Bananza really benefits from having a central gameplay hook that’s just immediately satisfying. It covers for a lot of the little nuances it lacks. If you play like 6 layers and leave it there, I can see where one would adore it. But I don’t think the hook carries the long run of layers.
Probably explains why I ended up clicking with Mario Kart World more long-term. As flawed as Free Roam is, I really came to love just casually riding around the world and studying the internal logic of it. Just a specific thing I’m learning I value in games this year, idk!!
This is also why Chibi-Robo is The Truth.
haven't played World yet, but I never quite understood what people expected from Free Roam. seems like the main point of it was always just... driving around simply for the joy of cruising? no? the idea that it should be like, an RPG open world doesn't click
I get what people don’t love about Free Roam because I wasn’t crazy about it initially either, but I think the charm of it reveals itself the more you take it as a chill out experience.
I'm hoping Nintendo has Big Plans for open world, but who knows with Nintendo.
As with all things Nintendo, I just hope whatever they’re doing is built from its own weird playbook and not someone else’s.
my point of view is def coloured by roughly 50% of my forza horizon 5 playtime being just drivin' around, so I personally am primed for just drivin'. and it makes sense that that's not for everyone! it's the expectations->disappointment part that stands out in critiques. it's the just drivin' mode!
I kind of theorize that part of it on the review side was that codes didn’t go out early for it, so everyone was kind of inhaling it in a week and that mode just isn’t at its best in that context. I liked it more when I could just play for 20 minutes and do a few things while watching Netflix.
yeah, that's a fair read. I'm looking forward to checking it out later myself, but I've been assuming there will be a two-years-later "actually that was pretty chill" redemption/reassessment, even barring additional content
I could feel maybe getting a little tired of it over time but then I really discovered the flow of movement and was right back in. It ends stronger than it starts because of it, which I didn't expect, considering how quickly that satisfaction showed up
Interesting! I found that I hit a peak with that, but then there were like 10 layers after and none really tested my knowledge in new ways. Just more places to find gems, which wore on me eventually.
As it made you start swapping through the various Bananzas instead of one being like The Bananza for the level is when it picked up again for me. I had the tools and was expected to use them sort of thing.