Soycrates

While motion controls may not be for everyone, Skyward Sword is arguably the best demonstration of what the Wii is capable of. Combat is overhauled to be the best it is in the series, with each encounter feeling exhilarating and unique due to not only the increased variety of techniques Link can perform but the added variety of enemies as well. Motion controls themselves are fluid and responsive, for both combat and for other uses such as aiming items such as the bow, allowing for added precision not found in other LoZ games. Dungeons and puzzles are consistently interesting and unique without overstaying their welcome, and the different overworlds the game offers are vibrant and compelling to explore, particularly thanks to the game's presentation. The water color style is breathtaking and feels like a perfect combination of WW and TP's art styles, and the orchestrated soundtrack made up of both old and new tunes is perhaps the best this series has to offer. While the story is pretty run of the mill for LoZ standards, the characterization is also the best its ever been in the series, from main characters like Zelda or Ghirahim to side characters like Groose to even the random townspeople in Skyloft. The game's main bane is its repetitiveness, as plenty of main story quests will have you backtracking to areas you've already explored which can lead to later parts of the game feeling monotonous. Furthermore, while the combat expansions are great, they also lead to combat taking longer to complete which may overstay its welcome, particularly across longer play sessions. Skyward Sword is a great game but also one to take your time with; trying to blast through the game will quickly reveal how repetitive the game can get and diminish the experience.

Twilight Princess has met the ire of some fans for dated graphics and sticking too close to Ocarina of Time, but Twilight Princess does exactly what it set out to do: create a consistently enjoyable experience that hones in on what the LoZ series is known and praised for. The dungeons are consistently some of the best in the series, with challenging puzzles and interesting gimmicks that don't overstay their welcome, and there's a lot of them too and they're all fairly long so its a case of quality and quantity. Items are similarly pretty experimental and interesting, with items like the Ball and Chain or Dominion Rod improving on past items like the hammer or Command Melody while the spinner offers something entirely new, though these items unfortunately don't get too much use outside of their associated areas. The world is fun to explore with Epona controlling much more fluidly than in Ocarina of Time with horseback combat as an added bonus. Speaking of combat, its the best its ever been across the franchise excluding Skyward Sword which was only able to achieve those heights through the use of the wii mote. The added sword techniques add a lot of finesse and variety to combat, as do the items which have great synergy with Link. The soundtrack is a LoZ favorite of mine and while the graphics may not hold up too well, the art design is some of the best in the series and ensures that the game is still breathtaking despite its age. While it might not be the most innovative LoZ game, it's one of the most consistently entertaining games in the franchise.

This game's greatest boon is its presentation. The simplified, cell shaded art style may have been panned at the time, but it manages to be visually beautiful even today; environments truly pop out to the player and characters are the most expressive they've ever been in the LoZ series. The soundtrack is also a personal favorite of mine out of the Zelda franchise. It also does well to expand on Ocarina of Time's combat while still remaining simple and easy to pick up. The vastness of the Great Sea provides a great feeling of openness and adventure, and also easily signals to the player locations of importance due to the overworld being one ocean filled with small islands instead **** field. Constantly changing the direction of wind can get quite tedious and the sailing speed often feels too slow, but this is mitigated later on by the addition of fast travel. Where this game mainly falters is its dungeons, which are the weakest of the 3D series. Dungeons are forgettable and puzzles are often simple or too similar to past LoZ games and the Command Melody gimmick becomes tired as early as the first time you use it only to be overused for two more dungeons. The dungeon number is also the second lowest out of the pre-BOTW 3D Zelda's so this isn't even a case of quantity over quality, and unlike Majora's Mask, Wind Waker does not have nearly as many side quests to make up for it.

While Majora's Mask may on a surface level be a large step away from its iconic predecessor, this experimentation allows it to set itself apart from its older brother as an amazing game in its own right. This game achieves the greatest atmosphere of any game in the LoZ series; the bleak, unsettling and most of all strange setting of Termina gives Majora's Mask an identity all of its own. Similarly, the game's focus on time and a 3 day structure allows for quests that aren't possible in any other LoZ game and Majora's Mask focus on sidequests allows for plenty of side content that rewards the player for getting involved in the world and gives them more motivation for wanting to stop the moon from falling other than just being to "defeat the evil opponent" or "beat the game". While this does come at the cost of there being less main story content and less dungeons which may be a strong negative for some hardcore Zelda fans, this engaging world and side content makes up for it and ultimately succeeds in offering up something Ocarina of Time never could rather than attempting to beat it at its own game. The only real flaw I have with this game is how limited Link's new masks can feel. While the transformation masks are amazing additions and some other masks such as the bunny hood or stone mask can offer great bonuses, its a shame how many of them are just fodder for beating sidequests or obtaining a heart piece this combined with plenty of items being removed from OoT and not many new ones being added outside of the masks leads this Link to feel less versatile than his predecessors despite having multiple forms he can take.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

One of the best games the SNES has to offer, now only even better on GBA with the addition of Four Swords. The game measures a good balance between the openness and exploration of the first LoZ game while also offering just enough direction to make the game more approachable. The world is full of useful items, collectibles and other secrets to discover, and dungeons are similarly well designed. The nonlinearity of the dungeon order is mostly a positive too. While it does unfortunately limit the dungeons more than other Zelda games due to being needed to be completed in a wide variety of orders and can't utilize items from other dungeons, the replay value and freedom this offers to the player makes those limitations worth it, especially when the dungeons are brilliantly laid out regardless. Sprite quality is very visually appealing and the soundtrack and sound design are great and one of the most important in relation to the LoZ series. While I don't think this game has of high of highs as some other amazing Zelda games, there's also not much bad you can say about it. My only real criticism might be the combat which can be pretty limited, but its also not the focus of the game and holds up well enough due to not being at the forefront of the player's challenges.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

One of the most fulfilling sequels of all time. The game effortlessly one ups the already amazing Arkham Asylum in almost every way and delivers consistently. A great story with plenty of climactic moments, twists and excellent adaptations of iconic characters for fans to enjoy. Exciting and cathartic combat that retains both simple to pick up and rewarding to master which is further improved by added combos and the quickfire gadget system. More gadgets and variety of puzzles or mysteries to solve with them. An "open" world that, while lacking the superb, uncomfortable atmosphere of the Asylum, still manages to feel alive and provide an excellent playground for the player to truly feel immersed playing as the Caped Crusader, which is topped off with an amazing soundtrack and immaculate sound design that perfectly sets the tone of the game. It also improves on Arkham Asylum's biggest flaw by improving its boss fights. This game's only hiccup is that some of the side quests can be underwhelming. Side quests themselves can feel monotonous and often just come down to busy work, and encounters with foes such as Deadshot or Zsasz feel quite underwhelming in the end. Batman: Arkham City may just be where superhero games peaked.

Batman Arkham Asylum helped set the gold standard along with its sequel Arkham City for great superhero games at a time when the genre was almost exclusively filled with mediocre or terrible games outside of the fighting game genre. Its great combat is exhilarating and easy to learn and rewarding to master, and does a great job making the player feel like the Dark Knight. Equally important to that immersion is the puzzle solving and gadget use, with the Riddler puzzles in particular providing enjoyable side content for a mostly linear game that makes excellent use of Batman's detective skills. The soundtrack fits the game well and really helps set the mood for the best setting across the Arkham games. While Arkham Asylum may not be as big as the sequel's iterations of Gotham or feature as much side content, its atmosphere is one of the best across gaming and truly embodies the location seen in the comics. Batman himself as well as the many villains and side characters are also amazingly characterized in this game, and something this game doesn't get enough credit for compared to its contemporaries is how accessible it is for casual fans or people unfamiliar with the Batman mythos. The game is full of unlockable bios, interviews and other details that help introduce all of the characters and lore to players while also informing more seasoned Batman fans of its own world and story that takes plenty of inspiration from the comics while still making a story all of its own. If there's any superhero game that excels at drawing in newcomers and introducing them to the franchise, its this one.

An excellent return for the classic series. Whereas Mega Man 9 and 10 stuck too close to Mega Man 2 in both their graphics and gameplay and ultimately took steps back from Mega Man 8, Mega Man 11 both continues and expands upon those games with the return of features such as the slide and charge shot and new addition of the Double Gear System. Power Gear adds great variety to the already amazing special weapon lineup, one of my favorites in the series with no bad weapons, and the speed gear adds potential for lots of fun, intense platforming. You might think they'd make the game too easy with how relatively powerful Mega Man is compared to previous games, but his expanded skillset allows the game to also up its game with its stages and bosses. Learning how to reliably make use of the double gear system alongside the special weapons will still likely make this one of the classic series' easier outings, but it still offers an overall fair challenge and gameplay that is incredibly rewarding to master. Presentation however is pretty lukewarm with mediocre 3D graphics likely due to a lower budget, but if that's what it takes to get more Mega Man games of this quality I can't complain too much.

Overall a mixed bag that isn't as terrible as it may seem but also doesn't succeed in any outstanding ways and ultimately falls short of the hype built up by its Kickstarter campaign. Starting with the positives, Beck controls fairly responsively, his ledge grab is a welcome addition and most importantly his dash can feel incredibly exhilarating to use. Keeping a quick pace darting through levels while absorbing enemies with your dash and managing to stack up buffs can be rewarding and cathartic, but only when the level design allows it to be. Plenty of stages simply aren't properly designed around the dash, with it either breaking stages such as No 2.'s stage where the infinite dashes can skip entire underwater segments, or stages just being impossible to run through quickly such as No 7's where your own pace is reliant on the level's own pace of providing you new cars as platforms. Enemy design is often uninspired and forced gauntlets of enemies in stages, while brief, hurt the pacing of the game even more. Some special weapons are really useful while others only serve as boss fodder. In terms of presentation, the soundtrack is alright but mostly forgettable with some standout tunes, and graphics can be really bad, especially during story cutscenes which lack any mouth movements, and fall short of some of the really promising concept art released for this game. Ultimately I'd describe this game as just mediocre; if you were to compare this against other classic or X series Mega Man games, its far from the best but also still not the worst. But when you consider all the hype and money that went into this project and all it was built up to be, its hard not to feel underwhelmed with how this game feels ultimately just lukewarm.

A definite step in the right direction following the failures of X6 and X7 but still an unfortunate end to the X series. Core gameplay/controls take a big leap from X7, with 3D sections removed entirely and the main trio moving quicker and feeling much more responsive in 2D. Unfortunately the 3D graphics return which are still a big step up from X7 but still fail to compare to the amazing sprite quality of the previous games, which not only look better but also make the games feel much faster, even if its just psychological. Special weapons are a mixed bag but overall reliable and the bosses can be really fun. The main issue is definitely the design of some stages though. While some are alright, others are dominated by gimmicks that neuter or just ruin the stage. Upgrades are also the most tedious to obtain that they've ever been, with most requiring some form of special weapon or specific character to obtain, necessitating a ton of backtracking, though the addition of a currency and shop similar to the Classic series mitigates this issue somewhat. Soundtrack isn't bad but personally is one of the most forgettable out of the X lineup. While this game isn't great, its a shame the X series had to die following a game that seemed to be halfway towards finding its footing.

The X series's switch to 3D was probably inevitable given the state of the gaming industry at the time, but X7 proves that the Playstation trilogy had the right idea choosing to remain in 2D while most franchises rushed to transition to 3D. Graphically, the game looks infinitely worse with 3D models than the amazing sprite quality of the earlier entries, which is unfortunate given how much the animation contributed to the sense of speed which is entirely lost here. The 3D gameplay is even worse, being clunky, unresponsive and incredibly slow, with the 2D sections not faring any better. Stages are designed terribly with uninteresting or annoying gimmicks or enemies that are easy to just walk past. X and Zero feel significantly worse here than in any other game in the series, and Axl unfortunately doesn't fare any better in his introductory game; the game making you have to spend a significant portion of the game saving reploids or beating all eight maverick stages to just unlock X when the series is named after him and he's front and center on the box art is even more frustrating. Special weapons are mostly useless as well; they're not even that helpful against bosses due to the backwards decision to lower the player's damage output for the Western release to artificially increase the game's difficulty which only really makes it longer. The game is also padded out with tons of story cutscenes and terrible voice acting, which I normally would ignore in a Mega Man game but they definitely feel the most stretched out here which hurts the games pacing even more. Even the menus and loading times are slower than any other X game. The only positive thing I can say about this game is the soundtrack; on the weaker end of MMX soundtracks for me personally but it still has some great songs.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Definitely one of the low points of the entire Mega man franchise, with the most consistently backwards level design of the X series. Stages are not only overstuffed with enemies and hazards, but also broken down by nightmare gimmicks that often run counter to the design of the stage (such as the darkness effect in Rainy Turtloid's stage, the one where you have to search for and destroy tiny spheres creating acid rain to progress) and plenty of unwinnable scenarios, such as stages requiring an air dash due to some armor sets just not having one or being able to fight High Max before obtaining any special weapons that can harm him. Meanwhile the game will often let you off the hook with its Maverick fights, being some of the most pathetic in the series. The necessity to obtain some form of unlockable to make it through Gate's fortress also runs counter to the previous game's design mentality in regards to upgrades being completely optional and only required for other optional upgrades, with this being made even worse by the ability for some upgrades to be permanently lost given a reploid holding them is killed by a Nightmare, assuming you don't reload the stage. Games being overly difficult or unforgiving isn't even necessarily a bad thing, it can even be the appeal for some games. But nothing about Mega Man X6 feels planned out or intentional, its a poorly designed mess that struggles to ever feel rewarding. However, for what it is worth the presentation is pretty good. Visually the game looks as appealing as other 32-bit Mega Man outings and the soundtrack is one of my favorites across the franchise.