Horizon Zero Dawn - Thoughts

Horizon Zero Dawn is perhaps the stupidest name for one of the coolest new IPs to come out this generation. It's a title so vague and meaningless that you could swap the nouns around and it would still produce the same word salad. Know what's a more fitting appellation? Posthistoric Robopocalypse: Rise of the Bowwoman. I wouldn't dare say that's a good name, but it most accurately represents what Horizon succeeds in doing—throwing the player into a tribal world overrun with robotic animals while also providing them the means to eventually overcome it. Across the +30 hour journey, you'll learn how to scavenge for parts, craft a multitude of ammo types, and hunt majestic machinations, until you become the master of this lawless domain. And by god, it is a gorgeous, brilliant, phenomenal experience that has (figuratively) blown my pants off.

The most unimaginative stunt that Horizon pulls is that it unabashedly copies from Ubisoft's open-world playbook. There's settlements to liberate, goodies to collect, raw materials to gather, side quests to stumble upon, and a nifty little skill tree to fill out, which all feels familiar if you've played any of the newer Far Cry titles. Luckily it's a solid blueprint to copy from, providing the player with dozens of hours of content to explore without going too far overboard (the icon-littered map may look crazy but your points of interest are relatively few). Had I not played and fallen in love with Far Cry 3 years prior I would've been head over heels for Horizon, but being able to recognize the tropes and gameplay loops of the open-world genre kept my enthusiasm mostly grounded.

Yet despite how familiar the structure of the world felt, it was the world itself that left me breathless. From the colorful, jaw-dropping vistas to the individual fibers of the robo-fauna's muscles, Horizon's resplendent landscapes exudes both majesty and marvel. The cybernetic critters don't feel strangely conspicuous or anachronistic, thanks in part to their elegant, animalian design, as well as the reverence Horizon's denizens show towards them. The way each tribe uses robotic components as decorative ornaments looks bizarre at first, but you slowly grow acclimated to it, eventually commending NPCs and their splendiferous headdresses (well, if you're me that is). There's a curious sense of fashion to Horizon's world that is one part ancient and one part sci-fi, two polar qualities that are never at odds as you venture from place to place, culture to culture.

Speaking of, each tribe comes with their own history, belief, and political clout in the world, leading the small state-sized landmass to feel like its own Mass Effect universe. True, you can identify archetypal fantasy civilizations in each culture (the Carja are patriarchal imperials, the Banuk are mountain mystics, and the Oseram are straight-up dwarves), but the way they're fleshed out adds some variations to each formula. Whereas collecting lore in a lot of other games tends to add personal/micro detail to the world, Horizon's scrolls act more like historical accounts of one culture's depictions of another, subject to whatever fallacies that may entail. And the quality of writing isn't merely just present in the plethora of text files—side quests routinely provide more of an incentive beyond "go fetch this thing because I said so". Perhaps you'll be looking for a lost lover that's been enlisted with the Shadow Carja, or needing to decide whether a mentally troubled man is a danger to his tribe, or infiltrating a deranged bomb expert's trap-laden valley. Even if a lot of the decisions you make don't have a massive impact on Horizon's world, the fact that you feel like an important player and actively want to learn more is enough to keep you poking around for hours on end.

One of Horizon Zero Dawn's most impressive feats (of which there are many) is that it makes the main mission as important and interesting as all of the side ones. This is no simple task; Bethesda games are rightly lambasted for having underwhelming main missions despite open world RPGs being their expertise. Guerrilla Games skirts this issue by pumping their central plot full of fascinating tidbits and lore, prompting the player to push onwards in order to uncover more juicy details (and perhaps save the world in the process). I won't spoil any of it, but the fact that Horizon takes time to convincingly explain why there are robotic dinosaurs prowling the land is something I totally wasn't expecting. Honestly, this is probably the most intriguing AAA plot I've played this generation.

Lastly, I suppose I should mention something about the gameplay, eh? As demonstrated by my enthusiasm, Horizon's world-building is undeniably its premier attraction, but the gameplay is no slouch either. There's a variety of weapons to use (each with their unique ammo types) and every enemy you face has weak zones to target, ensuring a combat depth that goes beyond "just shoot them in the head". However the more time you spend playing the game the more you have to acknowledge the its eccentricities: for instance, Horizon pegs itself as an RPG but the only way to increase damage is to find and equip damage modules, which is quite unintuitive at first (upgrading only gives you more ammo types). Some enemies are also too mobile for you to reliably hit their weak points, causing endgame battles to ultimately favor blast damage arms (tripcaster, shadow sling). The melee combat feels pretty loose and shoddy—I'm not asking for God of War combos but there's really only two "branches" of slow attacks the player can perform, leading to a lot of senseless button mashing. Oh—slightly unrelated—but gathering health for the health pouch is a chore (the gain you get per herb really needs to be doubled)

I call these eccentricities and not faults because for the most part, the combat works as intended. Once you learn to utilize the roll and its i-frames, facing off against Horizon's fiercest predators can be extremely thrilling, whether it be the ice-spitting Snapmaw or the boulder-manipulating Behemoth. The mighty Stormbird in particular is a feast for the eyes and thumbs; its devastating lightning and dive attacks serve as a suitable test for your dexterity; tying the colossal foe down a challenge for your aim. I didn't even mind grappling with Horizon's few humanoid foes, the base infiltrations a fun endeavor that I always somehow managed to mess up (got close to ghosting a couple of them!) The game is lenient enough that you never have to be on your A-game even on Hard, but it demands that you respect its robotic inhabitants, quick to remind you that their serrated iron teeth can tear you limb from limb. You'll achieve a sense of pride in slowly working your way up the food chain, toppling each unique metal monstrosity one by one, until you become the most dangerous predator around.

Horizon Zero Dawn isn't perfect, but at no point did I ever find myself chiding the game for its shortcomings. Every time I played it I was excited; every story beat I reached surprised me; every battle I fought engaged me. Horizon didn't feel like a product churned out to appeal to a specific "hardcore" market—it was a game crafted with great care that sought to captivate as much as it wanted to entertain. With its lush world, compelling story, and flexible combat, this debut has earned itself the honor of being the strongest title the PS4 currently possesses. What Guerrilla Games has pulled off is an extremely commendable feat; the worst part about having to write this entry is accepting that my time with Horizon is over.

Bravo Bowwoman, bravo.
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Images obtained from: youtube.com, iansteffen.com

Blaster Master Zero - Thoughts

[contains minor spoilers]

So... what was Inti Creates and Sunsoft's goal when they set out to make Blaster Master Zero? I'm hesitant to call it a "re-imagining" because Zero contains enough new ideas to feel like a fully fledged sequel to the NES classic, but at the same time it rigorously sticks to old layouts, visuals, and enemies. I definitely had a fun time overall—Inti Creates has yet to disappoint me with their (non-Mighty) 2D efforts—but it left me puzzled as to its purpose. I couldn't help but feel that if it had made up its mind on whether it wants to be a sequel or a remake, my adoration for it would soar past what I can only deem as "nostalgic tepidity".

On all fronts, Blaster Master Zero absolutely nails the presentation. Old areas and enemies are lovingly updated into HD, and the new backgrounds, obstacles, and bosses fit in perfectly with the old crew. The soundtrack utilizes the classic Sunsoft sample channel from the NES, and while it doesn't hit the astral heights of the original OST, there's a handful of worthy tunes that are excellent additions and always a joy to hear. Sound effects are delightfully crunchy and the animations are both flashy and smooth, especially in regards to SOPHIA's devastating final ability. While I had a lot of fun with Blaster Master Overdrive, it doesn't quite capture the look, feel, or tunes of the franchise as perfectly as Zero does.

Even though I dislike how the game is caught somewhere between a sequel and remake, I do respect the care the Zero team put into recreating each level. A number of areas have been more or less translated directly from their original incarnations (Area 1, 8), while others got considerable gameplay tweaks and face-lifts (Area 2, 4, 6, 7) and a few underwent a complete redesign (Area 3, 5). Every stage feels like it properly honors  its original analog, while at the same time trying to do something a little different or new (like adding conveyor belts to the on-foot segments of Area 3). It's both interesting and surprising to run through each level and see what's different versus what's stayed the same (Level 2 is perhaps the only one that feels too different, due to the completely new setting).

Blaster Master Zero falls flat on its face in regards to difficulty, however. Completing the original is an absolutely brutal endeavor to undertake (even with the pause glitch!), while Zero barely puts up a fight the entire game. This is due more to overarching game design than it is the fault of any particular level; health & ammo pick-ups are plentiful and Jason's fully powered-up rifle is insanely strong (rapid fire? Check. Wide shot? Check. Pierces walls? Check.) Limited continues are discarded in favor of a generous checkpoint system, and the game embraces modern Metroidvania design, letting you collate a number of health-ups and shiny new weapons to steamroll through foes with. The lack of difficulty isn't necessarily an egregious mark of shame the game bears, but it is disappointing to play something with Blaster Master in the name when it doesn't bite back—at least chew on my arm a little bit!

The level design feels like a bit of missed opportunity, too. I liked the numerous gimmicks added to the on-foot sections, but the design often doesn't go far enough to make gameplay interesting. For instance, the rising goo section of Area 2 is a cool obstacle but at no point does it feel like it meshes with the gameplay to offer an interesting combat puzzle—most of the time you simply wait for the goo to recede and trudge forward. The same thing happens with the rushing water segments in Area 4 and the moving lifts in Area 5; the game is packed with a whole lot of waiting that gives you absolutely nothing to do but wait. The in-vehicle stages thankfully fair somewhat better in this regard, though your armaments are still strong enough to neutralize most of the enemy placement. The two levels I enjoyed the most were Area 6 and 7, the former for its awesome crystal-ejecting proximity mines that destroy fragile footing, and the latter for its tricky stealth segments, rewarding you for patient play but allowing you to sprint to the next screen should you get caught.

It's cool stuff like that that I wish I saw more of: designs and additions not beholden to the blueprints of the original stages. Blaster Master Zero could've handily stood on its own merits but since it attaches so much of itself to the NES title, I feel like comparisons are unfortunately inevitable. Had your arsenal been powered down to force you to switch weapons more, the level design made meaner to punish sloppy play, and the stages taken on drastically different themes to make the game feel inspired by the original instead of eager to please it, this could've easily stood shoulder to shoulder with the first. Perhaps the Zero shouldn't have aimed to bank so hard on nostalgia or perhaps the game simply needed to include a hard mode—either way, it certainly feels like it's lacking something.

Blaster Master Zero is unquestionably a game for Blaster Master fans. It respects its source of inspiration while building on its foundation, delivering a fun, varied, and solid experience. And yet it really doesn't show much ambition until the very end, content to lay back and stack the firepower in the player's favor, as if its ultimate goal was to bring in new fans. If doing so means that we'll get a sequel I'll retroactively consider this a blessing, but for a game that was supposed to be my dream-team combination (Inti Creates and Sunsoft? YES PLEASE), I can't help but expect just a teeny, tiny bit better from Blaster Master Zero. Maybe someday I'll do a "no power-up" challenge and discover some glittering gold that wasn't there before.
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Images obtained from: inticreates.com, youtube.com, dualshockers.com, snailtoothgaming.com

Contra - Thoughts

Short, sweet, pure, and simple: Contra is a game about few words—all that matters is how quickly you can react to rapidly approaching bullets. It's one of the best games to showcase the merits of the 8-bit era, being easy to pick up but tricky to complete on your first try. Despite the common conception that the Konami Code is required in order to stand a chance, Contra is a surprisingly fair outing, provided you're willing to persevere past your first GAME OVER. With a little bit of patience (plus the Spread Gun by your side), you'll soon transform into a Schwarzenegger-style one-man-army, complete with snarky quips you'll instinctively toss at your television.

Your progression path through Contra isn't as creative as its sequels, but it offers up a solid set of levels. There's a meaty amount of jungle treading, waterfall climbing, snowfield hopping, and industrial hazards to avoid as you blast your way into the (literal) heart of the enemy base. Each level is rigged with various turrets, guards, and runners to slow your sprint through the stages, pushing the player to pay attention to every corner of the screen. What makes each stage design a stroke of genius is that Contra constantly uses verticality, forcing the player along one path while tasking them with being mindful of gunners on the other. This is actually an aspect that's curiously absent from other games in the franchise, and wouldn't appear again until Contra 4 (where it came back with a vengeance).

Where the game stumbles a bit is in the forward-running sequences, though they're not particularly detrimental to the overall experience. I think the best way I can describe them is by spouting a phrase I would've used when I first played it decades ago: they're weird. The gameplay definitely works for the most part—the hitboxes are luckily not as loose as something like Iridion 3D—but it doesn't feel as tight, responsive, or snappy as the rest of the game. That, and the corridors for each facility are completely similar (barring the back wall) so there's not much flavor to these levels outside of the color scheme and boss rooms. However, even these stages adhere to Contra's philosophy of keeping the player on alert, obstacles coming in all shapes and sizes as you focus down the wall's weak points. It's for this reason that they don't feel too out of place or mismatched in this game, despite the glaring perspective change.

Besides the levels requiring both persistence and vigilance to surpass, the power-ups play a pretty significant role in Contra too. A striking design choice that's missing from a lot of modern games nowadays is an intentional imbalancing of weapons: Contra's Spread Gun is far and away the most versatile (and powerful!) ability in the game. The vertical threats in the stage design fold beneath the player when they're granted the ability to attack in an expanding cone, and bosses melt under the shotgun-like blast of the Spread bullets. Couple this with the Rapid Fire pick-up and it becomes fairly easy to make it through the entire game without a death, so long as you remember which traps come next. Compare this to something like the Flame Gun—a weapon with such a low rate of fire that it's almost better to entirely avoid it—and multiple modes of play (and difficulty!) are born from whichever armaments you hold. While it's feasible to finish the game sticking to your standard pea shooter, the sheer might and power of the Spread Gun is one of those lovely little additions that helps Contra stick out amongst its peers.

Perhaps the greatest of Contra's strengths is that it's quick to beat. And by quick, I mean twenty minutes—including deaths! If the game lasted thrice as long I could see its difficulty wearing out the more death-sensitive players (this is actually my main criticism of Hard Corps: Uprising), but the brisk pace of the game aids in enduring its memory, making it an easy title to recommend. It's also one of the reasons why I feel that its difficulty is severely overstated; the time it takes to learn and memorize scores of other NES titles downright eclipses the effort it requires to conquer Contra. I'm not trying to thumb my nose at anyone that has struggled with the game, but Contra definitely could've gone to far darker places if it had any intention of being malicious or time-wasting. It also helps that the final stage feels more like a victory lap than anything, something that the future titles would violently pivot away from.

Lastly, Contra is a fantastic co-op game. Armed with a second player to cover your six, you'll be free to charge forward through the level, effectively doubling the survivability of your squad. And even when one of you falls in combat, Contra's life-stealing system is a clever way to teach trust to young players, allowing them to argue where/when it's appropriate to borrow a player's extra life. It also helps demonstrate that it can be more fun to play together and lose than let one person carry the torch for the sake of winning the game (though I admit I was guilty of convincing my sister of the latter plenty of times). Throw in the fact that there weren't a hell of a lot of simultaneous multiplayer games at the time, and Contra not only stands tall as one of the best action games for the NES, but perhaps its best co-op experience as well.

Contra's difficulty belies its approachability. Beneath the tough, macho veneer is a frantically fun frenzy of bullets, guns, explosions, and shameless Alien ripoffs; I can't fathom how anyone could play the game and outright hate it, unless dying a few times is beyond the pale. It's simple to understand and a joy to play, two qualities which have gradually been lost to gaming as the medium has aged and shed its arcade roots. Contra isn't a leisurely walk through the park but it tends to rewards patience and observation more than it punishes you for not knowing what's coming up next. There's a good reason many look back fondly on Bill & Lance's commando escapade debut—run'n'gun games don't get much more accessible than this.

Silent Hill: Downpour - Thoughts

[contains minor spoilers]

After playing Silent Hill: Downpour, I'm kind of glad the franchise is dead. The quality of the Silent Hill series has been on a downwards trajectory since Origins (some will erroneously claim 4 but that's a different argument for another day), however Downpour is the first title to truly sully the brand. At least with Homecoming you can see that they were earnestly attempting to mimic the greatness of prior entries; Downpour takes the good will of Silent Hill fans and thoroughly crushes it. The momentary glimmers of intrigue fail to outweigh the boorish visuals, thematic bluntness, and despicable combat that await you inside Silent Hill's pitchy swan song.

I'm going to start with the subject that riles me up the most—the monsters. In Silent Hill: Downpour, there's a scant four enemy variants! Only four! Not only that, but three of them are simple humanoids that lack any deformities, gigantism, or grotesqueness that the series is infamous for. I cannot emphasize just how upsetting this is to me; in a franchise full of extremely unnerving, fleshy abominations, why is it that Downpour is content to assault the player with this? The final boss of the game is somewhat disturbing but that's the lone exception; Silent Hill Downpour has paradoxically the most boring yet goofiest ensemble of enemies to ever grace a Silent Hill title. Gone are all attempts at subtlety or intricate design made to disgust the player. Scared of mines? Here are some gaunt, hairless trolls! Scared of jail? Here are shirtless prisoners with steel helmets à la Clockwork Orange! Scared of the police? Here is a cop car with barbed wire wrapped around its bumper!

The deliciously rotten mania that pervaded the series is painfully absent here, as Downpour's main character Murphy is as deep as a puddle. The game wants to evoke psychological horror but there's no contextual evidence that Murphy loathed prison or even regretted his jail time. Hell, we're not even given any evidence that his fellow inmates assaulted or scarred him; the only thing they're keen on doing is making dumb remarks before the game even begins. The story attempts to center itself around guilt and regret, two themes which seem apt given Murphy's incarceration, but these topics practically go nowhere outside of a handful of cutscenes. You'll collect scores of documents and complete half a dozen side quests, yet none of these will provide any sort of depth or character to an already paper-thin plot. Most of the notes you collect are rather boring and mundane, failing to color the town of Silent Hill in perverse, weird ways like the other games (they were actually so dull and listless that I couldn't help but think of Extermination as I read them).

The town of Silent Hill itself feels completely abandoned this time around—not eerily abandoned in a way that precisely conveys the unbearable woe at living there, but just... abandoned. Long stretches of silence await you as Murphy ambles through alleyways and treads down vacant streets, momentarily interrupted by enemies that are a cinch to outrun. It may not sound entirely dissimilar from the other games, but I promise that it's a significantly different experience when you play it, one that has left the Silent Hill of yore lame and neutered, now a former shell of its once haunting self. But hey, at least there's sidequests and puzzles to solve around the town!

The handful of houses you can explore for some light puzzle solving is arguably when Downpour is at its best. This isn't because the puzzles are brilliant or novel—I think what's here is pretty good, albeit largely unremarkable—but because any time you have to grapple with the game's terrible combat is when you realize what a mess the gameplay really is. The Silent Hill series has never had good combat, but it was at least tolerable while waiting for the next nightmarish story beat. Downpour on the other hand is too eager to throw the player into gladiatorial scenarios, especially in the game's latter half. Enemies take a pretty hefty beating to put down, your weapons quick to snap against their durable hides whenever they're not constantly blocking, dodging, or scrambling across the ceiling. There's no ebb or flow to the combat; fights are nonsensical and disorganized, highly reminiscent of the worst 2D arcade brawlers.

Outside of the serviceable puzzles and atrocious combat, there's not much left that's able to hold Downpour together. Nearly every item in the world that you come across is a weapon of some kind, and since you can only hold one you rarely feel the need to explore once you settle on something better than a stick. The design of the otherworld has its moments at times, but feels less like the rusted bowels of Hell and more like an Alice in Wonderland spinoff, complete with sideways stairs and kooky clock dials to cross. There's a strange, unexplained void that shows up every now and then to prompt chase sequences, which don't feel like they follow any kind of logic since the void can maneuver through physical barriers (for instance, if you head up a U-shaped flight of stairs it's likely to start sapping your health through the floor below). These sequences feel phenomenally dumb to play, as if an executive from Konami complained that Silent Hill wasn't cinematic enough and needed more scripted sequences and QTEs (which I forgot to mention—there's QTEs!) I found myself murmuring "well at least there are otherworld sections" in defense of this game, which is about the time I realized how low the bar had fallen for the franchise.

Silent Hill: Downpour is what I would best describe as "amateur fan fiction come to life". It tries to tick all of the boxes of what one might imagine Silent Hill to be: a tortured main character, spooky monsters, foggy town, multiple endings—but it lacks the nuance and craft the prior entries had mastered. It doesn't seek to carve its own path but merely vaguely imitate its predecessors, misunderstanding how important the concepts of unease and dread are to the franchise. Downpour is not a disgrace the same way Duke Nukem Forever is, but it's a soulless step down from greatness, a Korn to Silent Hill 2's Nirvana (speaking of, Korn composed the theme song to this game—a fitting union in retrospect!) The best way to describe how abysmal the game is is to walk you through how it squandered a good scare:

Inside of the Silent Hill monastery, there's a theater stage that has a witch's house prop from a Hansel & Gretel play. Inside of the house, there's an old chest that's locked by a puzzle, wherein you're trying to rotate the cubes on a grid until they form the portrait of a young girl sitting on a beach. In the center of the frame is the girl's doll, its smiling grimace squarely positioned on its own cube. After completing the picture I found that the chest still wasn't unlocking, and that's when I realized I had to rotate the head of the girl's doll to its true face. With a trepidatious hand I selected the cube with the doll and slowly spun it... to reveal a part of the girl's body I had placed elsewhere. Turns out what I had actually mistaken was a cube on the girl's left foot for her right foot, and simply needed to rotate that to complete the picture. After grabbing what I needed and leaving, the real "surprise" I received was when the house prop collapsed behind me, revealing that the structure had been two-dimensional the entire time! I couldn't help but chuckle, musing how this revelation was the perfect analogy for this game.
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Images obtained from: silenthillmemories.net, gamester81.com, rocketchainsaw.com, silenthill.wikia.com

The Last Guardian - Thoughts

There aren't a lot of games that have animal companions. It's kind of a strange fact if you think about it—a huge number of people have experience with rearing or at least taking care of a pet, but our nonhuman buddies are often neglected, sidelined, or forgotten in video games. I mean, quantifiably there's Dogmeat, Epona, and... various pokemon? Hell I'm almost tempted to say I can name more pivotal robot characters than animal ones! I don't bring this up to specifically disparage the state of pets in the video game industry, but rather as a way to emphasize just how utterly unique The Last Guardian feels. Gone are waypoints, HUD elements, skill trees, and upgrades; The Last Guardian is a subdued journey about you and your feathered friend seeking freedom together, learning to rely on one another in order to escape the confines of a beautiful—and unbelievably cruel—stone sanctuary.

There is a slight addendum to my claim about The Last Guardian's uniqueness—the game alarmingly resembles Team Ico's debut, Ico. Both games share similar tribal worlds, earthen fortress settings, restrained soundtracks, and muted stories. This isn't even taking the gameplay into account, which, in spite of the size disparity of Trico and Yorda, is heavily dependent on environmental puzzles and finding ways to safely scale gargantuan buildings. From mood alone I would argue that The Last Guardian is as much as a spiritual successor to Ico as Demon's Souls is to Dark Souls. In case you're wondering why I'm harping on their similarities so much, it's predominantly because your feelings on one game will likely predict your feelings on the other.

For instance, I greatly appreciate Ico, but man, do I not enjoy playing it. The same is true here; controlling the boy in The Last Guardian is like piloting a drunken, magnetized child at times, especially when the action gets frantic. In some ways it can aid the authenticity of the gameplay—the "scripted" sequences that would feel safe in something like Uncharted are far more real and prone to error here, every jump resulting in an unknown outcome (more than once the game went into epic slow motion during a leap that nevertheless lead to my death). But whenever you miscalculate your fiddly jump trajectory or inexplicably find yourself glued to Trico despite hammering the cross button, frustration will start to build and your tolerance for the game's wonkiness can quickly drop. I still firmly believe The Last Guardian is worth experiencing in spite of its faults, it's just that as a video game it's a pretty rough product (the framerate goes on a pretty wild roller coaster ride). I liken it best to an art film like A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, where I'm left breathless by its brilliant style, but find it hard to claim that my overall experience resembled anything "fun".

But The Last Guardian doesn't need to be fun to be good—in fact, the tone throughout the majority of the game is decidedly un-fun; in spite of the bright, friendly mood the game projects, The Last Guardian is actually one of the darkest, most melancholy games I think I've ever played. It may not be immediately apparent during its introduction, but a huge amount of the game is spent helplessly watching your innocent companion get stabbed with spears, fall off of buildings, and fight against its bestial instincts. Rather than being placed in the shoes of the muscle-bound hero that's determined to save his (typically female) partner, The Last Guardian's child is a feeble bystander to many of the horrific events that play out, only able to console the beleaguered beast with soft words and gentle rubs after the action has subsided. And in typical Team Ico fashion, the game gets resoundingly brutal at the end; expect to clutch your pet close after the credits roll.

The big reason the game is so proficient at evoking pathos is due to how realistic the mythical monster feels. The animations string together to form a very smooth and very lifelike creature; Trico hops like a bird, moans like a dog, and is often obstinate like a cat. It's kind of a stroke of genius to portray your ally as a clueless pet, because it narratively masks any AI pathing discrepancies you'll notice when trying to lure Trico from one place to the next. Frustrated that your pal refuses to stand on its hind legs to  boost you up to a nearby window? Well you shouldn't expect a wild animal to follow all your orders on the first day it meets you! Don't get me wrong—you'll still get vexed when Trico doesn't do what you want it to do—but this explanation is a useful way to get you to treat your companion less like a faulty string of algorithms and more like a clumsy, silly, gentle friend.

Spending time in the more quiet moments of the game with Trico is where the The Last Guardian really shines, especially when you're in one of the game's many stunning outdoor environments. Coincidentally though, this is typically when you're interacting with it the least. Besides the mechanical problems with your player character, I don't really have a lot of love or appreciation for the puzzles here either—nearly every challenge exists to obfuscate your progression. Puzzles by definition serve that very purpose, but the quandaries here are more naked and blunt, like looking for a ladder out of reach or finding a ledge for Trico to jump to. There are definitely some inventive solutions to uncover along the way, as well as some pretty wild predicaments you'll find yourself uncomfortably thrust into, but the game isn't quite as mentally stimulating as I was hoping it would be (which I admit can be a tall order—hell, I managed to find Portal 2 disappointing).

There's a lot of clunkiness to The Last Guardian that clearly distinguishes it as a game caught between generations. It's a title I wouldn't advise to anyone that looks down upon "walking sims" or "video game stories" with scorn, as I would hesitate to call any of its gameplay engaging in and of itself. But The Last Guardian isn't (and needn't be) entirely concerned with the moment-to-moment details of its mechanics; Team Ico's laconic masterpiece knows precisely what it wants to do and executes on its premise flawlessly. It's a game with tremendous heart, passion, and vision; The Last Guardian might not be an enthralling video game, but it stands tall as a gorgeously crafted piece of art that will rend your heart to ribbons.
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Images obtained from: wikipedia.org, segmentnext.com, gametransfers.com, playstationlifestyle.net

Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins - Thoughts

[contains minor spoilers]

Exceedingly rare is it for the newest entry in a franchise to not only properly honor its inspirations, but to also outclass them with such finesse that it practically stands in a league of its own. There are very few games capable of this feat—I think Mega Man 9/10 and Gradius V arguably achieve this—but there is no greater disparity between the quality of the old entries and the new as there is with Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins and its ancestors. Ultimate G'nG is the game that I always wanted the series to be: quick, bright, fun, with the right amount of challenge...

... At least, that's what I thought after I had finished the first stage. Having finally reached the true ending, I must confess that I was utterly incorrect; Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins is the most bloodthirsty, cruel, and violently unfun game of the bunch.

The weird thing is that it's not the hardest entry in the series—that honor still belongs Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, mainly due to its monstrous final stage. However what makes Ultimate G'nG so much more horrifying is that instead of having to resume from a checkpoint after you die, you restart right where you were slain, provided you have the extra lives to do so. "How does this make the game bad then?" I can hear you naively cluck, not realizing that the designers account for this new checkpoint system and absolutely flood the stages with enemies and hazards, every single screen a multi-pronged attack on poor Arthur. Prepare to be bombarded by nimble foes from several directions while you wait for slow moving platforms to ferry you across bottomless chasms, death a more likely outcome than any other game in the franchise. It's less of a test of endurance like the previous games were and more a cavalcade of bullshit you're forced to wade through, eating loss after loss as you struggle to reach the next stage. Most levels aren't too grueling to survive, but the back-to-back brutality of Stage 2-2 and 3-1 will most assuredly have you empathizing with my plight.

Oh but this isn't the worst part of Ultimate G'nG—oh no, not by a long shot. That only comes after you finish the game and are forced to go back to the beginning to replay it again. "Oh but that's what the other games did!" You brazenly bleat, without understanding that you have to pick up 22 rings randomly scattered throughout the game to reach the last boss. And when I say "random" I mean random: the rings are not hinted at, they're not shown on the map, and the game refuses to tell you anything other than the total amount you have. Did you acquire 21 rings but don't know what stage to visit for that final elusive one? Tough luck, you'll just have keep exploring until you spot it near some bottomless pit or free it from one of the game's many tombstones!

And yet, somehow, it gets worse—after crushing the faux-final boss, you're sent back again to pick up 11 more rings, 5 of which are obtainable only after collecting all of the red chests in every stage. "That does sound pretty bad..." I catch you murmuring, despite that you cannot truly grasp the overwhelming amount of misery this task burdens you with. To open a red chest, you have to touch a minuscule, invisible tag somewhere on the level that will then cause the red chest to appear so you can open it. With the rings you could at least see where they are; to activate the chests you'll have to dive into pits, enemies, and traps, and I assure you I'm not exaggerating—the tags actually are located near the bottom of pits and inside enemy spawn points! It's just such an insane, dolorous, time-wasting requirement that it drains any and all enjoyment you'll feel for the game. I've had to put up with a lot of odious design in plenty of video games before (triforce hunting anyone?), but this might just take the cake.

(EDIT: Just kidding I forgot La Mulana exists)

What frustrates me to no end is that Ultimate G'nG is, at its core, the best Ghosts 'n Goblins game in the series. The introduction I wrote above was not a red herring; Ultimate G'nG feels phenomenal to play, bringing back the fiery arcade action that was present in the Genesis title. It looks great in motion on the PSP (with fairly stable frame rate to boot!), and despite the stupidly high frequency and durability of some of its enemies, the stages are cleverly crafted and contain some neat tricks. The ghostly hay castle at the end of Stage 2-2 is both terrifying and alluring, an other-worldly setting that's exactly what I want out of a G'nG game. The bosses are all excellently designed as well, once again following in Ghouls 'n Ghosts' footsteps of prioritizing sharp reactions over mashing the attack button as fast as you can. I cannot stress enough how promising this game starts, before it begins to vindictively claw at your good will and drag you into hell with its obnoxious ring collecting.

This vile little title gets me so fired up that I forgot to mention that it shifts genres from action platformer to a metroidvania, now allowing you to revisit older stages to pick up spells and abilities you may have missed. While it's an interesting addition (it's pretty nice to be able to choose which spells to use for a particularly tough sections of a stage), the game absolutely stumbles with this, making poor decision after poor decision. For instance, you can only save the game after you finish a stage, meaning that any goodies you find in a level will require you to reach the end to keep them. That, or you can simply use a warp staff to go to the Red Witch's Lair and finish Stage 1-1 in a matter of seconds, which is something you're going to be doing constantly, especially when you're on the hunt for the red chests. Oh, but if you accidentally pick up a terrible weapon you get to hold onto that even if you restart a stage! Speaking of, why can't you collect weapons and swap them on the fly? And why in god's name do the warp staffs disappear in the second playthrough? You're already forcing me to replay through the game to collect all the rings, you don't need to make me jump into a pit again to pick up the Stage 4 warp staff!

I have so many minor grievances that I don't even know when to stop complaining. An interesting addition to the overall game is the dragon shield, a tool that effectively lets you fly for a limited time. I both love it and hate it: love it because it lets the player skip so many awful parts in the levels (like the ghost platforms in Stage 2-2 [why does dying reset your position and force you to ride them all over again?! Why?!]), but I hate it because it outright kills the "platforming" part of the game the series is known for. You never have to double jump again as long as you have the ability to fly over all obstacles, but try and use the dragon shield like a shield and it'll likely shatter, forcing you to find another one somewhere in the world. Shield durability is another absurd inclusion because you always use it when you duck, which means you're always putting your dragon shield at risk every time you try to avoid an enemy overhead. And it's not that hard to find a new one either—it's just extremely inconvenient.

You know, that's actually a good way to sum up a lot of design decisions in Ultimate G'nG—arbitrarily inconvenient. Like, why do the loading screens of secret areas double as stage checkpoints? Where is the challenge in the final boss rush if the game checkpoints you after every boss? Why do I have to mash the d-pad every time one of those accursed flying fish latch onto me? Why can't I use magic without my armor? Why do the transformations last so goddamn long?! It's like there was no rhyme or reason to the myriad of bad ideas here—the developers simply threw everything they could into the game and hoped it all worked out for the best. The one—one—thing I will acknowledge that could reverse my low opinion of this game is a playthrough of Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins Kai, a Japan-only release that rebalanced the game to be more like the traditional titles... but seeing as I only have the vanilla version in my library, that will have to wait for another day.

The Ghosts 'n Goblins titles are exemplary at showcasing why awful game design can ruin excellent gameplay systems. Each of them have their own strengths and weaknesses, by and large being decent platformers that can be fun to overcome depending on your tolerance for pain. Oddly it's the newest entry that's the most sadistic, Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins' stupendous controls and presentation strangled by a legion of incomprehensible (and downright spiteful) design decisions. Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins is—as corny as it sounds—the ultimate disappointment.
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Images obtained from: gamefaqs.com, playstation.com, gearlive.com

Star Fox Zero - Thoughts

Just like Metroid, Star Fox is a franchise where the one thing the fans desire most is a sequel with classic design sensibilities: no cutscene-laden story, no gimmicks, no slew of bonus modes—just basic but engaging arcadey corridor shooting. And similar to Metroid, Star Fox is a franchise that is overtly content to ignore these pleas, instead focusing on brainstorming new ideas that might reinvigorate the series. Star Fox Zero is the newest game in a franchise now synonymous with disappointment, the sleek on-rails sections weighed down by motion controls, plodding vehicles, and a universe too familiar to feel remarkable. I understand wanting to reach a broader audience with a storied, established Nintendo IP, but uhhh...

... how hard is it to make another good Star Fox game?

Star Fox Zero isn't without its merits of course, but it boggles my mind how Nintendo simply won't return to the series' roots. The first two games were great because they were solid on-rails shooters that took you across the galaxy, each planet and space sector a new, colorful challenge to survive. And then came Star Fox Adventures... and Star Fox Assault... and Star Fox Command... all of which tried to take a different approach on the Star Fox framework, but ultimately couldn't rise above mediocrity. Each game peaks with the Arwing sections, where you're flying around with Fox & co., gunning down pompous critters that jeer at you with cartoonish temerity—but miscellaneous design decisions overshadow these high times, ultimately burying it beneath a sea of half-baked debris.

Star Fox Zero fares no differently in this regard.

I definitely admire Nintendo's attempt to go back to their roots and recreate Star Fox 64, but this game paradoxically stays too close to it yet at the same time veers too far. Most of the planets, characters, chatter, music, enemies, bosses, and structure is directly modeled after 64, the space-time portals being perhaps the only twist added to the campaign (and they're not even utilized all that much). It can be fun to explore the HD renditions of Corneria and Titania, but there's a prevailing sense of "been here, done that" throughout the entire game. As I stated before, part of the appeal of Star Fox was that every planet was a new horizon you got to zoom through at high speed; Star Fox Zero's lone contribution to the anthropomorphic galaxy is a Halo-esque ring you don't even get to explore properly.

However unfortunate it is that Star Fox Zero opts to copy so much from Star Fox 64's blueprints, nearly everything new Zero brings to the table is categorically worse. The control scheme has been clumsily fitted around gyroscopic aiming which makes no sense—both hands are already going to be busy maneuvering the Arwing so taking time to physically look down at the Wii U pad and pivot your wrists for more precise aiming just flat-out does not work well. I would be perfectly happy to ignore it for most of the game except that camera control is constantly wrestled away from the player on the TV screen, and certain battles are an arduous waste of time if you ignore the manual aiming. During my four hours with the title I kinda got used to it, but I would've been far more satisfied with a traditional control scheme, delegating the Wii U pad to a minimap that I could've ordered my allies on or denoted spots for Great Fox to drop supplies or something (I suspect it would've saved the game some frames it desperately needed too, as Zero runs worse than 64).

Star Fox Zero's worst addition is undoubtedly the Gyrowing, a slow moving copter that drops down a dinky, tethered robot that can hack into terminals—does any of that scream Star Fox to you? I felt like I was losing my mind in Zonness as I was pausing for searchlights to pass, carefully dropping explosive boxes on robots, and hacking into reactor cores. Hacking!! I kept asking myself, "is this really what Star Fox has become? Did anyone actually want this?" It was like playing Call's mission from Mighty No. 9 all over again, except Comcept's slip-up can be explained by their amateur incompetence, whereas Nintendo should've straight-up known better. The Gyrowing is only present in two missions, but its mere inclusion remains a thing of bewilderment. I don't think the walker mode for the Arwing fares significantly better, but at least it resembles Star Fox to a degree.

As if I haven't berated this game enough, the focus on all-range mode segments is another topic of contention. There's literally 0 on-rails bosses! Most of the all-range bosses are a pain in the ass to battle as well, since they're too easy to fly into (Dodora, Attack Carrier), or they have profoundly frustrating attacks (Aquarosa, the final boss), or their weak points are revealed too infrequently (Scrapworm, ATTACK CARRIER). Star Wolf is thankfully always a thrill to dogfight with, but they make up only a handful of encounters out of the entire game. Besides that, I also think there are too few unique stages in the game, and having every path end with the same final three worlds & bosses is a huge bummer. There's a myriad of other small things that bothered me—like why don't I keep laser power-ups between stages, even in Arcade mode?—but I suppose I've spent enough time ragging on this entry; I spew this aggressive vitriol not out of hate, but out of sheer frustration for a series that I dearly wish to love once more.

Star Fox Zero attempts to be some kind of spiritual remake of Star Fox 64, but there's too much residual DNA from the other games for it to remain a pure breed of space shooter. It's a shame too, because as misdirected as Zero is, I think Nintendo gave it their best shot, and due to the way it sold there's not likely to be another Star Fox game with this much commitment and polish for a long while. Perhaps it's for the best though; the premise of Star Fox is perfectly suited for a downloadable title, and should Nintendo remember that on-rails games can be fun without the need for filler or padding, then maybe there's hope for it in the future yet...

... but it's not something I'm going to hold my breath for—I've learned that lesson years ago.
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Images obtained from: nintendo.com,  meristation.com, VentureBeat.com, metro.co.uk