When the credits rolled on Mario Tennis Aces' Adventure Mode, I vowed to never again laugh at a tennis player having an ugly meltdown on the court. I had felt the volcanic surge of adrenaline that comes when a rally has gone too long. I knew the sense of high alert while trying to suss out which corner of the court an opponent is going to attack next. I have spliced and invented new curse words to mutter when a ball goes out of bounds. Off-beat stages and creative use of characters from the Marioverse ensure that you'll never lose sight of simply having fun, but don't let the adorable exterior trick you; Aces takes its unorthodox tennis very seriously.
Mario Tennis' renewed vigor is driven by a suite of new mechanics that force you to make pivotal risk-reward decisions. Special shots are now tied to a meter that fills a little with every shot fired back at your opponent, more so if you're able to charge your swing ahead of time. Once the Energy Meter is at least a third full, a ball landing on your side of the court will be forecast by a glowing star. Initiating a special swing while on a star activates a first-person view that lets you aim a powerful Zone Shot.
And when the Meter is completely full, you can unleash your character's Special Shot. While Specials don't unleash the cavalcade of effects they did in Wii U's Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash, they do fire a lightning-fast ball that requires exacting maneuvers to return without incurring any harm to your racket--destroy your collection of rackets during a match, and you lose.
Holding the R button slows down time at the cost of meter, allowing you to stroll over and hit hard-to-reach shots or gain a slight advantage when returning racket-breaking balls. Alternatively, a new dodge mechanic called Trick Shot allows you to tilt the right stick in the direction of an incoming shot and, if timed right, leap across the court and smack it away at high speed. You can get away with basic shots during simple matches, but in advanced matches the exchange of powered-up strikes feels like a breathless symphony that requires you to be at the top of your game and on top of your options.
Even veterans of the series have a little bit of a learning curve to overcome, but Aces' Adventure Mode does a good job of both entertaining you and teaching you how and when to use your new tools. The story itself is ridiculous, but ridiculous in that very specific, quirky way Nintendo has been getting away with for decades. During the Mushroom Kingdom's annual tennis tournament, an evil tennis racket--yes, really--named Lucien takes possession of Luigi and flies off to find five Power Stones that will help him take over the world.
Instead of settling for a revolving door of opponents along the way, you're challenged to utilize Ace's new mechanics in a range of unusual scenarios. An average stage might simply challenge you to keep a rally going for a certain length of time, but bosses and puzzle stages require a greater level of ingenuity. You have to figure out how to disable protective barriers, earning enough energy to perform a Zone Shot, and aim at the right part of the court to inflict damage. Bosses also initiate hurdling challenges mid-match that reward precise use of your leaping Trick Shot. Adventure Mode mixes up your objectives from one stage to the next to ensure you're never simply going through the motions to progress.
Mario Tennis Aces does what this series has done best, and improves what it's rarely gotten right prior.
Aces is more difficult and devious than you might expect, especially in the latter half of Adventure Mode. Though not required, grinding through matches can improve your chances on the court. Win or lose, you earn experience points for every match played, allowing you to improve Mario's speed, power, and agility over time. But no matter how much XP you earn, the only way to make it to the end of Aces' campaign is to master its unique tennis mechanics. Those who persevere will find themselves better equipped and prepared to face anything the other modes have to offer than ever before.
Outside of Adventure Mode, you'll find a rather plain assortment of activities: a bracket-based tournament mode, exhibition matches against the computer or another friend, online modes, and the ability to play doubles matches, which can turn into downright anarchy before you know it. One surprising misstep in the package is Swing Mode, where players can swing Joy-Cons like proper tennis rackets, similar to Wii Sports Tennis. At first it seems odd that this control scheme is isolated to a specific mode, but within a minute or two, it's obvious why: playing with Joy-Cons feels too imprecise, and even just executing a simple backhand was a twitchy comedy of errors. It's too bad that the motion controls seem to fall apart so easily, but considering that, it's probably best that the option is siloed away.
Odds are most players will spend the majority of their time in the long run playing Aces online, an experience that can be pretty hit or miss depending on how you're matched up. The lack of stat-tracking means that you have no way to visually gauge how skilled your opponent may be prior to accepting a match, and as such lopsided matches are commonplace. Casual players do have the option of limiting matches to "Simple" gameplay, which removes special mechanics and hazard-type stages from the mix. Even without the exhilaration of the special shots, there's something relaxing about occasionally fooling around with the no-frills version of Mario Tennis.
However, even this approach winds up feeling flawed due to the lack of options that are freely configurable for local multiplayer matches, including the number of rackets per player, the type of stages you play on, and the duration of a battle. Online Free Play matches are also locked into Tiebreaker rules for points instead of full blown sets, which goes a little too far in whittling back the game's depth.
Tournament Mode is even more limiting, doing away with the option to play using Simple rules. There also isn't any incentive for success, no rewards waiting at the end of the brutal five-match gauntlet, and frankly, people who persevere deserve something. That may change in the coming months, with multiple character slots marked as being reserved for participating in tournaments every month, but as of the time of this writing, even that comes off as the smallest token.
It speaks volumes that even the multiplayer limitations don't entirely dampen my enthusiasm for Aces. The Tetris Effect is in full swing here; days after the credits rolled, I still crave the satisfying thwack from a Power Shot, mentally replay matches and imagine how I might do things differently given a bit more focus and know-how. Mario Tennis Aces does what this series has done best, and for the most part, improves what it's rarely gotten right prior.
The post-apocalyptic world of Nier: Automata thrives on its mysteries. Its ruined Earth setting is a playground of mayhem where fashionable androids lay waste to less sophisticated looking robots. Its premise of a never-ending war is initially straightforward. But if you know anything about the game's director, Yoko Taro, then you know to expect the unexpected. That includes everything from an unusual soundtrack steeped in vocals to a battle-hardened heroine who walks with the swagger of a supermodel. Automata also delivers a well-executed and refined combat system, the level of which alone makes Automata well worth the price of admission.
You initially see Automata from the perspective of a female android named 2B who is part of YoRHa, a group of artificial soldiers tasked with wiping the Earth of its hostile robots and their alien creators. This conflict is all the more poignant due to humanity's displacement to the moon, an exodus that occurred hundreds of years ago. Joining 2B on most of her missions is 9S, a male android who lacks 2B's dual weapon-wielding prowess but compensates with invaluable hacking skills. They start off as strangers, but through the obstacles they overcome, an obvious closeness begins to form. This is thanks in part to Automata's sensational anime-as-hell archetypes and story beats.
Given that Earth is utterly overrun with homicidal machines, making Earth hospitable seems like a tall order. But this challenge is softened by the manageable size of Automata's open world, which is equivalent to a small city. It entices exploration without feeling intimidating, and it's hard to get lost once you've run through the same paths a couple times. Much of the backtracking stems from the game's numerable side quests, where you help your fellow androids on simple errands and kill missions. While most of these tasks aren't especially memorable, they do add character to world. Furthermore, monotony is minimized by the convenience of fast travel and swift steeds like moose and boars.
The brightside of being a robot exterminator in Automata is that your canvas of destruction is the product of Platinum Games. Their penchant for feverishly fast and elegant combat is on full display with visuals that echo even the most outrageous attacks from Bayonetta. Combat evolves beyond mindlessly mashing on quick and strong attacks thanks to the variety of bladed weapon styles. Combining any two types produces uniquely flashy animations and, more importantly, damaging results. You can trigger other gorgeous maneuvers by attacking after pulling off a slick dodge cartwheel or by holding down either of the two attack buttons. 9S' own skill with a sword makes him a substantial AI-controlled contributor, and his ability to keep up with 2B make the battles look positively frenzied. Given the demanding yet rewarding high-dexterity combat and the acrobatic skills of 2B, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that Automata is the closest thing there is to a spiritual successor to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, also developed by Platinum.
You're expected to use tools and techniques beyond the two main attack inputs if you have any hope of victory in ever encounter. Your pod companion--which echoes Grimoire Weiss, the floating book from the first Nier--provides you with various forms of support. Not only does the pod provide you with a sustained ranged attack, it's another outlet for personalizing your approach to combat. You can swap in a wide variety of passive performance enhancing chips, that provide you with stat buffs and helpful automated commands. Relying on your pod to automatically use one of your health items when your HP drops below a certain point makes healing one less thing to worry about. Your pod allows you to focus on other survival concerns, like kicking ass and looking good in the process.
Given the demanding yet rewarding high-dexterity combat and the acrobatic skills of 2B, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that Automata is the closest thing there is to a spiritual successor to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, also developed by Platinum.
If you ever run out of healing items and get murdered by enemy robot, however, you'll lose your experience points if you can't return to the point of your last death. This is similar to the style of difficulty popularized by Dark Souls with an additional risk of loss: along with the suspense of potentially losing experience you've earned since your last save, you can also lose all of your pod's installed chips, with the exception of the mandatory operating system chip.
While Automata resoundingly delivers that specific flavor of stylish combat found in Platinum's best works, it never overshadows Taro's distinct directorial handiwork and penchant for unconventional game and narrative design. It's the type of production that seamlessly blends story, hack-and-slash combat, and--believe it or not--an engaging bullet-hell shooter component. You don't question the infantile behaviors of many of the enemy robots because they're so darn endearing. And you don't get an explanation for 2B's cosplay-ready gothic lolita outfits, how she manages to move smoothly through a desert in heels, or why some of her comrades behave like self-involved teenagers. You just go along with it because of Automata's captivating world and involving battles.
Taro's unorthodox approach to game design is best exemplified by Automata's multiple endings and the varying degrees of substance in those conclusions. He's not above novelty or gag endings, though the real rewards are the five major endings and the various journeys to each one. You don't get the complete picture until you reach those five endings. As you travel down these various paths, you're not only introduced to new events, but also given new perspectives to moments you've already experienced. Your forward progress isn't propelled by the mere compulsion to achieve 100% completion; you're simply pulled by curiosity to learn more about what happened to Earth and humanity.
Thanks to Platinum Games' knack for riveting and gratifying combat, Automata is Yoko Taro's most exciting game to date. The combat mechanics click after hurdling a low learning curve, and the end result is a skillful dance where balletic dodges complement wushu-inspired aggression. Moreover, this multi-ending trip is generously peppered with surprises and revelations, as well as easter eggs that call back to the first game and the Drakengard series from which Nier spun off. It's a meaty, often exhilarating trek that showcases Platinum Games' and Yoko Taro's unique blend of genius.
Editor's note: Nier: Automata has released on Xbox One as the Become As Gods Edition, which includes the 3C3C1D119440927 DLC along with several cosmetic items for the main characters and pods. We tested the new Xbox One version by playing through the first three hours of the game, and it runs at a stable frame rate at 4K on the Xbox One X. Most importantly, everything we love about Nier: Automata is, of course, still here: the evocative soundtrack, unique narrative style, and affecting story are as strong as ever. We have updated the score to include the Xbox One version. - June 26, 8:00 PM PT
Warning: This review contains minor spoilers for Life Is Strange and The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit
The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is a short Life is Strange episode set before the upcoming Life Is Strange 2, and it doesn't cost a cent to download and play. A cynic might call it a simple act of marketing, a demo to whet our appetites. But Captain Spirit feels like much more than that, despite sticking to a single location and ending pretty quickly. It's more like the Ground Zeroes to Life is Strange 2's The Phantom Pain: it hints towards what the next series might be like, with a nice visual upgrade and a few new mechanics, but it also feels whole as it is. From the moment Sufjan Stevens' haunting, gorgeous track "Death with Dignity" kicked in over the opening montage, I was hooked on The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit. It is a beautiful game.
Captain Spirit is the playful superhero alter-ego of Chris Eriksen, a young boy with a love of comics, an untarnished sense of childlike wonder, and a bubbling inner turmoil and grief that rarely cracks the surface. Chris lives alone with his dad, Charles, a former basketball star whose life has been on a downward trajectory for years. The pair live alone in a drab, cheaply built house on the outskirts of Beaver Creek. Chris' mother died some time ago, and without getting into the specifics, there are parallels to Chloe's situation in the original Life is Strange. It's odd to see Captain Spirit dipping so explicitly into that same emotional well, because otherwise, it is very much its own thing, despite a few interesting links to the original game for eagle-eyed players to find and speculate on.
The game--which runs for maybe three hours if you're a completionist, but can be sped through much faster--takes place across a single Saturday morning. It opens, charmingly, with Chris doodling a superhero costume, giddy at the prospect of having a full day to play. It's up to you how you want to spend that Saturday. Most of the objectives in the game are strictly optional, and you can "finish" the game having completed very few of them, but Chris' stated desire is to go on various adventures as Captain Spirit. These range from the mundane to the fantastical--Captain Spirit needs to throw snowballs at beer bottles to improve his aim and play with all his toys to "check in" on them, but he also needs to assemble the parts of his costume to go on bigger adventures, like defeating the Snowmonger (an evil-looking snowman), and the water-hoarding "monster" in his home (a malfunctioning water heater). There's a whole mythology to Chris' games and fantasies, and they're a delight to dig into.
Mechanically, completing these objectives boils down to standard adventure game puzzling. You travel around the interior and yard of the Eriksen house, building up your inventory and figuring out how to solve numerous puzzles. In fact, Captain Spirit is far more of a classical adventure game than many titles in the genre have been since Telltale's The Walking Dead, and it's all the better for it. The puzzles, while rarely challenging, have a nice sense of logic and order to them that make them satisfying.
Chris is a great character, too. He's a believably childlike 10-year-old, which is rare not just in games, but in any media. He's dealing with a difficult life as best he can, and succeeds as a sympathetic figure. He also has a powerful imagination, which sometimes sends him off into fantasy sequences as he does battle with Captain Spirit's "enemies." These are cutscenes rather than playable sections, but they're visually inventive and fun nevertheless, working as metaphors for Chris' grief and fears, and they give some insight into how the boy's mind works. The game is also beautifully coy about whether Chris has any sort of power akin to Max's ability to rewind time in the first game. The line is cleverly blurred, as Chris is often shown performing what looks to be telekinesis only for a pullback to reveal that it was something much more mundane--a remote control nestled in his concealed hand when he turns the TV on with his "mind," to give one example. But there's a strong hint that there's more to it than what we see. Charmingly, these moments--and the fantasy sequences--are labeled as "hero" choices, which can be triggered when Chris wants to do something befitting of a hero.
Between these moments of imagined bravado, you'll be pulled right back to earth when you're hunting through boxes and finding letters and drawings by Chris' mother, or finding things his dad didn't want him to see. Captain Spirit is surprisingly moving, and the aforementioned Sufjan Stevens track is used a few times to devastating effect. I ended up playing through Captain Spirit three times to test out all the different dialog options, and while I couldn't affect truly significant change--the ending was the same each time--picking away at the game and finding everything hidden in it was a satisfying experience.
While Chris enjoys his morning, his dad sits on the couch watching basketball and drinking, occasionally giving compliments or barking orders as his mood--and his level of sobriety--shifts. Without, again, spoiling the specifics, Charles is a fundamentally bad dad, a heavy drinker with a violent streak that, one can surmise, is getting worse over time. We see him through his son's eyes, though, and the naivety of Chris--who only sees the efforts of his father and is too young to fully comprehend how bad things have gotten--is heartbreaking. At a few points in the game, you can discover nice things Charles has planned for his son, and Chris is very vocal about how much he loves his father.
The first Life is Strange often went quite broad with characters, especially when you first met them, but there was an underlying complexity to them. This is even truer here and the important thing with Charles, at least in this short episode, is that he's a more complex figure than an outright monster--however, it never feels like the writers are excusing how awful he's being. This is a hard line to walk, but the game successfully condemns the man in a realistic way, acknowledging that abusers with some humanity are still, at their core, abusers. The script is tight too, with dialog that is free of dated terms or incongruities. A few exchanges start to sound stilted once you've played through multiple times and have a sense of how all the pieces fit together, but that's perhaps unavoidable.
Life is Strange gained a huge cult following, and whether you're a veteran or a newcomer, Captain Spirit captures a lot of the original game's appeal. Regardless of how you classify The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit--whether it's a standalone adventure, a demo, or a prologue--it's a beautiful game, and one that leaves you all the more excited about Life is Strange 2.
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