LogFAQs > #967507288

Pit - Kid Icarus: Uprising

Is it controversial at all to say the Kid Icarus games sucked before Uprising? Not even in a good for their time sense, either, just outright sucked. Long, vertical stages where half of the difficulty is that you drag the death plane up with you and can screw yourself by jumping to the wrong platforms, obtuse shopping and bonus mechanics that are neat when you understand them, but even Zelda 1 would call them wildly ambitious. Extensive labyrinths with constant trips back to the in-labyrinth hospital whenever you get turned into produce. When it turns into Gradius its pretty fun, but I have to play the whole game to get there. And Of Myths and Monsters was just that but slightly better, but with a smaller screen.

And then Uprising is the best game to ever cause me physical pain, and I hold Ring Fit Adventure in pretty high regard (its an RPG where your own physical fitness is your MP Bar, thats really clever!). While creating hand cramps way too easily, the Uprising control scheme is super intuitive, figuring out that proper balance between being able to aim and being able to dodge, allowing trickier patterns to be executed for both. Land battles are a tad less inspiring, merely being okay at a base, but the customization and flexibility given by the sheer number of powers and weapons makes changing up your gameplay style a breeze. It promotes both sticking with one weapon thats your tried and true favorite and switching things up constantly, leading to a wonderful sense of experimentation that stays juuuust fresh and varied enough to last through the entire game. And how they reinvented Pit? Oh, the kids an absolute delight. Unshakable optimism with just enough genre savviness to not fall into the simplest and dumbest writing pitfalls of his archetype, Pit knows hes an idiot, but fully believes hes on the right side and follows his moral compass undaunted by anything. Its a refreshing level of awareness for a protagonist, and lets him bounce off of the rest of the cast incredibly well. Absolutely fantastic revival of the character, what a turnaround from his humble beginnings.

Best Smash Appearance: Ultimate - Pits fine. He actually has some fantastic animations, the way his little arm-rings turn into his arrows of light are stupidly smooth for just having a few frames to sell the animation, and the way his blades and bow combine and separate into various moves is certainly a feat that no one will appreciate the team pulling off. And while his Smash 4 appearance is definitely greatly improved from HI-YI-YI-YAAH in Brawl it feels a bit limited? Pit gets the chance to fully remix his moveset with maybe the largest weapon arsenal available to a protag save for Link and Snake, and he settles for a shield to replace his shield and an uppercut that deflects projectiles from a magic ring that deflects projectiles. Hes not bad in any way, its just very clear a ton of work was done on his Brawl shell and the team didnt want to replace TOO much of what was there. But man, the POTENTIAL for a Pit moveset that isnt just multi-hits that only sometimes link into each other is tremendous. And like Dark Pit is right there. You can keep him as the legacy Pit just fine and make the main one experiment with all of the potential avenues he has to pursue. Arrows of Light are a surprisingly fun to control projectile (really good timing from when youre guiding them to when you regain control of Pit), but thats really all that stands out about Pit. And he could be so, so much more. Palutenas Guidance is fabulous, though, keep that going as long as possible. D+

Isaac - Golden Sun

This is gonna be more of an apology from me than anything. For years, I have thought very little of Golden Sun. Ive always viewed it as a generic little RPG with cute little 3D model sprites that harkened back to PS1-style RPGs and let the novelty of that style of game being replicated on a handheld carry it. I have always viewed it as an inferior game to Mario Golf: Advance Tour for the award of Best GBA Camelot RPG, and the idea of essentially selling Disc 2 as a separate game has always appalled me. So Isaac not getting into Smash was never something that bothered me, and honestly amused me at the time. But Im realizing thats really dumb behavior, so Id more like to ask; whats the appeal of Golden Sun? It still hold up? Because these days, I could use shorter-form RPGs, theyre neat. Anyway, Isaac in Smash is neat, way better of a push you around guy than Kyogre or whatever other Pokemon just shove you to death, theres at least some level of counterplay and creativity to Isaac. Weird that he doesnt have a move where he just mimics Master Hand, though; if youre gonna be the hands, might as well go all the way.

Pac-Man - Pac-Man Championship Edition DX

Look, I could talk about how Ms. Pac-Man is better because it was at the pizza place I grew up at and the higher speed made going back to the regular Pac-Man unplayable. I could talk about how Pac-Man World 2 is a decent 3D platformer that, at the very least, deserves to be remembered more fondly than stuff like Ty the Tasmanian Tiger or Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (those games are fine, Pac-Man World 2 is actually good). I could talk about how Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures is a nightmarish combination of Putt-Putt Saves The Zoos click on everything mentality, Lemmings lack of control as everything spirals to its death, and the slowly degrading hellscape of Takeshis Challenge making even the most basic of tasks an ordeal, creating something truly incredible. But that pales in comparison to going yeah the neon Pac-Man with the fancy gameplay mix-ups, remixed board and pellet patterns, and dreamscape-like presentation? Thats the one. Really, I have nothing to add to that. Its a perfectly zen experience with the highest caliber of tension that screams everything that makes Pac-Man good.

Best Smash Appearance: Ultimate -Im glad that instead of a horrible grab, they gave him a good grab, that was really nice. In any case, Pac-Man is just about as good as you can make a character with absolutely no character to him. He references being a pizza constantly so as to not be incredibly in-your-face with his less recognizable World design (that hes had for longer than he hasnt had it by now, but shush). He serves as a mascot for Namco as a whole by weaponizing its arsenal, with the ghosts being his Smash Attacks being particularly inspired. He hits all the notes youd want the character to while being as much of a company man as he could possibly be short of having an EWGF. Hed be absolutely fine and yeah, I guess he should be here if he wasnt so weirdly multi-faceted. Somehow, Pac-Mans weird grab bag of a moveset fits together, letting the guy put out just enough random distractions to pull out something special. The sheer flexibility that Bonus Fruit allows for means that he always gets some nutty set-ups, making for probably the most interesting item play character in the game. I do think that, if theyre gonna use the Pac-Man World design, he should probably have the Rev Roll or Butt Bounce somewhere in there, those games were beloved enough to deserve so much as a nod, but Pac-Man is a fascinating character to watch competitively, if only because theres some dirty shenanigans afoot. Fascinating way to make the guy more than the sum of his parts. A