Why I Love Poinie's Poin

As a fan of weird, obscure, niche games, preferably from the early 2000s, stumbling on Poinie's Poin thanks to a Vinesauce video felt like finding a buried treasure. This is a full-on 3D platformer that only released in Japan, has barely anything about it on the internet, and yet was somehow not only published by Sony themselves but got itself an english dub. But the icing on the cake is the fact that it's also just straight-up a great game.

Okay, how do I explain Poinie's Poin? So as I said, Poinie's Poin is a Sony published game that released in Japan, though it also came with an English dub somehow which is how I'm able to experience it. It's a really absurd, nonsensical, and weird game especially in its story. The general premise is that you play as a little kid named Poinie who has to use floating emotion bubbles called Poins to fix the emotions of everyone in the world, while also stopping those responsible for messing them up in the first place. It doesn't sound too crazy at first, until you get into the talking duck tail Poinie gets to help him carry around Poins, the fact that Poinie can only speak in one-liners, the mind-boggingly weird side cast, and one of the most unhinged scripts I've ever seen in a video game. Seriously, here is some of the dialogue in Poinie's Poin:

There is no logic to the dialogue in this game, characters will just spout out whatever they want, whenever they want, and it's glorious. As nonsensical as it is, this might also be one of the funniest and most quotable video game scripts of all time, just for the sheer audacity of it all. But despite how wild the story can get, it also has a surprisingly genuine central theme of found family. Much of the main cast of Poinie's Poin are people who have lost family in some way. Poinie lost his mom and can't find her, Lolo is an alien stranded on what I'm assuming is Earth and estranged from her sister, the rival gang Poinie eventually befriends are basically all orphans, and their caretaker lost her son. Even with all the weirdness at play in Poinie's Poin, the bonds that Poinie and his new group of friends form throughout the game is genuinely really heart-warming and I found it hard not to care for these absolute weirdos by the end. 

As far as the actual gameplay goes, Poinie's Poin is basically a linear puzzle platformer where you traverse a bunch of levels saving people and fighting a boss at the very end. Each level is entirely unique and fun to explore, from a drained lake, to a kitchen, to a downward ski slope, to a distorted haunted house. Despite that, though, my personal favorite level is actually the hub, this big colorful town filled with NPCs and buildings to enter. As you progress through the game, the town opens up more and more, giving you even more to discover. Heck, even after the game is finished, you're still unlock new stuff in the town like a secret slide minigame and a theater with unique skits to watch. It's probably one of my favorite hubs in a 3D platformer. 

The actual meat of the gameplay is pretty simple. All you can really do is jump and pick up/throw Poins to solve certain context-sensitive puzzles and rescue people, but there is a bit of extra depth in the fact that you can use Poins as platforms and bounce off them with extra height. With enough precision in where I placed the Poins I was given, I was actually able to make some pretty major shortcuts in some of the levels, and even explore certain areas before I was supposed to. Not unlike the similarly slow-paced puzzle platformer, Blinx The Timesweeper, there's actually a lot of speedrunning potential in Poinie's Poin and I feel like I'm only scratching the surface with what I can do. 

Then there's the bosses. I'd say Poinie's Poin's boss lineup is easily the highlight of the game, all being super creative, inventive, and fun. Some aren't even actual fights and instead have you use the Poins to help someone out with something like cooking or building a house, it's really cool. And there's a lot of them too, a whopping eleven fights within a roughly five-hour campaign. But what makes the fights even better is that, just like with the levels, there's a lot of shortcuts to making fights end faster through clever position of the Poins. And it's actually intentional too:

After every fight, Poinie's Poin grades you based on how quickly you beat the boss and how many people you've saved getting there. As you get graded, your score rises as you move up the ranks, and the ultimate goal is to get all the way to Eclair rank. You really have to learn the bosses to get the best rank and figure out all the shortcuts towards defeating them fast and without getting hurt too much, and it gives the game a ton of replayability despite its short length. It's a very Luigi's Mansion 1-style of adding replay value by encouraging the player to keep doing playthroughs and hone their skills.

Presentation-wise, I think Poinie's Poin looks absolutely amazing. It's super colorful and cartoony, really capturing that Y2K Dreamcast look that I love so much. Every single stage looks visually distinct from the neon swirls of Guru-Guru Jungle to the papercraft look of Panorama Gardens, and it all culminates in a final level that looks straight out of Space Channel 5. The music is also really great, it's a fun and peppy blend of pop and DnB, with a ton of catchy overworld themes and energetic boss music. There's a lot of great tunes here but some of my favorites include Nightmare Vision, Panorama Gardens, John's Lake, Snow Land, and Save Mama.

Let's get this straight, a pretty massive chunk of Poinie's Poin's appeal is its weirdness. Its strange premise, surreal visuals, bonkers script, and fascinating yet unknown development are part of the charm. But what makes it one of my favorite games ever is the fact that it's also just genuinely fun. Behind the silly scenarios the game puts you through hides a fun gameplay loop with surprising amount of hidden depth, behind the bizarre script is a genuinely likable cast of characters and some really fun and smart dialogue, and behind the acid trip color scheme lies one of the prettiest games on the PS2. It's the best of both worlds, both a weird obscure title from the early 2000s and a well-made platformer at the same time.

Why I Love Final Fantasy V

The Final Fantasy series is one of those series that's more than the sum of its parts. Sure, not every game lands for me. Sure, the gameplay is often pretty unremarkable and even basic compared to some of its contemporaries. But its willingness to experiment, great sense of iconography, often compelling stories, and fantastic music makes for a series that I can't help but love regardless. However, even though I love VI and VII for their stories, the Ivalice games for their world-building, or the Crystal Chronicles subseries for... well... we'll get there, my favorite mainline Final Fantasy game is actually the most overlooked of them all: Final Fantasy V.

Final Fantasy V was dealt a bad hand from the very start. Not only was it a more lighthearted adventure sandwiched between the far more operatic IV and VI, but it didn't even come out in the West for around a decade. Of course this means that a number of quality of life improvements it made particularly in regards to the ATB battle system that its predecessor introduced were attributed to Final Fantasy 6 instead, but it also means that FFV ended up being regarded as the awkward underwhelming middle child because people just didn't have the nostalgic for it that they had for its SNES counterparts. And that's a real shame because Final Fantasy V is one of the best-crafted RPGs I've every played, both on a gameplay level and on a story level. It may not be as dark or ambitious as its sequels, but the game design on display here is masterful and I want to go over why.

Let's start with the overworld design. I feel like a lot of early Final Fantasy games tended to just drop you into a massive world without much guidance, even VI had that issue at times, but Final Fantasy V does a flawless job of slowly loosening the training wheels. You start the game in a pretty small linear area enclosed by mountains so there's only really one way you can go. Then, you get a boat and can explore a much larger area which contains a few more towns and caves to visit if you want even if the main path is still pretty clear. Eventually, you get a dragon that lets you fly over everything but mountains which gives you an even bigger world to explore, but at this point you know where many of the major towns are so you don't get lost. Then you get the usual flying ship, and then you unlock an entire second map to explore. FFV carefully increases the amount of map you have access to at any given moment, silently making sure that you don't get lost before trusting you with a more open world to explore. And the average player isn't going to notice this silent design because they'll keep being more and more impressed with how big FFV continues to get. Every time you think you've seen it all, the world expands even further. It's brilliant tutorialization and masterful design, and it's not the only instance of this.

Final Fantasy V's greatest strength is easily its battle system, which is hands down my favorite battle system in the entire franchise. At face value, it looks just like all the other turn-based Final Fantasy battle systems. You can attack, defend, use magic, use items, and flee, and everyone's turn is determined by a bar that fills in real-time. What makes Final Fantasy V's battle system special, however, is the addition of a job system. This is by no means the first game to have job systems, but I think it's the game that did this the best, improving on what games like Final Fantasy 1 and Final Fantasy 3 have established. Early on in the game, you can get a bunch of jobs that you can assign to your party members. Each job has its own unique attacks, perks, weaknesses. You can train and level them up just like you would a character, you can swap them out whenever you want (looking at you FF12), and you can even get abilities out of jobs and transfer them to other jobs for even more player expression potential. This system gives Final Fantasy V so much depth and customization because there's now so many ways you can go about approaching battles in this game. You can try constantly swapping between jobs to figure out the best combinations for each area and encounter, or you could experiment with all the jobs individually, grind out all the best abilities, and assemble a build that will decimate every battle you come across. It's an incredibly well-balanced system too, pretty much every job is viable for one reason or another and none of the earlier jobs feel like they get replaced with later jobs. In general, I think Final Fantasy's greatest strength as far as gameplay is when it leans into customization. Even games without job systems like FF7's materia and FF9's weapon abilities promote tinkering around with different builds, but FFVs job system is simply more fun, complex, and streamlined than anything else in the series. 

And this is where that tutorialization I mentioned comes in. Because this game definitely had the potential to overwhelm the player with how the job system works, but I think it manages to dodge this problem entirely. FFV has a single tutorial teaching you how to use jobs, charmingly delivered by a Chocobo walking around on your menu screen. It's a short tutorial, only at around 30-60 seconds, but it tells you everything you need to know about how jobs work and how to use them. Final Fantasy VIII would infamously have a big issue where the game would repeatedly stop you to try and explain its gambit system while also never actually explaining the gambit system all that well, and yet FFV manages to efficiently and effectively tutorialize its similarly complex job system seven years before it. I really can't heap enough praise onto FFV's job system. It gives the game so much depth, makes combat super engaging, and adds in a ton of replayability due to just how many potential builds there are. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that there's a self-imposed challenge called the Four Jobs Fiesta, where players pick four jobs randomly and stick with them for the entire game. 

But I think most people can agree that FFV's gameplay is great. What people often dislike about it is actually the story, so why do I love it so much? Simply, it's because it is simple. I always had a soft-spot for whenever Final Fantasy leans into its D&D inspirations, and Final Fantasy V feels like the most like a D&D campaign out of any other game in the series. It's about a group of four (eventually five) people from entirely different backgrounds going on a silly adventure together and forming a found family, while also saving the world in the process. They make a lot of mistakes and screw up a lot (despite their initial task being to save the four crystals, they all end up shattering under their watch), but they manage to pull through in the end. It's not a super serious or operatic story but it's not trying to be. It's wholesome and comfy and charming, and focuses more on endearing you to its cast, and it truly is a great cast. While FFV only has a small five characters, I felt more attached to them because you spend so much of your time with just them, and their chemistry and banter is top-notch throughout. I love how Bartz is pretty much just an average dude who got thrust on an adventure, Lenna is the heart of the group and a charming fish-out-of-water princess who has no idea how this adventuring thing works, Galuf is a lovable team dad who gets some of the most impactful moments of the game, and Faris is just straight-up a Top 3 Final Fantasy character, no contest.

I also think people tend to exaggerated how lighthearted Final Fantasy V is. Sure, it's fun and games a lot of the time and almost feels like a parody of the series itself at points, but FFV is also incredibly sincere meaning that when things do get dark, it's taken incredibly seriously. Not to spoil the game for those who haven't played, but there are several character sacrifices throughout the game that will make your heart sink (it helps that unlike in the previous game, they stay dead). High stakes doesn't always mean a world-ending threat, personal stakes can be just as if not even more impactful, and FFV has a ton of that. On top of all that, Final Fantasy V's story is also perfectly paced from start to finish. It lacks the slow start that many RPGs can have, efficiently introducing you to the cast while getting you into the action super quickly. The stakes slowly rise as the game goes on, and you learn increasingly more about the characters over time. There's also a fair amount of slower moments to let you grind so that when you do get to a more high-stakes part of the story, you don't get interrupted for not being a high-enough level. Now, that being said, do I think Final Fantasy V has the best story in the series? No, and I'd be silly to think it does. However, it is one of my favorite Final Fantasy stories and combined with the peak gameplay makes for a perfect RPG conconction.

As far as the presentation looks... I mean, do you even need me to say anything at this point? It's an SNES RPG made by Squaresoft, of course it looks good. Final Fantasy V is a great step-up visually from the somewhat simplistic-looking IV, with detailed spritework and a painterly color palette. The simple but effective character animation is as charming as always, and I love how the characters have unique sprites for every single job so it looks like they're dressing up in costumes rather than being completely replaced like in III. Extra props go to the top-tier monster designs which can look downright eldtrich as you approach the end of the game. This was the first game Tetsuya Nomura (yes, that Nomura) worked on as enemy designer and he knocked it out of the park in his first go. Of course, there's also the recent Pixel Remaster release and, I don't know, I think it looks pretty great too. Both versions have their own appeals and look equally pretty in my eyes. And, once again, I shouldn't even need to say this, Final Fantasy V's soundtrack is really good. Not the best soundtrack in the series, but it's up there and I would definitely call it the first truly amazing Final Fantasy soundtrack. It's Uematsu pretty much doing what he does best, with top-notch leitmotif works, diverse overworld themes, and banging battle themes. As a quick run-down of highlights, there's the Main Theme, Battle 1, Cursed Lands, To The North Mountain, Beyond The Deep Blue Sea, The Decisive Battle, and of course, my favorite Final Fantasy track of all time, Battle At The Big Bridge. 

More than with any other game on my Top 100 list, I hope I was able to articulate why I think Final Fantasy V is such an incredibly designed game that holds up to this day. Even if it's not as ambitious as the later Final Fantasy games, FFV nails all the pillars that I believe make for a great RPG: It has masterful overworld design and pacing, it has an incredible and customizable battle system that's easy to get into but packs a ton of depth, it has a charming narrative with lovable characters, and it has a stellar presentation, as you'd expect from SNES-era Squaresoft. For me, it's as good as the genre gets.

Why I Love Game & Watch Gallery 2

 As a fan of underrated and overlooked video game series, I have a lot of fondness for the ghost developer Tose, who have assisted with countless games almost entirely uncredited. They've worked on several Final Fantasies and Dragon Quests, some of the recent WarioWare games, Splatoon 2, Metal Gear Solid for GBC, and countless more. Of course, since Tose doesn't make themselves known, whenever they do make their own games, it often goes under the radar. And that's a real shame because they're usually really good, some of which even making it on my Top 100 games. They made Kirby's Block Ball, Super Princess Peach, the Rocket Slime games, the Starfy series, and most notably, the criminally underrated Game & Watch Gallery series.

Game & Watch Gallery is a series of four handheld games that set out to compile and remake some of Nintendo's old Game & Watch games, with each entry containing accurate ports of the original games and modernized remakes featuring the Mario cast. Many Game & Watch games are pretty slice of life-y, usually focusing on normal people doing relatively normal jobs, so the decision to use Mario characters is really endearing because it shows these familiar faces in a uniquely mundane light. You have Mario and Luigi making cakes, Peach cooking in her massive kitchen, Toad delivering packages, Yoshi protecting his eggs, and so on. But what's always been the most impressive thing about the Game & Watch Gallery series is that while the modern remakes usually add one or two new mechanics to each game to keep things fresh, the core of each Game & Watch game is pretty much intact and Tose/Nintendo never try to reinvent the wheel. They are still fundamentally the same games they were in the 70s and it's with the fresh coat of paint that you realize, the Game & Watch holds up surprisingly well. They aren't these super dated games that aren't worth playing anymore, they're genuinely fun and chaotic high score chasers that are still a blast to play and still stress me out like no other game out there.

So why is Game & Watch Gallery 2 my favorite of the four? Well, it's simply that I just think it has the best lineup of games. There's really not a bad one in the bunch. Parachute is the perfect first game, where you have to quickly catch parachuting people/Toads in a boat. It's simple but gets pretty frantic as it goes on, a great introduction to the Game & Watch formula. Helmet and Donkey Kong are more platforming heavy as you have to make your way through obstacle courses while dodging either falling tools or barrels, and their modern versions both contain multiple levels to keep things varied. Vermin is easily the hardest one in the game, a fast-paced and intense game of Whack A Mole with some pretty drastic differences between the classic and modern variants. And saving the best for last, Chef takes what was probably the weakest of the classic games and completely remakes it into hands down my favorite modern game in the series, with a ton of depth and risk-and-reward around making sure you don't cook the food too much while also dealing with the Yoshi you're trying to feed.

The Game & Watch games are also noteworthy for having a ton of content and G&WG2 is no exception. As I said, each game has both a Modern and Classic versions, but both versions also have two difficulties basically leading to four versions of each game (and on top of that, you can unlock a super hard difficulty for the modern games by getting 1000 points). By getting 200 points in a version, you'll get a Star, with each G&WG containing 20 stars total. You can use stars to unlock a ton of neat extras such as a museum that shows off even more Game & Watch games, a music room, and coolest of all, a sixth Game & Watch game in the form of the iconic Ball. I love Ball in this game because it really feels like a bonus, especially the modern version. It shakes up the formula by giving you 10 points for catching a ball but only giving you one life unlike the other games' three lives, and by getting more stars, you'll unlock more characters to play as in Ball (this is the only game in the series with multiple playable characters). Between the star collecting, all the versions of each game, the museum, and especially Ball, G&WG2 is absolutely crammed with stuff to do.

But while most G&WG games have a ton of content, I think 2 is the only one where getting 100% feels genuinely rewarding and worth it. As you'd expect, getting 1000 points in a game in one sitting can be brutal not just because of how hard these games can get, but because of how long they can take. All the other entries the series have at least one game that feels like an absolute slog to get all the stars in, like Octopus in 1 or Donkey Kong 3 in 4. Game & Watch Gallery 2 does not have this issue. All of its games are quick, snappy, and reasonably generous with the point distribution. Donkey Kong gives you a point bonus for reaching the top the fastest, Chef has a ton of wild point calculations, and as I said earlier, Ball only requires 20 juggles to get one star at the cost of removing any margin of error. And even the games that have a more simple point distribution like Vermin and Parachute move at a fast enough pace that getting to 1000 points doesn't feel like a drag. Out of all four games, G&WG2 took the shortest amount of time for me to fully complete, even compared to its four-game predecessor. So not only does G&WG2 have a ton of unlockables and content, I think it's the best balanced towards making all that content worth experiencing.

If you're a fan of the Game Boy Color look, Game & Watch Gallery 2 is a super pretty game in my opinion. The Mario sprites are very charming and expressive, and the color choices are super bold and well-picked, with the abundance of blues looking especially visually-pleasing. One of my favorite things about G&WG2 in particular is the fact that being a Game Boy Color launch title, it also released on the original Game Boy in Japan, and the backgrounds in both versions look almost entirely different. It's one of the few games that proves that there was actually a gap in power between these two consoles. And as you'd probably expect by now, the soundtrack is great. The Game & Watch Gallery in general has a ton of really catchy and pretty chiptune melodies that I feel go criminally overlooked, and G&WG2 is no exception, with Parachute, Ball, and Chef being the easy highlights for me.

Game & Watch Gallery 2 may seem like a bit of a weird pick for one of my favorite games of all time, but it's just one of those games that's so brilliantly crafted and easy to come back to, that I have nothing but the highest praise possible for what it's accomplished. It's a fun minigame collection with consistently stellar games and a ton of content, it's a unique look into the Mario world that no other game can really offer, it's a stellar remake of some Game & Watch classics that expands on what they did right while showing how well their core gameplay has aged, it boasts a perfectly-paced and rewarding 100% completion campaign, and it has an incredibly charming and lovely presentation that shows what the Game Boy Color is capable of. That's quite a lot for a little GBC cartridge.

Why I Love Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon

The Nintendo 64 is known for its wide array of 3D platformers and adventure games of varying levels of quality. You have pure movement-based platformers like Mario 64 and Chameleon Twist, high-scope collectathons like Banjo Kazooie and DK64, and vast action-adventures like the Zelda games, but then there's Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, a game that manages to do all of that.

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon is an entry in the Goemon series, but it's one of the few to have released in the US which is a shame because they're generally pretty good. It's an action-adventure platformer where you play as a team of four ninjas as they try to stop a bunch of aliens (I think?) who are trying to turn all of Japan into a European stage. Putting aside the very minor themes of Westernization, it's a truly bizarre and surreal story that veers in all sorts of directions, which is very much part of the charm. It's one of those video game stories that's less about telling a super engaging narrative, and more about giving the player just enough motivation to keep going, and having just enough context to put the cast in all kinds of silly scenarios. That being said, even if the plot isn't super important here, the characters are very likable. The main quartet of Goemon, Ebisumaru, Yae, and Sasuke are all super fun and charming characters with their own defined personalities, the villains are incredibly silly, and even all the side characters and town citizens you meet along the way are charming and memorable. 

Tell me that the Plasma Man isn't one of the most iconic side characters in all of gaming.

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon diverges from the series' linear 2D platformer roots and is instead a 3D open world adventure game spanning across all of Japan. And I mean all of Japan. I remember my first time looking at the map for this game and seeing the screen zoom all the way out to show the entire country. Even having played games like Ocarina Of Time and the Banjo Kazooie series, I was stunned a Nintendo 64 game was going for such a massive scale. I think Starring Goemon's scale is easily one of its most admirable traits. All of the overworld areas you traverse through are massive, with tons of nooks and crannies, hidden details, and empty space. It's like Hyrule Field a dozen times over, thought slightly more compact and with a way better fast travel system. And the towns are super detailed and filled with NPCs which gives them all a very comfy vibe to them. You really familiarize yourself with some of the major villages like Oedo Town and Zazen Town by the end of the game. It all helps to really sell the fact that you're going on a round trip around Japan, and I can't help but get the feeling that Konami was really excited to be able to bring the world of Goemon to life in a way they never could before. It really shows.

Gameplay-wise, Goemon's controls are fairly basic. You can run, jump, and use an attack, no crazy movement tech like in Mario or anything. That's because the real meat of the game is being able to swap between the aforementioned four ninjas, with each of them all having their own unique attacks and fun abilities that make them valuable. Goemon has a hookshot, Ebisumaru can shrink, Sasuke can double jump, and Yae can... turn into a mermaid. Did I mention this game is weird? Goemon strikes the perfect balance when it comes to having multiple playable characters. The game offers up enough opportunities to play as everyone, with each of the first four dungeons being brilliantly crafted to put each respective character to the test, but it also doesn't flood you with context sensitive prompts that never let you stick with a character you like. I spent a lot of time as Yae because she's my favorite of the four, but I also don't feel like the other three got underused. 

At this point, you've probably begun to notice that this game has a lot of similarities a certain Nintendo franchise. Hookshots, dungeons, large overworlds, and I didn't even bring up the Heart Piece equivalents. Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon is very much a Zelda-like and could easily be referred to as a clone of Ocarina Of Time... is what I would say if Goemon didn't come out first. Yeah, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon managed to do a lot of what Ocarina Of Time did and capture a lot of that same sense of adventure before that game even came out. Not to discount Ocarina's influence, Goemon's camera system for example isn't nearly as good, but this just demonstrates Konami's ambition and talent at the time for managing to make a game that could stand toe to toe with the biggest game on the console. And that's not to say Goemon doesn't bring anything new to the table, because it absolutely does. Introducing Impact:

Hands down the coolest thing about Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon is the fact that for several of its bosses, Goemon calls in a giant mech called Impact that he uses to fight the boss. This isn't the first time the series did this, but seeing Impact in 3D hits different, and there's actually quite a lot of depth to these giant mecha battles as you have a lot of hidden combos you can learn to speed up each fight. And the cherry on top of this amazing game mechanic? They got the mecha anime singer Ichiro Mizuki to give Impact a theme song, and they play it in full every time you enter a mecha battle. Even Konami knew it was a banger. 

Even beyond the mechs though, I think that what sets Goemon apart from its contemporaries is all the weird scenarios you get to take part in. There's the Impact fights, the many silly minigames, the submarine dungeon, the boss fight that takes place atop a dragon, the sequence where you climb a giant staircase dodging boulders, this game does not let up for a second. Starring Goemon is a far shorter game than your average 3D Zelda, capping in at around 5-10 hours in length, but the pacing is perfect and there's never a moment where you're not doing something fun or creative. But even if you still want more out of the game, there's all the Dolls to get that will increase your health, all the special attacks you can find for the characters, and even an unlockable Impact boss rush just in case you want to re-experience those glorious moments.  

Being a Nintendo 64 game, I can't say Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon has necessarily aged all that wonderfully. If you're not fond of blocky characters, stretched-out textures, or foggy areas, this game won't change your mind. That being said, by the standards of the console, I think Goemon still looks pretty good. The environments are super bright and colorful, the towns are full of detail, and most importantly, the main four characters look fantastic and are incredibly expressive. There is so much attention to detail into how Goemon, Ebisumaru, Yae, and Sasuke move and act, with each having several unique walk cycles, expressions, voice clips, and even crawls. It's impossible to not fall in love with these dorks, they're so charismatic. And the soundtrack, oh man. Those who've played Goemon know it's a series that is synonymous with great music, but Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon's soundtrack is on another level entirely. Blending funk and pop with traditional Japanese instruments, Starring Goemon's score has an entire unique sound and a lot of banger tracks. The overworld themes (Kai Highway, Yamato, Tosa, and Sanuki Konpira Mountain) are super groovy and fun, the village themes (Oedo Town, Zazen Town) are super comfy, and I already mentioned the Impact theme song. But easily the high point of the soundtrack are the phenomenal dungeon themes, which even evolve as you get further in them. I'm not exaggerating when I say that every single dungeon theme is stellar. Overall, easily one of the best soundtracks on the console.

With lovable characters, fantastic dungeons, top-notch pacing, mecha boss fights, a grand sense of scale, and a banging soundtrack, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon is just a brilliant adventure game on every level. But what elevates this entry in the series to one of my favorite games of all time, let alone is its series, is how... excited it feels to be 3D. Transitioning your video game series to another dimension is hard and not everyone nailed it, especially not on the N64, but Goemon took the opportunity to develop, expand on, and flesh out its world and style in ways only a third dimension would allow.

Why I Love Kururin Squash

I'm a sucker for a good hidden gem and Nintendo's Kuru Kuru Kururin series has some of the most criminally overlooked hidden gems out there. It's a real shame none of the games came out in America because they're all stellar, each iterating on the last. However, it's the third and last entry in the series, Kururin Squash, that truly stands out as not just the best Kururin game, but one of my favorite Gamecube games period.

If you aren't familiar with the Kururin series, here's a quick rundown. The Kuru Kuru Kururin games are about the titular bird Kururin whose family repeatedly go missing, and he has to pilot his propeller-shaped vehicle called the Helirin to try and find them. The main jist of Kururin is that the Helirin is constantly rotating and you have to carefully navigate it through tight mazes. It's a simple premise but it makes for an incredibly engaging action-puzzle game built around navigation, timing, and precision. 

The controls are simple too, you just use the D-Pad (or joystick in Squash's stage) to move, use either or both of the A and B buttons to speed up, and use the L or R buttons to speed up the Helirin's rotation. The first two games were on GBA and they already felt pretty good, but right from the get-go, Squash solidifies itself as a massive improvement by allowing you to use a joystick, which gave you full 360 degree movement and unparalleled levels of precision. This actually makes Squash arguably the easiest game in the series, but it feels so good to play that it's hard to really care.

Most Kururin games keep the level design fairly basic. Every once in a while, you get a new level mechanic like springs that flip your rotation, cannons that shoot spiked balls to dodge, and crushers, but the difficulty curve is usually from how the mazes you need to solve get increasingly tighter and more complex. And it worked great for the first two games, but Squash adds a lot more variety into the mix. For starters, each of the five worlds introduces a powerup that the Helirin can use. Some of the powerups are more combat focused, like how World 1 gives you boxing gloves attached to the ends of the propeller and how World 5 does the same but with lasers. Not only is it super satisfying to fight enemies with these new weapons because of the sound design and sense of impact, but it still falls in line with the philosophy of Kururin since it's still about aligning the Helirin just right to land your attack. 

Other powerups are more puzzle-focused like World 4's whirlwinds that you use to push stuff around, and my personal favorite, the oars that let you dive underwater giving you two planes of obstacles to deal with at a given time. The only powerup to feel like kind of a gimmick is World 3's which puts you on a quickly moving rail in stages that are more focused on twitchy fast-paced dodging, but it's still enjoyable in its own right and feels like a nice change of pace midway through the game. The other major addition that Kururin Squash makes that none of the previous games had are actual boss fights, each of which are genuinely a ton of fun and test you on the powerups for each world. While I've seen some prefer the simplicity of the first two games and totally get it, I love the added variety of Squash because so much of that variety is fun and expands on the formula in interesting ways.

The Kururin games are typically jam-packed with content, but Squash in particularly feels like it's overflowing with stuff to do. The main campaign has 40 stages each having a bunch of objectives to get like finding all the coins, not taking damage, and most importantly, beating all the best times. Yeah, Kururin is actually a very fun speedrunning series, with each level containing a ton of neat shortcuts and time-savers you can take if you're particularly skilled at the game. There's also a shop with a ton of stuff to buy that you can use to customize your ship as well as even more records to beat, further encouraging speedrunning in a series that . On top of that, there's a Challenge Mode with 40 more stages solely focused on navigation without any of the powerups, a pretty fun local multiplayer mode with a battle mode and a bunch of minigames, and some unlockable harder versions of the campaign like the Slippery Slip Mode where the propeller is gone but your Helirin never stops moving and you can't use the powerups. There's even a silly downloadable GBA minigame just because. It's not a very good minigame, but it's there. If you're just playing it normally, Kururin Squash is a fine length, not super long but it doesn't overstay its welcome. But with all those extra modes, unlockables, and secrets, Kururin Squash is immensely replayable especially if you want to get into speedrunning it.

For a game about moving a spinning stick around a maze, Kururin Squash actually looks super appealing. The environments are super colorful and surreal, as are the enemies and obstacles you encounter. The UI is clean and slick, and all the menus and cutscenes use this wonderfully charming puppetry look that has aged incredibly well. But the best thing about Squash's presentation is hands down the music. The composer of the Kururin series, Atsuhiro Motoyama, is one of my personal favorite composers for his versatility and distinctly happy style. He also worked on the Umihara Kawase soundtracks which I also love to death, but Kururin Squash has one of his best scores to date. The soundtracks for the first two Kururin games on GBA were already fantastic, but Squash has the benefit of CD audio and it really shows. The whole score has that distinct Motoyama whimsy while also being super varied, from the calming and fluffy early world themes, to the more techno-heavy and intense themes near the end of the game. Even the map and boss themes are absolute bangers, it's a soundtrack that makes me happy just listening to it.

Overall, Kururin Squash is just a nearly perfect game for me, and it pains me that it never released in America because I don't really understand why? It's not all that weird or anything, it's just a silly puzzle game about a bird. But it's an incredibly well-executed silly puzzle game about a bird that takes the already great mechanics of the previous games and refines and expands them to perfection, all the while adding in tons of content, compelling speedrunning potential, a very charming visual style, and a phenomenal soundtrack. It's everything I look for in an obscure hidden gem and then some.

Adventure Time (Season 4)

I probably sound like a broken record by now but Season 4 was yet another improvement for Adventure Time, with a pretty stellar second half and some great pay-offs.

Plot-wise, Season 4 of Adventure Time is the most packed season so far. The main story arc is primarily about Finn's new relationship with the evil Flame Princess, and their attempts at being together despite the latter being able to easily burn the former. It's a solid storyline with some pretty fantastic episodes focused around it, and the lore of the Flame Kingdom is pretty cool. Marceline also gets a bunch of really important episodes this season, focused around her relationships with her father and the Ice King, of all characters. And of course, the Lich finally returns after sitting out Season 3, getting another finale to reveal his long-awaited plot. There's a great sense of forward progression to Season 4, where it feels like plot points set up all the way back in the first season are finally starting to pay off.

On top of that, the standalone episodes are really solid too. This is the first season that feels like it has a lot of episodes focused specifically on characters who aren't Finn and Jake. There's an episode about Princess Bubblegum and Lady Rainicorn, an episode about Beemo, an episode about the Ice King, an episode about Lumpy Space Princess, and even an episode entirely about Gunther. I liked Adventure Time's side characters from the start, so it's great to see them get a lot more focus this time around. Season 4 is also way more willing to experiment with its one-offs, so now we have stuff like an anthology episode, a noir-themed episode, and a bottle episode. That being said, Adventure Time is still a very inconsistent series. Season 4 does have a lot of standout episodes especially in its second half, but its first half still suffered from a lot of weaker episodes like Dream Of Love, Hug Wolf, and Gotcha, the aforementioned LSP episode.

Highlights:

Return To The Nightosphere/Daddy's Little Monster: This was a great Marceline-focused two-parter that expanded on one of Season 2's best episodes. While the second episode was a strong resolution, I especially loved Return To The Nightosphere for its surreal nature and its hilarious DMV humor.

Card Wars: Card Wars is the only episode of Adventure Time that I've actually watched before and while I always liked it for its creative premise, I've gained even more appreciation for it upon rewatch. Not only is it an incredibly funny and charming episode with some of the best Beemo moments to date, but it's also a surprisingly realistic love letter to Magic: The Gathering, not a game I personally play but one I have enough knowledge of to recognize how much this episode does it justice.

Burning Low: This was just a really well-rounded plot episode that balanced some really great humor and solid drama incredibly well. We learn more about Flame Princess and why she was in captivity to begin with, PB gets more involved in the whole situation, and Finn completely snaps.

I Will Remember You: Along with Card Wars, this is probably the most iconic Adventure Time episode. Even though I never watched it myself, I remember all the hype around it. Now that I'm actually watching the thing, I will say it didn't quite hit as hard emotionally as I was expecting. But it is still an incredible episode, super heartfelt, and expands on Marceline and the Ice King to great effect. It's also surprisingly funny, balancing the comedy and drama super effectively.

The Lich: Ugggggggghhhhhhhhh, multiverses?! Okay, fine, I'll give Adventure Time some slack. This was from 2012, Avengers 1 had just come out after all. Putting that aside, this was a good finale, super intense too. From the reveal of what the Enchiridion does, to the reveal of Billy being dead, to that juicy cliffhanger, Season 4 ended on a pretty great note.

Overall, Season 4 is yet another Adventure Time season that surpasses its predecessor, with some great plot, creative character-focused standalones, and a strong second half.

4/5 Stars

Why I Love Wii Sports + Wii Sports Resort

So most of the games on my list so far haven't really been games that I grew up with, per se. Some games like Minish Cap and Sonic 3 & Knuckles were games I played as a kid, but I only played them after the fact as I never owned the Game Boy Advance or the Genesis. Wii Sports, on the other hand, isn't just a big part of my childhood, it's the first game I've ever owned, period. I grew up on the Wii Sports games, they got me into the medium to begin with, and their casual appeal and welcoming presentation has permanently shaped my taste in video games. As a result, this is going to be less of a review of these games specifically and more of a love letter to the Wii as a whole.

Before I talk about the Wii Sports games, I want to talk about the Wii itself. Nowadays, the Wii is a divisive console for its usage of motion controls, abundance of "shovelware", and focus on appealing to casual audiences. For some, the Wii doesn't count as "real hardcore gaming". Personally, I think that's stupid. As someone who grew up with this console, it's hard to really understate just how many kids got into gaming because of the Wii, just how many parents who would normally be opposed to an XBOX or a Playstation not only got this console for their kids, but even played it themselves. With the Wii, and by extension the DS, Nintendo managed to make the perfect entry points into gaming for anyone of any age and any skillset. But even years down the line, the Wii is still my favorite console for a reason. Not only does it have so many of Nintendo's best games and a unique charm all its own, but the motion controls led to so many experimental and unique hidden gems that only this console could've gotten, which in turn makes the Wii super rewarding to revisit (look into Elebits, Zack & Wiki, The Munchables, MadWorld, Boom Blox, De Blob, Kororinpa, Muramasa, Let's Tap, The Last Story, The Crystal Bearers, and Pandora's Tower for a good starting point). I've always liked motion controls, for the same reason I like the DS's touch screen. It's fresh to engage with a game in way that doesn't just involve a standard controller, it can feel more satisfying to have a fuller range of motion and precision, and of course, it helps that the Wii Sports games did a damn good job of selling the mechanic.

I hold the first Wii Sports game up as the greatest pack-in title ever made, partially because it wasn't intended on being a pack-in title at all. Miyamoto originally wanted to sell Wii Sports, but Reggie convinced him to give it for free, which was an incredibly smart move. At the time, it was the perfect incentive to get casual audiences to buy the Wii. Nowadays, it helps Wii Sports hold up as a game with an impressive amount of longevity. Wii Sports has five different motion-controlled sports, most of which are still incredibly fun. Tennis, Bowling, and Golf are the three highlights for me. Tennis was always my favorite sport to actually play, and swinging around a Wii Remote like a racket is just so inherently satisfying. But there's also a surprising amount of nuance to the controls, how hard you swing the remote and where you orient it actually plays a big role in where your shot goes. Bowling does the best job at taking a sport that's pretty hard to get into for a number of reasons, and making it accessible for everyone. And Golf simply has the most to it, with an incredibly well-designed nine-hole course and all the features you'd expect from a good golfing game, kept simple to not overwhelm the player. On top of the sports, there's also a bunch of training minigames that are just as fun if not moreso at times. Training Games like Tennis and Golf's Target Practices, Baseball's Swing Practice, Bowling's Power Throws, and pretty much all of the Boxing training games are incredibly addictive and give the sports new spins. And when you add in the Fitness mode, the leveling up system for each sport, and the medals that you can go for in the Training Games, Wii Sports ends up having quite a lot of replay value that encourages you to keep coming back and improving your skills.

But even beyond being just a great game to this day, Wii Sports is just so charming. One of the most beloved elements of the Wii were the addition of those silly avatars, the Miis. You could make your own characters in the main menu and use them in the games themselves, with the Wii series in particular being populated with them. I adore the Miis, I don't think any other Avatar system even compares. It all comes down to how cartoony the Miis are, their facial expressions are lovably simple and you can really play around with the customizer to the point where the Mii you're working on doesn't even look human anymore. This level of charm and silliness seeps into Wii Sports as well, like how you can make all of the tennis players the same person, or how you can throw the bowling ball backwards and people will react in fear, or how your boxing trainer Mii turns out to be the boxing champion as well. There's even a bunch of cheat codes that change the colors of the court or equipment, one of the last Nintendo games to really even do this thanks to the rise of the internet. It's all just so silly and playful, and I feel it shaped me and what I want from a game. I don't care if it's easy or hard, I don't care what genre it is, as long as it's fun. And in a gaming landscape that was increasingly obsessed with being gritty, realistic, and cinematic, Wii Sports was a reminder that games can also just be pure fun.

While the original Wii Sports probably had the bigger impact on me, though, I think most can agree Wii Sports Resort is the better game. OG Wii Sports was still a tech demo, after all, but Resort really felt like the full realization of Nintendo's vision. Wii Sports was set in a sports club, while Wii Sports Resort was set on an interconnected island you could fly around in. Wii Sports only had five fairly simplistic sports, while Resort had 12 sports each with multiple modes of play. And most importantly, Wii Sports Resort was built to showcase the Wii Motion Plus which added additional sensors to the Wii Remote that would make its motion controls even more accurate. As much as I love the Wii, you can admittedly play a lot of its earlier games by just sitting down and swinging the remote, but with the Wii Motion Plus, that's no longer an option. You have to be far more precise and meticulous with your movements, and a fair amount of the sports in Resort will have you up and moving. Hell, I'd even argue some of them like Cycling and Swordplay could actually work as solid workouts on their own right.

Wii Sports Resort offers so much in the way of content, it feels far more than just a minigame collection and earns that $50 price tag. As I mentioned before, there's twelve sports this time, and they all contain multiple modes, a bunch of achievements to get in the form of stamps, and the return of the leveling up system from the previous game. Swordplay is the highlight both in terms of content and fun factor, boasting a Duel mode, a fun Speed Slice minigame, and a Showdown mode where you fight your way through a bunch of levels, and then do it in reverse. But there's also games like Archery, Cycling, and Power Cruising that use the nunchuck in inventive ways, and even some returning favorites like Bowling, Golf, and (Table) Tennis. And then there's Island Flyover, which is where Wii Sports Resort shines the brightest in my opinion. As I said, Resort is set entirely on a single island called Wuhu Island, with each sport taking place somewhere on the island. It's all interconnected, and in Island Flyover, you get the chance to fly around Wuhu Island and explore it in its entirety, seeing exactly where all the other sports are in relation to each other is incredibly cool. It all helps to tie the whole game together and make Wuhu Island feel like a living, breathing place. On top of that, there's 80 hidden icons to find which will unlock a bunch of neat extras like balloons you can pop, different times of day, and popguns mounted on your plane. It's easily the most substantial mode in a game already stuffed to the brim with content.

And I didn't even get into the music yet! The Wii Sports soundtracks are phenomenal, way better than you'd expect from some minigame collections. I mean, the main theme alone are some of the most memorable pieces of video game music out there, they're so inspiring and do such a great job at pumping you up to do some sports. And the sweeping orchestral remix they gave Resort is even better. Kazumi Totaka's score for the first game is pretty much a perfect video game soundtrack, a bit minimal but incredibly efficient. It's basically the frutiger aero aesthetic in musical form, scored like a fitness training video from the future, with spot on instrument choices, uplifting melodies, and some serious grooves. Meanwhile, Ryo Nagamatsu's soundtrack for Resort is a bit more grandiose and soaring, offering a ton of incredible bangers like Showdown and Cycling. Both soundtracks fit the vibes of their respective games pretty much perfectly.

As you can probably tell, the Wii Sports games mean a lot to me. Wii Sports manages to transcend being a simple pack-in title with its abundance of replay value, immaculate vibe and charm, and how well it sums up Nintendo's core philosophy. Wii Sports Resort refines and expands on the formula with better motion controls, more sports, and a lovely island setting that's utilized perfectly. Both games made a massive impact on me and my taste in video games, and are a big reason why I hold up the Wii as my favorite console of all time. Is this entire placement just pure nostalgia? Maybe, but I'm still playing the Wii Sports games to this day and it feels like they've aged like a fine wine.