General

Should I take this as "Better than anything else", or "Nothing is worse than this"? I hope it's the first one, because I really like this film (rewatched it not too long ago, too).

Demo impressions: still rough around the edges. It feels good to play, and it mostly hits that fast-paced cartoony feel it's aiming for. But I see three issues already. Levels are way too big. Each level in the demo is roughly twice as long as your average Wario Land 4 level. One of the escape sequences is 5 literal minutes long, and if you die during it, you get sent back to the moment you turned the switch. It really highlights just how long these can get. There are secrets and collectibles scattered throughout the level that you have only one chance to try and get (sometimes it's because they're dependant on breakable, non-respawning blocks, but mostly it's because the levels are filled with points of no return): if you fail to get them for whatever reason, you need to open the menu and select "Restart from Checkpoint". And you better hope that checkpoint wasn't too long ago. The "springy ground-pound" and the "shoulder bash-run" are two distinct moves assigned to the same button. Might seem fine at first, but it becomes obnoxious for many a platform section. The first two seem tied to the game's design philosophy, but the third point can still be fixed before the full release. Overall, this feels like a game that was made for hardcore Wario Land 4 fans, specifically the ones that like to speedrun through levels. Hopefully the final game won't alienate the more casual folk. Demo impressions: This game looks and plays lovely, but I got some major ABZU vibes from it. Seems that the gameplay loop is just exploration, jumping and gliding. I do hope the final game has some puzzles to solve or something, because "exploration-only" gets old somewhat fast for me.

That's the unique selling point of the series, a ridonkulous amount of playable characters. And seeing as this is a spiritual sequel... Actually, the box says "100+", so it may not be a downgrade... I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being 108. Anyway, had a quick peek at that box art, and noticed Hogan was there at the top left. He shows up in Rising, and I'm glad he's playable here. Mainly because he looks like he stepped out of Dillon's Rolling Western!  Must be Gallo's long lost cousin or something...

I've never played a Suikoden game 🥺

The Suikoden series did indeed give you 108 playable characters to collect and battle with in each game; so this game is actually a downgrade by comparison