Unravel Was Made For Me

Released on my birthday, Unravel is some kind of miraculous cosmic gift. Rarely is there a work of art so tailor-made for me, so informed by my own passions and imagination, so uncanny in the way that it keenly reflects the inner workings of my heart.

On paper, Unravel is a physics-based puzzle-platformer that stars Yarny, a tiny sentient creature made out of a single strand of red yarn, but to me it’s an incarnation of my inner childhood. As a child, one of my favorite games to play was “little character explores big world”* (*unofficial name I just came up with). Using some kind of avatar, usually a small plastic toy of some sort (the character was never really important; it could have been anything from a tiny plastic triceratops to Hamm, the piggy bank from Toy Story), I would use my imagination to transform the ordinary world around me into something extraordinary; or perhaps even more accurately, into “levels” informed by my video game-fueled brain. The Christmas tree would turn into a labyrinthine forest, the snow bank into a great mountain, the gravel walkway of my grandfather’s house into...something. It’s one of the prime reasons I loved Playmobil as a kid and making construction sites with it in my living room and backyard. It’s why I love Toy Story, The Borrowers, Pikmin, and The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. For as long as I can remember, I have been completely infatuated with the idea of little people inhabiting our big world, and with transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Unravel is all that. Like, that’s what this game is. It’s the epitome of that theme and it’s my childhood imagination turned into a game. It’s me. But there’s more. This is a game made by people who not only understand the beauty of nature, but the beauty of detail. Nature is not just beautiful in the obvious ways, the sunsets and the distant mountain ranges, but in so many other more subtle ways: the puddle nestled in a dirt road, the hidden grottoes full of spiders and critters beneath mossy tree stumps, the way grass grows around a forgotten boot…Unravel puts a magnifying glass on our world to find the wonders that we take for granted lying right under our noses, all around us.

 
It’s not just nature that Unravel and I find beautiful though, but rust and metal as well; even the “ugly” parts of the world are beautiful. I was surprised by the amount of industrial locales in the game, something that I feel the Pikmin series is lacking in. One level has Yarny traversing an old railroad bridge on a cliffside, its fence clamped with locks inscribed with the initials of lovers. Another sees them visiting a snow-covered junkyard filled with overturned rusted hunks of automobiles. This latter area is probably one of the most beautiful environments I’ve ever seen in a game. Wait, no, that’s not accurate…this whole game is one of the most beautiful environments I’ve ever seen in a game. The photorealistic visuals are so lifelike at times that I often had to sit back and marvel at the fact that I was interacting with this world. Yarny themselves only heightens this believability, as watching the lovingly crafted little character’s detailed animations and the way they interact with the world around them makes Unravel often feel less like a video game and more like a window into Yarny’s world. Every single location is also crammed with detail: a hedgehog bumbling through the tall grass in the background, a snake slithering through Yarny’s path, some deer grazing in the distance; the tiniest weed and mushroom is brought to life in loving detail. Then there are the grander moments, like a moose suddenly stomping through a marsh, its comparative immenseness giving the whole proceeding a delightful and magnificent sense of place and scale. Complementing all this is a beautiful dynamic soundtrack that smoothly transitions throughout a level, from slower pieces in more relaxing scenarios to higher tempo ones in tense, frantic moments.

Thematically, atmospherically, and tonally Unravel hits all the right notes, but its level design also speaks to me as well. Unravel is a side-scrolling platformer, one of my favorite genres. Something that many of my favorite platformers share in common is great context, a world that feels like a living, breathing place, that has reasons for its obstacles and goes to painstaking detail to tell a story of sorts through its level design. Unravel’s level design is borderline poetic in this regard. These aren’t levels; they’re real environments that Yarny has to travel through. The “puzzles” in the game are all merely a means to an end and they are all made of components that occur naturally in the world. They merely involve using yarn to manipulate the environment in some way so Yarny can move forward. The way Unravel turns apples bobbing in a puddle, waves rolling beneath a wooden pier, and snow-covered tree branches into level design is utter genius. Nothing feels out of place here. The game’s singular yarn mechanic is novel, creative, and put to excellent use throughout the journey, and puzzles often have a logic to them that requires real-world thinking instead of abstract “video gamey” thinking.

My other favorite video game genre is adventure, and first and foremost that is exactly what Unravel is. It starts out as a peaceful stroll through nature, but Yarny soon finds themselves leaping through tree branches, stumbling down into caves, being chased by guinea pigs, lassoing fish in a miniature boat, and running through a frost-covered field while crows try to carry them off. The game displays not only the beautiful, joyful side of life, but the dark and gruesome side as well when peaceful meadows transition into rainy toxic wastes. The amount of horrific ways Yarny can lose their life really surprised me, from falling into a trash compactor to being mauled by cockroaches. This is another reason why I love the numerous industrial areas in the game, as the construction sites and machines that Yarny is forced to tumble through provide an interesting contrast to the more pristine natural locales. I love industrial themes almost as much as natural ones, and Unravel delivers on both fronts. The ever-present danger and tradeoff between calm moments and harrowing ones makes Unravel a well-rounded journey, an odyssey of sorts, and one that could take place in your backyard.

Does Unravel have flaws? Yes. For one thing, while I love the minimalist approach to narrative and think it was absolutely the right way to go for this game, I do think some narrative context could have been better weaved into the experience. Each level plays out like a separate vignette of sorts and while there might be an overarching narrative I’m just not really seeing here, the narrative seems a bit disconnected and scattered. I like the idea of Yarny encountering the memories of humans throughout the places they travel in and piecing those memories together, but I question whether a more focused, personal story would have worked better than the game seemingly being a story of humanity as a whole. The chapters involving environmental decay by human hands particularly stuck out, not because a man vs. nature theme doesn’t seem appropriate here, but because it just came out of nowhere and doesn’t fit in with the more family and relationship-driven stories that Yarny encounters in the other levels. What I appreciate about Unravel though is that, similar to other minimalist masterpieces like Shadow of the Colossus and Journey, it never falls into pretentious, heavy-handed territory. The focus here is on the experience and the narrative is really whatever you make of it; but even open-ended narrative can have some kind of focus and I think Unravel’s lack of one does hurt the game’s emotional punch and keeps it from striking the same kind of sublime balance that those aforementioned works achieve. In other words, the level designs in Unravel have great context, but the context of Yarny’s journey itself is unclear.

Perhaps that’s ok though, because Unravel captures the spirit of a little character running through our big world so well, and brings its world to life in such stunning detail, that the experience is captivating nonetheless. Unravel is not only a brilliant concept for a game, but a game that was clearly made with love and passion.  Passion for nature. Passion for art. Passion for video games. Passion for every fiber that makes up this experience. At the end of the day, I can’t help but love Unravel. It feels very personal to me. It is just too entwined in what inspires me creatively and imaginarily. It’s simply a lovely, lovely game, and I thank Martin Sahlin and his team from the bottom of my heart for giving me this wonderful birthday gift.

Yoshi’s Woolly World (Wii U) Review

I have a nostalgic attachment to yarn and knitted woolen blankets. My Nana loved to knit. I have fond childhood memories of giant bundles of colorful yarn that she used to knit me blankets; handcrafted tapestries of dark blue and light blue and green. There’s a level in Yoshi’s Woolly World called “Up Shuttlethread Pass” which features a backdrop of knitted blankets woven together to form of a patchwork of pale blue and green intermixed with snowflake and sequin decorations. A light fluffy snow falls and the whole scene is accompanied by a profoundly emotional piece of music. I was immediately struck by this level upon starting it, but it wasn’t until I was about halfway through it that a certain chord in the music stopped me in my tracks and I simply stopped and stared at the screen: the knitted surroundings, the colors, the snow, the music…I was immediately struck with images of my Nana (who passed away just a few years ago) and all the Christmases we shared together. I suddenly felt the need to rub my eyes and a pervasive sense of tranquility embraced me throughout the rest of the level.

Yoshi’s Woolly World is a warm knitted blanket on a cool autumn day. It’s a very comforting game, and that’s not just because it’s made out of blankets. When one boots it up from the Wii U’s main menu, they are greeted with an image of Yoshi and his lovable canine pal Poochy embracing each other while a lovely and inviting acoustic guitar melody plays. To me, this start-up screen is saying “It’s gonna be all right” and “See? Not everything in the world is so bad”. Between its endlessly charming handcrafted aesthetic, pleasing control scheme, and inventive challenges, Woolly World is a heart-warming, endearing experience that is as relaxing or as taxing as you want it to be. And it reminds me of my Nana. And it makes me a little teary.

I can’t call Woolly World’s aesthetic entirely unique because it is a spiritual successor to the delightful Kirby’s Epic Yarn for Wii after all (which was also developed by Good-Feel, the most appropriately-named video game developer in the world), but Woolly World’s visual design still stands apart from that game, presenting a more three-dimensional and all in all different take on the whole “handcraft” look than Epic Yarn presented. I love this game’s art direction and it is clear a huge amount of effort went into it; in fact I suspect it’s the main reason for the game’s rather lengthy development time. Besides nailing the look and feel of yarn and fabric throughout, so much so that I feel like I can reach out and touch this game and my TV screen would feel soft to my hand, I love how much creativity went into representing a world made out of handcraft. Windmills appear as giant wool socks adorned with buttons, lava flowing down a volcano is represented by a scarf slowly unraveling from a giant spool, and my favorite: distant hills in the snow world are representing by giant smiling winter hats. That the game subtly simulates flowing water with simply a few strands of yarn, some sequins, and some shadows is nothing short of genius artistic design. Sure, Woolly World may contain many of the clichéd environmental themes that Nintendo loves to overuse like grass land, desert land, and snow land, but I’m not even mad because the wonderful visual design breathes new life into these tired tropes. If the endearing art design doesn’t draw you in, perhaps the pleasing and varied (if at times a bit understated) soundtrack, another area of the game that clearly had a lot of effort put into it, will.

Even though some of the environmental themes are familiar, the original and inspired level designs that appear throughout the entire game all the way up to the final level were a consistent surprise. Some of my favorites include a level where the player “walks” a wireframe Chain Chomp, knitting it up into a roll-able ball that can pounce baddies and be used to solve puzzles and unraveling it so it can follow Yoshi to new places; a rollercoaster ride of sorts involving giant curtains sliding down curtain rods (just try to imagine it); and a festive nighttime snowscape where Yoshi must knock piles of cottony snow out of knitted trees to progress. The yarn motif is more than just aesthetic; the artistic choice is woven into the game design at every step, from the way enemies and obstacles behave to the way Yoshi unravels and knits the world around him, to a parade of clever level gimmicks that make great use of the theming.

Despite so many fresh elements that have been newly acquired, the main framework of Woolly World is mostly a hand-me-down from the original Yoshi’s Island for Super Nintendo. This isn’t necessarily a negative, as that original game is a brilliant, inspired platformer and Woolly World inherits its springy, responsive control and engaging, exploratory level design. That said, perhaps the influence is a bit too transparent at times and this does lend of sense of banality to certain aspects like the very familiar progression structure of the game. This can’t hurt an experience as otherwise creative and endearing as Woolly World too much, but I do wish the Yoshi platformer series wouldn’t be so afraid to tear the traditional fabric of the original SNES classic every once in a while.

I will say that going for 100% completion in Woolly World is a lot more tolerable than in the original Yoshi’s Island, which is important considering the game is chiefly designed with exploration and collection in mind. Some tedium occurs when missing “that one thing” in a level and some of the bonus levels are pretty annoying, but there’s nothing here that I found to be as screamingly frustrating as attempting 100% in the original. Woolly World is ultimately whatever you want it to be though: want to float through the game care-free? Turn on “Mellow Mode”. Want to simply see all the levels? Just go for collecting all of the flowers. Or you can go for everything like me, which was a fair and satisfying challenge. Woolly World’s design is smart. There’s no intrusive timer rushing me along, there are no useless “lives” here, the “Mellow Mode” option is probably the least intrusive “Super Guide” option I’ve seen Nintendo implement yet, and there’s just all in all freedom here to do what one wants.

Put plainly, Yoshi’s Woolly World is a warm and inviting experience you are almost guaranteed to enjoy no matter how you play it. Play it with a friend. Play it with a lover. Play it by yourself with a blanket and a warm cup of tea. It will make you smile. It will make you feel cozy. It will remind you of your Nana.

Three Big Problems with Super Mario Maker

As I stated in my last post, I love Super Mario Maker. I’ve had a ton of fun imagining and creating new worlds for Mario to explore myself, and tons of other brilliant individuals have dreamed up fabulous creations I never thought would be possible in this game. It’s a blast to create and play and perhaps most importantly of all, it’s easy to use. I have bountiful praise for the game, but…

It has some problems. Three glaring ones in my opinion. Now, there are a lot of things Nintendo could add to the game via DLC and updates, and sure, plenty of other elements from the Super Mario series have been left out. I could go on and on about how I’d love to see slopes be here, other power-ups, new music, new level themes, etc. etc. There are also a lot of element combinations that I wish would work in the game, but don’t. But in all honesty, I think what the package has right now is pretty great; I’ve managed to find quite a lot of versatility with the available material myself, other people have already been creating truly inspiring things with what’s here, and there’s also still so much more potential just with what the game currently offers. The three big problems I want to address are not so much about adding more stuff, but are what I feel to be glaring issues that detract from the experience in a very notable way. It’s frustrating when such a beautiful thing as Super Mario Maker is held back by just a handful of glaring issues that could possibly be remedied. So enough preamble; here are three big problems I have with Super Mario Maker, in order from least problematic to most:

3.) No Checkpoints

        

There is nothing more frustrating than making my way through a really special level that someone created, only to make a stupid mistake three quarters of the way through it and have to restart all the way back at the beginning. Some levels benefit from having no checkpoints. One might want to make a highly difficult trial and error level meant to be learned and practiced that delivers high satisfaction when one finally conquers it all in one go. But other levels that aren’t going for high difficulty, but merely invite players to explore and experience them at their own pace suffer greatly from the lack of checkpoints. It kills my enthusiasm for a great level of this kind when I have to start back at the beginning and speed through the earlier bits to get back to where I had died. From a creator’s perspective, the levels I tend to mostly make myself are meant to be thematic adventures that tell a story of sorts. Sometimes, I wouldn’t mind adding some amount of difficulty, but adding any difficulty at all is a risk because I often don’t want players to have to redo the whole thing (or worse, just give up when they die). With this in mind, I’ve had to either pepper my levels with a sizable amount of power-ups or otherwise pay extra careful attention to their position and number. The lack of checkpoints is such a glaring omission and I can’t imagine that it’s simply an oversight. There has to either be a technical limitation at work here (I can’t think of one, but then again I’m not a programmer) or it was fully possible but a conscious decision was made to not have them. If it’s the latter, then it is an astoundingly poor decision.

2.) The Level Sharing System

So, I already covered my sorrows as a Mario course designer in my previous post, where I tried to get across some of my frustrations with the game’s course sharing system, so check that post out for the “introduction” to this problem. I’d like to elaborate a bit further here and also provide some potential solutions. In addition to talented creators going unnoticed, I think many of them were at a disadvantage to begin with if they didn’t upload a course immediately after the game released, or if they didn’t somehow attain a copy early. Many of the top creators and top levels are from reviewers and other people who got the game early and therefore were at an extreme advantage from the get go. I’ve heard that the servers that critics experienced the game on are different than the servers the public currently use, but at the same it certainly seems like a great number of people either somehow got the game a few days early with the current servers or had levels ready to upload immediately that they had previously created and saved. Since these creators had their levels on the server right at go, they had no problem raking in the stars and being able to upload as many levels as they desired from day one. If these creators made an “automatic level” or “remake level”, it wouldn’t really matter if it was really great or not, it was bound to get a lot of stars and plays because it was the only thing available. And since these creators received so much popularity early on, they got on the charts and stayed there because most people naturally look at the levels with the most stars first, and then these levels receive even more stars and so on. I find this to be unfair to people who got a later foot in the door and whose levels are massively overshadowed by the people already at the forefront of the star ranking page, since many people will simply only play the highest-ranked levels, or other levels by those same creators. I suppose this was natural, and I’m not sure how it could be helped, but it just seems unfair to me. Many of these early popular courses are good, but some also just seemed to get ahead of the curve and in retrospect pale in comparison to what people are managing to do with the game now. It’s not really fair to creators who pour their soul into a level and it simply gets ignored because they didn’t have it uploaded at midnight when the game launched.

Mainly, however, I find the search options and organization of Course World (where all uploaded levels go to live and die) very lacking. There are only three main categories for searching for courses, and I’m still unsure of how the “Featured” courses column even works. There’s a sizable amount of courses in these three lists, but they’re only a small taste of the vast universe of courses out there. You can sort courses in these three categories by regional and global and difficulty, but how about some actual, detailed filtering options? Like searching for courses by game style or level template? How about highlighting a handful of courses each day or each week or something, courses that aren’t getting mega numbers but are gaining some traction and could use a boost? Plenty of outlets online are doing this kind of thing, and Nintendo recently started doing this themselves on Mario Maker’s official website, but it would be really great if there was something like this built into the actual game. Also, while you can look at a list of top-ranked creators and your own followed creators, there's no option to simply look up a creator by name, which would also be appreciated.

There’s a lot more that could be done here and clearly more needs to be done because people like me and thousands of others just aren’t getting noticed or played, and therefore are held back by the strict upload limitation and devious star system. While on the subject, it would also be great if the star requirements for uploading more levels was less strict. Look, obviously I think my levels are pretty decent, but even if you disagree, I mean I’m not making total crap here. I’ve poured over 150 hours into the game over the course of a month. I think I can safely say my levels were at least made with effort. It’s just very frustrating that I paid $60 for this game and have given it so much of my time, yet there’s still Nanny Nintendo wagging their finger at me and telling me I can only upload 20 courses.

1.) Asset Limits

Originally, this was number two and the sharing system was number one, but the more I played the game and the more and more I had to sigh and scale back or limit my levels in some way because of the seemingly arbitrary limits on how many given elements can be placed in a course, the more I realized that this is easily my biggest problem with the game. This was the aspect I was worried about the most before the game released, about whether or not there would be an “object limit” to courses (I was thinking of the “weight limit” in the Super Smash Bros. series stage creators and praying something like that wouldn’t be here) so naturally my heart sank the first time I placed a block and heard that “Nope, no more!” buzzer sound. While I was certainly disappointed, at first I didn’t think it was that big of a deal as it still seemed like I could place a hefty amount of objects before the game yelled at me, but the more effort and ambition I put into my levels, the more frequently it happened, and this is when I began to get sad. The bigger I dreamed, the more my dreams were stifled. At this point, I’ve had to scale back or limit almost all of my levels in some way and I’ve reached the object limit, in both the main and sub-area, on almost every level I’ve created. This game just doesn’t seem to be designed for the type of levels I want to create, which is levels with a visual consistency and that are large in scope and theme. I’m not saying that limitations of any kind are universally a bad thing; I’ve had a ton of fun working with the limited palette of elements the game provides to see how I can, for example, make a car, a toilet, and a detailed haunted village. I’ve also had fun seeing how other people get around these limitations as well and being inspired by what they’ve managed to achieve. But there should be no limits on the amount of assets you can use in a level creator, or if there is a limit, it should be so generous that one never needs to realistically worry about it. This kind of limitation stifles creativity, plain and simple.

Ideally, courses themselves could be bigger, more than one sub-area could be created, there would be the option to turn off the time limit completely (consider that my unofficial fourth biggest problem with the game, by the way), etc., but I could get over all that if I could just place as many objects as I wanted in the amount of space they’ve given me. This extends to being able to have as many warp pipes as I want, warp doors as I want, enemies as I want, etc. It’d also be nice to be able to make a warp pipe that can transport Mario to the same level instead of a sub-level or conversely a warp door that can warp to a sub-level instead of just the same level. But maybe these latter requests are getting too ambitious. If so, fine, I can even live with these limitations, but I can’t get over the limit on the amount of placeable blocks and enemies/other assets. If you haven’t gotten deep into level creation in Mario Maker, it’s likely you have no idea what I’m going on about here or at least why it’s such a big deal, but I’m guessing those that have put a fair amount of ambition into creating levels know exactly what I’m talking about. Like with checkpoints, I find it hard to believe that there’s a technical limitation at work here on a modern HD console like the Wii U, and so assuming there isn’t one and the developers really did just arbitrarily make these limitations, that’s just asinine. This game’s tagline should be “If you can dream it, you can make it”, but right now at least, that’s hardly the case.

So those are my three big problems with the otherwise terrific Super Mario Maker. I’ve still managed to get a large amount of satisfaction out of both creating and playing levels despite these big drawbacks, but it would be wonderful if some or all of these issues were addressed in future patches and updates. If that were to happen, this game would truly begin to live up to its full potential and achieve true greatness.

Super Mario Maker Has an Important Lesson to Teach: Being a Game Developer Sucks

…or “A Diary of my Bittersweet Adventures with Super Mario Maker”

Ben Kuchera over at Polygon wrote an article shortly before Super Mario Maker released about how the game teaches one the anguish of being an indie developer. If you read Ben’s article, this post is going to seem slightly familiar; I don’t mean to copy his piece, but rather give my own spin on an idea that I think rings very true. I’d also like to broaden the thought a bit from indie developers to simply all developers. Yes, beneath its inviting and nostalgic exterior, Super Mario Maker has an important lesson for those who really sink their teeth into the level creation side of it: being a game developer must really be the pits.

Now, this is something I already knew, but it’s something that I’ve now, in some small, disconnected way, experienced for myself. I picked up Super Mario Maker the afternoon of its US release day, and holding the copy in my hands after I got into my car, I felt a kind of childlike glee. I couldn’t wait to dive into this robust world of imagination and start building and playing levels. I fiddled around with the level creation tool a bit and then hit up “Course World”, where everyone’s levels go after they upload them for the world to see. Already, there was a plethora of levels and several ones were already hugely popular (I knew this by the amount of “stars” they had acquired from players). Having just got the game, I was only allowed to upload ten levels myself until I earned more stars and therefore unlocked medals which would allow me to increase my max upload limit (up to 100 levels after acquiring all 10 medals). I wasn’t too intimidated by this. After all, the levels I’d played already had thousands of stars and creators seemed to already have achieved the ability to upload the max number of levels in just a day, and while their levels were good, they were nothing earth-shattering and I could already feel dozens of ideas forming in my head that would surely be a hit. It shouldn’t be too hard to rake in the stars as long as I shared creative and inspired levels, which of course was my plan.

Making some Mario

The first couple of levels I uploaded were basic and nothing to speak of really; I didn’t bother putting much effort into them because I didn’t have all of the game’s creation elements unlocked yet through the game’s annoying but oh so Nintendo “delivery system”, where the Course Maker is slowly expanded over the course of several days (or hours, if you know how to effectively cheat the system, which I recommend doing). As I unlocked more and more elements to play around with, I soon began to feel inspiration strike and I began to naturally get an idea as soon as I began to lay some blocks down. The first course I uploaded that I actually thought was worth a damn (not too many damns, mind, but at least one), I shared with some pride, this time actually somewhat pleased with my creation. I looked forward to seeing how it would be received. As of this writing, “Magikoopa’s Platform Keep” (I’ll share some of my course IDs at the bottom of this article if you’re interested) has a meager 131 plays and 5 stars. For the longest time, it didn’t get any stars at all. Ok, so in retrospect, that course wasn’t that great. I still didn’t have all the course-making elements at that point, and it’s still a largely basic level. It didn’t take too long to make, so I wasn’t too discouraged. The next course I made I spent a lot more time on and put even more effort into, but the one after that is where I really went overboard. I’d finally unlocked every tool and spent a combined twelve hours over the course of two days to build “The Grand Koopaship”, a massive flying airship designed with a meticulous attention to detail to resemble an actual ship. I paid special attention to the aesthetics of the ship and agonized over the placement of power-ups and how difficult each section should be. This thing has a cargo bay, bunks, a bathroom, a mess hall, a bridge, an engine room and finally the captain’s quarters, where a showdown with Bowser occurs before a fast escape out the back of the ship to the goal. It’s not a perfect course by any means, but I poured my heart into the thing and I think it turned out pretty nifty. It’s currently one of my most popular courses with 412 plays and 23 stars, which doesn’t seem too bad, but compare that to “Don’t press anything” (ID: AA64-0000-000F-7D4C) by creator Niramou, one of the first (or possibly the first, at least uploaded to the released game's servers) hugely popular Rube Goldberg-style “automatic” courses (in which you, um, don’t press anything to reach the goal), which currently has 1,676,474 plays and 104,848 stars. Yeah, my “Grand Koopaship’s” numbers suddenly seem pretty pathetic, huh?

So at this point you may be thinking: “Wah, wah, so you made some courses that no one likes and are salty about it?” (unless, of course, you own Mario Maker, are invested in creating courses, and are not part of the Star Ranking category elite, in which case there’s a good chance you’re already nodding your head along in sympathy to everything I’m saying), which is of course true, but I’m also working towards a point…sort of. So in order to better illustrate that point, I’ll stop talking about myself for the moment and concentrate on someone else, a maker by the name of “Ricky”. I know of Ricky from a YouTube Let’s Play group he is a part of known as “Adamant Ditto” (their Kirby Let’s Plays are really fun; check em’ out). Ricky made a course known as “Super Smash Labyrinth” (ID: 099D-0000-003A-EB5F), an ambitious and clever idea that allows the player to choose one of twelve pathways, each one beginning with a  transformation into a character from the original Super Smash Bros. via one of Mario Maker’s sprite-changing mystery mushrooms, with each pathway themed around the particular character one chooses. I can’t fathom that a course based on such a popular series and one that is such a well-executed idea would have anything less than top status in the charts. Last time I checked, it has a respectable 1,548 plays and 127 stars…but isn’t exactly “Don’t press anything” numbers. This gives me pause. It makes me think that maybe, just maybe, Mario Maker’s sharing system might be a load of total bollocks. And there are several other fantastic creators and courses I’ve come across, sadly not getting the recognition they deserve. Ricky has proven himself a maker to keep an eye on, with several other inspired courses including a spooky “Haunted Hotel” level (ID: 9C6B-0000-0043-BF08), another excellently done horror-themed level known as “Mirror Manor” (ID: 1992-0000-0072-2F13), an “RPG Adventure!” (ID: A5C3-0000-0091-03A0), and a lot more, but he still has yet to reach the max upload limit of 100 courses (last I checked he is capped at 50 uploads), and the fact that such a clearly worthy creator should be limited in any way is just crap.

Perusing Course World

And that’s what it all comes down to: that upload limit. I wouldn’t care nearly as much about stars and what’s popular and all this if it wasn’t for the fact that Nintendo has cruelly tied the amount of courses one can upload to the amount of stars they receive. This is a good idea on paper, requiring players to put effort into their creations if they want to keep sharing them, but it all falls apart when makers like Ricky and so many others are pulling more than their share of weight and are still faced with restrictions. The star requirements for each milestone are extremely strict as well; it takes 50 stars to just being able to increase the upload limit from ten levels to twenty levels and it only gets worse from there, requiring 150 stars to get to thirty levels, then 300 stars to reach a 40 level limit, and on and on until 5,000 stars nets you the maximum upload limit of 100 levels. This creates another issue; here I am with all these level ideas in my head that I want to do…but I’m hesitant to put a ton of effort into them if I might not be able to upload them and share them with the world. Therefore, I’m faced with a dilemma: make what I want to make or bite my tongue and try to make something that I think will be super popular and get a lot of stars in a short amount of time (in other words, make a level where you don’t have to press anything or a level with a mystery mushroom costume that’s a remake of a level from another game).

I tried to get around this by making an automatic course, but one with a unique spin on the formula and one that I could be proud of. I decided my creation would not just be a bunch of random nonsense floating in the sky (which can certainly be entertaining if done well), but it would have context and somewhat of a story behind it. I started with the theme of Mario being trapped in some elaborate machine and through the process of creating it, the idea evolved with some inspiration from the Portal series. I designed the course to have two “endings” of sorts: one where a player can choose to not press anything and let the machine take its course; here they would still hit the goal at the end, but Mario would also go flying into a sawblade afterwards, implying that just going with the flow will result in Mario meeting his doom. But, and here’s the Portal-esque part, if players cleverly observe their surroundings, they can escape the machine and discover hidden areas outside of it, such as the observation room where the machine’s operators are watching Mario go through it, and another path that leads to the core of the machine, a hidden boss fight, and finally the true exit out of the machine. I spent hours and hours fine-tuning this course, paying special attention to how it looked and operated, and I kept adding more and more details until finally I felt it was ready. Here was a creation, I thought, that would meet the popular demand for the automatic course, but innovate and put a new twist on it. After uploading it, I wasn’t able to play the game until two days later and I was eager to see how what I felt was my finest creation yet had been received…

The Mushroomatic Machine

…it had 5 plays and 0 stars. In a word, I was crushed. It was simply devastating to have something I worked so hard on and had such high hopes for get such a poor reception, or indeed, not even really be noticed at all. As time went on, it only got worse, because more and more people played it, but none of them starred it. Why didn’t they like it? I thought. Was it not exciting enough? Did they discover the hidden secrets? Did they strive to get to the “good ending”? I had agonized over the name of the course, trying to find something in the small number of characters available that would be both catchy but also capture the intricate nature of the level. Advertising is the most important aspect to consider when uploading a course if you want it to be played. All you have to recommend your course is a name, the zoomed out picture of your course’s layout (or at least part of it) and a second close-up picture of a particular section of your course that you can choose. If these things aren’t eye-catching, people will just pass you up. As of this moment, “The Mushroomatic Machine-2 Exits” as I called it, has a paltry 78 plays and 2 stars. Most people finished it; they just didn’t seem to care for it. I have no idea why, none of them left comments and all I have is a couple of red “Xs” on the zoomed-out picture of the course to show me where people lost lives. This feature doesn’t help much, by the way, especially when it doesn’t show where people died in the course’s “sub-area” (the second part of a level accessed by going down pipes), where most of some of my levels take place. Another thing to take into consideration is that many simply don’t know what “stars” are, or how important they are to level creators. Many people bought Super Mario Maker to partake in the playing side of things and not the creation side, and considering the game never explicitly tells the player about the starring system anywhere except in notifications that randomly pop up on the screen from time to time, it’s easy to consider the fact that many people may have enjoyed my levels, but just don’t think to star them or don’t know what starring is. I also can’t help but wonder about how helpful it would be if I was able to make a brief description of my levels in addition to their title. If I had been able to do this, I could have gotten across what I felt made my machine course unique, not to mention give some context for my other courses as well.

At this point, I had a nine-world (four courses per world) Mario adventure planned out in my head that I wanted to build in Super Mario Maker (well, not just in my head, as I outlined the whole damn thing with pen and paper). That was what I really wanted to start making, but with nine courses already uploaded out of the ten course limit that I was struggling to break through and the stars very slowly coming in, even after a handful of levels I spent hours of effort making, I didn’t want to start making that game when I wouldn’t be able to upload (and keep uploaded) the whole thing. So I had one final idea. One final crazy idea that would surely get some stars and “fund” my game. I would make a “remake” level, the other popular surefire thing. But if I was going to do this, I was going to make something I would enjoy doing, that I would be passionate about, and that would be a fun challenge to undertake…

So I decided I would recreate Clock Town from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask in Super Mario Maker, Stock Pot Inn included.

Four days and many hours later, I felt that I had pulled this feat off, at least as best as I could within the limitations of the game. In the end, it was a fun challenge, and also one that drained me. After my last big course failed “financially”, I tried not to get my hopes up too much, but surely…

Just over twenty four hours after uploading it, my Clock Town recreation had 13 plays and 3 stars. Not a bad turnaround compared to how slowly my other courses acquired stars, but still not exactly big money (last I checked it’s my most starred course with 24 stars at least). But hey, I finally hit fifty stars at this point and could now upload up to a meager twenty courses. That’s just great, but now all I could think about was how long of a road it was going to be to reach 150 stars and the thirty course limit, which still wouldn’t be enough to hold my ambitious nine-world adventure (which I eventually thought of a tenth bonus world for…aren’t I the dreamer?). Even after uploading six more courses (including one of the worlds from my planned game) following Clock Town, I still have yet to reach 150 stars and to date still only have just a little over 100.

Clock Town's clock in Super Mario Maker

I want to be clear about something: outside of a handful of very notable problems I feel the game has (which I’ll talk about more in a follow-up post, including some suggested remedies for my problems with the level sharing system), I love Super Mario Maker. The game is a childhood dream of mine come true and I’m happy it exists. It even reignited a creative side of me that I’ve been keeping dormant lately, which I can’t be more grateful for. With that said, my experience creating and uploading courses in Super Mario Maker has been completely demoralizing. Melodramatic? Sure. But I create what I feel is my best course yet, and one that I am sure will be popular, and no one cares or notices. I spend hours and days and weeks pouring my heart and soul into a creation I truly believe in, but no one is buying. I spend so much time arduously testing and re-testing, tweaking and re-tweaking, only to discover one possibly large problem I missed after uploading my level and to fret about whether it will break the whole thing for people. In the end, I can’t imagine making a whole video game, something I spend years putting my life into, only to have someone finish it overnight and nitpick about a bunch of stuff wrong with it. In the end, people are only buying the stuff that’s already popular, the stuff with the good review scores (stars) and the most sales (plays), whether that camp is full of several similar ideas or not (just to be clear: I don’t mean to say that the mega popular courses are bad, in fact most of them are pretty awesome and there’s some really inspired ideas in there, just that there’s so much more out there just as awesome that is getting ignored). Worst of all, perhaps, is when you see that someone else had your same idea, and that their version of it is getting a ton of attention while yours rots in the back alleys of the Course World server (this hasn’t really happened to me personally, but it’s definitely a possibility, and I’ve seen others execute ideas that I still have in my head, or two different versions of the same idea, one much more noticed than another, regardless of quality). I gave in, just a bit, and tried to make something that would appeal to the masses, but still something I can be proud of, and all to fund the stuff that I really want to be making. And my attempts to cash in this way fell on their face too. And yet I’m still dreaming of all the great worlds I want to put in my full Mario game, and getting more ideas every day. In the end, I’ve had a blast creating levels because of the passion I have for creation and the joy it brings me, even though I know few will likely appreciate or even play my stuff. Being a Mario level creator has its rewards, and I’m sure being a game developer does as well, but it’s also pretty shitty and I, for one, am totally burnt out on Mario making right now.

My conclusion with all this? Right before Super Mario Maker’s release in the US, I played through The Last of Us for the first time, and I wrote about how I thought it was an unrelentingly stressful and bleak experience that was almost difficult to play (and also a great experience I highly recommend for the record). After finishing it, I was greatly looking forward to relaxing with some colorful Nintendo fun in Super Mario Maker, but found instead an experience even more emotionally devastating. Game developers, you have my sympathy and infinite respect.

For those interested, here are a few of my course IDs, including the ones I mentioned in this piece (if you want to check out all sixteen of the courses I currently have uploaded, than simply check out my profile in the game):

Magikoopa’s Platform Keep: 5D6F-0000-0031-2F1D

The Grand Koopaship: 0662-0000-0040-5BFD

The Mushroomatic Machine-2 Exits: 1E81-0000-0049-6843

Zelda: Majora’s Mask-Clock Town: 4AAB-0000-0062-DC60

4-1: The Lost Village: 7464-0000-009C-8759

Rayman Legends (Wii U) Review

I love platformers. I love platformers a lot. Rayman Legends is a damn fine platformer. Set one-hundred years after the fantastic Rayman Origins, Legends finds Rayman and friends being rudely awakened from a century-long nap to see the Glade of Dreams once again overrun by nightmares, now stronger than ever, having created all new threats like armies of dragons and skydiving toads. Legends carries over the wonderful sense of humor and personality from Origins, while introducing a host of creative new levels and experiences. The game’s central hub is an art gallery of sorts that links to all of the game’s various worlds and modes from paintings. There’s a lot to see and do here: besides five core worlds and a sixth bonus world mostly comprised of remixed levels, there are also special daily and weekly challenge stages, a multiplayer football/soccer mini-game known as Kung Foot, a gallery of collectible creatures, and even forty unlockable remastered levels from Origins. I’m going to keep the focus on the core experience here, which is the new worlds the game offers, and it’s also important to note that, as it indicates in the title, I’m reviewing the Wii U version only and in addition to that, the single-player experience in particular (this will all be important later).

The first thing one likely notices about Rayman Legends is its enchanting art direction and visuals, which like Origins, are simply a treat to take in. Legends takes things a step even further than Origins though, incorporating more dynamic lighting and subtle 3D elements into the mix. The result is a beautiful technical achievement for video games. I’m amazed that video games have come so far technologically-speaking and can actually look like this and still move at a solid frame rate and function properly. I suppose it’s cliché to say, but it’s fitting that Legends’ many levels are accessed from easels in an art gallery, since each one can accurately be described as an animated painting. The game’s multi-layered world is rich with detail and texture, from strange tree people walking around in the far background to tiny dewdrops beading on a giant tree root that Rayman just slid down. Enchanting forests and creepy castles, beanstalks rising from palely-lit swamplands, and deep-sea caverns littered with metallic waste all come to life in this ocular banquet. Sometimes I wouldn’t move at a level’s start as I took a blissful moment to take in the game’s rich aesthetics.

Legends feels like a much more high energy, boisterous experience than its predecessor. It feels grand and epic and seems to be constantly moving at a frenetic pace, darting from one zany platforming challenge to the next in a more concise, more focused, and altogether briefer experience than Origins. Part of the game’s feeling of grandeur comes from its titular theme of “legends”, placing a focus on grand set-pieces and gigantic boss battles with massive dragons, toads, and luchadores. Rayman and friends control with a fluidity and motion that makes stringing runs and jumps together into a form of interactive poetry. More levels than ever before focus on an “endless runner” style of platforming, where one false jump or screw up means death (these levels are never frustrating though when one instantly respawns at a nearby checkpoint to try again; the real fun comes from trying to master them without failing though). It’s amazing that these kinds of levels work as well as they do, as one loose screw in the form of a misplaced platform or enemy could have turned them into an unwieldy mess; I can only imagine the amount of rigorous testing required to perfect the design of these challenges. What is amazing about the level design and control of Rayman Legends is how intuitive everything feels: somehow when running up a wall, hopping over pillars of fire backwards and upside down and leaping from bouncy drums to stacks of monsters, I always knew exactly what to do. Every precise jump I made felt exhilarating and sometimes it felt like a miracle that I had survived, but I know that in actuality it’s down to the game’s precisely crafted systems. I quite enjoyed perfecting the “Invasion” challenges, where monsters and gimmicks from another world take over sections of a level, which feel like an evolution of the speedrunning treasure chest chase levels from Origins, but unquestionably the standout running levels in the game are the musical levels. These sublime platforming masterpieces, where one’s every action is timed to the melody of wacky covers of famous songs like “Eye of the Tiger” and “Woo Hoo”, are a revelation, a highlight of the entire platforming genre, nevermind this game, and I’d love to see more stuff like them from this development team or others in the future. These levels are the showstopper, but one shouldn’t ignore a myriad of other fantastic levels as well. Generally, Legends has some of the tightest level design I’ve ever seen in any platformer.

Tying all of this experience’s grandness, energy, and beauty together is a wonderful musical score that is joyfully integrated into the experience in a way that only a video game can accomplish. The musical levels are the obvious example of how this game masterfully integrates music into every facet of the experience, but they are worth mentioning again, and again and again. But this display of musical creativity doesn’t stop with them: the score often changes multiple times in the same level, transitioning between each area to set the mood or situation. Nothing ever sits still In Rayman Legends; everything hinges on a playful interactivity that never lets up. The soundtrack here is grand and sweeping when flying through the air amidst the ruins of a sky castle and moody and mysterious when swimming further into the depths of a sunken industrial complex. It rises in tempo and pace as you land more perfect jumps and get further and further in one of the precise Invasion challenges. It sometimes brings to mind the whimsical animated films of Disney and at other times mimics something you might here in a James Bond film. This is a fun, moving, and brilliant soundtrack. The game’s main theme refused to leave my head every time I turned my Wii U off.

I hope it’s clear at this point that I feel that Legends is a platforming joy, but this otherwise fantastic experience is tragically marred by one very irritating flaw: the Murfy levels. Murfy is a fairy-like character that shows up in a handful of specific levels and that the player controls with the GamePad’s touch screen and uses to manipulate certain elements in the environment, such as cutting ropes or moving platforms. If one is playing cooperative multiplayer (which supports up to five players), one player would control Murfy with the GamePad while the other(s) would platform through a level (players can also control Murfy even in regular stages in multiplayer), but in single-player, an AI-controlled character automatically does the platforming in these levels while the player solely controls Murfy. I do not like the Murfy levels. I found these levels to be boring at best and teeth-gratingly frustrating at worst. It’s hard for me to put my finger on what exactly makes these levels not work. Maybe it’s my extreme disdain for when shoehorned gimmicks bring down a great game that would be so much better without them, maybe it’s the fact that what is clearly something designed around multiplayer has been forced into the single-player experience at its detriment. But I think what it really comes down to is that these levels make me feel like I’m watching someone else play the game while I tinker with some puzzle-game off in the corner on my low-res GamePad screen. It’s about expectations: I expect to be playing a fun platforming game, and when I go from a great platforming stage to a level where I do none of the platforming, and have to try to get a decent, but certainly not great AI that sometimes doesn’t behave like a rational human player do what I want it to do by manipulating elements in the level around it, it becomes very frustrating, and has no place in a platformer as fluid and fun and beautiful as Legends…at least in single-player. I can imagine the Murfy levels being quite fun with a group of friends, on both sides of the equation, and I think they’re a neat use of the GamePad in that regard. It’s just a shame that they were shoehorned into the single-player, and that they’re frequent enough (though thankfully still in the minority) to seriously intrude on my enjoyment of this game. Legends already feels a bit light on the number of new core levels, and the Murfy levels’ inclusion certainly compounds this issue.

I’m aware that the single-player Murfy levels play out differently in the versions of Legends that don’t have access to a touchscreen, such as the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. In these versions, the player apparently actually does the platforming themselves and Murfy is controlled by a few button prompts. I chose to purchase and play the Wii U version because that was the original version of the game before Ubisoft delayed it and ported it to other systems, and therefore the Wii U version is the developers’ original vision for the game, which is what I wanted to experience. That said, there’s a decent chance I’d enjoy the Murfy levels more if I was the one actually doing the platforming, so I would have at least appreciated having the option to play them this alternate way in the Wii U version. Perhaps the ideal situation, however, might have been having these levels off to the side in a separate co-op specific section of the game with more traditional levels in their place for single-player.

The Murfy levels are my main gripe with Legends, but there are a few other points that I want to address that keep Legends from being truly all that it could be to me, and that ultimately make Origins hold perhaps a slightly higher place in my heart, although I’m still debating that (also Legends cheats by including levels from Origins). Let me try to explain. There are fewer main worlds in Legends than in Origins, and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but even with so few worlds, some of them felt a bit underwhelming to me, or at least didn’t live up to a lot of their potential. I love the idea of the worlds themed around the Day of the Dead and Greek mythology, but the former largely felt like a retread of the food-themed world from Origins and the latter, which had so much potential in a game supposedly themed around legendary monsters, is largely set in featureless catacombs and lava-filled caverns that are fairly boring aesthetically, at least compared to the feast of riches the rest of the game (and Origins) provides. Where were the full levels set on a Mount Olympus-like environment, or the battles against Rayman-styled Greek gods and monsters? We only get a glimpse at this potential in the world’s boss fight stage and in its opening stage, which is *sigh* a Murfy level. Maybe I sound petty, and ironically the Greek-themed world has some of the funnest levels from a pure level-design standpoint, but this is simply how I felt playing the game; perhaps Legends was too hyped up for me, or perhaps the inspired worlds in Origins simply set the bar too high. The very big exception to my disappointment in the game’s world line-up is “20,000 Lums Under the Sea”, which is a bizarre and wonderful mixture of deep-sea industrial environments and stealth elements all wrapped up in a presentation inspired by secret agent clichés. It’s a bunch of my favorite video game tropes all wrapped up into one atmospheric package and is not only my favorite world in Legends but one of the coolest worlds in any platformer I’ve ever played. As a side note, I also love the underwater world from Origins; these games do underwater platforming damn well not only in terms of control and mechanics but also in regards to level design and aesthetics.

Speaking of Origins and the reasons why I might prefer it to Legends: besides not having any Murfy levels to suffer, I loved just about every world in Origins and although they may have generally relied more on familiar platformer tropes than Legends, they used these themes in captivating ways and I found most if not all of these lands to be creative and really fleshed-out. Origins’ own food-themed world in particular combines several different themes and tells a sort of story through its levels. I love that kind of stuff in platformers. Origins also simply feels like more of an adventure. There was a world map. There was progression. It felt like a journey through the Glade of Dreams that covered a wide range of territory. Legends is neat and focused; its levels are all neatly lined up in a row in the art gallery, and players can tackle them in a somewhat nonlinear fashion. Therefore, Legends feels more like a collection of awesome levels that Rayman and friends are just having fun with than an actual adventure to save the world like in Origins. Honestly, I can appreciate both approaches and I can see some preferring one or the other, but I think ultimately Origins’ approach just leaves more of an impact on me personally. Origins also has this unique atmosphere to it that I love, but then again I also love the grand and energetic atmosphere that Legends has. I guess I could compare the merits of both games here all day, but when it comes down to it, I feel Origins has stronger worlds and feels more like a story, and that combined with no Murfy levels makes me currently lean a little more in its direction.

Despite those dang Murfy levels and my other nitpicks about unfulfilled expectations from the game’s worlds, I still love Rayman Legends. Even though a Murfy level might make me rage during one moment due to some utterly stupid move on the part of the AI, the next expertly-constructed platforming level would make me grin from ear to ear and forget all about it. Despite the stuff that dragged the experience down in places for me, Legends’ best moments filled me with visceral joy like few other games can do. The fact that I find Origins to be the overall more complete and fulfilling experience in many ways and yet I still basically like both games equally is a testament to just how strong the strong parts of Legends are. This element of so much of the game being so good makes the stupid Murfy bits all the more frustrating to me, but oh well, I’ll shut up about that now. The bottom line is that Rayman Legends is a zany, superbly fun bundle of imagination and joy in these dark and depraved times of ours and you should play it. When one considers the inclusion of the forty levels from Rayman Origins in addition to the core Legends levels, plus Kung Foot and the daily and weekly challenge stages, the amount of imagination and wondrous fun to be found in this experience is, indeed, nothing short of legendary.

Plus I will never not smile when listening to this song.

Hey, We Started a Podcast

Yup! My friend, Ryan Acheson and I, decided to get together in a room and record ourselves talking about our gaming histories, the merits of Super Mario Sunshine, old PC games, Sonic the Hedgehog lore, and much, much more.

This is the pilot episode to our as of right now unnamed podcast (name forthcoming). Essentially, the main angle here is both Ryan and I pick an important game from our past that the other has not played, and then we compare our partially nostalgia-fueled reminiscence on the games with the other person's fresh, modern take on these experiences. In this inaugural episode, I had Ryan play the original Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and Ryan suggested I play Rick Dangerous, a game which I had zero experience with before this. Likewise, Ryan had barely any experience with the original Sonic.

Sonic the Hedgehog is available in a lot of places (I also assume you've probably heard of the game at least), but if you aren't familiar with Rick Dangerous and want to get some context for the conversation, you can check out the Flash remake that I played here.

If any of this sounds interesting, or if you just want to listen to two people who like video games perhaps a little too much talk about them while you go on a run or write your thesis or whatever, you can find our musings (and ramblings) at the following links:

Here's the podcast in ogg format.

And here it is in mp3 format.

The current plan is to try to do this around once a month. I've never done anything like this and any and all pointers and constructive criticism is very welcome! Again, this is the pilot, an experimental beginning if you will, and I hope we only improve the format and discussion as we go on!

Please feel free to share this anywhere you want if you enjoy it and find any value in it! We'd appreciate the exposure and it would certainly help encourage us to keep doing this!

Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse (3DS) Review

Playing through Shantae and Shantae: Risky’s Revenge back to back last year was a great experience and I was happy to discover a new side-scrolling adventure series that took inspiration from some of my favorite games while also being wholly unique. In short, I love those two games and was greatly anticipating Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, the third game in the series and the advertised end to the Shantae “handheld trilogy” (just the end to the story these three games have set up; don’t worry, the series isn’t over). So did it deliver? In one sense, yes: Pirate’s Curse is a polished, well-designed adventure full of the smooth gameplay, beautiful spritework, feverishly catchy music, endearing characters and charming writing the series is now known for. In another sense, however, Pirate’s Curse falls short for me in several key areas and doesn’t quite have the same spark its two predecessors have. So what is Pirate’s Curse? For me, it’s a mixed experience, but let’s start by praising what deserves praise.

Risky’s Revenge is a gorgeous 2D action game, but I think Pirate’s Curse might look even better. I’m so happy that sprite-based 2D games haven’t gone extinct and indie developers like WayForward are keeping the form alive. Shantae’s wacky, fantastical world really comes to life and now pops more than ever thanks to the stereoscopic 3D effect of the 3DS. But more impressive than the colorful, detailed environments are the varied and lively cast of characters and creatures that populate them. Character sprites are full of details and personality. If you want to see what I mean, just stop moving anywhere in the game and watch Shantae and any surrounding characters’ idle animations; it looks like everyone is constantly rocking out to Jake Kaufman’s awesome chiptune soundtrack and having one giant dance party, which is fitting for a game starring a dancer. I also love the new art-style for the game’s expressive character portraits and official artwork, which has never looked better.

Shantae and Risky team up

In keeping with the previous games, PC also features an endearing cast of lovable characters and the patented sense of charm that the series is known for. The Shantae series as a whole features some of the funniest writing in the genre and the humorous back and forth between Shantae and the likes of the Ammo Baron, Risky Boots, and several other bizarre characters had me chuckling more than a few times. I particularly like the characterization of Shantae and her nemesis, Risky, who she is now forced to team up with in order to best a greater evil. I enjoyed how their relationship grew throughout the adventure and was consistently amused by the interactions between the two of them. That said, I think more could have been done here and Risky could have had more of an active role in the quest instead of basically just being Shantae’s chauffeur (via her pirate ship), but I ultimately enjoyed their partnership and how it turns out in the end.

Besides being an aural and visual delight, it should not be understated just how good Pirate’s Curse feels to play. This game has some of the most fluid 2D platforming of any side-scrolling action game I’ve played, which is fitting for a game heavily inspired by the Metroidvania games, which also excel in this category. It’s just a joy to move through the world and seamlessly going from hopping about to hair-whipping monsters feels fast and fun. The game’s excellent movement becomes even better when you acquire more and more of the pirate gear, the game’s main item upgrades (think Zelda or Metroid). The more items Shantae acquires on her journey, such as a giant pirate hat that acts as a parachute and a pair of boots that allows her to perform a high-speed dashing maneuver, the more freely she can move through the world and the more wonderful the experience feels to play. It’s that classic Metroidvania appeal of finding new equipment and improving your character as you go, so that by the end, revisiting old areas becomes a seamless experience of stringing together jumps, attacks, and dashes as you effortlessly dance across the environment with all your new skills in tow. You’ll know what I mean the first time you do a dash, followed by a leap into the air into a parachute glide, followed up by a cannon blast in order to stay aloft as you soar over large gaps and enemies below. I do wish more of the game was designed to utilize the player’s skills in stringing all of these abilities together (instead of just a handful of late game sequences), but it’s still a blast using these items to traverse old areas when trying to gather up all of the game’s collectibles.

Click on the picture for a better view!

Pirate’s Curse also makes up for Risky’s Revenge’s relative lack of mazes to explore with plenty of dungeons to traverse this time around, even more than in the first Shantae title. In fact, Pirate’s Curse feels like a much fuller and more complete experience than Risky’s Revenge, thus improving on my only real problem with that title. Overall, the dungeons are well-designed, but they don’t really stand out too much. A few do some interesting things atmospherically, but with the exception of a memorable mini-dungeon in the desert and one other main dungeon that I loved, these labyrinths didn’t really leave a lasting impression on me. They seem to lack stand-out elements like the unique color-switching mechanic in the desert labyrinth from the first Shantae. Perhaps it’s unfair to compare the two series, but part of what makes the dungeons in, I don’t know, the Zelda series (I know, you’re so surprised I went there, right?) is how each one feels like a unique world in themselves, often revolving around some kind of core gimmick or theme. The dungeons here make good use of the items Shantae finds, but lack that extra pizazz that made the dungeons in a game like A Link Between Worlds so memorable. I know, I know, Pirate’s Curse is working on a much smaller budget and under much stricter conditions than a giant like the Zelda series, and what the team at WayForward accomplished here is still incredibly solid. What Pirate’s Curse’s dungeons do have is a great sense of progression and a fluid design, plus some great bosses to cap them off, including a battle with a huge dragon and another with a giant robotic caterpillar.

Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse is a well-designed, well-executed, enjoyable experience. It improves on the one flaw that I had with its predecessor, Risky’s Revenge, which I thought was otherwise a pretty much perfect game. Unfortunately, Pirate’s Curse missteps in some other key areas, which ultimately hold it back from being that ideal Shantae game that I wanted.

Each Shantae game has followed a somewhat different formula in regards to how it has handled its world design. The first Shantae took an approach akin to Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, Risky’s Revenge went for a more traditional Metroidvania route, and now Pirate’s Curse takes an approach comparable to Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, where there are several, smaller Metroidvania-style maps selectable from a “map screen” of sorts. Instead of one big, interconnected overworld, this time Shantae and Risky Boots travel to several separate islands, each with their own area maps and dungeons. This is a neat idea and I’m a big fan of the seafaring adventure trope, so I was excited to see what each new island had in store. I have two big problems here though. Firstly, I was disappointed with the layout and design of most of the outdoor areas in the game. My problem with most of the field areas in Pirate’s Curse is that they are very linear and straightforward in design, often consisting of a single, flat pathway with a few hidden areas branching off of it. There are a few more maze-like areas in the game, but I wish this had been the standard, instead of reserved for a few special areas. Actually, the design of the first island Shantae visits is more what I wanted the rest of them to be like, as it involves more branching paths and verticality instead of just a straight line. These linear paths just don’t lend themselves to much exploration or imagination. The dungeons are less linear, but I was expecting more of an intricate overworld to explore. Instead of a single large overworld containing several different regions, the different islands just end up feeling like small, disjointed areas that don’t feel fleshed-out and feel somewhat hollow as a result. Also, I miss the awesome “plane-switching” mechanic from Risky’s Revenge, where Shantae would jump from the foreground to the background and so on. Not only would this mechanic be perfectly suited to the 3DS, but it would also go a long way in giving the areas in Pirate’s Curse more depth (literally) and making them feel more rich and expansive.

My second problem with the areas in the game is that, by and large, they are all heavily based on familiar locales from past games. I was excited to finally be traversing beyond Sequin Land after exploring its environs for two games, and these islands are supposed to be mysterious new lands beyond that familiar domain, but instead each island is based on one of the regions from the first Shantae game, and at this point these environments are starting to feel a little too samey and familiar. The desert island is a prime example of this, as that’s a trope we’ve seen in every Shantae game now, and I’d rather have something new at this point. There are exceptions: even though the zombie-filled forest is familiar, it’s never looked so beautiful or given off such a sweet Castlevania vibe as it does now; Mug Bog Island, while also based on a location from the original Shantae, still has a brilliantly eerie (Metroid-influenced?) atmosphere and the Village of Lost Souls section is a notable portion of the game. There are also some later portions that feel fresh as well, but in a large way, I feel like these islands aren’t necessarily new places, but just the same Sequin Land staples, except cut up and scattered across the ocean. The island idea is nice, but overall I do miss having one connected world to explore, as I usually always prefer that to a more “level select” approach. While I think the island idea could have worked better if the areas were fresher and less linear in design, I also partly wish they’d stuck with the model from Risky’s Revenge and just expanded the world as well as updated the map to the new Metroidvania-style one in Pirate’s Curse.

Besides my issues with the way its world is designed, there’s something else about Pirate’s Curse that hold the game back for me. Put simply, the overall structure of this game is very familiar to me and quite frankly, overly formulaic. Whereas past Shantae games clearly took a lot of inspiration from the likes of Zelda, Metroid, and Castlevania, they still felt fresh with mechanics like Shantae’s belly-dancing and her animal transformations that took the place of traditional item upgrades in those other games. In Pirate’s Curse, however, Shantae has lost her magic and as a result the game follows the “Zelda/Metroidvania formula” more rigidly than ever: it’s go to a new area, find the dungeon (usually doing some kind of task or mini-dungeon in order to do so), get the dungeon item, use that item to beat the boss, backtrack to the immediately previous area and use that new item to find a “key” that unlocks the way to the dungeon in the next area, and then it’s basically rinse and repeat for the whole game. This is another case of me respecting the developers doing something new with the pirate gear items, but ultimately these items, while a lot of fun to use, detract from the uniqueness of Shantae’s identity, and all this amounts to Pirate’s Curse feeling much more like a traditional experience than ever. That said…

…That isn’t particularly a bad thing. After all, I love those kinds of games and this formula does work. Pirate’s Curse just seems a little too formulaic, or at least enough for me to really notice. The bottom line is that Pirate’s Curse is very solid and well-built, it just doesn’t feel as original or unique as its predecessors, and doesn’t do as much mechanically to feel distinct from its contemporaries. The game does what it does well, just not in such a way that really stands out to me. Whereas games like A Link Between Worlds are finally taking strides to change up the classic “Zelda formula”, Pirate’s Curse feels archaic and overly familiar. Unique mechanics in the past two Shantae games helped to circumvent this issue, and thus Pirate’s Curse feels a bit like a step backward to me.

Besides a lot of uninspired area designs and the overly formulaic structure, there’s one more aspect of Pirate’s Curse that left a bad taste in my mouth and distracted me from enjoying the adventure as much as I could have. Yeah, you know what’s coming: this game is straight male fan-service incarnate. I mean, Shantae games have always had sexualized female character designs, there’s no denying that, but Pirate’s Curse takes it a little too far, making sure that every single female character, from humans to monsters to zombie girls, has large, emphasized breasts, a sexualized physique, and a plethora of sexualized poses. While the male character designs, on the other hand, are far more varied, with men being allowed to be deformed, overweight, monstrous, handsome, cartoony, whatever. For a good example of what I’m talking about here, just compare Rottytops’ design to the designs of her two brothers, Abner and Poe, all three of whom are sapient zombies. It’s very telling that the only really “hunky” male character here is a cyclops. The straight male “fan-service” moments are around every corner here: at one point spring breakers get into their bathing suits for a pool party and the method for unlocking the path forward involves light shining off of their half-naked bodies and then there’s an entire dungeon devoted to dressing up all of the female leads in sexy metal bikinis against their will (the different explanations for each of them happening to be there are all laughably flimsy as well). The premise of this chapter is a humorous idea (a bizarre cult mistaking Shantae and co. for their “long-lost” princess when the real princess was just out getting groceries), but the clear purpose of it to objectify all the female leads is tasteless, and the final punchline of this section basically making a joke about female body image is off-putting. And if that weren’t enough, the game dresses Rottytops up in a skimpy schoolgirl outfit. It just never ends. While there are certainly a lot of funny moments in Pirate’s Curse (such as everything involving the Squid Baron; I love that guy), I feel that the humor in Risky’s Revenge was overall stronger and more consistently funny without having to rely on so many tasteless attempts to please a straight male audience. At the end of my review for the first Shantae, I wrote this: “Shantae proves that it's really not that difficult to have an action adventure video game that stars a cool, interesting female protagonist whose main power isn't her ability to grow a pair of gargantuan breasts that would break the back of any normal human female.” While I still think that Pirate’s Curse having a large cast of mostly female main characters and an endearing, powerful female protagonist is a positive thing, I’m a bit disappointed that the team at WayForward decided to make female objectification such a focus this time around.

Shantae addressing the game's developers

While I have a lot of gripes with the game, I really don’t want to understate that Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse is a great game that I enjoyed playing through a lot. It’s an incredibly polished and endearing 2D action game with a great soundtrack, great art, great gameplay and overall an experience that stands well with its predecessors for a fantastic trilogy that I’d highly recommend to any fan of action adventure games or just 2D sprite-based games and artwork in general. But…I have a feeling my opinion is going to be in the minority here, but Pirate’s Curse is my least favorite in the series, and I feel it’s less memorable and creative than the previous two. I just love what the previous two games did with the dancing mechanic and connected overworld and think the perfect Shantae game for me would just be expanding on Risky Revenge’s formula (which remains my favorite game in the series), adding some of the tweaks that PC made (like the better map), and making it a longer, fuller, more complete experience than Risky’s Revenge is. All this said, Pirate’s Curse is still a very solid title which retains the endearing charm and personality in its world, characters, and themes that the previous Shantae titles have (I mean, a half-genie using pirate gear to save the world? Awesome). I also respect the fact that each of the three handheld Shantae games feels unique from each other while also having the same spirit. I enjoyed the way in which Pirate’s Curse concluded the story set up in Risky’s Revenge as well and was overall satisfied with the game’s finale. Overall, it’s a great trilogy and a great series and I’m looking forward to Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, which I hope will improve on some of the qualms I have with Pirate’s Curse.