Dialogue
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Being able to create pretty much anything with Ultrahand is obviously the main draw here, but my withered, feeble brain is limited to maybe a few lopsided wheels either side of a plank of wood before it gets overwhelmed. However, being able to phase through pretty much any obstacle completely subverts my understanding of what an adventure game can be, in the best possible way.
Ascend feels like the culmination of the old traditional Zelda approach, as if the ambition of A Link To The Past’s Dark World or A Link Between Worlds’ wall-merging mechanic has finally been realised, this time without a fixed camera, in an endlessly explorable 3D world. There have been so many frustrating deaths where I have tried to glide or climb to a seemingly unscalable tower, where the instinct has been to rant to a friend or draft a spicy take on how I miss the days of Majora’s Mask – but then I remember I can just swim through it, right to the top. I’m having to retrain my brain to look at the world in a different way. Every time I successfully pull off a good Ascend it gives me that giddy feeling, like I’m cheating or breaking the game – in the same way the giant laser robots more talented people are assembling and sharing on Twitter must make them feel, but this time with just a single button press. It’s just pure magic, and I can’t see myself scaling geometry in any other video game without longing for something like this. Rob Funnell
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Denne historien er fra August 2023-utgaven av Edge UK.
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KINGMAKERS
Time travel to exotic, distant lands; meet exciting, unusual people and kill them
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
Stabiliser was the core of Citizen Sleeper, in both its mechanics and metaphors. It was medication, essentially, the only way to halt your own planned obsolescence. As an android Sleeper, you'd been sold into indentured servitude by your 'original', the person who signed a contract to have their personality copied and emulated inside a robotic frame, as cheap labour. That kind of corporate arrangement is rarely built to last.
Donkey Kong Country Returns HD
Buy the deluxe edition of this HD Wii remake and, alongside the cartridge, you'll receive a little plastic barrel. While the Kong family has been synonymous with such vessels since 1981, a cynic might suggest that underlining the connection might be unwise, lest Nintendo be accused of scraping the bottom of one itself. After all, Tropical Freeze got this same treatment in 2018, courtesy of Nintendo's realisation, in the early days of Switch, that it now had a home for Wii U's more unfairly forgotten releases. The arrival, seven years later, of that game's relatively primitive predecessor can only seem like a final spot of mopping up before the Switch doors are closed for good. It could also, perhaps, be taken as another sign of renewed interest in the character, in light of the addition of a Donkey Kong Country area to the Super Nintendo World park in Japan, and the rumours of a cinematic spinoff that have circled since The Super Mario Bros Movie's enormous success.
The Legend Of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures
Technology has finally caught up with Nintendo's trailblazing co-op adventure – so where is it?
HAREBRAINED SCHEMES
The former Paradox developer charts a course into a future without Shadowrun or BattleTech
COLLECTED WORKS TAKAYA IMAMURA
The creator of Star Fox, Captain Falcon and Tingle on 30 years at Nintendo and restarting as an indie
Create new save point?
The GAMM museum in the heart of Rome shows that preservation is coming of age
THE MAKING 0F...REDACTED
How a quest for the fast and the frenetic transformed survival horror into a comic-book Roguelike
CHANGING DESTINY
Chinese studio Leenzee aims to soar to the heights of its field
BLOOD MONEY
Luca Galante remembers clearly the first time Vampire Survivors was copied. \"It was immediate,\" he says. \"Even before the game got popular.\" At the time, he took it as a compliment.
