NiGHTS into Dreams... Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 12/4/2025)

[Image from igdb.com]

NiGHTS into Dreams...

Developer: Sonic Team/Sega

Publisher: Sega

Genre(s): Action

Platforms: Saturn

Release Date: July 5, 1996

Raise your hand if you recognize the smirking purple figure on the cover of this title from that alternate pinball game in Sonic Adventure’s Casinopolis level. It’s certainly where my vague familiarity with this character stems from, and I’ll bet that plenty of other gamers would cite the same source as well. Whenever I replayed Sonic Adventure or was craving this individual level, I always opted for the pinball portion that featured this flamboyant jester instead of the more traditional Sonic slot machine. Not only did the various card hand combinations net more rings, but the mystical liveliness of this section was always mesmerizing. Considering the sheer length of the ring-gathering process to finish Casinopolis, the time spent here in this splendorous pinball scene was enough to put me in a trance. Exiting the level to either dump the rings or failing after too many asynchronous bumper swings never failed to elicit a “what the hell was that?!” from me, even after my one-hundredth time experiencing it. Still, my reaction was not one of offense, but similar to the come down from ending a hazy, euphoric dream. Years later, I discovered that this substitute pinball section was not inspired by the developers mixing a concoction of ecstasy and acid. It was an easter egg that referenced Nights into Dreams, a Sonic Team-developed Sega game released on the Sega Saturn. Oh, so that’s why we’re all familiar with this character from somewhere outside of his source material. We can all surmise that a reason why Sega’s debut 3D system was so short-lived is that their blue blur mascot took a circumstantial sabbatical (Sonic R doesn’t count), which is like Santa Claus neglecting his annual holiday duties on Christmas Eve. In light of Sega fumbling Sonic Jam to the point of premature extinction, perhaps Nights into Dreams retrospectively serves as the Saturn’s substitute Sonic title.

Interestingly enough, on a technicality, Nights, the eponymous, gender binary-defying purple jester, is not the game’s protagonist purely from a narrative standpoint. While they’re still technically the primary gameplay vehicle here, the story revolves around two middle-school-aged children named Elliot and Claris, who are not siblings as the surface-level impressions might indicate. Nights is merely a vessel for the boy and girl to enter his native domain of dreams, where the collective of immaterial, subconscious mental fabrications resides. Nights is a trickster with the kid-friendly whimsy and fun of the Cat in the Hat and the pariah status of Beelzebub amongst their fellow “Nightmaren.” However, Night’s rebellion against their kind is portrayed as a sign of courage and righteousness, for they’d rather not be an accomplice to the insidious plan to steal all the dream energy and somehow conquer reality as a result of achieving their goal. The mascot potential of Nights could arguably be undermined by their secondary support status, unlike Sonic, who demands the spotlight like the unapologetic diva he is. Still, the mystique of Nights proves to be far more beguiling because the player’s point of view is from the perspective of two ordinary adolescents existing in humdrum reality. Because we’re never fully stepping into Night's purple poulaines, the impersonal perception preserves the curiosity this character inherently exudes in spades.

Expositing every tidbit of information on the game’s plot premise still won’t demystify the gameplay conditions surrounding each of Night’s levels. Each dream scenario of either children’s campaign is orchestrated around a consistent gameplay loop. In saying that, deciphering said gameplay loop is a process bound to make the player’s brain short-circuit with intense confusion. The game’s first mistake in exhibiting the player’s objective clearly is setting the scene by having them control either Elliot or Claris. Being bushwacked by naughty flying creatures immediately in an automated introductory sequence also establishes a misleading impression that the player is struggling to acclimate themselves to the already-hazy gameplay conditions. It just sets a terrible and inappropriate precedent for the remaining duration of the level. Once either Elliot or Claris enters the mystical gazebo and tags Nights in, they are tasked to retrieve the four multicolored “Ideya Crystals” that were brusquely snatched from the hands of the human children. How does Nights go about reclaiming the four bits of stolen property? Well, that’s when things get tricky. Without any preemptive elucidation, Nights will start flying on a relatively restricted horizontal axis and soar through a series of rings while collecting a smattering of tokens before they travel full circle around again to his outdoor shelter from whence they started. Because the context is clouded in layers of ambiguity thicker than the condensation mist surrounding a large lake, I feel like it’s my due diligence to unveil the intended objective of each level as a favor to all who are about to delve into Nights into Dreams… While every collectible is worth colliding into on a lap around the level, most of them will have to be benched due to the greater precedence of the blue orbs. Twenty may seem like a steep ransom to reach in satisfying the clutches of the “Ideya Captures” claws, but they’ll respawn in the same places once the player makes a 360-degree turn back to the blue gazebo. Once the player returns to the origin point with their twinkling items recovered, they’ll repeat the process another three times, with the level layout shifting with each lap. You’re welcome. I can’t say that I’ve experienced a gameplay formula even remotely close to the one that Nights (literally) revolves around, much less in any previous title produced by Sega. If I had to drum up one comparison for the sake of argument, Night’s levels do foster a similarly swift energy as Sonic’s. Momentum can be quickened at the player’s volition to the point where it can be unmanageable like Sonic at his speediest, which evokes that thrilling rollercoaster aura that I thought the blue blur had trademarked for himself. Shave off the grounded terms and conditions of platforming that Sonic must abide by, and Night’s constant airborne velocity is arguably the next step in evolving this specific brand of Sega gameplay.

However, what does ring Sonic in my ears louder than the SEGA start-up jingle is the snazzy panache that oozes from the game’s presentational pores. They say in the intangible dreamscape that anything is possible, so Sega takes full advantage of the untethered nature of what occurs during REM sleep to unleash their patented bombastic flair to an unprecedented maximalism. Each level, no matter its thematic setting, is brimming with ethereal pizzazz. They’re all relatively organic and firmly recognizable in terms of what topographical environment they’re intended to resemble, but their abstractions lie in the askew properties of the foregrounds. As someone who has been known to dream on a regular basis, I can say from my extensive experience that this unconscious realm often places me in areas that I am particularly familiar with in reality and can’t discern any abnormalities until I awaken and regain my lucidity. What aids the Sonic comparisons is that each level in Nights seems like an unearthly, sublime version of the standard roulette of level themes present on a journey through Mobius. Spring Valley is as divine a grassy, mountainous field as one can get to introduce Nights without calling it “Green Hill Zone,” while “Mystic Forest” amplifies the presence of verdant greenery with some breakable lime mortar blocks from ancient ruins placed as asymmetrically as the tall rocks of Stonehenge. The beachy “Splash Garden” proves Night's superiority underwater compared to the non-swimmer Sonic, while “Frozen Bell” and “Stick Canyon” provide auxiliary vehicles like a snowmobile and gondola to diversify the gameplay in these level themes of polar climates that Sonic is constantly using. It’s a shame they didn’t have enough disc space to incorporate a casino level, for Nights potentially outshining Sonic in his glitziest level theming could constitute as a personal attack. The one level in Nights that sort of verges into more urban, industrialized territory is “Soft Museum,” a standout for possibly referencing an equally surreal novel from William S. Burroughs titled “The Soft Machine.” Sorry Sonic, but the purple jester’s interpretations of your common thematic foregrounds are just too dazzling while they’re operating without the restrictions of reality.

I also apologize that my review is reverting back to a quasi-walkthrough, but it compels me to expound on one prevalent aspect of the levels of Nights that screams Sonic surprisingly before the blue blur ever imagined making it one of his defining idiosyncrasies. In tandem with the score that increases with every sequence of chaining rings in addition to collecting blue orbs and those golden, fin-shaped thingies, the player will be given a letter grade that coincides with the player’s ability to gather the aforementioned whatchamacallits in a timely fashion. The player will likely notice that they aren’t earning acceptable marks by the standards of any education system once they return to the gazebo after rescuing the crystals from their captivity, which is another aspect of the gameplay loop lost in the fog of vagueness. To rack up enough points to pass any kind of class in school, the player must take Nights through the level as many times as the timer will allow after engaging the post-crystal-securing, bonus portion, which will multiply the amount of points received upon reobtaining all of the various collectibles. Essentially, if you’re not playing Nights in a fretful frenzy while a timer ticks down to single digits, you’re not doing it right. Once this obscured gameplay condition came into clarity, it seemed like all I could eke out with my best effort was an adequate “C.” Damn the strict Japanese grading curve! If you think your finishing letter rank is only arbitrary, I must inform you that your GPA must exceed a 2.0 average because the game will deem you unfit to play the “Twin Seeds” final level, where either Elliot or Claris adopts Nights’ aerial mobility to collect orbs over the skyline of their home city and continue to lock its access. As harsh as the conditions to receive an acceptable mark may be, I probably would’ve neglected playing Nights properly if not for the concurrent condition as something to consider.

Amongst all of the unorthodox gameplay elements, would you believe me that each level in Nights climaxes with a distinct boss battle? The Nightmaren appear to be an eclectic army of ghouls led by the enigmatic dark wizard Wizeman, and their design diversity definitely also translates to the unique specifications surrounding how to best them in battle. Because traditional combat in a game like Nights would be rather inappropriate, defeating them requires solving their specific weakness like a puzzle, with the addition of the drill dash maneuver to sprinkle some semblance of offense in these encounters. I’d list their unique weaknesses with the same amount of detail as how to excel in the levels that precede them, but the only way I’d be that charitable is if I were financially compensated. Still, I have to veer into spoiler territory to highlight the egregious aspects that unfortunately beleaguer these bosses. For instance, simply because you’ve discovered how to harm the boss doesn’t mean that you’ll be triumphantly teabagging them in seconds flat. I fully realize that destroying the mice springs is the key to trapping the demonic cat, Clawz, but why then do they tend to compose themselves back to their original states upon drill dashing them like punching a reflex bag? Just because I know that I must direct the rotund Puffy further into the stage doesn’t mean that the awkward, finicky controls will immediately facilitate this desired outcome. Even though each boss (except for the big baddie of Wizeman) isn’t as simplistic as advertised and exposes the slippery nature of the game’s controls, the player will be forced to conquer them as proficiently as any of the levels. Like a final test at the end of a school semester, the time it takes to defeat a boss will factor considerably into the player’s final grade for a level. Failing to vanquish the foe promptly might result in one’s grade dropping by a whole letter. Bollocks. Also, despite how masterfully the player might have run through a level, failing to figure out how to hit a boss's sensitive spot will result in having to repeat the entire level. Mega bollocks. Considering that the game’s levels and bosses exist on entirely different dimensions of gameplay and competency, I’d expressly keep the two separated in the evaluation process like church and state.

Don’t do drugs, kids, or you’ll end up headlining a console doomed to be decimated by Nintendo and the newcomer kid of Sony. While I’m sure the surreal Nights…into Dreams was not initially designed as supplementary material for Sonic, the onus of supporting Sega’s hardware was circumstantially placed on this odd gem, and it couldn’t handle the pressure on its own. Admittedly, one can experience somewhat of the exciting, momentum-based gameplay mostly associated with Sonic here, but in the most perplexing way possible, to the point where any Sonic fan would probably lose their appetite. Night's presentation effectively evokes the marriage of whimsical fantasy and acid-laced psychedelia like Mario, but is bogged down by seemingly emulating the reduced motor skills that come with imbibing the hallucinogen. Nights is just too fucking weird on all fronts not to be condemned to its cult classic status. I appreciate it for its charm and unparalleled originality, but I’m a weirdo who gravitates towards stuff like this. When a game comes hard to recommend to the average gamer, it shouldn’t be leading the charge into the console wars.

Yakuza Kiwami Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 11/30/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Yakuza Kiwami

Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku

Publisher: Sega

Genre(s): Open-World, Beat 'em Up

Platforms: PS4, PS3, PC, Xbox One

Release Date: January 21, 2016

I think I’m exploiting a loophole here in “starting the series” by playing Yakuza Kiwami. Obviously, this is not the first game in Sega’s enduring series surrounding the decorated Japanese mafia syndicate, but a remake of the series’ 2005 PS2 debut one decade later and two whole gaming generations onward. When the series' prequel, Yakuza 0, exploded in the international gaming consciousness, gamers outside of Japan started foaming at the mouth at the prospect of continuing the saga of the morally complex Kazuma Kiryu. However, I can see why being forced to seek out obsolete gaming hardware, whether or not the sophomore iteration of the Sony console bloodline be festering in one’s attic or held ransom by some tweaker on eBay, would be a hindrance in the process of experiencing the proper introduction to the franchise. Hence, the impetus for refurbishing the original Yakuza outing on the same engine that Yakuza 0 was built upon, a tested toolkit of gaming modernity that has already proven to produce excellent results, if the franchise’s prequel is any indication. As for the reason why I chose to charge forward from my position of a common post-Yakuza 0 series introduction, even though I have a working PS2 that is still hooked up and ready to roll, housing potentially eight mainline titles for the series on one system (the PS4) was too convenient to pass up. That, and I try to use my cherished childhood console sparingly these days because the ol’ gal’s become a little crickety in its old age. Playing both Persona 3 and 4 successively in 2020 almost gave it the video game console equivalent of a pulmonary embolism. Was my decision to disregard posterity for once going to lead to an improper evaluation of this remake? No, because Yakuza Kiwami’s position in the franchise allows it to function as a sequel on equal measure to its role as a renovation. However, because I’m only familiar with Yakuza 0, I can only assess Yakuza Kiwami as a sequel, and unfortunately, it pales in comparison to its predecessor in every way imaginable.

I may be ignorant of the first Yakuza’s content, but I’m still completely aware of the fact that the starting event that catalyzes the series is Kiryu being sentenced to ten years in the stony lonesome. It’s such a seminal incident for the series that it eludes all spoiler warnings that would normally be deemed as necessary to keep the player’s interest intact. However, I’ve never been privy to the finer details of how and why Kiryu ended up serving hard time for a decade until Yakuza Kiwami’s first chapter unfolded the context behind it. A Japanese jury has found Kiryu guilty of homicide, specifically, the unspeakable crime of patricide against his Yakuza superior, Captain Sohei Dojima. Still, we know that Kiryu abides by the same relative moral code as Bruce Wayne, in which murder is strictly haram (or so he says), so this revelation conflicts with his principles. This is why revealing that he’s taking the rap for his Yakuza blood brother, Nishiki, who gunned down Dojima for sexually assaulting their mutual childhood friend, Yumi, comes as no surprise. After a decade of rotting away for his act of extreme altruism, Kiryu reemerges on the streets of Kamurocho, where things aren’t quite the same as he left them. After falsely believing that Kiryu was paying the price for doing something heinous, I’m relieved to discover that his period of incarceration was predicated upon an act of nobility–an on-brand decision that doesn’t alter the way we perceive Kiryu’s characteristics. He’s really a chump, if anything.

In the time that Kiryu spent gardening and batting off unfriendly inmates, time has teleported him well into the 21st century and all of its digital anxieties. Japanese society has certainly developed extensively since the mid-1990s, but from the player’s perspective, provided they’re continuing from Yakuza 0, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of Kamurocho since Michael Jackson’s skin still had melanin. Surely in seventeen years, the most dangerous sector of Tokyo has changed drastically, right? As it turns out, besides the ubiquity of the “flip” model of cellphones, not especially. I never expected the city to have been bulldozed and reconstructed as the spitting image of gentrification, but it’s perplexing how much of Kamurocho has been uncannily retained since the vacant lot debacle. The one notable discernible difference in Kamurocho’s architectural foundation since Kiryu’s heyday is the stratosphere-stabbing monolith of the Millennium Tower, the enterprise financed by the real estate purchase that concluded Yakuza 0’s overarching conflict. Other than this behemoth shadowing the perimeter of Kamurocho’s central area, the various returning shops, restaurants, arcades, bars, and other returning commercial establishments will strike the player with deja vu at its most underwhelming sensational point. It’s not as if these retreaded places will be a sight for sore eyes after spending a decade behind bars for the player. One exception that I don’t recall visiting in Yakuza 0 is “Purgatory,” a covert gambling and erotic female entertainer operation that exists in the watery catacombs beneath Kamurocho’s sizable homeless camp. As much as I appreciate being included in this Eyes Wide Shut society and am entranced by the literal vibrant glow of candlelight and the metaphorical glow of saucy entertainment, why would I go the distance to this location when there’s a hidden casino behind a ramen restaurant in a more convenient corner of the city that offers the same illicit activities? Coliseum fights hardly constitute a minigame!

Above all else, Kamurocho feels like it's been freeze-framed since the days of heavy hairspray because the array of side content has mostly remained the same. Even though technology has expanded and progressed exponentially beyond Kiryu’s mobile communication methods, this natural evolution is hardly exhibited across Kamurocho. Both Mahjong and Shogi persisted another century past their prime and continue to confuse me to no end, and I managed to burn as much yen on unfortunate roulette bets and terrible hands in blackjack as Kiryu did when he could still afford it. Kiryu can dust off his vocal chops during solo karaoke sessions after a decade of subduing his singing ability while in prison, and replay enough pool and darts at Vincent to hustle drunk suckers and recover the amount of money lost while gambling. Kiryu is almost in a state of total disbelief that the pocket racing circuit is still intact and that it remains as active almost twenty years onward. I would typically opt to knock over some pins at the bowling alley over swinging a bat at oncoming balls in the batting cages, for the amount of “homeruns” needed to pass matched with the lack of aiming capabilities to the precise spot on the board almost makes me seek out juicing as a solution to its steep conditions. Fortunately, this condensed version of “America’s favorite pastime” (and Japan’s, let’s be real) has been streamlined to the point where the player is given more autonomy in directing the ball to a selected few spots on a simplified screen. Thankfully, this means that Kiryu’s testicles will remain their natural size. The breath of relief I exhaled when I discovered that the wretched catfight club had been terminated jumped back into my throat in horror when I learned that the tasteless black hole of my hard-earned cash had been reprocessed as a card game where printed, 2.5 X 3.5 inch pictures of the scantily-clad women are traded amongst school children. Pokémon doesn’t seem so bad now, does it, fuddy-duddy conservative parents of the world? While I can plainly see that the catfights have been reimagined, given the tarty models and the rock, paper, scissors conceit that determines the outcome of battle, the ability to pick from a wider pool of ladies and customize their critical maneuvers by collecting the cards broadens the probability of success past what seemed like a zero-sum chance at success in Yakuza 0. That, and you’ve got to appreciate the presentational scope surrounding the catfight’s new reintegration. The girls dress up in bikini bug costumes and wrestle on a tree stump surrounded by cheering rhinoceros beetles, an absurd depiction of Japan’s most storied and barbaric childhood hobby. If glancing at the half-naked foxy boxers inspires Kiryu to seek out a flesh-and-blood woman after becoming all hot and bothered, know that the telephone club is the only minigame from Yakuza 0 that is such a product of its time that the developers couldn’t reintroduce it in good conscience. Instead, Kiryu will request two specific ladies working at two different cabaret club locations in Kamurocho and channel his inner Casanova to woo them in what is essentially the “special training” feature of Majima’s cabaret club business in Sotenbori. I wasn’t aware that the objective of visiting the cabaret clubs was to spark a mutual romantic fervor between the hostess and their clients, or maybe Kiryu’s serious scowl is too irresistible for the hostesses to abide by the rules and regulations. I don’t mind the remixing and repurposing effort made to give the various minigames from Yakuza 0 a hint of discernibility. However, what is rather disillusioning pertaining to Yakuza Kiwami’s side content is how the total amount is subtracted from the previous title. Kiryu can no longer shake what his mother gave him at the dance clubs, and the SEGA-branded arcades have eschewed all arcade games in favor of allowing a space for children to play their perverted card game, with the occasional patron attempting to earn a toy with the crane games. You’re telling me that the arcades here haven’t expanded past Space Harrier and OutRun in almost two decades and instead have declined entirely? Sounds like bullshit to me. We haven’t leapt to 2005; we’ve been transported to a warped, “Twilight Zone” version of 1988.

Even though much of Kamurocho seems to have been preserved like a wax figure, one colossal underlying difference that clues the player in on how drastically the district has changed is that people are much poorer now. One major reason to set Kiryu’s origin story in the late 1980s was to vicariously celebrate the country’s booming economy, an era referred to as “the bubble” that I’m sure Sega shares a nostalgic fondness for. Because it’s been ages since the bubble has metaphorically popped and frugality has reentered the Japanese lexicon, the liveliness of Kamurocho has been significantly subdued. The lack of extreme economic prosperity is probably why Yakuza Kiwami does not feature an optional business arc, for undertaking an enterprise with a farm animal as one’s constituents in a normal economic environment almost ensures immediate bankruptcy. I wouldn’t say that Japan is experiencing a recession, but you can imagine that in a district with a homeless camp that expands approximately a quarter of Kamurocho’s entire perimeter, any sort of economic regression is bound to impact its denizens more severely than in other areas of Tokyo. Highlighting the harder times in Kamurocho the most prominently are the game’s substories, the staple “side quests” of the Yakuza series that allow Kiryu to delve deeper into the domestic ongoings of Kamurocho. Mostly, the economically destitute and ethically empty will attempt to swindle Kiryu out of his comparatively meager earnings with a number of different extortion scams. Three thugs will pretend that Kiryu has accidentally battered one of them and demand financial compensation for his “injuries.” One woman screams sexual harassment and will only be silenced by a sum of money. One man poses as a cop, asking to be bribed when Kiryu doesn’t pass his ocular patdown, etc. One of the more amusing scams that Kiryu almost falls victim to is in a substory titled “The Price of an F-Cup,” where Kiryu is badgered by an extraordinarily busty woman to consume copious, unhealthy amounts of alcohol. To be fair, a Japanese woman equipped with cans of that magnitude is akin to spotting a unicorn. One particularly interesting aspect about that specific substory is that it seems to have a greater significance than the majority of the others, considering its lengthier duration and integration of cinematic cutscenes. Yakuza 0 certainly only reserved this type of presentation when progressing the primary story arc, so I guess the few substories treated to the higher presentational quality are intended to be elevated above the rest. Still, I could’ve suspected that without minimizing the screen space and incorporating voice acting, because encountering the same scammers in separate substories screams padding to me.

While I’m lamenting the fact that Kiryu can no longer afford to fling yen around to the citizens of Kamurocho like an elderly person throwing seeds to ducks, I can confidently say that the way the developers have reworked Kiryu’s experience points in lieu of existing in a less opulent economy is all for the better. Upgrading Kiryu’s various combat attributes in Yakuza 0 was quite literally financed by his exorbitant earnings. Even though I could spare to pay for the inordinate prices required to supercharge Kiryu to his maximum capabilities, I did admittedly wish to prioritize other purchases around Kamurocho that also cost a pretty penny. Because Kiryu can only hope to attain the wealth bracket of the upper middle class in 2005, the developers have created an alternate experience mechanic that is totally separate from his finances and is allocated entirely to increasing his combat attributes. “Soul,” “tech,” and “body” are all aligned in their designated skill trees, upgrading Kiryu’s heat actions, array of combat skills, and health and power, respectively. Each unit requires a range between 3 and 85 experience points to fulfill, and since this battle compensation currency seems to recharge quickly, there is no longer an excuse not to sculpt Kiryu to his fullest potential.

Lest we forget that between the sonic swiftness of the “Rush” style and the broad-shouldered, meaty “Beast” style, with the “Brawler” style in the balanced center, lies Kiryu’s deadliest, most distinctive fighting categorization. “Dragon Style” was unlocked in Yakuza 0 after Kiryu achieved resounding success in his real estate venture, the wild card form of martial artistry, and Kiryu’s signature style, considering it reflects his distinguished reputation as the “Dragon of Dojima.” In Yakuza Kiwami, this fourth fighting style is available from the start, but don’t think that you’ll be bulldozing bad guys with the flick of a finger for the entire duration of the game. The caveat behind the Dragon Style’s early availability is that it’s gone limp and rusty in Kiryu’s decade of imprisoned dormancy. A separate skill tree is designated towards rehabilitating Kiryu’s most potent set of skills, but the restoration process isn’t as simple as distributing points per ability. New maneuvers can be taught through a few rigorous training rounds by former pacifist fight coordinator, Komaki, but the majority of the style’s rejuvenation involves another familiar face of the franchise with longer pervasiveness.

Presuming that Kiryu’s fighting prowess is a tad flaccid after all that time spent confined behind prison walls, this presumption behooves Majima to test Kiryu’s mettle by engaging in fisticuffs whenever he encounters him on the streets of Kamurocho. Once Kiryu is in his sights, the franchise’s epitome of chaotic neutral will ambush Kiryu with the excitability of a dog and the feral hyperactivity of a cat. Or, perhaps I should be comparing him to a raccoon, considering his choices to conceal himself include the insides of trash cans and beneath manhole covers. After proving to Majima that Kiryu isn’t soft and frail by kicking his wacky ass enough times, Majima will continue to emphasize his unpredictability by making his encounters more interesting for Kiryu once the “Majima Meter” meets a milestone. Majima will stage a zombie apocalypse, flaunt his unsettling finesse with a stripper pole before using the erotic club as a battle arena, and channel the comedic transvestite bit of Bugs Bunny as his cabaret club hostess alter ego “Goromi.” No, this gender-swapped disguise does not deceive Kiryu in the slightest. Once the player completes this milestone Majima scenario, Kiryu will be rewarded with the unlocking of another Dragon Style maneuver. Supplying Kiryu’s striking battle stance at its most tepid presents a great incentive to reinvigorate it to its fullest extent, and including everyone’s favorite crazy cyclops in this optional process is a fantastic way to shine the spotlight on his Maddog persona for the uninitiated Yakuza 0 newcomers when he has little stake in the main story. However, I have to address the underlying issue with this auxiliary activity that muddies the status of its optional nature. Because Majima is constantly out on the prowl in a city district with such enclosed architectural parameters as Kamurocho, Kiryu will likely always get caught in his peripheral line of sight, which will immediately engage in a pugilistic bout on the pavement. Add to the fact that some encounters are intended to take the player by surprise, and they’re going to be consistently catapulted into a boss fight, whether they’re prepared to face such a formidable foe or not. Majima may not hit Kiryu with the astounding power akin to being smacked by a Mack truck like Mr. Shakedown could dole out, but at least one could detect the hulking bully's location easily and evade him. As much as I adore Majima, I became so annoyed with his presence that my newfound frustration with him was fueling the vigor needed to curbstomp him time and time again.

Besides the fact that another layer is added to Majima’s maximum health bar whenever the “Majima Everywhere” letter rank increases, that exhausting, prolonged feeling of fighting Majima extends to every boss in Yakuza Kiwami because of a prevalent condition the developers have incorporated. At either the boss's halfway point or when he’s on the ropes, he’ll start to hold a stance and ubercharge himself briefly. Once he’s in the boss equivalent of Kiryu’s “heat mode,” both his offense and defense will be enhanced for the remaining duration of the fight. I understand that “second phases” are a common boss trope that I usually embrace, but Kiwami’s execution of this tried-and-true boss trope is fundamentally flawed. While the amplified stats of a second phase are acceptably heightened conditions, I find that the boss regaining an entire bar of health during their Super Saiyan status crosses the line of perks that come with augmenting their attributes. All it does is negate the player’s work and extend the fight to an unnecessary length. Now that I think of it, boosting their overall physicality is also excessive because each boss is still rather daunting even without the extra layer of formidability. Somehow, the base conditions of combat seem to be stacked against the player, or at least compared to the “normal” difficulty of Yakuza 0. Enemies will block blows with swifter reflexes, and they’ll often dash behind Kiryu in a flash as if their bodies are being manipulated by Hong Kong action film choreography. Forget about avoiding the full onslaught of any combo chain of punches dished out by any enemy once they successfully position themselves behind Kiryu and go to town on his vulnerable occipital lobe. To combat their newfound nimbleness, Kiryu must return the favor and also smack them senseless from the rear, but the only way Kiryu can reach this vantage point is by taking advantage of the “Rush Style’s” rapidity. The style I found to be the least impactful in Yakuza 0 ended up being the only branch of Kiryu’s move set I became comfortable using when dealing with enemies that were consistently running circles around me. As much as I’d love to compliment the developers for cultivating this style into a contender for seriously tenacious boss encounters, all it does is expose the lopsidedness and tedium in the combat that both weren’t issues in Yakuza 0.

Speaking of lopsidedness, once the player decides they’ve grown tired of flirting with cabaret girls and knocking every tooth out of Majima’s mouth, they might discover that the story of Yakuza Kiwami consistently exhibits its fair share of uneven pacing. After the first chapter establishes some context behind Kiryu’s status, or lack thereof, within the Yakuza, it sets the stage for how he’s going to get himself involved with their latest money-oriented escapade. This time around, a whopping ten billion yen has somehow disappeared from the Tojo Clan’s grasp, and Nikkyo Consortium chairman, Masaru Sera, winds up murdered in the midst of the immense thievery. While investigating the conundrum on his own terms, while every swinging dick in the Yakuza is frantically searching for the money like It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Kiryu becomes the guardian for a helpless girl named Haruka. Even though she’s an orphan, Haruka is somehow connected to both the money and the disappearance of Kiryu’s friend Yumi, his longtime friend and the woman connected to the ordeal that sent Kiryu away for so long. While the mystery behind the various vanishings is the plot vehicle from here on out, Kiwami has a habit of meandering from its focal point of the narrative. Did we really need a glimpse into the dysfunctional relationship between Kiryu’s police ally Date and his teenage daughter, and the lengths she goes to debase herself in the interest of earning some income? On top of becoming distracted once in a while, Kiwami has a tendency to disrupt the series’ relationship between the freedom of the sandbox world model and the obligation to further the plot. Yakuza 0 lets the player loose in Kamurocho to explore its plethora of minigames and substories immediately after the introductory chapter establishes the scene, but it takes Kiwami up until the fourth chapter to let the player go outside and play after doing their homework, in a manner of speaking. Some chapters are entirely dedicated to the main narrative and nothing more, with longer periods of linear content and extensive cutscenes detailing exposition. These include the chapter where Kiryu infiltrates Sera’s funeral service, rescues Haruka from a group of Chinese Triads, and engages in a rematch between Shimano and his goons on the docks bordering the Tokyo Bay. I’m going to put my foot down and state that every chapter after the first in any Yakuza game should allow for a limitless recreational period that is ended at the player’s discretion. Having the player commit to long swathes of rigidity multiple times compromises too heavily on the series’ gameplay dynamic.

I’m certain that players returning from Yakuza 0 will still enjoy the story presented in Yakuza Kiwami, even if they must dedicate more of their attention span whenever it unfolds on screen. Most likely, their engagement with Kiwami’s events will be grounded on the fact that many of 0’s returning characters will drop like flies throughout the narrative. Reina is whacked after it’s revealed that she’s been providing vital information to the wrong party, Shimano is gunned down by Kiryu’s ally, Terada, and Kazama, the man that Kiryu would take a bullet for if he could successfully manage to intercept one whizzing his way, takes his last breath after he sacrifices himself to protect Haruka. With Yakuza 0 allowing these characters, who I’m assuming all lived and died in the original Yakuza title, to bloom a bit more in the player’s minds with a longer screen presence, their demises prove to be more impactful and emotionally resonating.

This is especially the case with the person at the center of Kiwami’s overarching character conflict. Because Kiryu deemed Nishiki’s freedom to be of greater value than his because of his ambitions, allowing his goals to flourish has resulted in Nishiki metamorphosing into an unrecognizable monster. He’s become as soulless and calculating as any of the other Yakuza executives that constantly butt heads with Kiryu, willing to go to the unethical lengths to retrieve the ten billion yen and bolster his career in the Yakuza ranks as a result of succeeding in this endeavor. The obvious answer behind Nishiki’s negative transformation is that power corrupts. While that classic diagnosis is still a relevant factor in determining what caused Nishiki’s change in demeanor, it’s not as if Nishiki was that impressionable being unchecked by Kiryu for so long. You see, Nishiki has what I like to call a “Luigi complex,” an ineffectual individual associated with someone of higher repute and capabilities, making Kiryu Mario in this context. They may be the same age and were both raised to become fierce Tojo Clan soldiers by their hitman captain foster father, but Kiryu undoubtedly emerged from the Sunflower orphanage as the alpha dog between the two of them. Continuing the dog analogy, while Kiryu is being hunted by the surviving Dojima Clan lackeys like a rabid pitbull for mauling their master, Nishiki is a bichon frise who the Tojo Clan higher-ups do not take seriously as a threat, nor a contender in their ranks, in the slightest. Even though his future has been given the chance to thrive as opposed to Kiryu’s blacklisted scampering around jilted Yakuza members always gunning for his head, Nishiki would ironically trade his potential prosperity for his would-be fate if it meant that he’d be perceived as someone to fear and command a sense of seriousness from. Because Nishiki’s morals and goals no longer align with Kiryu’s, he renounces his blood brother and dukes it out with him mono y mono at the highest floor of the Millennium Tower at the game’s emotionally-charged climax. Kiryu seems to beat Nishiki hard enough to rewire the circuitry in his brain to a point of clarity, judging by how he chooses to sacrifice himself to halt the nefarious schemes of slimeball politician, Kyohei Jingu, the true perpetrator behind all of the various conspiracies that have been fueling the fire of Kiwami’s plot. Just from their former title alone and the privileges that Kiryu was willing to relinquish to ensure Nishiki’s well-being, anyone who hadn’t known either of these characters prior to the moment when Kiryu tossed his freedoms aside would still understand and empathize with the strained relationship between him and his lifelong friend. Because of Yakuza 0 granting us an entire adventure seeing Nishiki only as Kiryu’s loyal, rational buddy, we are as disappointed by his dive into the depths of scum and villainy on a personal level as the protagonist.

Yakuza 0 sure was a great game, wasn’t it? The developers obviously thought so because they used its phenomenal quality as a template to “improve” the franchise's original outing on the comparatively primitive PS2. And sure, Yakuza 0 might be the pinnacle of the series’ open-world, beat em’ up formula, but will its legacy remain as impactful when its heir apparents are wearing its skin as a safeguard against failure? Besides the most marginal of gameplay tweaks that range from admirable to downright unbearable, Yakuza Kiwami is practically a carbon copy of its prequel predecessor. Actually, Kiwami is like Yakuza 0 if the international hit received an amputation, considering that the game lacks a lot of Yakuza 0’s content while still resembling it in every shape and form. I’ll give Yakuza Kiwami the benefit of the doubt that its content couldn’t exceed Yakuza 0’s total to retain a sense of fidelity to the more modest original. Still, if Kiwami is already content on aping Yakuza 0 to this degree, where its story is the only substantial note of discernibility, why not include all of its minigames to put it on equal standing with the vast gameplay expanse that we’re already accustomed to? Otherwise, you’re deliberately releasing an inferior product, which is inexcusable. When Yakuza Kiwami is erasing all but the story of its source material while also making several compromises with the modernized framework it desperately wishes to emulate, it doesn’t really satisfy the traditional definition of a remake, nor is it worthy of carrying Yakuza 0’s mantle after it set such a high standard for the series. Still, I’m feeling charitable towards Yakuza Kiwami because I remain hooked to the stark series formula that Yakuza 0 introduced me to on a purely personal level of engagement. However, if every future Yakuza game remains as attached to Yakuza 0’s hip to diminishing returns, Houston, we’re going to have a bloody problem on our hands.

Mario Kart Wii Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 11/29/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Mario Kart Wii

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): Kart Racer

Platforms: Wii

Release Date: April 10, 2008

I realized at the end of writing my review for Mario Kart DS that calling it the definitive Mario Kart game might be an opinion I only share. Sure, like all long-running series, the newest iteration will automatically be propped up as the crowning achievement in the public eye due to recency bias and the unfortunate tendency to treat video games like tech products. For a franchise like Mario Kart, I guess the pattern of dethroning the previous entry and having the newest iteration act in its stead, like the inaugural tenure of a pope, is a fitting practice. As a series progresses, growing gaming modernity injects more accessibility into every entry. Since Mario is the mascot of a video game company widely associated with accompanying a general gaming audience, the medium’s strides to smooth over all conceivable coarseness coincide with Mario’s accessibility initiative. Sometime in the series’ history, when Nintendo was more concerned with working out the cracks of the 3D template that Mario Kart 64 established and making that same 3D plane a feasible realm on a mobile system, the racing gameplay was tighter than Bruce Lee’s kung fu vice grip with a skill ceiling higher than the roof of the Sistine Chapel. After 3D became the norm, no matter the platform, Mario Kart’s evolution focused on lubricating its racing gameplay to reach the desired lowest common denominator of gamers. From what I can tell, the series’ accessibility agenda rocketed off with Mario Kart Wii, a prime time to do so, considering that their seventh-generation system was already reeling in the elderly and stuffy PTA members alike. In my experience, playing Mario Kart Wii after Double Dash introduced me to the series a generation prior was not a path that proved to be favorable for the Wii title. Other than subtracting the number of simultaneous racers back to its standard solo seating, the racing mechanics and atmosphere of Mario Kart Wii were so fundamentally different from the Double Dash raucous that raised me, greatly underwhelming me as a result. Years later as an adult with the hindsight of future entries as references, Mario Kart Wii doesn’t cater towards a “casual” audience as overtly as I originally thought. However, signs of the series verging in that direction are still apparent.

When Nintendo shells out a wheel peripheral as the chief selling point of Mario Kart Wii, are my accusations of pandering so off base? From a marketing standpoint, issuing a steering wheel with every copy of Mario Kart Wii was an ingenious idea. The Wii’s kineticism was what allured the technophobic throngs of older people to it, so accenting a racing game by sticking the Wiimote at the center of an interactive steering wheel was a no-brainer in further preserving their freshly sparked interests. All in all, the apparatus is fully functional and emulates the sensation of driving competently enough, even around the wacky twists and turns of Mario Kart courses. I’m not besmirching the Wii Wheel because I’m the fun police, nor am I taking the sad elitist stance that a standard controller is the only proper way to play Mario Kart. In saying that, the primary reason why Mario Kart Wii left me unsatisfied for so long is that I thought the Wiimote and its circular-shaped extension were the only controller methods that the game allowed, and I’m embarrassed to detail the duration of time it took for me to realize that this wasn’t the case. In late 2017, I stumbled upon two guys playing Mario Kart Wii in an isolated room of a college house party I was attending, and they both had GameCube controllers in their hands. When they directly clarified for me that they were playing Mario Kart Wii and not Double Dash, I could’ve sworn that the revelation blew my mind all over the walls like that one scene in Boogie Nights (I was also drunk, so that probably raised my dramaticism). Upon subsequent revisitations to Mario Kart Wii, using a familiar controller that I had accumulated tons of practice on in previous entries made the experience exponentially more comfortable. I’m a class five idiot.

Since the Gamecube controller is now facilitating the same extraordinary finesse I often display in Double Dash, was I consistently busting some sick drift boosts, telling Mario to kiss my grits from a mile ahead? Well, as much as the game allowed, I suppose. With the wider consumer base in mind, Mario Kart Wii offers players the option of either drifting manually like always or relying on an automatic transmission that performs the drifting equation of racing for them entirely. I didn’t humor the new quality of life feature, not out of fear that I’d lose my Mario Kart credentials, but because expecting the game to react accordingly to the sharp bends around the tracks would’ve slapped an ironic handicap on my seasoned driving skills. If veteran players insist on the traditional method, know that snaking is a scheme of the past, my friends. The skilled slithering to victory has now been compromised by Mario Kart Wii’s reworking of the series’ driving mechanics. Even though engaging the drift function is still achieved with a manual pressing and holding of a button trigger, the game won’t allow the player to climax the drift into a speed boost until they’ve maintained their curved position for a chosen few seconds of their liking. Sure, they now present the opportunity to augment the blast speed of the boost if the drift is sustained for a longer duration, but I don’t need a degree in physics to tell you that three or four smaller boosts in eight seconds will prove more efficient than a single boost at twice the speed in that time. Do the math!

Maybe Nintendo is suggesting that I’m a sucker for sticking with my ol’ timey ways because they’ve implemented a bevy of perks for the Mario Kart noobs who they figured would use the Wii Wheel. If the player shakes the Wiimote while at the apex point of flying off of a ramp or other elevated incline, their character will perform a flashy little twirl like Sonic does while snowboarding down the roads of “City Escape,” and their precise timing will be rewarded with a tiny little boost upon touching the ground once again. Besides the implementation of motion controls, Mario Kart Wii’s most significant contribution to the franchise is definitely mixing in motorbikes as alternatives to the colorful array of karts. For those who are hesitant to accept these two-wheeled vehicles and question their legitimacy in a kart racing game, would the ability to sustain a perpetual boost momentum via a “wheelie” maneuver, provided the track remains straight and narrow, quell your concerns? Not for me, for I stubbornly stuck to my Gamecube controller guns, even if reaching for the D-Pad to execute any of these perks felt like I needed an extra appendage gained from a mutation to comfortably execute. While I felt like the game was debilitating my preferred racing method at times, remaining loyal to my marriage of Double Dash’s control scheme proved to garner far better success here, despite how the game badgered me to leave it by waving these foul, younger temptresses in my face. Then again, my Mario Kart proficiency with this tried-and-true device places me as an inconsistent variable in the developer’s considerations when persuading people to commit to their gimmicks.

Whether or not the player has their hands wrapped around the Wii Wheel or the Cube’s old faithful, they’ll still be subjected to the brutal wrath of Mario Kart Wii’s items, constantly keeping them from colonizing the finish line. Not the few new selections that the game offers, just to clarify, but I suppose they’re still worth mentioning for the sake of comprehension. Overall, I’ve counted quite a few redundancies amongst the three new editions incorporated into the slot machine-styled item box shuffle. The “mega mushroom” that briefly gave Mario kaiju-sized proportions in New Super Mario Bros will enlarge a racer at approximately ten times their normal mass to literally crush their competition. Still, the scope of this item’s functionality makes it alarmingly similar to a star, and without the perk of invulnerability at that. The quake of a POW Block will affect the acceleration of every racer but the summoner like the lightning, but I actually enjoy the fact that the oncoming quake is signaled overhead, and the player can avoid spinning out by making themselves airborne via a ramp or hopping with extremely precise timing. The singular lightning cloud may suggest total creative bankruptcy, but pleading for the player to pass this affliction item to another racer by bumping into them and having them shrink instead presents quite a unique and interesting condition. I can’t believe Nintendo managed to externalize the process of spreading around “the clap” in a Mario-oriented title.

While these items will admittedly do their part in rupturing the player’s first-place position, it's the returning items that are bound to create some crestfallen kart racers. Since its release, Mario Kart Wii seems to have adopted a fearful legacy because of the supposed relentlessness of its item roster. Namely, the infamous blue shells whose deadly strikes are so rampant here that it's comparable to being attacked by a swarm of hornets, especially on the higher difficulty levels. Now that I could comfortably tackle the greater difficulties because I escaped the binds of the Wii Wheel, I’ve found that the rumoured onslaught of blue shells was a bit of an embellishment. The rate of blue shell strikes on the track isn’t higher than in previous Mario Kart titles, but the consequence of being struck by the spiked, success-seeking missile is more severe. Another one of Mario Kart Wii’s tweaks to the series formula is increasing the maximum number of racers from eight to twelve. Upon performing more Mario Kart math, this connotes that the probability of meeting a terrible fate with the winged weapon increases by one-third. Lest we forget that Mario Kart features several other deadly items that are equally as potent as a blue shell, albeit not as accurate, and how they factor into the heightened dread of item infliction. You see, Mario Kart is like sitting in a classroom, where the attentive, diligent students in the front exist in a relative realm of serenity while the savage remedial students situated in the back hoot and holler and scratch each other’s eyes out. When the uncaring apes behind you are doing their damndest to distract you from your goals, you might be forced to stoop to their level or possibly regress even further. Being blue-shelled by an underachiever and losing my leading rank is one thing, but this initial assault tended to be followed up by a storming star or bullet bill careening towards the top by the legion of losers, falling further behind after being yeeted. Bogus. Sure, I could then utilize the overpowered items gifted to me at my unceremonious placement to regain most of the ground I had lost. Still, what if this beating occurred mere inches before crossing the finish line for the third time? Forget about receiving silver or bronze, because five or six racers could potentially follow behind at the last second, thanks to the game tethering the CPUs together as tightly as seen in Mario Kart 64. Winning any uninterrupted race isn’t a matter of sheer luck like the aforementioned predecessor, but the blowback from any amount of damage will prove to have the most damning consequences we’ve seen thus far from this series.

I suppose I can cope with Mario Kart Wii screwing me senselessly because I’d be repeating a succession of dynamite Mario Kart courses. I noted that the most exemplary tracks in Mario Kart DS were racing interpretations of familiar areas found across the pantheon of other Mario media (ie, Airship Fortress, Luigi’s Mansion, etc.). In Mario Kart Wii, the strongest of its sixteen-track lineups seem to stem from pure, creative ingenuity, rendering untested domains and seeing if they’d be complementary areas for a kart racer. As it turns out, riding the escalators inside “Coconut Mall,” shrinking to the size of ants to then ride around the trunks of trees during the autumnal season in “Maple Treeway,” and having the player race with a river current to then drive along the surface of a translucent, underwater pipe in “Koopa Cape” exudes a scale of whimsy and wonder that is unprecedented in the series. “Grumble Volcano” also stands out to me, for the hellish, lava-flooded canyon setting gave me the false impression that “Bowser’s Castle” has been held back to the “Star Cup” for the first time. The character-themed courses are also quite entertaining, such as the wooden rollercoaster ride that is “Wario’s Gold Mine” and “Daisy Circuit,” only because it somehow stands above and beyond the other vanilla circuit courses with its curvy track design. Besides the crushing industrial mechanisms and conveyor belt boost strips, “Toad’s Factory” is especially intriguing because it ignites conversation on the mushroom-headed people’s proletariat statuses in the Mushroom Kingdom. “Moonview Highway” is the spiritual successor to Mario Kart 64’s “Toad Turnpike,” where the congestion of vehicle traffic is amplified to the scale of a bustling metropolis. “DK Summit” expands upon “DK Mountain’s” concept of shooting the racers up to the steep elevation of a monkey-themed mountain, with the added snow covering the course establishing the thematic setting of a ski slope. Half pipes are also prevalent in this track that fosters the extreme winter sport, which I deem as the only acceptable way to earn an extra boost from utilizing a course’s layout that Mario Kart Wii introduces. As for the series’s two finale tracks that are guaranteed to be reinterpreted with every new entry, King Koopa’s intimidating estate incorporates half pipes to effectively make dodging the colossal fireballs of the Bowser statue a nerve-wracking affair. Rainbow Road is now themed around Mario’s 3D adventure across the cosmos, with starbits sprinkled above the track like the glowing flair of Christmas lights. With Super Mario Galaxy’s success in recent memory, intertwining it with the plumber’s original exposure to the outer limits is a no-brainer. Even though I’ve highlighted several of the game’s stellar courses, I still find myself limiting the mentions for the sake of brevity, which should convey the consistency of excellence on display.

I guess offering an equal amount of retro courses will persist as a Mario Kart mainstay, considering that they comprise half of Mario Kart Wii’s entire track selection. In Mario Kart DS, where the idea of remastering tracks from the series past first came into fruition, the mobile hardware suppressed the game’s ambitions and resulted in limiting itself to the simpler tracks of the 2D days or watering down the features of courses originally rendered in the third dimension. On Nintendo’s current console hardware at the time, the issue is remedied completely, but it’s difficult to say if the developers took full advantage of their newfound lack of technical restrictions. Is it neat seeing the tracks from the SNES Mario Kart and Super Circuit bloom in unadulterated 3D, or does it expose the fact that they are now quite unstimulating because modern Mario Kart courses have evolved to be rather complicated? I’m thrilled that Double Dash courses like “DK Mountain” and “Peach Gardens” can be copied and pasted into another entry without any complications, but the almost identical renderings sort of make me wonder if repurposing them so soon was really necessary. Without a doubt, the courses that debuted in Mario Kart 64 benefit extraordinarily from this rehaul process because they are no longer confined to the irritating gameplay snags that beset them. Honestly, the retro course selection here should’ve been the entirety of Mario Kart 64, like how Super Circuit offered all of the original Mario Kart’s tracks. While I’m not willing to give the retro track portion my full commendations just yet, the potential fostered just by blossoming the concept to a fully-fledged console showcases an incredible leap in progress.

Since Double Dash introduced the concept, Nintendo has obscured a substantial amount of Mario Kart Wii’s total content as an incentive for the player to master every course, whether it be a retread or its original version. What impresses me most about Mario Kart Wii’s unlockables is the extensive checklist that stretches beyond simply completing every cup on all of the difficulty levels. I no longer question the implementation of the ranking system that scores the player’s performance, even if they earn that gold trophy, because unlocking Bowser Jr and the weathered version of his father in “Dry Bowser” by receiving a gold star adds an additional layer of challenge to this condition. I would’ve never bothered with the game’s time trials if they hadn’t dangled hidden characters over my head, especially since one of them is the baddest mutha in the DK Crew: Funky Kong. If you don’t feel like testing your mettle in mirror mode, the galaxy’s intergalactic princess, Rosalina, can be unlocked if the system detects a save file of Super Mario Galaxy on one’s system. This isn’t the only reason to track down a copy of the game, of course. While I appreciate the range of requirements needed to experience all that Mario Kart Wii offers, I still question if it's all worth the effort because the overall roster exhibits some considerable padding. I guarantee that no one asked for FIVE Mario characters to be infantilized and pick them as their primary racers. However, one can ignore the influx of undesirable clones by choosing one new character that is racing as a guest in the Mario universe. On paper, racing as one’s customizable Mii perfectly satisfies my desire to race as a non-descript avatar more than Toad or Yoshi ever could. In execution, however, the personalization is ruined whenever the Mii utters its squeaky, dorky vocalizations, which are annoying and do not reflect my melodious baritone voice as an impersonation of myself should. My main man Funky Kong and I will continue to burn rubber together, thank you very much.

It’s fortunate that the qualifications to unlock every vehicle and character are so extraneous because the classic racing distraction of battle mode has been butchered. Collecting coins and popping balloons proved to be engaging battle conditions, but the developers must have been wasted when they decided that having the player lead a team of CPUs was a good idea. One’s teammates here tend to also be the glue sniffers who remain in sixth or seventh place during the races, so the best of luck to you and your efforts to crush the other team while they drag ass. I actually don’t mind the three-minute time limit the player is restricted to during these battles, for having to patiently wait for the result of a drawn-out match where the results are totally out of the player’s control would make me realize that I’m in a special circle of Hell. If this and the regular races make the player sick to death of CPUs and their nonsense, they’ll be pleased to hear that the Wii offers internet access. The player can race against real human competitors from all across the world with the console’s smooth, impeccable connection. I hope you all detected the sarcasm in that sentence.

My memories of Mario Kart Wii seemed to have failed me. Because of the circular contraption I had wrongly believed to be the game’s sole controller, I had interpreted this entry as the point where the series had succumbed to the indulgence of the masses and where the skill ceiling had fallen to the recesses of a musty basement. However, this is a rare instance where my nostalgic recollections improve my outlook on a game instead of holding onto its initial impression. The slew of opportunities to supplement speed does suggest some semblance of streamlining, but it doesn’t negate the element of items to work around that chaotically persists from Double Dash!! The original course selection is all killer with little filler to be found, and I’m excited to see what sorts of retro track interpretations look like in future entries after this game removed all of its technical restrictions. If I had bothered to read the back of the game’s box in 2008, I might have recognized Mario Kart Wii as being equally worthy to its two laudable predecessors much sooner.

Mega Man X5 Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 11/14/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Mega Man X5

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: PS1

Release Date: November 20, 2000

Makes me sick, motherfucker, how far the Mega Man X subseries done fell. The seismic decline of what was the refined next generation of Mega Man titles should be academically studied and examined like an autopsy, for it befuddles me like a 1970s detective in California chasing the Zodiac Killer. Mega Man X enhanced every conceivable attribute that the original NES series provided the primitive template for, to the point where its superiority was an unquestionable objective fact. Sure, the series’ luster still seemed destined to gradually wither with every yearly entry because Capcom didn’t learn a goddamn thing after oversaturating the original Mega Man series. However, the signs of depressing series fatigue that were prevalent in the sequels that followed the glorious X series debut, especially in X3, were miraculously revived by the fourth entry when the series jumped the crumbling Nintendo support platform to the grassier side of Sony’s new PlayStation console. Mega Man X4’s presentational prowess, balanced accessibility, and imaginative level design placed it on a pedestal of unprecedented quality across the entirety of the Mega Man series. This is why it was especially shocking when its direct numerical follow-up, Mega Man X5, suffered a total relapse that managed to surpass the state of sickness that plagued its SNES predecessors. Weakening a horse by beating it repeatedly is one thing, but when one receives a strapping stallion to replace it and that one falls ill within a week of owning it, there’s bound to be some foul play afoot. However, upon inspecting the lesions and blunt trauma that Mega Man X5 has suffered, I’ve deduced that the mortal wounds were caused by inadvertent carelessness and misstepping rather than neglect or malice.

Once again, that scoundrel Sigma persistently attempts to tear the harmony between humans and robots asunder by causing chaos and infecting some impressionable artificial minds. This time around, he’s receiving some aid in his nefarious schemes from another recalcitrant Reploid robot named Dynamo, and the disastrous duo used their combined forces of evil to upset the suspended inertia of a space colony called Eurasia and have it collide with Earth like a cataclysmic meteor. X and Zero confront the bulbous head of Sigma on the malfunctioning space colony, but their valiant efforts unfortunately result in spreading the Sigma Virus, which is also a secondary condition unleashed when the collision occurs. While I’m still not swallowing the “Sigma Virus” concept that persists here after X3 introduced it as an oversimplified source of conflict, everything else surrounding the plot premise of Mega Man X5 is quite stimulating. The stakes are high, the threat is crystal clear, and the ticking of a sixteen-hour timer until the brutal impact occurs fills the air with a frantic tension. Still, I wish that the expositional material that furthered this plot were still displayed with the anime cutscenes that the previous X game (and the eighth mainline title) showcased to flaunt the presentational capabilities of the advanced PlayStation system. Sure, the voice acting reeked of an amateurism that marginally mucked up the intended severity of the scenes, but it was a minor hiccup that could’ve easily been remedied with slightly more consideration during the recording process. The decision to instead display the scenes with a sequence of still images, recycled ones at that, is a stark regression that is totally unnecessary. Was there an especially scathing critic back then, AKA me if I wasn’t drooling and shitting in diapers in 1997, who mocked the line deliveries so harshly that the developers took it personally and removed the cinematic flair of the presentation entirely to avoid another lashing? If so, on behalf of all wiseasses who review video games, I apologize for the comments from whoever it might have been that influenced this disappointing decision.

Because the mission’s scope is extremely hair-raising and time is of the utmost essence, X and Zero can’t possibly thwart Sigma and Dynamo’s newest diabolical plot alone. Similar to X4, X’s two playable characters are being assisted by a task force operating from the sidelines. Signas is the decorated commander who hates Mavericks like General Patton hated communists, while Douglas (what kind of name is that for a futuristic robot?) is the technical mechanic who crafts modules for our heroes while he’s simultaneously building a laser cannon destructive enough to violently obliterate the Eurasia colony out of orbit. Unlike X4, these allies aren’t actually turncoats that will show their true pernicious colors when X and Zero least expect it, so they prove to be reliable throughout their time combating Sigma. However, one particular member of this coalition is perhaps TOO reliable for my tastes and serves as the first strike against X5’s new gameplay injections. The token female member supporting X and Zero here is Alia, who monitors the layout of each level and communicates her reconnaissance information to either playable Maverick hunter via a headset microphone from the vantage point of the gang’s base. When considering the utility of this supporting character, the developers should’ve been aware of Navi’s role as arguably the one smudge against Ocarina of Time’s perceived perfection at the time and avoided inserting a nagging, interruptive assistant at all costs. Alas, Capcom evidently misinterpreted the reputation of the scorned fairy because now she’s a blonde humanoid android wearing a pink, skintight armor outfit with a microphone headset fused to her cranium. To Navi’s credit, one could at least imagine her guidance to be warranted while the player attempts to navigate the untested span of a 3D Zelda game in its early experimental phase. In a 2D series such as Mega Man, where the level design is remarkably straightforward, what could be unclear enough to justify an explanation from an omniscient source? Not only does Alia prompt every level by elucidating the relevant context surrounding it, but she insists on signaling in whenever the player is faced with any unseen platforming gimmick, an alternate fork in the road of one’s progression path, or seemingly at random occurrences. The flow of action also comes to a complete halt whenever Alia dials into X or Zero’s hearing modules, which is akin to driving on the freeway and having to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting a deer after every mile. Don’t think that you’ll be remiss if you mash the button that skips the scrolls of Alia’s text boxes. Anyone with enough patience to tolerate her will quickly learn that she stops the player dead in their tracks to speak nothing of anything but what should already be 100% apparent. Yes, Alia, I concur, it is indeed a horrible night to have a curse. Now, pretty please, with sugar on top, could you SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT!?

Alia’s inane input is particularly patronizing because it’s not as if the player won’t know the process of extinguishing the eight Mavericks, the idiosyncratic gameplay formula from Mega Man that has been tested so many times at this point,where I now have to count with fingers on both hands. The octet of Mavericks here may not continue the conceptual mold of Reploids gone rogue like the ones featured in X4, but they’re still an eclectic assortment of stylized robots shaped like animals, as the case has always been. If you’re playing the English translation, which I assume the majority of players are, one particular commonality that this crop of Mavericks shares is that their names reference the members of the multi-platinum selling, seminal 80s hard rock titans Guns N Roses. Dueling double guitars here are the shredding talents of the cyborg bear Grizzly Slash and the luminous insectoid Izzy Glow, while Duff McWhalen lays down bass riffs as thick as the mechanical blubber of his blue exterior. The bat Dark Dizzy is the sole provider of keyboards if needed, but the fiery Jurassic lizard Mattrex will provide drums for the Mavericks if Squid Adler’s drug problem leaves him incapacitated. The mystical flying horse, The Skiver, does not allude to any specific band member to my knowledge, but there’s no mistaking the parallels between the thorny Axle the Red and a certain frontman with a penchant for wailing. Fun fact: if the player knocks Axle’s health down to about a quarter of the way, the Maverick will throw a hissy fit and leave the arena. How many of you will understand that joke?

Anyways, while it’s amusing to poke fun at these particular Mavericks for their odd referential names, the entertainment factor of their respective levels all reach various new lows for the series. Remember the compactor from Armored Armadillo’s stage all the way back in the first X game and how the player had to acutely evade or quickly combat it while it was gaining on him, lest it liquidate his entire health bar in one fell swoop? Well, a hostile submarine shaped and colored like a porpoise channels the same objective at the beginning of Duff McWhalen’s stage, but at the grueling pace of a snail with no tension involved in the slightest. Flipping the stage on its opposite end in Dark Dizzy’s space domain is easily the lamest utilization of a gravity gimmick the series has ever seen, while the jet bike ride that begins Squid Adler’s stage is the newest bane of my existence. I’ve chastised many automated vehicle sequences in instances across the entire Mega Man franchise before, but the margin of error here is so chokingly tight that I sought out guidance to see if there was a hidden navigation trick that went over my head. Not to mention, it’s laughably egregious that any player starting this stage won’t anticipate the pit at the very start of this track, as they’ll likely fall to their death immediately as a result. No one bothered to test this before they shipped it out? I quite enjoy the adrenaline of leaping from a series of train cars set to explode in Grizzly Slash’s stage, and dismantling active time bombs by blasting them with the Mega Buster, which certainly requires the player’s fullest attentiveness and reaction skills. Still, none of the admirable moments across any of these levels are enough to offset the game’s countless uninspired and or grating moments that seem to be higher in quantity than in any X game before it.

I can’t say that any of the special weapons that X absorbs from these Mavericks really resonated with me either. None of them proved to be utterly useless like the all-timer duds we’ve seen throughout series history, but I think the lukewarm reception stems from their lack of creativity. Classic elemental themings like fire, ice, and electricity have been recycled ad nauseam to the point where they’re now cliches, and I swear that the series has seen homing missiles and a vertical cyclone power before stemming back to the original iteration of Mega Man. Not only does Dark Dizzy’s “Dark Hold” freeze time in the same fashion as Flash Man’s ability in Mega Man 2, but it’s also used for the same express purpose of evading lethal lasers as one did in Quick Man’s stage long ago. Am I intended to be amused by this overt episode of deja vu?

Because I find the special weapon array to be rather unremarkable, I’d rather focus on X5’s other method of accessorizing the blue bomber. Suits of superior armor have been a core component of the upgrades in the X series since we were introduced to Mega Man’s enhanced, 22nd-century model, and they’ve served as the primary incentive for the player to search more methodically through each level and fracture their stringent linearity as a result. Previously, one impressive protective suit was unlocked after finding every Dr. Light capsule, but X5 extends the number of armor sets, so the player can feel the gratification of unlocking additions to X’s body twice over. Both the Falcon and Gaea armor sets increase the blue bomber’s overall durability like an enhanced suit of armor ideally should, but the fundamental difference between the two is their polar traversal properties. The Falcon Armor allows X to soar like the bird of the armor’s namesake through airborne bullcharging that can be directed in a myriad of angles and offers a minor invincibility frame in its brief duration. Meanwhile, the Gaea armor’s bulkiness exudes the sensation that X is a walking battle tank, which comes at the cost of his standard rate of nimbleness. Their respective attributes are mostly utilized when the player is gathering collectibles, with some heart containers being perched on steep ledges that are out of reach or the surfaces of spikes that would decimate X on contact if not for the metallic layers of the Gaea Armor. Even though offering a pair of contrasting armor suits presents a neat bit of gameplay diversification, the prospect of using either for the purpose of actually protecting X won’t be as compelling. For some reason, the ultimate armor from X4 returns and is available automatically. It may come as a nerfed version without a few of its potent perks, but it will still prove to be efficient enough to carry X through the game’s entirety, even if Douglas spruces up X’s default armor with upgrades in the stage select menu. Hell, the qualifications to receive the “ultimate armor” is to simply find the coinciding capsule in the third Sigma palace stage while X is donning his birthday suit (his regular armor, just to clarify). When the game’s pinnacle of protection only requires finding it off the beaten path, what incentive is there in partaking in the good ol’ armor part scavenger hunt?

Compounding the decreased stimulus to engage with the standard upgrade-seeking process is X5’s unique, overarching gameplay stipulation. The sixteen-hour time limit isn’t solely a narrative construct: it’s a relevant component to how the player manages their productivity throughout their playthrough. Or, at least that’s the impression that X5 desires to instill in the player to promote an anxiety-filled sense of severity. The clock will count down by a single digit once the player selects a level, and returning to the stage select menu if a “game over” screen presents the opportunity to waste an hour of progress. If the player fails to defeat all eight Mavericks within the allotted time, the game will lock the player to the “bad ending,” which involves the erasure of Zero as a playable character. Sounds pretty serious, right? Given the consequences of lollygagging, one would think that the game's trajectory to avoid failure would have been much smoother. If the player is still inclined to collect all of the various armor pieces and augmentations scattered throughout each level, know that their positioning will often contradict the urgency of the time limit. For example, one armor piece in Duff McWhalen’s stage is obscured by a thick block of wood, and the button that will combust this obstacle requires the weapon of the stage’s Maverick. That’s two visits to the whale’s watery domain and two units subtracted from the timer. Not to mention, the health-maximizing items that require either the Falcon or Gaea armor to access in the same stages, which will often consume more time from the total throughout the majority of the game’s levels. But you know what the kicker is behind overwhelming the player with this condition? After accepting that I could only eke out a C-grade collection, Douglas then destroyed the Eurasia colony with the Enigma after I defeated all eight Mavericks and suddenly, I was free to revisit any Maverick level without the stern stipulation breathing down my neck. I believe I also yelled, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Spoilers shmoilers: I’m doing a grand service to every reader by revealing X5’s chicanery so their chosen path to completion isn’t bogged down by this mirage. That is, their trajectory is still dependent on the ways in which X5 will tighten the tension and pretend that its encompassing condition still matters.

Despite the fact that X5’s bleaker narrative can be easily avoided by promptly defeating all eight Mavericks, the unsavory ending seems to be the only conclusion that makes any sense. The Sigma Virus outbreak amongst the machines is especially concerning for Zero, for it will awaken the malicious streak that Dr. Wily programmed into him when the mad doctor was still alive and breathing. If the player either manages to screw around completely or dive down the unrecommended narrative direction, Zero will get down with the Maverick sickness and as mentioned, be excluded from the player’s character/armor roster. Extremist Zero will be encountered by X in the third Sigma stage, and the battle that ensues will put X’s infected former mentor and friend out of his misery. What puzzles me is that even if the player is on the right track, the ending still results in Zero getting critically incapacitated. The reason for putting Zero out to pasture regardless of the player’s trajectory is that, little-known fact, X5 was originally intended to be the grand finale of the Mega Man subseries. Still, while I will concede that losing such a steadfast figure is an emotional event worthy of concluding the series, having all routes lead to it sort of voids the accomplishment of working towards the ending with a more desirable outcome.

The one aspect of X5 that I can’t decide whether or not salvages all of its mistakes is that the game is as forgiving to player error as a battered 1950s housewife. Remember the strides X4 took in streamlining the Mega Man experience by letting the player continue at a halfway point if they exhausted all of their lives? In X5, checkpoints and continues are now interchangeable, with a new checkpoint stamped after completing every frame of a level and returning to it if the player’s life counter is totally depleted. As relieving as this might sound to some players, the caveat is that the game will consistently implement more instant-death opportunities and other steeper damage inflictors. The Sisyphean process of constantly repeating a section without the stiff penalty of a progress erasing rewind is definitely displayed during the bosses of the Sigma stages. Exhibit A of X5’s habit of killing the player instantly comes with a remixed bout from the first X game, where spikes will sprout from the cramped walls in addition to the constant presence of the sharp impalers on the arena’s floor. On paper, this blackened version of the Yellow Devil would be the toughest iteration of this abomination of globular matter if it weren’t for the addition of a crouch feature. How clever of the developers to dye the Devil this particular color to limit my vitriol against him! Lastly, the waves of energy that Sigma produces during his first fight will knock off about a third of X’s total health if they touch him, and the hitboxes have some noticeably questionable detection to them. What, you want me to thank you for chaining me closer to these aggravating bosses, Capcom? I’d rather you just cut the crap altogether.

Hey, Alia, could you tell me if Mega Man X5 kind of sucks? The reason why I’m requesting Alia’s opinion here is because she only parrots what is already abundantly clear to me. Besides being at the mercy of Captain Obvious at every step, Mega Man X5’s objectionable quality is a mix of confounding contradictions. On one hand, the game is rife with gaping holes where intended mechanics fail to follow through, and progression is now orchestrated around said pussyfooted mechanics that give me a headache. On the other hand, the liniency on player error has never been so relaxed Not to mention, the profusion of unsatisfactory level aspects that range from tedious to outright insufferable. If it weren’t for the liberal checkpoints keeping me afloat, I’d outright declare X5 as a record-breaking low for the series. However, I think it’s on par with X3, which was the original point of caution for Mega Man X. My kingdom for a timeline where the subseries actually quit while the series was relatively ahead as initially intended but, spoiler alert, the series illness that besets X5 is terminal, and it’s only going to appear more sickly from here on out. Donate some flowers to express your condolences.

Nicktoons Unite! Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 11/13/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Nicktoons Unite!

Developer: Blue Tongue

Publisher: THQ

Genre(s): Action-Adventure

Platforms: GCN, PS2

Release Date: October 27, 2005

Kids are not the sharpest tools in the shed that we call society. I could ramble on about how this generation’s youngins are amused by what I consider to be dumb, trendy shite like TikTok, cryptocoin, and those fugly Labubu things, which look like Monchhichis if you fed them after midnight, like the old coot I’ve become. However, I’d be a stone thrower in a glass house in that scenario. I can’t criticize anything the youths of today do because I made the same mistakes getting sucked into chintzy crap. Namely, cartoon crossover video games like Nicktoons Unite! They could’ve placed these four familiar animated characters as the members of a jury deciding the verdict of someone attempting to rescind a traffic ticket, and I’d have jumped at the opportunity to experience it. In fact, this statement is emblematic of the cynical situation at large regarding the existence of Nicktoons Unite! Because kids like me lacked the discerning taste and media literacy that comes with age, the industry at large could capitalize on our naivety and churn out a product without any effort or thought put into it. Naturally, this is exactly what happened with Nicktoons Unite! Still, the reason why I’ve chosen to resurrect this forgettable piece of licensed shovelware from my childhood and dedicate a review to it two decades later is that the game was so atrocious that the crossover novelty it was intending to skate by on faltered completely.

First and foremost, let’s not be obtuse here, gentlemen. By the mid-2000s, when Nicktoons Unite! was released, the label of a “Nicktoon” no longer existed. The phrase once had relevance during the channel’s early 1990s inception, when every original series was of relatively equal standing and collectively worked together to showcase the strengths of an animated-exclusive network when the idea of such a thing was still a stroke of ingenuity. Once that decade came to a close, the network’s “silver age” was marked by Stephen Hillenburg’s yellow sponge breaking through the mold of channel cohesion to situate himself on the Mt. Rushmore of cartoon characters alongside Mickey, Bugs, and Homer Simpson. The game should’ve been titled “SpongeBob and Friends Unite!” to highlight the honest dynamic between these characters, with the most recognizable IP receiving top billing. Yet, the game’s narrative seems to shy away from the prevalent SpongeBob supremacy by placing Jimmy Neutron as the leader of this crossover coalition. Mainly, this is due to the fact that the precocious wunderkind’s prime nemesis, Professor Calamitous, is the commander of the villain collective. The unified group of antagonists consists of each Nicktoon character’s respective antagonists and is using their collective maliciousness in an effort to terrorize the greater Nickelodeon universe. Naturally, the rampant, ambiguous wrongdoings of these cartoon villains behoove our heroes to use their equally matched combined forces of good to halt their schemes.

The inherent appeal of crossover content is fulfilling the curious fantasy of seeing multiple characters from completely separate fictional universes interact despite how polar their normal existences are from one another (two characters here both being Butch Hartman creations, notwithstanding). From a gameplay standpoint, the distinctiveness of each Nickelodeon character establishes a diverse dynamic between the foursome. Danny Phantom (who is shockingly making his debut in an interactive medium here) should be propped up as the Frank Sinatra of this rat pack, leading the charge with his potent punches and kicks that are enhanced by his superhero capabilities. Nicktoons Unite seems to subscribe to the same connection that the Jimmy Timmy Power Hour series was based upon, in that the universal forces of science and magic that both gifted pre-teens boys wield the power of, respectively, place them on different sides of the same coin despite their clashing paper flat and polygonal animation aesthetics. What this means from a gameplay standpoint is that Jimmy and Timmy both specialize in projectile offenses, with the former blasting lasers from a mechanism he crafted in his lab and the latter character wishing Cosmo to fashion himself as a green rifle that spews stars. Isn’t there a passage in “Da Rules” that restricts Timmy from not corresponding with gun-owning regulations, or is this a special scenario that allows him some flexibility? Lastly, and objectively not least, what does the absorbent, yellow, and porous one contribute to this group? Well, Mr. Nickelodeon seems to be situated as the comic relief, using his idiosyncratic, almost aloof effervescence as a source of levity in the midst of all of the other characters' dryly expositing mission plans. Puts things into perspective, eh? To his credit, where SpongeBob’s foam karate gloves will prove the most ineffective at penetrating the enemy’s defenses, at least he can contribute the absorbency of his spongy physicality to hydrate some of the more organic platforms and then use their buoyant properties to bounce upward like a trampoline. Then again, the three other characters also contribute their other assets outside of combat for situational snags involving platforming. Danny can possess NPC characters and enemies with his ghostly transparency, Timmy can utilize some Snowmeiser magic to freeze enemies and platforms, Jimmy can hover over sizable gaps with his jetpack, etc. Actually, SpongeBob is definitely the MVP on the field because he can summon DoodleBob to distract enemies, and I believe this is the first time any video game involving SpongeBob has ever incorporated his crude, malevolent graphite creation in any capacity. Whether or not we’d like to argue if SpongeBob is or is really required to pull his own weight here, his distinctive gameplay characteristics, along with his compatriots, do compel the player to refrain from sticking to Stephen Hillenburg’s brainchild for the game’s duration, and exhibit a mark of admirable character research from the developers.

Alas, the diversity between all of these disparate characters is ultimately muddled by the inexcusably pitiful gameplay mechanics. Have you ever attempted to hoist a fish out of a river with your bare hands, or borrow the keys to your local hospital’s morgue and try to engage in a firm handshake with one of the corpses like you’re meeting your girlfriend’s father? Don’t answer any of those questions, for they’re rhetorical situations meant to highlight the lifeless, impactless feeling that plagues Nicktoons Unite! No matter if you’re denting the syndicate’s robotic legions with Danny or SpongeBob’s melee attacks or blasting bits off of them with Jimmy and Timmy, the player will quickly come to the realization that every action they commit holds zero physical gravity. Hitting an enemy feels like pounding a hole into a piece of paper or a rice cake, a fragile object where any physical impact with said object will feel like an imbalance of energy, no matter the level of force. Upon being smited, enemies will simply evaporate into flinty little sparks, dissipating in a flash like flushing loose hairs down a sink. They might leave behind a coin, the most cliché video game currency imaginable, which the player can use towards increasing individual character attributes, such as strengthening their offense and gadgets. Still, however many points the player allots to these traits will not change the combat’s underwhelming sensation of laying waste to saltine crackers.

Truthfully, the lame combat of Nicktoons Unite is symptomatic of the game’s appalling presentational qualities. Usually, I wouldn’t be too critical about a game’s superficial features, but the shoddiness displayed throughout Nicktoons Unite is as rampant as a growing cancer cell. For starters, another vital video game attribute that is still commonly undiscussed by me is the nondescript muzak that introduces us to the game in the main menu. Sorry, but are our heroes on an epic journey to conquer evil or shop for snappy business casual attire at Macy's? When the level music isn’t equally as lethargically stock as the one in the introduction, many levels seem content to have the faint sounds of rustling winds, bobbing bubbles, and other ambient noises accompany level progression, if not complete silence. Because Nicktoons Unite inexplicably keeps the volume at a library level, the pitter-patter of the piddly combat just becomes more pronounced. How hard is it to compose some generic triumphant score just to appropriately set the scene? The lack of audible oomph also unfortunately translates to the game’s sound effects, or lack thereof. When Patrick is sucked into a jellyfish harvester, all we hear is a soft bubbling like a kid is blowing on a straw into their soda instead of the harsh industrial vacuum suction blare of this mechanical monster. C'mon, guys, the show reuses the same anguished scream from Patrick constantly! You’re telling me you couldn’t have borrowed it?! Voice acting is also inconsistent, as the game opts to substitute spoken dialogue with nothing but text boxes whenever the characters speak to other recognizable faces from their series that aren’t taking part in the quest. So, you’re telling me that Scarlett Johansson, A-list film star and generation-defining sex symbol, reprised her role for the SpongeBob movie video game, but the people whose day job is to provide voices to these secondary characters took a sick day? Tim fucking Curry, Dr. Frank-N-Furter himself, even returns to offer his devilish English poshness to Professor Calamitous. What gives? In the graphical department, character models clip through walls; some awkward scenes conflict with their situational context, and there is a cutscene where the hit detection is so hilariously mismatched that seeing it put me in a fit of hysterics. I would chalk it all up to laziness, but the lack of voice acting support throughout the experience leads me to believe that funneling insufficient funds into the project is yet another part of the problem.

Naturally, the presentational mess seeps into each of the game’s areas. Every playable character’s respective realms are granted at least some semblance of representation and at a relatively equal division. Still, the discernibility of these characters’ backyards is questionable at best. I’m the least familiar with the Amity Park metropolitan area where Danny Phantom resides because I haven’t seen even a glimpse of its source material since I could still sing soprano in the school choir. Still, while the only notable setting from the show I can recall is his school, and maybe that would’ve been a tad too restrictive, I doubt that the entirety of Amity Park is this generically bland as far as city settings are concerned. Not to mention, experiencing levels of smog that Los Angeles wouldn’t wish on its worst enemy. It’s been decades since I’ve seen anything related to Butch Hartman’s rendition of Spider-Man, so I can’t comment on the game’s fidelity failures using it as an example. However, (classic) SpongeBob has retained its place in my nostalgia canon as well as a couple of other video game adaptations involving the little square dude, so I can definitely place it as evidence on trial, accusing this game of squandering the settings of the source materials. Bikini Bottom is looking quite dismal with the same amount of odd smog present that was polluting Danny’s domain, and Jellyfish Fields has never featured this many rocky chasms. Really, I think the recognizable sections of Bikini Bottom are a formality race to the Jellyfish Factory that concludes it, for the developers seem to have a penchant for enclosures. The pink clouds that support the fairy godparent society are the most vibrant setting in the game, but the vast majority of the Fairly Oddparents portion is dedicated to the dim inner sanctum of a temple in the revolting image of Mr. Crocker. Was this temple of vanity ever featured in the show? I’ll bet the farm that it wasn't. Once the game circles back around to Jimmy’s lab, the city of Retroville is completely shafted because “Goddard has been infected with a giant robotic flea and removing it requires shrinking everyone down and combating it from the interior.” Is this process an interactive reference to the Fantastic Voyage episode from the show, or did the developers cleverly devise a way to craft another insulated setting where connections to the source material could be inapplicable? It certainly seems to be the pattern set here, and the various drab, formulaic enclosed settings are completely counterintuitive to the core component of recognizability that sells a licensed title.

Besides the giant flea that irritates me, probably on par with how much it irritates Goddard, the developer couldn’t shirk placing the familiar foes from each represented franchise as the game’s bosses because they’re too integral to the crossover equation. Vampiric ghost lord Vlad Plasmius, the one-eyed failed fast food franchise owner Plankton, kooky fairy conspiracist Denzel Crocker, and the shrimpy, stuttering Professor Calamitous are all of the representative character foils to the respective playable heroes. Encountering them also serves as the climactic conclusion to the realms in which they inhabit, and having them block the path to the following portal feels like every level is going into overtime. Yes, this statement does carry negative connotations. I appreciate the fact that each rival’s status as a formidable villain is recognized through the scale of the fight, and I also enjoy that the coinciding good guy is the key to draining the defenses. However, discovering the enemy’s Achilles heel is not the aspect of these fights that will test the player’s patience; it’s the absolute slog of waiting for the opportunity to exploit their weaknesses. The boss battle elongation is multiplied by four with the game’s final boss, which includes every single major baddy strapped to an orbital device along with Calamitous. Not only does crafting the final boss as a quartet sort of minimize Calamitous as a villainous presence, but being forced to prioritize one of them at a time per phase makes the final boss a totally tedious excursion. I’d comment that fighting four of them at once is intended to give the final bout an artificial air of intimidation, but that theory is thrown out of the window when SpongeBob disconnects their doomsday device as easily as one’s cat zooming through the house and unplugging the TV. Oops?

Banality, thy name is Nicktoons Unite! Truthfully, I’ve never seen a game hone half-assery into an art form quite like this title, and that’s a low bar sinking deeper into the stink of licensed shit. It somewhat understands the assignment of establishing an appropriate rapport between each character of a polarly different cartoon world and highlighting their differences. Yet, every single conceivable mechanical and presentational attribute supporting this ragtag team is painfully, laughably undercooked as fresh roadkill. But I swear, this is an opinion I’ve been expressing since the mid-2000s when I was ripe and ready to experience a crossover of this caliber (in concept, not execution). Nicktoons Unite! was so terribly cheap and dysfunctional that it might have ignited my cynical flame that continues burning to this day, which is the cost of slacker video game developers nonchalantly mishandling people’s childhoods.