Why We Replay Early Levels Before Reviewing

One habit that defines how we review here is replaying the opening levels after we've learned a game's systems. Early stages are tutorials in disguise, and your first impression is formed before you understand what the game is really asking of you.

Take tower defense. On your first run, you don't know which enemies are coming or which towers synergize. Everything feels either too easy or unfairly hard. Come back after twenty hours and those same levels reveal the design intent clearly.

This matters for reviews because a lot of coverage is written off that misleading first hour. We'd rather be a few days slower and actually right about whether a game's depth pays off.

It also just makes the games more fun. Returning to an early map and solving it cleanly, the way the designer probably intended, is one of the quiet pleasures of the genre.