Hi!
X. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2
First off, let's pour one out for Vicarious Visions. RIP.
We all remember it. Those long-lost days of wasting away in front of the TV, grinding out high scores on our N64s and PS1s. It was Superman in the morning and Guerilla Radio in the evening. The hours would fly by as we were entranced by the style and attitude of those original 'Hawk titles, lost in the zen of chaining tricks and otherwise superhuman feats together to one of the most memorable video game soundtracks to this day. The series went on to arguably peak with Tony Hawk 3, and had some interesting ideas in later entries, but kind of ran out of steam at some point as fatigue and deviations from the core formula wore on. But now it's back - VV's combined enhanced remake of Tony Hawk 1 and 2 may just be a mechanically perfect video game that distills Tony Hawk's Pro Skater down to the essentials. Incorporating a few core mechanics from later games in the series like the revert, this is a game with not only a wide range of techniques, but also one where each technique feels essential. The feeling of going from a vert trick, to a revert, to a manual, to a grind, to a wallride, to a wallie, back to a manual, and so on, is captured as perfectly here as we all remember from those days, albeit with refined controls and a smooth 60FPS. This isn't the most original game on my list – outside of multiplayer and create a skate park, which don't interest me all that much, this is an incredibly faithful remake of the first two games. That also means that it can be a very fleeting experience when it comes to progression, though a new challenge system introduces some interesting, almost puzzle-like obstacles where you have to pull off move sequences with restrictions on what you can and can't do. It's a nice touch.
The presentation here is exactly what it should be. Gameplay looks sharp, runs at an uncompromising framerate and with HDR, and load times are quite short. The soundtrack includes nearly all of the original tracks, plus a good number of new ones. A few new tracks are duds for me, but then you have others like
Let's Ride that are the most Tony Hawk shit imaginable. All of this adds up to something that can be described as comfort food gaming in its purest form. Tony Hawk knows what it is. There are next to no surprises here, and yet I still spent hours tricking out to some bangin' music because sometimes that's just what you need. Also, the tutorial is too wholesome and Tony is best dad.
IX. Ghostrunner
Ghostrunner is cool af. It stimulates my X Spot.
Actually, let's talk about my X Spot for a minute. For those of you who haven't already scrolled the hell away from this post, there are certain things in games that bring me giddy delight. The things can override flaws and defy conventional thinking like nobody's business. Not that there's any set logic to it – examples would range from wallrunning, to syyyck weapon reload animations, to moments when music synchronizes with gameplay, to impressive environments with 'da scaaaaale, to the entire David Wise discography, and more. "Cool" would be a decent catch-all, I guess, but let's just go with X Spot for maximum discomfort. Trust me, this will come into play more in a bit.
Ghostrunner hits a lot of this for me. The movement options are vast – you have wallrunning, air dashing, sliding, grappling, the works. This game has, like, all the mechanics. And it all feels great, like real ninja shit. You also have a sword that can split dudes open with a single slide. You're maneuvering and fighting through some oppressive cyberpunk environments while synthwave music is pulsing. It's very cool in concept, but the execution is what really surprised me. I didn't watch every single trailer for this game, but I recall them really focusing on the combat and presenting it as a sort of first person Katana Zero. That actually couldn't be further from the truth – I quickly discovered that there are consistently lengthy sections of pure platforming to break up the encounters, so it isn't just about combat. Speaking of combat, it can be pretty brutal. This is very much in the vein of "try 'n die" indie games like Katana Zero and Hotline Miami, complete with a lightning fast reload after death. Ghostrunner usually does a good job of offering multiple paths through an encounter, though, and the slo-mo mechanic makes the game feel pretty fair once you understand how the enemies work. What feels a little less fair are the boss fights, which can be very trial and error on top of being pretty tough in general, though I felt satisfied when overcoming them.
There's some neat stuff around the edges, too. A few sequences slow things down for some light puzzle solving, and there's an upgrade system ripped straight from Mega Man Battle Network 3 that has you slotting in different shaped upgrades on a grid for maximum efficiency, Tetris-style. The music and visuals are quite good, though the story never did anything for me. I also had some slight jank in a few platforming sequences where I could have sworn I was doing the right thing, but my jump angles and wallrun lengths just sometimes didn't behave in the way I expected. The game feels pretty polished overall, though a little jank will crop up from time to time. Still, this is a very tight and focused package that accomplishes what it wants to. Be prepared to die a lot, but overcome that and you'll have a seriously cool first person ninja parkour action game to rip through.
VIII. Cyberpunk 2077
"Xtortion pls"
Like yeah, I get it. This game, and my thoughts on it, are complicated. There are some good things about it. There are some bad things about it. It has probably the most untapped potential of any game I've ever played. And yet I ended up with about 60 hours in it, doing all of the side quests I could find, in addition to a healthy smattering of lesser Ubitrash activities. But why? Well, let me first preface this by saying I played on Series X, so my technical experience was pretty good in terms of performance. Also, I only had two crashes that were both pretty insignificant, and the only non-minor bug I encountered prevented me from progressing a certain side quest chain involving a vending machine past the first encounter. The game had a ton of other bugs, but they were relatively harmless for me – things like wonky AI, inconsequential items not wanting to be picked up, those kinds of things. Not an excuse, but it is what it is.
Cyberpunk is a big heaping of X Spot slappage. The guns are insanely well animated. The city looks insanely cool. The music is great. On an artistic level, Night City is far and away the most impressive video game city I've ever seen. It's massive, yet every street and alleyway is bursting with detail. Setting the game in first person was crucial to sell the scale of this place. After around 60 hours with the game I still found myself turning my head to the sky ever so often and marveling at the towering verticality of this place. The city is bursting with color and neon, and each district looks unique. I don't know if I'd describe this as an immersive game because many of its systems are too basic or poorly implemented to foster that, but there are moments when it comes all together. Driving through City Center, a neon jungle with the tallest buildings in the city, at night, in the rain, in first person, in the lovingly modeled unique interior of a futuristic supercar, with Keanu Reeves in the passenger seat, when
the right song comes on the radio, really makes me realize the potential of this game. In some other timeline, under different conditions, when the development time maybe got two more years, this really could have been a GOTY level thing. I just wish it hit that level more often.
The game plays pretty well. If we look at a spectrum of FPS games with kinda janky feeling games like Fallout and Deus Ex at the bottom, and polished games like CoD and Titanfall at the top, Cyberpunk would be somewhere in the middle. Movement and stealth is relatively smooth, and the mantling animations and body awareness are top notch. This is gonna sound super sketch, but Cyberpunk honestly has some of the best gunplay of the year. Each weapon looks and feels satisfying to shoot, but animations are the kicker. Each weapon has a unique animation when equipping it for the first time, along with
M U L T I P L E R E L O A D A N I M A T I O N S……plus multiple smaller animations for actions like the ferocious bolt cycling and shotgun pumping and….OH GOD X SPOT
*a-ahem*…Anyway, the guns are realized brilliantly and got me goin' even hours and hours into the game. Like, the enemy AI is pretty dumb, but I didn't care much. Some of the flourishes are unreal.
Let's not mince words, though - Cyberpunk is a pretty terrible open world game. Systems like pedestrian/car AI and police and nearly nonexistent, NPC/vehicle density isn't anywhere close to what it should be, and attempts to make the traffic look dense from a distance are laughable. So I changed my mindset. It's not about exploration or trying to make emergent gameplay happen. This is a game about doing quests. I liken it to the Mass Effect sequels where the exploration element was diminished to put a focus on barreling the player through missions. The proper main and side quests in Cyberpunk, for my money, are almost universally good to great, with very few misses. Story quests often involve interesting conversations, or even setpiece moments that wouldn't feel terribly out of place in something like Call of Duty. These are amped up by high quality one-off first-person animations sprinkled throughout, which again wouldn't feel terribly out of place in a big budget linear shooter. Side quests can be a bit quirkier or lower key, and I greatly enjoyed all of the chains involving recurring characters. While I liked the quests, the main story didn't fully put its hooks in me. Protagonist V is very much their own character, but the game doesn't do enough work to really establish them and connect them with the player (the ending rang a bit hollow for me as a result). Underneath main and side quests are gigs, which are basically the enemy camps of Far Cry, albeit with some variation. I actually did a ton of these in the early game to make money, and found them to be satisfying and paced extremely well – short and sweet. It helps that I enjoy the core gameplay, I guess. The dialogue system crops up in all of these tiers of activities, and Cyberpunk presents this very well by often allowing the player to move around a space while a conversation is happening, or letting them look at a certain character or object to trigger a different choice. Choices and consequences aren't too significant for the most part, though conversations themselves play out in a slick and interactive manner.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a game of utter disappointment, sure. It's also a game that, after facing the reality of what it was and meeting it on its level, I had a great time with. The guns are killer and the city is absurd. The quests are good. The soundtrack is good. There's also a lot of shit that feels unfinished, and that's a damn shame. Night City is a fantastic canvas to paint on, and I'm very interested to see what this game looks like in a few years if CDPR hopefully continues to add to and improve it. The concept of this game deserves something greater that even slick ass reload animations can't compensate for.
VII. Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Absolute fuckin' shocker of the year: I played a Yakuza game, it's an 8/10, and it's somewhere in the bottom half of my list. At least it doesn't have the somewhat crusty combat of previous titles, even if the new system brings a whole heap of new problems. Like a Dragon ditches the old brawler system for a turn-based affair, and makes good on a few things at least. The UI looks to be strongly based on Persona, with each major action mapped to a different button for easy access. The game always indicates which character will act next, and there's an interesting presentation where the characters' AI can freely roam a battlefield with only limited warping when attacks are performed. All neat on paper, but the game started to lose me with its balance. Like a Dragon is insanely easy for the vast majority of the game, and then you start rubbing up against some endgame bosses that damn near require you to complete a somewhat grindy side activity first to power up. Key systems like jobs also take a super long time to get access to (15 hours for jobs, in my case), and the job system itself also has a highly dubious mechanic of each job leveling its stats individually (thus discouraging switching), but none of this affected me quite as much as it might sound because at least it's different. Having only played Yakuza 0, Kiwami 1 and 6, I was already sick to death of that combat, and the turn based stuff here is a genuine breath of fresh air.
Outside of combat, the rest of game is some Yakuza ass Yakuza. The story is gripping. The substories are wacky. New protagonist Ichiban is my favorite character of the year for how fuckin' wholesome he is, and each Dragon Quest reference he earnestly made touched my heart. The rest of the party are mostly a bunch of olds, making them a pretty unique bunch for a JRPG. I also played with *gasp* English voice acting, and it was surprisingly great. The actors handle emotional scenes very well – whether it's sadness or hype – and Ichiban's VA would be a top contender for my favorite performance of the year. The ending is some heavy stuff, and he nails every second of it.
So why is this game placed where it is? The story is really some great stuff, even if it has a few moments of peak Yakuza absurdity. The characters are likable, and the music is bangin' as always. It's Yakuza, only with its rough edges shifted around, and in it's own weird way that's enough to justify it being somewhere on here. But the cherry on top for me is the theming. This is a JRPG, but you aren't knights fighting slimes. No, this is a JRPG in which your party can be komposed of classes including a breakdancer, a cop, an idol, a club host, and of course, a homeless guy. Enemies include strange men wearing trash bags, creeps wearing only trenchcoats and underwear, and otaku fanboys. Your mage character doesn't cast fire spells with magic – instead, he pulls out a lighter and ignites his stank breath. You switch jobs by going to an employment center in the city because, you know, they're jobs. There's a level of wackiness to all of the systems that had me amused throughout the whole game. It's super endearing, even if the finer details have major room for improvement.
VI. Demon's Souls
"Get Demon's Souls," they said. "It'll be fun," they said. This game was not a good experience for me when I tried it sometime after launch but before Dark Souls 1 released. The game repeatedly handed me my ass with its strange mechanics, punishing deaths, and obtuse systems. But of course at some point I "got it," and I've been in love with the series ever since. Demon's has a special place in my heart for being my first Souls game and for doing many things differently than its successors. The bosses here are less arena fights, more gimmick or terrain-based fights that can sometimes play out completely differently depending if you take a ranged or melee approach. The game is almost completely non-linear, empowering the player to tackle areas in the order they're in the mood for or feel they'll get the best rewards from. The game's size is also the most manageable of the series to me, and there's never a point like getting the Lordvessel in Dark Souls where it starts to lose me on replays. While I'm not overly fond of Shadow of the Colossus as a game, playing that remake made me realize that Bluepoint had "it." They were the best choice to remake Demon's Souls, and I'm so glad they did. The original is an easy game to overlook when considering it's prototypical in many ways and has been trapped on PS3, and I hope it finds a new audience on PS5.
What a fantastic remake. It's mostly aesthetics, but the new graphics, animations, audio and performance are all stunning. I don't agree with absolutely every visual change from the original, but it's hard to complain when everything looks and runs this good. 3-2 was probably my favorite glow up...just needed a whip to complete those Castlevania vibes. The load times are utter madness compared to the original. The heavy and precise audio design may be the standout here, along with every weapon type having new, unique animations for both one and two-handed backstabs and ripostes. Some minor quality of life changes definitely help, like being able to upgrade weapons with materials in storage and the ability to warp from archstone to archstone without having to visit the Nexus. There's even the password matching system from later Souls games for easier cooperation. This game is very addictive for me as well. The lightning quick load times and smooth framerate make the game just so playable. On a whim, I can start up a new game, and just like that it's four hours later. There are no technical barriers here that impede the urge to play, and I think that's going to be a recurring theme with this gen.
Demon's Souls still holds up for me in most of the areas that count. Yeah, some of the systems around the edges like tendency, weapon upgrading and healing aren't the best (and in some cases were more optimized in later games), but I still think the general meat and potatoes of level, enemy, and the particularly unique boss design is still compelling. I think what stuck out to me the most after playing this again was how much more Demon's forces you into its pacing through its level design compared to later games. There are a lot of cramped environments filled with tough enemies, so you can't easily dash through (and 5-1 in particular forces a very reactive style with its enemies and environment). The bosses are generally on the easier side, but the levels are still tough even after playing every one of these games. It's not that they're constantly challenging, but there are plenty of spots in each where you might only get one, maybe two chances if you're lucky to do the right thing, and if you fail you die. It's a devious and sometimes downright…evil (to quote a bud) game with the way it combines level design, enemy placement/behavior and traps, but that makes it so satisfying to overcome for me. On top of that, checkpoints remain sparse. The sense of oppression is still there from the original as well. The numbing monotony of Latria that can lead to an easy slip into a pit, the excruciatingly claustrophobic mines of Stonefang, the disorientation of Valley of Defilement, etc. Demon's has a vibe for me that no other game in the series has been able to fully replicate.
I'm underrating this game on the list because it's ultimately a remake that adds very little to the original experience outside of sprucing up the technical side of things, but I had as much fun with it as with anything else on here, having put nearly 35 hours into it and obtaining the Platinum over a long weekend at launch. With the remake, it might even be my second favorite Soulsborne title after Bloodborne. I love its relatively short length, it's nonlinearity, its oppressive environments, its dastardly enemies and traps, its silly ass bosses, and how damn easily I can jump into it. This is a very high recommendation, even if it's the least original game on here.
V. Deep Rock Galactic
Did I hear a "rock and stone?"
Danger. Darkness. Dwarves. Three things I didn't realize I needed in my life until friend
Papercuts suggested that we pick up this game to get through the week or so before Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition dropped. What ultimately happened is that I stopped playing Xenoblade after a few dozen hours, while I've sunk 50+ hours into this addictive dwarven capitalism simulator. Now, Deep Rock Galactic is not a glamorous game. As a one of the titular company's combat miners, you'll suit up as one of four classes of blue collar dwarves to extract precious minerals from a planet because fuck that planet we need money. What ensues is an unforgettable experience, equal parts peril and hilarity, as squads of one to four players explore procedurally generated levels through a slew of biomes and mission types in an effort to survive and prosper. And it's real good. This may just be 2020's biggest dark horse contender.
Let's start with the levels. Look, I'm no fan of procedural generation. The concept just feels somewhat cheap to me, and I'd never take it over handcrafted levels. But there's something to the way Deep Rock generates its levels that's feels especially unpredictable and devious. Even 20-30+ hours into the game, I would still be encountering missions with bizarrely creative layouts, or with objectives and hazards arranged just such to be inconvenient in a novel way. I daresay it often feels handcrafted, and while levels often follow a similar structure, the shapes and obstacles in those spaces is never predictable. Environments are also fully destructible and can be mined apart with your pickaxe, in addition to being blown apart by explosives and enemies. Despite being procedurally generated, Deep Rock's levels feel like part of a world, and they can even have a heavy atmosphere at times. Environments are often dark, so you have to make liberal use of recharging flares to light them up. This is not only super thematic, but also adds another level of moment-to-moment engagement by watching your flare cooldowns and trying to optimize them.
Wait…I guess I should back up a bit and explain what's even going on in this game since no one seemed to play it. It's an FPS. You begin on a sort of space station that acts as your hub. There's isn't really a story or anything, but there are predetermined tracks of missions, or "assignments," that offer additional rewards. While some context would have been appreciated, this is solid way to direct players through an otherwise very nonlinear experience. Whether following an assignment or just freewheeling it, you select a mission from the map and off you go. There are numerous mission types, from straight up mining a largely linear or wide-linear level, to extracting specific materials from a large room. There's been some nutty post-release mission types, too. One is basically playing RollerCoaster Tycoon x Tony Hawk whilst playing Deep Rock Galactic (don't ask), and the other is a wild showcase of the game's destructibility. Each mission has indicators for length and cave complexity, and there can randomly be positive or negative modifiers that increase rewards. Then there are several biomes for missions to occur in, each with their own quirks. The desert-like Sandblasted Corridors has caves made of soft sand that only take one strike of the pickaxe to break, rather than the usual two, while the Magma Core is literally destroying itself over time with earthquakes (and mind the lava geysers while you're at it). Each biome also has two types of crafting materials that you'll earn from completing missions there or extracting from those levels, so the game is very upfront about what content you should engage in to be able to craft a certain upgrade, like Monster Hunter. In something that reminded me of Forza Horizon 4's friendly reward system, you can set an overall mission difficulty of Hazard 1 through 5, with each successive level increasing all XP, money and materials gained by a certain percent. It's the kind of system that doesn't feel punishing when playing on a lower hazard level, but can feel very rewarding when turning it up. Deep Rock in general does a great job at servicing players of all skill levels, and this extends to difficulty scaling based on the amount of players in a squad. Solo players even get a friendly mining bot to help them out with combat and gathering.
When you deploy into a mission, a drop pod will deliver you to the level and then you're let loose to do your job. I mentioned that you take the role of a combat miner here, and that's because each level is filled with bugs to blast. The enemies are pretty satisfying to shoot, break apart in satisfying ways, and the weapons you can use are pretty fun to shoot as well. Taking some notes from Left 4 Dead's AI Director, enemy spawns are paced naturally with smaller numbers of creatures that spawn every so often, while hordes will be generated every few minutes to create impromptu holdout-style fights. These fights are especially precarious when they hit at a bad time and your squad isn't in the best position to easily defend itself, and can turn bad real quick. When the hordes spawn is very uncertain, and uncertainty is a running theme throughout each mission. Even after playing for dozens of hours, you never quite know how the environments will be laid out, when the enemies will spawn, and perhaps most importantly, how your escape attempt will go. In a shocking turn of events, the Deep Rock Galactic corporation couldn't give less of a shit about its miners so long as the MULE, the sort of minecart on legs that you deposit minerals into, makes it to the escape pod. And it will make it back, every time…but that doesn't mean you will.
There's an underlying tension to each mission in Deep Rock from the moment it starts. You can be deployed to a mission and everything can be dandy. You can be grabbing a ton of resources, powering through enemies, the works. But then you complete your mission and it's time to GTFO. At this point, an escape pod will randomly drop somewhere in the level and you'll have a limited amount of time to make it there. The MULE will automatically travel to it and leave handy directional beacons that you can follow, but the 'bot is insect-like in that it can crawl on walls and ceilings, and this can leave you in the dust. Did I mention that enemies constantly spawn during the escape? Fail to make it to the pod, and a huge chunk of your mission rewards is lost. It doesn't matter if you were in the mission for 10 minutes or 60 minutes, because it all comes down to this. One missed jump or a slip into a pit can end your chances of making it back…and for levels that are difficult to naturally re-traverse backwards, you better hope you used your class abilities to create a path. And god help you if a Bulk Detonator shows up right as you're about to enter the escape pod. I could write a whole paragraph on this thing. It's a giant spider-like creature with three bulbous weakpoints that are challenging to hit from its front. It creates openings for other enemies, and when it dies, it explodes like a mini nuke, taking all of the surrounding environment with it. Pray to Baby Jesus if you see one during your escape. Deep Rock's escapes are often sweaty palm gaming at its finest.
If you survive, prepare to be showered with rewards. Each successful mission yields currency, crafting materials, and XP, which again are all amplified by your chosen hazard level. Completing missions also earns perk points to purchase equippable passive abilities. Leveling up each class frequently unlocks new upgrades, be it new grenade types, weapon mods, etc., so you're always earning at a good pace. I put my time into each class more or less equally, though my Scout is lagging a bit – nevertheless, each class is satisfying to play and helps contribute to the team. The Gunner focuses on high firepower and can deploy ziplines. The Engineer focuses on close range combat with a shotgun or SMG, can build turrets, and can create platforms with a special gun. The Driller has a pair of mechanized drills to traverse levels easier, and the Scout has a grappling hook which, while an individualistic ability, can combo very well with things like the Engineer's platforms to mine those hard to reach materials embedded in walls or ceilings.
Deep Rock Galactic is also a deeply charming game. The dwarves you command are quite the little assholes sometimes, but are committed to their mantra of ROCK AND STONE. Before you begin a mission, it can be a good idea to buy a round of drinks that grant special abilities. Each player gets a mug, and the emote button becomes a toast. After pounding your booze, you can throw your mug at another player because why wouldn't you. There are a ton of voice lines that make me chuckle, and you can use in-game currency to purchase cosmetics (yes, including beards). There's a lot to collect, and the only microtransactions are for certain other cosmetic items that aren't essential to the experience. Deep Rock feels like a very generous game with its frequent rewards and satisfying progression, and the free post-launch content yields some of the craziest stuff in the game.
Deep Rock Galactic is a game that knows what it wants to be and absolutely nails it. It's not all things to all people, but sometimes you want to go narrow rather than wide. Some sort of story or deeper context would have been nice, but what we have here is a highly unique GAAS done right. There's no FOMO, no predatory microtransactions, and it has a great reward structure that makes you feel great no matter how often you play or what difficulty you play at. The kicker is that it's currently on Game Pass. I highly encourage Game Pass subscribers to give it a go, particularly if you enjoy co-op shooters like Left 4 Dead, though it can be perfectly enjoyable as a solo experience as well. Play this game, people. If not for me, then for Karl!
IV. Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Confession time: I was late to the party on Ori. After Microsoft's blunders launching the Xbox One, I didn't end up getting one until 2018. Ori and the Blind Forest was one of the first games I played on my Xbox One X, and I greatly enjoyed it for its movement, pacing, aesthetics, and platforming prowess. The unique movement of the character and heart pounding escape sequences actually reminded me of why I love Retro Studios' Donkey Kong Country games. Retro's games give Donkey Kong an unconventional but thematically appropriate heft and weight to all of his moves in a way that's unlike any other platforming character out there, and helps to define his own character. Retro also injected a God of War or Uncharted-esque level of spectacle to its platforming, frequently giving the feeling of barely escaping certain death through thrilling setpieces doing everything they can to kill you. Ori is the polar opposite of DK with their controls, being a small forest spirit that fittingly feels light and agile, yet always precise. Many platforming characters have a pretty high jump, but Ori trades height for increased distance, which reinforces the game's emphasis on being in a flow state with movement. Ori's skills are put to the test with tough platforming challenges not unlike those found in something like Super Meat Boy or Celeste, though they're ever so gentler as to gel better with an overall Metroidvania experience. All that, along with beautiful, lush graphics and a powerful score by Gareth Coker, had me pretty excited for the follow up.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps joins the likes of Uncharted 2 and Donkey Kong Country 2 as a sequel that essentially invalidates its predecessor. Everything here is dramatically improved, with perhaps the most significant improvement being the combat system. And look, I don't necessarily come to Metroidvanias for combat. Super Metroid and Metroid Prime are two of my favorite games in the genre, but I'd be lying if I said the act of dispatching enemies was the high point of those games. I typically come to this genre for exploration, atmosphere, and the feeling of progression from obtaining numerous abilities and power-ups with many of them fundamentally changing how the player views the world. Ori and the Blind Forest's mashy, fire and forget combat got the job done for the most part, but it wasn't a highlight. And that was fine for me because the game still delivered everything I wanted from the genre; however, this wasn't good enough for developer Moon Studios. Ori and the Will of the Wisps now boasts a respectable combat system with high impact melee attacks, aggressive enemies, and flashy spells. Each hit feels satisfying, and the player is empowered to take advantage of a fairly wide moveset. The starting sword boasts a ground combo, a launcher, a thrust attack that knocks some enemies back, a pogo-like attack in the air, and an air combo to boot. There's also a ridiculously satisfying hammer weapon, and spells like Spike have a ton of impact and can be tremendously effective. The combat in Will of the Wisps goes far above the typical Metroidvania faire to become a central and gratifying part of the game.
Superior combat should lead to superior boss fights…or rather, lead to boss fights at all. Blind Forest avoided having boss fights entirely in favor of thrilling escape sequences that leveraged the game's platforming rather than its less-emphasized combat, and while those were fantastic, I always felt like something was missing. Will of the Wisps addresses this with a memorable lineup of bosses with stunning animation and tricky movesets. Though what really makes them is that mini-escape sequences are woven into many of the fights as elongated playable phase changes. Fights can feel very dynamic as a result, and there's a ton of spectacle with each.
I've only avoided talking about movement for this long because it's assumed to be great coming off Blind Forest. And yes, it still feels amazing. Ori gets up to speed extremely quickly on the ground, their light weight enables them to leap great distances, the sudden acceleration of a dash feels amazing, and bashing off projectiles resets all of Ori's "once per jump" movement abilities and can be applied to both platforming and combat. What's really commendable here is the gamefeel of every single one of Ori's abilities. Ori can leap off a ledge, triple jump through the air, perform an air dash, bash off an enemy to reset their mid-air jumps and dash, burrow through sand, drill out of both sand and water like a torpedo, grapple to distant objects, and more, with such effortless and pleasurable ease. I feel it's important to note that all of the maneuvers I just described are all performed with just a couple of buttons via some smart overlapping, so it's tough to get your fingers in a knot even when running a particularly tricky platforming gauntlet. Platforming in Ori triggers a zen state in me that's so enjoyable to be in, and, being a Metroidvania, makes re-traversing areas an absolute blast. This is Nintendo EPD levels of uniformly great gamefeel across a wide moveset, and it must be experienced to be believed.
Great movement can be satisfying in a vacuum but can also wear out quickly if the level design isn't up to snuff. Will of the Wisps has a plethora of unique regions, each with their own gimmicks and ways to keep things fresh and interesting. Ori can hop through portals in Midnight Burrows, drill through sand in Windswept Wastes, fling off spinning wheels in the Wellspring, or cut through water like a hot knife through butter in the Luma Pools. Areas a bit less focused on movement gimmicks, like Kwolok's Hollow with many mechanisms and Baur's Reach with its area state changes, also feel distinct. The use of distinct area gimmicks follows on from Blind Forest in feeling like something that belongs in a more traditional platformer, but works amazingly well in a Metroidvania. Full-on, standalone escape sequences from Blind Forest also return, and they're more of a blast than ever when utilizing the sequel's expanded moveset. Areas here can feel like those in Tropical Freeze or Rayman Legends in their sophistication and polish, only here they're interconnected in a seamless world.
Each area in Will of the Wisps is brought to life by a powerful music score from returning composer Gareth Coker, along with, quite frankly, heartbreakingly beautiful visuals. Every frame is a painting here in a way where I don't fully understand how it was accomplished in just a few years. Swamps, tropical lagoons, ice mountains, harsh deserts and more are brought to life in a way that's almost mindboggling to bear witness to. Each section is scored brilliantly too, from the relaxing piano of
Luma Pools, to the stirring piano and strings of
Inkwater Marsh, to the cozy vibes of
Wellspring Glades, to the driving orchestra of the escape scenes. The OST isn't super catchy or hummable for me, but when playing, it always establishes a strong mood and melds together with the action in a way where they're almost inseparable. The game's cutscenes also leverage the overall aesthetics to great effect, with some efficient storytelling that can lean on the visuals and score.
Will of the Wisps is a deeper game than its predecessor, but not at the cost of complexity. Blind Forest's skill tree is traded out for equippable passive abilities in the form of shards that can be found or purchased. I was never too fond of the skill tree in Blind Forest, to be honest – finding power ups in the world has always been more satisfying to me, and while some skills in Will of the Wisps can be purchased, a fair few are out there waiting to be discovered. There's also only one currency, and it can be used to purchase abilities, spells, weapons, and inventory upgrades. Simple side quests often reward currency and can direct players to areas of the map that they may otherwise miss, and accomplishing them is made easy by a great fast travel system and Ori's inherent ability to re-traverse areas quickly. None of these systems came across to me as overcomplicated or unnecessary, and they elevated the experience for me in yet another way over Blind Forest.
What I really want to mention about Will of the Wisps is its pacing. Pacing is an absolutely huge deal for me in Metroidvania games. I primarily play these games for the feeling of becoming stronger in dramatic and unique ways over the course of a game, and huge lulls between those moments can leave me feeling unfulfilled. Blind Forest had excellent pacing with its progression – both with big movement abilities and smaller health upgrades and the like – and Will of the Wisps carries this smooth pacing forward to a larger, richer game. Blind Forest was actually a pretty short game for me at around 6-7 hours long. Will of the Wisps took me an estimated 12 hours to finish and not once did it ever drag. This is a rare game where I could have gone for more, but what was there was still absolutely satisfying and had me content as the credits rolled.
It's a good thing the game was patched, because it was just chock full of technical hiccups for me when I played it at launch. The framerate would noticeably dive to well under the 60FPS target, and there would be occasional multi-second freezes while I assume the game was loading more of the world. One time, I closed the game and restarted my Xbox in an effort to fix the issue, but then the game quite literally turned my Xbox completely off twice in a row while booting it. Also, the final boss inexplicably made no sound for most of the fight. And while this is less egregious, there was a short delay for loading the map, which is a big no-no for me in a Metroidvania where the player will be constantly checking the map for routing and items. A recent replay on Series X was smooth as silk, but that first run got a little rough.
I don't know what else to say. Will of the Wisps is sickeningly good – an impressive achievement for the genre that blows away its predecessor for me. It's a stunning Metroidvania adventure with best in class movement, excellent level design, fantastic aesthetics, and positive adjective pacing. Any fan of Metroidvanias or challenging platformers should at least give it a try. It might even be the best game on this entire list, or could at least tie for number one. So why isn't it ranked higher? For whatever reason, despite its quality, it just doesn't inspire the same passion within me as the following games. Maybe one reason is that Will of the Wisps didn't surprise me to the extent of the following games. Moon Studios did an amazing job with Blind Forest, and while the sequel is a significant jump, you can trace back and see all of things that needed to be, and were, improved from the first game. Maybe it's because I'm not really attached to the characters (aside from Shriek, poor thing). I mean, the game's 10/10 presentation does everything it can, but I'm just not super into them or the overall story really. My heart must be stone cold…
…actually, fuck that. No more beating around the bush. Let's start over.
*ahem*
Hello, my name is Xtortion, and I'm a mark for guitars, metal riffs, and Japanese bombast.
III. Final Fantasy VII Remake
Sometime in the late '90s, I went over to a friend's house after school for some video games and hangin' out. When I got there, I saw him playing a mysterious PlayStation game. I gazed upon a spiky-haired hero with a giant sword summoning an old man who stood proudly atop a pillar. As the music swelled, the old man engulfed several foes in a maelstrom of lightning. In this 10 or 15 seconds of gameplay for this game I had never seen before, I was instantly hooked. FF7 wasn't actually my first JRPG – that was Pokémon Blue or Final Fantasy Legend III on Game Boy, but FF7 was my first big time console JRPG. Utilizing the power of the PlayStation, FF7 delivered gorgeous pre-rendered visuals, CG cutscenes, and a dynamic and fluid combat camera, the likes of which I had never seen before. After some persuading, I convinced my parents to buy me the game. According to the back of the box, GameFan Magazine thought it was "…quite possibly the greatest game ever made." A lofty claim, but it's easy to see why it was considered as such. FF7's production values were insane – the game is a sprawling epic with breakneck pacing that swiftly moves the player from one impressive area to the next. All killer, (mostly) no filler. Backed by fantastic visuals and music, along with snappily-paced combat for 1997, the original FF7 remains a seminal JRPG that I'm hugely nostalgic for and enjoy playing to this day. As a result, this remake put a giant crosshair on me, and for the past five or so years, there's been an intercontinental ballistic missile launched from Square Enix that was heading straight for my heart, even if it's only part one.
Final Fantasy VII Remake is a targeted strike of nostalgia. This isn't just a remake that presents a familiar game with a new coat of paint. Utilizing ample embellishment, FF7R aims to be the ultimate experience for fans that grew up playing the original, to the point where I have to wonder how new players feel about it. While still likely an enjoyable ride, there's a ton of work here by the developers to cater to existing fans. Warning: this write up is will be extremely biased and influenced by nostalgia. But I'm letting FF7R get away with this because that's what it's going for. Weaponizing nostalgia is the point here. I'm legitimately impressed by how many things the developers did here to fulfill wishes and subvert expectations for fans of the original, but a big question is why even remake FF7 in the first place? Well, the lust for a remake of FF7 comes from a few different places. I mean, the character models absolutely aren't up to snuff. Cloud's pointy boots and stubby hands are borderline laughable now, for example. And while the pre-rendered environments still look great artistically, they're low res and are only ever seen from a single camera angle. The original English translation is also pretty sketch in spots; while the overall plot is clear enough, the actual moment to moment writing can be awkward.
After the original FF7, some characters like Cloud and Sephiroth had their chance to shine in higher fidelity in games like Kingdom Hearts, but let me be clear: it is absolutely fucking crazy to see characters like Barret, Red XIII, Rufus Shinra, Hojo, and others in this fidelity. Even mainstays like Cloud and Aerith look absolutely stunning here. Enemies receive the same treatment, too, for the 100+ foes in the game. There's a ton of effort put into the models here, and they generally all look great…but there's environments, too. Midgar is basically a giant city where the elite of society live on top of a plate that towers over the slums below. This is an impressive concept on paper, because it directly visualizes the oppression experienced by those in the slums. However, in the original, you only ever received a few fleeting glances up at the plate from down below. Remake, being a fully 3D game with camera control, lets you pan the camera at any time, and I was legitimately shocked with mouth agape when I first saw the slums skybox with the upper plate towering over my head. Similarly, not having the Sector 7 plate overhead after it falls was pretty striking to see. There is an inconsistency to the environments, however, with the game tending to shine with its presentation of industrial areas at night (the Shinra Building exterior is *chef's kiss*), though it can look somewhat lacking during the daytime. Still, each scene is packed with detail, and the town areas feel very lively. I don't normally spend much time gawking in games, but in this game I gawked. I gawked so hard.
Going beyond merely cleaning up the original English translation, Remake fleshes out its characters to a surprising degree. The script for the original FF7 is actually a little sparse. The game moves at such a fast pace that it doesn't have time to be wordy, so Remake ends up pulling a lot of substance out of the relatively little that was provided in the original. I was very worried about how Remake Cloud would turn out, because in all of his incarnations after the original he's been more of a brooding character rather than the initial money-grubbing prick he starts out as, or the goofy but affable hero he ends up as in the original. I was happy to see that Remake nailed his character and how the other characters bounce off him. Cloud's a badass character in the story, but undermines that by being a bit of a tryhard asshole, and characters like Barret and Aerith calling him out on it is the type of interaction I wanted to see. Like in the original, Cloud starts to soften up toward the end of Midgar, and that progression feels pretty earned. For other characters, Aerith is a master level troll this time around, and you can almost feel her glee at fucking with Cloud. Barret is wonderfully portrayed with a high energy militant exterior covering up a tender interior, and I would follow that man to the ends of the earth. I enjoyed the fleshing out of the Avalanche crew, and even minor characters like Heidegger are given more to work with. The writing felt fairly natural to me for a JPRG, and it's pretty efficient. Full-on cutscenes with more complex choreography and camera movements are plentiful, and the overall production values are a throwback to when Final Fantasy was grander. When compared to some of Square's other recent storytelling efforts, Remake's execution is a pretty big win to me.
Remake's overall story is divisive for understandable reasons, namely that it isn't really a remake at all. Or, I guess it kinda is, but it also kinda isn't. Idk. Anyway, everything starts off mostly dandy. The opening of the game through crashing at the Sector 7 apartment might be my favorite unbroken stretch of game this whole year. Aside from a brief encounter with Sephiroth and the plot ghosts, everything is just pitch perfect, but then something starts to take a turn. After hitting the hay for the night, an altercation with a guy that are sick leads to a flashforward to a brief scene from disc two in the original, completely reimagined with modern graphics. When this happened, I nearly grabbed my TV and brought my face point blank with it while shouting "WHATTTTTTTT." Such is the beginning of Remake's manipulation. Manipulation is a recurring theme in Remake, really. From everything to the story itself messing with existing fans, to the use of nostalgic music cues, Remake is a thoroughly manipulative game. Hinging on meta elements, the story eventually spirals out of being a simple remake and sets the stage for something different. Figuring out the nature of the plot ghosts while playing, as a result of my experience with the original, was intensely satisfying to do. The meaning behind the ghosts' meddling in the Sector 5 church ensnared me, as if a shady but ultimately well-meaning TSA agent beckoned me into a private pat down booth during a slow day at the airport. "Curious," I thought. The ending in particular can be a huge point of contention, and it's up to future parts to really make good on it, but I dig the idea. I just hope that newcomers don't feel too lost by the end of the game's final chapter.
FF7R has gameplay, too, and I think it's one of Square's best efforts in quite some time. I haven't been really into Final Fantasy's combat in a while, and Nomura's recent Kingdom Hearts III has good ideas but often fumbles the game's balance. Remake's combat is a return to form and probably exceeds the combat in most other FFs to date. I mean this is the absolute nicest way possible, but FF as a series could be argued to be style over gameplay substance in many cases. Most combat systems in Final Fantasy aren't terribly challenging or thought provoking – even in FF9, which is my favorite of the series, you can kinda just spam physical attacks and your strongest spells, healing when necessary, to get through most of the game. Now, the style of Final Fantasy when it's firing on all cylinders can easily make up for this. Squaresoft's legendary run from FF7 through FFX ran circles around most games in the industry when it came to production values and spectacle, and FF12 was no slouch either. FF7R combines the best of both worlds with high production values and a meaty combat experience.
Combat here is all about setups and payoffs. Block and perform basic attacks in real time to build ATB gauge, and build an enemy's stagger gauge to make them vulnerable. With only two ATB gauges and each skill, spell and item costing at least one gauge, you can't really stockpile too many of them. Using skills and magic is often the best way to stagger an enemy, but they'll also deal the most damage once an enemy is staggered, so you have to constantly be thinking about the best way to use ATB. Even when using basic attacks, the game's presentation flourishes find their way into the combat by way of ample hitstun and particle effects, making each hit feel impactful. Each character has their own basic attacks and skillset that gives them a unique role in combat. Cloud is either a balanced attacker or a situational close ranged tank depending on his mode, Barret is a ranged or close range tank, Tifa is a glass cannon, and Aerith is a support character. You'll want to use all of them, too, because ATB builds extremely slowly on AI-controlled characters. It's essential to hot-swap party members in battle to draw aggro and build ATB faster, and this is one half of the pacing puzzle for me. The other half is the tactical mode, in which pressing the X button brings up a command menu and slows battles to an absolute crawl so you can ponder your next move. While abilities can be mapped to shortcuts for real-time use, I rarely found myself doing that. The ebb and flow of real time combat, tactical mode, and bouncing from character to character in a fight feels very dynamic and kept me engaged. Many enemies are also their own little puzzles and become pressured (more easily staggered) when hit with a certain element, when you dodge a certain attack, etc., so the player is incentivized to learn their quirks through the Assess ability.
FF7R's combat keeps a more RPG style feel with a huge commitment to each action – with rare exceptions like basic attacks in Cloud's Operator Mode, you can't really dodge or block cancel anything, nor are there any significant i-frames on dodge rolls. That means you often have to anticipate the enemy's movements and take defensive actions preemptively, just like in a more traditional turn-based RPG. High-powered enemy and boss attacks are sometimes given a telegraph via the attack's name flashing above the enemy's head, however, so there is some room for reactivity if the player is paying attention. FF7R's combat is just a far cry from the simple system of the original and was one of its more surprising elements for me. This shines especially on the game's unlockable hard mode, which is balanced around having near-max level characters and imposes several restrictions. Most regular enemies can be cleaved through with skills like Cloud's Triple Slash like they're nothing, which lets you get to the real meat - the boss fights. Hard mode bosses often have a new trick or two, and are much more lethal. On top of that, item usage is prohibited, and MP regeneration from checkpoint-like benches in the levels is no longer a thing. Boss fights on hard mode are a true test of mastering the combat system from both a loadout and skill perspective, and replaying the game this way was very enjoyable for me, particularly near the end of the game where chapters can have multiple boss fights to efficiently navigate. Speaking of loadouts, that's another area of significant improvement over the original for me. OG FF7's materia system never really came into its own for me until over halfway through the game where you start getting more interesting abilities to equip and combo, and I never felt like I had to stress over how to use my slots. Even in Remake's early chapters, the player will find more significant materia than in the original, but also have less slots to put them in, which creates an ever-evolving challenge of equipping characters. Total equipment slots by Remake's endgame are more severely limited than in the endgame of the original FF7, yet there's a ton of materia vying for your attention. Spells are generally much more useful in Remake by being able to dish out huge damage and pressure certain enemies, and there's a slew of new supporting materia like Steadfast Block that I wouldn't want to go without. The weapon system is also improved for me over the original, with each weapon filling a unique role without too much overlap. As a result, weapons tend to be sidegrades in power, so feel free to stick with Cloud's Buster Sword if you like how it looks. Just a lot of positive changes all around, but uh, some way to save materia loadouts would be great for part two.
I always love a good climax
and FF7R does not disappoint. I've been pretty mixed on games directed by Tetsuya Nomura as a whole, but starting with Kingdom Hearts 2 that man has generally had a knack for extravagant finales that act as a mad dash to the end through numerous boss fights, cutscenes and setpieces. Beginning with a fight against the regular enemy-turned-boss Swordipede late in the game, Remake begins its own mad dash to the end through Nomura's trademark Gauntlet of Hype™. Laid out plainly, Remake's uninterrupted ending run starting at this point spans multiple hours and consists of no less than five unique boss fights (six if you count the Swordipede itself) – each with multiple phases, and one such boss involving four different enemies – and an extended motorcycle setpiece with four different phases, one of which being its own separate boss fight of sorts, with an accompanying 11 minute long music track featuring numerous phases and transitions to match the action. Yes, the story starts to get muddy in spots here. No, I don't really care, because this is what video game finales dream of being. I felt like I needed the MOAC (Mother of all Cigarettes…jk, don't smoke, kids) when the credits finally rolled and I had a chance to catch my breath. This is legendary shit. And I suppose this as good a time as any to mention that the game's other bosses – at least one per chapter, for over 20 total – are nearly uniformly excellent in both presentation and mechanics. Each has multiple phases with transition cutscenes, music shifts, and hype factor. Fuck Eligor tbh, but for my money this is the best lineup of bosses in any game I played this year, easy.
The game's finale, bosses, and...all of it, really, is dramatically elevated by the game's soundtrack. This 180+ track masterpiece takes Nobuo Uematsu's original score and remixes it, mashes it up and adds to it in ways that are continually surprising. The battle theme is more bombastic than ever, with some versions going in an original direction after hitting the nostalgic notes. The version of the boss theme that plays for the Airbuster, which was its first appearance in the original game, damn near made me throw up the 'horns. On Our Way is cozier than ever. A scene just before the last two bosses is set to an epic fusion of the Opening Theme, Aerith's Theme, and Those Chosen by the Planet. New additions like Critical Shot and Midnight Rendezvous fit very well. The Honey Bee Inn sequence has a whole vocal song and dance number. This soundtrack also features a certain composer that somewhat recently took me by surprise. Not too big of a deal, he just did a little game a few years back that you might have heard of. You guessed it - the composer of
returns with a great field theme arrangement of Hollow, the game's main theme, and the most threatening version of One-Winged Angel you've ever heard. There's even a cameo by Ace Combat's Keiki Kobayashi for a heart pounding boss tune. This is my OST of the year by a long shot. I normally don't rate remix-heavy soundtracks quite as high, but the remixes here are so bombastic, the mashups so clever, the deviations so surprising, the new additions so striking, that it may as well be brand new with how much of an impact it made on me. Note: I wanted to link some of these tracks, but they seem to be a bit hard to find on YouTube at the moment.
And now, dear readers (you know who you are :3), it's time to discuss some of the game's shortcomings. This is hands down the most flawed game in my top 6 this year by a decent margin. First, there's the filler. OG FF7 remains a brilliantly paced game that swiftly moves the player from each situation or location to the next without ever dwelling on one for too long. By contrast, Remake, representing only a fraction of the original game, pads itself out numerous times along the way to reach the coveted 30+ hours of playtime. There are two main types of filler, with one being in the form of extended dungeon-like sequences where there were none before, such as the elongated train tunnels, sewers, train graveyard, etc. I generally found these tolerable enough because while they didn't add too much to the game's story, they still provided a decent sense of forward momentum, along with letting the vastly improved combat and character portrayals stretch their legs. Then there's the other kind of filler that I'll call Sidequest Hell. At several points in the game, the player will find themselves in a town area with numerous optional side quests to complete. The presentation and narrative context of these quests are extremely weak, even if they usually present a decent reward or involve fighting a unique enemy. The big problem is that these sequences kill the pacing in a way that never happened in the original. After recognizing an instance of Sidequest Hell, you can pull up the quest log and see how many there are to find in that area. There can be numerous quests per instance of this happening, and it's especially egregious when it happens during a point in the story where a certain character needs to be rescued. These don't sink the game for me, but they feel like padding that doesn't need to be there. I think a good 8-10 hours could be chopped off the experience and the whole thing would be much tighter for it. For reference, I did everything In the game on my first run and believe it took me around 40 hours. 25-30 hours would have been just fine, honestly, if things were tighter.
Then there's some shortcomings with the environments. Many textures and objects appear to load at a medium or low level of detail, and this is particularly bad for two specific skyboxes that look like low quality JPGs. Most of the levels are essentially corridors, which may or may not be for loading purposes. While there is a nice realization that happens late in the game regarding most of the game world actually being seamlessly connected, the act of traveling from any given point in the game to another is none too exciting. Certain tedious sections exist like manipulating robot hands with comically elongated animations, and there's a ridiculous abundance of squeezethrough moments that reach a point where they can't all possibly be used to hide loading. Pivoting to combat for a quick second, this air combat ain't it (and neither is boss phase change cutscenes eating damage, though you can pretty quickly pick up on when this tends to happen and time your big attacks accordingly).
There are a lot of flaws, sure. Do I care all that much? Not really. Why, you ask? Well, this is the paragraph where I mention some dumb little moments that make me happy. *deep breath* Bro they turned Rufus' shotgun into a dumbass anime weapon that splits apart and fires lasers the part in the Jenova boss when the original theme kicked in gave me chills wasn't it crazy how everyone was worried the crossdressing scene would be removed from the Remake and it turned out to be the most bombastic scene in the game Wall Market was some Yakuza shit with the kooky characters and underground arena, huh why did they turn the useless characters of Scotch and Kotch into hype announcers that even comment on summons you can't get until later in the game GTFO with Hell House going from nondescript meme enemy to an insane boss fight with a literal drumroll intro and some of the most challenging mechanics in the game it's great how Airbuster now has all this build up in the Sector 5 reactor remember when Red XIII called Barret a 300 pound sack of shit Hip Hop de Chocobo is the dumbest song of the year hey did you know that Rude still won't attack Tifa I laughed my ass off as Cloud clanked his sword against the top of the doorframe at the start of Chapter 3 and I audibly said "wow" as the three Whispers in the penultimate boss fight fused into mothafuckin' Bahamut Yasunori Nishiki's arrangement of City of the Ancients in the ending moistened me...
…and with that, this bit is getting long in the tooth. But trust me, there's more. I'm constantly remembering all the little delightful moments. FF7R was like a smorgasbord of small delights for me that added up to something big.
There might be a ton of flaws with Remake, but I slurped it up all the same. This is Final Fantasy VII Remake, and it's pretty fuckin' good. The characters are well realized and resist being like their more recent portrayals that missed the mark. The game has possibly the best Final Fantasy battle system Square has put out since maybe FF12 in 2006, and tbh I think it's even better than that. The game has a GOAT level soundtrack, and can look really stunning at times. The boss fights are uniformly bonkers, with the ending run being one of the best in recent memory. And I get it – I'm biased. But I really feel like at every opportunity, the game was encouraging me to embrace that bias and run with it. There were a ton of moments that made me want to hop out of my chair and fist pump. Can this game be greatly enjoyed by someone who never played the original? Probably. But as a fan of the original, I felt exceptionally well served by Remake's nods and embellishments. There were countless points where I could not believe what I was seeing, whether that was Midgar's upper plate from the slums, or just seeing legacy characters like Barret in this fidelity. Questions about the ending aside, this game gave me a lot of confidence in Square to deliver with future parts. So many things that could have been ruined weren't, and so many iconic moments were delivered in ways that exceeded my expectations. I can't wait to play Part 2 and am praying to the Unreal Engine gods that it won't take too long.
II. DOOM Eternal
DOOM 2016 saved my life. I played it shortly after its release while I was in a bit of a slump. You see, I kinda hated Uncharted 4, which released shortly before, for all of its pace-breaking, cinematic, low-interactivity moments that were ramped up from the previous games. DOOM 2016 quite literally throws all that aside in its opening minutes and, while the game forgets about this a few times along the way, it generally makes good on its commitment to be a no-nonsense video game-ass video game where there are things to kill and find, and Doomguy is the perfect character to do just that. DOOM 2016 was ultimately my game of the year, but over time and after a few playthroughs, the cracks started to show. While the game looked, sounded and felt amazing, there was a strategic and tactical depth that was lacking. Several mid-game upgrades were ultimately too powerful and led to the combat playing out as a visceral, yet shallow affair – a somewhat hollow power fantasy. Enemy variety dropped off hard around the back third, and there weren't enough level gimmicks and environments to make up for it. There was also an emphasis on large-scale locked arena fights, with few smaller-scale fights in between to vary up the pacing. The game served as a great foundation for a sequel, but I still wasn't ready for how DOOM Eternal stepped it up. I would argue that Eternal has one of the best combat systems ever developed, and possibly the best action combat ever devised by a Western studio. Nearly everything I enjoyed about DOOM 2016 has been ramped up significantly, to a degree where it feels multiple sequels ahead of the original. All of this is wrapped in a package with gorgeous graphics, fantastic music, quick load times, and a buttery smooth 60 FPS on console, even at high resolutions on now-last gen Pro consoles. But we gotta start with the combat.
DOOM Eternal's combat is ridiculous. It's audacious. It's almost overbearing. And I love it so much. There a million things I could start with, so let's throw a dart at the proverbial wall and talk about weapons. While most weapons are carried over from 2016, there have been numerous refinements to both distinguish and strengthen many of the lesser utilized guns from that game. The Super Shotgun, Gauss Cannon, and Rocket Launcher were the go-tos in 2016 for good reason: they provided ridiculous damage with few drawbacks or situations they weren't optimal for. Eternal encourages the use of the player's entire arsenal partly because ammo is more limited this time around, but also because each weapon has a more defined purpose. The Heavy Cannon was all but useless compared to the tier 1 guns in 2016, but its precision shot mod now has the added utility of being able to one-shot enemy weakpoints. The Chaingun's primary fire no longer has a spin-up time, giving it a net buff and also letting it ditch the faster spin-up mod from 2016 for an energy shield that can both block incoming shots and let the player ram enemies to knock them off balance. The Ballista, essentially a reskinned Gauss Cannon from 2016, remains a ranged beast but refines the overpowered siege mode mod into the DESTROYER BLADE, which is a wider projectile that might actually be stronger than Siege Mode (or at least more versatile), but with the detriment of a longer charge up time leading to less general usefulness. The Plasma Rifle trades its stun bomb mod (now repurposed as an ice bomb that the player always has access to) for a microwave beam that can lock down slippery enemies or finish others off with an area of effect explosion, its Heat Blast is a forgiving option for blowing off enemy weak spots, and its primary fire now overloads enemy shields. The Combat Shotgun's new full auto mode is also much stronger than the underwhelming burst shot from 2016, and its grenade launcher is a particularly effective alternative for destroying enemy weak points, with a buffed capacity of three shots before having to reload instead of just one. The Super Shotgun and Rocket Launcher might both be stronger than in 2016, though the Super Shotgun trades its all-powerful double tap mod for the enhanced mobility of the Meathook, while the Rocket Launcher now fires slower projectiles that deal more self-damage. Director Hugo Martin has talked a lot about polishing the game's "chess pieces", and I feel that the team accomplished this greatly not only with the weapons, but also the enemies.
DOOM 2016 had a pretty good cast of bad guys to blast, even if the game ran out of new ones long before it ended. Not only does Eternal nearly double the enemy count from the last game, but it also refines each one into a clearer role on the battlefield. Fodder enemies like Imps, Soldiers, and Gargoyles generally aren't too strong from a distance but this time their melee is a massive threat. The Revenant hits a lot harder now, as does the Mancubus, the latter of which has been tuned to immediately use a highly damaging AoE blast if the player gets too close. The new Arachnotron behaves like a mobile turret, and the Cyber Mancubus and Dread Knight use area denial tactics. New "super heavy" demons like the Tyrant and the DOOM Hunter have an imposing presence on the battlefield and encourage dispatching less powerful enemies before taking them on, while the Marauder damn near demands this due to the focused reflex test of fighting him. Pressure units like the Hell Knight do a better job than ever at keeping the player running around the arena, while the teleporting Prowler can easily get behind the player if they feel inclined to hunker down in a corner. Other new additions include the Whiplash, which acts as a close range distraction unit, and the Maykr Drone, which serves a similar turret function as the Arachnotron but has a quirk where it explodes into a shower of health and ammo when headshotted, leaving the player to evaluate when to leave one alive and when to take it out for loot. The Carcass is a particularly devious new foe that becomes a high priority due to its ability to spawn shields that can be tactically overloaded by the Plasma Rifle as a makeshift explosive barrel, though the shields can also stop the Slayer in his tracks and lead to self-harm if it blocks a close range rocket. Introducing an elusive Archvile or buff totem into a fight changes the dynamic completely as the player must make it a top priority, and the Cacodemon is now a ridiculously damaging glass cannon with a glaring weakness…but RIP if he sneaks up on you and starts chowing down. Enemies have generally been buffed across the board, though the addition of weak spots like the Arachnotron's turret and the Revenant's rocket launchers give the player an opportunity to pull off a clutch shot to make a foe much less effective and move them down the priority list. This is a top tier rogues gallery with both mooks and heavies being distinct, interesting, and satisfying to take down. They're tons of fun to kill, too, with a destruction system that turns their bodies into impromptu health bars as each bit of damage knocks chunks off them. Glory kills return from the first game, and id's animation team outdid themselves with some ~fiendishly satisfying~ kills. Shout out to whoever animated the glory kills for the Prowler and Whiplash, goddamn.
The Slayer's weapons are powerful, but enemies have been tuned to be more lethal than ever. To help deal with this, the Slayer now has a large suite of innate abilities that he can use to better control the fight. The dash can be used on the ground or in the air for quick escapes, relentless pursuits, and tricky dodges. Frame-perfect single dashes on the ground became my go-to movement somewhere near the midgame, and doing this makes you a speed demon. The new Blood Punch is a super charged melee attack that deals massive damage in a shockwave and falters enemies. The Slayer's plethora of ultimately unnecessary throwable equipment from 2016 has been refined into the shoulder launched frag grenade, which falters enemies, and the ice bomb, which freezes enemies in place. Both types of grenades synergize well with the rest of the Slayer's kit by opening up combos and follow-ups with weapons and the Blood Punch. Finally, the new Flame Belch lights enemies on fire and makes them drop armor, which is crucial given how hard the enemies hit. The Flame Belch and the grenades operate on cooldown, along with the ammo-granting chainsaw that now recharges back up to one pip for effectively infinite use on fodder enemies. What's really great is how these systems all bounce off each other. The Mancubus' close range AoE can be sidestepped by faltering him with a frag grenade before closing in, and freezing enemies is a great way to set up for a multi-kill after setting them on fire for mass armor shards. Or, you could simply ice bomb a powerful foe and unload on them with a Blood Punch and your strongest weapons for a quick kill at the cost of going narrow rather than wide in your assault. While some tools solve distinct problems, there are a ton of ways for players to express themselves depending on how skilled they are, the level of risk they're willing to take, and what resources they're willing to trade in the process.
So all that's a lot, right? Numerous weapons, each with two alt fires and distinct situations they're good in. Numerous enemies, each with their own attacks, synergy with other demons, and weapons that fare well against them. Numerous Slayer abilities, with the Flame Belch to regain armor, the frag grenade to damage and falter enemies, the ice bomb to lock enemies down, the dash for some crazy mobility, the chainsaw to recover ammo, and the Blood Punch as an enemy-faltering "get out of jail free card" that can also be used as a high damage attack or crowd clearer. Wait, did I mention that the Slayer also gets the screen-clearing BFG-9000 and a fucking one hit kill energy sword? The game rolls out these mechanics and enemies one at a time, but at some point you have to put it all together, and this is where it's sink or swim. The game is overwhelming, full stop. There's so much you can do, and the enemies are relentless enough that you almost never get too much time to think about your next move. There aren't just a couple enemies at a time, either – even as soon as the third mission, there are arenas that can last minutes at a time with numerous strong foes thrown at you like a demonic carpet bomb of intensity. But if you stick with it, at some point it clicks. You go from forgetting to recover armor with the flame belch, misusing grenades for minimal effect, fumbling with precision shots on enemy weak points - to really embodying the Slayer, mixing and matching abilities and weapons and enemies while effortlessly flowing through each intricately designed arena, ping ponging through portals and off jump pads and across monkey bars, sniping enemy weakpoints with the precision bolt, blowing up energy shields with the Plasma Rifle, seeing a group of three fodder enemies, spraying them with fire, blowing them up with a frag for a shower of armor shards, meathooking an enemy to launch yourself halfway across the map for an aerial assault before finally freezing a Cyber Mancubus and killing it in seconds with a Blood Punch and a helping of point blank Super Shotgun you fuckin' piece of goddamn motherfuckin' shit. This combat is unreal.
Juggling resources, threat prioritization, and maximizing the value of weapons based on their distinct strengths and weaknesses are the kinds of things you're forced to think about while playing DOOM Eternal. Oh, and it's all happening at a million miles an hour. Stop moving for more than a few seconds and you're dead meat. There's really no mental downtime like in 2016 when the solution to every problem was obvious. Combat in DOOM Eternal, once got to grips with, is like being in big brain mode at all times, constantly doing genius level shit while the game tries its hardest to kill you at lightspeed. Brief pauses in the action from glory kills, chainsaw kills, and the weapon wheel slow-mo are all you get to take a breath. I've had tons of fights where after it's over, I loosen up and notice that my body was incredibly stiff the whole time, my heart was pounding, and I hardly blinked. A game hasn't pushed me this hard since Sekiro, and this was happening from relatively early on in the game while playing on the third of four difficulties. Also unlike Sekiro, which is a bit more lax outside of its boss and miniboss encounters, Eternal reaches a point where nearly every fight had me sweating. How the fuck did this combat make it into a AAA mass market video game? The kicker is that Eternal pulls a Metroid Prime 2 or Hotline Miami 2 and assumes the player already played the first game, quickly ramping up its demands to the equivalent of the midgame of the previous outing. But for all the demonic adversity, I didn't find Eternal to be a frustrating game, either. Lost armor and health can always be recovered in some way, and I felt that bad decisions led to my deaths. Eternal also has an interesting tutorial and codex system where it straight up discloses all the strengths and weaknesses of each enemy when you first encounter them. This may be off putting to some, but given the frantic pace of the combat and the many enemies it throws at you, I was happy to skip the experimentation phase and move right along to the git gud phase.
Good combat can carry an action game, but level design is what can take it up a notch. Games like God of War II and Ninja Gaiden Black are particularly adept at using action-adventure elements and incidental encounters between big arena battles to vary up the pacing and provide more variety in the experience. DOOM 2016 was somewhat lacking in this – while there were plenty of interesting secrets to find, the overall gameplay was underdeveloped outside of the arenas. Eternal addresses this in two ways. First, platforming sections build off the Argent Tower stage of the previous game to provide numerous jumping challenges that feel satisfying to pull off and incorporate the dash, monkey bars, and a new wall climb mechanic to great effect. Second, smaller encounters between the arenas are much more of a thing now. The first level has a cute section involving an Arachnotron and a few goons in a subway station while projectiles are spat out from the walls, and another level has the player ambushed by two Hell Knights in a narrow passageway. In the latter case, the game can get away with sudden ambushes because the ice bomb can be used to stabilize in those situations and is a core part of the player's moveset. Most levels also have their own quirk, either visually or mechanically. I love the forward momentum of ARC Complex, for example. It feels like a high-intensity action movie as the Slayer barrels through streets and office buildings as enemies are constantly jumping through windows and busting through walls to ambush you. Mars Core is an epic mission where you start out fighting up to the BFG-10000 as it bathes the area in green light whenever it fires, then you platform vast distances above the surface of Mars before finally taking down a horde of demons in an ancient city near the planet's core. Super Gore Nest follows an interesting structure where three keys are needed to unlock the stage's final area, and it ends with a thrilling timed escape. There are arguably no losers here when it comes to levels, and each one stood out to me for one reason or another.
I found the levels to be well paced overall, with a good amount of environment and design variety within them. Secrets return from DOOM 2016 and are as fun to seek out as ever (except for a select few *glares at Taras Nabad*), and there's a great quality of life addition with fast travel being enabled at the end of every level so that the player can mop up collectables in different areas of the stage that might no longer be accessible. This feature in particular really goes above and beyond for this kind of game, and its inclusion really speaks to the game's polish and thoughtfulness. You'll want to find those secrets too, because they power the DOOM Slayer up in a way that feels almost necessary to combat the game's challenges. Weapon upgrades, perk-like runes, and tokens for passive suit abilities are earned in the stages for much of the game. While all levels have ample collectibles to find, the player will likely be stocked up on all the rune and suit upgrades they need by the final third of the experience; still, weapon mastery tokens and mastery challenges help keep the progression meaningful deep into the experience.
Here's what's crazy: all this game design nirvana doesn't really come at the cost of much. For starters, Eternal is a stellar looking game, with dense, detailed environments and some great art direction. Visually, there are vistas aplenty here that tell stories about the world, enemies break apart in satisfying ways when you shoot them, and even the weapons have some neat animations despite having no reload mechanic. Framerate isn't a cost either, and the game ran sharply and silky smooth for me on Xbox One X at 110 field of view. And hey, load times are somehow short, with fast travel within levels being nearly instant (even when the environment changes drastically – this truly boggles my mind). But it's music that really ties the experience together, and composer Mick "What if David Wise, but Metal?" Gordon returns with an OST that tops the first game's. I like DOOM 2016's OST a lot in context, but it wasn't super listenable to me outside of fan favorite BFG Division. Eternal's OST continues the hard hitting metal and electronic aggression from the previous game, but its music feels a bit cleaner to me in execution than 2016's with clearer, more sustained melodies for each track that are easier to follow. Several tracks stand alongside BFG Division, with the
Nekrovol combat theme being a huge standout to me - it's so fucking heavy and mean and makes me want to rip an army of demons in half, and
the first level theme is also great when the drop hits (take notes, Tiesto). When I'm firing on all cylinders in combat with the music blasting, it's like I'm in a raging trance. It's fucking glorious. Ambient stuff is no slouch either, with the Heavy Metal Choir™ coming in with a force that nearly makes me shudder. The sound design is also greatly improved from 2016, with beefier weapon sounds and clear audio cues for the different cooldowns.
Also, little shout out to some of Eternal's music cues. I don't recall 2016 having any moments like in Eternal when the first Hell Knight spawns and
THIS FUCKIN SONG kicks in, or when a Revenant busts through a wall later in the game, accompanied his own hype music. Always a nice surprise when that happens.
Few more things: Okay, so I went back and forth on prefacing this whole thing with "I played this on an Xbox Elite Controller with all four paddles." This is a demanding game for a regular controller. I honestly wouldn't argue with someone who said that it wasn't comfortable to play on a standard gamepad. It's been super helpful for me to have jump, dash, and Flame Belch on paddles for easy access while moving, shooting and looking. But damn, this is at the edge of what a stock controller can handle. Is this a good or bad thing? I don't know.
The story here generally isn't much to write home about. Doomguy's comedic aggression isn't as frontloaded as in 2016, and I wish the wackiness of the Phobos mission was replicated in more of the campaign. Things get a little more interesting once a character from 2016 returns, though the story is generally a lot of high fantasy meets sci-fi nonsense that barely strings together the missions. This isn't really a con (Khan? :p) for me since I'm pretty much just here for the gameplay and aesthetics, though the story could have worked harder to elevate the overall experience. Some cutscenes now take place in third-person which can be hit or miss, but thankfully they're all skippable rather than locking you in Samuel Hayden's office for a minutes-long monologue. While the story's presentation doesn't knock my socks off, it's worth reading the codex this time around to make a few moments hit harder.
Lastly, the boss fights here underwhelm me personally compared to 2016, but I've made peace with it because the combat just has a different vibe. DOOM 2016's "one size fits all" approach to combat likely made its bosses a bit easier to navigate than they would be here in Eternal, where ammo is limited and the tools are more specialized. Eternal is more about crowd control and prioritization than the previous game, so I guess it makes sense that the design of the boss fights got changed up a bit. The bosses themselves are mostly fine, though. I won't count the DOOM Hunter since he's basically a regular enemy, but I enjoyed the Gladiator for being the most traditional boss, along with the penultimate boss for its satisfying gimmick factor, and the final boss for adding one extra thing to juggle on top of the massive juggling act that is DOOM Eternal's combat. Different approach, but it mostly worked…even if I'm all about the pure "1v1 me bro" contests at heart.
I remain baffled that the intricate and technical gameplay in DOOM Eternal is presented with this level of quality. This is the apex predator of single player FPS combat – demanding, ruthless, and ridiculously satisfying to get good at. But what really puts Eternal over the top for me is how unique it is. While it's built on the bones of DOOM 2016's excellent feel, Eternal represents an advancement in combat design that feels like it's two sequels ahead of the previous game. I'm not sure what it can even be compared to in its own genre, so…comparisons to Japanese action games are the next best thing. Imagine an FPS with the deep arsenal of Devil May Cry, the lightning speed of Bayonetta, the lethal efficiency of Ninja Gaiden, the uncompromising challenge of Sekiro, and, well…that's DOOM Eternal. There's a level of care and attention to each of the numerous elements of the experience, from the weapons and enemies to the movement and the player's mechanics, that I really feel this is probably one of the best action games ever made with quite possibly the best single player FPS combat in existence. That the level design, aesthetics, and technical performance are all at this quality just puts it over the top. This is a special game, one clearly made with an abundance of care from the developers, and I couldn't recommend it enough to fans of combat-based games. There's a significant learning curve, but mastering each of the tools and implementing them in a hypnotizingly brutal torrent of destruction is fuckin' something else. If FPS campaigns never get better than this…my smile and optimism will still be Eternal.
I. CrossCode
Here comes the big one.
CrossCode is one of
those indie games - one that was in development by a small team for the better part of a decade. While a lot of indie games tend to go narrow in their approach by focusing on a specific mechanic or design niche, CrossCode goes ridiculously wide in the scope of what it's trying to accomplish. Now, kitchen sink game design can be a trap, with too many elements diluting the experience and ultimately pleasing no one. It's easy to imagine a game in development for a long time where the developers keep bloating the experience, and CrossCode nearly falls into this trap on paper because this game is like, everything. And it's not like I knew what to expect. I occasionally heard positive impressions for Crosscode from various places over the last year or two, but I never looked too closely. When it launched on consoles (and Game Pass!), I had to check it out. Let me try my best to explain: all from a classic 16-bit JRPG or 2D Zelda top-down perspective, CrossCode offers real time action combat, puzzles, platforming, and a suite of RPG systems such as quests, character progression, and equipment. But there's an elegance to each of these elements that doesn't dilute the experience – rather, each piece contributes to a whole that's more fleshed out than many AAA games I've played. This game spins its wheels less in the roughly 45 hours it took me to finish it than some games do in 8-12. It's unbelievably good and not anime at all.
Why? To start, the thing that hit me immediately when loading up CrossCode was how crispy everything feels. Tilt the stick, and the character almost instantly takes off at top speed and moves at a good clip. Attacking enemies is snappy and satisfying, and the 3D Zelda-style "run off a platform to jump" mechanic is super smooth, with ample analog control and an effortless fluidity to its movement that wouldn't hit quite as hard if jump was on a button. Dashing can be performed up to three times in succession, granting an extra crispy exponential speed boost and encouraging precise timing to skirt the short cooldown after every third dash. The controls are also well-designed, taking cues from the Soulsborne series by mapping primary mechanics like attack and dodge to the shoulder buttons, thus freeing up the right stick. This is because, in addition to *ahem* real time action combat, puzzles, platforming, and a suite of RPG systems such as quests, character progression, and equipment, CrossCode is also a twin stick shooter. At any point the player can use the right stick to aim and shoot projectiles, which becomes a crucial gameplay mechanic for both combat and puzzle solving, in addition to the handy feature of using the aiming line to help judge if a jump between different elevations is possible.
Let's dive deeper into the shooter element, because this is often the crux of CrossCode's puzzle design. Shooting is how protagonist Lea interacts with most objects in the world, such as inserting a key into a locked door. But here's the kicker: after a quick charge period while aiming, Lea's next projectile will have the ability to ricochet up to three times off surfaces. Ricochets add a whole different element to puzzle solving because it's not just what you have to do – it's how you actually have to do it. An act as simple as shooting a key into a door becomes its own puzzle since ricochets will likely be involved. This mechanic starts off simple, using a few ricochets here and there to solve puzzles or attack enemies' weakspots, but the complexity comes in when having to consider ricochets in combination with other interactive objects, along with different elements that Lea can imbue into her shots. This is what could be described as having a feeling of analog puzzles – simply using the correct tool on the correct object isn't enough here, and there are sometimes multiple ways to solve a puzzle based on how you aim your shots. CrossCode's puzzles are like locks you have to crack to move to the next area, and just like picking a lock, you can't just jam your lockpick in and have it work. Sometimes you have to massage it just right to achieve the intended solution. Even if the high level solution is figured out, you still have to find just the right angle to ricochet off walls, with the correct element, interacting with any relevant objects in the correct way to remove barriers or create a ricochet, often while under the pressure of a timing element. Let's just say the execution of the game's final puzzle had my hands shaking more than any combat encounter could ever hope to. The puzzle design here is absolutely bonkers in a way that gave me some of the highest GBPM (galaxy brains per minute) of any game I've ever played. The game doesn't hold your hand, either. Lea may have limited tools to use on the environment, but the variety and challenge comes from the sheer number of environmental objects and how they can be affected by different interactions to solve problems. Often I would walk into a room – the game saying nothing, of course – and be faced with a new object. After some trial and error, I would intuitively figure out the properties of the obstacle and maybe even use it to my advantage. Other rooms would have me walk in dumbfounded, not knowing what the hell I was looking at or what the game was asking me to do. But taking it slow and breaking down each situation piece by piece is the key to puzzle solving here, along with working backwards from a solution. CrossCode's puzzles also don't tend to have a lot of waiting involved, which is something I appreciate a lot in games like Resident Evil 4. Once you figure out the solution, you can solve almost anything in a short amount of time. The game puts a lot of trust in the player to experiment with and intuit its situations, and this succeeded for me in most instances.
Elements of puzzle design even extend into combat. While some enemies present straight-up brawls, many have weaknesses or patterns that need to be exploited. Some enemies become vulnerable when hit with a charged projectile while charging their own attack, some enemies need to be hit from behind, and some need to be parried with a precise guard to open them up. Whilst opening them up and dishing out a subsequent beating, CrossCode just feels incredible to play. Attacks are dash cancellable, giving Lea the option to dance around the battlefield while attacking enemies. Special attacks can be performed using a meter with a generously short cooldown, and good god the feedback on these - fueled by meaty sound effects, dazzling special effects and smooth animations - is really something to be experienced. You can even cancel regular attacks into special attacks, adding more nuance to the system. Lea can imbue her attacks with a variety of elements, though overusing an element for too long will lock her down in neutral mode, so there's a risk/reward of how far you want to push with an element. Boss fights are over the top in their presentation and often ramp up the puzzle solving even more (hell, some of the bosses even reach Platinum Games levels of hype). There's a seamlessness between the combat and puzzle solving in CrossCode that makes both systems feel cohesive, and that's not even considering the several puzzles and combat encounters that add platforming into the mix.
Tying the elements of puzzle solving, combat, and platforming together is level design.
CrossCode has some of the best level design I have ever seen in a video game. Let's digress a bit and briefly talk about Sanctuary Fortress – the undisputed pinnacle of 3D level design – from Metroid Prime 2. Sanctuary Fortress is a triumph of navigation, but it also excels at its spaces being dual-purpose. So many rooms in Sanctuary Fortress have Spider Ball tracks that lead every which way – some optional, some not – and it feels extremely dense in its utilization of space because of this. CrossCode takes a similar approach, except this time you don't typically need an upgrade to access the goods; instead, it's all in your ability to recognize and understand different layers of paths.
CrossCode is an RPG, and RPGs have towns (when they're not HD and too hard). Towns have markets, or vendor areas. Vendors have little tents or buildings they're in. Same with CrossCode, nothing out of the ordinary…except for one thing. That chest over on that roof that you can't reach? That short stack of supply boxes next to that vendor tent? Yeah, you can totally use those boxes to hop onto that tent, leap from overhang to overhang, and ultimately jump to the chest. So that market you ran through to upgrade your gear? That whole thing was actually a hidden platforming route. Coming to understand this concept reframes CrossCode's level design throughout the entire game. Nothing is at it seems. That unassuming little hill you just ran by? Actually, that's a crucial stepping stone in an optional platforming route to get a chest or access a secret area. How do you access the platforming route? Start from a hop up and trace the route backwards. The route seems to extend to a whole other screen, or even multiple screens? Well, yeah, that's CrossCode. Put your Prince of Persia hat on and trace that shit around the proverbial room until you have it all figured out. Hop up at just the right spot to gain elevation, and you can start your route. But hey, mid-route there could be an optional ricochet puzzle to test your mettle and unlock the way forward. Everything is intertwined. Solving a platforming route, along with any required puzzles, will most likely net you a chest containing stronger equipment or materials to trade, which feeds into the combat. Finding a single hop up to higher ground is like pulling a string and can start a chain of events to unravel an entire area's layers, sometimes across numerous screens. This game design creates a flow where you can't turn off your brain for a second. While running through almost any zone, you'll need to be ready to tackle enemies, hop ups to higher ground, platforming routes around the area, and the many environmental puzzles found outside the game's dungeons. As a result, CrossCode is an extraordinarily dense experience where each screen has numerous ways to keep you fully engaged and thinking at all times.
Field-style zones form a large part of the experience in CrossCode, but there's also the Zelda-like dungeons that love to throw puzzle rooms at you with ruthless aggression. You have small keys, a mini-boss to obtain a new ability, a boss key, and a big boss at the end. While the dungeons have some exploratory elements, they lean less towards overarching puzzle box design in the vein of Snowhead Temple or Eagle's Tower from Zelda, and instead take a more Portal testchamber-style approach, opting for a generally more linear style that ramps up in complexity as you go. While there are a few spots of spatial reasoning here and there, CrossCode is more concerned with making you feel like a genius through intricately designed rooms that either introduce new mechanics, put a new spin on ones you've already seen, or mix up obstacles to form a novel challenge. The dungeons here can be grueling, though don't have to be tackled in one sitting. They didn't drag on me in the slightest, but come prepared with your thinking cap on. While CrossCode has ample combat and exploration, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to recommend it to someone who was primarily looking for puzzles. It's just chock full of brilliant shit.
Snappy combat, platforming and puzzle solving could combine to make a great action-adventure game on their own, but CrossCode layers an entire extra level of game design on top through its RPG systems. There's XP and money to earn, gear to find and skill trees to upgrade, but it doesn't increase the game's complexity to an overwhelming degree. While there are party members to meet, the player only ever has to manage Lea's progression, mainly consisting of five or so equipment slots and a handful of skill trees. This not only streamlines progression, but also makes the other party members feel more like their own characters that can function independently of the player. Gear increases stats and provides passive buffs, and skill trees unlock new combat arts and can apply further stat buffs and passives. Circuit (skill tree) points are earned on level up as arguably the most important reward of gaining XP, and the circuits unlocked feel very beneficial. What's great is that each skill tree gains points on level up, and as each new skill tree is unlocked, you start with a generous helping of points ready to go – instantly letting you progress the tree based on your style. There's support for melee play, ranged play, defensive play, and buffs/resistances to each element. It's an engaging and satisfying reward system that never becomes to slog to manage – yet another of CrossCode's numerous systems that feels seamlessly integrated.
Side quests are another RPG staple that CrossCode adopts. No bullshitting here:
CrossCode has some of the best side quests I have ever seen in a video game. A few simplistic early game fetch quests quickly make way for quests that twist and turn and almost always feature some significant unique content, whether it's a mini-dungeon, puzzle, boss or traversal challenge that feels like it could have been plucked straight from the critical path. Some of my favorite moments came from side quests, and I'd recommend that everyone experience them all. What's great is that this is something the game could have gone completely without. The main quest alone would have still made for a fantastic 15-20 hour game, but adding the stellar side quests on top is a level of generosity that goes even further beyond.
That was a lot to say about gameplay, but CrossCode's story and characters also really elevate it for me. CrossCode is a single player game set inside the fictional MMORPG CrossWorlds, not unlike something similar to The World in the .hack series, though the execution is very novel here. The developers also play with this to great effect. Solo challenges are recognized by the characters as being instanced for each player, and NPC CrossWorlds players will often poke fun at the gaming tropes that manifest in CrossWorlds, or even muse about unique, totally valid strategies used to overcome obstacles that the player already conquered. I did something pretty sketchy against the game's second boss, and upon leaving the area I found two NPC players discussing it. One of them said that they used the same strategy I inadvertently did, and the other player was naturally in disbelief. This made me feel not only clever for using that tactic (however accidental), but it meant that not only was CrossCode itself completely in-sync with what players could do, the game was also willing to comment on that in interesting ways. Item trading and text chat, which are two common MMORPG features that would serve as easy solutions for problems encountered in CrossCode's larger plot, are justifiably absent - recognized as having been previously patched out of CrossWorlds, with some NPCs even voicing their grief over this. The broader writing possibly gets a little too inside baseball in spots with its clever musing on video game tropes (particularly games as a service), along with references to some very specific titles, but it worked really well for me.
The main narrative of CrossWorlds is briskly paced, with some light exposition and lore here and there. It never takes too long to reach the next area or dungeon, and the game keeps delivering the goods when it comes to towns and environments all the way until the end. My jaw visibly dropped when visiting the game's final town, as my wide-eyed, slack-jawed self marveled at da scaaaaale, painstaking detail, and endgame implications of a place that the developers honestly didn't need to include for the game to work. Story-wise, the light tone of CrossWorlds' main quest helps to contrast with the mystery surrounding Lea. While the overarching plot deals with heavier subject matter than the MMO's plot, the game never gets too dark; rather, the writing is consistently charming and entertaining. Lea is a player avatar in CrossWorlds who has a bit an issue with her speech module, so her ability to talk is heavily limited throughout the game. Her strict vocabulary is used in clever ways, and other characters often react to her in a way that plays up the awkwardness. The larger cast of characters fill unique roles, like the peppy sidekick Emilie (>:3), who doesn't take CrossWorlds too seriously but is always up for punchin' shit. Then there's Apollo, a straight up Platinum Games rival character who takes CrossWorlds way too seriously…which other characters totally call him out on. There's a great sense of camaraderie among the characters that develops from both cutscenes and incidental dialogue that plays out in real time. Lea is ultimately who ties everyone together, and for an almost mute character, she has more personality than most game protagonists I can think of. CrossCode's dialogue is presented through text and character portraits, and while important characters generally have a variety of portraits spanning a range of emotions, Lea has a frankly absurd number that covers the spectrum of pleased, annoyed, smug, sad, surprised, and everything between and beyond. She'll usually have a new reaction after a few lines from another character, which helps to keep her engaged in a conversation even though she has a tough time contributing. What I'm really trying to say is that she's precious and I want to protect her.
CrossCode's overall presentation includes lovingly detailed 16-bit style graphics and a good soundtrack that's equal parts boopy and chill. Animations are fluid, and there's a plethora of different environments to explore. The game also has some great quality of life, with fast travel from anywhere, the ability to save anywhere, autosave whenever you cross to another screen, and an in-game encyclopedia that's absurdly detailed with everything from loot tables, vendor stock, chapter summaries, character bios, lore, and a bestiary. There's fun little references to other games, too. A guard skill that slows down time is called Glitch Time (cute, huh?). There's also a passive that gives the player super armor while healing called…Leaf Bracer…wait, is that legal? Anyway, the references to other titles are shameless, but if something as exquisite as CrossCode lifted something from my game, I know I'd be honored.
Some minor critiques: I found it a bit difficult to engage with the vendor system at times. While there are traditional shops that trade goods for cash, the best stuff is obtained by trading loot to special vendors in each town. I would often either not have the required loot to make a trade, or would have advanced past an item's usefulness when I finally got the required materials. There's also one particular mechanic in a dungeon that stumped me for a good while (to be fair, the game does poke fun at this). It's actually really simple, but the room setup attempting to intuitively teach it just didn't make sense to me, so it wasn't until a later interaction that I started to understand it. Really minor issues in the grand scheme of things, but worth noting.
CrossCode is an astoundingly complete and detailed game, and it feels like no stone was left unturned in its development. After it was over, I was even a little sad since there were no more good times with the buds (for now – there's DLC coming). For a 16-bit-style game, there were several points where I found myself getting surprisingly invested in the characters. The combat is responsive, thrilling and satisfying. The dungeons are incredibly challenging and rewarding, all without even gently caressing the player's hand. The side content is absolutely killer, and the progression feels meaningful. CrossCode is a unique, highly varied game where all components come together through superb execution on a level that most big budget games can't dream of. This is excess done elegantly. Other games this year may be slightly better at executing within their niche, but as a total package, CrossCode is my favorite game of the year and honestly one of the most well-rounded games I've ever played. Absolute highest recommendation for anyone who's a fan of Zelda, SNES JRPGs, top down action-RPGs, or puzzle games.
Bye!
- [XBO] [Action RPG] [Radical Fish Games] CrossCode
- [XBO] [Shooter] [id Software] Doom Eternal
- [PS4] [Action RPG] [Square Enix] Final Fantasy VII Remake
- [XBO] [Metroidvania] [Moon Studios] Ori and the Will of the Wisps
- [XBO] [Shooter] [Ghost Ship Games] Deep Rock Galactic
- [PS5] [Action RPG] [BluePoint Games] Demon's Souls
- [XBO] [RPG] [Sega] Yakuza: Like a Dragon
- [XBO] [Action RPG] [CD Projekt] Cyberpunk 2077
- [XBO] [Action] [One More Level] Ghostrunner
- [XBO] [Sports] [Vicarious Visions] Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2
