Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@RR529 Nice write-up. As someone who enjoyed the early Senran Kagura games (where they balanced out the cheesecake factor with decent character writing), I've had my eye on this for a bit. I feel like this is the closest we're getting to a proper spiritual successor to that series. Although it sounds like the game manages to stand out on its own and mixes in some different action game influences, which is nice to see.

The way the game handles side characters, and the synergy between 'powering up' and fetishized lesbianism definitely calls to mind older PS Vita releases like Kenichiro Takaki's under-appreciated brawler Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkhuni.

Definitely something I'll keep an eye on when it inevitably starts dropping in price during sales.

Untitled Goose Game
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Time to Completion: 1 - 2 hours

Here we are, the first game I've completed in 2023! I wanted to start out with something a bit light, and that I've been curious about, so I opted for Untitled Goose Game (UGG henceforth). Released in 2019, it quickly became one of those games that would get everyone repeating the same ridiculous jokes and phrases whenever it was mentioned, which quickly grew old for me. Now that the fad has faded, though, and one isn't suffered to wade through a small ocean of goose jokes and memes, the question becomes how the game has held up since its release, and especially for someone who isn't necessarily transfixed by the idea of playing as a goose.

While the marketing heavily emphasizes the chaotic or mischievous element of playing a game where a wild bird terrorizes people throughout a small town, UGG is actually a much more structured experience than one might expect. There's no plot or larger context to the events. The player is given a (vaguely sociopathic) checklist of goals to accomplish within each area, which ranges from the absurdly simple (drag a rake into a nearby pond) into more involved activities (one of the more interesting ones involves figuring out how to lure a shopkeeper out into the street so that you can record yourself on the store's security feed). UGG feels a bit like a Hitman game insofar as stealth is heavily required throughout the game, but also because the tasks you need to perform are structured like puzzles, and the bulk of the gameplay involves carefully manipulating factors in the world to achieve your goal.

This is all achieved, mind, via a limited number of player inputs. You can waddle around (slightly faster if you hold the B button), duck your head, honk, spread your wings (which seems to exist purely to play into the simulation aspect of the experience), and interact with objects via your beak. That's it. But there's a lot of things you can accomplish with a beak and an endless sense of malice, whether it's luring people into traps and then knocking pots onto their heads, tripping and terrifying children, or snatching random articles of clothing from peoples' bodies and tossing them in the creek.

Once you complete a set of tasks in an area, you'll gain access to the next area of the game. And... this is it. Unlike most modern video games. UGG's scope is very focused and limited. You won't be heading to waypoints or unlocking new skills for your goose to use. You repeat the same gameplay pattern four or five times, complete one final task that takes you back to the beginning of the game, and the credits roll. There's actually more to do afterward: completing a few post-game task lists will reward the player with a meaningless trinket for their trouble. There's nothing else to unlock or progress in, though. The entire game can be comfortably completed in a single afternoon.

It's a simple experience, then, and not a deeply fulfilling one. In a way, this feels more like the skeleton of a larger experience. Nevertheless, the game does what it does well: levels are designed to encourage stealth and player creativity; most of the puzzle solutions make sense once you realize the steps needed to achieve them, and hints can be gleaned from how the townsfolk react to various player actions; the world itself is fully interconnected once shortcuts are opened to connect the areas, like in a Souls game; and it's clear that plenty of love and attention was poured into the simulation aspect of controlling the goose, from how it adorably waddles around to the ways in which it reacts to environmental stimuli. Less attention, unfortunately, was paid to the townsfolk, whose walking animations frequently broke throughout the game. Nevertheless, if you're in the mood for a short, unique puzzle/stealth game, you could certainly do worse than Untitled Goose Game.

@RogerRoger It probably also helps that there really isn't just much to the game, is there? It's very basic. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I like it when game developers can focus their design scope and deliver a particular type of experience, without catering to industry trends. With that said, my appreciation of this was somewhat distant. I think it's well-designed for what it is, but what it is didn't ultimately end up being massively enjoyable.

I actually expected more of a bullying tone than what I got, considering the tone of the marketing was literally: "lolol run around terrorizing people with this annoying animal!" I think the mission-based structure distracted from that element of the game a bit. You could have easily had a sandbox world designed for players to create chaos in, and that's more what I was expecting than a tightly-wound stealth/puzzle game.

I share digital libraries with my nephew, who actually bought the game new the moment he saw all of his favorite Youtubers were playing it, so this didn't cost me a dime! The quick completion time was a bit of a shock, I think, being the sort of person who is usually nose-deep in an 80+ hour JRPG epic. If I liked it more, that'd be a huge plus for me, since other short experiences like Portal, Metroid: Zero Mission, and Spyro the Dragon often felt endlessly replayable to me in the past. As it stands, not being a big fan, and not having invested any of my own money in it, I do also consider the short length of it a plus!

@Ralizah Yeah - I remember the buzz around that game was basically that it was "Grand Theft Auto" with a notoriously bellicose bird and definitely not that it was an objective based stealth 'em up (with a notoriously bellicose bird).

God of War: Ragnarok (PS4) - Impressions

Finished Ragnarok after 48 hours. Absolutely phenomenal experience and it's definitely up there as the most ambitious PlayStation first-party title I've ever played. So much great content to be experienced here.

However, there were a few things that 2018 did much better. For starters, the boss fights felt more memorable. Ragnarok had tons of boss fights but very few of them stood out to me. The opening major boss fight in Ragnarok felt similar to the one in 2018. Same could be said about so many other events in Ragnarok. As such, there was little shock value this time around.

Secondly, the pacing was much better in 2018. It genuinely felt like they tried to cram in all nine realms in Ragnarok instead of adding the ones that had relevance. You're constantly going from one realm to the other in the fashion of a wild goose chase and it just felt bloated. But it's not like the content was bad. It's kinda like my experience with RE4, which I wish was shorter. Great content but they could've trimmed it down and it still would've been a great experience.

What impressed me about Ragnarok was the side content. So much fun stuff to do and it's all worth it thanks to the conversations as well as the rewards. Very good stuff here.

I also really liked the amount of characters in this game. Ragnarok made me like the older characters even more.

The story was a bit underwhelming though. There's all this build-up for Ragnarok to happen but the ending wasn't particularly satisfying. You can clearly tell this game is part 2 and 3 in one experience, but it honestly should've just been part 2 given how much build-up there was. They should've gone all out with a part 3, like they did in the original trilogy with God of War 3, which was absolutely phenomenal. But now I'm just left feeling a bit underwhelmed.

The combat could get a bit confusing in Ragnarok. Not only do you start out with two weapons, but there are so many skills to unlock and abilities for the side characters to learn. There's just too much to think about during battles that I felt like I would constantly make mistakes because I was trying to think too much about the next button input instead of just going with the flow. It becomes even more confusing later on as you unlock even more stuff. So this is one game that I strongly advise against taking breaks from during a playthrough as it's very easy to forget stuff. I'm even the type who has a good muscle memory for controls in games and even I struggled to play competently in this game after initially taking breaks.

The game overall was phenomenal though, albeit fairly overrated given how much praise has been given to it. Moreover, I'm super impressed that a 2022 game managed to run so well on base PS4. Major kudos to the development team. I'm glad that I experienced this wonderful game.

@LtSarge Great write-up!

Hearing your criticism of the boss encounters concerns me a bit, as I already felt like GoW 2018 was one of the weaker games in the series in terms of the bosses. Also unfortunate to hear that you found the pacing to be off. The 2018 game was about at the point where I feel like it being any longer would have actively detracted from the experience, so we'll see how I feel about it when I get to it.

The side content was also my favorite aspect of the previous game, when you were let off the narrative leash and allowed to explore complex dungeons, challenge bosses, solve puzzles, etc. without the interruptions inherent in the game's cinematic stylings.

It is genuinely impressive how Sony can still get such good performance for modern games out of a, frankly, increasingly ancient console. Studios like Santa Monica and Guerilla are some of the most technically accomplished developers in the industry.

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Review) - A snow spangled spectacle.

I absolutely love 2018’s Spider-Man on PS4. The Insomniac developed title is my favourite first-party game from the last generation, beating out the likes of God of War and The Last of Us. To this day it remains the only game for which I have earned the Platinum trophy.

So when Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales was announced in the summer of 2020, I was overjoyed. A spin-off adventure where you get to play as Miles with his own signature flair to the combat? Hell yeah!

I finally got my chance to play Miles Morales back in June and from moment number one I was sucked right back into things. Insomniac has hit a pretty high bar once again with gorgeous visuals, an intriguing narrative, and some of the best combat in a third-person video game.

But it’s not all praise and applause for this game because at times Miles Morales stumbles, and to an extent much greater than Peter Parker’s 2018 adventure.

Miles Morales is set in the same Manhattan from the first game. But considering that this game is a spin-off - essentially a Spider-Man 1.5 - I will let it pass. Insomniac however does add something new to the cityscape in this game: snow.

Miles Morales takes place during wintertime and Manhattan looks absolutely gorgeous in white. The almost greyscale ground floor of the city provides the perfect contrast to Miles’ striking fluorescent bioelectric powers.

Insomniac keep up the visual splendour during the more intense parts of the game too. Fight scenes explode with colour as each individual animation from the falling snow to exploding lights brings even more bonanza to battle. The cinematics are exceptional too, both in their cinematography and graphical prowess.

However all these marvellous animations during combat lead to a steady stream of frame drops during intense fist fights. Usually these hitches only bring a momentary pause to gameplay, but at times can lead to halts of multiple seconds as my jet-engine of a PS4 struggles to keep pace.

Frame rate drops are also constant while web swinging in camouflage mode. Luckily the player is never required to do such a manoeuvre but the game’s overall optimisation still leaves a lot to be desired.

The UI in this game is a tale of two halves. The HUD during gameplay looks stylish and sleek. Everything looks a lot more modern and futuristic in comparison to Peter’s HUD from the 2018 game which fits the tone considering Miles is a younger main character.

Where the UI falters is in the menus. For some incomprehensible reason, Insomniac decided that, since Miles Morales is first and foremost a console game, it would be a good idea to make the players navigate the menus using a cursor. While the cursor itself wasn’t too small and never caused that much frustration, why couldn’t it just be a normal menu navigable with the D-pad?

Now for the best part of the game: the combat. Just like Spider-Man 2018, the combat in Miles Morales is goddamn amazing. There is clear and noticeable impact between Miles’ fists and the enemies you are attacking, ensuring the combat never feels floaty.

Instead of the wide variety of gadgets Peter used in the first-game, Miles’ arsenal is more focused on his powers of bioelectricity (called Venom) and invisibility. There is a small but rewarding skill tree to invest skill points into, giving you cool new moves and abilities the more you play.

With three branches of Combat, Venom, and Invisibility skills, you can choose where to invest based on your personal play-style. However since skill points are quick to come by, it is likely you would be able to max out the entire tree by the end of a playthrough.

If you were a fan of the gadgets from the first game, you can rest easy because they are not all gone. Miles has 4 basic but useful ones to play with: the classic Web Shooter, Holo-Drone, Remote Mine, and Gravity Well. This strikes a good balance where Miles has his own unique and brand-new abilities for the player to use, while also retaining the tactical side of the first-game with these 4 gadgets.

Miles’ combat (and web swinging) animations are also quite different to Peter’s. They take up a more expressive and wild nature, slotting nicely into the theme of Miles being inexperienced to the ways of a superhero. Some of the finisher animations are especially cool to witness for the first time and never got old during my time with the game.

What is odd though is how Miles already knows a lot of the moves Peter had to learn during the course of the first-game. A short training montage at the start of the game would’ve helped nicely tie up this loose end but alas it is just a minor nitpick.

Furthermore, enemy variety is excellent in this game. By the end of the Spider-Man 2018, the enemies you faced got a bit samey. In this game however they always felt fresh, large part due to the effort Insomniac put into crafting new and interesting foes for you to face and small part due to this games considerably short runtime.

Two minor nitpicks to end this section. The quick time events in this game (and there are a lot, just like Spider-Man 2018) have all the splendour they need but lack much interactivity. Button prompts are too safe and don’t adequately punish the player for being too slow.

Moreover, I just found Miles Morales to be really easy and not at all challenging. From all the time I spent with Spider-Man 2018 - from my first playthrough, platinum run, and DLC time - I knew I had a pretty good grasp of the combat. So before I started Miles Morales, I bumped the difficulty up to Spectacular - which is essentially the equivalent of Hard.

And I died a grand total of three tiles in the game: once because I ran up the side of a building and couldn’t see a brute with an energy sword at the top, and twice during the final boss fight. The game does throw a lot of enemies at you quite often, but once you get the hang of dodging when your Spidey sense goes blue, it becomes quite a cakewalk.

When it comes to the open-world activities and side content, I think Miles Morales does some things better than the first game and some things worse. First of all, it approaches this side of things differently to the first game.

The side quests are something Miles Morales does well, and noticeably better than the first game. There seem to be more of them, and the stories are more fleshed out than ever before. In Spider-Man 2018, I was innately interested in only a couple of side missions, while the others were done solely when I needed more XP or in my platinum hunt.

But in Miles Morales, I actually wanted to do these side missions because their plots were just so much more interesting. They revolved around characters you meet throughout the game, which gives you a personal motive for actually helping them out.

Out in the open-world though, Miles Morales follows the same blueprint laid out by 2018’s Spider-Man game. There are collectibles to find, enemy camps to clear out, and challenges to complete (in the first game they were laid out by the Taskmaster; this time they are Peter’s doing).

There are also crimes and world events to complete, which are provided to you through an app on Miles’ phone called FNSM (Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man). The world events are triggered by performing various actions around Manhattan, and reward you with small amounts of XP and some activity tokens.

Alongside these events see the return of crimes. Except this time there are only 11 across the city. You get a single token from these crimes. Crimes were the most plentiful open-world feature from the first game and I actually quite liked them.

They gave you an incentive to stop swinging and engage in some combat every now and then, while also providing you with tokens. And you had to do a serious amount of them before you finally stopped receiving tokens. I think many people will prefer this new system for open-world stuff but I have a soft side for the old one.

At the start of the game, after an initial fight with Rhino, Peter informs Miles that he is heading to Symkaria to help MJ in her journalistic work. Miles is now, temporarily, the only Spider-Man New York has. The base sets up a story of Miles’ coming of age, and how he matures into the hero the city needs.

It’s a solid narrative, one that pits a large energy corporation called Roxxon against a pro-environment rebel group called the Underground. Insomniac weaves in characters from Miles’ personal life into the larger plot, such as his old friend Phin as the leader of the Underground, his Uncle Aaron as the Prowler, and his mother Rio as runner for city council - whose electoral campaign serves as a backdrop for the entire game.

What is lacking is a large cast of villains for Miles to come up against but given the smaller scope of this title, the shortcomings in this aspect are a little more understandable.

Insomniac also pulls of an MCU-esque move of having a duo of superhero and best friend, with Miles and Ganke a striking portrait of Peter and Ned from the latest movies. Overall the plot is good, but kinda funny facial animations and some questionable dialogue writing really damper the emotional impact of more serious scenes.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a solid standalone entry to this wonderful series that Insomniac is building. The changes made to the open-world structure don’t quite hit the mark every time, but Manhattan is once again a joy to swing through and quite a marvellous sight to take in.

The story doesn’t quite hit the heights of the first-game, let down by some questionable facial animations and writing, but just like it’s predecessor, the entire package is held together by some absolutely stupendous combat that the player can go bananas with.

In my eyes at least, the 2018 original is the superior game, but 2020’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is great in its own right and cements Miles as a Spider-Man to fondly look back on.

4/5

@Ralizah Thank you!

2018 had fewer boss fights than Ragnarok for sure, but the ones that were there were unique and memorable. So if you prefer quantity over quality, then I think you'll like the boss fights in Ragnarok. Otherwise you might get disappointed like me.

I also thought 2018 had the perfect length. Not too long, but not too short either. Ragnarok is unfortunately drastically longer than 2018.

@LtSarge I just hope there aren't too many DBZ-esque fights like the one that started off the 2018 game.

Otherwise, I tend to think God of War is best in terms of bosses when it's leaning into spectacle, like it did with the dragon and Magni and Modi.

@DominusPlatypus Hey, great critical analysis of Miles Morales! I was actually also under the impression that the game ran well on PS4, so it's disappointing to hear that's not the case. I was thinking I might pick it up if I end up liking the first game (which I'll hopefully play this year), but if performance is like that I'll either grab it on PC or wait and see if I end up getting a PS5 first. I'm used to Sony meeting certain standards of quality with their first-party releases, even on weaker hardware.

It's interesting that you had only obtained the platinum for Marvel's Spider-Man beforehand. Out of interest, did you set out to actually obtain it, or did you happen upon it naturally as a part of fully exploring that game?

INSIDE
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Time to Completion: 4 - 6 hours

The aesthetic and gameplay of developer Playdead's INSIDE will be immediately familiar to anyone who played their previous seventh gen indie hit Limbo, which this game acts as a sort of spiritual successor to. In both games, you play as young, unnamed male children traversing dark and creepy locales, although the discerning player will notice a progression in the style of horror that is drawn upon: Limbo was about a fear of the dark, of monsters, whereas INSIDE occupies itself with, if not more realistic, at least more distressingly humanistic fears. The monsters it traffics in are explicitly of the human variety; less Lovecraftian, and more Orwellian. It wouldn't do to spoil the exact nature of the game's emergent plot, but much of the experience draws on the inherent horror of structural dehumanization, and the fear of being controlled by others.

As with their previous game in this style, INSIDE is heavy on stylization; an ominous atmosphere is cloaked in film grain, long shadows, and bizarre imagery give it an aesthetic not unlike that of German expressionism. This goes a long way to lending a sense of personality to the game, which, as an ostensibly simplistic 2D puzzle-platformer with little in the way of music and virtually no dialogue, is already working with an extremely limited set of design elements. How effective all of this is, I imagine, is highly contingent on how immersed the player allows themselves to become in the world. One could presumably play this in the chipper height of a spring afternoon, but that would seem wholly uncharitable to the sort of experience the developer is attempting to share. For my part, as I've begun waking up increasingly early in recent months, I made this my go-to middle of the night game for a few evenings. Finding myself unable to descend back into a peaceful slumber, I'd curl up in my bed and play this with a pair of headphones plugged in, going from more organic nightmares to INSIDE's more artificially constructed one.

I nabbed this hoping it'd be a showcase for my Switch OLED, and while I'm not entirely sure that turned out to be the case, the screen's ability to showcase true blacks definitely helped the game to fully actualize its stark visual aesthetic. The game itself runs adequately on the hybrid system (the game's finer details are actually a touch soft looking, like it's running at a lower resolution, but the visual design of the game minimizes the impact of this), and is an equally good fit for handheld and TV play, although I stuck entirely to playing on the tablet.

INSIDE is, at heart, a puzzle game, where you have to interact with level elements in order to progress through various eerie environments. Your young protagonist is only really capable of pushing and pulling, but the game makes ingenious use of environmental physics and creative fictional tools to add layers of depth to the puzzles. It's not always immediately apparent what needs to be done in order to progress, since the game never actually provides tutorials or explanations for how to engage with new mechanics, which can be a difficult style of game design to properly realize, since you run the risk of confusing and alienating the player, but INSIDE does a good job of making it readily apparent which details in its stark environments can be interacted with, and stealthily introducing basic examples of new puzzle mechanics that'll go on to be explored in more depth as the game progresses.

If INSIDE has any major failing, as with Limbo, its in the unsatisfying narrative arc that the game adopts. Its art school commitment to suggestion and innuendo is neat, but it doesn't do enough with that to build up any sense of investment in the character or his situation. This failing is most keenly illustrated during the game's anti-climactic final hour, which gets increasingly weird, and then just sort of... stops. No explanation, no resolution. What's the sense in building up so many mysteries, only to do so little with them in the end? Even the character you play as remains a mystery in the end, with no real conclusion to whatever journey he was on. While I mostly enjoyed my time with INSIDE, and appreciated its expert approach to puzzle design, it did end up leaving me feeling a bit cold in the end. It's highly possible that was intentional, but that knowledge wouldn't improve my experience with the work at all. There is also a secret ending, but it's a pain in the butt to get, and it actually left me feeling more empty than I did during the default ending, since it amounted to little more than a cheap gimmick.

Ultimately, INSIDE is an interesting and expertly crafted little experience, but, unfortunately, not one that becomes more than the sum of its parts.

@RogerRoger Thanks for reading! Based on the trailer we've seen, I think Spider-Man 2 will have you playing as both Peter and Miles (no option for co-op though). However I would rather it be solely Peter, with Miles eventually getting a second game of his own. I feel it would allow Insomniac to invest more time into the player's moveset because there would be only 1 instead of 2 to design. As for difficulty options, sadly I feel it'll be same as the first two games but I think I'll get enjoyment out of the combat nonetheless. Thanks for reading!

@Ralizah I may have oversold the game's poor performance because it's honestly not that bad. If it's buy on PS4 or don't buy, I would say go for it on PS4. By the time I finished Spider-Man 2018 in March 2020, I was around 75% completion. Then in early last year, I decided why not go for the platinum since I liked the game so much and honestly just wanted to finally get one. The platinum is basically just clearing the map and doing side-quests so it wasn't that hard or time consuming. Thanks for reading!

@Ralizah Interesting thoughts on Inside. It’s a game that I really enjoyed, but I think you nailed it regarding the emptiness of the narrative. I couldn’t say it any better than you did there. Excellent review and breakdown.

Do you think you liked Limbo better? I think the consensus around the gaming community is that Inside is the superior game, but I’m not sure I didn’t prefer Limbo. It’s splitting hairs really, as they both are really good games, but the first one seemed to hit a little harder with its total narrative arc. Like you expressed, I felt that final stretch of Inside was just bizarre seemingly for the sake of shock value. Fortunately neither game is very long and the artistic style of the games is wonderful.

@Th3solution Thanks! It's a bit of a difficult game to write about, since there's not really anything explicitly 'to' it, and you also don't want to spoil its gameplay surprises. I'm glad the piece read well in spite of that.

INSIDE did feel a little more scattered (especially in terms of the ending; despite being anti-climactic in both, INSIDE's just sort of comes out of nowhere and doesn't amount to much of anything), but I feel like its gameplay and puzzles were also unambiguously better, and the mysteries it introduces are more interesting, even if nothing happens with them. So I'd probably vote in favor of INSIDE, although, to be honest, I don't maintain a massive preference for either one.

Another cool connection is that I also first played Limbo on my OLED PS Vita. Just another way in which my Switch often feels like an accidental sequel to Sony's final handheld.

@Ralizah I played Limbo on my OLED Vita also, and then played Inside later on my PS4. Perhaps part of my fondness for Limbo is the experience of playing it on the handheld. 2D platformers feel at home on handhelds. Also, the novelty of the macabre themes really impressed me, along with the sharp black and white visual graphic design. And so when Inside came along it wasn’t quite as unique and imaginative feeling, so that may have also made it less impressive to me.

@Th3solution Agreed. It's why I didn't pick it up on PS4, despite owning one. Some games just feel better when played in the more intimate handheld setting, especially if you can curl up with them in bed.

I'm in kind of a 3DS mood atm, but I'd love to get back to my Vita before long. I still have a few games to play on it. And now that I installed cfw on it, it also doubles as a portable emulation device for SNES, GBA, and the PS1 games Sony never made available on PSN in my region.

@Ralizah The Vita is such an underrated emulation device. Playing through old JRPGs with that comfy form factor and with a dedicated fast forward button has been a godsend. I’m right near the end of the SNES remake of Dragon Quest III which would be a whole trilogy of JRPGs done in about a month all through the Vita. The only thing I wish I could get working were shaders on RetroArch, I do love a CRT shader on the Windows version.

@nessisonett I've found it's good for pretty much all of the 2D consoles, along with PS1 (although, for that, I use Adrenaline instead of Retroarch). The 3DS is apparently a good emulation machine as well, and I personally find it more comfortable to hold, but I'm spoiled by the Vita's screen, and will put up with some level of sub-optimal comfort to have access to it.

As for NDS games that are either impossible to find or never released over here, I've taken to playing those with my phone. Might end up grabbing one of those clip on controllers, since a lot of games make heavy use of traditional controls.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Time to Completion: 44 hours

DISCLAIMER: While I usually post screenshots of the games I discuss, I thought it would be better to post a few tracks from the game's gorgeous and deeply emotional soundtrack instead

I've been sitting on particular game for a while.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (Echoes henceforth) released in 2017, months after the launch of the Switch. Nintendo apparently wanted to ease the transition process for 3DS owners with a few years of support, but the console immediately became the only game in town for Nintendo fans, who were eager to move on from this handheld. As a result, sales for this entry were pretty bad compared to multi-million sellers like Fire Emblem Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates. Which is a shame, since this might just be one of the best first-party releases on Nintendo's charming little 3D handheld.

Echoes is a remake of a Nintendo Entertainment System release from 1992, called Fire Emblem Gaiden, which was actually the second entry in the series at that point. Following on from a tradition of experimental sequels at that time like Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Gaiden mixed up the more traditional SRPG gameplay of the original Fire Emblem with the inclusion of more traditional JRPG elements. Elements introduced in this entry included a world map that gradually unlocked as players advanced the game, town exploration, dungeon exploration, branching promotion trees for units, the removal of durability limitations for weapons and spells, and the beginnings of a support system that would be expanded on dramatically in later games. While almost all of this would subsequently be stripped out of the series with the next entry, various aspects of Gaiden have resurfaced in various entries over time, and while long considered the black sheep of the franchise for how different it was, Gaiden's innovations have made the game seem increasingly ahead of its time in recent years.

Echoes is the chronicle of a war that engulfs the antagonistic nations of Rigel and Zofia on the continent of Valentia, and how the game's two protagonists, Alm and Celica, who fell in love as children, only to be separated by forces beyond their control, independently decide to participate in the struggle. The two nations' antagonism stems from a long-standing ideological conflict between the gods Duma and Mila, who helped to mold the two civilizations to reflect their respective beliefs. Alm, alongside a cohort of childhood friends, leaves the simple peasant village he was raised in as he seeks to push back an invasion by the Rigelian Empire, while Celica embarks on a pilgrimage to the Temple of Mila in an effort to help stop the war. Alm and Celica's lives will soon become entangled again in ways the two never expected. In terms of how the game progresses, this is reinforced by the fact that both characters, who have their own independent armies that you'll jump back-and-forth between, frequently affect one-another in interesting ways, creating a larger core campaign as you follow their respective stories.

As far as remakes go, Echoes is on the more faithful side, maintaining the general structure, mechanics, and map design of the NES original. This last part actually serves as a detriment, as Gaiden's map design was... pretty much non-existent, and the same remains true here. Granted, there's a reason for this: most of the battles in this game are roadside or dungeon skirmishes, so it makes sense that there wouldn't be complex geological formations in random caves and fields. Nevertheless, it serves to make the tactical aspect of Echoes less engaging than it would otherwise have been.

Echoes does actually add a number of new elements to the game, though: including a few new characters (such as a new villain named Berkut, the heir presumptive to the Regelian throne), support conversations and improved dialogue for existing characters, and, staying true to the spirit of Gaiden's experimental nature, a new time-rewinding mechanic known as Mila's Turnwheel, which allows players to re-do botched turns that lead to the death of a character. If this last mechanic sounds familiar, it's because it was adopted wholesale in newer series entries such as Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Fire Emblem Engage, which actually literally just released today. Players will find cogs throughout the world that give the turnwheel more 'charges,' allowing them more freedom to rewind and try out different strategies.

It's also worth mentioning that while Echoes maintains Gaiden's innovations, it does so in a unique fashion. For example, town exploration is now rendered in a point-and-click adventure game format, while dungeon exploration has been revamped in such a way that you're actually able to maneuver a 3D model of your character around dungeons in real time in order to solve puzzles, destroy environments, and ambush enemies. I believe this was also the first game in the series to give the player full 3D control of the player character, prior to Three Houses. Like Gaiden, Echoes is also a game of several 'first's.

While Echoes doesn't shine with regard to its maps, it does do almost everything else extremely well. The RPG-like format where you progress across a world map and complete side-quests is still compelling. The orchestrated score, while mostly faithful to the original NES chiptunes, still impresses today, showing off the strength of the NES-era compositions. The game's art-style is lovely as well: developer Intelligent Systems hired popular Japanese light novel illustrator Hidari to bring the game's characters to life, and his illustrations bring a distinctiveness and warmth to the cast. Major plot points are also accompanied by gorgeous full-screen artworks, often accentuated with subtle 3D effects. These choices help to keep the game aesthetically pleasing, despite the inherent limitations of the platform it's on.

The real star of the show with Echoes is the cast and narrative, however. Admittedly, these elements are comparatively simple when put up against more convoluted recent mainline entries in the series, but Echoes does more with less, crafting a tragic, moving, and almost fairytale-like experience from the basic components of the plot. Effective brevity is also used to flesh out the cast: support conversations in this game are incredibly short compared to the rambling dialogues found in a game like Three Houses, but they always cut to the core of who the character is. Moreso than most games in the series, Echoes' cast is grounded and likeable, and over the course of the war, we'll learn their fears, watch them grapple with feelings of grief and loss, and, oftentimes, observe the buds of both friendship and love blossom. This is particularly true of protagonists Alm and Celica: while the romance between them isn't rubbed in the player's face, their love for and desire to help one-another is persistently in the background of their respective stories, and this all becomes especially difficult as their feelings and duties begin to collide, creating conflict and uncertainty between them.

Just as an ending note, I wanted to mention that I miss when JRPG campaigns weren't quite as bloated as they are today. Fire Emblem Echoes sits at a breezy 30+ hours for players who just want to experience the story, and goes up into the 40s if you complete most of the side-quests, grind for special loot, and tackle the game's post-game gauntlet of a dungeon. Another (arguably) nice aspect of the game is that it doesn't require you to replay it to see everything. Some people won't like this, since it means there's less incentive to return over time, but for those of us who tend to be 'one and done' gamers, it's great knowing I was able to experience the best parts of the game on my first run.

Like many other Nintendo fans at the time, I didn't play this when it first released, which is a decision I now somewhat regret, as it has quickly become one of my favorite entries in the series. Fire Emblem Echoes updates the original in almost all of the right ways, emphasizing its strengths and downplaying most of its weaknesses. Like the other best entries in this series, Echoes maintains a serious but measured tone throughout, making room for levity even as tragedy looms in the background of the story. This really made for a memorable experience, and, in retrospect, I have to say it's YET ANOTHER notch to add to 2017's belt, which was filled to overflowing with amazing games.

Just finished "Arkham Origins Blackgate" on the PS Vita. It was much better than "Gotham Knights" on the PS5.

@RogerRoger Wow, great piece on Revengeance! I've always been curious about it, as it's one of the few PlatinumGames titles I have zero experience with. I'll admit I've laughed at the game's hardcore redesign of Raiden more than once (who I now am forced to picture wearing MadCatz tech vomit; kudos on the evocative imagery ), but it sounds like the writing for the character is pretty strong, which I wouldn't have expected, if I'm being perfectly honest.

Reviving Ronald Reagan's famous nationalistic sloganeering about making American great again for a villain in a game less than half a decade before Donald Trump irreversibly transformed American politics is definitely some good timing on the part of the writers. You had a similar bit of good timing with a major villain in Persona 5 as well with a candidate for the role of Japanese Prime Minister whose greed and cult of personality were more than a little reminiscent of Trump. Thinking about it, that game's entire fixation on targeting powerful figures who aren't held accountable for the way they treat people under their thrall was eerily reminiscent of the coming #MeToo storm as well. Isn't it funny how tapped in some of these Japanese game developers seemed to be to the Western sociopolitical consciousness? Although, as you point out, that's long been true of MGS. MGS2 is downright spooky to play today, as it feels more relevant in 2023 than it ever did in the early 00s.

The music in this game seems to be unusually reliant on electronic elements compared to games like Bayonetta or NieR: Automata. The pieces you posted, I'll admit, mostly ran together a bit for me, although I did like "Vs. Senator Armstrong:" or "It Has To Be This Way." Although, and I know you'll sympathize with this, I enjoyed it more before the vocals popped up near the end.

Weird to hear about the performance issues on your PC version. I'm tempted to grab the game myself and see how it runs, although I think I'd prefer a console remaster. This is technically a Konami joint, though, right? Even if they got a third-party to develop it. And we know how weird they are about Metal Gear now. Seems like there's a good possibility we'll never seen a re-release.

The blood was white in MGS4? Admittedly, I never played that, so I can't imagine how that would work. Or why they would do that. I have VERY vivid memories of the carnage right before you meet Grey Fox in MGS1, after all, and the blood certainly wasn't white on the PS1!

I think we all have games that we really dig, even though, based on our preferences and trends in what we like to play, it seems weird that we'd like them. Aside from the merits of the game itself, I'm sure your affinity for the larger franchise probably also helped in this regard.

Drab environments are unfortunately a common thing in Platinum's games. So are absurdly difficult optional challenges! And, unfortunately, questionable writing, which is why it seems like they particularly shine as a developer when someone takes that duty off their hands. God forbid how his game might have turned out if they'd not had KojiPro's assistance on that front. There's a reason they stick around in spite of all the failures and questionable releases they've done, though: when they're doing the character action game thing, they're particularly in their element, and, for better or for worse, there's still nobody in the industry capable of creating and sustaining the same level of high-octane action setpieces as you'll find in their best games.

It's always a pleasure to read your contributions!

re INSIDE: The game doesn't lean quite as hard on the horror elements as Limbo did, but the implications of its setting and themes arguably makes it more unnerving. I didn't love it, as I'm not a gigantic fan of the 2D puzzle platformer thing, or stories that don't go anywhere, but, for what it is, I think it's a high-quality product. Still amazed Push Square gave it a 10, though.

re Shadows of Valentia: You're fairly on the money about Twilight of the Gods, which is the theme that plays during the game's climactic final chapter when you're fighting a literal insane god. What really impresses me about the music is how closely it sticks to chiptunes from the early 90s. Obviously the full orchestration helps to flesh out the pieces, but imagine how much great work was being done on those old consoles by talented musicians who needed to work around immense limitations. I once saw someone say that Nobuo Uematsu's compositions for the old SNES Final Fantasy games were akin to someone creating the Mona Lisa with crayons, and I feel like that sentiment is even truer of a system like the Famicom that struggled to produce anything aurally complex.

2017's legendary slate of releases never ceases to amaze. Even Xbox, which almost never seems to get anything special of note, enjoyed timed console exclusivity for the magnificant Cuphead that year.