Premieres 7

Story Positives:

1. Gilded storytelling; things seemingly fine on the surface, but cues and hints of things being much worse
2. Intro does so much right in such a short period of time…
3. …and honestly earns a second positive
4. Narrative pacing is excellent throughout…
5. …with tons of ups, downs, breathers, and tension
6. Usage of color as atmosphere both highs and lows
7. Music direction is spot on…
8. …easily second positive worthy
9. Amicia’s VA is incredible…
10. …honestly earning a second positive
11. Village sequence in its entirety
12. Animation in cutscenes
13. Voice acting during stealth sections
14. The dream sequence is well constructed in general…
15. …but the way it built and crescendo’d into walking through a sea of rats as we struggled, screaming, to reach Hugo…
16. Hugo is an adorable beacon of light in an otherwise dark game, and is brilliantly used strategically throughout to perk things up…
17. …even further helped by his excellent voice actor
18. Amicia is similarly an excellent and well done character
19. General voice acting positive
20. The rats themselves easily earn a positive for their usage and their tone
21. Gameplay / Story Integration positive
22. The ratnado is, surprisingly, pretty terrifying
23. Lucas is enjoyable in his own right
24. Melie is, similarly, enjoyable
25. Generally good supporting cast
26. Dialogue is generally well written
27. Good doodad utilization
28. The sound design always adds to the narrative
29. Generally good story sequencing
30. Visual storytelling does a lot to add to the story, especially the already rat-infested areas…
31. …earning two positives
32. Voice direction is spot on
33. Absolutely lovely Brickwork for the early section…
34. …easily earning two positives
35. Brickwork for the village
36. Brickwork for the pig farm
37. Brickwork on the aquaduct level
38. And Brickwork for the forest level

Story Negatives:

1. Vitalis was just… not an engaging villain at all. I’ve seen worse, but ultimately he detracts from the narrative
2. Aggregate: Cutscene incompetence here and there, most notably with… // …the way Arthur died to Nicholas

Gameplay Positives:

1. The tutorial section is honestly very legit, does a fantastic job of escalation and giving the player ways to ease into mechanics before testing them
2. The Intro is, similarly, brilliantly designed from a gameplay perspective and deserves its own praise
3. The Rats and Light mechanic in general
4. The stealth and avoidance mechanics in general
5. Difficulty curve (especially due to non-binary difficulty)
6. Generally good checkpointing
7. The entire Village level
8. The pig farm level
9. The aqueduct mass grave level
10. The forest level
11. Music in general is excellent…
12. …but the way it Yoshi Drums is fantastic
13. Sound design is good in general…
14. …but also really helps inform who is what, where, and how to deal with it
15. City level
16. The cathedral / library level
17. Everything about the alchemy and garden section
18. Pacing of gameplay is excellent throughout…
19. …easily deserving a second positive
20. The kit is good and varied throughout
21. Encounter design is generally good
22. Periodic multiple paths gameplay design
23. Gameplay and Story Integration
24. Continually escalating mechanics introduction and further tutorialization
25. The entire Hugo section of going through the prison is a wonderful Princess Peach segment
26. There aren’t many, but the enemies that are there are good variety, each one having different tactics that work for them
27. The Alternate Leveling of having to balance inventory for consumables/ammo as well as upgrades
28. The generally enjoyable stealth / action gameplay leads to a single Replayability positive
29. The terrain design is top notch, helping almost every area to feel both unique and have its own methods of progression…
30. …earning…
31. …three positives
32. There’s only a couple, but surprisingly fun boss fights
33. A simple but informative HUD

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The controls for, uh, controlling the rats as Hugo kinda really suck
2. Aggregate: Controls are wonky in general (and depend on the scene) but are clearly made for controller and not M&K // AI pathfinding had occasional issues

Story Positives:

Story Negatives:

1. The intro cinematic is terribly done in almost every way. Storyboarding, pacing, writing, directing, and just… wow
2. The plot is nonsensical even for Trek
3. They somehow warp over into the very bodies and ship of the mirror universe but remain theirselves… somehow??
4. The starbase keeps repairing the Excelsior despite openly calling them traitors… and then clamps and self destructs to destroy them… but… what?
5. Meanwhile we have to beat the M5 by solo killing four constitutions… in a row… THEN the Orions…
6. Should I mention how Sulu’s refusal to use his brain to think a way around Chekov leads to a totally unnecessary rivalry arc?
7. There’s a total absence of pacing in this game. It just lurches around doing whatever it wants to
8. The story sequencing similarly has no logic or thread to it other than ‘random episode references’
9. The fact that our fighter is just… a doom death destructo machine and has to solo massive quantities of enemy fighters AND capital ships
10. The entire wormhole mission is various layers of just… nonsense
11. The ‘cavalry has arrived’ moment in Vortex is terribly presented
12. The Mirror Mirror opening cutscene is bad at every level. The mirror ship, the fact that they (somehow) have tons of fighters despite also having lost their crew and are somehow here at the same time and of course, finally, a terrible ‘oh my’
13. The Outro is bad in general…
14. …but the WAH WAH nature of it, the awful writing, the terrible line reading, pushes it down even more
15. The entire game is the opposite of consequence storytelling
16. The dialogue is some truly awful writing
17. External Continuity actively makes this game worse
18. It’s very clear the voice direction on Takei and Koenig was not there, and it’s especially true on everyone else

Gameplay Positives:

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The mission design for the second mission is not good. Endless waves of klingons interfering with objectives you can’t do until they’re cleared, followed by more waves of irritation
2. The third mission. First fight fighters (what else), but then release the clamps or an invisible timer will instantly kill the Excelsior, and then destroy a capital ship by yourself
3. Controls are… really loose and barely designed
4. The HUD is not well designed in general, barely explained, and worse is actually covered by in-game dialogue
5. The lack of weapon variety and balancing is immediately noticeable
6. The brickwork (skybox) is actively bad (blue crap!)
7. Targeting is bad, bad, bad. It’s inconsistent how it targets what
8. The knockback effect from getting hit is bad in its own right due to frustration but also screws with you because…
9. …the game in general is very disorienting, to the point of being vaguely nauseating
10. Audio spam is pretty bad
11. Enemy ships are just faster than you, even if you’re constantly holding down dash
12. Mission 4 is actually terrible. Defend the Excelsior who is doing nothing against four Constitutions and an Orion. Even going completely suicidally berserker, the Excelsior is at 20% health and no shields by the time the Constitutions go down
13. A second negative for Mission 4
14. Capital ships exploding forces a ‘cutscene’ but doesn’t pause the action, so you and your ally can still take damage (and die) during the cutscene
15. Mission 6 can go to hell. It’s the exact same friggin’ mission structure as the previous ‘gather minerals’ mission and is, thus, boring…
16. …but is made worse by the waves upon waves upon waves upon WAVES of enemies which, as usual, kill the Excelsior
17. Mission 7 is, as usual, an awful escort mission
18. The… ‘difficulty options’… aren’t
19. As usual, escort missions suck
20. The Balok mission is pure insanity. Fifty hyperbalillion enemy fighters swarming you constantly, and despite killing them so quickly I was doing so once per couple SECONDS they still nearly killed the Excelsior before I could kill them all
21. The amoeba mission was boring dull and stupid
22. The wormhole mission was aggravating to play in almost every way…
23. …but deserves a second negative for the visuals being legitimately disorienting
24. The Tholian defense mission is really frustrating and irritating to maneuver through while having the usual timer / escort issues
25. The Vortex mission is honestly really quite boring
26. The Outro is one of the worst Outros I’ve seen. It’s yet another boring escort mission for the Excelsior, while the enemy spawns an infinite wave of way-too-many-fighters, while having bad controls…
27. …earning a second negative
28. AI is bad in general; not acknowledging collision, no real maneuvering or tactics, and the friendlies are completely useless
29. The core combat is, at absolute best, boring
30. The game’s difficulty curve is beyond stupid

Story Positives:

1. Dialogue is not only well written in general…
2. …but varies in tone between characters
3. Game is reasonably humorous
4. Generally good world building…
5. …but also continuous, natural world building as characters slowly explain to each other things that we, the audience, don’t know
6. Betty’s bit about trauma, hating an idea not a person, is indicative of the kinds of great lines that exist in this work…
7. …which I will give a second positive for sheer writing quality
8. The prologue did some… amusing stuff but was reasonably well fleshed out, especially between Beatrice and Deal
9. The first day was interesting pretty much across the board
10. The porch scene between Dana and Jill
11. The game manages good perspective, but manages to keep it interesting… this is something I love when stories do right, the ‘real’ story is happening over there but you’re not part of that story, so you only see snippets…
12. …the viewpoint of the elephants fighting from the perspective of the ants
13. News articles and reddit threads as background lore
14. Internal continuity is very tight…
15. …as the game keeps track of what’s going on elsewhere and within its characters very well
16. The Outro between Jill and Gaby is really awesome
17. Sei is adorable, straightforwards, and a great support
18. Jill is interesting enough to be worthwhile
19. Dana, the retired Punk, is awesome in all the right ways
20. Dorothy is probably one of the best and most complex and fleshed out characters in the game, with a good head on her shoulders and surprisingly multi-faceted personality…
21. …earning a second positive
22. Stella is another multi-faceted character who bounces off Jill and Sei beautifully
23. Alma is great, supportive, and engaging
24. Kira Miki is really quite well done despite her lack of screen time
25. Vergilio is pretty legit, and shows signs even early on of what’s really going on there
26. Betty and Deal make a nice two-part act
27. Supporting cast in general
28. Really good chemistry and connecting threads between characters
29. Sei and Dorothy’s scene together did a good job on a lot of levels
30. Sei’s freak out and calm down shortly after the bank situation
31. Anna Start was pretty legit

Story Negatives:

1. The entire… loli… thing with Dorothy is gross on several levels, but even if one were to remove the emotional reaction, the fact is it adds nothing to the story and actively detracts from it

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music is pretty enjoyable
2. Decent new game +
3. Good replayability
4. Aggregate: Chat log // Pseudo-branching gameplay // Forcing the player to pay attention

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Lack of rebinding
2. Jukebox is unnecessarily irritating to interact with
3. Aggregate: Lack of chapter select // Walkthroughitis

Story Positives:

1. The cold-open nature of the Intro does a good job of pulling you in and hooking you early on, as well as clearly indicating there is more going on here than it seems
2. Plots. Several interesting, seemingly unconnected plots
3. Visual storytelling pretty consistently
4. The Kraken reveal (pretty much indicates the types of story this will be as soon as it shows)
5. The Soldiers of the Sea reveal (spider… crab… things)
6. Storyboarding of posing the scenes
7. Story sequencing (events are very clearly connected properly)
8. Consequence storytelling (just about everything is one long domino)
9. Foreshadowing (we learn a lot in our very first tidbit)
10. The Internal Continuity in this game is spot on…
11. …to the point that it just is crazy how well it keeps track of itself
12. The Outro and the final reveal of how the captain was, really, behind almost everything
13. The sound design helps add to each, uh, ‘scene’ quite well
14. Gameplay and story integration

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Intro. The initial three fates are relatively easy to learn, but more to the point are very clearly linked to each other and designed to get you into the mood and mode of what type of game this is
2. Good guidance and flow of exploration
3. Gameplay and story integration, of course
4. Sound design literally helps you determine what’s going on in each ‘scene’
5. Visual continuity (at all times you can pretty much immediately tell where you are on the ship, regardless of time frame)
6. Some small QoL features (in how the book operates, the ‘flies’, not being able to lose the corpse beam)
7. Core frozen vignette freeze mechanic
8. Core deduction mechanic (identity, cause of death)
9. Voice acting (for identification purposes)
10. Book usage and availability
11. The ‘after three’ mechanic to tell you when you have three accurate things is a great decision because it doesn’t let you purely brute force guess (like telling you immediately would) and it’s not irritating (like not telling you at all would) and of course this also builds in a feeling and tangibility of progression
12. …easily earning a second positive
13. Storyboarding and how it gives clues and helps with deduction
14. Level design, too, is clearly designed with the overall deduction in mind
15. Info in game in the form of map, crew manifest, and glossary
16. The very well designed sketches and how they… help you deduce what’s going on
17. Internal continuity of what happens when … once again helps with the deduction

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The showpiece, followed by forced fade out, followed by book fill in
2. Aggregate: The game literally doesn’t allow the player to change resolution, or move the window, without bugging out completely // Near total lack of options, most egregiously in sound options (only one volume ‘slider’ for all audio)

Story Positives:

1. Humor. The game got some silly laughs out of me more than a few times
2. Performances! Usually this is ‘voice acting’ but in this case it’s just plain ‘acting’
3. Lighting, which is well done enough to warrant notice
4. Makeup design for the actors
5. Murphy himself is… well, Murphy
6. Mojo is easily one of the best characters in the game…
7. …alongside Louie, and his varying tones and good acting…
8. …as well as Taylor, who is just generally legit and the actress is clearly just having fun with the role
9. Cutscene direction is pretty top notch
10. Archie is pretty legit
11. Smart Alex is, as you might expect, appropriately amusing
12. The unique atmosphere and tone of serious, silly, slapstick, noir, Bond film
13. Good banter between Murphy and just about everyone
14. Generally good camera-work
15. The Translator is exactly as hammy and ridiculous as a Bond villain should be
16. Intro does some good stuff in establishing our core cast, ourselves, and our connections
17. Dialogue is generally well written
18. External Continuity is reasonably well done
19. The Outro with the Tesla Lab, the confrontation at the tower with Slade, while it had some issues it was still enjoyable
20. Generally good writing throughout

Story Negatives:

1. Aggregate: Periodic issues with camera // Periodic issues with acting // Periodic issues with someone trying a bit too hard with a line
2. Pacing is… not. It’s just sort of whatever, probably because of the format of the game

Gameplay Positives:

1. In-game hint system and Flashlight mechanic are both nice ways to keep the game going forwards
2. Generally enjoyable puzzle design
3. Pretty good autosave system
4. Choices, not only changing the ending but scenes and the flavor thereof

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Font size is just way, way too small and makes the game difficult to read or understand
2. TOR Syndrome is pretty bad (if limited)
3. Pacing has some pretty serious issues
4. Intro has several issues. It’s arguably one of the worst walkthroughitis moments in the game, with some vague hints and nothing really indicating the rock, and otherwise bleh
5. The Outro (the Tesla base) has many issues. Instant-death binary issues, lack of direction at multiple points, and the vague inconsistency issues coming with an ill-used engine
6. Aggregate: Lighting design was problematic at times // Periodic audio spam // Occasional walkthroughitis issues (nothing too bad)

Story Positives:

1. The sprite animation is actually really quite good, and always helps sell the scene
2. Tone and atmosphere of dread, wonder, and exploration is very well presented
3. Banter, mostly towards the first two acts, is really quite good
4. The game’s ‘camerawork’ for scene construction is actually quite good (not counting the cartoon animations)
5. Some smartly written dialogue throughout
6. The Intro does so much so well. The stakes, the premise, the characters, the banter, the escalation, the tension, the crater…
7. …it’s one of the better Intros I’ve seen, it’s easily two positive material
8. Music direction is spot on, adding to essentially every scene
9. The suicide jump was honestly almost perfect
10. Sound design really adds to basically every scene
11. Truly marvelous brickwork and visual storytelling
12. Several good bits of voice acting
13. Generally good writing

Story Negatives:

1. Brink’s… big climatic death scene was just kind of… really awful
2. The Outro… has pretty serious issues. It’s abrupt, it’s unearned, and it flies in the face of previously established facts and themes

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music is, as per Michael Land’s usual, is legit
2. Not all the time, but quite often the game is pretty good at guiding you in how to progress forwards

Gameplay Negatives:

1. There is some pixel hunting here, especially due to poor visual distinction
2. There are several issues of walkthroughitis throughout, peppered across the game

Story Positives:

1. Visual storytelling of the house is honestly pretty well designed
2. The storytelling mechanic of learning piecemeal what happened and what’s happening as we explore the house
3. Aggregate: Intro does enough right to be noteworthy, some good hooks laid down early on // Pacing isn’t super amazing, but it’s actually decent // The voice actress playing Sam is decent enough, some minor issues and some problems with quantity

Story Negatives:

1. The Outro has several substantial constructive issues with it…
2. …and fails utterly to fulfill on the emotional impact it is so clearly going for

Gameplay Positives:

1. Built in developer commentary mode
2. The game, with one notable exception, actually has pretty good guidance and flow of exploration in its level design

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Never did find the locker code which is literally mandatory for progression, which… is walkthroughitis and/or bad flow of exploration design

Story Positives:

Story Negatives:

1. The core concept of quirky humor is poorly constructed and poorly realized, actually making it unfunny and hurting the work as a consequence
2. The entire Outro is lacking on almost every level, with a weird non build up to a weird confrontation and another lawl so random moment with the critters, and then a near wah-wah conclusion

Gameplay Positives:

1. Intro is reasonably well done, good layout of things to interact with and (optional) tutorialization while you figure out your kit and progression
2. Physics based puzzles in general
3. Slice and grab are both good mechanics
4. Mid mission checkpoints are pretty good

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Controls are honestly bad. Too loose, not enough platforming aids, game would literally go the wrong direction at times
2. The in game music is not great
3. The final stage is honestly pretty bad, with bad visuals and tiny draw radius …
4. …and the final boss fight is just kind of badly designed and unnecessarily random

Story Positives:

1. Tone and approach (status quo alteration and ‘now what?’)
2. Humor. Game gets a good deal of laughs out of me
3. World building. The game weirdly does a decent amount to establish its kingdoms, politics, and rules
4. The portraits did a good job of helping with the tone and characters
5. RPG battle in the ogre kingdom
6. Characters in general
7. Princess Apoidea has her own layers to her, and is generally one of the more pleasant princesses
8. Farrah Day is delightful, tragic, and adorable
9. The game show sequence
10. Visual storytelling (city, insect, fire, ice, etc.)
11. Crow is pretty engaging for a Bowser-style villain
12. Becky is similarly awesome for an actually-running-things secretary
13. Generally good dialogue
14. Great chemistry between characters
15. Intro is okay, but it really sets the stage properly once we end the first stage and enter the ‘now what’ phase
16. Plot is legitimately interesting

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music may be a bit misplaced but is quite good
2. The dwarf princess section was legit
3. Princesses as power ups
4. We’re the boss design
5. Hyperbeam segment with Farrah Day
6. Train heist stage
7. Mid-mission checkpoint placement is pretty good
8. Pretty good Outro over all

Gameplay Negatives:

1. A combination of no audio options in menu, no ability to return to menu once in game, and the game is super loud (also the menu ignores volume options)… also the game is just periodically physically painfully loud, despite turning the volume down
2. The flying ‘hover around you’ type enemies are irritating and frustrating, angle ‘onto’ you and are custom built to dodge your attacks
3. Controls are honestly just… bad in so many ways it’s hard for me to know how to summarize it
4. Inconsistent hit / hurt boxes
5. Jank issues with platforming
6. Core combat is honestly pretty bad
7. Generally bad sound design across the board

Story Positives:

1. The atmosphere, the unique tone of being about game development from multiple perspectives
2. Ish is an astonishingly well fleshed out, interesting individual
3. Coda is fascinating in the perspective she adds and how she moves forwards
4. Pro and Maze are good supporting cast in general
5. The ‘cinematic’ of the big demo reveal and Ish’s deconstruction
6. Generally well written dialogue
7. Gameplay/story integration is sort of the bread and butter here
8. The Intro immediately establishes your role, Ish and Maze’s conflict, and the nature of what’s going on
9. The entire demo scene was legit on several levels
10. The Outro does a great deal to wrap things up, and makes several points but doesn’t linger too much on preachifying any of them
11. The storytelling mechanics of the audio and test logs
12. Voice Acting is quite well done throughout…
13. …sufficient in quality and quantity to deserve a second positive
14. Not just good graphics, but varied across the two ‘eras’

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. All roads lead to Rome design in the ‘open’ segment, both in general and in how you can progress past specific puzzles
2. Build gameplay in how you customize what with what
3. Game controls quite well for its mechanics
4. The core mechanic of draining, refilling, and editing is just awesome
5. Reasonably good early game, and great late game
6. Enemy variety is quite varied, as it should be given the core conceit
7. Good fast travel system
8. The hyperbeam moment is more stretched than usual (once you’ve snowballed, you snowball hard)
9. Gameplay/story integration
10. The Intro does a lot to help get you into the mode, your two major mechanics, and how to process them
11. The ‘kit’ in the squads is great (and allows you to ‘build tall’ or ‘build wide’)
12. Level design has a natural flow and gradiance to it, guiding you in certain directions at certain times to unlock more stuff
13. The Outro is quite well designed, with all abilities unlocked and infinite use to just screw with the demo however you please
14. The game has several small but critical Quality of Life features (escape working properly, summoning all minions with both buttons, giving tiered orders, and most importantly… being able to summon any dead enemy from across the entire game to you at will)
15. Good visual continuity, can basically always tell where you are
16. Good visual distinction, pretty easy to discern what is where and when
17. A surprisingly well designed map, showcasing not just terrain, but where you haven’t gone, things you haven’t gotten, dead enemies, and warp points

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Move speed is too slow, no run button

Story Positives:

1. Graphics deserve special mention for how they are utilized to tell the story
2. Art direction obviously deserves its own special mention
3. Music direction. The game uses its music for the narrative more than anything else
4. …leading to a second music direction positive
5. Storyboarding for cutscenes is surprisingly well done
6. Visual Storytelling is pretty much the bread and butter of the game
7. Animation in the woman, the creatures, the statue… and the ichor
8. The reveal of the bats as the screeching bird
9. The return of the black beast of depression in the eel sequence
10. The Intro which makes it very clear where and how this is going (the curling against the hand as it breaks)
11. The Outro in its entirety
12. The very usage and audio-visual realization of the black ichor that is depression
13. The overall tone of the recovery from grief…
14. …and a plus for ‘feels’. Because there’s definitely feels
15. The sound design is pretty spot on to help accentuate the beast, the girl, and the terrain

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Tutorialization is weirdly consistent throughout, always giving some kind of visual as to what you can do where
2. Level design in ‘you choose your own failure’ platforming
3. Special mention to the gravity swap level (the ‘last’ level, effectively)
4. The first bird ‘boss’ sequence, with good showcasing of the bells and fun pseudo bosses
5. Controls are quite well designed throughout
6. Yoshi drums are excellent, especially when you regain the sing button
7. The music in general is fantastic

Gameplay Negatives:

1. The game has a periodic problem of giving you tools and forcing you to solve puzzles in a very specific way, which can cause issues here and there

Story Positives:

1. Visual storytelling (world is falling apart, some enemies literally don’t work), ruins, etc.
2. The world building of the afterlife and essence
3. The horror of the research facility
4. The overall plot (Dr. Progen and his nightmare plans for his daughter)
5. Lot of good doodad usage to really flesh out each area and make them distinct
6. Outro is actually quite touching and honestly pretty somber given everything; the final reward is death, but not in a bad way
7. The logs do a great job of being side storytelling mechanics (and optional too)
8. Very good, well designed spritework across the board…
9. …earning a second positive
10. Lovely, lovely brickwork too…
11. ..earning a second positive

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music is an absolute banger
2. …no, really, the music is absolutely amazing…
3. …earning three positives
4. Tutorialization in level design is some pretty good stuff
5. Visual distinction is excellent, with visual tips and tricks to distinguish different interactables
6. Controls are very tight and responsive…
7. …along with shortcuts for other abilities, easily earning a second positive
8. Currency to upgrade respawn points
9. The Intro is great, gets you immediately into what the game is about (the pits, spikes, enemies, respawn mechanic, items, etc.)
10. Chapter 1 is a good stage overall
11. Chapter 2, with button and trash gimmicks and otherwise tight platforming
12. Chapter 3 has some truly great stuff throughout, especially enemy placement
13. The swag blade is honestly just really, really awesome by itself
14. Chapter 4, the reactor…
15. …and a bonus for the horrifying research level
16. The train boss! Lots of attacks, multiple strategies, generally fun
17. Difficulty curve is really quite smooth
18. Encounter design is spot on, good placements of enemies
19. Itemization is excellent, especially in drops
20. Good overall enemy variety
21. The Exo hyperbeam section
22. The Outro is pretty fun in general, minus the Appirator thing, but that last last phase is a really cool concept for a fight
23. Animations always inform, especially on bosses
24. Bosses are generally quite good, with a couple of exceptions
25. Core combat is excellent of course
26. The difficulty curve starts high, but inclines pretty smoothly with a few bumps
27. Generally good guidance and flow of exploration
28. Very fun power progression curve, you really feel it when you go back to earlier areas with more kit
29. The kit (subweapons, abilities, etc.) is varied, fun, and has a huge skill ceiling…
30. …easily earning a second positive
31. Generally fun replayability
32. Generally good terrain design
33. Good visual distinction
34. Song: Factory…
35. Song: …for two positives

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Spikes. Little too much reliance upon spikes
2. The final boss is actively boring in how it does its phase transitions. The first fight is just a dull, unnecessarily long, boring fight before the real final boss actually starts, and it absolutely destroys the pacing (and enjoyment) of the actual final boss fight
3. Aggregate: Later checkpoint placement is problematic // The music restarts upon death, which for the later sections… // There are some specific moves and ways bonus attacks work that is simply not explained in game

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork is really fantastic…
2. …easily earning a second positive
3. There’s visual storytelling everywhere…
4. …once again earning a second positive
5. Worldbuilding is very much on display
6. Journals as a storytelling mechanism which help flesh out background lore
7. Plot is surprisingly engaging, seemingly micro focused but actually being a macro plot with a micro focus
8. Dialogue is tightly written throughout, feeling like actual conversation
9. Amadeus’ lab
10. Haristel; the blind soldier through never having to question it
11. Rameda, the lost medic who seeks to simplify
12. Neliste, the woman who refused to take part in the violence of her nation but had no real solution
13. Eschem, the lost soldier who is a great personal look into the caste system of Vilete and its foibles
14. Seykis and his squeeing over Eschem is adorable, but it once again puts a face on Vilete and its people
15. The conclusion of character quests is honestly just a nice, heartwarming moment
16. The ascension Outro is quite well done, suitably somber, and neatly fits with the rest of the game’s arc
17. The game does a good job of keeping consistent in consequences of its narrative
18. Doodads are very, very well done…
19. …earning a second positive
20. Reasonably good internal continuity
21. The Intro absolutely gets you into things immediately, and while a bit obvious its clear where it’s going
22. Story is well sequenced, especially given how it has to take into account the metroidvanianess
23. Good visual continuity throughout, past or present it’s always pretty readily apparent where you are

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Mini-map and its reflection of…
2. …the map, which has markers, color coding, and clear indicators of where you’ve been, what % you’ve uncovered, and where you can go
3. Great visual distinction at all times
4. Music is excellent…
5. …worthy of two positives
6. The ‘freeze time’ gimmick is a fun way to manipulate and outmaneuver enemies
7. Encounter design is spot on
8. Enemy variety is excellent
9. Very good guidance and flow of exploration…
10. …to the point of being two positive worthy
11. The Orbs are excellent kit, fun and varied…
12. …further amplified by the other equipment which can very up…
13. …the type of Build gameplay we have on display
14. Very smooth and good power progression curve
15. Good distribution of the upgrade items throughout, not only rewarding exploration but ensuring new equipment can be crafted semi frequently
16. The Outro is generally fun and well done, between the optional grind dungeon and the final boss being quite well done
17. The Ravenlord is easily the best boss fight in the game, good arena and attack vector usage
18. Good animations, informing attacks and avoidances
19. Reasonably good in-game bestiary
20. Enjoyable core combat, especially with all the options available to you
21. Very smooth difficulty curve
22. The waypoint system is fast, well spaced, and smooths out backtracking a lot
23. Generally good flow of level design to always have new areas to access and explore
24. Not the best, but it’s still good New Game +
25. At several points, clear thought is put into the terrain design to make traversal less irritating, and make encounters more interesting
26. Enjoyable enough to be worthy of a replayability point

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Info in game (no indicator of some quest items, orbs leveling, how some mechanics work)
2. Boss health is just too bloated…
3. …earning a second negative
4. Limited save functionality (save points and spread thereof)

Story Positives:

1. Generally good brickwork

Story Negatives:

1. While the film isn’t… good, the external continuity of how it doesn’t use it is honestly awful
2. The Outro is disjointed, awkward, and weird
3. The events of the story are all over the place, no logic or coherence to them at all

Gameplay Positives:

1. Intro is pretty well designed; gets across ideas of items, enemies, maneuvering, dying, and boss design
2. Music is really quite good

Gameplay Negatives:

1. No rebinding controller or sound options
2. Aiming/combat (limited to 8 directions, which is an issue because…)
3. Encounter design…
4. …particularly in later levels, where enemies are designed to kill you (making the snowball problem that much worse)
5. Gotcha enemy placement
6. Itemization is actively bad (prioritizing ‘smaller’ health ups over useful pick ups)
7. The alligator boss (long, boring, no variation really across phases)
8. Unskippable cutscenes
9. Snowball problem…
10. …which actively gets worse later on due to enemy damage and health…
11. …making a full three negatives for penalty for failure
12. Enemy design is actually bad, with enemies that are hard to hit and have too much health and move too fast for weapons that can’t track or hit them
13. Enforced ironman save mode
14. The subway level is just problematic and badly funneled
15. The underground base area is… not great
16. Enemy respawn issues (most notably with bats and zombies)
17. Actively bad guidance and flow of exploration, both in the map and in the level layout and item placement…
18. …earning a second negative
19. The map itself is honestly bad
20. The sand level is atrocious
21. And the tower level can go to hell
22. Generically bad boss design (not much to them, too much health, just… boring)
23. The bad kind of backtracking
24. The difficulty curve actively makes the overall death problem even worse
25. The terrain is just thrown together with no thought put into it

Story Positives:

1. The destructible terrain really adds to the atmosphere and fun of the boss fights, trees being knocked all over and things burning
2. Audio atmosphere
3. Doodads
4. Brickwork
5. G/S Integration in multiple facets of the game
6. Generally good voice acting (special props for Godrick)
7. Gross horror atmosphere
8. Use of items as world building
9. Castle Morne visual storytelling
10. Raya Lucaria visual storytelling
11. Manor place and the adventures of the spider hands
12. Siofra River underground
13. Aggregate: Iron Fist Alexander is pretty legit, as is… // ..Boc the Seamster… // and Rya and a small but amusing host of other people
14. General creepiness of Rennala phase 1
15. Blaidd was a good boy, alas (and further a great insight into the actual nature of how messed up the Erdtree Order was)
16. Visual storytelling of the frozen wastes
17. Community art style positive
18. The visual storytelling of the Crumbling Farum Azula is honestly some of the better visual storytelling in the entire game…
19. …earning it a second positive
20. Jar Bairn is just adorable, and a nice bit of positivity
21. And the entire jars quest chain is actually quite well done, if needlessly tragic
22. The internal continuity of the game is very self consistent
23. The lighting consistently adds to the narrative flavor and tone
24. Generally enjoyable side quests (Rya’s, Nephali’s, Rodgier’s, etc.)
25. Where it’s good, the localization does a good job of adding local flavor and tone…

Story Negatives:

1. Presentation of storytelling and limitations thereof…
2. …also known as the ‘go google it’ problem
3. Another launch negative, this time for literally broken quests that had to be patched in to be completable
4. The Outro is the usual Dark Souls problem
5. The Outro has too much technicolor Mass Effect 3 problem (there’s really only 3 endings, the others are just palette swaps)
6. The Outro is honestly very unsatisfying across the board
7. The Intro isn’t bad in the strictest sense of the word, but it is very lacking
8. …the localization is actively problematic at times
9. The story is, perhaps by design, sequenced… very very badly…
10. …earning a second negative

Gameplay Positives:

1. Good information-in-game on the level up screen (showing exactly what stats affect what and how)
2. QoL changes (no stam drain out of combat, indicator immediately on enemy death of loot, toggle sprint on mount, fast mount/dismount,
3. Tutorial is actually really well designed, introducing then escalating mechanics and enemies, leading up to and concluding with the Tree Sentinel and the ‘go explore’ concept
4. Stealth isn’t great, but its introduction is a well received multiplier to navigation and combat
5. Mounted movement in general is quite fluid…
6. …further helped by the snappy controls, double jump, and separate health bar
7. Mounted combat is good in general for how it varies it up but also…
8. …for how it changes based on setup and build, as well as adding a new dimension to combat
9. The ‘keep playing to recoup’ mechanics aren’t as prolific as I’d like, but the ‘clear camp’ and ‘scarab’ mechanics are welcome additions
10. Co-op gameplay exists
11. The map is actually quite well designed, with good visuals and indicators of terrain and points of interest even without exploring, plus with the abilities to drop your own nav points and gather map fragments to fill it out…
12. …earning a second positive
13. Surprisingly good fast travel system…
14. …further buoyed by the number and specific placement of travel points
15. Limgrave has good general flow to its overworld design, with navigation pathways and indicators and enemy placement to help guide the player in exploration
16. Limgrave further has good overworld density, lots to do and little wasted or empty space
17. It’s taken a long time but the addition of Stakes of Marika as occasional checkpoints are a welcome feature
18. The Dragon fights in general may be somewhat simple, but they are always enjoyable…
19. …and special mention for the sheer viscerality of said fights
20. The Margit boss fight
21. The ‘grab corpse, get stuff back’ penalty for failure remains good as it usually is
22. Catacombs/caves/etc. are a nice addition of micro-dungeons; Quick, reward exploration, and generally fun
23. Rennala Phase 1 is actually really good, with a nice gimmick and good audio design and lots going on while being fully recoverable
24. Rennala Phase 2 is actually a great mage fight, with multiple methods of dealing with it and a great arena to fight within
25. Ancestor Spirit is a fun fight in general, but made all the better with the visuals and audio, and unique music
26. Radahn’s fight is very unique, with a nice big open area where you can fight mounted and summon (and re summon) multiple allies to assist
27. The crystal bosses are pretty legit in general
28. Special mention to the triple scarlet rot crystal boss of hell
29. The Putrifying tree spirit fights have some issues, but are actually quite enjoyable overall
30. The Godskin Apostle boss (in the Divine Tower of Caelid) is honestly awesome. Great rhythm, lots of attacks for multiple ranges, and generally fun to play…
31. …in addition to some great visuals and music to go with it
32. Mimic Tear is creative and quite amusing
33. Regal ancestral spirit boss
34. Astel, Naturalborn of the Void boss
35. Lichdragon Fortissax boss
36. Mohg has some irritations but is nonetheless a very tight, reasonably balanced fight (ways to avoid dying to Nihil, agile but low HP, etc.)
37. The game has extensive Builds gameplay, with many viable builds
38. This is especially expressed in the number and variety of weapons…
39. …earning a second weapon kit positive
40. The Arts system in general gains two positives…
41. …for sheer number and variety…
42. But a bonus positive for how the modularity of the arts system makes it super quick and efficient to swap and try out new things
43. Enemy variety is, let’s be honest, fantastic
44. …easily earning…
45. …three positives
46. Generally good overworld density
47. Generally good overworld flow
48. Exploration is usually rewarding, though not always and not directly
49. Gelmir Hero’s Grave dungeon (lava, lava for days)
50. Occasional shortcut design in dungeons (mostly in the Legacy dungeons)
51. Malenia is actually pretty well designed for the most part. Low poise and fast attacks encourage reaction and aggressiveness, her patterns are pretty obvious to see coming but hard to execute due to tight timing. And her second phase has nice long vuln periods that are risky but rewarding to go after…
52. …leading to a second positive
53. The Fire Giant is actually a good example of how to make an overwhelming foe have very precise weaknesses to exploit
54. Placidusax is honestly a great fight. Most of its attacks are fair but punishing, it has good coverage and reach but varies properly, and it does some wonderful stuff with its vanishing teleport attacks…
55. …earning it a second positive
56. Maliketh has a very cool moveset, very rewarding swoops and actions and general fun
57. Godfrey boss
58. Radagon boss
59. New Game Plus which has good features, but also weird limitations, and mandatory difficulty increase
60. The ability to respec exists
61. Summons add some nice kit to the game
62. Spells are generally very well designed across the board…
63. …adding further good kit to the game
64. When it’s good, there’s good enemy AI design
65. When it’s good, there’s good animation design (mostly in attack telegraphing)
66. Game does a good job of supporting replayability
67. Anywhere outside of a dungeon it’s very possible to navigate purely visually, thanks to good visual continuity
68. Generally good viscerality (especially in the spells)

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Unacceptably bad launch (optimization, broken quests, fps issues)
2. Forced pvp for co-op (as per usual)
3. Co-op irritations in general
4. Oh, and further co-op irritations (can’t re-summon in boss areas, huge delays in it working, network issues)
5. As usual, forced ironman mode saves
6. Camera issues with certain bosses and areas
7. Lack of ability to rebind properly (can’t put multiple keys to one command, can’t bind multiple actions to multiple keys but are limited by context sensitive setups)
8. Mouse capture problem (game cannot seem to capture the mouse correctly, leading to control issues)
9. The game very clearly is designed around funneling you towards Margit, and is then quite mean of an encounter (counters for every range, hits like a truck, very fast, two phase, and reads your input)
10. There is a fairly severe lack of info in game…
11. …leading to a lot of either trial and error or ‘google it’ gameplay
12. Speaking of which, items have some walkthroughitis
13. And quests have even further walkthroughitis… to the point where it’s truly ridiculous, with not just lack of quest log or indicators, but excruciatingly vague directions (or in some case an actual lack of directions, instead vague hints)…
14. …leading to a third negative
15. Also you can permanently screw yourself out of quests without really knowing how or why
16. The gross factor returns, as it always does in these ones
17. The lack of proper pause feature has its own issues
18. Actually inaccurate info on tooltips and tutorials (notably Great Runes)
19. The music in the Limgrave area is bleh to the point of wanting to turn it off
20. Let’s just give a second negative for tiresome music throughout the game
21. The micro-dungeons are, honestly, a bit over-used and get repetitive after a while
22. …leading to a second negative…
23. Further complicated by repeat boss fights…
24. …in some cases literally just being copy pasted bosses
25. A final, pseudo-aggregate negative for repetition
26. The Rennala fight has several irritations, most obvious being; one of the longer runbacks in the game (where it otherwise avoids the issue) and having to do Phase 1 again each attempt
27. Occasional but massively game-breaking, game BRICKING bug which the very fact that it can happen via something as innocuous as loading a screen, is utterly unacceptable
28. Unacceptably low drop rate, along with no bad luck protection
29. The buffer input in this game is weirdly bad. It’s a bit longer or misplaced, I’m not sure which, but either way it results in a common scenario of doing an animation (usually getting hit) then doing the action you hit prior to being hit…
30. …and its a constant irritation throughout
31. There really is a bit of an overtuning problem in multiple bosses
32. The fact that any dialogue pop up interrupts all possible actions is irritating, unnecessary, and can actually get you killed
33. Overworld flow and density issues in Liurnia
34. Irritation of navigation…
35. …and of map design in the Plateau
36. Boring emptiness of the consecrated snowfield
37. Lots… and lots… of gotcha! Moments…
38. …easily enough for two negatives
39. The audio balance is the usual ‘too soft or too loud’ issue
40. Inconsistent message distribution (the online messages are so spammy they de-incentivize you to read the ones you have to for quests)
41. Ordina can go to hell
42. The 1 HP thing
43. There aren’t a super number of crashes… but there are crashes, plural
44. Malenia forces you to fight phase 1 each re attempt
45. The forced ‘reload state to progress quests and dialogue’… design choice… thing
46. Speaking of which, the fact that you have to talk to NPCs multiple times, there’s no indication other than repetition when you’re done, and sometimes the repetition is slightly different
47. There are several small but significant issues with the Maliketh fight, like re-doing phase 1, the ‘debuff lock’ he can place you in, and some other frustrations
48. Final boss rush and phase 1 repeat issue, as usual
49. The Outro in general has several issues, not the least of which feeling rather rushed compared to other parts of the game, but also everything about the final boss is honestly kind of lackluster (especially for a fight that feels so clearly designed for Torrent… and isn’t)
50. When it’s bad, the enemy AI design is awful (looking at you, dragons)
51. When it’s bad, the animations kinda suck
52. The game is honestly a bit grindy, especially given how little you get out of it
53. In many cases the lighting, while atmospheric, actively makes the game harder to understand or perceive
54. Some general visual distinction problems (especially at night, or in some dungeons)

Story Positives:

1. VA…
2. …VA…
3. …VA! In all seriousness, Kevan Brighting is legitimately fantastic, in so, so many different ways
4. Sound direction in general
5. 5 clicks on door 530 ‘quest’
6. Early death
7. Go the wrong way consistently…
8. …and the ‘real person & choices’ slide
9. The Stanley Parable Adventure Line
10. The first, uh, ‘dlc’ wasn’t great…
11. …but the second one and the ‘additions’ actually got me pretty good
12. Bucket%
13. Dialogue quality…
14. …is hard to explain how well crafted it is
15. The Bucket Ending… what is it… who’s there?!?
16. The… Bucket LOVE Ending…
17. The Bucket broom closet!!
18. Just… so much, I can’t even describe the quality of each ending ‘chain’ post Bucket (this one’s for Bucket Insane)
19. This one’s for Bucket Games
20. The entire collectibles line is legit in general…
21. …but the (out of no where) payoff is even better
22. The bucket escape pod was hysterical to begin with, but the re-acquisition… wow
23. Bucket Destroyer!
24. The branching story was already fantastic…
25. …and deserving of a second positive…
26. …but with the addition of the Bucket lines, this becomes one of the best, most branching games I’ve ever seen
27. The Narrator deserves his own positives for his own character, varying though he be
28. Doodad design is quite good throughout
29. External Continuity with… the… original version of the game (it’s hard to explain)
30. The Narrator as a storytelling mechanic

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Bizarrely excellent tutorialization…
2. …which is combined with a very clear and well designed guidance and flow of direction such that you effectively always know what kinds of things you can do, and (almost) all the lines are things you can pretty intuitively figure out
3. There are a great deal of branching ‘quest design’ in this game, so much that it easily stomps any other I can think of…
4. …earning it…
5. …three positives

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Aggregate: The settings menu has some legitimate issues // The Skip button gag section honestly took a bit long and… // …the 4 hour ending is just stupid and annoying on purpose
2. A second negative for the 4 hour ending. Optional’ness aside, it’s actually worse than originally indicated, because it has periodic points where the narrator pops in to add to the ‘gag’ but only after literally dozens of minutes, or HOURS, of absolute aggravation AND making it worse as you go by adding a second button to hit

Story Positives:

1. Visual storytelling in level design
2. Sound design in atmosphere
3. Mechanics of letter logs
4. Being right ‘behind’ the story as it unfolds in front of you
5. Errant Signal is a little bit exposition dump-heavy but where it really shines is in how it shows you the narration as it goes
6. The slowly growing confidence during the Nithriel fight literally expanding the arena and giving you access to more firepower and drops was a nice touch
7. Pale Wind has an excellent first half, really showcasing the value in an ‘empty’ zone and how it can be used as a vector for storytelling
8. Research & Decay finally elucidates on the traitor, is clever about its ‘cutscenes’, and is appropriately terrifying to peruse through
9. The Crystal Heart is a good build up and follow through of us finally catching up to the plot, and the ending leaves just enough dangling threads to keep interest high
10. The architecture of the game really does a lot to make the areas feel like actual places, the zones ‘lived in’ and adds to the overall vibe of every area
11. The Mansion stage and its, ah, interesting insight into the rich snobs who joined the cult, and how they utterly ruined themselves before we ever showed up
12. The entire ‘waking up at the hell beach’ segment
13. Consequence storytelling is all over the place, with events being followed through on in ways that really help the narrative
14. The hell cluster level does a fairly large amount to flesh out the demons, their way of life, and how they operate…
15. …especially the Primarchs, who have their own varied motives and desires re: the Baron
16. Generally good background lore, almost always in the NPCs of ‘hub’ sections
17. The general visual storytelling of the final, alien area is great
18. The ‘in the mind’ sequence and subsequent defiance in the mental landscape
19. The ending covered a lot of ground quickly and efficiently and was very satisfying to boot
20. Generally good supporting characters (persistent, too)
21. Game has good internal continuity, keeping track of its own concepts and events and how they link up
22. The world building throughout is fascinating, giving enough peaks into how the planet functions
23. The Intro is a bit wonky but does some good things to establish events and tone

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. The tutorial stage does a good job of being the tutorial, ironically more so than the stage prior
2. The environment changing noticeably and moving as stages progress is a nice touch
3. The save system is the usual multiple slots auto and quick save…
4. …earning a second positive
5. The map is useful and distinct and the automapping feature helps as well
6. Grove; multiple paths through, drown the enemy encounter, good usage of terrain for encounter variety
7. The stealth segment during Errant Signal was actually really excellent despite lacking several tools one would expect, in part due to the limitations of the enemy ‘detection’
8. Parapet is when the level design starts to pick up, with good interconnectivity and visual distinction of layout
9. Crystal Heart really starts actually having honest game design in its interweaving elemental areas and guiding the player in which to do when via enemy spawns…
10. …as well as the entire friendly followers section
11. The cultist castle in Besieged is a good all roads lead to rome section of quest design, with good itemization and the combat not ramping up until after you’ve rescued the multitude of allies
12. Brazen Bull involves quite a bit of creative usage of triggers and scripts, and at no point felt walkthroughy but instead flowed as it should
13. The Hellscape mission does a lot of good, creative things with the moving ships, cover approach to the flagship, and navigating the final few ships
14. Enemy variety is decent
15. Gun variety is actually quite good, offering decent kit throughout
16. Viscerality is enjoyable, not just in the weapons themselves but in the gibbing
17. The hell level cluster is probably one of the more creative sections of the game, trying out multiple approaches to puzzle design
18. Similarly, there is a great deal of well thought out all roads lead to rome level design in the hell cluster
19. The final boss fight was actually quite legit, with good pacing and phases and drops and fun
20. Good overall difficulty design, affecting enemy placements and AI design…
21. …bonus positive for the Bearzerk mode, including new and fun weapons just for the difficulty
22. The Testing Hub is a nice built in select / test / cheats thing
23. Replayability (especially with the difficulty options)
24. Aggregate: The Deep Calls section has a few issues (enemy AI, enemy encounter design, terrain visibility) but nevertheless is well laid out with a good pseudo hub structure and no confusing layout // The turret is love, the turret is life // The allies mechanic, while infrequent, is great when it’s there

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Guidance and flow issues on the town level
2. Guidance and flow issues on the lava level
3. Platforming insistence and issues with the core engine are essentially a nonstop hassle…
4. …unfortunately worth a second negative
5. Lack of visibility with interactables in early missions
6. Several minor but persistent issues with the engine being twisted to do something it wasn’t designed to do (inventory, crafting, interaction)
7. The Errant Signal Nithriel fight, purely mechanically, had several issues (terrain that’s too easy to slip into, entirely too much health/armor on the boss, attack patterns that encourage rapid movement on uneven terrain, invuln phases)
8. There’s some pretty serious walkthroughitis going on in several of the methods of progression
9. Research & Decay has several design issues, but the biggest one by far is; Dark areas with dark backdrops and fast moving dark enemies that shred you
10. Level design and enemy placement across the board is clearly more slanted towards story than gameplay, with long stretches of exploration and map size being, honestly, a bit too big
11. The backtracking in the mansion level is real
12. There’s a bit of an itemization problem that grows more obvious the further in you get, with ‘recovery’ sections a bit too dense and a bit too spread out, leading to palls of no recovery for lengthy swaths of levels
13. The game is entirely too long for what it can do. There are competing issues here and there (enemy variety, encounter design, player kit) but really what it all boils down to is there’s only so much you can do for so long and this game is long, long, long…
14. …easily the worst aspect of the game overall and dragging the entire experience down
15. The HUD is… not good. It’s a bit too crayon stylized and as a consequence there’s legitimate issues discerning certain aspects of it, especially in combat or at-a-glance
16. The continued reliance upon platforming in the hell cluster maps continues to drag the game down
17. The Outro is good except when it’s not; the pacing of the final stage is a bit problematic (especially given the relative lack of guidance in said final stage)
18. Aggregate: During the trip through the Minotaur town, there’s a few different methods to progress, but the excess of browns combined with a very (relatively) small area, with small and narrow alleyways, streets, and corridors, actively hampers navigation and visual continuity // Lack of quest journal… in the first chunk of the game

Story Positives:

1. The Intro does some good introductions to characters, concepts, and world and quickly establishes the plot hooks
2. The rather heart-warming moment of the crew coming together and sharing food with us is actually pretty legit
3. Generally good visual storytelling in the town area, between doodads and brickwork
4. The spread and variety of NPCs out in town really add to the flavor of things
5. The usage of the diaries as continuing journals to give additional insight into events going on
6. The conclusion of the Fogbound Lake arc, the wonderful visuals of the lake itself, and the nice wholesome moments with Uxie
7. Background world building is regular and interesting
8. Bidoof is a weirdly good character all on his own
9. The supporting cast is kind of awesome, with their own distinct quirks and presence in the story
10. The core arc for the main character (no not us, our ‘partner’) is actually pretty legit; the idea of being someone who’s always done what they’re told to, and the slow shift into being their own character with their own decisions is great… if terribly told
11. The scene between the main character and Grovyle on the cliffside was actually pretty good
12. The Dark Future Arc is a good showcase of what we’re fighting against and why, literally visually showcasing how bad things would (did?) get, in addition to serving as a vehicle for the main character’s arc
13. The music’s direction admittedly only occasionally accents the scenes, but when it does, man…
14. The final scene of our character saying goodbye to the main character as we fade into nonexistence is actually really quite powerful and tear-jerking
15. The Bidoof episode is weirdly higher quality storytelling in general (in small ways here and there) but really clinches it with the scene where the guild swoops in to save the day (and refusing to waste his money on the TM … and refusing to waste his wish with Jirachi)
16. While the primary plot was somewhat lacking, the background worldbuilding of Wigglytuff’s story and how the pokemon interact with each other is nice
17. Team Charm isn’t the best but it also does a lot right, and bypasses most of the issues of the main game while still doing some cool things with it
18. The overall tone and atmosphere of general wholesomeness is really smile enducing
19. Internal continuity; the game keeps track of itself surprisingly well and self references throughout
20. The Manaphy arc is adorable (and pays off in the end)
21. Not just the suicide parallels, but the way they use them; “The world would be a better place without me”, proven… completely wrong, with everyone re-affirming how much they’d be sad in their absence
22. The overall theme of the Grovyle arc, of the impermanence of life and wanting to make what life you have worthwhile… of survival being insufficient… is a good theme
23. Even though it’s completely destroyed right after, the lead up to the final battle and the group’s final sacrifice as they die with no regrets is tremendously powerful
24. Sprite Work is fantastic, both in color distinction and detail
25. This is complimented by some excellent animation

Story Negatives:

1. The entire way the game… lacks morality about the (let’s call it what it is) cult that the guild is, and how abusive and unpleasant they function while using methods to control their own (including withholding food!) is awful. The story ideas themselves aren’t really the problem, it’s entirely the way it’s portrayed; like it’s normal, acceptable, or worse–like it’s just a joke
2. There’s actually more to this, but the specifics of how awful this entire sequence of events is and how it portrays the innocent cute pokemon as abusive corporate overlords is utterly unacceptable
3. Repetition in storytelling and is… really, really bad…
4. …to the point where it stopped being funny and started actively grating
5. Okay for real, the unnecessary flashbacks is absolutely ridiculous…
6. …to the point of being second negative worthy
7. Lots of Empty Text issues
8. Unfortunately, while the main character arc is great, it’s just… horribly presented, either buried in bad translation or due to someone somewhere ‘pulling back’ on the storytelling
9. The fantastic, powerful, meaningful outro to the main story… is absolutely destroyed in the last 10 seconds by the resurrection of our character
10. I really hate to ding what is probably the best part of the game, but the dialogue is just… bad. I’m not sure if it’s ‘dumbed down’ to be ‘kid friendly’ or if it’s just badly written, badly localized, or some combination thereof, but the core dialogue is honestly kind of awful
11. The absolute emotional whiplash of undoing the sacrifice at the end of Grovyle’s story (…again…) completely destroys the ending
12. The localization is, related thereto, noticeably lacking throughout and actively detracts from every moment

Gameplay Positives:

1. The flow of dungeon-crawling is well structured and streamlined
2. Core combat and its positional nature is interesting and fun, especially given…
3. …the usual spread and variety of kit for your team
4. This is further enhanced by the Pokemon Plus (for builds) being even better than usual given the added benefit of having more than one pokemon out at a time, as well as ranges and angles being relevant…
5. …earning a second pokemon plus for builds gameplay
6. QoL features of quests (leaving option when done, indication per floor, notes on map)
7. Music is boppin’
8. The fact that mid mission checkpoints actually fully heal and restore you makes this game substantially more tolerable, and serves as good checkpointing besides
9. The additional kit of the IQ abilities and how they vary up combat is neat…
10. Enemy Variety is hampered by the dungeon design, but is still top notch (I mean, it’s Pokemon)
11. Generally good info in game (explaining items, moves, IQ abilities, etc.)
12. The sound throughout is generally distinct and informative
13. The game is generally replayable, especially with the variety of builds and starters
14. Aggregate: The overlay map is reasonably useful // The ability to customize what the top screen tracks is useful // The footprint minigame is a neat diversion // The in-game log is present and helpful in figuring out what happened in combat

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Unskippable cutscenes
2. Single save slot and associated problems
3. The Intro has some pretty bad early game hell, further hampered by the lack of proper explanation (or even pacing of tutorialization) in the first handful of dungeons
4. The randomly generated dungeons seem to lean a bit too heavily on the one-width corridors which actively gets in the way of the interesting combat
5. There is an unnecessary amount of RNG on top of RNG which can completely screw you over out of no where with no real ability to do anything about it
6. The sheer quantity of not-designed dungeons really drags the game down even at an early time, especially given the aforementioned issue of actively getting in the way of the otherwise excellent combat
7. The Sunflora side mission is… bad. Ignoring the fact that it takes away a critical element of the game (party members), but also offers no mid-mission checkpointing at all, requiring you to start all the way at the beginning anytime you fall
8. A second negative for Sunflora’s missions being terribly designed in essentially every way
9. The RNG and level design of Team Charm’s mission is rather lacking
10. …the sheer grindiness, despite doing everything right and planning it out, of raising IQ abilities is a bit much
11. The requirement of two blue gummies for the Manaphy arc is nonsense on many levels, especially given how easy it would be to bypass (and there’s no indication that it’s coming… and no reason to hold onto them…
12. The Aegis dungeon can go to hell. There were several ways it could have worked, but instead it’s just RNG on top of RNG and dull to boot
13. The fail condition of some specific dungeons sucks (such as losing Shaymin, or Cresselia, even when you have a full party)
14. The Outro sucks almost across the board. In addition to the final dungeon being just another dungeon, you also are saddled with the load that is Cresselia (who is weak to several pokemon in there) and then the final battle is just a few random pokemon and Darkrai (where Cresselia continues to be the load)
15. The ‘AI’ throughout (both allies and enemies) is… just nonsense
16. Aggregate: The inability to just select your starter at the beginning, instead relying on essentially walkthroughs or the internet to get one, is not great // While it’s not as bad as it could be, there is a periodic run-back problem with bosses and their respective checkpoints

Story Positives:

1. The visual design and layout of the areas is delightful, really adding to the safari feel
2. This is further accented by the design of the pokemon themselves
3. And even further by the generally chill atmosphere of the sound design, which compliments the visuals
4. The little tidbits of world-building are actually quite enjoyable, in how the pokemon interact with one another
5. Doodad design is pretty legit in every stage and area

Story Negatives:

1. The game’s ending is… too much. I like heartwarming and I like positivity but the ending was actually sickening in how saccharine it was
2. The inconsistent voice acting is a further issue to the audio spam issue down below

Gameplay Positives:

1. The combination HUD and interface are reasonably well designed, with good information and navigation
2. The main gameplay which is, at its core, a puzzle game, is surprisingly enjoyable…
3. …probably because it has more depth than it looks like at first glance. The tools and kit you get to interact with pokemon changing how and when they interact, allowing you to snap different tiers and access different areas, is fun
4. The Florio Nature Park (manual, crafted design)
5. Founja Jungle (manual, crafted design)
6. Elsewhere Forest (manual, crafted design)
7. Sweltering Sands (manual, crafted design)
8. Fireflow Volcano (I think you get the idea)
9. Lentil Seafloor
10. Maricopia Reef
11. Blushing Beach
12. Shiver Snowfields
13. Outaway Cave
14. Ruins
15. Barren Badlands
16. Mightywide River
17. In general you have decent guidance and flow of exploration in what to find, where, and how
18. The game is generally chill, which works as a good replayability factor

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Single save slot and the usual related issues
2. Audio spam from Professor Mirror is… irritating at best
3. Progression curve is a bit grindy and a bit slow at times
4. Seconds in minutes problem is definitely present, especially when waiting to hit the next setpiece (in stage) or the post-stage wrap up
5. Actually filling out everything is a bit of a chore (made even worse by virtue of the fact that you can only fill one star category per pokemon per trip)
6. Some of the specific challenges and stars are pretty walkthroughy

Story Positives:

1. The general variety and quality of the backgrounds of each stage…
2. …are legitimately impressive, on many levels, and do a lot to really add to the visual presentation of events

Story Negatives:

1. The Outro is a bit absent and a bit sudden, such as it is

Gameplay Positives:

1. The stage editor is a bit crude but still has decent tools and options
2. While the custom Mii fighters thing is mostly just cosmetic and neat, the fact that you can customize the special moves is what really sells it and makes it a positive
3. Good and varied training mode with lots of options
4. The unlocking ‘progression’ of gaining new fighters and having new characters to try out is decently fun
5. Itemization is exceptionally varied, though this is both good and bad, and it helps keep matches interesting
6. Decent info in game, especially the moveset on the pause menu
7. Smash Mode itself is fun of course, but what really, really makes it work…
8. …is the absolutely insane…
9. …level of options and customization that it offers. The sheer quantity and specifics of how you can set it up are honestly bonkers
10. A bonus positive for the map morph option which is not just cool and awesome, but really a neat way to vary up a match
11. Smashdown mode is a fun way to vary things up
12. Super sudden death has even more options than before to vary up random matches
13. Online multiplayer has good options and good modes…
14. …further supported by things like spectator mode and the like
15. There’s an opening tutorial demo which is actually pretty neat
16. There are some legitimately good mixes, though there’s… just such a huge variety of music that the quality varies pretty wildly
17. The gimmicks and variances added to the World of Light mode are actually pretty cool, and a neat way to keep things interesting
18. King K. Rool is a nice, complex fighter with good variance on reach, range, speed, and his own gimmick…
19. …earning a second positive
20. Marth seems ‘average’ but actually is well designed in the ‘sword tip’ mechanic, the recover, and the comboing
21. Pac-Man is surprisingly interesting to play, very fast and reactive and his gimmicks of directing his ‘line’ attacks and the item toss are very fun
22. Donkey Kong is a well designed risk/reward grappler, with surprisingly good reach and armor
23. Duckhunt is surprisingly good of a character; fairly weak in several areas, but with a great ability to setup and payoff
24. Inkling is very centric on their gimmick, but it’s a good and fun gimmick that works pretty well to keep them fluid
25. Lucario has a neat gimmick but aside from that is just surprisingly well constructed, with good risk reward and good movement
26. Bowser is a great wrestler; his moves themselves give him mobility and his armor lets him piledrive through attacks, making him easy to injure but hard to avoid
27. Peach has a great range on the ground and fantastic air mobility, combined with a fun moveset
28. Pikachu has a ridiculous amount of control, mobility, and recovery, combined with being very hard hitting and difficult to use
29. Villager is very gimmick, very short range, and very setup-heavy, but if mastered can really nail it
30. Captain Falcon is a great combo of speed and slow, maneuverable and static, and his attacks have wonderful range in all directions
31. Isabelle is surprisingly fun, essentially the Villager but better, with the fishing rod being a weirdly big game changer, among other little changes
32. Fox is… Fox.
33. Little Mac is astonishingly fast, hard hitting, bad at recovery, and has stupid reach, a great grab bag of detriments and advantages
34. Ryu is ironically much better designed overall here than over in Street Fighter, with his usual well designed specials complimented by multiple unique gimmicks…
35. …and very tight design to his movement, reach, and spread
36. Snake has his usual spread of weird, situational, trapping area control abilities
37. Lucas/Ness have good general variety to attacks, and are massively vulnerable while using them
38. The Belmonts have a great and varied kit, and while lacking in any unique gimmicks they make up for it by sheer quality and quantity of their set
39. Samus is actually quite excellent, a heavy hard hitter with great spread but low range, and plenty of specials to cover gaps
40. Pokemon Trainer’s switch gimmick is pretty much their entire shtick, but…
41. …what really sells them is how distinct and different all three really are
42. Shulk of course has the stances, which is neat, but also a very precise and interesting moveset…
43. …which encourages planning and, well, precision
44. The enemy AI is, honestly, fantastic in general, but especially with how dynamic and gradient it is…
45. …easily earning the coveted…
46. …three positives
47. King Dedede is an interesting example of a heavy who has floatiness and is actually slow, but great recovery and staggered hits
48. Ice Climbers are actually quite fun and responsive now, with great mobility, speed, and move variety
49. Incineroar is a delight to play in general but the variety to how he can combo his throws and moves is great
50. Sonic is very precise in his movement, his moveset isn’t that great but his aerial is insane and he rewards control
51. Wario is a surprisingly complex character, which helps flesh out his… less than stellar presentation
52. Ridley is fast and frenetic, with great move variety and fun viscerality
53. Ganondorf is heavy, hard hitting, and wonderfully difficult to get off but when you do it’s so satisfying
54. Cloud is probably one of the better sword types, being focused on his limits and his limit gauge to empower them (and gain a launcher)
55. Ike at first seems like a generic fighter but his windup and his launch really helps distinguish him (and adds some risk/reward)
56. Metaknight is… Metaknight. But, y’know, not ridiculous (high speed, high maneuverability, high vulnerability, high pressure)
57. ROB is nuts. Heavy hitting, fast, area denial, insane recovery, and great coverage in range
58. Wolf is honestly better designed than Fox, with better variance to his moves’ coverage and more interesting reach on his smashes
59. Greninja is all about mobility, both horizontal and vertical, and he can command a huge area very quickly
60. Corrin’s reach and follow-through is fantastic, with good mobility-in-moveset that allows her to aggressively redirect
61. Bayonetta is, as expected, quite well designed, with good range and reach and rewarding counters
62. The first Ghaleem fight is actually pretty legit
63. The spirits system offers some good opportunities to add mutators to your fighter or vary up the ‘build’ slightly
64. Good customization in the alternate colors and costumes
65. The Dracula fight is actually pretty fun, in fact he’s noticeably more interesting and harder than in most Castlevania games
66. The Ganon fight is, legitimately, better than he is in the Zelda games
67. The Marx fight is honestly quite fun and, like the others, better than in his original game
68. Okay, the Master Hand hyperbeam moment was actually pretty cool
69. And the final, final dual boss against Darkhon and Ghaleem is actually pretty legit
70. One positive for the actually good stages, the ones with variety and gimmicks and interactions
71. One positive for general viscerality, it looks and sounds impressive to smash things (go figure)
72. The game is generally replayable, so long as what you’re after and enjoy is random matches
73. Aggregate: Kirby is quite balanced, doing a little bit of good in a lot of fields // Mario is a bit more specialized towards control and defense these days, but he works quite well for it // Link is a bit basic, but still has good range and close covers // Palutina is… okay, with good zoning but otherwise very basic moveset
74. Aggregate: Pit has wings and a bow // Zelda’s a decent mage, mostly unchanged from Brawl // Chrom is a bit generic but still enjoyable // Luigi is distinct from his brother and still reasonable

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Microtransaction negative (fighters and cosmetics)
2. The fact that you have to unlock fighters can be neat (see the attached positive) but it’s also pretty restrictive, a bit needlessly punishing, and worst of all; prevents you from just sitting down and playing whom you want
3. The character select screen… actually sucks. They’re organized by when they joined the roster, which is incredibly unhelpful as opposed to literally any other sorting method, and further there’s no search function
4. There’s a bit of obtuseness to the menus throughout the whole game
5. While it varies… a lot… there are some scenarios where the game just has way, way too much visual and audio chaos going on…
6. …which combines with some audio spam issues
7. Netcode issues which are just unacceptable in a game with this level of required precision
8. The World of Light mode is entirely too long for what it is…
9. …being dragged on and on and on with only slight variance, and actually getting harder as it goes, which would normally be a good thing but…
10. …what it does is it makes the game even more of a slog as factory worker syndrome kicks in
11. And the factory worker syndrome is real, lemme tell ya
12. A bonus negative for the world of light for both slog, factory worker syndrome, and general lack of design
13. The over-reliance on basic stage designs sucks in general but it’s much worse in the World of Light where there’s way, way too many of them and none of the great stage designs
14. Olimar… kinda sucks. His basic moveset is boring and his gimmick is disinteresting
15. There’s a bit of seconds in minutes / runback problem with the load times
16. The function of the spirit system as a ‘level’ (for despite it’s practical function as a handicap selector, it is in practical application just your level vs. theirs) is unnecessary and really adds nothing while otherwise detracting from the game
17. The Pauline fight is a special kind of screwed up
18. The spread of how which fighters you gain where in the World of Light honestly feels haphazard and has no real flow or design to it
19. Some of the specific conditions of some of the fights in the World of Light are honestly either bullcrap or boring (like… ‘here’s an empty platform that’s on fire… that’s it’)
20. Rosalina honestly kind of sucks in pure combat, with her capacity being a little too tied to her Luma and having some lack of real flavor to her kit
21. It’d take too long to list them all so just please believe me when I say; the overworld design of the overworld… isn’t
22. The back and forth of the final mode is honestly far too arduous for what it’s trying to be
23. Similarly the final ‘platforming’ section is not just slow and bland, but actively cheap