Game Review: Evoland (100%) - beautifully recreates some gaming history while also imitating its frustrations

First off, this game is a nice little break between bigger, tougher games (currently tackling Shovel Knight Treasure Trove, need a gap between campaigns). Fun visuals, moves at a quick pace, doesn't overstay its' welcome. I understand that the game was merely just a tribute or whatever and is barebones on plot and content, but it's still a game and should be judged as so. I know E2 improves this.

But man this game grinded my gears in a few ways. TLDR: Just missed potential and opportunites across the board:

The game pivots from it's faithfully gorgeous pixel art FAR too quickly. I mean, c'mon, you spent all that time creating the visuals for the NES/GB, why not let us sit and enjoy them longer? Was there an expectation that people would turn the game off? I know the Gameboy Color sprites come back (for puzzling) later which was nice to see. But for a game that is honoring the history of gaming, it sure rushes through those early days to get to the (IMO) less fun chibi style.

No way to actually track in game collectibles (stars and cards) outside some vague clue from an NPC which you have to go back to every time for a new clue. For the card tracking, I see no excuse - WHY is there no card collection view? The card game is based on Triple Triad from FFVIII and THEY have a menu option to see your collection. Wierd QOL omission. So I had to use a guide for the rest and this added 4-5 hours needlessly.

No run/fast walk option during on-foot sections. You have "chocobos" in the game, why aren't they used? When backtracking through puzzle rooms and bigger areas, walking at a snails pace was testing me. This is made worse by the high random encounter rate (seriously, every time i exited the airship to go to a location, which was maybe 4 steps, I was guaranteed to hit a fight).
And now I come to the final boss...Hoo boy, this soured me on the game a bit in the end. You have a game based on celebrating the evolution of gaming, and they chose arguably the jankiest, ungliest visual style to mount its final fight on. The biggest missed opportunity here was not having the final fight be staged throughout each era of gaming - the boss taking on new forms in different styles. Imagine, fighting his first form in the NES/Gameboy top down Ganon-style (which Evoland sadly quickly pivots from in the opening stage of the game), then the protagonist is then pulled into a turn-based SNES FF fight where you get to use your newly acquired Summon, then finally a 3d Diablo-style slash-em-up to deliver the final blow. Instead, we're left with a fight that honeslty feels like the prototype for the actual fight. The camera is in a position that makes precision realllly frustrating (especially trying to repel the energy balls back, the depth perception is all off). And you can't PAUSE through the fight. Ugh you can you this one hurt me lol?

Overall, I'd still recommend it to anyone looking for a quick 5-10 hour game to complete. But woof, prepare for some teeth-grinding.

Game Review: Superliminal (100%) - Portals stepcousin

I'd be the first to tell you that I am NO good at puzzle games. Portal and Portal 2 stumped me early on and I had to refer to guides to get through them. But Superliminal wasn't too bad, the logic puzzles were fairly intuitive (save a few) and I so had fun with this one! I enjoyed finding all the little easter eggs and fun secrets throughout. It made me feel smart haha.

The achievements weren't too bad, except for that confounded 30-minute speedrun achievement. I think it used to be 35 minutes before the update (which is much more attainable for us normies). But 30 min is just too much to ask for the casual gamer. I did three solid sub-35m glitchless runs, but could not for the life of me get sub 32m. That involved me me wasting as little time as possible and keeping moving. But those fucking cheese wedges man, they always gave me trouble.

So, to get that final achievement I did use the elevator skip, where at the beginning of Labyrinth the narrator initiates the Emergency Exit Protocol, you jump/clip through the wall into the elevator and it bumps you to the final stage, which saves a TON of time. It didn't feel good to get the achievement this way...

But this game has so many random physics anomalies and unoptimized issues that occur during a speedrun killing the run. So, I fight glitch with glitch. Like that bouncy castle would just sometimes not cooperate, the object collider shooting me into the sky sometimes. Why? Who knows.

On the themeing of the game...This game felt like it took Portal and made a backrooms -baby variation of it. There was some originality of its own of course, but the template is here (waking up in a false bedroom in a wierd company facility, a sarcastic female narrator, there's an orientation with puzzle rooms, you start seeing cracks in the illusion of the facility, etc). I swear I thought this was a horror game in the Blackout chapter. Shows how much of a scaredy pants I am.

And the music... it grew on me. At first I kind of disliked it (just felt like generic piano music), but speedrunning the game I fell in love with it. The jazz drums in the later levels were KILLER, it added to the tension.

Overall a really run brain tickler. I will definitely return to it in the future.

Game Review: Coromon Remastered (100%) - a very competent and fun Monster Tamer

Picked this up again after the big remaster update recently, figured it was a perfect time to 100% this game. Monster Tamers are my favorite genre, so this wasn't too bad of a slog for me to have a to replay this a couple times to scoop everything up.

I will say however, that the puzzles leading up to each Titan are arduous. The timing puzzles, the mazes, the heat meter, the ice puzzles...they really kill the replayability for me. Which is a shame, because replayability should be a MAJOR bonus for games like these. The puzzles are not ALL bad, but I really dreaded having to replay this for the Insane/Caretaker achievement because I knew I had to trudge through those tedious sections. The worst ones are the ones that require timing, and you have to set the game speed back to normal just to get through them (like the Light Dojo jump-rope, or the sand temple darts, ugh). The one hit death which resets you back just feels out of place in a game like this. The challenge of a game like this should be in the MONSTER BATTLES, not the overworld action puzzling...it felt like it was trying to be a different game at times.

Other than the puzzles gripe, I really do like this game. I don't think I've seen better creature pixel art animation than this (fat megalobite is peak).

My favote Coromon ended up being Pink Chonktoad with Humidifier. Absolutely cleaned up the annoying Crimsonite battles.

I'm looking forward to TRAGsofts next game, Rogue Planet!

Game Review: Dredge (100%) - Cozy with a side of Cthulu

 

Dredge is a game that I have been wanting to fully complete since its release in 2023. I put off due to just not being in the mood for a fishing sim. Sometimes its just not the vibe, you know? But the time finally came when I just felt like burying myself in my couch and start fishing for fishies, so Dredge got bumped up the list.

I often see Dredge listed in 'cozy games' categories. While I can see how this game might get placed into those lists because it's in the Fishing genre...there's so much unnerving dread and danger while playing this game that makes it hard to fully relax. Even while fishing, shitty fish will just come up and chomp you. Not so cozy.

I know there is a Passive mode which disables threats, which was nice when I was trying to clean up the last couple achievements, but I don't consider that the definitive way to play Dredge, as you miss out on a bunch of cool events. But then again, play how you want!

This game leans into the collectathon element which I love. Give me a game where my goal is collect of all of a thing. And better yet, having rare variants (aberrations; which felt like shinies) pop up which further completes your "Fish Pokedex".

The most tedious thing in this game is filling out those pesky last few aberrations that simply involved some grinding fishing spots. But the game provides you some useful tools that make all that easier (Atrophy is a godsend!).

The score and sound design is great in this game - don't sleep on it. Crank that shit whilst you fish for fishies.

Highly recommend this to anyone looking for a fast, sub-30 hour 100% (you could trim 10 hours off, I was dicking around). Great solid indie title.

Game Review: Palworld (100%) - a yummy soup with a couple sour ingredients

 "It's done..."

"Yes, Mr. Frodo. It's over now.”

That LotR meme was my first thought when that final achievement popped. While I had an overall good time with Palworld, it was not without its low points. However, I believe that the cracks in the game were only really illuminated with spending so much time trying to 100% it. I think largely the casual crowd won't see/care about some of the grievances I encountered.

I came into Palworld as a Pokémon fan - and very skeptical of this game. People saying "Pokemon with guns" just made me eye-roll and turn up my nose to it. Turns out I was dead wrong - Palworld IS the Pokémon game I (and many others) have been dreaming of since we were kids. A fully open-world, immersive RPG with roaming Pokémon to catch and fight - why did it take this long to get this kind of game? Regardless, I'm happy we've arrived.

I'll keep my experience short and to the point. A lot of my irks with the game stem from the open-world/MMO-y aspects, and I had to take a few breaks between big tasks to not burn out.

• I played the main story line with "Lucky's Only" which made each caught Pal alot more meaningful and exciting to acquire. It certainly dragged out my gametime but felt worth it in the early/mid game. Nothing felt as good as finding those first few Lucky Pals!
• Lucky hunting is fun, but I will say there are a couple sound effects in the game that have the same tone/frequency and fooled me into thinking it was the same sound effect (like the fishing sparkle sounds). I would like to see that sound effect be more unique.
• The Hardmode towers are a bit overtuned. There shouldn't just be a few specific team builds to take them down (when you have 250+ Pals in the game!)...or maybe I'm just bad.
• Palworld looks gorgeous with everything turned up. Seeing all those mountains and jungles in the distance with Pals roaming around is just awesome.
• This game neeeeeds a minimap option. Looking for those damn effigies and journal notes was such a slog without one.
• Some Pals are eeeerily close to their Pokemon inspirations. I know they made some redesigns post-lawsuit, but I'd like to see Pals claim their own identity and seperate the design philosophy a bit more. Here were the most egregious ones:
• Rayhound=Boltund. Orzerk=Garchomp. Vixy=Eevee. Nitewing=Staraptor. Foxcicle=Arctic Ninetales. Warsect=Heracross. Skutlass=Basculegion. I could go on and on...
• The early game Pal variety is AWESOME and addicting...but by midgame new Pals stop being as exciting and impactful. By end-game I was catching new Pals without ever actually knowing who or caring what they were. They all started to even sound the same...Solenne? Solyne?Souffline??
• Some mid to late game areas feel a bit too large and barren - I noticed this more when I was scouring for effigys. I think there could be an argument to reduce the amount of landmass to create more memorable areas (like the beginning areas, they feel well designed and intentional). These days I think gamers would rather explore a smaller, handcrafted, intentionally designed area vs a huge expansive barren landscape.
• The Master rank arena grind was horrendous. Not hard, just tedious. It became just 6 hours of navigating menus and waiting. Wish there was a 'Rematch' button to battle again with the same team or something to skip all the loading screens...
• The game could use more music to give it charm. It feels kind of lonely and soulless at times without it.

My favorite Pals by the end: Relaxaurus Lux (that mohawk!!), Direhowl, Ragnahawk (my trust flyer), Ghangler Ignis (that's a mean looking fish!), and Galeclaw (the glider ability was invaluable).

Now I know I have my critiques and qualms, but I did enjoy my time with it! And now that the "Pal" is out of the bag with this type of game - and it's obvious the gaming public have an appetite for it - I am excited to see where this genre evolves in the coming years.

Film Review: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

This review may contain spoilers.

The exclusive Yoshi (popcorn?!) bucket that AMC was selling

Honestly I kinda enjoyed this more than the first movie. Sure it’s paper thin on plot and takes zero time to develop its characters…but honestly this movie is for people who already know who everyone is. It’s Mario for chrissakes…it is 40 years of Mario packed into a “revolving door of references” movie. Besides, who really wants to sit through a backstory in a film like this?

To be fair Yoshi’s intro should’ve been stronger (maybe use Super Mario RPG for that...they could've had Fat Yoshi!) but it was serviceable. 

My favorite moments:

• They got the music right! I heard themes from SMBW, gusty galaxy, some Odyssey stuff, plus a ton more. Hearing the bowsers ship theme with a full orchestra was awesome.
• The cameos were great. Fox was spoiled but Pikmin, Kiki (from links awakening!), game and watch went the hardest for me. 
• The first bowser jr fight was actually really well choreographed. 
• The Mario maker scene was craaaaazy
• All the Mario galaxy stuff is fun!
• Seeing Mario 2 referenced heavily felt so surreal. I mean c'mon, Wart?!?! Loved it.

Anyways, yes it’s made for young kids but obviously any Nintendo fan is going to salivate throughout the runtime. It’s pure fan service.