Seth G. Macy
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IGN Latest Reviews
Ball x Pit is a surprisingly deep brick-breaker that relies heavily on smart strategy, clever experimentation, and careful planning more so than RNG and luck alone.
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.
NHL 19 proves you can have your cake and eat it, too. It has a complex, sim-heavy Franchise mode, fun, fast, ridiculous arcade modes, and everything in between. There’s a style of play here for anyone, from the absolute rookie to someone who lives and breathes hockey. The action on the ice feels excellent and there’s just so much to do in NHL 19 that I was able to find a game mode to match any kind of mood I was in at the time. We don’t need to ask “where did all the arcade-style sports games go?” anymore, because NHL 19 folded them all into a fantastic, robust package oozing with pure fun. What’s most amazing is how the modes are so different in tone, but maintain excellence throughout.
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.
When played by yourself or with a friend on the couch, NHL 16 is a fast, sharp-looking, and fun hockey sim that (unlike last year’s game) includes enough modes to keep veterans happy while doing an admirable job of welcoming newcomers as well. It still suffers technical problems with online play, which is a shame, because outside of noticeably repetitious play-by-play calling and some non-gameplay-affecting framerate issues in cutscenes and replays, NHL 16 is an otherwise excellent game.
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.
Going into Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition I expected a fair amount of old-school design, and I wasn’t surprised to find that the story hadn’t been altered, but I never anticipated it would be in such a frustratingly poor technical state on PlayStation 4. Unacceptable loading times, lack of local co-op, and an arcane matchmaking system makes playing Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles a terrific chore. A few simple quality-of-life improvements, even if it was just the removal or shortening of load times, would have gone a long way to gloss over at least some of Crystal Chronicles' shortcomings compared to the many other dungeon crawlers you could play in 2020. Unfortunately, the old-school frustrations that weren't addressed only serve to date everything else about it, especially the repetitive combat, almost completely depriving it of any sort of fun. I will be uninstalling this as soon as possible and I’m never looking back.