Seth G. Macy
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Super Mario Maker 2 is the most accessible game design tool ever created, and that core is just one part of a greater whole. I spent hours building levels, testing them, and starting over again, and I feel like I've only barely scratched the surface of what's possible. The Story Mode has a basic story, sure, but it's still a great excuse to introduce hundreds of novel, professionally made levels to play. Its design tutorials are so much more in depth than they ever needed to be, and you can take them or leave them as you see fit. Super Mario Maker 2 affords so much freedom in how you play, how you make, and even how you learn, it's astonishing how incredibly well it's all held together in one cohesive package.
With Assassin’s Creed 3 Remastered, Ubisoft does everything in its power to bring one of the weaker games in the series up to modern standards, and it’s full of sights worth seeing. The main improvement is graphical, and the scenery of 18th-century Colonial America looks fantastic. There are even some meaningful tweaks made to stealth mechanics to make it feel a little more up to date and less aggravating. Where this remaster falters are places where AC3 can't be changed without fundamentally remaking the entire game from the ground up, namely a stiff animation style, repetitive mission structure, and that goddamn final sequence.
I definitely had fun with Onimusha: Warlords, despite many of its mechanics and visuals aging poorly since 2001. A lot of my enjoyment comes from revisiting an old favorite, but there's not enough new stuff here to recommend this to someone new to the series. The save system, terrible animations, and unskippable cutscenes just don't work in the modern era. It's a shame, because Onimusha is one of my favorite PS2 games, and just a few tweaks to some of the older systems would have helped enormously. The modern release is exactly how I remember it, and unfortunately in 2019, that's just not good enough.
I definitely had fun with Onimusha: Warlords, despite many of its mechanics and visuals aging poorly since 2001. A lot of my enjoyment comes from revisiting an old favorite, but there's not enough new stuff here to recommend this to someone new to the series. The save system, terrible animations, and unskippable cutscenes just don't work in the modern era. It's a shame, because Onimusha is one of my favorite PS2 games, and just a few tweaks to some of the older systems would have helped enormously. The modern release is exactly how I remember it, and unfortunately in 2019, that's just not good enough.
Octopath Traveler is a JRPG dream come true. Both its battle system and aesthetic pay loving tribute to the Super NES era while moving the formula forward in exciting and novel ways. This isn’t merely a modern retread of past classics, but a phenomenal homage with genuinely fresh ideas in a fantastically charming wrapper of old-school meets new. While the eight different character stories could’ve used a little more connection between them, I’m looking forward to going back to complete them all, explore the many side areas, battle optional bosses, and unlock the final job classes.
Kerbal Space Program does the improbable: it makes learning a complex subject fun. Its cute, clueless characters and sense of humor turn a hardcore physics simulator into something replayable and addictive. Designing, flying, and then retrying missions again and again is a tough challenge that goes right up to the brink of frustration, but the eventual success of achieving virtual space flight is rewarding and even inspirational. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Seth Macy is a freelance writer who just wants to be your friend. Follow him on Twitter @sethmacy, and MyIGN at sethgmacy, or check out Seth Macy's YouTube channel.
Trials of Mana is absolutely charming and does an excellent job keeping what works from the original while upgrading its aesthetics to the modern era. The combat system works well in its new 3D trappings, with a tough but satisfying learning curve. The transition to modern tech has introduced some camera problems, though, and I wish Square Enix had taken this opportunity to flesh out the world with interesting sidequests and to trim out some of the more tedious dialogue. Even so, exploring, battling, and waging war with bosses all remain really fun, and its JRPG tropes come off as charming throwbacks rather than eye-rolling cliches.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is legitimately incredible. It's difficult to fully describe how amazing it feels to jump into a plane and have the freedom to fly to and from literally any place in the entire world. The base game's 20 included aircraft feel like more than enough for even hardcore aviation enthusiasts, and the ability to adjust the assists to tailor the experience to whatever skill level you desire makes it suitable for anyone looking to fly the friendly skies from the comfort of their home. The real-world mapping data, however, takes Microsoft Flight Simulator from being just an impressive game to the most awe-inspiring simulation I've ever experienced, in spite of its less than stellar load times. Seeing famous landmarks, landing at the world's most recognizable airports, or just touching down in a remote landing strip in South America is mind-bogglingly cool and an absolutely unparalleled way to virtually explore our world.
Minecraft Dungeons is a beautiful and fun dungeon crawler with a simple but tried-and-true set of systems in place. It plays it extremely safe, though, without bringing anything mining or crafting spins to the genre to accompany Minecraft’s signature look and feel. Still, it's just so damn charming, and so fun, it's hard to fault it for going the safe route. With tons of loot, secret areas to uncover, and progressively more aggressive difficulty levels to unlock, Minecraft Dungeons has a fair amount of replayability beyond its relatively short six to eight-hour story mode. But who plays Minecraft for the story, anyway?
Bravely Default 2 is a long, familiar journey with excellent customizable combat and jobs systems that let you make your party and your playthrough truly your own. Its character and enemy art that was excellent on the 3DS doesn't translate all that well to the higher resolution of the Nintendo Switch, but the beautiful backdrops and environments get a massive boost from and look fantastic. And while the grind is real and repetitive fetch quests abound, it's so easy to pick up and put back down that it feels like less of a grind and more of a constructive way to kill some time. With plenty of old-school sensibilities and tons of improvements on the formula, Bravely Default 2 is almost everything I crave from a JRPG outside of a grand story.