The opening hour of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is a fantastic and mesmerizing jugging act of spectacle, character, tutorial, and technical wizardry in a way that’s somehow become expected from so many of Sony’s first-party PlayStation games. And though I haven’t rolled credits on the story yet, the first mission is an overwhelmingly impressive reintroduction to this version of New York City and its Spider-Men.

From a pure storytelling level, I love how we’re immediately given the tension that both Peter Parker and Miles Morales struggle with on a daily basis in terms of balancing their personal lives with their extracurricular activities. Miles is just trying to finish high school, get into a good college, and figure out what the hell he wants to do with his life, while Peter is drowning in debt and trying to pay the bills as a new teacher at Miles’ school. Right here we see how the Spider-Men spend so much of their time helping others, that they neglect to carve out the space to help themselves with their very real and grounded problems.

The initial wrench in the opening of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 comes in when both of them have to awkwardly abandon the classroom as ribbons of sand begin to blow in through the windows. Flint Marko, aka Sandman, is smashing through Manhattan, and it’s up to our heroes to figure out a way to stop the colossal menace.

It’s smart of the game to hand us control right outside of Miles’ school, Brooklyn Visions Academy. Not only is it an important place we’ll be revisiting throughout the campaign, but it highlights that Spider-Man 2 has expanded its map with the addition of both Queens and Brooklyn alongside Manhattan. Though their buildings might not scrape as much sky as those in Midtown, they bring their own unique flavors to the world, and really feel like a place that people would actually live in.

Getting to Sandman means crossing the East River, and in comes the introduction of Spider-Man 2’s new additions to the original’s fantastic swinging mechanic. There are a lot more tools at our disposal to keep our feet off the ground and the momentum maintained, including a skid across water, easier horizontal boosts when there aren’t any tall structures around, and of course, the Webs, which marry the excellent swinging with some Superman-esque flying and gliding. For the past decade since the criminally-underrated Sunset Overdrive, Insomniac has consistently made the best-feeling traversal systems in any AAA games, and this one is no exception.

Once we’re in Manhattan, the team flexes its technical muscles and shows just how much wizardry it’s able to achieve with the PS5. The battle is a duet that bounces between Miles and Peter, really highlighting the way the two of them have become a team with complementary powers, abilities, and personalities. Controlling the pair as they dodge buses and chunks of buildings being hurled through the air, run up the sides of buildings as a wave of sand tries to engulf us, and even being thrown half a mile through the city (and several skyscrapers) all in a single shot is truly a sight to behold.

It could all so easily feel overwhelming, but Insomniac’s tutorial eases us back into the movement and abilities of both Miles and Peter, and by the end of it, I felt like all the muscle memory I developed from playing through the original game in 2018 and Miles Morales in 2020 came flooding back.

I was really impressed by how the Spider-Man 2 opening weaves in some of the game’s larger themes before we even know it. Like so many of Spider-Man’s adversaries, Flint Marko is a tragic figure, and the idea of redemption hangs above his head, as well as everyone else’s in this story. Through a series of side missions, we learn about the events that led Sandman to this attack, and in turn, this entire opening is recontextualized. I also dug how this Spider-Man already has a history with Marko and many of the other villains we face throughout the game, really making it feel like this is a random story arc pulled from the shelves of a much more expansive library.

At a more macro level, the Spider-Man 2 opening is just another in a long line of first-party PlayStation games to really kick things off on the right foot. God of War has been doing it since the PS2, with 2018’s reboot providing an incredible thesis statement to its new world, new characters, new Kratos, and single unbroken shot aesthetic. Naughty Dog has mastered this with the thrill of waking up on a dangling train in Uncharted 2, Sara’s tragic story in The Last of Us Part I, and the heartbreaking rendition of “Future Days” by Joel to Ellie in Part II. And Sucker Punch delivered one of my favorite title card drops in recent memory as I rode through a moonlit field on horseback in Ghost of Tsushima.  

Some people bemoan that Sony’s marquee games all have a homogenized look and feel to them. Yes, they’re all third-person and often rely on cinematic techniques for their major story beats. But I see this less as homogenization, and more of a standard of quality. Think of the way HBO’s Sunday night time slots would always go to the series that they wanted the most eyes on at a given moment. From decades ago with shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, and Six Feet Under, to modern masterpieces like Chernobyl, Succession, The Leftovers, Game of Thrones, and yes, The Last of Us. These series were all poured into similar hour-long HBO-shaped containers, but the only thing their contents share is that same baseline level of quality, much like Sony’s games.

I’ve put another 10 hours into Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 since that opening, and have been loving my time in it so far. I’ve been hit by a ton of other moments ranging from bombastic to somber that I’ve loved, but none have done as impressive a job of spinning so many plates quite like this excellent introduction.

WATCH THE SONIC SUPERSTARS VIDEO REVIEW ABOVE

While going through the four-hour campaign, you’ll choose between Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy, each complete with their own unique moves and sense of momentum. The tiered layouts of each stage encourage you to replay them with different characters, as Knuckles climbing or Amy’s double jump may help you reach new paths. The 12 mains zones spread across a simple world map have some genuinely neat themes and gimmicks, like a bouncy sand snake that flows through a desert, and a factory that’s under self-destruct orders which you can delay by making it to switches on time. I dug the variety, and it kept me excited to see what new twists might lay around the corner.

That said, there’s a lot going on in both the foreground and background, and when coupled with the general speed of the action and tons of particle effects, it can sometimes be a bit overwhelming, leading to some unfair deaths by overstimulation.

In traditional fashion, Superstars has a slew of mid-level bonus challenges that range from familiar ball-based journeys through spinning boards, to frustrating-as-hell grappling courses where you’re chasing down one of the Chaos Emeralds. While the wonky physics make these latter ones a drag to complete, they’re worth putting up with because each Emerald grants you a different power up that you can trigger throughout the main levels. These range from temporary sight of hidden platforms and walls, to summoning a horde of clones to zip across the screen. This power refills anytime you pass a checkpoint, allowing you a ton of opportunities to experiment with them throughout the game. This sense of play encouraged me to explore the levels more often than in previous 2D Sonic games, although I’d say that’s not a very high bar to clear.

Each stage culminates in a boss encounter, which are mostly creative and enjoyable. There are some annoying ones where it feels like you’re almost forced to fail once or twice to learn the patterns, but the unlimited lives and liberal checkpoints alleviated any major frustrations. 

While Superstars has drop-in, drop-out co-op for up to four players, the sheer speed of the action makes it a bit of a mess. Co-op in a 2D platformer is a tough thing to nail, and Sonic stumbles like so many others before it. Thankfully I still had a good time while playing through the campaign solo. The whole game is wrapped in some great music, menus, and overlays that lean into an early-’90s Toys R Us aesthetic, hearkening back to the series’ apex in effective ways.

While Sonic Superstars doesn’t quite reach the highs of the Genesis games, CD, or Mania, not to mention the stronger 3D entries like Adventure or Frontiers, it’s a solid 2D chapter with a handful of great new ideas, and some rather forgettable ones. Charting the quality of the Sonic franchise over the past 30 years can feel like you’re mapping out a particularly windy and turbulent course, but thankfully this one doesn’t drop you right in the middle of a bottomless pit. Sonic Superstars is available now for $59.99 on PC, both generations of Xbox and PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch.

My personal relationship with FFVII I has been a strange one. Like a lot of folks, I immediately fell in love with the original PS1 release when I first played it as a kid. I couldn’t count the number of times I played through it back in the late ‘90s, breeding Gold Chocobos and acquiring every Enemy Skill like a true sicko. But as I grew older and more pretentious, I convinced myself that FFVII was overrated, and made the hipster move of chucking it down near the bottom of my personal Final Fantasy rankings. After all, I was someone with taste, so only your finest Vs, IXs, and XIIs for me.

Cut to 2020, and an older, slightly-less hipstery me sat down with Final Fantasy VII Remake, and immediately the flood of amazing memories came rushing back. Like Anton Ego in Ratatouille, I remembered that joy and magic from my youth, and fell back in love with these characters and their world. But Remake was just the tip of the Great Glacier, and I knew that the follow up would take us to all those places I loved far beyond the walls of Midgar. This includes the Gold Saucer, which has always remained my favorite location in a game filled with all of my favorite locations.

Midway through FFVII, your crew makes it to the biggest tourist attraction in all the world, built high atop the shantytown ruins of Coral. While I appreciate the societal commentary now, as a kid, all that mattered to me was that my favorite game somehow contained its own version of Disney World, filled to the brim with mini games, side quests, one-off oddities, and unforgettable moments between the characters that I was so invested in. It felt like an entire game inside of a game, and as we all know, nothing is better than bonus game.

Back to Rebirth, and sure enough folks, I am here to tell you that I have officially been Materia-pilled. I’ve watched every second of footage Square Enix has released so far, and I can safely say that for the thousand things I’m excited to experience in the 2024 game, Gold Saucer is at the top of that list. Square knows that one of FFVII’s defining features was the sheer number of things you could do off the beaten path, and Gold Saucer exemplifies that.

The theme park includes rollercoaster shooting galleries, live performances, romantic gondola rides, haunted houses to spend the night in, and an arcade filled with pretty much all of the mini games contained throughout the core story of the game. So much of FFVII’s world was oftentimes bleak and hopeless, which made the Gold Saucer stand out all the more. It’s a great spot to calm your nerves, digest what just happened, and plan your next move…all while breathing in recycled air and gambling your savings away.

We get a few glimpses of the Gold Saucer in the Rebirth footage that’s been released so far. This includes the gondola ride up to the park, with Aerith, Tifa, and Yuffie in awe at the first sight of the neon dreamscape. And there’s a few shots of games and activities, all of which Square has said will be making a return. Seeing them rendered on modern hardware is a joy, and it’s clear that a lot of time and respect is being given to this iconic location. I particularly love that the 3D Battler arcade machine renders its fighters in the chunky, polygonal style of the original PS1. And of course, having confirmation that the iconic date scene will still be in Rebirth means that more folks will get to experience the joy of spending a romantic evening with best boy Barret Wallace.

I’ve always said that an RPG is only as good as its mini-games, distractions, and shenanigans. Let me enter an underground mech fighting pit in Xenogears to distract myself from killing god. Take me to your secret casino in Super Mario RPG. Torture me with your godawful Gummi Ship in Kingdom Hearts. Watch me try to date every man, woman, and Junes mascot in Persona. Tremble in fear as I conquer every square inch of Final Fantasy VIII via Triple Triad.

Now imagine if you took all of these, crammed them inside a single location, and vomited neon in every single direction. That’s Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s Gold Saucer, and holy smokes am I excited to go back there in early 2024. 

When it comes to new game releases, it feels like 2023 hasn’t given us a chance to breathe. Since we hit the ground running with the surprise reveal and release of the excellent Hi-Fi Rush back in January, there’s been no slowing down in terms of games across the AAA, indie, and remake spaces, with Resident Evil 4 Remake hitting two of those categories back in March. And while I adored what Capcom did to one its most-beloved games ever, I had to quickly move on to covering the likes of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Tears of the Kingdom, and the rest of 2023’s historic slate. 

That’s why I was so happy that Separate Ways came along recently, and afforded me an opportunity to remind myself that Resident Evil 4 Remake absolutely rules, and is one of my favorite games of 2023.

In a lot of ways, Separate Ways feels like a greatest hits version of RE4 proper. Ada Wong’s six-hour journey makes stops along a lot of familiar places in the village, castle, and island acts of the game, albeit in a remixed and recontextualized fashion. The difference in her physical stature from Leon Kennedy is woven into her mechanics – while Leon is out here suplexing Ganado left and right, Ada uses her grappling hook to quicken the pace of her combat. This athleticism makes her feel different than Leon, even though the verbs are the same. 

Zipping to various contextual points in the level similar to Persona 5 Royal never gets boring, and adds a sense of verticality that changes how you tackle familiar arenas. And once upgraded, you’re able to use the grappling hook to remove shields from enemies, which completely alters how you deal with those particularly frustrating foes. This makes up for the fact that her arsenal is a bit slimmer than Leon’s, though it’s still a joy to run into our old pal the Merchant and realize that he had twice the amount of customers than I’d previously thought. Way to diversify that portfolio, Merchant.

The nature of Ada always knowing the next step of her mission means that her campaign is less scary than the already not-so-scary RE4 proper, but Separate Ways makes up for it in its brevity. No segment ever outstays its welcome, and the pace at which it tosses combat, exploration, bosses, set-pieces, and puzzles at us is refreshing. While I could’ve used a few more of the latter, I really dug these new devilish and completely impractical puzzles that are a staple of the RE franchise as a whole.

And while I’m not one who likes to judge a game based on a prescribed value of length-to-cost, the fact that this six-hour Resident Evil 4 Remake campaign is only $10 is an indisputably great deal. Especially so when you consider that 2020’s Resident Evil 3 Remake was a full-priced game with a similar length.

What’s more, when I got to the end of Separate Ways, I was left with a tantalizing tease from Capcom of what might come next. Obviously we’ll be getting a proper Resident Evil 9, most likely following Rose and Chris. And while there’s no way this remake train is stopping, the next step is one that we’re not quite certain of. Both Resident Evil 1 Remake and RE Zero visually hold up extremely well thanks to their pre-rendered backgrounds, though the latter’s lack of item boxes and reliance on you just dropping shit across the map could probably use a freshening up. But the classic game that makes the most sense – outside of just doing Dino Crisis, for the love of god – would be Code Veronica. Given that it’s far and away the lowest-selling mainline game in the franchise, it feels like it has the most room to surprise an entirely new audience.

Also, seeing that the Dreamcast game ends with Wesker getting hold of Steve Burnside’s body, there’s a parallel to the end of this new Separate Ways and his possession of Krauser’s corpse. Maybe Wesker’s just forming an army of familiar supersoldiers? Which would lead us to the next possible route Capcom takes, in giving the maligned Resident Evil 5 and 6 a redo. Maybe treating those two missteps as a mulligan and taking another stab at their ever-expanding stories could help create a cohesive path towards the current RE we know from 7 and 8.

Regardless of what Capcom decides to do next, I’m happy they absolutely nailed the landing on everything surrounding Resident Evil 4 Remake. From the excellent initial demo, to the game itself, to this final DLC campaign, I’m immensely impressed how well this whole thing came together, and can’t recommend it enough.

The story here is more about mood and vibes than a cohesive plot. The description on Steam reads, “We painted the sky ashen gray. Burned the heavens to starve each other. Now we walk an endless cemetery of regret.” While the fact that this sounds like My Chemical Romance lyrics might be a turn off to some, I really dug the non-verbal storytelling at play throughout the missions. 

The first thing about the game that stood out to me were its stellar visuals. It evokes the polygonal simplicity of the late PS1 era, while bringing some modern bells and whistles to the table. Not just the obvious in Metal Gear Solid, but Vagrant Story, Tekken 3, and Silent Hill as well, which are some of the best-looking games of that generation. The levels each have a unique identity of their own through not just the setting, but their color palette as well.

Your goal in each stage is to kill a set number of prisoners, or “Punish” them, as the game puts it. Slinking around in the shadows and assassinating people whose hands are bound and heads are covered in hoods gives a real sense of “Are we the baddies?” which I dug. And while I wasn’t able to come to any concrete conclusions on my own, I look forward to people far smarter than me diving into the game’s hidden symbolism and iconography. 

Once your targets on a given map are all gone, you just have to make your way to the exit, and you’re right as rain. Initial runs through levels can last anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes, though there were a few stages that took quite a few failures before I came up with my desired route. Once I felt like I’d mastered them, I was able to blast through the campaign in about half an hour, and I wanted to keep jumping in to see how much time I could shave off. In a season overflowing with lengthy must-plays like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Starfield, there’s something wonderful about being able to digest an experience in a single sitting.

No Sun To Worship’s magic lies in its simplicity. You only have two guns – a silenced pistol, and a not-so-silenced automatic rifle. Ammo is scarce, so you have to plan your bullets carefully. Instant stealth takedowns are the way to go, but all that gets thrown out the window once an enemy spots you and all hell breaks loose. Thankfully, the game’s clean UI displays your current visibility level, as well as how much sound you’re making, meaning that you have all the tools you need to succeed in your sneakiness. If you tiptoe through shadows, you’re golden. If you stomp through a well-lit corridor or splash around in puddles, well, that’s a different story.

I got over the initial difficulty hurdle once I finally started using the environment to my advantage. You can shoot out lights to create a cover of darkness, make noise to lure guards over, and sneak around behind them to deliver a stealth kill, all of which brought to mind shades of the original Splinter Cell games in a great way. Though hostile at first, memorizing environments and patrol routes eventually reveals countless ways you can turn the levels against your enemies.

But the big unique mechanic at play here in No Sun To Worship is the ability to drain your own life in exchange for complete silence in your movements. Your health depletes rapidly while this is engaged, but knowing when to toggle it on, charge up behind an enemy, and swiftly take them down provides some amazing moments of risk-reward.

This is enhanced by your ability to vampirically pull the life force from anybody you’ve killed. You regain different amounts of health depending on the enemy types, with the prisoners completely refilling your meter. This also removes their bodies from the level, meaning other patrolling guards won’t be alerted by the corpses of their dead pals, so win-win I guess. It also further fuels the “No, seriously, are we the baddies?” vibes present throughout the entirety of the game.

A few years ago, I wrote a piece about how much I love single-sitting games like Journey, A Short Hike, and Ico. There’s a refinement in their brevity, and something refreshing in their focus on a singular goal. No Sun To Worship is another game that absolutely belongs on that list, and anybody who dug the stripped-down depiction of stealth found in the VR Missions of the original Metal Gear Solid owes it to themselves to check this one out.

This week on the Slightly Something Else podcast, Yahtzee and Marty discuss whether or not video game violence has jumped the shark, and if any games have anything interesting to say about it.

The Ahsoka ride has definitely been a strange one so far. The amount of homework that feels required is indicative of a larger Disney problem with nostalgia as a whole. But as someone who has spent hundreds of hours watching The Clone Wars and Rebels, I’ve been enjoying what ostensibly feels like a new season of the animated series, and “Part 6: Far Far Away” doesn’t change that. In fact, it delivered a handful of moments that were among my favorite of the series so far, alongside one that I either really love, or absolutely hate. Still haven’t figured it out yet.

The big highlight of this episode is obviously the introduction of Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) in all of his live-action glory. As one of the most memorable villains in Star Wars history across Timothy Zahn’s books and the Rebels series, I was curious how they’d frame his entrance in Ahsoka. With millions of people watching who don’t have the same shared history with the legendary tactician, how do you immediately highlight his power and gravitas?

Well, this is how.

We’ve seen the image of hundreds of Stormtroopers lined up at the arrival of their leader countless times before, but immediately something is different here. Kevin Kiner’s score bombards us with a series of droning tones, creating an unnerving feeling of dread. Not only do the mass of troopers chant the name “Thrawn” over and over, but their armor is a far cry from the pristine white we’re used to. It’s battleworn, evoking shades of the Japanese art of kintsugi, and wrapped haphazardly in slashes of red cloth. This sight brings to mind the Night Sisters, which is fitting since the subtitles call them Night Troopers. Chances are they’re dead soldiers resurrected by magic, much like the Inquisitor Marrok was. The main trooper, Enoch, has a golden faceplate that looks ripped straight out of the Holy Roman Empire. Thrawn hasn’t even spoken a word, and yet we already know that this is a man to fear.

Once he does speak, Lars Mikkelsen commands the screen. His calm and level-headed demeanor hides a sinister malice underneath, and I’m looking forward to him going mask off at some point and showing his true colors. Speaking of, his Chiss red eyes provide a stark contrast to the show’s muted colors anytime he’s in frame. Ahsoka has had some pretty great antagonists from the start, and Thawn just strengthens that lineup.

I honestly dug everything surrounding the villains in this episode. Everything from the planet being surrounded by a ring of Purrgil bones, to a deeper dive into the mysticism and witchcraft of the Night Sisters, all paint this corner of the new galaxy with different colors than we’ve seen before.

Everything Thrawn-related aside, the other highlight of the episode for me was the reunion between Ezra (Eman Esfandi) and Sabine (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), not just because we finally get to see the two of them together again, but because the lead-up to it contained one of my favorite things in all of Star Wars – weird little alien dudes acting weird.

A Star Wars story is only as strong as the strange critters that populate its world. From Jawas and the drunks at Mos Eisley’s Cantina, to Ewoks and Porgs, to Yoda and Maz Kanata, I love seeing the bizarre forms of life that exist across the galaxy. The Mandalorian understood this perfectly with the introduction of Grogu, and I’m happy that Ahsoka also gets the assignment. 

It started with Sabine’s adorable Loth-cat, and continues here with the shy turtle creatures that live with Ezra. They felt like something out of Labyrinth, and I mean that in the best possible way. So yeah, it was emotional seeing Sabine and Ezra embrace after being apart for so many years, but doing it in front of a dozen strange turtle folk made the moment all the more memorable. 

The final thing we need to talk about is that moment I referenced at the top; the one that I’m not sure whether I love or hate. Right near the start of the episode, Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) and Huyang (David Tennant) share a nice quiet moment while in transit between galaxies in their space whale Uber. They discuss how Huyang used to read stories about the history of the galaxy to young Jedi. He even still has them archived in his memories.

The conversation then turns to how Sabine willingly went with Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) and the Dark Jedi in an attempt to find Ezra. Ahoksa sees the decision as selfish, while Huyang is much more empathetic with Sabine. He doesn’t think decisions and emotions need to be so binary. Ahsoka doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, instead suggesting, “On second thought, tell me one of those stories.” Huyang responds, “Very well. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” The music swells, and we cut to the episode’s title screen.

Star Wars has a long history of explaining things that don’t need explaining. We didn’t need to know why Han Solo took up that specific surname, or how he got those fuzzy space dice in the cockpit of Millennium Falcon. And we certainly never wondered what the in-universe explanation was for the iconic words that have preceded the series’ title crawls since 1977. At best it’s silly, at worst it’s pandering as hell. But then that dumb lizard part of my brain clicks in, and I’ll admit that I got chills when I heard Huyang say those 10 words that have been a foundational part of my pop-culture lexicon since I started watching movies.

That internal struggle is my relationship with Ahsoka in a nutshell. I thought last week’s trip down Clone Wars memory lane was simultaneously nostalgia bait, as well well as an effective bit of visual storytelling. The abundance of smoke and fog felt both cheap, as well as a great depiction of wading through the haze of memory. This series is both everything that’s wrong with modern pop culture, as well as something I look forward to every single week. I guess Huyang is right – maybe things don’t have to be so binary after all.

This week on the Slightly Something Else podcast, Yahtzee and Marty discuss what makes a good video game map, and how certain games bring unique ideas to the cartography table.

Sea of Stars is one of the best games in a year filled with so many of the best games. And while its gorgeous world, energetic battle system, and 16-bit inspirations are all wonderful, it’s the individual moments along the adventure that really stick with me. And few have landed quite as powerfully as the reveal of where the Great Archives are, and how its Archivist is linked to the adventure at the heart of the story.

Upon starting the game, the very first shot we see is a slow pan down the length of the Great Archives. Shelves of impossibly ancient books are lit by the dim glow of candlelight. You can almost feel a tickle in the back of your throat from the layers of dust that blanket the centuries of knowledge.

In an ornate chair facing away from us sits a person who immediately breaks the fourth wall and greets us to the beginning of this adventure. They say they are known as The Archivist, “an immortal versed in the ways of alchemy.” They read from an old book, seemingly telling us a story that has already been written. They speak of topics like adventure, destiny, and the possibility of change.

Despite the wizened nature of the being, there’s a playfulness on hand as they occasionally turn around in their chair to briefly face us. It’s here that we can make out their humanoid appearance, although their face is hidden beneath a cloak with only the glow of their eyes visible.

From here we’re quickly whisked away to the adventures of Valare, Zale, and Garl. And honestly, it’s pretty easy to forget the entire framing device for long stretches of time throughout the first 10 hours of the game. When I was surviving haunted mansions, being hurled across the world by an ancient giant, and spending way too long getting hooked on Wheels, this world’s take on Final Fantasy VIII‘s Triple Triad, I was firmly rooted in the moment.

But every so often, Sea of Stars would drift back to that dusty room, and The Archivist would provide a bit of context to where we were currently at in the story. In my mind, the Great Archives were a tiny pocket dimension floating outside of time and space. However, I’d soon learn that wasn’t the case.

Well into my adventure, during a chapter called Beyond the Tides, I made my way to Antsudlo, which is ostensibly the game’s Water Temple. Our goal was to defeat a creature known as the Dweller of Strife before it could evolve into a World Eater and…well…you get the picture. In order to accomplish this, we’d need to navigate the dungeon and press on through a door at the top.

Along the way, there were some neat puzzles  revolving around manipulating the flow of water and ultimately raising the water level in a main chamber. It’s no Water Temple from Ocarina of Time, but few things are.

My party eventually reached the top of the dungeon, only to find that the door they needed to go through was completely sealed. There was no handle in sight, and magic had no effect on it. The Dweller of Strife would soon become a World Eater, and there was nothing we could do about it.

Fade to black.

Fade back into the Great Archives, and our old friend is still there, reading from his same ancient tome. They speak again, and you can almost hear a somber tone in their words; a lament for how far you’ve come, and how close you were to finding what you were looking for.

“Their efforts in the tower proved valiant, but alas, as fate would hate it when these events first occurred, the mysterious door remained firmly shut. Despite their best efforts in the face of this setback, our heroes were unable to reach Mesa Island in time, and the Dweller of Strife turned into a World Eater. They fought so bravely, but in the end their lives, and their world, were lost.”

But then the tone changes. The Archivist continues, “Thus, we arrive at the crux of tonight’s musings: a single question. How far might they go should fate be given a nudge, and the door that once sat closed were to be opened?” The Archivist puts the book down on the table next to them and speaks four simple words, “Let us find out.” They turn around in their chair, seemingly breaking the fourth wall and addressing us once again. But with his next words, it’s clear that’s not the case. “Come in.”

The camera pans down, and we see our heroes walk through the no-longer-sealed door in the Water Temple and into the Great Archives. They are now face to face with our narrator. The framing device and the painting it encased are now one. And it’s at this moment that Sea of Stars truly feels like it begins.

2023 has been a year crammed with memorable moments. I’ve leapt off sky islands in Tears of the Kingdom, lost my sanity to eldritch horrors in Dredge, relived a masterpiece in Resident Evil 4 Remake, made it out of a crumbling world with only seconds to spare in Pizza Tower, and discovered what happens when you put pineapple on pizza in Pineapple on Pizza. But among all of them, this moment in Sea of Stars might be my favorite.

Episode 3 of Ahsoka, titled “Time to Fly,” leans heavily on that classic Star Wars model of referencing its own past. When done well, it builds upon our decades of fandom and succeeds in George Lucas’ goal of having the series rhyme, like poetry. When done poorly, it makes us question why a given show or movie even exists in the first place. I’m looking at you, Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan.

I’m happy to say that so far, Ahsoka’s flavor of self-reference falls more in the former category, though it’s only by escaping this cycle altogether that Star Wars is able to truly soar, as we’ve seen in recent years with Andor and The Last Jedi.

Right off the bat, “Time to Fly” (directed by Steph Green and written by Dave Filoni) places us in a scenario that we’ve all seen before. Sabine (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) is training with Huyang (David Tennant) and Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) in a moment reminiscent of A New Hope. Both take place in the common area of a spaceship, both feature a mentor trying to teach patience to their brash student, and both feature failed attempts at seeing without using one’s eyes.

This series delves even deeper down the rabbit hole by directly referencing the samurai films that inspired Lucas in the first place. Ahsoka refers to the blind training as Zotochi, a nod to the Zatoichi character, a blind swordsman popularized throughout dozens of excellentsamurai films. Of course, this character and archetype has been directly referenced in Star Wars before, both in Donny Yen’s Chirrut Imwe from Rogue One, and Kanan’s loss of sight in Rebels.

As Sabine grows more frustrated, Ahsoka lectures her in a way we could imagine a few other familiar Jedi delivering. “Anger and frustration are quick to give power. But they also unbalance you.” It’s funny to hear this coming from Ahsoka, as in her younger years during The Clone Wars, she was brash and reckless like Anakin. But as she’s grown older, she’s adopted a calmer and wiser demeanor, more akin to Obi-Wan.

The familiar hits continue throughout the episode, with Hera (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) having a brief back-and-forth with Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) and a handful of other New Republic senators on the bridge of the Home One, the same frigate Admiral Ackbar helmed in Return of the Jedi, and it’s this same room where we were first introduced to Mon Mothma in that very movie. I appreciated Hera biting back at the senator who accused her of using Republic resources on a wild goose chase to find Ezra, especially the line, “Were you ever in the war, senator? Just sat back and waited to see who came out on top?”

But as much as I like this moment, I couldn’t help but see Mon Mothma and think about how much more of a three-dimensional human being she was in Andor, with hopes, fears, and flaws. There, she’s a person who needs to break her ethical code for what she hopes is a greater good. But like a lot of things in Ahsoka, here she feels two dimensional, which I guess is fitting considering this feels like the fifth season of an animated series.

That last point is further stated during the episode’s big action beat, which starts with a great moment where Ahsoka and Sabine have to put their Master/Padawan relationship aside and instead work in tandem in order to take out the enemy ships on their tail. The way the two of them need to synchronize their thoughts, movements, and actions reminded me a bit of Neon Genesis Evengelion’s episode “Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!,” where Shinji and Asuka need to put aside their differences and learn to act as a single unit. You know what’s great? Neon Genesis Evangelion.

And speaking of anime, this scene culminates in Ahsoka putting on a space suit, standing on the wing of the ship, igniting her twin blades, and taking on the incoming fighters using low-gravity leaps and dodges. This moment brough heavy shades of the excellent “The Twins” short in Star Wars: Visions.

The rest of the “Time to Fly” is filled with the kinds of moments that make fans of Rebels like myself pull a Rick Dalton and point at the screen, while I imagine relative newcomers just trying to figure out why Hera has a human son named Jacen, and just why the hell these magical space whales called purrgils are so important. But I guess that’ll happen when you’re almost 50 years into a poem that is still rhyming with lines from the past five decades.

This week on the Slightly Something Else podcast, Yahtzee and Marty chat about what underserved video game genres they’d love to see make a return.

Watch the Review in 3 Minutes for Sea of Stars, a gorgeous and heartfelt RPG from Sabotage Studios that’s heavily inspired by the classics of the 16 and 32-bit eras like Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG.