Death of a Wish (2024, PC) (Itch.io, Steam, Switch)
Lucah: Born of a Dream was the first character action game I got really obsessed with. I got the true end twice, and I played all the post-release material (including the murderous gauntlet mode update). Apparently the secret to getting me into beat-em-ups was to occasionally cut the action with some really good queer text games. I was extra-jazzed for this sequel because it stars Christian, a character from the first game I wanted to spend more time with.
Death of a Wish is a strong follow-up that preserves much of what was special about the first game, but in a slightly tighter and more coherent package. I came away from it very pleased and satisfied. I'm focusing here on ways I think Death of a Wish improves the first game's language, but I still love Lucah, and I definitely recommend playing both to get the full effect of the story. (Warning for some light structural spoilers to both games below.)
First off: the presentation of the all-important corruption meter is cleaner here. The first game paused the meter for an important climactic boss and gave you extra room to breath for unclear reasons when you first hit 100%, little choices that served to muddle the Dragon Quarter dread of the Big Scary Number On-Screen At All Times. Lucah also splits the story across two playthroughs, with the full scope of how the corruption mechanic works not being introduced until the second loop.
In Death of a Wish, the meter starts shortly after you boot up the game, and then never stops. The story is contained to one loop this time, and it generally introduces important mechanics much earlier than Lucah did. The communication across the board is tighter, more up-front. If there's a new wrinkle here, it's that it technically allows for grinding down your corruption meter on easy encounters — I recommend Not doing this. I believe it's actually slower in the long run. Just trust the game and play as well as you can.
Additional elegances: the one big interlude section is largely presented from Chris's perspective. The first game had more interludes with a much wider spread of POVs. Lucah was a huge ambitious debut commercial game that sometimes struggled with how many ideas and stories it wanted to squeeze into its run-time. Death of a Wish focuses more squarely on Chris's journey, letting the rest of the casts' stories play out around his instead of having them take center-stage. As a result, it felt more propulsive and dramatic to me to play.
I'm still not a "character action" guy, so I don't have nuanced thoughts about all the different possible builds, how the action is balanced. But I really like the decision to make parries deal "guard damage" instead of instantly breaking enemies. I played Lucah in a slow and reactive way — I'd park right next to the enemies, wait for their big attacks, then nail the parry and cream them with Thanatos. But parries aren't an insta-break in Death of a Wish, so Christian has to play more aggressively to wear them down and nail the breaks. No stamina meter this time also encourages aggressive play. Chris feels scrappier than Lucah, not in a way that makes him feel weak or unpleasant to play, but in a way that suits his character and encourages more proactive strategies.
The game hit a perfect formal climax for me after six or seven hours of play. If it had ended there, I would've been happy with Death of a Wish as the "super-tight concise action game follow-up to Lucah." But I'm glad it kept going for a few more hours after that. The twists, turns, and rule changes in the real climax perfectly suited the story they were going for, and they're what make Death of a Wish a complete follow-up to Lucah. As a story it's "tidier" than Lucah, which I could see putting off some of my artier games friends. But the tidiness felt earned and un-saccharine to me. I enjoyed the dark catharsis of queer solidarity in the face of unrelenting institutional evil, and finished it feeling warmly satisfied.
Telling a substantive, affecting story in the context of long, mechanically robust action games is one of the hardest things in the world. And they really are robust: you could play Lucah and Death of a Wish for 50+ hours apiece and still pick up on new nuances. I know because I've seen friends go on that journey, and they had a great time. Having played them mostly casually, I still had a blast. I'm very excited for whatever this crew puts out next.
Kirby's Return to Dream Land (2011, Wii)
This was my first Kumazaki-directed Kirby game, and it made an extremely positive impression. The pithy way to describe it is that it’s a long-delayed marriage of the immaculate action, speedy pace, and sophisticated movesets of Sakurai’s Kirby Super Star with the storytelling of something like Shimomura’s Kirby 64 (a plodding and miserable game to play with an unforgettable finale). That describes the broad strokes: it plays like Super Star with delightful levels and amazing crunchy boss fights, and the climax goes really hard.
What more do you need? I got obsessed with this game. I 100%’d normal and extra modes back to back, gold medal’d all the challenge rooms, and beat the true arena. I had a ball the whole time.
Let me drill down on a specific aspect of the storytelling I liked. Many studio platformers have cool storytelling moments for the final boss — Sonic Colors, Mega Man 11, and Mario 3D World all come to mind as games with memorable, exciting finales. Return to Dream Land goes a step further. It plays its obvious “cool final boss storytelling moment” card at the end of World 5 of 7. That means the actual finale has to go several degrees harder. They play the big card, and then keep going. The result is one of my favorite climaxes in a platformer I can remember, plus a memorable mid-game act break, something the earlier platformers I mentioned, for all their joys, just don’t have. This extra punch even elevates it for me over Adventure and 64’s amazing climaxes.
I have complaints. Kumazaki was apparently brought in after several false starts with the project. Parts of the game don’t fully hang together. The Mega Powers, which freeze the action for multiple seconds while a canned animation plays, are a flatly bad idea, executed as pristinely and unobtrusively as possible. The void levels are wonderful but feel like a mostly random inclusion thematically until a few nods to them late in the game. And of course, there’s absolutely no reason to lock Extra Mode behind completing the normal game. Extra Mode is not particularly hard, but it’s more demanding than the baby-easy first playthrough, and I would’ve had a more densely excellent time if I’d been able to start on it.
But those aren’t breaking issues. This was a delightful experience. Kumazaki’s Kirby feels great to play, and for the first time there’s enough weight and thought to the storytelling that Kirby feels like a real videogame hero, like Adol, or Sonic on his best days. I’m very pleased that I have four more Kumazaki Kirby games to savor and enjoy down the line.
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