Video Game Reviews, including the best pack-in title that I didn't even know was there.
Titles Covered: Astro's Playroom, God of War 2018, Multiversus, Lego Star Wars, The Skywalker Saga, Yoshi's Crafted World, Link's Awakening, Spyro Trilogy Reignited, Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy.
Astro’s Playroom (*****)
Either someone really dropped the marketing ball, or I’m completely out of touch. My wife and I recently bought a PS5, and neither of us knew that the system comes with a free pack-in launch title. I didn’t see any notice on the box, in the ads, anywhere! I set up the system, tried to navigate the new menu system, and then said, “Astro’s Playroom? What’s that?”
10 minutes later… “Where the hell did THIS come from?!”
Astro’s Playroom is phenomenal. OK, so it’s only about 4 hours long, but damn do they pack a lot into those four hours! The game is sort of a Mario-style collectathon, sending the player through various platforming challenges as you try to collect artifacts from the history of the Playstation brand. The controls and camera are silky smooth and feel fantastic. The controls also fully take advantage of the new Dualsense controller, featuring motion tilt, controller speakers, touchpad controls (for rolling balls around), and advanced haptic controls.
The haptic feedback is pure witchcraft. It’s unfortunate that the multiplatform games don’t really use it beyond the basic “rumble,” because games like Astro’s Playroom show what can be done with the right development team. You can feel rain, wind, mud, springs, and different floor textures, and it’s absolutely trippy.
Astro’s Playroom may have been billed as a tech demo for the Dual Sense Controller, but it’s incredibly fun and I honestly can’t think of a single flaw beyond the short length. It’s engaging, beautiful, easy to play, and has great music to boot.
Oh, and it includes a creepy love song sung by a GPU.
God of War 2018 (**** and a half)
“Close your heart to it. On our journey we will be attacked by all manner of creature. Close your heart to their desperation. Close your heart to their suffering. Do not allow yourself to feel for them. They will not feel for you.” -Kratos
Wait… Dialogue for Kratos that’s actually… good? How did this happen?!
When it comes to the pre-2018 God of War games, I absolutely love their art design and gameplay, but often find the plot elements to be sophomoric and poorly written. Frankly, the only story in the series that made much sense was the original 2005 game, though the PSP spin-off “Chains of Olympus” at least had a solid third act. The rest of the God of War stories range from thin and forgettable (Ascension), pointless retcons (Ghost of Sparta), or absolute crap (GOW 2 and 3, which is frustrating because the boss fights in them are super-fun).
But low and behold, the God of War series has finally grown out of its edgy teenage years. Giving Kratos a son proves to be the missing piece of the puzzle, as the “boy” gives us hope for the future and a complex internal conflict for Kratos himself. Kratos is certainly not nice, but he takes his responsibility as father seriously enough that we can believe that he has real human motivations and feelings. He actually shows vulnerability, whether in grieving his departed wife, or asking his son “when are you angry with me?” That’s a serious dad question, one that my father has asked me, and one that I will probably ask my son. On top of all this, the story scenes are exceptionally well-illustrated, with good animations and voice-acting. The script particularly impressed me, and that’s something I can rarely say about a videogame.
In terms of gameplay, God of War 2018 retains the combo-centric gameplay of the older games, but welds them with the more deliberate combat of Dark Souls and the open-world style of… well, everything these days. The story is still linear, but has side-missions and collectibles that can be retrieved by exploring a central hub world. All of this is pretty fun to do, and the game is just hard enough on its default difficulty setting to make upgrades feel important (I have not tried the game on higher difficulty levels).
If there’s a major gameplay deficiency, it’s the boss fights. An early big boss battle against “The Stranger” is amazing, but everything after that is pretty so-so. It doesn’t help that you fight the same “troll” and “rock monster” bosses several times. Also, some important boss-fights try to throw in new mechanics, requiring the game to teach you new rules in the middle of a fight (a mid-game dragon fight is almost completely derailed by this problem).
Overall, God of War 2018 is a very solid reboot of a hit-or-miss series, and the first that made me respect it on a writing level.
Multiversus (***)
Multiversus isn’t just like Super Smash Brothers; it IS Super Smash Brothers. Sure, the character roster is different, and I’m sure competitive players will make much out of a few altered mechanics, but otherwise there’s not much difference between this new hit freemium game and Nintendo’s popular brawler.
Except that Smash Brothers has tons of content at this point, and Multiversus has a long way to go in that department. The character selection is pretty good, but there’s only about 5 simple stages, a very basic single-player mode, and no items. Hopefully, the freemium model will allow Multiversus to expand in the next few years, but for now it gets a bit tiring playing on the same stages over and over again.
For what it’s worth, some of the characters are very well designed. Bugs Bunny easily has the funniest moveset I’ve ever seen in this type of game. The superheroes are also fun, though it feels weird fighting non-supers with them. I intuitively expect Superman (or even Batman) to flatten other characters in one punch. Instead, they have similar combat abilities as Velma from Scooby Doo, which makes them feel oddly weak.
Multiversus is currently free for the basic package, meaning you can play as Shaggy and a rotating selection of “free” characters until you spend real money or in-game currency. So… it gets a pass. I enjoyed it well enough, but it’ll need a bit more before it’s a serious rival to Nintendo’s behemoth.
Lego Star Wars, the Skywalker Saga (***)
Huh. This is NOT what I expected!
I played Lego Star Wars on the GameCube, and recall it being a series of platformer/brawler levels that took you through a silly version of the Prequel Trilogy. I assumed that this new hyped-up “Skywalker Saga” was a straight hi-def remake of Lego Star Wars and its sequels. Instead, it’s a whole new game, one largely focused on open-world exploration and about a thousand puzzles and sidequests. Yes, there are also story missions, but they’re often pretty short. For example, the scored missions within “The Phantom Menace” consist of 3 vehicle segments (submarine chase, pod race, and space battle), a boss fight against Darth Maul, and a quick bit with Jar Jar firing a catapult. So none of the missions in the first episode are based on the brawler-platformer format of the original game.
That’s fine, honestly. We’ve had a LOT of Lego adaptations over the years, and I get that expanding the content of the game with an open world provides more mileage. FWIW, I had a blast chasing down all the hidden collectibles in the open world. However, it’s mostly just collecting for the sake of collecting (and trophies, if you get the Playstation version). Sure, you can use the collectibles to upgrade your abilities, but the game is so easy that you don’t really need upgrades. This format worked better in Zelda Breath of the Wild, because the game was brutally hard.
Lego Star Wars is a fun collectathon game, though much of your enjoyment will depend on your feelings for the movie worlds and characters themselves, and how much you like open-world collecting. The game is also pretty long, since it encompasses everything from the main 6 Star Wars movies, as well as 3 of the Disney fan films.
Demon’s Souls Remake (*** and a half)
Am I now reviewing Demon’s Souls for the third time? Apparently.
Now that the “Souls” series has become a widely-celebrated gaming staple, there’s been interest in its original PS3-exclusive debut. Thus, the PS5 launched with a ground-up remake that is a close copy of the original, graphics and sounds aside. For what it’s worth, the graphics in the remake are truly incredible, and Demon’s Souls might be the most visually impressive video game that I’ve ever seen. There are extra animations and graphical flourishes aplenty, from the realistic facial expressions to skeletons actually having fleshy bits on them. The Dualsense controller is also used well, making you feel the impact of your weapons.
But what about gameplay changes?The original 2009 Demon’s Souls certainly had plenty of room for improvement. There’s some nice upgrades to the character creator, UI, controls, and camera, better handling of item storage, crystal lizards are much less annoying, and there’s an immediate option for “offline mode” (thanks for remembering us single-player gamers!). There’s also a few new items, but nothing terribly exciting. The game overall feels easier than the original version, though it’s hard for me to judge difficulty on what became my third full playthrough.
Unfortunately, some notable flaws of Demon’s Souls did not get fixed. The convoluted weapon upgrade system returns, rather than switching to the more satisfying and streamlined system used by Dark Souls. The level designs are exactly the same, so the levels that were bad before are still bad (World 5, for instance) The most bizarre oversight is world and character tendency, a broken system that returns fully intact for some unknown reason.
If you haven’t played Demon’s Souls before, try this version. It looks and sounds amazing and delivers a slightly better gameplay experience than the PS3 original. I guess at some point I should move on and try Dark Souls 2, huh?
Yoshi’s Crafted World (*** and a half)
Yoshi has had a mixed run with his solo games, which have ranged from widely revered (Yoshi’s Island) to widely hated (Yoshi’s Story). Yoshi’s Crafted World is a good entry, and one that finds a satisfying difficulty balance.
Yoshi’s Crafted World is a side-scrolling platformer with multiple goals. Your first goal is to reach the end of the level, but you also try to collect “Smiley Flowers,” with bonus flowers awarded for collecting red coins, avoiding damage, finding certain craft items, and wrangling a trio of puppies.
A problem I had with both the SNES and DS versions of Yoshi’s Island is that they only gave rewards for perfect runs. If you didn’t think you could get perfection, you might as well just blitz through each level without worrying about collecting flowers at all. Yoshi’s Crafted World addresses this problem extremely well. A few Smiley Flowers from each level are required to beat the game, about half are required to reach the secret levels, and completionists get a special costume. Thus, the player is encouraged to try their best, but never penalized for getting less than 100% completion.
Beyond that, Yoshi’s Crafted World has a great look, with a world made of different children’s crafts. What’s especially cool is the flipped version of each level in which you can see a faux “behind the scenes” view of how everything is held together with tape, string, etc.
Yoshi’s Crafted World isn’t one of the most exciting Switch games, but it’s a charming and well-designed platformer that anyone can handle.
Link’s Awakening Remake (****)
The Nintendo Switch plays quite a few different Zelda games, including a full-on remake of “the Gameboy Zelda.” When I first played it, I was somewhat dismissive of Link’s Awakening. It felt like a rehash of the far superior “Link to the Past”... but without color, screen scrolling, or good controls. The remake addresses all those problems brilliantly, and also showed me that I might have been unfair in my assessment.
In retrospect, Link’s Awakening was a very sophisticated Gameboy game. There were many times that I’d encounter a complicated quest or complex animation and assume that it was added for the remake. Surely such advanced scripting wasn’t possible on that little gray brick, right? But then I’d check a Let’s Play of the Gameboy original and find that all that complexity was done on the Gameboy. Impressive!
Actually, Link’s Awakening feels like a mashup of Link to the Past with the original Legend of Zelda. Specifically, the overworld leans towards Link to the Past, while the dungeons bring in more from the 1980’s original game. The remake actually takes advantage of the older “tile” approach to dungeoning, by allowing players to make their own dungeons as part of a sidequest. Meanwhile, there’s also a central town area, different types of terrain, and a largish overworld that gradually opens up as you complete quests and gain new abilities. The abilities are mostly copied from Link to the Past, but the addition of “Roc’s Feather” allows jumping… which is much easier and more useful in the remake thanks to the additional buttons available on the Switch.
Aside from improved controls and tech, the remake also changes the look of Link’s world, giving everyone a “toy” appearance. It’s a bit random, but helps the game stand out among the many games in the series.
Link’s Awakening is not the perfect Zelda, but it is the perfect remake. It takes a clever game that was held back by its technical limitations, and realizes its full potential.
Spyro Trilogy Reignited (*** and a half)
Being a Nintendo kid, I didn’t embrace the Playstation brand until sometime in the 2000’s, so I never played the original Spyro the Dragon games. Fortunately, they’ve now been remade and packaged together as a trilogy. Each Spyro game individually was pretty short, but together they make a nice meaty package.
Spyro’s gameplay formula is pretty simple, and emulates the style of Mario 64, though perhaps Banjo Kazooie is a better comparison. You navigate a hub world, enter individual obstacle courses, and acquire both big and small collectibles in each course. The main difference between these games and Mario… is that you’re a dragon. And yes, that matters, since you’re running on all fours, breathing fire, and gliding using your dragon wings. The fire attack is probably the biggest improvement over Spyro’s Nintendo rivals, since it has the perfect range to be effective, whereas Mario and Banjo’s punches were basically useless.
The first game in the trilogy is the simplest, and does feel the most unpolished. Most of it is pretty easy, except for the optional flying levels that are way too hard and have questionable controls (you can’t change your speed, bank into turns, etc.). Also, the final boss is a mess of bad design decisions. Otherwise, the original Spyro holds up decently.
The sequel, Ripto’s Rage, is easily the highpoint of the trilogy. It has a better balance, fixes the boss fights, and makes the courses feel more purposeful by including a clearer end-goal. Also, you get to expand your repertoire of abilities by spending your gems.
The third game is similar to the sequel, but includes levels where you play as different characters. Unfortunately, the other characters often have poor controls or implementation. For example, at one point you play as a huge Yeti, but the camera doesn’t adjust for his height, so he blocks your view of the playing field. Also, what’s up with the Cheetah falling in love with a rabbit? Don’t cheetahs eat rabbits?
Overall, I’m glad I had a chance to finally catch up with Spyro. His games don’t quite measure up to Mario’s, but they’re perfectly good in their own right, and you can clearly see the influence these games had on the developer’s later titles such as Ratchet and Clank.
Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy (***)
“Crash” was another one of those Playstation franchises that I never got into simply because I was a Nintendo kid. Also, the game honestly didn’t look that good. The story and world elements include a skinny Tasmanian Devil, a mad scientist with the letter “N” branded on his forehead, and a furry version of Pamela Anderson. OK… And the gameplay doesn’t seem to quite understand 3D gameplay, and could be mistaken for a mobile “runner” game.
And yet, Crash Bandicoot is more than the sum of its parts, creating a platforming experience that feels satisfying and also very distinct from Super Mario Brothers. The levels are pretty well designed, and adequately mix things up between “runner” levels, 2.5D platforming, chase sequences, and boss fights. Each game in the series is pretty short, so packaging them all into the N Sane Trilogy makes a lot of sense.
I was surprised by how brutally difficult the first two games in the trilogy were. Some of the levels felt like something out of “Mario and the Lost Levels,” and really pushed me to my limit. I’ve heard that this is partially due to the reworked physics and controls in the “N Sane” package. The third game is still challenging, but much more doable, with the racing minigame providing the only hair-pulling frustration.
Crash Bandicoot isn’t the classic that Mario and Sonic are, but it’s a pretty good game, and a real challenge for veteran gamers.