Devil May Cry Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 10/5/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Devil May Cry

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

Genre(s): Hack and Slash

Platforms: PS2

Release Date: August 23, 2001

With Resident Evil running the course of a succinct trilogy on the first PlayStation, Capcom decided to (briefly) retire their survival horror pioneer in favor of draining their creative juices elsewhere. If I had to look into my crystal ball of insight and attempt to unravel the machinations of Capcom after Resident Evil was neatly wrapped into a three-piece gift box, I’d guess that they were eager to scratch that action itch. I suppose the survival horror genre has its inherent constrictions. Namely, the genre must abide by slower-paced gameplay, whose steadiness is intended to accentuate the dangerous, dread-inducing atmosphere that is only achievable when momentum is at a crawl. Plus, the scant inventory of supplies and ammunition that exists within the survival connotations at play encourages players to approach situations cautiously and conservatively. A methodical gameplay directive is admirable and engaging if it’s driving an appropriate genre vehicle for such, like the one that Resident Evil had laid out and evolved with each subsequent entry. However, I can understand the desire to unshackle oneself from a formula marked by specific restraints, especially since it has been sufficiently realized in the span of three entries. With the inception of Devil May Cry one console generation later, the resulting product of Capcom’s creative ennui regarding Resident Evil, all buttons on the developer’s formal wear had been unpopped, and lampshades were inappropriately misused as hats, in a manner of speaking. This hack and slash series pissed in the face of Resident Evil’s conscientiousness with high-octane bombast, a rollercoaster of swinging swords, and a bountiful blaze of bullets blistering the bodies of enemies without reloading the guns as a necessary consideration. As history tells it, the greater gaming landscape at the time was also evidently ready to send Resident Evil offshore on a raft and set fire to its remains, for Devil May Cry was received with such a passionate embrace by gamers that it ignited a wave of decade-defining influence in gaming of equal measure to what Resident Evil had sparked in the late 1990s. Oddly enough, even though Devil May Cry’s existence was inspired by exhausting Resident Evil, the first Devil May Cry shares several stark similarities to Capcom’s previous series priority. You’ll just have to tag along and read my commendatory and critical comparisons between the two to see the uncanny parallels for yourself, plus how they elicit awe and irritation from me in equal measure.

First off, the facet of Resident Evil’s identity that is often undervalued by the general gaming public is its camp value. After the first Resident Evil was mercilessly mocked for dialing the horror campiness up to a level that surpassed that of a Roger Corman production, its sequels had to suppress their tongue-in-cheek goofiness to a suitable subtlety. Devil May Cry sees how Resident Evil toned down its cheese and raises it to the roof, where the fromage is frothing from every pore. Unlike Resident Evil, which must keep the camp factor under control to maintain the thrill of fright that a horror game should elicit, the action-intensive Devil May Cry can revel in kitsch to its heart's content. You can’t laugh at all of the Jill sandwiches when the game unleashes them is laughing at them alongside you. Look no further than the opening cutscene of Devil May Cry for proof that it's brandishing a full feeling of confidence as the butt of the joke. A sexy, scantily-clad blonde lady crashes her bitchin’ motorbike into a business of the game's namesake to seemingly assassinate its manager. When the towheaded proprietor effectively bats away all of her attempts to smite him, she changes her attitude and reveals that she requires his assistance. Why then did she try to execute him? Who am I, a mild-mannered man, to understand the contradictory complexities of the female mind? Anyways, while the tone dropping on a dime could indicate some of the game’s campy tendencies, it’s really the action choreography between the two characters that reeks of ridiculousness. After roundhouse kicking him to the other side of the room, the woman picks up and heaves her motorized mode of transportation, which the man halts mid-flight to then blow it to pieces by shooting it with twin dueling pistols. He also removes the sword that was lodged in his chest with the force of a javelin throw by plucking it with the ease and lack of discomfort of removing a tie from one’s neck. The man removing a sword from the wall that is intended to censor the breasts of a woman photographed on a poster to then show them anyway once he’s out of the center frame is an expectation-subverting visual gag that garnered a chuckle from me and bends the taste threshold equally as any of the action sequences. I think the camp value that Devil May Cry supplies speaks for itself here, don’t you?

If you’ve noticed that I’ve been obscuring the names of the characters, it’s because I felt like the grander scope of the series’ protagonist was large enough to be dedicated to a separate paragraph. Back in the former half of the 2000s, Dante became somewhat of a video game celebrity. More so than the astounding success of Devil May Cry, Dante’s widespread prominence can be attributed to his embodiment of all of the things associated with the decade’s alternative youth culture. Now that I think of it, the first Devil May Cry was released early enough at the turn of the century that Dante could’ve possibly served as the trendsetter for the streak of edgy androgyny that defined the fashion and attitude of the 2000s. It’s too bad that the “Devil May Cry” business he runs isn’t a clothing store, or else my connections to Dante and Hot Topic would’ve been rock solid. Anime was also becoming a growing phenomenon in the West, so I’m sure that his fans adored the fact that he’s a demon-human half-breed with magical powers and otherworldly durability. Conceptually, comparisons can obviously be drawn between Dante and Alucard from the Castlevania franchise. However, the video game character who Dante is alarmingly alike is Duke Nukem. Similar to the chiseled, one-man alien annihilating womanizer who helped trailblaze the FPS genre in its heyday, Dante approaches terrifying dilemmas with an overflowing streak of confidence that makes him seem immune to natural human hindrances like fear and mortality. When a wampus arachnid, whose bodily constitution consists of mostly molten lava, crashes through the ceiling and threatens to devour him whole, Dante pets and patronizes it like it's a stray cat instead of turning a bedsheet white and shitting his pants as any other man would do in this situation. The game continues to test Dante’s capacity for stab wounds when he’s impaled again on another sword, of which he ascends through the blade as it's still lodged in his torso in an unnatural, unscathed trance, like the magical manipulation of a Jean Cocteau film. On top of a shared unwavering indestructibility to Duke Nukem, Dante is also a one-liner spewing machine. What is Dante’s response to Trish putting a gigantic hole in the side of his business with her motorbike? His first instinct is not shock or anger, but “Whoa, slow down, babe!” It’s as if she’s giving him a lap dance that is too aggressive for his liking, and as if he won’t have to shell out gobs of money to repair the damage. After his encounter with the terrifying fire spider/scorpion, Dante will eventually see a bird of equally formidable size threatening him in the skies and combats its words of hostility by telling it to “flock off, feather face!” The introductory cutscene before entering the main menu ends with Dante emitting the line of “let’s rock, baby,” a catchphrase only utterable by those who are completely, unquestionably confident in their coolness. Dante seemed to have the world convinced of his suave appeal, but do I think that he’s dreamy? Is he my gaming #mancrushmonday? Honestly, I perceive Dante as a clown instead of a charming rogue. The developers seem to be fully aware that Dante’s slick, nonchalant posturing is comical and is not intended to be emulated at school to woo girls. If the developers composed Dante with the same air of sincerity as a certain troubled Sonic the Hedgehog character, who also debuted in 2001 and shares a similar reputation, I’d be roasting him like Don Rickles.

But does Dante also kick ass and chew bubblegum? Well, that’s for the game to judge, and I almost mean that literally. Another credit to Devil May Cry’s rampant popularity during the PS2 era is its pioneering innovation in the realm of the “stylish action” game. In essence, what this hyper-specific genre entails is emphasizing the pizzazz that comes with the combat of a typical hack and slash game. Genre components such as combos, aerial attacks, and diversifying one’s moveset while executing these feats will be assessed on the criteria that the player continues a chain of these in a quick and proficient succession. The player’s ability to thread this seamless onslaught will be evaluated with letter grades, along with fitting alliterative terms per grade, ranging from D for “dull” to S for a striking “stylish,” as if the parallel connotations of being a contestant in a dive contest weren’t clear enough. One may think that the developers channeling their shared trauma of an extremely regimented Japanese educational upbringing puts an equal amount of pressure on the player to perform with perfection. However, it should be a relief that Devil May Cry’s combat mechanics are surprisingly simple. There is one attack button where Dante either slashes enemies with the “Alastor” sword or punches them with the fiery fury of the “Ifrit” gauntlets. Accompanying the melee equation of combat are a selection of firearms for long-range effect, including a shotgun, a grenade launcher, a laser powered by demonic magic, and Dante’s trusty twin pistols of contrasting colors that he’s nicknamed “Ebony and Ivory.” The name scheme is just too rich with exploitation sleaze for Quentin Tarantino not to steal and use for a future film of his. The effectiveness of each weapon at Dante’s disposal can also be briefly increased by activating a power gauge below his health bar, which replenishes quickly even if the player exhausts it fully. That’s the gist of the tools used to achieve high marks in Devil May Cry, and all the game asks of the player to do with this neatly categorized roulette is keep slashing and punching until the enemy is defeated to climb the grading scale. While I’m glad that the game doesn’t expect the flashy majesty of an Olympic athlete from the player, perhaps the simplicity doesn’t bode well with the realm of extravagance that a “stylish action” game is implied to exhibit. Because the guns aren’t factored into a combo chain, all the player has to do to reach that “S” score is mash the one melee button and hope that the enemy doesn’t slide away quickly enough before you beat it to death. Dante can learn new combat maneuvers through administering the red orb currency towards them in the upgrade menu, but are the improvements really necessary when the highest grades can be earned by repeating the basics of combat? Besides a surplus of red orbs given as a prize at the end of the level depending on how fluid the player’s overall performance, the “stylish” aspect of Devil May Cry’s hack and slash gameplay is rather superfluous.

The area in which Dante will be adeptly slicing and dicing stringless marionettes, floating ghosts with scythes, and the shielded lizalfos from The Legend of Zelda is not on the city streets of his business's zip code. Dante’s quest at Trish’s behest takes him to the likely often mispronounced Mallet Island, where he must stop the demonic lord Mundus from opening a gate between the living world and the underworld and toppling the order and balance of Earth once the portal is connected. There are also some personal stakes in this mission for our protagonist because Mundus allegedly murdered Dante’s mother and brother, which was prompted after Dante’s righteous demon father, Sparda, defeated Mundus in a war that took place centuries prior. Even though setting Devil May Cry in the winding, forking avenues of an urban environment would be reminiscent of PS1-era Resident Evil, something about the ancient establishment erected at the center of Mallet Island reverberates Resident Evil louder than Nemesis screaming STARS throughout Raccoon City. Mallet Island is a splendorous setting for everyone even slightly interested in a gothic aesthetic. Immediately, the foyer vestibule of the castle, with its marble statues, crumbled staircases, and a tall, hanging chandelier at its center, dimly lighting the spacious room, evokes an aura most ominous. Continually illuminating Devil May Cry at this faint, subdued setting continually dampens the exceedingly ornate architecture that persists in its libraries, dungeons, bedrooms, etc. In outdoor sections such as the various courtyards, the orange glow of a descending sun at dusk expertly keeps the consistency of the mood lighting even when the backdrop can’t logically be shrouded in shadows. When Dante finds himself outside of the castle walls, ocean waves crash against the elevated island as an elongated sunset perpetually glistens over the horizon. Whether the atmospheric tone is one of dread or the sublime beauty of a seaside landscape, Devil May Cry truly makes its case that the then-next generation PS2 could showcase some outstanding graphics. More importantly, the spooky tension that comes with the enclosure of an abandoned building of a former, ostensible esteem harkens back to the classic Resident Evil Spencer Mansion stepping grounds more resolutely than any of its sequels.

One also can’t help but make connections to Resident Evil when playing Devil May Cry because for some reason, the game has adopted its fixed camera perspective. Without a doubt, this is the one element passed on from Capcom’s former series that proves to be a glaring detriment to Devil May Cry. In survival horror games like the ones of the PS1 Resident Evil trilogy, having an omniscient outside force direct the viewpoint is acceptable because the action is languid, separated between sizable swathes of agitating silence, and can be mitigated entirely depending on the player’s resource management skills. When the action is continually at a blazing pace in the case of a hack and slash title like Devil May Cry, having the perspective consistently shift at will while the player is simultaneously keeping a keen sense of an enemy’s offense while adroitly attacking themselves is bound to throw the player off their much-needed mojo. The sharp, jarring transposing of camera angles inflicted plenty of damage on me while fighting, which I always figured was unfair due to the unnecessary blind spot that was instantaneously created. Borrowing Resident Evil’s methodical cinematic flair also proved to be punishing whenever Dante was forced to channel his inner Italian plumber and hop from platform to platform in many instances that were uncharacteristic for this type of game. Did the fact that Dante jumps with the paralyzed hesitation of teenager me having to do box jumps in gym class not clue the developers in that bouts of platforming should’ve been reconsidered? Changing the trajectory of these stilted acrobatics mid-flight just adds insult to injury. Even when the fixed camera takes a rest while Dante is underwater, nothing can salvage the stilted awkwardness of Dante swimming. Is this why he never has to periodically return to the surface to breathe?

Having to acclimate to these types of oversights can be quite the obstacle to overcome, for Devil May Cry isn’t exactly accommodating to player error. Regardless of one’s difficulty selection, any amount of harm Dante receives as a consequence of the player’s carelessness in combat will be quite harsh. Enemies will slice off meaty chunks of Dante’s health bar like a butcher cutting up a freshly slaughtered pig, and all it takes is one critical hit to turn Dante from a healthy green to a bleeding red. When the throngs of arcane adversaries prove to be too overwhelming and Dante dies as a result, the resurrection process leads to what is perhaps Devil May Cry’s strictest difficulty stipulation. Sharing the inventory of the upgrade menu alongside augmentations to Dante’s two devil triggers are a selection of enhancement items, such as a temporary shield and two elixirs that fully replenish one’s health and magic meter. Also sharing the list of aidful inventory are the smattering of orbs, which are diverse in color yet share an identical screaming visage. Like the magical pills in a Lewis Carroll fantasy realm, each color orb has a unique property that will maximize a distinct attribute of Dante’s. Fragments of the blue orbs can be put together to make a whole one, like finding four heart containers in a Zelda game, while purple orbs are allocated towards increasing the allotted time for Dante’s devil triggers. Personally, the orbs of most vital importance are the yellow ones, for they are essentially this world’s mushrooms that stockpile Dante’s life counter. What the player probably won’t realize until they’ve royally screwed themselves is that these 1-UPs don’t reset to a modest handful when a “game over” occurs. The player is forced to spend their hard-earned red orbs towards ensuring that they can afford the relief of checkpoints after dying, instead of having to revert to the beginning of a level. Considering the aggression of enemies matched with their whopping damage output, the player will feel like they can’t afford to purchase any other item. I felt this pang of despair particularly during a mission where I was caged in with a ghoul who kept literally cutting me down with Giallo-murderer-sized scissors. However, I implore the player not to abandon hope because of this stern caveat, for the lack of guaranteeing extra lives actually complements Devil May Cry’s level format. Devil May Cry’s missions are formatted with solidified finish lines, segmenting the events of the narrative with arbitrary objectives. The length of each “scene” can vary from a brief, breezy walk to an arduous series of objectives where being forced to do them without respite, with no checkpoints as a merciful safety net, can crush the player’s morale. When the player recognizes which missions are exhausting tests of endurance, they can conserve their red orbs for these instances and hardly have to rewind like they’re returning a VHS tape to Blockbuster.

I recommend that the player binge on yellow orbs when they’re faced with a mission that features a boss battle. Fighting the formidable, milestone foe is never be the sole focal point of a mission, which means that the likelihood of being battered and bruised upon encountering them is almost a guarantee. On top of that contextual hurdle to consider, each of the four bosses the game recycles throughout the story is strapped with a distinctive offensive attribute. The flaming arachnid I’ve mentioned several times before, Phantom, proves to be quite the early roadblock due to his sole source of vulnerability being obscured behind an impenetrable exoskeleton. Plucking the feathers off the demonic eagle, Griffon, isn’t an ordeal until he chooses to raid Dante on the mast of a ghost ship and takes advantage of the dearth of pronounced footing in this arena. Nelo Angelo is the only humanoid boss who also specializes in swordplay, and he can be smoothly skewered if the player patiently waits for him to stop flailing his weapon around. The aptly named Nightmare, on the other hand, is a mystifying boss due to its amorphous, gooey form, making its weak spot inconspicuous. Good thing the game has acquainted the player with the circular switches implanted in the walls; otherwise, Dante’s skull and bones would probably become another piece of the disgusting, Jello-like blob’s accumulated mass. While the repeat encounters may overstay the welcome of Mundus’s cronies, their physical and offensive distinctions, plus their genuine imposingness, are satisfying enough to keep the boss roster from growing stale.

It saddens me to say that among the exceptional crop of bosses that Devil May Cry displays, the pinnacle of vanquishing Mundus is unfortunately the game’s lowest point. The demon lordship’s first phase is an inappropriately implemented space shooter section, where the player is abruptly introduced to unfamiliar mechanics scaled to the apex difficulty found in a final boss battle. The phase that follows reinstates the more traditional combat mechanics, but Mundus must be approached from a safe distance on account of the pool of lava that surrounds him. Because the game inexplicably wouldn’t allow me to change to the Ifrit gauntlets and bombard him with its ranged meteors, I had to exploit the heavy damage output of the devil triggers and endure the burning sensation that is depleting Dante’s health. I can’t tell if this is clever or cheap on my part. After two excruciating phases, the evil bastard prolongs his eventual defeat by appearing in his most pitiful form to distract Dante from escaping the island before it explodes. I certainly grew to despise Mundus for all of his fuckery at the game’s final moments, but I already harbored a distaste for him as Devil May Cry’s central antagonist beforehand because of how much unsavory melodrama he injected into the narrative. Apparently, Trish is an identical apparition of Dante’s mother who was spawned by Mundus to torture him psychologically. Considering the promiscuous way she’s dressed, Dante has some oedipal predilections that I’m glad the game doesn’t explicitly delve into. As it is, the vexing way in which Trish betrays Dante at random occurrences just to apologize and revert to being his ally prompts some seriously trite melodramatic scenes from Mr. Cool–including one infamous line about “filling Trish’s dark soul with light” complete with a voice crack as the embarrassing cherry on top. I’m not saying that Dante can’t express a varied range of emotions, but this is like seeing Fonzie crying after publicly peeing his pants. I’d skip town after that display of reputation-ruining humiliation.

Capcom decided to reclaim its stance as architectural giants in the gaming medium once again by innovating on the hack and slash genre with Devil May Cry. While I’m convinced of Devil May Cry’s allure in its chic presentation, bewitching setting, and fairly charismatic protagonist, the game is heavily hindered by tons of dissonant decisions that clash with its intended direction. Except for the environments, all of Devil May Cry’s shortcomings stem from its successive relationship to Resident Evil, of which it shouldn’t share any characteristics with, due to the divergence between their gameplay mechanics. Angling the camera sporadically during intense combat bouts and treating checkpoints with the same scarcity as ink ribbons proved to make Devil May Cry insufferable at times. I understand that Devil May Cry’s foundation was initially formulated as the fourth Resident Evil game, but one of the developers should’ve noticed the discrepancies and promptly cut the umbilical cord. However, I’m not worried about the series’ future, for any child should start weaning off of its mother’s milk after its infancy.

Doom Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 10/4/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Doom

Developer: id Software

Publisher: id Software

Genre(s): First-Person Shooter

Platforms: PC, SNES, 32X, Jaguar

Release Date: December 10, 1993

The pioneers across any genre of art and entertainment usually don’t age gracefully. We cannot grant them enough veneration for their visionary contributions that molded their mediums, but our high praises for them rarely translate to personal investment. The natural ageing process will wither its former luster, and the generational disconnect will likely void all engagement from future players. I believe I’ve used the grandparent analogy before, but there really isn’t any better way to illustrate the complicated connection one has to our earliest, once-excitingly fresh and innovative entertainment examples. Ol’ Gramps would love to toss the pigskin around with his yougin’ grandson, but the whippersnapper would rather spend his time among those of his own youthful demographic. When Grampa might wind up in the hospital for dislocating his shoulder upon throwing the ball, and he doesn’t know how to connect to the internet, much less what the latest cyberspace crazes are, can you blame the kid for wanting to maintain his polite, respectful distance towards his Pop-Pop? Specifically in instances where this analogy pertains to video games, I’m a platformer genre connoisseur of both the 2D and polygonal 3D variants. I salute both the first Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario 64 for providing the template of this type of video game that sculpted my adoration for the gaming medium, but their wrinkles and achy joints are just too jarringly pervasive to warrant more than my respect. Ya’ll know I will prioritize playing anything with the Metroidvania label slapped onto it, but I think I’d rather get stuck spelunking without a flashlight than attempt to navigate through Zebes again in the first Metroid game on the NES. For the first-person shooter genre, people often give Wolfenstein 3D its rightful commendations for paving this particular territory in gaming, but I’d be lying if I said that its rudimentary minimalism was still stimulating decades onward. This is why its close-knit spiritual successor, Doom, is the pioneering FPS that tends to transcend the courteous golf claps that Wolfenstein 3D receives to continue being treated to uproarious applause and the throwing of ladies' undergarments. To this day, Doom still rocks my fucking socks off, but it does admittedly exhibit some elements that have become unsightly due to the passage of time.

Regarding the aforementioned “minimalism” of Wolfenstein 3D, nothing screams basic building blocks of gaming more than traversing through cramped mazes with a muted color scheme slathered on the walls by Microsoft Paint. Killing Nazis should always be an exciting objective, but Wolfenstein 3D cannot inherently coast on its premise when the thrills of it are muddled by ugly claustrophobia. Ironically, Doom’s visuals are strikingly better than Wolfenstein 3D’s because they pronounce the primitive pixels instead of making another sad attempt at masking them with a collection of splotchy, digitized Crayola crayons. Doom’s pixelated sheen is refined to a glorious, satisfying crisp. We can still detect some grainy edges in both the backgrounds and in our immediate surroundings, but I doubt that the player will mind too much when the graphical appearance exudes more depth and character than most of its contemporaries. Add some situational lighting to specific settings and some much-needed elevation to broaden the foregrounds, and all of the presentational bells and whistles might be enough to distract from the fact that it isn’t quite of the advanced third-dimensional spatial plane that would soon emerge (the lack of a jump function notwithstanding). It certainly puts the Mode 7 system of the SNES to shame. Speaking of the quasi-3D plane at play here, it should also surprise everyone that, despite the countless peaks, ledges, and tall obstructions that require elevators to reach and or climb over, all of Doom is still composed entirely in a two-dimensional rendering. That’s some video game magic that only a wizard like John Carmack is capable of casting to a delightfully perception-warping degree. I’d argue that the protagonist whose visage we see from a visor located front and center in the HUD has also been significantly improved. The “Doom Guy” gesticulates his health status through his protective helmet more emphatically and looks the part of someone masculine or madcap enough to operate as a lone wolf in battle, instead of a cartoony goober newly making corporal status while seemingly bearing an inability to register pain. He doesn’t exactly supersede the flat avatar level of characterization, but his added layer of facial personality compels the player to salute his badassery.

Doom’s presentation has also aged far more gracefully than that of Wolfenstein 3D because Doom’s conceptual core was far more defined and inspired. Alongside Midway’s fatality-facilitating arcade fighting classic, Mortal Kombat, Doom was another game whose graphic content was provocative enough to draw ire from the PTA boards across America and provoke the birth of the ESRB rating system. The crux of my review is defending Doom’s salient grey hairs, but it taps into such a specific facet of an early 1990s subculture so uncannily that I can’t deny its datedness. Essentially, Doom is an interactive externalization of the arcane, horrific, and satanic iconography surrounding the death metal subgenre that was blossoming in the extreme music underground at the time. When Doom’s setting isn’t the fiery catacombs of Hell, the legions of the eternally damned are still plaguing the uncolonized moons of Mars. Therefore, the game’s entirety must maintain the chaotic, otherworldly terror of Hell through its atmosphere and aesthetic. The red planet’s orbiting bodies are more cold and mechanical than outright garish, with a lack of sufficient lighting in the more enclosed areas evoking a tense and ominous tone and dimly obscuring the industrial, cybernetic setpieces. When the player descends to the depths of Hell in the third chapter, however, illuminating the environment reveals setpieces startling enough to scare the player into wishing they had remained in the dark. This is where the death metal aesthetic comparisons are as clear as the skies on a summer day in Tampa, Florida. At the very entrance of Hell, an elevator composed of what appears to be dorsal meat, given its spinal cord skeletal support, raises the player to an arena where the unnatural cracks in the ground vaguely look like a dehydrated brain. More fleshy, gaudily pink foregrounds supporting the player’s feet in Hell will see a scroll of screaming souls that greatly resemble the twisted gestures on the front cover of Morbid Angel’s “Altars of Madness.” While we’re at it, the mix of organic viscera with the hellscape background is also reminiscent of the cover of their follow-up album, “Blessed are the Sick.” The lake of lava at the center of “Mt. Erebus” immediately reminded me of Dismember’s “Like an Everflowing Stream,” where the enclosure on an island glows a flashing red and blue that suggests there is heat radiating off of it so scorching that it could melt sheet metal in seconds upon contact. Eviscerated bodies of unfortunate space marines dangle from chains like the Hellraiser-esque album art of Autopsy’s “Severed Survival,” and the occasional sightings of crucified humans here evoke the flippancy of popular religious imagery featured on too many death metal album covers to count. All the while, a blaze of crimson red engulfs the backgrounds to overwhelm the player with an enveloping hostility. In a just world, id Software would be paying royalties to Dan Seagrave for borrowing a heaping amount of his sublime, hellish landscapes that piqued the interests of 90’s metalheads and evidently, gamers alike. To be clear, even though I’ve associated a negative adjective with Doom’s presentation, I don’t mean it disparagingly. Encapsulating the most visually and tonally intense subsection of metal music in a video game converges two of my niche interests wonderfully. As for the gaming normies who do not see Doom’s environments as macabre eye candy, I’d still argue that the pixels dilute the ghastliness of Hell and Mars to a point of palatability.

The unknown reaches beyond our benevolent Earth are disquieting on their own merits, but ultimately, it’s what lurks in these unfathomable realms that poses any real danger. Of course, I am speaking of the demonic forces that run rampant throughout every conceivable nook, cranny, and corridor across the outer limits. Doom’s enemy roster consists of a diverse army of hellspawn with an equal precedence in the Doom playbook as the mute space marine who takes them all back to Hell from whence they came, in a manner of speaking. The varying offensive output and defensive constitution per breed suggest that there is a hierarchy within the federation of satanic soldiers, like any military organization. The weakest in body and ostensibly mind are the human soldiers who have been reanimated and or possessed by demonic magic. They still use the human weaponry of handguns and shotguns they brandished when they were fully conscious, and the player can euthanize these poor bastards with one or two bullets from their array of firearms. In the actual ranks, the lowest grunts seem to be the brown, fireball-tossing imps, followed by the beefy, bull-charging “Pinky” beasts whose bodies are almost entirely muscle mass. Some variants of “Pinkies” even have the power of invisibility at their disposal, which can only be visually discerned by their moving, transparent outlines. The demons whose anatomy strays away from anthropoid structures tend to be the more formidable ones, such as the demonic Madballs of the “Cacodemons” and the airborne “Lost Souls,” who irritatingly smack into the player’s blind spots like someone has thrown an eraser at the back of their heads. Controlling the common enemy chain of command are the “Barons of Hell,” imposing mirror images of Satan himself if the dark lord got prison ripped. While these hooved, lobster-red Hell bouncers are glorified minibosses, Doom will eventually pit the player against the strikingly strong “Cyberdemon” and “Spider Mastermind,” whose machine-like enhancements suggest that even the scariest creatures imaginable still need some space-age armor and artillery to boost their dauntingness. Even though the scourge of the underworld is a bunch of ugly, putrid monsters, they still exude a surprising amount of personality. Upon pumping the last bullet into them, the way in which they die somewhat reveals a layer of vulnerability. Each of them utters a uniquely pained, pathetic death cry when their last defenses cave in, as if the player were putting down a bear, wolf, or other earthly animal. Not to mention, the mess of gory entrails they are reduced to upon death will almost make the player feel remorseful for pulverizing them into disgusting paste (I said almost). Their bodies also won’t disappear upon their defeat, so the faint hints of guilt can resonate with the player upon retreading the levels. There must be a sound reason as to why mowing down the unholy hordes of demons never loses its “oomph factor” despite how the game absolutely bombards the player with them in every frame of the level, and it can likely be attributed to the subtle hints of detail that accent every encounter.

Of course, the “Doom Guy” can only transform every level into a graveyard with his eclectic roulette of weaponry. To summarize the protagonist’s arsenal on the whole, one half is a selection of common FPS guns, while the rarer half that becomes obtainable later in the game is a slew of super-deadly gizmos that take advantage of Doom’s science-fiction thematic overtones. A pistol serves as the “Doom Guy’s” default weapon, the one tool he carries automatically and will not be stripped away from him as a penalty for dying. The Chaingun’s range of fire and automatic spray of ammunition should be ideal for dispatching demons by the barrelful, but I always found myself using the single-blasting shotgun in most instances of heated, outnumbered combat. Hell, the shotgun became such a reliable, steadfast tool in fighting Hell’s forces that I almost felt compelled to refer to it by a woman’s name, like a man does his car or any other expensive, inanimate piece of property he takes pride in keeping. Alas, even though the shotgun took up the most amount of screen time (that is, being the most common object in the first-person viewpoint), the more durable demons that appear more frequently as the game progresses require firepower of a colossal caliber to exterminate. Sure, rocket launchers exist on Earth, but this particular one in Doom comes with a maximum of fifty shells and the perk of not having to be reloaded for a reason. Energy cell ammunition will fuel both the electric “plasma gun” and the game’s ultimate juggernaut weapon: The BFG. No, Roald Dahl fans, there is nothing “friendly” about this weapon, although it does satisfy the two other redundant descriptors. The acronym stands for “Big Fucking Gun” because seeing how one concentrated blast of energy from this hulking monstrosity will annihilate every enemy in its general direction might generate shouting of enthusiastic swear words from the player. It certainly gives the “Metal Blade” some stiff competition for the title of “most bodacious video game weapon,” but it still falls short because the BFG isn’t exactly energy efficient. Then again, ammo for every gun in Doom feels like it depletes quickly on account of the constant swarms of demons testing their might against humanity’s ballsiest warrior. To further complement the “Doom Guy’s” big brass stugots, if he ever finds that all of his artillery has been exhausted, the man will resort to brutally indenting his spiked ring into demons' faces with his fists. If that won’t earn you the Presidential Medal of Freedom, I don’t know what will. A chainsaw is also available as an alternative melee weapon for drastic circumstances, but I found the stationary sawing of a single enemy at a time to be rather impractical in most combat scenarios.

Ideally, the player shouldn't find themselves between an ammunitionless rock and a hard place with growling and roaring demons all too often. While the unholy hordes are bound to drain entire rounds of bullets with one sizable swarm, replenishment for every weapon can be found scattered around each level. Doom’s level design revels in the inconspicuous. Never will any of the levels coordinate progress door by door, like the game is moving on a linear rail. Describing Doom’s level design as labyrinthian might not even do it justice, as its abstractions are too asymmetrical to fall under the charted maze-like connotations of the phrase. This is why using the level map as a frame of reference in guiding the player is not recommended, but this doesn’t mean that the player is guaranteed to be haphazardly scurrying about like a chicken with its head chopped off. Rather, Doom persuades the player to embrace curiosity, using it in a practical manner to discover all of the secret goodies hidden in every crevice across Hell and the moons of Mars. Restocking on ammo and health items should definitely entice the player to put on their explorer hats, but they might also find one of the many temporary enhancements that will boost their confidence in battle, including double health, armor, “berserk mode,” and a brief window of total invincibility. If only this godly perk didn’t come with the caveat of handicapping the player with a blindingly white light filling the entire screen! If none of this provides enough incentive to scrounge around each level meticulously, tough titties. The developers would be damned if they allowed the player to casually skip to each level’s goal like the hare in a footrace, so they cleverly implemented three different keys that lock doors of their coinciding color. Some players argue that constantly veering off the beaten path due to the task of key collecting conflicts with the straightforward objective of killing demons, but how else will the players come to acknowledge the sheer depth showcased in these levels without forced bouts of circuity?

Unfortunately, despite all of the positive qualities the game has retained, I’m still going to have to knock Doom down a few pegs for upholding some archaic difficulty conditions. Surprise, surprise; an aged game that exhibits the harshness of Hell is a bit austere in the gameplay department. Specifically, the game isn’t very merciful towards those who can’t overcome the overwhelming odds of smiting dozens of demons simultaneously. If the space marine protagonist screams his anguished cry and falls to his death when his health is expended, the player will be resurrected at square one of the current level with only the pistol in hand. Is it necessary to elaborate on why getting stuck with the simple pea shooter sucks? A lack of skill is one thing, but there are also a myriad of instances where Doom sticks the player in situations where survival becomes a relevant element to level progression. For instance, in the third chapter’s second mission, “Slough of Despair,” I struggled immensely with the onslaught of enemies in close quarters without having accumulated enough of the guns and their ammunition to withstand their aggressions. The statistics page at the end of the previous level noted that I had uncovered most of its items, so my unpreparedness was not due to any carelessness on my part. Many Doom levels also require the player to (literally) dip their toes in hazardous pools of lava, blood, and an unspecified green goop en route to clear the level. Unless the player happens to find a hazmat suit, their health will plummet like the current housing market. Sometimes, enemy activity will be far too unchecked to handle, especially in the extra chapter of “Thy Flesh Consumed.” Yes, I think that “Perfect Hatred” is an apt title of a level in which the game crams so many enemies down the player’s throat that they’re guaranteed to figuratively choke. One particular level in this post-game addendum, “Against Thee Wickedly,” exemplifies every possible unfair condition coalescing into an absolute nightmare. Minibosses upon minibosses stand around several elevated islands with an elevator surrounded by lava at its center that the player must constantly visit. When I die and undoubtedly go to Hell, I’ll probably be experiencing this godforsaken level for eternity. For now, the two Johns are my grand punishers who seem to derive as much sadistic pleasure in my failures as Satan himself.

John Carmack and John Romero might be unscrupulous bastards if Doom’s difficulty stipulations are any indication. Still, the magic these two men made for the gaming medium remains invigorating all these years later, despite the hurdles present that many modern gamers might try to avoid. At the end of the day, the premise of shooting monsters with a vast array of weapons will never grow out of style, like a pair of blue jeans. In the mix of this fun, simple concept, Doom still excels with its FPS successors because of its complexities. Disintegrating demons into piles of mush may have become boring if not for the serpentine progression patterns in environments that come as close as possible to graphical verisimilitude in the early 1990s. On top of all of this, its presentation is still bitchin’ enough to make me unironically do the devil horns for the first time since I was fifteen years old. Underestimating Doom is like downplaying the awesomeness of elderly Chuck Norris, which might result in him knocking you out with a swift roundhouse swing. Doom will kick your ass, and you will fucking love it, you young gaming grasshoppers.

God of War III Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 9/24/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

God of War III

Developer: Santa Monica Studios

Publisher: SCE

Genre(s): Hack 'n Slash

Platforms: PS3\

Release Date: March 16, 2010

When I witnessed the cutscene that concluded the second God of War title, a moment of clarity washed over me like a tidal wave. On paper, God of War is a series that chronicles the blood-soaked trials and tribulations of Kratos, a troubled Spartan warrior-turned the titular “God of War.” Many who are familiar with the esteemed video game series would probably summarize the same fundamental narrative core verbatim, but I’ve managed to see beyond its surface-level mirage. What God of War actually is, ladies and gentlemen, is a glorified tour through the ancient Greek mythos, where stopping to provide detailed information on the various notable figures involves extinguishing them from the exhibit. It’s akin to taking a safari tour through the African jungles, seeing all of the wildlife unique to its ecosystem, and being given the privilege of slaughtering them as one’s morbid means of personal engagement. Kratos is not just driving the narrative vehicle towards an elevated Greek tragedy in an interactive medium; he’s an avatar for the player to vicariously experience the thrill of pulverizing one of human history’s oldest and persistently popular mythical pantheons. He’s a digital tool used to either aid the youth in boning up on their Greek mythology or cathartically taking their frustrations out on failing to identify its properties when the test was placed in front of them. Given the astronomical acclaim of the series, I’d say that plenty of quizzes have been aced and academic blunders were vindicated on equal measure thanks to God of War. If we’re to assume that the developers have decided to wrap up their little interactive escapade through the annals of Greek legend into a succinct trilogy as video game series commonly do, then God of War III should recognize that its mission involves kicking the tour into hyperdrive so no Greek God or other notable name is left unmentioned (or unbloodied is more like it). In essence, God of War III achieves this goal and places a period on Sony’s gargantuan hit as satisfyingly as humanly possible.

Still, there is a continuing narrative at the game’s forefront, so the laymen of gaming don’t become privy to the developer’s true intentions. The scene that opened my third eye to astute insight was seeing the surviving collective of Greek Gods staring beyond the peaks of Olympus at an oncoming Kratos, verging towards their position with the Titans. Kratos’s efforts to denounce his godhood by boldly killing Zeus run parallel to the Titans’ own long-term plan of reclaiming their original position as the dominating divine governors of Olympus. With the vengeful forces gaining on their positions, it seems perfectly reasonable to infer that the top dogs on display here will serve on the defensive against the belligerent bald man and his legion of colossi. Even though Kratos and the Titans share a common goal of sticking it to the big cheeses that tower over all mortals and the maligned, a turn of events in the game’s introduction illustrates some discordance in their allegiances. Once Zeus strikes down Kratos with a sky-cracking bolt of concentrated lightning, the wooded Earth mother Gaia forsakes her human-ish accomplice after she deems his services to be no longer necessary to her. Like clockwork, Kratos plunges back down to the depths of Hell, where he will ultimately escape his certain fate again by reacquainting himself with a female ally who has always proven herself to be a steadfast, valuable asset to Kratos. Even as an incorporeal spirit, Athena persists as the resident heretic of Olympus. She informs Kratos of the “Olympus Flame,” a sacred artifact that is apparently the key to actually ousting Zeus. Upon hearing this information, Kratos embarks on yet another quest to dismantle the holy Greek organization, and God(s) help you if you happen to find yourself situated as an obstacle in the way of achieving his goal. Conquering every executive residing on Mount Olympus, leading up to Zeus, is a sensible plot premise to conclude the God of War trilogy, given the context of its main character’s overarching motivations. Still, setting Zeus, the supreme master of Mount Olympus, as the primary target in the last game sort of diminishes the potential grandeur of Kratos climbing to him and leaving the lesser gods in the wake of his one-man stampede. For the story’s sake, I’m glad that Athena intervened before Kratos smited the insurmountably unvanquishable Zeus at the end of the second game, so he can still serve as the series’ penultimate challenge, and so annihilating his various offspring and brethren beneath him doesn’t feel like janitorial work. But ultimately, enacting any death-defying stunt a second time around will not seem as foreboding once you survived it the first time. It seems obvious to me that defeating the loftiest lord of the hill should’ve been reserved for the falling action that closes the series and the falling action alone.

God of War is probably the only PS2 series where leaping to high-definition hardware won’t make a radical world of difference to its presentation. In fact, it’s the only franchise from Sony’s second console whose presentational attributes were arguably already of a heightened next-generation caliber. Now, it’s found a fitting place to fully flaunt its vivacity without making the system liable to experience heat stroke. If you’re a series veteran at this point, you know exactly what brand of aesthetic splendor is being washed and waxed to a crystal-clear standard: the breathtaking spectacle of the mythical Greek realm’s various organic and architectural setpieces. Similar to Kratos’ adventures in seeking Pandora’s Box and the time-bending domicile of the Sisters of Fate, the journey towards the Olympus Flame will feature several awe-inspiring sights that are captured beautifully by the series' trademark cinematic flair. You know that I tend to shed single tears whenever the sublime backdrops are viewed through a wide lens shot, pronouncing the imposing scope of the setting while juxtaposing Kratos as a tiny, insignificant speck. Upon seeing sights such as the colossal chain dangling between the icy chasms of a treacherous mountain pass and the echoey emptiness of the shadowed pit where a collection of gigantic crates serves as the only ground support, I once again found myself grabbing a box of tissues to catch the salty liquid streaming out of my tear ducts. Hera’s Garden is also another highlight setting here, not because of any kind of camerawork mastery, but because the enclosed, structured environment of plant life eerily evokes an atmosphere of Kratos being out of his element. I almost believed the proprietor’s flinty words that he didn’t have the mental fortitude to escape its entrapments. Essentially, the HD advancements allow the series to continue expressing its trademark cinematic expertise with the additional perk of clearing away the slight fuzz that plagued the visuals of the PS2. It’s now being rendered on a system that fosters its greatest strength without any compromise.

Before you start asking questions, yes, I didn’t forget about discussing the fact that God of War III also carries the responsibilities that come with being the final entry in a video game trilogy. That being, sanding down all of its attributes to an ultra-refined point of accessibility to cater towards the larger demographic the series has garnered with growing popularity. This all-too-common third entry practice is especially imperative here, for the gaming populace had quadrupled in size during the seventh console generation, thanks to the expanding interest in the medium from the general populace. God of War II had significantly slimmed down the first game’s unsightly rough patches to make itself more presentable to the public, but the ways in which God of War III expands upon the makeover efforts prove that it needed to cut out some more carbs to fit in that size two dress. All of the enhancements to Kratos’ traversal capabilities obtained throughout the second game are automatically granted to the player here, so they’ll likely never struggle with the precision of any given platforming-intensive section. These include using the chain blades as a means of swinging across gaps and briskly floating downward while the iconic wings of Icarus remain superglued to Kratos’ backside. The puzzles that take place in the more arcane sections of Olympus veer more towards the patient, punctilious variety as opposed to situating Kratos in a frantic situation that hopes the player can concentrate while under the duress of life or death. Quicker-paced puzzles do crop up later in the game, but the time limits are far more lenient with clearer conditions to work around. The banes of my existence, also known as balance beams, have also been totally omitted after the first game was brimming with them, and the second game ironed out the awkward controls just to tease us with only one in the game’s introduction. It’s like the developers harbor a deep shame towards their previous inclination to make Kratos enact the delicate physical feats of a circus performer and are now trying to cram their heinous mistakes away in the secure vaults of the past, like Germany tends to do when their country’s history during the former half of the 20th century is mentioned. Still, God of War can’t be totally absolved of their crimes against game design because their arguably worst offense of quicktime events is still infecting the course of gameplay. In saying that, I’m beyond relieved that I no longer need psychic premonition to accurately press the required buttons and analog directions because the game finally grants the player an ample enough window of time to react accordingly. I’m still docking quality points on principle, but I’m relatively pacified at the fact that these tumorous gameplay growths are rather benign this time around.

I think I need a second opinion as to whether or not God of War III’s accessibility efforts extend to Kratos’ arsenal. As per usual, his trademark chain blades will be accompanied by at least one other melee weapon and a smattering of magical God powers that drain a secondary meter situated below his health bar. The tools at Kratos' disposal are also switched and shuffled as they were in the second game, and I can’t make a firm decision if the new editions are all indications of the game streamlining the combat equation. Two of the alternative weapons allocated to slots on the D-Pad are the “Claws of Hades” and the “Nemesis Whip,” which are essentially variations on Kratos’ classic, persisting clanging whips with alternate elemental components. Would offering a roulette of weapons of unique utility jolt the player out of some sort of comfort zone that the chains are intended to lull them into? Did the developers forget the definition of the word “optional?” Evidently, they did, because the “Nemean Cestus” marks the series debut of a “situational weapon.” Sure, the player will likely feel inclined to use the metallic gauntlets of their own volition so Kratos can channel his inner “Iron Mike,” but a significant percentage of their usage will be prompted by any appearance of the super durable onyx element that only the titanic gloves are hefty enough to penetrate. While the “Nemean Cestus” is the sole instance of genuine diversity among Kratos' new toys, their individual magic abilities are all quite distinctive, at least. Slamming the Cestus on the ground will cause seismic quakes with shockwave collateral. The “Nemesis Whip” continues providing an avenue for paralyzing electrocution damage, and the “Claws of Hades” can summon the souls of a myriad of enemies that the purple underworld device has previously slain. Plopping a blockade of shields and spears on Kratos while having the standard blades equipped is effective for crowd control, but this defensive magical maneuver looks like a cheap and jarring CG creation that has somehow stumbled upon the set. I suppose even the most gorgeous of gals have their minor imperfections. Joining the magic meter as yet another auxiliary gauge are what I’d classify as “traversal tools.” Given the specific scenario, Kratos will either use arrows with flame properties to incinerate blocking brambles, illuminate dim passageways and secret corners with a “solar-powered lantern,” and defy gravity by running up the sides of walls with winged sandals. Each of them can also char, blind, and wildly lift enemies off their feet, respectively, in combat. The automatic regeneration of this meter’s energy makes me wonder if it's allowing players too much leeway to abuse their offensive properties as par for the accessibility course, despite their middling damage output. I was certainly taking full advantage of this aspect, which caused me to realize that my magic meter was often still as long and blue as Papa Smurf’s penis (presumably).

I can’t forget to mention that each additional item that Kratos stuffs in his pockets is a token from Olympus’s finest. I’d describe them as a gift as they were in the series' past, but the nonconsensual context of receiving these pieces of a God’s powers is comparable to a violent mugging, if anything. Kratos, planning on exterminating all that exists on Olympus as a conditional objective of his mission, obviously won’t warrant them allowing him to borrow their special properties to use against them. Because the Gods aren’t content to let Kratos trample them, many serve as God of War III’s bosses. Before the player has any time to breathe and soak in their surroundings, Kratos is immediately tackling Poseidon’s form of water horse along the dendriform body of Gaia. Chains will clash like the rhythmic banging of percussion instruments when Hades challenges Kratos to a duel in the darkest recesses of the Underworld, and Hercules’ will pit his mammoth might against Kratos after expressing his envy of Kratos’ apparent title as the ultimate demigod. I wouldn’t classify the confrontation with Hermes as a boss battle by traditional definition, but at least the God’s messenger recognizes his speed advantage and attempts to thwart Kratos using it, as opposed to the smaller-scaled legends who delusionally thought they could match Kratos’ physical might. As for the returning lord of lightning that appropriately confronts Kratos again in the game’s final stretch, every phase of his fight here is significantly easier than his previous bout, and this isn’t even due to not having an egregious quicktime event segment to contend with. Facing off against Zeus was essentially a narrative formality at this point. Come to think of it, I barely broke a sweat while fighting any of these venerated figures that comprise Zeus’ royal cabinet on the apex of Mount Olympus. I can’t say for sure whether Kratos’s brief tenure as the God of War has permanently boosted his base strength so he can now execute any God on a whim, or if the conscious smoothing of the gameplay by the developers conflicts with the tremendous narrative scope of wiping out all of Olympus. On second thought, I’m confident it’s the latter. All I’m saying is that the focused arc of slaying Ares that was once epic in scale is now trivialized by the fact that Kratos can now effortlessly execute all of his peers.

And execute them he does! To encapsulate all of the narrative, presentational, and gameplay attributes that make up this game into one sentence: God of War III is fucking revolting. Gruesome has always been the word of the day when it comes to the series, but the third title somehow crosses a line that veers the ultraviolence into the realm of the uncomfortable. I mentioned that one of Kratos’ new doohickies is a lantern. What I omitted from this tidbit of information is that what emits these bright rays of light are the hollowed-out orifices of the sun God Helios’ decapitated head, of which Kratos dismembers from his neck like removing a sock from one’s foot. The water horse may be the form that Poseidon takes to trounce Kratos at the beginning, but once he’s reverted to his personified shape, Kratos’ finishing move on the oceanic God involves the player pressing both analog sticks to gouge Poseidon’s eyes out with his thumbs. That’s another sleepless night for me! Because of Gaia’s betrayal, the Titans are now also on Kratos’ shit list. The most significant Titan to receive the sharp end of Kratos’s chain blades is Cronos, where the Spartan tears off the grotesquely dirty fingernails of this massive level-boss hybrid to a gushing, bloody pulp. The enhanced visuals just pronounce all of the viscera to a downright disgusting degree, as I’m now more familiar with the interior anatomy and entrails of a centaur than I had ever desired to be. Even the new traversal gimmick of latching onto a harpy to then plunge Kratos’ blade into its guts like whipping a horse for motivation seems rather excessive. I’m sure the creature would provide its transportational services to Kratos if he asked nicely! If you think that the content of God of War III is already shocking enough, wait until Kratos enters the lushly-colored boudoir belonging to Aphrodite. No, Kratos doesn’t provide the necessity for the goddess of beauty and love to seek out a miracle facelift like Hercules, but he does have a spontaneous, interactive shag with her coordinated by a sequence of quicktime events. Top that, JFK. Admittedly, the coitus taking place isn’t shown on screen, but the lustful touching of the two topless mistresses off to the side is titillating enough for Skinemax territory. If I had played this game upon its release at fourteen years of age, I would’ve temporarily traded the controller for my joystick. Now, as an adult, I find the optional scene to be hilariously smutty in an embarrassing way. At least Kratos isn’t snapping the necks of women who may be too drunk to control their language or using them to prop up uncooperative door winches to then have them liquidated because of the pressure. Oh, wait…

You know what? Kratos is a real jerk. Not exactly the most revelatory statement I’ve ever uttered, but it’s a vital sentiment to illustrate how much of a shit heel the Spartan has become. Up until now, Kratos’ various acts of brutality have been somewhat justified because of the various degrees of oppressiveness the Olympus Gods have inflicted upon him. With Ares’ comeuppance as ancient history at this point and the tyrannical Zeus only appearing periodically, I can’t quite say that the remainder of the Gods deserve a fate so barbarically executed. Instead of cheering Kratos on as I did before, I now wince at what Kratos will do to them, like watching Art the Clown butcher teenagers, even though I’m the one orchestrating the fatalities. Yet, the developers seem to think that they can still paint Kratos as a sympathetic anti-hero by giving him an outlet to express a sensitive, kind side of the blanched brute. At his initial entrance in the chamber of the Olympus Flame, Kratos thinks that he communicates with the spirit of his deceased daughter, Callipole. In reality, it’s the wispy visage of Pandora, a mythical Greek figure who lives in notoriety for her infamous “box” that unleashes unfathomable horrors that also previously granted Kratos enough moxie to kill Ares in the first game. The girl is greatly vilified by all who reside on Mount Olympus because of her synonymous association with death and destruction, slandering her without any consideration for her feelings. Kratos, however, drops his machismo around her and goes to great lengths to protect the poor girl whose negative reputation as a monster is ultimately a byproduct of the Gods crafting her into a tool of torment. One may see Kratos’ uncharacteristic kindheartedness towards Pandora as him proactively rectifying the tragic mistake he made with his own flesh-and-blood daughter with a surrogate. However, the conclusion of this relationship suggests that he’s likely treating Pandora this way to spite the Gods as another act of defiance. After all, Kratos despises the Gods so much to the extent that after eradicating them all, including Zeus, finally, he then takes the almighty Blade of Olympus and thrusts it into his torso. Knowing that he’d be the last divine entity in the land, he took it upon himself to officially eradicate all traces of Gods in the vicinity of ancient Athens. If he cared about Pandora as much as one might deduce, he would’ve considered that this drastic measure would’ve also erased her existence as well. That's some ice-cold shit, Kratos.

I might need to make a distinction in the way that I define satisfaction. As a piece of God of War media, I suppose that the series’ finale wraps up all loose ends tightly in a neat little bow, considering the finality of our protagonist’s fate at its conclusion. Still, the unsatisfactory aspect of the overall product is how expedient the God-killing process has become, even though it was initially pitched as a monumental undertaking. Not to mention, the man coordinating this cleansing procedure has become an absolutely unlikable menace to the point where we, the audience, are bound to start booing him. Nevertheless, I undoubtedly had more fun with God of War III than either of the two titles that preceded it, and it has little to do with the bountiful number of boobs and gore galore. While having more tact in their narratives and gameplay conceits, the previous God of War games featured many frustrating things that raised my blood pressure through the roof, and I’d like to make it to middle age, thank you very much. Smoothing out all of the series’s jagged edges here, and the agreeable experience that comes with the makeover is just too delightful to deny. I’ve often derided the third entries of games for their express interest in appealing to a more impressionable denominator of consumers, but hey, I’m still a consumer at the end of the day. Bless the simplicity of my simian brain.

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 9/14/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time

Developer: Insomniac

Publisher: SCEI

Genre(s): 3D Platformer, Third-Person Shooter

Platforms: PS3

Release Date: October 27, 2009

When I discussed how the existence of Tools of Destruction made me lament passing on the third incarnation of the PlayStation console brand, its follow-up, A Crack in Time, made me cast several longing glances at the PS3 sitting in Sony’s yard, like someone coveting their neighbor’s Lamborghini. The original trio of Ratchet & Clank games released on the PS2 still seem to persist as the gold standard titles of Insomniac’s futuristically-themed 3D platformer franchise, which means that it was ultimately more fortuitous to have experienced the cream of the crop as a child as opposed to potentially missing out on them to then be brought into the series with the “Future” titles that had actually eluded me as an adolescent. The first three games probably still receive the most praise to this day because of the quality consistency between them, plus the fact that they exhibit the most dynamic and pronounced evolution in gameplay across each subsequent entry. Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal vociferously debate on which of their most glowing individual merits, level design and combat/narrative, respectively, places them on the pedestal as the Ratchet & Clank king. All the while, the first game with no raunchy subtitle to speak of sits contentedly coasting on its legacy as the architect despite its rudimentary issues. This isn’t to say that the “Future” games are nothing but a string of burnished mediocrity, but they’re hardly spoken of under the same celebrated breath as their standard-definition predecessors. If I had to hazard a guess using Tools of Destruction as a reference point, fans, myself included, were rather turned off by the heightened grandeur of the narrative and how it subdued the comedic tone of the series. Capitalizing on the generation-defining trend of motion controls and implementing them into the game’s puzzles and weapons also adds an element of awkward aging that the original trilogy won’t have to worry about. This is why, when the “A Crack in Time” outlier erected its own podium to tell the two PS2 heavyweights to cease their bickering and assert its position as the series’ reigning champion, it piqued the interests of fans such as I. While my childhood bias prevents me from touting A Crack in Time (an ASS crack in time? Are they still doing the saucy subtitles here?) as the supreme Ratchet & Clank title over the PS2 classics on a subjective standpoint, I’ll be damned if it didn’t try its hardest to sway me towards adopting this opinion.

Calling A Crack in Time a “Ratchet & Clank” game is a bit of a misnomer at this point. An honest reworking of the title should have “& Clank” in parentheses because the two titular characters are still estranged due to the circumstances that concluded Tools of Destruction. Ratchet is still searching far and wide across the solar system for his cerebral chum, but unlike Quest for Booty, which puts the player alongside Ratchet’s aimless goose chase, the opening sequence of A Crack in Time takes us directly to Clank’s whereabouts. The inner sanctum of the enigmatic Great Clock not only finds Clank suspended in one of its chambers, but two more familiar faces that PS2 series veterans should squeal with delight upon seeing once again. The asteroid that was carrying the hilariously maniacal Dr. Nefarious and his deadpan, posh butler Lawrence has finally managed to magnetize to a planet’s gravitational pull and save these two tin cans from their eternity of surfing throughout the oblivion of space and from being every game’s throwaway post-credit gag scene. This lucky occurrence (for us, not the characters) allows the series' fan favorite villains to reclaim their positions of steering a Ratchet & Clank game’s conflict in the narrative. In this case, Dr. Nefarious has been collaborating with the Zoni to gain access to The Great Clock’s volatile core, known as the Orvus Chamber. Dr. Nefarious wishes to visit the sacred section of the universe’s time equalizer as its foretold to harness the potential to change the course of the space-time continuum and alter the past, which is exactly why the Zoni intervene in his schemes and bar his entryway into the chamber. Once Nefarious ends his partnership with the Zoni, the confrontation that ensues awakens Clank from his slumber, which leaves him free to navigate through the grounds of his supposed birthright. Meanwhile, Ratchet is on cue continuing his quest to reunite with his robotic buddy, with Captain Qwark serving as emotional support. However, Qwark retrogresses to his consistent series role as a recurring character when Ratchet learns of the existence of another Lombax named Azimuth (or “General Alister Azimuth” if you’re inclined to feel formal), who is also en route to The Great Clock in hopes of using its time-bending capabilities to reverse the tragedy that befell the Lombax race. Because Angela was actually a termite or dalmatian or something, the excitement we’re intended to derive from such a pairing is Ratchet interacting with someone of his own species for the first time in his life. Beyond their shared furry surfaces, Azimuth’s age and relationship with Ratchet’s father situates this curious stranger as a beacon of wisdom and enlightenment to potentially quell Ratchet’s questions pertaining to his origin and background, something vital in expanding our understanding of Ratchet that even the calculating Clank can’t possibly provide. Honestly, I was kind of enjoying the shared screen time between Ratchet and Qwark, for the deluge of drivel that is constantly downpouring out of this dunderhead makes me appreciate Ratchet more as a protagonist.

It should go without saying at this point that Ratchet & Clank in high definition still looks like a million bucks. Still, A Crack in Time continues to add some flair to the “Future” presentation that warrants discussing it past Tools of Destruction, laying the glossy groundwork. I suppose that I’ll summarize the subtle presentational quirks in A Crack in Time with a question: Does Ratchet & Clank fit the distinction of a “shooter” game? One certainly spends an inordinate amount of time shooting an eclectic selection of guns across the Ratchet & Clank series, but it hardly shares much commonality with the undeniable examples of the genre like Half-Life and BioShock. It’s like debating whether or not golf and billiards are sports or if Alice in Chains and Soundgarden are heavy metal bands: the mix of non-traditional elements at play makes the consensus rather complicated. Regardless of whether Ratchet & Clank firmly fits the bill with the generation-defining giants of the PS3 era, it sure does borrow enough of their framework in order to proclaim some kind of overt association. When Ratchet and Qwark were being escorted through the ancient Temple of Zahn by the native fongoid chief, an audible “hmm” reverberated in my larynx when their conversation hadn’t been transferred over to an automated cutscene as per usual. While Qwark was characteristically fretting over the potential danger that might confront them in this dank pit, Ratchet was free to jump around like an idiot, similarly to Gordon Freeman eradicating a man’s lunch in the microwave when he’s supposed to be preparing for the test chamber, if you can catch the correlation I’m alluding to. The aforementioned steampunk undersea odyssey also implements seamless cutscenes into its gameplay, but the connective comparisons between it and A Crack in Time are far clearer when Ratchet purchases a new weapon. The GrummelNet vendor now provides animated orientations that instruct the player on what to expect when they invest their bolts into their deadly wares. With the quaint animation style of a 1950s TV commercial or PSA on display, humorously depicting acts of violence with these weapons, I could’ve sworn that I had sunken back down to the depths of Rapture and was dispensing my ADAM at a Gatherer’s Garden machine. These little presentational kinks are admittedly minor and don’t impact the series in any significant fashion, but they do suggest that Ratchet & Clank want to be contenders like Marlon Brando in the then-trendy shooter landscape of gaming instead of festering further in the 3D platformer genre that was already bleeding when it was born.

As much as I am amused by their entertaining advertisements, I don’t really need any commercial incentive to maximize the space of Ratchet’s arsenal. The arsenal in question seems to follow the same pattern as that of Tools of Destruction, in that a plethora of genuinely interesting and innovative picks are slotted in with the standard, safe regurgitations. There’s a laser pistol, a bomb chucker, a missile launcher, and I’m pretty certain that “Buzz Blades” is the exact same variation of the swarming saw blade dispenser ripped straight from Tools of Destruction. Did they not catch this mistake, or are they now beyond their former capacity to care in the slightest? This unfortunate boner notwithstanding, I can’t declare total creative bankruptcy on Insomniac’s part because A Crack in Time does incorporate some truly ingenious ways to blast bolts out of enemies. Another tactic that this selection evidently seems to utilize is disguising established weapons with a new design. I’ve shredded the paint off of machines with a concentrated boom of offensive energy before, but it’s never been channeled out of the gastric eruptions of a creature’s belches with a frequency meter attached to increase its range of effectiveness. The “Sonic Eruptor” is quite disgusting if one pauses for a second to think about the schematics of its usage. Ratchet has also summoned a floating robotic helper to shoot enemies for a short period, but the “Agents of Doom” can’t quite match up to the personality and bloodlust of “Mr. Zurkon.” The “Negotiator” may seem like the series standard sniper rifle, but we can’t forget that all previous examples of this long-range firearm were inappropriately utilized as a sort of narrower shotgun. Conversely, this variant of sniper rifle will only prove effective if the player uses the scope to dispatch enemies from a distance, and I can’t tell if using it in this traditional manner is a downgrade or not. The “Constructo Shotgun” should accommodate close-quarters combat, even if calling a weapon a “shotgun” seems rather crude for a Ratchet & Clank game. Some of the more unique weaponry at Ratchet’s disposal here includes constructing an electric fence with the “Tesla Spikes” and calling forth a Lovecraftian superbeast to snatch enemies with its tentacles to presumably devour them from an interdimensional portal with the “Rift Inducer 5000.” Even with intergalactic travel as a feasible convenience, there still exists the disquieting element of the unknown in this universe. The Raritanium upgrade system that Tools of Destruction introduced has been totally omitted in favor of simple, streamlined leveling, minus a few modifications one can make to some choice weapons. The concept of “items” has also been wisely removed, which means that this game’s Morph-O-Ray (which transforms enemies into apes this time around) and the distracting disco ball summoner have been promoted to indispensable inclusions in Ratchet’s arsenal. Oh, we’re getting down tonight, alright.

A Crack in Time’s weapon selection seems like the sparsest the series has seen thus far, but maybe that’s an illusion caused by the gadgets being assigned to the respective cardinal directions of the controller’s D-pad instead of clogging up the weapon wheel. The “Slingshot” persists as Ratchet’s mode of crossing chasms, and his boots are still multifaceted enough to climb on magnetic surfaces and skate on lengthy, looping rails. Ratchet’s boots also foster the game’s greatest innovation on the gadgets, which many returning players may not even recognize as a spin on an old classic. Remember the Hover Boots? The auxiliary attachments to Ratchet’s footwear that allowed him to turbo boost for a second and then hover about a meter above the ground at the languid pace of an airport travelator? Do you also recall that they had next to no utility? Well, A Crack in Time has officially decided that the hoverboots should be propelled out of their pointlessness to the forefront of the game’s alternate instances of traversal. One aspect of innovation implemented into the hover boots is serving as Ratchet’s gliding mechanism in lieu of Clank’s absence, so not every double jump has to be coordinated with perilous precision. Instead of instantly petering out, this brand of hover boots does the inverse. The player can manually rev the boost feature of the hover boots to exponentially increase the leisurely speed of their base movement. Rushing at a precarious velocity is also incorporated into the pervasive platforming ramps, where Ratchet will thrust himself upward like he’s ski jumping and bounce off a series of airborne platforms to eventually reach solid footing. Knowing the year of this game’s release, it’s a miracle that quick-time events weren’t factored into the zigzagged leaping. Because of their augmentations and ubiquitous usage, I now take Ratchet’s rocket shoes seriously and often find myself zooming around with them even when there are no ramps around. I’m also easing up on them because I can now shift my mockery towards the “Omnisoaker,” a new gadget that acts as an all-purpose liquid dispenser. Sure, the fact that it can absorb water to grow plants, oil to crease rusty gear hinges, and spurt the nectar that the throngs of those ground piranhas crave is nifty. Still, the best that a series synonymous with mechanical ingenuity can come up with is a glorified Super Soaker? Lame.

Outside of the few ways that A Crack in Time’s settings shuffle the standard rate of traversal with a few platforming mechanics, they barely shake the mold of a Ratchet & Clank level. The environments that encompass this quadrant of the Polaris galaxy include your muggy jungles, crowded metropolises, a space station or two, a gladiatorial arena where Ratchet kills hordes of hired goons for a surplus of bolts, etc. I enjoy the open range at the center of Krell Canyon and the all-out battle that commences with Dr. Nefarious’ army, but the atmosphere is not chaotic enough to distract me from the deja vu of riding around the arid areas of series past. Speaking of past peculiarities, the Valkyrie Citadel on Vapedia, where Nefarious’s Rubenesque robot women call home, is practically stripped from a scrapped Spyro level, given its uncanny design and aesthetic to Insomniac’s former IP. Amongst the prevalent repurposing of level themes, A Crack in Time does actually showcase something unprecedented that is perfectly aligned with the game’s greater narrative foundation. The fongoids are a tribal race of creatures that have a significant screen presence in A Crack in Time due to Dr. Nefarious's crash landing near their civilization in the Tombli Outpost of Zanifar. Since taking an interest in him, Dr. Nefarious has naturally been exploiting their unadorned naivety for free labor, and it’s had a seriously deleterious effect on their society and environment. Because Nefarious’ influence has rendered Zanifar a blustering tundra, the seeds that sprout the gigantic vines cannot grow, and therefore, Ratchet cannot use them as organic grind rails. That is, until Ratchet uses a time portal that transports him back to a prosperous moment for this planet and plants seeds that then transform into massive green stalks that rival those from famous fairy tales. Similarly, the fongoid population of the planet Morklon is retroactively saved when Ratchet jumps backwards in time and intervenes in a bloody battle between them and the brutish agorians. With Ratchet’s assistance, the setting transforms from a desolate realm of failure to a thriving fongoid community who erect a commendatory statue in his honor. These are the only two instances where time travel is a key component, and it’s rather disappointing considering how pertinent the science fiction concept is to the overarching narrative and how it reinvigorates level progression. The Zoni and Orvus harp on the fact that time is a constant that shouldn’t be altered or taken for granted, but could we bend those rules a bit to give A Crack in Time some much-needed distinction?

If the levels insist on treating their new time travel mechanic with unnecessary restraint, the player can still find broader strokes of innovation elsewhere in A Crack in Time. Interplanetary travel in Ratchet & Clank was formally conducted in a scrolling menu once Ratchet returned to his ship, and the process of arriving at the selected destination was but a series of automated scenes with Ratchet darting around the blank regions of deep space. While the straightforwardness of this method has never totally disillusioned me, it is admittedly the epitome of a dry and direct method of orchestrating travel in a video game–so much so that I’ve used it as an example of such for other titles that implement something similar. Occasional bouts of flying around in Ratchet’s snazzy space vessel were prominently featured in the first two PS2 games before Up Your Arsenal deemed them unfit for a combat-intensive title and Tools of Destruction watered them down by automating the acceleration like a rail shooter. When Ratchet left the first planet to rescue Qwark, and I was commanding his ship, I was relatively pleased to see that the space missions had returned. When there was no immediate directive steering the scene, my moment of clarity upon realizing the bigger picture caused my eyes to widen with sheer surprise and elation. The outer space medium between every planet in the Polaris Galaxy is now a fully interactive sandbox where the player can pick and choose objectives on their own volition. Such objectives run the gamut of alternative activities typically offered in this non-linear dominion, including side quests involving errands done in the interest of the mechanical vullard merchants and escorting various NPCs to their desired destinations by tethering them to Ratchet’s ship. Satellite drones are in abundance and will sic a battalion of battleships on Ratchet, so his ship’s artillery isn’t neglected, and each portion of the galaxy features a half dozen moons to explore and potentially grab a stray zoni or any of the game’s other collectibles. Walking around one of these gravitationally thin orbital bodies evokes the same feeling as wandering around on the Obani Moons of the Solana Galaxy. The sublime, impeccably dazzling atmosphere exhibits the indescribable beauty and wonder of the final frontier. The shooter genre may have been the special item on gaming’s menu during this era, but the liberal space that the open-world format newly enabled thrust the medium into truly radical parameters. Once the breadth of the open-world design became comfortably tamed with time, Ratchet & Clank used it to correct its most underwhelming gameplay aspect marvelously.

Similar to when Mario obtains a star spirit in Paper Mario, Ratchet hyperdriving to another sector of the galaxy upon finishing his business in the previous one briefly shifts the scene to Clank and his current on-goings. While speculated to be oppressively held captive like Princess Peach, the Zoni are rolling out the welcome wagon for Clank as an esteemed guest in the nucleus of the universe. In fact, since Clank is apparently the offspring of deceased Great Clock caretaker Orvus, all of his screen time is spent training to take his mantle with the aid of a goofy trashcan droid named Sigmund. The tasks assigned to assess Clank’s professionalism are what fundamentally distinguish his gameplay this time around from how it was performed before, unless one wants to argue that his new time staff makes him more adept in combat. Between whacking enemies with the staff in the interest of pest control, Clank’s priorities will be focused on two distinct minigames. One sees Clank dragging a laser over a model of a planet being afflicted with “time anomalies.” The scope of the objective here seems like suitable work being conducted to keep the universe in a state of homeostasis, but Clank will become profoundly bored because he could perform this task in his sleep (if he slept). On the other side of the coin, I’m not entirely certain what sort of omniscient healing is done with the temporal recording puzzles, but they do genuinely give the ol’ noggin some exercise. Essentially, Clank must satisfy pressing a sequence of locks simultaneously, which is achieved via recording himself performing one or two of the required steps and materializing the actions as a “ghost” of sorts. Unlocking the exit after the circuitous and entangled process always fills me with a rush of gratification, as any worthy puzzle should. Clank’s periodic limelight time has never had this extent of prominence, and the puzzle-intensive sections here solidify the gameplay yin and yang between him and his action-oriented furry friend. It’s a shame then that only one minigame satisfies that stark dichotomy between them.

The eventual teary-eyed reunion of Ratchet and Clank also isn’t the game’s climactic resolution as one would probably expect. Fortunately, neither is the defeat of Dr. Nefarious. While I appreciate the entertainment factor that the cone-headed mad machine still displays, his returnee status, matched with his lackluster motive for warping space and time, makes his presence poisonous for the crux of the story. Somehow, the developers recognized this and have simply propped Dr. Nefarious up as a red herring for the true antagonist of the story. Once Ratchet clobbers Nefarious enough to where his head is playing space-age Young and the Restless on a loop, Azimuth murders Ratchet in cold blood after his plan of reverting time to save the Lombaxes is vetoed by our heroes. Clank slightly defies his father’s wishes by turning the clock back marginally enough to prevent Ratchet’s untimely death, and then they both face off against an enraged Azimuth in the final stretch of the story. People often express shock and sadness at Azimuth’s heel turn, but the writing was all over the walls. During a cutscene, one character calls the Lombax elder something of a “disgrace” to his people, and this negative reputation likely stems from the fallout of the Cragmite War, considering that Azimuth speaks of it like a broken record. Given the context behind his initiative, we can infer that the supposed nobility of his aspirations is marked by hints of selfishness. This is why even upon hearing of the unfathomable devastation of toying with the Clock and what it will do to the universe, he doesn’t bat an eye. He’d rather erase everyone who thinks of him as a failure if he never gets the chance to rectify what created this public consensus in the first place. Azimuth’s character depth and the pacing throughout his time in the spotlight make the game’s falling actions effective, but he infects the narrative with more melodrama than a Ratchet & Clank game can handle. Good thing that Dr. Nefarious can still crack smiles!

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time is a game that demands your respect. No, I’m not exclusively referring to the weight of its semi-emotional story, although it would indicate some sense of intended sincerity. Ratchet & Clank was blessed when it outlived its PS2 platformer peers and has decided not to take its second wave of relevance for granted. Ratchet & Clank had to adapt to the conditions of the ever-changing gaming landscape, and all of the nip and tuck operations performed certainly maintained its youthful glow amongst the new wave of intellectual properties. The free-ranged space sections should persist as a series requisite, and the game achieves an organization standard with Ratchet’s arsenal that every first-person shooter should take note of. There are still some signs of series stagnation, but at least A Crack in Time makes a significant effort to spruce up its elements instead of relying on the 720p output of the PS3 as its mark of evolution. Tools of Destruction made me weary of how the franchise would carry on past its PS2 prime, but A Crack in Time’s “future” is bright enough that I’ll at least apply some sunblock to be safe.

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 9/5/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Pokémon Diamond/Pearl

Developer: Game Freak

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): JRPG

Platforms: DS

Release Date: September 28, 2006

When Pokémon released its fourth generation of games in 2007 (American release), I had all but clocked out of the franchise completely. It’s not as if I became an adult since the release of Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire and had to relinquish my childhood interests in order to acclimate myself to the unrelenting adult world. Hell, I was still in elementary school when Pokémon’s fourth generation of titles shipped overseas, undoubtedly still in the prime Pokémon demographic. However, I was undergoing an evolution in the media I consumed in my, let’s call it, “PG-13 era.” I had also newly defected from tuning into Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network whenever I turned on the television in favor of more adult animated series such as The Simpsons and such, plus a few prime time sitcoms that had been currently airing (The Office, 30 Rock) that were generally more risque than the material the two children-oriented networks were producing. Relative access to the internet at this time, in an era where it was still an unregulated frontier of cutting-edge creativity, also had a hand in pulling me away from kid-friendly content. Anyways, the reason for this anecdotal line of context behind Pokémon Diamond/Pearl is to ultimately reveal that it was the first Pokémon generation that I have no nostalgic attachment towards. This playthrough isn’t my first rodeo with the franchise's fourth iteration, as I played Pearl in college during my “Pokémon renaissance phase.” Still, experiencing anything intended for younger people as the target demographic versus experiencing it as an adult will resonate differently, which is probably why I don’t share the same sentimental attachment to this generation as some of the people around my age. In saying this, I’m glad my seasoned adult perspective detects some flagrant issues with Pokémon’s DS titles that a biased childhood experience likely would still be overlooking.

During the time of my ambivalent absence, I evidently did not miss out on Pokémon shaking up the formula in any substantial way. A Pokémon adventure still begins with a boy (or girl, since Pokémon Crystal) waking up in their comfortable little burg that coincidentally also shares the same zip code as a pokemon professor’s research facility. The scientist will continue to grant the player one of three rare pokemon to lead them on the path of Poke-glory, which includes defeating eight elite Pokemon trainers scattered across the region and then the Elite Four that are housed in a prodigious building located at the apex of a lofty mountain range. Pokemon Diamond/Pearl introduces the player to the trio of exclusives the same way that Ruby/Sapphire did, choosing one in a hectic flash when forced to defend oneself from wild pokemon that lurk in the nearby tall grasses. Truthfully, it doesn’t distract from the fact that the game is still setting up the same call for adventure that will lead on the same eight gym trajectory with a meaty gauntlet as the final step of the player’s ascension to the top.

However, one consistent alteration to this staunch narrative formula that persists here is the selection of starter pokemon, even if they still maintain the same contrasting elemental dynamic. Is it obvious to anyone else that Piplup was engineered to be the definitive fan favorite of the three? I don’t need a census taker to tell me that people absolutely love penguins more than God loves irony, so the turquoise ice bird is bound to be bought up by aspiring trainers in record time. Admittedly, I can’t deny that Piplup would be a solid decision outside of its superficial appeal. He’s a speedy little guy whose adult emperor penguin evolution form, Empoleon, persists as THE only water and steel hybrid known in the Pokedex to this day, which also comes with several resistances and an immunity to poison matching that of the Dread Pirate Roberts. I think that I share a commonality with the face-painted kid who was virally interviewed for the local news all those years ago because I have a fondness for Turtwig that almost matches my adoration for Blastoise. Even if the leafy little turtle is obviously slower than his peers, he’s a defensive powerhouse whose durability only strengthens when he fully evolves into the Ankylosauria-esque Torterra and grows a ground typing on top of the preexisting grass one (and an entire tree on its back as well). So far, the beguiling designs and commitment to dual-typing their evolutions make this selection of starter pokemon as exemplary as the previous batch. The fire-type representative that rounds out this trio doesn’t buck this trend, but the evolutionary line of Chimchar, Monferno, and Infernape marks the first time where a starter pokemon has bothered me. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this flaming simian or his advanced forms, but I can’t help but see him as the reheated nachos of my beloved Blaziken, with its fire and fighting physical mix only one generation after his marvelous time in the spotlight. After being treated to the delicious, nuanced taste of Coca-Cola, Pepsi is not a suitable substitute in its absence. To compound on that, Chimchar is irritatingly the sole obtainable fire pokemon in the game, so Game Freak is seemingly working with the obstinate stance that the player can drink Pepsi or go to Hell. I, for one, refuse to submit to their watered-down version of a superior product they’re trying to shell out onto us.

Okay, I’ll admit that my last statement on Chimchar was incorrect. Chimchar is the only NEW fire pokemon to appear in the grand land of Sinnoh, but the only alternative is Kanto’s incandescent horse Ponyta and its majestic, evolved stallion form of Rapidash. The scant selection aside, another pattern I can detect from Diamond/Pearl’s example here is that every even-numbered Pokemon generation will add around one-hundred of the beasts instead of 150 just as Gold/Silver did in the franchise’s sophomore era. When the total of new breeds is comparatively subtracted, the game allows enough room for familiar faces to flourish once again. Besides Ponyta, long-tongued ghost Gastly, and the doofy yellow mallard Psyduck are some of the representatives from Pokemon’s original roster that return after their gap year. The beta version of Swampert in Wooper/Quagsire, plus the kick-ass stag beetle, Heracross, have also migrated here from Johto. As for Pokémon #252-#386 that were front and center in their native Hoenn, only a handful of the archipelago’s pokémon have persisted in the limelight (Wingull, Medicham, and Barboach, to name a few). While padding the region’s Pokedex with returnees would’ve appeased my younger self, the focal point of any Pokemon game’s roster should ideally be the ones currently crafted in the developer’s creative kiln.

Firstly, I appreciate that the player can find the notoriously sparse electric type pokemon in Shinx before fighting the first gym leader, and the fact that it evolves twice into Luxray makes it a viable competitor for the long run. Queen bee Vespiquen provides more proof that bug-type pokemon aren’t just low-level obstacles to contend with out of the gate, but the player can only confirm this statement for themselves if they manage to encounter the highly elusive female form of Combee in the wild–hence the gendered connotations of Vespiquen’s status. The ghost balloons of Drifloon and Drifblim amuse me on the implication that a balloon can become deceased, and the grins of the bipedal poison frogs Croagunk and Toxicroak exude a great deal of personality, even if they are of the irksome, shit-eating variety. Above all else, no other fourth-generation pokemon debutant exudes more charisma and star power than Lucario, who is so physically personable that it seems like you could have an intelligent conversation with him. Considering that he was deemed worthy of Super Smash Bros stardom, I’d confidently call him the breakout pokemon of this era. Maybe he would even temporarily eclipse Pikachu’s mascot status in a timeline where the yellow rat wasn’t guarding his throne like an electric fence around a storage facility. The line-up also isn’t rife with unevolvable defectives like the ones that ran amok throughout Johto, although the electric rodent Pachirisu sees an unfortunate trend continuing that Plusle and Minun started. I’d comment that Diamond/Pearl’s overall selection was lacking in options despite the variety on display, but then I realized that the veteran pokemon here can sufficiently cover any elemental blind spots in one’s pokemon team. Really, the biggest bone I have to pick regarding Sinnoh’s selection of beasts is that the developers used the design template of my favorite animal, the beaver, and turned it into an absolute joke with Bidoof and Bibarel–the supreme HM bitch so submissive that I’m surprised they can’t lick the player’s running shoes. A pox on both your houses! (Nintendo and Game Freak)

If anything, the biggest commonality that Diamond/Pearl share with Gold/Silver regarding their original lineups is how they augment and innovate on the already-existing pokemon of previous generations. For instance, the developers thought it keen to continue literally infantilizing popular pokemon like Warner Bros. with Looney Tunes characters. Mr. Mime continues his detestable family surname with his son, “Mime Jr.,” Happiny is Chansey’s poke-nurse in training, and Budew is a Roselia sproutling. The player can still facilitate the birth of these babies via the awkward and outwardly inappropriate act of pokemon fornication in the daycare center, but I’m sure they’ll find it more convenient and comfortable to find these prepubescents in the wild with the rest of the bunch. This way, the player can also catch multiple Bonslys and Munchlaxes and train an assortment of their once-exclusive adult forms of Sudowoodo and Snorlax. Lord knows what kind of king’s feast it’ll take to feed that army, though. Personally, I find the idea of evolving these helpless, juvenile creatures through battle experience to be unethically cruel, so I’d rather focus on the evolved forms of pokemon that are already formidable enough. Gold/Silver’s impetus for adding an evolved form to an established pokemon was to make them contenders in one’s pokemon posse rather than a slot on a catching checklist, for even the least experienced Pokemon trainer should recognize that evolution involves making a creature stronger. For instance, Murkrow was the epitome of forgettable in Gold/Silver, even among a profusion of losers, but his new evolved form in Honchkrow tacks on mass to make this skinny, pathetic crow mediocre no more. Yanmega adds some buzzing bug ferocity to Yanma, Tangela turns from an unkempt grass nymph into fucking Swamp Thing with Tangrowth, and Sneasel’s crowned superior, Weaville, is quicker than Japanese public transportation. Piloswine probably didn’t need to evolve again to survive the steep conditions of Pokémon battles, but who am I to argue against its capacity to adapt when it can now transform into the whompus woolly mammoth Mamoswine? Designating new evolutionary branches based on gender with Gallade and Froslass also provides a nifty new method of players to weigh their options when catching either a Ralts or a Snorunt. All of the ones mentioned are what I’d consider to be the standouts among this new wave of enhanced Pokemon but unfortunately, there exist plenty of unappealing examples in this category of pokemon either due to their designs or excessiveness. Unless you find jokes involving oral sex to be especially funny, Lickitung might be the one original pokemon even a staunch gen-wunner might have trouble recalling. Still, its evolved form, Lickilicky, will be memorable for all the wrong reasons, as it resembles something upsetting one would see during a drug-induced hallucination. Why does Probopass look like Nosepass had a Bar Mitzvah in between generations? We needed another “Jynx” predicament on our hands, Nintendo? Why did Magmar need a shlubby beer gut and a Mega Man arm cannon, and was it really necessary to bulk up Rhyhorn with an entire shield of stone? I would think that being a hulking rock rhinoceros was formidable enough. Every evolution here technically improves the stats of these established pokemon, but their gaudiness ultimately still makes them unwelcome.

In the case of Magnezone and the two new Eeveelutions, the rationale behind these previously undiscovered iterations is that the other regions didn’t have the particular environmental factors that would enable these physical changes. The environment in question, of course, is Diamond/Pearl’s central region of Sinnoh. Geographically, the fourth Pokenation is the antithesis of Hoenn in a more literal sense than just its design, climate, and general atmosphere. Whereas Hoenn was inspired by Japan's southern chain of islands, Sinnoh is the entirety of the country’s northernmost prominent island, Hokkaido. Geography experts/weeaboos can even see that the developers practically slapped Hokkaido onto the game’s world map and infested it with pokemon. Given that this island is situated slightly further away from the equator, one can expect Sinnoh to exhibit the characteristics of a temperate climate rather than a subtropical one. Rain and fog are common weather conditions that may factor into battle as opposed to the rampant blustering of desert sand. Oreburgh is a humble mining town with much of its territory sunken below the ground due to the constant excavation of coal and other nearby natural resources. Floroma Town is a city that shares Hoenn’s forte for flowers, but the atmosphere here conveys a reserved, remote environment where the player can listen to the wind blowing on the wide span of pretty plants without some well-meaning florist rambling on about the environmental and personal benefits of growing them. The most notable attraction in Canalave City is its multistoried library, and Celestic Town preserves the traditional, unsophisticated lifestyles and attitudes of centuries ago, like several of Johto’s settlements. The vibrancy of modern times seen in Sinnoh seems to be condensed to Hearthome and Jubilife City. Either of these districts has to be based on Hokkaido’s central city of Sapporo, but I can’t tell which one on account of neither having a brewery or beer garden. In terms of comparing the nation’s weather conditions to that of the last region, nothing is more evident of how different Sinnoh is than the frigid Snowpoint City, where it perennially precipitates the city’s namesake. The sentient evergreen tree Snover and his yeti-sized evolved form Abomasnow could never have sensibly existed in a region like Hoenn, where the apex of elevation resembles the area of northern California where the redwoods reside. In addition to the potential for perpetual snow, Sinnoh’s notable natural bodies are three massive lakes located all across the land, which might remind every North American resident of the Great Lakes that surround the boreal upper midwest of the USA and parts of Canada. Certainly, Hoenn shares little to no commonality with our white neighbor to the north. Like Johto’s relationship to Kanto, Sinnoh sort of presents a direct contrast to Hoenn that illustrates its polar differences in all of the aforementioned essences. While I prefer the laid-back, oceanic atmosphere permeating throughout Hoenn as I do with places of a real-life parallel, I appreciate the modest, chillier expanse that Sinnoh establishes to accentuate its distinctiveness.

I suppose that the advancements of the DS hardware also play a hand in Sinnoh’s perceptible differences compared to the previous generations. An understated aspect of the double-screened handheld is that it could competently render three-dimensional shapes in the graphics, albeit rudimentary ones that recall when Mario and Link looked like satirical action figures made by Seth Green for Adult Swim. With the approximate 64-bit visuals at hand, the foregrounds of each metropolitan area are rather cubical, further immersing us into the illusion of interacting in a bustling cityscape. Evidently, the extra-dimensional range at their disposal is also being utilized in the interior puzzle of gyms that prevent the player from darting to the leader’s domain. We can determine the change in water level while trying to navigate around Crasher Wake’s Olympic-sized pool, and it might have been difficult to obscure the junior trainers playing hide and seek in Gardenia’s grass gym from a pixelated, top-down perspective. Solving the math problems that lock the doors behind the fabulous Fantina’s domain could’ve been achievable without the perks of an advanced spatial plane, but probably not the series of elevators between them. One would think that injecting this graphical flair into the Pokemon world would be a cinch, considering the capabilities of the system, but something about the game’s sluggishness suggests that rounding out the visuals may have still been too ambitious. For some reason or other, Diamond/Pearl runs as slowly as a sloth sinking in a tar pit during any battle sequence. Every action is plagued with a hesitation reminiscent of children stuttering their lines during a school play. In a game where the turn-based gameplay can become rather repetitive, chugging through the grind with jagged pauses at every waking moment can make the process grating. This kink in Diamond/Pearl’s foundation is the first instance of blatant regression in the Pokemon series, and there’s no excuse for it.

Judging by how Sinnoh shares a similar atmosphere and disposition to Johto, this would lead the player to believe that its general progression is equally as lethargic and somewhat adrift. Fortunately, there is a prominent overarching subplot in tandem with the player’s path to fame and fortune, but it’s quite absurd. Filling in the requisite organization of rabblerousers is Team Galactic, whose group uniformity is defined by their eccentric hairstyles. Another point of eccentricity regarding this antagonistic team is their highfalutin mission. Instead of using pokemon as tools in conducting schemes for financial gain and influencing one’s opinion on the land and sea divide, Team Galactic wishes to change the world…by channeling the cosmic power of the region’s legendary pokemon to erase the current one and craft a new existence as the primary architects. Something about team leader Cyrus’s intense and misanthropic disposition tells me that his goals are not based in philanthropy. Between the seventh and eighth Sinnoh gyms, the player will climb the perilous Mt. Coronet and arrive at the mythical ruins of Spear Pillar. At its peak, Team Galactic’s rude awakening will summon the sacred Pokemon arbiters of space and time in either Dialga or Palkia–depending on the version. This encounter is certainly a memorable moment in the player’s journey through Sinnoh for its epic scale and biting tension, as it seems like Team Galactic will have their nefarious wish fulfilled. Still, the underlying issue that sullies Team Galactic’s impact is that their villainous operations are barely relevant to the greater Pokemon world in the grand scheme of the franchise’s thematic foundation. Team Rocket tainted our perception of treating these creatures as reciprocal friends or pets when they utilize their offensive properties like gangsters use sawed-offs and Tommy guns. At least the player can assume that the radical desires of either Team Aqua or Magma stem from their affinities for the category of pokemon that their elemental association coincides with. Team Galactic, on the other hand, seem like they’ve stumbled upon the Pokemon world and have researched an avenue to achieve their disquieting goals in the environment they circumstantially find themselves in. I’ve seen the villain trope of a radical cult several times across many video games, and injecting Pokémon into the equation doesn’t seem to broaden the scope in any significant way. As far as the series’s less diabolical adversaries are concerned, the opposite gender equivalent of the player is a non-entity who follows around Professor Rowan like a border collie, and spastic neighbor Barry is in the feckless category of “rival” that Wally unremarkably introduced. Barry’s aspiration to conquer the player and place himself as the hottest contender in the Sinnoh league is still as fruitless and one-sided, even with a longer screen presence. Maybe he’d be a formidable Pokémon trainer if he invested in decaf and could focus?

Because all of the auxiliary narrative components that comprise a Pokémon adventure are rather ineffective this time around, the developers thought ahead of this predicament by raising the difficulty ceiling for the Elite Four and the league champion. If that douche Lance has taught me anything (besides that Dragonite is like the Ford F-450 of Pokémon), a particularly flashy and haughty champion will feel inclined to assist the player in trouncing the game’s criminal organization threat. When the blonde, elegant trainer Cynthia suddenly lent a hand in forcing Team Galactic out of Sinnoh’s great lakes, I knew she’d be my final opponent and wouldn’t relinquish her crown so easily. The range of pokemon levels amongst Sinnoh’s Elite Four is a steep 53 at the lowest and a staggering 63 at their highest, with some of Cynthia’s pokemon reaching social security eligibility numbers. Cynthia’s eclectic mix, consisting of her bulky, self-healing Milotic and exclusively invulnerable Spiritomb, still gave me the business. A sense of fear should especially strike the players when faced against Cynthia’s Garchomp trump card. The mighty upright sand hammerhead shark with dragon blood in its veins is so goddamn powerful that I hear Lance is thinking about trading one of his Dragonites for one, like an insecure "alpha male" influencer swapping his Bugatti for a Ferrari. We get it, Cynthia, women are just as capable of topping the league towers as their Y-chromosomed equivalents, but did you have to make your strides for womankind our problem? The grinding regime I had to undergo to defeat you spanned the length of a flight to Europe, and the slowing hiccups in the game’s system made the process all the more tedious and excruciating.

Pokemania has officially bitten the dust, and now the franchise is in a state where the developers have to keep huffing and puffing to keep the flame from being totally extinguished. With Pokémon’s fourth-generation outing in Diamond/Pearl, their attempt to maintain relevance is rather limp. Sinnoh is an inspired region only because it acts as Hoenn’s clear-cut opposite, and there are still plenty of commendable extensions to the international Pokedex that should still rouse a sense of curiosity in returning players amongst those whose brassy designs smack of overcompensation. Other than that, the narrative does not bode well when the fatigued Pokémon champion arc takes a backseat to deal with an enemy syndicate whose principles put them one degree from Dahlia Gillespie from Silent fucking Hill. Above all else, the delayed clunkiness of the gameplay is the straw that broke the camel’s back, or at least the straw that caused some serious burning inflammation. I feel as if I just played a middle-aged Pokémon game, one that attempts to capture its prime by repeating the same feats but is ultimately now bogged down by the hitches that come with the passing of time. Adding on to this analogy, I also feel like the game’s teenage son, who is a bit embarrassed by its lameness. I might be too old for this shit afterall.