TheOnlyGuyEver

 

I was most looking forward to the Nintendo area, especially the DKC section, but the whole park was very cool. I did like How to Train your Dragon back in the day so its area was neat (and had some very convincing animatronic dragons), and even though I don't care about Harry Potter, its area still gets a huge shoutout for being extremely impressive and activating my architect brain hardcore. At one point they had a band of performers in the square playing live jazz, which was fun. After that, we went back outside to the main area (Celestial Park) to ride Stardust Racers, which was objectively the best ride there. It's a dueling-coaster ride and you can pick either the green one or the yellow one. The yellow one is longer but the green one is more intense; we did green. It almost made me feel queasy, which is rare for roller coasters, so I knew it was good.

 

Dark Universe is also very impressive, featuring a giant gothic Dracula's Castle, which the main ride is contained within. This ride features many human/humanoid animatronics, and let me tell you, they are INSANE these days. You think of animatronics as being all rigid and cheesy, but no, they literally looked like 3D CG somehow brought into the real world, and more convincing that actual CGI. They moved extremely fluidly, it was crazy. According to my friend (the one who works there and got us in), the 1 Harry Potter thing we didn't do has a couple human animatronics in it that he couldn't even tell were animatronics at first until he noticed one of their feet bolted to the floor.

 

Unfortunately the ride had some complications (through it was still very cool) which resulted in everyone getting 1 free voucher for the express lane at any ride (except 2 specific rides, which will be crucial later). After this, we hit up Super Nintendo World as our last area. You walk in straight to the Mario section, and it is all extremely impressive and hard to describe. The way it's built is very impressive with high environmental walls, and there are dozens of enemies and objects decorating the park, all of which animate fluidly (coins rotate, goombas and koopas walk back and forth, a thwomp slams down, etc).

 

We walked around and enjoyed it, then went over to the connecting Donkey Kong Country area to check it out before doing any further rides. This DKC area was my mecca for the trip. When you walk in you are instantly greeted by DK's treehouse and assorted miscellany. The area as a whole is mostly themed after Donkey Kong Country Returns, in particular. The main attraction is Mine Cart Madness, however the wait seemed rather long at 90 minutes (for reference no other ride for the whole day took more than 20, MAYBE 30 minutes), and Mine Cart Madness was one of the only two rides exempt from our express vouchers (the other being a show at the Harry Potter area). So we headed back to do the Mario Kart ride instead and use them there, choosing to return later.

 

The Mario Kart ride was very fun and interactive. You sit in a 4-person car and wear an AR visor. The car moves through and whips around and you have to steer and respond to turns, while also looking around to aim while you fire shells with a button; you restock on a limited supply of shells via item boxes at various points. It puts you in a race between the Mario gang and Bowser's crew, and the goal is to rack up coins by hitting Bowser and co with shells; hitting Mario and co will lose coins. Each batch of rider carts is split into 2 competitive teams. I scored 3rd (111 coins) in my car with my other 3 friends, and our team overall won against the other.

 

Now, we reach the finale. A couple of my friends wanted to go catch the Harry Potter show, but me and 1 other decided to head back to DKC because we were going to do Mine Cart Madness no matter what. By this point the wait said 105 minutes, but when walking up to the back of the line, it actually ended with us further along than it had before. Though as fate would have it, the ride was experiencing a shortage of available carts, and to make matters worse, a 20-30 minute full-stop delay hit us near the end. But we held fast.

 

In the line for the ride however, there's an animatronic Cranky Kong (and Squawks) which explains the story of the ride and also heckles the people in line (yes he speaks in English), which was extremely cool. When we finally neared the carts, I spotted Dixie Kong on a pillar just outside, which I thought was very nice since she doesn't actually appear in DKCR, but I guess it wasn't too much bother to fit her in somewhere, after Tropical Freeze. We got into our mine carts and man, as a fan of the games, yup, it was worth it. In terms of "rollercoaster based on Donkey Kong Country Returns" it's everything you could ask for. Speakers on the sides of the headrest play a rendition of Rocket Barrel Blast as the ride simulates jumping over broken sections of track (how it accomplishes this is very cool engineering-wise; the entire ride is actually moved by a 2nd, actual cart and track hidden beneath the "fake" passenger cart and track). Other characters appearing during the ride include Professor Chops at the halfway mark, a screaming pillar which sounds very cool as you pass it, one of the mole enemies (or it might've been the mole boss, I can't remember) tossing dynamite and blowing up the rail, Tiki Tong, and DK and Diddy of course. Rambi also appears in the main area outside the ride, bashing out of a Rambi crate every now and then. Funky Kong doesn't physically appear, but the store is Funky's Fly and Buy.

 

In the end the timing all ended up working out, cause our other friends missed the 5:00 show and had to wait for 6:00 instead, so we each ended up getting out at about the same time. After that we had dinner and went home. Pretty much everything worked out smoothly, it was a great day and I gotta repay my friend for it sometime.

My main gripe was the level design. Most levels in the game follow the same blueprint of "central area with left and right branch" and that's it. Even in the original version which only featured 3 levels, it was still evident to me that Sewer was the best, with both School and the Hospital both following the aforementioned structure. I had hoped that Gold would alleviate this and feature some more creative level layouts, but it did not; the new batch of levels pretty much mirrors the first batch, with only one of them (Hard Structure) having a more interesting and labyrinthine design like Sewer.

 

Also I feel like the game has tetris inventory for no reason at all; items are scarce and always rectangular or square.

 

Operation Zero

A new game from Pixeljam, a developer you might remember for such classic flash hits as Dino Run. They've entered a bit of a renaissance, expanding their dev team to pursue multiple smaller side projects while they continue to develop Dino Run 2. This is one of those. The demo is pretty short -- just one level -- but the pixel visuals are solid and the gameplay is pretty fun. A classic top-down, twin-stick, arcade run-and-gun, where upgrades work like a limited ammo but can also stack onto each other to turn you into a powerhouse for a time. It was tougher than I expected honestly, which I think is a good sign of things to come. The writing is also quite funny and satirical, and reminds me heavily of Captain Commander, another Pixeljam game. It's nice to see that some things haven't changed.

Demo Rating: It's not the type of game that blows me away, but it's a fun start, and has addictive potential. I look forward to anything Pixeljam.

 

Contract Rush DX

I saw this game on my For You tab on Twitter. Which I usually ignore, but this time it caught my eye. It's a 2D platforming run-and-gun, and seems to pursue a Mega Man-esque format, featuring an array of levels which you can conquer in any order, all ending with bosses. This demo only features the tutorial level and one other, however. Coincidentally, this game also focuses on collecting heaps of upgrades in levels, which stack onto each other for the whole length of the level. Fire rate, shot count, agility, jump quantity, melee power; by the end of any level you'll be firing quintuple sawblades from your gun as you quadruple-jump through the levels. It's a visceral kind of fun, accentuated by the hand-drawn visuals which are very much "Newgrounds" and feature lots of cartoon gore. Money that you collect in levels can be spent on various unlockable upgrades afterward, which you can equip a limited number of. Additionally, it seems that the final game will feature multiple playable characters, each with their own playstyles.

Demo Rating: I've already wishlisted it, and look forward to the full game. I'm a sucker for anything with Newgrounds DNA, and this has lots. And, the game is just plain fun, and I could see it becoming quite challenging.

 

Urban Myth Dissolution Center

My friend recommended this one to me. You play as a timid young girl, who, through a chain of events has ended up working for an agency called the "Urban Myth Dissolution Center", which handles mysterious cases which law enforcement won't or doesn't care for. She uses her special power called Clairvoyance to see shadows or after-images of past events. It's an investigative visual novel of sorts. The (mostly) monochrome pixel visuals are surprisingly good, and the characters are charming, especially their dialogue portraits. Unfortunately, that's where my praise for the game ends. Frankly, a lot of the specifics surrounding the premise of this game just seem very unclear in the demo. Even after playing, I'm still not really sure what it is the Urban Myth Dissolution Center actually does, or exactly how "urban myths" form, despite it being explained; because it just didn't really make sense. In the demo, your friend is assailed by a mysterious figure wielding an axe, who crawls out from under her bed. It is concluded that this is the urban myth "Man Under the Bed" which feels very vague to me. So the "Man Under the Bed" is not literally a real man hiding under her bed and stalking her -- so we are led to believe -- but a materialization of sorts stemming from negative feelings or the idea of a man under the bed, or something. The demo does not make it very clear.

Demo Rating: I already am not a huge visual novel enjoyer, but I do dabble with them sometimes, and I enjoy a good story unraveling. I can't say I felt that here. It feels like with this "Urban Myth Dissolution Center" concept, the developer had one of those ideas which you understand very well in your own mind and think is very, very cool, but is very difficult to turn into a coherent story or enjoyable media.

 

Demon Tides

I'd known of the Demon Turf games previously (because I follow the Playtonic Twitter account, which publishes Demon Turf under their publishing label), but this was my first time actually playing one. And I think I might be a fan. This game is an open-world 3D platformer, taking place in an oceanic land. Your home base is a ship which houses your friends, and from there you can really just go in any direction using your snake-form to swim across the sea to whatever thing in the distance catches your eye. This demo was unexpectedly beefy, and took me over 2 hours. It's got a nice handful of levels to play. The platforming feels pretty great, and has a lot of skill potential once you start getting the hang of stringing Beebz' moves and transformations together. The game has lots of talismans you can equip, which alter your moveset in certain ways, or give you entirely new, special moves. There are also lots of outfits and hairstyles to equip, for cosmetic fun. The whole presentation feels extremely polished and professional for such an early playable; some animations in cutscenes looked a little robotic, but that's about it. My only gripe came in retrospect, when I realized that most of the demo levels were overwhelmingly tall and vertical, which created a sort of same-ness to them. But this is just a small piece of the game, so I assume there's a lot more level variety in store. Honorable mention to the OST as well, which I thought was very good.

Demo Rating: I think this game's sold itself on me. I'll keep my eye on it, and might even check out the other Demon Turf games in the meantime.

 

Neo Junk City

Maybe the oddest game I played this Next Fest. It's a point-and-click adventure, featuring an android policewoman, who seemingly committed a murder which she has no memory of. It takes place in a far-future Earth city, crawling with all sorts of mutants, goop, slime, and dirt. Together with the game's unhesitance to kill you for making the wrong decision (and encouraging you to save often and make multiple saves), it feels like it reflects very retro sensibilities, in the vein of classic Sierra point-and-clicks. Neo Junk City also features first-person arcade shooter segments in the form of enemy encounters. Quality of writing is of course tantamount to these sorts of games, and I gotta say, I was not disappointed. The writing felt consistently funny and delightful, but never forced. This demo features 2 chapters however, and I must say that the quality of gameplay falls off in the 2nd one. In the 1st chapter you're exploring, speaking to characters, finding and using items in creative ways to solve puzzles, etc. But the 2nd chapter is almost entirely pushing boxes onto switches. It's odd. Apparently this is a common criticism, and the 2nd chapter has been revamped internally. The internal build of the game is also said to feature more RPG aspects, like permanent upgrades for your gun.

Demo Rating: I ended up liking this one more than I expected. I'll have to see how the game's development pans out, though I hope it ends up well.

 

Isle of Reveries (WARNING: RANT AHEAD)
 

 

Kero Quest 64:

The final game. This is an old-school style 3D platformer, starring a frog character. Him being a frog ultimately is not that important, because the only frog thing he does it use his tongue, which is not heavily useful in the game, but it does make for some fun set dressing at least. The demo features 3 levels (4 including the tutorial) and the movement very much takes after Super Mario 64. I gotta say, I usually groan at games having "64" or stuff in their title, but this one gets a pass. The low-poly art is very well done, with gorgeous texture work. The worlds are colorful, vibrant, and dense (though more akin to something on the SEGA Dreamcast maybe). I have a few particular gripes about some of the platforming controls or certain movement physics, but overall, I just had a fun time exploring the levels and collecting stuff. I found the character voice to be very annoying though.

Demo Rating: Surprisingly polished and convincing presentation. The particulars of the platforming could use some tuning, but I think this game will turn out alright.

 

The Big Catch: Tacklebox

The demo version of the upcoming game The Big Catch. I actually downloaded this back at the end of 2024 when it became available, and forgot about it. Whoops! Anyway, I spent more time in this demo than any other, over 4 hours. It's by far the biggest demo I played. You play as a...bird-thing, with a fishing rod, which you use to platform, attack, and of course, catch fish, which is the primary objective. Similar to Demon Tides, it is an open-world 3D platformer, but set in a huge desert world. There are colossal ruins in every direction, with fish somewhere inside. You just go, and have fun. Presumably, there will be more of an actual story reason in the final game. The movement is extremely flow-y and momentum based, and a joy to use once you get the hang of it. The platforming in this game is also uncompromising and delightfully heart-pounding. Some levels felt like 3D Jump King, where if you fall you just have to climb back up. Other larger ones have generous shortcuts you can activate. It would also be criminal not to mention this game's spectacular visual style as well, which feels so flawlessly genuine to the era of gaming which it aims to emulate. In the end, I didn't even end up experiencing everything in the demo, because there's just so much, and absolutely no guidance around the world, which is fine. I did end up finding what I think was the largest level, and it just kept blowing my mind with the way it led me around and up this massive temple structure which just never seemed to end. I easily spent over an hour in this level alone. Suddenly I'd find myself on a roof overlooking a lower area I trekked through 30 minutes prior, or on the other side of a bridge which I couldn't seem to pass before. When I finally got to the very top, I was greeted with a serene and relaxing garden oasis, with a few fish. It all felt so worth it, like climbing a towering mountain just to appreciate the view.

Demo Rating: I was already sold on this game from the trailer way back when, but after experiencing it myself, yeah. It's great. It looks and feels exactly like the sort of game we all imagined when looking forward to the next exciting console generation as kids. When the future of video games still held untold promise and wonder, spurred by rapid technological improvement. A large and free world where you can go anywhere you want, teeming with mystifying creatures and ruins. I couldn't help but become totally immersed, finding myself wondering what the purpose of some of the long-forgotten structures used to be as I wall-ran through their expansive halls, or climbed about their exteriors.

 

Overall, my medal for this Next Fest has got to go to The Big Catch. Demon Tides is a worthy 2nd place though, and no slouch of a game in its own right. They're both different kinds of 3D platformers, and even with them both being open-world, they both have different philosophies regarding the idea of "open world", which is interesting.

 

Psychopomp: It was alright. It's a little overhyped, but it was a neat experience with some cool atmosphere. A little too much style over substance though. The level design leaves much to be desired; most levels are just a central chamber with left and right branches.

 

UTOPIA MUST FALL: I dumped so many hours into this game. The gameplay loop is simple yet has so much depth. A great modern expansion on Missile Command.

 

Zwei: The Arges Adventure: I'm still working through this one, but so far, it's pretty fun. It's very "raw" in a sense. There's not much guidance or explanation to things at all, and you're just expected to figure things out on your own. I could see how that might be off-putting, but honestly it's pretty refreshing. The art is gorgeous as well. Looking forward to playing the sequel afterward.

 

500 CALIBER CONTRACTZ: Just the demo is out, but oh boy, am I looking forward to when this thing releases in full. It oozes style without compromising on gameplay. It's a 3D platformer with gun-based movement. Just moving around in this game is a joy, it's like crack cocaine. I introduced my friend to it and he got even more hooked than I did, dicking around in the demo for dozens of hours and speedrunning it.

 

Animal Well: This game was fun. My extent of interacting with it was beating it and collecting all the eggs. Anything more esoteric than that, I have no interest in. Honestly, I feel like the focus on the extremely cryptic secret side of thing kind of drags the game down, because years from now, nobody is going to be able to figure out some of those secrets on their own, because they were designed to be solved collaboratively. They'll just have to look up the solution, defeating the purpose.

 

Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure: Fantastic game, just charming all around. The action combat is a bit spammy but still fun, and the hats system is cool. The English dub (which came like a decade after the original game) is also pretty good, I actually like Parin's voice more than the original, which sounds dead a lot of the time. I'm still not quite finished with this game since it expects you to do multiple playthroughs and there are some things I still want to do, though. Makes me wish Falcom still made smaller, more creative games like this (and Zwei) instead of the 700th installment to Ys or Legend of Heroes. I guess they found what works though.

 

Mysteries Under Lake Ophelia: There isn't much to say about this one. It's a short indie fishing game with eldritch horror tones. I liked it.

 

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom: I already spoke at length about this game before, but it was fun. The worst part is the menus though, which are a constant presence. I can't see myself replaying it anytime soon.

 

Elebits: This game is interesting. It's basically a physics game where you just move and smash a bunch of stuff around to collect Elebits, usually with some sort of stipulation in place, like not being allowed to break certain things or go above a noise threshold. Unfortunately these imposed challenges can be a little frustrating at times since the physics aren't perfect. But still, the game is a fun time. I also love the official art for the game (it's by the same guy as Made in Abyss, apparently).

 

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker: Yup. I had never played Wind Waker, so this year, I finally bent to my friend who had been badgering me for years, and started on it. And guess what, I'm STILL on it, because I'm sorry but I have to go out of my way just to boot it up. This game is too boring. Every second that you're not inside a dungeon is boring and devoid of mental stimulation. The overworld of this game was a terrible decision; it presents the idea of exploration, but puts up countless roadblocks and barriers to make any actual exploration pointless. Not to mention that the Great Sea feels like it's 10 times the size of OOT's Hyrule Field, yet with 1/4th the content density. Also, I just don't like the comedic and goofy presentation of most things in this game, which was also a gripe I had with Majora's Mask. Everything that people said about this game in 2001 was right.

 

Pikmin²: This is a romhack of Pikmin 2, and by far the largest and greatest Pikmin 2 hack ever made. It took 4 years to make, and is a complete recreation of Pikmin 1, in the engine of Pikmin 2. It also includes a built-in randomizer, and an original 2nd campaign featuring Louie as well as several original enemies and mechanics and a wholly original OST. And everything also supports drop-in co-op. And runs on original hardware. I played through the entire Pikmin 1 campaign and also Louie's Quest with my friend and it was an absolute blast.

If I can count a hack as my GOTY, it's Pikmin². I love Pikmin to death and Louie's Quest is basically a new Pikmin game. Co-op is also an entirely new and fun way to experience both the original game and the new campaign. I've also been having fun with randomizer runs, though I haven't done any of them co-op yet.

If we can't count hacks, then it goes to Gurumin. Gurumin feels like so many games that indie devs have tried and failed to make. Everything about this game is charming, the gameplay never gets boring, and there's boatloads of reasons to come back for more playthroughs. It also has a great difficulty curve and isn't afraid to get tough.

I was also pleasantly surprised by some of the deep pulls in the enemy/boss roster for this game, like the Moa from Zelda 2, and motherfucking SMOG from Oracle of Ages, the worst boss fight in Zelda history. Seriously I was between groaning and shitting my pants when I saw this fucker turn up again. But they actually managed to make it kind of better in this game.

I mean hell, you didn't even mention that almost the entire movie takes place in a "void" realm that the multiverse time police just dump all the old forgotten/unsuccessful superheroes and etcetera from over the years into, which I thought was pretty on-the-nose. I also think the giant multi-minute exposition dump they drop on the viewer the first time they enter the TVA headquarters is so absurd that it's impossible for anybody to sit through it and not have the ridiculousness of which the concept has reached steadily dawn over them. Between literally exhuming the corpse of an honorably dead and buried Wolverine in the opening sequence, and all the ridiculous shenanigans the writing has to jump itself through to then justify the continued existence of a Wolverine for more potential future films, I felt the subtext was pretty clear.

 

"90. Years."