Clark | Definitely Opinions

Miracle Workers – Season 1 Review

The only thing weirder than the story in Miracle Workers’ first season is the fact that the show overall is an anthology, and Season 2 has nothing to do with Season 1. That’s kind of a shame, because Season 1 sets up some interesting mechanics that would have been fun to further explore. Like The Good Place, though, it’s probably better to end when it’s meant to rather than unnecessarily drag a story out. And yes, I’m deliberately name-dropping The Good Place, because Miracle Workers shares a lot in common with it. They both paint a somewhat cynical view of heaven and have a similar sense of humor. The difference is that Miracle Workers’ version of heaven is run by sheer incompetence. I mean, God is played by Steve Buscemi; do I really need to say more?

It actually kind of bugged me how heaven used the same (albeit outdated) tech that we have on Earth, and the angels still had to sleep and eat like normal people. They didn’t play with the concept of celestial beings in the same way that The Good Place did. But then there’s an episode near the end where God’s family ridicules him for making Earth and lazily populating it with creatures that are just like him, and that one conversation cleverly explained/excused the show’s whole gimmick. The thing about Miracle Workers is that it has some really funny ideas. It’s the execution that comes across as a little cheesy. The Good Place could be cheesy, too, but made up for it with heart. Miracle Workers isn’t as sentimental but is just as funny… if you can look past some of the sillier effects and dialogue.

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger Review

The other day, I was in the mood for a straightforward first-person shooter that didn’t take itself too seriously. Yeah, I know, that’s a pretty specific itch, and yet Call of Juarez: Gunslinger managed to scratch it. I wouldn’t call this a great game overall, though. While I don’t mind linear levels in a shooter, the levels in Gunslinger are a little too narrow and claustrophobic. Enemies also blend in with the background, making it hard to see who’s shooting at you. It doesn’t help that enemies start shooting from really far away, and most of your weapons are close-range. I know a sniper rifle isn’t realistic for the time period, but damn, I really needed to be able to snipe at times.

Another aspect of the game that drove me nuts were the standoffs that bookended every level. In theory, a standoff is a great idea, but the controls for these sections are terrible. I just started shooting first and taking the “dishonorable kill” penalty so I wouldn’t have to think about them too much. Frankly, I wanted a game with mindless shooting, and you do get plenty of that in the normal stretches of each level. Gunfights are fast-paced and satisfying and (barring the standoffs) don’t bog you down with gimmicky missions. The gameplay couldn’t be any more straightforward: run through town (or a forest) and shoot everything that moves. It’s perfect for what it is.

The best thing about Call of Juarez, though, is the way its narrative is framed. The whole game is narrated by a drunk bounty hunter regaling his adventures in tracking down famous Wild West outlaws. Not only is it funny to hear him constantly say “sumbitch” but his story will periodically change halfway through, thus affecting the level. He might say, “Oh, actually, we came in from the south,” and then the level will restart with you entering town from a different location. Or his audience will challenge him on something like the number of bandits he was up against, and then in the game they’ll suddenly disappear. It’s a neat idea that adds a little more oomph to an otherwise standard arcade-style shooter.

The Righteous Gemstones – Season 1 Review

The Righteous Gemstones is a Danny McBride show, someone who I’ve never really found funny. After finishing Gemstones, I tried watching Eastbound & Down next, and McBride’s narcissistic shtick was pretty much the same. It actually works here, though, because it clashes so elegantly with the religious personas he and his family members are trying to put on. This initially felt like it could’ve been a “Breaking Bad for televangelists,” given that the first episode ends with Jesse (McBride) purposefully running over people with his car. That was a great hook, but the main thread isn’t the blackmailing storyline so much as it is just general family dysfunction. The Gemstones, as it turns out, aren’t necessarily criminals. They just don’t always practice what they preach.

Thus, the show is more about lampooning hypocrisy than it is lampooning religion. The season ending with Jesse in Haiti—picking up a shovel to help dig a trench without so much as a word—made me rethink the negative review I was formulating mid-season. It was a really strong finale that shows these characters do have room to grow. Well, except for Judy, who is maybe beyond repair. But I love that the wildcard character was given to an actress for once, as Edi Patterson does a great job in being so hilariously intense and inappropriate. She is definitely the highlight. I also thought Adam Devine was perfectly cast as the pastor meant to appeal to the youth. Like McBride, his usual acting doesn’t do it for me, but The Righteous Gemstones seems to be where these types of personalities can finally shine.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD Review

Skyward Sword was the only home console Zelda game I hadn’t played, so I was pretty excited for a Switch port, especially since it meant getting to play the game without the original’s off-putting motion controls. Unfortunately, the non-motion controls feel more like a “here, are you happy now?” half measure. Nintendo took the laziest way out and just mapped the motion controls to the right analog stick. This works fine for some things, though it creates a direct conflict with the camera. It doesn’t mitigate the finickiness of situations that require immediate (and correct) directional input, either, like in pretty much any sword fight. I also hate how clunky it is just to switch between items, but that’s not even a motion/non-motion issue.

The thing is, Skyward Sword is inherently flawed, regardless of which control method you use. There are just some really poor design decisions at play here. For instance, you have a very limited stamina meter that can never be upgraded. The overworld feels really empty, and not in a good way a la Wind Waker’s realistically vast ocean. There’s so much backtracking and recycled gameplay, too. Like, every new dungeon requires you to return to a central hub to reveal its location. You have to go through the first temple twice, and you have to fight two different bosses multiple times in almost identical ways. It doesn’t help that those are the worst bosses in the game.

All things said, this is probably the least I’ve enjoyed a Zelda game. In fact, the only reason I bothered to keep playing it is because I have so much respect for this series. If Skyward Sword were a new IP by a different studio, I would have given up on it hours ago. That’s not to say the whole game is bad, though. There are some really memorable dungeons here. The Ancient Cistern and Sandship dungeons are both cool locations that you normally don’t see in a Zelda game. And while the Lanayru Mining Facility is annoying (mostly because you’re still struggling with the controls at that point), the timeshift stones are an interesting gimmick. Alas, this is one Zelda I don’t think I’ll ever be tempted to replay.

Guacamelee 2 Review

I played the first Guacamelee game a long time ago, but I do remember really liking it. I’m pretty conflicted on this sequel, though. The main thing I was looking forward to was the co-op mode, but this game is not co-op friendly. There’s just too much tricky platforming that ends up falling on only one player to do. My wife gave up after the first hour, because she felt like she wasn’t contributing. And it’s a good thing she dropped out, because the difficulty ramps up very early on. I get that you want to provide a challenge for people who’ve already perfected the first game, but it often feels like too much. Arena fights grow increasingly convoluted with monsters and hazards, and a lot of the platforming sections require split-second use of several skills at once.

To the game’s credit, it never feels impossible. I’m pretty used to difficult platformers and only got stuck in a retry cycle a few times. Even then, it was usually an arena fight that was giving me trouble versus a platforming section. The combat feels fine when you’re up against smaller enemies and manageable crowd sizes, but the flaws in the controls become all too apparent as the difficulty scales. It doesn’t help that the dimension-swapping power—which came pretty late in the first game as far as I recall—is introduced almost immediately and relied on heavily for the sequel. A typical platforming challenge ends up looking like this: jump, swap dimensions, grab an eagle hook, swap dimensions, grab another eagle hook, power dash, uppercut, swap dimensions, etc.

While it can be rewarding to execute these command chains successfully, it’s also annoying how frequently moments like this pop up. I could never decide if I should feel empowered for navigating a difficult room or annoyed at the developers for putting so many hair triggers in there in the first place. At times, you wonder if maybe the purpose of this game is just to troll you. The Guacamelee series gets a lot of flak for its humor that relies mostly on memes and references. In Guacamelee 2, it was still lame but didn’t bother me that much… until you find a cave where the NPCs literally complain about things people said about the first game. It came across as incredibly tacky and served as one final reminder that the first game is the better experience overall.

Schmigadoon – Season 1 Review

I don’t care for musicals, but I’ve always wanted to see a story where 1-2 characters know they’re in a musical and aren’t part of the act. That’s kind of what you get with Schmigadoon, at least in the early episodes. Keegan-Michael Key is particularly good at expressing annoyance whenever a song starts. There’s also a great gag where the other normie, Melissa, walks out on someone doing a song and dance number, and you can still hear him going at it inside. But that’s pretty much all you get in terms of anti-musical comedy, because this show is more of an homage than a parody. They still want you to like the songs that they obviously put a lot of work into. And you know what? The songs aren’t bad. My only complaint is that several of them go on for a little too long.

The other issue I have with Schmigadoon is how rushed the story feels in the end. The penultimate episode, for instance, is much shorter than the other episodes and ends so abruptly that I thought I’d missed something. Jane Krakowski shows up out of nowhere in the same episode and is never seen again. That might have been a joke itself based on her character’s Sound of Music inspiration, though I’m not familiar enough with The Sound of Music to get it. Clearly, I’m not the target audience here, but I was still invested in the humor and premise. So it was a pretty big letdown how quickly the normies got back together, even though things were going well with their own romantic interests. It really feels like 2-3 episodes are missing. That, or the brevity is another musical reference I’m too uncultured to understand.