Cave Story Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/21/2026)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Cave Story

Developer: Studio Pixel (Daisuke Amaya)

Publisher: Studio Pixel (Daisuke Amaya)

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: PC

Release Date: December 20, 2004

Hey kids, do you like indie games? You know, video games that are created and produced independently outside of the circle of triple-A industry influence? I sure as hell do; their ingenuity, rough-hewn quirks, and humble productions have always reinvigorated my passion for the medium when it seems like the big business realm of gaming keeps whittling my soul down to a stub with their contemptuous and condescending practices. It’s extremely fortunate that in a time when triple-A developers grow progressively more nonchalant about slapdashing their expensive products day by day, the indie circuit rivals their more opulent countrymen in sheer abundance. If you’re like me and perceive the influx of retrograded or artistically stylized graphics and Metroidvania (or Metroidvania adjacent) design formats that have defined the indiesphere for well over a decade now to be a veritable buffet you never want to stop indulging in, I believe there is one single source of this trend that we can send our tokens of gratitude towards: Cave Story.

For any aspiring indie developer who believes that they’ll take the indiesphere by storm with their coming-of-age, horror-tinged gay awakening story starring a cast of anthropomorphic furries, I hope you realize that your brainchild will never have as much indie cred as Cave Story. Millions of gamers might have purchased Halo 2 or GTA San Andreas while Cave Story sold a meager ten thousand back in 2004, but those who bought the more modest latter were inspired to create their own games as a result (a topical spin on the Brian Eno quote comparing the impact of Sgt. Pepper versus the first Velvet Underground record). Actually, the words “bought” and “sold” are misnomers on my part. Daisuke Amaya, the solo developer behind Cave Story, spent five years financially debilitating himself to ensure he’d have enough of a breather period per day to finish this passion project in a relatively timely manner. After half a decade of likely subsisting off of dollar-store cardboard ramen and whatever bugs managed to crawl into his shoddy apartment, the man was kind enough to publish his painstakingly crafted creation to the internet to download for a whopping sum of zero dollars and zero cents. There’s a point where someone’s selflessness steps beyond admiring their altruism to becoming concerned with their psychological status, and Daisuke Amaya evidently needs some serious counseling. Still, perhaps Mr. Amaya factored in a long-con approach to receiving compensation for his self-inflicted labor, for its availability allowed Cave Story to increase the span of its ring to impressionable gamers without the inherent perk of being able to amplify it to the mainstream masses. Years later, Cave Story is cited as a major influence on Braid, Undertale, Iconoclasts, and other titles that would cement themselves as gaming staples during the indie golden age that is still currently ongoing. I can state with confidence that Cave Story is bar none the most influential indie title in the medium of gaming, but is its everlasting ability to spark inspiration sustainable two decades onward? Given that Cave Story was created in a time with sparser technology on a budget of what we can surmise wasn’t even enough to engage a coin-operated laundry machine, is it time for the indie muse mantle to be passed onto another worthy title that isn’t beset by the complications of the rudimentary conditions that could have possibly been factored into developing a video game? While Cave Story does exhibit some elements that would be deemed as rather unsightly or undercooked by the comparison of its competent and more privileged indie acolytes, I defy anyone to contest the charismatic heart and soul that lies within its crude exterior.

Notice how I made the distinction between the pure Metroidvanias and games that simply incorporate some elements of the genre into their level designs in the previous paragraph? I’m not entirely sure there’s a definitive term that labels games with levels that exist between the fast, timer-duressed platforming of Mario and Sonic and the exploration-intensive, meticulously-paced Metroidvania subgenre, but Cave Story certainly treads that line. Don’t be deceived into thinking it comfortably fits the latter by the fact that health and weapon upgrades are scattered across the levels. Sure, the game offers plenty of incentive to explore, but everything that can be obtained on the field does not lead to plunging further into any portions locked by utility-gated hindrances. The encompassing level design that Cave Story seems to exhibit is a horizontal span with defined parameters between the entry point on the left side and the eventual dead end situated on the right. It’s platformer level design 101 that would be utterly orthodox if not for the lack of a clock ticking away that discourages the player from curiously hopping around the elevated vertical ground that surrounds them. However, just because the other end of the level is a logical destination doesn’t mean that a flag pole will greet the player and tally up the player’s time score once they leap on any point of its vertical stretch. Within those elevated cliffs potentially lies the next progress point for the player, or at least the subsequent point of progression if their immediate destination did happen to be the opposite side of the area, or behind a door that leads to a small room or arena where dialogue or a boss battle commences. Naturally, the objective of finding where on the map furthers progress subtly incentivizes the player to explore an area to its entirety outside of the interest of augmenting one’s maximum health. While creating a compact sandbox to roam around is infinitely more engaging than a straightaway trek from point A to B, I wish that the objective surrounding the exploration process maintained some sense of clarity. When an NPC assigns a quest to the player, like a scavenger hunt to find the ingredients for a bomb or retrieving an elderly woman’s five dogs that have run away, the objective components to progression are made crystal clear. Other times, however, dialogue that might be spoken by the NPCs the player encounters may not spell out their following course of action. I don’t need a glowing breadcrumb trail or a blinking series of arrows to explicitly direct me towards my goal like I’m an impatient child, but finding myself frazzled due to revisiting the same rooms and failing to trigger any semblance of progression occurred too many times for comfort. Walking from one side of a lake to the other in Mimiga Village to obtain an item clashes with traditional Metroidvania logic but alas, the player is sincerely intended to test the threshold of the protagonist’s lung capacity to its absolute limitations. I’m thoroughly impressed by the layers of depth that exist in each of Cave Story’s areas, but a fully fleshed-out Metroidvania map achieves the same level of richness while pronouncing how to progress through it less obtusely.

Another reason why Cave Story might seem a little more linear than the indie Metroidvanias it would undoubtedly influence is that traversing from one side of the area to the other evokes something akin to staving off one’s demise in a traditional 2D platformer. As par for the the 2D platformer course, the source of adversity between destinations is the scourge of enemy activity ready to annihilate the player with their overwhelming swarms of offensive forces. Admittedly, this is also a component of difficulty in a Metroidvania game, and Cave Story features several states to relieve the player of their choking vulnerability in generous increments, similar to that of a less straightforward realm of platformers. Still, I think the game recognizes that the level of adversity that exists between progression points can get quite staggering all the same, which is why Mr. Amaya has equipped his anemic, Pokémon Trainer-looking protagonist with an arsenal liable to arouse any NRA member. Scouring the dim tutorial cavern, the Protagonist will uncover a standard pistol from a treasure chest to procure any fundamental source of defense against the hive of bats that the player was forced to evade only moments ago. A rocket launcher is the only explosive weapon with enough firepower to obliterate the gigantic, oxygenated jellyfish that globs onto the ceilings of the “Grasslands.” The flamethrower’s rolling properties seem to do wonders with targeting the sentient dinosaur skulls that pace across the specific inclined platforms of the “Sand Zone,” while flinging a sword at the cockroaches that populate the upper deck of the same area seems to be more effective at exterminating them than anything the Orkin Man could ever whip out of his van. As potent as the projectile piece of steel craftsmanship proves to be, I’d still recommend trading it for the “Nemesis,” Cave Story’s juggernaut weapon equivalent to Ratchet & Clank’s RYNO. I wish the option to trade “The Bubbline” was available, or at least any avenue to dispose of this wimpy squirter of suspended soap. Still, perhaps the addition of a dud weapon is just a byproduct of a diverse weapon roster, where the weakest item unfortunately gets shafted when all of its peers prove to be far more useful in the long run. While not all of Cave Story’s weapons are created equal, the various situations at least implore the player to use everything at their disposal at least once. Plus, the weaker weapons all have the advantage of infinite ammunition, making a case to keep them around once even the rocket launcher requires multiple shells to blow enemies to smithereens.

Besides the specific scenarios where every weapon showcases its strengths, the player should ideally be intrigued to use every weapon for at least a little while because each of them will be enhanced via gaining more experience with them. However, Cave Story does not subscribe to the typical EXP system where the simple, continual usage of one weapon will increase its attributes. In fact, Cave Story’s EXP system for its weapons still remains so unique to its source that you’d swear that Mr. Amaya legally patented it. Instead of increasing the bar inside of the level meter automatically upon defeating an enemy, they will expel mango-colored triangular shards of varying sizes depending on the enemy’s size and tenacity. Only by collecting the shards that become strewn across the ground like candy being tossed from a parade float will any of Cave Story’s weapons evolve, and said evolution involves a plethora of noticeable perks. Ammunition from weapons like the machine gun becomes prominently larger; a single firing of the rocket launcher will unleash three shells simultaneously for the price of one; the flamethrower spurts will become so scorchingly hot that its color will turn a ghoulish white, etc. The ammunition that spews out of the machine gun at its maximum level is even powerful enough to propel the player upward if they aim down while airborne, a nifty traversal technique to supplement the jet boost before the gadget becomes available.

As awe-inducing as each weapon will be at its maximum level, the caveat behind this system is that its apex can decrease if the player sustains any amount of damage while it's equipped. As they say, the lord giveth, the lord taketh awayeth, and I don’t mind the harsh punitive measures at play because any scratch of regression can be easily remedied while motivating the player to stay alert of all enemy activity around them. That is, until I’m faced with one of Cave Story’s bosses where choosing the appropriate weapon can either make or break the player's victory. Factoring in which weapon to use when chronically batting away Balrog is fortunately irrelevant. He’s a stubby toaster and miniature refrigerator hybrid with no attack range to speak of, and the enclosed arenas he bombastically barges into like the Kool-Aid Man are nicely ironed out and simple. However, with the heightened, projectile firepower of bosses such as Weapon X and the Dragon Sisters, whose fights are engaged on more complicated terrain where the player can only damage them with slivers of opportunity, the likelihood of weakening the only sensible weapon increases tenfold. Forgive me if I’m not MLG pro enough to toss a flamethrower spurt down the gullets of the Dragon Sisters like I’m playing a round of cornhole. Only in these instances do I wish that Cave Story just crafted a normal weapon experience system that remained intact upon reaching its limit. Judging by how absolutely none of its disciples chose to adopt this eccentric mechanic, it’s safe to say that it was an experiment that didn’t entirely pan out.

If Cave Story isn’t afraid to raise the stakes of combat to the point of debilitating the player, wait until we delve into the narrative context surrounding the action. Titling this game as “Cave Story” does not ring to me as a mere coincidence. Above all of the other elements that the developer put his blood, sweat, and tears into, the story aspect was definitely the one that he bled, sweated, and wept over the most, given its outstandingly intricate lore, characters, and conflict premise. It turns out that Cave Story’s playable protagonist isn’t suffering from a severe vitamin D deficiency, but that his blanched skin can be attributed to the fact that his body is composed of a metallic mold meant to resemble a human. He learns in his amnesiac stupor that he is one of the few surviving robot scouts sent to a floating island suspended above Earth’s atmosphere that were programmed to target the land’s native mimiga population. Even though the rabbit creatures seem absolutely helpless despite their evident hyperintelligence, their secret weapon they employed to trounce their gun-toting invaders is consuming a red flower that transforms them into brutish, Hulk-like beasts, where the amplified effects are irrevocable. Years later, scientists revisit the isolated grounds of this failed imperialistic endeavor to research the “demon flower” phenomenon when one of them, referred to as “The Doctor,” stumbles upon an artifact called the “demon crown,” whose arcane properties corrupt the intellectual man into a bloodthirsty tyrant. Now, he’s hellbent on cramming as many of the red flowers down the throats of the mimiga to create an army of roided-out supersoldiers to become Earth’s despotic ruler with the aid of his witch advisor Misery and the aforementioned Balrog as the muscle of his operation. The Doctor’s intentions are the main source of conflict that are made abundantly clear by the NPCs immediately when the Protagonist (who is canonically named “Quote”) returns to the scene of his defeat in Mimiga Village. The cliché good versus evil conflict premise could’ve sufficed, but the contextual tidbits behind Quote’s existence and initial purpose, the latent, abominable natures of the perceivably cuddly and defenseless mimiga, and the esoteric evil at the root of The Doctor’s change in disposition unveil a multilayered, comprehensive world as rich and detailed as the fall of Rome.

Between learning of the storied history behind the peculiar island and its nation of bunny people while spelunking through its cavernous machinations, Cave Story’s thick layers kept peeling back more and more thematic substance that wasn’t overtly exposited by the characters. Considering that our boy Quote’s circuitry is wired to make rabbit stew of the mimigas and instead sides with them to conquer their oppressors, there seems to be a prevalent theme of defying one’s true nature or commanding officer and sprouting an autonomous consciousness. Surprisingly, the extent of this thematic undertone is explored with Balrog of all characters, who gradually steps towards the side of aiding Quote and the mimigas and opposes his “master,” The Doctor, every time Quote wipes the floor with him as he insists on making an appearance. Does Balrog’s dynamic arc make him the true protagonist of Cave Story, or is he still a useful idiot who we can at least be grateful for when he starts lending his doggedness to the good guys? More overtly on the side of revolting against the powers of strong-arming are how some of the mimiga express an impassioned fervor against those who seek to subjugate them. Combating this persecution against the mimigas the most actively is King, the de facto leader of the remaining mimigas in their home village, whose bloodshot eyes and scar-studded visage signify that this bunny is a badass who shan’t be toyed with by bullies. King would rather die than see any of his kind get abducted and turned into monsters, and unfortunately, that bargaining statement becomes a reality when he’s fatally struck down by a cracking bolt of lightning summoned by Misery during battle. Using King’s death as a segue, what I believe to be the strongest element of Cave Story’s narrative is raising the stakes of the heavy scenario by killing off characters. The game isn’t the least bit afraid of making their adorable little cast of castigated critters squeal in agony, whether it be annihilating them outright or euthanizing them for the greater good after their Dr. Hyde mutations blossom from eating the red flowers. Having to subdue the sweet and innocent Toroko after The Doctor force-feeds her the flower is an especially heart-wrenching turn of events. Scenes of various mimigas meeting grave fates are upsetting in the moment, but as they marinate in my mind longer, the tragedies do wonders for instilling the severity of the conflict at hand.

Then there’s the untimely demise of Curly Brace, a female humanoid built for the same purpose as Quote but is also going against the grain and aligning herself with the mimigas she once sought to slaughter. Given her unique kinship to Quote and the fact that she’s an aidful member of the opposite sex with a vivacious personality, this blonde bot screams manic pixie dream girl so loudly that I can hear both The Smiths playing from one side of her headphone speakers and The Shins from the other. Nipping this cliched relationship in the bud before I start to facepalm, Curly Brace is out of commission when she sacrifices herself by giving Quote her bubble-breathing apparatus when a battle arena completely floods to the point of inhabitability. Programming a waterproof robot with a drowning function in the first place is unspeakably cruel and unusual, but I digress. As much as I’d like to commend Cave Story for stocking even more grief to fuel the fire against The Doctor and his cronies, the game does offer an extensive avenue to resurrect Quote’s soon-to-be girlfriend in one of three potential endings. I implore the player to stop thinking with their dicks, or whatever sexual appendage serves like a penis that Quote may or may not possess, because I’d argue that the game punishes the player if they go the extra mile to achieve the ending where Quote and Curly live happily ever after (with Balrog third-wheeling it for the remainder of his days). Firstly, taking the steps to drain the immense volume of liquid from Curly’s core is quite the ordeal, where the specificity of a task’s completion can lead to accidentally neglecting it entirely. Secondly, when Quote arrives at the secret labyrinthine temple on this path, and the game greets him with the message, “Welcome to Hell,” do not take this message lightly. The route up to the game’s absolute final boss in the grand poobah Ballos is the first and only instance when Cave Story becomes a precision platformer, jetting around rows of deadly spiked walls with unpredictably asymmetrical patterns throughout. After that tense excursion is finished, Cave Story continues to make the player sweat buckets with FOUR rounds against Ballos, an excruciating endurance test that the player will be begging for sweet release by only the third phase. Considering the multiple transformations where Ballos becomes bigger and more malformed with every phase, the Sigma from Mega Man X comparisons write themselves. Unless the player sincerely wishes to secure some suggested robot sex for Quote as a reward for his outstanding heroism, I recommend sticking to the “neutral ending” where Quote conquers The Doctor and Misery and leaves the island with Sue and her human scientist brother, Kazuma, on the backs of the dragon he painstakingly attempted to hatch in the Egg Corridor all this time. Conversely, I will judge you harshly if you decide to expedite Quote’s egress with Kazuma at the soonest moment the dragon is hatched, saying “fuck this” to The Doctor’s sinister plans coming to fruition, to live in the far-off mountains without a care. And I thought bartering the sword weapon that has King’s lingering spirit imbibed in it for the Nemesis was the most damning example of selling your soul in Cave Story.

Daisuke Amaya, you beautiful bastard. I know your secret, buddy; you’re actually an alien that beamed yourself down to our planet to benevolently give us earthlings the gift of gaming with Cave Story. I simply find it hard to believe that any one of us would be able to create something of such an unprecedented magnitude that superseded all of the cheap, crude flash games that represented indie gaming at the time where financial gain wasn’t an applicable factor in crafting it. Alas, the reality isn’t that there wasn’t a jailbreak from Area 51 circa the early 2000s. A starving artist from Japan truly did accomplish the impossible with only his two hands and the cheapest computer software imaginable, making gamers like me moist with sprightly shooting gameplay, adequate level design, and a poignant story with, and I must impress on this, multiple fucking endings with several secret routes attached. Still, what we’re intended to take from Cave Story is not that Mr. Amaya is superhuman, but that any aspiring developer can make a game of this caliber if they persevere. Where some of the triple-A King Neptunes of the gaming industry are cynically serving up shite on a conveyor belt per year, there's the indie SpongeBobs taking their time to program hearts into their interactive vision’s binary code thanks to Cave Story setting the example. Pardon me, I’m getting verklempt just thinking about it.

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/22/2026)

[Image from igdb.com]

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

Developer: Square

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): JRPG

Platforms: SNES

Release Date: March 9, 1996

Narrative and world-building are not and never were Mario’s strong suits. I don’t think that Nintendo should lose sleep over their mascot getting crushed under the competition any time soon, but perhaps the simplistic story it insists on repeating will become a bigger blemish on the franchise the more that gaming continues to emphasize telling a substantial, coherent story as an integral part of the medium’s evolution. But if Mario’s assorted forays into other gaming genres are any indication, the way that Mario maintains his cult of personality status is refusing to be shackled and bound by the platformer grounds that he has paved. If Mario can race like Dale Earnhardt and host parties like Jay Gatsby, he can therefore expand the narrative breadth of the Mushroom Kingdom setting that he typically resides in, like JRR Tolkien. Given that Japan’s patented role-playing genre tends to stretch its narratives to an elongated, epic proportion that require as much patience to play through as its turn-based combat, I can’t think of a better vehicle to facilitate the expansion initiative of Mario and his greater gaming universe. Personally, the RPGs that bear the brand of the Italian plumber are the pinnacle of the Mario experience. It’s not to say that I don’t enjoy straightforwardly soaring onto platforms or stomping on Bowser’s minions as per usual. Still, reinterpreting these Mario tropes into the amplified realm of the RPG genre blossoms an air of whimsy, humor, and a storybook grandiosity that is either faintly sprinkled in crumb quantities or absent from the mainline Mario series altogether. It’s like adopting a jaded attitude towards a perfectly competent film franchise after reading the meatier material in the novels it was adapted from, except that it's the source material that seems lackluster in this case. I adore both Paper Mario and the handheld Mario & Luigi series for unleashing Mario’s latent substance, but neither can claim the credit of being the first to do so. No, the godmother in this case would be Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, an SNES title that birthed the Mario RPG foundation that both notable successors were built upon. While this pioneering staple in Mario’s catalog still bestows plenty of rich appeal on its own merits, I can’t help but compare Super Mario RPG to its offspring. Growing up around the fair daughters it produced and looking at their mom in comparison unfortunately reminds me that madre ain't no spring chicken.

My assertion of a Mario RPG’s overarching objective to elevate the simple source material might be proven null and void by the fact that Super Mario RPG establishes its plot premise by having Mario rescue Princess Peach (still referred to as “Toadstool” here in this earlier era of the Mario franchise) from her beastly, reptilian rival monarch. Admittedly, this game and many future Mario RPGs are still disappointingly slaves to the exhausted mainline Mario conflict conceit, but it’s the ways in which these elongated Mario experiences subvert the trappings of the tired, traditional Mario fare that make them relatively refreshing. Firstly, the lengthy, multiworld-spanning journey from one Mushroom Kingdom castle to the other is expedited entirely, as Mario arrives at the impressive ivory doors of Bowser’s imposing estate immediately. Targeting the vertical link chain of the chandelier hoisting Bowser’s monstrous mass instead of the Koopa King himself may also catch some players off guard, but this is rather an homage to an early series trademark of advantageously manipulating an object situated around the arena to outwit Mario’s arch-nemesis. Once the game establishes a clear victory for Mario in record time and makes every gamer who purchased this game in 1996 feel cheated when they opted not to rent it, the game reveals that the ordinary Mario arc presented here is but a red herring ruse when a colossally-sized sword falls from the heavens and implants itself perfectly into the castle’s thick stone brick exterior. The impact of such a convergence quakes the perimeter immensely, launching Mario downward to a cozy Toad cottage below as if he were just shot out of a catapult. Upon reorienting himself from the precarious voyage he just underwent, Mario returns to Bowser’s Castle to discover that his mission to save the princess has been inconveniently sidetracked more than he had initially thought. To Mario’s surprise, the goliath sword is sentient, informing our hero that they’re an affiliate of the “Smithy Gang,” who have usurped Bowser’s domain as the headquarters in their operation for world domination. Only by procuring the mystical seven star MacGuffins alluded to in the right half of the title’s colon will Mario be prepared to unsheath this mighty, sinister sword like Excalibur to halt its noxious presence. Sure, finding the whereabouts of the kingdom’s female monarch remains a relevant issue, but prioritizing a source of conflict with far loftier stakes and relegating the standard Mario narrative struggle to a secondary status is already a maverick mode of displacement in the grand scheme of Mario stories. Maybe rescuing Princess Peach (sorry, “Toadstool”) will always persist as a plot point because the opportunity for punani is the only way to motivate Mario to get off his doughy, spaghetti-eating ass. I don’t want to be the one to tell Mario that his efforts in this regard are futile, for it seems to drive his energy for these excursions in a way that cannot inspire any other Mushroom Kingdom resident.

Super Mario RPG is also notable for being one of the final passengers to board the SNES before the 16-bit system lifted off into sunset and flew somewhere over the rainbow (or, more likely, a box in someone’s garage) to let its N64 successor take the mantle of representing Nintendo in the console market. With any title arriving late enough in a console’s lifetime to be considered a swansong, I always detail how impressed I am at how visually superior they are compared to games released previously on the same hardware engine. Once again, I’m obliged to belabor this point not only because Super Mario RPG looks spectacular, but also to comment on the specific visual flair that makes it beam with radiance. Whoever at Rare decided to prepare pre-rendered 3D models to then compress them to a poppy, carbonated pixelation deserves some sort of lifetime achievement award for their contributions to gaming. I’d say that it’s the most practical method of innovation that the greater gaming industry implemented in their efforts to precociously emulate that third dimension before the medium was truly prepared for such an undertaking, and Super Mario RPG exhibits as much aesthetic effervescence as the DKC trilogy that popularized them. Still, I must distinguish the differences of intent between these two pre-rendered classics, for Super Mario RPG holds higher ambitions with this specialized SNES aesthetic.

While DKC simply strived to aerate the flat, garden-variety 16-bit visuals of the system by draping a pinch of photorealism over its graphics, Super Mario RPG uses pre-rendered models and backgrounds to simulate the broad spatial depth of the third dimension as much as humanly possible on hardware that evidently couldn’t cut it. After spending its entire lifespan painstakingly trying to shoot for the moon and chronically collapsing with muddled Mode 7 rotation and the faulty FX Chip that struggled immensely to simulate space battles in Star Fox, I can proudly declare that Super Mario RPG at least directs the SNES’ premature aspirations close to the orbit of gaming’s once-outer limits. Foreground setpieces such as the palm trees and elevated cliffs of “Mushroom Way” protrude from the stages they inhabit with such visual prominence, and the directional range used to maneuver Mario around said setpieces adds a broader circle of movement that supersedes the basic four-triggered directions of the controller’s D-Pad. The way in which Super Mario RPG maintains manipulating our senses is by exhibiting Mario amongst the setpieces through an askew, isometric angle like a convenience store security camera. This way, the game is forced to expose the rounded elements of its environments while simultaneously honing their sights on Mario without complicating the viewpoint with an unachievable intimate angle we’d commonly find when proper 3D came to fruition. Admittedly, our immersion that comes with warping our perceptions in this fashion is only retained when Mario is traversing through areas of a darker enclosure, such as the mines beneath “Moleville” or the “Forest Maze” that evokes the hazy trajectory of Hyrule’s infamous “Lost Woods.” In areas where the background is lighter, the conspicuous void surrounding the perimeter presents an incongruous clash of visual details. The various towns scattered around the kingdom especially look like their society is suspended in an ether that exists somewhere even beyond that of “Star World.” Ironically, the Super Mario RPG successor that would emphasize paper-thin aesthetics maintained a stronger visual cohesion in its environments, and every foreground piece of that game looked like it was sculpted by an elementary schooler in art class. Still, it’s so astonishing how competently something so advanced is running on this system, almost as if the game was actually released for a console hypothetically wedged between the last hurrah for the norm of 2D pixels and the advent of polygonal practices. Upon realizing that this console did exist in the shape of the abhorrent Virtual Boy, I retract my statement–but I hope you still understand the sentiment.

Sadly, more complications arise regarding Super Mario RPG’s peculiar presentational formula other than consistent visual discordance. It should be noted that Nintendo is not the one tackling Mario’s debut venture into this uncharted genre realm, but has commissioned Square to pop their mascot’s RPG cherry–undoubtedly a sensible choice. They evidently trusted that this third-party developer would propel Mario out of an inexperienced amateurishness with the RPG construct, given their extraordinary output on the same system and their overall synonymity with the genre alone. Still, one aspect of translating Mario’s properties to a more methodical mechanical domain is that he still had to retain some semblance of his fundamental platformer buoyancy–unlike the brooding protagonists of their original RPG IPs who probably perceive lifting oneself off one’s feet momentarily to be a barbaric, undignified display. To appease Nintendo in what they probably thought would be Square’s one developmental blind spot, they’ve ensured that jumping would be as second nature to Mario here as it is in his platformer comfort zone. The overworld outside of the turn-based combat utilizes Mario’s frog-like hopping prowess to great effect, and not just to entertain annoying fans at their behest, like harassing Jaleel White to utter his “did I do that?!” catchphrase. Every area will feature wooden treasure chests suspended in midair, located low enough off the ground for Mario to impact them with his skull and unlock their secrets as a result, exactly in the same fashion as a standard Super Mario Bros. title. Yellow tiles with those questionably-sentient oval eyes that appear all over the Mushroom Kingdom will often move on their own once Mario plants his feet upon them; the bounce physics of the trampolines will propel Mario sky-high, and Mario can shoot himself out of a cannon while hiking through the steep “Land’s End” canyon.

Highlighting Mario’s god-given talent for aerodynamics are the assorted minigames discovered between various plot milestones. I’d say that the barrel balancing act in the river rapids or playing “whack-a-goomba” with the soles of Mario’s shoes in the “Pipe Vault” sewers complement Mario’s Air Jordan abilities the best, but that might be because the minecart minigame is so calamitously fast or because struggling to identify the rhythmic sequence during the Yoshi cookie race exposed my embarrassing whiteness. Personally, the problems pertaining to Mario’s platforming here are much more jarring in sections that aren’t optional. Hopping across an army of red paratroopas to ascend a particularly lofty cliff in “Land’s End” comes to mind, or perhaps climbing the series of fairytale beanstalks in the sky afterwards revealed some serious incongruities. No, the most egregious example of Super Mario RPG misstepping (no pun intended) Mario’s platforming capabilities is two separate jumping-intensive gauntlets located at the end of Bowser’s Castle on its late-game reentry. Giving the player a mere ten chances to survive this cavalcade of constant miscalculations due to the lack of a defined line of sight between Mario and the platforms was reminiscent of when a certain green witch from a future N64 title put me through the wringer in her foreboding fortress, and that bitch was explicitly trolling me. Isometric angles are all fine and dandy when it comes to fleshing out the visuals, but practically executing anything in this perspective exposes the lack of proper Euclidean distance that still exists in this proto-3D title.

Fortunately, the game’s focal role-playing combat is solid enough to offset any awkwardness that might occur in the overworld. Displayed as prominently on Nintendo’s banner they sent Square reminding them to keep his innate abilities intact was the wish to maintain Mario’s accessibility in the gameplay department. In my experience, the gameplay of the JRPG genre is not as dense and complicated as their average lengths and epic scales might suggest. Still, the general haughtiness surrounding the genre in the greater sphere of gaming could’ve alienated a sizeable portion of Mario’s typical audience, so Square still had to conjure up some user-friendly variables and integrate them into their bread-and-butter gameplay construct. Arguably the most essential Mario-RPG-centric gameplay component is the ability to mitigate any amount of damage received with an accurately timed press of a button on the controller. In addition to what this mechanic offers on defense, Mario can also chain a combination of attacks together with the same acute timing to dish out a whopping whirlwind of damage to any enemy on the opposite side of the arena. Not only does the opportunity to augment or reduce damage from either point on the offensive or defensive spectrum provide incentive for the player to pay closer attention, but there is something fundamentally more rewarding about how a Mario RPG underlines a greater sense of effort from the player. Even the most devout JRPG enthusiasts have to admit that at the end of the day, turn-based combat does boil down to scrolling through a menu, deciding on a tactic, and then watching the characters act out your command on screen is a rather languid, armchair approach to interactivity. When the outcome of a turn heavily depends on something that requires skill, whether it be a rhythmic block or blunt impact or enacting the necessary steps to engage one of Mario’s special moves, the player should ideally feel far more stimulated by the greater extent of what the game asks from them. It’s a vital component of Super Mario RPG’s distinctive turn-based gameplay, and ostensibly interwoven into its genetic code, considering that its offspring have inherited it. Personally, I think Super Mario RPG should’ve spread its seed around like Genghis Khan so that future JRPGs outside of the Mario circle could’ve adopted this mechanic, for the typical move selection starts to feel really dull after Mario sets such a shining example.

Maybe Mario’s RPG idiosyncrasies never caught on outside of its own sequels because they’re deemed too lenient for the hardcore JRPG purists. Besides the inherent supercilious attitude towards the gaming universe’s equivalent of Mickey Mouse co-opting their precious genre, other aspects of Super Mario RPG might provide evidence for a claim stating that Nintendo’s Italian stallion is watering down the JRPG foundation for the sake of appealing to a lower common denominator. I forgot to mention that oftentimes, when Mario defeats an enemy after fluidly executing a combo chain, a lotus flower will pop out of said enemy that functions to enhance one of Mario’s various attributes, ranging from increasing his attack power or defense to maximizing his health. Honestly, receiving one of these perks did evoke the condescending sensation of getting a gold star for answering a question correctly in class, or being tossed a treat for obeying a command like a dog. In addition to strengthening Mario’s combat attributes through gaining experience points and leveling up, the player must also remember to change Mario’s means of offense and armor by purchasing them at the storefronts mostly located in every town hub. While the base level of proactivity in this frequent outing is obvious, I couldn’t help but notice that every new piece of clothing and the roulette of hammers, shells, and fisticuff appliances were objectively better than what I already had equipped in every way possible, with no nuance to consider. While some aspects of Super Mario RPG’s role-playing mechanics are somewhat shallow or overly generous, they refrain from turning Mario’s JRPG debut into an effortless experience. Eventually, at a turning point in progression after Mario collects the fourth star, the difficulty curve ratchets up exponentially. Suddenly, Mario will encounter enemies that dish out deadly damage in the hundreds, and sometimes said damage is in the form of every conceivable elemental spell found in the grimoire. Bosses featured far later in the game also cheekily bombard Mario with the aforementioned wide gamut of spells with two consecutive turns, a common tendency that most 16-bit RPGs employ that I still find to be an unfair and artificial method of raising the stakes of difficulty. Super Mario RPG may not offer a complex build system and customize Mario to fit their specific battle inclinations, but if they decide to adopt a frugal attitude with their coin currency and treat every town they pass by like a pit stop to sleep at a motel and nothing more, the game will unleash enough punishment over the next step of their journey to make them regret their negligence.

Super Mario RPG’s rude awakening of a difficulty spike also corresponds exactly with another one of the game’s properties: its pacing. Out of the two JRPG series that spawned from Super Mario RPG’s ovaries, its firstborn, Paper Mario, has inherited the progression structure of using the persistent star-collecting premise construct to divide itself into seven chapters that focus on acquiring one of the sacred MacGuffins per chapter. However, Paper Mario seems to have a far better understanding of organization because it was always crystal clear how a subarc was segmented based on a consistent thematic tone for the setting(s) and how its individual falling action always culminated in achieving a star as its primary milestone. There must be some recessive traits floating around in this gaming gene pool; for now, I know where the Mario & Luigi series gets its attention-deficit-addled pacing from. Still, the rate of erraticism differs when it's halved at the exact point where the heat of the turn-based action will start to sting Mario. The overarching issue with the first three stars is that once the objective is established, it’s over before there is any window of opportunity for it to marinate. Mario will kick the gang of Shy Guys and their springy switchblade leader out of the chancellor’s quarters inside the kingdom’s capital castle, halt the archer Bowyer from downpouring arrows onto those who are already frazzled enough attempting to navigate through the Forest Maze, and rescue a helpless little mole from becoming the victim of a mine collapse when some scoundrel is setting off Bob-ombs to erode the interior lickity split and still have time to compose a sonata for Toadofsky at Tadpole Pond. I was relieved when the arc of rescuing Princess Peach (*sigh*, TOADSTOOL) from her new royal captor, Booster, a silver-spooned manchild whose appalling hygienic status makes Wario look marvelously metrosexual by comparison, because it included several different scenes relating to the overarching goal of preventing her from a lifetime of doomed matrimony to this disgusting diva. However, once the princess is procured, the overarching narrative jolts itself awake and reminds Mario that his next star is located in the sublime core of a starry meteor situated on the same island. Shouldn’t completing the objective with the greater screen presence serve as the milestone moment so it doesn’t feel like an arbitrary detour in the grand scheme of the story? With every subsequent star that follows, the game seems to make the mistake of meandering with every milestone achievement. Both the fifth and sixth stars wind up getting stolen by one of Smithy’s goons after lulling the player into believing they’ve bested the boss that possessed the star originally. Instead of being amused by the game referencing the colorful quintet of Power Rangers and twisting their moral righteousness to the side of scum and villainy with the Axem Rangers, I was rather frustrated that the game was blue-balling my sense of accomplishment once again. The last subarc could’ve EASILY been split in half between Bowser’s Castle and Smithy’s industrial factory because both are elongated feats of endurance individually. Coupled together, the game’s climax is a protracted trudge. With the overarching goal constantly deviating or getting annexed to a diversion of evidently greater significance, there is an unnerving sense of incomplete disillusionment felt with what should be partitioned fulfillment.

Then, I realized something extremely important to consider when distinguishing how Super Mario RPG conducts its overarching star-searching concept versus how Paper Mario chooses to present it. While Paper Mario is completely driven by its core concept, it is but a facilitator for conflict in Super Mario RPG that allows for each character to fulfill their own overarching goals. The multiple characters of high relevance in question are yet another Mario RPG staple in the “partner characters.” However, instead of accumulating a coalition of Mushroom Kingdom enemies with external quirks to signify their distinctiveness as standalone characters whose arcs tend to fizzle out after their initial introductory chapter, Mario’s team in Super Mario RPG is driven by an arc that sustains relevancy throughout the majority of the game. It also helps that two of Mario’s partners are established Mario characters that have had a requisite billing in his adventures for over a decade at this point. Is Mario having that dream where he’s riding on magic carpets like Aladdin and tossing turnips down the gullets of morbidly obese amphibians again, because Princess Peach (look, old habits die hard, okay) hasn’t collaborated with Mario in this fashion since Super Mario Bros. 2? Booster must’ve been so repulsive that it sparked an epiphany in the princess, causing her to realize that her damsel-in-distress schtick is quite burdensome on her mustachioed, blue-collar savior. To compensate Mario for his blistering escapades to ensure her well-being at a rate of what must seem like every week, Princess Toadstool has decided that she isn’t content with continuing to pick flowers from her home garden and sneaks away from her estate to aid Mario on his quest as a permanent partner. At first, I was a bit skeptical at first of what Peach could offer Mario, only because I let her lower offensive output distract me from her impeccable healing abilities that soon made her an invaluable asset on my team. While Peach’s (temporary) growth arc is implied by the contextual clues backing her actions, Bowser’s reasons for fraternizing with his eternal enemy Mario are much clearer. The big lug has quite literally become a king without a castle, and this rudderless position has shown Bowser a great deal of humility, besides just letting his guard down around Mario and working together to repossess his rightful throne. Seeing the snarling brute in such a state of insecurity exposes several vulnerable characteristics we often don’t see when he’s propped up as a game’s foreboding final boss. His lines of dialogue haven’t quite reached their gold-standard hilarity yet, but this title still marks another first where the King of Koopas is a personable and even, dare I say, likeable character. Should I even detail why having these two as partners spurts subversiveness out the wazoo?

But before the player can marvel at the novelty of seeing both characters by Mario’s side, the plumber’s first crop of partners he makes a pact with are two wholly original characters crafted by the minds at Squaresoft. And when I say original, I don’t mean by one external difference like sunglasses or a mail bag (no offense, Lakilester and Parakarry). Mallow and Geno are by no means supplementary characters in the slightest. Truthfully, I’d consider them to be the lifeblood of this particular title, and this isn’t solely because they’ve both been condemned to its exclusivity. To expound on this stance, how many Mario RPG partners are treated to a character arc that runs parallel to the majority of the main quest? When Mario finds poor Mallow attempting to retrieve his precious frog coin from the petty thief Croco in the rural outskirts of the Mushroom Kingdom, he’s nothing but a timid little whelp always on the verge of crying. A prime source of the perpetual waterworks is an identity crisis, believing himself to be one of the frogs, or at least a tadpole, that he grew up around under the guardianship of Frogfucius, despite his pitiful jumping capabilities and the fact that he looks like his full name should be “Marshmallow.” Before we have time to theorize that he’s covered in benign tumors like John Merrick, it’s revealed that Mario’s new diffident friend is not an unfortunate freak, but an exalted royal prince of the cloud people that reside amongst the skies in a society called Nimbus Land. Not only is Mallow’s discovery of himself and fracturing his frangibility maintain a consistent relevance between six whole stars, but the process of Mallow reclaiming his rightful seat in Nimbus Land’s royal cabinet from a disdainful despot named Valentina encompasses as much time as Mario rescuing Toadstool from Booster. You know, the standard arc for a typical Mario game.

While his character growth is not nearly as dynamic as the partner that precedes him, that does not diminish the impact of Geno in the slightest. In fact, I’ve come to realize that the cosmic being who possessed a Toad child’s wooden doll one night and scaled him to a lifelike size is THE main protagonist of Super Mario RPG, despite him appearing after the first star is retrieved in a game of Mario’s namesake. The sole purpose for Geno’s presence among the mortals of the Mushroom Kingdom is to reinvigorate the “Star Road” that was ruptured when Smithy’s sword Exor plunged itself into Bowser’s domain, and he’s quite gung-ho in his mission to restore this interdimensional bridge between the people and the wish-granting deities up above the clouds. Geno’s all business, but said business is admittedly the primary overarching plot of Super Mario RPG. Suddenly, Geno’s determination revolving around the game’s main quest struck a chord of clarity within me. If everyone in the Mario RPG posse is working with one another to achieve their respective goals and Geno’s clearly revolves around the quest of the highest precedence, then he is the one commanding the operation as a protagonist would. Hell, the game’s falling action after defeating Smithy and before the credits roll sees the heavenly spirit leave Geno’s wooden body, reducing him to his lifeless existence as a doll to put a bittersweet period on the quest’s completion. Who's to say that Mario wouldn’t have returned to the Mushroom Kingdom capital to kick his feet back and enjoy a piece of Peach’s cake (no innuendo here, laughably) once she was in good hands again if Geno wasn’t around to keep him focused on more substantial priorities? Hey, if you can actually manage to communicate an intelligible refutation to this statement instead of just pantomiming like always, I’ll retract my theory, Mario. I always figured the cult status behind Geno was attributed to his mystique, or maybe his glass cannon battle attributes. Now, I realize that he’s a bona fide video game hero whose unending hiatus after his one-and-done adventure keeps people clamoring for more. Have I become one of his fanboys who will settle for an appearance in Super Smash Bros. to get my Geno fix? Perhaps, but only if Mallow joins him in some capacity. It’s only fair.

Normally, I wouldn’t compare a video game to its sequels because of the inherent advantages of working off an expanding template with more advanced technology. In the case of Super Mario RPG, however, the properties of Paper Mario (and Mario & Luigi, to a much lesser extent) are so heavily ingrained into my gamer brain that I can’t help but base my assessment of their birth mother off of the shared beauty marks that they’ve inherited. Given that it was unlikely that Super Mario RPG would eclipse either Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi in my mind as the pinnacle Mario RPG experience, but being fully aware of its impact and influence, my approach was to critique the Mario RPG genesis point with as much diplomacy and respect as possible. However, this disposition became harder to maintain when the game was disrespecting me by causing so much conflict with my depth perception, or lack thereof, whenever it overconfidently crossed a technical boundary with Mario’s mismanaged platforming. The star collecting process isn’t nearly as riveting, and I much prefer the streamlined, maximum number of teen digits of damage as opposed to a double-dose onslaught of pain in the hundreds like a typical JRPG would dole out. Still, the things that I came to admire and adore about Super Mario RPG were the things that didn’t transfer over to its offspring, such as relegating Mario and his cyclical goal of saving the princess to a seat in coach rather than flying the plot plane as its pilot. Not only do its bits of distinction preserve its intrigue amongst its children, but the fact that only two successors have adopted its specific formula for a Mario-brand JRPG has incidentally aged Super Mario RPG like a classy bottle of Glenlivet. If you’re still upset that Paper Mario has lost its heart and soul and yearn to play other games that share the first two’s similarities, giving Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars a whirl comes recommended…for the most part.

Infernax Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/19/2026)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Infernax

Developer: Berzerk Studio

Publisher: The Arcade Crew

Genre(s): Metroidvania

Platforms: PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

Release Date: February 14, 2022

Usually, when a modern game pays homage to the pixelated period of the NES, it harkens back to the celebrated titles that molded the medium. Yet, we can’t allow this fun little nostalgia streak to color our perceptions of the past. The eraser we’ve been using to etch out the medium’s mistakes cannot be so effective that it completely clears any graphite smudge tracings that indicate a mistake was never made in the first place. Gaming must always preserve the memory of its errors not only for preventative measures, but also to preclude a false impression that gaming had reached its spotless peak ages ago and it's been on a steady decline since. In addition to pronouncing these blemishes with sensible prominence, I’m a vocal advocate for taking these failures back out of the scrap bin and tweaking them to a standard of adequacy, something the industry rarely ever attempts to do. Fortunately, risk-taking is a common aspect of the indie sphere, and Berzerk Studio showed the world how brass and behemothic their balls were when they created Infernax; a fused tribute to both Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link with modernized flourishes. As you all might be aware, these NES sequels live in infamy as the designated “black sheep” of their long-running respective series. I’ve certainly done my fair share of shitting on Simon’s Quest, and while Zelda II holds an ultraspecific position in my heart, I don’t question the unanimous disdain it receives from fans of the series. Still, while I concede with the popular sentiment that both of these games are fundamentally flawed experiences, neither of them was a complete waste of cartridge space. Both titles implemented admirable feats of innovation in world design and action-adventure combat, but were ultimately suppressed by instances of austerity and irritatingly tepid tedium to extreme degrees on opposite ends of the spectrum. Using hardware that is light-years more advanced than Nintendo’s indestructible 8-bit box with over 35 years of criticisms to use as reference, Infernax takes a stand to rectify some of the most salient sequel sins in gaming history. Or, at least that’s what I believed its mission to be, but it became rather difficult to determine if we were on the same page.

I’m not certain whether it's the evolution of the medium’s sensibilities or the unshackling from Nintendo’s family-friendly brand, but Infernax revels in the potential for brutal violence fostered by a fantasy, medieval-esque thematic backdrop that an 8-bit Zelda and Castlevania couldn’t provide. Zelda should ideally limit the level of bloodshed to maintain its fairytale whimsy, but it always struck me as inappropriate to center a series around Dracula with not even one drop of the organic red fluid making an appearance. On the other hand, Infernax spurts and gushes red pixels like a confetti cannon, so vividly that the developers felt obliged to issue a disclaimer stating that its explicit content might terrify and/or warp the minds of impressionable children. Besides the expulsion of cherry-colored sprites leaking like a sieve out of every enemy, Infernax really cranks up the grotesque viscera with its animated, comic-like still shots. Alcedor, the crusader protagonist returning home from an exhaustingly lengthy crusade overseas, finds that there is something rotten in Denmark when a rather feral peasant crosses his path. If the player decides not to trust the ambiguity of the frantic scene, meeting the man with the head of his trusty mace will display a gruesome, stylized image of the commoner's face pulverized to a pulp–where the only discernible physical feature is his eyeball bursting out of its socket by the optic nerve. The screen becoming eclipsed in a jarringly red backdrop as the protagonist meets a terrible fate is a visual reference from Zelda II. Still, I don’t recall this death sequence ever depicting Link getting decimated to a bloody paste in comical, overkill fashion–with the silhouetted screen almost acting as a source of censorship. The game over screen that follows every death is a rather ghastly image of postmortem Alcedor with his entrails wrapped around the murder weapon still lodged inside his torso. Boss designs are creatively freaky and grotesque, and female NPCs tend to be more buxomer than those that invited Link in for some “healing” of the (alleged) Marvin Gaye variety. Considering how suppressed the extent of a game’s visuals can be when pixelated, it’s impressive how genuinely disgusting the overall presentational flair of Infernax is. I certainly never felt the instinct to wince at anything I’ve seen in any NES game, much less Simon’s Quest or Zelda II.

For those uncultured swine who took the line in the previous paragraph literally, no, Infernax’s setting is not the Scandinavian country that owns Greenland. The dark fantasy land of Infernax is the Duchy of Upel, where Alcedor has achieved the noble status of dukehood. Upel features an array of topographical assortments commonly associated with a regal dominion, such as flat, breezy valleys, precarious mountain peaks, musty caves, and a cemetery for good measure to signify the domain’s storied history and its high mortality rate. Several separated burgs are also scattered across Upel, where the player can converse with the NPC denizens for new quest information in addition to providing comfortable respite from the various hostilities that surround them. I suppose that integrating towns as hubs is a mark of world design that can be credited to both of Infernax’s primary NES influences, but the uncivilized lands outside these quaint settlements are modeled 100% after Simon’s Quest. Before you decide that this sentence is a dealbreaker, I’ll place myself in the rare position of defending the legacy of Simon’s Quest–begrudgingly, of course.

Simon’s Quest may not have been granted the distinction of the Castlevania game that prompted the Metroidvania portmanteau, but arguing that it at least laid out the skeletal fundamentals of the subgenre is anything but an outrageous claim. Simon’s Quest failed to ignite the revolution because its broader, non-linear approach to 2D platformer design proved to be more lethargic, disoriented, and disappointingly pathetic than watching an ancient, wheezing dog trying to drop a deuce. In all fairness, Metroid’s NES debut isn’t the one receiving royalty checks for its contributions in formulating the Metroidvania mold either, so I’ll use Super Metroid’s eminent influence on the subgenre as evidence that the NES was simply too primitive to cultivate that extra dimension of design depth. Because Infernax is merely masquerading as an unsophisticated NES game like a child of an upper-middle-class wealth bracket wearing clothes they purchased at a thrift store, it can achieve that nuanced design philosophy that was inconceivable on Nintendo’s first home console. Progression is no longer a cryptic, confusing ordeal, as each upgrade Alcedor receives on his journey should spell out exactly where it is utilized in advancing through Upel. Every night is still a horrible night to have a curse in Upel, as it was in Dracula’s district, and yes, there is a day-and-night cycle sequence that abruptly emerges on screen and stops all action dead in its tracks. However, the creatures that appear before dusk signal the day’s end aren’t as sluggish and submissive compared to the Scooby-Doo ghouls that roamed the grounds during daytime in Simon’s Quest, so the transition isn’t nearly as jarring. Oh, and any service provided in the towns will still be available after the sun has set–thank fucking Christ. Overall, there isn’t anything extraordinary about Infernax’s map or its methodology in progressing through it. Still, it’s awfully neat seeing something with Simon’s Quest’s particular graphics, setpieces, and geographical layout exhibit a substantial level of competence, like a clunky old toy being remodeled with new parts. Infernax isn’t a perfect overhaul, however, as there is a progression point involving summoning lightning that is equally as oblique as kneeling in a specific spot for a tornado to whisk the player away. If this is intended as an homage, shouldn’t the developers realize that you can’t pay tribute to something that everyone collectively dislikes?

We’ve detailed plenty of characteristics that Infernax shares with Simon’s Quest, so let’s now turn our attention towards what it shares with its other parent, Zelda II. Particularly, it’s consistently brutal and unforgiving difficulty curve that, believe it or not, arguably even exceeds that of its other primary inspiration. Similar to that of both Simon’s Quest and Zelda II, Infernax’s main quest trajectory is divided into five dungeon milestones that are located all across the map and are intended to be completed in a specific order. Once Alcedor has triumphed over the challenges within these five labyrinths, the pentagram-shaped seal locking the entrance to the final palace will be broken, and Alcedor can duel the source of the scourge that plagues his homeland. Unfortunately for the player, Alcedor’s path to victory is akin to a kilometer-long coal walk with shards of glass the size of tree bark strips. A single death in Infernax is all it takes for the player to witness the “game over” screen with Alcedor well into the rigor mortis process, and reviving our protagonist will revert the player’s progress back to the last save shrine they prayed at. Because the error margin for death in Infernax is incredibly strict and absolute, the player is constantly on pins and needles attempting to prevent a frustrating cyclical loop of lost progress. Field traversal tends to demonstrate a moderate level of adversity, or at least the enemy activity seems consistently manageable because checkpoint shrines are scattered across the map in reasonable placements.

The dungeons, however, are the epitome of an endurance test where every nick of damage received should be treated with stark gravitas. Because light doesn’t permeate through the dank catacombs of these arcane establishments, the player’s prayers to save their progress while encountering crushing contraptions, perilous platform placements, and dozens of dangerously savage enemies at a shrine will be unanswered. Admittedly, it’s fortunate that the player isn’t forced to hike back to their demise point from Alcedor’s arrival point like Link from the mausoleum in Zelda II because a shrine will at least be located directly outside of the dungeon. Plus, the strain of spelunking is significantly reduced when the player can afford upgrades and potions to stave off death’s harshly punitive hands. Before Alcedor can feasibly fund his increased likelihood of success, however, the first few dungeons will prove to be as maddeningly difficult as Zelda II’s notorious Death Mountain section that has been slaughtering hundreds of thousands of gamers' souls since 1987. The strategy that I employed was dividing each dungeon’s two primary destinations-the upgrade and the boss battle-and returning to the entrance so my arduous trek to procure the upgrade wouldn’t become all for naught. Still, approaching every dungeon in this manner does somewhat compromise the climactic arc generally felt while conquering this self-contained challenge area. If all else fails, the game suggests to players who are struggling to regress to a “casual mode,” where extra lives can be stocked aplenty, and shrines emerge in the dungeons that are probably powered by magic (or maybe there are undisclosed electrical outlets). Do not be deterred by the condescending attitude the game may express or be repelled by the thought of tarnishing your credibility as a gamer, for I would argue that “casual mode” is the ideal way to experience Infernax. Most Zelda II detractors commonly bemoan that the overly punishing difficulty stipulations are what stain its enjoyment factor, so injecting these quality-of-life enhancements into the fabric of an already frustrating game should quiet those prevalent vocal criticisms. Besides, it’s not as if the gameplay fundamentals decrease in difficulty on casual mode either. Infernax becomes breezier with every potion purchased and upgrade area allotted, but its final boss proves to be hilariously easy compared to the earlier challenges that precede it. What a horrible night to have a glaring oversight in your assbackwards difficulty curve.

Infernax’s final boss may not prove to be the pinnacle of the game’s challenges as it's propped up to be, but the finale should still be stimulating because of the smattering of different endings that could occur. Specifically, two endings designated as “good and evil,” plus lighter versions of both of them that fall on the less defined areas of the moral spectrum. In the absolute good ending, Alcedor succeeds in forever ridding Upel of the demon scourge and ushers in an eternal era of peace for the kingdom, while the more sinister side of Upel’s future sees Alcedor using the Necronomicon source as leverage to bring forth a “reign of unholy terror” as its tyrannical leader. The game also adds some incentive to delivering doom onto the world with Alcedor at the helm because evil Alcedor swaps his plain ol’ nice guy mace with a giant sword, whose radiant orange glow probably becomes brighter the more it pierces the blood of its victims. Ultimately, the player will probably end up with an inferior ending where Alcedor dies a hero after the final battle or where he becomes afflicted with the infectious demon plague because Infernax’s choice mechanic is rather vague about which decisions are meritorious or scandalous. For example, I assumed that I had nobly euthanized the villager at the game’s beginning because he was a zombified husk of his former self with no humanhood to speak of. However, the man’s wife chastising me for my choice that continues when she locks me out of her home in Arkos signaled to me that I made a grave mistake. That is, until I learned that sparing the man results in him transforming into a hideous, beastly boss that you have to kill anyway, which is probably a nightmare of a brick-wall battle if we recall the game’s reversed difficulty curve. I still feel rightly vindicated for my original decision. The same logic of showing compassion to those afflicted with the demonic curse did not apply when I chose to reason with a caged beast instead of torching it, for it took my act of diplomacy as an opportunity to slit the throat of a human bystander. I genuinely wasn’t feigning ignorance when a priest reprimanded me for “stealing” some coinage from a church, for it was sitting pretty on a pedestal as if it was a reward for my discovery of the institution. Forgive me, Father; I’ve been playing too much Zelda, and Link is apparently a bad influence. Maybe I’m just a gigantic clod, but Infernax’s choice mechanic seems to operate on a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scale. It seems inappropriate to treat the outcome of every decision they make with glibness when their choices have a direct effect on the narrative’s conclusion. Common sense is factored into a good handful of the choices, but be prepared to also make a massive faux pas and then defend yourself hysterically while the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme starts playing to accompany the scene.

So what was Berzerk Studio’s objective that drove the development of Infernax? Initially, I thought it was to enhance some of the NES era’s most notable blunders, but it almost seems to me that we’ve found a group of people who genuinely respect and adore both Zelda II and Simon’s Quest with no trace of irony to be found. They didn’t unite under the goal of making the average gamer reconsider the flawed, undercooked properties of either game, but to pay tribute to them exactly in the same way that Shovel Knight famously did for the bona fide NES classics. Well, I suppose it’s bold of them to express their love for two things that are commonly reviled. Still, what makes them think that unsavory elements of either title, such as the gruelingly punishing difficulty curve and hints of cryptic nonsense, would now be appreciated decades onward if they were just repeated? Blood and boobies shouldn’t be the prime selling points, but perhaps those hints of bawdy irreverence spell out a sort of parody Infernax might be conveying in its overall homage. You had one job, Infernax, and instead of doing that job, you fucked around and got sloppy.

Halo: Combat Evolved Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/18/2026)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Halo: Combat Evolved

Developer: Bungie

Published: Microsoft

Genre(s): First-Person Shooter

Platforms: Xbox, PC

Release Date: November 15, 2001

Even though Microsoft boldly debuted the original Xbox during an impassioned fight for 3D console supremacy between Sony and Nintendo, and as a Western company at that, they were hardly considered underdogs at any point during the sixth console generation. Their brawny black box, which radiated neon green brighter than DC’s ring-bearing superhero, bestowed higher overall hardware performance and renounced memory cards in favor of a convenient built-in hard drive. Still, Xbox’s killer- no, assassin app that propelled Microsoft into gaming stardom and solidified yet another lucrative techworld asset for the company was a little Bungie IP you may or may not have heard of called Halo. Having Halo represent the Xbox brand from day one as a launch title single-handedly consigned Miyamoto’s machines from the established alpha dog contenders in the console wars to the alternative, green party candidate catered towards children. Damn. More than just adding another few zeros in Bill Gates’ bank account back at the turn of the century, the lasting legacy of Halo cannot be understated in the grander scheme of the gaming medium. For the first-person-shooter genre, especially, its history can be starkly divided into two distinct eras: before Halo and after Halo (BH and AH, respectively). It revolutionized multiplayer gaming that could be achieved beyond the standard norms of clogging couch space; it gave console FPS games more credibility than GoldenEye could ever dream of; and it upended the likes of Doom and Quake by changing the mechanical foundation of the FPS genre forevermore. However, despite the objective fact that it's a monumental pillar for the medium, my subjective disposition on Halo has always leaned towards apathy instead of ecstasy–like the miraculous outlier who tried heroin just to have the powerful opioid tickle my nose and nothing more. Years after the Halo hype bubble has burst, and it's now settled into its post-prime legacy status, I’ve come to admire plenty of its contributions to the FPS genre. Still, am I now adopting the opinion that Halo really is one of the finest games that the medium offers? Sorry, but my answer is still a confident NO.

To issue a disclaimer, be prepared for me to compare Halo to Star Wars more than a handful of times throughout this review. The first box to mark off on the comparison checklist is the space opera construct that serves as Halo’s thematic foundation. The future century in which Halo is set may exceed far past the mortal threshold of anyone who existed when the game was released, but its story ostensibly doesn’t take place in a galaxy far, far away. Earth is still the central hub of human activity in Halo’s ultra-advanced universe, but the governing forces have expanded the presence of the planet’s dominant species to regions beyond the comforting envelopment of our atmosphere. With Earth’s imperialism efforts in the final frontier, they seem to have angered an alien race known as the Covenant, whose contentions with mankind have escalated to the extent of an all-out war that could exterminate the human race as a potential forfeiture. A watershed moment occurs in this struggle against the Covenant when the crew members of the “Pillar of Autumn” space marine task force discover a peculiar, mechanical ring arching over a sizable swathe of space that they dub as the titular “Halo.” Believing it to be a cataclysmic superweapon, the greater military unit of Earth initiates a mission to procure control over “Halo” before the Covenant receive a chance to use it and erase all traces of human existence from the universal equation. I swear, I’m not drawing parallels to Star Wars simply because there is a war being waged over the starry stretches of the greater cosmos. What George Lucas’ brainchild effectively achieves is a rich sense of lore building, intriguing the player to seek out deeper, expanded answers pertaining to the ambiguous or contextually obscured elements of the plot. Halo arouses the same sense of curiosity by catapulting the player into a plot of dire conditions, but one where certain details, such as where the conflict between the Covenant stems from or how “Halo” appeared at all as a ginormous, deadly eyesore, are not immediately evident from what is displayed. It may require additional, outside research in order to fully grasp the full extent of the story’s scope, but ideally, seeking out more information is the greatest indication of the player’s engagement with the material.

Unfortunately for us humans, the Covenant army outnumbers the ranks of Earthling military forces by approximately one-hundred aliens per proud human soldier. Fear not, fellow meatbags, for the UNSC possesses a trump card assured to balance the askew scales of battle in Earth’s favor. Unsealing a hypersleep chamber, whose acrylic glass cover should read “break in case of emergency,” lies a man already donning his strikingly green suit of space armor whom the UNSC crewmen refer to as Master Chief–a protagonist who sincerely needs no introduction. As far as video game mascots are concerned, there isn’t a video game character that represents their company’s console-exclusive brand as effectively as Master Chief, except for Mario and also Sonic when Sega was still a contender in the console wars. If sales statistics prove anything, Master Chief is arguably the most threatening rival that the mushroom-chomping plumber has ever had. If anything, Master Chief’s meteoric rise to the apex echelons of gaming glory proves that combating Mario is most effective when the rival in question isn’t attempting to bank off of his accessibility and/or family-friendly appeal. Besides the “M” rated connotations that come with a bloody war and the generally risque gun-oriented violence associated with the FPS genre, Master Chief’s decorum as a console representative is much more dignified. If Mario is comparable to Charlie Chaplin’s winsome tramp character meant to elicit lighthearted smiles and laughter, then Master Chief is conversely an ubermasculine action hero meant to be the poster-plastered man crush of millions. Then again, Master Chief isn’t the tornado of testosterone sucking on cigars and adding every woman in sight to his already abundant harem by throwing greenbacks in their faces like Duke Nukem. The prevailing sentiment behind Master Chief’s appeal is certainly similar to the general coolness factor associated with other FPS protagonists, but the air of maturity he exudes aligns him more with a “respectable cool,” like a laidback, yet passionately involved older authority figure, such as a teacher or coach. Well, Master Chief’s stoic, yet confident supersoldier demeanor seems to resonate strongly with Halo’s greater fanbase, who tend to idolize him to the same extent as football fans fawning over Tom Brady. As a civilian outside of the warzone, he’d probably prove to be an extraordinarily agreeable human being like the larger-than-life Patriots quarterback is reputed to be. He’d probably be gentlemanly, uplifting, proactively positive, and remember the birthdays of acquaintances he’s only spoken to a handful of times. But what’s one thing I know for certain about Bungie’s exalted savior of a futuristic Earth society without any speculation on his personality? He’s a fucking borefest. Sorry, “John-117,” but I prefer the FPS protagonists with a bit more hair on their chest, if you catch my drift. My tastes verge towards those of the “bad boys” that misogynistic teenagers use as scapegoats to explain why they can’t get a girlfriend. I can clearly see why the concealed Spartan has so many devotees, but I have the feeling that a large chunk of these people also claim Captain America as their favorite Avengers member or Leonardo as their choice of ninja turtle. Those types of characters are simply a bit too straight-edge and vanilla for my eccentric, edgy ass.

On top of carrying himself with higher sophistication than his FPS forefathers, Master Chief also approaches the gun-toting combat of an FPS game with greater discretion. The general gameplay pace of the classic FPS titles tended to be absolutely electric, barging into enemy territory guns blazing as lords of the harvest. These games even encouraged aggressively bulldozing through each level by detailing an ideal time score that subtly assessed the player’s performance. Halo, however, encourages caution and pragmatism while under enemy fire, ducking and covering behind whatever source of shelter is provided and acutely determining when to uncover oneself to dispatch enemies from a distance. Motivating the player to adopt the guarded tactic is the addition of an energy shield, a layer of defensive armor that protects the Chief’s health until it depletes and leaves the eight vitality units vulnerable. Fortunately, this nifty defense mechanism can regenerate to its maximum if the player refrains from allowing any firepower or blunt damage from denting Master Chief’s armor any further, which can only be achieved through blanketing Master Chief behind some sort of barrier. Yes, one of Halo’s most influential contributions to gaming was popularizing the regenerating health mechanic, which eventually became so ubiquitous that it transcended its utilization in the FPS genre to every game and their mother implementing it for a significant period of time. I’ve been known to be vocally critical of this trendy health bar alternative, but mostly when there are flagrant discrepancies with the character showcasing this mechanic, like in the case of Nathan Drake or John Marston. When the playable protagonist is a soldier existing in a highly advanced, cybernetic era of civilization, the existence of an armor shield that regenerates is perfectly plausible. As a result of deviating from the typical percentage scale that depletes from 100 with that sensible element of context, Halo’s combat is rather multidimensional, even if it doesn’t evoke that thrilling FPS power fantasy of mowing down demons or aliens like a lawnmower to ingrown weeds.

Just because Halo is a warier FPS game that takes the stakes of combat more seriously doesn’t mean that there aren't any sources of levity to be found. Halo enjoys pretending as if the squadrons of lesser UNSC soldiers are actually vicious killing machines that Master Chief desperately needs as a means of support. Or, at least in the select few environments that aren’t inhospitably infested with enemy activity, which just further highlights their worthlessness. Still, as impotent as these nameless army privates are in battle, their presence does sprinkle a bit of liveliness into the fray of fire. Because Master Chief is strictly a “speak when spoken to” kind of guy, the troopers will add their input to the thunderous soundscape of war by shouting various one-liners ranging from battle commands to jovial quips at the enemy’s expense when they’re victorious.

Still, during missions where the flying, futuristic chopper is too chickenshit to deploy a garrison of troops, the Covenant enemies will provide enough personality to Halo’s gameplay, surprisingly enough. From what I can tell, the coalition of fundamentalist extraterrestrial forces consists of four predominant races, or at least in their military ranks. The lowest-ranked grunts in this evil alien army are, well, the “grunts,” foot soldiers with the bumpy skin complexion of a toad who are shrimpy and spineless in every facet of their being, from their size to their squeaky voices to their cowardly yelps and cries for help when the Chief aims his gun at them. They’re often compared to the goombas from Super Mario Bros. for their overall diminutiveness, but do not let this comparison color your perception of these slippery little suckers. Whereas a goomba is physically incapable of lobbing a grenade in your general direction, a grunt will litter the area with explosives that will kill Master Chief regardless of whether his energy shield is full. Next up on the Covenant totem pole are the jackals, who often make the fatal mistake of exposing themselves through their more pronounced, external energy shields by rolling around. The Elites are taller in terms of physical stature, but I believe that their formidability mostly stems from having to deplete the same electronic exoskeleton that the Chief wears in order to puncture their reptilian bodies. Lastly, the hunters are the juggernaut class of Covenant droogs who weaponize their enormous mass in close quarters to tackle Master Chief to the ground or charge up catastrophic blasts of weaponized energy from afar. Trust me, you’ll want to sufficiently strategize your approach to dealing with these beefcakes. A meager four major races in Halo’s enemy roster may not be as varied as the demon legions from Doom, but the Covenant compensates for their repetitive encounters with greater exuberance. Grunts will frantically scurry away like rats when the going gets tough, while Elites will maliciously cackle if they manage to smite the UNSC Spartan on the field. Besides all of these various quirks, the enemy AI in Halo is impressively alert and responsive to the player’s opposition, swiftly dodging grenades thrown in their direction and shimmying around during battle to make targeting them a hassle for the Chief. The animated liveliness of the Covenant makes the enemies featured in the FPS games of the previous century look extremely primitive in more than just their jagged polygons or pixels, as if they’re just stilted cardboard cutouts one would find at a shooting gallery. Unfortunately, The Flood, another enemy faction that appears at the final third of the campaign, does not exhibit the same level of liveliness. Then again, an infectious scourge that zombifies both enemies and allies alike by coating their bodies in a vegetational breading probably shouldn’t show the same signs of vigor by definition. The Flood are an inferior version of a common enemy type from Half-Life, and they plague the later portion of the game too much for my liking for the sake of pronouncing their plot significance.

Perhaps a fraction of The Covenant’s high charisma as video game villains can be attributed to their weaponry, an eclectic assortment of assault tools that the player can intimately become acquainted with. Gamers wonder what it would be like to utilize the enemy’s weapons more than people ponder how they’d operate the opposite gender’s genitalia for a day, so Halo promptly quells those feelings of curiosity/dysphoria. But first, one must become familiar with the UNSC weapons to understand the direct contrast highlighted between the two warring sides. Overall, Master Chief’s initially assigned arsenal could be described as fulfilling the bare essentials of FPS combat to an absolute fault. The Chief’s primary weapon is an assault rifle with an abundant stock of ammunition, whose number is displayed prominently in a visor to remind them how many bullets they’re expending. A shotgun will be available far later in the campaign to char searing holes into the Covenant, as well as the rocket launcher for when the alien bastards decide it's time to take the tank out for a stroll. In the meantime, a sniper rifle with two ranges of scopes will be provided to dispatch Covenant forces from a convenient distance. I’d comment that Master Chief looks like a complete dork holding the UNSC pistol with two hands, but seeing the shockingly deadly results of firing off its rounds, the kickback might be comparable to restraining a galloping horse. Besides the uncharacteristically powerful offensive properties of their handgun model, the UNSC’s array of weaponry is remarkably basic, almost as if they should have labels on their bland, grey exteriors that spell out SHOTGUN and SNIPER RIFLE like the blank food brands seen in Repo Man.

Conversely, the Covenant’s arsenal is not only far more colorful, but might require further explanation to understand their designs and how to use them. Their plasma pistol may not dole out devastating damage like the one granted to the Chief automatically, but one concentrated blast of matter’s enigmatic fourth state from this handheld weapon will melt away the Jackal’s shields out of existence. The plasma rifle is nifty in the fact that it doesn’t require traditional reloading and instead will overheat if too many shots are fired in quick succession. The “needler” seems like it compensates for its weaker blasts with homing properties on the surface, but the reality is that the cumulative acupuncture ammunition has explosive properties that will reduce the externally overprotected Elites to a state of total nakedness, if not death. The Covenant’s initiative to glue their offensive assets onto their enemies also extends to their grenades. If Master Chief successfully plants this luminescent bomb onto a Covenant soldier, they better hope that whatever God they’re fighting this holy war for is lenient enough to accept that their last rites are only three seconds long before they explode in a blue inferno. It certainly exhibits a more vibrant display of destruction than the UNSC’s bog-standard pinned grenade that tends to roll away from the target. Even the feuding faction's battle vehicles pronounce this unequal dichotomy in their infantry even further. Whereas the UNSC’s Warthog lethargically handles like riding around on a morbidly obese pack mule, the Covenant’s “ghost” is a sleek, speedy vehicle equipped with rapid-fire plasma blasters that never exhaust. Whose bright idea was it to place a Warthog’s only means of offense on its cargo bed, thus requiring another soldier to be riding on it at all times lest the driver be a sitting duck? In addition to their objective superiority compared to their UNSC equivalents, the Covenant are the faction that solely possess field turrets and vehicles with airborne capabilities called “banshees,” commanding the skies and striking fear in the hearts of the humans from their lofty vantage points. Wow, mankind would really be doomed without Master Chief, huh?

One would think that curiosity and the clear combat advantages would naturally compel the player to experiment with the Covenant’s artillery, but the way in which the game subtly constrains the player into shuffling their arsenal is one of my greatest grievances with Halo’s FPS gameplay. Equally as revolutionary a contribution to the FPS gameplay fabric as the regenerating health mechanic is confining the player to the use of only two weapons, specifically firearms, at a time. Fun, right? If you couldn’t tell from my sarcastic comment, I’m not particularly fond of Halo minimizing the player’s inventory, nor was I enthralled by its overwhelming prevalence across many FPS IPs that followed in its footsteps. Way back when, I found this reduction effort to stifle the fun factor of wielding a bodacious bounty of weapons that the older FPS titles certainly fostered. Now, as an adult with more acute reasoning skills, I can articulate a more substantial reason why Halo’s deliberate limitations rub me the wrong way.

Diplomatically highlighting some positives to this system first, restricting the player to two weapons does decongest the scrambled mess of juggling over a dozen weapons simultaneously. A handful of the Doom Guy’s or Duke Nukem’s demises in their respective games can admittedly be attributed to frantically swapping through their cramped arsenal, like rummaging through one’s backpack to find a report paper that is due in less than a minute. The conceit behind Halo’s reintegration of an FPS inventory is intended to separate the individual types of offense found in a typical FPS game and delegate them to their own buttons on a controller. This way, the player can execute a smattering of offensive maneuvers like chucking grenades or smacking an enemy with a melee strike simultaneously to compensate for any windows of vulnerability created by the conditions of combat, like running out of ammo for one weapon. Simply swapping to the alternate firearm with a quick button press technically solves this potential problem in haste, but exhausting a weapon entirely is rarely what warrants this swift alteration. More often than not, the player will be forced to change their weapon in a flash because it needs to be reloaded, which is a condition factored into the majority of the game’s weapons. Ironically, a game whose conceptual identity is steeped in an unfathomably advanced future is one that accentuates replacing the ammo for a weapon for the sake of realism. It doesn’t help matters that Master Chief treats the process so daintily that it's as if Christmas is occurring around him and not the dangerous, chaotic atmosphere of battle. Also, the player will be forced to reload often because the Covenant tends to be quite durable. An entire magazine of assault rifle bullets will only be enough to chew through an Elite’s exterior shield, an enemy class as common as the low-ranking grunts, mind you. The player can either use their other weapon assigned to the same button or toss their grenades in the meantime, but it's not as if the ammo of the previous weapon will have been magically replenished just by putting it back in its holster–and neither will the weapon that replaced it once it must be reloaded as well. I don’t think I have to add that auxiliary explosives can’t be used infinitely to supplement an indisposed weapon either. There are guaranteed to be several moments of panicked vulnerability when the game adds so many regulations that interrupt the flow of combat. Chalk up my criticism to a “skill issue” all you want, but I maintain my stance that these constant hindrances to the flow of combat are awkward mojo killers. The game is already slowing the freneticism of the FPS genre, so coupled with continually interrupting said slower combat with unnecessary, realistic snags, Halo often grated on my patience. Encouraging defensive tactics is one thing, but leaving the player in a bind of exposure every few seconds and forcing them to crawl away from combat as a result is incredibly tedious.

If criticizing the combat is bound to rile up some Halo zealots, I’m glad then that the majority of the fanbase will agree with me on the fact that Halo completely botches the level design department. Firstly, this doesn’t diminish the element of sheer spectacle that Halo exhibits in its levels, like an extravagant Chinese fireworks display. I stated before that the Xbox was the most technologically powerful system of the sixth console generation, and right out of the gate, Halo is the game to undoubtedly showcase that statement. How any gamer in 2001, willing to defect to Microsoft’s new machine or not, couldn't feel the sensation to shed that single tear at the breadth of Halo’s levels and the immaculate graphics rendering them is beyond comprehension. Witnessing the hilly plateaus of the Ring World, the expanse of the ocean from the sandy beach, or the layers of snow smothering the frigid tundra gives the impression that these geographical areas are truly massive and that they are not bounded by the artificial barriers that beset the immersion of less advanced video games. Again, another mark of the FPS genre’s evolution that places games like Doom and Quake into a quaint, prehistoric position.

Why, then, if Halo can competently create worlds of such vast, spellbinding magnitude, does it feel content dumbing itself down to the congested, labyrinthine interiors found across the levels of its FPS forefathers? Whether they comprise the second half of a sprawling outside area or encompass a level’s entirety, Master Chief underwhelmingly spends an inordinate amount of his time indoors like a kid on summer vacation. Unlike the breathtaking expanse of Halo’s organic outside surroundings, the interiors of the various space-age architectures are unremarkably dim and sterile, with few examples of sublime spaciousness showcased on occasion. Most egregiously, the branching hallways and narrow corridors of these interior areas are indistinguishable from one another, trapping the player in a maze where the monochromatic aesthetic is bound to greatly obfuscate one’s general perception of placement. In my case, this sensation was accompanied by onset nausea, as seeing the exact same set pieces in these foregrounds repeatedly evoked the discomforting haze of a fever dream. Most players will point at “The Library” as being the worst offender of Halo’s monotonous level design, a commodious, shadowed series of arcane archives that the player ascends through elevator by elevator with absolutely no variation in design between them, like the floors of a stairwell. While this level is deservedly maligned for being an excruciatingly lengthy slog, the magenta-colored, cybernetic corridors of the Covenant ship and the control rooms situated in the subarctic mountains were the ones that made me the most irritated and bilious. Cortana, the UNSC’s holographic AI unit assisting Master Chief on his mission like a less nagging Navi with more sex appeal to cater towards Halo’s more “mature” audience, frequently pinpoints the location of the ongoing objective only during sections taking place outdoors. If I had to hazard a guess, her conspicuous assistant marker is provided while exposed to the sun due to developer concerns that players would end up hopelessly adrift in an area without enclosed parameters. How ironic is it then that this progression aid would’ve been far more practical in places that evoked the design practices in FPS games of yore, where such a perk wasn’t necessary because there was still plenty of visual discernibility despite the more primitive graphical framework.

Amplifying my migraine caused by traversing through all of this tiring indoor terrain is the campaign’s inclination to revisit previous areas after a turning point in Halo’s narrative. After retrieving Halo’s activation index, Cortana (and Master Chief, I guess; it’s hard to truly tell) is horrified to learn that Halo’s purpose as a superweapon is to obliterate all organic life in the universe to starve the scourge of Flood from any and all host bodies. To unfuck the damage they’ve potentially done through their ignorant snooping, Master Chief must undergo a retread that includes the two aforementioned areas that made vomit bubble up in my guts. Admittedly, the second runs through these appallingly designed levels do inject some marginally refreshing distinguishability by shuffling the mission objectives in the midst of killing more Covenant soldiers. Hotwiring a Covenant banshee and piloting it to reach three activation stations in “Two Betrayals” displays a great utilization of the game’s best vehicle, and rescuing Keyes again in the Covenant ship just to find that he’s been horrifically mutated into an indescribable Flood abomination is rather disturbing. I wish coming back to square one of the Pillar of Autumn only involved shooting grunts and elites in UNSC locker rooms and cafeterias because the climactic scope of the narrative has augmented the level with an atrocious final escape sequence where Master Chief must drive a Warthog through a linear, albeit littered with obstacles and enemies, track, lest he be extinguished by the catastrophic blast of the Halo’s explosion radius. I’d almost inclined to give kudos to Halo’s final objective for being a Metroid homage that fosters a challenge that is genuinely brimming with tension, but that’s like commending a prison guard for strapping a ball and chain around my ankle and making it harder to walk to the bathroom. If these glorified dune buggies are what our futuristic Earth society’s taxes are financing, I’m going to write a note to any descendants I might have, beseeching them to dump one of these clunkers in the Boston Harbor as a sign of civil protest. Putting a period on the story by ridding the galaxy of its ominous bio-obliterator definitely spells out Star Wars once again, but there aren’t any prideful ceremonies occurring as a result of Master Chief’s accomplishments. The Spartan is a bit bummed out by the fact that he’s (and technically Cortana) the only remaining soldier who survived the Halo escapade, shrouding the game’s final resolution in a grief-induced melancholy. You mean you’re shocked that the nameless, carbon-copied UNSC soldiers that I saw die in droves on the battlefield didn’t live to tell the tale of their heroic exploits? The demise of Captain Keyes was effective in its gruesomeness, but at the end of the day, all he did was issue some orders per his job position and nothing more. I understand that the scenario is rather tragic from the astounding scope of the loss, but I can’t fully empathize with the Chief’s sullenness due to how unexceptional the people he’s mourning were. C’mon Chiefy, you just saved all organic life from being wiped away from the universe! Lighten the fuck up!

If any of my friends from middle/high school who were fans of Halo happen to be reading this, I apologize if I ever offended you by referring to your beloved FPS series as “Gaylo” (it was the late 2000s and I was 12-13. It would’ve been surprising if I had spoken of it in any other way). Now, as an adult who is moderately more enlightened and mature, I will now dub Halo and all of its FPS disciples as “blockbuster shooters(™).” Naturally, this term I’ve conceived correlates with the designation of high-budget films typically released during the summer season, as Halo shares many commonalities with their tonal directions and historical parallels. It’s a bit of a stretch to compare Doom and the other FPS games of the 1990s to films like The Godfather and The French Connection, but for all intents and purposes, let’s make connections between early titles in the genre and the New Hollywood movement that the blockbuster sprouted from. What was the cutting edge of both respective mediums that pushed the envelope for provocative grit on a mainstream scale had then transformed into shoveling sanitized spectacle into the eyes and earholes of the widest common denominator to garner the widest profit margin possible. George Lucas’ brainchild changed the film landscape forevermore with its stunning depictions of the cosmos and tantalized audiences with its war conflict between its many moons. Cross out the subject of the previous sentence with Halo for gaming, and it's equally applicable. Sure, Halo did contribute plenty of positive evolutions to the FPS genre with its broadened interactive diameter, outstanding visuals, and its forgiving checkpoints that I forgot to squeeze into a paragraph. However, what I still find unappealing about Bungie’s IP is its shallow characterization beneath its spectacle and its insistence that the player treat every facet of it with the utmost earnestness. Everything from its gameplay, story, and characters is so goddamned dignified that I questioned whether or not I was supposed to feel any sort of joy from the experience. It’s no wonder Halo became a revolutionary trendsetter in the gaming medium, but it’s a bit too overpolished and cold for my tastes.