Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 4/18/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

Developer: Dennaton

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Genre(s): Shoot 'em Up, Multidirectional Shooter

Platforms: PC, PS3, PS4, PS Vita

Release Date: March 10, 2015

It’s telling how monumental Hotline Miami was in the indie circle last decade when a sequel was made a mere three years after its release. Because of their shoestring budget with a working team that could likely have fewer members than a book club, indie games very rarely receive sequels, much less in the normal development period usually taken for their triple-A peers. In the case of Dennaton’s visceral, sleazy, neon-glowing love letter to the excessiveness of the 1980s, its visionary tackling of the top-down shooter resonated strongly enough in the greater gaming zeitgeist to warrant a sequel almost immediately. While I’m sure the fans were stoked to slaughter legions of bald Russian mobsters again, I’m not thoroughly convinced that Hotline Miami was longing for another go-around. It may be unfair to state this with years of retrospection to look back on since Hotline Miami became a smash hit, but Hotline Miami is the kind of title that produces spiritual successors due to how revolutionary its gameplay was. We can use games like Katana Zero and Ruiner that aped Hotline Miami’s precision-based action formula as concrete evidence of my claim, or games such as Furi and Hyper Light Drifter that exude the same extravagant, retro aesthetic. With its impact ringing in the ears of inspired indie developers, is a sequel to Hotline Miami really necessary, especially since Jacket’s harrowing plunge down the city’s seedy underbelly was neatly wrapped in a blood-soaked bow? Considering the content in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, Dennaton wasn’t even convinced that they needed to pack in several painstaking hours of development time to produce a follow-up.

Let’s quickly recap Hotline Miami’s gameplay loop that set the indie sphere ablaze. The player is dropped into an enclosed area, mainly via a swanky vehicle that Don Johnson would likely be driving in Miami Vice, and is tasked to kill every living, breathing creature within its walls with a tactful array of melee weapons and firearms. The core stipulation at play regarding this mission is that the player cannot sustain any semblance of harm. Receiving any kind of damage will stop the player in their tracks, and they will be forced to restart the level from its entrance, or at least from the last floor they’ve cleared. The core concept of Hotline Miami’s gameplay is as solid as quartzite, and its relative simplicity lends well to player enjoyment and emulation from other indie developers. Still, no sequel should simply be content to coast entirely on its predecessor, regardless of its steadfast refinement. The obligatory quality-of-life improvements that Hotline Miami 2 adds to the first game’s fine formula are minimal, but are nonetheless appreciated. Firstly, whenever the player is brandishing a gun, an icon in the bottom left corner now indicates the type of ammunition they’re currently using. It may already seem obvious to the player which type of gun they are using, but in an environment where lightning-fast reactions are key to survival, the player cannot waste even a second wondering what their current ammunition consists of through guesswork. In instances where the player stalls ever-so-slightly in these tense situations, the blowback they are likely to receive from an enemy is not always guaranteed to be fatal. If the player is nicked by a pistol bullet in Hotline Miami 2, there seems to be a chance that they’ll be able to continue their murderous rampage relatively unscathed. They’ll spurt a pint of blood onto the floor, but not enough to render them unconscious, apparently. One might play through the game to its entirety and never even notice these alterations, but it’s nice to know that the developers put even a modicum of consideration into improving their product, as minuscule as it might have been.

Given the minor changes made to Hotline Miami’s formula in this sequel, one might assume that it's a modest rehash of its predecessor that could’ve arguably been better suited as glorified DLC. In regard to every other aspect of Hotline Miami 2, the developers have stretched the parameters of the series to its breaking point. In a literal sense of this statement, the levels in Hotline Miami 2 are far more spacious than those of the first game. The game is mostly set in the foreground of Florida’s southernmost major metropolitan area, but the enemies have evidently picked less dingy, back-alley architectures to establish a stronghold. I’m no architect, but I can discern an expansion in cubic diameter compared to the relatively confined spaces that comprised the previous game’s levels. Some levels in Hotline Miami 2 even divert away from the Sunshine State all the way to the middle of the Pacific in Hawaii. I’ll divulge the context behind this chronic shift in setting soon, but for now, I’d like to use these new, sprawling types of environments to illustrate the fundamental issue in expanding the space of a Hotline Miami level.

Using the Hawaii levels as an example, the lack of defined walls in these outdoor settings greatly increases the rate of vulnerability, positions that are especially worrisome in a game that harshly penalizes the player for any amount of damage they receive. Lest we forget that the enemies in Hotline Miami are hopped up on speed, which gives their fire rate deadeye precision. Even in the enclosed areas set in buildings, the settings are so expansive that they’ll still have to acclimate to dealing with a bevy of blind spots around every corner. I was dusted by the spray of a shotgun blast from an enemy that I couldn’t conceivably catch from my viewpoint too many times to count, and it pissed me off royally. One could argue that all the player needs to do is learn the layout of every enemy’s trajectory and snipe them swiftly with this information, but enemy placement seems to be an inconsistent variable. Not to mention, every inch of each level is crawling with enemies like spiderlings hatched from an egg, so every angle of the level is a possible point of being executed in a flash. On top of obscuring a vital amount of the player’s view needed to detect enemy movement, Hotline Miami 2 adds plenty of level gimmicks that muddle their line of sight to a greater extent in the name of diversifying the series' formula. By far, the level “Seizure” suffers the most from this initiative. The dimly lit aura of a nightclub may be appropriate for the decadent sleaze Hotline Miami exudes, but this type of environment is anything but practical as a level. Maybe I would’ve eaten more carrots over the course of my life if I knew I’d be struggling immensely trying to acclimate to Hotline Miami 2’s misdirection. Trial and error was a relevant gameplay factor in the first game, but the guesswork involved with the sequel’s levels makes the majority of them unnecessarily demanding.

The developers also seem to subscribe to my statement that Hotline Miami is a game that should ideally generate copycats because that’s the conceit that drives the sequel’s narrative. Jacket has become an urban legend since his solo adventure down the rabbit hole of a Miami mafia conspiracy, and his actions have resonated strongly with several of the city’s citizens. A director has been tasked to dramatize the events of the first game through his film titled “Midnight Animal,” using a slovenly man in a pig mask to play Jacket. Putting a cherry on top of the ultraviolence in this film is a good ol’ fashioned rape scene, the most scandalous talking point on the sequel’s graphic content and something I’m almost certain Jacket did not commit. Whether or not the heinousness here is fabricated for shock value on the director’s part, its inclusion is intended to highlight how the severity of these actions is lifted once it’s revealed to be an artistic display in the realm of fiction. However, the veil of celluloid fantasy is blurred when Jacket’s actor, Martin Brown, starts expressing serious intent for real violence, which results in getting him gunned down on set by the film’s lead actress as an act of self-defense. Jacket’s impact doesn’t stop there, as the sequel also dedicates a considerable chunk of screen time to four friends who espouse Jacket’s radical methods. When they all attempt to execute a mission of political upheaval as Jacket did, let’s just say that their results are unfavorable compared to their inspiration. Manny Pardo brandishes the respectable badge of the Miami police force, but he’s eventually revealed to be a notorious serial killer who stalks the city streets. We now get to experience the downfall of the super jingoistic Jake, who was briefly mentioned in the first game. We also see the trials and tribulations of the red long-haired man, who goes by many aliases, as he storms the Pacific front of Hawaii earlier in the 1980s. Between all of the fresh-faced psychotics and fleshing out the stories of supporting characters, there’s an investigative journalist named Evan Wright attempting to make sense of Jacket’s criminal past and the mimicked occurrences of late. Me too, dude.

Hopping to and fro from protagonist to protagonist may diminish any impact of their story arcs, but each character essentially provides the consistent standard of Hotline Miami’s gameplay. Some exceptions where the player is given the same choice of specializing in a quirk that’s granted by a mask depend on the characters, such as the distinctive attributes of the four “fans.” However, the game still tends to forgo the freedom of choice in many instances. Namely, when the player is forced to alternate between the four friends in their climactic level of “Death Wish,” an epic endurance test of a level divided into four sections, where each participant gets their time to shine. Each portion of this level is daunting in its own right, and imagine how excruciating some of the sections are when the player sticks to the specialties of one mask as they would in the first game. This level and “Seizure” are on my Hotline Miami shitlist for imposing the steepest stipulations across all Hotline Miami chapters.

Before anyone attempts to wrap their heads around this jumbled mess of a narrative and streamline it to a point of cohesion, I advise approaching the “story” of Hotline Miami 2 from a different perspective. Linearity and conciseness are evidently not relevant factors to Hotline Miami 2, given how the game teleports from character to character without letting their individual arc breathe for a second. My summation is that Hotline Miami 2’s narrative is not intended as a typical story, but as an essay with each character’s arc as an argumentative body paragraph with a thesis that connects them all. The thesis in question relates to the subject of violence, specifically, violence in the media, and how it can leave a lasting impression on the audience that consumes it. The four “fans” who emulate Jacket’s actions right down to storming the base of the Russian mafia are a given, but I don’t think the developers are suggesting that Miami, or the whole world, was a halcyon utopia before Jacket corrupted it by blowing the brains out of an incalculable number of Russians. “Beard” was putting lethal holes into Russians way out in the Pacific four whole years before the thought of doing so ever crossed Jacket’s mind, and Jake was a contemporary of Jacket’s whose anti-communist fervor ignited a bloodbath whose onus fell completely on him and him alone. The rogue cop, Manny Pardo, can’t resist abusing his badge and creating carnage, and Martin Brown’s lack of capacity to understand the difference between fictional violence and the real thing is disturbing. With these characters, Hotline Miami 2 seems to suggest that humans crave violence and hold a disposition to enact terrible instances of it on the slightest whim. It’s the most primal unit of our ID that we cannot suppress, no matter how base and undignifying it may be. However, some may argue the productivity of that violence depending on the character, for one could justify the intent of someone like Jacket or Beard, whereas there is no excuse for someone like Manny or Martin. Still, at the end of the day, violence is a disgusting mistress no matter its impetus. Solving the crisis of having several unhinged reprobates by disposing of them with a nuclear blast may be a bit dramatic for my tastes, but I suppose it complements the apocalyptic undertones woven in the fabric of Hotline Miami.

As par for the course regarding any sequel, Hotline Miami 2 is bigger than its predecessors, but unfortunately, in all of the wrong ways (no pun intended). The sequel proves that it’s difficult to augment the game’s tried and true formula significantly and produce a product of higher quality as a result, so the developers compensated for a dearth of mechanical inspiration by expanding some of the facets that should’ve been left alone. Widening the parameters of each level and adding arbitrary conditions does not result in a more engaging experience, nor does broadening the story's scope to incomprehensible heights equate to genius narrative building. All it amounts to is frustration, and not the organic kind that marked the first game’s success. Still, despite Dennaton’s efforts to bloat the series like Violet Beauregarde, the fact that they couldn't adulterate Hotline Miami’s foundation too drastically means that the game still retains the addictive essence of the first game, just with a few additional pounds attached. Besides, pretension in a medium generally perceived as a pedestrian time-waster inherently elevates its artistic potential, even if it's unsavory. As long as there is still a game to be played, all instances of auteurism are acceptable, and Hotline Miami 2 skates on this line by the skin of its teeth.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 4/7/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): Action-Adventure

Platforms: Game Boy

Release Date: June 6, 1993

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is a little weird. This peculiar statement might be disputed nowadays due to the iconic series plunging down rabbit holes that delve deeper into surreal and abstract territory. Still, Link’s Awakening is the first instance of Nintendo’s seminal high fantasy series diverting from its conceptual confinement as the interactive version of the archetypal epic narrative told throughout time. Considering that Nintendo tends to be as attached to the standards of storytelling like an infant to its mother's breast, I can’t do justice in illustrating how refreshing it is whenever one of their franchises flees the coop of conceptual captivity and starts sprouting some radical ideas into the mix that spruces up the fixed formula. Frankly, a smidge of fresh ingredients added to the pot per entry isn’t asking for much. Because Nintendo tends to be adamant on sticking to traditions, any instance where the familiarities are twisted even slightly is a holy gift from God. Tweaking the established properties of Nintendo’s heavyweights seemed to be the secondary selling point of the original Game Boy, other than its obvious portability. To sell a system with inferior hardware to its homebound counterpart, Nintendo had to brew its creative juices to offer something intriguing. Like the Super Mario Land titles, Link’s Awakening intermingles some quirks with the recognizable Zelda fare. Surely, despite its streaks of creativity, Link’s Awakening still can’t possibly hope to match the magnitude of the grandiose, 16-bit series staple that is A Link to the Past, right? Right? Well, even though Link’s Awakening is being supported on a system that a modern graphing calculator could outperform, do not assume that Zelda’s handheld debut is merely an odd alternative tailor-made for lengthy car rides and or the funeral services of great aunts and uncles.

Simply setting a Zelda title outside the parameters of the glorious and all-too storied kingdom of Hyrule is enough to give any Zelda fan such as I a throbbing anticipation boner, and attempting this digression for the first time must’ve been especially arousing for a handful of gamers back in 1993. Instead of waking up in a bed to the call of adventure, Link is found washed ashore on an unknown beach after his ship is capsized by a mighty bolt of lightning during a tempestuous storm. Unconscious with a pint of salty seawater likely clogging his lungs, a girl named Marin arrives and awakens the hero of time from his drenched stupor. She informs him that he has luckily landed on the shore of Koholint Island, the interim setting where Link’s Awakening is paving new ground for the franchise. However, even without a moment to be gracious that he’s not a bubbling corpse floating face down in the ocean, Link desperately wishes to return home to Hyrule. To his chagrin, travelling back from whence he came is not as quick and easy as a click of the ruby slippers. In order to send Link back to familiar territory, he must find eight sacred instruments scattered throughout the island’s temples and conduct a rousing solo symphony to wake the Wind Fish hatchling in the giant, polka-dotted egg that sits atop a volcano. Only with the Wind Fish’s lucidity will Link be transported back to his homeland. Instead of a heroic epic with the magnificent stakes of saving the world, Link’s Awakening is presented with a man-versus-environment sort of conflict, forcing him to adapt to an uncharted land whose context implies he’s in survival mode. Downscaling the scope of a Zelda adventure could arguably risk underwhelming players who have grown accustomed to the formidable task of preventing the world from plunging into unfathomable darkness. Personally, dialing down the majesty of the typical Zelda adventure showcases a range of narrative potential that is often undermined with the cycle of resplendent triforce matters.

Still, I doubt any veteran Zelda fans would be fooled into thinking that Link’s Awakening provides a drastic shift in the standard series narrative by twisting the premise. If you’ve paid close attention, you’ll realize the instruments are surrogates for the triforce pieces, judging by the number of them needed for the orchestra and their MacGuffin roles that pinpoint every significant milestone in the game’s progression. Essentially, the player is still on the same overarching quest that Hyrule has consistently mandated, but the vital differences lie in the finer details. On the surface, traversing through the island nation of Koholint from a top-down angle, screen by screen, will remind any seasoned Zelda fan of exploring through the pixelated planes of Hyrule. Once they spend enough time in this queer little strangeland, its personality will start to flourish.

Given that Koholint is an island enclave surrounded by water, the environment of the setting is more tropical than Hyrule, which is enclosed by a mountain range. Link can revisit the southern shores where he was fortunate enough to be washed upon from the drink to further explore what lies between the sandy dunes. The villages directly north of the crashing waves are incredibly tranquil, probably due to each abode being spaced out by another square from its nearby neighbors. A cemetery located near the central district of Koholint features some strikingly eerie trees where hostile crows can be found perched on their branches. The atmosphere of Koholint can shift from peaceful to disquieting at the drop of a dime. Yet, the shift in mood is never jarringly sudden, making the player startled by the subtle changes if they pay attention. In my perspective, the inclusion of Mario properties, such as Goombas and a docile chain chomp named BowWow that Link borrows to clear away the wild vegetation in a swamp, is the most unnerving aspect of Link’s Awakening. Link apparently drifted so far away from Hyrule that he’s been sucked into a dimensional rift that caused an uncanny quasi-crossover. Despite the many peculiarities one will find around the island that instill a sense of Link being trapped in uncertainty, there are admittedly plenty of geographical similarities to Hyrule. The apex elevation point of the land where the Wind Fish egg sits comfortably is located in the north at a twelve o’clock angle like Death Mountain, which shadows the castle domain located only a few blocks south. However, the castle is as abandoned as the ruins located east of the presumably once-royal estate, bearing no significance as the land’s capital like the regal fortress at the center of Hyrule. While Koholint setpieces may connote strong structural similarities to the standard stomping grounds of the Zelda franchise, one core difference, besides Koholint’s general atmosphere, is that the world map is far more compact. One might negatively attribute this factor to the fact that the original Game Boy could only render so much inside its black and white mechanical and physical confines, but the limitations at play here make the map more succinct. There isn’t a single square of wasted space across the entirety of Koholint Island, giving the player a better opportunity to become more intimately familiar with their surroundings. Since A Link to the Past had already impressed us with its sprawling amplification of Hyrule, it’s honestly refreshing to explore an area scaled down more modestly.

While Koholint Island is comparatively less spacious than Hyrule’s 16-bit overhaul in A Link to the Past, do not conflate the relative ease in navigation with ease in progression. Ostensibly, in order to cause the player as much confusion and instability as the would-be green protagonist is probably feeling, the developers have formulated an invisible haze around Koholint that clouds the player’s sense of orienting themselves to the narrative’s direction. Pixelated Zelda titles tend to be notably obtuse, but Link’s Awakening is borderline ethereal in directing the player towards the main objective. The island’s few, yet charming, denizens will offer hints to the desired destination, but their directions are still clouded with too much subtlety to be of any helpful aid. It’s like asking someone to point in the direction where Las Vegas is located and getting a response saying that it’s a city in Nevada. An owl occasionally swoops down and sends Link on the correct path, but he still obscures too much information from the player for me to label him as his guiding light. Whether or not the locals are acting difficult to scorn the outsider or their manner of speaking doesn’t communicate clearly to Link because he’s a foreigner, finding any indication of the whereabouts of each instrument’s location can often feel as frustratingly hopeless as trying to find shelter in Siberia during a blizzard. A large chunk of the game’s progression runs concurrently with a trading sequence involving several needy Koholint citizens. It begins with Link winning another Mario trinket in the shape of a Yoshi doll during a crane game, and the line of bartering from then on is an exhausting one. The process of finding the specific NPC who asks for the specific item and then stacking over fifteen of these interactions on this initial encounter is an endeavor so circuitous that it would be better fitting for an optional side quest rather than the primary objective to further the story. Sure, the alarming lack of guidance in Link’s Awakening does a fantastic job at fostering that sense of freeform exploration that spurred the series creation, but executing that ethos here in particular feels like one of those off-kiltered days in the woods where Miyamoto ventured too far from home and became frantically lost when the sun set on him. A walkthrough would be a vital auxiliary piece of aid to accompany Link’s Awakening, like with any game. However, what the player truly needs is one of the developers by their side, pointing out not only what to do and where to go, but also the rationale behind their design decisions.

Once the player manages to locate their destination through traversal that feels like spelunking without a flashlight, they will fortunately be treated to what is definitively the finest roster of dungeons the series has seen thus far. Whereas the overworld in Link’s Awakening is unforgivingly ambiguous and A Link to the Past’s dungeons tend to be overly convoluted, the inverse seems to be the case regarding both games’ attributes. The winding labyrinthian constructs that house the various instruments aren’t necessarily straightforward, but none of them involve design gimmicks that are so leftfield that make the player scratch their heads in bafflement until they start bleeding, like the outside forest maze of Skull Woods or the multiple slippery floors of the Ice Palace in A Link to the Past’s latter dark world half. The gimmicks that diversify the dungeons of Link’s Awakening are consistently approachable and do not divert out of the box of dungeon parameters to work with too drastically. For example, the tasteful double entendre of “Key Cavern” involves managing the many metallic door and chest openers that fall from the ceiling upon defeating a block of enemies. “Catfish’s Maw” features both Cheep Cheeps and Bloopers as the aquatic enemies to contend with in this submerged dungeon, and Turtle Rock (no association with the dungeon from A Link to the Past, thank God) features segments where the player has to draw the remainder of the block’s floor by manually pushing around a device that resembles a Roomba. The one exception in Link’s Awakening that does break beyond the boundaries of conventional dungeon traversal is Eagle’s Tower in the northeastern mountains of the island. Here, only the impact of a hefty, green, and black sphere is enough to break the columns that structurally support this stone tower. I struggled in figuring out that razing the top half of the dungeon with this gleaming, glassy globe was the primary objective at hand, and configuring the possible directions to transport it proved to be equally as challenging as any of the harder dungeons in A Link to the Past. Still, the unconventionality of Eagle’s Tower is more enthralling than any dungeon from that game because it’s so satisfying to coordinate the ball’s location with the column and then smash it to smithereens. Hints given by the owl effigies erected across a few of each dungeon’s corridors are far more straightforward than the riddles of their flesh-and-blood counterpart, as long as the player finds the beak that allows Link to communicate with them. Overall, the dungeons of Link’s Awakening excel over the lineups in its console predecessors because of their consistency and balanced difficulty curve. Still, I do not appreciate progression points being impeded by bomb walls with imperceptible cracks, an unfair mark of early Zelda that the developers evidently did not reconsider yet, and that almost ruins the stellar streak in Link’s Awakening.

Much of the progression in each of Link’s Awakening’s dungeons is also contingent on the item that Link receives. Similar to the strengths of the contained areas that they are obtained in, the doodads that make up the space of Link’s trusty bag are equally as exceptional. The collective of items here doesn’t rewrite the content of Zelda's arsenals, but Link’s Awakening warps the way each item is utilized, which in turn makes it refreshing. In Link’s Awakening, the titular hero isn’t confined by a magic meter with a finite source of energy. Because the typical restriction has been lifted, Link is free to use magic items like the Pegasus Boots and the Magic Rod (although this item is obtained too late in the game to go buck wild with it) more liberally than ever before. Other items, such as the separate bag with the magic powder, not only illuminate dim sections of dungeons, but they can also ignite enemies in flames by sprinkling it on them, as if it has the same divine properties as holy water. The quest of collecting twenty seashells to upgrade Link’s sword isn’t nearly as stringent as the chain of trading sequences, for Link only has to collect four-fifths of the total of them scattered across the island. Somehow, the boomerang has transformed from an early game projectile compensation tool to an enemy-shredding powerhouse, the Zelda equivalent to Mega Man 2’s Metal Blade with inexhaustible energy (provided Link keeps catching it on reentry). Lastly, the one truly original item in the game that is the crown jewel of Link’s arsenal is the Roc’s Feather, which allows Link to manually jump to hop over gaps and essentially increase the capabilities of his overall mobility. If giving Link an ability that he struggles with in the astronomically more advanced 3D Zelda games doesn’t sell the player on Link’s Awakening, I don’t know what would.

To my dismay, Link’s Awakening is beset by an unfortunate case of DKC syndrome, even though the game predates Rare’s Donkey Kong resurrection title by a year. This term was coined (by me) to highlight a game in which the bosses are laughably easy, especially when compared to the levels with meaty challenges that precede them. Up until this point, the Zelda franchise hadn’t suffered from this awkward contrast, but Link’s Awakening proves to be a trendsetter for the worse. Given that the first boss is a repeat of Moldorm from A Link to the Past, the boss that every fan unanimously despises, it sets a terrible precedent. Still, future bosses such as the languid shooting section of Hot Head’s fight and the brief hacking of the Angler Fishes’ shiny protuberance elevate the doofy Moldorm into the ranks of a competent boss fight. Yikes. The giant, creepy face that is Facade is an especially new low for Zelda bosses, for I was flabbergasted that the intended method for defeating it was to simply keep dropping bombs on its immovable face. Only with the game’s final boss, the shadowy nightmare that resides in the deep recesses of the Wind Fish egg, does the challenge intended for a boss fight come to fruition. The phantom figure will use its amorphous physicality to transform itself into the shape of many formidable boss fights from the series’ past, and the last phase of the fight will test the player’s proficiency with the Roc’s Feather like an Olympic jump roper. Admittedly, while the final boss of any game should ideally be the most challenging, all of the substantial effort needed to beat it should not be allocated entirely to it.

Conquering the final boss should feel victorious, but the narrative of Link’s Awakening conversely suggests otherwise. In plenty of instances leading up to excavating the interior of the giant egg shell, NPCs and bosses warn Link that finishing his quest will result in the disappearance of Koholint Island. The setting is but the fabrication of the Wind Fish’s coma dream, explaining the illogical traversal and the myriad of Mario properties. One usually wouldn’t put any weight into the words of menaces, but they speak not out of deception, but of fear. When Link frees the Wind Fish from its indefinite slumber, the player witnesses Koholint Island disintegrate before their very eyes, transporting Link to a scene where he’s supporting himself on a wooden slab of his ship to keep himself afloat in the ocean. All the while, Koholint's NPCs, like Marin, whom we've come to know and adore, fade away into the ether of Link's hazy memory. Usually, I’d be lambasting any piece of media that decides to end with the revelation that it was all a dream because it’s the most contrived plot device imaginable. However, in the case of Link’s Awakening, the reveal of Link’s actual whereabouts is quite effective. I don’t buy the stance that he’s the game’s true villain or that he’s acting as a useful idiot for the Wind Fish, for I get the impression that all of the narrative context that would lead any player to that conclusion never even occurred in the first place. Seeing Link still in peril after the events of that fateful storm, when we were so confident that he had at least found somewhere with a solid footing, gives the player total narrative whiplash. His continual state of uncertainty leaves us with a potent sense of dread, and the juxtaposition to the whimsy and wonder of Koholint makes the reveal all the more devastating. Existentialism is a theme that the more unorthodox Zelda titles often explore, but Link’s Awakening presents such heavy themes in the bleakest fashion.

Farore, Nayru, and Din have all but abandoned Link, leaving him in the uncaring arms of lands outside of Hyrule that have evidently caused our hero much strife. For the player, Link stepping outside of Hyrule to a godless realm that exists in the metaphysical space of unknowing is exactly what the franchise needed. Despite how abstract the peculiar land of Koholint is in navigating it, it doesn’t distract from how this island provides the Zelda series with a burst of creativity that Hyrule wouldn’t allow, which extends, but is not limited to, the items, dungeons, and atmosphere. Let us not forget that Link’s Awakening is no less grand in length and content than A Link to the Past, despite that it was designed for a system with less functional power than an Easy-Bake Oven. That alone is impressive enough to elevate Link’s Awakening beyond any of its console predecessors. Decades onward, Link's Awakening maintains its allure because it's still one of the more unique adventures the series can offer. It's a Zelda Adventure oozing with personality and mystique.

Spyro the Dragon Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 4/3/2025)

[Image from igdb.com]

Spyro the Dragon

Developer: Insomniac

Publisher: SCEI

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: PS1

Release Date: September 10, 1998

In the league of PlayStation exclusive 3D platformers in direct competition with Mario on the N64, Spyro the Dragon was as decorated a soldier as Crash Bandicoot in the bloody battle to dismantle Nintendo’s console market supremacy. Sure, we cannot discount the valiant efforts of the whole roster of PS1 platformer exclusives like Tomba and Ape Escape, but Spyro is the only other representative on the console that matches the renown of the orange marsupial. Not only were both series perceived worthy of receiving the trilogy treatment on their debut systems, but the retrospective, nostalgic ardor from those who fit the young demographic at the time of the PS1’s campaign is equally as fervent. When those kids reached adulthood two decades later and the Crash trilogy was remade for modern gaming standards and sensibilities, the same paint job was given to the Spyro trilogy only a year later due to the vociferous clamoring of fans–who stated that neglecting to revamp Spyro’s three PS1 classics would have diminished the impact of the N. Sane trilogy by proxy. Crash and Spyro have had genuine collaborative tie-in titles in the past, and their respective developers of Insomniac and Naughty Dog, acknowledged the association between their PS1 mascots when they sparked the same tongue-in-cheek rivalry for their following properties: Ratchet & Clank and Jak and Daxter. Needless to say, with all the evidence at hand, Crash and Spyro are like brothers from different mothers. They are like Metallica and Slayer: two separate entities with their respective icon statuses that are consistently grouped by a similar objective during their period of inception. The last parallel I’m going to connect to Crash is that the course of Spyro’s PS1 trilogy shares the same progression arc exhibited per entry as the bandicoot’s. In saying this, one could infer from this statement that Spyro’s self-titled debut is rough, blunt, and rudimentary, and you’d be correct. However, the first Spyro the Dragon game manages to evoke all of those substandard adjectives in a completely different way than that of the first Crash game.

My personal history with Spyro also shares similarities to Crash, as I was introduced to both franchises with their more lukewarm, post-original developer entries in the subsequent console generation on account of having the undeveloped motor skills of a toddler during their PS1 prime. Sorry to soil the fanbase’s illusion that both series are of an unequivocal repute, but I’ve always preferred Crash to Spyro–and it’s not as if I’d put the de facto face of the PS1 on my Mount Rushmore of gaming franchises. The reason why I give Crash a slight edge over his plucky purple compadre is that the Spyro games verge towards a jejune tone and atmosphere. Both series may target a prepubescent demographic, but the kooky, Looney Tunes aura emanating from Crash is more appealing to a general audience than the “once upon a time” storybook construct that comes with a child-friendly game revolving around a dragon. Still, at least Insomniac modestly attempted to balance the sugary sweetness of their work with some self-aware, borderline satirical elements that subvert the classic fairytale tropes, and three years before Shrek would become synonymous with this formula, I might add. This subversion is apparent from the anachronistic microphone seen in the corner of the news interview taking place with some dragon elders. The interviewer asks the scaly beasts about a potentially menacing character named Gnasty Gnorc, but one of them confidently assures the man that Gnasty Gnorc is too “simple and ugly to be a threat to the Dragon Kingdom.” However, the green ogre in question responds to this slander by firing a series of energy blasts from his morning star scepter that immobilize all of the dragon elders in a crystalized casing. However, the hazardous beams either missed the young Spyro due to his smaller physical stature, or Gnasty Gnorc didn’t bother targeting him because he misjudged him by his size. If the latter is the case, Spyro is going to make Gnasty wish he hadn’t settled for a half measure, for now he’s on a quest to free his brethren from their glassy prisons and incinerate Gnasty Gnorc for his transgression against the Dragon Kingdom. Spyro the Dragon’s premise is a Saturday morning cartoon cliche akin to an episode of He-Man, whose exposition is rushed during this introduction. Still, at least there’s a touch of levity, so it doesn’t veer too heavily on the spectrum of a sincere epic or too deeply into the territory of a schmaltzy fairytale that its presentation would imply.

Spyro the Dragon also greatly differentiates itself from Crash Bandicoot in its direction. They’re both undoubtedly 3D platformers, but Spyro was conceived after Super Mario 64 had defined the course of the genre with its collectathon format and was obliged to follow suit. The Dragon Kingdom, facing a crisis of stasis, is divided into five major districts, with Gnasty’s industrial island fortress rounding that number to six as the climactic ending area. Each of these six hubs features around three to four sub-areas that branch off of the central sector, similar to the winding floors of Peach’s Castle in Super Mario 64, except that the transportational medium to these forking paths is gateway arches instead of portal paintings. However, even though the player can clearly detect what the hub area is by its relation to the levels that stem from its perimeter, none of the medians fit my definition of a typical hub. A hub should be a place of respite separated from the action of the levels in its close, yet distinctly defined, borders. Yet, the objective of rescuing the ensnared dragon elders is still a relevant task between arch traveling, with the chaos of enemy activity still functioning as a background noise, or so to speak. The continual action that seeps into the hubs may illustrate how rampant Gnasty’s influence has become with all of the adult dragons out of commission, but I think the cohesion is intended to represent the encompassing level design at play. Including the hubs, Spyro’s areas all display a freeform design that gels beautifully with the collectathon format. A moderately straightaway path will lead Spyro to a podium that will transport him back to the hub he came from, but each area provides plenty of opportunities to divert from this eventual destination and will often reward the player with additional gems or finding dragons frozen in concealed locations. The districts of the Dragon Kingdom even supersede the first PlayStation’s graphical restrictions. The near-sighted graphical fuzz that usually limits the player’s line of sight is washed away, and levels like “Cliff Town” and “Haunted Towers” implore everyone to take advantage of the graphical unclouding by gliding to the location in the distance after looking at them from a prime vantage point in awe. Impressive as the landscapes are from a visual standpoint, their lack of graphical haze could mislead the player into conflating their splendor with their expanse. Even with their intricate, exploration-intensive designs, each level in Spyro the Dragon is likely going to be an ephemeral excursion. The majority of the dragon statues tend to be along the beaten path to the exit, and the alternate routes tend to circle around to the same conclusion anyway. Only on rare occasions will freeing a dragon require a keener exploration effort, such as darting around the tracks of “Tree Tops” or hugging the edge of a cliff in “Dry Canyon.” I’m not suggesting that Spyro the Dragon should’ve implemented the abrupt boot-out system that artificially prolonged each area in Super Mario 64, but I’d gladly trade the defogging of the visual distance in exchange for expanding the total breadth of each area.

Then again, perhaps having the levels load in real time as the player traverses onward and forward would be especially jarring with Spyro’s physicality. Gliding is an innate ability for the little dragon that could, and it’s quite complementary to be able to see the platforms from afar so Spyro can elegantly soar to them from his position. I’d describe Spyro’s sky-skimming as graceful if it weren’t for the fact that the player cannot command Spyro to stop in mid-air, so a miscalculated trajectory can often lead to Spyro falling into the abyss below the clouds. His offensive headbutt maneuver, where he lowers his head and places his horns front and center like a battering ram, can also be quite precarious with its ramming speed and inexhaustible energy. This is why it’s essential to alternate between Spyro’s charge and blowing a blast of fire out of his nostrils, a close-ranged dragon staple with a more stable attack momentum. Still, even though Spyro’s abilities can potentially result in him overreaching past a solid footing, controlling him overall is comfortably smooth as silk. His general physicality isn’t afflicted with the same stifling rigidity akin to Crash in his first outing. However, even with his superior control scheme right out of the gate, Spyro’s mascot appeal is reduced by a few unfortunate characteristics. Downscaling a dragon to a winsome size is a brilliant prospect that would win over anyone, but Spyro’s inherent advantage in the charm department is spoiled whenever he opens his toothy mouth, revealing himself to be a dork who says overbearingly optimistic one-liners. I’d grab a beer with the silent goofball Crash without question, but I’d be afraid that Spyro would fink me out to the authorities for public intoxication.

It’s more likely that Spyro will deplete his stock of lives when the player gets overly eager with his abilities, rather than facing off against the smattering of enemies. The invasive goons in the Dragon Kingdom are abundant in numbers across the magical realm, sometimes even lining up in unison so Spyro can knock them down like bowling pins with his headbutt charge. On the basis of an individual encounter, each enemy is fairly predictable in their attack patterns, with the trick between all of them being whether or not their armor is impenetrable to flames or physical buffeting. If the player doesn’t seem to catch on to this pattern of enemy defenses and they harm him as a result, Spyro’s health system is one of the series’ most idiosyncratic properties, and it’s surprisingly disturbing. While not uttering a single word could make the player question his role as a bona fide character, Spyro is accompanied on his quest by his dragonfly friend/pet Sparx. This glowing bug functions as a refurbished Aku Aku from Crash, a floating augmentation to the protagonist’s health that acts as a shield. Where they differ is that Sparx is a health reserve granted to Spyro automatically instead of an earned perk that can be easily relinquished. Sparx’s base color is a radiant golden, but as Spyro takes damage, his healthy glow will diminish to a sad blue to a sickly green. After that, he’ll realize a pattern and leave Spyro to save his own hide, and Spyro suffering one more hit after Sparx abandons him will result in his death. To either convince Sparx to return or replenish Sparx’s vigor beforehand, Spyro must prey on the small, gentle animals located in packs around the field known as “fodder.” Once Spyro butchers them like the apex predator he is, Sparx will consume the butterfly that pops out of their lifeless bodies to regain his golden sheen. Ghastly ghouls and demonic hellspawn are known to devour souls, but this innocuous-looking insect performs this barbaric act in droves in the name of protecting his buddy. If the player finds this method of regaining health unsettling, it’s unlikely that they’ll have to murder these cute little creatures all that often on account of the game’s general ease. I should also add that enemies are known to drop orbs whose accumulation increases Spyro’s number of lives, so there are more than enough tools offered to keep Spyro afloat in tandem with the unlikelihood of exhausting them.

Spyro the Dragon’s progression difficulty could also be described as leisurely to a fault, but I think the more applicable term is unimpactful. In order for the balloonist to whisk Spyro away on his gallant hot air contraption, Spyro needs to collect a certain amount of the game’s various collectibles to satisfy him. In addition to using Spyro’s magic touch to free the dragon elders, Spyro must also collect the colorful quantity of gems and retrieve dragon eggs from veiled thieves wearing burqas who operate on the field alongside the enemies. Acquiring these collectibles should come naturally through standard traversal, but the player can sign up to do the “flight” stages that involve collecting or extinguishing a series of the same objects or enemies in a sequential order under a time limit. The rhythmic pacing of these optional levels is probably the most demanding the game gets with its typically lenient error margins. Hell, one might become slightly irritated by the swift darting of the thieves while pursuing them, and the irritation might escalate to overzealous anger due to the cheeky bastard’s taunts and chortles. The process of obtaining these secondary collectibles in of itself is not an issue, but how the process overrides finding the dragons on the field in engagement and value. Every collectathon’s main collectible should be the primary focus that furthers the story, and muddling its impact by mixing its importance with all of the others diminishes its impact and relevance.

The facile factors of Spyro the Dragon I’ve discussed before could be excusable from a certain perspective, but the game’s “bosses” are downright embarrassing. I put the term bosses in snarky quotation marks because imposing baddies in gaming that conclude every milestone usually involve direct conflictive contact on the part of the protagonist. For Spyro, every arena is a curved track for the youthful dragon to chase them down like common thieves. To make the encounter even less stimulating, every one of Gnasty Gnorc’s cohorts falls with only a couple of headbutts or singes from Spyro’s fire breath. Surely, the big, stinky cheese in charge of the anti-dragon operation should warrant an epic duel as the game’s climax, right? Wrong. All that Gnasty Gnorc’s narrative significance does for his final “battle” is make the track that Spyro chases him on slightly longer. Two scorching fire blasts are all it takes for the unsightly green ogre to perish, and the anticlimactic scene had me astonished in disbelief. People tend to criticize Crash’s bosses for not being Herculean enough compared to the levels that precede them, but at least they inarguably fit the definition of bosses as opposed to the piddly, inconsequential pursuits that comprise every notable bit of progress in Spyro the Dragon.

It should be no wonder that fans often speak of Spyro in the same excitable breath as Crash Bandicoot in the ranks of PlayStation platformer mascots. While Crash Bandicoot was placed on a higher pedestal in Sony’s minds due to predating Spyro by a few years, Spyro’s whimsical adventure through a graphically alluring fantasy realm with an adorable (as long as he keeps his mouth shut) purple lizard at the helm places it on equal measure with Naughty Dog’s work in terms of a shared accessible, lighthearted charm. Comparisons between the two are also derived from their first entries’ amateurish lack of polish. However, whereas Crash’s rough template beats the player to death with harsh, unflinching demand, Spyro’s conversely relaxes them to the degree of being ineffectual. Because the game is a little too light on difficulty, level length, and substantial boss fights, the entirety of Spyro the Dragon comes in one ear and quickly exits the other. If this was a concentrated effort on Insomniac’s part to cater towards an extremely young audience, I should warn them that dumbing down the content will wear thin on even the most impressionable children. Still, if we use Crash’s evolution through three entries as an example, perhaps broadening Spyro’s formula through its sequels will conjure up something more resonating.

Penny's Big Breakaway Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 3/31/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Penny's Big Breakaway

Developer: Evening Star

Publisher: Private Division

Genre(s): 3D Platformer

Platforms: PC, Switch, Xbox Series X, PS5

Release Date: February 21, 2024

It’s no wonder that Christian Whitehead is a lionized figure among Sonic fans. Hell, the veneration for this Australian man should come as natural when one of your own accomplishes something commendatory, sparking a sense of pride in one’s community. In an era where Sonic had become subject to a torrent of mockery and disdain due to Sega’s mishandling of their precious mascot since the company conceded defeat in the console wars, Christian Whitehead was one Sonic fan whose endearing enthusiasm for the blue blur drove the incentive to fix Sonic himself. His mobile ports of the classic Sonic games from the Sega Genesis/CD are arguably the definitive versions of those celebrated titles, and his remixed compilation of the blue blur’s greatest old school hits in Sonic Mania is considered to be Sonic’s best outing, period. It certainly had me smitten for 2D Sonic in a way unfelt by the traditional titles it paid tribute to. Mr. Whitehead evidently has a more fiery passion and love for Sonic than the typical fan, who seems content drawing incriminating artwork of the hedgehog and his friends and publishing it on the internet. It could even be disputed that the man possesses a more profound understanding of Sonic’s gameplay fundamentals than the company that birthed him, considering how Sonic Mania outclasses any of their home field output. Still, even though Mr. Whitehead has proved himself an invaluable asset in prolonging Sonic’s relevance and esteem, he legally owns little to zero of the Sonic rights–even if Sega has no scruples in profiting off of his reworking of their property. Because Christian Whitehead is not an employee at Sega and the company would probably compress his creative potential if he were on their payroll, he must accede to paving his own path in the gaming industry with his original intellectual concept. Fortunately, spiritual successors of bygone games are all the rage in the current indie sphere. For the first time ever, Christian Whitehead is channeling his game design talents in his new IP, Penny’s Big Breakaway, a game that I’d describe as “if A Hat in Time had a sister who was fond of Sonic as opposed to Mario.”

The title of Mr. Whitehead’s game is a play-on-words whose context is detailed in the opening cutscene. The titular Penny’s “big break” involves an impassioned attempt to woo over the judges during an annual festival taking place in her homeland’s palace. Her talent that she hopes will garner uproarious applause and eminent prestige is a skillful handling of the yo-yo, and fortuitously encountering a sentient toy spool with string attached should ideally be an asset in her goal to win over the audience. However, by “sentience,” I mean that her new plastic friend has the demeanor and intellect of a dog, and Penny should’ve considered training it before the event when it strips Emperor Eddie down to his undergarments by chewing through his regal robes. The embarrassed and emasculated emperor orders poor Penny to an outrageously long jail sentence in his state of indignity, so Penny frantically flees the scene and will be evading capture from Eddie’s penguin army henceforth. In this plot premise that marries American Idol and Alice in Wonderland, one can detect that Penny’s Big Breakaway evokes that whimsically lighthearted atmosphere appropriate for a genre catered towards a general audience like its 3D platformer predecessors. The illustrations that detail the events of the introduction sequence are cinematically constructed like an animated slideshow, an endearing presentational choice that emphasizes the game’s childlike charm.

One could assume from the labored illustrations in the game’s cutscenes that the general aesthetic of Penny’s Big Breakaway displays the same quality level of graphical proficiency. Unfortunately, the graphics that comprise the gameplay portion leave a lot to be desired, and saying this still feels like an understatement. The visuals in Penny’s Big Breakaway are comparable to using food coloring in a sad attempt to invigorate a sloppy bowl of oatmeal. Sure, the mess of rainbow shades will technically look more vivacious than its muted, beige form, but the swirl of colors is still muddled by the grainy and mushy texture of the base matter. The foregrounds and set pieces of Penny’s Big Breakaway are invitingly colorful on the surface, but its intended appeal is tainted by a prevalent blotchiness. It doesn’t help that the slurried paint bomb is bleeding through a canvas catered towards a disturbingly young demographic. From the anatomically simplified guys who look and move like the costumed characters from Yo Gabba Gabba! to the areas that surround them that resemble Duplo constructions, the presentation of Penny’s Big Breakaway off-puttingly evokes something for children who haven’t finished teething yet. Adults can still embrace a work appropriate for general audiences that might include children, but dialing up on the cherubic iconography will make anyone with an age in the double digits wince with discomfort. It’s a shame that the repulsively syrupy tone ruins what is an admirably diverse display of level themes. They follow the standard roulette of platformer level tropes, such as an urban world, fire world, ice world, etc., but at least there is a vibrancy throughout that elevates them from feeling generic. Still, adding to my point regarding how juvenile the presentation is, one of the worlds in this game is themed around bathing, with a prevalent pink tone washing over the sudsy steam that emanates from the area’s tubs and hot springs. I’m surprised there isn’t a level in this game themed around “nap time,” seeing Penny wearing pajamas while jumping on a series of beds with stars and crescent moons glittering overhead. The intermingling of a messy graphical foundation and the toddler tone made me bilious. I know for a fact that isn’t the result of a compromise that 3D indie games are forced to work around, using the delightfully scrappy look of A Hat in Time by comparison.

Fortunately, the gameplay of Penny’s Big Breakaway is quickly paced enough to almost distract oneself from the feverish Nick Jr. cartoon that surrounds them. Penny’s mascot potential that I factor in for all 3D platformer characters is heavily subdued by her odd design and even odder white, poofy hair that makes her look like a member of an extinct American political party from the pioneer days. Her gameplay mechanics will equally make the player scratch their heads in bemusement, but they are conversely an appetizing factor of the game instead of a detractor. Whether it's the fact that her yo-yo has a will of its own or not, Penny can still command her plastic pet with the expert proficiency of a dog trainer with over a dozen golden prize ribbons to claim. Penny’s Big Breakaway uses the wide versatility of the classic toy to utilize it as the game’s primary mode of gameplay, spanning from traversal to offense. In terms of skating around the field, I use the term “skating” as an allusion to another video game series that is surprisingly the most comparable to Penny’s gameplay. Penny implores the player to maintain a consistent momentum, which is rewarded through a combo chain that multiplies one’s score exponentially. This is not a hallmark of Sonic’s gameplay, but that of Tony Hawk’s celebrated series that mixed the aerodynamics of 3D platforming with the conceptual frame of extreme urban sports. When one realizes the connection, it unveils a skill ceiling stacked like a skyscraper. Accelerating one’s score with the aerial swings, twists, and twirls, plus preserving it by rolling on the yo-yo like a skateboard, is a far more engaging and gratifying method of traveling to the level’s end than simply running and jumping. Treating the gameplay with the standard method of platforming mentioned will feel sluggish and limp, especially if one is expecting the more automated acceleration that comes with Sonic. That being said, one comparison I can sincerely make to Sonic is that Penny’s aerial yo-yo lunge resulted in tumbling down a few hazardous pits as a result of mismatching the speed and range of it, like Sonic’s homing attack.

Then there’s the combat equation of Penny’s gameplay that involves using the yo-yo as a weapon, like a rudimentary form of nunchucks. Whacking foes with the buoyant, 360-degree spatial range that comes with analog control would feel dexterous, only if it weren’t for the enemies that Penny faces. Throughout the majority of the levels, except for the one suspended in the aether of the cosmos, dozens of penguins will ambush Penny in an attempt to subdue her and subject her to their ruler’s impudent sense of justice. If the player allows more than six penguins to latch onto her like a rabid class of preschoolers, her capture is classified as a “death” that strikes one unit of health off the bar. To prevent the penguins from carrying her off with their slippery mitts, one might correlate using the yo-yo as a defensive tool to clobber her assailants. Emperor Eddie’s seemingly infinite brigade of penguins is not only flightless, but one can add fecklessness to describe the traits they lack. Clocking these slimy birds with Penny’s toy has no physical impact to it, as if the player is just brushing off dandruff from their scalp. To make matters irritating, the penguins won’t be defeated with one hit, so the player is forced to halt the momentum of traversal in order to squash them sufficiently. Directly confronting the penguins as one would typically do with enemies on the field will soon grow wearisome for these reasons, which is why it’s better just to zoom past them even if they bumrush from behind. When the opposition proves to be more of a brief nuisance than an actual threat, the developers either should’ve raised the stakes of Penny’s capture or omitted any field conflict entirely.

Other than occasionally being incapacitated by a barrage of wet feathers and failing to land on a platform, Penny’s Big Breakaway rarely presents much in the way of challenging obstacles that impede one’s trajectory to the level’s end goal. One’s score is ultimately arbitrary and will not warrant any tangible reward when Penny reaches the pillar that functions like a Mario flagpole. Keeping a combo going isn’t a requisite; it’s simply a fun recommendation from someone who has played the game. Even though progress is rather straightforward, minus a few sections that involve the various yo-yo power-ups or riding across any body of liquid, the game does consistently supply auxiliary objectives that spice up the standard level routing. The reason why the game’s propulsion probably feels more moderate compared to Sonic’s is to not deter the player from exploration, something to put into consideration to find the three copper hexagons found in the less conspicuous corners of the map. If they’re not on the main pathway, the player might also have to take a curious turn or two to find three different NPCs who assign Penny to solve their troubles. The pleas of the robotic citizens can range from finding a series of lost objects, protecting a valuable from penguins, to reaching a subsidiary score through a flashy combo chain–the only instances where performing one is actually suggested. The guy who needed a gift for his wedding anniversary in a split second needs omniscient supervision like a guardian angel, which is something that Penny can not provide. While these secondary tasks do indeed expand the breadth of a level’s immediate parameters and are marginally harder than simply going about one’s regular business, I wish there were some tangible reward for one’s extra efforts. Maybe a new ability or yo-yo skin? I’m not asking for the moon, guys.

Some games that are light on level challenge tend to put all of their difficulty eggs into the boss basket, or vice versa, if you’re Donkey Kong Country or Crash Bandicoot. Penny’s Big Breakaway, however, keeps the difficulty meter setting on breezy for all scenarios. Still, this isn’t to say that Penny’s bosses aren’t substantial from a design or schematic standpoint. Dodging the torpedo fire from salty sea dog, Sheila, while shredding on the water with the yo-yo like a jetski is a thrilling and tense encounter, and pocketing the eyes of “Mr. Q” like billiard balls when the arena is a giant pool table is a clever battle condition. These are, however, the first two genuine boss fights in the game, and each one afterwards fulfills neither the challenge nor the shrewdness. I understand that Emperor Eddie might combat his challengers with his subordinates as someone of his status would, but I would think his eminence would at least save him from Penny practically bullying him at the bathhouse. The duel with “Puppet Penny” resembles a much easier race from Ape Escape, and Judge Rufus’ fight will plummet quickly (literally) once Penny retrieves his gavel to knock him off his pedestal. An amped-up Eddie that Penny fights as the game’s last hurrah just mirrors the one from the bathhouse with a Metroid-esque platforming sequence to cap it off. A streak of milquetoast bosses are one thing, but the fact that the game launched the cavalcade of world finishers so strongly with two exemplary fights makes the inferior ones that follow all the more disappointing. Was someone on the development team who worked on the first two bosses fired during production, or something?

I compared Penny’s Big Breakaway to fellow indie 3D platformer, A Hat in Time, for taking the essence of a solidified franchise in that genre and preserving its bygone gameplay with a plucky female protagonist at the center. Unfortunately, on Penny’s part, the comparisons of its similar overall mission to A Hat In Time do not extend to the older game’s quality and outstanding charisma. Still, I don’t know if it’s fair to compare the two beyond that because emulating Mario’s rival, Sonic, involves playing with a different chemistry set altogether. I would state that perhaps it’s harder to channel Sonic’s blistering energy and accommodate the level design to his speedy nature, but Penny’s Big Breakaway does not falter in that department. Using the yo-yo as a mechanism to maintain a swift and fluid pace captures the exhilaration that makes Sonic so appealing. Penny crumbles with essentially every other aspect, as the player could contract salmonella from how brief the combat and collectibles time was in the developer oven. Lest we forget that it’s all wrapped in a presentational package that could put anyone over eighteen on a watchlist. Even with Penny’s lackluster qualities listed, the game still captures that speedy, enlivening Sonic gameplay so splendidly that it’s worth recommending on that merit alone. Christian Whitehead is a pragmatist, not a visionary.

Pizza Tower Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 3/26/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Pizza Tower

Developer: Tour De Pizza

Publisher: Tour De Pizza

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: PC, Switch

Release Date: January 26, 2023

Pizza Tower is one example of why I still have faith in gaming in this day and age. Over the past few years, I've heard the depressing sentiment that gaming as a medium is dying and its peak occurred well over a decade ago. Sorry to inform you, but this melancholic string of thoughts and feelings always happens at a certain point in adulthood. At a certain point, everyone pines for the media from one's candy-coated past, likely from their carefree days before they turned eighteen and graduated from high school. However, despite my refuting claim, I can't be so blind as to not understand where this malaise might stem from. The triple-A pillars of the industry have been progressively treating their consumer base with more cynical contempt every year since the first 365-day period of this decade, a monumental year when gaming surpassed the sales of the film industry, thanks to the remote practices of the COVID lockdown. It's egregious how video game companies keep churning out unfinished releases at launch while their fanbase waits with bated breath for them to potentially patch out the blemishes with a naive sense of optimism, especially since these companies have the gall to charge a whopping $60-$70 for their deficient products. Even if the developers had taken the necessary time to polish their products to a point of spotless proficiency, entries in the open-world, the RPG, and other genres that are synonymous with the epic, grandiose standard of the modern gaming landscape only causes nausea now instead of the curious awe they formally evoked thanks to oversaturation. The state of gaming is now comparable to a Cheesecake Factory: a corporate monolith banking off the impressionable mobs buying into expensive mediocrity while looking distinguished from a distant, surface-level perspective. If bloated bombast generated by indifferent greed machines had given you the gaming blues, I’m gleeful to report that the grassroots indie circle side of the industry provides a marvelous alternative to the triple-A titans guaranteed to turn that frown upside down. Somehow, in a sea of megalodons who cause tidal waves from their immense size alone, Pizza Tower is the plucky little clown fish making a humongous splash among them despite the fact that it’s their antithesis in every conceivable way possible.

The most conspicuous element of Pizza Tower that exemplifies its renegade indie credentials is its highly distinctive aesthetic. Where triple-A games are hyper-focused on buffing out every inch of digital discernibility to scramble the player’s perception of reality like a lucid dream, Pizza Tower is unmistakably an interactive fantasy in the vein of a cartoon. Specifically, Pizza Tower’s graphics should drum up comparisons to the animation style of John Kricfalusi, the creator of influential cartoon lynchpin, The Ren and Stimpy Show. Any disparaging comments on the man’s personality are admittedly and unfortunately too transparent to dispute, but no one can deny that his idiosyncratic drawing style arguably became the most emulated form of animation by a myriad of future cartoonists after his series debuted on Nickelodeon in the early 1990s. The dogmatic practice that John K. engendered on his production team to a tyrannical degree was to never draw the same face twice, a stern and painstaking practice to maintain the creative integrity of his work. While I’m assuming that there wasn’t an overseer at Tour De Pizza cracking the proverbial whip, Pizza Tower evidently adopts the same ethos, judging by the game’s buoyant expressiveness. Peppino Spaghetti, Pizza Tower’s playable protagonist, whose name sounds like a rejected Punch Out! boxer, muscles out silly expressions that one’s mother tells them would freeze on their face if they persisted. However, in the case of Pizza Tower espousing John K’s working credo, one continual exaggerated visage would’ve been a death sentence, which is why Peppino contorts his face uniquely enough to the point where any normal person would be hospitalized for fracturing their jaw or busting a vital blood vessel in their eye. No matter Peppino’s intended emotion of glee, rage, or fear, they are all expressed with an utterly manic exaggeration. In fact, any sentient creature in the game with pronounced facial features signifies their emotions emphatically, like Peppino, albeit exhibiting a lesser range due to not having a predominant screen presence. The madcap characters in Pizza Tower are juxtaposed with set pieces and backgrounds that I’d describe as a warped psychedelic experience akin to tripping balls on salvia if it weren’t so heavily associated with a ubiquitous artistic style synonymous with late 20th-century animation. All the while, the foundation of Pizza Tower’s twisted kookiness is rough-hewn, amateurish doodles with their coarse outlines supplying the backbone for endearing pixel graphics. To say the least, Pizza Tower’s presentation is an acquired taste. Several detractors even state that its provocative, crude panache is the deciding factor that deterred them from playing the game entirely. Conversely, Pizza Tower’s presentation is what piqued my interest. It’s not as if I adore the aesthetic based on its visual merits alone, but that they foster the dementedly comedic atmosphere that resonated with me so long ago when I fell in love with Ren & Stimpy. When would a triple-A title ever alienate a percentage of its audience with such a stark artistic deliberation? This question is rhetorical, of course–they’d never dream of it.

To Peppino’s credit, I’d probably be acting like a raving lunatic if my livelihood were threatened with total annihilation by an evil cosmic entity in the shape of a gigantic pizza. To save his pizzeria from being wiped off the map with a comically-sized laser blast like Alderaan, the chef must haul ass up the titular “pizza tower” and give the diabolical pie a piece of his mind. Perhaps this anxiety-inducing conflict would’ve been prevented if Peppino paid off his steep debt payments, but that’s evidently not something the schmuck will ever put into consideration. Peppino’s ascent up the foreboding spire to rescue his business from certain destruction is divided into subsections, four primary hubs housing a handful of levels that also display a cohesive theme per area. The ascension process obviously involves completing the levels per hub, but Pizza Tower is no ordinary side-scroller with a point A to B kind of trajectory. Pizza Tower’s level design draws prominent comparisons to Wario Land, a Mario Land spinoff series of games starring the red plumber’s “evil twin,” or at least the character who shares this dynamic with him. The parallels to Wario Land could also be conjured up from the fact that Pizza’s Tower’s protagonist is also a pudgy Italian man who exudes an aura of being goofy, greasy, semi-sleazy, and other slovenly characteristics. Relating to Wario Land’s gameplay, the player will traverse through a series of corridors in a labyrinthian enclosure, like The Great Cave Offensive, if the chapter from Kirby Super Star wasn’t a smothering chore. Like Wario, Peppino will possibly stumble upon a smattering of collectibles of varying value, swapping jewels with toppings typically found on pizza. On the same token, what constitutes treasures is alternately different pieces of food-oriented items instead of golden trinkets. Peppino will also similarly reach a point in every level where he’ll encounter what looks like a street-weathered version of an Easter Island head, and making physical contact with the hefty slab of marble will trigger a sequence where Peppino must make haste back to the entrance of the level through an alternate path, lest Peppino alerts the slumbering Pizzaface of his presence and starts hunting him down like the similarly shaped and equally malevolent Desert Sun from Super Mario Bros. 3. I suppose I should disclose that the similarities specifically stem from the fourth entry in the Wario Land franchise, the one that forgoes a considerable chunk of the methodical puzzle elements from the previous games in favor of pronouncing pure platforming. How Pizza Tower eludes the accusations of acting as an outright homage to the fourth Wario Land title is that the winding platforming in question is cranked up to a velocity that resembles the high-octane swiftness of Sonic the Hedgehog. Ideally, Peppino is plowing his way through every inch of this tower with an urgency on the verge of potential peril. When he’s darting to whence he came from as the level’s climax, the speed needed to escape Pizzaface’s menacing line of sight is so blistering that it’s a wonder that Peppino’s skin isn’t seared with third-degree burns from the blaze set under his feet. Add the game’s exaggerated exuberance into the equation, and every level of Pizza Tower becomes so intense that it feels like the game is bound to explode.

Pizza Tower’s heightened rate of gameplay acceleration does not connote that the player can casually sprint through each level with little consideration to their surroundings. Another gameplay factor ostensibly taken from Sega’s blue blur is a ranking system that evaluates Peppino’s performance after a level is completed, scaled on the American grading system of assigning letters from the alphabet. Surprisingly, time is not a factor that the game finds imperative in judging the player on their skills, as it would be in any Sonic game. Rather, the developers encourage defeating enemies in a string of combos before the streak window exhausts, as well as conducting a thorough search of the area for scattered pizza ingredients and the aforementioned collectibles. The caged pizza toppings should be conspicuous enough to free them from their captivity, even if the player can’t actually hear their yelps for help seen in speech bubbles. However, acquiring the level’s hidden treasure that boosts the player’s score exponentially is an ordeal, involving finding the tower’s janitor, Gerome, to unlock the door with the treasure behind it while locating the door itself in the process. Extra points can also be accumulated by finding the eyes that teleport Peppino to brief platforming segments, separated from the main trek by their visual abstractions, like the surreal “secret” platforming levels from Super Mario Sunshine. Peppino’s total score can also be deducted if he collides with any hazards on the field, which is why being cautious of one’s surroundings is essential in climbing the stairs to success. One might think that the marks they receive are an arbitrary means to incentivize an extraneous effort from the player with no tangible reward, and fair dinkum. Still, with a game that promotes such a kinetically chaotic energy, what’s the fun in slogging along doing the bare minimum? Only by painstakingly adhering to the grade qualifications can the player truly experience the high-octane thrills of Pizza Tower. However, surpassing the prestigious S rank attempting to obtain the elusive, perfect “P” is absolute insanity, making the player emit the same exasperated banshee shrieks as Peppino in the process.

One must bone up on Peppino’s physical capabilities to ensure they are ahead of the grading curve in Pizza Tower. Given the sheer range of the chef’s dexterity, he was either a gymnast in his younger days, or the duress of his trade potentially being obliterated has sparked one hell of a fight-or-flight response. A testament to Pizza Tower’s accessibility while still nurturing a steep skill ceiling is the fact that the game’s tutorial allows the player to enact all of Peppino’s feats of acrobatics before they begin the climb, and that the player will likely feel obliged to revisit this section because of how his vast array of maneuvers is difficult to cram in one sitting. In short, navigating Peppino around the tower requires practicing a few essential moves to reach an elegant grace. This includes, but is not limited to, rolling to crawl under crevices, timing the point to jump from a wall climb so Peppino doesn’t slam his head in a corner, and coordinating a dive move that corrects the course of falling to keep the rhythm of his movement afloat. His stunts are simple in their execution but are challenging to hone to a standard of fluid expertise, which feels amazing to master after awkwardly stumbling at first. I’m still scratching my head figuring out the purpose of Peppino’s “pose button” that sees him strike a silly stance in a freeze frame like he’s modeling for a magazine’s photoshoot. Playgirl, no doubt.

Still, even if the player trains Peppino as if he’s striving for an Olympic medal, his innate set of skills will not prepare him for the stream of level gimmicks. To fully illustrate the extent of Pizza Tower’s level diversity would require referencing over twenty different levels in great detail, so I’ll have to show restraint with a handful of highlights. Another mustachioed man in the “Bloodsauce Dungeon” is generous enough to feed Peppino his spicy drumsticks, and the scorching heat of the chicken will render Peppino a walking matchstick with the ability to double jump. “GOLF” incorporates a bastardized version of the languorous sport alluded to in its title by having Peppino swing a giant ball of cheese along a track to eventually drop it in a basketball hoop. Your retired grandfather would hate it. Not since the image of a horsefly’s buzzing face in the Spongebob episode “Wormy” that I watched as a kid have I been as startled by abrupt close-ups with grating noises as in the quasi-stealth level “Don’t Make a Sound.” The ticking timer of “War,” where Peppino brandishes a heavy-duty double-barreled shotgun, is a level that will force any player glossing over the scores to experience the anxiety oozing out of Pizza Tower regardless. Levels such as “Gnome Forest” swap Peppino almost entirely for his clean-cut Mario equivalent, Gustavo, who rides around on one of the chunky rat impediments named Brick that changes the mechanics of gameplay completely. Lastly, one has to love a level simply titled, “Oh Shit!” even if globbing Peppino with melted cheese makes his sticking to the walls a tad rigid. Needless to say, one will never play the same level twice throughout Pizza Tower’s run time, which will delight the player because of their incredible diversity as well as frustrate them in tandem with reaching the apex ranks.

While the conditions aren’t as overwhelming as what it takes to perfect a level, the grades are still factored into Pizza Tower’s bosses. I neglected to mention this, but collecting the toppings is paramount to Pizza Tower’s progression, as Peppino is given a sum of money for every mushroom, sausage, and controversial pineapple he rescues. The finances earned are then traded with the tall, dapper extortionist Scott Snitch Stick, who will unveil the entrance to a boss’s domain. Like the levels, albeit in a smaller quantity, the milestone foes faced per block of the tower are distinctive and exude that patented mood of madness. Pepperman will charge into Peppino like he’s playing linebacker for the Denver Broncos, and the crawling cheese glob called “The Vigilante” will don a cowboy hat and duel Peppino with dueling action revolvers. “The Noise” is an on-the-nose parody of Domino’s retired pesky mascot “The Noid” with the same obnoxious, buck-toothed smile, while it could be argued that the gangly, deformed doppelganger of Peppino is a satirical stab at our hero…maybe. Even though every fight is prolonged to a second stage, every attack pattern the bosses dish out is entirely manageable at a first glance, making the process of perfection seem more feasible. I commend every boss for their refined tractability, but I wish the difficulty curve expanded a bit when Peppino finally climbs to the tip top of the tower to finally fight Pizzaface. Between the harbinger’s three phases, plus a boss gauntlet of all the foes before him, socking it to Pizzaface and the beanpole dork piloting the flying circle proved to be a cinch. In a game designed to make the player rife with anxiety, it’s disappointing that zero drops of stress sweat were excreted, as should happen with any final boss. That being said, the timed escape from the crumbling tower that ensues soon after will have the player sweating buckets, a subtle illustration of the game’s real strong suits. Take notes, Metroid.

Mama mia–is Pizza Tower a spicy meat-a-ball! Sorry if I offended any Italians with this cliche line, but this indie darling starring another character ostensibly from Europe’s boot has perked up my gaming taste buds. Pizza Tower’s rampant creativity spruces up bygone gameplay characteristics from 2D platformers of yore and injects them with a presentation and vibrancy that culminates in the gaming pinnacle of apeshit insanity. While the craziness of Pizza Tower might unnerve some gamers, the overall experience is surprisingly accommodating, leaving it up to the player’s volition on how much they wish for Pizza Tower to throttle them like a jagged rollercoaster with no seatbelts. In a gaming landscape where the developers at the forefront of the medium crap out bland and uninspired dreck knowing full well that people will buy it anyway, to know that there are hole-in-the-walls where gamers can still be treated to games that will transport them to the ecstasy of flavor country. Fuck the new fifty hour open-world game from Ubisoft; it’s pizza time, goddammit, and it should be mandatory to play for anyone decrying that video games are deader than disco.

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 3/19/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Developer: Insomniac

Publisher: SCE

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

Platforms: PS4, PS5

Release Date: November 12, 2020

“Another character named Miles Morales is also playable in sections that mirror MJ’s, but I’ll discuss him at a later date…”

And with the release of the spinoff from Sony’s acclaimed Spider-Man vehicle, it’s now time to delve into the significance of one of the initial game’s playable supporting characters. His tangential role in Marvel’s Spider-Man barely served any impactful purpose to Peter’s story of young adulthood, even if his chronic bouts of interactivity throughout the game connoted that he was placed higher on the pedestal of prominence than his screen presence would suggest. To understand why this lad ate up a significant portion of the first game’s screen time despite how trivial his position was, one must be aware of the worldly context that exists outside of the realm of any Spider-Man material he’s appeared in.

For the past decade or so, the greater media landscape has been acutely conscious of inclusivity, increasing the representation of racial and LGBT+ minorities and portraying them as positive, upstanding citizens. The whole process is to make amends for over a century of minstrel shows, tokenism, one-note comical stereotypes, or completely omitting minorities altogether. Given that Marvel was the brand that dominated the entertainment zeitgeist during the era when this cultural revolution was occurring, it’s natural that the comic conglomerate would shuffle their properties to accommodate the neglected demographics. It’s admirable to see the once-obscure Black Panther rocket to the echelons of Marvel’s most reputable franchises thanks to this social trend. On the other hand, however, altering the ethnic and sexual propensities of an established character is always a disrespectful and cheap method of appeasement. Considering that Marvel’s webslinger is their golden boy, he’s the least immune to executives adulterating his identity and capitalizing on the modern audience’s keen interest in diversity. However, one clever comic writer devised a loophole that kept the legacy of Spider-Man intact by proposing the idea that the man behind the mask and his superhero persona were interchangeable. Peter Parker is and could never be black, but he doesn’t necessarily have to be the sole bearer of the Spider-Man moniker. Oscorp evidently has a colony of mutated spiders still skittering around their laboratories, so there could potentially be dozens of Spider-Men swinging around NYC. For the sake of inclusion, an Afro-Puerto Rican boy from Brooklyn named Miles Morales was “blessed” with the spider’s bite and transformed into a hero for the deferred masses to latch onto. Insomniac evidently had the idea of propping up Miles into a solo adventure when they detailed his transformation in the background of the first game, and the fact that Into the Spider-Verse became the most acclaimed piece of Spider-Man media since the game’s release was pure serendipity. Still, despite the popularity and prevalence of Miles, Insomniac’s game with him at the helm connotes that he’s ultimately still secondary to Peter.

In many ways, Miles Morales rekindles the familiar Spider-Man dynamic that was lost when Peter became old enough to legally drink alcohol and grow a full beard. A year has passed since the turbulent events of the previous Spider-Man game, and Miles is still the dorky, excitable, and naive high schooler that Peter was when he initially donned his creepy-crawly superhero persona. The game is set during his Christmas break, with snow and festive wreaths as prominent foreground elements to signify the scene, so his game won’t have to become a daily back and forth between school and saving the world like it’s American Persona. Still, there is the classic element of hiding his alter ego from a looming parental guardian who expresses concern about his whereabouts. In this case, Miles lies to poor Rio (his mom) that he’s simply taking a detour to the convenience store to fetch some groceries when he’s actually on the town with Peter, attempting to halt Rhino’s rampage through the mall. Their efforts to subdue the roided-out Ruskie are successful, but Miles is worried about the results of future crime-fighting endeavors because Peter is embarking on a trip to Symkaria with MJ. Up until now, Miles has been under Peter’s guidance, but I suppose the most effective way to teach a baby bird to fly is to push it out of the nest. Peter fully trusts that Miles will fill the role of the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man splendidly, flying solo until his return. It’s not as if Peter was given the privilege of tutelage or assistance when he was coming up, even though this fact is suspicious considering the Avengers Tower is located in the same borough (but I digress).

Peter’s confidence in his protege is proven by his aptitude in emulating his superhero persona. All of Peter’s superhuman abilities transfer to Miles smoothly, with combat offense executed by speedy fisticuffs and defense coordinated by the white flash of spider senses equally as sharp as the OG’s. The game is still a sequel after all, and returning players would’ve felt cheated playing as a Spider-Man with handicapped abilities, even for the sake of the narrative. Still, Miles' skill as Spider-Man somewhat bothers me in the instances where it incidentally surpasses that of Peter’s. At what seems like random occurrences throughout the story, Miles will gain a superhuman ability that is a new advancement in Spider-Man’s history, despite his inexperience compared to Peter. First, a concentrated punch from Miles will literally become electrifying. This augmented attack, plus a bevy of other skills involving this glowing offensive addition, is dubbed the “venom moves,” equating the additional sting these maneuvers inflict on enemies to the paralyzing poison of a spider bite. The chance to commence these super effective attacks on enemies coincides with a meter that fills when Miles executes any regular combat maneuver similar to that of a finishing move, and you better believe that I took every opportunity to smite an enemy with this pulsating perk to Miles’ regular attacks. The ability to harness electricity also obliges Miles to fix any electrical issues found throughout the city’s grid. Soon after, Miles will discover that he can render himself invisible for a brief period, an instance which the game dubs as his “camouflage.” Naturally, the ability to shroud oneself from the onlookings of the naked eye makes Miles more proficient in stealth than Peter, dropping unsuspecting enemies with less discretion needed and easily course correcting any compromises to his silent position when he’s spotted. I understand that the developers needed to implement new combat features to entice returning players like any sequel should, but this might be the first instance where I’m calling ludonarrative dissonance into play without a trace of irony. If the developers are suggesting that Miles is innately a more proficient Spider-Man than Peter with these abilities as evidence to this claim, then I laugh at their pitiful attempts to placate a certain percentage of their audience. Even when I notice that the web slinging is smoother and more responsive than before, I can’t help but be deterred because of what it might imply.

The place where the player can attest to Miles’ suspiciously superior web slinging is on the bustling streets of Manhattan, the same borough where the first game was set. Miles states that they’ve moved to Harlem from Brooklyn to leave behind the traces of his deceased father as a coping mechanism. Really, the reality of the situation is that the developers wanted to make his home base the borough that has already been painstakingly rendered. It’s not as if digitalizing Brooklyn would be an unprecedented feat in gaming–it’s that Insomniac felt that Miles’ game didn’t warrant taking the time to flesh out another area of NYC. Not even the white precipitation of winter can disguise the fact that Miles is zipping around the same replica of Manhattan where Peter once patrolled. All the same, the various activities scattered around the borough will distract the player from letting the numbness of repetition sink in. Peter may have temporarily passed his mantle onto Miles by leaving him on his lonesome, but the training courses that mirror the Taskmaster challenges suggest that he could still afford to touch up on his Spider-Man skills. Miles might perfect the art of stealth, combat, and web slinging, but he’ll never seem to match the acerbic wit of Peter’s patented zingers. Collectibles are again strewn across the borough to occupy the player outside of the main missions. Miles’ time capsules (that, granted, are only from about three years prior) are a rehash of collecting the contents in Peter’s various backpacks, and the postcard scavenger hunt essentially involves the same process with riddles attached. Matching the audio samples of the city’s urban soundscape to recreate a long-lost mixtape that Miles’ dad and estranged uncle composed when they were young is interesting, mainly because it evokes a modest time in hip hop’s early history when this was the process of retrieving the components of the music. Bases of the two feuding gangs need to be neutralized the same as when Peter was taking down the Demon and Fisk strongholds, and domestic crime that’s still perpetrated by the fat mob bosses’ henchmen can be detected more efficiently with the “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man App.” The ability to swipe to a menu on the touch pad was devised by Ganke Lee, Miles’ friend and trusted confidant of the knowledge of his sticky alter ego. Apparently, it’s now a requisite for any and all Spider-Men to have a chubby, technically gifted Asian friend who's got their backs, if the MCU films are any indication. While I’m ultimately not seriously disappointed that Manhattan is still the stomping grounds for the alternative Spider-Man, reusing the same portion of the city does stipulate some convenient shortcuts on the part of the developers. Add the fact that much of the side content is an obvious regurgitation of what was available in the first title, and Miles’ game feels much less inspired.

Even though Ganke has been entrusted with keeping Miles’ superhero identity a secret, he barely misses the privilege of being Miles’ BEST friend. No, the person who holds that prestigious distinction is Phin Mason, a girl who shares Miles’ fascination for science, who caught him at a more impressionable time in his life. They’ve drifted apart since their glorious, time-capsule-worthy middle school days due to attending two separate high schools, but imagine how deeply their relationship atrophies when they’re on opposing sides of the ethical coin. Devout, avid fans of the Spider-Man comics might recognize Phin’s name as a reworking of the footnote Spider-Man villain, The Tinkerer. When reports tell of a menace who goes by the same name running the Underground resistance group, it should come as no surprise that Miles’ dear pal is behind the digitally automated mask commanding the operation. Phin’s goals with her ragtag group of revolutionists is to dethrone the CEO of Roxxon, the gladhand douchebag Simon Krieger, and prevent his noxious energy source of Nuform from its public release. Not only is she acting to stop the corrupt corporation’s deeds, dismantling Krieger is also an act of personal revenge, as her brother and only guardian, Rick, died horrifically attempting to halt Krieger’s insidious plans in the past.

The conflict between Phin and Miles stems from the fact that her methods are more extreme than the oath-bound morality of the way the Spider-Men operate. One can see how her willingness to bomb Roxxon’s tower in Harlem and slay Krieger’s armored security goons conflicts with the non-lethal tactics that Miles must abide by. I couldn’t stomach Phin as a character because she’s been propped up as a marvelous person by Miles beforehand, even though it might just be the rose-tinted perception Miles has from nostalgia. Her precociousness is more eye-rollingly implausible than Miles ’, and I thought that I would be yelling at him for idiotically trying to justify her brand of terrorism that was obviously indefensible. Because he put his foot down and chastised her actions, the game still maintains its rational moral center and keeps Miles from looking like a hypocrite. Phin might not live up to all that she’s cracked up to be, but at least her motivations derive sympathy from the player. Not only was highlighting the rationale of a villain’s actions an effective part of character writing in the first Spider-Man game, but a fraction of their effectiveness as antagonists was how their positive relationships with Peter beforehand caused emotional conflict. Many of the villains in Miles Morales’ solo adventure also share the same dynamic, but the grief of having to combat people of whom he shares a profound bond to like his best friend and uncle, who is the thieving Prowler, makes for a more palpable understanding of Miles’ internal struggle than when Peter was faced with a similar situation. Between the two redemption arcs that result from both antagonists clashing with Miles, his uncle finking on Krieger was the more admirable and less overwrought form of sacrifice as opposed to Phin’s resolution to save Harlem from what she caused.

As one can plainly see, I’m a little reluctant to refer to Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales as a genuine sequel to Insomniac’s initial Spider-Man title. Repainting the properties of the previous game is a marginal way to spruce up the familiarity of what was already established. Still, no one would call a paint job an honest refurbishment. Everything from the setting to the tasks within it is the same with Miles on the job, and even the thematic plot points are too similar to those of the first game. In addition to this, they all seem downscaled from the scope and span of the first game, which is why I argue that Insomniac depicts Miles as the less important Spider-Man despite the quality-of-life enhancements he bestows in his Spider-Man abilities. Miles' game is fine, but the lack of stark innovations and the brief length make it seem like glorified DLC, if anything. As the black/Hispanic and LGBT residents of the downtrodden neighborhood of Harlem state, he’s “their” Spider-Man, and maybe I’m just too white and straight to understand his impact. With the morsel of content involving him in the spotlight, can you blame me?