The 'Shroom:Issue 215/Critic Corner
Director's Notes
Happy February! The month of love đđđ...football...đđđŚ...and more reviews! Treat yourself, or your date(s), with rousing recitals of what our writers have written, wooing them so deeply that you'll surely wind up in the endzone celebrating! Plenty to choose from with our regular writers, as well as some new ones this month by Sparks (talk) and Shoey (talk), though I recommend reading them all for full hearts and glorious victories.
Thank you for voting Half-Baked Reviews as January's Critic Corner Section(s) of the Month!! Be sure to give your love to all of our sections here, and give a shout out to our writers whether in chat or in their forum threads dedicated to their sections. Be sure to vote vote vote!
And now for my regular announcements: We've decided to implement in Critic Corner something similar to News Flush over in Fake News, where no formal sign-up application process is required for one-time or limited sections. From now on if you just want to send in a single review for something you just read, watched played, tried, whatever, you just have to send me your review privately either to me directly in chat, or in a message to me on the forum at least one week before each 'Shroom is to be released! There's no commitment or obligation to provide a full monthly section (although you absolutely can shift it into one if you so choose), just send us your thoughts on a thing and we'll feature it here! If you have any questions or curiosities about this, please feel free to ask!
As always, if you would like to help Critic Corner, we always have openings for more writers! You are free to write for sections such as Character Review and Movie Review, or really anything you'd like to do! There's no pressure to have a huge section; they can be shorter and concise! The application process is very simple, starting with reading the Sign Up page, and sending your application to Meta Knight on the forum. Any idea you have is welcome, and if you have any questions or need help signing up, please feel free to reach out to myself or other 'Shroom peeps!
Section of the Month
| CRITIC CORNER SECTION OF THE MONTH | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place | Section | Votes | % | Writer |
| 1st | Anton's Half-Baked Reviews | 14 | 58.33% | Hypnotoad (talk) |
| 2nd | A Curse Crackers: For Whom The Bell Toils Review | 5 | 20.83% | Paper Plumm (talk) |
| 3rd | The Peanuts Sessions | 2 | 8.33% | Waluigi Time (talk) |
| 3rd | Book Review | 2 | 8.33% | FunkyK38 (talk) |
'Shroom FM
Welcome back to 'Shroom FM and happy new year for real this time. Unfortunately I have not really listened to many albums released in 2025 so far, so this will be a short and probably depressing edition.
C Duncan - It's Only a Love Song
I've really enjoyed some of C Duncan's work in the past (that is to say his 2015 album Architect, check that one out) but this just did not hit the mark for me at all. Functionally it all sounds very immaculate, lot of silky and sophisticated instrumentation and the vibe is certainly laid-back - but very few of the songs here provide anything of substance beyond that. It is unfortunate as it's well-crafted, and the run from "Worry" to "Delirium" is largely decent, but there's just not much unique going on here and as a result nothing here stands out as unique.
FKA twigs - Eusexua
I've only listened to one other Twigs project (2019's Magdalene) and unfortunately didn't really find much of that engaging. However, most fears I had that this would be the same were soothed by the opener (and title track) "Eusexua" - which starts off with just a steady, thumping beat, introduces a minimal synth line and Twigs' ethereal, measured vocals not before long, and then building up into a really exciting club banger from there. It is a bold start and does a great job setting the stage for everything else to come. Twigs' vocals are very adaptive here - gradual in a way that lets every note linger; there's not too much difference between what she's doing on the more uptempo and slower tracks, but this still works naturally with both. One thing that I have seen said about this is that it sounds like it's inspired by (or even specifically trying to be) Brat - which, outside of a couple of moments, I'm just not seeing at all. Brat is much more rooted in club music from the 00s, whereas Eusexua has the obvious techno influence along with 90s dance and dance-pop music. Also, the songs on Brat are short and mostly uncomplicated (not in a bad way), whereas the songs here are longer and more progressive. After "Eusexua", the rest of the first half is fairly strong - "Girl Feels Good" draws influence from trip hop in a cool way, "Drums of Death" has a great beat mixed with Twigs' chopped up vocals and "Room of Fools" keeps that energy up. But then the second half does let it down a bit - "Childlike Things" just does not fit with anything else and feels really artificial in comparison, and the closer "Wanderlust" does introduce a few neat elements towards the end, but largely suffers from the same issue as the songs I didn't like on Magdalene, in that Twigs' vocals are good but just don't sustain that level of interest over a long ballad like this, even if it does eventually start to take off. All in all, it's not a perfect album, but still a fairly strong start to the year.
Rose Gray - Louder, Please
This is another album which I've seen compared to Brat - is this just going to be the new thing now? It sounds a bit closer to it than Eusexua does at least, it has that same party ethos if you can't tell from the title. I don't think there were a lot of times where I was screaming "louder, please!" at my own phone while listening to this, and there's a few tracks that don't land as well as others, but this was a nice solid 40 minutes of catchy dance-pop with a fair bit of variety. It's not going to invigorate an ill-fated presidential campaign any time soon but if you like liking music there's plenty for you here!
A Look at Mario Enemies Lost to Time
Hello all, and welcome to a new 'Shroom section! I was sitting there numb and depressed after yet another crushing Buffalo Bills playoff loss to the Kansas City Chiefs (I like to date my sections personally) when I started thinking about enemies from the Mario series (it was that or thinking about Southern politicians you've never heard of). And you know, the Mario series has a lot of iconic enemies. You have your Goombas, Shy Guys, and Boos. It even has a long cast of enemies that, while they aren't particularly iconic, still make a lot of appearances, like your Fire Snakes, Coin Coffers, and Scuttlebugs. But then there are the ones that are seemingly lost in the ether, ones that made one or two appearances and then were dropped completely by Nintendo, sometimes forever and sometimes for decades. That's what this section, A Look at Mario Enemies Lost to Time, is all about.
I'm going to be taking a look at a couple of either enemies that rarely appear throughout the games (think enemies that only appear in like one to three games) or enemies which haven't appeared in a while. I'll be looking at their designs, what niche they play in their respective game(s), and whether or not I personally think there's a place for them in the rest of the series. One important note before I begin: For purposes of this section, Super Mario Maker is going to be in a bit of a weird spot. Since that game is more about the player creating levels and with Nintendo giving such a wide net in terms of what you can do, enemy appearances in Super Mario Maker will be sort of ignored in this section.
Tweeter
The first enemy we'll be looking at, making its only appearance in Doki Doki Panic/Super Mario Bros. 2., is Tweeter, the masked bird member of the 8 Bits. This hopping bird is one of the more basic enemies found in Super Mario Bros. 2 and attacks by hopping about with its fourth hop being a sort of super hop where it jumps the full length of its body. Design-wise, I'm of two minds. On one hand, I love it! I mean, look at it! It's a little bird wearing a fun mask with its tiny little wings that don't allow it to fly! But I will admit it's a little basic, especially in a game like Super Mario Bros. 2 where there are so many different enemies that are just things wearing masks. So while I think it's adorable, it doesn't really stick out.
Gameplay-wise, it's sort of comparable to the Green Koopa Paratroopas or the Paragoombas that can't fly. First found on the second screen of the game right after a few regular Shy Guys, Tweeters appear throughout the game, although they appear mostly in the game's early worlds. Tweeters serve, in my opinion, three purposes in the game. The first is that Tweeters serve as a slightly more challenging enemy for the player to overcome, with Tweeters being probably the second-easiest enemy to defeat in the game, given that they just hop along slowly. The second is that, with the game's grab and throw mechanic, Tweeter's serve as an easy enemy the player can pick up and throw to defeat tougher enemies. Since Tweeters have little in the way of methods of hurting the player, they're easy to grab and can be used to take out more complex enemies. Finally, and most importantly, it serves the purpose of giving the player an easy enemy to teach them about timing jumps. While a Shy Guy can only move in a line, making it easy for the player to jump over them, a Tweeter hops along, with its fourth hop being a high hop. This allows the player to learn that there are enemies you're going to have to jump over at the right time to avoid colliding into them and taking damage.
Unfortunately for Tweeter, while it has a specific niche in Doki Doki Panic/Super Mario Bros. 2, I don't really see it ever appearing again outside of, like, Mario Maker. Super Mario Bros. 2 isn't really a Mario game; it's drawing from a completely different set of enemies. With the Mario series proper having no shortage of basic enemies for the player to overcome and with its main niche being something to show the player a little about timed jumps, I just don't see the need when the Mario series has both Green Paratroopas who jump and versions of Paragoombas that do a hop similar to a Tweeter.
Maybe it could appear in the Yoshi series since that series uses Shy Guys heavily and Tweeters are kind of like a bird Shy Guy, but it's just such a basic enemy in a series where all the iconic enemies like Goombas, Shy Guys, and Koopa Troopas already have slightly different variants to help fill the basic common enemy role. As is, unless Tweeter were to get a radical redesign in what it does, I don't really see it returning to the main series. But again, I don't know why you'd want to bring back Tweeter specifically when so many things already play its role and its design is just basic enough to where it doesn't really do anything special.
Buster Beetle
Buster Beetles are quite honestly an enemy that I'm shocked hasn't appeared outside of Super Mario Bros. 3. A buff beefy boy cousin of the oft-appearing Buzzy Beetle, this enemy earns points because right off the bat I already like Buzzy Beetles a lot, especially in the early games. I find them adorable and Buster Beetles are no exception. I especially like the spritework when they pick up a block because it makes them look like they've got a smug expression. Buster Beetles appear in the later worlds of Super Mario Bros. 3, first appearing in the first level of World 5, where, strangely, there aren't any White Blocks for them to throw. Instead they're just speedy beetles running straight for Mario. But after that weird occurrence, Buster Beetles primarily show up in underground levels where their real purpose is revealed. See, up until now, only Mario and Luigi could use the White Blocks, making them a great resource to defeat enemies in levels where they appeared.
Well, Buster Beetles flip that on its head with their ability to pick up and throw White Blocks at Mario. And not only can they throw them at Mario, but they do it fast, too! They just pick up and lob White Block after White Block at Mario as soon as they get him in their sights! They're a real pain in these underground levels where tight corridors give the player little room to maneuver, especially since White Blocks often come in piles so the Buster Beetle can just throw them one after another after another! Or they'll appear on top of an incline and throw a block at the incoming player, 360 no scoping them if they try jumping!
I think Buster Beetles are a really interesting enemy because not only are they often challenging for the player to get past, but they also directly counter a resource that is normally helpful to a player. They do something really unique by turning the helpful-to-this-point White Blocks into another obstacle!
Like I said before, I'm surprised in a series that so heavily features blocks that Buster Beetles just never returned. I mean, I know that White Blocks never appeared again and the series moved away from exploding blocks after the Grab Block in Super Mario World, but come on, there are plenty of blocks for Buster Beetle to throw! There are a lot of levels that just have blocks that the player doesn't do anything with, so just plug Buster Beetle in there and let him chuck the blocks at Mario! It's not like this is some weirdo enemy like Snailicorn or Dudim Phreykunoutonthis with a weird design or a weird function.
Buster Beetles are directly connected to a Mario staple, the Buzzy Beetle, and have a function that I think would be super easy to fit into any game. It's just weird that they haven't appeared since Super Mario Bros. 3, but I could easily see them making another appearance in some game down the line!
That's all for this month! Join me next time as I look at a couple more forgotten enemies.
Why Ballistic Bingo is a Garbage Minigame
The Mario Party series has had lots of great minigames throughout the years. Some are more memorable than others however, whether they are very awesome to play or downright awful. Sometimes I get the sudden urge to play through every minigame in the titles I currently own (and win them)! I especially did this with the mainline games starting with 8 but excluding Superstars. I usually dread the bad minigames because they take a while get through if I happen to be unlucky.
Typically the chance-based ones happen to be the worst. Nobody likes having no control over what happens! But Mario Party has proved that you don't need RNG to make a terrible minigame. The first installment had ones that actually injured people due to their ridiculous controls (which caused lawsuits to happen, yes this is real). Flip the Chimp from Mario Party 8 is hated by all players (myself included) because of its unresponsive motion controls.
This Christmas I finally got Super Mario Party Jamboree and have had tons of fun playing it with my older brother. We absolutely enjoy playing the "Bowser Kaboom Squad" mode and take turns doing so (mode lacks local multiplayer by the way). We don't have Nintendo Switch Online, so CPUs take the place of the other players. Sometimes they act weird, but most of the time they pull through to fight against Impostor Bowser and to S-rank the minigames for the best rewards.
As for the ten minigames here, I enjoy almost all of them, especially Juice Works. Bath Bob-ombs can be annoying at times but it's much more fair than the one I'm about review: Ballistic Bingo. It is no doubt the worst minigame in the mode and one of my least favorites in the game.
"Why is that," you may ask? Let me tell ya! Have a seat.
In Ballistic Bingo, the eight players work together to fire cannonballs at passing ships to earn points. The ships have grids of panels that must be attacked to score for the team. Four panels are golden, earning double the points when struck. If a line of panels (horizontally, vertically and diagonally) is cleared out, bonus points are earned. If all panels are knocked out, additional points are earned for the players, so players should prioritize Bingos. Each player gets three shots, with a short cooldown after each cannonball fired. The game is played in three rounds; the first two ships have 4X4 grids and the third has a 5X5 grid, although the center has no panel, making for 24 panels total.
Not a bad idea on paper! But when you actually play the minigame you find out it's not as fun as you expected it to be. There are three main factors that lead to a very horrendous experience: the constant missing, the unpredictability, and the requirements.
These ships are moving across the screen; they're not just motionless in one place. You must carefully aim and fire at the panels and not the iron bars separating them. Human players can learn quickly, especially with the "practice" beforehand. The CPUs however⌠not so much.
The series has a reputation for having bad AI, more notably in the earlier installments. Jamboree is also an example of this. In my short time playing the game, I have had some very strange occurrences myself. One time the opposite team in Match Makers (a 2-vs.-2 minigame that involves flipping over cards to get pairs to move on) somehow beat us in the final round because their matching cards happened to be right at the start of the room. I should also mention that they were in Easy, but still move pretty quickly despite that. I've seen my brother play Sandwiched and sometimes the Easy-mode CPUs survive for such a long time and win in the end. Puzzle Pandemonium had the others purposely tossing puzzle pieces on the incorrect spots even though it's obvious on where they should go. One time there was one spot left and that player threw it right next to it, costing me an S Rank.
Ballistic Bingo has some of the worst AI I've ever seen! Most of the time the Computers actually miss their targets completely and throw that S Rank out of the window. If you've played this minigame without online capabilities you know what I'm talking about.
This next issue is one that could apply for online as well - unpredictability. The bottom line is this: "Where are my teammates aiming and when will they shoot?" Only the player's cursor is visible. This means you have no idea what your opponents plan on doing. Sure you can watch their cannons turn but shouldn't you focus on getting points instead?
If me and someone else happen to fire at the same panel at the same time, that results in wasted ammo. This is why I get my first shot it ASAP before anybody else does, just so this situation won't happen. Afterwards, I have to hope that my remaining two blasts are beneficial and not wasteful. Even then, CPUs may lock on to the same targets, something I can't control. I would like if the others had visible targets on the screen just so I wouldn't get in their way. That probably would've made it too difficult to focus, with eight targets onscreen at once, so I understand.
Before I move on, let me show you footage that perfectly represents what I have described.
- S: 201+ points
- A: 126â200 points
- B: 51â125 points
- C: 0â50 points
I'm sorry, 201 points?! You're kidding right?
No they're not. You're expected to get a perfect score on the first two rounds to even have a shot at S-ranking this. One missed shot can result in a fail. Just one! There have been countless times where I failed to win because of how stupid the final round is. You may think "more tiles=more points" but you're wrong! It's much more difficult to get Bingos, so earning more points is tougher as a result. If you can get at least 30 points in round three, consider yourself lucky.
This minigame does have two minor redeeming qualities. I like the nighttime aesthetic and the music. That's it. Good visuals and soundtrack isn't enough to save it.
In the end, Ballistic Bingo is a garbage minigame that once again proves that entirely relying on RNG isn't needed for a terrible Mario Party minigame. I have no idea what online is like (it could be entirely different for all I know!) but this is from someone who tried for 20 minutes to S Rank it. If I was to give every minigame from this game a tier list, this would go to instant "F" tier (or whatever the worst grade is). If I was to provide a description as to why I did so, I'll link to this review. Easily one of the worst in the game and in the top 5 of my least favorites.
If you somehow enjoy this minigame, good for you! No matter what, I will hold my stance.
A Golden Sun GBA Duology Story Review and Analysis
Written by: Paper Plumm (talk)
Hello Yello! Welcome back to another review series. After trying to do more bite sized reviews, I have decided that I much prefer writing about games that require longer form writing. The game, or rather games, I'll be discussing is the Golden Sun Duology of Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age. These games feature a unique pairing system that allows you to carry your data over from the first to the second, making this more of a longer game split into two parts rather than two separate entries. The Golden Sun duology is some of the most popular and well received games on the GBA. The question is, is its worth being tied to being an outstanding GBA game, or is it an amazing game in its own right?
Golden Sun has a very basic story, focusing a lot on its world building. While I think this is a good idea for building the stories of smaller projects, something as big as a JRPG significantly suffers from a weak story. The other issue with Golden Sun is its writing. It won't stop nailing its points in. A lot of Golden Sun's design is to be an entry level JRPG game, and considering what the GBA audience was at the time, it's obvious it tries to make its writing more manageable for children. While this is fine in a lot of ways, it is disappointing to see, especially because of how much potential the writers really have. Golden Sun's opening hour as an example, showcases the dire tragedy of six years prior, with an incredibly well paced yet minimal story that also subtly explains how psynergy works, in direct contrast with the bluntness the rest of the game's plot seems to show.
However, there is a third possibility, and one I think is even more interesting. See, as we all know there is a second act to that story, and one I feel has much more narrative presence, in addition it recontextualises the journey of Isaac as one that was going to slowly destroy the world rather than allow it to grow and that Isaac was manipulated by the Wise One into thinking his journey was a good idea. However, this isn't just limited to this point, much of the game features instances of Isaac being demanded to make actions because he is told they are right. An example of this comes in the form of the character Babi. Babi has been utilising an immortality draught for some time and has very little left, causing him to be on the brink of death unless he gains more. To this end, he begs Isaac and his party to return to the fabled city of Lemuria where the draught is from, as only they with their psynergy skills can do so. However, the means that Babi has gone towards gaining and keeping his immortality is incredibly questionable. He steals nearly the entire supply of draught when he stumbles upon the city by chance and ditches his friend to leave him trapped in Lemuria. Then, in order to find Lemuria again once his draught is dwindling, he holds a girl of significant religious significance to the Laliverian people, Sheba, hostage and forces the people of the city to build a lighthouse to help guide the ship to Lemuria. And yet, by leveraging that saving himself is the right thing to do to Isaac and his party, he nearly succeeds in getting away with it. (By the time Lemuria is reached, Babi's draught has run out and Babi dies of old age.) These two are just some of the more notable examples, all throughout the game Isaac is essentially manipulated into performing seemingly good actions that are in fact manipulations from those in higher power which they then use to further their own ambitions. So, while this sort of childish bluntness can be seen as an idea of targeting the proper audience, it also serves at the same time as a cautionary tale towards the perils of always obeying authority.
Lost Age provides a much more directly solid, interesting story without the need for me to spend a paragraph justifying its narrative to myself and everyone else. The story, rather than take place on the hero's side, focuses on the villain's party of Felix. Felix has just completed his arc of his own, having defied the authority of Saturos and Menardi who have leveraged the idea that their extreme actions to save their own people are the right thing to do in order to make Felix go along. Even without the lack of any central authority, the leverage to save his parents still puppeteers Felix towards continuing his quest. This idea of manipulation continues to be present with many of the scenarios that occur in the first part. At the city of Alhafra, the party helps imprison the pirate Briggs as that is the right thing to do, however this is in spite of him resorting to a life of crime to help his village of Champa which was suffering from famine, and arresting Briggs will result in all the money going to Alhafra's greedy and corrupt mayor. The story takes a turn when the party finally sails off the continent, literally having the freedom to sail wherever they want. At this point, the party starts to regain resolve as evident by the arcs of this section. The party lets Briggs be once he escapes, and Briggs and the party even work together in order to gain access to Lemuria.
It is at this point the party reaches Lemuria, which symbolically represents the extreme of submission to authority. Decreeing themselves superior to the world around them, they forced strict isolation and refused to change. Even when authority such as the king, Hydros, attempts to try to encourage change and progress, the morals of the people are so deeply instilled they refuse to do so. This is even further exemplified when the leader of the city's Senate, Conservato, literally sees a map that shows how drastically the continents have changed and showing that the world is shrinking and refuses to acknowledge this. There is obviously a bit more that Lemuria's issues are trying to represent, what with the guy whose name is literally a play on the word conservative in charge of governing, but somehow, I feel like now isn't the best time or place for politics, just a hunch.
Piers, one of the members of Felix's party, makes the choice to sacrifice ever going back to Lemuria in order to prevent the world from dying, signifying a final rejection of this philosophy and a resolve for the party to do what they feel is right regardless of what others tell them it is. The story does continue on from there, but I think that's really where analysis stops as the story really starts to reiterate its points more than anything. Lost Age does a good job at showing the importance of independence and to avoid spending your life controlled by others. Lost Age feels like it respects its players more than the previous, no matter how intentional that was. There are a lot of really great moments that help to build the world, and the cast always manages to bring a smile to my face. Speaking of whichâŚ
Golden Sun's cast is very mixed. There's a lot of really interesting characters with many effortlessly stealing the show with their appearances, however a lot of characters have very little personality and aren't really all that interesting. This is especially noticeable when it comes to protagonists, who despite having as much background stories as they do, end up having little from their past that's used to define their present-day relations. In short, the characters are incredibly interesting from their actions rather than anything major about their characters. I will still go over the most notable of them in brief.
Isaac suffers from silent main character syndrome (SMCS) for the first game, and then just as he recovers he contracts another variant, generic main character syndrome for Lost Age. Outside of the fact he goes from literally not saying anything outside of yes or no to speaking multifaceted sentences between two games, the guy doesn't really have anything going for him. However, I would consider him a shoehorn for the player, so I suppose it makes sense. Mia and Garet both feel like very generic archetypes of their respective characters however they do each have their own moments that define their respective characters. Ivan is definitely the best example of action before character. His entire character is his backstory rather than feeding into it, however of the original cast he's the one that feels most interesting. Saturos and Menardi are easily one of my biggest disappointments when it comes to their characters. Firstly, and this is applicable to the other of the duology and as I imagine Dark Dawn, why would you make a villain pair and have little to no character dynamics between the two? At that point, why not just make a single antagonist who serves the same point and be done with it. And while they certainly have an imposing presence, there is no suggestion of their actual motives, something that easily could have enhanced their characters even more, plus their actual method makes no sense when just talking to the party would have easily resolved everything, rather than just killing them. Babi is the game's highlight in my eyes, he feels equal parts powerful yet at the same time sad, and his fascinating story works wonders towards enhancing his overall character rather than just defining it.
In Lost Age, Felix has an even more rich and interesting backstory than Isaac and is an incredibly well made character for the first game, with looking just morally grey enough to keep you always guessing, he tragically ends up getting so cold swimming through the frigid waters to land after diving off a lighthouse that he contracts SMCS and loses any sense of interesting beats as a character. Jenna is an incredibly fun character, however she suffers from the same feeling of genericness that Mia and Garet did. Sheba has a complex backstory like Ivan, however unlike him it's actually utilised, with her trying to find a place in the world with her heavily dispersed background. Piers is probably the best of the main cast, exemplifying the themes of finding one's own path and doing what is right. Karst and Agatio are another baffling villain pair. Karst is a genuinely great character, who ends up becoming so blinded by revenge and pride she is unable to seek help from others and it ends up consuming her. However, Agatio being there really complicates things, he literally has no reason to be there in the story and Karst is perfectly fine as a singular antagonist. In fact, having this character who literally just does nothing as Karst loses her mind, kinda just harms both of their characters. I'm baffled by the decision for villain pairs when doing so adds so little to their overall characters. Briggs is also great, he serves as a great impetus towards changing the party's way of thinking, as well as just a good guy in general. Lastly, there is Alex, the master puppeteer. On paper, he is a really compelling antagonist, however he virtually does nothing wrong, rather he tries to speed up the process of them activating the lighthouses, he's more like a professional stock marketer; in order to make the most gains he manipulates the circumstances so that he's able to make the most off of them.
While I do think characterisation is a bit poor, the massive fan community of Golden Sun certainly says otherwise, as a great deal of its community's works are focused on crafting stories about the game's characters. If you were to look at the Golden Sun Wiki, which is highly recommended, you would see an entire article dedicated to the different relationships that are prominent in the community, from the viable like Jenna and Isaac, to the ones I hope are viable like Mia and Sheba, to even absurd ones like, and I'm not joking, Isaac and his house's roof. While I'm not sure about its prominence now, I'm sure the Golden Sun community was quite the scene in its heyday. I'm sure if I was around back then, I would have loved to be a part of it.
Golden Sun is very weak character wise, the entire story is best viewed in large sweeping motions, but it fails to succeed in its more interpersonal and human elements of its story. It crafts a great world and compelling themes, but its actual story and characters are incredibly weak. However, in my opinion, I don't think it succeeds narratively, if I was talking about a 10, maybe 20-hour game, maybe, but this is a 60-hour experience that constantly feels like it's just shaving the surface of its potential. So, while I suppose for a GBA game it is incredibly impressive, comparing it to the overall world of RPGs, it unfortunately fails to succeed.
Well, I'm glad to be getting back into the swing of things, although I'm trying to be more active this year, things have certainly happened. Not to get into personal details or anything, but it has been very trying to be who I am in these times, but enough about that, I really do want to thank all the support I have gotten for these, getting on the podium for every article I've done? That is incredibly impressive to see. I know I had alluded to doing something else, but it kinda ballooned out of hand and didn't really feel worth continuing, however there is something I have planned, a big passion project that you'll see some time this year, look forward to that. Have a very frosty January and as always, drive safely.
The Peanuts Sessions
Written by: Waluigi Time (talk)
If you're reading this on release day (or perhaps exactly X number of years after release), Valentine's Day was yesterday. What better way to celebrate than reading a review of the soundtrack for Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown in your favorite Mario-based newspaper? (I hope it's your favorite, anyway.) This one is a fresh release from just last month, we're really getting into 'Shroom FM levels of relevancy here. As always, here's the official Vince Guaraldi YouTube playlist if you'd like to listen along.
| # | Title | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heartburn Waltz | 1:16 |
| 2 | Heartburn Waltz (Reprise) | 0:11 |
| 3 | Linus And Lucy | 0:54 |
| 4 | Valentine Interlude #1 / Heartburn Waltz (2nd Reprise) | 0:55 |
| 5 | Piano Sonata No. 20 In G Major, Op. 49 No. 2 - 1. Allegro Ma Non Troppo | 0:59 |
| 6 | Heartburn Waltz (3rd Reprise) | 0:52 |
| 7 | Linus And Lucy (2nd Reprise) | 0:32 |
| 8 | Paw Pet Overture | 1:27 |
| 9 | Freddie's Mood (Chopin's Nocturne In E Flat Major, Op. 9 No. 2) | 2:01 |
| 10 | Heartburn Waltz (4th Reprise) | 0:37 |
| 11 | Never Again | 1:22 |
| 12 | Music Box Dance (Bach's Minuet In G Major, BWV Anh. 116) | 0:15 |
| 13 | Woodstock's Mambo | 0:39 |
| 14 | Heartburn Waltz (5th Reprise) | 2:38 |
| 15 | Jennie L. | 1:04 |
| 16 | Heartburn Waltz (6th Reprise) | 1:14 |
| 17 | Valentine Interlude #2 / Heartburn Waltz (7th Reprise) | 2:12 |
| 18 | There's Been A Change | 1:33 |
| 19 | Woodstock's Revenge | 0:52 |
| 20 | Charlie Brown's Wake-Up | 1:24 |
| 21 | Heartburn Waltz (8th Reprise) | 1:54 |
| 22 | Freddie's Mood (Show Version) | 2:01 |
| 23 | Heartburn Waltz (Bonus Mix) | 1:20 |
| 24 | Jennie L. (Alternate Take) | 0:58 |
| 25 | Heartburn Waltz (Alternate Take) | 0:55 |
| 26 | Woodstock's Mambo (Bonus Mix) | 1:06 |
| 27 | Heartburn Waltz (Reprise) (Bonus Mix) | 0:10 |
| 28 | There's Been A Change (Alternate Take) | 1:28 |
| 29 | Heartburn Waltz (5th Reprise) (Bonus Mix) | 2:50 |
| 30 | Last Call For Love | 5:53 |
First of all, so much better audio quality compared to the TV special. It's to the point that I actually appreciate the soundtrack a lot more listening to it on this release, whereas watching the special it felt a little like it was just kind of there outside of a couple tracks. "Freddie's Mood" was one of the tracks that surprised me a lot in how much I enjoyed it here, I'd even go as far as to say this might be my favorite track on the album. It's a jazzy rendition of FrĂŠdĂŠric Chopin's "Nocturne In E Flat Major, Op. 9 No. 2" (a piece I enjoy quite a bit), very classy feeling. In the show, it's crunched down even further to sound like it's being played on an old-timey record player to accompany Snoopy's puppet show (this version is included as track 22), so finally hearing it in its original quality as it was recorded... yeah, good stuff!
But I'm getting ahead of myself here. I would say Be My Valentine leans in a more melancholy direction overall compared to other Peanuts soundtracks, which is pretty appropriate considering most of the cast goes through their share of Valentine's Day woes in this special. (Except for Snoopy, he's content to just host puppet shows, eat chocolate, and participate in some Valentine's-adjacent trolling.) Also, unlike other specials, almost all of the tracks here were brand new compositions (except the few borrowed from classical composers, obviously). "Linus And Lucy" appears only twice with a runtime of less than a minute each, and even then it's arranged almost beyond recognition. "Heartburn Waltz" takes center stage with a whopping nine arrangements (and even more in the bonus tracks), most of them immediately recognizable, some not so much. It's a very solid composition in general and as one of the more upbeat tracks on here does a lot of the heavy lifting to avoid making this go too deep into melancholy territory. I already singled out "Freddie's Mood", but I want to give additional shoutouts to "Jennie L." and "There's Been A Change" as tracks that particularly stood out to me while listening to this album. They're both very much on the somber side of this soundtrack, and honestly, not usually the kind of tracks I would cite as a favorite, but I don't know, something about the synth work here really does it for me.
The bonus tracks are, as usual, (mostly) alternate versions of tracks heard in the special. Some are labeled alternate take, some are labeled bonus mix, there's not really a meaningful difference. I'm not sure why some are labeled bonus mix since the distinction would imply that some were, at one point, recorded for potential usage in the special and others never were, but we're just going to roll with it. Usually I don't find myself forming strong opinion on these since they're just "this track but different", but there's a couple that don't really do it for me this time around. The bonus mix of "Woodstock's Mambo" is what I would call overly funky, almost wobbly-sounding, and just doesn't fit Woodstock as a character, and the bonus mix of the first reprise for "Heartburn Waltz" almost sounds downright out of tune. I appreciate their inclusion but I'm glad they decided to give those another shot (maybe - they're both labeled bonus mix, not alternate take, after all) for the final product. The rest are nice though, and I might actually prefer this version of "There's Been A Change", jury's still out on that one though. The album closes with "Last Call For Love", which as I understand was actually a jam session after recording wrapped up. It's pretty good!
To wrap things up with the perspective of a casual listener, I would say for the most part this album holds up pretty well despite several tracks being on the shorter end. Those mostly flow into each other pretty well. There's only two tracks that stick out in a potentially bad way, in my opinion. "Piano Sonata No. 20" (I'm not writing the whole title out) is used for Schroeder's piano playing, so it's solo piano as per usual, and there's much more of a pronounced "toy piano" sound than in earlier specials where it was indistinguishable from the score. "Music Box Dance" is the other one, and its only problem is that it's so short - it's actually the very small ending portion of a longer track from It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. You may or may not want to add the show version of "Freddie's Mood" to this list as well, but I think a lot of people would find the record player sound charming, so that one comes down more to personal preference.
And that wraps things up for this month. I'll be taking next month off because I'm actually out of content for the time being, so I'll see you back here in April for another review.
Written by: Hypnotoad (talk)
Art by: TPG (talk)
Gourmet Chocolate Bars, Part 3
Happy February! Following up from Part 1 and Part 2 of gourmet chocolate bar reviews, here is Part 3 as I continue to have a massive amount of chocolate bars that I keep compulsively compiling and need some kind of regular outlet to churn them all out. It seems that the more I travel the more I come across, and that the more time that passes the more new flavors and brands pop up. As we dive into this, here is my annual preamble to get into the right mindset and set the right expectations:
By no means am I approaching these as an expert, or as someone with refined tasting talents that have been honed; Iâm merely a guy with enough income to buy a dozen of these at a time to then come tell you if I think these are worth it to the average person looking for something a touch beyond familiar that feels neat for someone looking to spend upwards of $6 - $12 on something you can usually get for $2 to enjoy finer crafts, attention to quality, and perhaps unique flavors. You can read somewhere else on dozens and dozens of different websites babbling ad infinitum about the history of cacao, origins, purported health benefits of dark chocolate that donât mention all of that cadmium and lead thatâs also natural, and how it entered modern society as a symbol of wealth and luxury scraped off the backs of slaves and stolen culture in ways that are still reflected into today, but my goal here is to see for myself (and then share with you) which of these symbols of elite craftsmanship and sociopolitical pivoting actually tastes good!
While I am not a fan of numbered ratings for a myriad of reasons, including how unrelatable and meaningless they can be from person to person, I sometimes find it helpful to include them in reviews that I foresee to be massive and sprawling so I can develop some kind of internal connection and simplicity; plus itâs a great excuse to have more reaction faces drawn. Sensory aspects are the bulk, if not the only markers, of quality in many other chocolate bar ratings, evaluations, and accreditations, and thatâs just simply not all of what Iâm looking for. To score these, these are the simple questions I will ask myself:
Taste - Is the flavor appealing in any sense?
Texture - Does it feel satisfying?
Virtue - How do they come to terms with, ya know, slavery?
Charm - Was the dazzle that got me to buy it in the first place sustained?
Value - With the other factors considered, is the price worth it?To further elaborate:
- Taste - As these chocolate bars tend to elevate themselves beyond providing more than taste, I will need to evaluate them on how they satisfy other senses in relation to taste, such as smell.
- Texture - The crisp and firm snap of breaking into a chocolate bar is a sign of it being well-tempered and expertly formed, but does that and whatever other additions, thickness, shape, and design aid or inhibit my overall enjoyment?
- Virtue - The special feats and acts the maker participates in, whether through the medium of chocolate or through corporate practice, and if what theyâre doing is sensible and fair.
- Charm - High achievement in this category is relative to the goal set out by the chocolate maker, through such things as package design and mythos, to what is actually carried through to me biting into it.
- Value - Retail therapy, or putting me in therapy with my renewed rage over frivolously wasted cash washing me with regret? Is the price all in the words they sew on the package, a spell cast to distract me from yet another subpar 70% dark, or have I found a new indulgence?
And so here we go!
Moonstruck
Based in Portland, Oregon, Moonstruck Chocolate Co. is a craft chocolate-maker that produces handmade and artisan truffles, bars, and cocoa with a wide variety of flavors. Made with natural ingredients, and with a Made Right Sourced Right logo slapped on, these really donât have many other virtues you might expect, and instead lean more towards traditional chocolate bars. Digging into what Made Right Sourced Right is, it seems to be a commitment to using natural ingredients and local sourcing, prioritizing growers and makers in the Pacific Northwest, as well as some platitudes about environmental responsibility and social values. Stating that they implement âstrict food safety protocolsâ is a bit, likeâŚyeah, I sure hope you do, and makes this feel a bit too corporate in a way many of the other craft chocolate bars Iâve had do; feels a bit beyond Hersheyâs, maybe not quite the prestige of Lindt and Ghirardelli, but still only set by the Chocolove and Alter Eco in stores you can just feel generate no net profit.
Dark Chocolate Blueberry Passion Fruit Bar
I bought this specific flavor because, out of the others available, this one seemed a bit more fun to try; I donât like blueberry, but I like passion fruit, so I was curious. Just dark chocolate, dried blueberries, and passion fruit powder, with a few extra steps of vanilla flavor, soy lecithin, citric acid, sunflower oil, basically what it says it is and the few things that make those edible and stable. Whatâs important is that the package looks cute, and Moonstruck seems to be aware of this as the insides feature artwork from a local artist they fully credit, but still feels kinda big and corporate.
Very firm, like I was snapping pieces of stoneware, indicating good tempering. Whatâs good about good tempering, though? I always see chocolate companies and connoisseurs talk about the tempering process and the fact that a bar is (or isnât) tempered properly is a direct assessment of the barâs quality, but why? Who cares if the chocolate bar is glossy, if it has a satisfying snap? But what itâs actually a sign of is differing crystal formations within the chocolate that can render different textures that have more-subjective-than-objective aspects, like melting too easily in your hands or just feeling dry and gritty. Aside from the more pleasing textures, itâs also a sign that the company knows what theyâre doing and are intentional with their processes. This particular bar I have is suffering from a little bloom that I believe is from some temperature fluctuations with transport inside a cooler in my car while I drove 10 hours, because otherwise what else could it be if not just the bar being that poorly made?
A tender sweetness was creeping in the background but unfortunately it just never made enough of a presence for me to think it was worth more than how cute the package color was. Despite being an unspecified percentage of dark chocolate it didnât taste too bitter, just rather dull. The blueberries were physically there, sometimes making themselves down with their stiffer texture, but otherwise neither they nor the passion fruit were noticeable in any way beyond sugar. Iâm actually kinda disappointed because this wasnât bad, I could feel that there was something good hiding in there, but it failed to give enough of it so I never wanted any more. The lingering aftertaste is bittersweet in a literal and figurative sense, in that ruminating on it seems alright but Iâm just kinda sad about it. Maybe if it was a lighter chocolate the sweetness of the berries would pop out more? Maybe not be so rigid and be easier to melt in your mouth to disperse the flavor? I get that higher end chocolates have snooty connoisseurs intend for darker chocolates to be held in your mouth to melt down and experience it as it just sits there, but Iâm someone who still needs to operate within a budget and that unfortunately does not include getting more dental crowns than I already have.
Iâve definitely seen Moonstruck chocolate bars selling at upscale stores and boutique retailers, but the best deal youâre going to get is at World Market for some reason, where it only costs the same $5 as it does directly from Moonstruckâs site. I think Moonstruckâs ubiquity in large stores like this, or in tourist spots, airport terminals, etc. removes it a bit from the high-end and makes it into a pastiche for soccer moms to treat themselves to a little somethinâ, and I will gladly accept this over Huâs rapid dissemination into the lower ranks of society via Target as it at least remains something I can stomach. Is this the problem, or is it me progressing in life enough to where a $5 chocolate bar feels too plain? C-Spot puts it well: âA true wannabe contender that knows the market they are going for... if this were clothes...$9.99 Storeâ˘, Walmartâ˘, Targetâ˘, Macysâ˘, Nordstromâ˘, Saksâ˘... Moonstruck is at the Macys level.â, and I donât think anything is wrong with having that humble level of indulgence to bookend a rough week. With the low-impact pricing on these and general inoffensiveness, I can see these being easy gifts for people who donât exert themselves further than Reeseâs and Lindt.
Taste ---- 
Texture - 
Virtue ---
Charm --
Value --- 
Total: 13/25
Milk Chocolate Orange Pistachio and Rose Element Bar
After actually physically visiting Portland, Moonstruck chocolates was just something I never really came across in a way that inspired me to get them over something else, unlike how Theo had me buying half a dozen things from them. On the way out of PDX, waiting for my plane, I noticed some Moonstruck Element Bars for $8.99 and figured, huh, sure, not something I see where I live, a nice little token of the trip I can take back. Same ideals as their other bars, being made with only natural ingredients, but forgoes their standard package design to instead highlight how the chocolate bar looks, with a window to see all of the inclusions generously dumped on top. The one I chose has candied orange peel, pistachios, and dried rose petals spilled on top of a standard milk chocolate bar.
The pistachios added a decent amount of crunch, and the candied orange gave a nice pop of sweetness, but the rose flavor was just not there at all, and I think because it was overwhelmed and not supported. Iâm not sure about you guys, but this whole concept of having a bunch of things plopped on top of a chocolate bar entirely for the heightened visual aspect falls flat for me, as more often than not the pieces arenât fully secured and end up falling off. What this amounted to was pretty much just that: an alright milk chocolate bar with things on it, in the way, making a mess, and thereâs really nothing else to say about it. Youâre better off having the few things separately, a decadent spring-themed sweet charcuterie board; sure itâll be vastly more expensive to do that, but $8.99 is far too much for such a disappointment and inconvenience that youâre better off going big or going home.
Iâve been wanting to try Moonstruckâs hot cocoas, as those seem to be much easier to find around me as theyâre available in The Fresh Market, but now Iâm second guessing that as I donât want to be left with a rather expensive container of dull hot cocoa. Moonstruck also has a line of Exploration Bars that seems to be where they place their miscellaneous seasonal concepts, and you canât tell me that things like the Black Cat bar isnât one of the coolest things youâve seen. I think these offbeat creative concepts is the direction Moonstruck should go if they really want to aim beyond that for the stars.
Taste ----
Texture - 
Virtue ---
Charm --
Value ---
Total: 9/25
Milk Chocolate Cinnamon
As I was wandering around a newly opened extremely fancy wine shop, entirely in hopes that they would also be carrying some fancy chocolate bars as Orlando is shockingly devoid of good places to find them, I happened to see this. The timing of this is after I tried and wrote the other two bars in this section, and purchased it because I was kinda feeling bad about the low reviews I gave them; plus, $4 isnât bad.
Their Milk Chocolate Cinnamon bar comes with the adjective ânuttyâ on it, which had me a little curious as I would describe cinnamon instead with warm, sweet, woody, spicy. Only when I read the ingredients did I see almonds. Biting into this Iâm actually really grateful for them, as they provide some kind of solid backing and well-paired nuance to the intensely sweet and aromatic cinnamon. Iâm not sure if this is the result of my shifting tastes as I get older, but Iâd go as far to say as this is way too sweet, that they couldâve made this a bit darker, maybe somewhere in like 55%-60% just to stiffen it up and lay off the sugar just a bit. A very responsible level of cinnamon, though, settling into feeling like a really good Mexican hot chocolate taste as it melts down, which at least brings me back around to considering their hot cocoas. I think Iâd like this more if the almonds were a bit larger, or had some more of a crunch, but Iâm not mad at it.
Taste ----
Texture -
Virtue ---
Charm --
Value ---
Total: 16/25
Dr. Bronnerâs Magic All-One Chocolate
Primarily known for their natural soaps, Dr. Bronnerâs is typographically infamous for their abundance of text on their products, absolutely inundated with information and manifestos from Emanual Bronner himself. Steadfast with their commitment to organic, Fair Trade, just business practices, and overall cuttingly vocal about climate change and environmental chaos, thereâs no hope in me summarizing it when you can just read their bottles and about me for everything you need to know and likely need to hear and pursue. Regenerative, renewable, resilient, and now revelatory with their debut of organic chocolate bars in 2021. Having undergone a package change between the time I bought these and now, all of their chocolate bars feature 70% dark chocolate with a variety of flavors that are all organic, vegan, Fair Trade, gluten-free, and non-GMO, with Regenerative Organic Certified cocoa and coconut sugar, and all for about $6âregularly going on sale for much lessâat The Fresh Market where I picked these up as I enchanted by the shimmering magic words and colors. Good for farmers, the planet, you, but for taste too?
Crunchy Hazelnut Butter
Made with cocoa beans, coconut sugar, hazelnuts, cocoa butter, bourbon vanilla beans, and almonds, their Crunchy Hazelnut Butter (and other bars) looks like large KitKat wafers but absolutely loaded with filling. Despite that, though, the nut flavors get lost quickly in the dark chocolate. The chocolate bar is exceptionally hard, not due to high quality tempering but because itâs just so thick, and feels like biting into shale or chalk. The hazelnut butter is the only reprieve, melting slightly, but feels very sandy in a way that really reminded me of everything else youâd get at a natural goods store. Incredible density to this that would make it hard to eat much of it in a single sitting, even if you wanted to.
I really, truly, genuinely, passionately feel that these would be much better as milk chocolate, not to bring in more sweetness but rather to cut down on the heavy roasted cocoa flavor that Iâm personally not a fan of. I want an indulgent treat, not an exercise in global ethics practiced through jaw torture, and Iâm growing afraid that this is the best that can be offered with current technologies.
Taste ----
Texture -
Virtue --- 
Charm --
Value ---
Total: 15/25
Salted Whole Almonds
Made with cocoa beans, coconut sugar, almonds, cocoa butter, sea salt, and bourbon vanilla bean, this bar impresses me by being even more dense than the other. I appreciate that when it says âwhole almondsâ that not only are there whole almonds inside, but a lot of them, so I feel like this could be as close to the Lembas that Snickers tries to be. Conversely, as itâs solid chocolate with even harder almonds within it, rather than a filling of nut butter, itâs like biting into a brick. Genuinely reminds me of baking chocolate, both meant disparagingly as baking chocolate is awful to eat on its own, but laudatory in that it has me now thinking of using these as baking chocolate alternatives. Itâs a bit baffling to me how dark these taste as 70% isnât even the most Iâve had with these craft chocolate reviews and is relatively tame taking many of the others into account. I think this is a result of what the other 30% is, opting to use coconut sugar that tastes much less sweeter than cane sugar, and larger amounts of nuts that leave less room for anything else. The package and website talks of how much depth and complexity this has, and I donât think blatant lies are part of Emanualâs vision of a perfectly harmonized world. I feel it could use more of the salted taste, especially as thatâs one of the only flavors I feel pairs well with darker chocolates, and the only one coming through at all.
Taste ----
Texture -
Virtue ---
Charm --
Value ---
Total: 16/25
I really donât want to hate these, and I donât, but they make just as much of a case for the salvation of our planet as they do prove the case that genuinely good-tasting food has to be evil. Both of these bars were suffering significant chocolate bloom that Iâm glad to see happening in more professional review videos, too, despite being well within shelf life at the time I tried them, which is a little baffling as their chocolate is produced (and now distributed) by award-winning Swiss chocolatier Maestrani, so something in the process and supply chain just isnât working out and hopefully will be resolved now that Maestrani has taken over all distribution responsibilities as of 2025. They have also since released several milk chocolate options that fit within their well-established morality, using oat milk to mimic dairy milk properties with less of an environmental impact, sitting at 45% cocoa. Maybe I will come back to try those, because itâs a change that I was suggesting in my reviews, and they deserve more of my money for that and everything else they do.
I always try to share other reviews I vibe with, and I feel that these peeps over at This Infinite Life do a stellar job of reviewing the Dr. Bronnerâs All-One Chocolate bars in a context I feel would be enjoyed by people who live that life.
Spring & Mulberry; Lavender, Bee Pollen, Rose Petal
Like many of these kinds of foods, it all started when a white woman with an already-high paying job and a health-scare visited a non-western country and saw a common food for billions of people for the first time and decided to bring it back to her capital city suburb. Spring & Mulberry is all about no added sugar, using dates as their sweetener instead, which as youâd expect becomes a consistent flavor within each bar. They also are organic, plant-based, do direct trades with farmers, paleo-, keto-, diabetic-, whole 30-, low-fodmap-friendly, all that good stuff. âThe idea behind Spring & Mulberry is exploring a world of sweetness beyond sugar, in florals, spices and fruits,â says Kathryn. âI want to make our chocolate so delicious that you donât even remember or care about the products that do have sugar.â I am suspicious as my experience with dates in foods hasnât formed pleasant memories; incredibly strong flavor that overwhelms whatever itâs in, failing to harmonize well with the other flavors at worst, at best. Iâll try to not go in with preconceived notions, but what are those notions if not learned experience? Am I to deny my humanity?
I tend to see Spring & Mulberry chocolate bars stocked at places that are rather miscellaneous, gourmet boutiques that only carry the trendiest of groceries you absolutely do not need for disgustingly high prices, like this bar at $13 despite retailing at Erewhon for $7.99. Between when I got this only a year ago and now they have rebranded this to just Lavender Rose, but previously highlighted the bee pollen. All of the listed ingredients are very visible on the back side as they are proud of the fact that itâs so simple: suhum cacao beans, dates, cacao butter, bee pollen, English lavender, and rose petals. The floral flavor comes in near the end, but not in a pleasant way; more like I was sprayed with perfume in the back of my throat when I opened my mouth to bite. I really like floral flavors, particularly when theyâre mellow-but-strong in creamy things like ice cream, as I often see them instead used in vodka, gin, and liqueurs, so this being more forward and intense just did not appeal to me. I do appreciate that the date flavor is minimal, as in other products that are sweetened with dates tend to feature it primarily because I guess no one else thinks it tastes bad. I've had dates before and processed them myself in the Honey Nut Treats I made a while back, and I think the critical failure of a lot of snacks using dates is they rely on dates being not just the primary sweetener, but the sole sweetener, when what they should be used for is bulk, and I feel like Spring & Mulberry is in the right direction. Despite being at 72% cacao, it did not taste as bitter as it couldâve, likely as all of the alternative sweeteners and flavors were on the outside and not included into the chocolate mass, leaving the percentage aloneâassuming that thatâs how it works. As I kept eating this and chewing more, I noticed my tongue started to go numb, which was definitely odd and very rapidly concerning as I suddenly had thousands of thoughts at light speed regarding a potential allergy to bee pollen and other food issues, but everyone else I shared this with had the same (unprompted, Iâll add) feeling soon enough. I wish the flavors were a bit more balanced, or rebalanced, as I donât think I got the intended experience and more of just a basic dark chocolate bar with some flowers in there with it.
I'll be in Spring & Mulberryâs home turf in just a few weeks, so maybe I'll try another to see what it's like and post it in the next Spring Cleaning special. The other flavors intrigued me, and I think I need to get my own taste and opinion of these as it seems these are new enough that the only commentary online looks like influencers and PR pushes that definitely donât feel a single bit genuine to me. Not bad, but not divine.
Taste ----
Texture -
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Charm --
Value ---
Total: 15/25
I feel like that intro may have been a bit cruel, but like, câmon, why are all of these companies like this? Why is the genesis of so many of them borne of the touch of tragedy with an otherwise incredibly privileged and wealthy white woman? Is that just what sells? Is this the impact of American Idol and Americaâs Got Talent tier reality tv sob storylines with a tinge of Missing White Woman Syndrome-tier media attention? This article is so much kinder and goes in much more depth, but it ultimately whittles down to rich white woman failed to consider anything outside of Raleigh, NC, until she got cancer and with the help of her rich husband, rich friend, business connections, and extravagant trip to Dubai, she discovered the mysterious properties of basic-ass dates. â(...)dates â an ingredient Kathryn first encountered as a dessert in Dubaiâ but then says on her own website that dates are ârelegated to the bulk bins of american groceryâ, like??? No theyâre not?? You might find them in bulk bins in genuine halal and Mediterranean shops, but in American grocery youâll often find them as an expensive featured item on produce department endcaps and are rather ubiquitous. âI wondered, why is there nothing on the market that feels cool and chic, but people also want to eat because it tastes good?â she says, in the 2020s, when thatâs the brand ethos of tens of thousands of companies; just a very 'I have no idea what's going on in the world unless I'm directly a founding partner of it' way of conducting these business ventures that I find kinda gross and is making me extremely dismissive of them ultimately being net positives in the healthcare and wellness fields. Maybe itâs these kinds of backgrounds that make it possible to create these things, and just not (as easily) possible otherwise, but I just wish there was a little more humanity in this rather than effervescent platitudes only formed after direct tragic experience. Give me intentions founded through empathy!!!!
Raaka
Raaka Chocolate is a Brooklyn-based chocolate maker specializing in unroasted dark chocolate. Along with many of their peers they use organic ingredients and offer higher-end craft flavors and selections, they prioritize transparently traded single-origin cacao as what sets them apart in the industry. The inside of their package has a lot of detailed information that very well could be PR spin, but itâs incredibly interesting to see the steps they take to support their growers and farmers, going as far as explaining their stable $5.00/kg price paid to producers thatâs even beyond what Fair Trade policies fluctuate with. The graph they have inside the wrapper only charts 2016-2021, despite this bar presumably being made in mid-2024, so Iâd be interested to see how those numbers have changed with the cacao shortages.
What has a more immediate effect on me, though, is their decision to use only unroasted cacao, which they claim is a choice to capture the âbrighter, bolder, and fruitier side of cacaoâ. This is interesting as the roasting process is when a lot of the more acidic and bitter flavors of raw chocolate are removed, leaving the implication that these bars will retain that. The reason Raaka goes with âunroastedâ rather than the trendier ârawâ chocolate, despite their name being Finnish for ârawâ, is because itâs just not accurate or easy to get true raw chocolate bars as the various processes required to turn cacao beans into a chocolate bar end up raising the temperature into pasteurization levels; this video explains it rather well and also leads into the first flavor Iâm trying.
Bananas Foster
Vegan, organic, kosher, transparent trade, curiously lacking the Non-GMO Project Verified logo that was on the package a few years ago. Using Tanzanian cacao, which supposedly matters more now that the beans are unroasted, the Bananas Foster bar is made with (all organic) cacao beans, cane sugar, cacao butter, banana, and vanilla bean. Bananas Foster is a dessert featuring bananas and vanilla ice cream, with a sauce made from butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and alcohol, cooked or more dramatically flambĂŠed to reach caramelization, so this is the kind of strength Iâm expecting.
Thereâs definitely a particular sweetness to it, but ultimately itâs just dark chocolate; classic dark chocolate stiffness that makes me wonder if the motive behind not including any breakable partitions is to laugh at snooty people getting chocolate shrapnel embedded in their Cartier watch band. The banana flavor only makes an appearance if you rub your finger on the bar to warm it up and let the chocolate melt in your mouth a bit before chewing into it, which is not something normal people do. I do admit that this methodology is what is recommended by more attuned chocolate connoisseurs and gourmands, but I donât feel I make enough money yet for how thorough this technique is at eroding my enamel. Even then, the flavor is not that strong, and whatever other sweetness or hint of anything that you can detect can easily be credited towards the unroasted chocolate as itâs that flavor coming forward more. Iâm not getting any vanilla flavor from this aside from the simple baking property of helping to reduce bitterness and add a sense of creaminess, but it feels irresponsible to not elevate the vanilla in a bananas foster flavor to being readily apparent. I really feel they couldâve leaned into the alcohol or rum aspect a bit more, to push it more towards that particular level of grand hotel sophistication taste. Thereâs just nothing here that reminds me of bananas foster aside from a little teeny tiny bit of banana flavor in the aftertaste, and at this point Iâm just frustrated.
Iâve had a banana chocolate bar before, by MÄnoa Chocolate, that I really liked; it has banana powder higher on its ingredient list which helped to give it a more pronounced banana flavor relative to Raakaâs Bananas Foster bar. Itâs just not good for a brand in my eyes when I taste something of theirs and immediately reminisce about something that did it better instead. While typically prices at $7 or above on their website, Raaka bars have been pretty steadily $5.99 at Whole Foods for at least 6 years since I first paid attention to them in 2019, and frequently go on sale for around $4 which approaches more conventional pricing, so itâs really not that stark of a risk you take trying these if you get them at the right time.
Taste ----
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Total: 12/25
Bourbon Cask Aged
By far their most popular and visible bar, and winner of a Good Food Award in 2013, helping to bring the new company founded in 2010 into the spotlight. Vegan and organic, with its ingredients being cacao beans, cane sugar, maple sugar, and cacao butter, itâs the particular process rather that gives it its flavor and namesake. Raakaâs Bourbon Cask Aged 82% Dark Chocolate Bar is made with Tanzanian cacao aged in bourbon casks for two months to give them what they claim a âcocktail-like vibe: oaky and smooth, with a hint of cherry cordial on the finishâ. I love smooth, I love cherry cordials, I guess I like how wood smells sometimes, so Iâm hoping the reputation is accurate.
I can taste a little of that particular warmth that maple provides, and a tiny bit of almost like preserved fruit sweetness, but again itâs ultimately just dark chocolate. The package giving descriptions of it being âoaky and smoothâ do feel accurate, but the âhint of cherry cordialâ could use another clue or two, as I believe the taste is only a placebo-like mind trick you play on yourself by reading the label and manufacturing the tastes from memories. Doing the rub-and-melt trick only does so much, bringing out a little more woody nuance that I donât feel is worth the extra energy and dampened sophistication done by muddling your fingertips on their âtuxedoed sophisticateâ bar. This snaps a lot more cleanly than the Bananas Foster, and doesnât look quite as beat up, so I can only assume that this is a quality of the chocolate being held in proper temperature and handling conditions, an an effect of the Bourbon Cask Aged bar being 4 months out from its âEnjoy Byâ date while the Bananas Foster was within it. Thereâs a stale dryness that stays in my mouth, like I had just got done licking dozens of envelopes, that requires this one to have a rapid followup with an adequately refreshing drink.
I was given the suggestion that it might be better paired with something, and, while I sorta bemoaned that as Iâm just reviewing chocolate bars and not entire spreads, I do keep in stock all the components to create a spur-of-the-moment cheese board. I will say that having it with a nice gouda, fig jam, and water crackers does make for a better experience overall, the flavor of the chocolate becomes completely lost behind such simple things to the point that all it provides is a textural element that is wholly unnecessary. It canât be enjoyed on its own, it canât be enjoyed with something, so I donât know what purpose this has other than to be a product with âbourbon agedâ on its label to draw in sales during a time when bourbon aged stuff is selling; itâs truly a shame and potential embarrassment as I have greatly enjoyed other bourbon chocolate bars. As we dive deeper into recessions and volatile economic situations I would at least like for my luxury useless stuff to at least provide a morsel of happiness.
Its price, though, does make it attractive to include in boards, regardless, as it doesnât taste offensive, just a bit underwhelming. I got this at THE Whole Foods in Austin for $6.49 off-sale because their selection of chocolate bars was honestly so incredibly pathetic but still wanted to grab something. The relatively lower prices of these bars compared to the other craft chocolate they carry that can get up to double the price, while having a brand that openly pays well over Fair Trade pricing averages, is a bit suspicious to me. Where are they cutting the costs? Where are they finding the savings? What are other companies doing that make theirs so much more? Is there a spreadsheet of profit margins for all chocolate bar producers that someone can CC to me?
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Total: 14/25
Dick Taylor
After trying so many that ended up just being dark chocolate with incredibly little nuance or depth, feeling no love or compassion in this tenderhearted season, I decided that hedonism and indulgence were the way to finish this review month up. Iâve tried Dick Taylor chocolate before, with last yearâs review going over their Blackberry Bergamot and Limited Release Straight Bourbon Whiskey which got respective scores of 15/25 and 24/25, indicating that each bar by them is worth giving a chance as they have their own strengths and weaknesses independent of the overall chocolate.
With stunning pen-and-ink artwork on the front that scratches my woodblock print visual interest, and gorgeous filigree-print wrapper inside, itâs easy for me to snag these when I see them because it just feels so good to do. Thereâs a really wonderful article going into the design choices that were made, which I find incredible with how it connects the choices made in packaging and how it relates to the rest of their business process, including making the chocolate with such fine attention to detail and intentions. Hopefully these ones taste just as good.
72% Dark with Black Fig
I bought this at a little cafe in Savannah that looked quaint, i.e. an awkward design that was very obviously an old living room in an apartment that was just barely retrofitted to have a couple coffee machines and a panini press. It is exactly these kinds of boutique places where I expect to find high-end chocolate bars without prices labeled, for what Iâm estimating was $8.99 given the other items on my receipt, which is less than the $11 it now costs about four months later.
The cacao is from Northern Madagascar, which they state to have subtle fruity and floral notes, which I find personally hard to suss out with the bar being absolutely loaded with subtly fruity and floral figs. The fig flavor really doesnât show itself much at all, mostly existing to neutralize the chocolate with no net gain or loss, existing just as a thing that gets stuck on my teeth that makes me feel really self-conscious about going too long without a dental checkup. Itâs easy for me to blame the 72% dark chocolate, but every other product description I find highlights how âsweet, jammyâ the figs are, and while I donât deny how âsophisticatedâ this seems, I would not give it âindulgentâ as I donât feel I have indulged or was indulged. If they had leaned more into the sweetness to really pop that fig flavor out with, say, a 60% dark, perhaps 55%, perhaps milkier, I could agree with words like indulgent; if the figs had a stronger flavor I could perhaps agree with things like ânice contrastâ but this bar just seems to be more talk than action. This review video from 2015 does a great job at introducing Dick Taylor, highlighting the gorgeous and functional packaging that continue to make me want to buy more, but also shows just how large the fig pieces were. Estelle is very visibly impressed by how citrusy and intense the flavors are, how perfectly bonded and contrasted the chocolate and figs are, which is an experience I just never got, and Iâm sure the sheer size of the figs gave them a greater presence, and while there was certainly a decent amount of them on the bar I had, it just felt merely ornamental.
That all said, it didnât leave any foul lingering taste that I felt the need to remove, and I did casually finish the entire bar while playing video games; I just donât think the experience shouldâve been more than $4.
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Total: 17/25
55% Dark with Peanut Butter
This bar uses Brazilian cacao, as stated on the package I have, but their website states Ugandan cacao, which do have different purported flavor profiles with Brazilian being ânuts, dried fruit, and honeysuckleâ and Ugandan being âfudge, caramel, and peach. It appears that only their own website has this discrepancy, as other resellers have correct information. This effectively means absolutely nothing to me, as itâs just not a factor I can really pinpoint quite yet, nor do I really care about, but I can imagine how earthshaking this is for people who do and criticisms based almost wholly on the origin-pairing decisions made. Maybe some day Iâll do a single-origin bar review but that just feels intensely dull for the sake of personal scientific research so if anyone wants to give me a couple hundred dollars to just do that please contact me. I also want to point out that this bar isnât unique in that change, as upon looking back on the others I have reviewed this I can see that they have changed origins before, ex. the Raaka Bananas Foster I tried being Tanzanian, while they have been Peruvian in the past; does this mean origin really doesnât matter? I kinda think so now, yeah, so moving on.
Itâs interesting that the peanut butter inclusion is actually âpeanut powderâ mixed homogeneously into the chocolate, rather than being a physical creamy addition in the middle like how every other chocolate bar does and how I expected this to be, especially when Dick Taylorâs other Inclusion Bars go physical. The result of this is a divergence from the satisfying texture and unique bite that a filled chocolate bar has, with the peanut butter being more of a suggested flavor. This reveals a bit of deception, or at least delusion, on the part of whoever wrote the back of the package as it states: âThis is our version of the perfect chocolate peanut butter cup!â Iâd be very interested in Dick Taylor actually making peanut butter cups, as this just absolutely is not one and itâs a blatant lie to imply it is.
That being said, you can actually taste it, and if you allow the chocolate bar to melt a little in your mouth it almost feels like the peanut butter is there. What this actually reminds me of is a chocolate peanut butter frozen hot chocolate I had at a local bakery about a decade ago that Iâve been craving ever since, and I get that itâs strange to describe a chocolate bar as tasting like a hot cocoa milkshake but it really is that. Definitely sweet, with the bit of specific savory taste that peanuts have, and a tinge of saltiness that brings it together. Very firm snap but feels smooth and silky. If you bite straight into it, though, it leaves your throat feeling a little dry, so this is one where savoring it a little has tangible benefits. The relatively lower percentage confirms my personal taste of milk chocolate over dark chocolate, and, while I have had peanut butter chocolate bars that brought me more immediate satisfaction in what I was looking for in the terms of sweetness, creaminess, texture, and price, what makes me happy about this one is that it affirms my stance that milk chocolate deserves a respected seat in high-end chocolate bar pantheons.
While this was a good chocolate bar, and I would happily buy it again if the situation comes to it, thereâs just simply not many situations where you need to be paying $10.99 for a chocolate bar, especially one that veers off from what itâs described as. The thing with Dick Taylor, like how I feel about MÄnoa Chocolate, is that I know they make excellent chocolate with excellent decisions in process and flavors, so Iâll continue buying more from them as I trust much of the potential hiccups to fall by the way of personal taste.
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Total: 20/25
| The 'Shroom: Issue 215 | |
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| Staff sections | Staff Notes ⢠The 'Shroom Spotlight ⢠Poochy's Picks ⢠Poll Chairperson Election ⢠Credits |
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