Review Round-Up - June 2021

June 2021 saw a lot of great things for SuperPhillip Central--13 years online and our 1,000th review: Resident Evil Village!

What a month here at SuperPhillip Central for the month of June! It was a massive month on the site, as we celebrated our 13th anniversary, as well as the arrival of SPC's 1,000th review! While we're on the subject of reviews, let's take a look at all seven of the reviews published on the site for the month of June with the good, ol' Review Round-Up!

The month started out mellow enough with a wonderful photo expedition starring hundreds of cute, adorable, and amazing Pokémon in New Pokémon Snap, which earned a B+. Also earning a B+ but a decidedly less mellow experience was that of the Donkey Kong Country-inspired Kaze and the Wild Masks. From safaris and platforming escapades, we then took the ocean waves with King of Seas, which rocked the proverbial boat a little too much, getting a C- for its excessive grind and repetitive content. Another indie title quickly followed, Piczle Cells, and this short but sweet puzzler impressed, getting a C+.

What came after was what the review SPC has been teasing and hyping for months now, and it finally arrived--the 1,000th review! Resident Evil Village took the honor, and it wowed (and scared with its quality) with a stellar A grade. From there, we wrapped up the month with two platformers, one retro remake with Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World (which got a B-) and the Super Meat Boy-esque Super Magbot, which was quite the attractive game, getting a B.

Finally, for your convenience, check out all seven of the reviews, with links and excerpts, below. And don't forget to check out the SPC Review Archive for every review--all 1,000+ of them--ever published and posted to SuperPhillip Central!

New Pokémon Snap (NSW) - B+

With 10-15 hours of playtime to complete the initial campaign, and dozens of hours more to snap every Pokémon, fully explore every area, and earn every title (achievement-like challenges), New Pokémon Snap is very much worth its price tag. It won't enthuse every player out there, but if you're the type who loves Pokémon, the idea of seeing them in natural surroundings, and taking pictures of some Pocket Monsters, then I certainly recommend that you snap up New Pokémon Snap.

Kaze and the Wild Masks (NSW, PS4, XB1, PC) - B+

Looking for an entertaining but relatively short 2D platformer that invokes wonderful DKC-style gameplay while adding a few interesting twists of its own? Then, Kaze and the Wild Masks is indeed worthy of your time. It's challenging, it's gorgeous to look at, and it's packed to the brim with exceedingly well done designs in both levels and boss battles. I waited quite a while for the retail release of the game to arrive, but fortunately and blessedly so, my wait was most definitely worth it.

King of Seas (NSW, PS4, XB1, PC) - C-

Between the groan-worthy grind that is the campaign and utterly uninspired side quests, and tons of time wasted within its slow sailing, lack of fast travel, and punishing deaths, King of Seas is a lot of floundered potential. The base of the game is inspired with regard to controlling your ship and presents some excellent ideas, but the game's economy, glacial sailing speed, and campaign woes all lead to a game that capsizes not too long after the adventure starts to unfold.

Piczle Cells (NSW) - C+

As a puzzle game, Piczle Cells will put your brain through the wringer, giving you 100 brain busters of cell sliding, combining, and solving to enjoy. The core concept and gameplay mechanic is structurally sound, but once these 100 puzzles have been completed, there's not much else to keep you returning to the game. While puzzles have multiple solutions, there's really no incentive to find new ways to solve them, unless you really, REALLY are loving the game. The appearance of that aforementioned touch screen control-related bug made that control option less than functional, so go into the game thinking you'll be using analog exclusively (unless you have more patience for bugs than I) and you'll be fine. At any rate and even with these issues, Piczle Cells is hardly a puzzle game that I would call a tough cell--er, sell! In fact, I recommend it.

Resident Evil Village (PS5, PS4, XBS, XB1, PC) - A

[Village is] an almost perfect combination of action and survival horror elements, taking the best from past Resident Evil games, most notably Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 7. Between the astounding assortment of villains in Village--some of the series' absolute best and most memorable--the wide range of awesome moments that stun and delight to the point that you'll want to replay them many times over, and a combo of gameplay and level design that stand head and shoulders above other modern games, Resident Evil Village reigns as one of the best installments of the series to date. One heck of an accomplishment, for sure, and one treasure of a game--one that the Duke would most certainly buy for a high price.

Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World (NSW, PS4, PC) - B-

Compared to previous remakes of Wonder Boy/Monster World series games, Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World feels a bit too simplistic for its $40 price tag. Yes, the visual style is lovely to look at, and the increased personality in Asha's animations--whether she's sliding like a figure skater on ice, or shaking her can as she prepares to open a treasure chest--is also pleasant to see. However, by a gameplay and game length standpoint, Asha in Monster World isn't the strongest experience. Again, the gameplay is rather simple, and the length is quite short. These aspects notwithstanding, there is a lot to like about this remake of Monster World IV (especially if you get the physical version as--at least the Switch port received the original game on the cartridge), and now a new generation of players can join Asha on her fun-filled adventure.

Super Magbot (NSW, PC) - B

Despite being a game that did once again reveal that I'm not the mellowest platformer player out there, after personally witnessing moments of gnashing my teeth together, cursing to the heavens, and having my blood pressure noticeably rise at times, Super Magbot was an overall fun and enjoyable platformer. If you crave an almost Super Meat Boy-like challenge from your platformers, then you'll most definitely discover something great to enjoy from Super Magbot. For everyone else, you may find yourself "repelled" from the level of challenge on display in this game.

Meanwhile, a vastly different game tonally, SPC started this momentous month for the site
with a review of the cozy and quaint New Pokémon Snap!

Super Magbot (NSW, PC) Review

Super Magbot launches onto Steam and Nintendo Switch today. To coincide with the launch, SuperPhillip Central has a full review of this particularly difficult puzzle-platformer ready to go! Let's check out Astral Pixel and Team17's Super Magbot with this review.

An "attractive" puzzle-platformer

When an evil asteroid, tearing through the universe, leaving nothing but chaos and destruction in its path, heads towards the ever-powerful Magnetia Star, it's up to Super Magbot to save the day--and the universe. Needing to head to each of the Magnetia Star's surrounding planets to collect each one's Planet Fragment, Magbot has quite the arduous mission ahead of itself. There's no time to dawdle, either, as the sinister Magsteroid is quickly pursuing!

Super Magbot is a 2D puzzle-platformer where the main mechanic revolves around magnetism and attraction. Magbot itself is way too heavy to even jump, so instead, it uses its arms to shoot forward rays that either allow it to attach itself to magnetized walls, ceilings, and floors or repel to launch itself upwards and onwards. 

The objective of each level is simple enough--reach the goal! Getting to the goal, however, in these hazard-filled, obstacle-laden levels is another story. Starting off in Super Magbot, the game eases you into the somewhat confusing method to traverse the world. Using the left analog stick for movement and the right stick to control the direction that Magbot shoots its magnetic rays (whether red or blue), players interact with levels--specifically red and blue pieces of the environment--to get around. For example, if Magbot is standing directly on a blue floor, aiming the right stick downward and then pressing the left bumper to shoot a blue ray will result in Magbot being launched upward. Which way upward Magbot is launched depends on the angle of the right stick when the left bumper is pressed down.

Starting off, Super Magbot gently eases you into how to play and interact with its mechanics...

Likewise, there are plenty of magnetized blue and red walls that can only be scaled by Magbot aiming at them and then shooting the opposite colored ray at them to move up them. Again, the angle of its shot determines how far up Magbot gets launched. As you can probably imagine, things start off easy enough, but by the end of the first world you're needing to shoot Magbot's beams at floors, walls, and ceilings all in one go without much time to stop, breathe and think about things. 

When you have moments to ponder how Magbot's beams relate and how they will interact with the various magnetized objects like floors and walls--among other obstacles like floating bubbles, destructible floors and walls, destructive floors that fall apart soon after touching them, etc.--in levels, the game is rather enjoyable and breezy. However, the moments to think in the latter half of the game quickly dwindle to next to nothing, resulting in myriad failed attempts because you'll accidentally use the wrong ray on an object when pressured, which in turn results in plenty of frustrating deaths.

...But quite quickly the game ramps up the challenge considerably!

Thankfully, Super Magbot comes with various accessibility options for if and when the adventure becomes too tough. These include adding checkpoints to levels, allowing you to infinitely slow time when holding down one of the beam buttons (instead of only having a quick second to slow down time), and being able to use as many beams as you like without needing to touch solid ground to recover beam energy. These three accessibility options can all be turned on, off, or have one or two turned on while the others remain off to customize your Super Magbot experience to your liking and preference. Of course, turning these on will immediately disqualify you from having your top times posted on the game's online leaderboards, but not only is it a small price to pay for less aggravation, but you can turn off the accessibility options at any time to compete on said leaderboards.

Not mentioned in the review text and not pictured here, but Super Magbot does offer a colorblind mode.

Still, even with all of these options turned on, Super Magbot is NOT for the timid player. It can still kick your butt quite easily and repel certain players from enjoying the game. The most difficult challenges within Super Magbot occur when you're attempting to do perfect runs while collecting a level's duo of star fragment pieces. Collecting both of these and completing the level successfully earns you a full star fragment. In turn, collecting all star fragments in every level--even the broken versions of planets that unlock once Magsteroid "visits" them--results in seeing the best ending Super Magbot possesses. Again, even with every accessibility option turned on, this platformer is no cakewalk.

There are four main planets in Super Magbot, each containing 27 levels. The 27th level pits Magbot against a massive boss of some variety. These encounters are rather enjoyable, whether they be chase sequences where players must rush either horizontally or vertically while a boss pursues them as they frantically cycle between attracting Magbot to objects and repelling Magbot from objects, or arena battles where players must avoid attacks by utilizing careful platforming and magnetizing maneuvers.

Book it, Super Magbot! Don't let this boss or its rising tide of lava catch you!

Super Magbot utilizes a lovely pixel art style reminiscent of some of the better 16-bit games of yesteryear. It's a delightful art style that Astral Pixel crafted for its game, and it runs heavenly, too. The sound design, particularly Super Magbot's music, features plentiful amounts of hummable music, great bops, and terrific tunes that won't grate no matter how many deaths you will no doubt encounter.

Despite being a game that did once again reveal that I'm not the mellowest platformer player out there, after personally witnessing moments of gnashing my teeth together, cursing to the heavens, and having my blood pressure noticeably rise at times, Super Magbot was an overall fun and enjoyable platformer. If you crave an almost Super Meat Boy-like challenge from your platformers, then you'll most definitely discover something great to enjoy from Super Magbot. For everyone else, you may find yourself "repelled" from the level of challenge on display in this game.

[SPC Says: B]  

A code was received by SPC from the publisher for the purpose of writing this review.