Marvel Cosmic Invasion (Multi) Review

Let's hit the ground running--or in the case of some of our superheroes in this next game, let's hit the sky flying--with our first review of February. Marvel Cosmic Invasion launched on pretty much every current platform under the stars this past December. Now, we're going to take on villain Annihilus ourselves and the game proper with this, the SuperPhillip Central review!

The Marvel Universe calls for help. Will you pick up and answer?

What do you when a cosmic entity known as Annihilus launches an Annihilation Wave throughout the universe? You call up some of Marvel's finest superheroes (and some lesser known ones, too) to tackle the problem. And thus, Marvel Cosmic Invasion's action commences, set across a multitude of stages spanning myriad familiar locales in Marvel lore, featuring dozens upon dozens of Marvel legends and characters, and all this with a stunning pixelated art style that is smooth, colorful, crisp, and gorgeous to gawk at. Combined with voiced dialogue and a Tee Lopes-composed soundtrack fitting for the Marvel universe on the sound side of the presentation spectrum, and you have a seriously impressive package with this beat-em-up. 

Marvel Cosmic Invasion features 15 playable characters to choose from. There are your tried and true roster selections like Iron Man, Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine, and Black Panther, but there also some deeper cuts as well, such as Beta Ray Bill, Cosmic Ghost Rider, and Phyla-Vell. No two heroes play alike--which for a game with that previously talked about roster of 15 characters, that's no small feat. Between their different methods and means they move to their abilities in combat, it makes it so there's seldom any semblance of sameness between characters on the roster. 

The first level, the infested streets and alleyways of New York City give you ample time to get into the swing of things with the game's unique systems.

Let's take Captain America and Beta Ray Ben, for instance. Both characters can throw a projectile outwards--Captain America's shield and Beta Ray Ben's hammer. While Captain America's shield gets thrown and then returns to him immediately, Ben's mighty hammer can spin stationary in the air for a limited amount of time while taking out enemies in the process, as Ben bashes baddies up close and personal in the meantime. Then, there are characters with different defensive capabilities. Whereas Spider-Man does nimble flips to avoid attacks, Phyla-Vell can block and even counter attacks instead. 

As characters are used, they level up in skills, power, and abilities--up to level 10 for each character. You might not be able to parry and counter attacks as the aforementioned Phyla-Vell right away, but as she gains levels, that ability eventually becomes available. Interestingly though, it seemed that levels mostly came less from time dedicated to a hero and how many enemies were defeated, and more from getting hit combos. The bigger your highest hit combo amount is at the end of a level, the more experience characters appear to get, which seems a tad counterintuitive.

Iron Man is here to bash down bugs and make one-liners, and he's all out of one-liners to make!

At any rate, aside from heroes having their own experience levels, each hero also possesses a special of sorts, which can be used when their focus gauge is fully charged. This is especially excellent for clearing screens of enemies or otherwise crowd control. Wolverine launches a series of furious slashes with his Adamantium claws, Storm unleashes lightning strikes all around her, Iron Man grabs a high-powered cannon and fires a huge energy beam at foes across from him, and Cosmic Ghost Rider speeds across the screen on his motorcycle, taking out any enemy in his path. That's just naming a handful of superhero specials. 

There's little in a beat-em-up more satisfying than clearing a screen full of enemies with one attack.

There are also tag-team moves a la Marvel vs. Capcom, that summon your hero's teammate to initiate a quick attack before hopping back out of the action. These combo attacks and especially the special strikes available add even more offensive and defensive variety into the equation. And while characters do possess distinct differences in movement and combat capabilities, it's not too difficult to hop between any character and readily begin beating up and bashing baddies. It certainly doesn't take the levels of mastery of, say, a fighting game. 

Teamwork powers.. activate!

No, this is pure beat-em-up goodness in Marvel Cosmic Invasion. You select two heroes to start a given mission, and you can switch between the two on the fly at pretty much any time--though if one loses all their health, then you're limited to just the one. Fortunately, beat-em-up staples like food found on the ground can not only heal the current character selected, but also bring back your knocked out other character. 

Levels mostly play out in a linear fashion. Occasionally you'll stumble upon a split on the stage selection screen where you can choose one of two levels to tackle first before going after the other. Levels themselves in Marvel Cosmic Invasion offer plenty of unique locales such as Spider-Man's swinging grounds of New York City, Thor's home of Asgard, and also the parallel dimension that is the Negative Zone. Some of these require modest amounts of platforming (or simply flying over, if your hero has that ability) to progress, but the main name of the game is emptying screens of enemies by beating them up to advance. Levels do a decent enough job of maintaining different hazards and threats to avoid, from stampeding dinosaurs to foreground assaults by Galactus who towers over the stage in the background. 

Levels present enough interesting hazards and challenges to take on and persevere against.

Much like Tribute Games's previous brawler (and a game I absolutely adored), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, each of the game's 16 levels contains three challenges to optionally take on for rewards. These range from defeating enemies with a specific character's ability, avoiding taking damage from certain stage hazards, and beating bosses as a given character. There are also hidden collectibles--one transparent cube of sorts in each stage--to keep your eyes on the lookout for. These add to the replay value of the game--much needed as most beat-em-ups lack a large level of longevity.

Speaking of bosses, Marvel Cosmic Invasion will have our heroes battling a wide range of familiar foes within Marvel's gallery of baddies. From Spider-Man villain Beetle in the opening Manhattan stage, to the green pterodactyl Sauron in the Savage Land, these fights aren't too taxing, but they do present unique mechanics here and there. Such as the Wakanda level, where dealing damage to the boss can only be done once he's in a vulnerable state. This is performed by hitting an electric field while the boss is in its vicinity.

The first boss of the game is a bug-possessed Beetle. Crime didn't pay, huh, Abner?

Whereas the boss variety and their attack abilities are varied, the enemy variety is somewhat the opposite. You face a fair number of different foes throughout the game, but Marvel Cosmic Invasion quickly repeats them enough across its various stages that a feeling of familiarity and repetition comes to fruition. This isn't a major problem by any means, as they're usually fodder for your heroes' fists and superpowers anyway. 

Like any worthwhile modern beat-em-up, Marvel Cosmic Invasion features co-operative play locally as well as online. Up to four players using two characters apiece can set their sights on saving the universe together. No doubt co-op is a fabulous way of extending one's enjoyment of the game, but it also makes for an easier more enjoyable go of things, as well. For online, you can make public or private lobbies, invite friends, jump in and out at your leisure, and join sessions in progress, too. It all works well enough, overall--though some issues with punches seemingly hitting enemies late was present in one online run. Nothing that spoiled the experience, however, between the lobby. And even with a full lobby of four players, sometimes containing up to eight heroes on screen at once, and a multitude of enemies, the action never slowed down or was too difficult to follow either.

Play co-operatively with two players or turn up the carnage (in a good way) with up to four!

Marvel Cosmic Invasion is standard fare in the length department for a beat-em-up, taking about an hour-thirty to two hours to run through initially. Throwing in leveling up all characters to max level, finding all Cosmic Cubes, and especially completing each stages' challenges will beef up the runtime, however, considerably. What is a two-hour game can easily multiply to a ten-hour one. Not bad for a beat-em-up! That's not even considering the multiplayer mayhem available, offering plenty of fun to be found.

As someone who has less fandom for Marvel than he does the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I didn't always know or appreciate what characters, locales, or references Cosmic Invasion was throwing at me. That said, I can assure that those hooked to Marvel Comics, the movies, and the lore throughout will have lots to love about this game. If you're a fan of beat-em-ups, then that's even a bigger plus! From the impressive amount of unique moves and abilities each playable character possesses, to how great the actual "beating 'em up" feels between attacks having a right amount of "punch" to them, to the superb art style and presentation, Marvel Cosmic Invasion delights. Whether you're a Marvel fan or no, this beat-em-up will have you coming back for more time and again. So, what are you waiting for--the universe won't stop Annihilus itself! 

[SPC Says: B] 

Review Round-Up - January 2026

Whether it was a big gorilla with Donkey Kong Bananza or big hops with... well, Big Hops,
there was a lot of fun 3D platforming to be found this past month! 

Did you know and can you believe it's been nearly five years since we've last done a Review Round-Up on SuperPhillip Central?! It's true! I'm not one to make up for lost time, but there's been just enough in the way of reviews on the blog this January that we can take a fond look back at the month that was.

The year started off strong on SuperPhillip Central with one heck of a block party in quite the literal sense with LEGO Party!, celebrating its way to a B+. From there, the first of two Sonic the Hedgehog reviews, perfect to do our own kind of celebrating of his 35th anniversary, was Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, racing around at the speed of sound with an A-. 

It went all downhill from there--but that was a good thing--with a perfect winter-themed snowboarding sensation, SSX 3, as a retro review. It slid down the slopes superbly with a B+ grade. 

From there, a pair of 3D platformers, one indie and one decidedly NOT-so-indie, took center stage on SPC with Big Hops and Donkey Kong Bananza respectively. The indie effort earned a super respectable B- with some bugs and glitches needing to be ironed out, while Nintendo's big banana of a first-party, single-player game this year scored an A, making it our Game of the Month.

Finally, not all of our games reviewed this month made the grade. Sonic Heroes disappointed me upon a modern look at the game, over 20 years since I last played it. It stumbled a bit in its red and white sneakers with a D+.

It's starting to all come back to me with these Review Round-Ups! Last but not least, I would be amiss if I didn't remind you about the SPC Review Archive where every review posted in this blog's nearly 18 year history resides... for better or worse (some of those early reviews are ROUGH). 

LEGO Party (Multi) - B+

I'm surprised by how much I absolutely enjoyed LEGO Party. The developers really did a fantastic job with this party game, offering mostly well-crafted boards with relatively fast paced rounds (not looking at you, Space Zone), a colorful and creative collection of mini-games (some stinkers notwithstanding), and plentiful amounts of charm thrown in as well, with that latter part being expected from a LEGO game. The developers are also listening to feedback within the community, such as adding bonus Golden Bricks at the end of games, something that LEGO Party lacked by the time I finished up the Platinum trophy on the game a month ago. All this, plus a budget price, deliver a party worth having for any kind of player, young/old, casual/hardcore, and so forth.

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (Multi) - A-

Overall, the addition of CrossWorlds definitely keeps races feeling fresh and somewhat unpredictable, and I'd love to see more added down the road. SEGA and Sonic Team both seem committed to keeping up with updates and bringing more goodies to the game, which is fantastic to see after Team Sonic Racing. They have an incredibly good thing going here with the base Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds package--plenty to love, some minor frustrations, but mostly all positives. It feels great to control, it gives Sonic fans copious amounts of way past cool callbacks, and it's got a ton of love and energy under its hood. 

SSX 3 (PS2, GCN, XBX) - B+

...this third entry is one hell of a snowboarding package, both overwhelming in positive and negative ways, but well worth playing for any extreme sports enthusiast or just gaming fan who wants a proper challenge and enjoyable snowboarding title to play. 

Big Hops (Multi) - B- 

When it comes down to it, Big Hops nails the most important aspect of a 3D platformer--its movement is fast, fluid, fun, and feels right. Everything else is gravy, really, and while some of it fares better than other parts, overall, Hop's first adventure shows a stellar amount of understanding of what makes a modern 3D platformer enjoyable: with its remarkably tight controls, genuinely delightful level design, and mostly impressive presentation.

Donkey Kong Bananza (NS2) - A

While minor frame-rate issues and most of the boss battles being rather breezy might make for some modest moaning from myself, those complaints are quickly diminished by the absolute amount of fun that Bananza delivered in banana bunches to me. This 20 hour epic is one that constantly escalates the action, and keeps it going through the finale and beyond. Donkey Kong Bananza delights and delivers a 3D action-platformer that offers enough open-ended design to kick some serious potassium. 

Sonic Heroes (PS2, GCN, XBX) - D+ 

...the positives about Sonic Heroes--the level design, the colorful visuals, and superb soundtrack--greatly are betrayed by the game's poor controls, obnoxious mission design with Team Chaotix, abhorrent boss battles, awful camera, and glitches aplenty. Even despite all of these negatives, I did enjoy rolling around at the speed of sound, flying high, and throwing my weight around with this cast of 12 playable characters. Does that make Sonic Heroes an enjoyable game overall? Absolutely not. 

SPC reminded itself to take the good with the bad, particularly with the Blue Blur this month 
as we looked at both Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and Sonic Heroes.

Sonic Heroes (PS2, GCN, XBX) Retro Review

This marks the 35th anniversary of the Blue Blur himself, Sonic the Hedgehog. At SuperPhillip Central we're going to look back at all facets of the fastest hedgehog alive, both good and bad. We partook in the good with Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds earlier this month. Unexpectedly, and against memories from my youth, now we're going to be looking at the bad with Sonic Heroes. 

What goes up, must come down. And wow, does it come down hard!

Sonic Heroes originally released on the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox back in 2003. I remember being incredibly hyped after coming off of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, greatly enjoying that GameCube release, and then feverishly pouring play after play of the first level of Sonic Heroes as part of a bonus demo disc released alongside some copies of Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. Then, the game came out, and I actually ended up enjoying it.

That said, my gaming habits and preferences have decidedly changed since 2003. For one, I was in high school then, and had so much more free time and patience in general. As an adult, I definitely have much less of both to dedicate to games that try said patience. Sonic Heroes is one of those games nowadays, and it's an unfortunate reminder that nostalgia can blind. What one might have considered a fantastic game back in the day, or one worth challenging themselves to overcome, nowadays is an effort of utter frustration. 

Sonic Heroes is a unique game in the 3D line of Sonic the Hedgehog games, as it features teams of characters running, jumping, and otherwise moving through the game's 14 stages. There are four trios in all: Team Sonic (Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles), Team Dark (Shadow, Rouge, and Omega), Team Rose (Amy, Cream, and Big), and Team Chaotix (Vector, Espio, and Charmy), the latter of whom returned after last being seen all the way back in Knuckles Chaotix on the SEGA 32X. 

While Team Sonic and Team Rose are like Seaside Hill Zone, great for beginners and getting their feet wet...

Each team has their own story set of stages to play through, though the stages have similar designs with some changes here and there across all campaigns. Whereas Team Rose features shortened stages and even a tutorial level at the beginning of their story, Team Dark is more focused for veterans of the game, containing longer, more difficult stages with more tricks and traps to watch for and persevere against. Meanwhile, Team Sonic is your "standard" difficulty, while Team Chaotix is a mishmash between Team Sonic and Team Dark. Team Chaotix's story stages all tend to have a specific mission to complete: whether that's finding 10 hermit crabs in the opening Seaside Hill Zone, or defeating three specific gold-shelled turtles in the Power Plant Zone.

...Team Dark and Team Chaotix's stories are better left for later playthroughs, as the levels can be long and unforgiving.

It's recommended to start with Team Rose or Team Sonic to get your speed sneakers wet and obtain a taste of what you're in for with Sonic Heroes. Playing each team's story means 14 zones with seven boss battles interspersed after every two zones for a total of 21 per team. Multiply that by four, and you get a general idea of what awaits. Unfortunately, each level strikes a resemblance to other teams' levels, so it can feel like a lot of retreading and repetition. You can't play the final story featuring all four teams without playing through and completing each teams' story mode. This took me about 12 hours to do all in total.

If the idea of three characters bantering back and forth for most of each level 
doesn't sound like hell to you, then Sonic Heroes might be worth checking out.

As for the overall story, each team has their own reasons and motivations for setting out for adventure. Whereas Team Sonic gets a letter from Eggman revealing a three-day plot to rule the world, Team Rose has each member wanting to track someone down: whether it's an amphibious friend suitably named Froggy for Big the Cat, a missing Chao for Cream the Rabbit, or simply Amy's fixation, Sonic and his love. Across each story campaign, the characters occasionally cross over, but seeing as boss battles are the same, just with different dialogue, it can be confusing to try to keep up with any kind of a cohesive, canon plot since some of the stories have conflicting, contradictory elements with others. Eh, it's a Sonic game, so I won't rack my brain over it.

"Froggy?" No, this one's unfortunately a little too large, Big...

When getting to the game itself, Sonic Heroes takes the formula and foundation of Sonic Adventure and its sequel and attempts to expand upon it. Innovative is the team-based mechanic, having players press one of the top face buttons to switch between the two other characters on the fly. Speaking of which, each of the characters in each trio conveniently enough has their own ability type. For instance, Sonic is speed-based, Tails is flying-based, and Knuckles is power-based. Thankfully, most of the guesswork is eliminated in needing knowledge for what character to use at a specific moment in a level, as helpful floating monitors with words like "Speed", "Fly" and "Power" readily indicate the best character type to utilize. 

Speed characters like Sonic, Shadow, Amy Rose, and Espio have the fastest running capabilities, can generally homing attack from enemy to enemy, and also sport the ability to create a tornado, used to remove shields and other defenses from foes, as well as spin up special poles. Meanwhile, Flight characters like Tails, Rouge, Cream, and Charmy understandably can fly, though for limited amounts of time before running out of stamina, dropping to the ground without any momentum left over whatsoever (which screwed me over plenty of times), and can also throw their teammates at other enemies from afar. Lastly, Power characters in the vein of Knuckles, Omega, Big, and Vector are great for busting through walls, blocks, and swarms of shielded enemies with relative ease. You can also hold the jump button to have the characters tag up with a Power character to ride up wind shafts and hover across gaps.

The bigger they are, the more throws it takes from Vector to beat 'em.

Throughout stages are colorful orbs, either in blue, yellow, or red quantities (for Speed, Fly, and Power characters respectively) that not only add to the player's score at the end of levels, but also boost that given character type's abilities. Throwing your teammates as Tails against foes generally just stuns the enemy, but getting two yellow orbs will level up Tails' throw to deal damage. Each enemy has a health gauge, showing a number beside it (its HP). Some foes, like more powerful baddies and also the godawful bosses, possess high HP, requiring you to whittle away at them. Usually best saved for a Power character. 

Finally, as rings--the livelihood of all teams, as if they get hit with at least one ring stored, they won't die--are collected and enemies are vanquished, a gauge for screen-clearing attack using all three teammates known as a Team Blast fills up and can eventually be used. For each team, this Team Blast shows a unique animation as well as a bonus. For Team Rose, an activated Team Blast will give the team invincibility for several seconds, while Team Dark's Team Blast will freeze everything on screen, including the timer, while Shadow, Rouge, and Omega can run around freely during all this. 

After seeing Team Blast animations like this one ad nauseum, I decidedly won't be checking out your record, Team Chaotix.

Levels in Sonic Heroes essentially follow the classic 2D Sonic games approach in design. And I don't just mean in the "two acts per themed locale then a boss battle" approach, either. No, these levels tend to feature plenty of alternate paths, with the higher paths being the most challenging to stay on, but also the fastest way to skip parts of stages entirely. Not every level is full of these, with Rail Canyon, for instance, having a more linear design with less in the way of detours--but something like the opening Seaside Hill and Ocean Palace possess a plethora of paths to take and uncover. 

...And here we go!

I feel the level design in Sonic Heroes is pretty commendable, honestly. There's lots of secrets, lots of hidden-away elements and pathways, and well thought-out concepts. Unfortunately, it's the actual gameplay that sort of betrays the competent level design. So many set pieces that are meant to be cool in both spectacle and fun, in theory, occasionally just don't play well in execution. Seemingly automated sections of stages more often than I'd care to have happen, resulted in my team jerking out of the path, falling into the abyss. Oh, and how each team seemingly LOVES to fall off levels. It's the number one way I died without question in Sonic Heroes. Between homing attacks that wouldn't register properly on enemies, the slippery feel of characters sliding off stages, and camera issues, deaths by pit was the number one way hedgehogs perished in 2003. ...I believe I remember seeing that statistic in National Geographic back in the day...

At any rate, the camera is a constant problem throughout the adventure, oftentimes resulting in less than ideal viewpoints. I felt like maybe one of the Eggrobos might have been controlling the camera as a means to mess my teams over, like a corrupted version of Lakitu in Super Mario 64. More of a hindrance than a help! 

This extends to the absolutely awful boss battles that infest the game. Here, the boss is public enemy number two, right behind the camera and other gameplay quirks of Sonic Heroes. The hit detection is off the charts in being bad, homing attacks, and just any attack that hones in on a foe usually goes after the wrong target, oftentimes ending in a premature and anger-inducing death. Plenty of times I got stun-locked where my characters were flat on their backs, given just enough invincibility frames to stand up, and then get attacked again. This occurs especially in the "Team Battles" where two teams from the story take on each other. These basically end up being battles of mashing the attack buttons to win. It's random, sure, but so is actually attempting to play them seriously and how they're how ever "meant" to be played. 

I'm having flashbacks of an unsettling variety just by glancing at this screenshot!

While it can be tempting at first to play Sonic Heroes as a score attack game, earning coveted "A" ranks from scoring high, beating levels with a fast timer completion, all without dying--it's simply not worth the aggravation. You're playing a Russian Roulette of "which glitch or gameplay quirk will potentially screw over your run" each time you play a level or boss battle in Sonic Heroes. Seeing as stages, especially with Team Dark, can take upwards of ten minutes just to beat, it's just not something I want to do nowadays. In 2003, I do remember getting all emblems from beating every level, clearing every post-game challenge (like clearing levels in a limited amount of time as Team Sonic, or collecting a set amount of rings as Team Rose), and obtaining every score-based "A" rank, and all I got for it to my incredibly diminished excitement was a super hard mode and some lame competitive multiplayer options. 

Each character type has a different formation the other team members get into.

Outside of glitches both technical and in gameplay, Sonic Heroes remains a relatively good looking game to this day. The zones definitely have that Sonic feel and look to them--colorful, vibrant, and it's something I definitely appreciate--something much more than Sonic Frontiers' drab and dreary approach to its art style (not to say Frontiers is objectively bad there or as a game). Meanwhile, the soundtrack is full of awesome rock tunes, and honestly, even with the cheese factor dialed up to 11 with some of the lyrical tracks, Sonic Heroes remains one of my favorite Sonic soundtracks even in 2026. The voice acting and cutscene direction are all over the place, offering lots of characters enjoying talking over each other or not giving each other enough pauses, and the audio balance is up and down as well. It was standard fare for Sonic games of that era, for sure. 

My fondness for Sonic the Hedgehog as a character and series remains to this day, despite replaying games like Sonic Heroes. Ideally, I would have started this celebration of Sonic's 35th anniversary on a higher note. Well, technically, I did with Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds earlier in the month! That said, the positives about Sonic Heroes--the level design, the colorful visuals, and superb soundtrack--greatly are betrayed by the game's poor controls, obnoxious mission design with Team Chaotix, abhorrent boss battles, awful camera, and glitches aplenty. Even despite all of these negatives, I did enjoy rolling around at the speed of sound, flying high, and throwing my weight around with this cast of 12 playable characters. Does that make Sonic Heroes an enjoyable game overall? Absolutely not. 

[SPC Says: D+] 

Donkey Kong Bananza (NS2) Review

We move from one 3D platformer from an indie to a 3D platformer that is decidedly NOT an indie: Nintendo! Donkey Kong Bananza swung onto the Nintendo Switch 2 last June, but of course in true SuperPhillip Central fashion, I'm not getting to reviewing this game until the following January. 

Kept you waiting, huh? Regardless, no time like the present, better late than never, and any other cliche you can think of aside, we have a new review to get to, so let's banana slam it! 

Ooooooooh, Bananza~!

If you're like me--and as always, God help you if you are--you might have been expecting a new 3D Mario released close to, or along with the Nintendo Switch 2. But if you're also like me, then you realize that one should always expect the unexpected when it comes to Nintendo. That doesn't just ring true for the company's games, but also its release strategies as well. 

That said, what we've ended up with instead is an utter delight. Not only is Donkey Kong back in the limelight in a big way with a brand-new 3D platformer, but it's one from Nintendo's top team at EAD. Donkey Kong Bananza takes Nintendo's grand gorilla on a fantastic deep dive--literally--through magnificent worlds to explore and packs a mighty massive punch too in the process. Methinks Mario can wait!

Donkey Kong Bananza sees DK with his glorious new design as first seen in Mario Kart World, teaming up with a young, precocious Pauline. Legend says that deep in the planet's core is a root that will grant the wishes of anyone that lays claim to it. Pauline wishes to return to the surface where she can have her dream come true of becoming a singer, while Donkey Kong, of course, dreams of bananas and nothing more. Of course, it's easier said than done, as a group of villainous Kongs under the Void Company stands in their way, obstructing them at every opportunity that they get. 

Donkey Kong is back and more expressive than ever before!

The story is relatively light when all is said and done, but when it comes into full swing, it definitely delivers. The character development of Pauline is a highlight, as she's understandably visually and audibly timid and nervous around a massive thousand-pound gorilla through the first quarter or so of the game. As she opens up and gets more comfortable around DK, her excitement and ability to let loose and get gung-ho shines through. It's a nice touch that more importantly feels natural as opposed to feeling forced. 

The world of Donkey Kong Bananza is your oyster. Well, technically, it's less of an oyster and more of an onion since it has literal layers and sub-layers that form the levels of the game. At any rate, these layers show off one of the most impressive parts of Bananza--the amount of delightful, wanton destruction that DK can inflict on the environment. Punch a bunch as you please, DK, as he can smash swaths through rock, cement, and other materials to create makeshift pathways through levels. I was utterly astonished by the tech involved here--something that truly couldn't be done on Nintendo's Switch 1 without serious concessions to the design ethos of Bananza.

The locales known as layers are lovely to explore for goodies and meet new friends along the way.

It's not just mindlessly bashing and brawling your way through the environment, of course. Not all walls, floors, and ceilings are destructible. This is given an in-game story reason as Void Co. has deliberately turned specific materials as impossible to punch through. It also makes it so you can't just beat and bash your way everywhere through the game, completely disregarding the level and puzzle design within the environments. Sure, there are points where you can punch your way through soft walls to create a tunnel to a destination all by sheer force--and many times this is shrewdly highlighted by a telltale sign in the environment--but you can't simply bypass everything in a level for little reason.

DK gives a new definition to the term "mudding".

Truly, Donkey Kong Bananza feels like the next, natural evolution of the foundation that Nintendo EAD's previous work, Super Mario Odyssey, laid. You have your open, playground environments to explore and multiple collectibles to obtain--with the most important of which being that of Banandium Gems, giant crystallized bananas in single and banana bunch forms. Gems are ALL over the multitude of layers and sub-layers in Bananza--hiding in alcoves, earned from completing platforming and puzzle-based trials, entering obstacle course-centric Challenge Rooms, and battling bosses. These Gems serve the Power Moon role from Super Mario Odyssey. However, whereas Moons were merely abundant in quantity, essentially being required to progress to new kingdoms, the Banandium Gems are less needed for progression purposes and more for powering DK up. 

Donkey Kong and Banandium Gems go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Donkey Kong Bananza contains plenty of power-ups and abilities for DK in a skill menu of sorts. For every five single Banandium Gems collected (big bunches of five are usually earned after beating bosses or after a special story progression-based sequence), DK earns a skill point. Simpler skills require less skill points to spend, while the more useful abilities demand more points spent on them. These range from adding hearts to DK's health, expanding his radar range (when DK slams his palms to the ground, the nearby area shows hidden goodies like Banandium Gems and Fossils), supplying him with a further inventory of health-restoring juice, granting him the ability to plow through stronger surfaces, and also upgrades to his Bananza abilities. More on those in just a little bit!

Apart from Banandium Gems, there are Fossils to be found all throughout the landscape, walls, floors, ceilings--you name it. These can be spent at shops to purchase new costumes and outfits for DK and Pauline. Each costume piece, whether a pair of suspenders or a tie for DK, or a full fledged outfit for Pauline, grants different bonus benefits--whether allowing DK to stumble upon more random treasure chests when smashing through surfaces, greater affinity against hazards like lava so he takes less damage upon being burned, or granting DK longer Bananzas.

No doubt if you've yet to play this Switch 2 exclusive and have no concept of the game, then you might be wondering if the "Bananza" in the game's title is more than a clever play-on-words. Well, yes, it's much more than that, indeed! Throughout the game, Donkey Kong learns new transformations that take him from Goliath gorilla to caked-up Kong gorilla, speedy zebra, flying ostrich, among others. Whereas the Kong Bananza is terrific in utility for smashing the crud out of enemies and the environment quickly, something like the Zebra Bananza has more finesse required, as that form is fantastic for running across water as well as walkways that would otherwise have DK fall through as soon as he steps foot on them. 

Many challenges both platforming and puzzle task players with optimizing one's time with each transformation. Sometimes, you'll need to switch between forms on the fly (as easy as a tap of the D-Pad) to overcome trials and tribulations the game throws at you. Like with being able to pound through surfaces and the environment with ease to get where you want to go, a lot of the time with some ingenuity and a little strategy you can complete tasks and objectives by some creative use of these Bananza abilities and forms. That really speaks to how open ended the design of Donkey Kong Bananza is, really. You're seldom locked to a set in stone way of doing things. That said, you're also not able to just completely disregard the game's design, whether intended or unintended, either.

Each Bananza form gets its own theme song, sung by the incomparable Jenny Kidd as Pauline.

DK is worthwhile even without his Bananza forms, as well. He's freaking Donkey Kong, after all! His repertoire of moves is more impressive than ever before, but never overwhelming either. For example, take his ability of being able to rip chunks out directly from the ground. He can swing the chunk around to beat and bash baddies into submission, but he can also chuck the chunk to hit faraway switches or enemies. Even more interestingly, he can perform a Turf Surf, riding the chunk like a snowboard, using his massive mitts to pull the turf forward along the ground to keep his momentum going. Not only is this great for picking up speed and crossing expansive areas of the environment quickly, but it's also paramount for getting across hazard-laden ground, such as that of brambles, electricity, and more.

No, seriously. The Kong Bananza is caked up, for real!

These abilities are especially a big deal during the boss battles--especially the bashing, smashing, and otherwise destroying that DK does. Boss battles really show the might of Nintendo's main monkey, and instead of the typical "three hits and they're beaten" battles that Nintendo EAD generally likes to employ for their platformers, instead, bosses are bestowed with health bars. Bosses are beaten rather quickly and few truly felt overly tricky or challenging. It was mostly learning their moves, how to evade, when they're left open to attack, and bam! Punch-a-bunch party of two was ready to be seated. While most of the fights were fast and rather effortless, by no means were they anything less than fun. Of course, fights near the endgame as also post-game definitely put DK through the wringer, and certainly took me plenty of attempts to overcome. 

Most boss battles, especially early on, won't get you sweating too much, but eventually they do escalate in difficulty.

As for the layers--or levels--of Donkey Kong Bananza, these are extremely creative and full of secrets, challenges, and things to do. Some are larger and lengthier than others, as some do not possess sub-layers to speak of. Instead, they're merely what you see is what you get, being one area apiece. However, the more involved and decidedly more interesting layers feature lots of sub-layers, many times changing up the atmosphere and locale entirely. The Freezer Layer mostly takes place in a wintry wonderland home to the Zebra tribe, but deeper down in a sub-layer is a hot, scorching, lava-filled furnace that threatens to melt one's face off!

A view of winter in the Midwestern U.S. or the Freezer Layer? You be the judge.

VoidCo causes trouble wherever they go, and each layer requires DK and Pauline to right the wrongs, help out various characters through the kindness of their hearts, and beat down those aforementioned bosses standing out as progression points to advance the story.

Really, one can opt to make a beeline for the story, and merely progress from one plot point to another without scouring the levels for their massive amounts of collectibles. It makes the game more difficult, as a player wouldn't have the skill points to invest into making DK considerably stronger, but that is a nice option to have! I found a mix of exploration and progression to be great for me, as I discovered that attempting to nab every Banandium Gem and Fossil on each layer before moving onto the next was burning me out on the game. Heck, I took multiple breaks from Donkey Kong Bananza because of it--hence the tardiness of this review! That said, once I found a cadence that worked for me, Bananza became even more addicting to me than it was previously. Even still, being able to teleport to various fast travels points and layers quickly through the clever eel teleportation service known as "T-eel-eporting" made collectible cleanup much more manageable for me.

Look at that goofy grin! How can you NOT love Donkey Kong?

A helpful map, too--which in incredible fashion displays real-time damage of the environment and landscape--was a tremendous help in noting which Banandium Gems and Fossils were collected, which still needed finding, and scavenging for other goodies and points of interest. The ability to easily track your progress this way across each and every layer was super beneficial, something that Mario Kart World picked up on with a recent update, thankfully, too.

With Donkey Kong, Nintendo hasn't always pulled too much from DK's history, particularly the Rareware era. However, any fears that I or anyone else may have had with Donkey Kong Bananza are long gone. No, Nintendo made Bananza a celebration of all things Donkey Kong and his 40+ year history with odes to every era. From the opening area of the game, Ingot Isle, featuring the familiar pink girders from the original Donkey Kong arcade game, to specific 2.5D challenge rooms modeled after levels in Donkey Kong Country (especially one that perfectly captures the Bramble Blast-themed stages), DK's history is fondly encapsulated in this game. 

DK says "gay rights"!

And really, Donkey Kong Bananza stands tall, thumping its chest with both fists proudly, as a love letter to all aspects of this long-standing franchise. It takes the modern approach to its design while providing plenty of callbacks to not leave enthusiasts out in the cold. Everything from the colorful worlds that DK stomps around in, to the extremely expressive Donkey Kong himself and other characters like Pauline--it all looks absolutely masterful in animation, design, and presentation. Perhaps the only gripe I can find with Bananza is that of the frame-rate, offering steadiness most of the time, but slight drops do happen. That said, some minor concession with the frame-rate are a small price to pay for the amount of destruction in the environment--again, something that Switch 1 could not do without altering the design of the game considerably. 

He's the leader of the bunch for a reason, and he apparently also led Nintendo's first-party platforming efforts on its Switch 2 for a reason, too. It was a bit of a risk to have DK lead the charge on Nintendo's new system, but Donkey Kong Bananza gives the grand gorilla a fair shake, time in the spotlight, and successfully moves over Mario (even if briefly) from his usual starring role as the lead 3D platforming star for a Nintendo system. While minor frame-rate issues and most of the boss battles being rather breezy might make for some modest moaning from myself, those complaints are quickly diminished by the absolute amount of fun that Bananza delivered in banana bunches to me. This 20 hour epic is one that constantly escalates the action, and keeps it going through the finale and beyond. Donkey Kong Bananza delights and delivers a 3D action-platformer that offers enough open-ended design to kick some serious potassium. 

[SPC Says: A] 

Big Hops (Multi) Review

Let's put our snowboards away from last week, and prepare to get our tongues a good workout instead. Actually, let's leave the tongue-work for the hero of our next game review: Big Hops! For anyone who is familiar with this blog and its writer, you know I love a good 3D platformer. Heck, I sometimes even love a bad 3D platformer. I'll take what I can get nowadays!

Fortunately, Big Hops is the former, and this review, based on the vanilla PlayStation 5 version, is ready to be read! Let's hop to it!

 One giant leap for an indie developer, one big hop for frogkind.

The platformer, especially one in the 3D realm, is so difficult to nail. It doesn't matter if your game has incredible level design or the cutest platforming mascot around--if your game does not FEEL good to play, offer tight and responsive controls, then all of the clever design was for not. I've seen many games suffer this fate, and it's always a sad thing to think of "what might have been". Fortunately, Big Hops does not fall victim to this fate. Instead, it offers surprising fluid and fast platforming action, good feeling movement, and plenty of appreciate within its 8-12 hour runtime. While this frog certainly doesn't croak, does Big Hops offer enough of a "ribbiting" experience to stand as an indie darling and fondly thought of classic?

Big Hops begins with precocious young frog Hop hanging out with his little sister around their forest home. Hop yearns for adventure and getting out to see the world. He eventually stumbles upon a mysterious voice who turns out to be an ultimately annoying character named Diss, who grants Hop his request for adventure--whether our frog-tagonist likes it or not! In order to get home, Hop must venture through three unique biomes to find airship parts in each, all the while doing Diss' dirty work of acquiring otherworldly elements known as Dark Drips. 

Every story starts somewhere, and in Big Hops, it's here at Hop's home, the forest.

As the story progresses, the purpose as to why Diss wants these Dark Drips collected is revealed as the main overarching plot, while each of the three biomes delves into separate quests for Hop to collect each airship part. Really, some aspects of the story don't mesh well at all, and the inability to skip cutscenes completely when desired (instead, you have to mash a button to skip different dialogue individually) makes for its own headaches. That said, the dialogue itself, whether as part of the main plot or uttered by NPCs sprinkled about the game, is quite humorous at times, so it's worth listening to, all the same.

Big Hops isn't your standard 3D platformer. There's no direct combat to speak of, first of all, other than the two boss battles that appear through the duration of the game. Hop's only real enemy is the environment-- having Hop take damage from falling into pits, drowning, or getting hurt from fires, electricity, or thorns. 

What Hop lacks in true enemies, he makes up for in mobility and maneuverability. This frog does have big hops in him, as well as a nifty kit of other platforming skills. From being able to climb walls (as long as his stamina gauge has energy in it), run along them, jump and dive on the ground to gain momentum, and most notably, use his tongue to engage with the environment in myriad ways, Hop has a small repertoire, but chaining these together results in some speedy and super impressive platforming feats.

If you ask, "what that tongue do?", the answer would be, "Quite a lot!"

Hop's tongue, specifically, has a multitude of uses. It grants him the ability to interact with switches, buttons, and levers, asking of the player to pull away from them to flip them on or off. Like any tongue, it's also good for taste--eating food to replenish his health or stamina. Additionally, Hop's tongue is worthwhile for being able to grab onto floating red balls in the air, performing aerial acrobatics through swinging from them to cross chasms or reach new heights.

Ew! Hop, do you realize where that floating red ball might have been? How unsanitary!

Perhaps the most interesting mechanic within Big Hops in theory is that of various veggies. Throughout the game, Hop comes across plants with growing veggies that upon being grabbed and thrown has unique results. The first introduction to this is in the tutorial forest level, offering mushrooms that can be used as springs to bounce Hop up to higher places. There are acorns that grow beanstalks that are climbable, cactus fruit that let loose tightropes used to cross chasms and many otherwise insurmountable gaps, and also bubble fruit that burst open to reveal bubbles that Hop can pull himself towards with his tongue, enveloping himself in it to reach new areas.

There are various veggie types found in Big Hops, and some have more utility than others. For instance, the red peppers are hardly good for anything than burning up tumbleweed blocks. While others, like the mobility and platforming-focused veggies, offer much more in the way of capability, especially to those who experiment. This opens up the potential for solving platforming puzzles and challenges in different ways. With this mechanic, in combination with Hop's previously mentioned platforming abilities, it brings some emergent gameplay to Big Hops. 

The flow of Big Hops has you completing objectives across myriad environments and locales, furthering the story along. However, just following along with the story and completing the required tasks will make a given player miss a heck of a lot of the content within the game. It's very much worth scouring the game's multiple maps for special wares in the form of Dark Drips, the main collectible within the game, of which there are 100 total. These come in Super Mario 64 Power Star-styled goodies earned from completing platforming challenges in and out of the game's Super Mario Sunshine-like obstacle courses called Challenge Rooms, and assisting characters with their personal problems and dilemmas. You also earn Dark Drips from collecting enough smaller Drips scattered around the worlds that add up to form one big Dark Drip apiece. 

Whether in standard (seen here) or small sizes, Dark Drips are a good idea to nab in Big Hops!

Upon earning enough smaller Drips that a big piece is made, Hop can then find Diss in one of his many locations around the game in order to craft a new Trinket. These are equip-able patches that can be attached to Hop's backpack to grant various effects, from using up less stamina when climbing, allowing him more backpack space, granting Hop shop discounts or ways to earn more coins in general, to pinpointing the general direction of collectibles and points of interest to Hop's compass.

There is a fair amount of things to collect within Big Hops--the aforementioned Dark Drips, of course--but also things like bugs, mixtapes, flower petals, and outfits for Hop to become his inner frog fashionista. Unfortunately, one aspect that I don't exactly love about the game is that there is no broad or general collectible menu to see what worlds and areas in the game you have collected things in. Yes, there are collectible Trinkets that inform you of how many Dark Drips have been collected out of a certain amount, but you have to be physically within the area to see this info. With worlds containing up to a dozen different areas, you have to painstakingly visit each area across three worlds to determine which contains the last Dark Drip, missing mixtape, overlooked Challenge Room, etc. has not yet been found. Completionists will discover quickly how much of a genuine pain in the butt 100% completion in Big Hops truly is. 

Nice and steady, Hop, within this particular tightrope-heavy Challenge Room.

The unfortunate part here is that it was deliberately designed by the developer this way as to not create an overwhelming checklist for players, but I'd argue that the audience who plays a 3D platformer is one who aims for general completion or at least maximizing their enjoyment of collection. Thus, ironically, not including an in-game checklist is the thing that makes this game overwhelming in trying to blindly stumble upon missing collectibles!

My issues with Big Hops don't end there, unfortunately. While this has since been patched, my first playthrough on the PlayStation 5 version of the game started out well enough with stellar performance. However, as I went deeper into the game (let's say, after the first biome was completed), I encountered ungodly amounts of stuttering and hitching graphically, essentially resulting in noticeable and disruptive hitches every five seconds or less. Thankfully, this has been ironed out, but still happens, though at a drastically reduced rate--maybe once every minute or so, if even rarer. 

To continue with the technical issues, clipping and falling through floors and environments happened more often than I'd like. Weird little presentation quirks, like Hop literally passing through the airship entrance and walking from out the other side as the screen transitioned to the loading screen, or hitches between areas being loaded, reminded me that this was a small dev and a budgeted effort. 

Also, I found the tongue mechanic to be a bit clunky in execution to use. When two items or things of interest that can be latched or grabbed by Hop's tongue are in close proximity to each other, this can oftentimes result in the wrong thing being grabbed. While this is usually not a costly issue health-wise, it absolutely antagonizes when Hop is over a chasm, and instead of him latching onto a floating red ball to save himself, he inexplicably grabs onto something else (perhaps like something flying by in the air). Thus, the pit becomes Hop's new home. 

Hop says, "I'm the captain, now. ...So... How do I get down from here?"

Despite these niggling gripes and issues I found with the game, Big Hops delighted more often than its issues detracted from the experience. It delivers some clever puzzles, both platforming-based and environmental, some superb design in general, as well as both linear/focused levels and wide open areas of exploration to be found. Its vivid, vibrant art style and colorful cast (both visually and personality-wise) absolutely gave me plenty to look at and--in the case of the dialogue--laugh at, too. 

Big Hops is one visually stunning game, where the draw distance is phenomenal!

When it comes down to it, Big Hops nails the most important aspect of a 3D platformer--its movement is fast, fluid, fun, and feels right. Everything else is gravy, really, and while some of it fares better than other parts, overall, Hop's first adventure shows a stellar amount of understanding of what makes a modern 3D platformer enjoyable: with its remarkably tight controls, genuinely delightful level design, and mostly impressive presentation. If you're seeking out a new 3D platformer and don't know whether to try this one, my advice is to "hop" to it and simply do it.

[SPC Says: B-]