If you were to ask me my favorite-ever Mario game, I would instantly, without the slightest bit of hesitation, without having to think about it and all, answer that it easily and by far has to be Mario 64. The way it made me feel when I played it was nothing short of a religious experience.

Of course, to someone without the nostalgia, someone who didn't grow up with it, someone who was evaluating it as a brand new product by today's standards, there are better Mario games. Mario Odyssey has better graphics, more worlds, more content, a larger scope, and generally is everything Mario 64 was but *improved* through several generations of consoles and game design refinement. (The only part of 64 I would argue holds up even today without being obsoleted is the music, which, to be fair, is pretty major. Still, other than that, it's basically prototype of the games that came later.)

Objectively, I know this. Subjectively, though, those games never hit me the same way. I tried playing Mario Galaxy and it didn't feel like Mario 64. I tried playing Mario Odyssey and it didn't feel like Mario 64. I eventually came to accept that what I was chasing this whole time wasn't a particular game, but the overall experience of being that age, playing it in that context. I've grown up, now, and that whole saying about "you can't go home again" has set in. Not even *Mario 64* feels like Mario 64 anymore. *I'm* different now. It's sad, but that's just life, right?

Or so I thought.

Corn Kidz 64 feels like Mario 64.

I don't mean that in the sense of "it's a retro-inspired aesthetically similar blah blah" no no no, I'm not saying that playing Corn Kidz 64 right now feels like how playing Mario 64 would feel right now. It doesn't. I don't know how this happened. I don't know how they did this. I didn't think such a thing was even possible. But somehow, *somehow,* what I'm saying is that playing Corn Kidz 64 now feels like how playing Mario 64 *felt* the first time I played it. This is that game that I've been chasing ever since I had that experience. This is the game that I wanted Galaxy, Odyssey, all the others to be. Bogo--the creator of Lyle in Cube Sector, another fantastic memory of a bygone era, I might add--took everything I'd ever come to reflect on and realize and understand and accept about adulthood and proved it all wrong. You *can* go home again. I just did.

This may sound like hyperbole. These are some strong words for some $7 indie game on Steam from a dev that only people my age would even still remember, right? They are. Trust me, I know the weight of what I'm saying here. I am saying it fully aware of that weight. Mario 64 was *sacred* to me--not just my favorite Mario game, but one of my favorite games ever made, period. And now, Corn Kidz 64 is, too.

Once upon a time, there was a mantis who wanted to repair a bridge....

Full disclosure: We received an advance copy of this game from the developers in exchange for this review. At no point was the content of said review discussed (presumably we could have trashed this game if we'd wanted to) but we absolutely were given a free copy of this game in hopes that we'd say something about it, and now here we are.

The Repairing Mantis is a... we hesitate to say "horror" game because that usually implies the existence of danger, perhaps something with enemies or the ability to lose. This is an exploration-based walking sim, if anything, but it's so aesthetically and tonally unsettling that I suppose it earns that horror tag regardless.

You are a mantis. You want to repair a bridge. You befriend(?) an absolutely adorable squirrel who dreams of building a flying machine. The squirrel would rather you not use the nearby branches and driftwood and such to repair the bridge--they need those for their machine. However, you can slice off a chunk of their wing and use that, if you'd like. What are friends for, right? :) After a few iterations of using fresh squirrel parts for the meat bridge, it is repaired. This is the prologue and I'd rather not spoil what happens after that, but suffice it to say that you will end up crossing back and forth over the bridge several times to help (or betray) several other squirrels inspired by the dream of the first, resolve a series of fetch quests, and reach one of two endings depending on choices made.

Visually, this game has something of an early 90s multimedia CD-ROM adventure game feel to it, with a first-person 3D exploration of a low-res environment blown up with a pixel filter. We actually adore this style, and the appealing graphics were definitely a high point for us.

Tonally, this game is heavy. The violence and gore are one thing, but it's not just blood and guts for the sheer sake of blood and guts. The story is rich in English class litcrit-friendly symbolism, and the violence takes on an even more psychologically horrifying aspect when contemplating what it means, what the game is trying to say with all this. It's one thing to have a scene where a squirrel accomplishes their fetch quest, then immediately gets besieged by a hostile swarm of moths that rip their entire skin off and toss it aside like a discarded squirrel pelt. It's quite another when the squirrel refers to the stolen skin as "my dream" and this all becomes a message about losing one's dreams when chasing them.

(Never accomplish anything in life, kids. If you achieve your dreams, then you won't have them anymore, and if you don't have them anymore then there's no reason left to live. Apparently.)

This game has depression, is what we're trying to say here, but we're also trying to say that it's a very effective art piece. Please heed every content warning it lists and then some, but if you can handle its tonal bleakness, then what's left is an incredibly poignant and thought-provoking game that has stuck with all of us far longer than its couple-hour playtime would suggest. I've thought for a long time about the central thesis I would have with this game (the advance copy we were given was very advance) which speaks to how much we all needed to just... digest this. In the end, I think what we are left with is this: To say this game is great is like saying Supertramp's "The Logical Song" is great. Both statements are 100% true (they are great) and we greatly enjoyed them. However, in both cases there's a heavy sense of spiritual loss, a feeling of wide-eyed young idealism turning into dull and soulless jadedness. We are profoundly sadder for having experienced each of them. That's ultimately why each of them is such great art, though, and why they each carry our highest recommendation. I may have had to lie down for a bit after hearing what this game had to say (and I still get a sense of whoof reflecting back on it even now,) but I have nothing but respect and admiration for the fact that this game had something to say, and that it said it so well.