fury is a massive success.

Bowser’s Fury is set in one giant area, an ocean dotted with islands and partially covered in black ink. Bowser has gone berserk and you have to collect Cat Shines to revert him to his usual self. Each island is like one of the levels from Super Mario 3D World, a short challenge that usually is focused on a unique gimmick. Additionally, the islands have five Cat Shines each, meaning the player gets to revisit each island multiple times. The islands morph with each subsequent level, retaining their core theme and gimmick but changing up the layout to accommodate for different objectives.

The ability and necessity to revisit areas is a massive improvement over Super Mario 3D World. Instead of every level being a one-and-done affair that is easily forgotten, the designers are able to evolve on the ideas and gimmicks that make each level unique. You get to fully explore these dense areas and really familiarize yourself with them. They feel like real locations rather than artificial obstacle courses.

Another aspect that contributes to the adventure of Bowser’s Fury is the world. As previously mentioned, the whole game takes place in a single area. While not all the islands are immediately accessible, you will quickly uncover them. Getting between the main islands is a breeze, as Plessie makes a return from Super Mario 3D World. Plessie acts as a mode of transportation across the giant body of water, and she is a ton of fun to ride. She’s fast, handles well, and is always available no matter where you are. She will pop up out of the water seamlessly, without any need for the player to summon her or go to limited predetermined locations where she resides.

Like many other 3D Super Mario games, many of the Cat Shines reside not only in the main levels, but in side challenges and secrets hidden around the map. These are usually quick trials like racing Plessie through an obstacle course or catching a rabbit running around on the lake. These little side missions also contribute to the feeling of cohesion, as you can find these little distractions while exploring the greater world.

A central aspect of Bowser’s Fury is when Bowser gets furious. He is a behemoth in this game, always residing in the center of the map, occasionally awakening to cause terror. When Bowser emerges from his slumber, the sky goes dark in a torrential downpour and fire balls rain down as the colossal Bowser towers above you and spits his fiery breath at Mario. It really is a phenomenal sight to see, and it makes the game much more frantic while Bowser is awake.

While you could just hide from Bowser until he goes away, but I found it much more fun to engage with the more difficult platforming challenges that Bowser creates. Dodging the raining fireballs and fire breath make things more challenging, but Bowser also causes giant obelisks to be lodged in the ground. These can act as additional platforms and shields from his attacks. It can be fun to dodge all the chaotic madness using these temporary platforms, and after collecting a single Cat Shine Bowser will temporarily halt his rampage and go back to sleep.

The other method of dealing with Bowser is to fight him directly. Across the world there are a few Giga Bells, power-ups that transform Mario into a giant to contend with his equally goliath foe. Battling with Bowser is enjoyable, and it slowly ramps up in complexity as the game progresses. These Kaiju battles visually fantastic, even if they are similar to Bowser battles from past games.

While I generally enjoyed Bowsers constant looming presence throughout the game, it also has a fair share of issues. The first being that Bowser can get irritating when he starts to appear more frequently at the end of the game. While I enjoy the additional challenge of dodging his attacks, sometimes it can get annoying when he seems to appear during every single level. On the flip side, many Cat Shines require Bowser’s presence to acquire. This is also frustrating as it led me to abandoning levels halfway through to scramble to get to where I needed to be for these time-limited Cat Shines. And at the end of the game, I had to literally just sit still and wait for Bowser to show up for the last five or so Cat Shines. Lastly, whenever Bowser appears there is noticeable performance drop.

I enjoy the inclusion of Bowser and his rampages; they definitely make for some fun platforming and cohesive theming across the game. I’m not sure how I would feel about it if Bowser’s Fury was a much longer game. It only took me a few hours to beat with couple more hours to 100% complete it, and a popular opinion that I have been seeing is that many people want the next Super Mario game to be an extended version of Bowser’s Fury. While I can agree that this is a great foundation to build off, I think the format would outlast it’s welcome if it was any longer than the short romp that was presented in Bowser’s Fury.

A totally open world Super Mario game with no world or level selection would be fantastic, but even in Bowser’s Fury I felt there was a lot of filler or repeated Cat Shines. For being such a short game, I was disappointed with how many of the objectives were identical to one another. There were so many Rabbit chases, Bowser blocks, Lucky Island Cat Shines, Plessie speed challenges, and so forth. There wasn’t a great balance between the number of core platforming levels and these side missions. I love exploring and completing optional tasks, but I think Bowser’s Fury just has too many of them in relation to how short the game is.

Bowser’s Fury is an immensely successful experiment. It meshes classic Super Mario platforming and the giant, open-ended exploration from Super Mario Odyssey. The singular area scattered with short levels is a fantastic formula. Bowser himself was a fun gimmick for a majority of the game, and I would love to see an expanded upon game with big areas and gimmicks similar to Bowser’s reign of terror. It is for these reasons that I give Bowser’s Fury a 9.5/10. While it had a few flaws, I think Bowser’s Fury is the sensational appetizer for what’s to come next.

Super Mario 3D World (2013)

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In a series that is home to some of the greatest and more influential games of all time, Super Mario 3D World seems a little underwhelming at first glance. It’s less adventurous than Super Mario 64, less experimental than Super Mario Sunshine, and less grandiose than Super Mario Galaxy. What Super Mario 3D World does have going for it is its simplicity. In fact, it is the most direct translation of the 2D Super Mario titles into the 3D space. From start to finish, Super Mario 3D World is a smorgasbord of fun ideas and classic platforming.

There’s no denying that Super Mario 3D World is closer to the original 2D Super Mario games than its 3D counterparts. Every level is a one-and-done obstacle course that ends with a goalpost. This is in stark contrast to other 3D Super Mario games which almost always reuse the same areas for multiple levels. And many times, those levels aren’t straightforward obstacle courses, but require exploration and puzzle solving. But in Super Mario 3D World, pure platforming is the main focus of the game.

While there are a few collectibles in every level, three Green Stars and a stamp, the levels are short and linear. This is not a bad thing by any means, and it allows the team of developers to design a much more curated experience. There are nearly 120 levels in Super Mario 3D World, and almost every single one introduces a new idea or concept. While many of these ideas are borrowed from previous titles, there are a few stand out new inclusions. The Cat Suit is an important new power-up that is showcased. Captain Toad makes his first appearance in the short puzzle-platformer diorama levels. And the Double Cherry makes for some engaging challenges as you control multiple clones at once.

The most surprising aspect of Super Mario 3D World is just how good all the levels are. In a game brimming with ideas and content it’s crazy that not a single one is a clunker. The level of polish here is unfathomable. The gimmicks don’t necessarily feel gimmicky because they don’t change the way Mario is controlled. The game never strays away from the pure platforming bread-and-butter than it is so committed to. It’s an insanely well-curated collection of all the best concepts from the Super Mario series.

Part of the reason why levels could be so refined is partly due to Mario’s reduced movement options. The side-flip and long-jump were drastically reduced in effectiveness, while the triple-jump was removed altogether. These constraints allowed the designers to make levels with a much clearer intended path. You cannot use advanced movement techniques to skip obstacles, and levels are much more linear. While I do think that I enjoy how polished the levels feel as a result of these movement limitations, it ultimately comes down to preference if you enjoy this style compared to all the other 3D Super Mario games.

Levels in Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Odyssey are free-roaming affairs. Many times, you don’t even know what your goal is. Exploring the environments was open-ended, and led to freestyling as to how you would approach the level. This is also reflected in how the camera works in these games, as you can rotate the camera to get a better look around. This is opposed to Super Mario 3D World which has locked camera angles so that there is never a doubt that the player has a good view of the action, but also is restrictive and prevents exploration.

While I did love playing Super Mario 3D World, it lacked the sense of adventure that makes the Super Mario series my favorite. I prefer the wide-open stages that you revisit many times and become intimately familiar with as opposed to the linear and restrictive levels that are present here. Moreover, Super Mario 3D World lacks cohesion and visual theming. While Super Mario Galaxy had mostly linear levels, it had the consistent context of exploring tiny planets. Levels made sense in that context, and they had visuals to support that theme. Super Mario 3D World just feels like a collection of artificial levels.

Most of the stages are floating islands of toy-like cubes. They don’t feel like real locales, and they lack the planetoid context of Super Mario Galaxy. I think having backgrounds and visual flair that made the levels feel more authentic would have gone a long way to making Super Mario 3D World a more immersive adventure. Moreover, while there is a world map to traverse, there is no cohesion within the worlds. The desert world doesn’t have mostly desert levels, the ice world doesn’t have more snowy levels than average, the worlds don’t group levels in a meaningful manner.

The most unique aspect of Super Mario 3D World is the inclusion of multiplayer. The fixed camera, simplified levels, and more basic controls all make a multiplayer experience possible. While it’s been a while since I played it with others, it can be a blast to partake in the sheer chaos of Super Mario 3D World multiplayer. I found that the game is much harder when trying to coordinate with your friends. And it can get competitive as you try to earn more points than your fellow players.

One thing that I felt I should mention is that in the recent Switch port of the game the movement speed has been noticeably increased for some reason. I don’t know why this decision was made, or if it was even intentional at all. But either way, you move much quicker than the original version of the game and this sometimes trivializes some speed-based obstacles. Additionally, you no longer have to collect Green Stars all in a single attempt but they are saved once you clear a level. While both of these changes make the game easier, I don’t think they are game-breaking.

Super Mario 3D World is the most consistent of the 3D Super Mario games. It’s a collection of some of the best ideas that the series has, and it’s executed superbly. The pure platforming may appeal to fans of the series who miss the old, 2D Super Mario days. Personally, I missed the sense of adventure and exploration that the other games in the series offered. While I had a lot of fun with Super Mario 3D World, it’s definitely my least favorite of the series. Of course, few games could ever compare to the excellence that is the Super Mario catalogue.