Tag: mario

  • Yoshi and the Mysterious Book – Review

    Yoshi and the Mysterious Book – Review

    Click for play details

    Played on: Nintendo Switch 2

    Playthroughs: 1 ( 100% complete)

    Playtime: 60hrs

    Curiously across the community, I’ve seen Yoshi and the Mysterious book earn a lot of discourse and fairly average reviews. It seems that this game has been written off by some for being dare I say ‘Babyish’, ironic considering that this is a yoshi game that doesn’t feature a crying baby. They say, don’t judge a book by its cover, has Yoshi’s latest adventure been judged fairly? lets find out!

    A Meddling kid

    The story is simple in its premise, Bowser Jr stumbles across the titular mysterious book one day and ends up on Yoshi’s island, as he obsessively seeks a powerful bird thats somewhere within the books pages . The mysterious book called Mr. E, is a very nice (and also very sentient) fellow, who invites Yoshi to jump in to his pages to stop Bowser Jr’s medling whilst populating his pages with all the discoverys and creatures you find along the way. Sure the narrative is no more complex than ‘our princess is in another castle’ but its serviceable and really thats all it needs to be.

    A simple story will great players, but the book setting allows a lot more variety in locations than the usual Yoshi’s Island environments, I was shocked at some of the environments where this game ends up.

    Each of the games 10 main chapters features a different location, with its own different creatures to discover. There’s a main chapter page for each which has a beautfully illustrated double page where you can see the creatures moving around and living their best lives in their natural habitat (you can also name the creatures if you wish for some extra fun). What’s actually really quite magical is how the chapter page plays in to the core gameplay. Upon discovering the main finding within a creatures habitat, that creature will on some occassions do something on this main chapter screen to help you uncover another creature lurking within the environment (like a creature might roll in to a tree causing another creature to fly out, allowing their level to then be selected). I found myself really enjoying this element of “oooo what happens next” as I found myself anticipating how the creatures are going to interact with the page and what that interaction will uncover. It’s really good and makes everything feel fairly consequential. You’re not just finding discoveries for the sake of doing so for the most part, it feels entirely integral to progession.

    Each chapter has a main illustrated page where you can find its creatures, finding discoveries within the habitats of certain creatures will enable them to interact with this page directly to make previously undiscoverable creatures and their levels available.

    A well crafted world

    This is where the discourse may originate from, I can’t imagine that this ‘Babyish’ mentality from some comes solely from the visuals, as this game is absolutely beautiful, its vivid, it pops with colour, its utterly charming, I loved jumping in to levels and being scribbled in to the pages with pens, as you find facts about the creature, your finding will be permanently be emblazoned in to the part of the level where you yourself discovered it, giving a more personal touch. Presentation wise, this game is well crafted and the charming visuals have been key to Yoshi games since the very first SNES game.

    Where this game differs from other Yoshi outings is that it’s not your a-typical platformer. In fact its one big giant puzzle. You’re dropped in to levels, each containing their own unique creature that has their very own mechanics that can affect how you can traverse across the level or effects what you can interact with within the level. This means that every single level you enter is effectively a blank slate, and dare I say a “mystery” as the games title would suggest.

    Every level feels entirely different, one level see’s me riding on clouds calmly across the sky, another places me in a gloomy cave with ominous music where I have to hide in grass before this insect hedge slices me and sends me back to the start of the level (and no I’m not making this up).

    This is where I feel the game has been hampered in some respects with its ‘its only for kids’ ideology. Sure you’re always going to get a discovery for using your tounge to taste the creature, there are some core mechanics you can rely on to find facts and these are incredibly easy to uncover. If you rely on the mentality of these easy wins, well you’re likely going to have a fairly uninspired playthrough . What the game is asking players of all ages to do is to tap in to their intrigue, play with logic, and think outside the box, it’s a game that rewards the youngest of players allowing them to see the game through to the end with their comprehension, but rewards older players for lateral thinking.

    For those who want to reach 100% completion there are some beautifully crafted puzzles to achieve that are a genuine challenge. I found absolute joy in the ‘Eureka’ style moments this game provided me in the over 2000 discoveries I found across my 60 hour runthrough ( I don’t think theres a single other Yoshi game I’ve invested so much time in), I’m not ashamed to admit that to get some of those harder discoveries I found myself spending a fair amount of coins to buy hints of how to uncover them otherwise I fear this 60 hours may have esculated even futher.

    For full context, you’ll find within the pages, Platforming puzzles, logic puzzles, Music and Rhythm puzzles, skill puzzles, stealth puzzles, the variety goes on and on. The inner Mario fan within me equally filled with glee at levels featuring classic enemies such as Shy guy, a particular highlight being growing my own Pirhanna plants and working out each stage to grow it successfully.

    A music puzzle featuring Shyguys some of these puzzles require really precise timing and good rhythm in order to succeed.

    The adventures appendices

    If 10 main chapters of content isn’t enough for you, there are 2 extra chapters within Mr. E’s pages too, one of which is a challenge chapter that houses some of the hardest puzzles in the game, these are fair but genuenly quite tough, some of them taking me a fair few attempts, I wouldn’t say they are for the faint of heart.

    In true traditional Yoshi fashion, each level also has their own smiley flowers to collect, which again some are not that easy to find. Rarely did I find them in plain sight which I feel is characteristic of previous series entries. The smiley flowers actually have a pretty unique function in this game too. Every 5 you collect can be traded for an exploration tool, what’s unique about these gadgets is that they can be fixed on to the games HUD, you can fix them wherever you like and customise it when you need to. Some of the gadgets can be extremely helpful, for example I chose to affix a gadget that tells you how many discoveries are still left in the level as well as one that acts as an archive of Mr. E’s notes on discoveries and hints to better keep track of things. I even placed a compass that showed me the nearest Smiley flower to help me track down those last few I needed.

    Smiley flowers can be exchanged for exploration tools that can uniquely be attached to the games HUD to help with exploration, this is a fun mechanic I’d like to have seen fleshed out further.

    Unfortunately this is one of the aspects that let me down slightly, there are some incredibly useful tools in here as described, but a large proportion of them felt rather superfluous. Such as speed trackers, Height meters and a life bar (which was strange as I didn’t realise you took damage in the game in the traditional sense). I’m not suggesting that these tools won’t help certain players to uncover discoveries in the game, they didn’t always for me, but every level within the game can be viewed as its own micro sandbox, and these tools may encourage creative play and solutions for some players. I wish however they had built on this mechanic a bit more to make it more worthwhile.

    Is it a Ten though?

    It’s a game that I truely feel everyone can find a sense of joy from. I recall few moments playing where I didn’t feel my smile wide from side to side. The game successfully subverts the expecations of what a Yoshi game usually is, providing exceptional variety in its sandbox levels. It’s a game that wants to create intrigue and play around discovery, and it absolutely nails that sense of curiosity. It’s a difficult review to write, as the game feels utterly unique, and its difficult frankly to put down on paper how the game plays (I don’t want to spoil the puzzles and solutions too much) but it feels like if Nintendo did it’s own version of the Crystal Maze.

    If you go looking for a challenge, you can find it and effectively play your way even though the unique HUD customisation for me left a sense of disapointment, it fails to get the perfect rating as a result, but needless to say, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book has become one of the most essential games to play on Switch 2 to date.

    Yoshi pretty much pulling the face of inmeasurable glee that I experienced whilst I played through Yoshi and the Mysterious Book

    It’s a 9/10

    • Beautifully presented, with wonderful visuals and effects that bring the mysterious book to life
    • Unique puzzles and mechnics across each level
    • Encourages play and creativity, each level features simple puzzles but equally tough challenges for all levels of player skill
    • A sizeable level of content for those who decide to keep playing to 100% completion
    • Exploration tools and HUD customisation feel unique but could have been fleshed out further

  • Mario & Luigi: Brothership – Review

    Mario & Luigi: Brothership – Review

    Mario & Luigi: Brothership – Review

    Click for play details

    Played on: Nintendo Switch 2 (With boost mode enabled for Handheld play)

    Playthroughs: 1 ( 100% complete)

    Playtime: 55hrs

    A hot take here – Mario and Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story may in fact be one of the greatest games Nintendo has ever put their name to, yet ever since the Mario and Luigi series has failed to reach its heights. Enter Brothership the latest installment in the super star saga, Whats the inside story? Does it finally topple the greats that preceed it? Lets find out as we answer: Is it a ten though?

    Brothers in arms

    At its core, Brothership’s gameplay is utterly faithful to its predecessors. As soon as I entered my first combat encounter I knew exactly what I was doing, as someone who isn’t the most seasoned and biggest fan of turn based RPG’s generally, it was comforting knowing that the game wasn’t going to give me anything too daunting to have to pick up and learn.

    Those who have played previous series entries will be glad to see combat is faithfully recreated in Brothership.

    I’ve always appreciated how involved the combat is in the Mario and Luigi series. Its not just about simply selecting a move and seeing it play out, its all about button presses and how accurate timing can boost the damage output of your attack, and sure this is by no means a new concept but I find Brothership like the rest of its series uses this to make its combat encounters utterly infectious.

    Some may find combat gets repetative fairly quick, but for me the gameplay loop of learning new Brother attacks (the special attacks in the game) and mastering their timing never truely gets old, In particular the timing of Mario’s Bomb Derby attack had me stumped for ages, yet finally being able to get it perfect and secure myself an excellent rating everytime is a gratification of skill that a lot of other games fail to reach.

    Special Brother attacks are still as fun to enact as they always have been with some returning and new moves to uncover.

    To give further experimentation to how you approach combat, battle plugs can be equipped for a range of different effects that last for a certain amount of turns, anything from your standard defence boosts and attack increases to more fun ones like a giant bomb that can surprise drop on an enemy to give devestating damage. Whilst the perks these give in battle are fairly standard, theres enough combinations and fun effects to make it a worthwhile addition. You’ll unlock plugs as you progress through the game and find spark plugs hidden across all the games environments, it provided a good incentive to return to previous locations as I found myself actively wanting to see what plug effect I’d unlock next.

    What is perhaps the final addition to Brotherships combat is Luigi’s uncanny skill to be able to manifest an idea that will usually weaken the opponent significantly, aptly named Luigi logic. Its mostly something that appears within boss encounters across the game, and will involve Luigi interacting with the environment to disable an enemys attack for a short amount of time. Each boss encounter has their own and they all play differently, I found this was a fun way of creating diversity amongst the various bosses across the game and they aren’t always easy to pull off. My favourite being stealing a remote in an arenas background to change the environments temperature to create critical damage against your opponent.

    Luigi Logic can help uncover environmental hazards to lay critical damage on your foes as well as uncover new ways to traverse across obstacles in the main level environments.

    The game keeps you on your toes mostly and keeps finding new ways to introduce new mechanics and attacks to your combat arsenal all the way to the third act (the only point where I felt combat started to reach a lull but more on that later), If there was only one thing Brothership successfully achieved, its core gameplay is every bit of a Mario and Luigi game you’d come to expect.

    A Sea of Green

    For the first few hours you’ll be battling through mostly traditional Mario style green environments with each Island you discover.

    Whilst I found myself enjoying the battling instantly what gave an air of too much familiarity was the first few hours of exploring which led to very similar looking environments akin to world 1-1 of most Super Mario Bros games, but the lucious green valleys and rolling hilIs far exceed their welcome here. Thankfully by the time you chart your course to the second world immediately the variety in environments seems to open up, you’ll find sprawling deserts, tropical villages, castle ruins and bustling metropolis citys, all featuring their own storys, characters and in some cases unique enemies to uncover, but even then you’ll stumble across alot of these themes multipletimes.

    Thankfully as you dive deeper in to the sea, there are more unique environments such as Merrygo Island, a maze themed like a fun fair carousel.

    Sail, Jump, Whack and Roll

    This is somewhere where I felt Brothership really does set itself apart, I found the game was a blast to traverse across. Across your adventure your main form of transport for exploration is the Brothership itself, you’ll set course across the ocean to reveal the games islands across a fast ocean akin to exploration in Zelda Phantom hourglass or Sonic Rush Adventure if you’ve had the pleasure of playing those DS classics. Playing in Handheld mode I found myself naturally wanting to draw a course with the touch screen similar to these games but alas this feature wasn’t there. It’s still pretty darn fun though with plenty of hidden islands with their own challenges and puzzles to uncover and even rock formations to find that your Brothership gets decorated with across your adventure.

    Speaking of those hidden islands, the challenges can actually be varied thanks to unlocking brother abilities, where you’ll find yourself turning in to a UFO to hover over big gaps, or my favourite rolling in to a ball to traverse across narrow pathways or through small pipes. You’ll use all of these abilities to get to otherwise unreachable areas across the main story islands as well as finding hidden chests and other rewards.

    An example of one of the challenges sees you timing hammer throws to hit a ball succesfully 100 times as the ball speeds up (this one’s really tough).

    Some of the hidden islands feature challenges that use these abilities exclusively, one of my favourites being an obstacle course where you have to navigate up a maze of narrow pathways with the roll ability to collect musical notes in the correct sequence. The rewards for completing these hidden island challenges are usually rare equipment that can really give you a big advantage in battles.

    Theres alot of unique ways of traversal making for some great platforming and I won’t spoil those moments here.

    There’s a lot of varied obstacles you’ll come across, some needing unique abilities, such as this maze requiring hammer swings to rotate the passageways.

    I have to give the team credit as some of the narriative within the islands once again captures the quirky tone that I remembered from pervious entries. It just doesn’t seem to provide any set piece or memorable moments that are as impactful as the likes of Superstar Saga or Inside story, and sure most of Inside story you’re traversing through Bowsers body exclusively, but theres constant interactions with bowsers outside world that creates unique effects inside bowser and the magic of “Whats Bowsers heart looklike?” is a feeling that Brothership fails to replicate.

    Partners take time

    As an eagle eyed reader, you may have realised that I sank 55 hours in to Mario and Luigi, its not uncommon for adventures within the RPG genre to have a pretty lengthy run time, but I felt with Brothership it was an obligatory tick box to check as oppose to organically reaching that level of play time. Towards the end of the game, I found myself getting burned out; put it this way if the Brothership boat was the Titanic, I found myself somewhat willing to crash in to an iceberg just to see the credits roll, but wow this game maintains a persistant need to keep going. Numerous times the game feels like its drawing to an end only for you to find out that encounter you thought was the last boss, isn’t and oh by the way, can you go and revisit multiple locations to gain access to the true end game.

    Now I realise that complaining about the game giving you more feels a little over critical, I mean in a literal sea of modern games that can take a few hours to get through, its impressive that you can get so much playtime out of Brothership, but for me the game had already ran its course, it had effectively introduced me to all of the special moves, upgrades, gear, all of the characters and locations, hours and hours before I reached the ending; therefore the adventure that was fairly paced to the final act as an exciting conflict to conquer, ultimately became a hurdle needing to be stumbled over.

    This was equally not helped by the game never quitting on giving you side quests that throughout the whole adventure resort to nothing but go here and talk to this guy and come back for a modest reward. Sure these are entirely optional but the game will alert you when new side quests are available and even allows you to access the side mission list by pressing the R button anytime out of combat, which makes them feel more integral.

    I honestly feel this game could have cut 20% of the content and felt more consistent and polished as a result, I forsee most will quit before the adventures completion.

    Is it a Ten though?

    Its a matter of inconsistency really, there are parts where this game feels like it could reach to be a masterpiece, yet it doesn’t quite get there. For every part of the game that feels new and fresh there are equally acts where you’ll find the gameplay becoming stagnent and repetative, yet it would be futile to deny that the game is utterly charming and that the core gameplay is every bit the Mario and Luigi title it should be. Sometimes less is more, and this is a game that really could have used this lesson to its advantage, though fans of the series should find enough to make a playthrough worth their while.

    It’s a 7/10

    • Instantly familiar combat
    • Fun exploration with lots of rewards
    • Some charming characters and unique environments
    • Great traversal skills to master
    • inconsistent pacing, takes too long to start and too long to finish
    • Side quests mostly become nothing but fetch quests
    • Not as memorable compared to previous entrys

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