Shovel Knight - Thoughts

Indie games with a retro look are a dime a dozen nowadays, but retro-designed indie games are fairly uncommon. You may have a slew of Canabalt, Super Meat Boy and Flappy Bird pretenders wrapped up in an 8-bit coating, but there's not many games that explicitly emulate the likes of Mega Man, Ducktails, or Shatterhand. Yacht Club's crowd-funded Shovel Knight attempts to tackle this challenge, harkening back to NES gems in this turquoise knight's journey for redemption. The pixel appearance isn't only for show though—Shovel Knight is a highly competent platformer that joins the pantheon of classics that have birthed its design and mechanics.

Wayforward may be the premier studio in 2D sprite animations but Yacht Club undoubtedly took some of that talent with them; their kickstarter baby is sleek, gorgeous and vibrant, both in style and motion. Each area is bright and ornate without looking needlessly complicated, happily accentuating the energetic feel of the game. Regarding controls, they're tight and precise (once you get used to Shovel Knight's reach) which is perhaps one of the most important aspects the programmers nailed, since platformers live and die by how well their character handles. But taking center stage (besides the near-flawless soundtrack) is the excellent level design and amount of variety present in Shovel Knight.

Besides the towns and quick diversions, you have eight Mega Man-styled bosses to take down that occupy different thematic estates—each knight's keep includes about 2-3 new mechanics along with half a dozen new enemies, all unique to their respective fiefs. Concepts and baddies are introduced in an unthreatening, "get to know them" way, but are quickly used in conjunction with some trickier bits later down the road. Levels are long too, spanning around twice the length of a regular Mega Man stage, yet littered with plenty of checkpoints and side paths to keep the journey engaging. Giving the player unlimited lives is a wise design decision, as it allows the levels to be experimental but doesn't scare off newcomers from trying the game.

There are however a handful of quirks Shovel Knight has that grow more noticeable when you revisit the areas you've already beaten. Most significant is that the stages feel more packed with gems than they do dangers, often utilizing space for excavating rather than challenging the player—this complaint can pertain to the gimmicks as well. For instance the rainbow spewing platform in Polar Knight's level is a fantastic and strange mechanic for the stage, but it's not really used in heavy conjunction with many other enemies to make it more than just an odd traversal option (even when there are hammer-throwing ladder-hogs above you, they can be rammed with the contraption). A lot of the problems in the game can also be brute forced once you acquire enough health and magic, negating some of the more nuanced design put into certain encounters (like the griffin at the Tower Entrance). These are admittedly minor complaints for someone probably running through the game for the first time, and these gripes honestly do little to take away from an already adventurous outing packed with fun and danger.

To those wary of the difficulty, the game is easier in comparison to it's predecessors, though that's largely due to the repertoire you can build for yourself. There's a heap of side arms you can equip, running the gamut from mildly entertaining to absurdly useful (and abusable). Even without those items it's a relatively easygoing quest, though if you actually want to make the game harder there's plenty of ways to do so: you can destroy checkpoints for gold, opt out of using the full healing chalices, refuse to upgrade your equipment and even skip out on expanding your health bar. New Game+ doubles the damage you receive and removes most of the checkpoints if that idea sounds appealing to you, but the main game should likely fit most players; it strikes a healthy balance of being classically trained while never veering into Sunsoft levels of ruthlessness and rigor.

Bosses also deserve a good mention since they're one of the biggest drawing points of the game to me. Each colored knight has a semi-elaborate pattern and arsenal of attacks, making the fights very kinetic, frantic, and tense—on three separate occasions I killed a boss on my final sliver of health! Special commemoration for the best battles go to Spectre Knight and Plague Knight, the former basically being Castlevania's Death pumped up with Quick Man's mobility, and the latter being an absolutely chaotic encounter full of arcing projectiles and disintegrating platforms. King Knight is an unfortunate pushover but every other fight is a sheer joy to partake in. The final boss also deserves a mention for being quite creative, only containing a misstep in conveying the way to damage said boss, but splendidly closing out the game with a struggle and ending that—in some ways—Team Ico would have been likely to make in the 80's.

To design a classic NES platformer but sprinkle in a variety of modern touches is a tricky thing to accomplish, but despite your thoughts on how detrimentally close Shovel Knight plays to its progenitors, it is an unequivocally solid game. I feel that its presentation, design, pace and heartwarming story all come together to form a complete, wholesome package, deserving of its widespread praise. It's unfortunate that the bonus modes weren't included upon its release, but the content here makes it well worth the purchase... and I hope Shovel Knight allows the newer generation to look back and understand what made the 8-bit games so endearing as well.

ilomilo - Thoughts

For me, the best puzzle games are those that stump you so mercilessly that you're forced to put the controller down and just stare at the screen, thumbing your chin in befuddlement. The answer is usually somewhere within your grasp—so very close to the plane of your comprehension!—yet dancing outside that border, eluding you. With the help of some curious mistakes and acute observations, you can painstakingly piece together the solution, achieving the sweetest sensation of relief. It's a cumulative process that I feel made the 2D games of yore so appealing, except here it's about cognition & perception rather than precision & execution.

Puzzles that lack the aforementioned "aha!" moment (termed as such by Jonathan Blow) can leave a very weak impact. I can appreciate an intriguing story or sidesplitting script tied to puzzle mechanics, like with Thomas Was Alone and Portal 2 respectively, but neither of these games felt as fulfilling as I had hoped they'd be, the answer always somewhere nearby, laid within reach. So when I was perusing through my Xbox Arcade backlog, Southend Interactive's ilomilo stuck out like a tastefully sore thumb; I had half-finished it due to the stumper that was "blank paper", and I wanted to try the game once more, from scratch. Diving back in to its charming, block-based world and vowing to complete every level was a journey I was excited to undertake, as well as one full of some of the best challenges I've had in a while.

Aesthetics in the puzzle games are far from the main draw of the experience, but can work as a very subtle boon (or hinderance), as they're often the first thing that you'll notice about any entry. Being a grid based, axis-shifting mini-adventure, ilomilo could've gone for a look similar to something like English Country Tune but instead developed a warm, hand-crafted art style, filled with airy sound effects, plush character models and some of the most wholesome music composed for a puzzle game (it could easily be listened to by people that detest video game soundtracks). The quirky amalgam that emerges from the garbled voices, chipper tunes, and sock-puppet puppies give the world more flair, adding richness to the already potent Scandinavian flavor.

Yet the sublime visual style is only a part of what makes ilomilo so amusing. The brief backstory fills out why you'd want to get the titular ilo and milo back together again and it's a lot of fun thinking about how you're going to achieve that... as well as quite confusing. You'll have to think in three dimensions as the two buddies traverse multiple faces of a cube, using helpful blocks to bridge gaps or flip to the underside of a structure. It's one of those games that's hard to describe what exactly the mechanics are until you see it in person, but as long as you can wrap your brain around 3D space and objects, it's really thrilling to maneuver the lost friends about their imaginative world.

The only bummer to come out of my time with the game was playing the expansion, Autumn Tale, after the exceptionally strong finish of the primary story, First Adventure (especially after figuring out the mind-bending bonus level that was "space flight"). That's not to say that the Autumn Tale didn't have some of it's own confounding moments, but the difficulty curve was a very gentle slope in comparison. For example, the final three Autumn Tale levels were more or less of the same "toughness", which meant that by the end I didn't reach a satisfying climax of brilliance as I had done with the final bonus section of the First Adventure (though this may also be due in part to the lack of additional mechanics to learn).

But seeing as the worst aspect to gripe over is that the First Adventure was better than the already-enjoyable DLC, ilomilo has a lot going for it. It introduces you to it's mechanics slowly and carefully, handing the player new objects to interact with in multiple ways over four chapters until you're using each of them tandem without even thinking about it. So much of the game feels very thought-out and heartfelt, extending past the puzzles and seeping into the very design of the world—the parable of the Hunter and the Fox (something snuck into the bonus levels) has a strangely haunting conclusion, one that stands in strong juxtaposition to the childlike wonder the rest of the game exhibits (though the collectable polaroids do bridge the tonal nature of these two). It's a small cord that resonated with me, and I'm very glad the developers chose to include this.

The game is both entertaining and endearing, carving out a very unique niche for itself on the Xbox Arcade. I had a fantastic time collecting every trinket in ilomilo, and for fans of games like Braid, Antichamber and The Swapper, I cannot recommend this delightful entry enough. It's cute, curious, pleasant, and above else, constantly engaging with its world and design, asking for the player to truly grasp its mechanics in order to succeed... which is pretty much the best you can ask for.

And my goodness, that music!
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Images obtained from: ilimilo.wikia.com, gamingtruth.com wegotthiscovered.com, canardpc.com

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon - Thoughts

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon was the first Far Cry game I played, as strange as that may sound. During the Steam Summer Sale I saw it priced low and was hungry for a light-hearted FPS that I could finish in a handful of hours. The prospect of running around an open island to do primarily whatever I wanted was perhaps the biggest selling point of the series to me, and I reasoned that this little chunk of stylized DLC could handle that fix. Though the opening hour was somewhat underwhelming, once I got into the groove of the game I was thoroughly impressed—rare few shooters can compare to the sense of satisfaction you get when everything goes right during a mission.

First though, I'll touch upon the most notable aspect of this content—the distinctive 1980's aesthetic.

Boiled down, Blood Dragon contains a superb idea—take an intentionally niche and goofy remembrance of a single decade and mix it with the AAA production of a Ubisoft franchise, baking it until it forms bite-sized DLC. Thankfully the game is a standalone entry so people apathetic towards Far Cry 3's plot and setting can jump right into the neon paradise (though at its core it remains a tropical island entrenched in gorilla warfare). There's a variety of stupidly awesome details added to the game to accentuate the mood: the main character is a cyborg equipped with glowing shurikens, enemy mobs speak in bitcrushed tones and are decked out in futuristic biker gear, and there's wild Tyrannosaurus-like beasts called "dragons" that fire explosive optical lasers. One of my favorite flourishes is the way the the screen shakes and the visuals become chromatically distorted when the shotgun fires, giving the weapon a really satisfying kick (and the reload animation for each armament is hilariously flashy).

Despite the noteworthy effort the designers and animators put into making the game as radical as possible, Blood Dragon doesn't always hit its mark. This problem is exemplified best during the cutscenes—long discourses that slow down the action for lengths at a time, containing only a few good laughs here and there. I think the core issue is that the dialogue aims for a serious satire that comes across as mostly haphazard, rather than a bombastic display that hits you fast and hard with dumb 80's jokes. If you watch the opening cutscene I think it'll give you a good idea of what I mean, and how the writing drains the fun out of the ridiculous premise.

But the greatest offender is the opening tutorials—they're given as splash screens of text accompanied by a robotic voice over, which pokes fun at the hand-holdy nature of modern games but unfortunately succumbs to its own mockery by putting you through an extremely boring process. When I started the game I just wanted to run around a wreak havoc, and the length of the first few tasks alone, combined with the plodding pace, linearity, and constant reminders on "how to do side missions and buy stuff" made me question my purchase... but luckily my fears were alleviated.

When the game gets going, it really hits the spot. Perhaps Blood Dragon's greatest appeal is the variability in the encounters; there were a few times where I would jump into enemy territory and the operation would go terribly wrong, forcing me to camp a doorway and mow through any living creature that takes one wrong step across my shotgun-guarded rubicon. After the carnage settled and I could explore the base freely, I realized how many options I had open to me before they had all been squandered on a noisy approach: perhaps I could've slid in via a cable overhead, or lured the nearby dragon in for a frantic feast, or taken an underground path to slowly chip away at my opponents one by one from the shadows. This is especially prevalent during the main missions, where entire concrete playgrounds can be wasted if you don't proceed patiently.

Of course the mechanics are far from perfect—there's a handful of irksome design choices, like certain hostage rescue assignments where enemies tightly patrol an open area, meaning stealth becomes far less viable than running in guns blazing. This is further compounded by the inability to quietly take out heavy troops until you reach a certain level, meaning you have to use loud, lethal force to subdue them (unless you enjoy plunking arrows playfully against their armor). Other issues are small but remain prevalent, like the pointlessness of the island's non-dragon wildlife and the cost of supplies often outgrossing the reward you get at the end of each mission. All of the main missions are pretty long too, so if your game crashes mid-level (as it happened once in my case), expect to spend another twenty minutes or so trekking over familiar territory just to get to the spot you were previously at.

Luckily the game is so much fun that I didn't mind redoing most missions from scratch; each replay provided an opportunity to make sure I performed flawlessly this time around. One of my favorite memories was during the northwest base infiltration, where I sniped the pilot of a standing helicopter only to draw everyone in the compound over to that position. I snuck around the back and stabbed a guard, which was yet another reckless move on my behalf as it caught the attention of his nearby cohort. I planted a mine beside the corpse as I backed out the door and once it triggered on his curious companion, three more enemies were pulled into the corridor. A quick toss of C-4 and an instant detonation later, the base was all but taken care of—and no one knew where I was the entire time. It's these situations, where your impromptu reactions are put to the test during a sudden kink in the plan, that feel so fulfilling, as your success is entirely due to your crafty thinking and not merely left up to some lame QTE that you passively mashed X through. Essentially, it went well because you played well.

Early on it was quite apparent that I wasn't interested in what the story had to offer; the lively locale was my true calling. I drew much entertainment from the adaptive insanity that ensued as I attempted to save each hostage and dismantle every stronghold. Player creativity in each situation isn't just Blood Dragon's greatest strength from what I gathered, but the Far Cry series itself. In that sense I came to understand the draw of the franchise, and I decided to purchase Far Cry 3 after the credits rolled... but not before the techno resort was free of biker mooks. Boy howdy it was one hell of a vacation while it lasted.
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Logo obtained from: bloody-disgusting.com

Halo 4 - Thoughts

There was little love lost when I heard the Halo franchise was switching hands from Bungie Studios to 343 Industries. Some people swear by Bungie's work while they were still attached to Microsoft, revering the Halo games as the pinnacle of console FPSs, but the sci-fi shooter has never... clicked with me. I've rarely been interested in competitive multiplayer games and the Halo series was no exception; the scant few times I've played against others did little to change my mind. Therefore my experience with the games (1,2,3 and half of Reach) has been colored foremost by the campaign, and each entry has honestly left me feeling lukewarm at best.

The release of Halo 4 brought forth a bundle of criticism and controversy from fans that piqued my curiosity (although I wouldn't pick up the title until two years later). I was optimistic in what I assumed would be a significant change to the series, after hearing wild accusations that the mechanics had being CoDified and the new enemy designs were too Metroid Prime-y (neither of which stood out as particularly egregious for me). I was hoping to find myself thoroughly enjoying the campaign rather than shrugging off the experience as I had done with the previous entries, but what I played felt very much like Halo, though of a slightly different flavor.

Perhaps I should preface this section by explaining that I've never played any of the games to completion on Legendary. A common argument against the series' detractors is that they should engage with the combat on harder difficulties in order to discover the deeper systems behind gunplay and enemy behavior, but the issue for me has always rested on the fundamentals. I felt that the weapons had no weight or impact, the enemies were too bulky, the Chief felt sluggish, and the vehicles were incongruous to the on-foot fighting. The sections of combat that stuck out to me as entertaining were veering around in a Ghost sideways while peppering scrambling foes, and thrusting an energy sword into an elite for instant evisceration (such fancies were often short lived). And here in Halo 4, my impressions felt very much the same.

This is largely due to a common face seen in the game that I thought had run its course. You see, I'm tired of fighting the Covenant. I haven't fought them just once—I've fought them over four times across about 35 hours. If I wanted to fight more of the Covenant and use their purple weapons and drive their purple vehicles, I'd go back and play any of the other five entries prolifically featuring the humanoid zealots. When I met them once again in Halo 4, I think I was understandably unenthused to engage in rote combat; I hoped the additional race of enemy aliens would provide a much needed change in these encounters I knew all too well.

When the Prometheans showed up I was definitely excited—they were strange new foes pulsating with resplendent energy, and I was eager to test out their weapons and challenge their ranks. But rather than encountering a different army with a different style of play, I found rough analogs to the Covenant in these electronic abominations: Crawlers are wall-scaling Grunts and Knights are less nimble Elites with a couple of tricks of their sleeves. Even their arsenal mirrored both the UNSC and Covenant archetypes (pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, sniper rifle, rocket launcher), though there were slight changes for each one. Nevertheless, I did prefer to fight the Prometheans as opposed to their cool-colored cousins, since it felt like a fresher experience thanks to both the visuals and audio effects (especially on the weapons). To some it may be a case of "if it ain't broke don't fix it", but for me the similarities drew out a staleness in the battles that had worn gossamer thin.

That's not to say I didn't have fun—there were plenty of times where I found myself gleefully enchanted as I perforated the face of an Elite with a Promethean rifle, and smiling every time I killed a Watcher as it was attempting to resurrect its host. Yet most of the game was spent in a lull, being unmoved by the lore and annoyed at how plentiful & durable the enemies were (higher difficulties would serve to stimulate that irritation I think). There were even a few scenarios that became outright grievous, like a section near the end littered with Banshees and turrets that took forever to chew through, until the game started quicksaving me as I hid curled against a corner looking for rockets. The Hunters further stirred this agitation into anger as the tanky meatshields ate up all of my ammo and forced me to backtrack and scavenge for energy pistols while they brainlessly patrolled a small circular area.

Gadzooks does the game look gorgeous though. 343's artists employ a wide use of colors, smart handling of bloom and they build some of the largest, sleekest structures to have ever graced a console FPS. Many of the vistas tend to blur together (as the backdrops and architecture in Halo usually has [other than the iconic ring]), but it's still fun to run around and gawk at the enormity of it all. The game also runs wonderfully on the aged hardware, a testament to the team's technical prowess... it's just a shame the rest of the game didn't impress me enough to allow full immersion in the experience.

Take the story for instance—good lord, that story. I'm a big fan of narrative and character development in video games (admittedly a foolish plight at times), but akin to the combat, Halo wasn't something I could get my fix at. It often prioritized military lingo and objective discussions over plot commentary on the situation or interesting developments between characters (the Arbiter was mildly fascinating, but the cutscenes barely gave me more than a glimpse into the Covenant culture). I know there's a lot of lore there for the series, but each game—especially this one—had done nothing to pull me in.

In fact, sometimes it does the very opposite. Midway through Halo 4 there's a plot dump akin to the one at the end of Matrix Revolutions, filled with unexplained jargon like "Reclaimer", "Mantle of Responsibility", "Contact Essence" and "Genesong". People lambast Final Fantasy XIII for its expansive lexicon but at least I could check the datalogs to buff up on what each of the terms meant (which, once you get past the repeated use of Cie, it's relatively easy to keep track of). Here I spent the entire game unsure if Forerunner, Precursor and Promethean were the same thing, or how the Prometheans were related to humans, or why the Covenant were even here (were they drawn into the planet, or looking for the Didact, or hunting after Master Chief?). My questions went wholly unanswered by the end; the game was more intent on looking inwards towards Master Chief and Cortana's relationship and how it was changing with her dwindling state. But since the Chief has the in-game personality of a plywood board and Cortana pathetically referred to herself as a "girl" any time she needed help in order to stroke the male ego, the relationship was quickly lost on me (while it concluded competently, by then it was too little too late).

Overall, I don't even know if I enjoyed this entry any more than the other Halo titles (I think I did but it's been years since I touched 2 or 3). It's likely I should distance myself from the series to avoid burning out on the franchise, similar to how I've treated Call of Duty and Gears of War since each installment feels like a minor adjustment on its predecessors' legacies rather than a revision. I'm not skilled enough to spot what 343 Industries has done to sully Microsoft's most prestigious IP, though I guess I would've had to sink days and nights into both Halo Reach and Halo 3 well before I could make that kind of assessment. For now though I feel I can only shrug and resume saying that Halo is too far from my tastes, and that my time is best spent elsewhere.
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Images obtained from: gotgame.com, gameinformer.com, wired.com, gamingbolt.com

Killer is Dead - Thoughts

[contains slight spoilers]

Killer is Dead is a title I really, really wanted to love. It features an engaging art style pulsating with strong colors, quirky Suda 51 characters jesting with a riddled tongue, and aims for more Killer7 than Chainsaw Lollipop. Hell there's a woman named Moon River in the game, a princess from the moon that commissions the main character for the price of a kiss! The outset appears promising enough but eccentricity couldn't outlast the nagging issues that plagued the title—by the end I had to admit I was disappointed with the outcome. But first, let me gush over the visuals.

Above is a screenshot from a playable part in the game. Granted this is an ability-specific moment that applies a unique filter, but I think it illustrates well what I revere about the aesthetic. Every big budget video game this (previous) generation aims for an easily understandable and readable interface, yet Killer is Dead champions color over convention. Objects and scenery are ruthlessly saturated with vivid hues that bleed over into blacks to maintain it's stylized atmosphere. Even with such beautiful games released in 2013 like Super Mario 3D World, Bioshock Infinite, and Battlefield 4, I still think this is the title that mesmerizes me the most. It showcases a certain look and madness that I feel only Grasshopper could make work with such adroit craftsmanship.

Combat on the other hand, is mostly serviceable. You can slice n' shoot but it's a far cry from something as potently complicated as Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden, only letting you string together a handful of combos. The action can also get far too hectic at times due to visual complexity, making it so you can't exactly tell who or what is winding up to strike you next. Holistically the mechanics belong more to a 3D beat-em-up rather than a character action game, especially since the game largely demands that you master evasion and little else, as dodging is (unfortunately) the single most useful ability in the game. Even the outlandish final boss fight, a feast for the eyes and ears containing the lunacy you'd expect from a Grasshopper title, becomes dodge->mash X->dodge->mash X etc., as the conventional means of attacking are more suicidal than viable.

And of course regarding gameplay there's the infamous dating segments, where you ogle and seduce women in order to gain additional firearms from them as presents. While being an obviously empty sexist activity (you treat your suitors as literal missions), they're absolutely vapid and boring to play. You just hold the left trigger to stare at their "goodies" and stop only when your voyeuristic gaze is caught, a five minute activity that should've been relegated to a thirty second minigame instead. While wholly optional, there's interesting and useful gun upgrades hidden behind these asinine portions of the game, which means you'll likely slog through them just to spice up basic combat. These gigolo missions felt like the designers were aiming for a parody of James Bond but wound up implementing something more akin to a MAD Magazine jape.

Visual fluidity and mediocre combat aside, the enigmatic plot was the feature presentation that drew me in. I'm a massive sucker for a continual use of metaphors and symbolism (like kidney stones, alcohol & Paul of Tarsus in Dear Esther), so having Earth's celestial pearl in the night sky be a pillar of the game's lore was a delight. Robotic monsters came from the moon, there's a muscular man clad in a gold thong ruling it, and a skeletal maestro yearns to fill it's rocky core with malice. Writing that sentence caused me to chuckle at just how utterly bizarre those scenarios are, but I truly enjoy when a game aims for something out of the ordinary rather than relying on thinly veiled tropes. There was something special about the moon and its relation to the main character, and I was determined to discover just what that was.

I failed though; what bubbles to the top of this confusing bog is miscellaneous and befuddling. Characters come and go, prior memories are explored and abandoned, and the game finishes flatly with a series of baffling, unexplained twists. Perhaps I had too high of hopes with Killer7 still in mind (this extensive exposition on GameFAQs is proof that Suda 51 can make something quite inspiring), and I will admit I was hoping for something more... fulfilling compared to previous Grasshopper titles. Yet the story remains just as pale and flat, being neither bombastic satire like No More Heroes nor a dopey B-movie action title like Shadows of the Damned. It's not completely devoid of meaning, but what meaning is there lacks proper context or explanation to emerge as "sophisticated" rather than "zany"; the game breaks the fourth wall three times for no reason, introduces a sentient locomotive and colossal alien just to be different, and has its characters exchanging odd quips over dutch angles for the sole purpose of "being cool".

Killer is Dead is by no means a bad game, but it's unfortunate that you've experienced the best the title has to offer just by looking at these screenshots (although it's worth a gander in motion too). I wish I enjoyed it more, as there were plenty of signs within the first couple of hours that it could be a personal favorite from 2013, but when I sit back and stare at its lunar metaphors ripe with misleading dialogue and strange nonsense, it feels more... crazy than it does brilliant.
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Images obtained from: pixelrelated.net, co-optimus.com, hobbyconsolas.com, vg247.com

Kairo - Thoughts

Kairo is an odd duck of a game; attempting to categorize what genre it falls into can lead to vague and misleading words. The best I can scramble together is that it's a conceptual puzzle game with minimal expression and a focus on exploration. The core of the game is foremost about deciphering what each area is asking of you, since figuring out the solution to the puzzles therein comes quickly afterwards. In that regard it's far from being a proficiency puzzler like Portal or The Swapper are (with a notable mechanic you have to master), but also not as complicated or intricate as something like Myst and its ilk (yet still close to them regarding a level of inference needed). What kept me intrigued enough to finish the journey was not the gameplay or investment in the abstract plot, but the cold, dead, and isolated worlds it threw me headfirst into.

In a way, Kairo acts as a love letter to simple geometry and architecture. The various settings you visit flaunt bizarre structures drained of their color yet paradoxically drowned in it, inciting a silent curiosity as you move around looking for gateways and panels. Through lusterless textures and repeating shapes, every locale remains strangely appealing despite the stark simplicity. If these screenshots don't grab you there's a good chance that you won't enjoy your time with the game, but I was personally drawn in by the austere dreariness plaguing each abandoned lot, the solemn stucco walls beckoning me to explore even deeper. Perhaps I'm overselling the atmosphere here but it's rare to have the ornate details we're accustomed to in current games stripped away, allowing us to reflect on the beautiful, dry skeleton that remains.

While I enjoyed the game overall, I don't feel like there's much to comment on regarding the gameplay/puzzles. There's reoccurring symbols that you need to write down in order to recall their order and sometimes you have to pay attention to small notches on a wall to determine a pattern, but that's about it. Due to the slow walking pace and little problem-solving demanded of me I felt fatigued by the third half, wishing that the game was shorter so it could easily be completable in a single sitting. I also got myself terribly lost at the hub with the torii gates due to its gargantuan size and a misleading auditory cue near the middle, something that extended my playtime well over how long I wanted it to last. Ultimately I wish I spent more time walking around and gawking at the scenery than dealing with the "game" part of the game.

Kairo provides a peculiar experience I'm not sure I'd strongly recommend to anybody I know, but conversely I wouldn't stop them from undergoing its stoic brand of isolation. It's not a boisterous game that will receive a lot of attention but I feel the various few that play it may look back on it fondly, as its strengths outweigh the strange middling ground it trudges through at times. There are scant few games quite like this.
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Logo obtained from: lockeddoorpuzzle.com

Mario vs. Donkey Kong - Thoughts

While listening to a slew of Game of the Year discussions (Giant Bomb's particularly), I looked for something to occupy my idle hands with. Digging back into my 3DS library I chose an ambassador game that I had previously completed some time ago—Mario vs. Donkey Kong, the belated sequel to the Game Boy masterpiece Donkey Kong. In the mood for a nice puzzler that had an emphasis on precision and execution, I sunk my teeth into this title with the aim to 100% it... a challenge I did not expect so much resistance in attempting.

Plot has been far and away one of the least important things in any Mario title barring the RPG entries, but here I must applaud the lack of the "damsel in distress" trope, seeing as it would've been easy to let boring ol' Paulina get captured again (something the sequel would unfortunately embrace). Instead, Donkey Kong gets jealous of Mario's success and steals toys manufactured in the Italian's image, placing the impetus on rescuing the mechanized miniatures at the end of each level. I'll briefly note that Charles Martinet speaks in more frequency here than in any other Mario title to date, shouting dozens of lines including the adorable "come back here you-ah big monkey!" It's pretty cute, albeit somewhat peculiar, to hear the GBA sound chip constantly blaring bitcrushed words at you.

Besides platforming, the crux of the original Donkey Kong was structured on levers and platform-creation tools. The GBA outing changes this up by focusing instead on the utilization of three primary colored buttons—hitting one will correspond to the corporeality of that color's objects, e.g. red ladders and trashcans will be able to be climbed and thrown once the red button is hit. You'll often have to cycle between the colors in order to snag all the optional gifts in each level or make a path to the exit. Although it might seem daunting to enter a stage decorated with dozens of yellow, blue and red outlines, you can get pretty far off intuition alone as it's never horridly complicated.

Basic level design stays pretty close to its predecessor initially—get the novelty-sized yellow key and make your way to the exit. After passing through the keyhole's gaping maw, you'll encounter the latter half of the stage, where you must make your way to the Mini Mario encased in a glass orb. Doing six of these stages opens up a single level where you have to escort all the rescued toys and get them into a toy box, which will turn the mustachioed Minis into health units for the following boss fight. As you can surmise there's quite a bit of variety in the game even without delving into the various enemies and contraptions you'll encounter unique to each world (of which there are plenty used in clever combination).

Ah, but it doesn't end there! Completing the first six worlds and final battle will open up the second half of the game, something Super Mario 3D Land players might find familiar. I find these "plus stages" to be more intriguing and fun than the first part of the game, discarding the two-part levels and focusing on the plumber hunting down a lone Mini Mario to guide back with him to the exit. It takes the acrobatic arrangement established in the earlier stages and combines it with the "follow the leader" mechanic in the Minis' escort levels (with only one dopey duplicate to manage fortunately). You have to start thinking of the stages with two mindsets—one for you and one for the Mini—as you each have a skill set that the other can't utilize (Mario is more flexible and can carry objects while the mini can fit into small areas Mario can't). The stages are quick enough to avoid banging your head against the wall in frustration due to a simple mistake, something I was thankful for during my 100% run. Finally, after dominating the "plus stages" there's a final set of expert levels that become unlocked, but they're not nearly as intimidating as they sound (the second stage does demand some intense thumb dexterity though).

If there are some things I must criticize the game on, one of them is the off-kilter difficulty curve. A good number of the earlier levels were far, far harder to "gold star" (getting all gifts & beating it under the time limit) than most of the expert levels. This is due in large part to the strict time limit, forcing you to complete both sections as quick as possible and without dying. Completing one portion speedily is tricky on it's own but forcing the player to do two of them flawlessly without restarting became very taxing (3-3 in particular was extremely tough to shave time off of). And while I praise the second half of the game, the escort missions are far from perfect as AI pathing can be pretty cumbersome and unreliable, jumping when you wish they wouldn't. Level 5-4+ perfectly illustrates this, as anything other than precise movements will lead one of the Marios to certain doom.

The presentation is another point of criticism as the visuals have not aged well. The blurry, chunky character sprites attempt to harken back to the Donkey Kong Country/Land titles but fail to remain as charming or cohesive. Colors are strong but discordant and garish due to the inclusion of the primary switches, and the jiggling 3D modeled sprites stand out against the rigid foreground platforms. It certainly won't cause you to retch upon first glance, but it lacks the appeal, visual fidelity, and homespun creativity apparent in every other 2D Mario game. The music on the other hand is neither here nor there, comfortably fine leaving no impression on the ears.

A final, somewhat small gripe I have is that the "lives" system in the game is absolutely pointless beyond the first half. While 1-UPs serve as bonuses from collecting all three gifts and a way to punish the player if they fail in the glass orb sections repeatedly, these feel cumbersome in the second part of the game where there is no penalty whatsoever from using a continue, since a death entails that you're restarting the level anyway. It might seem like a minor quibble but considering the superfluous number of bonus games you play while trying to 100% the game, it adds up to a considerable amount of time that's wasted for no good reason.

While falling short of the original glory of Donkey Kong, Mario vs. Donkey Kong rides the coattails of its father admirably thanks to some interesting gameplay implementations. The "plus stages" after the credits roll is where the game shines it's brightest, and despite a roller coaster-like difficulty curve there's a massive feeling of elation and success after finishing the final expert stage. It's definitely worth a shot if you're hankering for some puzzle-platform mayhem and can get bear some messy visuals.
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Images obtained from: strategywiki.org,   obsoletegamer.com, mariomario.over-blog.com,, nintendolife.com