Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (3DS) - Impressions

Just finished Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story on 3DS after 29 hours of playtime. It's easily the best game in the series that I've played so far and for two reasons: 1) tons of gameplay variety, and 2) excellent pacing. These are the two things that I've had issues with the first two games. Both Superstar Saga and Partners in Time got incredibly repetitive after roughly 10 hours. At that point you've basically done everything the game has to offer in terms of gameplay. With Bowser's Inside Story however, you get to play as Mario and Luigi as well as Bowser. Playing as Bowser adds so much to the gameplay, both in battles and in the overworld. On top of this, there are 2D sections in the game, mini-games to play and even kaiju battles.

It wasn't until I hit the 25 hour mark that I started to get tired of the game, which was because of how long the final area of the game was. Seriously, there were like 4-5 boss battles including the final boss. It was a bit too much in all honesty. Regardless, the fact that it took me twice as long this time before I started to lose interest in the game just shows what a huge improvement its structure is compared to the previous titles. I'm genuinely impressed by how fleshed out the game is.

Not to mention that you get to play as Bowser! While it's called "Mario & Luigi", I'd say this is more like Bowser's own game considering how much you get to play as him while the Italian brothers take a backseat. It's actually crazy to think that Bowser hasn't been given his own game yet. Bowser's Inside Story would be the closest to that though.

While I find this game to be the best in the series so far, it isn't without its share of flaws. Something that it does worse than previous titles is that it doesn't feel like a full adventure this time around. You don't really visit that many different places compared to previous games since you explore Bowser's body with Mario and Luigi. Since there are so many sections with them, there are fewer overworld areas to explore, which is a bit of a bummer. The game is still overall long like a typical Mario & Luigi experience, so it's not like it's shorter because of this. But I still would've wanted more areas to explore besides beaches, woods, mines and castles. As a result, it didn't feel like I've accomplished much in this game considering half of the stuff you achieve are by doing stuff with Bowser's body.

Even though I mentioned how dragged out the final area was, it still ended on a high note. With a fantastic final boss battle that required you to put together all the skills you've learned throughout the game and an epic music track to go along with it, I finished the game very satisfied.

In short, this was a fantastic experience. I've always thought that the Mario & Luigi games have very fun and engaging gameplay compared to other turn-based JRPGs but they've always gotten repetitive too fast. Nintendo rectified that with Bowser's Inside Story and delivered an engaging experience from beginning to (nearly) end. I highly recommend giving this game a go, it's definitely the must-play title of the franchise.

With that said, I still haven't touched the bonus content "Bowser Jr's Journey", which is apparently rather lengthy. Looking forward to starting it up soon! Should be a good time, just like the bonus content in the 3DS remake of Superstar Saga.

@LtSarge Oh, nice! I'd always intended to get to this game, but my interest fell off after, like you, I played the first Mario & Luigi game and quickly grew rather bored with it. It's nice to hear this one represents a solid improvement in terms of gameplay variety, then, although considering you still grew tired of it after 25 hours, I do have to wonder how much that speaks to larger and more structural issue with these games. In my experience, it usually takes WAY longer before my interest begins to flag with a properly engaging JRPG. Although your experience might well be different in this regard. It sounds like neither of us were feeling the first one, though.

Nevertheless, it sounds like you enjoyed your time with it. And that final boss music IS pretty great. When I listened to it, I thought: "Geez, this sounds weirdly similar to a Xenoblade Chronicles track I heard recently" (I'm playing through the Definitive Edition of XC1 atm in preparation for the XC3 DLC campaign, which features returning characters from the first game).

So, I looked it up. Both tracks were composed by Yoko Shimomura (who did the entire score for BIS, but only did a handful of XC1 songs). No wonder it triggered that association!

@Ralizah Yeah I mean, there isn't a lot to these games. They're very simple to play, so that's probably why you start to lose interest quickly compared to other JRPGs. In the case of Bowser's Inside Story, I think another problem with it is that the story isn't particularly interesting either. I can't imagine the later entries improve upon these aspects. Dream Team Bros returns to just Mario and Luigi, and while Paper Jam Bros has a third character, it wasn't that well-received when it came out. Bowser's Inside Story feels like the pinnacle of the franchise.

Ah I had no idea that the composer of Bowser's Inside Story did some of the tracks in Xenoblade 1. That's interesting, I'll have to pay attention whenever I get to that game in order to see if I can make that association as well.

Uncharted 4 - PS4
Right, so I just recently beat Uncharted 4 for the first time. Now I must state that I in general find the game as an intense good shooting experience with some interesting jumping and stealth elements as well. I did not least liked and appreciated the graphics of the game very much.

As I have stated in some other thread I think it's without question the best Uncharted game in the series and I can very much recommend the game to anyone who is looking for a good solid shooting experience with some interesting adventure elements attached to it.

My main and only complaint would be that the pacing times sometimes feels a little bit off which sometimes makes it hard to know if and how much progress you make in the game. But I still very much liked the game. During the jumping and platform sections I can't help but think about the brilliance of the Prince of Persia games.

@Ralizah Thanks for reading! I'm curious as to what "Western AAA" games have you bounced off of due to their focus on immersion and atmosphere rather than gameplay?

@RogerRoger Thanks for reading! Stray getting all those award nominations was comical in my opinion but I guess everyone is justified to their personal tastes.

@DominusPlatypus Naughty Dog's PS3-era titles immediately come to mind. Bloober Team's The Medium. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Just off the top of my head. While not typically as restricted as Stray, numerous big-budget Western titles keep a tight rein on the player and limit the scope of the gameplay in order to facilitate a certain type of immersive cinematic experience. If a game is going to go that route, I usually prefer they openly embrace genres that thrive on limited interactivity in the first place. If I'm playing a third-person action/adventure/platform-style game, I don't want there to be this extra layer of abstraction between myself and the player character just so the developers can LARP as filmmakers.

On that note...

@oliverp Uncharted 4 did a lot to improve on previous entries in the series by embracing a greater degree of freedom in terms of level design and player control (particularly when it comes to combat interactions). Which is a big reason it's also my favorite game in the series. Also, I liked how subdued the supernatural aspects were compared to previous adventures, which usually became a little silly by the end.

@LtSarge i still have it on my DS , mario works so good in a RPG/Turnbased

really love the artstyle too & was actually my main attraction to it.

@RogerRoger Wishing a game to be over happens all the time with me nowadays. There are so many games to play that I just want to move on to another one if it's taking too long or it's frustrating to play.

That's actually what happened when I played the bonus content Bowser Jr's Journey. It's incredibly simplistic with very little depth and I had to force myself to play it because I don't want to miss out on content. However, I just encountered a difficulty spike and now the game expects me to grind. In a bonus game! Yeah, that's not happening lol. The bonus content wasn't interesting to begin with and now they want me to play it longer than I have to. So I decided to give up on it. At that point, I'm really wasting my time. I'd rather play so many other games.

So I guess that's my review of Bowser Jr's Journey. Stay clear from it!

@LtSarge Oh Interesting then its not only me who feel that way sometime. Its like you know there is some other interesting game around corner but you want kind fulfill your obligation to the game you are playing and already have invested some time in ideally complete the task and the game. But yeah sometimes its feel like its maybe not the worth the time… Felt like I played a few of those grindy takes in games last year and year before..

@oliverp Yeah I'm still not good at deciding when to give up on games. It's especially painful to play something until you get close to the end and then you realise you just can't continue anymore.

I personally think it's better to give up on games rather than play something that you're not enjoying just for the sake of finishing it. But I always get a bad conscience whenever I give up on a game. At the end of the day though, if it helps me get through my backlog faster, then I'm fine with that.

@LtSarge I've long learnt to give up on games if I'm not enjoying them. Sure there might be sections that you can get through, but if that drags on for too long I will most likely move on.

I have recently been playing a fantastic rpg, chained echoes. It's a callback to the top down jrpgs of yore. For the last ten days I have been smitten. It takes everything that's been good within the genre and eradicates the faff. I was wondering why @ShogunRok hasn't reviewed it? @kyleforrester87 have you played it, I know you would love it!

The world and story are wild. Admittedly it's gotten a bit xfiles for me nearing the conclusion but the first 20 hours are some of the best the genre has to offer. The fighting builds throughout the campaign and the rewards board is one of the best mechanics I've seen for a long time. Simple, clean and you want to fill that thing!

The maps are puzzles within themselves and the revelations of what's going on, railroads you to keep playing. Not since the mass effect trilogy have I froze in horror realising it 3:30am in the morning and I can't put it down.

You have genre staples with their own twist. From the levelling to equipment, the bestiary to side quests, base building to secret bosses. Storming castles to petting dogs. It's such a beast of a game.

Oh and the music is gorgeous and perfectly fitting.

It has a couple of negatives. The crystal system is confusing, I understand what to do but the implementation seems a little off. Like a twisted version of materia, which isn't as simple. Also at times the fanatstic story is undermined by writing which looks a little amateurish (like this here review). And I was stuck on one particular puzzle in Glen's mind and needed to reach for a solution. It was just confusing were as the rest of the game is fun fun fun.

So if you want an old skool jrpg, with well thought out mechanics and a brilliant overarching story. This is the game you want to play. Its quality of life improvements are respectful of your time and it's better than the games it's inspired by. And that includes FF6 and Chrono Trigger.

Go buy it

9/10

@themcnoisy thanks for the recommendation - it is on the list actually, it looked good based on the Nintendolife review I read. But I’ll get to it sooner after your endorsement 👍🏻

@themcnoisy I've seen a ton of praise for the game, but I've held off since I often have mixed feelings about Western indies that take heavy inspiration from classic JRPGs. But maybe I'm being closed-minded. Your piece certainly represents strong praise. Maybe it'd be a good idea to give this a go on Game Pass.

Thanks for the contribution!

@Ralizah You would enjoy it Rali. 😀. Go in with an open mind and its easy to love.

@kyleforrester87 it would be even better on the switch. You can save pretty much anywhere and drop 20 minutes on your lunch break.

@themcnoisy The unfortunate truth is that it just released at a bad time, right before the Christmas break. I simply didn't have time to play through it, so the original plan was to get stuck in over the holidays and publish a review in January... But that never happened.

The review schedule has been so hectic since that I've never had a chance to go back, even though I've had loads of people tell me it's an amazing RPG. A very disappointing situation!

You never know, though. I might finally get to it one day and write something up if it meets my now sky high expectations!

@ShogunRok Fair enough bro. Reviewing RPGs is time consuming for sure. Well worth putting on though Rob! It's a breath of fresh air I highly recommend to all RPG aficionados.

@RogerRoger yeah boy. Thanks Rog. I read through the thread last night before posting and it's good to see you are keeping it alive. Hope life is treating you well.

In fact I think the developer of Chained echoes should reach out to you, for assistance with the writing!

With you replaying MGS5, chained echoes is the opposite. MGS5 is fabulous, however there is a lot of running around and filler, superficially increasing the length. Chained echoes is the opposite, it has so much going on and respects your time. Pointing out optional quests and extras and you get an airship, mech suit and world map to help with traversal around 16-18 hours in. You can literally jump from quest to quest without worrying about collecting crap. There is even a trophy / achievement for selling a piece of crap.

And as an edit to my review, the developer is working on an update to the crystal system. Hopefully so you can swap in weapon and armour crystals without the added faff of crystal quality, which I still don't understand.

Great game. With a couple of upgrades to the graphics and a more cohesive writing style, the sequel could be huge!

Cyberpunk 2077 (Vers. 1.61) Review
Played on PS5
{Warning: Spoilers Ahead}

Cyberpunk 2077. A game I wanted to talk about since it was released in 2020. I had strong feelings back then but after 2 years, I wanted to see if anything has changed. Maybe I was wrong or maybe I’m more of a Shadowrun guy.

Story

Quests

The best part of this game is the Maelstrom quest. I know this quest is brought up the most and for good reason. This was the centerpiece of the E3 demo because of its variety of choices in how you interact with it.

1) You can show up and buy the flathead bot with your own cash and walk out with no problem
2) Walk up to Royce and shoot him in the face to skip his boss phase then fight the rest of his gang
3) You can contract with Militech and pay with an infected shard leading to a shootout with Royce as a mecha boss and walk out to Militech controlling the scene
4) You can hack the Militech shard, pay for the flathead and get a stealthy approach for the next couple of fights and
5) You can hack the Militech shard and inform Maelstrom that Militech is on to them resulting in you and the Maelstrom fighting together against Militech
0.5) You can save Brick and depending on whether Royce (and DumDum) lives or dies will affect an Act 3 side quest (Second Conflict)

This quest alone is great and clearly shows potential for what we can expect in quality from the upcoming quests right? Nope. No quest in the main story comes close to this in terms of variety in both gameplay and narrative which is a shame.

Side quests vary in quality but a shining example is Dream On for me. Aside from being an Aerosmith fan, It perfectly encapsulated the existential dread of having your mind warped by outside forces and you being none the wiser.

A terrible quest is Lizzy Wizzy’s which, apart from having Grime’s awful voice acting, ends ‘off-screen’ and we get caught up via text messages. A large chunk of this game is told through text logs and it takes away from my enjoyment.

Cyberpsychos are mini-bosses and suffer the same complaint of being text-based. Cyberpsychosis is wasted in this game but gets brought into discussion more so because of the Edgerunners anime for better or for worse.

Gigs are sub-side quests and involve more gameplay variety with some encouraging you to talk through situations for a better outcome, but most come down to go here and shoot some people or find an item.

NCPD hustles are simply small skirmishes with a loot reward. Sometimes they’ll have some journal entries about “lore” but it's inconsequential.

Braindance

Braindances (BDs) are cool in concept as well as the in-universe explanation for how people make/distribute them but in execution, they’re just so BORING. They play like the detective parts from Batman: Arkham Origins with worse visuals. Seriously, looking through the vision layer in these parts is unpleasantly ugly.

The first BD mission is when you scope out Yorinobu’s penthouse suite to find Silverhand’s relic. It’s detailed with tons of minor things to scan for information through vision, audio, and thermal layers alongside an optional objective to scan Yorinobu’s security systems (which doesn’t amount to anything but is still something to do). This is the most fleshed-out BD the game has to offer and every subsequent BD we encounter pales in comparison. I’m starting to notice a pattern about the front-loaded quality put forth here.

Music

Cyberpunk wears its musical influences on its sleeve proudly. Every main and side quest is named after song titles reflecting that story’s theme. “Heroes” by David Bowie is used for Jackie’s ofrenda matching the bond V had with him (minus the lovers' allegory) to “Dream On” by Aerosmith reflecting Peralez losing his mind as it's altered by an unseen force to use him as a puppet for unknown ulterior motives to “Sinnerman” by Nina Simone showcasing a serial killer using himself as a martyr with crucifixion to escape his judgment through atonement yet being taken advantage of as a brain dance.

This rings especially true for Judy’s final quest “Pyramid Song” by Radiohead (of course its Radiohead) mirroring her feelings after losing everything close to her in Night City with Evelyn, Maiko, Tom, and Roxanne dead as you explore her hometown underwater reminiscing on her past (also her having lyrics from “Parallel Universe” by Red Hot Chili Peppers tattooed on her arm, “Underwater where thoughts can breathe easily…”).

It also extends to the endings of The Devil – “Where is my Mind?” by Pixies (better known as the song at the end of Fight Club), The Star – “All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix/Bob Dylan, The Sun – “Path to Glory” by Plasmatics, and Temperance – “New Dawn Fades” by Joy Division where just reading the lyrics of the song defines the emotion/tone of the ending with Temperance being the best point of reference.

CDPR got Refused to write Samurai’s tracks and I think they were perfect for the job. My exposure to the band was from “New Noise” which encapsulates Samurai’s punk roots. As for the radio and original soundtrack, I didn’t care for much of it since they don’t appeal to my awful taste in music except for the addition of “I Really Want to Stay at Your House” from the anime which I don’t like.

Combat

The player has a tremendous number of options to experiment with from sprinting around with a shotgun and double jumping like it's Doom, creeping in and out of a hideout stealthily without alerting anyone/popping headshots with a silenced pistol and optical camo, sitting in your car while using quick hacks through cameras to melt brains and convert turrets to your side as well as sniping through walls from afar with a tech rifle. Cyberpunk offers a healthy amount of variety in how you want to approach combat your way and encourages personal flair for a playthrough.

I’m concerned with the enemy AI and how they’re meant to challenge the player in working around certain resistances and tactics. It's not necessarily fair to say that the AI is dumb per se but more in how the player has too many options to be countered. More often than not they’ll just stand around and clip into vehicles.

My biggest disappointment with combat outside of cyber ware abilities is net runners. has and cool hats. Can you guess what they have? 2 QUICK HACKS! Ping and Overheat. Meanwhile, my net runner can jam guns, blind eyes, drop grenades, turn knees weak, arms heavy, and make brain spaghetti. I was hoping that enemies would at least use Reboot Optics, Weapon Glitch, and Cripple Movement on me to encourage taking out net runners first but are instead outclassed by a cyber ware mod that negates fire damage.

Driving

You can’t do a wheelie on a motorcycle 0/10.

On a serious note, driving is a mixed bag where some vehicles can turn on a dime while others can struggle to make a right turn under 5 mph. My rule of thumb for a game’s driving quality is by easy it is to make a right turn. I often test via handbrake, slow down to 0 mph or let off the accelerator at high speed before I turn.

This varies from car to car like supercars, sedans, muscle cars, and bikes but there is a factor that slights against me. Steering. The default driving setting for most cars is to oversteer like Johnny’s Porsche. The sensitivity can be adjusted from an update but some cars understeer like V’s starting car so it can’t be evenly distributed on a car-to-car basis (that and I’m far too lazy to test every variable to make driving bearable).

The same can’t be said for motorcycles. I tried. I have tried every variation of motorcycles to try and make it work but they JUST WON’T TURN. It doesn’t matter if I slow to a crawl or drift, the bike either understeers off the road or oversteers the drift to mess up the angle of my turn. Maybe it’s due to the god-awful physics where cars can fly into the air off the slightest bump in the road and how often I can just barrel through other vehicles at full speed without slowing down.

The best thing about the vehicles is their interior design. Every car has its layout filled with detail from where the speedometer is located to the display of your current radio station to looking at all the buttons and knobs gives you the thematic difference between luxury cars and nomad cars.

Let’s shift over to the racing side quest. It’s bad. How bad? The AI has absolutely no feasible way to chase you or fight you in this manner, I mean gangs and police already can’t chase you in the overworld so what should I have expected? If you’re too far ahead of your competitors, they’ll rubber band so close to you that the minimap has a seizure trying to keep up. Enemy cars can shoot you, but Claire pretty much guns them down before you’ll even notice unless you pick a car with wing doors (like the Caliburn) then you’re screwed since you can’t fight back and blow up.

Gear

I like loot. I enjoy games like Borderlands and Nioh so there’s clearly something wrong with me. A part of me likes to see numbers go up to prove how much better I think I am at the game, and it appeals to my love of number crunching in making various builds based on my stats/perks. The problem is that this game wants to be a looter shooter without the commitment to its own system.

Weapons will have a variation in their damage type (fire, shock, poison, bleed) and sometimes have an exceptional trait like the pistol shown in the picture above. Weapon stats are negligible even when going into rarity tiers as the only difference is a slight increase in damage. Special traits have the potential to add some variety with some guns removing vertical recoil, reducing charge time, increasing ricochet chance/amount, etc. except they aren’t something you can reliably obtain.

However, a really cool thing is that every gun has like 6 different reload animations (3 for partial reload, 3 for empty reload). It’s something I hope more games would start doing considering how often players reload in an FPS and it adds some flair.

Iconic weapons are the exception to my complaints about weapon variety/traits. They’re reskins of existing weapons but have variants that make them unique like Problem Solver which takes an SMG and gives it an 80-round mag with an absurd fire rate, Chaos is a tech pistol that cycles between fire/poison/shock damage during reloads, Plan B which uses your money as ammo and my boy Skippy who lovingly sings Rhianna’s “Disturbia” and thanks me for reloading. He is the best and no one shall dare talk smack about him or else I’ll… cry in the corner so beware.

Weapon mods are simple stat increases to damage, fire rate, and crit chance/damage as well as adding muzzles and sights for most weapons. The only muzzle you had were suppressors until it took them around 6 months to add a muzzle brake to the roster. Sights are your standard red dot/ACOG scopes with a bizarre caveat that gives you a -0.01 to ADS time which is such an insignificant modifier I’m not even sure it’s worth explaining why this is dumb. Also, am I the only one that thinks it's weird to not have any way to increase your ammo capacity both for reserves and/or apply an extended magazine for a weapon in an FPS?

Clothing is just as worthless in terms of stats as you only need to look at the armor stat. Some gear will have a trait like more damage to enemies at a lower level than you and small cooldown reductions, but they only serve for defense alone. There's a commonality with RPGs like this where you’ll wear a hodgepodge of ugly clothes for the stats and this game is no exception to how stupid I’ll look.

They did add transmog to alleviate this problem however it took them 2 years to do this and they already had this system in place at launch. Outfits functioned the same way except you only had 3 outfits, a militech suit (used once for the heist), Big Boss’s MGS5 hospital attire, and a hazmat suit. Transmog also reduced clothing stores to a place where you want to buy a specific jacket or shirt for your costume making the entire function of buying gear worthless.

Stores are available to purchase weapons and clothing to upgrade yourself which would be fine if their stock wasn’t randomized. There have been updates to make each store more consistent in what they have to sell but their convenience is undercut by simply going to an NPC, fighting them, and looting them for gear roughly scaled to your level rather than paying for an overpriced item that gets outpaced relatively quickly. Consumables like med kits and food are EVERYWHERE so why bother with medic/food shops?

Crafting is a flawed mess of a system but it's only useful when you’re at max level and you want to play with iconic weapons consistently. Sure you can craft grenades, med kits, and gear but you can find them easily by looting so you’re better off just crafting ammo. Upgrading gear is pointless since you can find always find better gear for free.

Alternatively crafting quick hacks breaks the rule about gear because it scales through level/attribute rather than gear score so I can craft a legendary Contagion at level 8 and it’ll carry me through the entire game. Cyberware is technically an exception but they affect your playstyle with attachments to your arms and legs. Double jump, mantis blades, and mono wire are the most popular because who doesn’t want to double jump while smacking people with machetes taped to their arms or with a light-up jump rope? However, I want to mention the PLS cyberware as it doesn’t get much attention.

The Projectile Launch System is the equivalent of having a grenade launcher in your arm so why isn’t that as cool as it sounds? Because it doesn’t have any damage scaling, damage output sucks and it requires a smart link but doesn’t lock on. The only reason to use it is if you give it non-lethal rounds which knock out enemies with one shot no matter what. Be aware that the explosive radius can dismember and kill them so it’s not 100% safe. I still find it funny how it's nonlethal to blast a rocket at someone’s face. Batman would be so proud.

Finally, I’ll talk about inventory bloat. It’s a similar complaint that I have for The Witcher 3 where there are so many items that share the same effect. The picture above shows roughly 96 consumables with different art assets. All food heals the same amount and all drinks increase stamina the same amount so why bother giving me all these options?

TL; DR My Stupid Opinion
I don’t understand Cyberpunk 2077. It wants to be everything at once but nothing feels finished or fully developed. Some side quests start and end abruptly, we have a 4 mission-long racing and fist-fighting tournament but no shooting tournament. The police spawn directly behind you and can't chase you when you’re in a vehicle but can also be negated by driving less than half a block to remove your wanted level. This is supposed to be a Next-Gen RPG yet it took CDPR 2 YEARS to meet the standard other games have achieved in less than half the time. I still vehemently disagree about how this game is ambitious, it's just an unfocused mess, as I hold Red Dead Redemption 2 as a more ambitious game.

@CuteBoyMnM Extremely thorough breakdown of Cyberpunk 2077! I've not played it myself (YET), but your analysis seems to echo other assessments of the game I've read, which judge that nearly every aspect of the experience features questionable design choices that might have been ironed out had the game featured a longer development time, and that even the scenario and character writing broadly disappoint, which is a shame coming from The Witcher 3 devs. The devs have managed to patch it up a bit, but there's no mistaking the 'rushed homework' quality the game has, and it would have benefitted from being allowed to remain in development until the people making it were satisfied with the end result.

Which is sad, ultimately, since you acknowledge that hints of a much greater experience can be seen. Especially in the quest design.

It's a real pity that CDPR's writers got one shot to work on this amazing RPG world, and the greed of the higher-ups at the company forced them to produce an ultimately substandard product in comparison to what they were capable of making.

Haven't played RDR2 yet, either. Should I bump that up my list?

Strong use of screenshots in your piece, too. Great submission!