Unfamiliar 2

Story Positives:

1. World Building: It’s quiet and in the background but it’s there
2. Cutscenes: Stills
3. Cutscenes: Briefings & ACMRs
4. Banter: Mid-mission military banter
5. Plot: Military campaign
6. Level: The power plant mission and the first showcasing of Stonehenge is properly tense and terrifying

Story Negatives:

1. Voice Acting: It’s… not good

Gameplay Positives:

1. Controls: Flies pretty tightly
2. Enemy AI: Pretty damned good, and varied too
3. HUD: While there’s some visibility issues, there’s a lot of great info on display
4. Interface: ACMR (twice, even)
5. Intro: Actually some really good stuff overall
6. Kit: Planes. Good variety, they fly differently, and they have different weapon kit…
7. Kit: …for two positives
8. Kit: Weapons. Again, good variety and usage and mission specific uses
9. Level: Anti jammer breather mission
10. Level: First bundle of missions
11. Level: First no-radar level with optional objectives to clear it
12. Level: General mission design
13. Level: Power plant… and our first encounter with Stonehenge
14. Minimap: Surprisingly good, honestly
15. Music: Yeah there’s some bangers in this…
16. Music: …earning two positives
17. NG+: Actual New Game +
18. NG+: Chapter Select
19. Outro: Okay yeah that last trench run was honestly really legit (minus the mid mission checkpoint situation)
20. Sound Design: Audio call-outs of mission relevance
21. Difficulty Curve: Generally smooth curve

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Tutorialization: Doesn’t cover everything, is badly coded (can literally die via autopilot), lots of repetition, is slow and boring, and commits the two cardinal tutorial sins; It locks you out of inputs except the ones it wants you to do when it wants you to do them, and it gives you big obvious text to explain things rather than naturally tutorializing through mission and level design…
2. Tutorialization: …for a full…
3. Tutorialization: …three negatives
4. Mid-Mission Checkpoints: Or a total lack thereof
5. Sound Design: Audio balance, or the lack thereof
6. HUD / Visual Distinction: Issues periodically with seeing stuff in the blurry grey and brown soup
7. Level: The repeat ‘score’ missions aren’t that interesting to begin with
8. Padding: But the real problem is how many of them (especially back to back)

Story Positives:

1. Cutscenes: Briefings
2. Cutscenes: General
3. Foreshadowing: While it’s a bit obvious when the reveal hits, the foreshadowing up to it was quite legit
4. Intro: Actually really strong, probably the best part of the narrative…
5. Intro: …for two positives
6. Level: For all it does wrong, Chopper’s death in mission 17 is actually pretty interesting
7. Level: Mission 3 and the frantic scramble to evacuate the port
8. Level: Opening to and dialogue during Mission 3 and the airbase defense
9. Level: The Yuke fleet turning on itself while the Osean fleet engaging is honestly a pretty decent moment
10. Moment: Ground bombardment in Mission 5 from the Scinfaxi
11. Moment: The beginning of 27 is legit. The individual soldiers, pilots, and crew joining together to assist our squad because they were emotionally touched by the message from the leaders
12. Music Direction: Several good examples thereof
13. Voice Acting: When it’s good, it’s good

Story Negatives:

1. Characters: Nagase and Chopper
2. Dialogue: Oh my gawd some of this dialogue just… isn’t. It sounds off and on the nose…
3. Dialogue: …and it is a consistent problem throughout
4. Level: Mission 9’s dialogue is… honestly just really bad. To the point where I was cringing a few times
5. Localization: Yeah there’s… issues
6. Outro: The actual ending is… not good. Wraps up way too neatly and hits that damned message again
7. Theme: Please stop hitting me in the face with the message
8. Voice Direction: Some voice acting is very good, and some is… not
9. Writing: On the nose
10. Writing: Several instances of basic maneuvering being treated as significant, leading to the deaths of the rookies, people insisting we’re super awesome, licking Pops’ boots, etc.

Gameplay Positives:

1. Boss: The Arkbird is actually a pretty cool boss fight; good variety of attacks and nice avoidance zones and phases
2. Boss: The Hrimfaxi fight is actually not too shabby, honestly
3. Controls: Controls much better than before…
4. Controls: …for two positives
5. Core Mechanic: Choose loadout for squads
6. Enemy AI: As per usual
7. Interface: ACMR
8. Intro: Decent introduction and tutorialization
9. Kit: Planes, while a bit more limited than in 4, are still good…
10. Kit: …for two positives
11. Level: 11b and the uniqueness of the gas attacks and the helicopters without missiles
12. Level: 17 is a relatively simple but fun dogfight with some good variance as the mission progresses
13. Level: 18, the fortress assault, is honestly quite fun; Some good placement, layout, enemy design, etc.
14. Level: 19, the training plane escape is actually pretty cool, and a nice unique bit of variety
15. Level: 21 is a nice gimmick breather mission; some low altitude flying, couple of pictures, and a quick getaway
16. Level: 23 is actually pretty good. It’s another ‘stay in the canyon’ but without binary difficulty, and with some neat routing
17. Level: 26, and a good spread of ships, fliers, and then our own forces
18. Level: 27 is probably one of the better trench runs in the game, only hampered by that damned checkpoint issue
19. Level: Mission 12a, irritation aside, is actually pretty neat; Specific, ground targets only attackable from a given angle, with nice usage of terrain and enemy layout (and destructible bridges)
20. Level: Mission 3 and taking out ships, planes, and pseudo escorts
21. Level: Mission 6 is a good escort really; Not too many, not too much, good health on the target, and not too long
22. Level: Mission 9 was actually decent. Varied enemy support and timing attacks
23. Minigame: Arcade mode
24. Minimap: Same as before
25. Music: As before, some banger songs…
26. Music: …for an easy two positives
27. Song: Individual positive for The Unsung War
28. NG+: Chapter Select
29. NG+: Yep
30. Outro: The final duel and final boss fight are great stuff
31. Party AI: Actually worth a damn
32. Sound Design: Generally decent
33. HUD: Yeah I’m with it, even better than in 4

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Controls: Targeting. It’s the same issue old MMOs had with ‘tab targeting’ and sometimes it selects the wrong thing entirely, sometimes it refuses to select a target at all, and sometimes it re-selects the same target
2. Interface: Everything about the plane selection / buy / sell screens
3. Interface: Readability
4. Level: 12a… the random spawning missiles out of absolutely nowhere is all kinds of bullcrap, and in a mission where you have to go slow and low to the ground too
5. Level: 12b. The first half of the mission is actually neat… if not for lack of checkpoints. The latter half of the mission however is dull as dishwater
6. Level: 15… is a bad escort mission. Aside from the usual problems it also spawns enemies RIGHT in the path of the escorted thing, to the point where you have literal seconds to get on it or fail
7. Level: Mission 20 continues the bad escort quest vibes, with nearly instantly respawning enemies that swarm a slow moving, low health target, while enemies swarm the skies
8. Level: Mission 8 starts as a very slow, irritating slog through AA which is already frustrating…
9. Level: …but then it devolves into a typical escort mission which is worse (especially with no checkpoints)
10. Level: So… this is sort of a bonus negative, because a lot of missions would otherwise be really good but are completely ruined by the combination of length, occasional issues, ease of accidents, and of course… no mid mission checkpoints
11. Mid Mission Checkpoints: This is one of the worst examples of mid mission checkpointing and the lack thereof ruining a game I’ve seen in a long time…
12. Mid Mission Checkpoints: …between long missions and ease of death…
13. Mid Mission Checkpoints: …earning a triple negative
14. Padding: General, but there’s several missions where you just… sit there waiting for several minutes
15. Walkthroughitis: So you can pick if you have heard a song to completely change missions… sure

Story Positives:

1. Atmosphere: Branching dialogues and scenes changing the tone based on your path
2. Banter: Professionals under stress mid mission banter
3. Cutscenes: Briefings
4. Cutscenes: Live action cutscenes
5. Intro: Does a good job of setting the scene
6. Moment: Mission 8 and the deployment of the ion cannon
7. Moment: The nukes going off is something we all knew was coming and is still very well executed, from the lack of music to the distorted HUD
8. MSQ: Mission 15, the surprise raid, the behemoth
9. Plot: Military campaign
10. Voice Acting: Good, if sparse
11. External Continuity: Does a pretty good job of using the pieces and world from the previous games
12. World Building: Does a lot to flesh out some details of the world around the Belkan conflict

Story Negatives:

1. Character: Pixy. First, his betrayal doesn’t have the character necessary to really back it up, but then he keeps following this stupid samurai bullcrap thing while actively trying to murder millions of people… he doesn’t work as an ally, hero, NPC, villain, or anti villain
2. Outro: Ignoring my personal biases, the ending is just… weird. It’s trying for this kind of nostalgic, pseudo positive approach while wrapping up, and then it goes for this friendly rivalry thing with a mass-genocidal madman and… what?

Gameplay Positives:

1. All Roads Lead To Rome: The ‘branching’ with the
2. Boss: The XBO fight is a fairly standard but good Ace Combat style boss fight
3. Controls: Still the standard great controls from 5…
4. Controls: …for two positives
5. Enemy AI: Usual quality of enemy AI
6. HUD: Usual good HUD design
7. Interface: ACMR
8. Intro: Simple, to the point, gets across HUD elements, dogfighting, targets, fleeing ‘neutralized’ elements, and changes in actions which change reactions
9. Kit: Planes are, as per usual, good kit…
10. Kit: …for two positives
11. Kit: Weapons as per usual
12. Level: 10Knight is a hell of an aerial dogfight, with a nice ace boss at the end
13. Level: 11 and the bombers, fighters, and betrayal
14. Level: 13 is another simple but good points mission which does all the right things mission 7 did
15. Level: 14b and another simple but fun
16. Level: 2 and the morality meter tutorial
17. Level: 3, good variety of targets and placement in the city, and again a varying boss fight
18. Level: 3 and the free for all and varying boss fight
19. Level: 7 is, for once, a good points mission; Resupply, lots of good variety in targets, mission ends with points not timer, and good spread and layout
20. Level: 8b. Starts as a semi simple base attack, and turns into dodging friggin’ lasers
21. Level: 9. The ‘boss’ of the laser is great, and the layout and design of the approach works well too
22. Level: General
23. Minimap: Same useful minimap as the previous games
24. Music: Same general quality…
25. Music: …same two positives
26. NG+: New game plus and… limited chapter select
27. Replayability: First Ace Combat game I would qualify as replayable, both with the three ‘paths’, three variant missions, and the short but high quality missions
28. Sound Design: Generally good, and usual in combat barks

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Controls: Targeting issues as per the previous game
2. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Yep, it’s still an issue. Less of one, but it’s there
3. Outro: So the final trench run is easily the worst trench run I’ve seen in the series thusfar
4. Outro: And the final boss fight is just a bit cheap, with him having entirely too much HP

Story Positives:

1. Banter: Neat little banters with the thugs
2. Brickwork: Cityscape
3. Brickwork: Interiors
4. Character: Bane
5. Character: Bruce, raw and unseasoned
6. Character: Joker. Everything about him is essentially perfect here, right down to his complete lack of self regard…
7. Character: …and his love affair with Batman
8. Character: Support staff
9. Characters: Penguin
10. Doodads: Batcave
11. Doodads: GCPD
12. Intro: Some good setup for the premise, tone, and timeline of the game
13. Moment: Bruce and Alfred’s confrontation
14. MSQ: The entire Copperhead boss fight and subsequent curb stomp once we’re cured
15. Plot: The core essence of the plot (the Joker and Batman and how they motivate each other) is quite good
16. Prime Opt: Mad Hatter’s side quest
17. Storytelling Mechanic: The detective mode cutscenes
18. Visual Storytelling: Batcave
19. Visual Storytelling: GCPD
20. Voice Acting: Despite the actor swaps the new team does some great stuff…
21. Voice Acting: …for two positives
22. Character: Freeze. Color me shocked, he’s good stuff
23. Atmosphere: Gloomy and down to earth and generally well done
24. Plot: The entire DLC really
25. Music Direction: Oh yeah, lotta good usage in scenes
26. Voice Direction: Lot of scenes are carried by this

Story Negatives:

1. Animations: Just… weird animation issues and glitches which kill several scenes
2. Integration: So Bats just gets… stopped by several very mild, very minor obstacles (or occasionally just stands there and lets the villains do whatever)
3. Moment: Bruce and Alfred’s confrontation… and the total lack of build up or payoff
4. Pacing: The game’s story beats just sort of come and go with no real rhyme or reason to them
5. Story Sequencing: A lot of the beats of the story just… happen

Gameplay Positives:

1. Boss: Bane 2 is a fun little Freeze-lite fight and the music really adds to the scene
2. Boss: Copperhead and the nice take on the trash fight boss
3. Boss: Firefly is irritating due to issues, but still a fun fight under it
4. Boss: The Bane fights
5. Core Combat: While there are issues with it, there is still the core good combat underneath it
6. Enemy Design: Decent enemy design
7. Enemy Variety: Decent enemy variety
8. Kit: Generally good kit
9. Mid Mission Checkpoints: With one exception the mid mission checkpointing is actually on point…
10. Mid Mission Checkpoints: …for two positives
11. Music: Dynamic music makes it even better
12. Music: Some really great slappers in this one…
13. Music: …for an easy two positives
14. Traversal: Still fun to glide and zoom around
15. Viscerality: Generally decent
16. Level: General platforming
17. Level: The DLC finally brings some decent predator sequences

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Boss: Slade. Inconsistent interaction indicators, entirely too long, and entirely too punishing, especially for a first boss fight
2. Boss: Also you can’t skip the Slade fight unlike, say, Margit over in Elden Ring so you’re funneled into this
3. Bug: Animation issues, hit detection issues
4. Bug: Controls
5. Bug: Crash issues
6. Bug: Enemy AI
7. Bug: Quest interactables
8. Bug: The gamebreaker bug involving Copperhead and permanently being unable to progress the game…
9. Bug: …for two negatives
10. Camera: Good lord this camera. It does a lot wrong; it likes to try to jerk control away from the player while simultaneously not removing control, which leads to jerking, it has no way of dealing with walls at all, and it considers every little doodad as collision which leads to a lot of ‘bouncing’ and other issues…
11. Camera: …for two negatives
12. Core Combat: Hit detection and timing issues
13. Difficulty Options: Lazy difficulty
14. Guidance/Flow:
15. Integration: So Bats just gets… stopped by several very mild, very minor obstacles (or occasionally just stands there and lets the villains do whatever)
16. Interface: General lack of feedback issues
17. Intro: Buggy and unpolished
18. Launch: Very, very buggy at launch and then an open letter saying they refuse to patch it and instead are focusing on DLC…
19. Launch: …earning two negatives
20. Mid-Mission Checkpoints: Bosses
21. Overworld: Lack of density and design
22. Secondary: Collectathon
23. Sound Design: Lack of feedback
24. Traversal: Overworld and the lack of proper grapple points and speed
25. Padding: Goon health in the DLC
26. Encounter Design: Hope you like nothing but gun guys
27. Audio Spam: Here and there, but it’s there
28. Boss: The final Mr. Freeze fight is just God damned awful on every level. The adds hurt the stealth aspect, the adds respawn, there’s less takedowns, the layout of the room isn’t good, the stalactites don’t respawn, he has too much health, the goons have too much health, he will NOT shut up during the fight…
29. Boss: …for a full…
30. Boss: …three negatives
31. Difficulty Curve: Absolutely all over the place
32. Map: The in game map is actively unhelpful in places and irritating at its worst

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: The new added backdrops for the All Stars version add some nice flavor to the levels

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Mid Mission Checkpoints: For most of the earlier stages, they exist and are reasonably well laid out
2. Level: Worlds 1 through 3
3. Level: It’s intermittent but several levels are honestly quite clever with their jumps and challenges
4. Song: Yeah it’s still the one
5. Itemization: Strangely enough there’s a pretty good spread of power ups throughout
6. Level: World A actually starts doing some legitimately creative and fun things with the difficulty
7. Level: World B remixes a whole lot of fun concepts
8. Level: World C goes hard, but in a way that’s honestly pretty fun
9. Level: World D starts to get very mean and brutal with its jumps in ways that don’t look as hard as they are

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Level: 7-3 is absolute bullcrap
2. Level: World 8 in its entirety is unforgivably cruel. Not just mean, but straight up cruel
3. Gotcha: There are worse examples of this concept but…
4. Gotcha: …it’s pretty bad
5. Level: B-4 deserves its own negative for next level bullcrap. In a game filled to the brim with mazes and having to pick the right path, the level just copy pastes the same area to make you think you’re in a maze but, no, the solution is just to get to the end
6. Mid Mission Checkpoints: The total lack of them in castle levels is absolutely terrible, as it is entirely too difficult right at the finishing line
7. Level: World 4 is when the game starts to get bad
8. Level: World 5 is when the game begins pulling back on creativity and pulling up the total bullcrap
9. Level: World 6, unlike the original, just spits on the player the entire time
10. Level: World 8 is honestly kind of trash top to bottom
11. Penalty For Failure: This might be one of the most arduous games I’ve ever played without savestates or rewinds. Having to redo an entire stage or world over and over and over and over all the while suffering from extremely easy to screw up jumps while having death in all directions and the possibility of making no errors but still dying is not fun…
12. Penalty For Failure: …and it deserves a full…
13. Penalty For Failure: …three negatives
14. Itemization: After a certain point the itemization just stops. No power ups, no lives, no coins, screw you…
15. Itemization: …for a double negative
16. Guidance And Flow: Worse than before because not only is there little, but it actively leads you into ‘traps’ or other troll room style areas…
17. Guidance And Flow: …for two negatives
18. Core Mechanic: Jumping, physics… and squiggity

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: General. It’s… not bad but it’s weirdly flat and oddly forgettable. It’s still there and it still helps though
2. Outro: The slides relative to the stages you did throughout the game during the credits

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Camera: They actually do some cool stuff to zoom in and out based on what’s happening at the time
2. Controls: Floaty, but still well constructed
3. Fast Travel: Can warp between worlds at will with the stylus side
4. Intro: World 1 doesn’t do much, but it is still a good indicator of what the player is in for as well as using several fun gimmicks
5. Itemization: Lots of good spread of items, 1-ups, and coins…
6. Itemization: …for two positives
7. Kit: Mostly the usual, but…
8. Kit: …the minishroom, megashroom, and blueshell are great
9. Level: 5-1 has some neat snow related interactions with the background and foreground
10. Level: 7-2 is a very fun wrapping camera level with the rising platform
11. Level: 7-4 is another interesting, vertical level with a whole bouncing, flying gimmick
12. Level: 7-7 is one of the better ‘standard’ levels, with lots of platforming and donuts
13. Level: 7-A is a short but very dense, fun maze level
14. Level: 7-Castle is brutally mean in the right ways with the snake block
15. Level: 8-6 is another fun, neat wraparound level
16. Level: Even in a game this vanilla, the Ghost Houses continue to be good fun
17. Level: World 5 in general starts to do some neat, creative stuff
18. Level: World 6 has a few fun, if frustrating, gimmicks
19. Level: Worlds 1-4 are… honestly very, very mid. Not good, not bad, but there is enough unique and fun stuff throughout to be noteworthy
20. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Invisible, but present
21. Minigames: Neat minigames, same as Mario 64 DS
22. Music: A couple of really good songs here and there
23. Outro: Decent enough final dungeon
24. Overworld: Honestly a good overworld overall, right alongside Mario 3 in design
25. Core Mechanic: Safety mechanisms in the form of stored power ups, red blocks, lives, coins, and power ups
26. Visual Distinction: Usual good Mario vibe
27. Guidance And Flow: Usual coin usage
28. Minimap: Surprisingly useful for tracking progress and 100%

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Audio Spam: Plenty
2. Level: 2-5 should be a neat gimmick level. It is not. The total lack of control combined with the randomness of the Blockhoppers makes the whole thing just an exercise in frustration
3. Level: A second general frustration negative
4. Level: General level frustration
5. Minigames: Crap minigames, same as the Mario 64 DS
6. Overworld: Locking entire worlds (4 and 7) behind secret exits or secret boss endings is more than a little irritating
7. Padding: Requirements to gain and keep power ups
8. Seconds In Minutes: A couple, but as with World, overworld movement is the biggest offender
9. Walkthroughitis: Some of the coins are just kind of ridiculous to find and, most irritatingly, require a specific power up to access
10. Gotcha: Several examples throughout

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: General
2. Visual Continuity: Stages and worlds

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Boss: Not quite as good as back in Wii, but still fun stuff…
2. Boss: …for two positives
3. Camera: Good dynamic camera (again)
4. Controls: Much better controlled than the previous ones
5. Core Mechanic: Safety Mechanism in stored power-ups
6. Difficulty Curve: Honestly very smooth throughout
7. Enemy Variety: Generally good
8. Fast Travel: Usual world warping
9. Guidance and Flow: Same general high quality of coin and flow indication…
10. Guidance and Flow: …for two positives
11. HUD: Good usage of the lower screen, and indicative but clean
12. Itemization: Honestly really good spread throughout the stages…
13. Itemization: …for two positives
14. Kit: Usual positives (while it has Mini and Mega, they barely have any presence and so the game gets no real credit)
15. Level: 2-Castle and the controllable ‘boat’ which only advances while you’re on it
16. Level: 2-Ghost is the first stage I’d say actually caught my eye, with the gigantic Boo who always advanced on you but only at your control, giving the player control of the scrolling
17. Level: 3-3 With the spiderwebs and fun, temporary platform gimmick
18. Level: 4-Ghost and the moving walls mechanic
19. Level: 5-1 and the fun ropes
20. Level: 5-Castle and the fences again
21. Level: 6-1 and the slowly spawning / destructible terrain
22. Level: 6-2 and the lava platform of doom
23. Level: 6-Ghost and the double sided, changing switches and stages
24. Level: The game has… general level design quality throughout
25. Mid Mission Checkpointing: Usual approach here
26. Minimap: Same general one from New DS, for tracking progress and 100%ing
27. Visual Distinction: Sharp as per the series’ usual
28. Level: Nerve-Wrack-1 is a clever P Switch run stage
29. Level: All the Gold Rush stages in general are just general fun romps
30. Level: The Platform Panic trio is exactly as fun as such stages should be
31. Level: Mystery Adventures Pack trio and random hidden explorative fun
32. Difficulty: Mutators in the coin achievements
33. Intro: Worlds 1 through 3
34. Replayability: For all its… issues, the game is reasonably fun to pick up and go with

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Seconds In Minutes: A common problem
2. Walkthroughitis: Coins, that is to say star coins, as is common
3. Outro: Final Bowser is long, boring, and repetitive… and worst, pulls bullcrap with stuff you can’t see on the top of the screen after a long, slow, can’t-skip-cutscenes fight
4. Mid-Mission Checkpoints: Total lack of checkpoints in the challenge pack stages (in between stages)

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: Bowser’s area
2. Brickwork: Castle
3. Brickwork: Forest
4. Brickwork: Fungus
5. Brickwork: Grass
6. Brickwork: Lava
7. Brickwork: Mountain
8. Brickwork: Ocean
9. Brickwork: Sand
10. Brickwork: Sky
11. Brickwork: Snow
12. Brickwork: Space
13. Brickwork: Swamp
14. Brickwork: World 1 (grass)
15. Brickwork: World 2 (clouds)
16. Brickwork: World 3 (waterfall)
17. Brickwork: World 4 (desert)
18. Brickwork: World 5 (mines)
19. Brickwork: World 6 (lava)
20. Brickwork: World 7 (Bowser)
21. Cutscenes: Post Palace cutscenes
22. Doodads: General, but mostly in the overworld map
23. Intro: Visual storytelling, explanation for how Bowser is warping the local terrain into ‘stages’
24. Localization: Holy crap, some actually really good localization for the Flowers…
25. Localization: …for two positives
26. Visual Continuity: General across the worlds
27. Visual Storytelling: Opening, Wonder power in Bowser stages, etc.
28. Voice Acting: Surprisingly good (the Flowers especially)
29. World Building: General, the idea of the Flower Kingdom and Wonder seeds

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Boss: World 1 Bowser Jr, the big/small dynamic between you and him and flipping it throughout the fight // 2, with the molten / ice terrain
2. Boss: World 6 Bowser gets his own positive
3. Camera: Usual New camera, with the auto zoom in and out
4. Camera: …for two positives
5. Controls: The easiest way I can explain it is the game controls like Metroid Dread. It is smooth, precise, and responsive…
6. Controls: …for a full…
7. Controls: …three positives
8. Co-Op: Existing, local only though
9. Core Mechanic: Online stuff in general. Hard to quantify but people can help indicate things or heal or recover and it’s honestly pretty legit…
10. Core Mechanic: …for two positives
11. Core Mechanic: Safety net mechanisms. Mid mission heals, stored power ups, rezzing on standees, rezzing from other players
12. Difficulty Options: Nabbit and Yoshi serving as an easy mode
13. Encounter Design: Surprisingly good encounter design in most levels, especially later ones
14. Enemy Design: Really, really good enemy design across the board…
15. Enemy Design: …for two positives
16. Enemy Variety: Some of the best enemy variety in the franchise…
17. Enemy Variety: …for a full…
18. Enemy Variety: …three positives
19. Fast Travel: The ability to pause and warp to individual stages, on the fly, from anywhere on the overworld map…
20. Fast Travel: …for a full…
21. Fast Travel: …three positives
22. Guidance and Flow: Extremely good, possibly the best the series has seen to date (except Odyssey), with lots and lots and lots of level design indicating what is where and when
23. Guidance and Flow: …for a full…
24. Guidance and Flow: …three positives
25. HUD: Very nice HUD, top notch…
26. HUD: …for two positives
27. Info In Game: Quite a bit, from how much you’ve collected, to who is what and where, to what things do…
28. Info In Game: …for two positives
29. Intro: Welcome to the Flower Kingdom is a great Intro. The initial talking flower, the first interactable bulb, the first Elephant power up directly next to a visible object that’s different from everything else right next to breakable blocks, making it very difficult to avoid the very first Wonder Flower, and just generally a great layout…
30. Intro: …for two positives
31. Itemization: Good item placement, coin placement, 1-up placement… really hard to explain in brief but some very serious thought was put into where is what…
32. Itemization: …for a full…
33. Itemization: …three positives
34. Kit: Badges are a wonderful mutator and equipment to make the game easier, harder, or in between…
35. Kit: …for two positives
36. Kit: Elephant, Drill, and Balloon are fun, inventive, and varied
37. Kit: Usual useful and interesting kit
38. Level: 1: Piranha Plants on Parade. Good platforming, good hidden areas, and of course… the singing plants…
39. Level: 1: …for two positives
40. Level: 1: Scram, Skedaddlers. Some lateral puzzle thinking with using the enemies to progress, and a great Wonder sequence…
41. Level: 1: …for two positives
42. Level: 1-Angry Spikes and Sinkin Pipes is a short but sweet, fun pipe level
43. Level: 1-Bulrush Coming Through. Great multiple paths and routes, wonderful Wonder sequence…
44. Level: …for two positives
45. Level: 1-Bulrush Express is a fantastic, difficult stage with precise timing, multiple paths, and great jumps…
46. Level: …for two positives
47. Level: 1-Cosmic Hoppos is a neat, fun bouncy romp
48. Level: 1-Here Come The Hoppos is another inventive ‘use the enemies to progress’ style stage…
49. Level: …for two positives
50. Level: 1-Pipe Rock Plateau Palace is a dense, mean enemy level that introduces the anti Wonder powers from Bowser
51. Level: 1-Rolla Koopa Derby is already a fun pseudo-runner but the Wonder sequence helps even more…
52. Level: …for two positives
53. Level: 1-Sproings in the Twilight Forest is the first truly amazing level. The black and white backdrop is already great, but with the usage of lighting and creative stage layout already inclining what is where makes it even better, and THEN you add the Wonder effect which allows you to literally shrink the stage…
54. Level: …for a full…
55. Level: …three positives
56. Level: 1-Swamp Pipe Crawl. Pushing blocks, lots of cool background stuff, and of course the Wonder fun…
57. Level: …for two positives
58. Level: 2-Condarts Away is a decent area denial enemy fest… until the Wonder which literally changes the perspective and really plays with the level design…
59. Level: …for two positives
60. Level: 2-Countdown to Drop Down doesn’t do much with its Wonder but it already is a very well designed level with platforms that lose their number as you hop on them and enemies that take advantage of that…
61. Level: …for two positives
62. Level: 2-Cruising With Linking Lifts is a great gimmick. Hitting blocks to add to your platform while dodging lightning, and great color usage…
63. Level: …for two positives
64. Level: 2-Flying Battleship is fun, metal, and uses the Bowser Wonder well
65. Level: 2-Jump Jump Jump. The base rhythm gimmick, the slow escalation, the perfect pacing up and down of the difficulty of the jumps…
66. Level: …for two positives
67. Level: 2-Outmaway Valley is a nice twist on the ‘enemies to progress’ as they are obstacles as much as aid… but also the wonderful avalanche Wonder…
68. Level: …for two positives
69. Level: 2-Palace. Usual Palace enemy and encounter design with Bowser Wonder to mix things up…
70. Level: …for two positives
71. Level: 2-Pokipede Pass with snow tiles, breaking enemies, and blizzard Wonder…
72. Level: …for two positives
73. Level: 2-Pole Block Passage. Poles, koopas, and climbing puzzles…
74. Level: …for two positives
75. Level: 2-Up ‘n Down With Puffy Lifts. The goombas, the cleverly hidden areas, the cakes… and the wonderful cake-mode Wonder…
76. Level: …for a full…
77. Level: …three positives
78. Level: 3-Across The Night Sky is a simple but fun romp, run stage where the Wonder is all about just crushing everything
79. Level: 3-Hoppycat Trial Hop Hop And Awaaay is already neat with ‘enemies you control’ but add the super jumping Wonder…
80. Level: …for two positives
81. Level: 3-Hop To It is another simple but solid vertical level with the mega hop Wonder
82. Level: 3-Launch To Victory is another ‘control enemies to progress’ level which does some creative stuff with the enemies…
83. Level: …for two positives
84. Level: 3-Ready, Aim, Fly doesn’t do much (comparatively to the rest of the game) but it’s still a solid level with solid platforming
85. Level: 3-Zip Track Dash is another fun run (zipline, really) stage
86. Level: 4-Armads On The Roll is a fun little avoidance level, especially leaning on the Wonder speed gimmick
87. Level: 4-Bloomps of the Desert Skies is a fun, bouncey themed level with great usage of the goombas along with the Bloomps…
88. Level: …for two positives
89. Level: 4-Color Switch Dungeon is a fun, multi tiered pseudo dungeon maze thing…
90. Level: …for two positives
91. Level: 4-Desert Mystery is a great introduction to the area, plays with the sands, really mixes things up with the Wonder, and the pull gimmick…
92. Level: …for two positives
93. Level: 4-Flight Of The Bloomps is a basic but solid bouncing aerial navigation stage
94. Level: 4-Ninji Jump Part is just… so good. The rhythm, the visuals, the jumping puzzles, it’s fun…
95. Level: …for two positives
96. Level: 4-Rolling Ball Hall is already fun, but the Wonder of tilting and turning really pushes it up…
97. Level: …for two positives
98. Level: 4-Secrets of Shova Mansion is all about the pushing, but they do some creative stuff with it in the layering…
99. Level: …for two positives
100. Level: 4-Valley Fulla Snootles is mostly notable for its slow mo Wonder of awesome
101. Level: 5-Beware of the Rifts is another inventive level, but also really uses its layout and placement well…
102. Level: …for two positives
103. Level: 5-Light Switch Mansion is the usual clever lights gimmick of a Boo level…
104. Level: …for two positives
105. Level: 5-Poison Ruins is yet another fantastic slime-based level, especially with the Wonder and playing with the wall climbing…
106. Level: …for two positives
107. Level: 5-Swaying Ruins is wonderfully creative and really plays with the slime, swinging, and platforms…
108. Level: …for two positives
109. Level: 5-Taily’s Toxic Pond is already neat, with platforms that temporarily go away under the enemy and need to be removed to access secrets, a ceiling built for drilling, and enemies that help and hinder you, but the Wonder is a friggin’ quiz show thing…
110. Level: …for a full…
111. Level: …three positives
112. Level: 5-Upshroom Downshroom and the moving mushrooms and musical Wonder…
113. Level: …for two positives
114. Level: 5-Wubba Ruins is already neat with the slime mechanic, but really runs with it with the slime Wonder…
115. Level: …for two positives
116. Level: 6-Dragon Boneyard is an excellent example of the theming they do (in this case with the circular platforming, live or fossil) and a fun usage of the inside/outside lava avoidance…
117. Level: …for two positives
118. Level: 6-Hot Hot Hot is already fun, with the periodically heated blocks, but add the water and watering mechanic and it becomes even better…
119. Level: …for two positives
120. Level: 6-Palace. Wonderful lava circles and theming followed by creative usage of the Wonder (being a slime that adheres to walls)…
121. Level: …for two positives
122. Level: 6-Pull, Turn, Burn uses the dragging mechanic quite well, but its Wonder is something else, with the ancient Goomba ruins under the lava…
123. Level: …for two positives
124. Level: 6-Raarghs in the Ruins is a fascinating gimmick, with platforms that only appear while you look at them, and another wonderful top-down Wonder…
125. Level: …for two positives
126. Level: 6-Wavy Ride through the Magma Tube is a competent, fun little lava platformer with some interesting jumping segments
127. Level: Arena stages in general are fun, challenging, well designed puzzle levels…
128. Level: …for a full…
129. Level: …three positives
130. Level: Badge challenges are fun, bite sized, and challenging…
131. Level: …for a full…
132. Level: …three positives
133. Level: B-Evade the Seeker Bullet Bills is another fantastic, multi layered level with good spread of enemies and obstacles…
134. Level: …for two positives
135. Level: B-High Voltage Gauntlet Is already a fantastic Elecman remix style stage with creative usage of enemies and lights, but the Wonder just nails it, with us becoming Metal and all that that implies…
136. Level: …for two positives
137. Level: B-KnuckleFest Bowser’s Blazing Beats is another wonderful, difficult jumping piece with a great Wonder musical section that manages to stay difficult despite the gimmick…
138. Level: …for two positives
139. Level: B-Missile Meg Mayhem is seemingly a simple platformer, but having to use the enemies (which get worse as you use them) to progress plus a fun Wonder equals a great level…
140. Level: …for two positives
141. Level: Break stages are bizarrely well designed for being literally ‘break’ stages, just designed to chill for a bit. They also serve the benefit of getting more seeds if you’re having issues…
142. Level: …for a full…
143. Level: …three positives
144. Level: P-Blewbird Roost is yet another fun ‘use the enemies to progress’ level…
145. Level: …for two positives
146. Level: P-Downpour Uproar is already a fun ‘suspended water’ level, but add into that the aerial lightning dodging Wonder…
147. Level: …for two positives
148. Level: P-Flying Battleship is another solid, mean airship stage with good usage of the flame jets
149. Level: P-Gnawsher Lair is an absolutely bizarre, fun usage of a new and fun enemy plus an absolutely insane Wonder (the oncoming wave of Gnawshers)…
150. Level: …for two positives
151. Level: P-Jewel Block Cave has the creative crystal mechanic and of course the introduction of the drill, plus the giant crusher Wonder…
152. Level: …for two positives
153. Level: P-Leaping Smackerel is a neat underwater romp with some neat interactions…
154. Level: …for two positives
155. Level: P-Maw Maw Mouthful has another inventive, fun new enemy which it does some great stuff with…
156. Level: …for two positives
157. Level: P-Muncher Fields has the return of the Munchers, more good usage of the silhouette effect, and of course star power…
158. Level: …for two positives
159. Level: P-Robbird Cove is a basic water level with the twist of the birds, but also one of the better Wonders so far with the half dry half water stage…
160. Level: …for two positives
161. Level: S-Bounce Bounce Bounce is a bit much on the RNG of the latter bounce hippos… but it’s still a very legit, multi-path, brutal level
162. Level: S-Climb To The Beat is probably the most brutal and awesome stage I’ve encountered so far. The same jump timing gimmick from before but much tighter…
163. Level: …for two positives
164. Level: S-Dangerous Donut Ride is an appropriately challenging plummeting level with lots of shrinking terrain and enemies
165. Level: Search levels are neat, fun little romps
166. Level: …for two positives
167. Level: S-Pole Block Allure is yet another brutal, fun, creative combination of bouncing limited enemies and limited poles…
168. Level: …for two positives
169. Level: S-Seminfinal Test, Piranha Plant Reprise is another wonderfully brutal, creative, fun level where the stage itself is in time to the song (dynamically) and a lovely run sequence capping it all off…
170. Level: …for a full…
171. Level: …three positives
172. Level: S-Solar Roller is a brutal, tightly timed, yet filled with recovery potential rush stage…
173. Level: …for two positives
174. Level: S-The Final Test Wonder Gauntlet is hard to even properly explain. Wonders colliding with each other in some extremely tight level design, it’s insane…
175. Level: …for a full…
176. Level: …three positives
177. Level: S-Triple Threat Deluge continues to be inventive and terrifying, with a top-down Wonder, enemies that fling giant balls that are required to progress, and lots of fire…
178. Level: …for two positives
179. Level: S-Way Of The Goomba is just… so good. The Goomba mechanic, the creative usage of level design around an inability to jump, and absolutely running with it…
180. Level: …for a full…
181. Level: …three positives
182. Level: Wiggler challenges are fun, neat romps…
183. Level: …for two positives
184. Music: Very fun music, especially in the musical levels…
185. Music: …for two positives
186. Overworld: Very good Overworld design. Variance between ‘stages’ and ‘open world’ sections, which serves to provide the optional ‘do whatever you want to progress’ mechanic…
187. Overworld: …for two positives
188. Pacing: Great pacing across stages throughout, never getting tiring…
189. Pacing: …for a full three…
190. Pacing: …positives
191. QoL: Way too many to list here, but they are great…
192. QoL: …for two positives
193. Saves: Saves anywhere
194. Sound Design: Very, very good. Almost everything is properly indicated throughout…
195. Sound Design: …for a full…
196. Sound Design: …three positives
197. Terrain: The usage of terrain in this game is honestly bonkers, especially in how it encourages multiple strategies for proceeding through stages…
198. Terrain: …for a full…
199. Terrain: …three positives
200. Tutorialization: This is, functionally, the same level of tutorialization that Mario World did, but even more so. Every stage is tutorialized, and every new mechanic or gimmick or power up or enemy or Wonder is always showcased properly before being escalated…
201. Tutorialization: …for a full…
202. Tutorialization: …three positives
203. Visual Distinction: Good, as per usual…
204. Visual Distinction: …for two positives
205. Yoshi Drums: Or in this case, Elephant Drums…
206. Yoshi Drums: …for two positives
207. Difficulty Curve: Very smooth throughout…
208. Difficulty Curve: …for a full…
209. Difficulty Curve: …three positives
210. Penalty For Failure: Finally removing the lives system (like on Odyssey)
211. Mid Mission Checkpointing: Good and good placement…
212. Mid Mission Checkpointing: …for two positives
213. Outro: That last boss slaps. Just straight up slaps
214. Replayability: General plus routing…
215. Replayability: …for two positives
216. Level: The Final Final Test Badge Marathon does have some very creative, fun platforming

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Core Mechanic: Party blocks. They can only be seen by a single character, but can be interacted with by everyone
2. Audio Spam: Or rather text spam. “Would you like to change badges?!” No, game!
3. Outro: The final stage is… problematic. Certainly very neat, but it’s also pidgeon-holed into being memorization and trial and error
4. Level: The Final Final Test Badge Marathon is absolute bullcrap. It at least has checkpoints (which mitigates further negatives) but putting the final three levels like that right before the invisibility badge WITH the last coin is just spitting in my face…
5. Level: …for two negatives