Banjo-Kazooie Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 6/26/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Banjo-Kazooie

Developer: Rare

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: N64

Release Date: June 29, 1998

As impactful as Super Mario 64 was to the then-prevalent 3D platformer genre, I’m not sure the game can take all of the credit for being the genre’s sole primary influence. I always bestow the plumber’s landmark 3D debut with a considerable amount of veneration, for Nintendo’s efforts in remodeling Mario for the cutting-edge next polygonal phase of gaming created an entirely original experience that set the stage for a radical new realm of possibilities. While Super Mario 64 was the game that pioneered the non-linear, explorative “collectathon” 3D platformer subgenre, its indelible mark on the era obviously echoed to several other games of the same ilk to follow its example. Being the building blocks of a genre sort of connotes that your disciples expand upon your foundation instead of contently resting at ground zero. Also, Super Mario 64 set an unintentional implication in that the pervasive platformer genre could only survive in the third dimension with this direction. Mario, the de facto king of the genre, seemingly had to forgo his standard, linear roots so drastically in Super Mario 64, so this meant that all other platformer icons new and old had to assimilate to the change or perish. With both its rudimentary footing and massive impact in consideration, one of Super Mario 64’s many offsprings had to have the potential to outclass its progenitor. The game that would truly innovate on what Super Mario 64 established was a new IP from the British then-Nintendo subsidiary developer Rare in the form of Banjo Kazooie. One of the reasons I revere Super Mario 64 despite its vestigial framework is because it's the godfather of every game that I grew up with in the subsequent generation. However, while this is still true, it seems like Banjo-Kazooie has a more clear and more direct line with my cherished video games from childhood on the 3D platformer family tree. Also, my praise for Banjo-Kazooie ascends past the reasonable level of respect I give to its fellow N64 linchpin Super Mario 64, for Banjo-Kazooie is still a solid rock of a 3D platformer whose quality has not been weathered by time.

It’s amusing to see how a British developer attempts to encapsulate the magic of Mario, and I’m not only referring to the mechanics of the “collectathon” subgenre. Mario’s peerless high ranking in the echelons of gaming can be attested to his wide accessibility in his presentation. Mario captures that spectacle of Japanese whimsy that is neither too immature nor off-puttingly bizarre, sort of in the same vein as the successful fellow Japanese animation corporation Studio Ghibli. The tasteful balance on display is probably indicative of a country that has both a storied mythical lore and an inordinate amount of nuclear radiation exposure than the rest of the world. The Western world might be beguiled by Mario’s foreign charm, but can they tangibly translate their wonder into something original? Banjo-Kazooie’s Western interpretation of Mario’s aesthetic is to emphasize the wacky animated aspects of the plumber’s world. I guess our Western equivalent to Mario’s mirthfulness is our cartoons. Banjo-Kazooie’s presentation is not overtly British like one of Terry Gilliam’s illustrations from a Monty Python skit (though that would be super cool). Rather, Banjo Kazooie conveys that animation drawn for a broad demographic west of the prime meridian tends to feature exaggerated physical proportions and anthropomorphic animals as central characters. Banjo-Kazooie is brimming with archetypal Western cartoon attributes, given that the game’s protagonist is a bipedal bear and every enemy, from the hopping vegetables to the tombstones, all have a pair of goofy-looking googly eyes to signify their sentience. Because of how cartoonish the aesthetic is, Banjo-Kazooie resembles a product catered towards a younger audience. Unfortunately, it’s not as accessible as Mario's because the overall tone might come across as too juvenile for some adolescent/adult gamers. The hints of toilet humor also probably do not help its case. Still, the appeal of Banjo Kazooie is apparent due to how dynamically lighthearted everything is, like an old Mickey Mouse cartoon. Doubling down on the innocuous elements from accessible forms of Western media is probably the most inspired decision from the developers regarding the game’s presentation.

One of the pervasive childlike elements of Banjo-Kazooie is its fairy tale plot premise, a staple of mythology. Gruntilda, a prototypical depiction of a nasty, evil witch from the most famous of Grimm’s classic stories, is performing the usual duties of this age-old archetype of toiling and troubling over her bubbling cauldron. The clairvoyant wisdom she seeks from her boiling pot is whether or not she’s the “nicest looking wench” in the land, and is offended at the cauldron’s candid response telling her that she isn’t. Why someone who revels in being obstinately filthy and grotesque like a kid-friendly version of Divine would care if she satisfies traditional beauty standards is beyond me, but I digress. The “fairest maiden” to be found is Tooty, a young female bear with blonde pigtails who conveniently lives in a comfy little home situated down the hill from Grundtilda’s domain. I guess the radius of beauty the cauldron can assess is confined by the same zip code. Gruntilda’s solution to being outshined by some neighborhood child is to abduct her and initiate a procedure where their matter will be swapped, as Gruntilda will receive all of Tooty’s beautiful attributes while Tooty becomes as beastly as Gruntilda. Tooty is also Banjo’s younger sister, so he’s naturally inclined to stop this horrendous experiment before his sister is doomed to look like a green warthog. Not only do fairy tales often present a heinous witch complete with a tall black hat and a broomstick as a common antagonist, but the old versus young parallel between women is a prevalent theme across some notable examples (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty). Banjo-Kazooie prevents itself from the puerile trappings of its fairy tale influences by subverting this plot premise with slight parody, like Shrek would succeed in doing a few years later. Pop culture references to both Frankenstein and The Fly are clearly seen in the game’s “game over” sequence where her hunchback lab assistant Klungo throws the switch to energize two opposite matter machines with Tooty and Gruntilda enclosed. While Banjo Kazooie still exudes a childish aura, tongue-in-cheek jabs at fairy tale tropes keep it from feeling infantile.

Banjo the character actually debuted in Diddy Kong Racing the year prior in Rare’s lineup of original cute and cuddly playable characters that meshed well alongside Nintendo’s petite, baseball cap-wearing chimp (if only Conker’s inclusion here hasn’t aged like sour milk). Out of all of these characters to greenlight into a new IP, why choose Banjo over say, Bumper the Badger or Tipsy the Mouse? Timber the Tiger arguably even had more mascot potential, as his baseball cap with the Rare insignia mirrored Diddy’s Nintendo cap. Is it due to his relatively higher strength build, or does the necklace, pants, and backpack combination make him more visually enticing than the other character with one distinctive feature? Truth be told, I’m not all too certain why Banjo ascended past a two-bit supporting role among the Diddy Kong Racing roster while all the others (except for Conker) continued to wallow in obscurity. This is especially curious considering Kazooie does most of the legwork (almost literally). The second half of the game’s hyphenated title did not exist during Banjo’s humble beginnings as a cart driver, as she was introduced by Rare to accompany Banjo on his debut platforming adventure. The brightly-colored bird of unknown species resides in Banjo’s backpack as stationary as if she’s on house arrest, and Banjo better hope she’s actually fused to his blue accessory because he’d be hopeless without her.

Banjo and Kazooie have an interesting character dynamic in that the mechanics of both characters are consistently utilized in tandem with one another, used by a single player. Banjo is obviously the primary kinetic force in their partnership as he lugs Kazooie in his backpack. His primary role as the leg muscle also extends to his arms as the game’s basic combat, as the bear will knock enemies around with a barrage of left and right hooks and roll into enemies with the force of his entire body while moving. Disappointingly enough, punches from a bear aren’t as furious and deadly as one would expect because Banjo’s arms seem as short as a T-Rex’s. The rolling move feels more fluid and ensures a more accurate hit, but its trajectory is still rather stilted. Kazooie’s pecking move when Banjo jumps in the air compensates for the bear’s pitiful range, and the direction can be changed in a few seconds when both are in mid-air. Kazooie must have some penguin DNA in her genetic mix because her wings wade beneath the water while Banjo just doggy paddles on the surface. Actually, Kazooie’s swimming indicates that she’s not an aquatic bird because the underwater controls are appallingly rigid. Yet, Kazooie’s willingness to carry Banjo through the adventure forces her to perform tasks outside of her comfort zone. Banjo’s bespectacled mole friend Bottles pops out of his arrangement of molehills to teach Kazooie certain skills to really overload Kazooie’s workload. On the offensive side, Kazooie will tug on Banjo’s backpack to execute a body slam similar to Mario’s ass stomp to press buttons and such. A specific combination of the crouch move will trigger a number of Kazooie’s special techniques, namely Kazooie spurting out baby blue eggs out of her mouth and cloaca (ew) as projectile attacks. The “Talon Trot” sees Kazooie shifting the mobile roles as she carries Banjo on her back instead. With the stronger adhesive strength of her talons sticking to steep, angled inclines, increased running speed, and limitless usage, it seems like Banjo could simply lie on his lazy ass the whole time doing nothing. Two different types of pads will appear to launch Banjo upward, with the green pads giving his jump an exorbitant boost and the red pads as a launch point for Kazooie to soar through the skies until the red feather ammunition is fully depleted. Must I further highlight why Kazooie probably should’ve gotten first billing in the game’s title?

Banjo and Kazooie’s simultaneous dynamic isn’t only limited to how they interact on the field. For a video game genre that usually doesn’t offer much dialogue or characterization, both Banjo and Kazooie are quite loquacious, along with the rest of their world. The dialogue in Banjo Kazooie is displayed with scrolling text in a speech bubble with a character icon on the far side. Speech is not enunciated by any characters: rather; vocal inflections are expressed through warbles that have a distinctive cadence per character. If you come across any lighthearted game with cartoony graphics that has this type of gibberish voice-acting style, Banjo-Kazooie is the game that popularized it (but don’t quote me on that). When interacting with NPCs, Banjo and Kazooie act as character foils. Banjo is a well-meaning dope that approaches people and situations very matter-of-factly, while Kazooie is shockingly caustic. Another reason why Banjo better pray that Kazooie is stuck to the inside of his backpack with superglue is that the bird has an acid tongue; a biting insult for every NPC she comes across, and one NPC might lash out by taking her by her bird neck and throttle her. Nevertheless, Banjo’s good cop, bad cop routine with his backpack bird gives them a wonderful personal chemistry. Some notable NPCs that Kazooie often gives a harsh tongue-lashing to are the aforementioned Bottles, Banjo’s mild-mannered mole friend who somehow knows more about Kazooie’s physical dexterity than she does. Mumbo Jumbo is a slightly racist depiction of an African witch doctor who owns a few small hut properties across many of the game’s levels that resemble his golden skull mask. Other miscellaneous NPCs that Banjo isn’t as chummy with are the hapless camel Gobi, the covetous Conga the Ape, and the blubbering hippo commander of the “Salty Hippo” sea ship aptly named Captain Blubber, to name a few. Compared to the litany of cookie-cutter Toads that Mario speaks to in Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie’s cast of secondary characters is amazingly eclectic.

Banjo-Kazooie isn’t a lengthy 3D platformer that swells the number of collectibles to prolong the experience. In fact, the total number of levels the game offers is significantly less than that of Super Mario 64. Though Banjo-Kazooie’s content lacks the quantity present in its influence, the game more than compensates with the quality of the levels. What impresses me about Banjo-Kazooie’s environments is their sheer immensity. As twee and jovial as Banjo’s world seems from an aesthetic standpoint, something about the way the game displays it exudes a crushing feeling. Immediately, this foreboding aura seems prevalent in Banjo’s hub. After the tutorial section of the grassy Spiral Mountain in Banjo’s backyard, the duration of the game is centered around the confines of Gruntilda’s Lair. The interior of Grundtilda’s wicked visage molded from the rocky cliffs of Spiral Mountain is as voluminous as the recesses of a dank underground cavern. Rescuing Tooty is a steep vertical climb up to the lair’s apex where the experiment is being conducted, and Banjo must progressively piece together every floor of Gruntilda’s Lair on his upward journey (literally). Gruntilda’s Lair is the antithesis of what I’ve always claimed to be an effective hub world, which is a modest place of respite between all of the levels where the call to action is heightened. Gruntilda’s Lair acting as the game’s centerpiece is almost like cutting out the middleman of the Peach’s Castle hub in Super Mario 64 and storming Bowser’s Castle immediately in the most glacial rescue operation ever executed. Gruntilda’s goons roam around on every floor and the witch’s omniscient presence is always felt, and that’s only partly due to her taunting Banjo and his bird with her AB rhyme schemes over some sort of intercom system. However, I’m willing to give Gruntilda’s Lair a pass as the enemy encounters are very slight and the enclosure of the spacious walls feels as tight as Fort Knox while inside them. The oppressive aura mood doesn’t stem from a notion of danger, but how small and insignificant Banjo looks juxtaposed with the massive walls surrounding him. Also, I must commend Gruntilda’s Lair for taking the hub format of Super Mario 64 and streamlining the non-linear hub to a constant vertical incline because progression feels more satisfying. I just wish Banjo wasn’t forced to start from square one every time the player exits the game, with the few teleportation cauldrons withstanding.

As to be expected, Banjo-Kazooie’s levels that protrude from the hub are a varied bunch that curates a wide selection of typical platformer level motifs. Every base is fully covered, ranging from a beach level, snow level, spooky level, etc. However, I did state before that Banjo-Kazooie’s levels were richer in substance despite the marginal number of them, and also that they follow suit on the hub’s expansiveness. Despite the seemingly standard levels, the developers have added some deeper thematic flair that transcends their base motif. For example, Treasure Trove Cove, the beach level, is plastered with pirate imagery, including an immobile ship at its center along with several silly-looking treasure chest beasts with goodies inside them. The winter wonderland of Freezeezy Peak uses the time of year associated with the season to engulf the level of Christmas cheer, something only a Western developer could fully epitomize due to living in a culture that actually celebrates the holiday as opposed to Japan observing it as outsiders. I suppose the same could be said for Halloween formulating the inspiration behind Mad Monster Mansion, but the specific elements of horror associated with that holiday were always less solidified.
One level that takes a typical level motif in a wild direction is Clanker’s Cavern. I think this is Rare tackling a sewer level, but all of the properties usually found in those terrains are only slightly recognizable. Maybe I was distracted by Clanker, the metallic shark floating in the center of the level in a pool of filthy backwashed water massive enough to fit the shark’s titanic, steamboat stature. Besides his size, Clanker’s also a great unsubtle eyesore because he looks like hell. The beastly machine has rusted over in the years he’s served as Gruntilda’s garbage disposal, with his murky eyeballs bulging out of his skull and a shockingly graphic fissure of pulpy, red flesh near the base of his left fin. He lives a fate that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, but the arena where he’s condemned to live out his days is still a monumental stride in 3D-level design due to its upscaled breadth. Enclosed areas will be found per level such as the pyramids of the Gobi Valley, the interior quarters of the ship in Rusty Bucket Bay, and the pink, veiny insides of Clanker’s decaying body, and they are exciting to excavate upon uncovering them and present layers of depth in the level design. My favorite level in the game that combines an interesting theme alongside a breathtaking scope is Click Clock Wood. The entrance of the level acts as a foyer connecting four paths each represented by a season. The wooded area with a towering tree trunk at the center shares the same layout behind each door, but the aesthetic of the level is affected by the weather conditions of each subsequent equinox. From the beginning of the rainy budding of Spring, then the baked warmth of Summer, to the auburn glow of Autumn, and finally the desolate chill of winter, I was stunned to feel a slight sting of sentimentalism at the end of the cycle. The many overarching tasks throughout each season also add to the profound depth of the area’s level progression. What Rare managed to execute here is truly astonishing.

The word I’d use to describe Banjo-Kazooie’s overall design philosophy is conspicuous. Already, the word can be used to define the way in which the levels are depicted because every angle of the spacious playgrounds enlarges the player’s range of sight. Besides enrapturing the player with a broad spectacle, crafting each level with a wide range of sight in mind is perfect for the loose exploration parameters of each level. The proverbial boot that kicked Mario out of every level upon either succeeding or failing in Super Mario 64 is completely discarded in Banjo-Kazooie. Obtaining a “jiggy” piece, the main collectible that unlocks new levels in the hub by fitting them in an unfinished jigsaw puzzle of the area, will never hastily eject the player back into the hub. I’m glad that Rare remedied Nintendo’s awkward mistake here, for it's a much more sensible approach to the collectathon format. Because the player is free to explore each area without the boot-out system in place, every objective is of equal precedence, which is why allowing the player to scope them out easily while exploring is imperative. When the player comes across a point of interest on the map, the game frames the scenario clearly enough to signal that a Jiggy could be earned here. Objectives to claim Jiggies are incredibly varied, ranging from puzzle minigames, fighting hordes of enemies, races, platforming challenges, etc. The diversity on display here assures that each Jiggy task will be somewhat unique and never tire the player with repetitive tedium. One highlight task seen throughout the game is transforming Banjo’s body into another animal or creature with the help of Mumbo’s voodoo powers. Playing as a termite, alligator, walrus, pumpkin, and bee doesn’t allow Banjo to execute the same physical feats compared to when Kazooie is strapped to his back, but playing as these funny forms for a short period does enough to diversify the gameplay even more.

To make Mumbo flick his wand and say the magic words, Banjo first needs to collect enough silver, skull-shaped tokens to satisfy the pygmy magician. Not to worry, for these tokens are as prominent as the Jiggy pieces. The other collectibles such as the candy-coated, multicolored Jingo creatures and the honeycomb pieces that increase Banjo’s maximum health are a tad more unobtrusive, but never to the extent where the player will ever experience a stress-induced aneurysm trying to scope them out. The game’s secondary collectible, the golden music notes, are strewn around the level so abundantly that they’re almost like currency. I had hoped that the developers would have treated them as a form of currency because the ones the player collects respawn in the same spots if the player dies. Doing a thorough examination of a level’s layout while the land is fresh is one thing, but performing the same trek to regain these sonorous half-notes is incredibly grating. I wouldn’t mind so much if the notes weren’t necessary to proceed through Gruntilda’s Lair, and the quantity needed gets pretty stiff near the end of the game. It’s the one collectathon aspect in the game that the developers neglected to carefully consider.

The player will have to meticulously scrounge through every nook and cranny in the game anyways to prepare for the final battle against Gruntilda. This is not only because doors locked behind substantially high music note numbers are the only means of replenishing ammunition, but because of what occurs before it. Before Banjo can confront the foul face of Gruntilda up close and personal, the sickly-colored stereotype stalls him and Kazooie with a little game. And by little game, I mean Trivial Pursuit from hell. “Grunty’s Furnace Fun” tests the player’s knowledge of everything in the game, including level layouts, music cues, voices, and odd tidbits about Gruntilda that her good witch counterpart informs Banjo of in many instances. Banjo also revisits old minigames with an added timer for a steeper challenge. This array of questions delves into information so obscure that it's sadistic. Did you not know the percentage of fecal matter in the waters of Bubblegloop Swamp, or were you unable to decipher Mumbo Mountain by a picture of its grass? Into the fiery drink you go, you idiot! The pathway of panels to the other side where Gruntilda is as long as the Brooklyn Bridge, and the margins of error are incredibly strict. A few panels immediately launch Banjo to his death, sending him back to square one. I understand that this kind of inanity is in character for Gruntilda, but forcing the player to endure this seems like a contemptuous slight from the developers. They knew this wouldn’t be fun for anyone. Fortunately, the game offers a proper final boss fight with Gruntilda that utilizes all of the player’s physical prowess in an epic fight at the peak of her lair. Weirdly enough, the credits will roll after the game show portion to dupe the player into thinking they finished the game beforehand. I think offering the real final fight as a reward for collecting all the Jiggies would’ve been a better incentive, and what they decided to do here is rather obtuse.

If Super Mario 64 is the grandfather of the 3D platformer, then Banjo-Kazooie is the father figure for all other games in the subgenre that followed. Being younger than Mario’s 3D debut allows Banjo-Kazooie to use its mistakes as a reference, and Banjo-Kazooie rectifies all that Mario established with the same collectathon ethos intact. Banjo-Kazooie is bigger, more free-flowing, more ambitious, and more involved in its collectathon gameplay mechanics than Super Mario 64 could possibly have ever hoped for. No wonder why every platformer that I grew up with took notice and borrowed so much from Banjo-Kazooie to the point where Super Mario 64 seemed like the obsolete model. Check mate, Mario. You’ve been bested by a bear and his bird.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 6/15/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: Wii

Release Date: May 23, 2010

The seventh generation of gaming, up until the succeeding era, ascended over every previous period by surpassing the average console lifespan with eight or so years instead of the typical five. This generation was long enough to encompass both my pre-teen years as well as every year I was in high school, ending around my first semester of college in 2014. Because the seventh generation coincidentally overlapped with basically the entirety of my adolescence, I sometimes wonder if this factors into why I became so disenfranchised with gaming during this period. Perhaps it wasn’t that gaming had reached a point of widespread saturation thanks to the colossal boom in mainstream popularity the medium had experienced in 2007. Maybe video games took far less precedence in my life at the time because they didn’t pronounce any of the angsty or horny proclivities stirring around in my hormone-addled brain. The cause of my disillusionment probably stems from components in both column A and B, but let’s focus on how the state of gaming was at the time for now. I’ve mostly attributed my relative distaste for this generation of gaming to the influx of photo-realistic cinematic games and murky, carbon-copy first-person shooters that incentivized online multiplayer capabilities over all else. However, even my dear Nintendo wasn’t safe from my teenage cynicism. When Super Mario Galaxy 2 was announced, my initial reaction was an aggrieved facepalm. This was the first instance of a mainline 3D Mario game receiving a direct sequel on the same system, and I couldn’t help but think that its existence was a cheap, pandering cash grab to piggyback off of the first Super Mario Galaxy’s success. It made me realize how much I had changed since the first Galaxy was released, with a new outlook on assessing industry practices. After playing it, Galaxy 2 did very little to ease my preconceived pessimistic notions, and I always felt annoyed when I saw that a sizable handful of people were championing it over the first game. Even now as an adult in my 20’s over a decade later, my thoughts on Super Mario Galaxy 2 haven’t really changed.


Truthfully, even though I played through the entirety of Super Mario Galaxy 2 soon after playing through the first, I could only remember a few minute details before playing it again for this review. I don’t think my hazy recollections are due to the long span of time since playing the game. I remembered the first title fondly despite having not played it for the same well-worn swathe, or at least before I played it again to review it. The reason why my memories of Super Mario Galaxy 2 are but a vague slurry of more Mario moments in space is because the game does little to nothing to discern itself from its predecessor. Every rich source of inspiration that made the first Super Mario Galaxy a wondrous spectacle showcasing the enchanting romanticism of space travel is diluted by familiarity here in the sequel. This lack of inspirational integrity is evident right from the game’s beginning, as Mario is called to action by an age-old standby plot stimulant. Instead of a special event like the Star Festival that hadn’t been established until the first Super Mario Galaxy game, Mario gets an invitation from Princess Peach to have cake with her at the castle. Mario still scurries on over there with enthusiasm that indicates that he still doesn’t understand that cake is not a euphemism for sex. The Star Festival season is still a presence in the introduction, and the “shooting stars” overhead serve as the occasion for cake at Peach’s. Still, toads walking through the grassy plains of the Mushroom Kingdom catching star bits on their tongues like snowflakes exude far less festive delight that sets a joyous precedent for the rest of the game like before. Anyways, everyone and their grandmother know what impedes Mario from that cake date with Peach. Bowser makes his due appearance to kidnap Peach, and he uses his new enlarged kaiju proportions to make him intimidating enough in preventing Mario from stopping his evil schemes on sight. After the princess is abducted right on schedule, the game immediately warps Mario to the first galaxy. Everything about this introduction seems heavily contrived. The grand allure of the annual event that catapulted Mario into the action in the first Galaxy title mesmerized us because the game conveyed its spectacle effectively. When Mario was blasted into the vast, indifferent arms of outer space by a Kamek soldier, the uncertainty of the situation caught our attention. Here, the situation seems so nonchalantly rushed, almost as if the sensation of deja vu is expediting Mario’s approach to the situation. The Luma that granted Mario his spin ability to survive the wild reaches of the cosmos simply interrupts Mario by chance along the way to the castle. In their minuscule diversion attempts, the developers set up a watered-down depiction of the exact same event that started the first game by negating all of its effective pacing.

Immediately after finding the first star in the tutorial mission, Mario will be transported to this game’s hub to organize the remainder of his quest. Rosalina’s majestic space observatory is no longer the peaceful stomping grounds situated in a placid stasis over the cosmos, for that, would be far too familiar for comfort. Instead, Mario’s neutral zone is a soaring, planetoid vehicle manned by a small Luma contingent. The captain of this vessel is a large, purple Luma named Lubba, whose portly size, dopey demeanor, and sense of style make him like an intergalactic Patrick Star. Actually, Lubba temporarily grants his esteemed position as captain to Mario since he has far more experience in missions involving saving damsels in distress. This change of rank results in the vessel reshaping itself into the visage of Mario’s bulbous head complete with his trademark cap with the capital “M” insignia. As much as I’m amused by the design of the SS Mario (the acronym being spaceship in this context), the new hub also feels like a sufficient demotion from what was offered in the previous game. The player is no longer enraptured by a sense of ethereal sentimentalism that exuded from the observatory. I’m not even certain what effect the SS Mario is trying to convey other than the novelty shape of the spacecraft. Also, it’s quite ironic how much more difficult it is to navigate through this comparatively smaller hub thanks to the ship’s gravitational mechanics like it's a dwarf galaxy.

If the pacing and the hub sounded underwhelming, neither compare to the extent of halved-assery in how Super Mario Galaxy 2 constructs its levels. An accelerator button on the deck of the ship expands the screen to a grid that dots the levels, traveling level by level to the finale of that world’s Bowser/Bowser Jr. boss on the far right as the player progresses. When Super Mario Bros. 3 introduced the gaming world to its mapped menu grid, the unparalleled organization of the game’s levels was revolutionary. However, implementing this design several generations later in the third 3D era is appallingly lazy. A less involved level selection like this in a 3D game is inherently so compared to the depth of seeking out their location in 64 and Sunshine, and the inspired choice of placing them all in the same orbital space in the first Galaxy game. Empty space on the grid in Super Mario Bros. 3 not dedicated to the next level at least had enemy encounters and mini-games in the Toad houses to give the environment more character. Super Mario Galaxy 2’s rendition of this fills nothing in its empty spaces between levels, which makes you wonder why the developers didn’t just present the levels in a straight line and cut out the filler spaces. Somehow, an advanced game in 3D fails to make its level map on par with the pixelated template that predates it by two whole decades.

Every aspect of Super Mario Galaxy 2 mentioned so far seems like the primary goal of the developers was to streamline the foundation of the first game. One facet of this that the developers didn’t screw up was the overall level design. The first Super Mario Galaxy was the most linear of the plumber’s 3D titles regarding level progression, with the developers finally gaining the confidence to render levels akin to the classic 2D format after bashfully avoiding them for two generations. Super Mario Galaxy 2 naturally doubles down on the first game’s more straightforward approach to 3D Mario, and the levels here exude a sense that the developers became more comfortable with a linear level design after crafting the first game. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is slightly more difficult than its predecessor, a game in which I stated perfected Mario’s accessible approach to the challenge. However, I think the spicier tinge to the sequel’s difficulty curve might be its greatest contribution to the Galaxy brand. The developers were no longer afraid of making calamitous platform sections more commonplace, such as the disintegrating green ones or those that alternate with Mario’s spin ability. A stand-out section that tests the player’s reaction times is the slide down the trunk of a gargantuan tree in “Tall Trunk Galaxy”, dodging thorny bramble patches and looping around its wide interior to circumnavigate the empty pits in its structure. The winding platform that takes Mario over the thick sea of ectoplasm in “Boo Moon Galaxy” is unpredictable, and reeling Mario over the globs of lava in “Melty Monster Galaxy” is super tense. Did I mention that The Hammer Bros, the original juggernaut enemies of Super Mario, make their 3D debut here and are usually situated on steep, narrow platforms to fling a storm of projectiles at Mario? If the developers insisted on banking on familiarity, at least they decided to add a pinch of challenge to the mix, especially since the developers have reused tons of level motifs from the first game.

Another commendable aspect of Super Mario Galaxy 2 is how the game utilizes the comets. In the first Galaxy game, comets would periodically visit a galaxy after the standard star missions had been completed. The comet’s presence triggered a more challenging version of one of the regular star missions, and the specific aura of the comet would signify the brand of challenge that would occur. While these shooting stars provided a much-needed spark of challenge in Super Mario Galaxy’s gameplay, the most challenging aspect of them is their inconvenient natures. The observatory needed some kind of meteorologist Luma on board to issue a forecast for when these comets arrive, for which galaxy they’d dock themselves over was as unpredictable as a game of chicken. The comets would also impatiently leave orbit if Mario didn’t attend to them immediately, which is arguably indicative of the fleeting nature of this astral phenomenon. Still, having to halt my progression to catch these comets on time tended to get on my nerves. Galaxy 2 reconsiders how the comets are triggered by introducing “comet tokens,” collectibles that will eventually signal a comet over that level when obtained. These coins are conspicuous, so the player will most likely see them in their peripheral vision during the course of a mission. However, they are intentionally situated in hairy platforming sections and hidden between obscured crevices, forcing Mario to take a risk and or make an extra effort to swipe them up. The additional lengths needed to collect the tokens make for a fun incentive. When a comet makes its appearance, it will also thankfully sit and wait patiently for Mario to accept it. I greatly appreciate it. Galaxy 2’s comets also filter through some of the less acclaimed types of challenges while accentuating the ones with more potential. Comets that involve collecting 100 purple coins are dispersed more evenly, and the army of pygmy shadow Marios that copy his every move and make every mistake when moving have more severe consequences.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 also adds a couple of new attributes to the gameplay despite how much its direction copies the first game. The return of Mario’s power-ups after he forgot to pack them for his vacation in Super Mario Sunshine was a delightful return to form, and the power-ups featured in the first Super Mario Galaxy were perfect in providing gameplay variety in tandem with the platforming. The few new power-ups here at Mario’s disposal have a weighty presence over the course of the game’s levels, and both of them are fortunately fun and functional. The simplest new power-up is a drill that Mario holds above his head to burrow between the layers of earth on opposite sides of a planet. Cloud Mario grants Mario a string of clouds that materialize as makeshift platforms, with maximum usage of three before the power simply becomes an aesthetic change turning Mario’s clothes white and his hat fluffy. Rock Mario allows Mario to encase himself inside a rolling boulder that careens into enemies with ramming speed, sort of similar to Goron Link’s ability in Majora’s Mask. Every single old ability from the first Galaxy game such as Bee Mario and Ghost Mario make a singular appearance across a select few levels, giving the new power-ups more precedence and allowing the player to become more accustomed to using them by proxy. This decision was wise on the part of the developers because in a game that already stubbornly refuses to change any of its noticeable clothes from yesterday, at least brandishing a brand-new pair of socks will retain a slight bit of freshness. Hence, it staves off becoming totally rotten.

As neat as the new powers are, let’s not kid ourselves here. We all know that the most essential addition to Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the inclusion of everyone’s darling little dinosaur Yoshi. The general rule of thumb regarding a Mario game seems to be that adding Yoshi to a game is like supplying a dash of garlic onto your food: any dish will automatically become more delectable just with its inclusion. Nintendo wanted to drill into the player’s heads how noteworthy Yoshi’s appearance is in Galaxy 2, putting him on the game’s front cover as prominently as Mario like in his glorious debut in Super Mario World. We can almost infer that Nintendo figured Yoshi’s presence here is the main component that legitimizes the game’s reason for existing, amending their mistake of the first game’s glaring omission by developing a sequel with an overload of Mario’s pet. To their credit, at least the developers supported the selling point of Yoshi by greatly utilizing his unique attributes in the gameplay. The askew weight of space gravity has not altered Yoshi’s enormous, idiosyncratic appetite in the slightest, as Yoshi will devour multiple victims using a targeting system and gulp them down in one bite. If an enemy’s exterior is too rugged to be palatable, Yoshi can spit them back out at another enemy or breakable wall/surface. Yoshi’s flutter kick is always useful in aiding with corrective platforming, and Yoshi swings with ease on the series of flower knobs to cross gaps. Yoshi somehow ascends past even Mario’s significance in his own game considering even he has more new power-ups than the eponymous plumber. Yoshi’s special abilities come from eating a certain type of fruit, and their effects are brief. Eating the blue fruit will bloat Yoshi like Violet Beauregarde, and he’ll soar upward using the extra exhalation. Chili peppers will literally light a fire under Yoshi’s ass as he turbo boosts in a red-hot frenzy, and the golden fruit that resembles a lightbulb will illuminate hidden platforms. Nintendo not only made Yoshi the biggest discernable aspect of Galaxy 2 but made him the real breadwinner of the entire game. It certainly shows a significant improvement from the awkwardly-implemented, water-soluble Yoshi from Sunshine.

…Oh, and the player can swap out Mario for Luigi whenever he presents the opportunity at the beginning of a random level. As much as I support vindicating Luigi, he’s simply just “green Mario” here as he usually is. Sorry, buddy. You just can’t compete with Yoshi’s utility here or his cuteness.

The range of boss battles in the first Super Mario Galaxy finally offered a smattering of exciting foes that were missing in the previous 3D titles. They efficiently used a mix of Mario’s innate platforming acrobatics, spin move, and specific power-ups to offer up some truly engaging climatic bouts. This aspect has not been sullied in Super Mario Galaxy 2, as the developers have taken the time to produce a new entourage of seismic baddies. The standout bosses seem to integrate Mario’s new moves into the fabric of the fight, with Digga-Leg standing tall on a circular dirt mound built for the drill, and the spiky Rollodillo rivaling Mario’s rock formations in size and speed. Yoshi hoicks the Spinys of the Lakitu King back at him until he falls off his regal cloud. “Throwback Galaxy,” a refurbished remake of Whomp’s Fortress from Super Mario 64, reinvigorates the Whomp King fight from that level with richer mechanical layers and a heightened cinematic scope. It’s a proud sign of how far we’ve come in such a short time. I adore all of the new bosses the same way I did for the ones from the first Galaxy. Yet, Galaxy 2 still does that annoying thing here where it insists on taking traits from the first game. Peewee Piranha is just the first boss from the first game again with severe diaper rash, and did we really need to experience what fighting Bugaboom would be like with the cloud form instead of the bee? They’re simply unnecessary filler.

Being that Super Mario Galaxy 2 strives to emulate the first game in all its glory, does this extend to showcasing the bittersweetness of the space’s immensity found in the first Galaxy game? Of course, it doesn’t! This statement shouldn’t be too surprising considering the game is paced like Mario is running a marathon, which I already divulged when discussing the game’s introduction. As expected, the whirlwind pacing seen in the introduction is just as applicable to the end. Bowser’s final fortress is once again the climactic final level after seeing subsidiary versions of it as the previous world’s climaxes with battling Bowser Jr’s titanic tin cans as (more interesting) breaks in between. Fighting Bowser’s final form is exactly how the first game composed the Bowser encounters: a slightly longer bout with a few steps sprinkled in to maybe throw the player off guard. The marginal difference is that at the end, the player finishes the fight in a sequence of butt-slamming meteors back at Bowser in a celestial vortex. After Bowser shrinks down for the final time after suffering from too much blowback, Peach escapes his captivity and gives Mario the final Grand Star. Lubba takes the two on a grand tour of the cosmos on the SS Mario to celebrate, and Mario finally gets to take a succulent bite of Peach’s cake. I wish I was hinting at something sexual here. The impact of finishing Galaxy 2 compared to the tender gut punch I received upon the finale of the first game couldn’t be any more different. All that Galaxy 2’s ending left me with a feeling of emptiness, and not in a profoundly existential way. I had accomplished the task at hand, and that was it. Yahoo!

I hate being right all the time. My preconceived notions regarding Super Mario Galaxy as Nintendo’s first 3D Mario to be a shallow cash grab shamelessly banking off of the previous game was right on the money. Upon playing the game, my experience amounted to gathering first-hand research on the extent of Super Mario Galaxy 2’s devotion to being derivative. Nintendo must think we’re all idiots that wouldn’t notice that Super Mario Galaxy 2 is practically a glorified copy-and-paste job of the first game. To be frank, I’m quite offended at their gall. I’d be hard-pressed to call Galaxy 2 a sequel: it’s a goddamn tribute. Even in its painstaking efforts to plagiarize the first Galaxy game with the nerve to submit the replica and call it a new work, Galaxy 2 still doesn’t capture the resonating elements of the first game like the warm atmosphere and the themes surrounding its setting, and the new power-ups and the return of Yoshi only do so much to elevate the experience. For some people, these marginal differences are enough to sway them in Galaxy 2’s favor over the first game. However, I have a feeling that the same kind of people think that a taller building is a better building, or that a bigger sandwich is the more delectable one, and so forth. They are impressionable and easier to please than a ten-dollar hooker. Despite all of the flack I’ve given Galaxy 2, my rating for it is still substantially high only because the first Galaxy game was so exemplary in perfecting 3D Mario’s foundation, thus giving it an inherent, yet unfairly imposed advantage as a result. Oh, lucky you, Super Mario Galaxy 2!

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 6/10/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

Developer: Hal Laboratories

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: N64

Release Date: March 24, 2000

It was inevitable that Kirby would arrive on the N64 soon enough. Not all of Nintendo’s franchises were privileged enough to make the radical transition to the next realm of polygons during the N64 era when the concept of doing so was revolutionary. Still, one could be confident that Kirby would grace the console with his glowing, pink presence eventually. For the past two console generations, Kirby had to make his mark at the end of a system’s lifespan, often well over its prime as if he’s a hospice nurse ready to aid the system into shedding its mortal coil comfortably. Really, Kirby’s impact on the two previous generations is a nice, relaxing rest after a long, arduous period of pain and punishment dealt out by the games from the (S)NES eras. While Kirby was a vital proponent during the pixelated periods as a soothing bath to soak those wounds, it’s debatable whether or not his services were still needed in the 3D era. Crafting video games on a whole new axis forced developers to reconsider difficulty since players were no longer restricted to the spatially flat terrain of 2D. Sure, the N64 showcased some titles that ignited a fit of rage in players with the fresh face of 3D, but Nintendo themselves were hardly the ones dishing out the torment. One could make an argument about the slippery jank in Super Mario 64, or F-Zero X’s perilous speeds that sent players careening over the tracks too many times to count. All the same, miscalculating a jump or one’s high velocity in either Nintendo property on the N64 isn’t the same as having to start from square one after getting a game over or minuscule health pools where a single hit means biting the dust. Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards turned out to be more like a calming break for the developers than the players.

I’m not implying that Kirby 64 wasn’t given the same amount of effort and care as the previous Kirby games. What would make me come to the conclusion that this Kirby game gave the developers less hell than the other Nintendo titles on the system? Well, the answer is simple: Kirby 64 is not a 3D game. After a whole generation of insisting that the 2D perspective was obsolete and pixels were indicative of poor graphical quality, Nintendo ceased their bullheadedness with Kirby of all series. Graphics during this era that attempted to render less realistic environments aged more gracefully. Considering that the pink puffball and the intergalactic fantasy land he inhabits are about as realistic as a schoolboy’s classroom daydreams, one would think Kirby would flourish in a 3D environment on the N64. Surprisingly, Kirby 64 makes an unyielding compromise between the two-dimensional plains with a “2.5D” perspective, which involves a game with 3D graphics that controls the 2D axis with some automated isometric angles in the presentation to further express that balance. Kirby 64 marks the first time a platformer used this graphical compromise on the N64, but those who opted for the first PlayStation console will recognize this as Klonoa’s signature style. Nevertheless, the odd crossover of perspectives most likely proved to be a relief for Nintendo because they weren’t forced to pull up the proverbial rug and start anew in 3D as they did for both Mario and Zelda. Kirby 64 is essentially a 2D Kirby game with 3D graphics, and the extra polygons on display here make the game a visual delight. Kirby’s world already popped with candy-colored effervescence when it was being generated with pixels, and now the land of pure imagination still looks marvelous even with the growing pains of 3D graphics. Kirby 64 is by far one of the most visually striking games on the N64, and the 2.5D perspective allows the player to see the ethereal realm from all sorts of new angles. Realism is the antithesis of Kirby, so all of the unsanded edges that came with early 3D attempting something discernable to real life can be excused. Also, it’s impressive how smooth the animation is during every cutscene.

One aspect of Kirby 64 I’m not sure I can absolve is the controls. For the damndest reason, the directional controls of Kirby 64 are operated exclusively on the N64 controller’s D-Pad. I understand Nintendo’s thought process behind this decision, for Kirby doesn’t need the same range of analog verticality when he’s confined to the X-axis. Still, I wish the player was allowed to use the analog stick if they so choose, even if the N64’s analog stick is placed in the most inconvenient, uncomfortable spot on the controller like a mechanical hemorrhoid. By this point in the first 3D generation, Sony had introduced the Dualshock controller with two analog sticks, so Nintendo can’t use the excuse they didn’t know that analog controls could’ve navigated Kirby through Dreamland regardless of whether or not the game required more from the pink orb than moving left and right. The N64’s D-Pad simply wasn’t initially designed with character movement in mind, and Kirby 64 proves it. The player really has to mash the D-pad in either direction in order to get Kirby to move, with Kirby being unable to sprint unless the player squishes the D-Pad with the might of stomping grapes. On top of the calculated decision to relegate the general controls to a more rigid place on the controller, transferring to the third dimension has made Kirby feel more lethargic than when he was soaring through a pixelated landscape. The little guy huffs and puffs slower, and the developers decided to nerf his awesome ability to boundlessly keep himself afloat. After a certain point, Kirby will break out in a sweat and descend from his flight like a deflated balloon. Perhaps he’d have more stamina if he cut back on his habit of consuming every piece of solid matter in the universe, and the years of abusing his stomach have finally caught up to him.

In this case, it’s a relief that a stiffer, aging Kirby has a tightly-knit group of friends to aid him on his quest to save Dreamland from plunging into darkness once again. In this context, that darkness is the enigmatic Dark Matter creatures that return from the previous two Dreamland games. Their ominous presence plagues a ringed, heart-shaped planet, and one of the fairy inhabitants named Ribbon escapes the one-eyed clouds of black space dust on a flying gemstone. Ribbon crash lands on Kirby’s home planet of Pop Star and beseeches him to collect the shattered remnants of the eponymous crystal stars. Along the way, Kirby forms a posse of buddies including a Waddle Dee with zero discernible features from the rest of his ilk, a human painter named Adeline, and the royal ruler of Dreamland himself: King Dedede. Finally, the robed penguin king of space’s astral plane realized that it’s more beneficial to collaborate with Kirby in the cause to save his kingdom rather than antagonize him as usual. Friendship has been an applicable theme in Kirby for quite a while to enhance the franchise's lightheartedness, but Kirby 64 approaches the dynamic differently than in any Dreamland game or Kirby Super Star. Kirby’s gang will assist him periodically depending on the given situation in a level. For instance, the Waddle Dee doesn’t seem as bland and featureless when he hooks Kirby up with a smattering of vehicles like an inflatable raft, minecart, and snowmobile. Adeline materializes health items by drawing them on a canvas with her magical paintbrush, and Kirby will piggyback onto King Dedede so the player can whack at durable obstacles with his massive trademark hammer for the duration of the end of one screen to the other. Kirby’s friends' assistance feels less prevalent on the field than the animal buddies or the enemy partners from Super Star, yet their comparatively minimal presence still makes for a fun changeup in gameplay.

Progression in Kirby 64 sees Kirby traveling right from Pop Star to five other planets situated along the same galactic orbit. Each planet’s theme throughout its four or so levels along with its boss fits the world like a glove. For example, the levels on Aqua Star all involve water in some capacity, either sloshing through it on the shores of a beach or swimming through the perilous underwater depths of the ocean planet. Neo Star showcases some primal terrains of a humid jungle, culminating in Kirby finding himself at the core of an active volcano. Shiver Star has the most interesting theme in that it appears to be a frigid form of Earth, reimagined as the snowy grounds of an industrial toy factory. Is this an ecological statement from the developers suggesting that our practices could steer the Earth into state of uninhabitable, polar condemnation? It’s rather bleak for a Kirby game, even if the planet’s territory is reminiscent of the North Pole and its Christmas cheer. Still, Shiver Star and every planet to its left along the way showcases that Kirby 64 surprisingly might have the most concise level of organization in the series thus far. To think that the game managed to pull this off without using the gimmicky episodic frames seen in Super Star.

Really, the standout attribute seen in Kirby 64 is the powers Kirby sucks up, and this is more relevant to this game than any previous title. The total number of absorbable powers is reduced from Kirby Super Star, but the game compensates with something extraordinary. With a feature that is endemic to Kirby 64 for some reason or other, the puffball can now combine the attributes of more than one special ability at a time. Kirby can build upon a preexisting power by sucking up another enemy with the same elemental property, making a stronger evolution of that particular move. The real joy of Kirby’s newfound potential comes with removing his current power and chucking it at another enemy, and sucking up the eight-sided star to combine the two. Some stellar mixes include the gunpowder of the bomb move with igniting the fire move to make fireworks that scatter in a colorful glory as Kirby hops around. Bomb and Cutter crafts a limitless supply of explosive shurikens that stick to enemies on contact. Spark and Needle form a lightning conductor that makes enemies extra crispy, and combining the cutter move with either fire or spark lets Kirby brandish a Goliath fire sword or a double-sided lightsaber. Is that not the sickest shit you’ve ever heard? The one that amuses me the most is fire and spark because Kirby sets himself ablaze with the friction of a moist towel and runs around frantically in pain. The sheer creativity of Hal Laboratories thrived here as there are over 30 unique combinations for Kirby to use, and my curiosity in combining powers just to see what they amounted to was always invigorating.

To my dismay, the vast majority of the combinations suck (no pun intended). Aiming the fire arrow is far too imprecise, and the impact of the stone-bomb dynamite will take a hefty chunk off Kirby’s health. The walking suicide bomber snowman is not as cool as it sounds because Kirby can’t control when it explodes. Kirby skating with an ice-cutter is cute and all, but it hardly counts as an attack. The same goes for the laughably contrastive fire and ice, which simply melts an ice cube. If this is the best they could come up with, why bother? At the same time, moves like the fireworks and the form of a refrigerator break the game to a point where Kirby is nearly invincible. I suppose I can’t be surprised that in a series where the protagonist can fly around without impunity, the new feature would be just as unbalanced. Still, it's disappointing to see how many combinations are either impractical, redundant or simply lame. What’s worse is that the game incorporates the shittier combinations with retrieving the crystal stars. There are three per level and some of them require a specific combination to unlock. A problem arises when the enemies needed for that combination aren’t present in that level, so the player will have to look for the enemies that possess these traits and carry the crappy combination for the whole level without dying. This fetch quest was not enjoyable at all.

So is it worth collecting all of Kirby 64’s main platformer MacGuffin even if the process wears on the player? Sort of. Neglecting these shards results in an unresolved ending where the true source of the black scourge is hidden away inside the Fairy Queen and reveals himself as a mighty entity called 0 Squared. The true ending commences with one brief level in a hazy realm of antimatter, followed by a Star Fox-esque space shooter fight that actually looks three-dimensional. I went through the trouble to face the game’s secret final boss because it lives in mild infamy, but I’ve come to find that its notoriety stems from the fact that his eye eventually starts bleeding instead of his difficulty. The elemental cube boss preceding this inflicted more pain on me. Hell, the shark, the molten mound of magma, and even Wispy proved to be more formidable bosses than this angelic abomination. The final payoff is that Kirby and his friends are rewarded crystal shard medals in a ceremony that mirrors the final scene of Star Wars. All I can do is shrug from feeling underwhelmed.

Kirby’s 3D debut was not as grand as his fellow Nintendo mascots. Then again, Kirby’s role in Nintendo’s catalog of characters is to wind down after we become too engrossed with the company’s monumental releases. Hal Laboratories sure did treat themselves in this iteration of Kirby, for they figured that Kirby was content with sticking to his traditional 2D area of movement instead of reinventing the wheel in a whole new dimension. At its core, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is a tried and true Kirby game as the ones on the more primitive systems, and maybe that’s refreshing on a console where the gameplay identities of so many Nintendo series were totally refurbished to fit the new polygonal plane. Because of this, comparing Kirby 64 with past Kirby titles is more than justified, and I’m afraid that it doesn’t rank up with either Kirby’s Adventure or Super Star. The stilted controls and wasted potential of the ingenious new power system bog Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards down a bit, unfortunately.

Shadow the Hedgehog Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 6/4/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Shadow the Hedgehog

Developer: Sonic Team

Publisher: Sega

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: GCN, PS2, Xbox

Release Date: November 15, 2005

I do not like Shadow the Hedgehog and yes, I’m referring to the character. I made this explicitly clear in my review of his debut title Sonic Adventure 2 because Sonic’s negative mode contrast doppelganger has always left a bad taste in my mouth. This should come as a surprise to anyone because Shadow is a character that catered to my age demographic during his prime. It’s hard to believe now, but the cultural landscape of the 2000s was oozing with edge. The trendy sports and reality television showcased a potential for people to be subjected to grievous pain, “Crawling”, “Bodies”, and “Down with the Sickness” were songs that were taken seriously, the bar for comedy was set to be as taboo-breaking as humanly possible, and the internet was an uncharted frontier of cutting-edge content that shocked society with both its breadth and graphicness. Compared to how restrained and socially-conscious everything has been since the mid-2010s, the years of my childhood and adolescence feel like a bygone era. Shadow the Hedgehog was designed with the intention of remastering Sonic for the new, edgy millennium, and the character successfully resonated with the youths of that time as planned. Even when I was a kid who was supposed to, however, I always thought that he was an uncharismatic jerk whose presence created a storm cloud of unnecessary, overwrought melodrama over the Sonic universe. This is why I avoided his self-titled offshoot game released in 2005 even though I was meant to eat this game up like an all-you-can-eat buffet. It didn’t help the game’s case that the general consensus was that it dug a deeper hole for 3D Sonic’s less-than-savory reputation. So you see, reviewing Shadow the Hedgehog is not a retrospective of how I perceive this game now than when I was a child like the previously released 3D Sonic games. It’s instead an instance of morbid curiosity finally instilled into me as an adult to find out if I was right in passing on this game long ago. God help me.

Shadow certainly is the most interesting Sonic character on the basis of background and moral standing. He’s got a checkered past, and the most damning thing about it is that he hasn’t the foggiest idea of what it consists of. Shadow the Hedgehog continues the same amnesia-addled mystery narrative that Sonic Heroes started with the character’s general uncertainty, and his past is only hazy to Shadow because the player is already likely privy to it from the events of Sonic Adventure 2. The only part of the mystery that will have the player scratching their heads is how Shadow still exists considering we all watched him perish in the cosmos over Earth’s orbit. Shadow’s mission in his eponymous title is to unravel the mystery of his existence, and our mission as the player is to see how deeply the developers retconned the climax of Sonic Adventure 2. All the while, Shadow must contend with an all-out war on Earth between the humans, a plague of black aliens, and an irate Dr. Eggman in the background. Shadow’s road to self-discovery is going to be a bumpy one, to say the least.

Shadow’s journey is also going to be rife with complications because he controls like absolute dogshit. People who write off all of Sonic’s 3D outings often claim that the shifty camera is the prime culprit in dooming the series to horrid mediocrity. Still, while there is some understandable merit to this criticism, no one took fault with Sonic’s controls (or at least not for all the 3D entries leading up to this point). In both Sonic Adventure titles, Sonic speeding through the levels was as smooth as a syrup enema, hence another reason why the transition to 3D for the blue blur was actually less muddled than most remember. If this is the 3D Sonic title that triggered the downfall of Sonic’s mobility for every subsequent 3D entry, I find it funny that he wasn’t even the one who caused it. Shadow moves with the grace of a college freshman girl drunk on a fifth of mango pineapple flavored Svedka, or to say that his general movement has zero amount of grace. This game’s version of Shadow would fail a sobriety test because he struggles to keep himself on a straight path. Any intentional deviations from a direct route result in swerving around with jagged dramatism, as if strafing while running was another aspect of Shadow’s amnesiac stupor. Shadow’s sludgy rate of acceleration hardly puts him on equal standing with Sonic’s lively speed capabilities either. While Shadow will not cooperate with the player, somehow, he will still constantly bump into enemies on the field as if his wonky trajectory is due to him being magnetized to them. Thankfully, Shadow only loses a modest sum of rings upon being hit as opposed to the standard penalty of losing all of them, but is this change due to the developers being fully aware that the player will encounter problems? What gives, Sega? Shadow’s lack of stability with his general movement is inexcusable and is the primary factor in the game’s poor quality.

Even though it doesn’t make a lick of sense, I guess every player should be slightly relieved because speed is not the name of the game in Shadow the Hedgehog. That is, unless the player is content with the game’s “neutral route.” The range of the six levels per campaign depends on Shadow’s actions in each level. A moral choice mechanic is implemented for each level in Shadow the Hedgehog, and a single campaign’s trajectory depends on the specific task completed. Three choices are presented to Shadow; hero, dark, and neutral, and the two opposite ends of that spectrum involve aligning with either Sonic and a number of his friends or the intimidating leader of the black aliens. Both objectives will be presented to Shadow near the beginning of each level with fairly clear instructions from either party, and Shadow will have to consistently cease his rate of speed to make a more meticulous effort in completing either task. Determining the route of Shadow’s journey on this basis is the most engaging and unique mechanic of the game, and strictly limiting the player’s route based on player choice is a great way to facilitate player choice. In saying this, it could’ve been executed a little smoother. At several different points in each level, the opposing faction of whichever task the player has assigned still pops their head up and automatically changes Shadow’s objective to their request. The player can change this in the pause menu but as we’ve learned from Ocarina of Time’s Water Temple, pausing the game to swap something out is the most vexing method of manual change. Besides that, both factions of “good” or “bad” irritate me to no end because Shadow will practically be accompanying them through the entire level. I’m either subjected to the inane chatter of a high-pitched Tails or Charmy the Bee or getting swimmer’s ear from Dr. Klaww in the shape of an evil octopus. Together, it’s like listening to a Brokencyde album, and that’s just gross.

There are a total of 23 levels in Shadow the Hedgehog, almost twice as many as the individual ones in the first Sonic Adventure title. However, the player will only experience six of them per campaign without the option to retrace one’s steps for a different outcome once the trajectory has been set. Let me just say that I fully appreciate the variety across the 22 levels featured in the game after being driven mad by repeating the same fourteen levels over four campaigns in Sonic Heroes. The player might get sick to death of playing the opening level of Westopolis, but at least there is a one in three chance that the following level will be fresh. However, until the levels were watered down and corrupted by both Team Rose and Team Chaotix respectively, the levels in Sonic Heroes were utterly enjoyable through and through despite the herculean length of some. Shadow the Hedgehog’s levels range from being promising to downright insufferable. Many level motifs are Sonic Adventure 2 reunions where we see the fallout of both Prison Island in radiated ruin, as well as some subsector of the Space Colony Ark. Crazy Gadget was an exemplary space level compared to standing and waiting to use the crumbling rubble of the ark to fall and use as platforms in Cosmic Fall. Glyphic Canyon levels offer some loops and other classic Sonic level tropes, but Shadow’s restrained velocity doesn’t result in the same electric thrills that result in Sonic blazing through them. I somewhat enjoy the vehicle-intensive levels because the hopping mech and military car somehow control better than Shadow does. I also admire Lava Shelter because it managed not to fuck up the grind rail gameplay. On the other hand, I loathe any level where Shadow has to follow an airship and destroy it, or kill every enemy in the level. Who thought the return of that god-awful Team Chaotix mission with the candles was a good idea? There simply aren’t too many exemplary standouts among the pack to compensate for the substandard ones.

Then there’s the other aspect of Shadow’s gameplay that everyone knew an entire paragraph would be dedicated to because it was the major selling point of the game. Shadow’s role as Sonic’s edgy rival in Sonic Adventure 2 buttered up all the acne-ridden pre-teens enough, but it was time to dial his coolness radar all the way up to eleven. When I saw my first indication that Shadow was getting his own game on the front cover of a 2005 issue of Nintendo Power, I couldn't believe my eyes. Not only was Shadow revved up on a bitchin Harley like he’s James fucking Dean, but he was holding a fucking hand cannon in his left hand. I was gobsmacked. Despite my shocked incredulity, what I was witnessing was true. Guns are a main mechanic in Shadow the Hedgehog, the cherry on top of any edgy sundae. Shadow will pick up the misplaced firearms from enemies he has vanquished and use them of his own volition until the ammunition runs out. If that happens, picking up another gun to use is as simple as replacing a stick to walk with on a hiking trail. The guns range from pistols and AKs to the more fictional space blasters usually found in the scrap remains of Eggman’s robots. As fucking sick as Shadow looks strapped with a loaded gun, unfortunately, it all falls apart in execution thanks to the awful controls. Good luck aiming without a targeting mechanic while Shadow is zooming around like a hornet huffing raid fumes. The player will have to resort to primarily using the guns for combat because the trademark homing attack is both pitiful and unresponsive in this game.

Guns weren’t only introduced to make Shadow the Hedgehog moisten the pants of pre-adolescents or test the limits of the new E10 rating introduced by the ESRB that the game ultimately received upon release. They are indicative of the more mature direction the developers decided to take for a more complex and dignified character like Shadow the Hedgehog *snickers loudly to self upon typing this statement*. Or at least this was the developer's sincere intentions that faltered into being Shadow the EDGEhog, a hilarious observational joke that absolutely NO ONE has ever made. In addition to the guns, Shadow also swears like the big man he is. None of these utterances surpass baby’s first curse words like “hell” and “damn,” but I’m still in disbelief that these words are present in any licensed Sonic property. Shadow asking himself where that DAMN fourth Chaos emerald is always got a chuckle out of me, and the same goes for when he tells Eggman he’s “going straight to hell” as a threat before one of their fights. My favorite unintentionally(?) funny line is when Shadow uses the age-old simile of taking candy from a baby to convey how easy taking another Chaos Emerald will be. Then, he has to elaborate that he condones such an action because he’s the baddest mofo alive. Being a grouchy misanthrope is one thing, but this crosses the line. Who wrote this shit?

So does Shadow the Hedgehog’s narrative offer anything of real substance besides abysmal attempts at making Shadow seem cool? Well, the myriad of alternate endings to each campaign should at least make the player somewhat curious. Shadow’s journey to discover the truth leads him to the shocking revelation that he’s a clone of the original Shadow made by Eggman. Or at least this piece of information is only shocking to Shadow and anyone who hasn’t played Sonic Heroes, and that game revealed this twist with much more subtlety. The seven Chaos Emeralds are still out and about for all megalomaniacs in the Sonic universe, and the three general paths revolve around who gets to reap the benefits of Shadow’s emerald hunting throughout the story. The neutral path sees Shadow selfishly seizing all the Chaos Emeralds for himself to truly fulfill his arc of being the “ultimate lifeform” he touted for himself in Sonic Adventure 2. Even the hero and dark routes lead to practically the same outcome, with the only deviation of who Shadow screws over. He leaves the Black Arms leader to rot in the true hero story, and the same fate befalls Sonic in the dark route. In one ending, Shadow and Gamma kill Eggman execution-style as the screen fades to black. Jesus Christ, Sega. Only in the semi-hero ending does Shadow feel remorseful for his past (I don’t forgive you, Shadow). I am not willing to go to the lengths needed to unlock the absolute ultimate true ending where Shadow uses all of the Chaos Emeralds to destroy the alien menace with an audience of all of Sonic and his friends seeing this act of true altruism unfold in awe. It involves objectives needed to be done across every single level that I do not have the strength or patience to stomach. I will gladly settle for Shadow’s newfound confidence in whichever choice he makes.

At the end of the day, Shadow the Hedgehog is difficult to take seriously. Instead of providing a deep, profound character study for Shadow, the result of Sega putting Sonic’s hottest new character in the limelight made an already flawed character a total laughingstock. The story, the gun mechanics, and the brooding presentation reek of trying too hard to appeal to a specific age demographic that it comes off as pandering. Still, with this game as my example, I think the true culprit of 3D Sonic’s downfall is a rushed development period. This has been well documented with future 3D Sonic bombs, and one could make an example out of Sonic Heroes released before this game. Shadow the Hedgehog, in my mind, is the first truly bad 3D Sonic game, but it’s not because the game lacks passion. Specific elements of Shadow the Hedgehog such as the malleable story trajectory are admirable, and some of the levels show real promise. If the developers had the time to hone Shadow’s shoddy controls and the way the levels juggle their objectives, Shadow the Hedgehog could’ve been a solid 3D Sonic game. With its overall direction in mind, I’m not sure that even a competent Shadow the Hedgehog would’ve won me over, but at least there would have been a dedicated number of Sonic fans defending it.

Tunic Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 5/28/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Tunic

Developer: Finji

Publisher: Finji

Genre(s): Action-Adventure, Soulslike

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

Release Date: March 16, 2022

Over the past few years, I’ve used a plethora of positive adjectives to describe Dark Souls. Deep, rich, revolutionary, challenging, spell-binding, sublime, life-affirming: these words only scratch the surface of the exaltation I’ve given to FromSoft’s seminal action-RPG series. However, one delectable description I would NEVER earnestly give Dark Souls under any context is cute. Actually, the franchise is fairly grotesque. The franchise prides itself on upholding a grim, pensive atmosphere marked by the immense decay of the game’s world and all of its inhabitants with little hopeful reprieve. Gigantic, rabid rats, Blighttown swamp ogres, the demons residing in the volcanic ruins, to the often emaciated state of the main protagonist will all turn off each player’s collective appetites. Don’t even get me started on the pulpy, arcane grotesqueries from Dark Soul’s gothic cousin Bloodborne. In the more sexual context of the word cute, I can’t think of a better example of a moment in gaming that made everyone’s penises retract in fear and disgust like an alarmed hermit crab than the reveal of the bottom half of the supermodel spider beast Quelaag. It’s as if the developers were pulling a sick prank on the player, swiftly reminding them that nothing in Dark Souls is pretty or pristine. Fortunately, Dark Souls doesn’t have to be cute, for the impact the series has had seems to translate its idiosyncratic mechanics rather than its aesthetic attributes. Indie developer Finji decided to see what “cute Dark Souls” would look like with their 2022 title Tunic, and it translates fairly well.

I should also add that Tunic takes more than a liberal helping of elements from The Legend of Zelda as well. This second parent in Tunic’s genetic code shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the article of clothing is the dress of choice for the plucky fox protagonist depicted on the game’s cover art, mirroring the hero of time’s iconic wardrobe like an excitable kid on Halloween. Besides The Fox’s outfit as a cheeky reference to Link, Tunic’s gameplay is a marriage between Dark Souls and Zelda, which is a concise relationship because Dark Souls comprises plenty of Zelda’s gameplay attributes itself. However, I did say that Tunic’s gameplay featured a fusion from both series as opposed to sedimentary layers building onto Zelda’s gameplay supporting its descendants at the bottom. Tunic borrows the Soulslike combat, level design, and difficulty curve, but what does Zelda contribute to the game’s foundation? Tunic’s developers seem to have dipped their feet into the classic Zelda philosophy of relatively free-reign exploration, a significant mark that divides the top-down 2D games and the more linear, narrative-focused 3D titles. With this slurry of gameplay elements, the developers evidently wished to craft Tunic as a sprawling adventure title with thin limitations on roaming around the intricate world that is filled to the brim with surprises.

While Tunic’s influences are an important factor in its general makeup, my starting thesis on this game was based on how it formulated something adorable from the Dark Souls foundation that was originally glum and twistedly malformed. From the first screen of Tunic, it should be obvious how the game’s art direction diverges from any aesthetical property in Dark Souls. The fantasy land of Tunic’s setting looks like it's composed entirely of rubber along with its inhabitants but in a child-like bouncy castle way instead of its grayish organic material. It’s a wonder that enemies don’t make squeaking sounds upon being struck by The Fox’s sword. Everything from the assorted trees and tall grasses, to the steep hills, and towering structures resemble the pieces of an intricate playset. It’s reminiscent of the cartoonishly bulbous visual style Nintendo implemented for the Link’s Awakening remake on the Switch, except that Tunic doubles down on consistently depicting everything with a cherubic tint as opposed to only certain elements. Yet, all of the arcane edifices across Tunic’s world still seem grand and imposing. Tunic’s art direction strikes a tasteful balance between the strikingly sublime and the endearingly whimsical. Also, The Fox who vicariously gives the player a grand tour of this world is definitely a contender for the cutest video game protagonist next to Kirby, Yoshi, and Yoku from Yoku’s Island Express. While the visual aspects of Tunic are obviously constructed to make the game look charmingly adorable, the game’s atmosphere surprisingly exudes an ethereal mystique. Because a game that features such soft, spongy aesthetics carries this sense of wonder, it shows that Tunic’s presentation has layers.

Tunic’s taking of Zelda’s sense of exploration is readily apparent from the starting screen. The fox awakens on a beachy shore with zero context of where he is with less of a clue of which direction to take. What the player can figure out for themselves is they are in dire need of a weapon to defend themselves with, as the flopping land tadpoles and the piggish, Ganon-esque knights seen in the overworld are not the friendly sorts. This first quest to procure one’s means of both offense and defense should provoke memories of the first Legend of Zelda title, as Link is dropped into the fray of Hyrule without the necessary tools to survive. Or, it could also conjure up recollections of the Chosen Undead scurrying around the boss in the Northern Undead Asylum before being granted weapons, an opening sequence that is most certainly influenced by the initial state of vulnerability from the first Zelda game. Unlike both games, there isn’t an old man in a nearby cave to pass off his sword out of concern, nor are his devices in the close quarters of an enclosed area like the asylum in Dark Souls. The Fox has to make do with a pitiable stick as his first weapon before reaching the sacred grounds of the sword, and he doesn’t obtain his shield to accompany the sword on his opposite hand until after the first boss is defeated. The supplementary length to obtain the sword and shield is indicative of Tunic’s habit of keeping the player in the dark. Tunic is intentionally cryptic like classic Zelda and Dark Souls, but Tunic seems to amplify the esoteric elements to an absurd degree. On top of having the player roam around the map like a buzzing fly due to a lack of direction, the developers have pulled a Christian Vander (the drummer and leader of the French progressive rock band Magma) and constructed their own language to detail the game’s various attributes. Don’t bother breaking out the Rosetta Stone because it’s all a mesh of cuneiform hieroglyphics that even the developers couldn’t decipher. Of course, this chicken scratch gibberish purposefully obscures any context clues to maintain that aura of ambiguity. Because the game tears away at any hope of easy answers, every step in Tunic can be super miscalculated. I mostly appreciate the effort to foster a relatively non-linear environment ala Zelda 1, but some aspects of this direction aren’t accommodating. Because Tunic features a fixed wide-view camera perspective, it’s difficult for the player to peek at cracks to excavate in the 3D landscape, and some of them are pertinent paths to progression. Also, whenever The Fox does find himself in a cramped crevice, the silhouette the player sees doesn’t really aid in guiding them through it. Meticulously looking for the right path is difficult enough on its own.

How does one have any hope to navigate through the world of Tunic if everything seems so obtuse? Pressing the select button will pop up the game’s manual, a 56-page guide to conquering every challenge and uncovering every hidden secret. Once again, a sweet wash of nostalgia should rush through any player of a certain age because the in-game manual is an homage to the physical manuals, magazine walkthroughs, and strategy guides that gamers of yore were forced to seek out when a game threw them for a loop. The manual’s pages are strewn across Tunic’s overworld as a core collectible, and each page is stacked with hints from head-to-toe on the intricacies found in the game. It sounds like a blessing, but the rotten caveat is that most of the manual’s contents are written in the developer’s made-up mumbo-jumbo language. The manual’s details regarding the thorough history of the game’s lore, information on the various trinkets and goodies, and how to navigate through the more sprawling area of the hub and its surroundings are muddled in linguistic nonsense. Some of the contents of the manual have splotches of English so the player doesn’t have to discern the tips and tricks solely by visual context. Gee, thanks, developers. Now I’ll breeze through this game in no time. Also, a virtual manual does not translate to the same kind of utility that a physical manual did, as it’s quicker to bookmark a notable page and open it while playing a game instead of flipping through pages with the D-pad. At the end of the day, the utility of the manual is negated by the advent of the internet, the destroyer of all antiquated larks that were not available at the time when physical gaming aid was relevant. Whether or not you believe the manual is useful or not, one still can’t deny that it features some gorgeous illustrations.

Still, the manual does adequately depict each step of the game’s progression, albeit construed in an asinine manner. The fox’s first primary quest is to ring two colossal bells on opposite sides of the map. Sound familiar? As if swiping the combat and the cryptic exploration from Dark Souls wasn’t enough, Tunic also copies the game’s first quest as well. No, the player will not witness what Quelaag would look like as a buxom balloon animal complete with tasteful censorship before ringing the second bell. In fact, traveling from one side of the map to the other doesn’t display the same type of descending progression that made the bell-ringing quest from Dark Souls so invigorating either. What keeps Tunic from plunging into the cheap imitation territory is that it has constructed the same type of level progression. I’ve always been in awe of how each area of any FromSoft-developed Soulslike game treats progression and checkpoints, and it’s even more impressive when another developer implements them competently. From the starting point of an area’s shrine, Tunic’s rendition of the bonfires, checkpoints are technically dispersed via shortcuts. The fox will unlatch bridges and unlock doors after a certain point to use indefinitely if the challenges prove to be too hectic and he dies as a result. The player is met with the same level of satisfaction and relief skating past former obstacles along the way to the goal in the exact same way it’s presented in Dark Souls. As for the second quest involving procuring three differently colored jewels to open a gate, this quest is seen across so many games that no one can determine its origin point (although both Zelda and Dark Souls feature a similar quest quite often).

One thing that Tunic leaves alone is the RPG mechanics from Dark Souls. The Fox will leave behind the remnants of his mortal shell at his last place of dying, but recovering it only replenishes a small sum of money lost. Still, the gold and blue doubloons are valuable because The Fox will need a heaping amount of items to use at his disposal. Many of the items can be found in treasure chests on the field, but the player will most likely burn through them and have to purchase them from the skeletal spirit merchant found in the overworld’s windmill. It’s with this aspect of the game that the Zelda influence eclipses Dark Souls, for the plethora of items The Fox has in its inventory is meant to diversify combat and puzzle solving as opposed to being nifty in slight circumstances in Dark Souls. The phantom merchant sells offensive weapons such as firebombs and dynamite so that The Fox can blast away at groups of enemies from afar, while the freeze bomb can be used to subdue stronger singular enemies by encasing them in a coat of ice for a brief period. Fruits of the plum and berry variety restore health and magic respectively, while the more elusive hot pepper increases The Fox’s attack power. For my money, the most useful item the merchant has in stock is the decoy doll, which enemies will center on with as much focus as a cat has for a laser pointer. All of these items are meant to supplement the primary sword weapon, while the other primary weapons The Fox obtains could arguably replace the sword. The player could easily swap all of their melee eggs into the magic basket after a certain point in the game. The Magic Staff pelts enemies with an abundant amount of energy bullets while the ice daggers can freeze enemies just as effectively as the ice bomb item. Eventually, The Fox will come across a shotgun to blast away enemies with magic power at close range, and yes, the image of wee little Fox using a shotgun is as hilariously mismatched as it sounds. The Grapple Hook’s usage for traversal is fairly self-explanatory if you’ve ever played even one Zelda game, but it can also be used to lasso in enemies who annoyingly insist on attacking at long range. With one of the ability cards, the player can swap their health-restoring potions for mana restoration. The choice of magic over melee is as close as Tunic gets to a role-playing option with combat, and the pervasive range of magic items present here helped me escape my melee build comfort zone I usually abide by in Soulslike games. It reminds me more of Zelda because those games encourage using everything the player has at their disposal, while Dark Souls usually forces the player to be faithful to one play style.

I had to diversify my playstyle in Tunic more drastically because the game’s bosses are the true sources of agonizing defeat. Enemies in Tunic vary in viciousness, but each boss is a bitch and a half. The Guard Captain is a gigantic copy of his tinier minions The Fox has been fighting, so dealing with him is a cakewalk. However, the mighty mechanical duo of the Garden Knight and Siege Engine The Fox fights sequentially serve as the game’s first steep roadblocks. I blame the fixed camera for my lack of peripheral reference when it comes to dodge rolling, and shielding their attacks totally depletes all of my stamina. Soulslike bosses are challenging enough, but approaching them in Tunic in the same fashion when one’s sword and shield cannot be upgraded or replaced should be reconsidered. The offerings The Fox makes to increase his stats only do so much. This is why alternating between melee and magic is so important to succeeding with Tunic’s combat, and this especially became the case for the later bosses. The Librarian located at the peak of the Great Library barely gave me any opportunities to strike him with the sword due to him constantly hovering over the perilous arena, and the leaders of the Scavengers kept darting away from my attacks with great swiftness. Becoming accustomed to dealing out brute force and waves of magic akimbo style proved to be the only permissible method of success with Tunic’s bosses, and this mixed direction that I wasn’t used to in Dark Souls made every win a little more gratifying.

I’ve established that Tunic has substantially emulated so many properties from Dark Souls, but what about the series pension for grim outcomes to resolve an adventure? For as cute as the game is, is it merely an enchanting ruse for the game to make the gut punch of a finale more visceral? In a way, this is indeed the case. The central lore figure of Tunic’s world is the incorporeal, cerulean fox housed in the central chamber of the overworld’s map. Dividing the tall, golden doors with the first quest and placing the colored keys in the arcane contraption with the second unveil the solid layers to the apparition at the center. The towering blue fox dressed in a satin gown known as The Heir is the game’s final boss, but she is not to be faced immediately. She strikes down our hero with a swipe of her potent blade, and The Fox is reduced to a ghostly form. After this intentional failure, the spirits of the land’s former foxes hang around the grounds as the fox travels to various memorial sights of these former foxes to regain his strength in the increments of the five increasable assets. He can fight The Heir with the reduced stats he has at hand, but only the foolish would dare to do so. In fact, it’s recommended that the player take their time to exhaustively search for every one of the game’s collectibles in this purgatorial state because putting in the extra effort will mitigate fighting the final boss. If the player collects every page of the game’s manual, approaching The Heir again will result in her accepting the manual with a similar sense of glee and pride like a child gifting something hand-crafted on Mother’s Day. Completing the manual is still a bafflingly difficult task with having to dissect each of the game’s hidden codes with the “Holy Cross” (the D-pad, if that wasn’t clear). The recitable Konami code, these ain’t. Conversely, coming home empty-handed will prompt The Heir to attack with sheer force. This two-phased boss will use rapid sword swipes, energy bursts, and an unhealthy dosage of the glowing, purple corruption matter found in the Quarry to reduce The Fox’s health bar to the size of a fingernail. Tunic doesn’t offer an easy outcome either way, but I still recommend seeking out the pages for a better ending. Curing The Heir is a more interesting ending rather than the recycled Dark Souls resolution of becoming the new martyr in a cyclical process to uphold the new world, which is what happens when The Heir is defeated. Considering how the game looks, I could use something more heartwarming to cap it off.

Transforming Dark Souls into something adorably winsome was the easy aspect of Tunic. Translating all of the properties from the series was the real meat of the matter, and Tunic seems to have processed them efficiently. Still, the extent to which Tunic goes about showcasing these properties gets a tad irksome, especially in regards to obscuring information with nonsensical language along with the clashing perspective that comes with a fixed camera. Also, as the game progressed, it became evident that Tunic borrowed so much from Dark Souls that the game almost literally became Dark Souls with only a visual discernibility. The classic Zelda influence with its loose exploration limits and item management are the saving graces in Tunic that keep it from being a Dark Souls pastiche, only with a cuddly world instead of a gnarly one. At least Tunic seems to have a profound understanding of what makes Dark Souls effective, so I still left Tunic with the same sense of satisfaction.