2024 Demos I Played: Ys X Nordics

For as much as I love Falcom's games, I've never really been able to delve into any of their post-Nayuta works out of a combination of their runtime, filesize, and performance on Switch. And sadly, that applies to the modern Ys games most of all despite how much I've heard people rave about them. So when I heard that Ys X: Nordics was getting a demo, I immediately jumped on it while I still could, knowing my attention was going to be occupied by Mario Party and Sonic in a bit. And as a vertical slice of what modern Ys has to offer, I couldn't be more satisfied.

I'm happy to say that Ys X: Nordics continues the tradition of Ys stories where Adol stumbles upon a town and gets wrapped up in some sort of adventure there. In this case, Adol ends up stuck in the Obelia Bay when a pirate group named the Balta Seaforce stops his ship from arriving in Celceta (the face I made when I realized this was a prequel to IV). He then stumbles upon a magical seashell that grants him the power of use Mana and handcuffs him to the princess of the Balta Seaforce named Karja, and when their town gets attacked by a group of evil beings that can only be killed by mana, the two set off on a seafaring adventure to stop them and save the town. It's a lot of set-up as you can tell, and Ys X takes quite a bit longer to get going than I'm used to from the series. You can definitely sense the Trails inspirations in the story, from how the game takes the time to introduce all the side characters before the aforementioned invasion, to all the little bits of seed-planting for payoffs I just know are going to happen later down the line. I can't say it doesn't work though. For as much as I wished I could just immediately jump into the action, taking the time to flesh out the characters and the general world of Obelia did a lot of make me invested in the overall mystery and plot. And most of all, Karja is an absolute blast and a great foil for Adol. Her snark throughout the demo was a joy especially with Cherami Leigh's great performance, and it's always fun to see an icey character slowly soften up, reminds me quite a bit of Celes, not gonna lie.

Like its two predecessors, Ys X: Nordics goes for a full 3D perspective to its gameplay. I can't exactly say how it compares to those two games, but I can say that despite how different it is from the bump engine and Napishtim games, it still has that classic blisteringly fast Ys combat feel to it. You can run super fast around the game's world, especially once you get your hands on some of the upgrades like the Mana String that only increase your mobility further, and combat feels quick and responsive, especially with the very welcome addition of a lock-on and dodge. The real hook is the fact that you're now playing as two characters simultaneously, Adol and Karja. You can swap between the two whenever and they both have their own strengths, Karja is great at breaking through defenses and Adol is good at quickly finishing off foes, but you can have them team up in Duo Mode which allows them to guard any attack and deal even more damage. It's a fun concept, but I'm not exactly sure how balanced it is? Maybe this changes as the game gets more difficult, but I felt like Duo Mode is so powerful that I didn't see much reason in not using it most of the time. I also felt like the sheer amount of button inputs this game had left me struggling to really grasp the combat for a bit, but once I took the time to mess around with the button mapping, I did start to get the hang of it. I guess I'm sort of used to Ys having combat that's easy to instantly pick up, but that's just my own bias.

As I said, Ys X: Nordics does take a bit to get going. The first chapter has a lot of cutscenes and dialogue, but it does give you enough opportunities to mess around with the combat. There's a solid early area and dungeon, a few bosses to take out, and an incredibly memorable chase sequence that caps off with Adol pulling a Sonic and surfing down a hill on a plank of wood (my god, he's so cool). The chapter even ends with a brief taste of ship navigation and combat, and it's... fine. The ship moves way too slowly this early on in the game, but I found the combat to be quite fun thanks to some generous auto-aim for the cannons. By the time I saw "Chapter 1 End" on my screen, I had played for almost two hours and was left pretty satisfied with what I got to experience... but then the demo kept going. I was a bit confused at first, aren't demos for big games like these usually like 1-2 hours? But after looking it up, I was stunned to learn that the Ys X demo ends partway through Chapter 3. I was looking at a 5-10 hour demo, roughly the length of one of the bump engine games!

The next two chapters slowly developed both the game mechanics and the story. It's revealed that all the townspeople have been turned into Griegr themselves, and by saving them, they'll join your crew on the ship. And most of the major antagonists show up, though I'm not huge on them yet. They seem to care more about playing with Adol and Karja rather than taking them out right then and there. Getting two extra chapters in the demo really lets me spend a bit more time with the ship gameplay, and yeah, it's still fine. While I hear you can upgrade the ship's speed by a lot as the game goes on, it's still quite sluggish at this point, which is a shame. The demo actually lives you a pretty massive chunk of the ocean to explore at your leisure, but why would I do that when getting around takes so damn long. On the other hand, these two chapters did help me click with the combat a lot more, especially with the introduction of speed attacks you can only dodge out of Duo Mode and elemental attacks to help separate Adol and Karja. The demo ends pretty strong with the game's best island so far, Termina Island. This is a pretty beefy chunk of pure uninterrupted gameplay with multiple caves, banger music, lots of combat, and the introduction of a mana surfboard that only serves to make moving around even more enjoyable. The demo abruptly ending right before a boss does feel a bit underwhelming considering all the other, better places the demo could've stopped, but I should be grateful I got to play this much to begin with.

One thing that really intrigued me about Ys X: Nordics is all the talk about Falcom using a new engine built with the Switch's hardware. We've gotten to the point where I find it hard to get too excited about third party releases nowadays because there's always a chance it'll run like garbage, so I have a lot of respect for Falcom for taking the time to optimize their games properly, and it really paid off too, Ys X Nordics looks and runs damn solid on the Switch. It's not Xenoblade levels of impressive, but it manages to keep up the pace of combat, render large areas, and keep a fairly clean image without feeling compromised or dipping all that noticeably. As for the music, it's generally good. Look, for as much as I rave about Falcom and their music, I'm very well aware of the controversies around how they treat their sound team, like their refusal to credit their workers, how most of their best composers seem to have left by now, and how a good chunk of their recent soundtracks have been given to the incredibly inconsistent contracted composer, Mitsuo Singa. And yeah, Nordics's soundtrack isn't quite as strong as many others in the series, most of the Singa tracks are in fact quite lackluster by the standards of Falcom, but it's got a lot of strong points. Hayato Sonoda's orchestral pieces are as consistently comforting as ever, Yukihiro Jindo gets in a few bangers of his own, and new composer Shuntaro Eguchi has been really impressing me with most of his tracks, he just gets that distinct Falcom sound and most of his tracks ended up being the highlights out of the ones I've heard in the demo. His event battle theme, Overblaze, in particular is a real standout. The fact that I can even compare it to the frenetic guitar-playing from The Azure Arbitrator says a lot about how good it is.

Overall, yeah, I had a really great time with Ys X: Nordics's demo. Despite how much the series has evolved over the years, it still manages to have everything I love about the series, just slightly more fleshed-out. The movement is an absolute joy to mess around with, the combat is fast and fun, the story has been pretty well plotted-out so far, and the blue sky sense of adventure it has is enrapturing. I do have a bunch of smaller issues, mostly down to the game's slow start, but the long length of the demo meant I still felt pretty satisfied with what I had to play. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get the full game given how much else is coming out, so I'm glad I got to give the new Ys game at least a little bit of attention.

Why I Also Love Final Fantasy VI

As I've said in my Top 100 Games series, Final Fantasy V is my favorite mainline entry in the series. It may lack the large scale, operatic feel, and mature storytelling of most of the later games, but I find it to be the most involved, engaging, and replayable games in the series on a mechanical level. That being said, having replayed Final Fantasy VI recently, I don't think gave that game enough respect. FFVI is my second favorite mainline Final Fantasy game, and it really excels at everything FFV lacks, and vice versa. It's a bit of a mess mechanically, but it delivers one of my favorite narratives in the entire medium with an incredibly well-produced presentation that I'd argue even puts Chrono Trigger to shame.

Structurally, Final Fantasy VI is a fairly unique entry within the series as you can easily divide it up into two halves. The first half is a linear rollercoaster that frenetically tosses you from one scenario to the next. In the span of less than eight hours, you will have already participated in several strategic battles, taken a raft ride, swam underwater, explored and eventually battled a ghost train, took part in an opera, ridden around on a Chocobo, and met at least ten of the game's whopping 14 party members. Grinding often isn't particularly necessary, and you can usually press forward without much difficulty, making it one of the briskest-paced stretches in any Final Fantasy game in my opinion. The second half, on the other hand, plays out more like an early Breath Of The Wild. You can access the final battle whenever you want, but it's for the best that you set out into the world, gather up all your party members and complete their arcs, and train yourself for the coming battle. This segment is a lot slower-paced and boasts the majority of FFVI's optional content. Personally, I do vastly prefer the first half, but it is pretty restrictive. For much of this part of the game, there really isn't much freedom for builds or player expression and you may even have a party member forced onto you that you don't want to use (cough Gau cough). The World Of Ruin isn't as thrilling as the first half, but you do get a lot more freedom to assemble your party and tackle the character paths in whichever order you want which I find really enjoyable.

I wouldn't say that Final Fantasy VI is necessarily a bad game in terms of its gameplay, because it really isn't. It's a solid turn-based RPG at its core with a decent amount of class variety, a neat relic system that allows you to give each character unique perks, a wide variety of memorable enemy types, and the ATB system at what is arguably its most refined form to date. And as I said, it's probably the briskest game in the series rarely feeling like it's padding out its runtime which is always a plus. I'd easily take all that over the first four games, along with VIII's stupid junction system, X-2's sluggish transformations, and the simplified real-time gameplay the later games had. That being said, when compared directly to Final Fantasy V, there are a noticeable amount of downgrades. The overworld design is quite a bit worse in my opinion, as despite technically being more linear, FFVI doesn't do all that great a job at pointing a first-time player in the right direction. Sometimes, progressing the story without a guide can even feel a bit arbitrary, with you needing to talk to the exact right people in the right order which is an RPG trope I never liked all that much. As I mentioned, the general level of freedom you have for building your party is a lot weaker than in FFV as well. There's no job system this time, and aside from the relics and picking your party members in the World Of Ruin, I just feel there isn't nearly as much depth to the combat here. There is the esper system, but you can mostly just use it to allow everyone to cast magic equally so you could argue it gives the game even less depth.

But worst of all, Final Fantasy VI has a number of kinda baffling character gimmicks that feel like they're more trouble than they're worth deal with. Gau only being able to learn moves on the Veldt by leaving the party is a direct downgrade from the classes in V that could learn moves like the Mystic Knight. Shadow randomly leaving the party every time you battle is really annoying to deal with. Having to memorize Sabin's blitzes is a real pain, the sheer amount of important attacks that don't target enemies cripple characters like Mog, Setzer's slot machine isn't especially fun either, both of the optional party members kinda suck ass, there are so many arbitrary restrictions combined with how limited these characters are that FFVI feels incredibly unbalanced, especially compared to its predecessor. Though, that's not to suggest the game is unfairly difficult by any means, Final Fantasy VI's poor balancing goes both ways. Certain characters can easily one-shot most encounters if you set them up correctly, and that can help give the game an extra level of enjoyment, but is it really fair for me to praise the game for getting enjoyment out of it through exploits and cheesing the system? Well, yeah, of course, but it doesn't help the general messy feeling that FFVI's gameplay can give.

And yet, despite all these issues, I am willing to overlook all of it because the story Final Fantasy VI manages to tell with the SNES's hardware is phenomenal. It's a perfect blend of high stakes plot and intimate character drama. On one side, there's the global-scale narrative involving a war between the humans and the magical Espers, a rebellion trying to stop a fascistic empire from reviving that magic for their own means, and a sadistic clown named Kefka who attempts to and succeeds at destroying the world. It all seems quite bleak, but Square also knows exactly when to sprinkle in some genuinely funny moments of levity and that classic Final Fantasy goofiness to keep the tone feeling balanced. Despite the world literally being destroyed halfway through the game, it's balanced out by the heartwarming payoff of seeing the cast reunite after that event and get their revenge. On the other side, there's how nearly every party member has their own individual character arc, backstory, and journey that they go on over the course of the game, which of course is where the World Of Ruin comes in with its many individual subplots. So not only does FFVI have one of my favorite plots in a Final Fantasy game, with one of the series' cruelest antagonists to date and a fair share of truly iconic twists, but it also has several of my favorite Final Fantasy characters. 

Terra is the shining standout for me, her journey of self-discovery and accepting her half-esper identity makes for a really compelling and fresh "sort-of-protagonist". Locke and Cyan have some truly screwed up backstories that made me desperate to see them find closure. Edgar and Sabin have a lot less baggage, but they feel like a really comforting presence whenever they're on screen, always giving off the sense that they have control of the situation. And as much as its role in the gameplay kinda annoys me, I'll admit that Shadow popping up and dipping out on what feels like a whim, only going where the wind takes him makes for a pretty endearing anti-hero. And then, of course, there's Celes, probably the game's best character. She has some similarities to Terra in that she can use magic and used to join the Empire, but unlike Terra, she was a general of the Empire out of her own will and as such has a lot more to prove and atone for. It's both really endearing and heartwarming to watch Celes warm up, develop a connection to Locke, shrug off her past in the Empire, and start expressing herself a bit more. But on the other hand, Celes also gets pushed to darker places than most of the other characters and watching her power through that is as heartbreaking as it is powerful.

What elevates the story is the immaculate presentation, which I'd argue might be the best out of any SNES RPG. I know, that's a really high bar, Chrono Trigger and Trials Of Mana certainly come very close and even surpass FFVI in certain areas (environments and music for Chrono, character art and colors for Trials), but Final Fantasy VI has my favorite presentation collectively. The artwork is absolutely stellar, with a somber but bold color palette that helps this unique fantasy/sci-fi world really stand out, and Mode 7 is used often to visually striking effect (that opening sequence especially). The character designs are all instantly recognizable and boast a ton of varied expressions and sprites, the backgrounds are utterly gorgeous, and there are so many little hidden details everywhere. I love the freezeframes whenever a new character is introduced, the inventive ways the game shifts perspective, it's all so slick. But even beyond just the visuals, the character acting in FFVI is absolutely incredible, breathing so much extra life into these fairly simplistic sprites. The cast is constantly moving around, emoting, and interacting with the things around them and it almost makes playing FFVI feel like watching a play.

And then, of course, there's the music. I don't know if I've mentioned this but Final Fantasy VI has my favorite soundtrack out of any of the mainline games. VIII and XV come close, and Crystal Chronicles obviously has my favorite overall, but I think FFVI's soundtrack easily stands out as Nobuo Uematsu's magnum opus. It's a sweeping orchestral score that pushes the SNES's sound hardware to its absolute limits. The character themes are obviously the highlights, with the ones for Terra, Edgar & Sabin, Celes, Relm, and Shadow being especially powerful, though the battle themes are also pretty stellar across the board, from one of the series' best Normal Battle themes, to the absurdly catchy Decisive Battle, to the tense Battle To The Death, to of course, the absolute 20-minute behemoth that is Dancing Mad.

There's one moment in Final Fantasy VI in particular that manages to perfectly combine every single aspect that makes this game great. It's a moment that combines an operatic sense of scale, charming levity, engaging and dramatic character work, fun and varied gameplay setpieces, music that punches far above its weight, stunning visuals, stellar character acting, and a slick, confident delivery. You probably already know what it is at this point, it's the opera sequence. Remember when I said playing FFVI feels like watching a play? Well, the opera scene is pretty much the purest form of this. Square managed to get the SNES to pull off a convincing 10+ minute opera, with multiple acts signaled by a shift in music, a massive opera house setting that manages to create an impressive sense of depth, actual lyrics that perfectly parallel Celes's internal development, and a bunch of genuinely fun gameplay interactions like trying to remember the lyrics, performing a dance, and running across the rafters to stop Ultros from ruining the play. It's a perfect video game moment, easily one of my favorites in any RPG, and a wonderful showcase of what gaming is able to accomplish as an art form.

As I've repeatedly stated before, a game doesn't need to excel at everything to be one of my favorites. As long as it manages to stand out in at least one aspect, that's already enough. I could complain about Super Metroid's somewhat stiff controls, but the fact that its world design still surpasses every other metroidvania means I don't really care. I could complain about The Origami King's battle system for lacking depth, but it has some of the most heartfelt writing I've seen come from a Mario game so I don't really care. So while I could totally write a laundry list of all the little issues I have with FFVI's gameplay, it gave us the opera scene, and it displayed a mastery of using every aspect of the medium to deliver a compelling character-driven narrative that still outclasses most others I've seen. That's already enough for me to call it a personal favorite, perfect in its imperfections.

5/5 Stars

Earthbound

As I mentioned in my review of Mother, I had a tough time getting into Earthbound. I certainly tried, but I'd always get filtered early on, the farthest I've ever played being up to the Giant Step area. However, since I did play and come to really enjoy the first Mother game, I did want to give Earthbound another chance to see if I was too harsh on it. And yeah, I was definitely too harsh on it, this is a great RPG... but it's still not my favorite game in the series.

In a lot of ways, Earthbound feels like a slightly more refined version of its predecessor. It tells a similar story of a group of four kids coming together and setting out into the world to find eight melodies and defeat an alien threat. It boasts similar gameplay and writing, several music tracks are reused and repurposed, and they even share some similar locations like a factory dungeon or the monkey cave. I'm kind of in the weird, somewhat unique position of having fully played Mother before Earthbound. If I had played Earthbound first, Mother would probably have felt like just a worse Earthbound. But instead, I find myself fascinating by the many little changes Earthbound makes from the previous game as not all of them are dramatic improvements.

Take the story, for example. Both games have fairly thin plots with the same basic premise, but both Mother and Earthbound take different approaches. Earthbound is more about the episodic vignettes that Ness and his friends get wrapped up in rather than the overarching narrative tying them together. The most exciting moments of the game are the wild one-off events like stopping a blue man's cult, stumbling upon an trippy inverse world with Salvador Dali-inspired enemies, or running away from giant dinosaurs. These more episodic moments are really what makes Earthbound so charming, it's always willing to push the bar for what you can expect from an RPG setting. Mother, on the other hand, has a bit more connective tissue to it. There's a much stronger focus on unraveling the mystery of the alien invasion and discovering how it's affected the world around. Neither of these approaches are inherently better than the other, and I did love seeing what crazy scenarios Earthbound was going to toss at me next, but I will say that I do prefer Mother's more mystery-centric aspects as well as its more explorative, open world.

Speaking of which, the way both games handle their darker elements is also quite different. Mother keeps a fairly consistently downcast atmosphere throughout its runtime, from the melancholic romance backstory, to the Easter plotline, to the muted colors and music. Earthbound, on the other hand, leans more heavily into just straight-up horror. It has cults, police brutality, zombie invasions, an antagonist made of vomit, one of the main characters losing all his body parts and senses as a form of training, and pretty much the entire final act which has the party transfer their spirits into robots, complete with wince-inducing drilling noises, to go fight an eldtrich monster. Those last two bits in particular creeped the shit of me, geez. the Giygas in particular is a highlight for being one of the most accurate eldtrich final bosses I've seen in a video game. He has no comprehensible form, constantly shifting wildly throughout the fight, and even his own attacks feel indecipherable. I will say I preferred the fight against Mother's Giygas, it felt more challenging, tense, desperate, and personal, but Earthbound's Giygas was a more fully-realized cosmic horror threat. I get the impression that Itoi was inspired by horror films of all kinds when making Earthbound, and it ended up leading to what I think can easily rank as one of Nintendo's scariest games.

I praised Mother for feeling really ahead of its time for an NES game in terms of its pacing and UI, but five years later, Earthbound keeping most of the same mechanics doesn't feel quite as novel. It's not as big of a next-gen jump as games like Final Fantasy IV or Lunar: The Silver Star was, that's for sure. You still have the same limited inventory, it uses a pretty archaic trigger context-sensitivity button, new party members still join the party at Level 1, and there isn't a run button at all. To be fair, Mother 1's run button was only in the prototyped English version but it still feels like a noticeable regression. And most of these issues really shine in the first two hours, when you're stuck as Ness, with a tiny inventory, mandatory items constantly being forced onto you, and a minimal amount of PSI spells to pick from. I used to have trouble with that cave area, but little did I know that Peaceful Rest Valley would be waaaaayyy worse! I don't blame anyone for bouncing off Earthbound when I did, it really can feel archaic through modern lens, especially in that opening segment.

However, once you get accustomed to Earthbound's quirks and get your first party member, I think Earthbound is genuinely an improvement on Mother in terms of the combat. Mother was really broken in a way that I found quite fun, the sheer amount of PSI spells you got made it very easy to snap the game in half, but Earthbound feels a lot better balanced. The level of challenge feels more fair and less like it wildly swings from absurdly hard to hilariously easy, you have less PSI spells but they feel more valuable, and most importantly, Jeff's invention-focused kit feels far more developed than Loid's in the first game. I spent my review of Mother ragging on Loid for his perceived usefulness due to his low attack, inability to use PSI, and moveset built around inventory items in a game with a limited inventory. Jeff, on the other hand, actually feels worth using properly despite having a similar kit. He has a cool mechanic about repairing broken items which can often unlock some really powerful weapons, and his one-use items feel a lot more powerful, dude could one-shot certain bosses if you know what you're doing.

On top of that, Earthbound has a decent amount of little nuances that make the combat even more engaging. You can now approach enemies from the sides and back to get a first hit on them, and vice versa. If you vastly outlevel an enemy, you can automatically take them out without needing to get in a battle, and you'll even get a bit of XP for it. And probably my favorite addition, your health ticks down slowly and you can act while your health is still draining. So let's say you get hit with a mortal blow meaning the attack should theoretically kill you, if you're fast enough you can scramble to clutch a heal and keep yourself alive. It lends this fun level of tension to battles where you can reverse a bit of bad luck, but only if you're fast enough, striking a good balance between giving the player generosity while being skill-based enough that sloppy play can cause the player to waste that generosity.

Presentation-wise, Earthbound is pretty much on par with its predecessor. It mostly looks like a more refined version of the distinct and charming Peanuts-inspired artstyle of the original, with a more garish color palette, some neat comic book-inspired embellishments like speech bubbles, and some really cool and trippy background effects for the battle screen. I do somewhat prefer the more muted color palette of Mother but that's really just me nitpicking here. The soundtrack is similarly about on the same level. Earthbound obviously has the larger soundtrack and boasts a lot of the most iconic Nintendo tracks pretty much ever, like Onett, Apple Kid's Theme, Buy Something Will Ya, and Sanctuary Guardian. The battle themes in particular are probably the biggest improvement, there's a lot more of them and they're all great. However, I still think I prefer the heavy rock/blues influence that game's soundtrack has over the trippy ambient synths of Earthbound's OST, and frankly most of Earthbound's best tracks are frontloaded into the first half of the game.

I know I was really harsh on Earthbound, but keep in mind that this is mostly in comparison with Mother. That game really resonated with me in ways I didn't expect and Earthbound didn't quite manage to have that same impact on me. That being said, despite its many quirks, Earthbound was still a really fun time. It's weird, it's charming, it looks and sounds great, it constantly tosses memorable setpieces at you, and its battle system is way more fun than I could've expected. Without the thick atmosphere of its predecessor or the emotional story of its successor, it's still probably my least favorite Mother game, but that's not saying much, I can now definitively say that I think they're all great.

4/5 Stars

Smallville (Season 6)

For a while, it felt like Smallville had really started to find its groove with Season 3, Season 4, and the first half of Season 5. However, the second half of last season started to wane in quality a bit, and sadly, Season 6 only ends up continuing that downward trajectory. Despite being roughly the same length, this season felt like it took a lot longer to work through.

Season 5 felt like it was split up into two distinct halves and Season 6 goes even further with this. The first half of the season is very much focused on the introduction of the Green Arrow, quite the nostalgic storyline for me considering I grew up with the Arrowverse. This version of Oliver Queen isn’t quite as… noble as his successor, but he’s a great foil for Clark and easily the most interesting and complex superhero we’ve met so far. The culmination being the first Justice League team-up of the show also made for an easy highlight of the season. Probably the most interesting thing about this half of the season is how little focus Clark got. We had several episodes that focused primarily on Oliver, or Lois, or Lana and Lex, which was a nice change of pace. It’s just a shame two of those characters suck ass. I’ve been back and forth on Lana but I already wasn’t a fan of her getting with Lex last season, and their relationship in Season 6 is absolutely miserable to watch. The sheer hypocrisy of being pissed at Clark for lying to her, only to cling onto Lex who's also blatantly keeping secrets from her just annoys me so much. And the aggressively soapy, constant angst and drama Lana causes throughout the season really bogs down the experience, and it only gets heightened when Lana reveals she’s pregnant.

Thankfully, the season does get better in its latter half, which is funny since that half is arguably primarily about Lex and Lana's marriage. It introduces a number of genuinely interesting plot points like Chloe discovering she might be a meteor freak, has a good amount of fun and creative one-offs like Labyrinth and Crimson, and most importantly, Lana gains some freaking sanity for once. She starts to realize Lex is a pretty awful person and tries to break it off from him and finally discovers Clark's secret, with the finale in particular being an incredibly cathartic sendoff for most of these irritating plot threads. That being said, there's still way too much angst here. More than any other season, Season 6 felt primarily like a soap opera, pushing the romantic storylines way too far into the forefront with everything else fighting for screentime. It all just feels so... ugly to watch.

Highlights:

Justice: Justice was just a fun crossover episode between all the superheroes we've met so far. There wasn't much to it in the way of actual plot progression or character development, but it was incredibly entertaining, between seeing characters like Bart, Cyborg, and Aquaman again, to the pretty fun final battle, to all the enjoyable banter between the league members.

Phantom: Despite all my issues with this season, it managed to have the second strongest ending behind Season 4. The entire first half is filled with payoff after payoff, so many plot threads from across the series finally being addressed. Clark telling Lana about his secret was obviously the highlight here, but you also have Lana tearing Lex a new one for his actions, Lionel's deal finally being elaborated on, an extended farewell to Martha as she leaves for DC, the Project Ares team being almost entirely killed off, and the reveal that Chloe has healing powers. The second half is a typical Smallville finale drama bomb with most of the cast being either presumably dead or trapped in a flooding dam, and while Bizarro's debut is really cool and very well-handled, my one gripe is that the ending feels somewhat abrupt. However, everything else about this finale was so great that I really can't complain.

Overall, Season 6 is easily the worst season of Smallville than the first. It does have its fair share of fun episodes, the Arrow and Chloe/meteor freak plotlines are neat, and the finale was strong, but the entire season is heavily bogged down by Smallville romance at its worst. I think Lana was mishandled in a lot of ways, but forcing her with Lex was probably one of the worst decisions this show has made to date, and it made for a season that was occassionally entertaining but frequently a slog.

2/5 Stars

Ecco 2: The Tides Of Time

I recently played Ecco The Dolphin for the first time, and it was quite the experience. I wouldn't call it an especially fun game, but it was an incredibly engaging one carried by its haunting atmosphere, and it made me really excited to see how a potential sequel could improve on the formula. If The Tides Of Time is able to tone down the difficulty, bump up the level variety, and smooth out the pacing a bit, all the while maintaining the eerieness and beautiful audiovisual presentation of the original, we could have a legitimately great game on our hands. But let's be real, this is still an Ecco game. If there's anything I've been conditioned to expect from this series, it's the unexpected.

Sparkster Vs Sparkster

Rocket Knight Adventures is one of my favorite games on the Genesis. It's just a top-notch action-platformer on a console filled with top-notch action platformer, with blisteringly fast gameplay, large-scale bosses, impressive skills, and a typically peppy 90s Konami soundtrack to tie it all together. It's such a polished and complete package and you'd be hard pressed to find someone doesn't absolutely adore it.

The sequels, on the other hand, are a bit more divisive. Konami decided to release sequels to Rocket Knight Adventures on both the SNES and the Genesis, and despite both being called Sparkster, they're entirely different games with the only real similarities between them being a few shared music tracks. Neither of the Sparkster games are better than Rocket Knight, but whether or not they even live up to the original along with which one's the stronger showing tends to be subject to a lot of debate. 

So what do I think? Well, I think SNES Sparkster is a worthy sequel that can go toe to toe with its predecessor at its best, and Genesis Sparkster while a fine platformer on its own merits is a bafflingly misguided misunderstanding of what made the original game so fun. And I want to talk about why these games managed to go in such drastically different directions despite their similarities.

Mechanics: One thing that I think both versions of Sparkster manage to nail is Sparkster's defining fast-paced movement, though they each do it in different ways. Genesis Sparkster is the only game in the trilogy where your rocket boost fills up automatically, allowing you to boost a lot more often. There's also two levels of boost so if you let it fill up all the way, you can let out two boosts in a row. It's different from the other games but I'd be hard-pressed to call it a downgrade, Sparkster's movement is still super fast and responsive and boosting through each stage still feels incredibly satisfying.

That being said, SNES Sparkster has my favorite movement mechanics in the trilogy. For the most part, it plays like the original game where you hold down the attack button to charge your boost. However, it feels like your boost charges faster, and propels you faster and farther, which gives the game a much more frenetic pace. On top of that, Sparkster for SNES adds the ability to roll left and right to break out of your fall, quickly dodge obstacles, and even deal chip damage. I absolutely love the roll mechanic, it's super intuitive to use and gives the player more control to counter the game's far faster pace. It actually feels like a proper evolution of the Rocket Knight formula and not just a sidestep like in the Genesis version.

And beyond the movement, Genesis Sparkster adds a bunch of changes and new mechanics that feel unnecessary at best and detrimental at worst. This is the only game in the trilogy where your standard sword slash doesn't create a shockwave, so you need to go right up to enemies to actually land a hit, which is most likely gonna get you hurt yourself. The only truly valid option for combat here is the boost, which in turn makes Genesis Sparkster feel a lot more limited in terms of combat. Then there's the roulette mechanic, and hoo boy. So, by collecting ten gems, you'll trigger a roulette wheel that will drop a bonus item on your head. Sometimes, this would be something helpful like a sword upgrade or a health pick-up. Other times, it'll drop a harmful bomb on your head that you can barely avoid without split second reaction timing. Who thought this was a good idea? Sparkster for Genesis is actively punishing you for exploring for gems, and that's especially problematic because its level design is a lot more explorative.

Level Design: Genesis Sparkster's level design is probably its weakest aspect. There's also five proper stages here, but they all absolutely drag, to the point where I'd call this the longest game of the trilogy despite having only the least amount of stages. RKA's levels tend to feel really dynamic, flowing seamlessly from one setpiece to the next, never ending where they start, and never leaning on the same idea for too long. Sparkster's levels are a lot blockier and less naturalistic, and tend to repeat the same setpiece or miniboss over and over again. The gimmicks at play in RKA are often quite fun, like the minecart stage, those waterfalls you can jump in and out of, or the solid shmup bits. The gimmicks in Sparkster, on the other hand, tend to drag the pacing to a halt, whether it's dealing with a confusing pipe maze in the airship stage, several autoscrolling bits that discourage you from using the boost, or an incredibly clunky and unresponsive mech stage.

If Rocket Knight Adventures is an action-platformer in the vein of Contra or Gunstar Heroes, Genesis Sparkster feels like it's trying to be a Sonic game. The one thing I think Genesis Sparkster's levels have going for them is that they're a lot more focused on exploration, often having multiple routes, secret areas with items and pickups, and even some collectibles, like in a Sonic game. Of course, the roulette gimmick made me not want to explore, and the levels themselves are too pace-killing to run through like a Sonic stage, so it leaves Genesis Sparkster feeling pretty unfocused as a result. Konami also tried to introduce a Chaos Emerald analog in the seven swords hidden around the game, which in turn unlocks a Super Form for Sparkster you can use on the final boss to make him easier. I actually kinda like this concept, but the hiding places for these swords are pretty hit-or-miss. While the ones hidden within the stages themselves are fairly cleverly placed, the other half of them are hidden behind boss fights, one of which is a skippable intro cutscene.

Sparkster for SNES actually has a few similarities in its level design. It's still a bit blockier than RKA, and several of its levels like Stage 2 and Stage 6 go for a more open, multi-tiered layout in a similar fashion to a Sonic game. However, overall, I think Sparkster strikes a stronger balance between the action and platforming sides of Rocket Knight. It's got more stages with short lengths which helps out the pacing immensely, and the only autoscroller segments are Stage 3's fast-paced ostrich chase that feels like it could've been right out of RKA, and Stage 7's top-down shmup sequence. There are more open stages like 2 and 6, but there's also some tighter, more linear setpieces like Stage 4 which has you escape a sinking submarine or Stage 8 which has you dodging missiles in a tight corridor. The gimmicks at play are also generally a lot more fun, with the aforementioned bird chase in Stage 3, the music-based mechanics in Stage 6, and the maze bits in Stage 5 standing out as some of the most memorable parts of the game. Sparkster for SNES is a game that doesn't waste your time, it keeps up the pace and never lets up for anything, and it's a much better action platformer for it.

Boss Design: Rocket Knight Adventures has some of the best boss fights on the Genesis, but I admit, they can drag a little long at points. While neither Sparkster game comes even close to topping the sheer spectacle of RKA's best encounters, they do at the very least tend to not take nearly as long. However, that is a bit of a double edged sword. The bosses in Genesis Sparkster are generally pretty massive pushovers, with barely any health that you can easily shred with just one or two spin attacks. They're also just generally a lot smaller in scale, and feel less impressive as a result. SNES Sparkster is once again an improvement, with its bosses having just the perfect amount of health so that they feel like a proper challenge without feeling like they're dragging on. And while none of them are all that spectacular, they're certainly quite big. The very first boss in Sparkster is a giant robot that crashes its head through the hull of the airship you're in, and many later bosses shake things up with multiple phases.

The one sticking point in both game is the obligatory mech fight. Rocket Knight Adventures's mech fight wasn't spectacular or anything, but it was a fun and fairly short change of pace going into the game's final stretch. The mech fights in both versions of Sparkster are probably the low points of their respective games, though the Genesis version is still somehow worse in this aspect. Despite Genesis Sparkster using roughly the same mechanics as RKA's mech fight, it feels like the odds are stacked more against you here. Axle's mech has a missile launcher to keep you at a distance, and while you have a long range attack, good luck charging it up when Axle keeps interrupting you. It's not an exactly hard fight, but with how hard it is to get close for a punch, these mech fights drag. And the worst part is that if you want to get Gold Sparkster, you're gonna have to do it twice, once in the prologue and a once during the actual boss fight in Stage 4.

Sparkster for SNES's mech fight has a unique top-down perspective and plays more like rock-em sock-em robots. It's a lot faster and more responsive, but it's also absolutely brutal. Sparkster SNES is probably the hardest game in the series on its own, but this fight alone just solidifies it. Once again, it feels like the odds are stacked against you here. Axle's mech has way more health than you, and he can enter a rage mode that's borderline impossible to properly avoid. You can try blocking, but blocking too much will cause your arms to break and leave you vulnerable anyway. So yeah, even if I think the SNES version generally has it better here, neither of the Sparkster games really nailed the boss fights, and I think that's the core reason why RKA is still considered the best of the trilogy.

Visuals: I'll be quick here because I do think all three Rocket Knight games look pretty good, but I think RKA still looks the best and does a lot more to push the Genesis in some cool ways. This ties into what I said about the level design, RKA's levels look a lot more natural and organic, while the Sparkster games have a noticeable blockiness to them. This isn't as bad in the SNES version of Sparkster though, there's still a lot of really impressive scenery and neat visual setpieces, especially in the pyramid with all the shifting tiles and weird moving platforms. And the fact that Sparkster can move as fast as he does with as little slowdown as there is makes this quite the impressive title on the console. Genesis Sparkster, on the other hand, looks noticeably cheaper with its visuals, with flat coloring that makes it look more like a Master System game than the late era Genesis title it already is. Keep in mind, we got Contra Hard Corps the same year and the difference is night and day. I also wanted to bring up Sparkster's redesign which I'm admittedly a bit split on. I think his animations are a lot more fluid in both of the sequels, but as a whole, I do prefer the chubbier, more animalistic original design.

Music: The music is another area where I think both games knocked it out of the park. I mean, it's a Konami game from the 90s, of course the music is going to slap. Both Sparkster games share the same main theme, and it really feels like the quintessential Rocket Knight motif, it's heroic and heart-pumping in a way that really suits the character. They also lean more into the rock than the synth/baroque fusion the original game had, which I honestly kind of prefer. Genesis Sparkster's soundtrack has some pretty weak boss themes, but the level themes are pretty stellar across the board, with the highlights being the Stage 1, Stage 2, and Stage 5 themes. It's not a half bad soundtrack, even if it's probably my least favorite of the trilogy.

However, once again, I think SNES Sparkster reigns supreme. By 1994, Konami had well and truly mastered the SNES's sound hardware, and their go-to soundfont has this distinctly punchy and energetic sound to it. Games like Pop'n Twinbee: Rainbow Bell Adventures, Ganbare Goemon 2, and Gokujo Parodius took advantage of it to great effect, and it breathes so much life into the SNES Sparkster OST. Lakeside is an easy contender for my favorite Rocket Knight track period, and Steelworks, Bird, Submarine, Shooting, and the Final Boss theme are all standouts as well. It might even be my favorite soundtrack in the trilogy, it's so damn good.

Conclusion

As you can see, I think the SNES version of Sparkster manages to outclass the Genesis version in pretty much every way. Even the things that the Genesis version does well like the movement and music are done even better in the SNES version. I don't know if we'll ever know which version was intended to be the proper sequel to Rocket Knight Adventures, but all I can say is that I think the SNES Sparkster manages to capture the appeal of the original a lot more. It may not seem as fresh on the surface, but it iterates on the formula in some really smart ways and can stand on its own as one of the most fun action platformers on the console. While the Genesis version isn't a bad game or anything, it's a noticeable downgrade, most of its new additions make it worse, and on a console filled with some of the best action-platformers of all time, it feels nowhere near as special.

Sparkster SNES: 4/5 Stars

Sparkster GEN: 3/5 Stars

Zelda Dungeon Reviews: Echoes Of Wisdom

Echoes Of Wisdom is here, and with it marks the return of traditional Zelda dungeons. While this isn’t some incredible roster of dungeons or anything, it takes a while for them to really start to branch out into nonlinearity and the overall theming isn’t especially novel, they do manage to maintain that classic Zelda feel for the most part. And at their best, there are some genuine highlights showing that the Zelda team’s still got it.

Dungeon 1: Suthorn Ruins

 Suthorn Ruins is the mandatory first dungeon of Echoes Of Wisdom, which I think is a good call. This means that unlike in the last two Zelda games, you have a dedicated dungeon that instructs the player on how dungeons will work. Right from the get-go, Suthorn Ruins introduces the Bind move, and it manages to thoroughly explore this mechanic through a number of fun environmental puzzles that slowly amp up in complexity as the dungeon goes on. These more strict Bind puzzles are balanced out with some more freeform puzzles involving lighting torches, doing light platforming, or fighting enemies. Since your echo kit is so small at this point in the game, combat is a real challenge here and that applies doubly with the two excellent boss fights against Link and the Seismic Talus. Both fights had me scrambling to figure out what I could use on them, which helped them feel really engaging even for first bosses. My one gripe with Suthorn Ruins is that navigation is sadly pretty basic so far. The first half of the dungeon is mostly a straight line repurposed from the intro where you play as Link, and it's not until the final segment where the place branches out a bit and keys/locks are introduced. Later dungeons are certainly a bit more interesting in this area, but I still think Suthorn Ruins generally made all the right moves to assure me that dungeons are indeed back.

Dungeon 2: Gerudo Sanctum

Gerudo Sanctum is a solid improvement and yet another entry in Zelda's long lineup of great desert dungeons, even in the Wild games. Similarly to the Lightning Temple in TotK or the Ancient Ruins in Oracle Of Seasons, this dungeon really feels like you're exploring an ancient temple, filled with all sorts of booby traps and puzzles. The echo puzzles do a nice job at testing you on all the echoes you've accumulated in the Gerudo Desert like the flying tile and the moles, while the bind puzzles revolve around rotating cylinders to open doors or create a path forward. Layout-wise, the Gerudo Sanctum is still fairly straightforward to navigate, but it doubles back on itself enough that it feels a bit less linear than it actually is, and the second half tasking you with collecting two statues does give the player a bit more freedom than the last dungeon did. Though the real star of the show is the big twist where you straight-up exit the dungeon and explore the exterior a bit, which is always a cool concept. There are a few clever spatial reasoning puzzles where you need to climb through a window or break through the roof from outside the sanctum, though sadly they mostly just lead to optional Rupee rooms. As for the bosses, they're once again really solid. Not quite as tense as the ones in the previous dungeon, but the Bow Link fight has a memorable second phase and Mogryph has a sick design. Overall, I think the Gerudo Sanctum definitely could've been a bit more complex, but it was still quite the fun time.

Dungeon 3: Jabul Ruins

If you know me by now, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that this was the dungeon I was most excited about. I'm a pretty ardent defender of Zelda's many divisive water dungeons, and a big reason why I tend to like them is their labyrinthine, puzzle box design. So out of all the ways TotK felt like a betrayal of what I enjoy about Zelda, getting a wide open water temple that could be completed in about fifteen minutes was probably one of the worst for me. As a result, the Jabul Ruins were kind of the final litmus test to really determine if Zelda dungeons were properly back. Sadly, it kinda disappointed.

The Jabul Ruins did start really strong though, with a fight against Lord Jabu Jabu himself right before the dungeon, and a tense chase scene against the dungeon boss right upon entering. And the main premise of activating switches to increase the water pressure to push Zelda to the top of a central room does have the potential for some interesting puzzles. But in practice, well, it just plays out like the terminals in a BotW or TotK dungeon. You have the choice of which switches you want to go after first, but they're all one-time events and you never have to actually strategize around the water pressure. There are some fun one-off rooms like that one where you need to hop across logs, but most of them are either enemy rushes or 2D swimming segments. It all made for a dungeon that wasn't necessarily unfun, but did feel like a bit of a let-down. The boss, on the other hand, was actually pretty great. Vocavor's attacks were fun to dodge, and the second phase introduced an interesting strategy element about figuring out how to attack it both above water and underwater. Jabul Ruins had a great set-up, but despite my love for water dungeons, I think it's fair to call this the weakest main dungeon in the game.

Dungeon 4: Hyrule Castle

Just like in Link To The Past and A Link Between Worlds before it, Hyrule Castle is this game's midgame dungeon. And just like with those games, it's mostly designed to be an action-packed test of everything you've learned so far. So, there's a bit stealth, some rooms based on prior dungeons, and a fairly streamlined structure that has you descending further into the castle. As such, I really don't have much to say about this dungeon, though I do want to give props for the fairly open final area where you have to zigzag back and forth across a bunch of rooms to get the boss key. And the boss fight against Echo Ganon is as great as you'd expect, a four-phase behemoth of an encounter that really could've been a final boss in any other Zelda game.

Dungeon 5: Eldin Temple

Most fire-related temples in Zelda tend to be more focused on action and platforming over puzzle-solving and this one is no exception. There’s a big focus on platforming across lava, which does lead to some pretty fun and memorable setpieces scattered across the dungeon, especially at the end. The rising lava chase after getting the Boss Key and that final glide to the boss door are particularly notable. Navigation-wise, though, Eldin Temple is yet again mostly just a straight line peppered with splits that force you to get keys to progress. With how late we are in the game, I was kinda hoping I’d start getting, you know, lost in the dungeons by now? But as it stands, I think the room-to-room action of the Eldin Temple was still enough to make it a fairly enjoyable time. The bosses, on the other hand, were pretty weak. Bomb Link is far and away the easiest of the Link battles, and I honestly was never a fan of Volvagia, even in his Ocarina appearance. Whack a mole bosses always felt kinda boring and repetitive, and this one is no exception.

Dungeon 6: Faron Temple

Okay, now we’re talking. The Faron Temple is a great Zelda dungeon, and such a massive spike in complexity, difficulty, and length from all the previous ones in all the best ways. It’s so long, in fact, that I needed multiple play sessions to even beat it. I got lost, I got frustrated, I even got stumped a few times, and I was relishing every moment of it. 

I knew I was in for a treat when I popped out in front of the Faron Temple and realized there was a whopping six different entrances. You really have to try out all the different entrances to even find the dungeon map, and finally getting it and seeing how everything really clicks together really showcases that puzzle box design that I love about Zelda dungeons. The rooms themselves are also quite fun and varied, ranging from a large dark maze (though admittedly I’m not a huge fan of darkness mechanics), to several satisfying electricity puzzles, to platforming, to some scale puzzles that made me feel very stupid. And on top of all that, the bosses are great in this one. The miniboss brings back that mechanic from Catfish’s Maw where it runs around the dungeon with an important item forcing you to fight it multiple times. The fact that the miniboss in question is a returning Manhandla is icing on the cake. As for the dungeon boss himself, it might very well be the greatest Gohma fight to date. It climbs up walls, shoots lasers at you, and in the second phase, even comes down to the floor and starts slashing at you. It’s a legitimate challenge that forces you to keep track of a lot at the same time, and the fact that I went in with an empty Link bar made it all the more thrilling. As a whole, Faron Temple is easily one of the best dungeons in Echoes Of Wisdom, and even one of the best dungeons we’ve gotten in a while. That being said, it’s not my favorite. That one comes next…

Dungeon 7: Lanayru Temple

If I had a nickel for every time a Zelda game had a sad subplot about a yeti family that culminated in one of the family members becoming a brainwashed dungeon boss, you know the rest of the joke. Of course, Snowpeak Ruins is my all-time favorite Zelda dungeon, so there are certainly worse dungeons to be taking cues from.

The Lanayru storyline was easily one of my favorites in Echoes. Condé is an absolute treasure and his arc about dealing with grief over his father dying and his brother disappearing is a really emotionally resonant part of the game, and it lends Lanayru Temple a sense of urgency that the other dungeons didn’t really have. But on top of that, this is also just a damn good dungeon in itself. Lanayru Temple goes with a similar structure to Turtle Rock in which you descend down a bunch of floors one by one, each having a more complicated iteration of its central mechanic. In this dungeon, the main mechanic are these fans that can cool down or heat up the room when you put in an elemental orb. The puzzles around these fans start simple, but get more tricky as you’ll need to guide the orbs around hazards that could change it to the other elemental. The final puzzle at the bottom floor is probably my favorite of the game, with tons of criss-crossing wires and rooms where you need to purposefully switch the orb’s element. It’s still fairly linear all things considered, but the room-by-room puzzles are easily some of the best in Echoes Of Wisdom. As for the bosses, they’re a bit more of a mixed bag. The fight against a returning yet unrecognizable Slime Eye was a bit tedious, but the fight against Skorchill is fun in how it forces you to use multiple elements along with the story relevance. And just as icing on the cake, the dungeon theme of Lanayru Temple is one of the most gorgeous dungeon themes in the entire series, really heightening the atmosphere.

Dungeon 8: Null's Body

Final Zelda dungeons tend to be either really short or a repurposing of all the previous dungeons. Null’s Body is the latter. It’s certainly a lot better than some of the other dungeons of its kind like the Wind Fish’s Egg and Onox’s Castle, but it’s still very much just an extended tutorial on how to use Link as an ally and not much more. The game stopping every five seconds so Link can nod to you also drags down the pacing quite a bit. Thankfully, everything else is quite strong. Null as a villain gives off some serious cosmic horror vibes that I didn’t expect to see in a Zelda game, and the atmosphere is fittingly creepy. The fight with Echo Zelda prior to the dungeon is admittedly quite easy, but still super memorable in its own right. And the final boss against Null is really good. It’s surprisingly long, packs in multiple distinct phases, and is a legitimate challenge and not just a victory lap (looking at you, Wild games). I was a bit worried that you could just sit back and let Link do all the work, but between Null booting Link out for the second phase and absolutely flooding the screen with attacks in the final phase, I felt it was still ultimately a very active fight that ended Echoes Of Wisdom on a strong note.

So, here’s my final ranking:

8. Null’s Body
7. Jabul Ruins
6. Suthorn Ruins
5. Hyrule Castle
4. Eldin Temple
3. Gerudo Sanctum
2. Faron Temple
1. Lanayru Temple