Familiar 2

Story Positives:

1. Animations: Excellent as always, continuing the same quality from the previous game..
2. Animations: …earning two positives
3. Atmosphere: The continued Shantae charm, though mixed with some darker and more serious tones which, weirdly, works pretty well. We honestly wouldn’t see this level of proper mixture until Shantae Advance
4. Brickwork: Tan Line Island. I’m not sure what I like best, the distant dunes, the nice foreground elements, or the actual archaic pillars and statues and bricks. Oh and the, uh, sprites unique to this island
5. Brickwork: Frostbite Island. The snow covering the cracked ice, the bare trees flaked with snow clumps, the distant mountains jabbing up through the cloud cover
6. Brickwork: Mudbog Island. So I mentioned that darker thing earlier? This place is properly horrifying. Barren wastes, guk covered caves, fetid growths of lichen and rotten wood structures. Oh and don’t forget the giant dessicated carapaces
7. Brickwork: Scuttletown Island. The detailing on the actual bricks is fantastic, and I’m also fond of the scaffolding and other little details as its developed
8. Characters: Generally amusing (and actually characters this time around!). I want to give special mention to Rotty (and her, uh, alter ego), Shantae, and of course the star of the show… Risky
9. Cutscenes: Good usage of the animated vignette slides to portray emotion and scenes
10. Dialogue: The dialogue honestly pops more than it has any right to
11. Doodads: General, but excellent. Mostly in the more ‘town’ style areas but it’s great when it’s there
12. External Continuity: Connects surprisingly well with the previous game
13. Hub: The town slowly changing as Ammo Baron’s men alter it every so often is some nice visual continuity and progression
14. Humor: Yeah the game got me a few times. Again, funny and serious in a good mixture
15. Moment: Rotty’s lost soul. This hit way harder than it had any right to
16. NPC Set Dressing: Some really good usage in some scenes to flesh out the areas
17. Outro: Much better than the previous games, with some good character moments despite a return to status quo
18. Spritework: More or less the same high quality sprites as last time, which of course still means it’s damned good…
19. Spritework: …for a full…
20. Spritework: …three positives

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Controls: Controls pretty tightly, especially with the new kit. It’s really fun to just zip around like crazy
2. Enemy Variety: Surprisingly decent
3. Music: Best soundtrack in the series (so far)… easily earning…
4. Music: …the full…
5. Music: …three positives
6. Intro: The Intro does a lot right very quickly. Platforming, enemies, escalation, fun sequences, and an amusing boss fight…
7. Intro: …earning two positives
8. Itemization: Items are reasonably well spread out and the droprate of things is good stuff
9. Kit: The new Risky items are legit and a good replacement for the transformations. Ranged attack, a hover, a downwards strike, the run, and the cannon which retains momentum. As straight Kit it’s all solid, where it really comes together…
10. Traversal: …is in how it changes your navigation of the game. Once you have all the main kit the game is honestly a treat to zoom around
11. Level: Cackle Tower. Nice enemy placement (nice big arcing attacks), decent terrain layout, and nice slow escalation as you make your way up the tower and slowly unlock more of it as you go
12. Boss: Empress spider. A fairly basic but solid fight. Charge attacks which come with a baked in weakness and escalate, as well as adds and some flame coverage goodness
13. Level: Frostbite island. Love the theme of temporary platforms (and escalation as the areas around the platforms, as they start to get into treadmills, spikes, and enemies). The addition of the cannon really adds to the verticality too…
14. Level: …easy double
15. Level: Oubliette of Suffering. I wasn’t sure about this one at first, but the dash, the lava, the amazing shooting and moving platforms stuff, and of course plenty of timing based puzzles to accomodate the dash. Honestly my favorite part is when you have to dash across all the huge gaps while retaining the momentum to get a heart squid…
16. Level: …another double
17. Level: The Spittle Maze (and Saliva Island). This is a weird one; almost entirely terrain platforming focused, but still doing that fun switch and movement puzzle. And it’s not a frustrating maze of doom
18. Boss: Cyclops Plant. Another solid fight. Big ol’ area denial laser beams, slow moving adds to throw you for a loop, escalating spawn rates
19. Level: Tanline Temple. A bit short of course, but they do some good stuff with the stealth section
20. Tutorialization: Generally good tutorialization of concepts and new gimmicks in new areas
21. Replayability: Generally replayable. Helps that it’s fun, short, and engaging
22. Outro: Okay for all the issues I have with the final dungeon, the final boss is legit. First phase is simple but fun, second phase is cool, third phase is awesome and brutal, fourth phase is just plain awesome…
23. Outro: …earning two positives
24. NG+: Pirate Mode isn’t quite a full new game plus but it’s leaning there, and having the full kit at the beginning is great
25. Song: Back To The Roots…
26. Song: …for two positives
27. Song: Village of Lost Souls

Gameplay Negatives:

1. MSQ: The Rottytops ‘minigame’… which, similar to the first game, sucks. It’s not as bad as it could be (the checkpointing is nice) but damn
2. MSQ: So the forced stealth section in Tan Line Island is… not good. It could have been, but instead they made it binary failstate with no checkpoints, so it drifts right into irritating
3. Boss: Squid Baron continues his trend of, honestly, just having way too much health
4. Itemization: Money. Even when killing almost everything at all points there just is not enough cash
5. Walkthroughitis: Getting the Death Mask and getting to the Ammo Factory
6. Encounters: Bit of an enemy spam problem
7. Boss: The Dagron is a weird boss. He’s either too frustrating, too annoying, or too easy…
8. Level: Propeller Town. Too much focus on trial and error, instant death spikes, and memorization
9. Boss: The Steel Maggot. You have to hit its buttons in the right order, which randomizes each time, then get a brief vuln period behind it, which can be eaten up by it being off screen, but on top of everything else… it’s boring (it has only one mechanic)
10. Walkthroughitis: 100%ing. Some of these are just… honestly bonkers in how hidden they are, aka the Super Metroid Negative
11. Outro: Screw this outro so hard. It comes out of absolutely nowhere with death spikes absolutely everywhere
12. Outro: Special mention to the breakable blocks room which gets its own negatives, first for the usual (instant death spikes and having to redo the whole room if you screw up) but also…
13. Outro: …because the breakable blocks don’t respawn, meaning if you screw up you have to reset completely and start over from scratch

Story Positives:

1. Cutscenes: Usual good usage of portraits
2. Atmosphere: Usual charm… but like, the adorableness
3. Atmosphere: Adorableness. So much adorableness
4. Atmosphere: I’m sorry, the transformations are SO CUTE. I know the whole game is cute but this deserves its own mention
5. Brickwork: Town. Nauseating thing aside it’s lovely and well crafted
6. Brickwork: Counterfeit mermaid factory. Y’know it’s not like Half Genie Hero has bad brickwork it’s just not at the level of some of the previous games… but! I still really like several stages, like the aforementioned factory
7. Brickwork: The entire desert region. Nice dunes, nice sandstone, nice temples
8. Brickwork: The Race and Ammo Baron’s fleet. Honestly the fleet is the real stand-out here, love the airships
9. Brickwork: Hypno Baron’s place. Big spooky mansion filled with tons of gothic goodness? Check
10. Plot: Call me weird but the micro plots as we go through each being self contained stories works for me
11. Spritework: The new style is certainly different from the fantastic pixel-based sprites of the last two games, but it’s still exceptionally well done…
12. Spritework: …leading to a full…
13. Spritework: …three positives

Story Negatives:

1. Cutscene: So Shantae is evil OH NO but no it’s okay because they knew she was inside there all along and she’s fine! In like… two minutes!
2. External Continuity: Some obvious issues, but Risky is the big one, as she’s arguably completely out of character here (stupid and pointlessly cruel)

Gameplay Positives:

1. Backtracking: The levels all vary up a bit the second time around
2. Boss: Ammo Baron is simple but very fun, with good escalation
3. Boss: Double Barons, however, is much more fun
4. Boss: Giga Mermaid is neat, fun, and visceral
5. Boss: Squid Baron is fun, probably one of the more intense bosses in the game
6. Controls: Usual good controls but what really sells it…
7. Controls: …is the proper usage of quick select and shoulder swapping
8. Difficulty: Hardcore mode actually changes up level design and makes the game properly more difficult
9. Guidance: Pretty decent for the most part. Very few times where I felt lost, especially with the help NPCs in town
10. Intro: Starts off a bit bland but takes off very quickly, with fun and interesting platforming, good indicators, and a fun boss fight…
11. Intro: …earning two positives
12. Itemization: Much better money drop rate than before
13. Minigame: Beach mode, also known as ‘screw you hard mode’. You have a slightly different kit which makes a lot of the combat a lot harder, and there’s an ever ticking clock in the form of sunscreen you have to replenish or die
14. Minigame: Jammies mode is technically a variance of kit but whatever. Here you play through the game with a slow but heavy hitting melee attack (the pillow), can fling sheep (don’t ask), or float up on a cloud of dreams… which as you might imagine makes it quite a bit harder than the norm
15. Minigame: Ninja mode. So you retain a melee attack and the usual ranged ability (ninja stars this time around), but gain a wall jump and a blink, plus a backdash. And you gain gems to power up but lose gems on contact, making it a bit of a hard mode
16. Minigame: Officer mode. This is probably the best of the bundle really. So you can only jump and shoot, meaning very little traversal, but you can hit a button to swap switches and blocks which have been added to stages. This obviously lets you get around but can also be used offensively. Finally, just like in Ninja mode, getting gems powers you up (Gradius style) and getting hit loses said gems…
17. Minigame: …solid stuff
18. Minigame: Pirate Queen’s Quest, and all the fun from playing as Risky again
19. Kit: Some really good kit in this one with the transformations and items both…
20. Kit: …easily earning two positives
21. Level: Counterfeit Mermaids is probably the best level in the game. Starts off as a simple moving platformer which evolves into a hook hopper, and mutates later into some fun stuff on the second time around…
22. Level: …earning two positives
23. Level: Hypno Baron’s stage is short but sweet
24. Level: Some decent stuff in the desert overall, if a bit peppered and mostly interesting the second time around
25. Level: The race stage is pretty fun throughout
26. Minigame: General level design, making getting 100% decently enjoyable
27. Minigame: Pirate Queen’s Quest and the alternate playthrough. Different kit, progression, more open ended stage selects…
28. Minigame: …really solid stuff
29. Music: While not quite to the dizzying heights of the previous game, the music in this game is just legit…
30. Music: …earning two positives, easy
31. QoL: Lots of little ones but they’re there
32. Terrain: Variable, but still fun terrain design
33. Enemy Variety: For essentially the same reasons as in the last game
34. Replayability: Generally replayable
35. Visual Distinction: In a first for the series, it’s pretty distinct to tell what’s what, where, and how
36. NG+: While not quite new game plus, Hero Mode qualifies for the same reasons as last time
37. Kit: Friends mode is neat but ultimately a bit too limited (one health bar with only three hearts, can’t swap in mid air or while hanging) but it’s still neat and fun to play as the trio

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Graphics: Town nausea… honestly what in the world were they thinking with this crap. I had to give a warning to viewers to not watch because of how nauseating and headache inducing the town scrolling is…
2. Graphics: …earning an easy…
3. Graphics: …three negatives
4. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Or lack thereof. Just… everywhere, really, leading to tons and tons and tons of redoing the whole stage… the game also likes to put instant death pits or spikes right before a transition (aka a checkpoint) because screw you…
5. Mid Mission Checkpoints: …leading to two negatives
6. Level: And some bullcrap in the desert. Just… total bullcrap
7. Outro: Final dungeon. You like flappy bird instant death spikes, right?
8. Outro: Well no problem, we got flappy bird instant death spikes
9. Outro: Final boss. So it’s a bit obtuse but what really makes it suck more than anything else…
10. Outro: …is it’s BORING
11. Outro: Final escape sequence and the lack of checkpointing
12. Camera: We’ve got the Donkey Kong Country 2 problem going on here with the camera wibbling and wobbling to try and put itself behind Shantae, which can be disorienting at best and nauseating at worst
13. DLC: General lackluster quality of DLCs across the board
14. Level: The final few Friends stages can go directly to hell with their bullcrap

Story Positives:

1. Storytelling Mechanic: Codex, as per usual
2. Architecture: If you want one thing DA2 does definitively better than DAO it’s architecture. DAO had issues with this if you recall but by contrast there’s lots of creative usage of space, distant visuals, and actual buildings and sightlines to make Kirkwall feel like an actual city
3. Camera: Actually some good stuff helping to flesh out the cutscenes
4. Atmosphere: Green, purple, red. The flavor this changes to your character and tone
5. Humor: Purple Hawke in general
6. Cinematics: General style (the painted stone look)
7. Dialogue: It’s intermittent, but there’s some sharp dialogue here and there
8. Banter: Generally good banter throughout. Not as good as Origins or Inquisition but it’s still good
9. Banter: Special points for Isabella and Aveline
10. Character: Bonus points specifically for Aveline and Isabella’s growing friendship throughout the game
11. Banter: Varric and… everyone
12. Character: Aveline is just amazing. Reliable, relatable, well presented, great quests…
13. Character: …earning her two positives
14. Character: Carver & Bethany are both halves of a positive for the game as a whole
15. Intro: I love this Intro. The taste of power is nice, the ridiculous over the top stories, the lead in to the real story, the drama of Aveline and her husband, and how directly connected to Origins this is. I also love how low tier we start here…
16. Intro: …so this is a solid double
17. Character: Flemeth. Brief though she is here, she is both memorable and very well done
18. Brickwork: Kirkwall Hightown
19. Character: Gamlen is fascinating. He seems like a slimeball but ultimately he’s just a fairly normal guy, who is both loyal and friendly and is there for us when it matters… and he gets nice little backstory as the game progresses
20. Character: Isabella. As per the Bioware Standard, she has a fairly coarse surface character and a lot more depth underneath that, especially in how she discusses things with other characters…
21. Character: …earning her two positives
22. Character: Merrill. In over her head but aware of it, stubbornly plodding forwards while knowing it’s a bad idea, and a good insight into blood magic and demons in general
23. Character: Varric. What can I say, he is absolutely carried by his voice actor and practically carries the narrative on his back…
24. Character: …earning him two positives
25. Character: Fenris has his issues, but his presentation drags his character up to being overall enjoyable
26. Character: The characters have their own interactions and relationships one with another, including cutscenes and developing rivalries and friendships, with a lot of possible permutations…
27. Character: …for a full…
28. Character: …three positives
29. Brickwork: Beach and mountain areas
30. Character: The Arishok. Very well written, well acted, strangely sympathetic while never ceasing to be a villain
31. Character: Generally good supporting cast (Thrask, Petrice, Prosper)
32. NPC Set Dressing: There’s a surprisingly large amount of work done to make Kirkwall sound and feel like a city…
33. NPC Set Dressing: …earning two positives
34. Writing: Romances. Don’t look at me that way, they’re not that good but they’re not that bad either. I’m partial to Merrill’s personally
35. Storytelling Mechanic: Friendship & Rivalry. This entire mechanism is so good, allowing you to still push for different types of connections with your party without mandating it all be friendly like
36. Storytelling Mechanic: Letters! I still love seeing these kinds of follow throughs on quests
37. Storytelling Mechanic: Party member interactions throughout the game (to be specific, it’s when you can get a special interaction to deal with a conversation or encounter because a party member is present
38. World Building: So we’re officially in the post DAO world now so a lot of new world building needs to happen. And they do a fairly large amount of effort developing the Chantry and how it operates, especially up in Kirkwall
39. World Building: Kirkwall itself, the City of Chains. Run down, broken, built on tortured ground and faint veil, with the leftovers of empire left ragged in the streets and on the docks
40. World Building: The Qun. We actually see quite a bit of the Qun and how they operate here and this is probably the first time the Qun are properly terrifying
41. World Building: Tevinter. We saw them a bit back in DAO but there the word ‘Tevinter’ basically meant ‘evil mage’. Here we learn a bit more about how they operate, their different religion, mage approach, laws, et cetera
42. Voice Acting: Varric is, of course, basically perfect. The actor completely sells the character. In fact the actor completely changed the tone of the character! So naturally…
43. Voice Acting: …this is a solid double
44. Voice Acting: Female Hawke. Of course the PC is well acted, and I admit I’m biased towards her, but in addition to sounding best when snarking she absolutely nails the quiet moments very well…
45. Voice Acting: …so that deserves a solid double
46. Voice Acting: Hawke male is almost as good as female, to the point where even though I think she does a better job it’s a minute enough difference…
47. Voice Acting: …that he’s also going to get a double
48. Voice Acting: Aveline is, of course, exactly as brusque and overt as she needs to be
49. Voice Acting: Merrill sounds great whether she’s precocious, naive, or entirely aware of what she’s doing
50. Voice Acting: Kirkwall citizenry. As usual for a Bioware game even the background characters have good effort put into the voice acting
51. Voice Acting: Fenris. I mean come on, edgy elf and Gideon Emery, what do you want from me?
52. Voice Acting: The Arishok absolutely nails his role. He sounds exactly as restrained, angry, and Qun as he needs to
53. Voice Acting: General, for everything else. Demons, elves, side characters, all kinds of great stuff…
54. Voice Acting: …for another solid double
55. Plot: Act 1 (mother, money, home). It’s a really good hook, keeps us invested, and explains all the sidequesting rather neatly
56. Moment: Varric’s introduction is exactly what it needs to be
57. Moment: The blood magic mind control scene in the brothel
58. Moment: Aveline’s follow through on Leandra’s death
59. Plot: Qunari in general throughout Act 2
60. Moment: Petrice’s death
61. Plot: The dilemma leading to the crisis of Act 2 is honestly very well nuanced and dynamic
62. Moment: The Arishok finally being honest about everything
63. Prime Opt: Aveline & Donnic (and Isabella)
64. Prime Opt: Fenris’s quest chain
65. Prime Opt: The Tranquil Solution
66. Storytelling Mechanic: For essentially the only good time in the entire game, the framing device of the interview is used to good effect with the Bartrand quest
67. Prime Opt: Varric & Bartrand
68. Secondary: The Magister’s son quest
69. Moment: Anders, Vengeance, Karl, and Tranquility
70. Theme: The Mage Problem really comes to the foreground in this one
71. Writing: Generally high quality across the Legacy DLC, especially including its Outro
72. Brickwork: Mark of the Assassin DLC
73. Humor: Mark of the Assassin DLC
74. Writing: Corypheus is… a fascinating portrayal of an interesting character who is a great insight into lore long left forgotten in the series
75. Moment: Okay, you win, that last powow with the companions before the final battle is actually pretty legit

Story Negatives:

1. Storytelling Mechanic: The framing device is… more ridiculous the longer you look at it
2. Storytelling Mechanic: Limited party size, thy name is Bioware. But honestly, the banter and rivalry/friendship and additional dialogue options make it even worse than back in DA:O. Thus I have no real choice but to give…
3. Storytelling Mechanic: …the full…
4. Storytelling Mechanic: …three negatives
5. Storytelling Mechanic: And an additional for the extra lost gameplay benefit
6. Atmosphere: Over-emphasis of how awesome Hawke is
7. Moment: Carver/Bethany’s death is so token and just raced by
8. Pacing: Three days have passed… you can tell because it’s the same spot and the same day and everything looks identical. Then, minutes later, a whole year passed!
9. External Continuity: So outside of my own general lack of satisfaction with the relevance of Origins, the fact is there are several niggling issues all over the place with 2
10. Characters: Fenris has the same general problem Morrigan had; his character arc (and lack thereof) are in conflict with several of the options and preferences he has
11. Characters: So… Sebastian. He suffers from being a DLC character pretty badly (hardly any dialogue in cutscenes, and very little new banter), but what really makes him bad is the total lack of anything interesting about him
12. Spritework: So there’s no getting around it, DA2 is rather sexualized to the point where it detracts from the narrative
13. Characters: Isabella falls to this the most, but as per usual some of the relevant character arcs just… stop unless you romance them
14. Plot: So… Act 2… (and 3) why are we bothering? Excuses and headcanon can fill in the gaps but the game just sort of assumes we go along with everything
15. Plot: Okay, the previous two were debatable, but the final time skip makes the least sense by far. The events of Act 3 follow immediately after the conclusion of Act 2, and should have happened days later, not years…
16. Plot: …earning a second negative
17. Plot: Tallis is Right in classic Janeway fashion in the Assassin DLC
18. Character: Tallis… comes very close to a good character, but the specific execution just does not manage it
19. Writing: General issues in Mark of the Assassin, but most especially its very abrupt and unsatisfying ending
20. Prime Opt: So first, Isabella’s quest is built up across SIX years in lore and in almost every scene she’s in but then…
21. Prime Opt: …when we finally go deal with it it’s just resolved, like that. Just… woof, gone. It’s astonishingly unsatisfying
22. Prime Opt: So then there’s Varric’s Act 3 quest. It’s entirely too rushed, has a weird dichotomy, and establishes a point before doing nothing with it at all
23. Prime Opt: And then there’s Merrill’s Act 3 quest which is really starting to show the seams in the rushed development time and lack of polish, and boils down to a very binary choice which isn’t well telegraphed at all
24. Moment: So then we have the big ‘confrontation’ scene with Thrask and the mages and it’s just… so bad. Everybody acts stupidly, we just watch while Thrask dies, and it’s just… what?
25. Storyboarding: Then there’s the cutscenes which just get noticeably worse in Act 3. Like, way worse. Cheap PS1 era stuff
26. Plot: Then there’s Act 3’s Plot, a good idea terribly executed. The mage templar thing is a good idea, but the game is trying very hard to trim every branch other than the two extremes is left because… well…
27. Writing: …Because Plot. Act 3 is, top to bottom, Because Plot
28. Moment: So the destruction of the Chantry is… not a good scene. The effect is cheap, which I can excuse, but the scene itself is… weirdly rushed while also being ploddingly slow. The terrorist bomb goes off and then everyone just sort of stands around and debates it in this weirdly disjointed scene
29. Writing: So, uh, Orsino goes crazy… in like the worst, grossest way possible… for absolutely no reason (because the executives wanted one more boss fight). This is so tonally out of absolutely nowhere…
30. Writing: …it deserves two negatives
31. Outro: So first we have the rather empty non-ending after beating Meredith which, by itself, is so vacuous as to deserve…
32. Outro: …two negatives
33. Outro: Then we find out it was all just about finding the Champion to lead the Exalted March or whatever

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music: Some good stuff here and there
2. Saves: Good general saves…
3. Saves: …and quicksaves and quickloads
4. Saves: Good general autosaves…
5. Saves: …and multiple autosave slots
6. Choices: Gifts reinforcing existing rival/friendship paths. While this is also bad, it’s still also good as it helps you to keep going down the path you’re on (assuming that’s what you want)
7. Combat: The always-useful percentage potions
8. Core Combat: And as before, the real time with pause and ability to give orders while paused
9. Combos: Combo system and cross class fun
10. Core Combat: Sustained System is back from the first game…
11. Core Combat: …earning two positives
12. Core Mechanic: Gambits. This one has an asterisk, but what’s really weird is the Gambits are even better here than they were in Origins. You have the default stuff of course (which also updates the moment you get a new ability), presets of course, custom stuff, but also a lot more options for more specific programming in the AI…
13. Core Mechanic: …making for…
14. Core Mechanic: …an unprecedented three positives for the core system
15. Core Mechanic: The additional positive for the presets
16. Core Mechanic: And a final positive for the sheer depth of the system
17. Info In Game: There’s actually a pretty decent amount of info in game for this one
18. Interface: Color and shape distinction in interactions and helping you to parse the talents and equipment
19. Kit: Mage is neat. While some of the mage pools are boring (looking at you Elemental) for the most part it’s good stuff…
20. Kit: …for two positives
21. Kit: Rogue is a weird one. It’s the type of class I wouldn’t enjoy because you always have to be trying, but if you are it’s got some great combos and burst potential…
22. Kit: …for two positives
23. Kit: Warrior is the best class, of course. Big, sweeping attacks and lots of ability to control the field while remaining extremely mobile…
24. Kit: …for two positives
25. Level: Most dungeons have a quick exit to prevent meandering backtracking
26. Map: Actually useful and functional, if not 100% accurate
27. QoL: Loot all, target nearest, loot nearest, glittering loot indicators, crafting unlocking
28. Respec: They cost gold and a DLC but they’re there
29. Viscerality: Try to be shocked, but the game prizing being flashier and actionier managed it quite well. So consider this a double positive…
30. Viscerality: …for visuals
31. Viscerality: No pluses for impact sadly (that’s dependent entirely on difficulty and can actively be bad on the higher ends) BUT the sound design is solid enough for a nod
32. Starting Options: Functional character creator. Not the best, not the worst, some decent stuff
33. Intro: Strong Intro with good tutorialization and a quick taste of power. This is in fact one of my favorite tastes of power in gaming…
34. Intro: …and it’s followed with a much more down to earth tutorial section and one of the truly rare unique dungeons in the game
35. Boss: Okay, I’ll give you that, the Rock Wraith was decent enough of a fight
36. Encounters: Legacy DLC enemy design and encounter design
37. Level: Actual puzzle and level design to the Legacy DLC
38. Boss: Legacy DLC’s Corypheus fight is great
39. MSQ: The entire Mark of the Assassin DLC has a few issues but between the ‘free roaming’ Hinterlands, the party, and the escape sequence it’s enjoyable enough and has some nice micro encounters
40. Boss: Duke Prosper is easily the best fight in the game, with multiple phases, pay attention checks, kiting, and general design
41. Replayability: Differing options and paths and builds

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Backtracking: There’s a combination of problems here. First, available quests are not labeled, only existing ones. Second, some quests only show up after other triggers, meaning having to re-go over areas repeatedly. Third and finally, a lot of these quests require one to backtrack ANYways simply to cover the same ground again now that it’s available
2. Traversal: Walk walk walk
3. Choices: Friendship & Rivalry. So… you’re kind of locked into one or the other at a certain point, except it’s very easy to end up ‘evening out’ depending on your choices, and gifts barely make it better (or actively make it worse depending), meaning you’re disinclined to pick the choices you want and instead end up trying to guide your responses purely to help ‘farm’ those points
4. Choices: So DA2 makes a mistake that ME1 also made; an NPC can ‘presume’ a romance with the PC which then leaves you with only two choices; go along with it, or shut it down hard
5. Choices: TOR Effect (not as bad as it could be, but it’s there). For those unaware of the terminology; There’s a problem with most games with the dialogue wheel where you can’t tell exactly what you’re picking when you pick an option and how bad that is determines the number of negatives for this
6. Graphics: Spiders! One of the few, the proud, the negatives
7. Graphics: Blur of Depth! But you’re probably wondering why this is a double negative. First is the obvious, it’s headache inducing, but what really shoves this into multiple territory is it cannot be fixed. No, really. No toggle in game, no combination of settings, no manually editing the INI files, nothing. So that makes…
8. Graphics: …for a double
9. Graphics: Untoggleable headache-inducing Fade effects
10. HUD: The choices dialogue wheel is… weird, inconsistent, and doesn’t include things like numbering options or like how Mass Effect 1 would always put similar style of choices in the same ‘slots’ on the wheel. But worst of all, the game has zero indication of which dialogue options you have already picked or not
11. Interface: Multi-party inventory juggling is a colossal pain. You have to swap party members, then check inventories, then swap, etc.
12. Interface: The gambits, and occasionally some aspects of the menuing don’t do tunneling properly and/or are inconsistent in how they control
13. Interface: There are inconsistency issues with item colors, labels, and irritations with figuring out what does what
14. Launch: So if you buy the game on Steam and buy the DLCs there it won’t ‘decrypt’ those DLCs and as a consequence you will have no access to the DLC you just bought. This is a byproduct of the decryption step being tied to older servers and sites that do not exist anymore but that does nothing to prevent this from being a negative
15. Overly Skippable Cutscenes: Mostly with banter. It is WAY too easy to permanently lose banter, and considering the banter is actually good…
16. Padding: So in some cases it’s fine and in others it is turbo not, so there’s a padding problem with fast traveling thanks to having to reach a fast travel node here and there
17. Walkthroughitis: Friendship & Rivalry, same issue as listed above in Choices
18. Sound Design: Occasional audio balancing issues
19. Controls: Combat targeting can get wonky. One of the reasons I like playing Warrior is a lot of your abilities target in a direction not an individual
20. Starting Options: Starting class determines Bethany vs. Carver
21. Level: So I hope you like repeat dungeon design, because they sure do! This is… it’s so bad, I can’t even put it into words, so instead I’ll just give it…
22. Level: …the full…
23. Level: …three negatives
24. Map: So while you’re doing the repeat dungeons the minimap shows the entire dungeon, not the part you can currently access, which not only gets in the way of navigation but renders the minimap functionally useless for said dungeons
25. Enemy Variety: If you can even call it that. I’m pretty sure there’s only two types of enemies in the entire game
26. Encounter: Battle positioning decided for you after dialogue… again
27. Encounter Rate: Dragon Age 2 Syndrome… yeah it’s called that for a reason, and it’s really bad in this one. I was already tired of combat by Act 1. So let me explain. To qualify for Dragon Age 2 Syndrome the combat itself has to be enjoyable, but relatively simple or low depth. That means the longer you do it the more you get tired of it. And DA2 absolutely bombards you with enemies constantly…
28. Encounter Rate: …so we’re giving it the full…
29. Encounter Rate: …three negatives
30. Trash: This all boils down to truly terrible Trash design, some of the worst in the business, and drags down an otherwise engaging and fun combat system into an arduous slog…
31. Trash: …for a full…
32. Trash: …triple negative
33. Boss: The Arishok fight honestly isn’t that great. He’s very basic and just has a giant pile of stats and health
34. Padding: So… the enemy health starts to get padded to hell and back in Act 3, to the point where even ‘trash’ fights suddenly take too long, and that’s before you take into account the waves of enemies
35. Guidance and Flow: Act 3 is, spontaneously, missing a lot of the previous markers, indicators, and other ‘flow’ that helped to know what to do when and where
36. Encounter Rate: So Act 3’s encounter rate feels like it’s gone up due to related factors, which just… makes Act 3 (a short Act, all things considered) drag
37. Choice: So in Act 3 you pick Meredith or Orsino and it… has no substantial variance at all. Same quests, same areas, same encounters
38. Choice: And a special bonus negative for Choices gameplay in Act 3
39. Choice: So throughout the game there’s options to try to make peace between the two sides… aaand then you are absolutely, no really, forced into picking a side, a choice even the developers think shouldn’t be
40. Outro: The entire Outro is… the exact same barrage of random corridors and encounters the entire rest of the game has been
41. Boss: So you fight Orsino. He’s… tremendously boring, he just stands there

Story Positives:

1. Animation: Some truly excellent motion capture which always adds to the scenes. In fact it’s so good I think we’re going to have to split this up a bit. So we’ll give an Animation positive to the principle cast (Franklin, Michael, and Trevor, the Power Trio)…
2. Animation: …and that’s obviously…
3. Animation: …a solid triple
4. Animation: Then we have the major characters, like Jimmy or Lamar or Ronald…
5. Animation: …and that’s another…
6. Animation: …triple
7. Animation: Then there’s the random NPCs and other ‘live’ interactions…
8. Animation: …which is another solid double
9. Background Lore: A lot in the news bits, but really the Life Invader posts
10. World Building: The game really does build up the awful… awful world that this setting really is
11. Spritework: It feels weird to call out the spritework for a game that’s mostly just people modeled after their actual actors, but what really pulls this up, weirdly enough… is the cars. The sheer quantity and quality of car design absolutely shoves this up…
12. Spritework: …for a full…
13. Spritework: …three positives
14. Brickwork: Okay so here’s the deal. This is some of the best visual design in gaming. Rating this is difficult to do, so we’re going to kind of part and parcel these out per relative ‘biomes’. So we’re going to start with the beach area. This is obviously incredibly well done…
15. Brickwork: …so that’s an easy…
16. Brickwork: …triple
17. Architecture: I’m going to interrupt myself to mention that, try to be shocked, one of the best visually designed games ever made has really good architecture design. Despite its relative smallness (it really only takes a few minutes to cross the map when hitting the highways) nevertheless each individual area feels like a fully fleshed out town or city. Even Los Santos itself feels like multiple individual towns slammed together (just like real life ‘city areas’), and the whole thing…
18. Architecture: …does a fantastic job…
19. Architecture: …of selling the illusion
20. Doodads: Of course the doodads out here are good
21. NPC Set Dressing: And lots of beach goers, bums, surfers, et cetera
22. Sound Design: Soundscape, Coastal areas. Birds, waves, people playing
23. Brickwork: Then there’s the desert. Honestly I wish I could go above triple for a biome because this is my personal favorite looking area…
24. Brickwork: …but that’s just preference of course…
25. Brickwork: …still a triple
26. Doodads: Good towns and the like too
27. Doodads: Special mention for the doodading and interior of Trevor’s House. If you can call it that
28. NPC Set Dressing: And yes there’s some good NPC designs out here too
29. Sound Design: Soundscape, Desert and boonies. Mostly yokels out here, but you’ll hear wind, rustling, and wildlife
30. Brickwork: It’s a relatively small area but the ‘wilderness’ region near the desert is also very well done
31. Sound Design: Soundscape, Wilderness regions. Trees, bushes, underbrush, and wind
32. Brickwork: Downtown. This is, of course, brilliant. The sheer depth and detail here is hard to properly convey, but if you’ve played the game you know what I mean…
33. Brickwork: …so that’s another…
34. Brickwork: …triple
35. Doodads: Much better doodad design around here…
36. Doodads: …so that’s a solid double
37. NPC Set Dressing: Great NPCs around here (I should mention at this point I also count cars as NPCs for these purposes, for obvious reasons)…
38. NPC Set Dressing: …so that’s a solid double
39. Sound Design: Soundscape, Downtown LA. Noise, traffic, yelling, honking
40. Brickwork: Franklin’s House. Yes I’m giving this one house its own positive because good lord. We spent several minutes analyzing and discussing just how detailed and well designed this place is…
41. Doodads: …and you can clearly see that someone spent weeks or MONTHS just on this one area
42. Brickwork: Similarly there’s Michael’s House. Once again crazy detailed, both inside and out, stereotypical McMansion style with gaudy expensive stuff that looks awful and perfectly fits someone who suddenly has money and has no idea how a rich person lives…
43. Doodads: …and of course the doodads are fantastic here as well, particularly the interior
44. Brickwork: Then there’s the… let’s call it the Not Rich District. This is most of the area around Franklin’s House, for perspective. And it’s brilliantly done. I’m pretty sure I’ve driven around some of these streets in real life, it is (as usual) crazy well done…
45. Brickwork: …another easy…
46. Brickwork: …triple
47. Doodads: And yes of course the area has crazy good doodad design, all the city areas have crazy good doodad design, even the TOWN areas have crazy good doodad design…
48. Doodads: …so there’s another double
49. NPC Set Dressing: And of course there’s great stuff around here too in cars and people
50. Brickwork: Finally we have the Rich District, aka the area around Franklin’s House. Golf courses, overly manicured lawns, ugly marble statues and walls, great stuff…
51. Brickwork: …another solid…
52. Brickwork: …triple
53. Doodads: And yes of course it gets the doodad nod, aren’t you paying attention by now…
54. Doodads: …easily a double
55. NPC Set Dressing: Not as good of NPCs as the other areas I think, still good though
56. Internal Continuity: The game keeps a pretty tight internal timeline through most of itself
57. Dialogue: The dialogue is impeccable, again across the board…
58. Dialogue: …for another…
59. Dialogue: …three positives. This is Rockstar at their Rockstariest (alongside Red Dead Redemption 2) so I’m going to mention that, of course the dialogue is amazing in general for basically every character…
60. Dialogue: …but I have to give an insane fourth bonus positive for how each major character has their own ‘voice’, well established and distinct from everyone else
61. Camera: Aside from the wobbliness, the camera is always used very well in cutscenes…
62. Camera: …for a full…
63. Camera: …three positives
64. Foreshadowing: Lots of it, most the kind you’ll never even notice unless you’re looking, some incredibly overt
65. Humor: Internet in general. Seriously you can spend hours perusing the in game internet
66. Humor: Okay so… Princess Robot Bubblegum is a bit much but holy crap that Midwest joke really, really got me
67. Humor: The Grain of Truth Organic Food Market and… all the food stuff really
68. Humor: Weasel News. Just… Weasel News
69. Lighting: Some truly excellent lighting design to really accent the scenes, world, and set pieces…
70. Lighting: …for another…
71. Lighting: …three positives
72. Music Direction: Usage of licensed music. Call this a pity positive, but chat argued for it
73. Visual Storytelling: Floyd’s House. Before we have… entirely too many pictures of the domineering girlfriend. And after it’s… uh… horrible
74. Visual Storytelling: Franklin’s House. The sty, with entirely too many clothes and far too little cleaning
75. Visual Storytelling: Michael’s House. Like the doodads, faux rich oozes from this entire place
76. Visual Storytelling: Trevor’s House. Another twofer here because in a flip of the later Floyd’s House we have an absolute sty which is probably at the level of condemned, until Patricia cleans it up at which point it becomes a lot more livable
77. Character: Franklin. It’s telling that someone this relatively vanilla is still good enough for his own positive. Franklin’s main trait is he just goes along with whatever because other than simping over a girl who is honestly beneath him there’s not much there
78. Character: Lester. This is a strange, horrifying example of what this kind of person can really accomplish if you take it to an extreme. And while he comes across as ‘the loyal guy’ it’s worth noting that when Franklin comes to him with the dilemma at the end Lester thinks about it, sighs, and then promptly suggests betraying his closest allies and ostensible friends. Nice guy
79. Character: Major Supporting cast. Dave, Weston, Haines, you know, the works. Now I should mention that I like GTA5, a lot, but I think the supporting cast is actually a bit weaker than several previous GTA games. The fact that so many of these people are just unpleasantly despicable people sort of lowers their overall quality as you just kind of want them either off your screen or under your wheels as fast as possible. It’s still telling that they’re collectively worth…
80. Character: …two positives, but arguably they SHOULD be more
81. Character: Side supporting cast. Same general idea here. Honestly I think some of the one off characters were more interesting (like Barry)
82. Character: Michael. Jesus Christ this guy has issues. The mob boss who thinks he shouldn’t be. Coordinated, organized, experienced, and constantly terrified of losing everything. I could say so, so much about his character (and have, BOTH times I’ve streamed this game) but for now I can easily say…
83. Character: …he’s one of the best characters…
84. Character: …in the series. In honesty he only really has one close match
85. Character: Trevor. Trevor is crazy well constructed. Everything about him is very specifically designed to be part terrifying, part pathetic, part understandable, part reasonable, and part psychopath. He even pretends to be crazier than he is as part of his own wrestling with the actual mental health issues he has. Again, a lot to be said…
86. Character: …but for now…
87. Character: …a triple
88. Voice Acting: Dave’s actor really does a great job with this. He sounds like just enough of an everyman bored dayjob person that you forget what an exceptionally evil man this is
89. Voice Acting: Franklin is phenomenal of course. Smooth, frustrated, calm, aggravated, he hits all his notes and bounces between them effortlessly…
90. Voice Acting: …easy double. Bonus points for how well he…
91. Voice Acting: …and Lamar’s actor just roll with each other. Seriously these two have such chemistry
92. Voice Acting: Lester. Similar to Dave he’s just the right slice of seemingly nice and/or harmless until you see him… well, y’know
93. Voice Acting: Michael. I mean, yeah, of course Michael’s voice actor is near perfect. Absolutely stunning performance…
94. Voice Acting: …another easy double
95. Voice Acting: Trevor, on the other hand, hoo boy. This man manages so many different tones and makes each of them work, I think he’s actually the best individual actor in the work…
96. Voice Acting: …call this one…
97. Voice Acting: …a triple
98. Voice Acting: Major cast members. Great performances top to bottom…
99. Voice Acting: …another easy…
100. Voice Acting: …triple
101. Voice Acting: Minor cast. All the side characters, chatter, radio station call ins, and hundreds of other lines…
102. Voice Acting: …all very well done…
103. Voice Acting: …and all worthy of another triple
104. Writing: So these are technically aggregates covering large swaths of storytelling, but all three principles have major arcs that are very well constructed. Franklin and his life… before and after
105. Writing: Michael and just how his life has gone
106. Writing: The dominoes from Trevor languishing in pointlessness… until he’s finally pushed
107. Banter: Lamar and Franklin’s banter is legit. It’s honestly the best banter in the entire game
108. Intro: Really great Intro. We start off with the Heist gone bad, which has a LOT going on and establishes a great deal and, while I’m at it…
109. Intro: Babylon 5 Effect: …has some fascinating setup that’s only really visible the second time around
110. Intro: Cutscene: Michael’s initial rant about his life establishes so much not only about his character but also how awful things are for the world and in general. This also leads seamlessly into Franklin’s first scenes
111. Intro: Cutscene: Establishing moments during Franklin’s early scenes. All of these do a great job of establishing who Franklin is, who Lamar is, and their relationship to each other
112. MSQ: The first few missions are some absolutely fantastic stuff. Characterization, dialogue, world building, brick laying, lots of nice setup. It’s also very low key, mostly typical GTA stuff
113. Pacing: I’m going to mention this here because Act 1 in its entirety is almost perfectly paced. Everything flows smoothly with proper highs, lows, and bridges…
114. Pacing: …solid double
115. Story Sequencing: Acts 1 and 2 make so much sense in how events go forth it’s almost scary. I’m legitimately impressed with the thought put into making all these moving parts connect…
116. Story Sequencing: …a very strong double. Speaking of sequencing, all of this standard GTA stuff leads to…
117. MSQ: The ‘rob Michael’ mission. This is fully framed as just another mission and honestly if you didn’t know you might not even realize its significance, which makes it all the more natural. It does more characterization for the entire De Santa family (Jimmy is cussing people out, badly, while playing the most generic FPS game ever, badly… Tracy is negligent and casually is okay with her boyfriend cheating on her while also accidentally ostracizing her friend for being ‘ugly’ and just shrugs it off… and the mother is sleeping with her tennis instructor, all while Michael is waiting for said tennis instructor in the car with a gun), and then it does SO much for Michael (he takes absolutely no crap, but pays Franklin for his troubles… and beats up Simeon rather than kills him because this is about sending a message)…
118. MSQ: …earning it two positives
119. MSQ: Franklin meeting Michael and salvaging the yacht is an astonishingly well done mission. Franklin cuts through Michael’s BS immediately, Michael sort of naturally slips into the fatherly/don role for Franklin, we establish that Jimmy is both a victim and a slimeball, and all while chasing a damned yacht down I-5…
120. MSQ: …for two positives
121. MSQ: The LifeInvader mission. Good satire, and good showcase of Michael and Lester
122. MSQ: The pebble. The thing that kicks off the entire rest of the game. The whole story starts because Amanda was sleeping with her tennis instructor in Michael’s bed
123. MSQ: The first jewelry store heist. Fun, silly, enjoyable, aaand Michael just cannot resist his catch phrase. He just can’t. This leads us to…
124. Moment: Trevor’s introduction. No I mean his real introduction, the opening doesn’t count. So we first see Franklin boosting cars as part of a really low tier car financing fraud scheme. We first see Michael with his therapist (who is NO help, I’ll mention him again later). Trevor we first see crudely banging a woman in an absolute pigsty like… well, like an animal. He behaves and acts like he’s barely human, and then he sees the report which mentions Michael’s catch phrase. And it’s like he switches back to human all of the sudden. This is immediately followed…
125. Moment: …by Johnny (playable character from GTA4’s DLC for those unaware) who has been reduced to a sniveling meth head and we see several of Trevor’s complexities immediately. His tone, his total lack of holding back, and his surprising ability to think and process very quickly…
126. MSQ: …and this leads to his first real mission. Immediately Trevor is pissed at himself for losing his temper and is already dynamically rolling with it (one of his best traits). So he immediately goes and taunts the bikers so he can follow them to their base and wipe them out. This whole sequence is exceptionally well done
127. MSQ: Trevor initial missions and establishment of him, Wade, Ron, and the lay of the land out in the boonies. It’s almost a soft reset of events while simultaneously laying a few more bricks. Eventually it leads to Trevor getting the info he wanted about Michael. And that leads to…
128. Moment: The first confrontation between Trevor and the family. This is honestly one of the best scenes in the game. It starts off as another day in screwedupville as the family are just arguing, snipping, all their own dynamics and frustrations…
129. Moment: …and then Trevor shows up and the temperature changes instantly. Michael goes to protect Jimmy instintively while everyone else quietly cowers, even the ‘I’m so awesome’ guy Amanda is cheating with is actively shrinking away from Trevor. And this tension is near perfect, but then…
130. Moment: …when they find out about Tracey, the tone shifts again instantly. Michael is distracted from Trevor by one of the few things that he really cares about (his daughter) and Trevor, who we know in hindsight is super big on loyalty and family, INSTANTLY drops the menace and is hyper focused on helping
131. MSQ: This is followed by a massive tension relieving mission (for the player and the characters) where we go rescue Tracey from exploitation (and, uh, Lazlow) and the whole thing is a romp. But the understated thing in the background is that if Tracey hadn’t needed help there’s a non zero chance Trevor would’ve snapped and murdered Michael right then and there
132. MSQ: Lots of little details in the gas stealing mission, not the least of which being that great last scene with Trevor and Ms. Madrazo
133. Moment: Lamar and Trevor’s ‘therapy’ session
134. MSQ: The nuke heist is neat, tense, and fun but really what sells it is how well it characterizes Trevor and his desperate need to prove himself. He is SO mad at himself at the end when Lester flies in and puts the kabosh on the whole thing
135. Moment: The end of Debra and Floyd. This is… honestly unpleasant to perceive (Floyd didn’t deserve that… Debra might have) but it’s still very well done
136. Moment: Trevor, the proto-hipster. I love everything about this conversation between him and Michael
137. Moment: The Paleto Heist is, for all its stupidity, really awesome
138. MSQ: The family finally bailing on Michael, even with Jimmy being awful
139. MSQ: The entire torture sequence. It could have failed so hard, but nothing about it is glorified or romanticized. This is something awful happening to someone for no good reason, and it’s made very very clear that Haines AND Weston just sadistically enjoy torturing in general, and the whole sequence is just properly awful…
140. MSQ: …for two positives
141. MSQ: The first Solomon quest, Michael coming in to his own, and the sheer happiness he has for it
142. Moment: Michael, Tracey, and Lazlow’s dick on dick
143. Moment: Michael and Trevor and their standoff
144. Pacing: Act 2 is just as well paced as Act 1…
145. Pacing: …another strong double
146. Secondary: Amanda’s robbery and the subsequent characterization for her and their marriage, Rampages, and a few other miscellaneous ones
147. Secondary: Nigel’s chain is just… so awful. Hilarious, but awful
148. Themes: Money, and how it can totally buy anything… except it absolutely cannot
149. Themes: Therapy, and how what therapy means varies to different people. One of the most consistently negatively portrayed people in the entire game is Michael’s therapist at least in part because he is a falsehood, offering fake therapy when Michael needed REAL help
150. Themes: Loyalty. I know the writers set out to make this entire game about the falsehood of money but I think the theme of loyalty is the one that really rose to the surface throughout. Franklin and his lack of loyalty, doing whatever for and to whomever until he gets his head on straight. Trevor and his fanatical need for his ‘pack’ whom he cares about unreasonably well. Michael and his LACK of loyalty to people because he only feels obligated, not genuine concern. And all three work through these issues throughout the course of the game. Nevermind how every single villain constantly betrays and backstabs everyone else throughout the work, sometimes including themselves…
151. Theme: …powerful stuff, well written…
152. Theme: …and very natural
153. Moment: One final, fantastic moment of killing our damned therapist. About freaking time
154. Moment: Okay yeah that big confrontation of the feds, the feds, the feds, and Merryweather was great
155. Outro: Okay yeah, Ending C does kinda hit. It doesn’t really earn it, but at least the pay off is legit, and it is quite satisfying taking down Haines and Weston

Story Negatives:

1. Camera: Shakey cam, quittit!
2. Atmosphere: Vulgarity, good lord. No I don’t mean the cussing, every game like this cusses, no I mean this game is just vulgar. Some people I know absolutely despise this game because of this point, and I know several people who firmly list it as Coffee because they just cannot tolerate how repulsive it can be…
3. Atmosphere: …and frankly it really does drag down the entire work. Which is a shame because it’s still a freaking good game
4. Characters: Franklin’s crew. Screw these people. Even Lamar. No seriously I want to like Lamar (and he’s legit later on… and y’know, really well acted) but dammit, screw Lamar
5. Moment: The torture scene is… a bit much. It’s very, very well done, but it’s also exactly as horrible as it’s trying to be. And of course, there’s no opt-out
6. Prime Opt: The final middle finger to the player for finishing the Epsilon chain (there’s actually two, so hey)
7. Characters: Michael’s family is one of the worst parts of the game. First let’s cover the characters themselves. Each of them is custom tailored to be as obnoxiously unpleasant of a human being as possible. Every single one of these assholes is a ‘get off my screen’ archetype done very well and very deliberately
8. Writing: Second, they’re consistently treated as the victims by the narrative and in fact receive no comeuppance of any kind at any point
9. Moment: Third and honestly just as irritatingly their ‘plot’ effectively culminates when Jimmy poisons his dad and nearly gets him killed, while also robbing him. Sorry I wanted to mention that moment first because it’s one of the worst scenes in the entire game, but getting back to the plot…
10. Plot: …so their plot kind of… stalls at that scene. Then there’s a mission MUCH later where they all get back together, go to ‘therapy’ to yell at each other, and now things are… fine?? This is very ‘we didn’t know how to end this’
11. Plot: Poleto Heist. This is one of the most ‘because plot’ moments in the game. They need a helicopter so, naturally, they go to rob a bank to give money to the feds for them to buy a helicopter. Sure
12. Pacing: Oh gosh, then we hit Act 3. I should pause a moment to mention that this game is ALMOST perfect in terms of construction through Act 1 and 2. But the moment, the MOMENT we hit Act 3, it takes a noticeable dip in quality and doesn’t stop diving downwards until the ending, at which point it STAYS bad unless you pick the right ending. So let’s start by talking about pacing. After several dozen hours of smooth and seamless events we just sort of start stuttering and sputtering around as missions just… happen, with no clear tempo to them…
13. Pacing: …and it sucks
14. Fake Drama: Also there’s a recurring element of not getting paid. It doesn’t and shouldn’t matter that much and it wouldn’t if they didn’t drag it out so damned much. Did I mention Act 3 is almost as long as 1 and 2 combined?
15. Story Sequencing: Missions have no logic to them relative to everything else happening either. Stuff just… happens
16. Internal Continuity: The story also starts having trouble keeping track of and with itself, leading to issues that only get worse the longer it drags out
17. Consequence Storytelling: Similarly, Act 3 and onwards has serious issues with how things just kind of… happen without much regard, as if previous missions didn’t even exist
18. Fake Drama: God, so much Fake Drama, in general
19. Fake Drama: Also Brad. They just keep bringing him up to add to fake drama
20. MSQ: Burying The Hatchet is honestly one of the worst missions in the story. It’s the culmination of the Fake Drama (no it isn’t it’ll show up again later, sigh), doesn’t actually conclude AGAIN because it’s interrupted by the most pointless side plot in the entire game (I’m not even going to type who it is here, they’re completely irrelevant), and it immediately leads into.. you guessed it… doing more car boosting missions for Weston. This is pure unadultured filler disguising itself as main plot and I think that’s what makes it so damned frustrating because we’ve just endured DOZENS of hours of wheel spinning with this drama (and Fake Drama) and then… we have to keep spinning. In fact we will have to keep spinning all the way into the final missions. So…
21. MSQ: …screw…
22. MSQ: …this noise
23. Writing: The game weirdly tries to frame Franklin’s crew as if they’re right which is just… what?
24. Fake Drama: I’m really tired of Trevor in the Outro
25. Outro: Ending B, top to bottom. It’s trying really hard to be this big, serious thing but fails at it miserably to the point of bad comedy, and basically every character in it is completely out of character…
26. Outro: …earning it two negatives
27. Outro: Ending A is very flat and very vanilla and honestly pretty unsatisfying all around

Gameplay Positives:

1. Overly Skippable Cutscenes: Yes you read this correctly, this is a POSITIVE because for the first time in GTA history (I think, don’t quote me) dialogues and scenes will RESUME if interrupted, holy crap. This is a Godsend and deserves praise
2. Controls: Driving. Good lord it feels so smooth and fun and fluid to drive in this game…
3. Controls: …easily earning…
4. Controls: …three positives
5. Controls: Movement in general, for arguably the first time in the series, actually feels like you’re in control of the character
6. Controls: Shooting, especially with mouse and keyboard
7. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Very good mid mission checkpoints, not just having good placement but good ‘resetting’ in some missions (and usually refilling your health too)…
8. Mid Mission Checkpoints: …for an easy…
9. Mid Mission Checkpoints: …three positives
10. Core Combat: Shooting and combat in general is pretty legit, and fun to do, and with a decent variety…
11. Core Combat: …for three positives
12. Core Mechanic: Driving is just so, so good in this game I can’t even put it into words. I love just driving around in this game, whether racing, going full tilt, or even just driving normally…
13. Core Mechanic: …earning it two positives
14. Core Mechanic: Personal cars. Having one, locked-to-you car which always respawns and occasionally shows up in missions (fully repaired) is honestly a great feature, allowing you to fully upgrade it and keep all those pricey upgrades and customize the hell out of it and enjoy it through the whole game…
15. Core Mechanic: …earning it…
16. Core Mechanic: …three positives
17. Difficulty Curve: Decently smooth for what it is. No yoyoing to speak of
18. Difficulty Options: Optional gold requirements, and the additional variety they add…
19. Difficulty Options: …for two positives
20. Enemy AI: General. They’re especially fond of swarming from angles to push you
21. Enemy AI: Reaction to shots and injuries
22. Guidance and Flow: So many, many little tiny details the game does to put you near things or facing things or next to optional missions and so on and so on…
23. Guidance and Flow: …earning a full…
24. Guidance and Flow: …three positives
25. Minigame: Tennis. This is technically unfair because we could review several of these minigames as complete separate games but honestly take it for what it’s worth
26. Minigame: Golf is even more in depth than Tennis, if you can believe it
27. HUD: General. Clean, easy to see, useful
28. Interface: GPS. Very well designed and helpful for navigation
29. Kit: Guns in general. I know, not exactly stellar praise, but there’s still enough design and variety to warrant it
30. Lighting: The lighting design in this game is bonkers good, some of the best I’ve seen in gaming. Day or night it’s well designed to indicate what you can interact with and where to go…
31. Lighting: …earning an easy…
32. Lighting: …three positives
33. Map: Generally good and useful map
34. Minimap: Useful in general, but the GPS style zooming in and out thing is even more useful…
35. Minimap: …for a solid double
36. Visual Continuity: Lots and lots of great landmark and camera design to always help you navigate even if you have no map, no minimap, and no GPS…
37. Visual Continuity: …earning itself…
38. Visual Continuity: …three positives
39. Visual Distinction: Very, very good visual distinction, very rarely does it make things difficult to distinguish…
40. Visual Distinction: …for two positives
41. Cosmetics: It’s not much but the car cosmetics are still pretty good
42. Overworld: So the Overworld design is nothing short of excellent. It’s hard to properly summarize thanks to the sheer quality AND quantity on display. The city center is excellent in how well its dovetailed into each other and the routes and placement and quests…
43. Overworld: …so that’s…
44. Overworld: …a triple
45. Overworld: Then there’s what we’ll call the inner ring of the city. Great routing, still good placements, still good spawns and events and encounters…
46. Overworld: …so that’s another…
47. Overworld: …triple
48. Overworld: Then we have the towns, outskirts of the city, the poor district, and the surrounding hills…
49. Overworld: …for another…
50. Overworld: …triple
51. Overworld: The desert in its entirety. A bit more empty but also a bit more open and still some excellent design going on here…
52. Overworld: …for yet another…
53. Overworld: …triple
54. Overworld: And a catch all for everywhere else. The harbor area, the outer hills, the lake, the towns…
55. Overworld: …for our final…
56. Overworld: …triple
57. Penalty For Failure: Same as usual, but still decent
58. QoL: General, small little stuff all over
59. Replayability: I mean I love replaying this game in general
60. Save System: Hard saves, quicksaves and autosaves as per usual…
61. Save System: …for two positives
62. Music: Great music for missions, scenes, moments, even some individual vehicles…
63. Music: …for two positives
64. Dynamic Music: Also the dynamic music, which changes based on tempo, action, or scene…
65. Dynamic Music: …for another two positives
66. Options: Generally good options
67. Sound Design: Very, very good sound design…
68. Sound Design: …for two positives
69. Traversal: Bike, truck, plane, boat. These all play and feel and work a bit differently than each other and all feel very fun to go through…
70. Traversal: …for a full…
71. Traversal: …three positives
72. Traversal: Cars are above and beyond. Traveling is just a treat in this game…
73. Traversal: …earning it…
74. Traversal: …three positives
75. Tutorialization: Mostly unobtrusive and built into the game
76. Viscerality: I mean, yeah. Mostly an aggregate
77. Pacing: The game is just brilliantly paced front to back, with different types of missions, built in breather segments between missions, most sequences not taking too long or too short to start the next one…
78. Pacing: …effortlessly earning…
79. Pacing: …three positives
80. Intro: Good variety of gameplay and nice pacing and intensity, without outstaying its welcome
81. Intro: Tutorialization
82. Secondary: Tow missions. Simple, yet surprisingly satisfying for what they are. It’s especially interesting considering you can try to drive super carefully and follow the law or… y’know, not
83. Secondary: Stunt jumps. Find ’em, do ’em in whatever vehicle you want to, and do the best job you can with ’em to nail it
84. Secondary: Paparazzi missions. I’m going to be honest I hate these missions on the story axis, but they’re quite well designed gameplay wise
85. Secondary: Races. These are… vanilla, honestly, but still good enough for what they are
86. Secondary: Rampages. Have fun with Trevor going ballistic for a while
87. Secondary: Adrenaline missions. They’re all traversal setpieces and they’re all fun
88. Secondary: Bridges. Fly under ’em! It’s funner and more challenging than it sounds
89. MSQ: The first ‘mission’ as Franklin; Great tutorial for driving, special abilities, losing cops, and the GPS system
90. MSQ: The second mission as Franklin. Shooting, tension, dynamic driving run-down, again good tutorialization
91. MSQ: Robbing the kids’ supercars
92. MSQ: First Solomon mission; Drive, stealth, fight, fly
93. MSQ: Prep work in general (very dynamic in many cases, as what you need and how you get it are almost entirely up to you). The reason this gets a solitary aggregate is which paths you pick and how you do it varies from mission to mission and sometimes the prep phase is just eh
94. MSQ: The jewelry store heist is a bit simple compared to later ones, but still good and still fun
95. MSQ: The Yacht mission. Very, very well designed for such a scripted mission, lots of ways it can go thanks to the dynamic stretch of events…
96. MSQ: …solid double
97. MSQ: Madrazo’s plane crash. Considering it’s mostly just a shot then a driving sequence this is weirdly fun, and man my heart goes out to that pilot
98. MSQ: The final bundle of Michael’s quests, up to and including the drug trip
99. MSQ: Trevor’s initial missions do some good tutorialization for his ability, and the style of missions he leans on (shootouts against large numbers of enemies)
100. MSQ: Trevor and torching the meth lab. Bonus points for letting us make our own fuel trail at the end
101. MSQ: The train heist has a lot of little details to make it better
102. MSQ: The mid air nab
103. MSQ: Longshoreman mission
104. MSQ: The Nuke heist. Loving the usage of the submarine too
105. Hyperbeam Moment: Poleto Heist. Good lord, hahaha
106. MSQ: Three’s Company and rescuing the poor guy from the Agency
107. MSQ: Agency infiltration mission
108. MSQ: It’s a simple, set piece chase mission, but chasing Molly around the airport is very fun
109. MSQ: The Bureau Raid is one of the best missions in the game. Best part is, it’s TWO missions. We either go in super hard, or super quiet, and both are brilliantly built…
110. MSQ: …earning it two positives for one
111. MSQ: And then there’s the other two Bureau mission positives…
112. MSQ: …for another two positives
113. MSQ: Another fantastic mission with escaping from the feds… and the feds… aaand the other feds… and Merryweather
114. MSQ: The Big One is, just like the previous Heist, is really great mission… or rather, two missions. I can’t possibly do them justice in text so just trust me that the ‘loud’ option is great…
115. MSQ: …for two positives
116. MSQ: Then the ‘quiet’ option is just as awesome…
117. MSQ: …for another two positives
118. Outro: The final shootout in the steel mill is very well designed. Good layout, all three people, great positioning, good events…
119. Outro: …easily earning two positives
120. Outro: I also love the way the final three assassinations let you approach them however you want to

Gameplay Negatives:

1. MTX: Shoving GTA Online into our faces right up front on the start page
2. Secondary: Hang outs are dull, dreary, and boring…
3. Secondary: …and worse, are near mandatory for some fantastic story elements
4. Secondary: Robbing cars is also pretty damned dull…
5. Secondary: …for another two negatives
6. Graphics: Blurry blurgh (rampages, focus modes) which leads to wonderfully headache inducing moments
7. Bug: Occasional Taxi issues (just not showing up or saying it will but then cancelling and so on)
8. Secondary: Collectathons (Playing Cards, Spaceship Parts, Letter Scraps, Submarine Parts, Peyote). They’re just plain not fun, and there’s way too many of them in way too large of an area and it’s just… awful…
9. Secondary: …earning it…
10. Secondary: …three negatives
11. Prime Opt: The entire ‘wait 10 days’ quest is absolutely awful for a lot of reasons. You cannot switch characters for extended periods of time, cannot do activities or missions, and just sitting and waiting takes eight HOURS of real time, or of course you just sleep… 40 times… in a row…
12. Prime Opt: …earning it…
13. Prime Opt: …three negatives
14. Info In Game: Accidentally starting missions. It happens infrequently but more than a few times
15. Walkthroughitis: Good luck finding all the content without one
16. Prime Opt: So then there’s running through the desert for 5 miles. It took about 30 minutes real time. Do I even need to explain this nonsense? This quest…
17. Prime Opt: …earns an easy…
18. Prime Opt: …three negatives
19. MSQ: Getting on the damned train (and some related issues in that mission)
20. Difficulty Curve: While only periodic, here and there the (semi-forced) lack of armor and the ‘low health’ problem can be an issue
21. Secondary: The real estate side quests (especially those damned signs)
22. Permanently Skippable Content: There’s plenty
23. Overly Skippable Cutscenes: Same issue as in previous GTAs, if less so
24. Outro: So Ending B is the first mission in the game that’s railroaded in a bad way, and it’s not great
25. Outro: Ending A honestly suffers from the same general problem

Story Positives:

1. Banter: Mid-air banter, middle tier
2. Brickwork: City
3. Brickwork: Countryside
4. Brickwork: Desert
5. Character: Tabloid, Count, Princess Cosette
6. Cutscene: The Mission 16 briefing by itself is some fantastic visual and audio storytelling
7. Cutscenes: Briefings
8. External Continuity: There’s a couple of cool usages of previous points (most notably Stonehenge)
9. Level: 10… “Not that it was a load worth protecting”
10. Level: 16. The tone and atmosphere of mission 16 itself is just great
11. Moment: (sand storm, the Arsenal Gear’s reveal, the squad beating the misinformation
12. Plot: War campaign
13. Voice Acting: When it’s good it’s good
14. World Building: Comes close to really developing the world a lot, but still close enough for a positive
15. Plot: I actually like the dynamic between the princess, the granddaughters, and the evil scientist
16. Outro: Okay I do like bits of the Outro narratively. Not the ending, but the build up, final mission, and final climb up the elevator are great moments
17. Character: Captain Torres and his voice actor are honestly pretty good, selling the madman
18. Doodads: Generally good doodads, especially in the cityscapes
19. Spritework: Not just the same general quality fighter design, but the upped quality and quantity of fighters…
20. Spritework: …earns a second positive

Story Negatives:

1. Character: The penal base commander. He’s already abrasive, but could have worked with a bit more polish, and instead he’s Udina or any other Obstinate Bureaucrat all over again
2. Consequence Storytelling: Okay so we’re being accused of killing the (former) President Cargo
3. Cutscenes: In betweens (bad narration, bad editing, lack of relevance)
4. Dialogue: It’s either dialogue or localization but there’s several issues here
5. Empty Text: Top tier mid air banter
6. Plot: Way too many concurrent plots. Feels a bit kitchen-sinky and each one loses focus and interest as a result
7. Theme: Did you know that information and misinformation ruuule the battlefield?
8. Writing: So everything about the penal squadron doesn’t really work as written. They need to do something with them (of which there’s a lot they could do) but instead we’re just regularly abused and then on to the next mission
9. Plot: Why in the world is the junk yard queen even in this game?
10. Cutscene: The entire Cosette ‘dies’ missile cutscene is weirdly contrived (and then undone!)
11. Outro: The game whitewashes… a lot because it’s trying to wrap things up, and Mihaly and Dr. Evil getting ‘good’ endings is… not great. This is in addition to several other weird decisions at the end (Tabloid dying almost ‘off camera’, and trying way too hard to wrap up too quickly among other things)
12. Writing: DLC All the weird nonsense surrounding the two ‘bat’ rival aces

Gameplay Positives:

1. Controls: Honestly controls just as well as 5 and 0…
2. Controls: …earning two positives
3. Enemy AI: Usual good stuff
4. HUD: When it’s visible it’s good
5. Interface: ACMR
6. Intro: Good opening sequence of missions
7. Kit: Parts are a nice additional customization option
8. Kit: Planes, as per usual…
9. Kit: Weapons continue to have good variety and kit
10. Kit: …for the usual two positives
11. Level: 11 is a bog standard points mission which could be improved in several ways, buuut it does have that core destroy mechanic which rewards precision with mass kills and points
12. Level: 12 is a fairly simple mission but the ground troops actually being worth a damn and the encounter with Arsenal helps keep things varied
13. Level: 13 and the bombing, followed shortly by the high-paced IRBM missile chase
14. Level: 16 and the blackout. It’s one of the more memorable missions in the game and does some good stuff with unit placement
15. Level: 17. More blackout, but better spread of objectives
16. Level: 3, and the first assault on the Arsenal Bird
17. Level: 4, radar dodging (and shortcuts), ground, and drones
18. Level: 5, swarm for a bit, then take on the bombers
19. Level: 7. While it has frustrations, it’s well checkpointed and the gimmick of the wind, clouds, and lightning is actually pretty neat
20. Level: 8. The initial is a milk run to set you up for the follow-through; chasing down targets in a dust storm
21. Level: 9. Starts off as a tense gradient avoidance canyon mission and then turns into a nice moment followed by super weapon avoidance shots
22. Minimap: Still good stuff
23. Music: Yep…
24. Music: …yep
25. NG+: Usual
26. Sound Design: Combat barks
27. Viscerality: The game finally feels, sounds, and looks visceral
28. Song: Daredevil
29. Boss: The second Arsenal Bird boss fight is awesome
30. Outro: Okay yeah that final encounter wasn’t too shabby, and I rather liked the final trench run
31. Core Mechanics: New buff/debuff mechanic with DLC
32. Level: DLC 1, with the massive dogfight that develops and evolves as it goes
33. Level: DLC 2, with the free for all doom
34. Level: DLC 3, which is both unique and contains…
35. Boss: …an awesome boss fight
36. Replayability: Generally replayable, plus unlocks and optional stuff

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Audio Spam: Missile. Missile. Missile
2. Boss: The first super drone. The thing shrugged off 40 missiles like it was nothing, and is bullcrap on every level, but good luck dealing with it if you weren’t prepped, and apparently is designed around using the gun sight which also didn’t work at all
3. Bug: Crashes
4. HUD: Related to the lighting
5. Interface: The entire tech tree has lots of issues with control and readability
6. Kit: So the tech tree is… not well designed top to bottom. Pricing is wrong, layout is wrong, unlocking per plane is wrong, and no resell / rebuy / respec is wrong
7. Level: 14 and binary difficulty (instant pass/fail on both halves of the mission) and the arbitrary time limit in the second half
8. Level: 6. Not a super well designed point mission, and built to screw you over if you over-spec or build the wrong way, and even with a good setup it’s easy to fail and have to start the entire mission over
9. Level: Points missions in general are juuust irritating enough to, as a group, qualify for a negative
10. Lighting: Good lord
11. NG+: Mandated new game plus
12. Options: Lack thereof (rebinding in particular)
13. MTX: Overpowered drone microtransactions which are available from the beginning (and for multiplayer)
14. Boss: The duel boss with the bats is legitimately headache inducing; prolonged fight up in very bright areas while constantly having blinking irritation
15. Mid Mission Checkpoint: The DLC specifically has long, long stretches between checkpoints

Story Positives:

1. Atmosphere: Love the overall atmosphere
2. Babylon 5 Effect: The Joker and Clayface
3. Banter: Usual good thug banter in the background
4. Brickwork: City
5. Brickwork: Mill
6. Brickwork: Museum
7. Brickwork: Underground
8. Architecture: This is a really solid example of what the category of Architecture even means. The titular Arkham City itself is actually quite small (only taking a couple of minutes to traverse in its entirety) but feels substantially larger than it is thanks to interior spaces, density, and the rest of Gotham looming in the distance…
9. Architecture: …so consider that a strong double
10. Character: Bats. I mean, come on
11. Character: Catwoman gets at least a little chance to shine here
12. Character: Generally good supporting cast
13. Character: Hugo Strange, his gigantic ego, and his constant need to prove himself
14. Character: Joker, at his Jokeriest. Everything about him here is great…
15. Character: …earning two positives
16. Character: Penguin gets bonus points for being my favorite portrayal of the character
17. Cutscene: The opening cutscene is well told and well presented
18. Dialogue: Periodic good dialogue
19. Doodads: Generally good doodads…
20. Doodads: …for two positives
21. External Continuity: Does a good job of connecting to Arkham Asylum
22. Foreshadowing: Lots of great foreshadowing, especially regarding Strange and Ra’s
23. Internal Continuity: Keeps very tight track of its own events
24. Intro: Top notch Intro, very good at establishing tone, premise, setup…
25. Intro: …and what Bruce is in for
26. Moment: The thugs debating if they should shoot Bats after Harley abandons him
27. MSQ: The entire Protocol 10 sequence
28. MSQ: The entire Ra’s arc
29. Music Direction: Great usage throughout
30. Plot: Good initial premise; What the City is, why we’re here, why we don’t want to leave
31. Story Sequencing: Events follow a generally logical path
32. Storytelling Mechanic: Joker’s voice mails
33. Visual Storytelling: Suit
34. Voice Acting: Bats… RIP Kevin Conroy
35. Voice Acting: General
36. Voice Acting: Joker, and possibly Hamill’s best performance
37. Voice Direction: Again, generally good
38. Spritework: Some really solid stuff here. The main characters of course, the wide cast, and the stylized enemies…
39. Spritework: …for two positives

Story Negatives:

1. Character: DLC Harley Quinn is just… raked over the coals in this one, but regardless of how she’s utilized relative to her in other canon, she’s just a bad one-note character here
2. Outro: DLC Harley Quinn’s outro is just a nothing burger
3. Secondary: Generally lackluster side quests
4. Character: Talia. Not as bad as Harley but getting there
5. Dialogue: Periodic bad dialogue
6. Fake Drama: Why are we fighting Freeze again?

Gameplay Positives:

1. Boss: Mr. Freeze. The best boss fight in the series perhaps entirely because it’s not a boss fight mechanically, but a predator encounter, with lots of variety and options and fantastic design to him, the room, and even the HUD…
2. Boss: …earning…
3. Boss: …a full three positives
4. Boss: Ra’s al Gul is a bit simple, but fun
5. Boss: Solomon Grundy, died on a monday
6. Core Combat: Probably some of the best the franchise has seen, with good lockon, comboing, and general fun…
7. Core Combat: …for two positives
8. Core Mechanic: Predator segments are also very well designed, with good kit, layout, and options…
9. Core Mechanic: …for two positives
10. Encounter Design: A lot of thought is put into the specifics of what you encounter, with what, and where…
11. Encounter Design: …for two positives
12. Enemy Design: Generally good design
13. Enemy Variety: Generally good variety
14. Flow: The flow of the game is quite fluid, as it should be for a Batman game
15. Guidance: Generally good Guidance, especially in side activities
16. Kit: Between moveset and gear we’ve got a decent kit…
17. Kit: …for two positives
18. Level: General platforming
19. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Great checkpoints, frequent, and refilling…
20. Mid Mission Checkpoints: …for two positives
21. Music: Bit different than Origins, but still very good movies vibe…
22. Music: …for two positives
23. Music: Dynamic music as situations escalate
24. Outro: Decent enough final encounter and boss
25. Overworld: Probably the best designed overworld in the franchise, with great layout, flow, placement, density, and navigation…
26. Overworld: …for a full…
27. Overworld: …three positives
28. Princess Peach Segments: Catwoman sequences
29. Terrain: General
30. Terrain: Mr. Freeze’s fight alone gets bonus points for terrain design (but also for the Predator encounters)
31. Traversal: While not the best, it’s still fun to zoom around Arkham City
32. Tutorialization: Opening few moments; Combat, movement, platforming, combos
33. Viscerality: Yep
34. Visual Continuity: Pretty easy and smooth to navigate visually
35. Visual Distinction: Good usage of color and outlines
36. Minigame: Challenge mode and related alternate playables

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Bug: Crashes
2. Difficulty Options: Lazy difficulty
3. Kit: DLC: Forced removal of kit (upgrades)
4. MSQ: Binary stealth section with Catwoman
5. Outro: DLC: The Outro is really, really dull
6. Padding: DLC: Health padding issues and enemy damage issues
7. Secondary: Collectathon issues as usual
8. Secondary: Generally lackluster side content throughout
9. Secondary: Zsasz’s phone quests and how you can’t interact with them in combat, and the RNG dependency related thereto

Story Positives:

1. Atmosphere: Night time
2. Background Lore: A fair bit of it
3. Brickwork: General
4. Character: The Duke, arguably the only character in the game
5. Characters: Supporting cast
6. NPC Set Dressing: Schedule, NPCs
7. Voice Acting: General
8. World Building: World falling apart
9. Lighting: While issues exist gameplay wise, the dark lighting really adds to night time ambiance

Story Negatives:

1. Cutscene Incompetence: Why in the world do we just… stare at the cult leader massacring people. For like a solid minute. This is not an isolated incident, in fact in essentially every cutscene where the main character is present has cutscene incompetence…
2. Cutscene Incompetence: …for two negatives
3. Dialogue: There’s some issues here and there
4. Plot: Or lack thereof
5. Writing: Romance! (or lack thereof… the quest chain is clearly unfinished)
6. Pacing: Kingdom Hearts Syndrome. Way, way too much story is backloaded to the very end of the game
7. Outro: The narrative just sort of… fumbles pretty hard at the ending
8. Empty Text: Honestly most of the game’s dialogue is empty text

Gameplay Positives:

1. Boss: First Cyclops and Hydra fights
2. Boss: Grigori has some jank and some issues but it’s still a good fight
3. Boss: The Griffin fight
4. Character Creator: Pretty well designed overall…
5. Character Creator: …for two positives
6. Controls: Mouse and Keyboard works weirdly well, with a lot of thought put into it
7. Core Combat: General quality. Fun, neat core loop…
8. Core Combat: …earning two positives
9. Core Combat: Grappling and climbing and weak spots
10. Core Mechanic: Pawns in general
11. Core Mechanic: Pawns customization, selection
12. Core Mechanic: Pawns learning, AI control
13. Cosmetics: A few
14. Difficulty: Variant spawns and stats at night time
15. Fast Travel: Thanks to the DLC, ferrystones are suddenly much more legit
16. HUD: Decent
17. Info In Game: Generally good information on equipment and what it does, as well as spells and abilities
18. Interface: Quest tracker
19. Intro: Taste of power
20. Kit: Fighter
21. Kit: Archer
22. Kit: Mage
23. Kit: Warrior
24. Kit: Ranger
25. Kit: Sorcerer
26. Kit: Assassin
27. Kit: Magick Archer
28. Kit: Magick Archer
29. Kit: Mystic Knight
30. Level: General level design
31. Level: The Shadow Fort
32. Level: The Watergod’s Altar
33. Minigame: Speedrun Mode
34. Music: When it’s there, it’s good
35. NG+: Exists and carries over some basic stuff
36. Pacing: Core loop
37. Party AI: When they’re smart, the Pawns are actually pretty useful
38. QoL: General
39. Respec: Ability to swap classes from the inn
40. Secondary: Escorting Symone
41. Sound Design: Feedback and usefulness
42. Starter Options: Gameplay relevance
43. Viscerality: Decent
44. Level: DLC BBI, general
45. Encounter: DLC BBI, general
46. Boss: DLC BBI, general
47. Crafting: Reasonably good interface for what makes what and discovery thereof, and generally worthwhile
48. Encounter: Generally well designed encounter design
49. Enemy Design: Generally well designed enemies
50. Enemy AI: Good when it’s good
51. Enemy Variety: Decent spread
52. Minimap: Despite the map issues, the minimap is consistently helpful and useful
53. Replayability: Generally replayable

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Audio Spam: No, not from the Pawns (that’s toggleable) but from the friggin’ vendors
2. Controls: Controller controls aren’t great
3. Core Mechanic: Pawn management and clumsiness (and limitations… only get to make ONE pawn)
4. Difficulty Options: Lazy difficulty
5. Info In Game: A lot of mechanics and features are just totally unexplained
6. Interface: Near total lack of filter and search options for Pawn finding
7. Interface: Quests can only be tracked individually, then have to be manually checked on the map, individually
8. Lighting: It is just… not easy to see, with or without a lantern, at night and in dungeons
9. MSQ: The Hydra head escort quest. It’s arduously slow, has no mid-mission checkpoints, takes forever, the cart can die relatively easily (though you can heal it), it has flying enemies (though you can bring anti air), and worst of all; it’s mandatory. This is the worst damned quest in the game…
10. MSQ: …for a full…
11. MSQ: …three negatives
12. Music: No Music problem
13. NG+: Forced NG+ and forced deletion of old saves
14. Pacing: Healing and the clunkiness of having to enter menuing to emergency heal (or wait a while for a cast)
15. Padding: A lot of it… like a whole lot…
16. Padding: …so much of it
17. Party AI: Irritating when it sucks
18. Permanently Missable Content: More than a little, including entire quest chains
19. QoL: No wait feature outside of inns
20. Save: One save slot (functionally)
21. Save: One save slot (seriously, even when this game came out it was unacceptable)
22. Save: Saving can be done manually but auto over-rides so… screw you
23. Secondary: Escort board Tasks can go directly to hell
24. Seconds In Minutes: Not as bad as some games but there’s a fair bit of it here or there, mostly with menuing or interactions with the world
25. Terrain: Cliffside woes alongside jank
26. Traversal: Or lack thereof
27. Traversal: Stamina is reasonably designed… for combat, and TERRIBLY designed for traversal, leaving one better off just straight up walking half the time, especially for longer trips
28. Walkthroughitis: Several instances of ‘uhhh’ with regards to quest design
29. Level: DLC BBI, bullcrap
30. Outro: Repeat dungeons and fights
31. Outro: The plummeting ‘mechanic’ is awful. It’s not super clear where is what, it’s hard to find the specific level you get, there’s some RNG in actually getting it, the ‘control’ is jank…
32. Outro: …it sucks
33. Outro: The total lack of map and guidance in the aforementioned last dungeon is just awful
34. Crafting: Frustrations and irritations with the menuing and functionality of crafting
35. Map: Periodic issues where its unhelpful and/or unclear, and weird to navigate
36. Kit: Sorcerer and early game hell
37. Raspberry Jam: Yeah it’s there, and it sucks as per usual

Story Positives:

1. Animation: The motion capture and animation for every character in every scene is just fantastic…
2. Animation: …for an easy…
3. Animation: …triple positives
4. Background Lore: Poems, lore tidbits
5. Camera: Obviously the ‘continuous camera’ is excellent but is also well used for basically every single scene…
6. Camera: …getting…
7. Camera: …three positives
8. Cutscene: Atreus’ first confrontation with Heimdall and Odin
9. Cutscene: Everything… just everything about Odin’s walk and talk with Atreus is an absolute masterclass in establishing Odin and how horrific and manipulative he really is…
10. Cutscene: …earning two positives by itself
11. Cutscene: Odin’s introduction. Odin comes in and establishes himself immediately; the southern mob boss who is certainly a big fish, but puffs himself up more than he needs to all the same
12. Cutscene: So there’s a slow build up leading to the creation of Draupnir, between Brok’s missing piece of his soul as well as the form and nature dichotomy, which pays off beautifully with the creation of the spear and Kratos, respectfully, asks Brok to bless it… the whole thing is great build up and pay off…
13. Cutscene: …for a triple…
14. Cutscene: …positive
15. Dialogue: The sheer quality of the dialogue is difficult to over-emphasize how well written it is. No over-stating, no as-you-know, just… bypassing the dozens of writing snafus most writing falls into…
16. Dialogue: …once again earning…
17. Dialogue: …three positives
18. Doodads: Brok and Sindri’s place
19. Doodads: Dwarven town
20. Doodads: Odin’s area
21. Doodads: General
22. Foreshadowing: Anti war, surprised ‘she lied’, immediately needs time away from party, buttering up Atreus, immediately picking at the Baldur wounds with Freya (and use it to further his agenda), speech patterns, where did he hear the name Loki, all earning…
23. Foreshadowing: …three…
24. Foreshadowing: …positives
25. Humor: Atreus and Sindri
26. Intro: Freya, setting, loss
27. Lighting: Generally decent lighting
28. Moment: Angrboda and her grandmother, followed immediately by the release
29. Moment: Atreus being ganged up on by all the adults and his subsequent breakdown
30. Moment: Atreus the bear, Kratos’ resentment for his departed wife, and his fear of once again being the General
31. Moment: Atreus’ first confrontation with Freya. The lighting, the camera, Atreus keeps getting closer as he convinces her before she rushes him off, the whole deal
32. Moment: Fenrir’s passing. Kratos, quiet but firm, and Atreus holding back tears
33. Moment: Freya finally coming to grips with the fact that there is no ‘making it better’ but instead just… living with it. No forgiveness, no hatred… no regret, and no apology…
34. Moment: …earning two positives
35. Moment: Kratos and Atreus’ reunion
36. Moment: Kratos carrying Freyr to safety while still being the best DPS in the group
37. Moment: Kratos finally… finally finally chooses to change, embraces his son, and apologizes
38. Moment: Kratos waking up from his nightmare and calling his axe to him in the process
39. Moment: Then a separate positive for the revelation of the mask, the tear, and Odin’s obsession
40. MSQ: Atreus and Agrboda’s sequence, while it has issues, is still legitimately adorable
41. Music Direction: Generally good music direction
42. Plot: The way Odin set up the dominos to completely manipulate Atreus is brilliant.
43. Prime Opt: Freya’s closure after being freed
44. Princess Peach Segment: Multiple as Atreus
45. Secondary: Mimir trying desperately to free the whale, ‘failing’, but also ‘succeeding’
46. Secondary: Releasing the desert jellyfish and, more importantly, Kratos and Atreus bonding
47. Secondary: Too many to list but the little side ‘favor’ quests are actually pretty legit. The woman and her garden, the friends lost to corruptive magic, the father and son…
48. Secondary: …all honestly great stuff…
49. Secondary: …and worthy of triple positive
50. Storyboarding: The choreography and coordination in the scenes is very, very well done and honestly helps sells a lot of the action sequences…
51. Storyboarding: …earning itself…
52. Storyboarding: …triple positives
53. Storytelling Mechanic: Codex
54. Theme: Kratos’ very real, very powerful fear is such a driving motivator for him the entire narrative. Even as everything and everyone is telling him what must be, what he himself knows to be true, he cannot accept it because he is so terrified of being that monster again
55. Voice Direction: So many tiny nuances and usages of the voice direction throughout…
56. Voice Direction: …earning itself…
57. Voice Direction: …three positives
58. Writing: General writing quality is top notch with so, so few issues…
59. Writing: …earning itself…
60. Writing: …three positives
61. Moment: Thor’s relapse is exactly as tragic as it should be
62. Bablyon 5 Effect: Tyr and the related reveal
63. Moment: “Tyr” finally revealing his hand is a tense, powerful scene and a great payoff…
64. Moment: …worth two positives by itself
65. Moment: But then Brok’s cessation… his final words to Sindri… and Sindri can’t even speak
66. Moment: Atreus’ dead voice as they go hunting, the hunt itself…
67. Moment: …and Kratos interrupting the hunt, no more pointless killing, no more bleeding
68. Moment: For as dull as the battle was, the valkyries were a great showcasing of storytelling; Their false blessings from Odin not helping them, Atreus and Kratos dual raging
69. Moment: Kratos finally reaching out to Thor, and Thor’s death
70. Outro: Odin’s final speechifying and talking his way around the situation
71. Outro: Sindri’s final act against Odin
72. Outro: Kratos and Atreus’ final farewell
73. Outro: Brok’s funeral
74. Banter: Kratos, Atreus, Mimir, Atreus, Sindri, and Freya…
75. Banter: …for two positives
76. Brickwork: Midgard
77. Brickwork: The realm between realms
78. Brickwork: Wetlands bog
79. Brickwork: Mines
80. Brickwork: Alfheim
81. Brickwork: Vanaheim
82. Brickwork: Asgard
83. Brickwork: Helheim
84. Brickwork: Niflheim
85. Brickwork: Muspelheim
86. External Continuity: Very well uses both 4 and the original trilogy…
87. External Continuity: …for a full…
88. External Continuity: …three positives
89. Characters: Kratos
90. Characters: Kratos
91. Characters: Kratos
92. Characters: Atreus
93. Characters: Atreus
94. Characters: Mimir
95. Characters: Mimir
96. Characters: Freya
97. Characters: Odin
98. Characters: Odin
99. Characters: Brok
100. Characters: Sindri
101. Characters: Sindri
102. Characters: Heimdall
103. Characters: Thor
104. Characters: Thor
105. Characters: Hildisvini
106. Characters: Surtr
107. Characters: Lunda
108. Voice Acting: Kratos
109. Voice Acting: Kratos
110. Voice Acting: Kratos
111. Voice Acting: Atreus
112. Voice Acting: Mimir
113. Voice Acting: Brok
114. Voice Acting: Sindri
115. Voice Acting: Sindri
116. Voice Acting: Freya
117. Voice Acting: Freya
118. Voice Acting: Odin
119. Voice Acting: Odin
120. Voice Acting: Heimdall
121. Voice Acting: General 1
122. Voice Acting: General 2
123. Voice Acting: General 3
124. Theme: Parenthood & children
125. Visual Storytelling: Everything to do with Odin’s appearance
126. Visual Storytelling: Heimdall’s fighting style
127. Background Lore: Various boat conversations, with Mimir and Freya especially…
128. Background Lore: …for two positives
129. Secondary: Birgir and Chaurli in post game
130. Consequence Storytelling: And quite a bit of it…
131. Consequence Storytelling: …for two positives
132. Internal Continuity: The pieces line up pretty well across the whole game…
133. Internal Continuity: ..for a good double positive
134. World Building: Lots of good stuff to flesh out the setting in general and out of the Norselands in specific

Story Negatives:

1. Pacing: The Jotunheim section drags on a wee bit too much and includes a bit too much ‘better come take a look at this’ dialogue
2. Padding: Aaand the Jotunheim section has a bit too much filler going against it
3. Moment: Birgir’s completely pointless sacrifice scene is unearned and is weirdly badly constructed, given the rest of the story
4. Moment: The initial charge into Asgard falls flat for a lot of reasons; No real prep time, typical Hollywood ‘chaaarge’ without thought, and forcing a ‘we lose dire moment’ without earning it
5. Writing: The overall mis-use of Ragnarok just… doesn’t work, and worse, doesn’t pay off properly
6. Outro: It’s hard to put it into words but parts of the overall ending just don’t… land. The pacing is all off, the tone feels like it should hit but it … doesn’t, which is very strange in a game that nails execution so well
7. Overly Skippable Cutscenes: Lots of moments where you have to stand and wait lest the game cut off or talk over itself

Gameplay Positives:

1. Boss: The first actually good boss fight in the game; Heimdall. Actual proper game mechanics, not the ‘guided tour’ the rest of the game has been practicing, nice phase design, good stuff all around…
2. Boss: …for two positives
3. Core Combat: Companion mechanics
4. Difficulty Options: Able to change difficulty on the fly
5. Enemy Variety: Decent enemy variety
6. Guidance and Flow: Sidequest chaining
7. Intro: Navigation, loot, enemies, and a good tutorial boss
8. Kit: Moves and relics
9. Kit: Weapons and variety thereof
10. Itemization: Set bonuses and mutators
11. Level: Actually good level design in Atreus’ segment leading up to his confrontation with Freya
12. Options: Further acknowledgement for the sheer depth and quality of the accessibility options on top of the basic options…
13. Options: …easily earning…
14. Options: …three positives
15. Options: Some of the best general options I’ve seen in gaming, with incredible variety and customization across the board…
16. Options: …for another…
17. Options: …three positives
18. Princess Peach Segment: Atreus segments (noticeably different playstyle)
19. QoL: Chest that gathers loot you might have left behind, among others
20. QoL: Too many to list, but there’s a lot…
21. QoL: …for three positives
22. Save System: Save within a sequence at will
23. Tutorialization: Ability previews and demonstrations in the select screen
24. Viscerality: Visuals…
25. Viscerality: …and sound
26. Hyperbear Moment: Saving Sindri
27. Outro: The final boss fight with Odin is actually a legitimately well designed, awesome fight (both phases even)…
28. Outro: …and worthy of two positives
29. NG+: Decent new game plus…
30. NG+: …which carries forward most all of your stuff
31. Animations: Generally good animations indicating attacks
32. Mid-Mission Checkpoints: Generally decent

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Difficulty Options: Lazy difficulty
2. Map: Irritating to see and generally unhelpful for anything other than marking quests…
3. Map: …earning two negatives
4. Core Combat: Generally disinteresting
5. Controls: The game’s tank controls kiiiinda suck…
6. Controls: …for two negatives
7. Camera: Irritating camera for combat (especially trash)
8. Pacing: Several issues with gameplay pacing…
9. Pacing: …earning two negatives
10. Guidance & Flow: Guys please SHUT UP about telling me the solution to puzzles 3 seconds into them showing up. This is probably the single most irritating thing in the entire game…
11. Guidance & Flow: …earning itself…
12. Guidance & Flow: …three negatives
13. Guidance & Flow: : Also the helpful barks are wrong twice; They give too much info when it’s not needed and not enough (or unhelpful) info when it is
14. Visual Navigation: Or lack thereof
15. Backtracking: Lots and lots of dull backtracking…
16. Backtracking: …for two negatives
17. Collectathons: That hide lore behind them, even
18. Trash Design: Some of the worst trash design I’ve seen in recent memory. Lots of trash, not spreading it out properly, not designed well enough, and completely hurts the tempo and pacing…
19. Trash Design: …for two negatives
20. Bug: Many bugs (Atreus getting stuck, falling through the terrain, rendering issues)
21. Walkthroughitis: Post game tidbits
22. Difficulty Curve: Some weird lurches in difficulty
23. Encounter: Generally lackluster encounter design
24. Visual Distinction: Legitimate issues telling where I was and what I was looking at…
25. Visual Continuity: …for double negatives
26. Padding: The game has… a lot of padding. Like, a lot a lot, from encounters to ‘puzzles’ to all kinds of crap, but where it’s really bad…
27. Seconds In Minutes: …is in the seconds in minutes. Animations, having to tilt the camera to see what we can already interact with, slow walks, forced control removal…
28. Seconds In Minutes: …for a full…
29. Seconds In Minutes: …three negatives

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: General
2. Sound: Delightful and adds to the…
3. Atmosphere: …Usual fun stuff
4. Outro: The ending continues the Mario ending streak of being simple but good

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Minigame: Early face drawing and manipulation
2. Intro: Castle Courtyard. Honestly it’s a nearly perfect spot to get used to the controls, the platforming, and the very concept of 3D maneuvering
3. Music: Honestly a bit worse than the original, but still good
4. Guidance And Flow: Star select names and hints
5. Intro: Bob-Omb Battlefield is in many ways the perfect Intro for the game; a safe space to maneuver, lots of enemies but they all have their own different quirks that make them easy to bypass, and the very mountain itself at the middle of the battlefield mandates understanding the 3D space (and all of this is with some fun, neat puzzle-style stars)
6. Tutorialization: Bob-Omb Battlefield also tutorializes basically everything you need to play the entire rest of the game
7. Tutorialization: Pretty much the entire first floor does a good job of getting you where you need to be to play the rest of the game
8. HUD: The new HUD features do some cool stuff to keep you on top of things
9. Minimap: Generally useful for navigation, but also helpful for finding power ups, red coins, and star locations
10. Level: Whomp’s Fortress is a good escalation on Bob Ombs and starts the beginning of the vertical level progression
11. Level: Boo’s Mansion continues the trend of good and tight level design, with a good layout and some fun new stars, and a better level than before…
12. Level: …for two positives
13. Visual Continuity: In general it’s pretty easy to tell where you are relative to where you need to be
14. Level: Jolly Roger Bay is a fun, simple water romp
15. Level: Lethal Lava Land is honestly one of my favorite stages, with a great recovery mechanic, fun stars, a layout designed for just plain fun, and an honest to goodness mid mission checkpoint in the middle…
16. Level: …for a full…
17. Level: …three positives
18. Level: Bowser in Fire Sea is good for basically the same reasons LLL is
19. Level: Dire Dire Docks continues the trend of simple but fun
20. Level: General positive for several individual stars which are neat periodically throughout
21. Kit: The new power ups are a nice addition, but what really sells me is the new playable characters with their distinct abilities
22. QoL: The ability to swap in mission or at mission select between characters (as long as you’re Yoshi) is nice
23. Level: Wet Dry is inventive, interesting, and has some fun exploration and layout…
24. Level: …for two positives
25. Level: Tiny Huge is another fun gimmick level
26. Kit: General. While lacking traditional power ups, the moveset is legit
27. Guidance and Flow: Coins and the like indicating secrets
28. Level: Tick Tock Clock is even better than it was before, with the usual tight fun but also additional mechanics and stage layout…
29. Level: …for two positives
30. All Roads Lead To Rome: In general, you can pick and choose whatever stars you want to proceed with going forwards
31. Minigame: Some of the minigames are kinda neat
32. Replayability: Just the same as the original version
33. Boss: General boss design throughout, notably the new bosses
34. Song: Dire Dire Docks
35. Song: Bowser In The Sky

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Prime Opt: 100 coins are still a pain to get in some levels and actively aggravating and run into the Mid Mission Checkpoint issue
2. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Mostly on later levels but still way too easy to lose all progress for one minor hiccup
3. Graphics: Blurry, eye-hurting visuals
4. Controls: While better in my opinion than the N64s, they’re still bad in all new ways
5. Camera: Camera’s a bit better, but still bad
6. Level: The upper floor levels in general have enough issues to warrant a negative
7. Level: Rainbow Ride is still irritating, though not as much so as before
8. Level: The Rainbow In The Sky is a special example of a truly terrible level. The flight is… better in the DS version but the penalty for failure is a colossal, aggravating time waster
9. Outro: The final stage has its own bullcrap but the final boss can go directly to hell. It’s already problematic like the original, but add onto that the required usage of the D Pad to manage the rotations and it drifts into physically painful…
10. Outro: …for two negatives
11. Minigame: Getting the minigames is a pain and some of them kinda suck
12. Core Mechanic: Physics in general. What in the world
13. Core Mechanic: Slope physics in specific are some of the worst I’ve ever seen

Story Positives:

1. Intro: Great, great stuff
2. Sound Design: Everywhere and throughout adding to the vibe and flavor
3. Music Direction: Absolutely adds to the tone
4. Character: Rosalina is brief but memorable for a reason
5. Brickwork: General. Most individual levels don’t get their own brickwork positives
6. Atmosphere: Absolutely love the joyful theme and tone to the game
7. Prime Opt: Rosalina’s story is brilliant in its simplicity and childlike construction…
8. Storytelling Mechanic: …and the way the story is structured like a tale, but still indicates what really happened, is legit
9. Theme: Rebirth… the creation of the new from the bones of the old
10. Outro: Strangely heartbreaking for all that it is
11. Spritework: Neat and fun characters and enemies… and, y’know, toads and the like

Story Negatives:

1. Voice Acting: Inconsistent voice acting

Gameplay Positives:

1. All Roads Lead To Rome: In general, the ability to pick and choose which stars you want to progress with (and only requiring 60 out of 120)
2. Boss: All the Bowser fights are legit in their own right. Proper usage of the 3D space, transparent spheres with lots of pickups, and proper escalation and rule of 3
3. Bosses: Bedroom bosses
4. Bosses: Engine Room bosses
5. Bosses: Fountain Bosses
6. Bosses: Kitchen Bosses
7. Bosses: Terrace bosses
8. Co-Op: Co-Star Mode isn’t much, but it is something
9. Guidance And Flow: Bits and coins to guide
10. Guidance And Flow: Intro camera pans and title, as per usual
11. Intro: First stage tutorial
12. Intro: Opening area as a safe, free control-learning space
13. Kit: Power ups are actually pretty fun, unique, and interesting in this one
14. Kit: Spinning is, by itself, a bit of a game changer in how much it adds to your motion and maneuverability
15. Kit: Usual good moveset
16. Level: Battlerock Galaxy is probably the first level that starts pushing the difficulty a bit, and really flexing with some gravity fun puzzles…
17. Level: …for two positives
18. Level: Dusty Dunes Galaxy wasn’t one I was expecting to like, but the way they work with the sand, the levels rising and falling, very fun stars…
19. Level: …for a full…
20. Level: …three positives
21. Level: Freezeflame Galaxy gets back into unique, fun, exciting gimmicks and of course the two flower power ups for flavor…
22. Level: …earning a full…
23. Level: …three positives
24. Level: Ghostly Galaxy is, as per the norm for the franchise, legit. All the ghost levels tend to just be inventive, fun, and unique…
25. Level: …for a full…
26. Level: …three positives
27. Level: Gold Leaf Galaxy was another galaxy I wasn’t expecting to like, but the way they remix up the Honeyhive Galaxy is fantastic, and they do some very inventive stuff throughout…
28. Level: …for another…
29. Level: …three positives
30. Level: Good Egg Galaxy is a great introduction to so many inventive and fun concepts, and still retains time to be unique and interesting with gravity warping and all kinds of variety…
31. Level: …two positives
32. Level: Gusty Garden Galaxy is simple but it just oozes fun
33. Level: Honeyhive Galaxy continues the trend of fun and interesting dynamics and some interesting platforming…
34. Level: …for two positives
35. Level: Hurry Scurry (vanishing platforms) // Bubble Breeze (blowing the bubble over the traps)
36. Level: Loopdeloop Galaxy (water slide) // Sweet Sweet (hole platforms) // Flipswitch Galaxy (blue buttons)
37. Level: Rolling Green (golf) // A Very Sticky Situation
38. Level: Sling Pod // Buoy Base // Drip Drop
39. Level: Spacejunk Galaxy only has a few cool things but I’m rather fond of the webbing and angle mechanics
40. Level: Toy Time Galaxy is where I start having to use a thesaurus to find another word for ‘inventive’. They just really start lunging into whatever the hell they want to for level design here and it shows…
41. Level: …earning a full…
42. Level: …three positives
43. Mid-Mission Checkpoints: Present and generally good
44. Music: Honestly probably the second best Mario OST I’ve ever heard…
45. Music: …earning a massive…
46. Music: …three positives
47. Pacing: The gameplay pacing is fantastic. Just the right amount of space between levels, variety in levels, and downtime, along with the game not wearing out its welcome…
48. Pacing: …for two positives
49. Terrain Design: The ‘spherical platformer’ concept is probably best utilized here, to the point where that by itself deserves its own praise…
50. Terrain Design: …for two positives
51. Tutorialization: While I’ve seen better, even as far as the Engine Room stages were still doing little touches and hints in level layout and animations and sound design that service as absolutely fantastic tutorialization…
52. Tutorialization: …for two positives
53. Visual Distinction: Very clear, precise visual distinction throughout
54. Yoshi Drums: Lots of stages start really leaning into that Yoshi Drums concept with the music in this one…
55. Yoshi Drums: …for two positives
56. Level: Bonefin // Choosing A Favorite Snack
57. Level: Matter Splatter may be a one-off, but it’s very, very inventive and innovative and deserves its own positive
58. Level: Deep Dark Galaxy is another excellent example of a simple but good kit, with the fun shrinking / expanding planets and related hazards…
59. Level: …for two positives
60. Level: Dreadnought Galaxy and the lovely mechanisms, gravity fun, and general threats everywhere approach…
61. Level: …for two positives
62. Level: Melty Molten Galaxy is when things get brutal and mean, but in a fun and wonderful way…
63. Level: …earning two positives
64. Bosses: Garden bosses
65. Outro: The final stage is honestly awesome, not just in style and gimmicks and variety but in difficulty…
66. Outro: …and in how it uses the different themes of the robust galaxies throughout
67. Outro: And honestly a GREAT final boss, with multiple themes, styles, approach, and general fun
68. Controls: While there’s better controlling 3D platformers, there’s not many…
69. Controls: …earning itself two positives
70. Camera: The camera is almost entirely out of the control of the player
71. Difficulty Options: Comets
72. HUD: Simple and functional
73. Replayability: Game is very fun to replay with no real irritations interrupting that…
74. Replayability: …and the game has multiple routes and stars on the way through
75. Sound Design: Usual for Nintendo’s quality level

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Raspberry Jam: Low health beedleeps
2. Level: Getting those stupid trash piles with the bombs
3. Level: The SECOND trash pile bomb one is even worse
4. Secondary: The purple coins are just straight up tasks

Story Positives:

1. Visual Storytelling: World backdrops, most notably in World 6
2. Visual Continuity: The progression throughout the world backdrops
3. Atmosphere: The general adventurous vibe endemic to the 3D Marios continues
4. Sound Design: And, as per usual to 3D Marios, great sound design adding to things
5. Music Direction: Lovely usage of the music to accentuate the stages
6. Brickwork: General, single positive for brickwork
7. Spritework: Same basic one as the previous game

Story Negatives:

1. Empty Text: Lubba… just… shut up please
2. Outro: Very flat outro, especially with the ‘big loss’ of the Luma who… has no name and is never developed at all

Gameplay Positives:

1. All Roads Lead To Rome: Usual ability to pick and choose levels to progress
2. Boss: Bowser 1 is a really solid boss fight, with the sphere ‘arena’, meteors, and flames
3. Boss: First bundle of worlds
4. Boss: Second bundle of worlds
5. Camera: The camera is reasonably well designed, just like in Galaxy 1
6. Co-Op: As with Galaxy 1, it’s not much but it’s something
7. Controls: Despite the related issues, the core controls are still good
8. Difficulty Options: Comets, World 1
9. Difficulty Options: Comets, World 2
10. Difficulty Options: Comets, World 3…
11. Difficulty Options: …for two positives
12. Difficulty Options: Comets, World 4
13. Difficulty Options: Comets, World 5…
14. Difficulty Options: …for two positives
15. Difficulty Options: Comic Helper mode
16. Guidance And Flow: Bits and coins as a guide as per Mario standard
17. Guidance And Flow: Intro camera pans and title, as per usual
18. HUD: Simple yet fun
19. Intro: Sky Station
20. Kit: Power ups are honestly very fun and innovative in this one
21. Kit: Spinning continues to be a game changer
22. Kit: Usual movement tech
23. Level: Battle Belt is surprisingly well constructed for what is otherwise a simple full combat area
24. Level: Beat Block is wonderfully clever in its gimmick
25. Level: Boo Moon Galaxy is probably our first triple positive level and good lord it’s just joy…
26. Level: …for a full…
27. Level: …three positives
28. Level: Boulder Bowl is honestly a better tutorial level than Spin Dig in several ways
29. Level: Bowser’s Gravity Gauntlet is friggin’ cool
30. Level: Bowser’s Lava Lair is really showcasing how fun these boss levels can be
31. Level: Clockwork Ruins is very teeth punching, but in a good way…
32. Level: …for two positives
33. Level: Cloudy Court Galaxy seems simple at first but the clever usage of wind and the clouds nails it
34. Level: Cosmic Cove is a nice breather segment
35. Level: Flash Black may just be a single stage but man it’s a great one, love the visibility variance
36. Level: Flipsville Galaxy is yet another gimmick level (honestly I feel like I’m repeating myself at this point) with the gravity inverting flip mechanic
37. Level: Freezy Flake is when things start to ramp up, using the ice and fire mechanics interchangeably (like the snow forming a pattern on the lava)…
38. Level: …for two positives
39. Level: Haunty Halls continues the tradition of great ghost levels…
40. Level: …for two positives
41. Level: Hightail Falls can be a bit frustrating, but I love the long difficult running sequences
42. Level: Honeyhop Galaxy is a fun platforming romp
43. Level: Melty Monster continues the trend of awesome fun while simultaneously being brutally difficult…
44. Level: …for a full…
45. Level: …three positives
46. Level: Puzzle Plank does some wonderful Galaxy 1 style stuff with saws and lumber
47. Level: Rightside Down continues the amazing gravity shifting mechanic fun
48. Level: Rolling Masterpiece should be better than it is, but the controls hold it back. Still a fun gimmick level
49. Level: Slipsland Galaxy starts to lean into the ‘good stuff’, with lots of gimmicks
50. Level: Spin Dig is honestly a bit vanilla, but the tunnel segments help // Fluffy Bluff is another example where it’s salvaged by its gimmick (the power up)
51. Level: Starshine Beach has all kinds of little tidbits that are just there for entertainment and gosh I’m running out of ways to say that the stages are fun and interesting in this freaking game
52. Level: Supermassive is another simple but fun gimmick
53. Level: Tall Trunk is a really neat F-Zero style slide
54. Level: Think Before You Shake (inventive, control over swapping, gradual escalation)
55. Level: Throwback is a bit much but it’s still damned fun
56. Level: Upside Dizzy Galaxy is just amazing level design…
57. Level: …for two positives
58. Lighting: Surprisingly good, especially for the darker stages
59. Music: Same very high standard of quality of Galaxy 1…
60. Music: …for the usual…
61. Music: …three positives
62. Overworld: Some, along the lines of Mario 3
63. Pacing: The pacing of this game is honestly bonkers good, exactly the right spacing of levels, challenge levels, and variety…
64. Pacing: …for two positives
65. Replayability: Pretty much the same as the first game…
66. Replayability: …for double positives
67. Sound Design: Oh yeah
68. Terrain Design: Y’know honestly while this game has less of the spheroid thing from Galaxy 1, the terrain design is just kind of amazing in every single stage, and then there’s some truly inventive 3D gravity stuff on top of that…
69. Terrain Design: …for a full…
70. Terrain Design: …three positives
71. Tutorialization: Same general, but not as good as before… still there though
72. Visual Distinction: Absolutely great visual distinction, especially on the color axis…
73. Visual Distinction: …for two positives
74. Yoshi Drums: Even better than Galaxy 1, whole lot of great music variance based on the stage of the world, or being underwater, or actually friggin’ Yoshi…
75. Yoshi Drums: …for two positives
76. Mid-Mission Checkpointing: Manual, but still good
77. Level: Sweet Mystery Galaxy has a great, gradient mechanic of slowly shrinking zones while progressing
78. Level: Mario Squared is a great barrier to entry and is deceptive in how brutal it is…
79. Level: …for two positives
80. Level: Flip Out Galaxy is just the right brand of platforming brutality
81. Level: Rolling Coaster Galaxy is the final, mean variant on the tilting mechanic
82. Difficulty Options: World 6 Comets
83. Difficulty Options: World S Comets are when the game stops holding any punches back at all

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Raspberry Jam: Beedleep… beedleep…
2. Tutorialization: Lubba just will not shut up about stuff we already know
3. Control: Waggle, bad for controller, bad for hand
4. Control: Waggle, imprecise
5. Control: Waggle, a near constant input
6. Seconds In Minutes: They’re all small, but they are everywhere
7. Padding: The fact that the game flat forces you to redo the final stage, and boss, and ending for absolutely no reason and no change whatsoever just to unlock the second half of the game is bonkers…
8. Padding: …and deserves two negatives by itself
9. Secondary: Green stars continue the trend of dull boring tasks
10. Grind: Getting access to the very final star flat requires 9999 bits which is arduously grindy even if you’re gathering every bit as you go
11. Walkthroughitis: Good luck finding the Green Stars in general (and with zero help)

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: Effects and visuals per stage
2. Atmosphere: I mean, it’s a Mario game
3. Doodads: While honestly pretty spread out, there is still some good doodad design in the backgrounds and stages

Story Negatives:

1. Visual Continuity: Each stage is so utterly disconnected from the rest there’s an absence of continuity
2. Character: Princess Peach is a cardboard cutout of a character and it actively detracts from the story

Gameplay Positives:

1. Boss: Generally fun boss design
2. Boss: The ‘platforming boss’ of 8-Bowser is great fun, minus the issue
3. Camera: A weirdly large amount of work was put into making the camera work for a lot of the levels, with it following around but also indicating where you should be going, and it works really well…
4. Camera: …earning a double positive
5. Controls: Controls pretty solidly, with good responsiveness and interpretive layer
6. Difficulty Curve: The curve is honestly quite smooth up to about halfway through the Special Worlds
7. Enemy Variety: Lots of enemy types and lots of variety in how they interact with you at different layers
8. Guidance and Flow: Coin usage as per usual
9. HUD: Solid as is pretty normal for the series
10. Intro: Honestly a really solid first stage. Visual indicators of direction, lots of built in visual tutorials for how to play the game, multiple showcases of the powerup showcase (the feather) as well as lots of routes to go through a fairly linear area, and slowly escalating throughout the stage from ‘completely safe’ to ‘possible to die’ and all while the camera is covering where to go and being a nice, bite-sized example of how the game does levels
11. Intro: World 1 in general is a lot of bite-sized, well constructed ‘here’s how to play the game’ levels
12. Kit: Power ups are fairly basic for the series, but that still makes them good. Ranged attack, extra health, but most importantly the feather which allows for more aerial control and a horizontal attack and breaker
13. Level: 8-3 is probably the best moving rotating platform hell of the game
14. Level: 8-4 is probably the best ghost level of this particular bundle
15. Level: 8-5 is the best execution of the jump flips, plus some usual castle-esque obstacles
16. Level: 8-6 is probably one of the most properly challenging levels in the whole game and I love the way it balances obstacles and terrain
17. Level: World S1 really varies up the starter stages and completely remixes them into some great stuff
18. Level: World S2 follows through on the S1 stages but even more so, with tons of new, fantastic concepts based on the previous stages…
19. Level: …for two positives
20. Level: World S4 continues the mega remix concept, on top of a ghost level too…
21. Level: …for two positives
22. Level: World S5 is the final Special world to really mix stuff up quite a bit…
23. Level: …for two positives
24. Level: World 2 begins the escalation and starting to encourage the player to really vary things up
25. Level: World 3 has several fun and silly levels
26. Level: World 4 is probably one of the more solid level bundles in the game, with some creative and neat stuff…
27. Level: …for two positives
28. Level: World 5 is probably when they nail the ‘fun and neat’ gimmicky stuff, with all kinds of bonkers stuff
29. Level: World 6 is when the difficulty comes out swinging
30. Level: World 7 just brings the bat out to start walloping on the player in all the right ways
31. Mid-Mission Checkpoints: In pretty much all but the final and boss stages
32. Music: Neat, fun, and happy
33. Pacing: Each stage is so bitesize that it really helps the pacing…
34. Pacing: …plus the significant variety to types of challenges
35. Replayability: Honestly, yeah this is a fun game to replay, at least up through the initial stuff
36. Sound Design: As is pretty normal for a Mario game,
37. Terrain Design: As with most of the 3D Marios, the terrain is pretty much always constructed around the concepts and ideas of the levels…
38. Terrain Design: …for two positives
39. Tutorialization: Usual Mario continuous tutorialization throughout
40. Visual Distinction: Usual color presentation and selection
41. Difficulty Options: It’s not linear, but the Special world remixes function the same as Comets did in the Galaxies
42. Graphics: For once a graphics positive… for 3D! One of the very few 3DS games to use its 3D gimmick well
43. Fast Travel: The ability to just instantly warp to a world you’ve already done is a nice little convenience feature, especially for 100%ing

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Some boss and airship levels (also some levels just have way too spread out spacing)
2. Walkthroughitis: Periodic with coins
3. Padding: The nature of how coins don’t stay collected after you grab them until you finish a level, plus having to go back through a stage again (and then beat it) if you didn’t collect it or passed it by accident, is just straight padding…
4. Padding: …for two negatives
5. Grind: Requiring coins for main content is already problematic
6. Grind: Requiring a LOT of coins for main content is awful
7. Boss: Lack of mid mission checkpoints
8. Level: 5-Castle is total bullcrap
9. Level: World S8 in general is far too much remixed bullcrap and not enough interesting and fun levels
10. Outro: A long no-checkpoint slog

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: World 1, 2, and 3
2. Brickwork: World 6
3. Brickwork: World Castle
4. Brickwork: World Bowser is so damned good looking on so many levels, you can just stare at it for several minutes and keep taking in new details…
5. Brickwork: …for a full…
6. Brickwork: …three positives
7. Brickwork: Level Brickworks in general. Grass stages, desert, beach, lava, snow… it’s good stuff…
8. Brickwork: …for a full…
9. Brickwork: …three positives
10. Outro: Between both modes the endings are neat, but the final stage of the vanilla game is actually pretty legit
11. Brickwork: The entire cat lake area is fun and brilliant
12. Storytelling Mechanic: Bowser Jr’s approach to exposition (love the paintings)

Story Negatives:

1. Visual Continuity: Same problem as 3D Land

Gameplay Positives:

1. All Roads Lead To Rome: As per usual for this type of situation, with needing stars to progress but lots of options on where and how to get them
2. Boss: Car Bowser fights are honestly pretty fun
3. Co-Op: Exists
4. Co-Op: Full campaign co-op
5. Co-Op: Full online campaign co-op with co-op friendly options and modes
6. Enemy Variety: Honestly pretty good variety for
7. Fast Travel: Warping between worlds via menu at will from overworld
8. Info In Game: Indicators on stages and in levels
9. Intro: I mean it’s a Mario game, of course the Intro does everything it needs to to get the new players into the style of game and how these gimmicks work
10. Kit: Each playable character plays differently
11. Kit: Fun power ups (cherry, boomerang)
12. Kit: Power ups as per usual
13. Level: World 1 and the general tutorialization and approach
14. Level: World 2 and the escalation of concepts and ideas
15. Level: World 3 and trying to flesh out existing concepts
16. Level: World 4 and really starting to escalate a lot before we really get to the good stuff
17. Level: 2-3 and the amazing creativeness of the wall shadows
18. Level: 3-3 and our first ghost house… not the greatest of levels, but inventive, creative, and a nice breather level
19. Level: 4-3 and the switch block combined with the cherry cloner
20. Level: 5-1 and essentially an ‘open world’ stage, with lots to do in any order you want
21. Level: 5-4 and the open world safari gimmick
22. Level: 5-5 and the very inventive, fun ‘chained bombs’ gimmick
23. Level: 5-6 and a combination of platforming, swap jump platforms, and clones
24. Level: 5-7 and the searchlight escalation and usage of enemies as methods of progression
25. Level: B-1 has great atmosphere, difficulty, optional placement, and general fun
26. Level: B-5 and the moving water platforms is right up there with the good Galaxy stages
27. Level: B-6 is very creative and fun, as all ghost levels are, and appropriately escalates throughout
28. Level: B-7 is a very mean, but fun gimmick and an exercise in precision
29. Level: C-2 is simple but fun switches and top-down and plays with the concept to vary things up
30. Level: C-3 is a great dash / drag race style mission
31. Level: C-4 is mean, but in all the right ways, with indicated platforms, bullies, and lava
32. Level: C-5 is a fun, compact, wonderful little puzzle level
33. Level: C-7 is a typical but very fun and well designed lava doom level
34. Level: Effectively comet mutators again in the World Mushroom and Flower stages…
35. Level: …for a full…
36. Level: …three positives
37. Level: Minigame: Photo mode with decent options
38. Level: Star-3 is the exact right type of brutal, challenging, fun mean
39. Level: Star-4 is extremely creative and another great drag race mission
40. Level: Star-6 continues the top down fun approach with good power ups and challenges
41. Level: Star-8 is another open world explorative world which makes good usage of fog and multi layered obstacles
42. Level: The mystery house levels in general are neat, bite-sized, brutal, fun, rewarding, and retain progress…
43. Level: …for a full…
44. Level: …three positives
45. Music: Normally I’m not into this kind of jazz but the game really makes it work, and I love how they style the songs to the scenes…
46. Music: …earning two positives
47. Outro: The final Bowser stage and final platform boss are honestly pretty epic and fun
48. Princess Peach Segment: Cap’n Toad stages are simple but fun side segments…
49. Princess Peach Segment: …for two positives
50. QoL: Swap party members on stage select, and… a lot of tiny things I’m not going to list
51. Controls: Controls very well, as per the standard for the more modern Marios…
52. Controls: …for two positives
53. Difficulty Curve: Very smooth and very well constructed
54. Guidance And Flow: Usual usage of coins and camera to direct
55. HUD: Simple but effective
56. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Generally good throughout
57. Pacing: Absolutely great pacing across the gameplay, with good variety, style, and types of levels…
58. Pacing: …for two positives
59. Replayability: Yeah this one’s imminently replayable
60. Sound Design: Usual good stuff to indicate
61. Terrain Design: Generally good terrain design for the missions
62. Tutorialization: Almost every single stage has at least a little bit of tutorialization to indicate what to do when and where…
63. Tutorialization: …for two positives
64. Visual Distinction: Easy to tell what is where, especially via usage of colors
65. Level: Scamper Shores
66. Level: Fort Flaptrap
67. Level: Pounce Bounce Isle
68. Level: Trickity Tower
69. Level: Crisp Castle Climb
70. Level: Risky Whisker Island
71. Level: Mount Magmeow
72. Level: Pipe Path Tower
73. Level: Roiling Roller
74. Level: Wasteland
75. Boss: Ink Bowser is mostly spectacle but it’s damned fun spectacle
76. Viscerality: A surprising viscerality positive just for Fury Bowser mode
77. Info In Game: Lighthouses, HUD indicators, Bowser slowly emerging, rainfall and music
78. Map: Surprisingly good map, with hints and indicators
79. Music: Bowser’s Fury specifically
80. QoL: The ability to store and recall power ups on the fly is such a huge jump in quality I can’t believe how much it changes how I play the game
81. Power Progression: The way coins add up to power ups is honestly brilliant and I cannot believe it hasn’t been done before
82. Visual Continuity: The lake and usage of landmarks and visuals to help you navigate
83. Camera: Issues, but good elsewise
84. Overworld: The lake in general is very well designed in Bowser’s Fury

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Camera: Some issues regarding isometric areas
2. Co-Op: Some stage-specific issues with collision and the like
3. Core Mechanic: While fun in many ways, the lack of control on Fury Bowser can be irritating (either it shows up too late or too early)
4. Walkthroughitis: A few of the cat shines in Bowser’s Fury are a bit ‘go Google it’

Story Positives:

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Tutorialization: 1-1 established the gold standard of how to tutorialize in-game and is still well done even by today’s standards
2. Level: General level design positive from 1 to 5
3. Level: World 6 in general is probably the most innovative and fun section of the game, the first and only section of proper difficulty
4. Song: Don’t front, you know the one
5. Itemization: Spread of coins, lives, and power ups… early on
6. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Believe it or not, yes… in every world except 8
7. Prime Opt: Lots of warps and secrets throughout

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Itemization: Worlds 7 onwards are just awful when it comes to the spread of coins, lives, and power ups
2. Gotcha: Yeah, especially in the later worlds
3. Level: 8-2 is just a hellscape
4. Level: 8-3 is actively boring, a flat terrain with too many enemies
5. Outro: 8-4 is just dull. A long, empty maze with a few enemies and no coins, power ups, or lives, followed by a boss nearly guaranteed to hit you
6. Core Mechanic: Hurtboxes are very inconsistent
7. Core Mechanic: The absolutely bizarre jumping, physics, and squiggity
8. Guidance And Flow: Virtually none, in fact the game barely indicates that secrets even exist

Story Positives:

1. Animations: The little additions to animations really help sell the scenes and characters
2. Brickwork: The new brickwork (from the All Stars version primarily)… is honestly really cool looking (except the, uh, legos)…
3. Brickwork: …for a double positive
4. Outro: Weirdly enough I enjoy this little ending for what it is
5. Spritework: Not super improved compared to the NES version, but still good stuff

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Itemization: The game has tons upon tons of better itemization than the original
2. Intro: World 1 in general is very well constructed to establish and design the type of game you’re into and are well designed, fun levels regardless
3. Tutorialization: The initial drop, the enemies, the escalation, the introduction of ideas
4. Visual Distinction: Generally well distinguished visuals
5. Kit: Variance of playstyle between the four characters
6. Level: So this is functionally an aggregate for all the new changes in the GBA version that really smooth out the level design. New items, new placements, new enemies, new placement of enemies, et cetera
7. Level: Every digging level is a neat variance in pseudo puzzle platforming
8. Mid-Mission Checkpointing: Good and well spread out
9. Level: World 3 honestly does a lot of clever things, with the underground/overground, climbing, and really playing with the looping maps
10. Difficulty Curve: The new variances and changes to individual level layouts really smooth out the difficulty curve
11. Outro: 7-2 is weirdly a good stage. Multiple paths of progression, no real timer, lots of health and power ups, and good checkpointing

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Camera: The GBA version in particular honestly has just an absolutely terrible camera… at times it ‘wobbles’ and at others it doesn’t show you enemies (while they can already attack you)…
2. Camera: …for two negatives
3. Gotcha: The Gotcha in this game is honestly the worst I have ever seen. The inability to literally see what’s coming thanks to the camera issues combined with enemies being activated off screen means taking damage for having done nothing wrong…
4. Gotcha: …for a full…
5. Gotcha: …three negatives
6. Controls: SMB2’s controls are already not good to begin with, so… here we are…
7. Controls: …for two negatives
8. Audio Spam: The new audio clips are neat but they’re also over-played to hell and back
9. Level: World 4 is all the wrong kinds of difficulty. Ice physics, gotchas, and death pits everywhere
10. Guidance And Flow: This game flat mandates having a goddamned map to figure out where the mushrooms are, and considering how important that health is…
11. Guidance And Flow: …it’s a double negative
12. Outro: The final boss is just terrible. Boring and repetitive, with too small of a window of attack
13. Core Mechanic: Physics. The physics of this specific version of the game are just… wrong, and several bosses (Mouser, Clawgrip, and Wart come to mind immediately)

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: This is a huge aggregate. Since this is covering the NES version and its brickwork is… fine… and some of the worlds look… fine
2. Brickwork: The GBA version basically borrows the SNES All Stars new brickworks. The good news is this means there IS some visuals and brickwork! The bad news is it’s still pretty threadbare… but it’s there!
3. Tone: This one’s a bit ephemeral to mention but the whole game has this lovely light hearted, adventurous tone to it. What probably exemplifies this best is World 4, Giant Land, where the big aesthetic just adds to it
4. Visual Continuity: World 5 is great by itself. The climb up the tower, the clouds, the land down in the distance. And of course the progression across the worlds, all the way into Dark Land
5. Spritework: Some of the sprites are fairly simple, but they’re all super well done, and there are a TON of them…
6. Spritework: …easy double
7. Outro: Simple but neat. A fun, bespoke showcasing of each world we’ve done, showing us how far we’ve gotten

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Kit: The power ups are good in this one. The Leaf sort of steals the show of course (more control in the air, temporary flight, and a melee attack). But also the others, while great, just… don’t have the presence necessary to earn their own positives. Hammer Bros suit is amazing but we get it what, three times? And the Frog suit is neat but similarly limited
2. Music: I was torn on this but this is still the source of a lot of Mario classics for a reason
3. Enemy Variety: Yep. Tons of different types of enemies with multiple ways to deal with them, and almost always well utilized in their respective stages (except Big Bertha…)…
4. Enemy Variety: …easy double
5. Enemy Design: Also some solid enemy design in general. They really got creative with a lot of these
6. Pacing: The seemingly short levels (they’re not actually that short in real size, but they give you tools to blaze through them) really helps the pacing
7. Guidance: Coins! Of course this isn’t necessarily new, but Mario 3 is probably the first game I can point to where they clearly thought about using coins to help guide the player towards progress and hidden bonuses
8. Visual Distinction: Could be better honestly but still good usage of color and visuals to keep the player aware and on top of things
9. Penalty For Failure: So a small but critical change to the Mario format happens in 3. In Mario 1 you only ever had two health max. This means if you have a fire flower but get hit you’re right back down to small Mario. This not only gives less room for failure but also means less steps required to get back to your previous power level (In Mario 1 it’d take two power ups to get back to a Fire Flower, here it would only take 1). This is a nice change and honestly makes the ‘3 HP’ system work in a game where there’s tons of things that will constantly tempt you to take damage. This probably wouldn’t fit except for…
10. Itemization: …there are items absolutely everywhere. Everything is manually placed but there’s tons of it, especially given how many stages there are, and real thought is put into distribution of lives, coins, and power ups…
11. Itemization: …for a solid double. Speaking of which…
12. Core Mechanic: Being able to store power ups to use on the map gives bonus rewards and nice safety net features
13. Guidance: This is a good time to also mention that the game, like many after it, uses coins as a form of guidance to give the player ideas of where to go and what to do, as well as help with secret finding
14. Overworld: Even World 1 immediately has design to it. 1-1 and 1-2 are mandatory but 1-3 and 1-4 are not only optional, but unlock some bonus with the mushroom house. We also get some introductions into basic things like hammer bros and the minigames, as well as the fortress unlocking a path should we game over. I should mention this positive also covers World 2 and 3
15. Overworld: I also want to give credit to most of the other overworlds too. World 4 has the one choice, World 5 does too, but World 6 really nails it with multiple choices for picking your poison
16. Intro: Level: World 1-1 through 1-3 are, functionally, the first stage of the game. We have 1-1 for the basics of tutorialization (the new leaf power up, which is everywhere, the flying as well as indicators for it, and enemy interactions) then 1-2 starts introducing slopes and hidden passages, and 1-3 starts introducing new enemy types
17. Tutorialization: Technically the Intro but honestly a huge portion of the game continues the tutorializing as new enemies and concepts are introduced
18. Level: The rest of World 1’s stages. See, Mario 3 stages are super short, often only having enough time to introduce a theme and then conclude. So we get tutorialization on several concepts, like the slopes and how to find hidden areas
19. Level: World 2’s first bundle of stages are quite smart for how tiny they are. First we see how to find hidden blocks and hidden enemies (who reveal themselves before they attack, so no gotcha! involved), second we see how you can choose to go high or low to change your path, then we have the fortress which brilliantly introduces Thwomps (there’s a block impeding you so you literally have to go out of your way to get under it) and Boos (you have no reason to turn around until after you’re already under it, at which point it’s guaranteed to follow you)
20. Level: World 2’s second bundle follows the same theming. The Angry Sun and avoiding it, the coin level with multiple paths, the hidden paths, and the pyramid with its breakable blocks
21. Level: Honestly World 3 has a few interesting things (like the new Spike enemies, donut blocks, and tons of new enemies)… just enough to qualify for an aggregate, I think. I hate some of these stages though
22. Level: World 4 doesn’t do as much with the big aesthetic as I’d really like, but it’s quite short (which actually works for it) and they do a few creative things (like the transparent elevator tutorial, or the introduction of the flame Boos)
23. Level: 5-2 and 5-3 combined earn their own aggregate. 5-2 is creative in its design (if you’re clever, quick, or equipped you can shortcut it, if not you have a solid path forward) and 5-3 is the infamous Kuribo’s Shoe level which, honestly, speaks for itself (but just in case… The whole stage is designed AROUND the shoe and how it changes your interactions with enemies and objects, and has several tall obstacles to benefit its usage)
24. Level: World 6 actually impressed me this time around. Creative stuff here, like melting ice blocks with fire in 6-10, sliding thwomps in the second fortress, and the clever 6-5 with the pseudo labyrinth
25. Level: World 6, despite some hackles, also has some surprisingly good ‘simple but solid’ stuff like 6-8 (which is just a standard enemies and platforming level), 6-7 and 6-2 (both autoscrollers which play with the concept with donut blocks or clouds), and 6-6 and 6-9 (underwater stuff)
26. Level: 7-1 is a great re-introduction to a purely vertical level and of course the wrapping concept. And 7-3 is a playground level which just lets you ride with the run button (and invincibility stars)
27. Level: 7-5 is our very first stage that’s a whole positive by itself. It’s a maze but incredibly well designed; Everything is loaded on one cell, meaning any platforms you make stick. It also constantly does tiny but well designed things like making sure multiple paths are on the same screen so you can peek at what you need, minimizing the wasted time for backtracking, and visual guidance in platforms to help guide the player. Solid stage overall
28. Level: 7-Fortress is a clever maze. You’re actually pretty limited in where you can go at first (just to a dead end… but there’s a power up there, which guarantees no softlocking because…) the second thing you can do is break blocks, and the blocks are designed around guiding you to the right block which then gives you the coin ‘trap’ of wanting you to drop down (putting you back into the loop), but you can also progress. And if you don’t have flight yet the further door gives you a Tanooki suit, giving you the tools to beat the level. Then there’s 7-6 which puts a huge amount of the level in your hands with the elevator concept and tons of ways around those
29. Level: 7-7, 7-8, and 7-9 are another bundle of positives. 7-7 is the final exam of the earlier 7-3 (stay star or die!), 7-8 is just a ‘straight’ level but very mean, functionally a final exam of a level, and 7-9 is a great final exam of a stage for the maze design
30. Level: World 8 as a whole. It’s mean, but it’s fair mean. Nothing really jumps out at me, but they do some of the same basic concepts but do them well (the fast airship level is preceded by three options for getting Leafs, the maze fortress has plenty of power ups to recover with, there’s shortcut unlocks to help if you game over, etc.)
31. Outro: The final stage and its multiple paths (and rewards) and of course the creative Bowser fight (you can shoot him with fireballs or hammers) but otherwise you break the floor while avoiding him
32. Level: Right here at the end I feel the need to give one last aggregate positive for general stage design. There are a few I didn’t call out like 4-6 (fun gimmick with the size changing) or 3-7 (Spikes!) but it’s still solid stuff
33. Replayability: Of course the game is replayable
34. Save: So the GBA version adds one nice quality of life feature; An actual save system! Retains progress up to the level you’re currently at, and there’s a ‘clear mode’ after beating the game

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Mid Mission Checkpoints: There are none. This is… weird, at best. In most stages it’s barely noticeable, in some it’s absolutely aggravating. It ends up making stages that would otherwise be fine aggravating…
2. Mid Mission Checkpoints: …earning a double negative
3. Controls: Squiddity. Most Mario games have the squiddity but honestly few have it worse than Mario 3. So to explain, Mario acts like his feet have butter on them (or maybe ice) meaning you have less control than you normally would. But this is cranked up in Mario 3 for whatever reason so it drags the entire game down…
4. Controls: …for a double negative
5. Enemy Design: Big Bertha. Completely bypassing your health is already frustrating, but the way she’s used in various stages is pure dick move
6. Core Mechanic: So this is going to sound weird but I hate the underwater physics in this game (and the quicksand physics, we’ll talk about those in a sec). The whole game already has the squiddity problem (mentioned earlier) and being underwater removes even more control from the player. AND if you don’t have the fireflower you have absolutely no way to defend yourself. Then there’s the quicksand water which requires you to jump constantly to navigate in, and is incredibly aggravating to jump OUT of. Oh and did I mention several of the quicksand water levels almost always include Cheep Cheeps, Big Bertha, or both
7. Level: 5-6. It’s a neat idea, really, but thanks to the timing of the autoscrolling and the fact that you have to use the para-beetles to progress (again, neat idea) leads to the problem of the whole thing being too unforgiving and frustrating if you mess up at all
8. Level: 5-9. Honestly this level is very impressive technically but good lord, screw this stage so hard. The diagonal moves entirely too fast meaning ANY mistake is unrecoverable, but also not immediately so you have a few seconds to flail before you realize you already failed. Then we add in the jackass fire chomps who home in on you AND shoot homing shots to interrupt your jumps and this entire level is easily the worst stage in the entire game
9. Level: 7-Fortress 2 and 7-Airship. 7-Fortress 2 is way too punishing and is made worse almost entirely by the lack of checkpointing. ANY mistake is horribly punished and screw you if you come in without a power up. And 7-Airship is long, brutal, and with very little recovery
10. Controls: So the GBA version in particular plays… wrong. This leads to micro issues, which leads to mistakes, which leads to deaths, which leads to frustrations. It’s a weird combination thing too…
11. Controls: …with wonky hurtboxes, stuttering on the rendering, and making the already pretty precise platforming (especially in later stages) go from fun to awful

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: Worlds in general
2. Brickwork: Levels in general
3. Visual Continuity: Areas feel like the worlds they’re in
4. Atmosphere & Tone: General fun, upbeat tone
5. Spritework: General, but still good

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Boss: General, good variety to the Koopalings…
2. Boss: …varying per iteration…
3. Boss: …and continuing throughout
4. Controls: Despite the waggle issues, the core controls control well
5. Co-Op: Exists
6. Co-Op: Full campaign
7. Co-Op: Safety mechanisms and extra gameplay features to aid in co-op
8. Core Mechanic: Jank… for headache-inducing laughter
9. Core Mechanic: Safety net mechanisms (world map usage, mid mission checkpoints healing, variable power ups depending on current status)
10. Enemy Variety: Good general enemy variety
11. Guidance And Flow: Pretty legit throughout, at almost all points you can figure out where you can or should interact with the terrain…
12. Guidance And Flow: …for two positives
13. HUD: Simple but functional
14. Intro: 1-1 is back to being a good introduction to the game
15. Itemization: General good spread of power ups
16. Kit: General usual quality
17. Kit: Penguin and Helicopter are honestly pretty legit
18. Level: World 2
19. Level: World 3
20. Level: World 4
21. Level: 5-3 is a neat, mean rotating log level
22. Level: 5-4 is inventive, and clever
23. Level: 5-Ghost and more lighting fun
24. Level: 5-Tower and spike hell
25. Level: World 1
26. Music: Honestly the music in this one is pretty legit, with good variety and some bangers towards the end…
27. Music: …for two positives
28. Overworld: One of the best Overworlds we’ve seen so far, with multiple routes, changing overworld gimmicks, and bonus stuff…
29. Overworld: …for two positives
30. Core Mechanic: So bad it’s good (with the co-op collision)
31. Sound Design: Similar to some of the better Mario games, some very solid Sound Design giving really good feedback…
32. Sound Design: …for two positives
33. Tutorialization: Decent title demo, showcasing co-op mode as well as different stages and power ups
34. Level: World 6 in general
35. Level: 7-2 with its floating water
36. Level: 7-Tower with the escalating bo-bomb analogue platform gimmick
37. Level: 7-Ghost and the usual fun
38. Level: 8-3 is a really fun, lava / platforming / control challenge
39. Outro: For what it’s worth, the final level and boss fight is actually pretty legit
40. Camera: Really well done camera design, adapting to need and scene as required…
41. Camera: …for two positives
42. Difficulty Curve: Smooth and mean
43. Fast Travel: World warping as usual
44. Mid Mission Checkpointing: There and decent
45. Visual Distinction: Good color distinction, good outlining, good in general…
46. Visual Distinction: …for two positives

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Co-Op: They have collision, and that… is awful
2. Controls: Waggle
3. Controls: Regular Waggle
4. Controls: Constant Waggle
5. Controls: Inconsistent Waggle
6. Controls: Boss Waggle
7. Level: 5-4 is total bullcrap
8. Seconds In Minutes: Weird pauses and lapses here and there, plus the usual overworld issue
9. Grind: Coin requirements for the optional worlds

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: The overworld map is just a treat to look at. Obviously there’s some nice distinct visuals per biome, but in general the entire overworld just looks legit. How often do you see a world map that looks this solid? A solid…
2. Brickwork: …double positive
3. Doodads: World map also has a weirdly large amount of little details to it. Rocks, bushes, hills, clouds, snow, ruins, trees… tons of stuff in the water too
4. Brickwork: Grasslands areas. Rolling hills, these interesting angled mountain ranges, and of course lots of lush foliage
5. Brickwork: The desert biome. More rolling hills, statues dotting the landscape, palm trees
6. Brickwork: The snowy areas are just gorgeous. The stars and constellations, the snowy platforms, the pine trees, the mountain peaks
7. Brickwork: The water regions. Tropical foliage and gushing water (seriously, love the waterfalls here) and sandy beaches with palm trees
8. Brickwork: Mountains. Big, holed rocks, wild bushes, and the edges of clouds. As an aside I love this continued slant aesthetic across the U worlds for some reason
9. Brickwork: The jungle swamp. Even the platforms have vines dripping off them, nevermind the gigantic trees and oversized foliage
10. Brickwork: The painted swamp is so damned good looking it deserves its own positive
11. Brickwork: Lava doom. We see Peach’s Castle in the distance, as well as the lava and molten bricks
12. Outro: Silly and fun finale and ending, as is honestly a bit standard for the Marios
13. Spritework: Some really better, higher detail stuff here than the previous ones…
14. Spritework: …for double positives

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Co-Op: Exists
2. Co-Op: Full campaign co-op
3. Co-Op: Game has features designed around co-op
4. Minigames: Optional challenge modes which, as usual, are welcome
5. Minigame: Boost Rush Mode is another fun optional minigame. You want to grab as many of a thing as possible (specifics vary from stage to stage), and every so often the scrolling speed increases based on how much you’ve collected.
6. Info In Game: Hints page as a built in manual…
7. Info In Game: …for two positives
8. Info In Game: The built in ‘strategy guide’ of Bonus Videos…
9. Info In Game: …for two positives
10. Minigame: Luigi Mode is, functionally, a mutator of each existing stage done up in hard mode, similar to the Comet Medals of previous games…
11. Minigame: …for a full…
12. Minigame: …three positives
13. Difficulty Options: Toadette and Nabbit. Toadette gains Princess Peach powers when powered up, and Nabbit is immune to enemies completely
14. HUD: Generally good, crisp HUD
15. Overworld: Good, varied, multiple paths, and obstacles…
16. Overworld: …for two positives
17. Camera: The same thing the series has been doing for a bit now; the dynamic camera, where it will adjust based on the needs of the moment…
18. Camera: …for two positives
19. Intro: 1-1 and World 1 in general continue the trend of good opening stages
20. Itemization: Overworld items and pickups
21. Itemization: General spread throughout the levels
22. Kit: Usual decent stuff in mushrooms and flowers. Also consider the ‘penalty for failure’ health positive baked into this
23. Kit: New power ups. Obviously we have the acorn which gives us the flying squirrel form (slowfall, a vertical jump in mid air, and clinging to walls) but we have the mini, propeller, and penguin suits returning
24. Kit: Yoshi. This is… kind of the same positive Yoshi has been getting since Mario World
25. Kit: Baby yoshis, on the other hand, are fascinating. They can eat enemies of course but they can also inflate and be used to sort of fly
26. Yoshi Drums: Overworld and yoshis, but especially baby yoshis
27. Music: Same general soundtrack as the Wii version and as such…
28. Music: …two positives
29. Boss: General variety in the Koopalings
30. Boss: Iggy by himself is actually pretty legit. Warping around the pipes in his room and generating enemies in the lava, plus he zips around a bit in shell form
31. Boss: Ludwig and his flight, cloning, and bullet hell
32. Level: 1-Castle, lava, and swings
33. Level: 2-3, fun with lighting mechanics
34. Level: 2-Tower and the controlled crushers
35. Level: 2-4 and the sand mechanic throughout
36. Level: 2-5 and the general vertical obstacles while progressing across altering terrain
37. Level: 2-6 and the wonderful rolling Lakitu fun
38. Level: 2-Castle and the compactors
39. Level: 3-Tower and the amazing crushing spiked death
40. Level: 3-5 and the eternal Dragoneel chase
41. Level: 4-1 and the snow, stars, and lighting
42. Level: 4-2 and the good usage of ice, flow, and penguins
43. Level: 4-Tower and the icicles of doom
44. Level: 4-3 and the fire, seed, goomba gimmick
45. Level: 4-4 is a wonderful bullet bill hell
46. Level: 4-Castle and thwompville
47. Level: 5-Airship and the cannons and homing torpedoes
48. Level: 5-1 is starting to really get inventive with combining existing elements into fun stuff…
49. Level: …for two positives
50. Level: 5-2 and the soda of death
51. Level: 5-3 and the brutal combination of blocks and denial enemies
52. Level: 5-Tower and the snake blocks of doom
53. Level: 5-Ghost and the singing light source
54. Level: 4-4 and the painted swamp of doom
55. Level: 5-6 and the star chaining across instant death
56. Level: 5-7 and the clever usage of Wiggler weaving in and out of the terrain
57. Level: 5-Castle and the wonderful usage of raising/lowering platforms during waves of lava
58. Level: 6-5 and the wild swinging, falling platforms
59. Level: 6-Tower and the return of the Sumo Bros
60. Level: 6-Castle and the wonderful iron blocks in lava
61. Level: 7-1 and the moving cloud and appearing blocks
62. Level: 7-2 and the rotating blocks of hell while hounded by enemies
63. Level: 7-3 and the bullet bills, but also the controllable moving platforms
64. Level: 7-Airship and the usual airship funfest (and tilting platform)
65. Level: 8-2 and the slowly advancing wall of doom combined with very inventive usage of the ‘limited space’ floating raft mechanic…
66. Level: …for two positives
67. Outro: The final boss fight is pretty legit… and co-op, even!
68. Controls: Some issues, but still legit
69. Core Mechanics: Safety net mechanisms (world map, mid mission checkpoints healing, variable power ups)
70. Difficulty Curve: Very smooth difficulty curve
71. Enemy Variety: Generally good variety
72. Guidance And Flow: Very good guidance for power ups, side things, coins, etc…
73. Guidance And Flow: …for two positives
74. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Generally good mid-mission checkpoints
75. Replayability: Generally replayable…
76. Replayability: …and multiple routes and paths of progression
77. Sound Design: Same quality sound design as the Wii version…
78. Sound Design: …for two positives
79. Tutorialization: Generally good throughout the stages, all the way up to World 8
80. Visual Distinction: Generally good visual distinction

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Co-Op: Pretty much the same issue 3D World had; occasional collision issues
2. Grind: Coin issue with unlocking special worlds

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: Surprisingly well designed for how simple it is. Good impressionism
2. Doodads: Good, varied, and well placed
3. Humor: The game got me more than it really should have
4. Visual Storytelling: Each person’s area and the design thereof
5. Animation: Good, fun, interesting, invocative
6. Outro: The final flight is neat in general but the final little tidbit of the pile of bells… classic

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Tutorialization: The intro area does a surprisingly good job of getting you into the basic puzzle mechanics
2. Intro: The first level does a great job of giving you simple objectives, complex objectives, and some room to maneuver in
3. Level: The shopping square area continues what the Intro began with even more options for progression, fun objectives, and a new meta objective
4. Level: The pub is a neat one; several very clever ways in, out, and around the objectives
5. All Roads Lead To Rome: The whole game has multiple solutions to multiple puzzles and I love it
6. Outro: Surprisingly well designed. You now have everyone after you, and running generates aggro from a huge range
7. Visual Distinction: Everything is extremely distinct in general, especially what you can interact with and how
8. Level: The optional post hard objectives are actually really quite fun, unique, and challenging…
9. Level: …for two positives
10. Co-Op: Limited and local only but it’s there and it’s fun

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Controls: The game… does not control super well
2. Camera: The camera is awful by default (literal nausea inducing) but once you change the options… it’s still bad
3. Level: The ‘roll thing’ missions honestly suck, almost entirely due to the jank physics and controls

Story Positives:

1. Intro: The intro is weirdly solid. While crude, there’s still thought put into the animation and blocking to sell the scene, even with some foreshadowing baked in
2. Brickwork: It varies pretty wildly but across the whole game there’s some decent thought and work put into the brickwork
3. Spritework: Okay honestly this is probably the game’s most memorable feature, but it’s just… not great out of combat, so across the whole game (and primarily combat) it gets a single positive
4. Doodads: Similar to the previous two points. There are occasional areas, usually indoors of houses, that look legit… then there’s the rest of the game with huge, empty swaths of nothing
5. Background Lore: There’s not much honestly, but there is some, and it is interesting in fleshing out the world
6. Humor: Ridiculousness abounds
7. MSQ: Okay, the miniature section and the villain showing up and shrinking into the mouse hole is honestly kinda neat
8. Moments: There’s a few that, collectively, earn an aggregate positive (I’d be remiss if I didn’t specifically mention Alan and Cerl)
9. Outro: For what it’s worth, I do like the ending. The re-covering of the areas we’ve been to, and the little acknowledgements

Story Negatives:

1. Localization: It’s not actually that bad for the era… but that still puts it firmly in ‘bad’ territory
2. Story Sequencing: Events have absolutely no logic to them as you bounce from plot point to plot point
3. Writing: Idiot Balling in general
4. Cutscene Incompetence: Across the board, really
5. MSQ: The entirety of Chapter 4 is total nonsense
6. Plot: Meandering. The whole plot just… meanders, hard
7. MSQ: Chapter 5 is completely bonkers nonsense and deserves its own comment of awful, from the nonsense to get the ship, to rescuing prisoners, to the weird underwater attack after using bugs to destroy the ships… just…
8. MSQ: …awful stuff
9. MSQ: So why did Nina leave the party and TIME TRAVEL again?
10. MSQ: Just… everything to do with the princess sequence in Tunlan
11. Outro: The rest of the Outro is just… what? There’s a total deflated nothing when it comes to the final bosses, and then a scene that’s probably supposed to be funny

Gameplay Positives:

1. Encounter Rate: The Marble 3 is easily accessible, very cheap, stacks, and lasts a decent duration
2. Fast Travel: Warp to (most) of the towns while out in the overworld
3. MSQ: Mote’s spiral dungeon is honestly a pretty cool idea, and the Mote fight itself is honestly kind of neat (physical damage solidifies, magic damage pixelates, changing his defenses)
4. Music: For the limited soundfont, the music itself is honestly quite good
5. Penalty For Failure: Return to previous save spot with everything intact but a gold penalty
6. Viscerality: Spells look cool, and the attack animations are pretty legit
7. Itemization: Surprisingly good spread of recovery items, healing ponds, and equipment
8. Overworld Design: Actually not too shabby, one of the better aspects of terrain layout in the game

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Backtracking: Having to redo an entire dungeon for no reason during multiple segments
2. Backtracking: More redoing entire dungeons for no reason
3. Backtracking: Yyyyep
4. Boss: General boss design woes. A lot of bosses in this game are just trash mobs with more health
5. Boss: Gremlin is probably the worst boss in the entire game. In addition to being a huge difficulty cliff, having a huge second health bar, and being too early in the game (meaning you don’t have the kit to deal with him), he’s just plain boring as the moment he enters phase 2 he just spams an aoe attack over and over (and you have no reliable source of aoe healing)…
6. Boss: …for a full…
7. Boss: …triple negatives
8. Boss: Knight gets special mention for being way over-tuned at a point in the game where you don’t really have the kit to out-tactics it, instead just being a long boring slog
9. Difficulty Curve: Several difficulty cliffs with no real rhyme or reason to them
10. Early Game: No abilities except ‘attack’
11. Encounter Rate: I’ve seen worse, and the Marble 3 helps, but…
12. Encounter Rate: …this is still…
13. Encounter Rate: …triple negative territory
14. Trash: The trash in this game is… not good. It gets very old fairly quickly. Ironically it’s not that bad by the era’s standards
15. Graphics: Wavy underwater effect
16. Guidance and Flow of Exploration: Or a total lack thereof. I’ve rarely seen a game so aggressively against the idea of even inclining you in the right direction, in the overworld and in dungeons (hell even in towns)
17. Info In Game: Items
18. Info In Game: Spells
19. Interface: The entire interface is weirdly clunky and awkward to track and find information
20. Interface: Special mention for the sub-standard inventory system. No auto sort, irritating to navigate, and cripplingly limited size
21. Level: Dream Tower and the ‘screw you’ visibility
22. Level: Everything about Scande sucks. Slow, long, empty swaths of samey terrain, irritating backtracking, and boring nothing
23. Level: Poison Field and the blind, with encounters, damaging you if you screw up bullcrap…
24. Level: …and I hope you enjoyed it the first time because you then HAVE to walk right back through it
25. Level: Spyre. Huge, empty swaths of empty, pointless encounters, no markers, and no terrain to speak of
26. Level: The second half of Mote’s dungeon
27. Level: The Tomb, especially since you do it twice
28. Minigame: The entire flea market thing. Entirely too RNG and boring for what it is
29. MSQ: Gobi section. Just… Gobi’s section. First let’s toss you into a high level area while being a single character, also he has the worst stats in the game, also it’s relatively easy to get lost in, oh and good luck figuring out what to do this entire time…
30. MSQ: Gobi section. …for two negatives
31. MSQ: Random fetch quests with little to no guidance to fix Nina? Sign me up!
32. Music: Song restarting at every replay
33. Music: Songs are entirely too short of loops, making them aggravating very quickly
34. Padding: Boss refights
35. QoL: Or lack thereof
36. QoL: Screwing with your party lineup regularly
37. Unskippable Cutscenes: Not bad, but they’re still there
38. Walkthroughitis: Chapter 2
39. Walkthroughitis: Chapter 3 and the quest to find the right NPCs to talk to
40. Walkthroughitis: Chapter 4 and the money tax
41. Walkthroughitis: Chapter 4 and the ‘where do I go now?’
42. Walkthroughitis: Chapter 5 and ‘good luck figuring out how to progress past Nabal’
43. Walkthroughitis: Pretty much the entire final chain of fetch quests leading up to Myria Station
44. Walkthroughitis: General. Good luck finding the dragon gear (required for the good ending). Also on finding the dragon shrines! Or… anything!
45. Outro: The final dungeon by itself is triple territory. Long, winding, boring, dull music, dull visuals, dull trash…
46. Outro: …for a full…
47. Outro: …three negatives
48. Outro: And then there’s the final Jade fight which is just dull as dishwater while also being awful
49. Outro: And one last one for the final boss being dull and sloggy
50. Kit: Or lack thereof
51. Map: Not the worst I’ve seen, but not great either