Familiar 3

Story Positives:

1. Animations: The animations in combat are quite legit
2. Atmosphere: The entire game oozes the same atmosphere of being a gloomy, bleak, horrifying setting
3. Brickwork: Combat backgrounds all look legit
4. Brickwork: General brickwork across the whole game
5. Brickwork: Simafort (and several other forts) all look awesome
6. Brickwork: Towns all have surprisingly good looking features
7. Brickwork: Tunlan gets its own noteworthy brickwork positive
8. Doodads: Interiors, forts
9. Doodads: Interiors, towns
10. Doodads: Tunlan
11. Spritework: Almost entirely in combat, but even the NPCs roaming the world are really quite good…
12. Spritework: …for two positives
13. External Continuity: The game follows through on 1 quite neatly; the ruins of Myria Station, the consequences of having defeated Myria, the watering out of bloodlines
14. Humor: The game is neat, quirky, and silly
15. Internal Continuity: For how much of a mess it is, the game does a really solid job of keeping track of its own events, and sequences follow internal logic pretty well…
16. Internal Continuity: …for a solid two positives
17. Intro: The Intro might honestly be the best part of the entire story. The ‘daylight horror’ of being forgotten by your own town, the gaslighting by the townsfolk, and the reset to everyday…
18. Intro: …for two positives
19. Moment: Habaruku’s introduction, Tiga and Claris’ death, and the crowd just… watching
20. Moment: Rand’s big scene, and the loss of his mother
21. MSQ: The entire Arena arc is honestly just as messed up as it needs to be and is a good early insight into what the world is like
22. MSQ: Highfort and Sten’s section has some… obvious issues, but the more down to earth storytelling, the implications, and the character moments help sell it
23. MSQ: Joker Gang arc is also really messed up, but still does some great stuff for the characters and the world building
24. Outro: The very final ending with the portraits, slides, and names is nice
25. Plot: Everything to do with how they first brainwash then torture people to produce more prayers for DeathEvan
26. Plot: The entire arc having to do with why Deathevn is sealed, why they let him grow, and how we have to deal with him is logical, interesting, and follows neatly from the events of BoF1
27. Storyboarding: Credit where it’s do, the storyboarding of each scene is pretty good
28. Storytelling Mechanic: Dragon tears and how they showcase people’s reactions to you
29. Visual Storytelling: Intermittent, but there’s bits here and there that do a good job of fleshing out areas

Story Negatives:

1. Localization: This is one of the worst localized games I’ve ever played…
2. Localization: …for a full…
3. Localization: …three negatives
4. Localization: Sten’s section just noticeable is worse than the rest of the game
5. Moment: Sten’s introductory scene is not only out of character for him, it completely screws with the tone of both him and the adventure (especially considering he then joins your party)
6. Writing: There’s a lot of idiot ball combined with cutscene incompetence the party puts up with
7. MSQ: SimaFort. Just… all of SimaFort is aggravating. It’s not silly enough to be funny and it’s not serious enough to be horrifying, it misses the mark in both directions…
8. MSQ: …earning two negatives
9. Outro: The lead up to and encounter with DeathEvn, and the first part of the ending, can go directly to hell
10. Outro: Visuals. The Infinity dungeon is the worst kind of bland, boring, blurry mess…
11. Outro: …for two negatives
12. Outro: Music. The music direction for the entirety of Infinity can suck a lemon

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music: The music that is there is pretty legit
2. Viscerality: Spells, attacks, and animations look and feel awesome
3. Penalty For Failure: Same as BoF1
4. QoL: Purchasing and equipping
5. MSQ: Having to rescue the villagers from the facehuggers
6. Info In Game: Item mouseovers
7. Kit: The Fusion system is a great way to vary up and customize your characters
8. Minigame: Hunting is a fun little side game with different playstyles based on who you hunt with
9. Minigame: Fishing is a neat, fun little minigame
10. Alternate Progression: Fishing, hunting, and cooking
11. Enemy Variety: Surprisingly good variety for all the other problems they have
12. Fast Travel: The Warp spell makes its return
13. Overworld: Generally decent, old style ‘here’s where to go next’ Overworld design (at least for the first half)

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Music: Repetition repetition
2. Music: Music restarts every time it plays
3. Difficulty Curve: The game’s difficulty curve is the second worst I’ve ever seen in a JRPG. The phrase ‘every encounter is a boss fight’ isn’t really an exaggeration, and is absolutely all over the place based on party makeup and which dungeon or boss you’re on…
4. Difficulty Curve: …for a full…
5. Difficulty Curve: …three negatives
6. Intro: I mean. The intro, structurally, is solid; Town, dungeon, boss. But that whole sequence can take up to an hour just because of how badly designed the individual details are
7. Encounter Rate: I’ve actually never seen an encounter rate this bad. There’s three rough encounter rates, and at worst it’s roughly one every 3 steps on average which is absolutely bonkers…
8. Encounter Rate: …for a full…
9. Encounter Rate: …three negatives
10. Encounter Rate: The overworld encounter rate and mandatory backtracking thereof
11. Seconds In Minutes: Loading in and out of combat
12. Enemy Design: Enemies are badly designed. Bad health, bad damage, bad gold, bad exp
13. Trash: And all of this makes a game with some truly atrocious trash design. And it is absolutely trash. Endless waves of enemies that will beat the snot out of you, making for a textbook example of Factory Worker Syndrome…
14. Trash: …earning a full…
15. Trash: …triple negative
16. Backtracking: Every God damned time you have to go back through Mt. Fuji, which just gets worse the higher level you are
17. Backtracking: Hope you like doing almost every dungeon twice
18. Song: The dungeon song. You know the one…
19. Song: …and in addition to being an awful, short loop song, it plays constantly across the entire friggin’ game
20. MSQ: So first you have to walk all the way back across the entire overworld (keep in mind the encounter rate)
21. MSQ: Then you have to do it again
22. MSQ: Then again
23. MSQ: Then a fourth time
24. Kit: The character abilities almost universally suck, with the sole exceptions of Bleu and Nina
25. Walkthroughitis: General negative for Act 1 and a general lack of direction (talk to this ONE NPC to advance)
26. Walkthroughitis: Shamans. Great, fantastic feature completely locked behind a whole lot of who knows what does what and how…
27. Walkthroughitis: …in addition to good luck even finding some of the later shamans
28. Walkthroughitis: Township. You get to change your style (which changes gameplay), change who you recruit where, but… nothing indicates what is where on any level. Where to find people to recruit, what they can do, who goes to which houses (because people can only be in specific houses), and the fact that it’s permanent…
29. Walkthroughitis: …for a full…
30. Walkthroughitis: …three negatives
31. Walkthroughitis: Cooking. A great feature completely locked behind multiple walkthroughitis problems
32. Walkthroughitis: SimaFort gets its own negative for being a whole lot of total lack of direction
33. Walkthroughitis: Everything to do with recruiting Spar
34. Walkthroughitis: The lead up to Highfort and the lead up to the Queen dungeon
35. Walkthroughitis: The entire Evrai sequence, before and after
36. Grind: Forest area. Get to grinding
37. Grind: Arena! Hope you’re ready to grind
38. Grind: SimaFort region, and another round of grinding
39. Grind: FarmTown and a weirdly out of place spot of grinding
40. Grind: Infinity is yet another grind hell (mostly the stat type, not traditional leveling)
41. Level: Forest labyrinth. Hope you enjoy long twisty areas with high encounter rate and irritating music
42. Level: Joker Gang hideout (twice!). Hope you enjoy tight irritating corridors with irritating music
43. Level: Witch’s Tower. Lots of the usual issues but also those friggin’ ‘puzzles’ which are just time wasting trial and error crap
44. Level: SimaFort dungeon. An irritating, backtracky, confusing mess filled with frustrating enemies and bosses
45. Level: Inside the whale and yet another irritating, gross mess of aggravation
46. Level: Highfort is another example of frustrating lengthy irritations
47. Level: Mt. Maori is already irritating (and requires Sten!) but if you screw it up, have fun doing it all over again
48. Level: The memory maze is honestly one of the most irritating dungeons in the entire game with the neat-but-frustrating vision mechanic
49. Level: SkyTower… twice! Hope you memorized the trip and enjoy a timer before instant death
50. Boss: Augus. Hits like a truck right out the bat and there’s really no proper kit or strategy
51. Boss: Joker, who has the same general problem as before
52. Boss: Terrapin is yet another out of nowhere, status effect problem
53. Boss: Kuwadora the beef gate
54. Boss: Kuwadora the asshole
55. Boss: Algernon is the worst boss in the game, and it comes out of nowhere and is very easy to walk into without realizing what you’re in for…
56. Boss: …with adds that do damage and heal and recover every single turn…
57. Boss: …on top of the boss itself being the usual bad boss problem
58. Boss: Shupkay is just an irritating fight
59. Boss: Aruhamel and his ‘fun’ aspect of actually removing your spells as you fight him
60. Boss: Paladin can heal and hits like an absolute truck and, worse, you have to fight him with just Rand
61. Difficulty Curve: Sten Section. Hope you enjoy being beaten in the face by enemies not designed for one glass cannon who’s probably under-leveled
62. Walkthroughitis: Sten Section. Nothing indicates it’s coming and that by itself makes the whole thing so much worse
63. Itemization: Sten Section. They could have done so much to smooth this over in items or kit and they… didn’t
64. MSQ: Sten Section. The Sten Section. So named after this exact portion of the game. For all the individual problems I’ve already mentioned, it deserves additional negatives…
65. MSQ: …for being such total bullcrap
66. Outro: Encounter rate. Yes, the encounter rate of Infinity deserves…
67. Outro: …two negatives by itself
68. Outro: Length. The Infinity dungeon is aptly named, and it just goes on and on and on…
69. Outro: …and on and on and on
70. Outro: Waste of time thanks to uselessness of trash, especially by this point in the game where the only meaningful stat gains are via item ups…
71. Outro: …which is even worse when you consider the encounter rate and the length of the dungeon
72. Outro: Mandatory side quest with nothing indicating it’s even there
73. Outro: Barubary being an absolute face mulcher in both forms. It really should be a fun fight, but instead it’s just aggravating, especially since the recovery and save spot is right AFTER him…
74. Outro: …plus good frickin’ luck if you fight him with just Ryu, thinking that’s the ‘right’ choice
75. Outro: DeathEvn is a big, fat, boring nothingburger…
76. Outro: …who has dull music and cheap instant death attacks
77. Unskippable Cutscenes: The usual for the era

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: Surface. Ruins, utilitarianism covered by Chozo art, the landscape, the cave structures
2. Architecture: Yes, as per usual, most Metroidvanias have a pretty solid feel and vibe to the game making it feel larger than it is. This does a good job of making you feel like you’re really exploring the ruins and hives of SR388
3. Brickwork: Chozo ruins (Area 1 & 2) both do a great job of showing not just ruins… but devastation. This is clearly a place that suffered a battle and, as it happens, it did
4. Brickwork: Area 3, the dig site. While a bit brown, there’s a lot going on in the background here; no more ruins, this is a functional if abandoned facility
5. Brickwork: Area 4, the crystal caverns. More lava, caustic poison, and beautiful crystals contrasting the more constructed areas above
6. Brickwork: Area 5 is absolutely gorgeous. The Brinstar-like foliage and fauna and the running waters
7. Brickwork: Area 7. The frozen laboratory works wonders for me
8. Visual Storytelling: Too many instances to properly jot down, but there’s quite a bit in this one. Most notably in the seals and how the areas connect…
9. Visual Storytelling: …earning two positives
10. Spritework: Almost entirely for Samus herself, but also the Metroids deserve special mention
11. Intro: The opening cutscene, the land on the planet, and the descent all get things across neatly and efficiently
12. Animations: Especially on Samus herself. There’s some really solid animation that really helps sell Samus (without dialogue, even!)…
13. Animations: …and this is on top of the cool stuff they do with enemies
14. MSQ: Metroid unlock progression and the implications thereof
15. Moments: Many little but fun moments of additional humanization. The Diggernaut spitting out the space jump, Samus being wary of the new enemies as they spawn, mostly animations but still good stuff
16. Music Direction: Some really great music direction here, each zone has its own vibe and tone and a lot of that is portrayed in the music…
17. Music Direction: …easily earning a second positive
18. Atmosphere: Wonderful atmosphere. Just the right amounts of creepy and horrifying without lingering too long, and of course I love that moment when the Metroids required to unlock simply ticks over to ‘one’…
19. Atmosphere: …earning two positives
20. Visual Storytelling: Everything about Area 7. The hatcheries, the screens, the data, the maps, love it
21. Moment: The hatchlings. Being honest, this same moment is good in the original, and it’s great here
22. Background Lore: The Chozo drawings. These are already neat, but they tell a hell of a story, and lay out most of the backstory of the entire series to date, neatly setting up Fusion and Dread both…
23. Background Lore: …earning two positives
24. Doodads: Not a lot, but some areas really shine
25. External Continuity: This game does a weirdly good job of connecting to… basically everything. 1, Prime 3, Super, Fusion, and Dread. As mentioned before, 2 is the fulcrum of the franchise, and they really put work into that this time around…
26. External Continuity: …earning itself…
27. External Continuity: …three positives
28. World Building: The development of the Chozo and their tech, the backstory leading to the creation of the Metroids, and of course the loss of the Thoha

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Map: This is a weird one. On the one hand, the map is very well laid out; Lots of icons to track things, a full legend, and the ability to make your own markings on it to help keep track of things…
2. Map: …so that’s two easy positives
3. Minimap: Good, as is standard for the series by this point. The only downside is its limited to the lower screen
4. Info In Game: Some pretty good info, helping you to know how items and weapons work
5. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Actually surprisingly good, with one before and after each Metroid fight, as well as upon zoning
6. Intro: Really solid Intro. Basic tutorialization, level design that’s indicative, guidance towards the first Metroid, and getting you into the flow of how the entire game will go
7. Tutorialization: Some excellent Metroid tutorialization across the whole game, anytime a new enemy type, concept, or tool enters your kit…
8. Tutorialization: …earning double positives
9. Kit: Scan pulse. This effectively replaces the need for map rooms, and pulls double duty as also replacing the X-Ray. This is great for a game like this
10. Kit: Lightning shield. A shield that reduces damage isn’t special, a shield that negates damage is more interesting, a shield that you can just leave on and negates damage only on command? That’s awesome
11. Kit: Rapid Fire. This one seems simple, but it’s the most visceral and fun of the new Aeion tools, and it’s useful against virtually every enemy in the game (even Metroids). It drains power like crazy, but it also pays that debt off in damage, fast
12. Kit: Usual Metroid fun tools
13. Music: Some absolute bangers in this soundtrack. I’m particularly fond of the Norfair mix for all the heated zones, but the whole thing works…
14. Music: …for two positives
15. Controls: This is a weird one. So the controls are flat out excellent, with clear thought going into what types of abilities should be mapped to what types of buttons, and the whole thing plays very smoothly…
16. Controls: …for an easy double positive
17. Enemy Design: Alphas. The basics are already surprisingly decent, but the variances help even more
18. Enemy Design: Gammas. These are a bit common but what I really like about them is how they vary them up between the air and ground modes
19. Enemy Design: Zetas are just awesome. Big doomy walkers with long range attacks that are much more complex to dodge, but also having more defined weakpoints and counters
20. Sound Design: As is the standard for this type of game, the sound design is excellent. Indicators for enemy attacks, charges, types of terrain, just… everything really…
21. Sound Design: …earning a double positive
22. Visual Distinction: I’m honestly really impressed with this one. I never would have predicted this from a 3DS game but here we are. A lot of effort is put, not just in general to make things nice and distinct, but to make sure that in areas with different visual effects (like lava or toxic zones) the types of enemies and terrain used accommodate the visibility…
23. Visual Distinction: …earning a big…
24. Visual Distinction: …triple positive
25. Visual Continuity: Each zone is exceptionally distinct, and even the sub zones in each zone are distinct, helping navigation…
26. Visual Continuity: …for two positives
27. Traversal: Waypoints and general movement tech
28. Level: Area 1. Quite open ended, forming a bit of a micro metroidvania zone within itself, with multiple routes and options and a lot of ‘come back later’s
29. Guidance: Types of terrain, positioning, blocks, and of course positioning of warp points and other nodes on the map all make the game very well guided…
30. Guidance: …for a full…
31. Guidance: …three positives
32. Level: Area 2. Completely different from the previous two versions’ Area 2, and much improved regardless. Just the right length, just the right tempo, and some fun puzzles and platforming…
33. Level: …for a double positive
34. QoL: Quite a few. Little things, like heat indicators for red rooms in game and on map, or changing icons to indicate progression, or auto aiming but only under the right circumstances
35. Level: Area 3, for all the issues I mention later, still has some solid platforming and encounters
36. Encounter: Diggernaut, part 1. This would seriously suck… if not for the well placed checkpoints (plural!) throughout
37. Level: Area 4 was an area I thought I’d dislike at first, but it grew on me pretty quickly. Teleporting between nodes within the zone helped with navigation, and there were a lot fewer of the irritation blockers like Area 3 had, plus I actually felt like I was legitimately exploring again
38. Level: Area 5. Finally some good flow and navigation loops (especially with an internal ‘overworld’), and a solid progression throughout…
39. Level: …earning a double positive
40. Enemy Design: Omega Metroids. We only fight four of them, but that’s a good thing as they don’t wear out their welcome. I love these fights; you can dodge every attack they do, each attack has a distinct way to avoid it, each attack varies from the others, and there’s a couple of varieties of Omegas to boot…
41. Enemy Design: …all leading to two positives
42. Boss: Diggernaut. One issue aside, this is a fantastic boss fight. Big, chonky attacks that feel good to avoid, lots of variety in its attacks, plenty of ways to damage it across its phases, and each phase being quite distinct from the others…
43. Boss: …earning a full…
44. Boss: …three positives
45. Animation: In a game this focused on combat, it better have good animations. And it does, of course. It’s a bit exaggerated at times to compensate for the smaller 3DS screen, but you can always tell the type of attack that’s coming, from regular enemies to minibosses to bosses…
46. Animation: …earning double positives
47. Boss: Metroid Queen. Issues aside, this is a fun fight. A big, doomy dinosaur smashing away at the area while using attacks clearly developed off the Omegas
48. Outro: Ridley. I have an issue with this fight, to be sure, but aside from that this might be one of the best fights in the entire franchise. Ridley is brutal, fast, and yet well telegraphed and fully dodgeable. Each phase gives you more energy to play around with, and each phase plays completely differently. Love this fight…
49. Outro: …earning it…
50. Outro: …triple positives
51. All Roads Lead To Rome: General, and within a zone, but it’s there
52. Core Combat: While a bit too frequent to be more than one plus, the core combat is still fun
53. HUD: Mostly relegated to the lower screen, but well designed for what it is, and it smartly uses color and placement to generally be really well designed and good for at-a-glance…
54. HUD: …for double positives
55. Itemization: The Super drop rate is back, dynamically dropping what you need and in good quantities…
56. Itemization: …earning itself…
57. Itemization: …triple positives
58. Itemization: Item placement and pickup placement, as per usual
59. Replayability: Definitely replayable
60. Save: Good save placement (helped by the teleports)
61. Terrain: Great terrain usage. It informs combat, puzzles, and exploration, exactly like it should…
62. Terrain: …earning a full…
63. Terrain: …triple positive
64. Viscerality: Love how this game feels. Attacks and enemies sound, look, and feel awesome…
65. Viscerality: …earning a double positive
66. Yoshi Drums: Mostly during fights

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Controls: So this is a twofer. First, the touch pad for quick rolling, which is a damned shame because it’s something I’d like to do often… aaand then swapping weapons, ALSO on the touch pad. Thanks, 3DS
2. Enemy Variety: Seriously tired of fighting the same enemies with slightly more HP and damage over and over and over
3. Raspberry Jam: Low health beedleeps
4. Difficulty: Overtuning. The enemies hit far too hard, they drop far too little in return, and the enemy spam is constant…
5. Difficulty: …earning a double negative
6. Flow: Health and missile nodes just… aren’t nearly as well placed or as common as they should be
7. Difficulty: Contact damage. I know this is just kind of a thing in these games, but contact damage can be done well (like in Megaman 6) or done badly (like in HERE). It’s absolutely insane that most of the enemies do more damage by bumping into you accidentally than by spewing lava breath in your face. All of this leads to my final point…
8. Early Game Hell: …the game just has issues early on. At a certain point all of these things become solved problems, but it slogs until then
9. Level: Area 3 is just too long, and that’s a major problem, but there’s another issue that just hangs over Area 3; a lack of flow. The entire zone doesn’t have a smooth loop into itself like most good Metroid zones do, instead it just sort of spaghetti’s into this mess where you have to constantly pause and think ‘okay, how best to get to the next area?’ and the whole area feels off…
10. Level: …earning two negatives
11. Flow: General issues with flow in the entire part of the game up to Area 5
12. Pacing: The game has a pretty bad pacing issue. The usual pacing of a game like this is generally exploration, combat, traversal, and a boss interspersed here and there. Instead here it’s mostly combat combat combat exploration combat traversal combat traversal combat boss. And the tempo is just off, and all of this is hampered…
13. Enemy Design: …by the enemies being too god damned aggressive. They will NOT leave you alone, and have no problems attacking you from off screen, which also leads to…
14. Gotcha: …straight up gotcha trapping
15. Map: To continue from the Map positives… on the other hand, the map is just NOT helpful at its most basic function; navigating. It’s actually more a fault of the level design than the map itself, but it’s entirely too easy to go the wrong way without realizing it because there’s a one-way path or something similar in that one blob of an area with nothing to indicate it on said map
16. Boss: Diggernaut has entirely too long of gaps in between vuln points and the whole fight is looong, and he hits VERY hard
17. Boss: Metroid Queen. She just has too much health, too narrow of an attack vector, and honestly boils down to a QTE with some janky controls as the camera swaps
18. Outro: The final lap, and Ridley issues. The final victory lap just takes too long for what it is, and the Ridley fight (thought awesome) is VERY long and very punishing, with no checkpoints

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: Intro Area and the basic but good cave structures
2. Architecture: As is the norm for the series, Dread kills it on the Architecture. Arteria, Dairon, Burenia, the whole place looks wonderfully immersive and massive as we crawl our way back up to the surface…
3. Architecture: …for a solid double
4. Brickwork: Remainder of Arteria, especially the frozen areas
5. Brickwork: Magma and lava sections in general
6. Brickwork: The EMMI zones, grain aside, are brilliantly clinical and clean looking
7. Brickwork: Dairon laboratories are probably my favorite area in the game, but special mention must be made of their incredible attention to detail and how brilliantly it adds to the vibe and theme…
8. Brickwork: …for a full…
9. Brickwork: …triple positive
10. Brickwork: Burenia in general…
11. Brickwork: …but especially the underwater segments with absolutely glorious, moving fauna and flora in the water
12. Brickwork: The Ghavoran underbrush…
13. Brickwork: …worth two positives
14. Brickwork: Ferenia, the over-run Mawkin ruins
15. Spritework: Samus. She looks absolutely amazing in this one
16. Spritework: Enemy designs in general
17. Spritework: Bosses really, really look legit this time around, large or small…
18. Spritework: …easily earning two positives
19. Doodads: Impossible to summarize. There’s just so much, everywhere…
20. Doodads: …earning a blanket…
21. Doodads: …triple positive
22. Intro: Opening cutscene setup
23. Moment: Raven Beak’s opening showcase, him defeating Samus, her holding her own for quite a while… ‘power is everything’
24. Animation: Samus herself is brilliantly animated, and while there’s a few other good ones too (Quiet Robe, Raven Beak, and basically every boss) Samus herself easily fills out most…
25. Animation: …of this triple…
26. Animation: …positive
27. Moment: EMMI sequences and the tension thereof, to contrast the lower dread of the rest of it
28. Character: Samus herself is brilliantly characterized without having to make her speak, but instead simply by how she moves, acts, and reacts
29. Voice Acting: ADAM. Surprisingly good stuff here, despite the computerized modulation
30. Foreshadowing: Quite a bit, actually. Like lots and lots, even down to little things like seeing enemies and bosses well before you encounter them
31. Babylon 5 Effect: Everything to do with the big reveal
32. Visual Storytelling: Cloaked mob eating the animals
33. Moment: Samus taking down Corpius
34. Cutscene: Quiet Robe’s big cutscene. This is how you do this type of exposition right. This one scene encapsulates most of the story of the entire SERIES to this point, and between the music choice, the actual conlang, the subtle but well done animations on both Samus and Quiet Robe, the way it ends and immediately leads to a new enemy type and boss… it’s a great scene…
35. Cutscene: …easily earning…
36. Cutscene: …three positives
37. Character: Quiet Robe. For how little we see of him they do a lot with him
38. Character: Raven Beak. The absolute sociopath warrior who dragged his way up to the top of the warrior tribe by virtue of being just the single strongest jackass in the frickin’ galaxy… which of course also means he’s a colossal moron (and well written) AND he has a gigantic ego, so all of his actions naturally caused (unintentionally!) all the events of the entire series, and this game in particular
39. Moment: The X Parasite reveal
40. Visual Storytelling: Elun… the crumbling, sealed away ruins of the Mawkin
41. Cutscene: The reveal of Raven Beak was actually pretty well built up, and the pay off is actually pretty good
42. Outro: I absolutely love the ending sequence. Raven Beak’s ego and arrogance, smashing into the face of reality as he completely loses composure, Samus draining the entire ship down into X-Parasite range, Raven Beak’s final end, the absolute obliteration of the X, and of course everything to do with Quiet Robe-X and the implications thereof…
43. Outro: …easily earning…
44. Outro: …triple positives
45. Background Lore: The artwork, as usual, telling the story of Raven Beak, the supremely powerful idiot
46. Atmosphere: As per usual for the series, lots of good stuff here…
47. Atmosphere: …earning double positives
48. External Continuity: Mostly with Fusion, but this also does pretty solidly conclude the Metroid story to-date
49. Internal Continuity: Game does a really good job of keeping track of itself internally
50. World Building: The final end of the Chozo, the Metroids, and (hopefully) the X-Parasites comes with some interesting info on how they operated and came to be, plus some small implications for the Federation and the EMMIs

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Minigame: Boss rush mode
2. Minigame: Boss rush options
3. Minimap: This is easily the best minimap in gaming. Extremely useful and handy, quickly expandable, and vanishes when not needed or ‘mouseover’d…
4. Minimap: …earning a full…
5. Minimap: …three positives
6. Map: The map isn’t THE best I’ve ever seen but damn if it’s close. Color distinction, adjusts on the fly, clearly indicative of zones and areas, shows where you’ve been (literally, not just per room), a filter to showcase a type of item, good legend, good icons, and of course the ability to place your own markers. This sucker is amazing…
7. Map: …easily earning…
8. Map: …three positives
9. Guidance: Map indicators for areas with hidden items
10. QoL: Indicators for types of zones at a glance, and the vacuum drops
11. Itemization: Dynamic drops are back and are awesome as they were in previous games, and dropping decent stuff in general…
12. Itemization: …earning a full…
13. Itemization: …three positives
14. Info In Game: Pretty solid, indicating what items do and how to use them
15. Controls: Nothing I tell you will explain how well this game controls. This goes above and beyond the usual categories of responsiveness, precision, layout, and shortcutting and calling all of that ‘good’, but rather each individual point is excellent. This is right up there with the best of Nintendo’s control schemes, and it’s bonkers how well this game feels to play…
16. Controls: …so first we give triple positives…
17. Controls: …to the effectiveness of control itself. All those little things it does to make it feel smooth
18. Controls: Then we talk about the button layout and shortcutting, allowing you to smoothly and swiftly use what you should when you want to. In fact there’s only one niggle here (dashing), but that’s still good enough…
19. Controls: …for two positives
20. Mid Mission Checkpoints: These could be slightly better, but they’re still exceptional. Every boss, EMMI area, and multiple major interactions all drop a checkpoint…
21. Mid Mission Checkpoints: …and that’s easily worth two positives
22. Intro: The entire Intro is your typical yet great Metroid Intro. Terrain, enemies, positioning, platforming, all designed to get you right into the thick of things quickly and effectively…
23. Intro: …for a good two positives
24. Tutorialization: It’s more subtle than the norm, but there’s a lot done to ensure that the area with a new item is different before and after you get the item, because the moment you do the entire area tells you how to use it naturally and immersively…
25. Tutorialization: …for double positives
26. Sound Design: Lots of solid sound design, as is honestly the Nintendo standard, with plenty of audio indicators and aid, especially in boss fights
27. Encounter Design: In almost every area substantial thought is put into what should be encountered where
28. Level: Artaria, and the initial flow. Not quite the same as Super, but still designed to be a loop in and out of itself as we progress
29. Kit: The ‘usual’ Kit positive; Space jump, gravity suit, charge, dash, you get it, it’s still good kit…
30. Kit: …and it still deserves two positives
31. Kit: Aion abilities. Cloak and scan; Cloak could be more interesting (it just has too limited of use, outside of EMMI encounters) and the Scan is a downgrade from Samus Returns, but it’s still useful and helpful
32. Boss: Corpius is actually a really solid boss fight. Good indicators, moves, animations, counters, and pace
33. Viscerality: A lot of this leans on the sound design, but I’m really quite fond of the viscerality here
34. Yoshi Drums: This is actually one of the better Yoshi Drums in the series, which is good cuz it helps the musical problems overall…
35. Yoshi Drums: …earning double positives
36. Level: The secondary loop through Artaria, Cataris, and Dairon which pushes you into the overall mentality of how weirdly interconnected the maps are
37. Overworld: Or lack thereof… no hear me out. The game does this weird thing where it interconnects the entire map, but in ways that are completely non linear if you’re just staring at a map, but make perfect sense as you’re exploring
38. Flow: Different in style but equal in quality to Super; the game has tremendous Flow. At all times it’s guiding you along a relative path but there’s a ton of things done along that path to keep that guide going, even when you’re surrounded by tons of places to go…
39. Flow: …earning a full…
40. Flow: …triple positive
41. Guidance: Pretty much the franchise standard, but they do an absolutely banger job of it here, easily at the top of its class overall…
42. Guidance: …earning a solid…
43. Guidance: …triple positive
44. Secondary: Shinespark puzzles. They’re not at the level of AM2R’s, which is just the king of these, but there’s still quite a few fun and interesting ones worthy of acknowledgement
45. Boss: Kraid. Big, bombastic, fun, and doomy
46. Level: Burenia first loop, guiding the player through the last of the initial zones and towards the elevator surface-ways
47. Animations: Mostly on bosses, but also in enemies, helping you with the parry and avoidance mechanics
48. Traversal: This is a weird one for a Metroid, but the combination of movement tech and controls and terrain all kind of… take the place of Traversal. It’s legitimately a treat just getting around in this game and it’s awesome…
49. Traversal: …earning a second positive
50. Backtracking: This is probably the best backtracking in the entire series. Different kit, different enemies, the terrain literally changing, this is absolutely amazing and I love it…
51. Backtracking: …earning a solid…
52. Backtracking: …three positives
53. Enemy Design: Dragoon Chozo. These guys are some of my favorite encounters in the game, especially how they keep adding new moves to them as they progress…
54. Enemy Design: …for double positives
55. Level: The initial Ghavoran loop. In to get the double jump, back out to re-enter the EMMI area
56. Level: EMMI segments, general. Multiple loops, tools, and kit to avoid and maneuver. There’s a lot of thought that goes into these areas, though they’re all… kind of the same as each other in system and style, but it’s still solid and it still deserves…
57. Level: …a solid…
58. Level: …three positives
59. Level: Ferenia’s in and out loop; Get in, grab the items, get space jump, loop right back out
60. Boss: Z-57-X is very close to being the best boss in the game. Each attack is dodgeable (per the usual), nice big telegraphs, nice big sweeping movement to the fight, and rewarding precision
61. Outro: I hate the Raven Beak fight, I really do… because of the lack of mid mission checkpoints and how that RUINS what is otherwise an actually frickin’ awesome fight. In all honesty this is probably the best fight in the game, or rather the best THREE fights, which is sort of the problem. But I would be remiss if I did not give credit for the incredible fights themselves. Lots of different attacks with lots of different ways to avoid them and recovery mechanics built in and encouraging you to use your entire kit…
62. Outro: …earning a very solid…
63. Outro: …triple positive
64. Hyperbeam Moment: I mean, come on, of course the Hyperbeam moment is awesome. It controls a little finicky but it’s still a Hyperbeam (and we literally don’t have a health bar)…
65. Hyperbeam Moment: …for two positives
66. Core Combat: Generally good, especially with the improved aiming and terrain usage
67. Enemy Variety: Not too shabby, especially with the various bots
68. HUD: Usual standard of quality here from Samus Returns…
69. HUD: …earning two positives
70. Music: There’s only a few good songs, but it’s just enough
71. Pacing: Generally good pacing… stumbles a bit due to the flow, but still solid
72. Saves: Usual save placement positive
73. Terrain: Yeah of course the terrain design is fantastic. Slopes, ledges, gaps to slide through, awesome stuff…
74. Terrain: …for a full…
75. Terrain: …three positives
76. Visual Navigation: Generally good… not quite to the level of the previous games, but still very good…
77. Visual Navigation: …for two positives
78. Visual Distinction: As usual, excellent for the series. Color usage, placement, movement, little lighting techniques, the amber colors, all kinds of great stuff…
79. Visual Distinction: …for a full…
80. Visual Distinction: …three positives
81. Replayability: Not as good as Super on this front, but still definitely replayable

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Graphics: Film grain eye strain… it’s constant in the EMMI zones and it’s aggravating in general, but especially in a place with such quick movement required…
2. Graphics: …for two negatives
3. Unskippable Cutscenes: Usual issue, small but present (and only for the first playthrough for some reason?)
4. Gotcha: Drops and related issues
5. Boss: Too much damned health
6. Boss: Too much damned damage
7. Difficulty: Lazy difficulty, as per usual
8. Overworld: There isn’t really one, as mentioned earlier, but this sort of… causes issues too. If you’re on the flow, you’re great, if you’re NOT, screw you. No, seriously, there’s tons of layers of crap they do in terrain and lockdown areas to flat out prevent you from roaming too far off the path, and it honestly gets aggravating when you’re just trying to get to a specific point
9. Enemy Design: EMMI parry windows. They’re too narrow? No. They’re too random? Yes
10. Enemy Design: EMMIs in general. These are… honestly not that great. I feel like these are unfinished (and given what I found out in research, they probably are), because each one really boils down to the same thing with one minor difference, and frankly they’re not that interesting to begin with. I feel like with a little polish they’d be a lot of fun, but as is there’s a lot of RNG that can turn a tense encounter into a deflating ‘oh, back to the checkpoint to try again’…
11. Enemy Design: …earning double negatives
12. Difficulty: Damage. I’m sorry, everything in this game does way too much damage. I get that you can dodge everything (and that’s awesome, mind) but don’t overcompensate by making everything hit like a truck. With the gravity suit I shouldn’t be taking 100 damage from a trash hit…
13. Difficulty: …and this is probably the single biggest irritant of the entire game, dragging trash, traversal, and bosses down alike…
14. Difficulty: …earning three negatives
15. Options: Or lack thereof
16. Enemy Design: So hear me out, but this is for the Parry mechanic. Too many enemies have absolute buckets of health without parrying them… which instantly kills them. I get giving enemies a weak point, but relying on the Parry to change an enemy from ‘kills you slowly while enduring constant fire’ to ‘dies instantly’ is absolutely ridiculous…
17. Enemy Design: …and infects regular enemies…
18. Enemy Design: …as well as bosses
19. Boss: Z-57-X. This boss is by itself so close to being awesome, but it just hits too damned hard and it just has too damned much health… worst of all, its parry window is… wrong
20. Outro: The final boss. I’d honestly enjoy this fight if it had checkpoints in between phases, but it doesn’t… so the long, LONG, arduously long transitions to go from phase 1 to phase 2 to phase 3 get increasingly aggravating as you’ve done them to death and then you die to an attack you didn’t recognize in a later phase because, surprise, the whole fight relies on trial and error and memorization. And that can work… in micro bites, but here it’s a multi minute long fight per phase. You need to spend some time facegrinding on a fight like this to learn all the moves and figure out how best to avoid them. And doing that after redoing an entire phase just doesn’t feel good, in addition to being literal padding. On top of that, the fight flat out requires parrying to progress by design (speedrunner tricks aside), and I’ve already made my feelings clear on that. This whole fight sucks…
21. Outro: …and easily deserves…
22. Outro: …three negatives. I’d honestly rather put the game down than ever fight this guy again

Story Positives:

1. Voice Acting: When it’s there, it’s good
2. Brickwork: The Plateau. This area is pretty much perfectly laid out; ponds, grass, a miniature forest, the temple of time, a snowy area, whole thing is a great micro area
3. Brickwork: Hyrule Field. Gorgeous swaths of green, forestry, and rolling hills surrounded by mountains
4. Visual Storytelling: The ruins outlining the overall scope of what was once Castle Town, the sheer scope and size of it, the ruins
5. Brickwork: Kakariko and Hateno, the Hylian villages. Lovely, simple, and sweet
6. Brickwork: Rito Village is a lovely little village, wonderfully themed and suitable for its inhabitants
7. Brickwork: Hyrule Castle. Good lord, the awful and oppressive ruins of Hyrule Castle
8. Brickwork: Jungle wastes of the southeast. You can just feel the hot muck of the area
9. Brickwork: Gerudo and the desert. I’ve seen better, but this is still a nice swath of landscape and I love the…
10. Brickwork: …architecture and stylings of the Gerudo town itself
11. Brickwork: The molten blasted plains of Death Mountain
12. Brickwork: There’s some visual distinction and lack of contrast issues, but I absolutely love how pretty Zora’s domain is. The angles, the metal, the crystal, the liquid
13. Architecture: For what little ‘township’ areas there are, a lot of work is done to make areas feel substantially larger than they are. Good sightlines, lots of density to terrain, what towns there are usually have lots of buildings and doodads clustered together, and plenty of visible terrain in all directions to flesh it out
14. Spritework: General. The shading look works pretty well and gives everyone a fairly distinct style…
15. Spritework: …easily one of the stronger elements of the game…
16. Spritework: …and earning three positives by itself
17. Doodads: Surprisingly solid in the town and indoors areas
18. NPC Set Dressing: Weather and acknowledgement
19. NPC Set Dressing: Roaming people, mostly in cities
20. Atmosphere: The abandoned, empty wilds
21. Moment: Unlocking Vah Medoh is a surprisingly awesome moment for something not built up at all with a character we just met, but damned if it doesn’t work
22. Secondary: The warbler’s nest, and the Rito children
23. Atmosphere: The Koroks sure are cute. No, seriously, they’re adorbs
24. Characters: Supporting cast. For all their issues, there’s some good flavor in the people throughout
25. Atmosphere: Rain and weather in general. For all the irritations on the gameplay side, the weather is very good at setting the scene
26. Animations: Some really solid animations in this one. It’s mostly in the roaming, dynamic stuff, but it’s definitely there
27. Character: Zelda and the pressures and stress of having so much weight put on her shoulders… while constantly facing failure through no fault of her own
28. Character: The Four Champions. There’s only snippets, hence only an aggregate for all of them, but when they’re good they’re good
29. Cutscene: Special mention to the cutscene IN Hyrule Castle, the one between King Rhoam and Zelda, and him being an absolutely terrible father
30. Cutscenes: There are… issues with them, but the Memory cutscenes are overall quite good
31. Secondary: Aggregate, but there’s several nice worldbuildy kind of quests that help flesh out some of the characters throughout
32. Cutscene: Special mention to the final, final, final cutscene where they take the group photo. It’s already a sweet moment, but that last minute hug and everyone’s expression was perfect

Story Negatives:

1. Voice Acting: Inconsistency. Sometimes there’s voice acting, sometimes there isn’t, even with the same character and in the same scene
2. Writing: Amnesia. It’s so unnecessary and they don’t really use it for anything other than clunky exposition
3. Story Sequencing: Good luck figuring out the order those cutscenes are supposed to be in
4. Writing: 10,000 years ago there was a super advanced civilization in which hyper advanced tech was built. This makes even less sense than usual, since all that advanced tech still works just fine. Y’know, now that it’s been the gap of most of human civilization and also was buried for untold eons
5. World Building: The timeline has issues. The century gap isn’t well used, and the ten millennia gap is used even more poorly
6. Internal Continuity: So the Yiga are hyper competent… and also morons. This is more or less a constant irritation every story arc they’re in
7. Tone: Inconsistency. Post apocalypse? Check. People acting like it is? Check. People acting like it isn’t? Uh, also check. In fact honestly all the NPCs fall under this because they act like it’s a Tuesday for the most part
8. World Building: 100 years of absolutely no recovery other than a handful of tiny villages? If I’m going to give this negative to Fallout 3 I’m definitely giving it here; a century is a long time to recover, and yet this place is acting like the calamity hit a year ago
9. Brickwork: Shrines. It’s rare I give a negative to brickwork but what in the world is going on with these samey, empty rooms for each of the trials, with the samey non song playing
10. Empty Text: Weirdly enough for a game with so little dialogue, a huge swath of it is just bland nothing
11. Cutscenes: There are… issues with the cutscenes. It’s a whole lot of little things; telling instead of showing, odd tempo to dialogue, events taking too long OR too short (sometimes in the same scene), and it deflates what should be powerful and interesting moments
12. Dialogue: Very… very off, stilted, awkward dialogue throughout
13. Character: Calamity Ganon. This type of environmental villain can work, and it absolutely does not here. I have a hard time putting my finger on why, but I think it’s because the game’s narrative is simply too disconnected to make it land
14. Outro: It’s very much a NES ending, but in a bad way. Not a fan

Gameplay Positives:

1. QoL: Looting. You get a popup once, for unknown stuff, then it’s quick and easy and while moving
2. Immersion: It’s not much, but you CAN just roam around, go fishing, explore, find Koroks, et cetera
3. Guidance: Opening. The opening shot is just brilliant in getting you to look at what you need to in order to immediately understand what you can do and what’s expected of you
4. Map: This is, no joke, one of the best maps in gaming. You can put down custom markers and pins and it’s highly detailed and well marked and contains info on where you’ve been and the teleport spots and it’s just so awesome…
5. Map: …that it deserves…
6. Map: …a full triple positive
7. HUD: Pins and stamps deserve special mention for the map. Stamps can be wherever and are mostly for your sake, but pins show up regardless of distance and can be swapped between stamps and pins quickly and easily
8. Minimap: For basically all the reasons the map is great, the minimap is great…
9. Minimap: …earning an easy double positive
10. HUD: Temp, time, health, sound
11. Kit: Magnesis. The ability to pull, grab, rotate, and of course use in puzzles and combat is fantastic kit…
12. Kit: …for double positives
13. Kit: Weapons in general. There’s not TOO much variety here, but enough that spears, two handers, and one handers all play and feel distinct from each other…
14. Kit: …for two positives
15. Kit: The support stuff; shields and bows. Bows are a bit iffy but very useful (and that slow down in the air mechanic is nice), and shields are good for reflecting and navigating…
16. Kit: …earning a double positive
17. Kit: Stasis. Absolutely love this ability; freeze an item and fling, or freeze an enemy and pound, but either way opens up tons of options…
18. Kit: …for two positives
19. Kit: Revali’s Gale. This is a seemingly simple ability is fantastic, adding mobility in combat, height in climbing, and aerial for attacking and avoiding (or slowmode arrowing)…
20. Kit: …easily earning double positives
21. Level: Plateau dungeons. They’re all tutorialization, but they’re very well done tutorialization
22. Visual Distinction: Usage of color alone, and near-infinite visibility of certain colors (mostly light blue and amber)
23. Optional Mode: The Hero’s Path feature is kind of crazy
24. Fast Travel: Checks all the right boxes; prolific, find to unlock, optional, easy to use…
25. Fast Travel: …for three…
26. Fast Travel: …positives
27. Visual Navigation: Landmark design. At virtually every spot in the world you can look up and/or around and tell where you are just based on landmarks, terrain, weather, and general biomes…
28. Visual Navigation: …earning a full…
29. Visual Navigation: …triple positive
30. Guidance: The scanning mechanic by itself is great. It can help you find items you log, of course, and shrines, which is invaluable
31. All Roads Lead To Rome: Plateau. The entirety of the Plateau allows you to do it in basically whatever order, with tons of tools and kit to allow this
32. Tutorialization: Plateau. I can’t even put into words how much is done to convey how to play this game on the Plateau. It, by itself…
33. Tutorialization: …deserves the full…
34. Tutorialization: …three positives
35. Info In Game: Tooltips, which help with what types of stuff you can cook
36. Itemization: Cooking ingredients, of which there are a great number and a good amount of thought put into what goes where
37. Core Mechanic: Cooking is just… weirdly interesting for how simple it is. I think the sheer number of combinations helps. Plus once you figure out how the system works it becomes far more engaging…
38. Core Mechanic: …earning itself two positives
39. Interface: Things that are unknown get a ??? before being discovered, at which point they show the item name as a hover over said item
40. Traversal: Climbing anywhere. No, seriously, it’s bonkers how much of a game changer this is in how you navigate the world. Stuck behind a house? Climb climb climb. Want to go up that sheer cliff instead of around? Climb climb climb. Trying to dodge lava? Climb climb climb. Love it…
41. Traversal: …for a full…
42. Traversal: …triple positive
43. Kit: The glider. Another seemingly simple bit of kit that really shines in how much it adds to the game. In addition to adding vertical movement, it effectively removes falling damage from the equation (meaning going DOWN is now just as feasible as up), and allows you to (quickly) traverse horizontal areas as well…
44. Kit: …for a solid double positive
45. Flow: Unlocking shrines without having to do them
46. Save: Generally good save system
47. Save: Autosaves are pretty well designed too
48. Prime Opt: Unlocking Vah Medoh (aerial bombing against a gunship)
49. Power Progression Curve: Stamina. No, I’m serious, the stamina is the real ‘levels’ of this game, and the more you have the more you can do granularly. More climbing, swimming, climbing, and special moves in combat. Stamina is weirdly well designed and is a great metric of progression…
50. Power Progression Curve: …earning a solid double positive
51. Level: Shrines, Kakariko region
52. Level: Hyrule fields has some of the better shrines in the region…
53. Level: …for double positive
54. Level: Similarly the Hebra region shrines are awesome (when they’re not combat shrines)…
55. Level: …for two positives
56. Level: The southeastern shrines, near Hateno
57. Level: Zora shrines
58. Level: The frozen Gerudo Highlands shrines
59. Level: The Goron shrines
60. Level: Weirdly enough, the Yiga infiltration is actually pretty legit. It’s small and only has a few methods to progress, but there’s some honestly clever level design on display; strategic bananas, the treasure chests in the sand leading you to discovering the door, little things like that
61. Boss: Call me a weirdo but I actually liked the Kohga fight. It’s very simple, but it’s fun enough and does a lot right, not the least of which being basically bypassing the equipment (and thus durability) issues and just focusing on outmaneuvering the boss themselves. As pointed out on stream, it felt like… a Zelda boss
62. Level: Shrines in the jungle area. Very simple but very solid and generally enjoyable, good ‘tutorial’ shrines
63. Guidance: Almost every PoI in the entire Zora region has a special NPC who points you towards Prince Sidon. It’s not mandatory, but it’s a nice touch
64. Level: For each of the irritating shrines to unlock, there are ones that are fun and interesting to do so
65. Music: While the good songs don’t play often enough and they are few and far between, they’re still good
66. Enemy Design: Lynels. I’m sorry, I love these fights.
67. Enemy Variety: I’ve seen better, even in this franchise, but there’s still pretty solid variety in types of enemies. Ranged, scouts, fliers, heavies
68. Core Combat: Let’s get this out there; this is the best core combat system of the entire franchise. There’s issues surrounding it, but the moment to moment combat shines brilliantly, and is incredibly fun to do…
69. Core Combat: …earning a solid…
70. Core Combat: …triple positive
71. Prime Opt: Eventide Isle. This is still one of the best designed set pieces in the game; Every item, piece of equipment, and enemy all very precisely and carefully placed, and tons of work done to make the terrain compliment everything therewith. This place continues to be well designed and fun…
72. Prime Opt: …earning a full…
73. Prime Opt: …three positives
74. Traversal: Horse riding. It’s simple, but it’s chill
75. Core Mechanic: Dynamic systems and jank. This is a weird one but the game is very physicsy, and there’s just… so much that can happen as a result of that which leads to a ton of fun, dynamic things that you can’t really predict, and is considered by some to be the best element of the game…
76. Core Mechanic: …earning it…
77. Core Mechanic: …three positives
78. All Roads Lead To Rome: This is an unprecedented game in terms of how much you can do in any order. It’s difficult to properly quantify, but ‘tis my job and I shall do my best. After discussion and discourse with several others, I think we will parcel out the positives thusly. First, most obviously, you can just go straight to Ganon right off the bat. By itself this is good stuff
79. All Roads Lead To Rome: Then we add in the dynamic nature of the entire overworld; How you do what region changes how you progress, in terms of weapons and Champion abilities both
80. All Roads Lead To Rome: Then we have the inter regional options, of which there are functionally infinite… BUT the way in which it actually matters is somewhat limited. It’s more like choosing which order you want to put the puzzle together, or not at all. As such each of the regions will receive an aggregate…
81. All Roads Lead To Rome: …triple…
82. All Roads Lead To Rome: …positive
83. Level: The Divine Beasts. These are… weird to talk about. They’re nothing really special, the map gets in the way, and they’re functionally more micro dungeons… but they’re solid enough and fun enough to warrant mention
84. Boss: The Blights. These waver up and down in quality but in general there’s enough terrain, attacks, and spectacle to work here
85. Prime Opt: The initial OHKO mode for the Ballad DLC
86. Prime Opt: The unlock mini events are a bit samey, but still fun, to unlock the Ballad DLC Shrines
87. Level: Zora DLC Shrines. Clever, multiple routed, and interesting
88. Level: Gerudo DLC Shrines. These ones are even better; some really good multiple options and generally fun, engaging puzzles…
89. Level: …for double positives
90. Level: The Rito DLC shrines. These are fantastic examples of Introduce, Escalate, Conclude in terms of level themes and they were fun and interesting and didn’t even require bomb jumping…
91. Level: …for a solid two positives
92. Level: The final DLC stage is simple but sweet, and fun by itself (and actually has different music!)
93. Boss: The final DLC boss is probably the single best boss fight in the game. Multi phase, proper escalation, good vuln periods, and multiple methods to deal with…
94. Boss: …for double positives
95. Song: Hyrule Castle. The triumph and tragedy
96. Outro: Hyrule Castle. This is a fantastic final dungeon; Good terrain design to encourage you to maneuver carefully and give you options to avoid the guardian enemies. Good itemization, with lots of gear spread throughout and it’s really good gear. Good itemization again, with buff food available. And all of that with a great song, great visuals, and an intense climb up a huge dungeon…
97. Outro: …earns itself…
98. Outro: …triple positives
99. Outro: Ganon, phase 1. I love this fight. Uses abilities from the previous Blights, good attacks and variety thereto, and you can optionally skip anywhere from an eighth to half of his health bar depending…
100. Outro: …earning double positives
101. Outro: Ganon, phase 2. It’s a victory lap, but it’s good spectacle
102. Enemy AI: Quite smart for what it is. They will care about terrain, dropped weapons, things they can use against you, etc.
103. Replayability: Routing, options, and general

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Saves: One save slot. Hope you don’t mind losing that 100% save (or have to create a new account) to replay the game!
2. Controls: A few of the control decisions are just weird. Inconsistent tunneling, jump defaulting to X of all things (this one thing is an option at least), weird usage of the L3 and R3, and of course no rebinding to fix anything
3. Music: No Music. This might be the most No Music game I have ever played, surpassing even Kingdom Hearts. This is insanity
4. Music: Also some of the music is just… kind of awful
5. Song: The shrine song. I don’t like it to begin with (far too piercing, and worse it gets old VERY fast because there’s not enough ‘song’ there) but what really drags this into negative territory is just how often it plays. There are 100 shrines in this game, most of which involve doing lengthy puzzles, meaning literal hours of listening to this GOD DAMNED SONG…
6. Song: …pushing it into double negative territory
7. Core Mechanic: Cooldowns (Champion abilities, the Master Sword recharge) don’t start recharging until they’re drained
8. Secondary: Korok seeds. I’ve been chewing on how many negatives to give this, cuz 900 korok seeds is stupid, and worse a lot of these are really dull to get AND good luck on finding them all
9. Secondary: However what really pushes Korok seeds into negative territory is they had to add a DLC to even get guidance on them at all, and you need literally triple digit range to get a decent amount of the totally optional inventory upgrades…
10. Secondary: …and for this, combined with how unfun they are in general, double negative
11. Graphics: Bloom. Rather, overbloom, which literally makes it unpleasant to see in certain areas (especially in snowy areas). This was originally a single negative, until we hit the desert area and oh my God, it’s hard to put into words how bad it is. It’s the most physically painful I’ve seen in a game to date…
12. Graphics: …earning, by itself…
13. Graphics: …three negatives
14. Visual Distinction: Then there’s the fog in addition to the bloom. This just gets in the way, making it hard to see in areas where you really, y’know, want to see
15. Seconds In Minutes: Cooking. For how much of it you do, it’s a pain that you have to enter menu, hold, grab items, cook, every single bleeding time you make something
16. Info In Game: No recipes! Not even keeping track of stuff you’ve already learned
17. Info In Game: Also good luck figuring out how cooking actually works without a walkthrough. I freely admit I didn’t realize the full method of how cooking worked until this playthrough, and it took some digging to find a guide good enough to properly explain the mechanics
18. Traversal: Walk walk walk…
19. Traversal: …walk walk walk walk…
20. Traversal: …walk walk walk walk walk…
21. Padding: Climb climb climb
22. Hub: Kakriko and quests. These are really dumb X of Y quests and the area layout sucks
23. Secondary: Sidequests in general are also really dumb X of Y quests. There are also quite a few of them…
24. Secondary: …and they never get better
25. Traversal: Rain. What in God’s name were they thinking with this? Rain actually screws over so many aspects of basic traversal, up to and including just having to straight up stop to wait the storm out. This can take a very long time. Also good luck getting a fire going to skip time cuz, hey, it’s RAINING
26. Seconds In Minutes: Upgrading. Yes you have to do eeevery siiiingle uuupgrade iiiindiviiidualllyyy ooone aaat aaaa tiiiime
27. Seconds In Minutes: Armor swapping. This is especially bad in areas where you have to deal with a lot at the same time, like the desert where you have to swap between cold, warm, walking in sand, and combat equipment
28. Visual Distinction: Bloom and fog, in Trials. This is just irritating
29. Visual Continuity: Total visual disconnect of the shrines
30. Power Progression Curve: Choosing between stamina and hearts. This has no reason to exist and penalizes you no matter what you pick, especially egregious in a game where…
31. Difficulty: …everything hits like a truck. Now there are ways around this, but that just adds a bit of preparation tax to every encounter, whether you care about it or not
32. Early Game Hell: So, this game does open up demonstrably at a certain point. But until the point at which you have the items and the cooking and the gear and the weapons and the abilities to really handle things so… sucks to be you
33. Secondary: The stealth trial of the Koroks. This by itself is so time wasting, and so irritating, and includes two Gotchas!, and you start over if you screw up at all
34. Itemization: Rupees. Why in the hell is it so hard to get money in a game which need so much?
35. Itemization: Arrows are entirely too rare for how useful they are
36. Itemization: But even worse, and this is absolutely awful… so each town has a vendor that sells arrows, cool. They sell a few, that’s nice, but they only refill their stock when a blood moon hits. That’s already awful and stupid, but then it gets worse; if WHEN the blood moon hits you have more than 50 arrows, they do not restock. Please think about how stupid that is for a second. I am shocked at this…
37. Itemization: …and am giving it a double negative for the insanity
38. Options: Near total lack of options. There is no excuse for a game that came out in the modern era to be lacking options that have been around since the SNES
39. Options: …for two negatives
40. Gotcha: Yiga NPCs and discouragement from talking to characters, because screw you
41. Itemization: Distribution of stats on weapons, armor, and buffs. Like… some weapons are just so much worse or better than others, and it’s true on the armor side as well. But that’s okay! One cooked radish fully heals you plus extra health. What?!
42. Padding: Upgrading or buying the house. Seriously, why did this take me 20 real time minutes?
43. Unskippable Cutscenes: Text rendering and … just… periodically? It’s absolutely bizarre, a lot of stuff you can skip, and the rest you super cannot
44. Padding: “Wait” shrine unlocks. I don’t understand this design choice at all, there’s no emergent gameplay here, there’s just… waiting
45. MTX: Amiibos. In general
46. MTX: Lootbox amiibos. So you caved and purchased an amiibo, cool, but now it only has a random chance once per DAY to give you what you want, because screw you
47. Core Mechanic: The Durability Problem requires some explanation. Durability in and of itself is not really the issue, as many games have it and it’s either a wash or (in some rare cases) even a positive. But here, there are so many connecting systems that are dominoed by this. For those aware of our Starfield Run, this is similar to The Stamina Problem and how so many connected systems were all part of what was functionally the same negative. So let’s start with this; the game has durability. That sucks, but what already drags it down is how LOW the durability is. Weapons should last more than a single combat encounter (or less!) before breaking. This point by itself…
48. Core Mechanic: …deserves…
49. Core Mechanic: …three negatives. This is compounded…
50. Itemization: …by the fact that items have RANDOM durability and, more to the point, don’t tell you how much they have. All you get is a warning telling you they’re low, far too late for the information to be of use. Having the information available up front would help with deciding what weapons to use where. But even this could have been mitigated by…
51. Core Mechanic: …a repair mechanic, which this game lacks in its entirety. This means that the moment a weapon loses its last durability point it shatters, instantly. This is already awful of course, but what’s even worse is it does bonus damage which you (once again) cannot plan around due to lacking that critical information. Further…
52. Controls: …it is far too easy to accidentally…
53. Core Combat: …throw the weapon, shattering it instantly. Now this (again) could be a useful strat, if other mechanisms were in place, which they are not. Well, no matter, you can always get more weapons, right?
54. Itemization: So, the supply of weapons is inconsistent, haphazard and generally awful. Enemy weapons are fairly common but universally suck compared to the good stuff, and the good stuff is one step away from being completely finite. This is made even worse…
55. Itemization: …by the aforementioned lack of repair. You know those good weapons can be wasted cuz they only have so much durability, so you want to spend that durability (functionally ‘ammo’ at this point) on something worthwhile. But hang on, what do you do with the ‘good’ weapons in the meantime while you churn through guardian and bokoblin weapons? Well…
56. Interface: …the answer is nothing. At absolute best you can have three weapons in storage if you dump THOUSANDS of rupees and 20 minutes of your life on buying and upgrading a house to store those. Otherwise, suck it. So you’re holding onto good weapons for when you need them and slowly running out of space because…
57. Inventory: …limited weapon space. How limited? EXTREMELY. You start with a whopping EIGHT inventory slots for weapons, use ‘em well. This point by itself…
58. Inventory: …needs to be hammered in…
59. Inventory: …of how awful it is. You have SO little space, and the game functionally mandates doing the stupid Korok seeds (see earlier negatives) to try and mitigate SOME of this issue. Also while we’re here…
60. Interface: …how do you like having to frequently either open up the shortcuts or the menu to change weapons in mid combat, completely interrupting the flow and pace of the gameplay? No worries of course, at least the game doesn’t…
61. Core Mechanic: …mandate the regular use of items in its navigation and puzzle design! Arrows (which kills bow durability), flaming stuff, korok leaves, hammers for mining, and a few other more situational stuff. These more utility items, naturally, take up one of those precious inventory spaces, because screw you
62. Power Progression Curve: Did I mention the Master Sword has durability? Oh sure it’ll recharge after 10 minutes (only once it’s run out!) but still. The Master Sword has durability, I don’t know what else to add to this nonsense
63. Core Mechanic: Also you can (easily) lose durability doing puzzles. Again, shooting an arrow
64. Core Combat: Let’s be real, the core combat in Breath is really, really good in a vacuum; best it’s ever been in the series. And that is aggravating as hell because you are de-incentivized to experiment with all combat has to offer; both in terms of builds and in terms of just DOING the combat at all
65. Traversal: One last irritation which ties into all of this. I honestly really like the usage of stamina in this game… except as a run button. Running probably shouldn’t use stamina, and ABSOLUTELY should not use stamina out of combat. This just makes the whole situation even worse (including the aforementioned negatives about upgrade choice and the walk padding)
66. Traversal: Horse riding. It’s barely useful in huge swaths of terrain thanks to having issues with said terrain, can’t be summoned at all in two regions, can die all too easily, and is functionally useless unless you have the teleporting saddle
67. Level: So, I won’t be overly mean here… but some of the Shrines just… kinda suck. Too little dungeon, too little puzzle, and too much frustration. I get that they were trying a lot of stuff out, but man did they stumble a lot…
68. Level: …earning a full…
69. Level: …three negatives
70. Map: The maps and minimaps of the dungeons are just awful. There’s several issues with them in terms of readability and visibility but the worst part is how they actively interfere with navigation around the largest one of all, Hyrule Castle
71. Controls: The RDR problem
72. Level: The central four dungeons. While they do some things right, they have a frustrating problem with repetition (each one acts like your first regardless, though we’ve had the tech for decades to bypass this) and guidance (several are ‘good luck figuring out where to go’)
73. Core Mechanic: Stealth has no impact on visibility
74. Boss: The Urbosa DLC bonus fight is awful. Ignoring the same issues as last time, but the limited ability to block and attack thanks to being limited to metal weapons (and only a few of them) the extra ‘screw you’ of the lightning is even more irritating than usual
75. Difficulty Curve: The curve really is absolutely all over the place. There’s a weird combination of armor and enemy damage that means you’re either crushing it or desperate, and not much in between
76. Grind: There is a bit, if you need something specific well… get to the millstone
77. Replayability: Between the grind, early game hell, and shrine mulching to get back to functionally actually replay the game… the game resists replaying

Story Positives:

Story Negatives:

1. Brickwork: I’ve seen worse, but this is… not good
2. Spritework: And then there’s the enemies (and Link!) who just… look awful
3. Outro: I’ve seen better endings, on the NES even. This is such a nothingburger it almost feels insulting

Gameplay Positives:

1. Intro: The initial cave with the sword is nice and all, but the first dungeon is what really earns this positive. A lot of early Zelda concepts are tutorialized here, and the layout and flow of the dungeon is pretty logical and fluid
2. Song: The iconic song. It’s… not great in this iteration, but it is still good
3. Overworld: The First Quest’s Overworld is surprisingly solid. There’s a good flow of loot and enemy types, plenty of worthwhile secrets to seek out, good routing without having to go lengthy side trips just to move one screen to the right, and with the ‘map’ in the upper left you always have at least a vague idea where you’re at
4. Visual Navigation: Between map, palette, and tileset it’s reasonably easy to tell where you are and where you’re going
5. Guidance: There’s not a lot but there IS some, usually in the form of enemies (there being three clear tiers of enemies to indicate relative progress) as well as some types of interactions indicating what types of items you need
6. Kit: I chewed on this one for a bit, but between the candle, bow, bombs, and wand, I think this qualifies
7. All Roads Lead To Rome: You can do a huge swath of this game in whatever order (and arguably should), and there’s very little gear-blocking progression
8. All Roads Lead To Rome: This remains true in Second Quest
9. Boss: It’s not much, but the bosses are actually pretty interesting in their own ways, with differing tactics and approaches
10. Fast Travel: It’s not much, and it’s random, but between the flute and the rock warps there’s some options here
11. Map: This is kind of an aggregate of both Map and Minimap, but between the ‘doors’ visible on it and relative position on the screen, plus always showing your location regardless, it’s pretty helpful in navigation
12. Pacing: Actually a pretty solid pace, between combat, exploration, and puzzles, pretty much establishing the Zelda standard
13. Visual Distinction: Actually, yeah. It’s pretty easy to tell the difference between everything, despite the heavy stylings and limited palette

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Controls: It’s sort of hard to explain if you haven’t played it, but the game just controls… terribly. Stuttering, difficulties turning quickly, awkwardness on moving off grid, the whole nine yards…
2. Controls: …for two negatives
3. Music: The songs that are there aren’t great…
4. Music: …and the repetition is absolute insanity. I’ve dinged games before for playing one song for 70% of a game (Breath of Fire 2, Breath of the Wild) but this is a crazy example of two songs being played for closer to 90% of the entire game
5. Walkthroughitis: Bomb every wall, move every block, burn every bush. There are NO indicators of what you can and cannot interact with, and you absolutely want to
6. Penalty For Failure: Restarting with 3 hearts. It’s not as bad as it is over in Metroid 1, but man does it suck to be in a later dungeon and have to go farm hearts to try again
7. Raspberry Jam: Hope you enjoy those piercing low health beedleeps! Weirdly they’re not as bad as other games of the era, but they’re still not good
8. Early Game Hell: Good lord does this game suck early on, ESPECIALLY if you don’t know what you’re doing. Until you get the first sword upgrade and some actual gear, it’s very common to just go exploring and roaming, DIE, start over from the beginning of course, and quickly fall into death spiraling
9. Walkthroughitis: Pixel hunting. This is related to the above Walkthroughitis negative; You have to bomb a spot to explore it, no problem right? If your bomb is centered on it, meaning the explosion absolutely hits the spot it needs to, sometimes it just doesn’t trigger, meaning having to place the bomb in the RIGHT spot to trigger… but if you don’t know that, you’re left thinking ‘well that’s not a bombable spot’ and you move on, forever missing that until you friggin’ look it up
10. Gotcha: The ‘pay me’ rooms. No excuse here, this is just the game being spiteful to the player for doing the one thing the game constantly encourages; exploration
11. Backtracking: Grumble grumble. There is virtually no indication you need the bait for Level 7, and if you find it there’s a pretty decent chance you’ll figure out you need it… but even if you do, and have the rupees on hand, that’s still a nice big backtrack to be able to progress
12. Enemy Design: Wall masters. These guys are just straight up middle fingers to the player, grabbing them and functionally killing them by resetting them to the start of the dungeon
13. Level: Level 7. Tons of irritations, wall masters, bombable walls but not all, and the irritation of the grumble guy. Sure hope you brought a walkthrough
14. Walkthroughitis: Good luck finding Level 8. (and 7, while we’re at it)
15. Level: Level 6. This can be described in two words; Enemy spam
16. Level: Level 8. Once again, enemy spam
17. Core Combat: Knockback and iframes issues. You are knocked quite a ways back, and you have far too few iframes, meaning if you lose control of the situation for even a second you can rather suddenly find yourself getting destroyed
18. Difficulty Curve: At a certain point (mostly by about level 6 onwards) the respawn with 3 hearts thing becomes much more egregious
19. Outro: Level 9, Gotcha! So, Level 9 has a mandatory progression point in it which requires you to go through a certain path but diverge from it twice in two specific spots. If you fail to do these, you’re stuck behind one-way doors that forces you to either die or traipse through half the dungeon to return to the loop. If you do them in the wrong order, same problem. This sucks…
20. Outro: …and easily earns two negatives, but it gets worse because…
21. Outro: …multiple sections here have large swaths of difficult enemies (blue Wizzrobes galore) which you HAVE to kill to progress back through the loop…
22. Outro: …but all of that is further compounded because…
23. Outro: …very little indicates that you need those silver arrows to beat the final boss, and as mentioned earlier it’s QUITE easy to accidentally skip over the arrows and end up at the final boss who, ironically, is so easy that dying to him will waste a lot of your time (plus restarting with three hearts when you do, so enjoy that)
24. Level: Level S1, aka ‘welcome to hell’
25. Level: S2. The enemy spam gets even worse here, with enemies (that in some cases HAVE to be killed) that do 75% of your health in one hit
26. Walkthroughitis: Second Quest, which is so much worse than the first in terms of basically everything. There is no guidance of any kind for even basic things like shops and upgrades…
27. Walkthroughitis: …earning a second negative
28. Penalty For Failure: Second Quest’s 3 heart thing is much worse than in the first quest due to how much earlier the harder hitting enemies show up…
29. Early Game Hell: …which means that the Second Quest is even worse…
30. Early Game Hell: …about being unfairly punishing
31. Gotcha: Second Quest, overworld and dungeons both, are much meaner about punishing you for exploring with troll rooms
32. Level: S3. Horrible, horrible enemy spam alongside turrets and also hope you bought that bait!
33. Level: S4. So it’s a big maze, which is actually fine, and there’s a lot of waste your resources dead ends, which kinda sucks but that’s fine… except for two big things. First, they lean on that ‘walk through walls’ thing yet again (and two are one way!) and two… the ‘leave your life or your rupees’ guy is IN THE WAY and cannot be bypassed to beat the dungeon, making either a literal grind tax or a screw you middle finger…
34. Level: …earning double negatives
35. Gotcha: Bonus ‘screw you’ in Second Quest 4. So, AFTER beating the boss and after the Triforce is a walk through wall section, which is already bullcrap, but after that is another boss (who respawns if you die!) and after THAT is a room with a kill all in brutal conditions that requires you to push a single block to access the MANDATORY item to progress the game, and if you accidentally go through the door in that room, screw you because it’s a one way back into the rest of the dungeon…
36. Gotcha: …earning two negatives for all that bullcrap
37. Itemization: Drops. This is basically the exact same problem as in Metroid 1; the near total randomness of drops can be infuriating and grindy
38. Penalty For Failure: Second Quest’s 3 heart restart thing is MUCH more punishing and more inclined to make you go grind or recover before even attempting the dungeon again…
39. Penalty For Failure: …for two negatives
40. Level: S6 might be the worst dungeon so far. Every single encounter is uniquely and brutally designed to be as dickish and horrible as possible, there’s multiple alternate paths to waste your already dwindling resources, the nearest recovery spot is way too far away from the dungeon itself, and the dungeon has three frickin’ mandatory bosses…
41. Level: …for a full…
42. Level: …three negatives
43. Encounter Design: Bonus negative for S6 and the absolutely bullcrap encounter design therein. Like Likes, Antifairies, and both types of Wizzrobes in one room is just frustration in a box, but then you have the middle finger room; right before the second of three bosses is a room with unclear direction (meaning you HAVE to spend time exploring the room) while FIVE red antifairies roam around. This is such a level of bullcrap…
44. Encounter Design: …for two negatives
45. Walkthroughitis: Good luck finding ANY of the late Second Quest dungeon entrances (including 9!)
46. Gotcha: The later dungeons really start to lean on the idea of one way rooms that ‘trap’ you having to restart the dungeon if you slip up
47. Outro: Level S9. A massive maze which actually mandates going through most of the dungeon twice by design, and that’s assuming no screw ups, which it is astonishingly easy to do as at every turn is one way screw you walls or pathways which necessitate finding your way back to the beginning to start over. In addition to being punishing for exploring, there’s no indication in any direction which means it’s pure trial and error (or use a friggin’ map). So that’s…
48. Outro: …two negatives for the one way bullcrap gotcha!…
49. Outro: …a negative for the trial and error gameplay…
50. Outro: …and a negative for the mandated double loop (hope you remembered your route!)
51. Grind: Rupee grinding, more so in Second Quest where it’s functionally mandatory but it’s still there

Story Positives:

1. NPC Set Dressing: Minor, but there. Special mention goes to the randomly generated NPCs that roam around (and might be Ganon’s spies!)
2. Spritework: Substantially improved over the previous game, and doing a good job with what they had
3. Brickwork: Actually, yeah. It’s VERY basic, I won’t lie to you, but it’s also functional. Swamps, deserts, towns, all get across the greater world and regions

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Guidance: Chatter. The NPCs are actually pretty useful in this one, go figure
2. Music: Some boppers in this one
3. Intro: Intro works really well. You have a seemingly open region but it’s actually quite contained, BUT it’s well designed to encourage you to explore and rewards you with every area you interact with. Most of the zones are designed to ‘require’ the candle, but are designed very smartly by specifically using enemy types on terrain type that’d be awful to navigate while in the dark… but a joke once you can see them. All of this forms a nice cohesive core of the game; Explore region, do Palace, finish exploring region
4. Core Combat: Yeah, actually. I rather enjoy combat in this one, once it really gets going. It’s a little finicky, I’m not going to lie, but it’s definitely helped out by…
5. Kit: …Link’s kit. The up stab and downwards stab both help tremendously…
6. Kit: …and the surprisingly large swath of spells, most of which are useful, help as well
7. Level: 1 & 2, tutorialization and flow
8. Enemy Design: Most of the enemies (yes, even the shield jackasses) are actually pretty well designed. While they read your inputs, which is questionable, they all have their own weaknesses you can take advantage of, and the progression of difficulty is more centered around different ways to hit them rather than just damage and health
9. Enemy Variety: There’s actually pretty solid design to the enemy variety too. Heavies, flingers, shooters, slow movers, bouncers, and all needing different tactics
10. Mid Mission Checkpointing: Die? Return to the cell you’re already on. Also you restore your health and mana to full…
11. Mid Mission Checkpointing: …which is in weird contrast to when you game over, but is nice when you don’t
12. Boss: General. I’ve seen better Zelda bosses, but I’ve seen worse too. Frankly I enjoy most of these bosses more than, say, Breath of the Wild’s (with a few notable exceptions)
13. Level: General
14. Difficulty Curve: The first half of the game’s difficulty curve is actually really smooth
15. NG+: Astonishingly, possibly the first example of it in gaming history, and a pretty solid version too. Keeping spells and attacks is already good, but keeping levels is fantastic… not just because of the obvious, but it means every palace now gives you an automatic 1-up, which suddenly smooths out the lives problem substantially…
16. NG+: …earning two positives
17. Controls: Weirdly enough the game controls pretty solidly. Up and downstabbing are nice and precise, as is jumping and attacking in general
18. Visual Continuity: Mostly for the same reason as Zelda 1, but even within dungeons it’s usually pretty navigable thanks to distinct terrain design
19. Visual Distinction: Further, while the graphics aren’t what I’d call good, they’re very distinct. Only like twice in the entire game was I having issues seeing what was what

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Penalty For Failure: A really terrible lives system, probably the worst or in the running for the worst in the business. You have 3 lives, and if you die you restart wherever you were (which is nice) with full refill (which is great), unless you game over in which case SCREW you. You go all the way back to the very beginning and lose all unspent progress on experience. And this is in a game where that experience is essentially mandatory, by design, and the long irritating trip back will very likely tax your resources just getting back to where you were, making this also a terrible form of backtracking…
2. Penalty For Failure: …earning the lives themselves…
3. Penalty For Failure: …triple negatives
4. Penalty For Failure: And the fact that you get sent back to the beginning each time (unless in the final dungeon)…
5. Penalty For Failure: …earns a further two negatives
6. Interface: Casting. Having to enter a menu to swap is actually pretty smooth, having to do it every single screen or cast? Not so much
7. Core Combat: Weapon reach. For all the enjoyment the combat brings, it’s hampered by the fact that we can only attack such a tiny space in front of us
8. Raspberry Jam: The low health beedleeps aren’t the worst, but they’re still annoying
9. Seconds In Minutes: Text render speed is hideously slow and, worse, you WANT to read what they have to say, so… that sucks
10. Kit: The cost of spells is a bit high, but what’s much worse is that they go away every cell / load screen, lowering their use drastically
11. Walkthroughitis: How exactly are you supposed to find Bagu? Keep in mind this area has no where else to go, so that’s nice, but also no recovery anywhere nearby, so you’re a bit discouraged from progressing
12. Enemy Design: The medusa heads return
13. Penalty For Failure: Falling into a pit is death. Not damage, not rewinding, straight up death, even if at full health and otherwise fine. This single thing, I honestly believe…
14. Penalty For Failure: …deserves a full two negatives. It only doesn’t get more because this isn’t really a problem until…
15. Level: …The Run. The final run from the start of the game to the Grand Palace is the single worst part of the entire game. Hope you got the Cross earlier cuz if you didn’t this is near impossible, but even if you did it’s… God I have trouble even explaining how bullcrap it is. So there’s instant death pits absolutely everywhere, with little space to make the jumps normally, near mandating you use the Jump spell every screen to traverse it, making a slow but steady tax on your mana while also dealing with enemies with VERY random movement and patterns which are clearly designed to try to nudge you into the instant death pits which, I re-stress, are absolutely everywhere. And this is on top of the second hardest and meanest enemies in the entire game in tight corridors so you can’t avoid them. The Run is awful, and it’s the worst part of the game…
16. Level: …easily earning…
17. Level: …triple negatives. But there’s one additional thing that makes The Run even worse, and that is…
18. Itemization: …the extra lives. There’s a total of four in the game, three available on the overworld before The Run, and that’s fine honestly. You know what isn’t fine? They’re quest objects, aka once you pick them up they’re gone forever. So if you spend them on a particular save and game over, poof, can’t get them again. This is AWFUL and I don’t know what else to add to that. I almost qualified this as a bug because of how bizarre it is
19. Grind: There’s a definite grind problem in the game. It’s not that bad, and it’s helped by the palace crystal bonus xp, buuut also that bonus xp is terribly programmed (only filling up to your current level) basically necessitating planning out your crystals (and outright encouraging the player to avoid doing palace bosses until dead last)…
20. Info In Game: …which dovetails into another issue the game has. There’s quite a bit the game never even tries to explain to you, from items to spells to basic mechanics. Even the fact that ‘magic’ and ‘life’ are actually ‘cost of spells’ and ‘defense’ respectively
21. Difficulty Curve: The SECOND half of the game’s difficulty curve is awful, and bounces all over the place
22. Level: The Hidden Palace. First of all, there’s an unlabeled and easy to fall into pit in the way, already annoying even if you know it’s there… but it’s possible to actually soft lock yourself immediately after the pit by Fairy’ing, which requires a flat out reset
23. Boss: Putting a boss with an inconsistent hitbox over an instant death pit is just mean
24. Outro: The Grand Palace. It’s actually not that bad, not really, but it’s still pretty mean; enemies that are hard to hit and hard to avoid that hit like a truck, draining mana and health, and multiple instant death pits… all of which suck. But the fact that when you game over you reset to the dungeon instead of the beginning helps a lot, and they never enemy spam you or are unfair. So why is this a negative? Because of the same reason Level 9 is in Zelda 1; Fully half of the dungeon is a colossal one-way loop of ‘if you screw up you end up in the loop and have to go back to the beginning of the dungeon’. It’s honestly faster and better in some cases to deliberately game over and restart that way. Further, there’s a weirdly large amount of explorable areas and hidden sections… that have NOTHING in them, punishing the player for exploring…
25. Outro: …and this is on top of the last two bosses. Thunderbird is just the worst possible Factory Worker Syndrome boss in the game; boring and punishing as hell, and sure hope you reached him with at least 64 mana cuz otherwise you CANNOT fight him…
26. Outro: …and then there’s shadow Link. He reads your inputs entirely too much, to the point where he can no sell almost all of your attacks, and is only reasonably beatable thanks to a friggin’ bug
27. Enemy AI: Input reading. Enough said, really
28. Gotcha: Only a few, but there’s several enemy spawns that are straight up Gotchas, especially regarding instant death pits
29. Late Game: My goodness, where do I begin? At a certain point in the game everything just gets… unpolished, as the QA and playtesting clearly fell off
30. Walkthroughitis: Several items and mandatory sections in the game sure hope you have a guide or already know what you’re doing

Story Positives:

1. Doodads: The only reason this is only two positives is because they pretty much universally exist indoors in the two towns… but man, there is a great level of detail, flavor, and characterization in these…
2. Doodads: …earning an easy double positive
3. Brickwork: The game tends to repeat tilesets a bit, but the backgrounds look damned gorgeous throughout…
4. Brickwork: …for an easy double positive
5. Characters: General, but present. A lot of memorable and interesting characters, most notably Marin of course
6. Intro: Does a lot in a very short period of time, and does so well. At sea, hit by lightning, wash up at island, found with shield, find sword, get to work helping people
7. Atmosphere: The whole game feels… off. In a good way. There’s a vibe of uncanny valley to a lot of it, which could be excused by it being a quirky video game, but it’s so clearly deliberate to invoke the tone of the work
8. Dialogue: Shockingly good given how little there is. It helps the aforementioned characters pop
9. Animation: Some absolutely adorable animations in this one. Eating, falling, sharing, fighting
10. Humor: The whole game isn’t exactly funny, but there are some good moments, especially THIEF
11. Plot: Weirdly, yeah. First Zelda game with a really solid plot
12. Theme: Existentialism in general. Not ‘what is real’, that’s different, more like ‘what matters’
13. Writing: The game manages to lend weight to the nature of what it is you’re trying to do, and makes the consequences pretty damned clear
14. MSQ: Escorting Marin. This whole section is full of fun little interactions you can do, and they’re all optional
15. Writing: I’m putting this under the general category of ‘writing’ because it’s a lot of different elements of storytelling combined; the way the Nightmares portray themselves, the shift in characters as they get more and more aware, the reality of how much of the game is actually Link’s dream instead of the Wind Fish’s, the nature of how Link’s dream is changing the island, and the Nightmares finally start changing to more actively try and convince you to discontinue your quest
16. Internal Continuity: Game also does a good job of keeping track of its various moving parts as things escalate and break down across the island throughout the journey
17. Pacing: Similar to some other Zelda games before and after, the pacing of the story remains tight throughout, with dips and peaks and memorable moments peppering it

Story Negatives:

1. Outro: I think this version works a bit worse than the original’s. The tragedy of the death of the island is underplayed, the Wind Fish is… weird and nothing else, and the presumption of how things go is not great (What fate befalls Link? Marin?)

Gameplay Positives:

1. Save: Autosave and solid save design in general…
2. Save: …for a solid double positive
3. Map: This is a REALLY good map. Accurate portrayal of areas, uncovers as you go, clearly labeled, and zoomable…
4. Map: …easily earning…
5. Map: …three positives
6. Map: Also you can place your own labels and icons on it
7. Log: Such a rare feature in general, this is definitely not a place I’d expect to find it, but it even helps you to remember things you should be doing and can still do, plus of course story you missed
8. Core Combat: Pretty much for the same reason as in LTTP, but it’s still good. The change to the sword alone is a big improvement; now you have an arc, and now it hits farther away from you
9. Controls: Controls really tightly for what it is, helped by the shortcut design to blocking and dashing
10. Interface: Nice, clear information and readily parsable, and quick and easy to navigate
11. HUD: Similarly simple but solid, quick and at-a-glance
12. Visual Navigation: The spread of colors and areas in the overworld definitely help with navigation
13. Visual Distinction: Blur issues aside, it’s very quick and apparent what is what at all points in time, inside and out of dungeons…
14. Visual Distinction: …for a solid two positives
15. Intro: Really solid Intro overall. A quick jaunt down to the beach wherein you only face ranged, slow attacking enemies and spiked urchins who can be shoved, before getting your sword. Sword expands your abilities, and gives you access to your first real enemies, who come in both ‘avoid’ and ‘block’ varieties, as well as your first taste of puzzle design, all leading to your first key and the route to the first dungeon. As usual for these types of games it’s one of the better segments of the game…
16. Intro: …deserving two positives
17. Guidance: NPCs. They tell you quite a bit, and are very helpful for game mechanics and what to do next
18. Guidance: Hint phone! A completely optional, readily accessible person who gives you a straight up hint of what to do next
19. Guidance: General terrain and layout design, very metroidy in its function. Very, very rarely was I unsure of how to progress just from looking at how the levels and overworld were designed
20. Music: This is going to sound super weird, but I actually prefer the gameboy soundtrack. Doesn’t mean this one isn’t still good though, and I love several of the dungeon mixes
21. Level: Shortcuts unlocked after minibosses. The first in the franchise to apply this concept, and would be done even better in the future, but it’s still good across the board
22. Enemy Design: Honestly the usual quality Zelda design of enemies. They’re a bit more basic than the usual, but they’re still good
23. Enemy Variety: Similarly, there’s enough variety in the types of things you deal with to keep things fresh
24. Level: Level 1, the Tail Cave. This is your definitive ‘simple but good’, with a lot of tutorializing going on and solid variety between combat, explore, and puzzle
25. Pacing: Speaking of which the entire game is really good about its pacing. There’s plenty of swaths of in-between dungeon segments (something that would become the norm going forwards) and they keep things fresh
26. Itemization: Dynamic drops are back! And they continue to be awesome
27. Itemization: Great spread of items throughout, especially rupees, a definite improvement over previous Zelda games
28. Kit: Definitely a doubler here. We’ve got the usual suspects (bow, boomerang, bombs) but then some of the funner stuff, like the hookshot, jump, dash, and wand…
29. Kit: …for the aforementioned double
30. Level: Level 2, Bottle Grotto. Another of those solid but simple ones; Good internal looping without being irritating, some fun puzzles, an interesting boss, and a logical progression with the item
31. Fast Travel: The first format is actually a waypoint system, which you’re ‘stuck’ with until you get the Pegasus Boots and, consequently, the Ocarina. After this point it opens up into a proper Fast Travel system, with good spread of points and good placement…
32. Fast Travel: …earning double positives
33. Info In Game: Which pickups you’ve already gotten and where
34. Info In Game: How items and mechanics work
35. Overworld: This is probably the best designed overworld in the series to date. Lots to do, very rewarding to explore, great layout to constantly help you in progressing, good distribution and placement of enemies, it’s great stuff…
36. Overworld: …earning a solid…
37. Overworld: …triple positive
38. MSQ: The route in between Level 2 and Level 3. The prairie maze, the beginnings of the trading game (required up to the bananas, with plenty of hints to go with it), and the golden leaves
39. Level: Level 3, with multiple paths forward and a heavy leaning on the bomb and more interesting pace-based puzzles thanks to the acquisition of the boots
40. MSQ: Quite a bit of content between 3 and 4, too much to properly summarize, but the Color Dungeon slots in here. It’s short but sweet, along with a lot of the content herein
41. Level: Level 4, Angler’s Tunnel. Aside from the obvious, there’s some very creative usage of the water to inform what you can interact with before and then after you get the flippers. So while there is a lot of backtracking it’s mostly different the second time around because of the added depth of the flippers…
42. Level: …earning two positives
43. Boss: General. Easy, but fun, and some creative stuff…
44. Boss: …for two positives
45. Level: Level 6, Face Shrine. This is a great example of an interweaving dungeon, which gets rather creative with the switch puzzles and encouraging the player to think in the full three dimensions to move forwards
46. Level: Level 7, Eagle Tower. There’s some inventive and creative usage of the levels and layering here

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Graphics: The blur. No, seriously, the blur is awful. The only reason it’s not more negatives is because they turn it the hell off in dungeons…
2. Graphics: …but it’s still terrible. Easily the worst feature of this version of the game
3. Options: Or a total lack thereof. Seriously, there are NO options in a game that came out in 2019
4. Padding: It’s a really minor thing but… do we really have to get the text pop up every single time?
5. Info In Game: A few issues, but the big one is the best ending
6. Level: Level 7… kinda sucks. The ball is irritating to keep track of, on top of the levels, on top of the switch positions, oh and if you screw up the ball it resets which requires massive walkback to go fix the situation…
7. Level: …for two negatives
8. Backtracking: Sadly the game does have a little bit of a backtracky problem. This is partially due to the design of the dungeons themselves, but also the fact that Link only ever really has two traversal methods, and in the later reaches of the game if you make a mis-step you end up redoing large swaths of terrain
9. Music: This one hurts to give, but their fixation on the string quartet did not work here. If you’re going to have a remix of a song you need to think about what types of instruments and soundfonts fit that song, not just do whatever, and it actively makes a lot of songs worse in this one
10. Minigame: The fishing minigame. It’s most inoffensive, if boring, but the fact that fish A: Respawn (so you can’t ‘clear the pond’) and B: Can interrupt your unrelated casts is bullcrap
11. Level: Level 8, Turtle Rock. There’s some… issues here. Some unclear puzzles, massive backtracking, and a generally huge dungeon to begin with
12. Outro: The ‘final dungeon’ is kind of bleh (and hope you wrote down the directions from the library, which nothing really indicates is how you progress), and then the final boss is a bunch of ‘weak to a very specific thing that barely makes sense’ encounters
13. Walkthroughitis: A few tidbits here and there, but the specific thing I want to call out is the ending. Hope you played the whole game with no deaths cuz if not, screw you, no final ending for Marin! And worse, that ending is such a nothingburger as to not even be worth it

Story Positives:

1. Intro: Pretty solid. The opening cutscene, the initial setup with Onox and Din, and the establishment of the new country and its connection to Hyrule
2. Brickwork: I’ve seen better, but the backdrop still does its job of making us feel the vibe and tone of Holodrum
3. Spritework: Some really solid stuff here, especially with NPCs somehow being distinct from each other, and enemy and boss designs popping…
4. Spritework: …for double positives
5. Characters: Not much in the way of individually standout characters, but really solid supporting cast all around
6. Moment: The poirates finally setting off to sea! …and immediately getting seasick. But for real, humor aside I like the animation of the ship, the quicksand it leaves behind, and it pulling in to port
7. Outro: The ending’s actually pretty nice. Little shorts around the world, with nice stills to go with them

Story Negatives:

1. Moment: The big reward for Ambi and the Captain finally uniting? Him immediately sailing off and leaving her again. Sure game
2. Character: Onox and Din. For being the principle characters of the story they are absolute nothingburgers, with literally only 2 scenes between them until the ending
3. Pacing: Bunch of story at the beginning, a bit at the end, NOTHING in between. This is straight up Kingdom Hearts Syndrome

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music: There’s some bangers in this one, doing some good work with the GBC soundfont
2. Info In Game: In-game manual
3. Intro: The initial town (Horon Village) has a lot of good tutorialization, guidance, and gets you into things
4. Penalty For Failure: Return to last major spot, pretty typical Zelda approach
5. Core Mechanic: Seasons. The variety this adds to terrain and having to think around its options helps add to the overall Overworld design
6. Core Mechanic: Linking. It doesn’t affect as much as I’d like, but what can you do? It’s still neat to convey gear and rings from one game to the other, and it can and does change the tempo of the game in question. I feel Seasons takes the short end of the stick here for having so little variance from a link
7. Overworld: I chewed on this for a bit, because I locked in the overworld negatives a while ago, but the truth is I cannot deny that there’s a lot of interesting puzzles and interactions in the overworld design
8. Level: Level 1, Gnarled Root, is a fantastic intro dungeon. Nothing there is too severe (even though it does lean into combat already), and it follows a good loop with almost no backtracking
9. Level: Level 2, Snake’s Remains. Starting to get a bit more interesting with the puzzle and interactions, and some good weaving
10. Boss: Lots of fun and interesting boss fights throughout, between minibosses and regular bosses…
11. Boss: …for a full aggregate…
12. Boss: …three positives
13. Controls: As per the era, game controls very tightly. The ability to swap your B and A cannot be understated, and gives the game some pleasant modularity…
14. Controls: …for two positives
15. Enemy Design: Pretty standard good design in enemies (except those damned wall masters)
16. Enemy Variety: Again, standard variety too
17. Fast Travel: So this is a much more standard fast travel system; you use a seed, you can access any seed spawning point (the trees) you’ve already interacted with. Further, the spread and design of where they are is well thought out…
18. Fast Travel: …for two positives
19. HUD: The definition of ‘simple, but good’
20. Itemization: The dynamic system isn’t quite there, but what is is the spread of items and upgrades throughout the game as well as their specific acquisition points
21. Itemization: Rings. These are a cool idea; bonus equipment with bonus effects
22. Kit: The usual…
23. Kit: …but also some really cool stuff, like the magnet gloves, the double jump, the triple seed shooter, etc.
24. Pacing: A lot heavier on the combat than usual, but there’s still a good flow between puzzle and combat
25. Visual Distinction: Everything is immediately apparent at a glance, to the point where I’d almost suspect this were a GBA or SNES game…
26. Visual Distinction: …earning a solid double positive
27. Level: Level 6, Ancient Ruins. There’s a few issues here, but they’re not so much an issue with the stage as the entire game. The stage itself is inventive, one of the more action packed dungeons, and a lot of fun puzzles
28. MSQ: In-between 6 and 7. The pirates, the side quests finally opening up… in fact I believe this is functionally the freedom point of the game
29. Level: Level 7, Explorer’s Crypt. Some fun puzzles in this one, really playing with what the double jump and magnet can do (especially since you can control your direction in mid air)

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Raspberry Jam: Low health beedleeps. Not too intrusive, but not great
2. MSQ: In-betweens. Some of the in-between dungeon moments are just sort of generally frustrating to do and often feel like you’re just spinning your wheels rather than actually progressing
3. Walkthroughitis: General. Quite a bit, scattered all over the place
4. Backtracking: So… this game has an overworld designed entirely as if it was another dungeon (or like, 8 other dungeons). This is fine of course, except that it makes the game absolutely riddled with backtracking and worse, arduous backtracking as you have to deal with (on average) about half the puzzles, combat sections, and otherwise item swapping that was necessary the first time you ‘solved’ your route…
5. Backtracking: …this is further complicated by the dungeon designs themselves which, you guessed it, have the exact same problem. There’s plenty of dungeons where the runback is half the aggravation of the level
6. Guidance: There’s just… not a lot of good guidance in this. Between general navigation, item interaction, and puzzle design, a lot of times I’d just stare at something for a while before finally looking it up and finding out that I could do something that nothing told me I could do or that I had missed a door to the side of the room with nothing leading towards or inclining me in its direction…
7. Guidance: …and this applies just as equally to the overworld as it does to dungeon design
8. Overworld: I’ve mentioned it a few times but the overworld really does need to get its own section. While I appreciate the design that went into the overworld, it lacks any of the design of… being an overworld. There’s no guidance to speak of (mentioned above), no flow to how zones function or how areas interconnect, and the load screen transition problem (yes I know it’s a tech limitation but it’s still part of the problem) leads to this disjointed nature to everything. I verified this with a few other people just to check myself on this, but it’s true; there’s just this mismanaged, jumbled mess of an overworld. It’s like comparing Super Metroid’s to Dread’s. Dread is a fantastic game but it just does not have an overworld concept to speak of, and neither does this game. Worst of all it makes navigating just… a pain…
9. Overworld: …earning it two negatives
10. Traversal: Most Zelda games don’t exactly nail it in terms of traversal but this one really feels like you’re just crawling around at all times, as the default speed is awful, and the one thing we’re given (the sprint) has its own issues with use as a navigation tool (not the least of which being relying on friggin’ ammo)
11. Tutorialization: Lack of indicator of what you can do with what
12. Enemy Design: Wall Masters return. Screw ‘em
13. Level: Level 3, Poison Moth’s Lair. Some very obtuse puzzles, some new mechanics barely tutorialized, and entirely too much trap / backtracking
14. MSQ: In between Level 3 and 4, which happens to include a massive derailment to an area where you can’t do anything, and the frickin’ second mandatory stealth section which is entirely too long and far too easy to screw up AND you have to start all over if you fail…
15. MSQ: …also the map opens up massively at this point, with several lengthy sections you can now explore and find… NOTHING because you’re not supposed to be there yet. Cute
16. Level: Level 4, Dancing Dragon Dungeon. Lots of backtracking and seconds in minutes thanks to the minecarts, as well as the odd placement of checkpoint and lengthy runbacks if you screw up
17. Level: Level 5, Unicorn’s Cave commits several sins. Lengthy backtracking sections due to dungeon layout, punishing you for missing or forgetting anything (or doing things in a non optimal order), irritating enemies (the magnet coins), but then you get the tool, the magnetic glove. Cool concept (really) but the NOISE it makes is awful, and you have to use it constantly, but all of that only compounds the real issue of the dungeon; a single trap towards the end that requires specific usage of the magnetic gloves to move the ball to avoid getting smashed by the fireballs. The jank, the noise spam, and having to redo swaths of the dungeon upon every failure, along with any mistake being severely punished, makes this all absolutely aggravating
18. Sound: Loud, ear piercing screeches designed to be played regularly
19. Walkthroughitis: Good luck figuring out how to get to Level 6!
20. Info In Game: So… equipping rings. Absolutely nothing, anywhere, indicates that you have to manually enter the quest item screen to actually then equip them…
21. Power Progression Curve: …and this is doubly bullcrap because you can only equip one ring at a time. This is despite the fact that upgrading your ring box is a method of progression in the game that, in addition to being misleading, is functionally useless since you can only equip one ring at a time!
22. Interface: And finally, everything about the interactions and interface indicate that having the rings in the box has them equipped. Nothing indicates you have to manually equip
23. Level: Level 8, Sword & Shield Maze. Maze is appropriate, for they repeat the Zelda 1 trick here of locking parts of the dungeon behind stage ‘states’, meaning even if you know where you’re trying to get back to, good frickin’ luck without just redoing the dungeon from scratch. This is on top of this being a GIANT dungeon, with huge swaths of puzzles that just take entirely too long to solve even IF you know what you’re doing. This is on top of it being horrifically easy to lose massive amounts of progress thanks to the size and placement of events. This dungeon is genuinely awful, and it’s awful in the worst way possible; it’s boring. Thus…
24. Level: …earning it a full…
25. Level: …triple negative
26. Music: Quality. I’m sorry, there’s just… some issues with this game’s soundtrack
27. Padding: Plenty. All kinds of big long swaths of boring fetch quests and traipses
28. Seconds In Minutes: This is probably the second biggest problem of the entire game. Every puzzle, every room, every combat, every boss, every overworld section, the entire game just takes longer to do than it should, with micro-moments spreading out every single action and making the entire game both longer and FEEL longer than it should be..
29. Seconds In Minutes: …for a full…
30. Seconds In Minutes: …three negatives
31. Visual Navigation: So, this is honestly a triple negative issue… buuut… it’s primarily focused on a hardware and we have a longstanding policy of not giving negatives for hardware issues, but this problem is SO bad it diminishes the entire game. So, almost every single screen involves a pseudo load screen as the camera jutters over to the side. And this… really hurts the ability to tell where you are, as each transition isn’t super smooth, and leaves the player not being able to see where they’ve been or where they’re going, in addition to some basic psychological reasons why the brain sort of shunts each ‘room’ into its own thing, making you think you’re in the right area because it looks similar but no you’re actually 5 screens off. And it sucks
32. Music: Repetition. The aforementioned issues slogging the game out hurts the soundtrack by making you listen to short loops for long, long swaths of time

Story Positives:

1. Intro: As with Seasons, a lot is done well and quickly here, first with the opening cutscene…
2. Intro: …but then with the showcasing of our central villain…
3. Character: …Veran. Unlike her counterpart Onox, she’s actually a character, and we get a decent amount of personality from her actions. She’s not particularly smart (she could barely impersonate Impa, and she has no idea how to use her borrowed power), she prefers to use others power to do her bidding (Impa, Nayru, AND Ambi), and she’s purely malevolent (her only goal here, really, is to just cause suffering)
4. Characters: General supporting cast. Usual spread of memorable characters
5. Brickwork: Usual high quality GBC stuff
6. Spritework: Excellent GBC quality stuff, as with Seasons…
7. Spritework: …for a double positive
8. Visual Storytelling: Several neat examples (the symmetrical town, the debris around the town)
9. Cutscenes: The occasional drifts into the construction of the tower are nice
10. MSQ: The initial bomb flower paradox and the follow up vase paradox are actually really well thought out, and help to play with the temporal concepts going on here
11. Plot: The core idea here of Veran messing with time as an amateur actually works for me better than I thought it would. Rather than doing anything she could be doing, she’s just torturing people by elongating a segment of time, causing more indirect effects (and if we’re being honest, probably some more large scale issues down the road if not stopped)
12. Outro: As per usual I tend to enjoy these types of endings for what they are. Nice showcase of events and wrapping up several character bits

Story Negatives:

1. Empty Text: You see the flames are lit because Twinrova are evil and Ganon’s coming back. Don’t worry we’ll repeat it thirty times in case you forgot
2. Localization: Typos aside, the quality of the translation started to dip substantially by the end of the game

Gameplay Positives:

1. Intro: Pretty solid Intro. Initial town, initial loop, setup and basics of some initial items, all giving you some freedom to get the layout while simultaneously getting you into the right spots at the right time
2. Music: Honestly I feel this one’s a better soundtrack than Seasons. They just use their instruments better
3. Info In Game: The tutorial room returns from Seasons
4. Penalty For Failure: Standard Zelda approach to death
5. Overworld: Still not as good as it can be, but definitely a big step up from Seasons
6. Controls: As with Seasons, the game controls tightly in general…
7. Controls: …but also the modularity of swapping A and B can’t be ignored
8. Enemy Design: Generally good stuff, as per usual
9. Enemy Variety: Generally good variety, as per usual
10. Fast Travel: Same system as Seasons; Good fast travel, quick and easy to use, good placement, good acquisition…
11. Fast Travel: …earning a double positive
12. Core Mechanic: The past and the present. Mostly it’s just a navigation thing, but they still do some cool stuff with it
13. Core Mechanic: Linking. A neat way to convey gear and rings from one game to the other
14. HUD: Pretty much the same HUD as Seasons, and still good
15. Itemization: Rings, again, are a good bonus with good bonus effects
16. Kit: The usual suspects
17. Kit: Cane, swapper, feather
18. Visual Distinction: As with Seasons, the game does a great deal right with regards to telling what you’re doing, what you can interact with, and what you should be doing…
19. Visual Distinction: …earning two positives
20. Difficulty Curve: Much smoother than before, even as things ramp up it doesn’t get into bullcrap territory
21. Pacing: Same general quality pacing from Seasons. A good spread of activities across explore, puzzle, combat
22. Level: Level 1, Spirit’s Grave. It’s simple, but it’s actually quite solid
23. MSQ: In-between 1 and 2, forest mini dungeon and maze
24. Level: Level 2, Wing Dungeon. Smart cycling of terrain and items and satisfying loops
25. Guidance: (trading game, usage of terrain)
26. MSQ: While it has issues, the Crescent Island ‘regain your stuff’ trading sequence is interesting and fun
27. Level: Level 3, Moonlit Grotto, has a really high density of puzzles and generally good layout. It’s held back from further positives by a few issues (like some mandatory backtracking) but what’s there is still good
28. MSQ: Weirdly enough I rather liked the in-between for Level 3 to 4. Getting the ability to zip from past to present is very helpful, and the dovetailing of the two overworlds as we progress through the mountain is quite fun and engaging
29. Level: Level 4, Skull Dungeon. Fun mechanic, good loops, minimal backtracking, good density
30. Level: Level 5, Crown Dungeon. Despite one mis-step it’s still a solid dungeon
31. Boss: Smog! This is easily the most inventive and fun boss in the game and, by himself…
32. Boss: …earns two positive
33. MSQ: The in-between Level 6 and Level 7; the new warp anywhere mechanic (in both directions) combined with some logical terrain design and limitations and the new undersea section works quite nicely, and the progress of saving the fairy and the king is a nice little jaunt (and rupees provided for, so no grind)
34. Boss: Actually rather enjoy the Veran fights. First one is a repeat, second one is far more interesting, third one is great (different forms, different attacks, different tactics)
35. Outro: For what it’s worth I do enjoy the Ganon fight. He’s exactly what he should be; a giant barbarian coming at us, berserker style

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Raspberry Jam: Low health beedleeps. Pretty much identical from Seasons
2. Info In Game: So… equipping rings. Absolutely nothing, anywhere, indicates that you have to manually enter the quest item screen to actually then equip them…
3. Power Progression Curve: …and this is doubly bullcrap because you can only equip one ring at a time. This is despite the fact that upgrading your ring box is a method of progression in the game that, in addition to being misleading, is functionally useless since you can only equip one ring at a time!
4. Interface: And finally, everything about the interactions and interface indicate that having the rings in the box has them equipped. Nothing indicates you have to manually equip
5. Visual Navigation: This is the same issue as in Seasons; the overworld layout and the screen scroll loading just causes issues with navigation. As with Seasons, only giving this one negative due to hardware limitations of the GBC
6. Enemy Design: Yes, the wall masters are STILL a negative
7. Boss: Oh my God the Head Thwomp boss is AWFUL. The arc of attack is off, using the intended platforms actually makes it much harder, he has tiny windows of vulnerability and huge wait periods, any screw up is punishing, and even a successful action it takes forever to resolve (which of course means any failure is similarly a ‘take forever’ situation) and, worst of all, the dude is boring. You just stand there waiting for your window. This boss…
8. Boss: …deserves…
9. Boss: …three negatives
10. MSQ: The Crescent Island ‘regain your stuff’ sequence has issues. The decentralized position of the trade hub and the (admittedly clever) routing means traipsing through the same few screens in slightly different order over and over to get through everything
11. Walkthroughitis: Bits and pieces. In between segments, missing one item from a dungeon preventing progress, the usual suspects
12. MSQ: The minigame barrage of the Gorons. The minigames themselves aren’t that bad, but three in a row that are mandatory? Less pleasant
13. Level: Level 6, Mermaid’s Cave. Technically two dungeons that interweave into each other and have to be done in the right order, which is fine… except it commits several sins that drag the entire thing down. First, even if you do everything perfectly there’s mandatory backtracking and re-solving of rooms…
14. Level: …second, there’s some severe penalization of screw ups because…
15. Level: …entire swaths of the dungeon can lead to being ‘stuck’ and having to reverse engineer how to reset the puzzle to progress, or worse just actually reset the dungeon. This whole dungeon is a giant waste of time
16. Controls: Once you procure the mermaid fins, swimming becomes ‘tap to move’. And that… sucks. It’s imprecise, it hurts the thumb, and it makes just traversal irritating
17. Level: Level 7, Jabu Jabu. This is a pretty standard Zelda dungeon negative. What’s that, you made one tiny mistake and went through the wrong door at the wrong time? Sucks to be you, it was a one way door and the water’s at the wrong levels now. So you quite literally have to redo the entire first AND second segments of the dungeon to get back to where you were at. This is on top of having a heavy emphasis on boring backtracking through the same areas over and over to change the water levels, and all of that leads to a 50 minute dungeon WITH a walkthrough…
18. Level: …earning it…
19. Level: …three negatives
20. Encounter: The water pits in Level 8, by themselves, deserve a negative. Awful controls and tremendous ease of falling and restarting, combined with an absolutely terrible runback if you die here, all while being bullcrap to begin with
21. Level: You guessed it, Level 8 Ancient Tomb. Very, very long, with the usual monodirectional ‘go do the whole dungeon over’ bullcrap…
22. Level: …for two negatives. It only fails to get more because, arduousness aside, the dungeon itself isn’t bad
23. Boss: Ramrock’s worse stages are… kind of awful
24. Outro: Twinrova is… not great. First phase is boring, second phase is unfair
25. Seconds In Minutes: Not as bad as its twin, but there’s still large swaths of the game that just take too long (hour plus dungeons, WITH a walkthrough, and long long stretches between dungeons)…
26. Seconds In Minutes: …for two negatives

Story Positives:

1. Intro: What’s good in the Intro is quite solid
2. Brickwork: General. Nothing too fancy (it is the DS) but there’s still enough that it works
3. Spritework: General. This mostly applies to characters, but it’s still true
4. Doodads: General, especially inside the houses
5. Storyboarding: Honestly surprisingly good storyboarding for a lot of cutscenes
6. Humor: Background elements in cutscenes. If you liked the silly factor of Wind Waker you’ll probably like this too
7. Character: Linebeck. Damned if he didn’t grow on me by the end, more than I thought he would
8. Outro: I’ve seen worse (in this series no less!) and better (ditto) but there’s still enough meat in that Outro to qualify

Story Negatives:

1. Intro: Cutscene incompetence, lots of needless repetition, and arduous to slog through
2. Empty Text: Almost entirely during the first couple of dungeons, but it’s still there

Gameplay Positives:

1. Map: This is honestly an astonishingly good map. Indicative of terrain and zone lines, little touches like proper colorization…
2. Map: …earning two positives
3. Core Mechanic: Drawing on map. It’s hard to properly emphasize how big of a deal this is. The game smartly gives you information in places where you can’t interact with where it’s needed, but where you can write on the map FOR the area it’s needed. It’s also helpful for areas you go through multiple times, and is great for just general note taking…
4. Core Mechanic: …earning a solid double positive
5. Penalty For Failure: Usual Zelda positive for deaths and penalty for failure
6. Itemization: Drops and quantity thereof
7. Music: There’s… issues, but when the music’s good it’s solid
8. HUD: Some usual quality stuff from the Zelda series
9. Pacing: Bit of a gimme for the franchise, but it still counts
10. Kit: Boomerang deserves its own positive. The way it controls with the stylus is awesome, intuitive, and leads to a lot of cool interactions
11. Kit: Bombchus! Similar to the boomerang, the usage of being able to draw on the map exactly the path it takes leads to this suddenly becoming a wonder tool
12. Kit: Hammer! My goodness, the hammer. It hits where your mouse is, so it’s ranged. It can interact with objects, cut down things, pick up items, and be charged to do more damage. This is kind of crazy how good it is…
13. Kit: …earning two positives
14. Minigame: Salvaging! Fun, simple, lucrative, optional…
15. Minigame: …for two positives
16. Level: 1, The Temple of Fire. Surprisingly cool and fun little puzzles in what is essentially a tutorial dungeon
17. Boss: Blaaz. Simple gimmick, simple fight, but great and fun usage of the weapon (boomerang) and the minimap
18. Level: 2, Wind Temple. Short but sweet, with good looping and smart indicators
19. Boss: Cyclok, another smart usage of the two screens. Bombs knocking the boss out of the air and dodging tornadoes, with it
20. Overworld: Activities while sailing. There’s several things you can do just while roaming around to keep it interesting
21. Level: 3, Temple of Courage. This is a fun one; Great looping and dense puzzles, and some wonderfully creative stuff with making your own path for blocks and the like…
22. Level: …for two positives
23. Boss: Crayk is legitimately awesome. I admit I’m admittedly more positive because of the gimmick, but I love having to navigate based on what the BOSS is seeing and not myself, and it adds a nice layer to everything…
24. Boss: …for two positives
25. Level: Ghost Ship. This is another short but sweet dungeon, introducing some fantastic new enemies and playing with them, as well as somehow actually making an escort quest (3 of them in fact!) fun…
26. Level: …for a double positive
27. Level: Temple of the Ocean King. So considering this dungeon’s infamy this may surprise, but there’s two things this dungeon does right. First is just… the dungeon itself. Good variety of enemies who escalate as we go, good escalating puzzles as we go, and generally it’s fun… the first time through
28. Level: Second, the Temple of the Ocean King is different (slightly) each time you go through. Each puzzle designed to have different solutions depending on what tools you’ve unlocked at any given point in time
29. MSQ: The logic puzzle of Frost Island deserves its own mention for being a nice diversion from the usual, and fun to boot
30. Level: 4, Temple of Ice. It’s kind of rare to see an ice temple that works this solidly
31. Boss: Gleeok. There’s a few… control issues here, but it’s still a fun and creative way to play with the grappling hook
32. Level: 5, Goron Temple. Great usage of the bombchus, fun pacing between segments, good guidance, and best of all the two player segments…
33. Level: …for two positives
34. Boss: Dongorongo might be my favorite overall boss so far. Swapping between the two characters, multiple fun ways to bring the boss vuln, the second phase, good usage of trash…
35. Boss: …for two positives
36. MSQ: The Isle of the Dead, the mazes, and the Isle of Ruins. Honestly this whole segment feels like an entire dungeon by itself
37. Level: Mutoh’s Temple. One of the weaker dungeons honestly but still has some good stuff throughout
38. Boss: Eox. Great usage of the hammer, mobility, and general spectacle
39. Outro: The first Bellum fight (all two phases of it) is actually pretty fun, and a good way to keep you on your toes and using multiple items
40. Replayability: Control issues aside, this is (or I guess would be) a fairly replayable game

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Controls: Words cannot express how much I hate this control scheme. I know it doesn’t bother everyone, and that’s great, but this… is an awful control scheme. It is imprecise, difficult to see past the stylus you’re using to control, the same controls are for moving and attacking, movement is non intuitive, and the same types of controls do totally different things. This, by itself, makes me never want to play this game again…
2. Controls: …earning as a baseline…
3. Controls: …three negatives
4. Controls: Then there’s the microphone. It has issues working, it has issues triggering properly, and it’s required for several puzzles in the game
5. Core Combat: Related to controls, the core combat is just… not fun
6. Controls: Okay so normally I only give three negatives per category fo things, but this really needs to be re-emphasized. Bosses that are good are ruined by the controls. Puzzles that are good are ruined by the controls. Enemies that are fun are ruined by the controls. It casts a pall on the entire game…
7. Controls: …earning an extra…
8. Controls: …three negatives
9. Audio Spam: Hiayh! Hwauh!
10. Intro: Overly tutorialized, long, slow, and boring
11. Walkthroughitis: Closing the DS to solve the puzzle
12. Music: Extremely short loops and repetitious. There’s two songs that play for a HUGE swath of the game, the ‘overworld’ song and the ‘dungeon’ song… and the overworld song plays for almost every island surface, and the dungeon song plays for every single dungeon in the game (including the Ocean King Temple). This is functionally the same problem as it was in Zelda 1…
13. Music: …earning two negatives
14. Level: The Temple of the Ocean King… repetition. I should mention as an anecdote that I know MULTIPLE people who quit this game over repeating this dungeon. But the first negative here is, quite simply, for the repetition itself; having to redo the temple is not great
15. Level: The Temple of the Ocean King, part 2. This is the repetition of the repetition. For those of you unaware, you don’t just redo the Temple, you redo it 5 (or 4, if you’re good) times. And that sucks exactly as much as it sounds
16. Minigame: Minigames. There’s a few that are just… time consuming, too random, or irritating
17. Itemization: Ship parts and, thusly, ship health
18. Unskippable Cutscene: Only a few, but a nice long one right before an irritating boss fight? That’s a paddling
19. Penalty For Failure: The Three Heart Problem returns. Seriously, I’m honestly astonished this is a thing in a game from 2007. When you die you restart… with 3 hearts…
20. Penalty For Failure: …but it’s worse than that. See, when you die it says ‘continue or save
quit’. Continuing commits to losing all items you just used, as well as restarting with 3 hearts. If you save and quit, you are now locked IN and saved as having 3 hearts and losing those items. Both options lead this way. What the game does not tell you is if you literally turn the DS off and back on and reload your save before the encounter, you’ll get back whatever hearts you had and items you had before, just like… y’know, loading
21. Outro: Bellum ship fight. Shots getting in the way, irritating homing, lots to hit, easy to die… this fight could be worse, but it’s not good
22. Outro: The final boss fight, even once you figure it out, is just a bit too RNG and a bit too jank to be fun
23. Grind: Basically everything to do with ship parts
24. Seconds In Minutes: Lots of examples, especially the mandatory item interactions, showcasing which doors opened, flames lighting, etc.

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: Still the same general issue as Phantom Hourglass, DS games just don’t really manage brickwork that well
2. Spritework: Expressive and distinct, but still a DS game
3. Doodads: In this one field the game does do noticeably better than Phantom Hourglass, as the little details and additives help make areas pop a lot better…
4. Doodads: …for two positives
5. Humor: As with before, the game gets a chuckle out of me to this day
6. Storyboarding: Surprisingly good storyboarding to cutscenes
7. Cutscene: Cole’s inevitable betrayal scene
8. Cutscene: First tower scene. Zelda’s freak out, revelation, indications of her upbringing, mockery of the series’ bad traditions, and some generally great storyboarding and animations
9. Character: Supporting cast is generally memorable and interesting
10. Character: Zelda herself might actually be the best she’s ever been right here. Multiple cutscenes get a positive individually for her presence and usage, and it’s nice to see her having an actual personality and reacting to people and things instead of pulling a Penelo
11. Background Lore: Some interesting flavor lore scattered throughout, mostly in the side quests. We get the really strong vibe of…
12. World Building: …just how dependant these people really are on this functionally alien technology they settled onto. The whole realm lives and breathes on the spirit tracks and the train routes, and just does not function without
13. Cutscene: The post Byrne battle victory scene for Zelda and Link is very cute
14. Outro: Link and Zelda sort of steal the Outro. Their camaraderie, the song, and both of them thrusting the sword into Malladus together is honestly awesome
15. Outro: I have to give a bonus positive here for Link and Zelda holding hands. It’s very simple but it’s such a strong moment of conclusion for the two

Story Negatives:

1. External Continuity: No matter how you slice this, this game connects pretty badly to Wind Waker, which it is a direct sequel of. Thematically (because Wind Waker was all about moving on from the past), literally (there’s absolutely no stated explanation for why this Zelda and Link are who they are with no connection to each other), and in a few other small ways scattered throughout the game…
2. External Continuity: …earning a solid double negative

Gameplay Positives:

1. Map: Same excellent map from before. Indicative, colorized and stylized, lots of detail, and well labeled…
2. Map: …for two positives
3. Core Mechanic: Writing on map returns and continues to be excellent
4. Yoshi Drums: There was a bit in Phantom Hourglass, but there’s a lot in Spirit Tracks, and used to much greater effect
5. Music: Helps that the music is excellent in general…
6. Music: …for an easy double positive
7. Core Mechanic: Train controls. They’re simple, but surprisingly fun, especially the horn
8. Core Mechanic: Zelda & dual controls. There’s a few more padded sections for these but overall the gimmick works great, and really adds depth to a lot of puzzles and combat. My only wish is they used this for the major dungeons and not just the tower in the middle
9. Overworld: Activities. Rabbits, rocks, enemies
10. Secondary: Quite a few this time around, though all mostly of the ‘filler’ type it’s still decent filler. Ferrying passengers around, hauling cargo, that sort of thing
11. Minigames: As per the series’ usual, though arguably better than Phantom’s across the board. While Phantom had a few irritating or grindy ones, this one does not
12. Kit: Boomerang. For basically the same reason as before in Phantom (being able to draw the path of the boomerang and operate independently) this is a great bit of kit
13. Kit: Whip! Love this thing. It’s not quite as good as the hammer from Phantom, I’ll be honest, but it serves a similar function (attack, grab, loot)
14. Kit: Sand wand! This thing’s great. Use it on the sand to raise columns, but also hold it down to solidify or ‘paint’ in the sand, also you can raise UNDER yourself giving additional functionality
15. Enemy Design: Some fun and creative stuff here
16. HUD: Same generally good HUD design from Phantom
17. Itemization: All of the good with none of the bad from Phantom
18. Replayability: If not for the controls (and that damned mic) this would be a rather replayable game
19. Terrain: Back to some good terrain design
20. Tutorialization: Back for each item you get, and some fun stuff throughout letting you play with new items
21. Intro: Some hiccups, but a good and solid tutorialization as well as introducing several principle mechanics (controlling Zelda, the Tower, the tracks)
22. Boss: Stagnox. First phase is basic avoidance, but there’s some minute changes that make this a better boss than it really has a right to be, like giving the player plenty of time to hit him, or revealing his weakpoint immediately to not waste vuln time
23. Level: Spirit Tower 2. No repeat, new gimmicks, fun co-op between Zelda and Link
24. MSQ: The Anouki logic puzzle, the cave fight, the blizzard sequence
25. Level: The Ice Temple. Absolutely great usage of the boomerang, the noise and musical motif, and the melting snow / freezing water mechanics with the boomerang make for a great dungeon that doesn’t outstay its welcome…
26. Level: …for a solid…
27. Level: …triple positive
28. Boss: Further the boss (Fraaz) is an excellent implementation / escalation of the boomerang freeze / burn mechanics…
29. Boss: …for a solid two positives
30. Level: The Ocean Temple. For its issues, it was still filled with some interesting and fun puzzles and a nice usage of the whip
31. Boss: Phytops. A few niggling control issues aside, this is a fun fight, and a good continued usage of the whip
32. Level: The Fire Temple. Back to some good stuff after a few hiccups earlier; Nice gimmick (moving while shooting), nice puzzle looping and shortcutting, and rewarding and challenging puzzle design…
33. Level: …for two positives
34. Boss: Cragma! Obvious weak points, but the puzzle is how to reach them. Multiple attack cycles that provide ammo as well as encourage avoidance, builds well off the level design preceding it, nicely visceral with a cool song, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. Great boss fight…
35. Boss: …for a solid…
36. Boss: …triple positives
37. Level: The second to last Spirit Tower trip has a lot of fun, involved puzzles
38. Boss: Byrne. Control issues aside it’s a fun fight, with good escalation throughout the phases between yanking, blocking, and bodying
39. Level: The Sand Temple is probably the other best dungeon of the game. Excellent puzzles, combat, fun item, great flow…
40. Level: …earning a solid…
41. Level: …triple positive
42. Boss: Irritations with controls aside, Skeldritch is fun, inventive, and cool
43. Outro: For all the frustrations and bogs, I have to give credit to a lot of the puzzles in the final Spirit Tower segment. They are very well designed and interesting to figure out
44. Outro: The first of the final bosses (the train) is actually excellent. Good usage of the various controls, the minimap helping us to know how to deal with things, multiple phases with varying attacks, it’s all good stuff

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Controls: Stylus. Yeah it’s… it’s still bad. Imprecise, difficult to see past the stylus, same controls for moving and attacking, movement is non intuitive, same controls for all sorts of things. Thus it earns…
2. Controls: …the same three negatives…
3. Controls: …as Phantom Hourglass
4. Controls: Mic issues. So, the usual mic sucks problems from before, let’s get that out of the way
5. Controls: Then there’s the fact that you have to hold the DS in SUCH an awkward way while barely being able to see what you’re doing
6. Controls: Then there’s the fact that you have to use the mic so many times for so many things. It’s not some one and done side gimmick, it’s one of the primary gimmicks of the game
7. Controls: …I didn’t want to do this. But the truth is Spirit Tracks has the exact same problem Hourglass did; the controls constantly ruin otherwise good gameplay, and that has to be acknowledged and addressed. Puzzles, exploration, just simple navigation, nevermind enemies and bosses…
8. Controls: …for yet another…
9. Controls: …three negatives
10. Penalty For Failure: The 3 heart problem returns
11. Penalty For Failure: Hitting a train on the overworld map instantly kills you and sends you back to the previous station you left from
12. MSQ: Play the flute, play it on time, play it well
13. Controls: Did I mention one of the items in the game requires blowing into the mic every single time you use it? Cuz it does. Hyperventilation simulator
14. MSQ: So we have another flute section which isn’t as bad, but then some weird sequencing and absolutely janky, time consuming switch irritation and padding
15. Traversal: Train time is just too slow. Not by much, but by enough to be noticeable, especially given how many parts of the game involve just being on the train
16. Level: The Ocean Temple. This is a weird one but the whole dungeon was just a bit too… padded. Even basic things like ‘checking the solution’ take forever, and the ‘time to resolve’ puzzles was a bit too high
17. Level: Floor 15 of the Spirit Tower. There’s a few issues with the later levels in general but the worst part is there’s a part of the dungeon you cannot see normally which has a switch, and without seeing that switch you cannot progress. And nothing indicates it’s there meaning, you guessed it, ‘scanning’ (with the boomerang or Zelda) every inch of the level
18. Secondary: The ore delivery sidequest, good lord. The best way to do this quest is to glitch it out of existence because holy crap. You have to carry this ore through a tunnel with a boss AND adds, and you can only take one hit the entire time or else you fail. I could type up more details but please trust me, screw this sidequest
19. MSQ: The route to the Fire Temple. Long, padded quest with bullcrap and RNG in delivering the ice? Check. Long, padded section to get the keys? Check. Ability to LOSE the keys afterwards thereby making it even more padded? Check
20. Walkthroughitis: A few bits of the later Spirit Tower levels have functionality I literally would not have guessed even existed without a walkthrough
21. Audio Spam: Honestly the usual here
22. Core Combat: As with Phantom Hourglass, just not a fun game to fight in
23. Unskippable Cutscenes: Yeah, sadly…
24. Unskippable Cutscenes: …especially during the finale, hope you enjoy long unskippable cutscenes right before a boss
25. Level: Floor 28 of the Spirit Tower. A very annoying puzzle to control (be ON Zelda while guiding her with a short timer platform creation) and then forcing you to control Zelda is already bad, but it hits objectively bad territory because there’s no shortcut back. In other words, even if you do it perfectly, you have to ‘solve’ this puzzle a bare minimum of two times (more likely 3 for the optional chest)
26. Level: Floor 29. Ignoring the bullcrap of not spawning the enemy properly unless Link is there (with no indication that’s the case), the CONSTANT backtracking across the lava is awful
27. Padding: Too much to list properly. Padding absolutely everywhere. This is a 4 hour speedrun, or DOUBLE that if you do everything…
28. Padding: …for two negatives
29. Seconds In Minutes: Again, far too many examples to list here. Every little thing has an extra animation or unskippable cutscene or text pop up…
30. Seconds In Minutes: …for two negatives
31. Outro: My God, the final Spirit Tower segment. There’s some legitimately good puzzles in here but they are entirely too arduous to truly be enjoyable, and every little thing takes absolutely forever, and that’s amongst a near total lack of gameplay pacing…
32. Outro: …earning two negatives
33. Outro: No checkpoints on the dark trains segment of the final sequence
34. Outro: The Cole ‘fight’ sucks. Cole’s rats stall Zelda, moving forwards is the goal, if she’s caught she’s mind controlled which is not only hard to fix but costs you significant progress, the rats can spawn right on her face, and dragging Zelda forwards is a camera control pain as it always is, meaning honestly the whole fight is (you guessed it) frustrating because of the controls. This is also designed to absolutely destroy any progress you make via any mistake whatsoever, and there’s RNG on top of that which also makes it so enemies can spawn on your face or directly on Zelda…
35. Outro: …earning it…
36. Outro: …a full three negatives
37. Outro: No checkpoints of the final two bosses! Which means in addition to all their additional problems, you have to rewatch a LONG ass cutscene each time AND redo both fights
38. Outro: The final, final boss fight. This fight would’ve been merely one negative if this were with proper controls, because it’s still a bullcrap parry fest where you have to do the entire sequence perfectly or start over from the beginning, but those God Damned Controls get in the way again. This is especially true since the only reliable way to reflect the attacks is spin attacking, a move that dizzies you if you use it too rapidly, or tapping, which threatens dodge rolling which will either fail or, worse, dizzy you. This absolutely sucks…
39. Outro: …and deserves its own…
40. Outro: …triple negative
41. Outro: One last negative for that final flute section, screw you game
42. Outro: One last negative for that final unending final final final phase just NOT ENDING and dragging it on and on and on and on

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: Grasslands. Lovely trees, grass, and hills
2. Brickwork: Dark woods. The usual creepy skulls, rotten fog, and trees
3. Brickwork: Dungeons, towns, towers. Not really significant individually, but together you get some good visuals
4. Brickwork: Frozen Hyrule is wonderful looking, and the frozen temple continues the trend
5. Brickwork: The Gerudo desert, the pyramid, and the sand temple
6. Brickwork: The tower and the platforms high up in the sky
7. Spritework: Honestly this barely qualifies as a positive, but between bosses and enemies it eeks it out
8. Doodads: Almost entirely in towns (as usual) but still good
9. Visual Continuity: Surprisingly good stuff that helps keep the feel of Hyrule present throughout
10. MSQ: The entire Village of the Blue Maiden sequence is weirdly legit, with lots of NPCs that have their own micro stories going within it
11. NPC Set Dressing: Weirdly, yeah. Between the dead, the villagers, and talkative enemies, the game feels pretty alive
12. Localization: Surprisingly good, and adds good flavor
13. Background Lore: Quite a bit, probably as a consequence of the story that was gutted, with only bits and pieces left over
14. Sound: The game just… sounds good, and it really adds to a lot of areas and sequences, in a similar way to…
15. Music Direction: …the usage of the music. I think this game wouldn’t have nearly as much atmosphere as it does elsewise…
16. Music Direction: …earning two music direction positives
17. Outro: The final sealing of Ganon (forever, canonically), the showcasing of the provinces and the lives we’ve helped, the final celebration…
18. Outro: …earning two positives

Story Negatives:

1. Pacing: Sure hope you enjoy a story that functionally doesn’t even start until the end of world 5. In a game with 8 worlds

Gameplay Positives:

1. Co-Op: Good and fun…
2. Co-Op: …and built around the concept, down to its bones
3. Controls: This game controls exceptionally well. Even more than your standard Zelda fare, the controls are tight, responsive, well thought out, well considered, and have multiple options…
4. Controls: …for a solid…
5. Controls: …triple positive
6. Controls: Bonus positive for the shortcutting and smart interpretation of inputs
7. Combat: Not the best of the series, but still quite good. Fighting stuff is fun as it should be…
8. Combat: …and earns two positives
9. Core Mechanic: The quad party thing itself. The whole game is centered around this, it’s easy to control and swap between, and it helps keep the tempo of the game smooth
10. Music: Y’know, I know these are all remixes, but I don’t care. The music in this game absolutely slaps and does a great job mixing music from multiple Zelda games and, as mentioned earlier, using it wonderfully…
11. Music: …for a solid…
12. Music: …triple positive
13. Viscerality: It’s shocking how visceral this game is. Your attacks shred things, the attacks look bombastic and fantastic, and the sound design makes you feel like a chipper shredder…
14. Viscerality: …earning two positives
15. Encounter: This mostly shows up in the late game, but there’s some really solid encounter design in how they lay out each room
16. Guidance: It varies, and is a bit low for the series’ standard, but for the most part you can figure out what to do and where to go pretty smoothly
17. HUD: Some of the usual Zelda HUD design quality here
18. Kit: Quite a bit, despite how limited the usage is, but it keeps you cycling through your kit pretty rapidly. Bombos, boomerang, bow, the hammer, the fire rod, the feather, the boots, and the slingshot. It probably wouldn’t get the second positive…
19. Kit: …but for that smart cycling of the kit
20. Itemization: The drops are weirdly good in this one. They pull a similar trick to Minish Cap, but it works smartly here; You have so little other options (due to resetting each stage), but the drops are massive and constant, keeping a nonstop flow of health and items coming…
21. Itemization: …earning a double positive
22. Penalty For Failure: Usual Zelda style penalty for failure
23. Terrain: Generally excellent terrain design. Lots of smart shortcuts and smooth looping
24. Traversal: Weirdly, the dodge roll works REALLY well here. It’s quick, easy, fun, and well controlled
25. Visual Distinction: I’ve seen better, but there’s still some good distinction on display
26. Sound Design: Lots of indicators on what’s happening and where
27. Enemy Design: Not the most variety, but the enemies are reasonably well designed overall
28. Boss: General boss positive. Most bosses are simple affairs, but they’re still fun to fight
29. Pacing: Fantastic gameplay pacing. Not the best in the series, but easily worthy…
30. Pacing: …of double positives
31. Camera: Smart usage of camera zoom throughout
32. Intro: 1-1 does everything it needs to to establish everything about how the game plays, operates, and its overall tempo. Several fun introductions then escalations, lots of tutorialization, and a nice capstone at the end to test the player…
33. Intro: …for a solid double positive
34. Level: 1-2. More escalation of new concepts and puzzles, as well as keeping things short and fun
35. Level: 1-3. Fun puzzles, fun combat, fun pacing, fun in general
36. Level: 2-1. Starting to play around with weapon upgrades and more mass combat, and keeping things going smoothly
37. Level: 2-2, Village of the Blue Maiden. This is an awesome stage; it’s one of the less linear stages in a good way, allowing you to push through the initial clues in whatever order and offering some alternatives for how to solve the final few puzzles. It’s also a great change of pace, and includes the usual quality fun factor…
38. Level: 2-2, …for a solid…
39. Level: 2-2, …three positives
40. Level: 2-3, Eastern Palace. Tight, looping design as you hit one loop then another to gain access to hit the central area, the whole stage is a bit metroidy in a good way and culminates in a fun boss fight…
41. Level: 2-3, …for two positives
42. Level: 3-1, Death Mountain Foothills is probably the most combat intensive stage so far, but does some good stuff with encounter design and offers the player tons of fun ways to obliterate enemies en masse…
43. Level: 3-1, …for two positives
44. Level: 3-2, Mountain Path. It stumbles a few times, but the theme of fire and water works quite well and it’s got a decent boss battle
45. Level: 3-3. A short but simple dungeon in the Zelda 1 style, with multiple routes and solutions
46. Level: 4-1, the Field. The initial escort section aside, this is a great stage. The Hyperbeam Moment of the horses, the quick puzzle sequence, the upgradable items, the combat sequence at the end. This would be a great ‘MSQ’ segment in a regular Zelda game and it rocks here…
47. Level: …earning it…
48. Level: …three positives
49. Level: 4-2, the Swamp. Good variety of encounters, puzzles, exploration, action, and combat…
50. Level: 4-2, …for two positives
51. Level: 5-1, the Lost Woods. Simple but fun gameplay theme (fire) and the slow unlocking of more traversal makes the whole thing feel like a micro Metroid stage
52. Level: 5-2 is a great paced, well constructed explore sequence followed by a nice romp and a quick miniboss
53. Level: 6-1, Desert of Doubt. A lot of very contained puzzles, but each one contains a decent amount of gimmicks and variety, and of course having to do it all in the right order…
54. Level: …for two positives
55. Level: 6-2, the Desert Temple and the eternal hammers. The whole temple is themed around hammers and it does great stuff with it
56. Level: 6-3, the Pyramid. Some obvious good stuff on the narrative axis, but the real fun is how the entire stage rotates in and out of itself, with some of the usual good looping and smart item placement…
57. Level: …for two positives
58. Level: 7-1, Frozen Hyrule outstays its welcome a bit, but still has great looping and well designed backtracking in its flame themed puzzles
59. Level: 7-2, Ice Temple. More good theming (fire, of course) and lots of fun puzzles with very little backtracking and really starting to get mean with puzzle execution…
60. Level: …for two positives
61. Level: 7-3, the Tower of Winds. This is a fascinating example of short but sweet; lots of micro challenges all back to back in a relatively short dungeon
62. Level: 8-1, Realm of the Heavens. High intensity of active puzzles, lots of danger, lots of reward, and great challenge…
63. Level: …for two positives
64. Level: 8-2, the Dark Cloud. Continuing the intensity of puzzle and combat design, great encounters, great fun…
65. Level: …for two positives
66. Outro: 8-3 has a few issues, but it still manages to be a very tight loop with fun puzzles and nice escalation of puzzle themes…
67. Outro: …for two positives
68. Outro: Vaati is actually probably one of the better bosses in the game, go figure
69. Outro: A simple but fun final boss fight
70. Replayability: Short, fun, and arcadey
71. Viscerality: One of my favorite games for pot and grass smashing and cutting and the like. The playground design and tons of great set pieces where we can get our smash on…
72. Viscerality: …for a solid double

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Unskippable Cutscenes: Yyyyep
2. MTX: Everything to do with the over-reliance on that damned GBA trinket and the GBA itself to do co-op, and the fact that it screws over the graphics of the indoors segments, is awful and even though you can safely ignore all of it single player it still actively bogs the game down…
3. MTX: …for a solid…
4. MTX: …three negatives
5. Audio Spam: Now in 4 layer HD!
6. Seconds In Minutes: Text pop ups each friggin’ item grab
7. Graphics: What is wrong with the GBA segments, holy hell. The GBA can do GREAT spritework, this is total nonsense. Bad framerate, bad animations, and bad sprites
8. Graphics: Also there’s this weird wobbly effect they like to over-use and it sucks
9. Level: 4-3. Oh it’s a fine level on its own right but there’s a massive Force Gem drought which more or less mandates being thorough and quite probably having to do a huge swath of the level a second time, making this bad backtracking
10. Level: 5-2 also has a bit of walkthroughitis in finding all the damned thieves
11. Outro: 8-3 has a few issues. One of the puzzles requiring shooting a boomerang through a WALL is ridiculous, and the mandatory backtracking is needless

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: Let’s get this out of the way; the grassy forested lands look amazing. This applies to a pretty large portion of the map to be fair, so it makes sense that they’d knock it out of the park here, but credit where credit is due
2. Brickwork: So this is kind of a catch all, but all the more mountainous, hilly areas
3. Brickwork: Lorule in general. While still a bit sickly like the Dark World, the added detail of…
4. Visual Storytelling: …the chasms really helps sell how much this realm is falling apart at the seams
5. Brickwork: Kakariko is great, with variety, prosperity, and livelihood on display…
6. Visual Storytelling: …once again serving as great contrast to Thieves Town which just looks dilapidated and is filled with people who have just plain given up
7. Brickwork: Dungeons. It’s mostly the same tile recolored, but effort is made to keep each one distinct from another, and so as an aggregate…
8. Brickwork: …they deserve…
9. Brickwork: …three positives
10. Spritework: I’ve seen some good stuff here. It’s a bit lacking thanks to the insistence on 3D, but it’s still good
11. Doodads: This is probably where this game shines over all the other 2D Zeldas. There is a ton of little detailing all over the place, really helping to sell the environments and the dungeons…
12. Doodads: …for an easy double positive
13. Doodads: But I must make special mention of how they flesh out Kakariko…
14. Doodads: …and Thieves Town. These places really feel like exactly what they should, and make me believe these are real villages despite their video gaminess
15. Intro: Good, simple, solid. A bit slower than I’d expect, but well paced for what it is
16. Characters: The Sages. Each character isn’t much by themselves, but they’re all distinct from each other and their predecessors, and the fact that we get to meet them prior to them becoming Sages helps a lot
17. World Building: As with several Zeldas, we get a lot of information on exactly how prosperous and wonderful things have been for Hyrule for some time, as well as how it operates
18. NPC Set Dressing: Surprisingly, but yes. The NPCs really help flesh things out
19. Moment: Entering Lorule for the first time. The thunder, the tattered room, the ruined world in the distance
20. Atmosphere: Lorule. Everything about Lorule just oozes the vibe of a broken, shattered realm
21. MSQ: Similar to Skull Woods in LTTP, the Palace of Darkness just… nails it. Actually using the darkness gameplay wise is neat, but the game just nails it here
22. Localization: Tight, precise, and well done. Good conveyance of nuance too
23. Characters: General. Lots of fun side supporting cast
24. Character: Hilda. The princess who couldn’t, but who had to
25. External Continuity: What if…
26. Music Direction: Mostly in dungeons, but still true
27. Themes: What would you do to save your world?
28. Visual Continuity: A lot of work is done to maintain this at a lot of times. Going outside the windmill, or seeing the background in the distance, or just the general biome designs
29. Architecture: Meanwhile great work to make the towns of both worlds feel substantially larger than they actually are, mostly by borrowing the same techniques as LTTP but also a few interesting camera tricks to use the 3DS’s limited hardware to its fullest
30. Outro: Final dungeon and final boss. Fun, engaging, intense, and interesting
31. Outro: Hilda and Ravio, the revelation of Lorule’s history, and the confrontation between Hilda and the team
32. Outro: The restoration of Lorule is an amazing moment. It is a perfect encapsulation of the entire game, a great follow through on LTTP, and fully follows through on the theme of the work. It’s powerful, impacting, and I love it…
33. Outro: …earning a solid…
34. Outro: …triple positive
35. Outro: The final denomount, showcasing the lives we’ve saved and helped throughout the game

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Map: Outside maps. I’ve seen better (in this series, even) but these are still really solid maps
2. Map: Inside maps are really good too. Much higher detail, many more indicators of what is where, and proved invaluable for navigation in a bunch of dungeons
3. Map: Map markers on both maps. As in, player-laid map markers, which is always a welcome feature
4. HUD: Not the best, but still damned good
5. Core Mechanic: The rental system. Incentivizing not dying, letting you swap items relatively quickly and cheaply, and of course the nature of how this totally changes the dynamic of the game. Doing dungeons in any order, dungeons indicate what you need for that dungeon right out front, and each dungeon can be designed around that item from word go
6. Core Mechanic: Mana bar. This is the first time Zelda has played with a regenerating resource style kit, and while using all items on the same bar is a questionable choice, it does totally negate the ‘ammo’ equation, which also means getting softlocked is a lot less likely. It also means encounters and boss fights tend to be a bit more intense as just spamming items isn’t feasible
7. Core Mechanic: Canvas Mode. Let’s be clear; this is an AWESOME feature. By itself it would probably be a fairly basic gimmick like so many others, but as is they use this constantly. The game functions in ‘layers’ similar to a lot of 2D games, but now you have access to navigating those layers at all points in the game, plus with lots of work done to quickly visually indicate what you can interact with and what you can’t. This is amazing…
8. Core Mechanic: …and easily deserves…
9. Core Mechanic: …three positives
10. Secondary: Maiamais. Spread (good but not too much density), sound (audible noise when nearby, which varies slightly depending on how hidden they are), design (visually distinct), and rewarding. They’re even gradient in how they reward the player (every 10 gets an upgrade, and you can both bank those upgrades and pick which ones you want in what order). This is probably the best collectathon in a Zelda to date…
11. Secondary: …and earns a full…
12. Secondary: …triple positive
13. Kit: Lots of great stuff here. First is, of course, the usuals…
14. Kit: …but then we have some new, cool stuff. The tornado, the ridiculous fire and ice rods…
15. Kit: …the sand rod, and a host of fun items like escape fruits, bees, and fun potions
16. Kit: Hint glasses! These are weirdly good, especially for finding individual puzzles, and are nicely gradient
17. Music: Honestly I’m not a big fan of the overworld themes… but those dungeon songs, holy crap are they well done…
18. Music: …easily earning two positives
19. Controls: Exceptionally well controlled, as per the great Zeldas standard…
20. Controls: …earning the full…
21. Controls: …three positives
22. Controls: Shortcutting and quick swapping
23. Combat: Not THE best 2D combat, but still fun and interesting
24. Fast Travel: Lots of fast travel points, quick and easy to use, find to earn, and pulls double duty as save points…
25. Fast Travel: …earning two positives
26. Tutorialization: Not as much as you’d think, but almost every dungeon does have a few quick and dirty tutorial moments for the intended item
27. Guidance: Some of the best guidance of the series, honestly. This is especially true in how few negatives are here, and thus earns…
28. Guidance: …a solid and untarnished double positive
29. Terrain: Some of the best terrain design in the series, hands down. The ‘layered cake’ concept is used everywhere, and is designed entirely around this, alongside the usual excellence…
30. Terrain: …earning a full…
31. Terrain: …triple positives
32. Itemization: Drop rate of items in general
33. Itemization: Money design. You need a lot of rupees, and you get a lot of rupees, and it’s usually rewarding to explore
34. Encounter: Variable, but there’s still some good encounter design here
35. Enemy Design: Lovely enemy design throughout
36. Pacing: Not the best, but still very good pacing between exploration, minigame, combat, and puzzle
37. Replayability: Very replayable regardless…
38. Replayability: …and the massive routing possible in both worlds
39. Viscerality: Some really cool looking stuff here
40. Visual Distinction: Not as good as some of the others, but still visually distinct throughout
41. Minigames: Cuccos, counting, and of course…
42. Minigames: …the tower, which is just short sweet fun
43. Overworld: Hyrule. Density, spread of rewards, and connective paths
44. All Roads Lead To Rome: Hyrule. There’s a lot of ways to do this entire overworld in whatever order you want
45. Level: Eastern Palace. There’s not much to it, but it’s still a solid dungeon and it still gets you into the basics
46. Level: The exit from the Eastern Palace is a near perfect tutorial for the new canvas 2D mechanism
47. Level: Tower of Hera. The verticality, ‘jumping’ between layers theme is present throughout and they do some very fun and interesting things with it…
48. Level: …for two positives
49. Boss: Moldorm. He doesn’t even reset this time!
50. Level: House of Gales. This one’s all about movement and wind, being able to predict where you land and using that to navigate invisible mazes…
51. Level: …for two positives
52. Boss: Margomill! This could’ve been irritating, but instead it’s awesome thanks to some tight quality of life features and good QA testing
53. All Roads Lead To Rome: Lorule, just like in Hyrule, allows you to hit those dungeons in whatever order you’d like to
54. Overworld: Lorule. A little more locked down than Hyrule thanks to the chasms, but still well designed throughout
55. Level: Palace of Darkness. This one has the most obvious theme of all; light, but they use it SO well. Lighting torches and breaking open windows to cast a light on places, sure, but also the darkness reveals new things invisible in the light, meaning you’re constantly bouncing between the two states and it’s just so good…
56. Level: …for a great…
57. Level: …three positives
58. Boss: Gemasaur! Fun take on an old classic
59. Level: Thieves Hideout. An extended co op escort quest, with the first half of the dungeon being a quick loop down and the second run being most of the rest of the dungeon as you help your partner to progress…
60. Level: …for two positives
61. Boss: Stalblind. Fun gimmicks styled around the canvas mechanic
62. Level: Desert Palace. Height is again a theme, but this time it’s entirely in the player’s control; You have sand flow, and the sand rod, and can pull yourself or items up…
63. Level: …and the whole thing…
64. Level: …is worthy of triple positives
65. Level: The Swamp Palace! Once again with the height thing, but I have to give special mention to how it’s used here. Each room has its own water height, which totally changes how you navigate it and can access other rooms, but the controls to swap it are quick and easy, and the way the rooms all ‘click’ together is great…
66. Level: …making this one of the best dungeons in the game…
67. Level: …for a solid triple positive
68. Boss: Arrghus! Same basic fight as last time but with a few features that add to it making it even better
69. Level: Skull Woods, Wall Masters and limited motion; an enemy that SHOULD be a negative is instead part of a positive due to how the level uses it throughout the stage to interact with the layer above you…
70. Level: …earning a double positive
71. Boss: Knucklemaster! Fun ‘avoid the boss with the canvas’ mechanic
72. Level: Ice Ruins and the narrow navigation and making pathways theme. It’s hard to explain in words but if you see it you know what I mean; Mostly tight navigation of tight pathways, buut also constantly having to ‘escort’ a platform through the stage…
73. Level: …earning a solid double positive
74. Boss: Dharkstare! Flame, sure, hit, sure, but what really makes him so unique and fun is how his attacks propagate, making patterns you have to avoid on the floor
75. Level: Turtle Rock might be the worst dungeon in the game… which says something when it’s still a positive. This dungeon’s theme is all about layers; three layers you can see through, and how to interact with them, especially with ice (which can’t penetrate) and lava (which can)
76. Boss: Grinexx! Fulfilling and completing the theme; he can only be hit when he’s exposed, he can hit you whenever he bloody wants to thanks to that lava / ice dynamic
77. Outro: The final dungeon is legit. Good escalation, good presentation, great looping which can be done in multiple orders (lots of double dipping possible), and the classic ‘finish four segments to progress’ concept…
78. Outro: …for two big positives
79. Outro: Yuga is a fantastic final boss fight. The first phase is mostly just another Ganon fight, but phase two really plays with the painting mechanic and each phase has a different method to progress…
80. Outro: …easily earning a double positive
81. Viscerality: This is another one of those ‘better than average’ enjoyability to smashing pots and cutting grass and the like (as usual, the sound design helps)…
82. Viscerality: …a solid double

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Graphics: Depth perception issues
2. MTX: So… playcoins. These are used to interact with hint ghosts which are great, useful, and… use playcoins, which mandate not playing the game to collect
3. QoL: Stop playing the game!! Hey! Hey it’s been 20 minutes have you stopped playing the game yet!
4. Minigames: Baseball. Bad viewpoint with bad requirements and imprecise controls leads to screw this

Story Positives:

1. Intro: The shots of the different people across Termina, the slow descent into night, the simple and peaceful music that slowly warps as we tilt the camera up… and see the eldritch horror descending upon them. This one shot perfectly encapsulates the entire theme of the game
2. Animation: As with Ocarina, the animation in general is used to fantastic effect throughout…
3. Animation: …for two positives
4. Camera: Again, just like Ocarina, some truly fantastic camerawork throughout…
5. Camera: …for two positives
6. Storyboarding: And, again, some very smart and well constructed cutscene design and storyboarding…
7. Storyboarding: …for two positives
8. Brickwork: The woods and swamp in general. Lost, green, empty, but dense
9. Brickwork: Clock Town. The simple yet mechanical township
10. Architecture: So as with Ocarina and in the same way quite a bit of work is done into fleshing out Clock Town but also each species’ area. This is further helped by actually having visible terrain of the surrounding areas
11. Brickwork: The frozen norths of Snowpeak and the Gorons
12. Visual Storytelling: Great Bay Temple and the water purification pipes
13. Doodads: Clock Town! Especially indoors, but still very true
14. NPC Set Dressing: Schedule. This is along the lines of Oblivion, a game that would come out 6 years later, and in several ways surpasses it; Every NPC is named, has their own story, and their own schedule, and this massively improves the narrative axis…
15. NPC Set Dressing: …earning a full…
16. NPC Set Dressing: …three positives
17. Integration: Masks, gratitude, and forms
18. Intro: Build up. There’s so much development and intensity that’s built up, culminating in the first reset
19. Music Direction: Clock Town, across the three days, as the music gets worse and worse
20. Intro: The slow descent across the first loop setting the tone and vibe
21. Atmosphere: The Final Hours. I don’t even know what to say about this, it’s absolutely horrifying. The moon, the shaking, the people’s reactions…
22. Music Direction: …and the music, all clearly indicating just how awful this situation really is
23. Storytelling Mechanic: The day titlecards. These are iconic for a reason
24. Storytelling Mechanic: The moon itself. You can see it from almost everywhere in the world, and the slow but steady descent says it all
25. Cutscene: The (optional!) backstory cutscene for Skull Kid is well constructed and does a great job at conveying a lot in a little
26. Character: NPCS. There’s so, so many, and they are all memorable and distinct…
27. Character: …earning an easy…
28. Character: …triple positive
29. Character: Skull Kid. The child that never grew up
30. Character: Tatl. A lot more flavor than Navi and honestly a fair few number of characters
31. Character: Link. Barely, but it’s there. We can really see how Ocarina weighs on him
32. Moment: Mikau’s final moments, both silly and sad, and Link’s repose
33. Moment: The Skull Captain Keeta’s final moments, and the salute
34. Background Lore: Lots (NPCs)
35. Internal Continuity: As you might expect from a game like this, the game makes very careful usage of its internal continuity and constantly references and acknowledges events and characters…
36. Internal Continuity: …for a solid…
37. Internal Continuity: …triple positive
38. Localization: Good, as per the Zelda standard
39. Spritework: Enemies, characters, and bosses. They may be (mostly) copy pasted from Ocarina, but they’re still good…
40. Spritework: …and still get two positives
41. Themes: Loss, coping, and moving on…
42. Themes: …for two positives
43. World Building: Again, lots (notably Grandmother’s stories)
44. Prime Opt: Romani chain and connected points (the thieves, the milk bar)
45. Brickwork: Stone Tower lead up, some excellent (if changed in the 3D version) iconography and lots of interesting implications therein
46. World Building: The Ikana, the Garo, and the war the left an entire realm cursed
47. Brickwork: Stone Tower Temple. Iconography, the flip, the stylings
48. Music Direction: General, but constant. Almost every area is well designed and well toned…
49. Music Direction: …for two positives
50. Prime Opt: The Kafei and Anju quest chain. The way it dovetails into almost every other major chain in the game, the way it connects so many different characters throughout…
51. Prime Opt: …the way it is hinted at and can be walked into at multiple points…
52. Prime Opt: …even its multiple outcomes, all great stuff
53. Cutscene: The confrontation with Majora, the permutations depending, and that wonderful sound
54. Outro: That ending. The initial ending is fine, the acknowledgement of every mask we got with a cutscene dedicated to that character and showcasing how their story ended positively thanks to our efforts? That…
55. Outro: …is second positive worthy

Story Negatives:

1. Intro: Hope you like drug trippy intro sequences!
2. Outro: One last nonsense round with the moon. Who knows what’s going on here (I’m sure the devs don’t, even)

Gameplay Positives:

1. Intro: Tutorialization: A nice twofer. First, a very smart section to let us experience Link himself. Then, an extremely small but smart tutorial for how to operate as Deku Link
2. Guidance: Sheikah stones, as per from Ocarina 3D, continue to be awesome…
3. Guidance: …for two positives again
4. Intro: Clock Town early MSQ; Fairy tutorialization, sidequest focus, figure things out…
5. Intro: …get to know the town and the people, learn the layout, learn the schedules
6. Controls: As with Ocarina, the controls are fantastic and work brilliantly (for the most part)…
7. Controls: …earning a full…
8. Controls: …triple positive
9. Controls: Special bonus positive, as with Ocarina, for the gyro controls
10. Core Combat: Essentially the same combat as Ocarina, and just as good for that…
11. Core Combat: …earning two positives
12. Visual Distinction: They really made the textures, color usage, and interactables pop in this one…
13. Visual Distinction: …for a full…
14. Visual Distinction: …three positives
15. HUD: Even better than before, fully utilizing the lower screen to indicate a ton of at-a-glance info as well as keeping the color-coded, icon’d timer in the top screen…
16. HUD: …for one of the best HUDs…
17. HUD: …I’ve seen in gaming
18. Map: Generally very high quality maps, especially in dungeons…
19. Map: …for double positives
20. Music: There’s more than a few good songs this time around
21. Pacing: There is just so much to do, and it varies wildly, and while it’s in the player’s control there’s enough variety to keep the pacing going smoothly throughout…
22. Pacing: …for double positives
23. Replayability: Lots of options on how to progress…
24. Replayability: …and lots of fun in how you do it
25. Sound: Same general excellence of sound design quality as before, lacking only in a few smaller tidbits…
26. Sound: …earning the full…
27. Sound: …triple positives
28. Integration: Masks, gratitude, and forms
29. Terrain: It’s inconsistent, but especially the ‘connected areas’ (aka the overworld) has smart terrain design, usually designed around whatever form you’re supposed to use for there
30. Viscerality: Surprisingly, yeah. Attacks, abilities, spinning as a Goron, etc.
31. Guidance: Bomber hints! Nice little additional hints to help point players in the direction of quests and activities
32. Interface: Bomber’s Notebook. This thing is fantastic, I don’t think I can do it justice in summary. Sorted entries with completed indicators, information on where they are and what to do as well as potential rewards, categories for Ongoing, Rumored, and Completed, great indicators to swap between things immediately, indicators of progression as it goes, automatic entries and pop ups during interactions, all giving it…
33. Interface: …a full…
34. Interface: …triple positive
35. Interface: Exact map indicator for NPCs in the notebook, which is great by itself
36. Interface: Schedule! Who’s going to do what and where, and special indicators of what types of activities can be done at what times in the day…
37. Interface: …for some amazing visual indication
38. Interface: Cross referencing in the Notebook in general. Almost everything you need to know is visible on every screen in the notebook…
39. Interface: …earning two positives
40. Itemization: Drops. Lots and lots of drops, and with one notable exception it’s clear they thought about what should drop where based on need
41. Penalty For Failure: Usual Zelda quality here
42. QoL: General, but plentiful. Seriously, the list of tiny QoL decisions in this game is huge
43. Kit: Usual affair of fun, interesting items
44. Kit: Song of inverted time. Want to slow down time to have more time to do things? No problem
45. Kit: Song of double time (to a specific hour in this version!). The ability to pick that specific spot to forward to is just so useful
46. Kit: Deku mask! Completely changes how you play the game, of course, and very tightly thought out (water and fire are enemies, but you can bounce on some water, and you’re light! Plus the attacks and speed and sound design). All of this earns…
47. Kit: …two positives for the Deku mask
48. Kit: Goron mask! This one’s not really as well designed overall as the Deku (the punch is fine, the smash is mostly just a key opening type thing) but that spin dash is worth the positive by itself
49. All Roads Lead To Rome: Only beaten by Breath (and possibly Tears) in just how much malleability there is in what you do in what order. There’s some good direction and guidance, and some things require other things, but still, the options are all over the place and the routing is king in this game…
50. All Roads Lead To Rome: …earning it an easy…
51. All Roads Lead To Rome: …triple positive
52. Core Mechanic: Masks! Most of these function as keys, but the entire mechanic of getting and using masks is a fun and ‘meat’ mechanic in the game
53. Core Mechanic: Schedule. Everybody does things at certain times, and some interactions and minigames and quests only pop up at the right time(s). This makes for a lot of routing and planning which would probably be very frustrating if not for the control over time the player has AND the built in schedule, instead making this awesome…
54. Core Mechanic: …for two positives
55. Core Mechanic: Time in general. The ever ticking clock is the central pillar of the entire game, and managing and spending your time how you choose to forms the basis of every other decision in the entire game. A lot of thought was done into how long things take, what you can do and when, and this earns another easy…
56. Core Mechanic: …double positive
57. Hub: Clock Town is very well designed. Positions, layouts, warp points, shops, it’s all great stuff…
58. Hub: …earning a double positive
59. Fast Travel: Good, fast, usable from most places, and good spread
60. Enemy Design: Generally good enemy design
61. Enemy Variety: Generally nice variety of enemies we fight throughout (not a lot of repetition in this one)
62. Minigames: Arrows, bombchus, photos, there’s a few that are fun and interesting
63. Level: Woodfall Temple. Central pillar philosophy, floors and height, and thinking around distances…
64. Level: …for two positives
65. Level: Skulltula hut 1. This is a weird one thanks to how it’s lined up; it’s a micro-dungeon, but leans heavily on sound design to guide you
66. MSQ: The path up Snowhead (special mention to the lens of truth)
67. Difficulty Options: Great Fairy pieces. As with several other Nintendo games, this is a great usage of an optional collectable to add difficulty to level design
68. Level: Snowhead Temple has a lot of creative and clever individual puzzles in the rooms throughout…
69. Level: …for two positives
70. Boss: Goht. How good it is compared to the original is debatable, but it’s at least fun here
71. Prime Opt: Romani chain. First the defense of the barn, which could grow frustrating if not for several good features (the mobs on the map, the dog helping to find ghosts, the arrow refills, and the relatively short time holding the line) followed by the simple but fun turret section in the carriage
72. Level: Great Bay Temple. I know I gave a few negatives here too, but credit must be given to the puzzle design in here. There’s some really solid, interesting stuff, and the usage of the pipes and ‘flow’ (movement almost always guides the player forwards) really works well…
73. Level: …for two positives
74. MSQ: Ikana Fortress. Another short but solid micro dungeon, with shortcuts and some neat little side puzzles
75. Level: Skulltula hut 2. Essentially the same idea as before, still a sound-based but fun dungeon
76. Level: Stone Tower Temple. This is easily the best dungeon in the game, serving as a fantastic Wily Stage style final exam. Smart usage of tons of items you’ve gotten up to date…
77. Level: …fantastic puzzles that could have been frustrating but were sufficiently tightly designed to be interesting instead…
78. Level: Guidance: …great guidance in where to interact with what, especially the early signs of how to…
79. Level: …flip the dungeon, and things to watch for on that regard…
80. Level: Encounter: …and finally great encounter design throughout
81. Prime Opt: The Kafei and Anju quest chain. There’s decent guidance getting into it, from multiple angles, and while it will probably take a few tries to actually reach the end point successfully, there’s a lot going on here and…
82. Prime Opt: …I have to give bonus points just for the dual player segment towards the end
83. Outro: The Majora final bosses. Each phase is approached completely differently, is fun and engaging, and satisfying to out-maneuver…
84. Outro: …for two positives
85. Outro: Hyperbeam Moment: Fierce Deity final boss. Good lord is this a curb stomp and a half and it’s fun and it’s visceral and it’s earned…
86. Outro: Hyperbeam Moment: …for two positives

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Minigame: A few. Post office timing, arrows needing to be perfect
2. Minigame: The couple (jank and controls), Dampe’s (why is he so damned slow)
3. Minigame: Beaver racing (physics! Also punishing as hell to fail)
4. Level: The pits in the middle of Woodfall Temple. There’s no real excuse for this type of Fire Temple plummeting
5. Level: Snowhead, central room. It’s one big open room and, you guessed it, any fall means traipsing aaall the way back up
6. Level: The central pillar. This thing just… gets in the way and actively makes the second half of the dungeon much worse
7. Level: The Snowhead dungeon actively gets more frustrating to route and navigate the further into it you get
8. Itemization: Mana drops in Zora segments. They really did not redesign this to accommodate the change to the Zora form
9. Backtracking: Gerudo Fortress. There’s several examples of this, mostly due to being entirely too punishing on mistakes, but also if you forgot something, screw you
10. Kit: Zora Mask and mana drain. There really is no excuse for this and it’s probably the most objectively bad change in the 3D version
11. MSQ: The entire Pirates Fortress sequence is lacking in several more aggregate ways
12. Walkthroughitis: Hidden stuff, as usual
13. Unskippable Cutscenes: Usual issues
14. Level: Seconds In Minutes: Great Bay Temple. Every single puzzle and action and even basic movement just takes entirely too long and it makes an otherwise enjoyable dungeon drag
15. Level: Great Bay Temple, jank and level geometry that isn’t supported by the rest of the game (cameras OR controls)
16. Controls: Zora swimming. What in God’s name were they thinking with this?
17. Boss: Gyorg. This… I don’t know. It’s too tightly tuned, too time wasty, and too boring, and no matter what you do there’s a degree of jank involved thanks to the arena and general jank…
18. Boss: …for two negatives
19. Secondary: The Don Gero quest. No indicators to start, no indicators of where they are, and the purest form of backtracking (just go refight a boss and redo dungeons, nothing changed)
20. MSQ: The trudge up the Stone Tower (not the temple itself) is actually awful. Very punishing (start all over if you fail) and very, very padded (go to spot, hookshot up, switch forms, play song, repeat… even if you know exactly what you’re doing it’s arduous)
21. Boss: Twinmold. So this actually took some digging, apparently the red snake’s health resets every time it goes underground. Nothing indicates this, meaning the player can easily just sit here and have no idea what they’re doing wrong. This is on top of having some issues with camera and attack range…
22. Boss: …leading to a double negative
23. Raspberry Jam: Low health beedleeps return
24. Prime Opt: The Anju and Kafei quest can fail more or less at the finish line thanks to a very, very minor screw up
25. Outro: The final dungeon Goron segment can go directly to hell. Narrow corridors, entirely too easy to fall off, janky controls AND camera, physicsy issues, and restart at the very beginning if you ever screw up. Screw this place…
26. Outro: …for two negatives
27. Outro: The final dungeon Zora segment seemingly isn’t as bad but no, it is. You have to burn mana to zoom through because you’re on a timer, so you’re already wrestling the awful Zora controls while in a hurry, but then you have to do that damned dolphin flip at the end… four times. In a row. Any failure leads to restarting the entire sequence…
28. Outro: …for two negatives

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: Grassy islands. The sheer amount of work done to add detail to small areas is wonderful…
2. Brickwork: …and earns two positives
3. Brickwork: The ocean and the islands thereupon
4. Spritework: Honestly some of the best in the franchise, right along the lines of Breath (not quite as good as Minish). This is fantastic stuff, stylized and well presented…
5. Spritework: …and easily earns…
6. Spritework: …three positives
7. Doodads: Honestly it’s almost entirely in the towns (as usual…) but they do some REALLY good stuff here…
8. Doodads: …earning two positives
9. Localization: Still in the excellent localization era
10. NPC Set Dressing: Weirdly yeah, though almost entirely on Windfall
11. Animation: In this case it’s more about the facial animations than the body language, but there’s still plenty of both…
12. Animation: …for two positives
13. Storyboarding: Not quite at the level of some of the previous works, but still solid
14. Camerawork: And again, good general camerawork, especially for some of the big reveal shots
15. Visual Storytelling: Post Apocalypse. Uneven wood, ramshackle homes, they’re ‘fine’ but they’re not thriving yet
16. Intro: Establishment of the post apocalypse, and everyday living; seemingly good, realistically survivalist
17. Intro: Quick and effective establishment of characters and theme
18. Intro: Lots done to set up our premise, which grows naturally out of events and the coincidence which will be so important to events. There’s no destiny here, fate died years ago, this is all just happening naturally
19. Character: Link. Probably the most characterization we’ve ever gotten for a Link, from his reckless willingness to help his sister, to his lack of understanding of what’s going on around him, his refusal to quit in the face of all of it, and slowly shedding all of that to prove that with no destiny, reincarnation, or backing whatsoever he STILL manages to man up and be the Hero of Winds…
20. Character: …earning two positives
21. Character: Ganondorf. This is a weird one, he functionally only gets three scenes, but DAMN do they use them well. There’s a reason people list this as their favorite Ganondorf. We also learn a lot about how he operates based on what he’s done and what he’s doing. He planned out his last assault on Hyrule very well, took to heart all the lessons he learned from Ocarina, and moved appropriately. He also is the biggest example of not letting go of the past in the entire game. He is tremendously powerful and has an army and a fleet at his beck and call, but instead of simply conquering the Sea and expanding outwards (possibly to the Spirit Tracks realm), he is hyper focused on the one thing that was denied him not once but twice: Hyrule. All of his actions across the entire game are him trying to restore the Triforce to undo the seal and take the prize he failed to grasp… twice. And this is his downfall. And in all of this he manages to have layers to him. While still a villain, he’s not the murderous monster he once was (or will be again in Twilight), and he laments the world he had vs. the world he coveted. All of this makes him a GREAT villain…
22. Character: …and for his encapsulation of Ganondorf across the franchise and in this game in particular…
23. Character: …he earns three positives
24. Character: Tetra. While she has an issue later, she’s an interesting character while she is one, and remains engaging through big chunks of it
25. Music Direction: Wonderful music direction everywhere. The ocean and the adventure and journey thereupon, the towns and the livelihood despite their hardship, the dungeons and their quiet atmosphere, it’s all on music direction…
26. Music Direction: …and earns an easy double positive
27. Brickwork: Windfall Island. The trading hub of the Great Sea, with people from all over, multiple side quests and side stories… and a population so desperate for outside interaction they’ll gossip and play with whomever they can get
28. Atmosphere: Post Apocalypse. It’s quiet and in the background, but it is always there; These are people who are one bad storm or one bad harvest away from societal failure, and that informs everything in the game
29. Atmosphere: Cute. The cutsey cartooney graphics have aged quite well, and keep a lot of things cute and adorable in this hellish landscape
30. Moment: Link being launched into the Forsaken Fortress
31. Humor: KaBOOM! Sploooush
32. Characters: The pirates! Not a lot of screen time, but memorable for it.
33. Characters: Townsfolk in general. Quite a few memorable and interesting supporting cast
34. World Building: Everything about how the islands connect (or don’t!) with each other. Even little details; There’s no fish in the sea, monsters roam wildly, the number of sailors is actually shrinking, all of it crafts the slowly dying world of the Great Sea and it’s amazing…
35. World Building: …even more so for how it ties into the central theme
36. Plot: The understated plight of the Rito, which in turn…
37. Writing: …is a microcosm of the situation in the Great Sea as a whole. These people are this close to failing as a civilization and a people, held together by the barest of efforts of just a handful of people. The Rito providing communication, the Deku Tree and Koroks providing fresh trees for food and lumber, etc. This all ties brilliantly into the central theme…
38. Theme: …the past. These people need to let go of the past and move on, as it’s functionally poisoning their whole society. And this theme is everywhere in the work…
39. Theme: …from the disconnects of the people, to the slow descent of their livelihoods, to the fact that if not for us they would be just a couple of generations out from total failure…
40. Theme: …and all brought together by the overwhelming realization that this isn’t working. They need to let go of the past and move on
41. Plot: The big twist of the nature of the Great Sea
42. Moment: Frozen Hyrule Castle is by itself fascinating, and…
43. Visual Storytelling: …does some great stuff, between the damaged terrain, the frozen assault force, and of course the stained glass windows confirming that, no really, this is a direct sequel to Ocarina
44. Storytelling Mechanic: Mail and follow ups
45. Internal Continuity: Obvious
46. Consequence Storytelling: So much. So much of what we do is so logical and understated and I love it
47. External Continuity: The big one for the entire Zelda franchise. No Zelda game has this powerful of external continuity, nor as well utilized. This game is absolutely a DIRECT sequel to Ocarina, and is a very logical and well thought out consequence of that game and its events…
48. External Continuity: …and so earns a strong…
49. External Continuity: …triple positive
50. MSQ: Medli and her awakening, the first Sage’s song and its implications, and her quiet moments of adulthood
51. Foreshadowing: Quite a bit actually, leading up to both major reveals… and how the King is using us
52. Outro: Ganondorf’s decrying of the gods and of the people, his disdain for how pathetic they are compared to the glories of old, and him fighting you… with a puppet, which you beat by cutting its strings
53. Outro: Cutscene: Ganondorf’s final speech
54. Outro: Moment: Ganondorf’s insane laughter as he finally truly loses it, and doesn’t turn into a monster of a beast, but it’s still one of the best One Winged Angel moments in gaming…
55. Outro: Moment: …deserving its own…
56. Outro: Moment: …triple positive
57. Outro: The spectacle and appropriateness of the final boss. The magical seal crashing down all around them, washing away old Hyrule and all that remains with it
58. Outro: Moment: The wind… is blowing…
59. Outro: Cutscene: King Daphnes finally admitting his flaws and faults, taking ownership of his blame, and fading once and for all with his fallen Hyrule
60. Outro: Moment: I have to give one last tidbit for a single line of dialogue. “This is the only world that your ancestors were able to leave you. Please… forgive us.”
61. Outro: The ending proper. With almost no dialogue, it perfectly sets up the future; Hope, and a chance to finally move on and make a real life of it

Story Negatives:

1. World Building: Underthought. For all they do right, there’s plenty they do wrong too (I suspect this is due to the rushed and unpolished nature of the game)
2. Visual Storytelling: Underthought. Same general problem as before
3. Pacing: Sadly, yeah. The massive cuts and rushing in the latter third of the game really hurts the story, which functionally stops dead while spinning its wheels before getting back to it

Gameplay Positives:

1. Core Combat: Some of the best in the franchise, only surpassed by Breath’s. It’s fluid, fun, the combo system is rewarding, and it sound and looks great…
2. Core Combat: …for an easy double positive
3. Viscerality: Similarly, the game sounds, looks, and feels good
4. Visual Distinction: Some bloom and color distinction issues get in the way, but it’s still really clear and precise
5. Controls: Generally decent controls. There’s some issues, not going to lie, but overall it’s still good
6. Controls: Gyro controls are, as always, awesome
7. Music: Some of the best music in the franchise honestly. Lots of great bangers…
8. Music: …for a solid…
9. Music: …three positives
10. Yoshi Drums: Plenty, especially during bosses
11. Sound Design: Generally good, especially (once again) in combat
12. All Roads Lead To Rome: While there’s some rails early on, you hit the freedom point relatively early and can tackle most of the rest of the game (optional or mandatory) in whatever order you want
13. Kit: Usual array of fun goodies
14. Guidance: Charts, in general, are a good way to guide towards treasure, parts, and puzzles
15. Fast Travel: Takes a while to unlock and limited, but it’s still there and it’s better than nothing
16. Intro: Tutorialization Isle. The very terrain here is very well designed to encourage you to navigate and explore and learn how movement and interactions work…
17. Intro: …for two positives
18. Intro: First encounters, set up and escalated nicely
19. Penalty For Failure: Usual Zelda standard
20. Level: Dragon Roost Cavern. While simple, there’s some clever puzzles here, and…
21. Level: Tutorialization: …some good tutorialization
22. Boss: Gohma and Kalle Demos. Both simple but fun fights that use their respective item in amusing ways
23. Level: The Forbidden Woods. It stumbles a few times, has some issues with how it flows, but there’s still several clever things and I still overall enjoyed the item progression
24. Boss: Gohdan. Standard Andross boss, but smartly constructed, and still fun
25. Boss: Helmaroc. Probably one of the better bosses in the game, despite its simplicity
26. Level: A few interesting puzzles (I’m particularly fond of the Medli focused ones) in the Earth Temple, and I’m especially fond of how they utilize Medli throughout the dungeon…
27. Level: …earning a double positive
28. Level: For all its nonsense, I do honestly like several of the puzzle ideas in the Air Temple
29. Outro: Boss: Puppet Ganon’s phase 1 and 2 are reasonably fun, especially phase 2
30. Outro: Boss: Ganondorf. This fight is just frickin’ awesome. A perfect final exam fight, encapsulating everything you’ve learned in combat to date..
31. Outro: Boss: …for an easy double positive
32. Outro: The final fight in and of itself takes place with thundering music and the ocean crashing down around you
33. Viscerality: Similar to Twilight Princess, there’s some solid viscerality in smashing and cutting (and in blowing stuff up)

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Graphics: Bloom. I’ve seen worse, but what in the world were they thinking here?
2. Unskippable Cutscenes: Yyyep
3. HUD: Why is it on the frickin’ controller
4. Map: Actively misleading and unhelpful in dungeons
5. Intro: Level: Forsaken Fortress. Forced stealth isn’t necessarily bad, long backtracks if you screw up are…
6. Intro: Level: …plus the ease with which you can slip and fall at the wrong time, and substantial backtracking if you do things out of order
7. Minigames: Salvatore’s battleship is aggressively random and even if you get lucky you need to, separately, succeed at it several times to get everything. This is an issue with the entire game really because…
8. Secondary: …almost all the extra stuff in this one is a slog. Not the first time we’ve seen that of course, but arguably one of the worst examples of it
9. Controls: Some weird janky issues from time to time
10. Minigame: Auction. Expensive, random, and boring…
11. Minigame: Seconds In Minutes: …and it takes forever to start, reset, and do
12. Itemization: Why in God’s name is the Swift Sail in the auction house?
13. Music: Or lack thereof. In a game with some absolutely fantastic songs, there’s a weirdly HUGE swath of the game where NONE of it plays
14. Minigame: Nintendo Gallery. Long, boring, sloggy 100% drudgery
15. Padding: Side content. Just.. my goodness there’s a lot of chaff in this one
16. Secondary: So, so much chaff. And it’s boring, or dull, or time consuming, or some combination thereof, and it’s awful…
17. Secondary: …and so deserves…
18. Secondary: …a full triple negative
19. Overworld: Or lack thereof. There is just… nothing to do in long, long stretches of nothing
20. Traversal: Remember, this is the improved boat. It’s still not great
21. Encounter: The crates and flames room. This monster can go straight to hell. You have to align the crates so that they make a bridge you can hop across the water, carrying a stick, to light some torches. 10 seconds into the room you’ve solved the puzzle, but it took me nigh unto 10 minutes to actually do this. The water cycles are out of your control (padding), it takes too long to move pieces (seconds in minutes), there’s jank in the physics so sometimes the stick will just douse itself, the whole sequence sucks…
22. Encounter: …and deserves two negatives
23. Level: Padding: Tower of the Gods. This whole dungeon is one long dull slog
24. Level: Seconds In Minutes: Tower of the Gods. Even when you get past the puzzles they still take too long
25. MSQ: Takes entirely too long to kill the enemies to escape Hyrule Castle. Too many, too spread out
26. Level: Forbidden Fortress 2. More irritating to get up, removed all shortcuts, otherwise same basic dungeon again
27. Walkthroughitis: Post Tower (boots and bracelet!) Good luck knowing where or how to even do these MANDATORY micro dungeons
28. Level: Padding: The Earth Temple is entirely too long for how little there is to it
29. Level: Seconds In Minutes: The Earth Temple’s ‘time to solution’ is absolutely awful. Relatively simple (fun, even) puzzles take FOREVER to execute
30. Level: Guidance: Air Temple. General absence of good guidance, especially in…
31. Level: Encounter: …the Air Temple’s central room of time wasting. I almost feel awful for even typing up this colossal waste of everything. It’s huge, but ultimately only three stories tall and with a few hallways connected to it. Each of these requires either slow Hookshotting or slow waiting on the air tunnels (once you unlock it) to traverse. Going up the air cycle requires almost all of your magic, and ditto for Makar. The game in fact does not tell you where you are or where you’re facing when playing as Makar, making navigation even more irritating in an already samey looking room where you have to go through it in a very specific order. All of this is on top of the air cycles being slow and irritating to navigate. Screw this room and everything about it…
32. Level: Encounter: …for a full…
33. Level: Encounter: …three negatives
34. Level: Backtracking: Quite a bit of mandatory backtracking in the Air Temple, even if you know where you’re going
35. Level: Seconds In Minutes, the Air Temple again. Every single friggin’ thing takes forever to do
36. Level: The Makar gimmick. While Medli was used to good effect and was part of navigation and interaction, Makar is functionally just a key. Worse, in several cases all he does is go do the room first so you can do the room second, just adding on to the padding
37. Level: Makar stays wherever you leave him. This is good. But there is NO way to recall him. This is terrible. If you leave him very far into the dungeon and need him somewhere else (and remember, he’s functionally a key, so you DO need him), you will have to get to him (backtracking), get him, go BACK through the backtracking you just did, solve the room, then repeat the backtracking a third Goddamned time. Point in fact it’s actually FIVE total iterations of going through the same area again and again…
38. Level: …for two negatives
39. Walkthroughitis: Good luck finding where the triforce pieces are, how to even enter the islands they’re in, or what to do in half of them…
40. Walkthroughitis: …for a full…
41. Walkthroughitis: …three negatives
42. MSQ: Also you HAVE to get those Triforce pieces and they’re just… so, so padded. It’s so amazingly obvious they were rushed for these and while a few have some kind of puzzle or gameplay to them, the others are just straight up repeat rooms with random combat
43. MSQ: I have to give special mention for having to do 30 friggin’ floors of the optional dungeon to get one of the charts
44. MSQ: And one final negative for paying for the charts (screw you Tingle) and finding them. Just for historical purposes, I note here that this was much worse in the original Gamecube version
45. Outro: Padding: Boss refights
46. Outro: Hope you enjoy more time wasting dungeon rehashing bullcrap right at the end
47. Outro: Walkthroughitis: How to progress through the final tower is irritatingly obtuse
48. Outro: Boss: Puppet Ganon phase 3. This is just a frustrating fight, and irritatingly random

Story Positives:

1. Intro: The opening crawl. This is… really, really good. It’s obviously indicative of the Ocarina one, but with much better camera angles and movement, and a showcasing of Link and Epona while seeing panning shots of Hyrule Castle in the background, all leading to us doing a slow panning shot up to the cliff edge, but as we approach the horse sounds stop, and we suddenly see a black wolf sitting there, Hyrule Castle covered in Twilight, and the wolf howls. This is all set to must an AMAZING song which perfectly builds across it…
2. Intro: …earning two positives
3. Brickwork: Forest, in general. The woods around the ranch, the lead up to and inclusion of the first dungeon. This place feels like a deep, overgrown forest which tracks, because it is
4. Doodads: Forest areas. Again, similarly, great doodad usage (this whole game just nails doodads)
5. Doodads: Link’s home! I have to give special praise to this, as it’s literally what I think of when I picture doodad design and how to use it properly
6. Architecture: There’s actually not a lot of this in Twilight believe it or not, probably partially because of its cross system nature. Having said that they do some good stuff with the various towns and, most importantly, Castle Town which borrows the ‘multiple navigable alleyways’ trick Ocarina did to good effect
7. Music Direction: As with Ocarina and Majora before it, while the music is somewhat lacking on its own, it is excellent at setting the tone, atmosphere, and scene for the different locations throughout the game…
8. Music Direction: …for a solid double positive
9. Characters: Villagers. Their tiny little lives and their daily interactions
10. Characters: Colin. Kid has one of the better story arcs, truncated through it is, in the entire franchise, and seeing him and the amount of investment we get in him really helps
11. Character: Ilia. I wasn’t sure about this one at first, but they do a lot with her and even though her final step is optional, her presence and usage in the narrative is still good
12. Character: Link. I wasn’t sure he’d nail this as well as he did but, damn, he did. Link is just kind of awesome here; Just as expressive as Wind Waker Link, but a lot more subtle. His expressions, his movements, his reactions to things, even when he’s a wolf you can still clearly see what he’s thinking and feeling, and I love it…
13. Character: …for two positives
14. Character: Zant. I know this one might be a bit contentious but I honestly think Zant is the best villain we’ve ever had in the franchise. His mystique and aura of strength… when he’s winning. Him slowly losing composure and showing more of his petulant side as he progresses, because he’s losing. And even before he reveals how childish and awful he really is, we see signs of it in his actions and tactics. And all of this culminates in his awesome, awesome boss battle where he dies, fully convinced of his own significance, before he dies unremarked upon. Zant is AWESOME…
15. Character: …earning a full…
16. Character: …three positives
17. Character: Midna. Possibly the best single character we’ve ever had in the franchise, and with good reason. She has a gradual, almost subliminal shift in her attitude and arc as she stays with us… and the first segments of the game are perfectly designed to help her through this arc, for what are we doing for the entire first half of the game? We’re helping people. And all of this culminates in the big mid-game scene, and then she KEEPS growing afterwards. And there’s so much nuance in her animation, her dialogue, even her tone, that she is just an incredible inclusion…
18. Character: …for a full…
19. Character: …triple positive
20. Voice Acting: Believe it or not, Midna. While not voice acting in the traditional sense, the way they vocalize her really adds to her personality and presentation
21. Animation: As with several previous Zeldas, great work is done to animate cutscenes, really adding to the characters and scenes…
22. Animation: …for two positives
23. Camerawork: Forgive me for repeating myself but again, great usage of the camera. Interviews claim this game was inspired by the then-recent Lord of the Rings films, and I can see it. They do a lot of great things here…
24. Camerawork: …for two positives
25. Storyboarding: Aaaand yeah, the storyboarding is excellent as well. Just call this what it is; 6 positives for cutscene design throughout…
26. Storyboarding: …earning that second (sixth) positive
27. Storytelling Mechanic: Text rendering is back, and is used to good effect
28. Storytelling Mechanic: Thoughts in Twilight sections. These give us an insight into what people really think and feel, and is often used as a nice contrast to what they say to our faces
29. Localization: Probably the single best localization in the franchise. Very well done, lots of detail, good word usage, good interpretation…
30. Localization: …for two positives
31. Intro: Establishment and development of life, stakes, and tone. And it performs the all important service of establishing the status quo and what it is we’re fighting for, so we can then lose it and have to fight to get it back…
32. Intro: …earning a solid double positive
33. Cutscene: Midna’s introduction. Good cutscene construction of course, but also they do a lot very quickly here; Midna is playful, mischievous, ultimately helpful, and just a few hints of what’s really going on with her (her anger is visible, and her power is present as well)
34. Cutscene: Zelda’s first scene, the description of the fall of the castle, our first peek at Zant
35. MSQ: Midna’s sequences and characterization throughout the first Hyrule Castle segment
36. Integration: Unlocking progression items
37. Cutscene: Collin’s (final) cutscene. Courage realized, the relief of the children, and Link’s affirmation. This scene is, ultimately, the culmination of that long long intro earlier; this is what Link is fighting for
38. Brickwork: Goron Mines. Lava, rocks, caves, water, and of course magnets
39. Lindblum Effect: Weirdly, for the dungeons. Each of these feels like their own place that existed and was lived in before the game even started. The Forest Temple, which also contains constructed areas and pathways long since gone.. The Goron Mines, and the infrastructure and architecture. The Water Temple, and its development as a purification plant. All these little things add to the world feeling more real
40. Doodads: Kakariko and the Gorons. It’s mostly indoors, but there’s still a lot of nice little touches here
41. Doodads: Castle Town. I mean come on, have you seen the market alley?
42. NPC Set Dressing: Castle Town! Lots of different types of people walking and perusing and going about their business
43. Brickwork: Castle Town. The alleyways, brick and mortar, and paved streets
44. Cutscene: Zant’s big scene. He seems so in control, and yet paying attention you can see how brute force and idiotic he really is. He goes out of his way to screw around with things he shouldn’t, and when given the opportunity to destroy Link and/or Midna he does so in the most childish way possible; he curses Link and poisons Midna. And both of these things are then turned into advantages for the team. Everything about this scene is amazing though, from the storyboarding to the dialogue to the thought put into it…
45. Cutscene: …earning itself…
46. Cutscene: …triple positives
47. Internal Continuity: Zant, the Light Spirit, the Fused Shadow, his immunity to the Light…
48. Consequence Storytelling: …and his foolish decision to free the Light Spirit (that was completely in his control) just to poison Midna in a petty act of spite, which sets up the entire rest of the game
49. MSQ: The entire ‘Midna’s Lament’ sequence. It’s just a biiit too long, which drags it a little, but it’s still a great sequence. The rush to the castle, the cats helping you as you go, a quick bookend with the waterways, and we’re back, the entire time you are absent both Midna’s addition to your kit and your own, being stuck in Wolf form
50. Integration: The entire sequence stuck as a Wolf after freeing the realms from twilight
51. Moment: After all that, Midna’s greatest desire, after spending the entire sequence begging us to get to Zelda, is for her… to help US, not Midna. The gradual character arc Midna has been on, and her lingering guilt over her role in events finally spilling out
52. Cutscene: General quality to the design of this cutscene. The camera angles, the little animations. Even Link seems shocked at certain events, and Midna of course is desperate to stop Zelda when…
53. Moment: …Zelda gifts her the Triforce of Wisdom. This is such a perfect moment that serves as the fulcrum of the entire story. Zant’s strange immunity to the Light suddenly makes sense, as this same gift now grants Midna similar override. Further, with it in hand she can now express the full extent of her power here in the light realm, alongside Link who remains in Wolf form… thus Midna is fully unchained now regardless of status. This means she can see the Light world for real, but also HELP, the exact thing she wants to do now. This is such a great moment…
54. Moment: …and easily earns…
55. Moment: …a triple positive
56. Secondary: Malo Mart chain and… shudder… conclusion
57. Atmosphere: The Arbiter’s Grounds. My goodness this place oozes atmosphere. The bugs, the skeletons, the lighting, it’s amazing
58. Brickwork: Arbiter’s Grounds. The dilapidated, broken down prison of hell
59. Doodads: Arbiter’s Grounds. Lots of tiny little details
60. External Continuity: Ganondorf. I know a lot of people don’t like this twist, but the way it’s used here actually makes absolutely perfect sense. The Triforce of Courage coming back, shattering the Triforce into Ganondorf and Zelda. The previous Sages and their empowered blade (which we know that’s how the Sages operate, both empowering and awakening). And all of this leads to Ganondorf’s emergency, last minute panic banishment, which sets up the events of the entire game. This is a perfect puzzle piece…
61. External Continuity: …earning a full triple…
62. External Continuity: …positive
63. Music Direction: Snowpeak Ruins. The music here is of course brilliant but what really works here is how it’s this cold, quiet song, but the inclusion of just a few additional instruments makes it go from cold and empty to warm and homey
64. Brickwork: Snowpeak Ruins. Some of the better ‘icy dungeon’ visuals we’ve seen so far
65. Visual Storytelling: Snowpeak Ruins. The ancient fortress / embassy of Hyrule, lost to the frozen north
66. MSQ: Snowpeak Ruins and the Yeti. I love these two, I love how they care about each other, I love their dynamic, and I love their story’s conclusion
67. Atmosphere: Snowpeak Ruins and the juxtaposition of safe and unsafe areas, which get more safe and more unsafe as you progress
68. Brickwork: Temple of Time. So a few dungeons in this game are boring gray and you’d think this one is too, but no; They use smart color choice and textures to really make this place pop despite looking like this pristine, out-of-time temple
69. Writing: The Hero of Time and his connection to us and to Ocarina. I put this in Writing because it’s a bit of an aggregate, but I do love how the Hero of Time connects with and acts with and around us. And while obviously that’s some External Continuity, the other side of that is just the Hero’s story concluding. He could not rest, not really, because his story hadn’t ended yet… Ganondorf was still out there, after all. And so now, when he resurfaces, the Hero finally has a chance to close that one last loop in his life by passing his knowledge on to his great great (great?) grandchild, and at long last he can move on peacefully, knowing this time things are concluded
70. Brickwork: The Twilight Realm. The cold slabs, the warm distant clouds, the runes and magical vibe
71. Visual Storytelling: Twili people, and the visualization of Ganondorf’s shadowy power warping them and the terrain
72. Visual Storytelling: Zant’s fight is such a perfect encapsulation of who and what he is. No artistry, no style, no substance, just raw stupid brute force
73. Outro: Visual Storytelling: Hyrule Castle is just… empty. Devoid, broken, and empty
74. Outro: Moment: Ganondorf’s scene with us, and of course Midna and Link having a moment together
75. Outro: Visual Storytelling: The reverse One Winged Angel of Ganondorf taking us more and more seriously
76. Outro: Just the general spectacle and brilliance of the final fight. Ganondorf’s movements, his posture, his animations as he attacks, the thunder, the rain, Zelda watching in the distance… it’s brilliant…
77. Outro: …earning a solid…
78. Outro: …triple positive
79. Outro: Midna’s big reveal, her words to Link, their obvious connection
80. Outro: The follow through of everyone we’ve seen throughout the game, as the camera pans and we see their lives after we’ve been through them
81. Banter: Midna, almost exclusively. You can talk to her throughout the entire game and she always has something interesting or fun to say but, more importantly, something that characterizes her
82. Foreshadowing: Quite a bit actually, though it’s mostly for minor things
83. Pacing: Excellent story pacing (except when it isn’t), as events move smoothly and seamlessly throughout the majority of the game…
84. Pacing: …for two positives
85. Sound Design: Used to great effect constantly as part of the atmosphere of the creepier sections (looking at you, Arbiter’s Grounds)
86. Story Sequencing: Again it falls apart a bit after the midway point, but up until then the sequence of events is solid
87. Theme: Light and Dark, and how they complement each other
88. Theme: Stagnation and complacency. The guards, the kingdom falling apart, the economy being screwed, and all it took was one pissant with too much power to enslave his own people and walk over the entire realm

Story Negatives:

1. Atmosphere: Weird for weird’s sake
2. Music Direction: The lack of music override for Midna’s Lament. This is an embarrassing oversight and honestly damages this entire sequence. I know people who’ve only ever seen this game once who immediately comment on this nonsense
3. MSQ: Temple of Time sequence is a fairly clear example of ‘screw the story let’s just do a cool thing’ and it actively makes no sense on multiple levels
4. Moment: The group of helpers who didn’t get the screen time to matter or have us care about them… show up out of nowhere and totally save us from a stupid, small group of enemies, and I get it… but it’s just such a badly done scene AND it doesn’t matter, as there’s no proper build up OR pay off
5. Outro: Moment: Ganondorf’s final death is… nonsensical and stupid (and never explained!)
6. Outro: Fake Drama: So… I thought about this a lot but the final tragedy at the ending feels… unnecessary, flies in the face of both character and themes, and honestly is an insult to the game and the players
7. Pacing: So for all the story is well paced, it also has some terrible pacing, especially in the second half of the game where huge swaths happen with functionally no story (or a very dragging story, or too rushed of a story)

Gameplay Positives:

1. Intro: Tutorialization. There’s a few issues here, but there’s still some good design throughout
2. Music: A weird one. The music is better used than it is good in its own right, but there’s still some good music here and there (looking at you boss themes)
3. Map: A decent map overall…
4. Map: …but the indicators for Poes, interactables, and otherwise elevates it
5. Minimap: The minimap is really solid (and toggleable!) which is great…
6. Minimap: …and earns a double positive
7. Core Combat: Honestly I was torn on this, but I think this at least ties Breath for best combat in the series. The tightness, the moves, the kit, the everything… it just pops…
8. Core Combat: …earning itself a full…
9. Core Combat: …triple positives
10. Core Combat: Mounted combat. It’s not the best and we don’t do it very often, but when we do it’s well designed and fun
11. Core Combat: Wolf combat is honestly very fun in its own right and deserves its own recognition…
12. Core Combat: …earning two positives
13. Fast Travel: Good, well placed, and fast…
14. Fast Travel: …earning double positives
15. Traversal: Epona. Fun, fast, and good QoL features (quick mount or dismount)
16. Controls: Exceptionally well designed controls, quite possibly the best in the series. Good layout, good shortcutting, tight, responsive, and very video gamey…
17. Controls: …for a full…
18. Controls: …three positives
19. Controls: Wolf Link. A surprising amount of work was done to make this pop right alongside your already excellent controls
20. Controls: Gyro aiming is back! And it’s still awesome
21. QoL Features: Lots. So many, entirely too many to list, but all very small
22. Kit: Epona, and the usual array of fun stuff (special mention to one of the better versions of the bow)
23. Kit: Dual Clawshot
24. Kit: The moves you get really flesh out how you engage with the combat…
25. Kit: …and easily earn a double positive
26. Kit: The Spinner only fails to get more positives due to its limited use, but damn if it isn’t fun in the dungeon you get it in
27. Kit: The Ball and Chain is in a similar boat. Great, visceral, fun… and limited
28. HUD: Better than Wind Waker, but still not at the level of the greats
29. Itemization: Nothing super fancy, but still pretty smooth (especially rupee count. Keeping in mind we didn’t turn in every bug, AND we did the full Malo Mart chain)
30. Enemy Design: Some of the better enemy designs in the franchise. Multiple tiers of ‘fighter types’, monsters who charge, monsters who avoid you, ones who can be bypassed with weapons, all kinds of fun stuff…
31. Enemy Design: …making fighting them interesting and fun
32. Enemy Variety: Similarly there’s quite a bit of variety in how you interact with them, between your moves, your kit, and their design and variety, it’s just great fun and I never really get bored of them…
33. Enemy Variety: …for two positives
34. Penalty For Failure: Usual Zelda quality here
35. Sound Design: Not quite at the level of the greats, but still good sound design throughout
36. Terrain: General, but excellent everywhere (especially in dungeons)
37. Viscerality: Combat just feels fun in this, and there’s some great feedback on some of the kit (like the bow, of all things, or the ball and chain)
38. Pacing: Excellent general pacing. The usual loop; Exploration, Puzzle, Combat, Story. It loops seamlessly throughout, gameplay wise…
39. Pacing: …and earns two positives
40. Tutorialization: Again, general, but everywhere. Get a new item? Here’s a room dedicated to learning it. New mechanic or gimmick? Here ya go. It’s great…
41. Tutorialization: …and it earns two positives
42. Enemy AI: Surprisingly good for the time. They will try to out-maneuver, out-flank, and react to circumstances
43. Intro: Tutorialization: Hyrule Castle as Wolf Link
44. MSQ: Initial foray into the forest
45. MSQ: Second foray into the forest, this time as Wolf Link, with very different gameplay
46. Level: Backtracking: The Forest Temple does a great job of changing how you navigate it by asking you to go through one way first, and another way second
47. Level: Smart design around the boomerang also completely changes how you interact with the entire dungeon, in terms of navigation, puzzles, and enemies
48. Level: Pacing: Excellent pacing in between different aspects of the Forest Temple
49. Level: Flow: Wonderful flow in how you navigate the Forest Temple, looping in and out of the early segments, to the miniboss, then redo the earlier sections but completely differently, then one quick divergence before finishing it up
50. Integration: Unlocking progression items
51. MSQ: The second Tears segment in Kakariko. Some basic search and seek fun, plus starting to escalate the more hidden and gimmicky bugs
52. Encounter: The first overworld encounter with King Bulbin
53. Level: Goron Mines. Shortcutting, creativity in design, fun layout, great good usage of backtracking (like most dungeons in this game you generally go back a different way or route through the same room)…
54. Level: …earning a full…
55. Level: …triple positive
56. Level: Flow: Generally great flow for the Goron Mines
57. Boss: Fyrus. Fun, visceral, intuitive, and uses both dungeon items
58. MSQ: The final tears segment. Issues aside, it’s another fun one which guides you neatly along the looped path and also involves a decent boss sequence at the end
59. Level: Water Temple, flow. While it has a few other issues, the way it loops around and in on itself is very intuitive and fun
60. Level: Water Temple in general has some smart and fun puzzles
61. Boss: Morpheel. Very simple, pretty easy, but very fun
62. Integration: The entire sequence stuck as a Wolf after freeing the realms from twilight
63. MSQ: The Moblin invasion and boss fight sequence on the way to the Arbiter’s Grounds
64. Level: Encounter: Some of the smartest encounter design seen thusfar in the Arbiter’s Grounds. A lot of thought is put at all times into what should be combined with what, both for each other and the terrain and layout of the room in general…
65. Level: Encounter: …earning two positives…
66. Level: Terrain: …and a bonus for terrain design
67. Level: The Arbiter’s Grounds are just in general an excellent dungeon…
68. Level: …with absolutely fantastic density…
69. Level: …and the usual quality of Twilight ‘backtracking’ design
70. Boss: Death Sword. Simple, but very fun, and a nice way to force the player to swap back and forth between their two forms
71. Level: General fun of the spinner segment. The first portion of the level is dense as hell, but the second half is just a big playground for the spinner
72. Boss: Stallord. This is honestly one of the best bosses in the game; Smart, creative usage of the spinner, great viscerality, great fun…
73. Boss: …for two positives
74. Secondary: Golden Bugs. Not too many, relatively easy to find, always rewarding
75. Level: Backtracking: Snowhead Ruins. As with … honestly almost every dungeon in the game, good backtracking is on display here (between the cannon and the ball and chain, the backtracking is completely recontextualized)
76. Level: Flow: Absolutely love the flow of Snowhead. The looping in and out of the branches as you slowly unlock more is great
77. Level: Guidance: Incredible guidance here. The camera angles, the design of the terrain, the obstacles and their placement, the literal markers on your map, all great stuff…
78. Level: Guidance: …for two positives
79. Level: So, Snowhead does something unique. As you progress through the dungeon the yeti’s soup gets better, which gives you a natural recovery and safety point as you foray out into more and more dangerous areas, and it’s just kind of great…
80. Level: …and it earns two positives
81. Level: Pacing: The pacing in Snowhead is top notch. Walk in, talk to a few people, hit up a short puzzle, quick foray out, head back through the shortcuts… okay… then we head out again, longer puzzle this time, combat sequence, and miniboss. And it just keeps flowing smoothly from activity to activity in very dense, tight level design…
82. Level: …for two positives
83. Level: Encounter: Excellent usage of enemy combinations alongside the terrain
84. Level: Kit: Great usage of recontextualizing the dungeon with your kit
85. Boss: Blizzeta. She starts off a bit simple, but then she gets very fun, and using the ground to navigate and the fact that we’re ultimately targeting the curse instead of her? Great stuff…
86. Boss: …for two positives
87. Level: Backtracking: Temple of Time. It’s simple but it’s good; You’re going down a corridor, trying to avoid things as you go, then you return, destroying everything in your path
88. Level: Guidance: Temple of Time, again. This is ruddy brilliant; so they use the tiles on the floor to help indicate not only where to stand but what to look at. It might be the single best usage of guidance I’ve seen in recent memory and by itself…
89. Level: Guidance: …it deserves two positives
90. Level: Usage of kit, again. Which is good cuz lord knows you don’t really use the Dominion Rod outside of this dungeon but hey! They even do some smart stuff with using it for something other than the big smashers
91. Level: General. The rest of the Temple of Time is generally fun, between the boss, the enemies, and the puzzles
92. Enemy Design: Darknut, by itself, is a great enemy design. This sucker has a lot of different attacks, reacts to a lot of what you do, and then totally changes his weaknesses and patterns once you knock off enough of his armor, it’s great
93. Prime Opt: Hidden Village 1. The routes and paths to navigate or stealth through the village, taking out the moblins, fun stuff
94. Level: Sky City puzzle design and general cleverness, and an amusing if slow boss fight
95. Level: Twilight Realm. They do some great stuff here in general
96. Level: Backtracking: Especially with the all important recontextualization. Each route in is done first as a simple kill and avoid, but the second time it’s a race against the Hands trying to reclaim the orb, and using said orb to progress
97. Level: Creativity in general. I love how they use light as a mechanism, especially in how it leads into…
98. Level: …the Pseudo Hyperbeam Moment as you gain light on your sword and can not only bypass terrain, but can one shot everything else in the dungeon
99. Boss: Zant. This might be one of the best fights in the franchise. Lots of phases, but they’re both quick and dense and don’t pad out the runtime. Each time he tries to come up with his own version of previous bosses, but instead of a traditional boss rush it’s completely new fights based on the originals.. And each one functions completely differently and requires a totally different approach, all of which…
100. Boss: …is already a double positive, but…
101. Boss: …what really pushes it forwards into triple territory is his final phase. He just loses all decency and subtlety and just starts hacking at you with swords, and it’s awesome
102. Outro: Level: Hyrule Castle. Mostly when you get inside, but some interesting encounters and puzzles here
103. Outro: Boss: They actually managed to make Tennis mildly interesting with the Possessed Zelda fight
104. Outro: Boss: Beast Ganon is another simple but fun romp
105. Outro: Boss: Then we have mounted Ganondorf, which is another simple but fun one
106. Outro: Boss: And then there’s the final Ganondorf fight. This is honestly my favorite fight in the franchise. His reactions, blocks, and dodges forcing you to vary up your attacks… He has a TON of different things he can do to provoke you and respond to you… and then there’s how he slowly gets more aggressive as the fight goes on, actually giving you more opportunities to push back but also more likely to get hit… it’s fantastic…
107. Outro: Boss: …and earns a full…
108. Outro: Boss: …three positives
109. Replayability: I mean, yeah, of course it is…
110. Replayability: …but the amount of side content and routing possible in the second half push this into double territory
111. Viscerality: Fun smashing and breaking and cutting, one of the few 3D Zeldas that manages this I think

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Intro: Tutorialization. This is mostly an issue during the very early parts of the game, but good lord game you can do better than this. In fact you DO better than this later
2. Music: Nausea inducing music problems
3. MSQ: The THIRD foray into the forest… while different (which is good) is still a slow boring escort quest which restarts if you fail
4. Boss: Diababa. So you can toss bombs to the main guy, fling bombs (plural!) to him, but you have to lock on the bomb FROM the monkey THEN onto him for it to count. Nothing indicates this and, worse, the lack of feedback guides you in the wrong direction
5. Encounter: The first bridge battle with King Bulbin is just way too janky and finicky for what it is
6. MTX: Amiibos. Not the worst, but you can pay for a full heal and/or a full ammo restore
7. Level: Padding: Goron Mines, and the adventures of the slowass Link
8. MSQ: The bird flying up the river segments. They’re ‘fine’ but any mistake means starting over, and it’s a pretty dull sequence to redo
9. Graphics: Blooooom
10. Visual Distinction: The Water Temple especially, but there are several examples of this here and there. It’s weird in a game of this caliber, but there are just too many times where what you need to see isn’t very distinct
11. Overworld: It’s mostly fine, but the Gerudo Desert tips it a bit into bleh territory. It’s just too large and too empty and takes too long to traverse
12. Secondary: The Poes. The first few are fine, the last many are not
13. Level: Padding: Temple of Time, some puzzles (most notably the weight scale puzzle)
14. Level: Walkthroughitis: Temple of Time. Getting the big key is very out of the way and not well guided towards in general, but what’s worse is how arduous it is to backtrack and get if you missed it earlier
15. Kit: Total lack of ability to change daytime (outside of exploits)
16. Pacing: The entire walkaround section to unlock the Sky dungeon is just… weirdly padded and filled with mostly just walk here, walk there, walk here
17. Level: Penalty for Failure: Almost every single room of the Sky City
18. Level: Backtracking: Sky City, again. It’s pretty bad actually, you just… go through rooms multiple times, without the method or style of going through changing
19. Level: Seconds In Minutes: Sky City, one last time… because holy hell does (almost) everything take forever in this dungeon. From the slowness of the clawshots to the waaaaaiting for the peahats to waaaaiting for the propellers to align, it’s just… slow…
20. Level: Seconds In Minutes: …and earns two negatives
21. Level: Seconds In Minutes: Twilit Realm (Phantom Zant, the room of waiting)
22. Minigame: General, but man, these minigames are not fun to play. Especially that damned boat ride

Story Positives:

1. Voice Acting: Diana. I mean come on, she does a wonderful job of received pronunciation, but the actress manages nuance in her tone as well
2. Intro: The fake yacht, the poor chef with the bandaged head, the ‘set’, and the setup for the entire series
3. Architecture: I want to mention early that the Architecture design of the entire game is fantastic. The fact that even single buildings are fully laid out and designed interiors helps, but they also use good sightline blockers and usually plenty of visible city and/or terrain in the distance make it feel better, so we’re going to slather an aggregate…
4. Architecture: …a strong…
5. Architecture: …triple
6. NPC Set Dressing: Showstopper, Paris. So many people, from reporters to the elite to the actual fashion models, all wonderfully selling the vibe of the show
7. NPC Set Dressing: World of Tomorrow, Sapienza. There’s the locals of course, the simple working class people, the little side people, the scientists, the guards, the chefs, the beach-goers… great stuff…
8. NPC Set Dressing: …for two positives
9. NPC Set Dressing: A Gilded Cage, Marrakesh. While it has issues with a few things, what it nails is the throngs of people, both inside and out of the demonstration outside the embassy
10. NPC Set Dressing: Club 27, Bangkok. This does another wonderful job with its ambient NPCs, between the staff, the vacationers, the rich jackasses, the put upon help, and of course the band members themselves (who are all awful)
11. Brickwork: Showstopper, Paris. The architecture, the city in the distance, the secret auction area, the run-down underbelly
12. Brickwork: World of Tomorrow, Sapienza. This is some of the most bonkers good brickwork I’ve seen… uh, ever. The sheer level of detail at every layer is so much I doubt I can properly emphasize it in a simple bit of text in a review document, but trust me when I say…
13. Brickwork: …it easily deserves…
14. Brickwork: …a triple positive
15. Brickwork: Club 27, Bangkok. It’s a lovely hotel, with some lovely scenery, and I have to gush over that architecture
16. Brickwork: Hokkaido. Love the aesthetic, the mountain snows combined with the resort, and the cold clinical hospital
17. Doodads: Showstopper, Paris. What really pulls this one up is the contrast. You have bland appetizers down below, actively unappetizing food up top for the rich jackasses, and then actually run down attics with crap, debris, and dust everywhere. It makes for wonderful contrast
18. Doodads: World of Tomorrow, Sapienza. Try to be shocked but the most visually well done level in 1 also nails it on Doodads. Trash, bushes, flowers, beach goers and their various accouterments, the kitchen, the private quarters (bo*th of them), the evil Bond villain science lab, the cafe with visibly different gelato…
19. Doodads: …it’s an easy…
20. Doodads: …triple positive
21. Doodads: A Gilded Cage, Marrakesh. While it is no where near as impressive as a lot of the other entries here, there’s still some solid stuff here, like the decorations of the Swedish Embassy, or the market and its various stalls
22. Doodads: Club 27, Bangkok. This is mostly covered by Brickwork, but what pushes it up even further is the areas where you can see just how much effort was put into making it look like an actual hotel
23. Doodads: Situs Inversus, Hokkaido. Between the food, the garb, and the general aesthetic
24. Background Lore: So much that it’s hard to even quantify properly. There’s text at the beginning of missions highlighting who the target is, there’s random bits of dialogue throughout (which dovetails into Internal Continuity later), and there’s little tidbits as you navigate and explore levels…
25. Background Lore: …earning a solid…
26. Background Lore: …triple positive
27. Spritework: General quality, but what really makes this shine is 47 himself and his various, thematically appropriate (and inappropriate) outfits
28. Cutscenes: Hitman 1, general. The motion capture, directing, and audio design are all pretty spot on
29. Tone: The unique, ah, flavor of these games is full on display. Super deadly serious spy stuff, and also ridiculous silly nonsense
30. MSQ: Club 27, Bangkok. Everything about this mission popped narratively, lots of little threads starting to weave into each other. The spoiled rich jackass murderer, the inhumanly evil lawyer who covers for him, it’s good stuff
31. Internal Continuity: Lots. Like, entirely too much really, so we’re going to parcel this up. This is specifically for how well the Hitman 1 missions connect with themselves, with little references and continuity across missions acknowledging previous missions and mid-mission cutscenes…
32. Internal Continuity: …for a double positive
33. Brickwork: Nightcall, Hawke’s Bay. This whole area is gorgeous; the storm, the beach, the reeds, the (ridiculous) house
34. Brickwork: The Finish Line, Miami. The gorgeous beach, sun, blue skies, and that particular blend of clean but not quite really clean racetrack event, alongside the pit crews, parking lot area, and fancy display museum area…
35. Brickwork: …earn an easy double positive
36. NPC Set Dressing: The Finish Line, Miami. This is right up there with Sapienza. There are so many people of so many walks of life at so many stages of the area, all living their own little lives, discussing recent events or even just buying a hot dog, and it’s awesome…
37. NPC Set Dressing: …earning a second positive
38. Doodads: The Finish Line, Miami. This is mostly for the more backstage areas, with the usual smart array of tools, kits, displays, cast off headsets, etc.
39. Brickwork: Three-Headed Serpent, Santa Fortuna. I almost didn’t give this one, but ultimately I do think Santa Fortuna deserves an overall positive for its visual design. It’s distinct in how generic it looks, but it’s still well executed enough that I can’t help but think it adds to the flavor of the level
40. Brickwork: Chasing A Ghost, Mumbai. This is right up there with Sapienza in sheer quality and quantity of detail, from slums to trainyard to construction to penthouse. This area is absolutely gorgeous at every level, right down to the individual bricks themselves…
41. Brickwork: …earning a solid…
42. Brickwork: …triple positive
43. Doodads: Chasing A Ghost, Mumbai. Again, absolutely fantastic doodad utilization. It’s telling that we did an off-camera tour of the place (while the servers were down so we couldn’t progress the campaign, thanks online-only requirement) and just soaked in the sights. Signs, carpets draped over a couch, different types of outfits hung up, plants barely growing on the sidewalk, so so many lovely details…
44. Doodads: …earning another solid…
45. Doodads: …triple positive
46. NPC Set Dressing: Chasing A Ghost, Mumbai. Yeah you saw this one coming. As usual I’m blown away by the work here, the crowds actually moving and feeling like crowds, and I love it
47. MSQ: So this is an odd one, but I really like the stories of Mumbai. The chain of helping the other assassin is a highlight of course, but the actress desperately trying to cope with her terrible job, the literal slavery the workers face in the washhouse, the locals desperate for money willing to deal with people who terrify them, it’s gripping stuff
48. Brickwork: Another Life, Whittleton Creek. This is truly bonkers levels of visual detailing. I had to pause stream for several minutes to discuss it. From the roads to the grass to the architecture…
49. Brickwork: …an easy…
50. Brickwork: …triple positive
51. Doodads: Another Life, Whittleton Creek. But then there’s the doodads, and the insides of these houses are all manually crafted and done with with an insane attention to detail. Even the serial killer’s house is exactly what you’d expect from someone like her, and it easily earns…
52. Doodads: …another…
53. Doodads: …triple positive
54. Visual Storytelling: Another Life, Whittleton Creek. This is one of our first Visual Storytelling positives, for how much is done to characterize the neighborhood and the people in it throughout
55. Brickwork: The Ark Society, Isle Of Sgail. The visual style of the weirdly culty, stormy castle on a remote island in the middle of nowhere
56. Doodads: The Ark Society, Isle Of Sgail. Similarly, some great stuff here. Overly rich food that looks awful and likely tastes worse, artifacts and opulence, all contrasting barely constructed architecture. It’s wonderfully thematic
57. MSQ: The Ark Society, Isle Of Sgail. The missions do a lot of heavy lifting for fleshing out the Partners, the ‘old money’ concept, and the Constant
58. Brickwork: The Golden Handshake, New York. Once again this feels like they actually roamed a New York bank and took pictures, but they did a wonderful job of conveying those here. The office spaces, the vaults and safety deposit boxes, the ‘even the basement is clean’ aesthetic, and of course the central room itself which is a masterpiece…
59. Brickwork: …earning two positives
60. Doodads: The Golden Handshake, New York. As per several of the really good indoor levels, a lot of work is done at a large level to make this look and feel like an office space currently undergoing a massive audit, and it’s wonderful…
61. Doodads: …earning two positives
62. NPC Set Dressing: The Golden Handshake, New York. The investment bankers, the assholes, the people just doing their jobs, security, the IT people, lotta good stuff here…
63. NPC Set Dressing: …earning two positives
64. Brickwork: The Last Resort, Haven Island. This is almost entirely for the resort area itself; the beach, the huts, the waves, and the storm that approaches as you progress
65. Doodads: The Last Resort, Haven Island. This almost feels like a gimme but, again, is primarily for the resort area and the details (the facemasks on the bed, the custom cups for the drinks) throughout
66. MSQ: The Last Resort, Haven Island. The ‘quest chain’, which as mentioned in gameplay as well, is one of the more engaging ones we’ve seen so far, and does a nice job of adding yet another layer of horribleness to our targets (Yeah let’s wipe out the entire medical database of the US for our own personal benefit, wooo)
67. Brickwork: On Top Of The World, Dubai. Of course the visuals are gorgeous here, as you’d expect, but I’m especially impressed with how shockingly opulent to the point of disgust this stupid tower is. I want to burn it to the damned ground. Did you catch the gold ceiling? How about the water and sand garden under the glass roof? Christ
68. Brickwork: Death In The Family, Dartmoor. The surrounding area is fine, but the mansion itself is fantastic. It really does look almost exactly like the kind of old, decrepit, creaking, awful, dank, humid, oppressive old-money mansion that it is…
69. Brickwork: …for two positives
70. Doodads: Death In The Family, Dartmoor. This probably goes without saying but this is absolutely bonkers levels of doodad design. Each room has its own feel, vibe, and placements, each floor, the detailing on the walls and doors, it’s incredible and really sells the feel of the old money mansion…
71. Doodads: …earning a solid…
72. Doodads: …triple positive
73. NPC Set Dressing: Death In The Family, Dartmoor. The staff are the usual gossiping, sneaking around type, adding some good flavor, but really pushes itself into double positive territory with the family. Their interactions, personalities, and quirkiness…
74. NPC Set Dressing: …earning two positives
75. MSQ: Death In The Family, Dartmoor. The central quest itself isn’t super complex gameplay wise, but is still fascinating narratively and does a lot right, and I have to admit I’m quite fond of it
76. Brickwork: Apex Predator, Berlin. It’s… good, but it just doesn’t hold a candle to the rest of these levels
77. Brickwork: End Of An Era, Chongqing. The central city is really very well designed, and the overall look of the cityscape in the distance, with the rain, all adds…
78. Atmosphere: …to a wonderful atmosphere of almost melancholy as you move through the level
79. Brickwork: The Farewell, Mendoza. The flower fields, the countryside in the distance, the processing facility, the expensive villa
80. Doodads: The Farewell, Mendoza. Also some really good doodad design as usual, especially for the interior areas
81. NPC Set Dressing: The Farewell, Mendoza. This is where Mendoza really shines, however. The crowd, the guards, the workers, the secondary characters, even the wife, all really help set up the area and keep you in the moment…
82. NPC Set Dressing: …for two positives
83. MSQ: The Farewell, Mendoza. Further, the main story (THE main story) of Mendoza is fantastic. It honestly feels a bit more like the actual finale than the real one does. The lead up, the follow through, the big announcement (which he rehearsed!), the fact that you don’t even (really) kill either target, and one last dance…
84. MSQ: …an easy double positive
85. Internal Continuity: Hitman 3 in general. Plenty of connective threads and references throughout
86. Character: Diana. I chewed on this one the entire game, but ultimately she’s one of the more interesting characters presented throughout, and her voice actress doesn’t hurt
87. Character: Alexa Carslisle. I wasn’t sure about this one at first, but for how little screen time she gets she’s quite memorable. The hidden fears (screaming into the pillow), the attitude around the staff, the attitude around her family, the attitude in private, all masks of someone who’s long accustomed to being on top… but is intelligent and driven enough to realize she’s lost, and is doing what she can while she can
88. Character: General supporting staff (mostly the targets)
89. Cutscenes: Hitman 2 has really good cutscenes. The direction, the smart camera movement, the art design, it’s the best stuff in the game
90. Cutscene: “Untouchable”, which so effortlessly and succinctly explains so much about Diana and why she is the way she is
91. Voice Acting: General for the entire game

Story Negatives:

1. Cutscene: Last Resort’s outro cutscene. I don’t even know what they were going for here
2. Cutscene: Shadows In The Water’s intro cutscene. This is… REALLY bad. Animation, lighting, camera quality, it would be better if it wasn’t even there
3. Cutscene: You Owe Him Nothing. This is another weird, bizarre cutscene that doesn’t feel like it knows what it’s doing or is just failing at it
4. Cutscene: Hitman 3’s cutscenes in general are noticeably lower quality, to the point where I honestly wish we were back to the non-fully animated stills from 2
5. Plot: Hitman 3’s plot just… does not work for me. The big build up to the defeat of Providence, only for that to now be done okay so now we go after the Constant, and… done
6. Story Sequencing: This is related to some Sequencing issues. It feels like they crammed three separate plots into one and they are very disjointed…
7. Pacing: …and move entirely too fast. The tempo is just OFF the entire campaign, it’s hard to even put into words
8. MSQ: End Of An Era, Chongqing. I have to give special mention to how disinteresting this all is, even on the individual specifics of how we end up firing people to prove an algorithm works, or the nature of trying to replace the assassins of the ICA, all of it is just blegh
9. Cutscene: This is actually a second negative for Hitman 3’s cutscenes. I am NOT a fan of these and they actively detract from my enjoyment of the story

Gameplay Positives:

1. Options: Mostly around HUD and gameplay features
2. Animations: Small things, but there’s clearly designed animations that indicate what people are doing (mostly used in Instinct mode)
3. Core Mechanic: Instinct. It’s simple, but it’s quite useful, especially for being able to see
4. NG+: Mission Select, as per usual
5. Music: Some bangers here, easily earning…
6. Music: …a double positive, but what really makes them pop…
7. Yoshi Drums: …is how they adjust dynamically based on proximity to target and wanted level
8. Save: Autosaves and manual saves
9. Info In Game: Stats and unlocks visible in menu
10. Minigame: Elusive targets. These are fun, interesting side-diversions where you’re given a profile and an idea of who your target is, and going and finding them is up to you. These are neat and a nice addendum to the formula…
11. Minigame: …for a double positive
12. Minigame: Custom Contracts. I’ll admit this isn’t my thing, but it’s fascinatingly crafted. Players can setup targets, missions, and parameters and then challenge other players to accomplish them. This is, functionally, a form of modding (map creation) and the fact that it’s supported in game is great (even if the interface is lacking)…
13. Minigame: …earning it a solid…
14. Minigame: …triple positive
15. Map: Functional and serviceable
16. Kit: So let’s talk about kit. There’s a large amount of weapons with a lot of stats to them, but not the best loadout I’ve seen. Still good stuff though
17. Kit: Then there’s the ‘tools’ which aren’t quite weapons. This is more a function of level design than anything (they all have varying uses with specific things in level) but there’s a lot of them and they absolutely open up how you play through a given map
18. Kit: Then finally there’s the disguises. These, like the tools, are custom to the level for the most part and are, really, the primary function of how you can ‘stealth’ through the game. There are many, with their own custom ‘allowed/not allowed’ items and areas
19. Core Mechanic: And finally we must discuss ‘social stealth’ itself. This is arguably the selling point of the game (and part of the Tone positive up in Story), and the nature of how the entire game hinges around your outfit and your outfit being the thing that’s ‘wanted’ as opposed to you makes for some absolutely fantastic gameplay interactions. Being able to lunge into a room while wanted, swap outfits, and walk out undetected is just one of dozens of examples of how this works and it’s easily the best single part of the game (that isn’t just ‘level design’)…
20. Core Mechanic: …and it easily earns…
21. Core Mechanic: …three positives
22. Enemy AI: The enemy AI is fantastic in this game. It’s very predictable and very patterned, which makes it a tool in the player’s arsenal, and they react smartly to terrain, flanking, and hostility…
23. Enemy AI: …easily earning…
24. Enemy AI: …three positives
25. HUD: Fantastic, scalable, optional, and useful HUD. Shows so, so much information and much of it is at a glance. You can see current weapon, conceal status, illegal status, current self status, current SASO challenge level, targets on map, safe and hidey holes on the map, white dots, white circle dots, I’m probably missing a few but I think you get the idea. It’s amazing…
26. HUD: …and it easily deserves…
27. HUD: …a triple positive
28. Guidance: Optional challenges, story missions, and intel give hints and ideas. These are fantastic and while individual missions get their own positives for the quality of said challenges and missions, their function as a signpost to the player (while being optional!) is invaluable and helps avoid ‘too sandboxy syndrome’…
29. Guidance: …earning it…
30. Guidance: …triple positives
31. QoL: Many timed events and interactions don’t even begin until you are nearby
32. QoL: Honestly there are so… so so many QoL features in this game. Closets are permanently safe, no one cares about disguises on the ground, there’s no escalating problems with repeatable actions (like being escorted out of a trespassing area), instantly knowing about alerts like bodies discovered or deaths even if off camera, poison being visible to you and no one else, defined lethal / nonlethal options… and many more…
33. QoL: …earning a full…
34. QoL: …three positives
35. Intro: Tutorialization: The first mission is fine, but the second mission (the freeform one) is fantastic
36. Intro: Level: Then there’s The Final Test. Tight and contained but well designed and with multiple missions and vectors as per usual…
37. Intro: Level: …for a double positive
38. Level: Terrain: Showstopper, Paris. Lots of well thought out placement of doors, stairs, and interactions
39. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: Showstopper, Paris. Plenty of routes and options for how to navigate through the stage, plenty of options for how to proceed
40. Level: Encounter: Showstopper, Paris. Love the spread of individuals, items, and cameras
41. Level: Terrain: World of Tomorrow, Sapienza. Excellent placement and design of interactables
42. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: World of Tomorrow, Sapienza. This is probably the most ‘all roads lead to rome’ level so far, with tons of interweaving in how the stage connects with itself, and tons of ways to get into the evil mansion proper (including from what is functionally the exit)…
43. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: …for two positives
44. Level: Encounter: World of Tomorrow, Sapienza. Again some great thought put into what is where (front and back have the most guards, but there’s still roamers. Cameras cover several areas, but there’s accessible servers for wiping. And plenty of people in just the right places to offer options to the player)
45. Level: World of Tomorrow, Sapineza. This is an aggregate, but it deserves it, it’s just a solid level across the board
46. Level: All Roads To Rome: A Gilded Cage, Marrakesh. For all that I wasn’t super impressed with this level, there are still quite a few ways into and through both the embassy and the military base
47. Level: A Gilded Cage, Marrakesh. General aggregate positive for generally good and fun stuff to do throughout
48. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: Club 27, Bangkok. For as much as I wasn’t a fan of this level, it did have quite a few variable routes and passageways through it
49. Level: Terrain: Situs Inversus, Hokkaido. Plenty of well placed, well thought out interactions, and a very small level (relatively speaking) with great density and looping design
50. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: Situs Inversus, Hokkaido. Plenty of options in plenty of directions, owing especially do the disguises thing mentioned in the next positive
51. Level: Situs Inversus, Hokkaido general aggregate. There’s some solid general design here, and I’m really fond of how they decided to use disguises as a method of key access (which is a slight variance on the usual ‘trespassing’ mechanic)…
52. Level: …for two positives
53. Level: Tutorialization: Nightcall, Hawke’s Bay. The game manages a hell of a trick here; it’s relatively linear, if you just follow quest progress… which you absolutely do not have to do. The game also pulls several tricks making you think it’s harder than it is, but actually gives the player two separate instances of being able to learn the level relatively distraction free; Once, before everyone comes back, and once, right after they do (and leave most of the second story alone)…
54. Level: Tutorialization: …earning two positives
55. Level: Terrain: Nightcall, Hawke’s Bay. Further, the level constantly ensures you have new tools and interactions to be able to deal with things; pipes, lack of railing, a fogged mirror, precisely controlled patrol paths, and plenty of people to infiltrate, distract, or kill
56. Level: Terrain: The Finish Line, Miami. This is probably some of the best terrain design so far. There is a truly insane amount of thought put into what connects where, door placement, obstacle and avoidance placement, and general flow to the level. It’s immensely interconnected and both easy and intuitive to navigate through it’s myriad facets from virtually anywhere to anywhere else…
57. Level: Terrain: …for a solid…
58. Level: Terrain: …triple positive
59. Level: Encounter: The Finish Line, Miami. It also does a lot right when it comes to encounter design; which people are placed where is something I had to constantly think about and use to my advantage, as well as navigating the cameras and locked doors, and the almighty screwdriver remains useful, all on top of being able to interact with the race itself, all means it gains…
60. Level: Encounter: …two positives
61. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: The Finish Line, Miami. Once again there are many ways to progress here, and at the risk of repeating myself, the methods by which you can accomplish objectives are myriad and amusing…
62. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: …earning a solid double positive
63. Level: Three-Headed Serpent, Santa Fortuna. This is more or less an aggregate positive. I had issues with this stage, but it still does enough right that I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that
64. Level: Terrain: Chasing A Ghost, Mumbai. As with many of their city levels, there’s some great interweaving of platforms, avoidance, and good verticality…
65. Level: Terrain: …for a good double positive
66. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: Chasing A Ghost, Mumbai. There are so, so many wonderful ways to progress in this level that it feels silly to even try and summarize them. The slums, the upper rooftops, the under construction luxury building…
67. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: …great stuff
68. MSQ: Chasing A Ghost, Mumbai. This is a wonderful tidbit but for the first time in the series I think the ‘quest’ design deserves its own positive for the cleverness, fun, options, and chains in Mumbai
69. Level: Another Life, Whittleton Creek. This is a strange one because there’s nothing really wrong with the level, but it’s clear the attention to detail was very much on the story axis and not the gameplay one. The missions are fine, the level is extremely sandboxy and open ended, but what this ultimately means is there’s just not as much to do as in other levels. Still worthy of a positive though
70. Level: Terrain: The Ark Society, Isle Of Sgail. As per usual for these types of missions, a good spread of routes, placement of items and interactables, and side areas…
71. Level: Terrain: …but what really pushes this up another notch is the smart design and layout of what is where, forming a built in tutorialization as well as giving nonstandard options
72. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: The Ark Society, Isle Of Sgail. Maintenance areas, fancy shindigs, staircases, open courtyards, all of this is the usual good stuff
73. Level: Encounter: The Ark Society, Isle Of Sgail. Cameras (not too many but very well placed), patrols (ditto), and some great usage of trespassing areas and types of locks
74. Level: Terrain: The Golden Handshake, New York. Very dense, very interwoven. Lots of tight placement of rooms, corridors, and more open areas, which means lots of options for navigation, avoidance, and routing
75. Level: Encounter: The Golden Handshake, New York. This one’s a weird one but I love how it very specifically places most of the ‘difficult’ avoidance things right up front (at the beginning you start off with a large room, no real hiding areas, and three exits all of which are trespassing) but as you go through it you notice the layers on display. Getting a guard or a teller is easy, getting an applicant is further in, then you have further into security, and even further in to the IT people, and all of this is covered by a TON of cameras… but also multiple relatively easy to find security spots
76. Level: Flow: The Golden Handshake, New York. All of this leads to where this level succeeds in a way most stages haven’t to-date; flow. The level flows brilliantly into itself constantly, with looping design and logical progression simply by going down a corridor, snatching or avoiding whatever’s there, and then seeing what’s next
77. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: The Golden Handshake, New York. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the many paths to victory here, both in the vault (or avoiding the vault entirely), and in the kill itself
78. Level: The Last Resort, Haven Island. So the level, in general, is decent, but just not at the same level as a lot of other stages we’ve covered. The resort area is tight, with thoughtful and interesting interactions and terrain design, but then the villa is… not, and the secret lab is almost worse. There’s just not a lot of interesting stuff outside of the beach
79. Level: MSQ: The Last Resort, Haven Island. And then there’s the quests. These are some of the better mission stories I’ve seen so far, up there with Mumbai. They chain nicely and they’re fun and interesting to do
80. Level: On Top Of The World, Dubai. It’s not a bad tutorialization or level in general but honestly Paris and Miami both do a better job of both. The game is a bit TOO hand holdy, most assassination attempts are completely handed to you, and there’s just not the same level of quality in level layout of the aforementioned and general placement of options and placements. It’s still good, don’t mistake me, and it’s still a positive, but this is why it’s ‘only’ one positive
81. Level: MSQ: Death In The Family, Dartmoor. This is a weird one. The mystery itself is… pretty depressingly easy, but that’s barely the point. Being able to use the mystery to gain access to a multitude of kill options, as well as the unique nature of being functionally able to access the entire stage from the beginning, as the game hands you a skeleton key disguise just a few feet in front of where you start
82. Level: Death In The Family, Dartmoor. This is effectively an aggregate for all the other things the level does right. The hedge maze (good for avoidance), the interweaving and grid-based mansion itself, tons of tools everywhere
83. Level: Terrain: Apex Predator, Berlin. This is some of the best general level layout design I’ve seen in the entire game so far. Lots of great routes, looping, manual placement of avoidance and observation, it’s fantastic…
84. Level: Terrain: …earning a solid…
85. Level: Terrain: …triple positive
86. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: Apex Predator, Berlin. Similar to the above, there are tons of options and routes here, possibly some of the most we’ve seen so far in the entire game. There are 11 targets, and you only need to kill 5 of them, and they are spread out all over and have dozens of options for them…
87. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: …earning a solid…
88. Level: All Roads Lead To Rome: …triple positive
89. Level: Flow: Apex Predator, Berlin. This is a rare one. Many Hitman levels are good, but few have such a natural flow as this one. There is so much done visually and in terms of layout to guide the player seamlessly from one segment to the other…
90. Level: Flow: …it earns a second positive
91. Level: Encounter: Apex Predator, Berlin. As with so many other quality levels, there’s a lot of good encounter design here. Where the guards are, the placement of cameras, all that good stuff
92. Level: An End Of An Era, Chongqing. This is functionally an aggregate positive, and in many ways focuses entirely on the Hush building. Multiple vectors, disguises, quests, and routes
93. Level: Terrain: The Farewell, Mendoza. This is going to sound like a general positive, because it is, but there’s still some generally good design here. The open areas flow neatly into each other and aren’t too far apart to get arduous
94. Level: MSQ: The Farewell, Mendoza. Special mention for the MSQ quest (which is fun) and the multiple options to kill twitface (which are funner)
95. Mutator: The seven deadly sins are interesting mutators of existing maps. All of them (except Gluttony) have some interesting variance in how you play them… and while they could have done more, what’s there still makes for some interesting challenge modes and post game content…
96. Mutator: …earning a double positive
97. Postgame: Freelancer rogue progression mode. Randomized missions, campaigns that involve escalating (in the order of your choosing) with optional objectives (or mandatory depending on difficulty) that lead to a boss fight makes for an interesting built in mutator mode. I will say that it’s mostly just ‘more Hitman’, but that’s exactly what a lot of people want and what the mode is for, and it does a good job of that…
98. Postgame: …for a solid double positive
99. Postgame: Boss: Freelancer, Showdown bosses (essentially an even better version of Elusives), with hints and ‘fleeing’ if you raise the alarm, as well as the bodyguard assassins littering the map
100. Postgame: Power Progression Curve: Freelancer Unlocks. Stuff (with rarity) in the missions, if you manage to bring it home, stays as an unlock
101. Minigame: Escalations. These are fun, bite-sized challenges that (surprise) escalate in complexity as you push through them, and offer interesting unlocks as you go
102. Minigame: Sniper Assassin Mode. At its face it’s basic, but the extra challenges and options really flesh out the mode…
103. Minigame: …earning it a solid second positive
104. Level: The Patient Zero side missions are mostly filler, but they’re good enough for a positive overall (I was especially fond of the ‘sus out the target’ section in Colorado)
105. Level: The Patient Zero level itself deserves its own positive. The infection gimmick is fascinating, and controllable (it passes by proximity, giving the player options to deal with it)
106. Level: The side missions of Landslide and House Built On Sand are good stuff. Re-using the maps in a smart way to remix objectives, options, and targets
107. Cosmetic: Suits, variant weapon appearances, and of course the Safehouse in Freelancer mode, all of which are unlocked via fun side stuff and challenges
108. Itemization: So, this is sort of an aggregate positive for the entire game, but extreme thought is put into what is placed where to be useful and help with progression within said level…
109. Itemization: …earning a triple…
110. Itemization: …positive
111. Replayability: So… Replayability is usually something of a ‘bonus points’ positive. Most of the specific things that make a game replayable are already covered by their individual positives. Thus a single Replayability is relatively easy, and a second just involves having sufficient gameplay variance designed around replaying, but the coveted third is for games that have a truly monumental amount of replayability built into the design of the game itself…
112. Replayability: …which I do think…
113. Replayability: …qualifies in this case
114. Core Combat: Community positive for thrown items

Gameplay Negatives:

1. MTX/Launch: Misleading store page. This is stretching the definition of what constitutes a ‘negative to gameplay’ I will freely admit, but the page where you buy the game is quite literally misleading in what is available for what and how…
2. MTX/Launch: …for an easy two negatives
3. MTX/Launch: Disconnected store page to purchase. There’s an actual steam page where you can buy campaigns properly… which is not found on Steam proper. You have to be in game to access it, and in fact the in game STORE page doesn’t even access this…
4. MTX/Launch: …so that’s another two negatives
5. MTX/Launch: Deliberately inaccurate information on what to purchase. See, it lists information in a way designed such that if you know exactly what you want, you’re good. But if you’re someone who doesn’t, who hasn’t spent time googling what you want, who just wants to get into the series? Screw you…
6. MTX/Launch: …for two negatives
7. MTX/Launch: Literally robbed me of Hitman 2. Literally literally. I bought Hitman 2, they did the changeover to World of Assassination, and I had to buy the goddamned game again because I lost access to it…
8. MTX/Launch: …so that’s…
9. MTX/Launch: …three negatives
10. MTX/Launch: Literally robbed me of Hitman 3. Same deal as before. I bought Hitman 3 the day it came out, only to find I no longer owned it thanks to the limited time bullcrap…
11. MTX/Launch: …so that’s another…
12. MTX/Launch: …triple negative
13. MTX/Launch: Frustrating microtransactions to begin with AND it’s in game
14. Launch/DRM: Always online requirement. I’ve seen worse, but this isn’t great. Saves are locked behind one more or another, cannot unlock challenges or upgrades, and of course if you’re mid-mission and get an internet blip, sucks to be you…
15. Launch/DRM: …for two negatives
16. Minigame: Elusive targets rotating temporarily available bullcrap. This kind of FOMO bullcrap is never good and locking the player out of progression and content based on this is awful…
17. Minigame: …earning itself…
18. Minigame: …three negatives
19. Interface: Menu interface in general. What is this mobile crap?
20. Interface: Good luck navigating custom missions
21. Saves: No quicksave/load, and irritating to manually save/load
22. Bug: Sloped surfaces knockouts and related issues
23. Level: Backtracking: Club 27, Bangkok. There’s two (large) hotels, with only two paths between them, and lots of stairs. Have fun!
24. Level: Terrain: Club 27, Bangkok. There’s just a general lack of terrain design in this level, to the point where it actively hampers being able to interact with or navigate the level
25. Level: Encounter: Club 27, Bangkok. Similar to the terrain problem, there’s also far too many of the wrong types of encounters (in terms of people, enforcers, and cameras) that just make navigation entirely too much of a pain
26. Level: Terrain: Freedom Fighters, Colorado. Good lord, what were they thinking with this? The grass helps (really) but there’s just too much bland, open terrain with not enough ‘stuff to do’
27. Level: Freedom Fighters, Colorado. This is the aggregate for everything else here. The awkward layout, the weird backtracking, the absence of proper alternate routes, the layers of enforcers and trespassings in critical areas, even when following a mission path good luck not running into some annoyance or another…
28. Level: …earning two negatives
29. Audio Spam: So this is kind of a weird aggregate for the whole game. Yes I know that reloading is technically the player’s fault but… this is a game centered and designed around reloading and, if you don’t believe that, in rePLAYING levels over and over. Which means hearing those audio barks over and over again
30. Level: Three-Headed Serpent, Santa Fortuna. This is, again, a bit of an aggregate negative. The objectives are far too spread out, there’s not enough interesting things to do in between, and backtracking is actively a pain
31. Controls: This is a very minor nitpick, but it’s also a constant one. There are specific types of interactions that no amount of rebinding can help with, and this is further frustrated by…
32. Options: …the inability to multi-bind, despite the fact that the game comes by DEFAULT with multi-binding
33. Bugs: Once again a large aggregate negative. The fact is there are a lot of little niggling issues that aren’t really that big of a deal, but they are a constant (My ‘favorite’ is when I’m following someone and they interrupt their script because I was walking too close to them)
34. Padding: Okay so this is a weird one but hear me out. Finishing a mission for the first time obviously requires doing all objectives, at which point you can play around in the level all willy nilly… buuut if you want to do any challenge runs (no not the in game ones, personal ones), speedruns, or for that matter in game challenges, then you have to redo all the objectives. This is usually not an issue but on several maps it becomes arduous (Sapienza and Whittleton Creek come to mind immediately)
35. Level: We’re going to call this an aggregate, because I had issues with both stages but was talked down from two negatives. So this is for Ambrose (lack of guidance, aggravation in navigation) and Last Resort (the villa… just, everything about the villa, and the general lack of design around it)
36. Level: The Icon, Sapienza 2. Very narrow corridors, bad layout of the map, bad placement of disguises, irritating navigation, and limited and disinteresting interactions, all while dealing with an asshole yelling repeatedly at you as the scene loops
37. Level: The Special Missions are… inoffensive, but ultimately are disappointing and in some cases actively badly designed (like the mumbai guy, I mean come on)
38. Level: Sarajevo, Colorado (and the rest) are just… boring, dull, disinteresting bonus missions
39. Lighting: What in God’s name is going on with the over-bloom and related issues in the Hitman 3 levels? My goodness, it’s legitimately hard to see…
40. Visual Distinction: …causing issues when navigating very complex, detailed landscapes
41. Difficulty: This is a tricky one, because for the most part there’s some actual difficulty design. The problem is the Master difficulty actively removes a lot of what makes a stealth game from the stealth game, literally
42. Level: MSQ: End Of An Era, Chongqing. The mission story quests in this level suuuuuck. They involve almost no gameplay (almost entirely just following someone while they talk), they feel like we didn’t actually do anything to kill these people, and worst yet…
43. Level: Padding: …they are SO long. Each of these takes entirely too long and worst, one of them (the Hush one) literally involves doing the quest, whoops one thing was wrong you couldn’t possibly have known about, getting rid of the assistant, then doing it all over again
44. Postgame: So… there’s a lot to like about Freelancer mode, but three big flaws it has. First, and most importantly, no saving. I know that ‘no mid mission checkpoints’ is a fairly common difficulty modifier, but that doesn’t make it any better. Second, the nature of what unlocks and doesn’t (across campaigns) is something I rather disagree with. And this leads into the biggest problem…
45. Postgame: Early Game Hell: …the Freelancer mode kiiinda sucks early on. 5 weight limit, no real unlocks, leaving you with very few options to do optional objectives… which limits your cash gain, whiiich then continues to prevent you from gaining more kit and dying more often, which carries a penalty of losing items and money, continuing the cycle

Story Positives:

1. Intro: Simple, silly, funny, and very on brand. We’s in a roight proppa waaagh, and ‘den ‘dat git stolez our hair! Dat’s MY hair! Anyways it’s awesome…
2. Intro: ..and earns a double positive
3. Voice Acting: Surprisingly good, especially for the Orks but also the gits
4. Dialogue: Excellently crafted, for what it is, very Orky
5. Humor: I wasn’t sure about this, but several moments push it forward (like the Ork ship with holes in it, or Lord Horrik)
6. Tone: Waaaaaagh!!
7. Brickwork: Orky barracks. Very bolted on, smashed together, and just barely looks like it works
8. Brickwork: Sewers. Rotting underbelly with corpses and trash and genestealer cults
9. Brickwork: Refinery. The rough, crude industrial factory look
10. Brickwork: Orky ship. Holes, bolts, and sleeping squigs
11. Spritework: Orks! They look properly green and surprisingly stylized and with good variety in each different type of ork
12. Spritework: Humie gits! Dinky fools, big ogryns, and of course the metal gits
13. External Continuity: Surprisingly good usage of Orks, Tyrannids, Guard, and Space Marines
14. Doodads: Smashed up ruins. Lots and lots of little details throughout (love the trash piles)
15. Doodads: Humie gitlands. Posters, pictures, paperwork, and of course a toilet
16. Doodads: Holy cathedrals, both tyrannid and humie. Chapels and holy artifacts and lots and lots of detail
17. Doodads: Da Orky tincan! Really looks like a place a ton of Orks all live and work in
18. Moment: Lord Horrik, Keeper of the Gates of Loralo, Wielder of the Kaloric Flame, Bringer of Hope, Herald of the Holy Order of the Adamantine Lance, The Paladin of Koto, Slayer of the Lion of Essa, the Triumphant, the Light of Stars, the Eradicator!
19. Plot: The plot is that you want your hair back. And it is awesome
20. Outro: The ending itself is whatever, but the credits and song are legit

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music: There’s (really) only the one type of song, but it’s a good’n
2. Co-Op: Proper campaign co-op, with features and designs that help with co-op…
3. Co-Op: …such as waiting on full players to progress, loot sharing…
4. QoL: …and several other little quality of life changes like health sharing on pickup, drops changing based on number of players, respawn mechanics, etc.
5. Kit: There are a few good, solid weapons which are fun and useful to use
6. Boss: Patriarch genestealer is probably one of the better bosses (also sort of an aggregate positive for all bosses)
7. Controls: Tight and responsive
8. Mid-Mission Checkpoints: Quite a few
9. Penalty For Failure: Co-Op respawning and proper placement of mid mission checkpoints
10. Guidance: Quite a bit of it throughout. Cables, camera showing the way, enemies spawning in the right direction, that kind of thing
11. NG+: Chapter select (and retaining unlocks)

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Bugs: Quite a few basic ones, mostly graphical
2. Difficulty: Lazy difficulty, mostly in damage
3. Bugs: Gamebreakers in loading and softlocking
4. Difficulty: Ease of dying. Way, way too easy to die, partially due to…
5. Interface: …a general lack of feedback from the game on a lot of things, most notably when you’re doing damage and when you’re taking it
6. Kit: For all the good guns, there’s plenty of bad ones too, and they just feel bleh to use
7. Viscerality: This game should be much more visceral than it is, and this ties a bit into the feedback issue. It’s legitimately hard to feel like you’re doing anything unless you actually notice the health bars moving

Story Positives:

1. Spritework: General, but decent
2. Brickwork: Mars bases in general. Even at a glance around you get a vibe for the UAC and what they were doing on the moon…
3. Visual Continuity: …and its slow conversion across Episode 2 into an outpost of Hell

Story Negatives:

1. Outro: These endings are bad even by early NES standards, nevermind early 90s. Awkward dialogue for the text splash, and the actual ending is just sort of a spit in the face combined with unnecessary edge

Gameplay Positives:

1. Mods: Accessibility. There’s literally a mod selector and loader in the game which lists uploaded and featured mods, as well as the easy drag and drop for new ones…
2. Mods: …for a solid…
3. Mods: …triple positive
4. Mods: Depth. There’s a fair amount you can do with WADs and we’ve seen some creative stuff over the years
5. Controls: Simple but solid, did a good job porting modern conveniences to a thirty year old game
6. Options: Lots of good options and customization and only a few relatively minor complaints within…
7. Options: …earning a second positive
8. Options: The ability to swap the music on the fly
9. NG+: Level Select
10. Difficulty: Changes items and enemy placement and amounts (and items, apparently too!)…
11. Difficulty: …for a double positive
12. Difficulty: Mutators! Individual, fun mutators to vary up the difficulty like ‘forced Pistol start’ or making monsters respawn
13. Tutorialization: Opening attract demo. I’ve seen better, but it’s still good and informative
14. Map: Indicators of completion on the map
15. Co-Op: Full campaign co-op mode, both online and split screen…
16. Co-Op: …so that’s a solid double positive
17. Minigame: Built in speedrun timer and mission end % indicators
18. HUD: Simple yet functional
19. Music: The basic music is a classic of course…
20. Music: …but what really pushes this into positive territory is the remixed music
21. Save: This is (and has been for a long time) a golden standard of save design. Manual saves of course, but quicksave and quickload with near instant load times (across games, even) that is, functionally, a savestate. This easily earns…
22. Save: …a solid double positive
23. Sound: Some legitimately excellent sound design here. Indicators of switches, enemy locations, enemy actions (teleporting, activating, fighting each other), in many ways sound is more useful to navigate than sight…
24. Sound: …for a solid…
25. Sound: …triple positive
26. Guidance: Items and corpses. These are placed very specifically in levels to serve as signposts for where you’ve been and where you’re going
27. Enemy AI: There’s better, but this is still surprisingly good for the time, allowing for tactics and outmaneuvering
28. Enemy Design: The Doom standard; Basic, but good. Some hitscan enemies, some projectile enemies, and each one operating just a bit differently
29. Encounter Design: This is where Doom tends to really shine. This is an aggregate, as later positives will cover specifics, but thought is (almost) always put into what types of enemies should be fought with what other types, where, and in what sequence (like making sure after a pod of demons, there’s some possessed army guys thereafter, which are harder to dodge thanks to hitscanning but also drop ammo to help refill you after the demons)
30. Optional: The Id Vault is some fun and cool additional tidbits, mostly behind the scenes and prototype artwork kind of stuff
31. Kit: The very basic guns are at least functional and done well enough for a positive
32. Intro: E1M1. This is still probably the single best level in the game. It’s extraordinarily optional (you can just run to the exit in 15 seconds without even using speedrunner tricks), but still has multiple secrets (to help get into the mindset of searching the map), well designed escalation (the initial room is safe, and each subsequent room introduces a new concept), immediate indicators of concepts like drops and vertical navigation (like the ‘stairs’ in front of you), and rewards exploration. This sucker rocks…
33. Intro: …for a solid double positive
34. Level: Itemization: Episode 1 levels in general. The specific placement of pickups is good on several levels, helping with navigation as well as keeping the ‘flow’ going smoothly…
35. Level: Itemization: …for two positives
36. Level: Encounter: Episode 1 levels in general. As mentioned earlier, the game does a great job of varying up what you fight when and where, and careful thought is spent making sure each of these work well in sequence and with each other…
37. Level: Encounter: …for two positives
38. Level: Flow: This is all benefited by the aforementioned positives, but there’s a very smooth flow to the level design in Episode 1. Ignoring the obvious fact that the levels are shorter (in a good way, very dense) but also that there’s precious little backtracking, getting lost, or maze-like structure here, instead making for a very smooth experience
39. Level: Traps and fairness. So, Episode 1 does this great thing where they’ll have traps and gotcha moments (grabbing an item opens up enemies, or you enter a teleporter to be ambushed) but either those enemies drop items, or there are recovery items in said trap area. It’s an important part of how the level design, as an aggregate, holds up so much in Episode 1. It’s mean, several times, but it never drifts into being unfair, and it makes playing and replaying these stages a treat…
40. Level: …for a solid…
41. Level: …triple positive
42. Level: Episode 2 levels are… not as good as Episode 1, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say there were still some neat and interesting puzzles and tricks here
43. Level: E4M2’s switches, jumps, and terrain design is surprisingly interesting
44. Level: E1M9. It’s simple, but solid; You’re given plenty of guns at the start, and the level ‘loops’ into itself as you solve it
45. Level: Terrain: Episode 4, in general, does a better job of terrain and level design, despite its issues
46. Replayability: Episode 1, full stop. (Episode 2 is fine as well)

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Level: Episode 2 also has several more sprawling and, frankly, boring stages to deal with, and the ominous head of backtracking starts to rear its head. Of course this has nothing on…
2. Level: …Episode 3. This is an aggregate for the whole episode as I’m honestly not sure I liked a single stage in 3 but there’s several specific examples that jump out at me
3. Level: For example, E3M4. A large, sprawling, dull level that already outstays its welcome, but gets instantly worse…
4. Level: …the second you hit the pillar puzzle. It’s not even a hard puzzle, really, but the problem is it’s designed so you cannot immediately see the results of your actions (so a lot of walking back and forth checking doors) and there are ZERO indications of what to do here, so it’s just pure trial and error
5. Level: Then there’s E3M5, which just has absolutely nothing going on for it. A nice big empty dull mess
6. Level: E3M7, well. This is already a bit of a dull level (big empty spaces, not a lot of interactions or tight encounter design) but then you add the teleporter maze and it just drifts into irritating
7. Crash: Oh did I mention the game crashed? Multiple times, even
8. Level: E4M1 enemy spam, enemy spam, enemy spam
9. Level: E4M2 has some pretty bad gotcha and enemy spam
10. Level: Episode 4, in general, really likes to just have health tax sections which either penalize you for trying to solve a puzzle or, worse, force tons of reloads to accommodate screw ups
11. Level: Episode 4 really does not know what to do with its enemy placement. It’s actively aggravating, especially on any real difficulty
12. Difficulty Curve: Episode 4 in general is all over the place with its difficulty curve. Starts off brutal, then gets even worse, then weird, then easy, and it’s just… weird
13. Visual Distinction: Lots of browns on greys on browns and good luck figuring out what you’re supposed to interact with at close range
14. Replayability: Episode 3 and the long, dull doldrums

Story Positives:

1. Intro: Animation: Surprisingly good, especially in the intro and with the initial roaming and working people in the base
2. Intro: Sets up the stage very well. Even though if you’re racing through it you’ll get to things going to hell (no pun intended) in like two minutes, the truth is you have so much extra stuff you can do and see to help build up the setting, world, and stakes…
3. Intro: …for a solid double positive
4. NPC Set Dressing: Weirdly, yeah. A lot of them are in the middle of turning evil or about to die but they do some good stuff with it
5. Sound: Background noise and soundscape as the disaster kicks off and further on as you start to hear whispers and other screams
6. Background Lore: A lot, actually. There’s a lot of work done to build up the setting, especially in the…
7. Storytelling Mechanic: …logs and emails. These are mostly fluff (and a few codes for bonus goodies) but they do a good job of providing the aforementioned background lore
8. Brickwork: Okay so I’ll admit, while they look a bit difficult from a gameplay perspective, I do like the visual design storywise. We see this heavily iron and steel base on Mars (which makes sense) and really sells this oppressive atmosphere of this industrial base which really, really sucks to work at even before Hell showed up
9. Doodads: And, again, good Doodad usage to illustrate the individual areas and their different flavor (some work areas look more like places a geek works, others are more militarily bent, that sort of thing)
10. Atmosphere: If there is one thing Doom Cubed does very well, it’s the atmosphere. The sound, visuals, and yes even the lighting all do a great job of selling this depressing, dark, and gloomy crawl through an uncaring machine that willingly tampered with Hell to get to a better bottom line…
11. Atmosphere: …and for this it deserves a solid double positive

Story Negatives:

1. Atmosphere: Jump scares. These are near-constant, and they’re cheap, and they’re irritating…
2. Atmosphere: …worse, it’s some of the worst I’ve seen in gaming…
3. Atmosphere: …for a solid triple negative
4. Plot: Following in the footsteps of the plot without being involved in it. For a huge majority of the game we don’t… do anything. We aren’t even trying to do anything. We’re just following behind the other teams actually doing things. It’s not until they all fail that we finally start being a participant in the plot
5. Outro: The vanilla campaign’s ending is ‘fine’… until the Dark Souls ‘what?’ moment with Bertruger
6. Outro: So the Resurrection of Evil’s ending is… actually pretty bad. We defeat Bertruger but no, he grabs us and flings us around! And we’re… fine? But then we shove the artifact into his mouth and he… dies? The end?? Cut to credits??? What?!
7. Outro: …for two negatives
8. Outro: Sssooo we have our third bad ending in a row. They shut down the portal, the marines show up, the end. What in the world

Gameplay Positives:

1. Save: Some irritants aside, we still have good autosaves and proper quicksave/load…
2. Save: …and that’s still…
3. Save: …a triple positive
4. Minigame: Doom 1 & 2
5. Kit: As much as I have issues with one particular gun, this is still a decent lineup for what it is (most especially the plasma rifle, with pinpoint accuracy and reasonable ammo distribution)
6. Kit: The additional artifacts add some fun to things to vary gameplay up. The Grabber (in the expansion), the Soulcube (for just straight up killing things), and the Artifact (for the additional buffs)
7. Encounter: As is pretty standard for Doom games, thought is put into what you fight where (in fact in a lot of areas they get custom animations for how they pop in)
8. Sound Design: One of the better elements of the game design, with good direction and indicators of aggroing, teleporting in, and of course attacking
9. Guidance: So this is a weird one, but enemies spawn out of mid-air in this game. The reason that’s significant is they only spawn in an area when you’re supposed to be going that way. In a game where you backtrack frequently this is helpful to make sure you know you’re going the right way
10. Enemy Design: Not too shabby. There’s some decent variety, and enemies that vary things up between ranged and melee
11. Itemization: Pretty solid overall. Nothing fancy, but there’s still a good spread of drops and weapons
12. Level: The early Delta labs are actually pretty legit. There’s actual guidance in terms of signposts, a real sense of objectives and progress, and a logical flow through it
13. Level: A very aggregate positive for general level design

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Unskippable Cutscenes: Added IN for this version of the game believe it or not, but here we are
2. Difficulty Options: Super lazy difficulty and cannot change without starting a whole new campaign…
3. Difficulty Options: …for two negatives
4. Visual Distinction: Gray gray gray. Even as the tileset changes (and it does) it is nightmarish to just be able to see what’s what and where you’re going at all times…
5. Visual Distinction: …for a nonstop irritation, which is made all the worse by…
6. Lighting: …the lighting. Memes aside, this is absolutely awful. The problem isn’t ‘it’s dark’ or even ‘there’s a flashlight’, the very lighting design is awful; the brights are too bright, and the shadows are too dark, and it actively hurts navigation, nevermind things like seeing where pickups or enemies are. One of the reasons I leaned so heavily on sound design (which is good, admittedly) is because it was actively hard to SEE what’s what for long stretches of the game. This is some of the worst lighting design I’ve seen in gaming…
7. Lighting: …and it deserves…
8. Lighting: …three negatives
9. Core Combat: Headshots and wounds in general. There’s just… no visceral feedback to hitting enemies, in some cases it’s hard to tell if you’ve even hit them. This is related to…
10. Raspberry Jam: …the recoil. When you’re hit with anything melee, your camera goes flying very rapidly while getting knocked back, and it cannot be overstated how disorienting this is
11. Viscerality: The guns themselves just do NOT have any oomph to them. The rocket launcher feels like shooting peas in Plants vs. Zombies, the shotgun sounds like a heavy pistol, the SMG is one step away from being a needler. The only gun that avoids this is the Plasma Rifle
12. Guidance: General guidance issues. Aside from the enemy respawning thing there is no real guidance of any kind at all (and no map!)
13. Kit: The shotgun. I keep wanting to defend it, to say it’s not that bad, to maybe dismiss the complaints about it, but the truth is the shotgun is awful. It’s (functionally) a melee weapon, with an absolutely insane spread and relatively low damage per pellet. I literally had times where I aimed at a guy and killed the person next to him
14. Encounter Design: Jumpscares (and related health tax). It is entirely too often that enemies will jumpscare you, which has its own issues (listed up in Story) but these enemies almost always get in a free ‘sneak attack’… whiiich there’s no real way to know it’s coming or avoid unless you already know what you’re doing, leading to the aforementioned health tax
15. Walkthroughitis: I… have so little idea where I’m going or what I’m doing at so many points in this game. I’ve seen worse, don’t mistake me, but this just gets aggravating. This is compounded by…
16. Level: …the ‘flower’ level design. Now, Doom 1 and 2 did this too a fair amount, but the idea is you start at Point A, go to Point B, back to A, off to C, back to A, off to D, back to A, etc. Doom 3 does this constantly (it’s the primary level design feature) but because of all the OTHER issues (most already mentioned in other negatives) this gets disorienting as hell and is just frustrating. All of course adds to…
17. Backtracking: …the constant backtracking. Hope you don’t get turned around while doing it, cuz then you’ll be backtracking your backtracking!
18. Interface: Lack of subtitles which combines with…
19. Sound: …terrible sound balancing and lack of specific volume controls
20. Level: The Lift section. For the most part, the level design is… fine. It’s vanilla, a wash. But there’s this part where you control a Lift and have to make it go up at a specific point. And not only is there no real indication that that’s how you progress, the spot you can lift up at LOOKS like you can’t, so even if you try going up (which I did!) you won’t do it there specifically…
21. Level: …for two frustration negatives
22. Level: The latter part of the Delta labs… sucks. A teleport maze in samey corridors with irritating navigation? No thank you
23. Level: Hell. A linear corridor with platforming (which instantly kills, of course), worse than usual auto-save design, and dull, spread out enemy design… and all of this is on top of taking away your kit immediately upon entering AND exiting the level
24. Encounter: So there’s this part of the caverns where you have to jump off withdrawing platforms to get down a shaft. The movement back kills your momentum so you can’t make the jump, meaning you need to time the jump ahead of time… about four or so times to reach the bottom. Due to how massive fall damage is, any miss means death (hope you saved!). We actually only made it due to a friggin’ bug
25. Outro: The Cyberdemon is… not a good boss fight. He’s invincible except to the Soul Cube, and while he has a few attacks that have to be avoided, for the most part it’s just running around killing random low level mooks to charge the cube then hit him. And that’s… it
26. Boss: Helltime Hunter. So we have slow moving, hard to grab plasma shots which are on a timer which you need to grab and fling at the boss. The flings have this lazy arc making them irritating to aim, while the boss zips around constantly AND can dodge, while the boss is pelting you nonstop with attacks that not only have a huge area of effect but as you get hit you have that visual jostle problem. And nothing indicates what’s doing damage or isn’t (lack of feedback problem) so you might try using the plasma shots, see a lack of feedback, and presume you’re doing no damage and try something else… which then leads to doing no damage because you have to attack him with the plasma shots. This fight sucks…
27. Boss: …and deserves two negatives
28. Outro: Boss: So, uh, the Bertruger fight. That sure was… a thing. A few fireball attacks, the occasional fire line attack, and that’s… sort of it. Whole lotta health though
29. Outro: Boss: So, uh, here’s the Guardian again, but this time without any mechanics… okay…
30. Flow: So, hear me out… Something that would happen semi regularly is people would leave stream, then come back hours later, and comment on the fact that by all accounts and indications we hadn’t moved one inch. The game has almost… static flow to it. With precious few exceptions, every area blurs seamlessly with every other area in the game, and the activities you do never really change. This is hypothetically not a terrible thing… except it creates this awful, awful feeling of constantly spinning your wheels. Getting no where and doing nothing. And that dragging feeling makes the game feel much longer than it is (I was shocked to find out it was only 13.28 hours, plus both DLCs). This drags the entire game experience down…
31. Flow: …for a solid…
32. Flow: …triple negative