Welcome back! This week on Press Any Button we’re getting too existential about review scores again when it comes to God of War Ragnarok, sliding around some slick metal rails before getting stuck in the geometry as Sonic the Hedgehog, cursing at another gosh darn mandatory 90GB update when we just want to play the game we bought, and celebrating the arrival of a Mega baby.
And as a quick update on my previous prediction I would become too addicted to Marvel Snap, come ask me some time about my collection of legendary Jubilee variants. And tell us what you’re playing while you’re at it!
The impossible calculus of very good sequels
By Tim
God of War Ragnarok is one of the finest examples of what is probably my favourite modern AAA genre; the wide linear character action game. It’s peerless in many ways, and yet I won’t deny it lacks a certain unrepeatable impact and awe that embedded the 2018 game deep in my heart, and as a result I tended to judge Ragnorok much more harshly on the rare occasions it slipped; when strange self-aware humour crept in for example, or when yet another confusing upgrade tree or armour slot was introduced.
As a critic, I'm tempted to overlook this all as some kind of expectation bias, and view Ragnarok as a superior game to its predecessor; after all it looks and sounds better, performs better, is more varied, adds more stories and missions, and piles on more customisation.
But in another sense, should I overlook it? The experiences of playing each game at launch are hardly comparable at all. One was a revolution of character action presentation and design, plus a genius modernisation and subversion of a series that had been dormant for years. It redeemed a historically problematic character from video games' adolescent era without undermining or excusing it, humanising him with an incredible story while somehow also hanging on to everything that made the old God of Wars great, a feat which was helped by the inspired shift to the world of Norse myth.
By comparison, Ragnarok is an extremely direct sequel to a four-year-old game, with a recognisable world and the same combat system. It's much more comforting than it is challenging, in a hollistic sense. The narrative, which has shifted to focus on the tension between a young adult's desires and their parent's protectiveness, is wonderfully put together and hits hard. But that's true of the original game too.
I'm not saying that a game should be docked points for being a continuation of excellence or lacking originality, and I'm trying very hard not to make this simply an argument against comparative numerical rankings of video games in general. But I think a lot of modern game discourse has trained us into thinking of each release as a discrete commercial product we can score — is this year's Call of Duty a good one or a bad one — when in some cases they can be an artful extension of something we've experienced before, which makes almost no sense to judge independently.
Anyway it rules.
What to play
Sonic Frontiers is finally here! As a huge Sonic fan I (Tim) was very excited to jump in but also well aware that a vast majority of the series’ 3D games have been disappointing. After a week with it I have mixed feelings; it’s definitely a lot of fun and has some really incredible ideas, but it also makes some wild choices as far as the setting and narrative goes, doesn’t explain anything despite constant tutorials, is technically a little rough and is nowhere near confident enough to be the Sonic version of Breath of the Wild. The open world hub is great to run around and filled with activities, but they’re all a little bit janky; puzzles can be satisfying but signpost themselves far too much, floating rails that connect you to different areas are cool but make no sense, and huge bosses are sometimes awesome (a flying squid that leaves a trail behind that becomes a mid-air running track) but often kinda broken. If we are comparing to Breath of the Wild the collectibles are more numerous but less artful, and the shrines in this case are standard 3D Sonic levels in the style of Generations or Colours, which is a highlight of the whole game.
This week on Apple Arcade we’re getting Football Manager 2023 Touch. I (Alice) always wondered what the appeal of being a football manager was? Don’t managers just negotiate contracts and sponsorships and stuff? I can see that being a cool mini-game, but hardly worth all the fanfare. However, having now watched Ted Lasso, I understand that the manager is the coach, which is yet another delightfully weird fun fact about the world’s game. All that is to say that I have no idea if it’s good, and I have no interest in playing it. But have fun, kids.
New on Game Pass this week are the PC and console versions of Football Manager 2023, as well as fresh adventure game throwback Return to Monkey Island. Tomorrow sees the arrival of Vampire Survivors, a casual top-down horde survival game that’s low on direct action but big on endorphin-granting upgrades and unlocks, and has been extremely popular on PC.
It’s Pikmin Bloom’s first anniversary this week! Remember that game? From the makers of Pokemon Go? Of course you don’t. It’s like Pokemon Go, but flower themed and not as fun, but it is still a nice, relaxing way to get out and go for a walk, because nothing attacks you in the game. This week there will be anniversary seeds for everyone to enjoy, so check that out if it’s your jam.
Remember discs? Can we bring those back?
By Alice
What I’m about to say is going to make me sound very old and tech backwards: but we need to bring back discs. Remember the days when you’d buy a game on a disc or cartridge and then you put it in your console and could play the game? I do. It was a better time. Last night I spent 90 minutes trying to play new games that I had been really looking forward to. One didn’t download properly, so I had to set it up to download roughly 90GBs again, which clearly meant I couldn’t play it in my 90 minute break between work and cooking dinner.
So, I moved to the next console, the next new game that had already downloaded. What’s that? A 10GB update? No. A third game also needed a 5GB update, despite me having auto update turned on. So, I played Forza Horizon 5 again and had a wonderful time, but didn’t exactly get to have a new experience.
Back in my youth, a game had to be finished before it was shipped, and it had to be playable from the disc because the console was essentially a powered potato. You could own a copy of a game, lend it to friends, trade it in when you were done, and play it in the country on an unstable internet connection.
You can’t do that now. Everything has to be online so developers can be forced to crunch on crushingly tight deadlines, so publishers can overcome the secondary market, and so broken games can be released and patched later.
Friends, I love technology, but this is a bad system that benefits very few people. Sure, I no longer have to store all my new game discs in a tiny apartment, and I can download any of the hundreds of new games I own, but I’m not sure if that’s worth the price of all we lost.
Bricks, Boards and Beginnings
by Alice
Toys have famously been pretty poor representations of the world around them particularly – and I shudder as I use this term – ‘girls’ toys’. Dolls where the hips are the same width as the head, every character white and high femme, and everything perfect. There are so many kids who can’t find toys that look like them. A Lego study recently found that 3 in 4 kids feel there aren’t enough toys to represent them.
I was sceptical last week when Lego made the announcement that Lego Friends is being rebooted, making the previous 5 main characters the mothers of some of the new characters. The line is just ten years old, and how many people really know the story of the Friends beyond them spending an unusual amount of time on cruises, at boutique hotels, and somehow working in vet clinics while also being children?
But, the more I read about these five new characters, the more I’m into it.
There are characters with limb differences, Down’s syndrome, anxiety, vitiligo, neurodiversity, and a dog with a wheelchair. Perhaps it would be more useful having a character in a wheelchair, but the dog is a good start, maybe. I don’t know how you show neurodiversity in a Lego set, but given most of the people I know who are deeply into Lego are also neurodivergent, that seems like a good move.
In addition, the Lego Friends TV show is going to “explore more complex emotions and situations for the Friends to maintain and repair their relationships”, which sounds great. Though I do question why all this diversity and emotional complexity appears to only be going into the toys more aimed at the feminine side of the market. Surely the kids who are more drawn to the Lego City range could also benefit from knowing how to navigate difficult emotional situations?
All of this is a step in the right direction, and hopefully this more nuanced approach to toy characters will also start applying to action figures and mini-figures, in addition to the Friends mini-dolls. In the mean time, I look forward to the launch of the new sets early next year.
Retro Esoterica
by Tim
The latest miniature retro console is now out in the wild, if you can call a very limited release on Amazon Japan "the wild", and it's an adorable recreation of that most excellent bit of 90s hardware: the Sega Mega Drive 2. This tiny machine has been lovingly packed with more than 60 games including cartridge, CD and previously unreleased titles, developed by the emulation legends at M2.
As with the first Mega Drive Mini the construction here is wonderful and detailed, complete with little cartridge door flaps and Mega CD connectors. I got the Japanese model, which perfectly matches my full-sized unit, but there is also an English model that comes in US or Euro / Australian colours.
Overall there are fewer heavy hitters than with the first model, but it's still a great list. Highlights include Alien Soldier, Super Street Fighter II, Night Trap, the CD versions of both Ecco games, Robo Aleste, Shining Force CD, and of course Sonic CD (all three regional versions).
No matter which system you get you can switch the language and it will provide games in your preferred dialect in as many cases as possible. The only wrinkle is that a handful of games are exclusive to the English console (like Streets of Rage 3), and the few games exclusive to the Japanese console can’t be played in English (like Lunar).
On all versions you'll find a handful of specially developed new offerings, including unreleased game Devi & Pii, new ports of Space Harrier, Space Harrier II, Spatter, Star Mobile and Super Locomotive, and a new version of Puyo Puyo Sun that includes a versus mode.
Tying it all together is M2's brilliant emulation and save state system, plus another wonderful menu theme from composer Yuzo Koshiro. It's a tough console to recommend given how hard it is to find (it's already more than $300 on eBay), but the Mini 2 is a very high quality little nostalgia machine.