Game #1335: Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury

 Cat Mario goes super saiyan.

 Often regarded as one of the best games on the WII-U, it finally made the jump to the Switch in the form of Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, including the base game as well as a bonus new mini-game.

 3D World is basically an isometrical 3D Mario game, much like 3D Land on the 3DS. The big new feature is that it can be played in multiplayer, with up to three other players, taking control of Luigi, Peach and Toad... and Rosalina, near the end of the bonus stages. Multiplayer is... haphazard, to put it bluntly, characters are very quick, and it's very easy to accidentally get other players off-camera, which will get them into a bubble and floated right to the player in the lead, which, y'know, is sorta annoying.

 But that's nothing, as certain stage gimmicks just don't work in multiplayer. The jump-and-platforms-move hazard has been in the series for a while now, since Mario Galaxy I believe, but it was tough enough synchronizing between two players, with four... it must be impossible. But that's not considering how bad the controls are in multiplayer. Y is used to shoot and run, classic Mario stuff, but it's also used to grab items... and players. How many times, while try to shoot fireballs or boomerangs at an enemy did I accidentally grab my partner and throw them into a bottomless pit or an enemy? This also happened whenever I wanted to run and they were close by. Having the grab function tied to the run/shoot button is ridiculous, particularly considering how many buttons go unused.

 Thankfully, the game is fun, it's really fun. It's not the best Mario ever, but exploring the overworld is cute, and you can find goodies such as one ups off the beaten way. The power up selection is very strong too, featuring the Fireball, the Tanooki suit, the Boomerang, the Super Giant Mushroom, and, new to the series... the Cat power up! It gives Mario all sorts of fantastic new abilities, such as climbing walls and diving attacks that give you new mobility options. Heck, base Mario has all sorts of unnecessary moves, such as a dive and a roll that add a lot of charm and fun to the game.

 Besides the poorly implemented multiplayer, the only other big issue I had with the game is that unlocking the bonus worlds requires 100% game completion, and this doesn't end with you collecting all hidden coins in every level, it also means touching the top of the flagpole, for whatever reason. And considering this is a re-release, I would've liked Rosalina to be unlocked from the getgo, since you play 80% of the game without her.

 I've seen Bowser's Fury receive a lot of praise... I didn't care too much about it. It brings back pretty much every mechanic from 3D World, but now with a 3rd Person camera, taking place on a small sandbox. You have to collection Cat Shines in order to stop Big Bowser, who 'wakes up' every few minutes, and then you either have to fight him or collect a Cat Shine to make him go away. As a bonus it's OK, but by itself... forgettable.

 They also added a 2-Player mode... which is pretty much worthless, the second player gets to play as Bowser Jr, who can't die but also can't do half the things Mario can do, instead being able only to fly around and hit enemies. The camera doesn't even follow him, that's how much of an afterthought this 2-Player mode was.

 I might get in hot water for saying this... but I didn't feel that this game was anything special. It's a very good Mario game, it is, and trust me, I've just gotten off New Super Mario Bros. 2, so I know what a mediocre Mario game is, but this one just wasn't anything groundbreaking. And if they are gonna do multiplayer, they should try to do it right.

 8.0

Game #1334: Valis - The Fantasm Soldier Collection II

 I'm guessing the next one is gonna be numbered X?

 

 Valis: The Fantasm Soldier Collection II is yet another mediocre collection of mediocre games, these one made up of games that should've been on the cart. So, what is actually here? The final game, Valis 4, the cutesy spinoff, Syd of Valis and... the MSX and Genesis version of the first game, y'know, alternate version of the game feature on the first volume? There's no logical reason these games weren't feature in the previous cart besides greed, and to top it all off, it's missing Super Valis, the SNES version of Valis 4. Guess they are gonna release that one by itself since they clearly love money. And the translation is spotty at best, there are grammatical errors, and it's easy to see that the subtitles can't possibly much the amount of words characters spew, heck, in Syd of Valis, one line of text clearly says "12", but the subtitles make no mention of that number.

 Enough prattling about the collection itself, onto the games:

 Valis 4: The next step from Valis 3, this one features new trio of playable characters, each one has a unique skill that will be necessary to proceed, one is immune to environmental traps(Spikes, slides), one can double jump and one can slide.

 Much like before, the enemy placement is super cheap and the platforming and sliding is sometimes obnoxiously precise, all of this is mitigated with the Rewind and Save Anywhere features, making it the most enjoyable game in the cart. I thought it was a decent way to end a fairly unspectacular series of games.

 Syd of Valis: It's cutesy, so you might think it's easier, but nope, it's not. Enemy placement is as cheap as always, and the screen only scrolls when Yuko is dangerously close to the edge of the screen making avoiding some enemies nigh impossible. To add to all this, the game is a bit slippery, particularly with some armors.

 Oh, yeah, while level design is as lame as always, this game has a bunch of really cool ideas, such as equipment. As you go through the game you earn different weapon projectiles and different armors(That actually change how Yuko looks!), and you can swap between them at any time. This was such a cool feature, shame it never made it out of this game!

 Later bosses can be downright brutal... unless you learn how easily you can cheese them with the homing shot. 

 Valis(Genesis): While it has the same cutscenes as Valis 1, the levels are quite different. It was relatively enjoyable, shame it's so slow paced. Yuko runs very slowly which makes the game drag on a bit, but it's not half bad.

 Valis(MSX): The very first version of Valis.... this one is a mess. It's almost unplayable, the screen scrolling is incredibly choppy and the gameplay is very sloppy, you get creamed in seconds flat while bouncing all over the maze-like stages. As bad as it is, I'm happy that it's here, as a piece of history.

 Definitely not as good as the first collection, not that that means much.

 5.0

Game #1333: New Super Mario Bros. 2

 New is a bit of a strong word.... 

 So, what's new in New Super Mario Bros. 2? I dunno. New Super Mario Bros. on the DS was Mario's return to 2-D platforming, using new 3-D graphics but playing in 2-D. It felt new. Then New Super Mario Bros. Wii did the same thing, but added new power ups, and Yoshis, and, best of all, multiplayer. This one.... Er...

 Multiplayer? Gone, it is a handheld aftear all, propeller helmet? Gone. At leas the Mini and Giant mushrooms are back, I guess. The only new Power up is the Gold Fireflower which makes your fireballs explode on impact and give you coins on enemy kills. It only lasts for a single stage. There's also a new emphasis on collecting coins because.... I don't know, just because. There's a new coin rush mode too, and the game keeps a tally of your collected coins, and they all amount to.... a new Press Start splash screen. Yeah....

 I know that it's been tradition since Mario World, but I hated the secret exits, I found them to be too well hidden, like 'get a guide' kind of hidden most of the time. In this day and age, I found it annoying instead of fun. They also kept the whole "can only save after beating a castle or a tower' gimmick which is just baffling. This is a handheld game, let me save anywhere on the world map, for crying out loud. This limitation doesn't add challenge, it's just annoying.

 It's just Mario. That's all this game is, a perfectly acceptable 2-D Mario game. It doesn't do anything new, but there's nothing particularly bad about it, it's just.... Mario.

6.0

Game #1332: Wolfenstein 2 - The New Colossus

 Weird science.

 The Wolfenstein remake was pretty darn good, so of course a sequel was coming, enter Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.

 It picks up immediately after the previous game, with Blascovitch on his death bed... only to be rescued at the last minute, albeit left badly crippled, but don't worry, he gets better. The story follows the two timelines gimmick from the previous game, and you can pick whichever timeline you preferred, which nets you a different NPC ally as well as a unique weapon on each.

 The story, boy, the story is such a weird mess. How can you make a game about killing nazis overly woke? No, really, they... it's a mess. Now William, suddenly, is the son of a racist that beat him up for kissing a black girl even though... he married a jewish woman. And y'know, William's past is bleak, really bleak, but his father is such obvious pandering to the people that think they are fighting racism that it took me off the game. He even uses the N word. And then there are lines in which William has to say "WHITE" nazies. I mean... of course they are and were white? Why? Because pandering. You've got this badass black woman leader but she's so incredibly unlikeable, she smokes next to her baby and has the most abrasive personality they could get her. To the point that you feel glad when another character grabs her by the throat, she even calls another character 'white boy', dismissively, a few times. Insufferable. They also added Engel's daughter, and she's fat, and much like William, she's also victim to her mother's upbringing, but this parallel goes absolutely nowhere. The character herself is a bit of a walking fat joke, which is off-putting since they went after a woke tone for the plot.

 And leaving that aside, since not everyone will cringe from the overtly woke tone, then there's how the game wants you to take the plot seriously... but then has all these idiotic jokes in it. Engel's daughter, Sigrun's plight is sometimes portrayed in a way that it seems as if they want you to laugh at her? Which is incredible, since she gets the most interesting character arc, growing out of the nazi mindset she was forced into. Then there's William's wife, who is now pregnant, going into bullet-fights while pregnant. How does that make any sense? She is a liability. She is carrying children in her womb. It makes absolutely no sense. Then there's another character who happens to be dropping acid all the time, and I'm supposed to believe he survives every time he makes it out of the base? Don't even let me get started on the cringe party scene. While the previous entry also had a bit of humor that didn't gel very well with the new serious tone.... it wasn't THIS bad. And the subtitles disappear or go out of sync every now and then, so you can't even trust those.

 And then there's the gameplay.... I'll get the best thing about it out of the way first, the new dual wielding mechanic is glorious. You can have Will carry any weapon on either hand, so you can go guns akimbo in all sorts of ways, like having a shotgun on the left hand and the assault rifle on the right one. It's amazing, and it's such a small little addition, but it works so well. That said... the game is brutal. It doesn't even feel fair, throughout the first 2/3rds of the game your total life points cap at 50 instead of 100, you get murdered in SECONDS and the HP and Armor upgrades from the first game are nowhere to be seen, compounding with this is how worthless the damage indicator is, quite a few times you'll only realize you are taking damage if you notice the HP going down.

 Most of the game I was left frustrated than anything else, fighting spongy enemies that can take what feels way more punishment that I could deal. It was not a fun experience. And the story was such a mess too... I don't know what happened with this one, considering the previous games were so great.

 4.0

Game #1331: Wolfenstein New Order - Wolfenstein The Old Blood

 Double the nazis

 Much like Doom, another classic first person shooter got remade with a more modern taste in mind, and bundled in this two-pack are the first two remakes: Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein: The Old Blood.

 The New Order is REALLY good. The game is very cinematic, since in-between shootouts you get quite a few cutscenes, and this game is very gritty and edgy... but also 90s dumb, which is why the main protagonist, BJ Blazcowicz kept all his HUGE muscles after spending 14 months as a vegetable. And the plot and the characters are very weird mix of 90s humor, like a character with a dented head that can only say Max Hass, as well as gratuitous sex scenes, but mixed with a very, very bleak setting in which Germany won the second world war. I gotta say, I didn't expect to, but I really fell in love with the supporting cast. Your allies are a likeable bunch, and the villains are disgusting and deadly, so watching them fall is all the sweeter.

 Gameplay is very fast-paced, albeit not as much as Doom. You can peak behind cover while holding down L1, and stealth is a valid approach to various encounters. The weaponry feels very powerful, so watching enemies explode into pools of blood is very satisfying. Fulfilling certain challenges("KIll X amount of enemies while peeking under cover", "Stealth Kill X amount of commanders") grants you permanent buffs, which is a great way to encourage you to try different stuff and reward you for it.

 The Old Blood does away with most of cinematic elements, most but not all, and has more emphasis on the shooting. It plays basically the same, but stealth is more necessary than before, for certain sections at least, but you also get new weapons to slaughter your enemies with. It's a bit harder than before, some enemy waves can feel endless, and the final boss is very cheap, but it's still a good game, even if not as memorable as the original.

 Wolfenstein is another knockout for Bethesda, no doubt about it. Both games are REALLY good, having very satisfying gameplay, and in the case of the first one, a very interesting plot too. It's so good I'm playing The New Colossus right now!

 8.5

Game #1330: Darksiders III

 The Dark Souls of Darksiders.

 Just what everybody wanted, another prequel! But I don't mind, really, I want every Horseman to get their own game, and Fury gets her due in Darksiders III, if only they released quicker then having four prequels wouldn't feel so bad.

 Darksiders always borrow their formula from other games, and in this case it's Dark Souls. I hate the souls games, but this one is fine, I had some trouble in a few sections but I never dipped below Normal on the difficulty settings. That said, it's got everything but the parry, deadly enemies, souls that can be used to improve your stats and are dropped upon death, etc.

 While the new emphasis on combat was controversial, to say the least... I actually liked it. I loved fighting enemies, since your attacks feel so crunchy. I much prefer this to the more flowy combat of the previous two games, plus, the level cap is so high, combat always feels purposeful.

 There are still some puzzle elements here and there, but it's nothing like the previous games, and platforming is nowhere near as prevalent as it used to be. Not to say there's any of it, as all four weapons come with their own traversal additions to Fury's abilities: Flame comes with a triple jump and the ability to walk on lava, Stone comes with the ability to walk while below water, break rocks and magnetically attach to walls, Water comes with the ability to freeze water, and lets you stand on water, as well as freeze certain objects and wall jumping, while Air allows Fury to glide and... yeah, that's all it gets you.

 It's very Metroidvania in design, and it can also be a bit... vague on how to proceed, so the game expects you to back track and re-explore areas once you obtained a new weapon. I didn't mind, I love exploration, but there's that. Some bits are a bit... poorly designed, if anything. There's an area in which you must avoid a Tornado, but you might think you are doing something wrong since the timing is so precise and very little room for error when it comes to outrunning it. And not too long after that, the same tornado will push a block you need to place upon a switch, turns out you can actually freeze it with the Water weapon. There's not a single hint in the entire game that you can actually freeze the block in place, heck, hitting it with the weapon doesn't coat it in blue, unlike very other single object you can freeze, which is just baffling. Oh, and there were a few places in which the third jump wasn't as high as I needed it, so it felt as if I had to exploit environmental oversights, which was just weird.

 Leaving aside those quirks, what kills this game is how broken it is. Many times the game just gives up loading parts of the environment, so your best bet is to quit the game entirely, thankfully, it saves upon exiting, but man if it isn't annoying. It's probably some sort of memory leak issue, because the game crashed quite a few times. And that's not to mention all the frame stuttering and micro-freezes it suffers from, and these CAN get in the way of combat, heck, most of the time you swap weapons it freezes for a second or so as it loads the new weapon. Oh, and the loading times are kinda lengthy, which is a kick in the pants when the point of the game is being hard, and sometimes they feel a bit too frequent.

 The core of the game is fun, it's really fun, up to par with the previous two games I'd say, but in a very different way since it's quite different from both of them, sadly, the technical issues really get in the way of it reaching its full potential. Just another reminder of how terrible modern games have become.... and this game isn't even all that new, yet exhibits all the same technical issues new games do. Still, when the game works, it's really fun.

 6.5

Game #1329: The Dark Pictures Anthology - The Devil in Me

  Devil's in the detail... and the bugs.

 Here it is, the Season Finale, The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me. I'd like to say that it was a fun ride... but it wasn't, it's been plagued with all sorts of issues and bugs since the very first game, and I can't say that the games only got better, because they didn't. The Dark Pictures Anthology was a brilliant concept, having stand-alone interactive horror movies sounded too good to be true, and it was. And now it's over.... for now.

 I'll give The Devil in Me this, it's a lot less buggy than the previous game. Midway through out playthrough the Inventory icons went away, we went through a soft-lock and a hard-crash and had to deal with heads that would bug-out trying to look behind them.... but at least every texture loaded on every scene. It's a mess, but at least it's not as bad as House of Ashes.

 The plot is probably the most interesting out of every game in the series, using the rumors and tall stories behind Holmes, America's first serial killer as the theme. And it uses it to great effect, I felt. The new cast of characters was alright, definitely more likeable that the ones in House of Ashes, but not as endearingly cheesy as the ones from The Quarry. It also felt like their most cinematic game yet, using some rather interesting camera angles and scene cuts. It felt like a step above the games that came before it.

 For this game, a lot of hoopla has been made about new actions, such as jumping and crawling. They are just glorified doors. No, really. You'll come across gaps, and you'll have to press X, only that instead of opening a door the character will jump. Or crawl, if needed. You'll climb ladders too. Still, it adds more variety to how you move about, but in essence, nothing has changed in this regard. There are more puzzles than ever before, so all the collectibles you can find around? You'd better start reading them. There's a new Inventory system, but this only means that you can now press a button every now and then to do something, it feels very context-sensitive all in all.

 For as harsh as I was at first... this one was probably one of the better entries in the series, if not the best, but it's not quite as good as what they did with The Quarry or even Until Dawn, and I get it, smaller budget, but c'mon, these games all run on the same premise and engine, at least they can make sure that the games are less buggy at release. Still, if this game was the new standard for the rest of the series... I'd think they'd be OK.

 5.5