Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 2/28/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake

Developer: Purple Lamp

Publisher: THQ

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

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

Release Date: January 31, 2023

With their initial task of reworking, or should I say, “rehydrating,” the cult classic licensed game Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom to fit the modern standards of gaming concluded, Purple Lamp Studios were still under contract as the core developer for all of Spongebob’s future interactive adventures. Whether or not one found Rehydrated to be the splendid makeover job that made Battle for Bikini Bottom bloom anew or thought it paled in comparison to the original despite its glossy new graphics was superfluous. The fact of the matter was that Purple Lamp was given the keys to the Spongebob gaming mansion once owned by Heavy Iron, and the gaming community had to trust that they wouldn’t burn it to the ground. Really, the problem with Rehydrated was that Purple Lamp felt obligated to fix what wasn’t broken for the sake of putting in a hard day’s work. When the developers tinker with air-tight aspects of something that already exists just for the sake of change alone, the contentment of those used to the smooth familiarities is bound to be upset. I can’t comment that this is the encompassing reason why Rehydrated garnered mixed reception from critics and fans alike, but that’s my own personal gripe with Purple Lamp’s remake of my most cherished video game from childhood. Purple Lamp simply needed to pave their own path with the Spongebob IP instead of attempting to spruce up one with its own cemented legacy. I was confident with Purple Lamp’s competency displayed with Rehydrated that they’d thrive in the creation process of a completely new product. Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake is Rehydrated’s spiritual successor entirely of Purple Lamp’s own creation, and it’s probably the most delightful Spongebob video game adaptation since the original Battle for Bikini Bottom.

Truthfully, the nagging issue I initially had upon playing The Cosmic Shake had nothing to do with Purple Lamp’s involvement as its developer. One vital component of Battle for Bikini Bottom’s greatness, besides its impeccable gameplay, is that it was released in the glory days of Spongebob’s golden period when Stephen Hillenburg was still at the creative helm of the cartoon sensation. The timeless humor that propelled Spongebob to the stratosphere of the animated television Gods shone as brightly in Battle for Bikini Bottom as it did with the episodes that ran concurrently. Given that the quality of Spongebob took a noticeable nosedive immediately after Hillenburg resigned from his post, imagine how immensely The Cosmic Shake will suffer by being a Spongebob product decades after the source material declined. To my delight, The Cosmic Shake isn’t afflicted with the deepening Flanderization the show keeps digging itself into as it continues to air. Firstly, the plot premise of The Cosmic Shake takes a similar approach to Battle for Bikini Bottom, letting the main antagonist of the story take advantage of Spongebob’s childlike naivety. Only this time, he’s not blameless for the chaos that ensues. Spongebob is given a special bottle of bubble soap from a mysterious vendor operating out of Glove World. When Spongebob brings it around town (literally) and blows several spectacular bubbles without any concern, he learns the hard way how special this particular bottle of glossy liquid is when it shreds the space-time continuum. With Bikini Bottom in a state of disarray like it was pounded by Hurricane Katrina, Spongebob must rely on the cosmic insight of the mermaid who gave him the magic, volatile bubble soap to restore his hometown that has been profoundly affected by the calamity. The plot premise is refreshing because modern Spongebob has a penchant for inconveniencing his fellow Bikini Bottomites without being aware of his toxic influence, much less taking responsibility for it. As Spongebob ventures out on his mission to amend his mistakes, it’s also relieving that he barely exhibits all of the irritating, watered-down characteristics of his personality that have cropped up due to the show overstaying far past its prime. He’s that kind hearted, gregarious invertebrate that I and everyone else around my age fell head over heels with instead of the infuriating cretin he’s become who alternates between intensely singing and crying like a theater kid in desperate need of a prescription to Ritalin. All of the notable secondary characters are also suppressing their dumbed-down traits the show has unfortunately seeped into their personas as well. The Cosmic Shake may not provide any moments that generate a hearty laugh from me, but it satisfies the metric of a quality modern Spongebob product in that it isn’t insufferable.

Except for Revenge of the Flying Dutchman, every Spongebob video game I’ve played involves one or more of Spongebob’s friends performing a significant portion of the legwork as playable characters. The Cosmic Shake waives this recurring trend and puts Spongebob on his lonesome. Patrick still has a prominent presence as a character, but he’s been relegated to a diminutive sidekick. Like Daxter, all he does is hover over Spongebob’s shoulder for the entire duration of the game, providing commentary and banter for entertainment value. Because Spongebob has been tasked to undergo this intrepid quest without any aid on the field, he’s gained quite the platformer move pool to work off of. From Sandy, Spongebob has inherited her swinging and gliding abilities, with the former executed with Spongebob latching his enormous tongue to hanging fish hooks (ouch!) and the latter move involves using a pizza box about the classic first-season episode “Pizza Delivery.” I hate to be one of those guys, but it’s the pizza inside the box with parachute properties, not the box itself. Boy, I hope someone got fired for that blunder. Similar to the hooks, Spongebob can karate kick a series of balloons reminiscent of Sonic’s homing attack. Spongebob’s base method of offense is his tried and true bubble wand from BfBB, with the karate kick and a ground pound covering the space of the air and the ground in between. Both the bubble-oriented maneuvers were conjured up by Purple lamp, with a surfboard that glides to distances unreachable with the inexplicably magical pizza box and blowing a bubble that ensnares enemies in a state of vulnerability. Covering plenty of bases with this eclectic set of moves should put the player in a state of confidence. Every new move is easy to learn and just as practical to master, with plenty of utilization on the field afterward once they are unlocked. If one still can’t use all of these skills to blaze towards victory, the player can take advantage of Spongebob’s cartwheel move for defensive purposes. Dodge rolling? In a Spongebob game? We truly live in strange times.

Bikini Bottom’s properties lost in the bubble cataclysm also extend to Spongebob’s friends, also known as the notable supporting cast from the show. The vicious vortexes opened by the arcane bubble soap have sucked each of Spongebob’s friends into alternate dimensions of Bikini Bottom’s notable districts, and Spongebob must traverse through these bizarro realms of familiar territory to blow his compadres back home like Dorothy from Oz. The omniverse trope has been exceedingly popular across all forms of fiction over the past decade, and I’ve always cynically surmised that the infinite possibilities that come with this concept provide a cop out for writers to never have to consider the logic or rationality behind any of their ideas. I’ll accept Spongebob using this exhausted device since it’s used for lighthearted variety instead of abstract convolution.

The rustic wilderness of Jellyfish Fields fits nicely as the frontier for a wild west setting, with Spongebob riding around on seahorses between barrels of hay and oncoming trains. The urban ritziness of Downtown Bikini Bottom is apparently comparable to Hollywood, considering a portion of the city is being sectioned off to film a karate kung fu film starring Spongebob and Sandy. The beachy Goo Lagoon fits perfectly for a pirate-themed romp, but the Halloweeny theme driving Rock Bottom’s revisit presents a misunderstanding of why the submerged city was effectively spooky in BfBB. The setting is supposed to be the cold and unnerving kind of spooky, not an underwater version of Jack Skellington’s residence. After skipping a few vital BfBB settings in their consecutive streak before returning to the Kelp Forest as it is was before the dawn of civilization, Cosmic Shake starts paving over ground uncharted in BfBB by teleporting Spongebob to a medieval settlement in the Sulfur Fields and returning to the amusement park of Glove World as a fully traversable environment. One can tell that each level’s theme functions as a distinct, kooky adventure premise, and that each area’s coat of refurbishment branches off of the original setting’s atmosphere sensibly. This logical correlation also extends to which of Spongebob’s associates is providing the progression path, with Mr. Krabs as a high-profile bank robber in Jellyfish Fields and his bratty whale daughter Pearl as a literal princess in part of the medieval caste in the Sulfur Fields. I’m sick to death of various pieces of modern media using the multidimensional trope so liberally as if its perceived unlimited potential will never exhaust and become a cliche, with The Cosmic Shake as yet another example in a long lineup of them. Still, I can’t deny that it fosters a varied gamut of level premises that ensure the player is never bored by repetition.

However, one significant aspect of each of The Cosmic Shake’s areas that does, unfortunately, instill a moderate feeling of boredom in me is their design. Progressing through every single district of Bikini Bottom and its neighboring city below it is as linear as following the yellow brick road. Admittedly, many of BfBB’s levels are formatted with a straightforward climb or trek, but some of the later levels, like the Mermalair and the Kelp Forest, weren’t afraid to throw a monkey wrench into the course of linearity with some more methodical sections. No matter their placement in the game, each level of The Cosmic Shake barely shakes up (no pun intended) the format in the slightest. Most of the time, the disruptions on the field are enemy gauntlet barricades where Spongebob is forced to eliminate all of the jelly creatures, either created by the tampering of the sacred bubble soap product or they’ve traveled to Bikini Bottom from some horrid cosmic realm via a resonance cascade-like portal. Like the robots from BfBB, these grotesque purple monsters emerge with various physical and offensive properties. Some of them even transmit the tactics of Plankton’s mechanical creations with a jelly that shoots tartar sauce from a squirt gun and a duplicator who shares a strong resemblance to Mr. Krabs’ abominable “appetizer” from “Squilliam Returns.” With their assorted abilities all targeting Spongebob at once, the army of these extraterrestrial curiosities will efficiently keep the player alert when their battles arise. Still, waiting for the opportunity to hit some bulkier enemies like the strapping brute who wields a bathtub and the tall sandworms tends to make some fighting scenarios a little grating. When the game actually provides progression impediments that are implemented with the level design, like searching for cactus juice or locating pirate ships to reel a sock to the top of their mast like a flag, the game soils the scavenger hunt by highlighting their locations with targets seen from any angle. What’s the fun in that? Even if games are developed with a younger demographic in mind, providing a reference pronounced so obviously whenever something needs to be located severely undermines the player’s intelligence.

Some of The Cosmic Shake’s bosses are also unfortunately beset by oddly facile gameplay scenarios. Retrieving Mr. Krabs from his joyous stint of funneling in stolen money as an outlaw involves a chase sequence on seahorseback, but one cannot tell that bringing Mr. Krabs to justice is part of this goal because Spongebob’s manager is barely present during this sequence. Seeing Prawn again after I figured he would be endemic to BfBB was a delightful surprise, and his pelting of Spongebob with explosive pies throughout Goo Lagoon’s beaches is both a wonderful reference and a thrilling threat to constantly keep a vigilant eye out for. Still, the process of seizing his ship so the Flying Dutchman can reclaim control over all pirate activity in Goo Lagoon is achieved so suddenly that I’m still confused as to exactly what I did to shoot the pretentious shrimp out of the sky. Having an old hag with witch powers use her spells to spill a birthday cake out of Spongebob’s hands isn’t a unique challenge: it’s an annoyance. However, the other half of The Cosmic Shake’s climactic battles among the duds actually involve intimate combat and intricate battle mechanics with a Spongebob series regular. The swift, crafty Sandy and the blubbering cave whale version of Pearl will make the player utilize the dodge rolling maneuver in both of their fights, quickly darting around the ricocheting of a heaving hamster wheel with spikes and tidal waves of tears, respectively. “Fighting” a gigantically mutated Gary, possessed like Regan from The Exorcist if the pea soup projectiles are any indication, is another unorthodox duel where the target of Spongebob’s offense is rather the three candy machines whose bountiful supply of sugar has apparently transformed Gary into this monstrosity. Unlike the cake deliveries in the castle, dodging Gary’s gaze as Spongebob climbs the sprawling staircase of Rock Bottom’s museum is quite tense. Shooting Glove World’s disturbing mascot with the contents sucked up in a reef blower is also one of the more rousing brawls. None of these fights against slightly adulterated forms of Spongebob’s friends are comparable to gaming’s brow-sweating brawls like The Nameless King or anything, but I commend the last few mentioned because there is at least a discernible amount of effort in their encounters as opposed to the ones I critiqued. The game’s final boss, where Kassandra uses a particularly irate Squidward as a vessel to crush Spongebob, technically fits the more exemplary half of boss fights, but the general encompassing ease of them all, regardless of the mechanics, makes this concluding duel rather anticlimactic. It’s probably an apologetic gesture for how Purple Lamp misappropriated Robot Squidward in Rehydrated, but now the studio has to redeem itself again for an unmemorable final boss fight.

If the player wants gameplay from The Cosmic Shake that requires a more concerted approach, they can still receive that by seeking out the optional collectibles. Scattered around every bizarro realm of Bikini Bottom are several gold doubloons, a currency used to purchase the treasure trove of fan service the game provides: the costumes. Sure, Madame Kassandra gives Spongebob a fitting new costume for the environment he’s about to visit per her attuned feminine judgment for fashion. Still, collecting the coins unlocks a whole wardrobe of recognizable outfits from the cartoon series that are sure to titillate any Spongebob fan. My bias veers me towards the ones from the first three seasons, but I did spend plenty of my playthrough walking about in hippie Spongebob’s sandals and Rockstar Spongebob’s ridiculous platform boots with the same amount of amusement. Interactively wearing a reference is certainly a perk, but collecting the coins themselves is its own reward. They are located in places that are genuinely difficult to spot on the immediate path, and the fact that no radar easily susses out their locations to the player like every main objective fosters an organic, meticulous searching process. A sizable number of coins are also unobtainable until Spongebob acquires a specific move, so collecting them also increases the game’s replay value tenfold. With the promise of diversifying Spongebob’s outfit and a substantial challenge, I highly recommend that every player go the distance and invest in a Scrooge McDuck-sized coin purse.

I still decree that Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake is undoubtedly the dorky, excitable sea sponge’s second finest outing in an interactive medium. It doesn’t sound like exalting praise, but considering how many times Nickelodeon’s hottest property has been misused in gaming, I can assure you that I’m giving kudos to Purple Lamp. In saying this, The Cosmic Shake’s placement as a silver-award winner among Spongebob’s interactive titles still ranks far below the golden God that is Battle for Bikini Bottom, and I’m referring to the original, of course. Purple Lamp’s questionable mechanics that were present in their Rehydrated remake are still driving our yellow protagonist. While they don’t bother me as much as they previously did when they were adulterating my beloved BfBB, their streamlined feel still makes moving around as Spongebob feel less impactful. Really, it’s more appropriate for The Cosmic Shake because the entire game exudes a sense of ironing out BfBB to a point of steaming out much of its tender juices. The level design is far too linear for my liking, and this narrow progression naturally invites the game to sanction many uninspired aspects of gameplay that verge too heavily into effortless territory. Is this the standard for modern games with a school-aged demographic in mind? Still, The Cosmic Shake radiates the same old school Spongebob charm that its gilded predecessor did, and that’s all a Spongebob fan can possibly ask for after years of annoying all of the kids who grew up with his earlier episodes. A worthwhile licensed game is still elevated by evoking the aura of its source material, and The Cosmic Shake is adequate enough on that merit alone.

Sonic Unleashed Review

(Originally published to Glitchwave on 2/26/2025)

 

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Sonic Unleashed

Developer: Sega

Publisher: Sega

Genre(s): 3D Platformer, Beat 'em Up

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360

Release Date: November 20, 2008

The silver lining in playing the eponymous 2006 Sonic game is that any one of the blue blur's titles will seem like a breath of fresh air in comparison. Now that the worst is out of the way, it's time to let my guard down and treat myself to a bonafide Sonic delight...with the game where he transforms into a werewolf…

*sigh* Well, I didn’t say that every Sonic game released after his stinking self-titled 3D game was a masterpiece. The blue blur’s near future peeking over the horizon was brighter, but only marginally so, like the blackness of night reverted back to the dim shade of dusk instead of the shining radiance of a new morning. Naturally, everyone knows that the waning light of evening shade is not bright enough to have a picnic. While Sonic Unleashed did not plunge down to the abyssal cesspit of gaming’s greatest failures like the HD Sonic game before it, it still didn’t redeem Sonic in the eyes of the general gaming public. All it did was supply more verifiable proof that Sonic should’ve been buried alongside Sega’s other stalwart series when their tenure in the console market had fizzled out, even in spite of Sonic’s higher status as a revered gaming celebrity. Since Sonic Unleashed made the stain that Sonic 06 imprinted on the franchise more salient, it’s been given the same retrospective treatment that all of the other once-slandered 3D Sonic games have been blessed with. It is now a lauded cult classic amongst the delusionally dutiful Sonic fans, receiving genuine praise in hindsight rather than the polite leeways given to his 2006 effort (using the term pejoratively). Upon noticing that these 3D Sonic games that were once perceived as pisspoor were garnering new assessments with so much time passed, I still remained skeptical regarding Sonic 06. I attempted to appreciate the finer details of its level design and ambitious narrative, but every time I tried to stop and smell the roses, the game ravaged me mercilessly like a randy roadside trucker. Of course, I never let my guard down, so I was never too disappointed. However, with Sonic Unleashed, I fully trusted the fans’ laudation, and I was foolish enough to believe them. I’ll certainly never do that again.

From every initial impression, everyone can plainly see that the primary driving force/gimmick of Sonic Unleashed’s conceptual identity is that Sonic periodically transforms into a mangier, toothier version of himself that resembles a beast from mythical werewolf lore. How did Sonic come in contact with a howling, nocturnal terror, and how did it catch up with him to sink its teeth into his flesh? The game’s introduction reveals that Sonic was not afflicted with the werewolf curse in the traditional fashion. Instead, the fate befell him when he meddled with Eggman’s newest scheme. Similarly to Sonic 06, Sonic Unleashed felt it necessary to start the story with Eggman engaging in some new nefarious deed, only for it to be momentarily halted by Sonic’s heroism. However, where Sonic won the battle in Sonic 06’s introduction while the war waged on, the falling action of Unleashed’s opening sequence sees Sonic undergo more blowback than ever. Eggman manages to trap Sonic in an electrical vice that saps all of his Super Sonic energy, and the mix of anger and anguish somehow results in Sonic’s hair and teeth growing exponentially. Since Sonic is subdued, Eggman can carry on with his plans, which involve firing a colossal energy cannon onto a planet that divides it into fragments. After he succeeds, he disposes of Sonic like trash by releasing the oxygen valve of his spaceship, blasting Sonic into the infinite plain of the universe. Unleashed has evidently taken a note from Super Mario Galaxy and showcased the high stakes of the story by illustrating that evil can win and our intrepid protagonist can be smote. It’s an especially humbling scene for Sonic, for he’s got a reputation for being the cockiest sumbitch in the gaming medium. His friends aren’t in the vicinity to avenge him, and he can’t harness the power of “chaos control” to teleport himself to safety. His doom seems sealed here, and it's sure to strike a chord in the Sonic fanbase.

Of course, we know full well that Sonic cannot be permanently vanquished, much less in an opening cutscene. Still, Eggman rupturing an entire planet sets a grim precedent that suggests Sonic will have his work cut out for him once he recuperates. Conveniently, Sonic is sucked into the gravitational pull of the shattered globe and lands briskly on the soil of the land of Apotos where he is greeted by a mysterious, furry pixie creature that he dubs “Chip.” Roaming around the hub of the hilly valley, the player might notice that this land shares several architectural similarities with the country of Greece. The stark similarities are no coincidence, as the collective of Unleashed’s levels/hubs are concretely modeled after real-world locations. Every subsequent 3D Sonic game distanced him further away from his home planet of Mobius and leaned Sonic closer towards integrating with humanity, and catapulting the blue blur into a simulacrum of our beloved Earth is about as close he’s going to get to vicariously interacting with the player. Personally, it’s a little too close for comfort. When Sonic flies out of Apotos on Tails’ biplane, every destination afterwards demonstrates the same discernible parallels to the same degree as the first area. Africa is represented twice on the world map, with Shamar representing the northern, Arabic Middle Eastern section and Mazuri the vast savannah of the Serengeti. For more urban locales, Spagonia is evidently Italy with its Euro-romantic atmosphere, while Empire City is an on-the-nose depiction of the congested cityscape of New York City. Chun-nan is unmistakably China, but I cannot say for certain whether or not Adabat is also another strip of Asia or an island nation in the Pacific. The frigid Holoska irks me a bit, for there is no place on Earth where penguins and indigenous Eskimo people coexist. Still, I quite enjoyed my time playing “Where in the world is Sonic the Hedgehog?” Globetrotting around the uncanny, cartoonish mirror image of our world evidently provides enough diversity without having to tap into the exhausted roulette of typical elemental tropes found across most games in the platformer genre. Plus, Sonic being placed among the humans in this game isn’t as off putting as it was in the hub of Soleanna because the NPCs are also rendered to be as animated looking as Sonic. The areas are, without a doubt, the most inspired and interesting aspect of Sonic Unleashed.

But how do these comparatively domestic locales fare as Sonic levels? Quite beautifully, actually. With great consideration, Sega has managed to reconfigure the exhilarating spectacle of something like Green Hill Zone or Lost World in an environment that is somewhat confined to real-world parameters. Greece is already a picturesque country in the real world, so imagine ripping through grind rails above its crisp blue waters while its postcard-worthy landscapes are situated as backdrops. The same sense of wonder and amazement that comes with zooming through a divine urban environment is exuded to the same extent in Spagonia, with the clocktower as the centerpiece of the action that is a blast to scale upward and downward with Sonic’s outstanding velocity. Holska’s thick walls of ice serve as perfect tracks for ice luge segments, and after sliding down the frosty channels, Sonic scales the backside of a gigantic arctic whale before being jetted into the sky by the stream of water ejected from its blowhole. Running through the winding dragon constructs in Chun-nan is a fantastic integration of regional set pieces in the level design, and coasting through the Brooklyn Bridge in seconds in Empire City is a cathartic achievement for any American such as myself. For settings that are seemingly confined to elements of the real world, Sega has managed to make the most ostentatious Sonic levels the series has ever seen. However, the selection is a bit top-heavy as every level I’ve described is the first act of three. I’m thankful that the mandatory level that progresses the game is the tour de force, but every level in the same area that follows is an unsubstantial, smaller reshaping of what the player has already experienced.

However, the breathtaking exhilaration that comes with each level is significantly diminished by Sonic’s gameplay. Every Sonic fan who adores Unleashed claims that its stages are faultless, but I’ve discovered several refutes to their assessments that are too numerous to count. One particular innovation on Sonic’s gameplay that debuts in Unleashed is the boost mechanic. Provided Sonic has enough rings, holding down a certain button on the controller will hasten his maximum speed to a precarious degree unseen in any previous Sonic title. Any seasoned Sonic fan will know that precariousness with Sonic will often lead to calamity, which happened far too often in Unleashed for me to appreciate the breakneck pace that the game fosters. Given that Unleashed is still a platformer like all of the Sonic titles before it, one can assume that there are obstacles intended to impede the progress of the player, and failing to navigate through said obstacles will often result in an untimely death via sharp arrays of spikes or falling down bottomless pits. With Sonic constantly blazing through these levels at the unparalleled rate of speed that Unleashed sanctions, one can imagine how common an occurrence it is that the player will haphazardly kill Sonic when confronted with more complicated terrain that they couldn’t have possibly anticipated. Not only is the likelihood of Sonic’s demise increased by the mismatching of speed and methodical jumping, but it's bound to happen countless times because there are so many instances of these deadly platforming buffers scattered throughout each level. Sonic has to slow to a crawl to turn through a particularly sharp bend of highway road in Empire City because the drift mechanic is incredibly tanky, and the grind rail sections tend to thwart the player by sticking a ball of spikes on the end of a line that fatally trip Sonic into the abyss if the player doesn’t course correct in a literal split second. Immediately as Sonic prepares to rush into Adabat, navigating through the boardwalk right at the very beginning involves dashing over wooden flooring designed diagonally like a crossword puzzle at a speed so reckless that Sonic should be fined a ticket for endangering himself. A challenging section that tests the player’s proficiency with the quick step mechanic is appropriate for a later level, but does it have to take place during the first few seconds of the level before the player has time to take their first breath? Even if the player is shrewd enough to catch the intermittent platforming sections that shift the perspective slightly, carefully placing Sonic on the platforms with precision is not guaranteed. Sonic’s overall control, no matter the context, always has the antsy acceleration to it like he’s itching to blast off, so slipping off the platforms with his eagerness is also a likely scenario that is bound to aggravate the player. Course correcting with the homing attack is also not an option anymore, thanks to the boost mechanic. And here I thought that 3D Sonic remedied the recurring issue that classic Sonic had with imperceptible obstacles stalling Sonic dead in his tracks. Did Sega not think that sprinting through loops bouncing all over as Sonic wasn’t stimulating enough? If the boost mechanic were present with the level design from either Sonic Adventure title, it would be heavenly. Alas, placing constant impediments in front of Sonic at Mach speed is pure hell, making for the most brutally unyielding, memorization-intensive Sonic game to date. The player should not be forced to master a level just to finish it.

If I have found so many grievances with what is perceived as the solid half of Unleashed’s gameplay, imagine the vitriol I’m going to spew in regards to the other half of the game that even the game’s enthusiasts can’t earnestly defend. In disregard of storied werewolf logic, every nightly eclipse of the sun by the moon, no matter its shape, transforms Sonic into his grizzlier counterpart. Instead of rolling around at the speed of sound, Werewolf (sorry, “werehog”) Sonic’s levels are slower-paced beat ‘em up sections, scratching and gnashing at armies of foes and racking up hit combos in the process. The languidness of the werewolf sections also gives way to incorporating puzzles and platforms of a more methodical variety. Truthfully, the night sections of Unleashed are an honest-to-God homage to God of War. Not only should the beat ‘em up combat ring familiar, but Unleashed also adopts idiosyncrasies specific to Sony’s ancient Greek epic, with quick time events and balance beams galore. I’d like to add that these particular attributes are not exactly upstanding merits to God of War’s gameplay, so imagine how poorly they are executed in Unleashed’s imitation of them. Similar to Kratos, Werehog Sonic is an elephant constantly being forced to climb a tree. He's a strapping creature capable of mass destruction, expected to perform feats out of his physical element. Even with the innate ability to double jump, Werehog Sonic couldn’t even dunk on a driveway basketball hoop. Every leap to another platform should involve a frantic tapping of the button that latches Sonic onto the edges, for it’s the only way to ensure that his lack of acrobatic skill, matched with the finicky target system, won’t result in Sonic screaming his head off as he falls to his untimely death. Any section involving climbing poles is especially aggravating, for the directional controls seldom cooperate with the player’s intended trajectory for jumping off. As for Werehog Sonic’s forte of beat ‘em up combat, it’s fairly adequate. The Werehog will alternate between light and heavy attacks with his strangely elastic arms between two buttons, and the effectiveness of his punches and scratches can be increased with the yellow, floating spinning tops accumulated through defeating enemies in a menu that appears upon completing a level. Werehog Sonic can also ignite a fury mode of sorts with enough auxiliary energy that will allow him to tear through Eggman’s rotund robots and the shadowy lizard creatures like a buzzsaw through a log. The Werehog’s shield only having a finite amount of uses is absolute bullshit, however. While the combat itself is fine, it greatly wears out its welcome due to each Werehog level presenting a consecutive stream of battle bouts per level. Because the Werehog is Sonic’s slower alter ego, each of his levels takes approximately 20-30 minutes to finish on average, five to six times the run time of a regular Sonic level. Even the alternate gameplay of other characters in previous Sonic games didn’t prolong their levels to that sluggish extent. On the subject of 3D Sonic’s tendency to incorporate other variations of gameplay, the Werehog by far presents the greatest dichotomy to the widest and worst degree. The formula of repetitive combat sequences with rigid and awkward platforming segments turning the tedium into utter frustration always proved to be a full-on assault to my patience and well-being. The Werehog levels make me want to shoot Sonic with a silver bullet to put him out of his misery, or shoot myself with one if it's the quicker method to stop playing these godforsaken levels.

To add insult to injury, there were plenty of intermission moments in between the action stages because said stages were inaccessible. Out of the player’s peripheral vision in either the action stages or the hubs, one might notice some tokens scattered about with either a sun or crescent moon pattern painted on them. If one assumes that these collectibles are an optional lark, one had better think again. Collecting the medals of contrasting cosmic bodies is paramount to progression, and the later levels in the game require an outrageous amount to unlock them. Sonic’s gameplay has always somewhat fit the classification of a platformer, but never the collectathon subfaction of them for reasons that should be obvious. Gathering all of these circular trinkets is somewhat appropriate for the Werehog stages, for the slower pace of his gameplay gives him ample opportunity to digress from progression to search meticulously. However, sun medals are far more common and plentiful than the moon ones in the Werehog stages while the opposite is true for Sonic during the daytime. In order to access the Werehog stages, the game seriously expects Sonic to divert from his path of perilously blazing through the stage to stop and consider the possibility that a medal might be located in an inconspicuous corner. As expected, halting Sonic’s momentum this drastically is counterintuitive to his distinguishing, speedy gameplay. Besides the nonsensical manner in which these medals are collected, having to uncover over one hundred of each type of medal to gain passage to every level the game offers is ludicrous and turns the game into a grinding regimen. The ordeal is so vexing and wearisome that it provides more reason to cock the hypothetical gun I mentioned in the last paragraph.

Once the player manages to persevere through the medal collecting process and survive every action stage, they still won’t be ready to face the challenges that arise in Unleashed’s climax. After the second and equally unmemorable segment of flying Tails’ biplane, Sonic will be confronted with the fresh fruits of Eggman’s labor. Since Eggman could continue his business after momentarily smiting Sonic in the introduction, his uninterrupted schedule has allowed him to create a passion project he’s mentioned many times before. “Eggmanland” is the sprawling city in the doctor’s image that he always sought to construct, a gaudy industrial theme park drenched in a sleazy, nightlife neon. Sonic must wipe this abominable metropolis off the map by navigating through it as Unleashed’s climactic level, and it’s one hell of a grandiose finale. In saying this, the intended context I’m trying to illustrate with the scope of Eggman Land is that it’s an endurance test to end all endurance tests. Six segments divide the total length of Eggmanland’s run time, alternating between regular Sonic and his beastly form. Besides the upset of the tides that are bound to transpire with the abrupt hourglass switches, every segment that comprises the run time of Eggmanland features what are undoubtedly the most brutal gameplay segments across Unleashed’s play time. Platforming as the Werehog on pipes overlooking a river of lava takes extreme precision to keep him from smoldering to a crisp, and the bombardment of Eggman’s robots antagonizing Werehog Sonic is far more overwhelming to confront than any combat encounters in previous levels. Normal Sonic isn’t off the hook either, as the cheeky Eggman bumpers have strict hitboxes and the luge section is fit for an Olympic event. The quick time events that correlate with the wall jumps here require such lightning-fast reaction time that I resorted to pausing the game to prepare. No comment. With the player’s ego being curb-stomped at every waking moment in Eggmanland, what makes this unmitigated onslaught particularly maddening is that all six segments aren’t registered as individual acts. The approximate time to complete all six segments that comprise Eggmanland can take anywhere between 45 minutes to *over a fucking hour* to complete. I guess this nightmare of a level should be expected when Eggman’s evil ambitions finally come to fruition, and it makes for what is definitively the most grueling and punishing Sonic level in existence–even among contenders like Labyrinth Zone and Cannon’s Core. Whoever at Sega devised this fuckness should be put on trial for committing a crime against humanity.

When the player eventually receives a hint of relief upon finishing Eggmanland, Unleashed refuses to put the brakes on the game’s unrelenting momentum. Up until Eggmanland, one aspect of Unleashed that I quite enjoyed was the boss battles, whose fights barricaded the entrance to the temples. Denting Eggman’s various animal mechs was an absolute thrill that utilized Sonic’s newfound, blisteringly-fast speed better than the actual levels leading up to them, and the game even managed to produce some engaging bosses with the Werehog’s beat ‘em up gameplay despite how many quick time events were included to ruin them. Eggman’s last hurrah with the Egg Dragoon is also a fine inclusion to finish off the mad doctor’s newest roulette of mechs, and I wish it were the final duel of Unleashed.

Eggman’s impetus for cracking open the earth with a concentrated blast was to awaken a sinister entity called Dark Gaia, prophetically foretold to obliterate the world once every ten millennia. Because Eggman has prematurely disturbed this harbinger of the apocalypse in an effort to control it, he’s ready to erase the world as we know it. As per the thematic constructs of Unleashed, there has to be a benevolent counterpart to Dark Gaia’s malevolence, and the opposite on that spectrum is none other than Chip. The embodiment of goodwill in its premature form as a furry little pixie creature makes sense…I think. In the final moments of Unleashed, Chip finally starts contributing to the narrative and combats his evil twin by forming a giant stone golem to duke it out in epic kaiju fashion. The rinse and repeat process of steadily flying towards him as he pelts Chip’s rock-em sock-em boulder man with meteors and laser blasts deviates from any other form of Sonic gameplay so radically that it's inappropriate for it to culminate in the climax. When Sonic has the opportunity to close in on Dark Gaia and the gameplay reverts back to something familiar, the requirements to deliver the critical blows to Dark Gaia are so strict that it's bound to deplete as many lives as Eggmanland. Even when the game features the obligatory Super Sonic section, destroying Dark Gaia’s snakes while minding Chip’s health simultaneously barely acts as the simple period that finalizes the adventure. Being invulnerable is what makes him super! Dark Gaia kept proverbially dunking my head underwater after I almost drowned in Eggmanland’s unwavering brutality, and I couldn’t have been more relieved when it was finally over.

From this day forward, all praise that Sonic fans espouse regarding the blue blur’s 3D output will be falling on deaf ears. I’m convinced that Sonic fans only adore the speedy spectacle that comes with the whirlwind flight that comes with daytime Sonic, and I can’t deny that it’s intoxicating. However, getting swiftly kicked in the yarbles with the countless lethal obstacles interrupting that rush is not my definition of fun. Needless to say, I’m also echoing the sentiment that the Werehog stages are a slog, so both gameplay styles in Unleashed pissed me off in equal measure. Add a mandatory grinding mechanic to the narrative that is ultimately arbitrary in the grand scheme of things, plus a level that encapsulates what gaming damnation likely is, and Sonic Unleashed changes from a curiosity to a source of offense and befuddlement at its newfound acclaim. It’s at least better than Sonic 06, but this is not a metric that future Sonic games should strive for. Hell, if Sonic 06 had that valuable time to marinate into a competent product, it probably would’ve been better than Sonic Unleashed.

Mario Kart: Super Circuit Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 2/18/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Mario Kart: Super Circuit

Developer: Intelligent Systems

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): Kart Racer

Platforms: GBA

Release Date: July 21, 2001

Mario Kart: Super Circuit really took a hot, steaming dump all over the evolutionary strides that Mario Kart 64 laid out for the format of Mario’s kart-racing institution, did it not? Sorry to start this review on a crudely negative note, but the retroversion of the series that Super Circuit displays is a little disheartening. The cardinal point of Super Circuit’s regression is admittedly inherent because it's a mobile Mario Kart game. The GBA may have exhibited prettier pixel art than any of Nintendo’s pixelated home consoles, but it is still confined to the limited capabilities of 2D graphics nonetheless. Therefore, since I’ve stated that Mario Kart can’t properly exist without the dimensional depth of 3D, Super Circuit should’ve been buried in the heap of Nintendo’s idea scrapyard along with the sequel to the Virtual Boy and Luigi-brand Viagra. Truly, Nintendo should’ve waited to properly succeed Mario Kart 64 when the next 3D console (the Gamecube) was sufficiently up and running. However, while I still believe the third dimension is an integral aspect to Mario Kart’s fun factor, replaying Mario Kart 64 to review it was a lesson that 3D did not intrinsically make it a masterpiece. Even though 3D drastically deepened the immersiveness of the gameplay, several snags soiled the Mario Kart 64 experience. Developing in a radically new spatial plane proved to generate mistakes that were just as amateurish as the ones seen in Super Mario Kart. Because Mario Kart 64 was radically different from Super Mario Kart due to its additional dimensional schematics, Super Circuit is the first instance of a direct sequel in the series that could revise the formula of one of the rudimentary Mario Kart games before it. Depressingly enough, it’s in the 2D realm of Super Mario Kart, but perhaps hindsight can fix something barely functional and blossom it into a fun little butterfly.

To my surprise, the initial quality-of-life enhancement I was proactively searching for was something that stemmed from Mario Kart 64, not Super Mario Kart. Besides the rubberbanding in Mario Kart 64 implemented to keep all CPUs at an intimate distance regardless of the player’s skill as a racer, the aspect of the series 3D debut that appalled me to no end was the invisible statistical merits assigned to each character. No, it wasn’t the fact that such a complex discernment was put in place for an accessible kart racer–just that the game withheld this information from me, and my inclination to play as Toad came with unforeseen consequences. In Super Circuit, I’d be less inclined to play as the Mushroom Kingdom’s most notable NPC because the character menu would show me that he’s as light as a feather and as delicate as a dandelion. Yes, Super Circuit unveils each character’s stats that Mario Kart 64 obscured, presenting that there is a hint of depth and consideration to one’s selection beyond surface-level enjoyment. Mario and Luigi are naturally the balanced ones in this equation while the heavier characters like Donkey Kong, Wario, and Bowser trade acceleration and speed for brute strength. On the other end of the weight spectrum, smaller characters such as the aforementioned Toad along with Yoshi and Peach aren’t as durable but tend to be lighting fast and can drift around the various curvatures of the tracks with greater ease and proficiency. You’ll notice in describing the three general weight classes each character falls under that Super Circuit’s roster is the exact same lineup of familiar Mushroom Kingdom faces seen in Mario Kart 64. Is keeping the roster intact an attempt to garner forgiveness for fogging up their racing traits in the previous title? If it is, I’ll accept their apology because it’s a simple change the series desperately needed. If the player did not mind or didn't even notice the statistical differences between every character in Mario Kart 64 and wants to keep racing on blind faith, a random option is located in the center of the character select screen to ensure an unsystematic Mario Kart experience.

Another issue regarding the pixelated plain of Super Mario Kart is that the familiar backdrops of Mario’s world that served as track themes were rendered in a quite askew fashion. Sure, they were easily recognizable, but through a warped, disoriented lens as if the player took too many of Mario’s mushrooms, if you catch my drift. Besides the jarring visuals, the tracks themselves hardly offered much in the way of variation in terms of obstacles or hazards. All of the game’s efforts to keep the player’s guard on high alert were seemingly allocated to a select few tracks such as the variations on Bowser’s fiery domain and the courses that comprise that game’s Special Cup. Still, perhaps the influx of hazards in these particular tracks made for race courses that were too unyielding for the player to focus on anything else around them. Super Circuit greatly balances the load of hazards for every track on display and enhances the visuals of the pixelated provinces that comprise the Mushroom Kingdom. With a direct comparison to note, witness how vibrant and spacious “Bowser’s Castle” looks compared to the confined grey corners of how it's depicted on the SNES. “Shy Guy Beach” not only looks bright and inviting, but the tide washing up and covering all but elevated bumps of sand forces the players to hop on their karts with great precision. Not to mention, the Shy Guy pirate ship constantly blasting the tropical dunes with cannon fire is a thrilling obstacle to navigate around. “Ribbon Road’s” red carpet track is as lurid as a premiere event in Hollywood, and the puddles of rainwater in “Luigi Circuit” actually cause hydroplaning instead of simply slowing the kart’s speed ever-so slightly. I don’t how the Wallace and Gromit wonderland of “Cheese Land” is relevant to Mario, but the mountain range of coagulated dairy extract looks good enough to eat (literally). Super Circuit’s “Rainbow Road” looks marvelous, and having the narrow borders of the track bounce the player like rubber can be used to hop over portions of the track for courageous players. Seeing Bowser’s Castle from Paper Mario in the background is also a cool little reference that signals how high in the sky the colorful pathway is located. The sickening angle that came with Mode 7 on the SNES has been rectified and the pixels now pop with a smooth visual flair that is very pleasant to the eyes.

Basically, that’s Mario Kart: Super Circuit in a nutshell. I determined whether or not to divulge how harsh the letter grade ranking system is after finishing each Grand Prix cup or how it was the first Mario Kart game to incorporate racetracks from previous titles, but I decided that these aspects were too trivial to extrapolate on. All the other Mario Kart attributes such as the items, the grand prix format, and the reemergence of coins are continued as they were from either Super Mario Kart or Mario Kart 64. Even though it washes the grain out of Super Mario Kart’s pixel art, adjusts the viewpoint of a 2D game in a 3D perspective to make it look more feasible, and the tracks are far more memorable for their designs and various hazards, Super Circuit doesn’t add anything all that revolutionary to the Mario Kart formula. I commended it for revealing the statistical differences of each character, but the lineup of characters that Super Circuit uncovers the veil from is the exact same as Mario Kart 64. Any quality-of-life features Super Circuit implements are ultimately marginal changes to the overall Mario Kart experience. The game used to coast on the novelty of being a mobile Mario Kart game. However, in this day and age where future mobile Mario Kart games have outclassed Mario Kart 64 with both superior hardware and years of hindsight to pull from, Mario Kart: Super Circuit is the one entry in this popular franchise that any gamer can overlook due to its menial impact.

Kirby's Dream Land Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 2/9/2025)

[Image from igdb.com]

Kirby's Dream Land

Developer: Hal Laboratories

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: Gameboy

Release Date: April 27, 1992

In 1984, Nintendo was slapped with a damning lawsuit from Universal Pictures, who claimed that the character of Donkey Kong was a direct infringement of their classic skyscraper-climbing, T-Rex-walloping movie monster King Kong. Nintendo argued that there was room for more than one gargantuan gorilla in the world of fiction, and the hired lawyer defending the Japanese company’s right to depict oversized apes in their interactive media was Mr. John Kirby. Because John Kirby’s argumentative acumen won the lawsuit for Nintendo, they decided to show their gratitude by immortalizing this man as one of their now-trademark characters: the adorable space blob Kirby. It’s hard to say whether or not Nintendo already created Kirby and were circling around the board room struggling to find a fitting name for their brand new bundle of fun or if it was spurred by obligation to compensate their legal representatives in ways other than finances. Still, it’s hard to imagine Nintendo’s floating mesh of goop without his strangely Irish denomination three decades onward. It’s also hard to tell if Mr. Kirby was at all flattered by how Nintendo decided to tribute him. Judging by how old the man was at the time, he was most likely completely ambivalent to video games and never gave it much thought. Personally, if I were in this man’s shoes as an avid gamer, I wouldn’t be jumping for joy. Sure, I’d find it amusing that there was a video game character sharing my namesake and would shamelessly use it as my permanent conversational icebreaker. Still, I’ve always had my grievances with Kirby and associating a piece of my identity with a series that consistently irks me isn’t exactly life-affirming. This would be especially true for Kirby’s Dream Land, the little guy’s gaming debut on the original Game Boy. If Nintendo had presented this title to me as a kind gesture, I’d revert the work I had done and sue them myself.

It’s also hard to imagine a colorless, muted Kirby without his glowing pink sheen, considering he’s the video game character synonymous with that bright and effervescent shade. Alas, anyone introduced to the stumpy orb here wouldn’t be aware of his striking bubblegum hue because the two bits holding the original Gameboy’s visuals together could not render color in their graphics if its life depended on it. Hence, why Kirby and his magical space dimension of Dream Land is depicted in stark black and white. With decades of hindsight, seeing Dream Land with the Gameboy’s monochromatic visual lens is quite depressing because Kirby’s otherworldly stomping grounds is such a vivid splendor with all of its striking colors. However, I believe there is some merit to seeing Dream Land at its most modest. The moniker of this place that exists somewhere over the rainbow in the unfathomable reaches of the cosmos connotes that it's so fantastical that it can only be perceptible in the ethereal realm of sleep. It’s a little known fact, but folks back in the early to mid 20th century used to dream in greyscale due to the overexposure of black and white visuals depicted in film and television. With this in mind, the argument that Dream Land looks particularly hazy and dreamlike is a sound stance. It may not be as captivating as a Jean Cocteau film, but Dream Land’s graphical compromise still fits the intended tone that Kirby’s setting usually evokes.

Kirby’s typical gameplay of floating all over the horizontally-confined space from point A to B is not one of the recognizable series’ attributes compromised by Nintendo’s most primitive piece of hardware. However, in Kirby’s earliest iteration, one might be surprised at how many of the known intricacies of the standard progression process aren’t available. For one, Kirby’s distinctive ability to suck all that surrounds him into his mouth like a black hole and copy the physical properties of the creatures swallowed up in his orifice has been halved. Kirby can still inhale all in his vicinity like a Mach five tornado, but he cannot even swallow the creature, much less brandish its identity upon consuming it. The player will have to settle for spitting the contents in his mouth and pelting other creatures with them to kill two birds with one stone. The combo potential is somewhat nice, but I’d rather mix and match the elemental properties and lay waste to Dream Land’s denizens with a consistent streak of energy. I don’t think I’m alone in expressing this wish. To keep the gameplay from growing stale from the incessant expectorating, at least the game offers power-ups such as the spicy curry and mint leaves that both involve Kirby transforming his spit into a projectile weapon without the need to suck up ammunition. You’ll excuse me if I’m not exactly enthralled by the extremely limited range of gameplay variations on display.

However, one aspect we’ve all come to associate with Kirby that he still possesses in his earliest incarnation is the impressive ability to fly inexhaustibly through the air like a balloon. This physical characteristic of Kirby’s is the primary reason why his titles tend to be a cake walk, or I suppose a “cake float” in this context. Because Kirby's flight of fancy is still as boundless as ever, it makes his debut title just as breezy as expected. Dream Land consists of five levels with a boss as each level’s climax, and it is doubtful that the player will find themselves in a snag at any point. One exception could be the boss rush at the end which involves fighting each of the game’s four bosses in succession without any respite in between. The endurance test would’ve been far more tense if the individual bosses like the girthy oak tree Whispy and the cyclops storm cloud Kracko served a decent challenge and if there weren’t any checkpoints placed in between each fight. Surviving the roulette of repeated Dream Land bosses culminates in facing off against classic mainstay Kirby archrival King Dedede in a wrestling ring, and this lengthy and fairly complex final boss actually stands as an adequate way to end the game. It’s just rather off putting that the finale is cheapened by the simple and brief stroll leading up to it.

Perhaps my statement that ended my opening paragraph was a bit too dramatic. I would be floored if Nintendo tributed me with a character that shared my namesake, and I’m sure the lawyer was honored by their consideration even if he had never touched a game controller in his life. Still, if Nintendo had me play the game they created with my contribution in mind at its prerelease, I’d be concerned that the game wasn’t finished yet. I’ve come to realize that an aspect of the Gameboy was not only decreasing the number of pixels and colors from Nintendo’s console equivalent–the length was also compromised. Despite its hour-long length, Super Mario Land, for example, at least deviated from the setpieces of the standard Mario fare, which in turn made it refreshing. With Kirby’s Dream Land as the gumball’s debut and all of the inadequacies of the Gameboy at play, the game feels like a treatment for the series instead of a triumphant premiere. When a full meal of Kirby often fails to satisfy me, imagine how my stomach still proverbially rumbles after playing the rudimentary sampler with less caloric value.

Contra: Hard Corps Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/29/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Contra: Hard Corps

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Genre(s): Run 'n Gun

Platforms: Genesis/Mega Drive

Release Date: August 8, 1994

How could you, Konami? How could you nonchalantly abandon Nintendo and philander with the enemy behind their backs? If you aren’t technically obligated to develop games solely for Nintendo by contract, shouldn’t you feel some sense of devotion for the console maker that propelled you to a household name in gaming? You ungrateful pricks.

…In all seriousness, from a business persuasion, Konami developing a title in their iconic, genre-defining run ‘n gun franchise for Sega’s console was a rather ungracious maneuver considering that every Contra game beforehand was released on Nintendo’s entertainment system and its “super” successor. Contra would’ve never received the renown it has for being one of gaming’s harshest ballbusters if Nintendo didn’t supply the foundation by supporting it with its hardware. Hence, why defecting to the company waging war with Nintendo for ultimate gaming glory makes Konami bigger turncoats than Benedict Arnold. Shockingly enough, Contra wasn’t Konami’s only series mutinying on Nintendo when the gaming titans needed them the most. Earlier the same year, Konami had released Castlevania: Bloodlines for the Sega Genesis. Similarly to Contra, this was the first instance of Konami’s gothic, quasi-horror series broadening its presence on a console that was not produced by Nintendo, or at least it was in the Western world. While an exemplary Castlevania title in its own right, Bloodlines failed to surpass the buttery smooth and glossy refinement of its generational peer of Super Castlevania IV on the SNES. Sega’s choice to implement limited continues was an uncharacteristic feature for the series that slackened the Bloodlines experience, but the grainy graphics and inappropriate sound design possibly provided empirical evidence that the Genesis might have been inherently inferior to the SNES. Does Contra: Hard Corps also inadvertently expose the cracks in Sega’s tank they’ve been driving to bulldoze Nintendo into the dirt of gaming’s graveyard? While it shares the same dynamic to Contra III as Bloodlines does with Super Castlevania, Contra: Hard Corps manages to achieve far more substantial than Bloodlines ever did while unshackled by the overseers at Nintendo.

Even though Hard Corps is marketed as a Contra III alternative, the game’s premise suggests that it’s still a direct sequel whose events take place soon after the falling action of the previous game in the franchise. The alien menace that finally seized our planet after two titles trying to safeguard the grasp of their horrid clutches have been officially expelled from Earth by the commendatory efforts of Jimbo and Sully (if you’re American, at least). Now, the concern of a hostile takeover has shifted towards another standby science fiction trope that often threatens the welfare of humankind: the robots and cyborgs we will no doubt create in droves when our technology reaches the point where they can be feasibly manufactured. Hey, now that the primary enemies of the series only drip oil when shot instead of gushing biological matter, Europe and Australia won’t have to take their censorship pen and cross out any unsavory content (oh wait, they did it anyway by keeping the playable characters as robots)! Still, whether or not Hard Corps’ futuristic warriors are organic life fighting to preserve their livelihood on Earth or cybernetic machines defending their human creators on their behalf, Hard Corps’ characters align with something that I’ve now realized is a distinctly Sega trait. In the menu before the game begins, the player is now given the choice between four distinct characters a la Streets of Rage and plenty of Sega’s other homegrown series. Ray is the most fitting character for Contra’s legacy of archetypal male action-heroes who bleed beer and steak juice. On the off-chance that a girl is manning the controller, the blonde Sheena is the spunky female equivalent they’ll most likely gravitate towards. Browny is a diminutively-sized robot who wields a gun taller than he is, and the fourth and final character in the roster is a cyborgian wolfman wearing sunglasses named Brad Fang. Finally, a Contra character fitting MY niche demographic of seriously hairy dudes with artificial body parts. It seems peculiar that this range of player choice seemed to be endemic to games published by Sega, but more elements of player choice incorporated into any franchise is always a fantastic addition.

However, the characters of Hard Corps all possess more mechanical depth than simply widening the gamut of faces for the player to potentially attach to for arbitrary reasons. Beyond their stark aesthetic differences, the character that one selects in Hard Corps greatly impacts the way that the game is played due to each of them accessing entirely unique arsenals of weapons. As one could tell from his physical similarities to previous Contra protagonists, Ray carries a plethora of classic Contra weapons such as the Spread Gun, the homing missiles, and the laser that shoots a continual beam. Sheena’s selection of firearms seems almost identical to Roy’s at first, but then reveals some quirks later down the line. Her standard blaster can be augmented to shoot bullets the size of boulders with an upgrade, and the scattered laser modification that she flaunts is truly devastating. Fang’s arsenal collectively has the most destructive range, modifying his pea-shooter as the flamethrower stream from Contra III along with wave beams and a blast of energy that can be charged to unleash a magnificent amount of damage. Browny is the wildcard with the most unusual weaponry, fitting for the game’s most unusual character. His arsenal may not be as powerful as Fang’s collection of military-grade toys, but the little robot’s boomerang ring, automatic yo-yo beam, and rectangular laser that can stretch over a 180 degree span of the screen will absolutely decimate the throngs of common enemies across the screen. Needless to say, making each of the four playable characters distinctive with completely dissimilar arrays of weapons will surely entice the player to keep playing beyond the campaign of a single character.

Some commonalities between all four characters are channeling Mega Man with a slide maneuver that requires expert proficiency to avoid the enemy’s exhausting rate of firepower. Mastering the grounded acrobatic move will ensure swift evasion, but I was not inclined to practice it on account of being accustomed to jumping to dodge incoming bullets. I didn’t feel safe learning a whole new mechanic amid the tense, hostile environment. I also didn’t stray from my comfort zone to use the alternate shooting mechanic that locks the player’s movement to ensure sharper accuracy, for I felt too vulnerable in a state unable to dodge at all. Another shared gameplay aspect is that each character has access to the screen-spanning bomb intended to clear out an overwhelming raucous of enemies in a pinch. Not only is it disappointing that the blast radius of what is supposed to be a juggernaut explosive has been reduced, but having to scroll to it on the game’s weapon select pad while the action is roaring like an open flame is greatly counterintuitive to the convenience that this weapon once had in Contra III. Other than failing to consider that the bomb should’ve been assigned to a separate button, Hard Corps’ method of organizing the player’s stacked arsenal is a wonderful quality-of-life enhancement. Instead of accidentally trading off your favorite weapon by tripping over another capsule in the heat of action, the flying units are now labeled with letters that coincide with where they fit in this grid. With this system in place, the player is less likely to be trapped with the piddly base weapon after a slight mistake. Plus, the condensed selection of weapons per character removes the dud ones used as filler that disappoint the player when they float overhead.

The question still lingering in the air with all of the weapon variety Hard Corps exhibits is if it still fosters that distinctively diabolical difficulty curve that gave the series a dire reputation. Is the Pope still catholic? If Bloodlines is any indication, Sega’s interpretation of a series usually featured on a Nintendo system is the rougher counterpart with more austere mechanics and sterner attitudes on failure penalties. As to be anticipated, Hard Corps retains the harsh, unflinching atmosphere that elevated the series in infamy. Where Hard Corps differs from its Nintendo predecessors is that the onslaught that the robot menace inflicts is seemingly more brutal than anything the aliens unleashed onto the player. Hard Corps pumps up the high-octane, incendiary energy of the run n’ gun gameplay to eleven. If the introduction where the character mows down a lane of robots in the city streets before hopping out of the vehicle doesn’t set an exhilarating precedent, there are plenty of other instances in Hard Corps that will get the player’s adrenaline running like a substitute for cocaine. When the player reaches the jungle, they are greeted with a swarm of savages leaping from every conceivable border of the screen. One moment sees the player sprinting down an empty highway chasing a sturdy boss robot, and the visual gimmick of sprinting towards the screen doesn’t distract from the concrete gameplay elements like the Mode 7 top-down sections from Contra III. Any instance where the player is hanging on a helicopter or traveling quicker than a plausible pacing on foot sees the screen move so dizzyingly fast that it's bound to trigger epilepsy. There isn’t a single instance of downtime or a slight calm moment before the storm–every second of Hard Corps launches the player in a hurricane of explosions and destructive mayhem, and you better bet that this motherfucker is a category five level of severity. I guess the Genesis has its idiosyncratic “blast processing” attributing to this unforeseen realm of extreme chaos, which is one aspect of Sega’s console that exceeds Nintendo’s in this case. As one could likely infer from the rip-snorting threshold of action that Hard Corps is injecting to a point of an overdose, the constant bombardment of dangerous scenarios makes the player more likely to perish at an inordinate rate. Truthfully, this is a caveat to Hard Corps that will make the player struggle as equally as they stare in awe of the bodacious presentation. In what is perhaps the most shocking piece of context to Hard Corps, the Japanese version of the game marks the addition of health points to stave off dying immediately after being grazed by the smallest bullet. If the homeland of Konami that typically treats Western gamers as babies who need pacification finds it imperative to keep the aid to themselves for good measure, you’ve got a real barn burner on your hands.

Besides being the definitively fastest and most intense Contra title, Hard Corps surprisingly manages to be the most cerebral entry in the series as well. How does Hard Corps achieve what seems to be contradictory to all of the defining traits I’ve discussed thus far? Yet another first for the series that Hard Corps debuts is the inclusion of cutscenes in between bosses, displayed as text conversations between the player’s selected character and the opposing foe in their vicinity. Not to mention, the game reverts back to the home base in the menu where the commander of this taskforce gives them new intel on their mission, keeping the player up to date on how the mission is unfolding. The plot that unravels through the dialogue is the harrowing prospect of the terrorist hackers behind the robotic pandemonium expanding the growth of a rare cell of the alien race that once ruled Earth and using their biological experiment to upset mankind’s dominant reign on the planet once more. The stakes are thrilling and the twist that happens is a nice surprise, but what impresses me regarding the story is how player choice determines how it progresses. After the first level, the player can decide whether or not to intervene in a laboratory attack or pursue an evil mercenary named Deadeye Joe. Obviously, the player cannot do both simultaneously, so the choice made leads the player down a completely different path from the other. Fans of Konami’s other IPs should be reminded of the alternate routes in Castlevania III that change the player’s trajectory and the levels they experience. However, whereas every path eventually intersects to the same conclusion in Castlevania III, there are six (good) possible endings per route plus four different final bosses depending on the route. They all result in defeating Colonel Bahamut, which ends his reign of terror, but the levels that lead up to this falling action and the bosses that the player faces will be so radically divergent that it’s like playing a whole different game altogether. If the four distinct protagonists didn’t persuade the player to sink more time into Hard Corps, then experiencing a new pathway per character provides an even better incentive.

Holy fucking fiery shitballs, Batman. Did Contra: Hard Corps just melt my fucking face off with its righteousness? I feel like I’ve been on a rollercoaster whose velocity was so intense and electrifying that my hair is sticking up. Still, the rollercoaster ride in question provides far more lasting appeal than havoc and commotion aplenty, even though that is a prime selling point. Admittedly, Hard Corps is still beset by the same snags as Bloodlines being developed on Sega’s hardware, or at least the shortcomings are more noticeable with the Nintendo counterpart by comparison. However, Hard Corps seems more aware of the blips of the Genesis and intuitively works around them, providing plenty of quality-of-life enhancements still achievable despite the more rudimentary hardware. Also, the staggering amount of content that Hard Corps implements provides one of the most impressive replay values of any game I’ve played, like going on the rollercoaster again with different loops and inclines to keep the player stimulated. I’ve attributed plenty of superlative adjectives to Contra: Hard Corps compared to the previous games in the series, such as it being the hardest, most thrilling, biggest, and smartest Contra game to date. Should I just name it the best game in the franchise for the sake of brevity? No fucking doubt. I’ll be damned, but Sega actually has what Nintendon’t for once, and it’s frustrating that Sega couldn’t realize that it wasn’t Sonic.

Ratchet: Deadlocked Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/25/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Ratchet: Deadlocked

Developer: Insomniac

Publisher: SCE

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

Platforms: PS2

Release Date: October 25, 2005

There was nothing inherently wrong with the action/third-person-shooter-oriented gameplay of Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal. Several fans of the first two games in Insomniac’s trilogy of humorous space adventures with a furry, anthropomorphic feline and his robotic backpack at the helm felt jilted at the developers emphasizing the shooting elements of the game while forgoing much of the platforming the previous games featured. While I understand the grievances on the upset of Ratchet & Clank’s gameplay balance, they must understand that platformers became square after years of oversaturation. The greater gaming landscape by the mid-2000s felt the need to incorporate firearms in every conceivable title released, as if the industry was subtly training our youth to form a militia against another potential British invasion. Half of Ratchet & Clank’s gameplay equation already involved guns in a sizable capacity, so hyperfocusing on the side that would smoothly assimilate to the changing trends of gaming was a no-brainer in preserving the series’ relevance. Besides, the moment-to-moment shooting sequences in Up Your Arsenal were dynamite, highlighting the smooth and dynamic evolution of the series’ combat refined through the trials of two previous entries. Ratchet & Clank is still a blast to play while fending off armies of slimy, repulsive tyhrranoids with a treasure trove of intergalactic guns as it is grinding on a series of rails. That being said, if I’m in the minority of fans who enjoy a gung-ho Ratchet & Clank experience, why did Ratchet: Deadlocked fail to capture my attention? This solitary spinoff released immediately after the original PS2 trilogy was wrapped up rejected all pretenses that Ratchet & Clank still had any semblances of a 3D platformer. Really, it’s a spiritual successor to Up Your Arsenal’s combat-heavy initiative. After finally replaying Deadlocked after it disappointed me so many years ago, I have now found the appropriate words to articulate why the action-intensive Up Your Arsenal persisted as one of my all-time favorites and Deadlocked didn’t.

The premise of Deadlocked sees a familiar trope of the series only seen as a subsidiary lark blossoming to the center stage. In both Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal, Ratchet would engage with the challenges of a gladiator-esque combat arena conducted under the guise of a televised program–satirically jabbing at our then-prevalent fascination to watch people in grievous pain on television. Seeing Ratchet dominate the airtime of both Galactic Gladiators and Annihilation Nation was certainly commendatory, but both of those game shows were bush league compared to Deadlocked’s “DreadZone.” While Dreadzone is an intergalactic sensation, they evidently don’t receive too many applicants eager to star on their show. Ratchet learns this the hard way when goons infiltrate the Starship Phoenix and abduct him along with Clank and Al and take them to the grounds of Dreadzone’s space station. Ratchet and friends have been forcefully contracted to compete in Dreadzone’s tournament of champions against their will as “Team Darkstar.” It’s a collaborative effort between all three, but Ratchet is the field man undergoing Dreadzone’s death-defying stunts in the name of entertainment. If they refuse to comply by removing the monitoring collars wrapped around their necks, their termination from the show will carry literal consequences, if you catch my drift. While Clank and Al begin working on deactivating their constricting neck vices, Ratchet must perform to the best of his ability and not succumb to stage fright–ensuring their survival in this sordid state of affairs. If a Ratchet & Clank game was going to verge closer to the spectrum of shooting combat, then expanding the gladiatorial arena aspect of the series to the expanse of a fully-fledged title is a perfect segway into this direction while being faithful to the series’ conceptual properties. All the while, the narrative is elevating the stakes of the premise to something genuinely filled with tension.

Even though Dreadzone televises a good portion of their episodes in a stadium located on their network’s space station, Deadlocked would be quite dull if every waking moment of the game took place in this confined building. Dreadzone is ostensibly such a phenomenon across the galaxy that their budget allows them to acquire filming permits for several different planets. Hell, the courses on each planet suggest that the production values for Dreadzone are extravagant, zoning entire countries of land for the development of their dangerous obstacle courses. While being an indentured contestant on Dreadzone still allows Ratchet to be the interplanetary traveller he’s always been, the locales don’t exactly feel as sprawling and organic as they did across each game of the original trilogy. Think of the linear, mission-based ranger missions from Up Your Arsenal and that’s the construct of Deadlocked’s gameplay in a nutshell. There is an overarching task for each planet divided into four or five objectives that will incrementally complete the primary goal. For the most part, each mission boils down to Ratchet blowing his way past point A to B with a few progression impediments that require Ratchet to make a slight deviation on his trek like screwing in a bolt with his wrench or deactivating a forcefield. Even when these impediments pop up, they’re intended to be dealt with by Ratchet’s new twin battlebot helpers who act as a surrogate for Clank. Having servants do the menial aspects of fieldwork is nice and all, but expediting the objective by enlisting their help makes the already impactless mission seem more trivial. When the mission bears some heftier narrative context like reactivating a forcefield for a planet that’s bound to be bodied by a storm of meteors without it, it’s not enough to distract the player from realizing that it’s the same old song and dance as every other mission in the game. Vehicles are incorporated into at least one task per planet, but they tend to wear out their welcome as quickly as the missions performed on foot. Not even the reinclusion of grind rails adds a hint of spice to these stale, bland levels. The only moments in Deadlocked that maintain a certain thrill due to their restrained presences are the exterminator duels, Dreadzone’s brick walls intended to smite contestants when they surpass their expected airtime that serve as Deadlocked bosses. Ranger missions in Up Your Arsenal were an adequate change-up from the standard Ratchet & Clank levels in moderation, and the same can be said for the cavalcade of challenge courses that Annihilation Nation offered. However, a game composed entirely of their simple, linear tasks will severely underwhelm the player and grate on their attention spans.

Naturally, Dreadzone is inclined to make their television product more interesting by unleashing their throngs of murderous machines into the fray. Dreadzone’s attempts to pulverize Ratchet with their malicious mechanized contraptions is what facilitates the series’ shooting gameplay, scattering the areas with the staticky nuts and bolts of the fallen enemies in Ratchet’s wake. Above all else, the Ratchet & Clank series is best known for its roulette of eclectic and creative weaponry, and each title in the original trilogy refreshed Ratchet’s arsenal for each subsequent entry to keep the player salivating at what kooky firearms the developers would devise. In Deadlocked, the weapon count has been reduced to about only a dozen, and they’re easily the least creative batch in the series thus far. At this point after three titles, the weapons of Ratchet and Clank have been cemented into archetypes, or at least it seems that way from what Deadlocked displays. The Magma Cannon is the same shockwave shotgun as the Blitz Cannon was back in Going Commando, The Arbiter is the latest incarnation in a long line of powerful missile launchers, and it's no coincidence that the Fusion Rifle can be used as a juggernaut weapon at close range just like the Flux Rifle despite its intended functionality. I’m convinced Ratchet conveniently had the Mini Turret Launcher tucked away in his pocket from the previous game. In the midst of all of these derivative copycats is the Scorpion Flail, the one exemplary pick from Deadlocked that kicks like a mule and is a more functional evolution of the supercharged melee alternative weapon that the Plasma Whip introduced. Alas, caving in the heads of enemies with the cybernetic medieval device is not enough to carry the weight of its half-assed contemporaries. One slight point of variation with the weapons that Deadlocked does implement is streamlining the elemental modifications that are purchasable from any vendor. The ability to equip any mod to any gun (even if it’s nonsensical like a bomb launcher that turns enemies into farm animals) is a true quality-of-life enhancement that can add a bit of flavor to the weapons if deemed necessary. Still, the ability to pick and choose whether to deprive a weapon of its maximum amount of ammunition and rate of firing acceleration seems silly to me.

While Deadlocked’s gameplay attributes are generally uninspired, the narrative is conversely pulling all the punches of another piece of Ratchet & Clank social commentary. One of the more understated elements of the Ratchet & Clank series is its penchant for subtly sprinkling biting comments on modern society at large through the lens of a lighthearted, cartoonish video game set in a future possibly several millennia away. Usually, Insomniac finds it imperative to critique capitalism and society’s fascination with celebrity culture. Deadlocked expresses the most overt commentary on these particular subjects, but this does not mean that the game doesn’t deliver something poignant. The series has already prodded at the exploitative nature of reality television, but Deadlocked dives deeper into the subject of who is profiting off the exploitation of others. Like Chairman Drek before him, Vox Network CEO Gleeman Vox has no scruples in how he rakes in the gonzo bucks. I’d compare his unmitigated avarice to a shark, but the developers already beat me to the punch by externalizing him as such. The form of a creature associated with cold and bloodthirsty character traits is quite fitting for Vox, for every bit of carnage he enables through his hit gameshow makes him salivate at the prospect of viewership boosting the ratings and how much commercial time he can put in to potentially make more millions selling his products. Death and destruction are what he craves to bolster his eminence as a media mogul, making him the most despicable Ratchet & Clank antagonist even without the developers giving him a Napoleon complex and a ponytail to do so. On the celebrity side of the satire coin, Vox’s favorite tool to use in his mission to fill an Olympic swimming pool with blood money is Ace Hardlight, the de facto star of Dreadzone due to his esteemed rank as the show’s top exterminator. I use the term “tool” almost literally, as Ace has no agency in his career thanks to Vox dictating his every action to keep him presentable to the public. Ace compromises the code he used to abide by as a hero, turning him into a megalomaniac as detestable as his corporate puppet master. Despite his name, status, and persona, the game effectively depicts Ace as pathetically as possible. He’s emblematic of the truth that any dashing big screen icon that people admire and or envy for their lavish lifestyle often has an ugly force of evil pulling their strings.

Unfortunately, the satirical story of Deadlocked is only substantial in a vacuum. Some Ratchet & Clank fans often express disappointment that Clank’s role has been reduced to a fly-on-the-wall tutorial like Bently was in the first Sly Cooper game. To compound on this gripe, I’d argue that the same impersonal regression applies to Ratchet. Sure, he’s still center stage as the protagonist, but it always seems as if he’s a secondary component to the narrative and it’s all happening around him instead of him driving it. The gladiator helmet that obscures his face isn’t only to protect Ratchet from bodily harm or possibly provide oxygen–it’s a muzzle that muffles his personhood. Outside of speaking to Clank and Al in between rounds, Ratchet doesn’t interact much with the Dreadzone-centric characters until he confronts both Ace and Vox near the end. By then, we almost forget that he has any relevance to the other characters. The conspicuous characters in Deadlocked’s story seem to be the corny and irritating commentators of Dallas and Juanita, plus Vox on the sidelines. Every moment on the field seems to be dedicated to their inane chatter, and most of the cutscenes involve them recapping Ratchet climbing up the Dreadzone ranks. They’re effective characters for the greater scope of the statement the game is trying to make, but their greater presence in the narrative over the titular character makes me wonder if Deadlocked could have existed as its original IP rather than branching off of an established one. It’s not as if Ratchet & Clank have a trademarked stranglehold on futuristic, animated shooter games with tidbits of satire abound. Because Deadlocked diverts the focus off the chemistry between the unlikely duo we all know and love, Deadlocked loses the classic Ratchet & Clank charm.

Replaying Ratchet: Deadlocked has affirmed the lukewarm feelings I’ve always felt towards it. However, re-evaluating this bite-sized serving of Ratchet & Clank content has made me question why I’ve always held Up Your Arsenal in high esteem. Does my exhaustion regarding Deadlocked’s shooting combat expose the faults of Up Your Arsenal’s concentration on this aspect of gameplay? While the combat in Deadlocked shares a stark similarity with Up Your Arsenal’s, the last entry in the PS2 trilogy was not solely a string of tests that proved the player’s shooting moxie. Up Your Arsenal still shared the plucky, yet epic adventure atmosphere of the two previous games despite it making a discerning effort to inflate the shooting aspects. Deadlocked, on the other hand, is essentially one long checklist of straightforward tasks that involve shooting, and the story isn’t so riveting that it prevents the tedium of playing through it to set in quickly. Speaking of Deadlocked’s story, it lacks a certain charisma that comes with the notable characters, choosing instead to have the game revolve around new faces that pronounce the satirical equation of the series more overtly than usual. Deadlocked verges too harshly in a narrower direction than anything the original trilogy presented, congesting itself with too much of one thing and making the player sick as a result. If Deadlocked is an isolated experiment to see where the combat threshold of the series is crossed, I’d say it stepped over the border about three planets in.

God of War Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/15/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

God of War

Developer: Santa Monica Studio

Publisher: SCE

Genre(s): Hack and Slash, Action-Adventure

Platforms: PS2

Release Date: March 22, 2005

Standing parallel to the uproarious adulation Resident Evil 4 was receiving on the Gamecube, a rookie IP called God of War on the PS2 was not too far behind in defining the gaming zeitgeist of 2005. Sony needed a juggernaut to compete with Capcom’s action-horror titan that was contractually bound to Nintendo’s lunchbox (before they reneged on the deal completely), and their subsidiary company, Santa Monica Studio, delivered a product that kept PlayStation players from darting their curiosities towards what their rival console company offered. For the gaming landscape surrounding 2005, God of War perfectly encapsulated the desires of the greater gaming market, and that’s probably why the series has become one of the most prolific and widely-acclaimed franchises in gaming history. God of War was a whirlwind of visceral violence and graphic sex wrapped in a fantastically grandiose presentational package that rivals the resplendent scope of any Greek epic composed by Homer that could’ve reasonably served as the game’s conceptual inspiration. The player’s knowledge of the vast and storied Greek mythos was superfluous, as hacking the mythical monsters of Greek legend to bloody bits proved to be entrancing nevertheless. Similarly to my personal history with Resident Evil 4, God of War’s razzmatazz had to be experienced from a non-personal viewpoint on account of being only nine-years-old at the time. I probably would’ve ended up on Dr. Phil as a ”victim of video game corruption” if my mom caught me playing this game at its release. However, unlike Resident Evil 4, which I quickly experienced as soon as I was perceived as “adult enough” to play video games slapped with the “M” label, God of War along with any of its sequels or spiritual successors have eluded me until twenty years later in 2025. To my surprise, the original God of War’s reputation has depreciated, now regarded as a rough template that its superior sequels built upon and cultivated that level of superbness the series is known for. Upon playing the first God of War, I can’t say that its soured status surprises me one bit.

Even though I am a fresh-faced God of War noob, I’m still readily familiar with the tumultuous tale of Kratos, the series’ protagonist who has practically replaced Crash Bandicoot as Sony’s de facto mascot due to the prominence of the franchise. To apply “angry” as a character trait fitting Kratos would be the stark understatement of the century. This pale, mesomorphic Spartan warrior is the epitome of anger, a charging bull if it was provoked by the matador twisting its testicles. Kratos’ trademark scowl is uniformly frozen on his face as an expression of his everlasting rage, a visage so intense and menacing that it will trigger spontaneous incontinence in anyone who makes eye contact with the man. The developers have stated that a primary inspiration for Kratos is Edward Norton’s character from American History X, a neo-nazi with a checkered criminal past. While I have discrepancies regarding the substance of this glorified after-school special, one effective aspect of Edward Norton’s performance in particular is that his intensity was palpable. Any violent act he committed in the name of his inflammatory beliefs was conducted with a terrifying blind fury, as if the zeal was clouding his judgment like a thick, billowing sandstorm. Kratos exudes the same unbounded injurious energy as Edward Norton’s hate-monger, which is an exciting prospect for any gamer eager to pilot a conductor for incredible destructive potential. However, the target of Kratos’ wrath is (thankfully) not innocent minorities. Kratos has a bone to pick with the titular character Ares, the “God of War” from Greek mythology. In the heat of a ferocious battle, Kratos calls upon the divine entity in a cry of desperation when he’s pinned down by a barbarian enemy. In exchange for saving his bacon, Kratos is in Ares’ servitude like a Faustian bargain. This relationship entails Kratos smiting every enemy of Ares, which elevates Kratos from a bloodthirsty warlord to the butcher of Athens. Amid his hazy killing spree, Kratos inadvertently slaughters his wife and child, a test devised by Ares to see if Kratos could forgo all of his humanhood and truly become his prime murder machine. However, this tragic event sparks a defiance in Kratos, plotting a revenge plan that involves accomplishing the impossible: killing a God. While Kratos’ history suggests that he’s an unconscionable monster that should be expelled from humanity, his self-inflicted plight being Ares’ useful idiot and the vengeance arc he’s pursuing throughout the game to redeem himself makes him surprisingly sympathetic. Actually, maybe sympathetic isn’t the correct word. Kratos’ foibles give the bald brute enough character and purpose that the player isn’t disturbed by the carnage they’re constantly creating using him as a vessel. His backstory also gives him enough depth and complexity as a protagonist for someone who would have easily been associated with a single, one-dimensional personality trait, and an unflattering one at that.

On Kratos’ journey to achieve the seemingly unfeasible, the player is treated to what is arguably the game’s most impressive attribute: its grand spectacle. In a matter of perspective, God of War is an example of an early trailblazer for the cinematic titles that congested the medium during the subsequent generation. In stating this, God of War’s direction doesn’t verge down the narrow path of letting the attributes of film dilute the interactiveness of the gameplay, a practice that plagued the cinematically-inclined titles that followed. Instead, God of War’s cinematic spectacle is akin to something like Metal Gear Solid, pronouncing elements of cinematography in the 3D graphics to elevate the scope of the presentation. To highlight the game’s cinematic intentions, the camera controls are completely automatic to instill the feeling that someone is behind the scenes manipulating everything to fit their vision like a film director. The inability to shift the perspective of the camera may naturally prove to be an inconvenience in certain moments, but the developer’s omniscient angling of the action ensures that the sense of awe the surroundings evoke never wavers. In addition, it helps that the settings are inherently immaculate. God of War’s world is the ancient domain of the Gods, a realm too divine for the unsophisticated eyes of mere mortals. Because the setting is the stuff of folklore legend, God of War’s environments are fantastically elegant and imposing–an assemblage of places that supersede the spectacle of any of the seven wonders in reality. For one, I couldn’t help myself but to ooh and aah at the massive basin of water located in the center of Pandora’s rotating temple, an arcane curiosity that made me yearn to unlock the secrets of the statue’s chamber within it. While we’re on the subject of liquid bodies, any moment where Kratos is swimming underwater is so magnificently dazzling that “Aquarium” from the Carnival of Animals suite should accompany it. Segwaying on the subject of statues, the frame of Kratos walking across a colossal sword as a makeshift bridge leading to a monument of Athena displays a sublime backdrop of Athens in a nighttime scene illuminated by shimmering moonlight. It’s an utterly captivating sight. The director’s camera chose to depict the underworld from a top-view perspective, limiting the scope of the environment Still, this restricted angle hones in on the crimson red current of the damned flowing viciously underneath the skeletal platforms, forcing the player to stare into the abyss of the raging river which will cause them consternation. It’s a situation where it would be advised not to look down, but the game gives the player no choice but to gaze frightfully at its soul-swallowing glory. It may not be presented with HD refinement like all of the cinematically striking games that followed, but the splendorous set pieces through the directed lens we witness them through will still leave the player’s mouth agape at their magnitude.

While the presentation is designed to impress the player, the opulent, ancient iconography never distracts from the gameplay. This maintaining of one’s focus is mainly due to the fact that the action is equally as visually lavish in its own right. God of War fits starkly in the hack n’ slash variant of video game, a sub-genre of the beat 'em up genre that became wildly popular during the sixth-generation of gaming thanks to Capcom’s Devil May Cry series. Unlike that franchise in which the action’s appeal stems from the proficient swagger Dante uses to dispose of his enemies, God of War highlights the sheer brutality of Kratos’ kills. If the coitus mini-game after the Hydra prologue doesn’t provide enough reason for every concerned parent to bar God of War from their households, then the rampant, everflowing gore that spills from the severed ligaments of all that lives and breathes in Kratos’ general direction certainly will. Using the twin blades Kratos has at his disposal, his trademark weapon that symbolizes his spiritual enslavement to Ares, Kratos slices and dices the eclectic bestiary of mythical Greek monsters with a great vengeance. It may just be his demeanor, but every execution Kratos delivers feels incredibly personal–as if everything under the ancient Greek pantheon played a part in slaying his wife and child by association. Every swing of the twin blades carries a hefty weight to it like waving those battle ropes one finds at the gym. The slight hesitation of the combat sometimes results in Kratos getting nicked by an enemy because he can’t block or parry quickly while he’s in the combo zone. Still, I think the lack of instant gratification compels the player not to absentmindedly hack away and consider switching to defensive tactics. Because God of War’s offense isn’t quite as fluid or nuanced as fellow hack and slash stalwart Devil May Cry, the combat compensates with a few tricks the player can pull from their sleeves given the circumstances. At arbitrarily-placed progression points throughout Kratos’ journey, Ares’ divine brethren atop Mount Olympus will impart some of their power to Kratos in his aid to vanquish their rogue sibling. Each of these supplementary maneuvers coincides with the magic meter and serves to diversify the otherwise meat and potatoes combat. “Poseidon’s Rage” is a thunderous lightning blast that electrocutes all enemies in a close radius, and it would be my go-to ability if it didn’t deplete the magic meter in thirds per use. Kratos keeps the head of the first Medusa enemy he decapitates and uses the piercing glow of her eyes to idiosyncratically cement enemies into stone, a useful tactic for eliminating the strapping minotaurs. Zeus’s lighting is the one projectile that shocks enemies from a distance, and Hades will allow Kratos to weaponize the souls of the underworld and bombard enemies like a plague of locusts. The goddess Artemis will also supply Kratos with a hulking blade as an alternative for the chain blades, which I found myself favoring due to its quicker efficiency in dispatching enemies. God of War may not foster the skill ceiling that Devil May Cry might, but the combat variety on display keeps the constant clanging of chain blades from becoming dry and stale.

The player will need all of the tools in Kratos’ arsenal for any given situation because the throngs of enemies attacking him all at once can be quite overwhelming. Not only will the stacked number of enemies keep the player vigilant on the battlegrounds, but a smattering of Greek beasts of differing masses all targeting Kratos simultaneously is liable to make the player lose their focus in a panicked frenzy. However, what keeps the player from anxiously anticipating death is the lovely accommodations the developers provide. Seemingly after every bout of ultraviolence, there will be a chest located shortly beyond the vicinity of the arena that houses enough health or magic to fully replenish either meter. Naturally, this constant aid will keep Kratos’ vigor afloat and prevent the game from ever verging into becoming an arduous endurance test.

Even with the bountiful surplus of aid strewn about, the developers will still suggest that the player regress to an “easy mode” if they perish one too many times on one checkpoint, and conceding to this makes the combat as elementary as single-digit arithmetic. And to think I was ready to commend the developers for showcasing signs of self-awareness for providing enough aid after every battle. I never succumbed to a particular combat barrage numerous times, but I cannot say the same for the game’s myriad of platforming challenges. Up until now, I’ve been comparing Kratos to Dante for their hack and slash connections. Unexpectedly, Kratos shares a kinship with Nintendo’s mustachioed mascot, or at least I can humorously draw unlikely comparisons between them due to the influx of sections across God of War that involve precision jumping. Needless to say that in a game that prioritizes combat action over acrobatics, any instance of platforming is incredibly awkward. Kratos can even double jump to course correct himself if needed, but the additional aerial hop failed in preventing Kratos from falling to his doom after mismanaging hopping onto a platform too many times to count. That’s a general indictment of the game’s stilted platforming mechanics, but they become especially infuriating whenever the game decides to dedicate entire sections that emphasize them. “Path of Hades” is a particularly maligned area of this game because of any slab of solid ground in this depiction of Greek purgatory, are a series of platforms with sizeable chasms between them or spinning flesh beams where one slight contact with any of the blades attached will send Kratos to his eternal resting place. The less said about a vertical climb up a rotating cylinder that also has blades attached in this level the better, for I can’t do justice in discussing it without using caps lock to express the anguish it caused me. If you thought any platforming that involves jumping was finicky in God of War, wait until Kratos comes across any balance beam. The fact that the developers expected this musclebound beefcake of a man to perch himself on skinny scaffoldings and daintily navigate himself across them like a petite, teenage gymnast is almost comical. I abhor any balance beam segment, but a particular one that incorporates jumping over spinning saw blades also warrants a tirade composed entirely in the shift key. To put it into perspective, Chuck Liddel is a fantastic fighter whose wrath, like Kratos, I’d never provoke even in my wildest dreams. Still, despite his finesse, it doesn’t automatically translate to other factions of athletic achievement. Like Kratos, he simply isn’t built for certain physical tasks. Failing to consider this contradiction with these platforming sections is the most absurd aspect of God of War.

This isn’t to say that God of War would be laudatory across the board if Kratos never had to leap like Michael Jordan. One aspect of the hack and slash combat that I find rather unsavory is the quick time events. With more comparisons to Resident Evil 4, God of War was another 2005 trendsetter for these button-specific flashes that seemingly every game of the next generation shamelessly utilized to compress and expedite gameplay into simply smashing a single trigger. While I’m in the camp who believes that quicktime events are dull and cheap, this sentiment does not apply to Resident Evil 4’s usage of them. Any instance of a quicktime event in Capcom’s magnum opus felt kinetically appropriate, like mashing a button to simulate the urgency of sprinting away from danger. Cutscenes that integrated them to keep the players on their toes added to the campy charm like attending a William Castle film event. No, every game of the next generation ostensibly took notes from God of War’s usage of this cutting-edge mechanic, for God of War’s quick time events commit all the sins they’re associated with.

Sure, repeatedly pounding the circle button to pierce a struggling minotaur through his gullet as an execution move is appropriate, but so many other responses to their transitory flashes on screen will see Kratos automatically engaging in feats of combat that ideally should’ve involved more player agency. Not to mention, they tend to require sharpshooter levels of reaction time to execute, lest the player be penalized with damage. The player will feel jilted by the unfairness of their strict requirements when attempting to execute a gorgon or troll enemy, but at least this flashy method of murder is optional. However, when it comes to the bosses, the player must submit to the mercy of the fleeting button matchings. Getting bucked off of Pandora’s Guardian like a startled horse on account of apparently performing the incorrect analog stick action was certainly vexing. Still, the fight against The Hydra in the game’s prologue truly exposed the shallow integration of these mechanics. The button needed to activate the quick time sequence always appears overhead after Kratos deals the adequate amount of damage to them that they’re on the threshold of dying. Whacking at the Hydra enough will cause the quick time button to appear, but every time he follows it up with the sequence, it will cause Kratos to pull the three-headed beast closer to the mast of the ship to gruesomely impale The Hydra’s eyeball onto it. Why did this boss feature a health bar if depleting it was irrelevant? Couldn’t the quick time event have become active after there was only a sliver of health left as a finishing blow? This boss left a disillusioning precedent that every action involving a quick time event was completely automated and out of the player’s control, which is the icky feeling of idleness felt whenever playing any of the games that ran this mechanic into the ground.

Knowing full well of God of War’s penchant for these quick time events and their fussy nature, I fretted immensely at the thought that the final boss against Ares would be nothing but an endless series of button matching like a rhythm game. To my relief, only a single instance of a quick time event was integrated into his encounter. However, Ares offered an unexpected slew of challenges that still aggravated me nonetheless. His first phase in this three-act epic of a duel where Kratos absorbs the forbidden power of Pandora’s box is a kaiju fight over the Aegean Sea, and the litany of Ares’ firepower will greatly test the player’s dodging acuity they’ve likely honed throughout the game. This initial confrontation of Ares could’ve served as a satisfying finale to Kratos’ quest, but the developers insisted on augmenting the final fight with two additional phases that will bring the player’s blood to a boil. Since Ares can’t easily defeat Kratos physically, the rotten God attempts to break him mentally by fabricating a recreation of the event when he unknowingly killed his wife and child. Kratos must fend off an army of malicious clones who will attack his wife and child in droves. Not only did this phase seem irrelevant to Ares, but the swarms of Kratos clones all spawning approximately a meter away from their target makes this horde sequence particularly agonizing. When the fight returns to the blazing deity, the gimmick of the last phase is equally as frustrating. Giant Kratos will take the sword bridge connected to the statue of Athena for an uncomplicated sword fight with Ares to the end. That is, it’s only uncomplicated on Kratos' part on account of Ares draining all of his magic. The opponent feels no shame in unleashing a heat-seeking scattering of fireballs to tip the scale of this fight in his favor, which I’m fairly certain is both undodgeable and unblockable. With its stipulations, success in beating the final phase ultimately boils down to luckily smiting him before he has a chance to inflict any unavoidable punishment onto the player, which is easier said than done. After this elongated final boss fight that I would’ve promptly abandoned if there weren’t checkpoints in between the phases, at least the narrative resolution that follows the game’s falling action is enjoyable. The Olympians cannot erase Kratos’ past like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but they can compensate for his insurmountable achievement of killing an immortal being by offering him his job title as the Greek God of War. This result taps into the ironic element of Greek tragedies that is often under-appreciated, with Kratos becoming what he sought to destroy and implanting himself in a position that requires him to encourage his destructive nature that led him to desperation.

I don’t think the original God of War’s fall from grace in the public eye can be simply attributed to the passing of time and the hindsight that comes with progress. I have discovered through finally seizing the opportunity to play it that this former “masterpiece” exhibits so many shoddy and ill-conceived aspects in it that the word in quotes should’ve never crossed the lips of any elated gamer at the time. The gaming collective was too distracted by the marvelous presentational elements the game displayed to critique its flaws rationally, and the surface-level aspects of the game that usually age like milk for most games are still as impressive as they once were. With several God of War successors to look back on and compare the first game to, the hamfisted platforming and quick time events that cause the player to become as angry as the game’s protagonist are jarringly conspicuous, and these rough gameplay mechanics should’ve never been overlooked. It’s depressing that this once-acclaimed game has been reduced to a beta test for the formula of great esteem that would follow, but God of War in its primordial stage is still a beguiling game for its then-unparalleled spectacle.