kinda tastes like mega man ngl it wears its influence on its sleeve, perhaps a bit too hard, but it's still good imo. I like Mega Man, and this feels like Mega Man. There really isn't much else to say here on a broad level, except that the artstyle and writing has aged about as well as a Strong Bad compilation on YouTube. Outside of that, it has the makings of a fun time. neat items, a good amount of challenge with modifiers if you're feeling extra zesty, and best of all, wall-climbing that doesn't throw you off the wall. A small thing I'm sure, but this makes wall kicks so much safer than their Mega Man X counterparts. That, and foot parts give you insane movement. Like, dash jumping and also having a 4-way air dash afterwards is the type of movement you will never see in a mainline Mega Man X title. If you wanna feel cool and shoot things with a buster arm, get this. If you like Mega Man, get this. It's really neat.

This game is pretty gory. Like, damn, dude. DAMN. Anyways, it's fun. The combat feels good, but leaves a bit to be desired. Mostly in terms of variety. Relying on the same sword combo to take everyone out can get monotonous. There's options like prayers and other sword techniques, but most of the time, the 4-hit spin attack combo will very quickly dispatch enemies. While a bit samey throughout, the soundtrack does a wonderful job complementing the astonishing spritework in establishing the game's atmosphere. Its dreary, oppressive mood is this game's defining feature. It wears its influences on its sleeves, but it takes from them relatively gracefully. Speaking of its influences, it certainly adapted the challenge of its contemporaries well enough. While not all fights will be a brutal test of your mettle, there's quite a bit in here to make you want to get intimate with the game's combat mechanics, especially parrying. I could never get the hang of execution attacks, or rather, how the prompts are triggered. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention, but the whole system felt weird to me. It's neat if you like violence, and there is an item that boosts you for performing them, so if you're better than I am at them, executions can be a cool bonus. I don't know if I'll play this game again. The lore is interesting with its heavy Christian influence and fetish for pain, the map had neat secrets that actually impacted my playthrough, and the DLC added on top gives you a lot of content (I kinda want to go back and finish up the Miriam questline but we'll see), but I think I'll need some time away before picking it up again. As it is, it's pretty darn good, and I'm now looking forward to its sequel.

oh damn no holy water guess I'll just die it's good for what it is. Castlevania is one of those NES-era games that's remembered fondly, but also illustrated much of what made games in that period so difficult to not just clear but to revisit. For what it is, it's really functional and tightly designed, but that tightness begins to unravel during the later phases of the game. It almost feels as though they knew this too, considering the "second quest" versions of stages 5 and 6 are virtually unchanged compared to the previous 4. This also applies to weapon balance; holy water is incredibly strong in all use cases and almost a necessity to be able to reliably take out Death and Dracula's Cookie Monster form, but spawning a dagger is more of a hazard than the game's infamous Medusa Heads. It's cool to see the game encourage experimentation with alternate attacks like Mega Man might, but siphoning so much power from the whip without a fully balanced pool of subweapons makes Castlevania that much harder to recommend. That said, the game is completely beatable with the whip. It's just going to require a lot more practice than that might be worth.

What a horrible game to play at night. It sucks. Just, sucks. It's hard to put into words how bad this game is. More so because there is some neat stuff in there. The music, the concept, all actually quite creative. There's even a leveling and inventory system that I appreciated. Where it really falls apart is in the execution. Where the original game was a linear sequence of stages that could only be taken from one angle and only need to be cleared once to advance, Simon's Quest has me running around between towns figuring out where the next key to the next lock is, like Metroid or Zelda. This means that each area is going to be traversed multiple times, and backwards, too. What ends up happening is stages become too easy, relying more on obtuse navigation like fake blocks and wonky jumps to make the bulk of the challenge in this game. Once you know the route, you can clear this game quickly and easily. Skill becomes a non-issue, especially considering the game only has 3 bosses, 1 of which is completely optional, and the other 2 of which are incredibly easy to dispatch. Simon's Quest is like a pork chop that was supposed to be tasty, but ended up burned on the outside and raw on the inside. Maybe that's why they got replaced with churches in this one.

This has to be one of my favorite games of the last decade. It's a short game, and one that might not be for everyone, but I love it. The guns are varied and perfectly viable for clearing the game, as are all the items you can equip, meaning there's a wide variety of playstyles being accommodated for. The movement also feels really nice, even if it isn't as wild as in other games in its genre. The only real knock I can give this game is that the run-and-gun stages are a bit tacked on; they feel like they didn't receive the same care the bosses did. Regardless, they're a boatload of fun on their own. And the soundtrack! I love the music in this game. Easily one of my favorite game OSTs in recent memory. But I digress. Awesome music, awesome visual style and animations, and most importantly, pure, fun gameplay.

I had Battle Revolution as a kid, so I decided to go back and see where the series began. I streamed this last year, and remember it fondly today. I gotta say, it's a good one. I played the main story for this game, and found myself pretty happy with what I got. The only real complaint I had was that there's no Robo bodies to use while playing through. Ray is all you get. Other than that, though, it's a real neat game with so much charm and expressive gameplay it's nuts.

I streamed this game 2 years ago, and found myself having fun, but ultimately forgetting about it. I happened upon it in my Steam library and decided to revisit it, and I'm glad I did. I'm finding that streaming my first playthroughs can at times keep me from engaging with a game more. Returning to Cyber Shadow on my own time has allowed me to appreciate the game more than I would have otherwise. It's damn fun. It's what you'd expect after playing something like Ninja Gaiden and looking at the trailer. Tight movement, satisfying attacks, cool bosses, all the fixings. I'd say the game stands out in its approach to item collecting. It attempts a more exploration and secret-based style of providing goodies as you go. The main issue I have with it is that collecting items will sometimes require abilities you don't have, meaning the only way to collect them is to gain the necessary move in a later stage, then return to the previous one with your ability to collect it. The progression system feels at odds with the linearity of the game because of this. It does try, though, to encourage you to return to old stages, with story events permanently affecting the game world in some cases. It just seems like this would have been better suited to a full-on metroidvania affair as opposed to a game with selectable stages and few alternate paths. That, and the dash is gained way too late into the game. It's one of the final abilities you gain, and one of the most significant and fun ones. If you had the dash earlier, and the design of the stages reflected that, this game would easily be a 4. All in all, I liked Cyber Shadow, but had my reservations with it. I think that if it was ever reiterated upon, it would benefit from expanding its level design to either fully accommodate exploration and backtracking, or reduce it by making a concentrated, linear experience.

It's a dang fun game. I've never played a DMC or even games like it before, but this was a fun time. The combat feels so tight, yet it flows so well. The mission structure is fun and varied, for better or for worse (It seems the swimming bits aren't returning in future entries lol). And the cutscenes holy heck the cutscenes are so dang corny I can't help but love them. My only real complaint with the game is how the targeting system can sometimes misinterpret your moves. Directional inputs for your launcher/stinger are important, and I had at least a few hiccups fighting groups of enemies where Dante would turn 180 degrees to stinger someone I wasn't in the middle of comboing >_> That said, those few moments were not enough to deter me from the game's fantastic combat. Coming out of it, I developed an appreciation for this game and a basic understanding of why this series is so beloved. I see the skeleton of a genre-defining game, and the potential for so much more. Here's hoping the sequels expand on its mechanics and give me the experience I know it can.

holy hell what is this. like actually what the hell is this. I don't think I've been this upset at a game in a good while. It's simultaneously mind-numbingly boring and frustrating to play. You have to play it to believe it. We went from the smooth, engaging combo system of the first game to what is probably one of the clunkiest, most unbalanced combat systems I've ever seen in a video game. The sword is boring to use, but it doesn't even matter because the even more boring gun is just that much better. I'm a bit glad the game is as peepee easy as it is. If I had to go through it any more than I did, I may not have wanted to continue into Devil May Cry 3.

bros... this game is good. It's damn good. It's been a while since I last played a game that made me feel what this game did. The combat mechanics here flow so smoothly, yet feel so tight. Each weapon feels unique and strong in its own way, allowing for incredibly expressive gameplay. What's more, you take two of them with you, making for some insane weapon-switching combos. This doesn't even include the guns, which are important for extending combos, which you also get two of, or the style mechanics, which each give you unique tools to use depending on your preferences, OR the jump cancelling mechanic, which allows you to extend combos in the air with the right execution. The level of depth the combat provides is extraordinary. It shows too that the developers were more focused on it this time around. Gone are DMC1's swimming, flying, and shooting sections. In their place, we get more combat scenarios and enemies to flex those new mechanics on. There are still some elements of DMC1's puzzles and exploration, but they have taken a back seat to the more impressive combat. And boy howdy will you need to learn your combos, because the game does not pull its punches. I died a lot in my first playthrough. Though I am still only learning about the game's depth, the game wasted no time in testing my ability. and I was just playing on Normal difficulty. Higher difficulty options, a second playable character in Vergil, a brutal but rewarding ranking system, and hidden challenge missions strewn about the game all make this come together into one incredibly replayable, incredibly deep game that just keeps pulling you in for more.

This one's neat. I beat this game for the first time yesterday. As an experience, it definitely felt like a fun time, though I'll say the anti-cube puzzles are a bit too cryptic for my tastes. I found myself stumbling into them by accident and feeling more confused than satisfied when I went through their puzzles. Regardless, the anti-cubes are purely optional, and the normal ones are pretty intuitively incorporated in the game. Fun times, this one. Also Gomez is a really cute design. And the soundtrack is amazing.

it good :> Final Fantasy IV is the most Final Fantasy Final Fantasy out there imo. It's a pretty good game in all its forms (except Easy Type and the original USA release), but I think the 3D remake has the edge here. For one, the fighting feels better here. You can see the ATB meters for your party members, even the timers for their abilities. More importantly, however, is party members' unique commands are way more useful in this iteration of the game. Not to get into specifics, but an example is Edward, who used to just have "sing," which picked out a random song to sing (it could also just fail too). Meanwhile in the 3D version, Edward can choose which song to sing, and the amount of songs went from 4 to 8. This expansion of each character's mechanics makes me wish there was a way to keep them all throughout the game, like in FFVI. Graphics and music will be subjective points of contention. While I do prefer the sound of the SFC original, the 3D remake's visuals and voiced cutscenes do elevate the experience for me, even if the voices are cheesy. It's missing content added in the GBA version, keeping it from being a definitive package, but if you don't mind losing the postgame dungeon in exchange for a useful party and a higher challenge, then this remake is the version you should try.

My favorite RPG. I don't think I can think of a tactical RPG more ideal than this one. The tension and volatility of each encounter makes every moment one in which the battle's outcome hangs in the balance. Enemies moving while you prepare attacks, each one a real threat, really highlights the "Tactics" part of the game. The job system, while broken at times, is the most expressive I've seen in a video game; each job feels totally different from each other, and they all carry some form of utility that makes them indispensable, even in the endgame. There are exceptions like Archer and Squire (not Ramza), but the jobs all tend to have some useful aspects to them. The plot is my favorite in a video game. Without spoiling, it's a story about class, exploitation, and corruption. AND THE MUSIC TOO AAAAAAAA look, I love this game. If you haven't played it, play it. You won't regret it.

I don't know what else I can say about this game that others haven't before me, except that it's easily my favorite main entry in the Final Fantasy series. It holds a special place in my heart. Favorite characters, story, and especially music. I highly recommend this game to you. It's a great among greats, and a beautiful experience, beginning to end.

Story-wise, the weakest expansion since Stormblood, especially the ending. The gameplay further homogenizes the classes into different flavors of the same designated roles, and the playerbase is still learning how to read. All of that aside, it's fun. I've had a lot of great times with close friends in this game, especially my partner, who I play this a lot with <3 It's not my favorite FF game, but it's a neat game with lots of people to play with.

One of the first racing games to include a fully realized traffic jam feature. It's impressive how a game so limited by its technology can deliver such a powerful sense of speed. I revisited this over the past few days to see if I could still clear Master difficulty. I did, but man was it rough. For one, the game is the most punishing in the series by far. Recovering from a terrible collision takes almost a whole lap, if not more at times. What's more is that all collisions are terrible here. Outside of getting bumped from behind on a straightaway, any contact with another racer will invariably cost you a few positions and a fat chunk of your power meter. This wouldn't even be that bad of an issue if the entire road wasn't occupied by NPC cars not even participating in the race. More often than not, I have been made to lose positions or rank out because the alternative is to run into a random car and die crashing instead. If anything were to hold this game back, it would be this. It isn't that crashing sucks, it's that the road is crowded. I feel this is mostly an issue in higher difficulties, however. Playing on Standard, resetting from traffic is far less common. The catharsis of going fast is balanced by the peepee-flattening lows of losing that speed. It's incredibly punishing, but well worth spending time with.

My favorite racing game. There really is no game like F-Zero. The sheer purity of its gameplay is something you have to play to truly comprehend. I recently began sinking time into this game again after years of not being able to, and it's every bit as amazing as I remember. The story mode is accessible enough, but CRUSHING on Very Hard difficulty. I grinded Chapter 7 for days before I got a successful run. It's all worth it for those cheesy cutscenes though (the AX racers are cool too I guess). By the way, the game is really pretty. Its style and setpieces make the game a feast for the eyes on all fronts. Highlights for me include Lightning, Aeropolis, and Outer Space. And the soundtrack the SOUNDTRACK ZAAAAMNNNN it doesn't just add to the vibe of the game, it is the dang vibe. Super high-energy industrial electronic music that makes you go fast as frick. If you like racing games, play this. If you don't like racing games, also play this it's amazing. Just play this in general. It's awesome.

This game kinda snuck up on me. I tried playing it a few times. The first time, I stopped at the Forgotten Crossroads, and the second, at Greenpath. It wasn't until recently that I took the time to actually advance and see this game for what it is, and man was it worth it. This may be the best game I've played all year so far. Most defining among its traits is the atmosphere and story. Hollow Knight has NPCs that deliver exposition, but most of what is said is understood through the use of context clues. Like Metroid Prime before it (and Dark Souls, which this game seems to be very inspired by), environmental storytelling is the name of the game here. The dialogue serves to plant your feet in the events of the present, but Hallownest tells you its history through its presentation. Speaking of presentation, this game is really frickin cute. The bug designs are all so endearing I can't get enough of them, and the way they're animated is really expressive too. Not to mention the music, too. The weight of each moment and decision is felt so strongly in no small part because of the soundtrack. It's not just the compositions, either. It's the sound design, like how the music will change arrangements and mixing depending on where you are or what you're doing. Attention to detail is this game's forte, and getting lost in the craftsmanship of its design is something I hope to experience all over again when Silksong drops in 2036.

THE JAPANESE BASICALLY INVENTED DRIFTING It's a fun little game. I wouldn't say it's particularly groundbreaking, but what's here works pretty nice. Gaining boosts from drifting and slipstreaming is a neat way to help you get an edge in a tight race, and the sense of speed is definitely here. I like that each playable character has some personality to them, though they fall a bit flat and their chattiness only emphasizes it. That aside, the courses are nice, the racing feels good, and there's a decent bit of challenge. Overall, I'd say get it if arcade racing is your thing.

After being a fan of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile for so long, I knew I owed it to myself to play this at least once. I finally got a chance to do so through my girlfriend letting me play her copy of the Phantasy Reverie release (Thanks a mil, Emy <3). Maybe my rating should go there, but I wanted to talk about Klonoa 2 as a game more so than the collection itself. Regardless, I really liked this game. It builds on Klonoa 1's mechanics beautifully with more enemy interactions and wilder platforming layouts. I personally really like the crystal bois since they create really fun and unique puzzle scenarios :> The story is great here too. Without spoiling, I really feel for Lolo (Popka was there too I guess). The main things I wasn't too jazzed with were the aesthetic elements. Klonoa's design in this and future games makes me miss the PS1 design. Additionally, the use of all 3D assets does make the artstyle harder to convey compared to the original's combination of 2D sprites with 3D environments. The music, while great in its own right, seems less exciting here too compared to the original. As a fan of Phantomile's more electronic approach, Lunatea's soundtrack felt safer. Perhaps more in line with the setting, and incorporating its themes elegantly, but definitely not as out there as on the PS1. Stepping Wind is fire though. All in all, though, this game rocks. It's a great sequel to an already great game, and anyone who comes across it or its predecessor should play it.

it's okay bro there's only 262,144 combinations for miracle arts it's neat when it works. Legaia is pretty unique, for better and for worse, but I think that makes the game more captivating. It plays its story straight, with no real twists or turns (unless you count Cort's ultimate fate). The characters feel one-note, especially Songi, whose screen time was wildly disproportionate to the depth of his character. It's also kind of grindy with how most boss moves boil down to being fat party-wide HP checks and the NTSC-U version reducing the amount of experience points and money you receive from encounters. The real star of the show is the combat itself, which had some neat layers to it, like how you could consume a turn defending to increase the amount of moves you could do next turn, or how certain enemies could low-profile high attacks or float over low attacks. There were genuine strategic uses for specific arts and spells, which made each encounter require some form of engagement with the mechanics. This also worked against the game, however, with the frequency of random encounters, exacerbated more with the lack of rewards for completing these encounters. By the end of the game, I was exhausted with how many times I had to do battle with the same enemies and their annoying guard points. Legaia is hard for me to recommend, but I think it's good for what it is. I'd suggest people play it for a little while and see how they feel first.

My first video game. Though I am a bit biased here, I'll say this game is, at the very least, my second-favorite in the entire classic series. There are times where it swaps places with Mega Man 11 as my favorite, but regardless, both are worthy of much merit in my eyes. Mega Man 8 is a unique game in the series, as it's the only entry in the classic series to posses its level of spritework. That, alongside its campy story and cool setpieces, make it an almost ideal Mega Man game to me. It's not without its faults: the snowboarding and flying gimmicks don't add much to the gameplay while simultaneously consuming a significant portion of the fortress stages, and the general movement is more sluggish than its predecessors, but it makes up for this with how its stages are designed around it, especially the second set of Robot Master stages that make use of the first set's arsenal of weapons. It makes me sad to know we'll likely never see another game do what Mega Man 8 did; its style and charm are virtually peerless. That and the Mega Ball is a ton of fun to mess around with.

I didn't intend on playing through the Game Boy Mega Man games any time soon, but I found myself doing so on stream with my buddy Drem, and I gotta say, it was a dang good time. It's a bit weird with how floaty jumping can be and the charge shot being your fist, but there's a lot of cool ideas here. The fist shot seems limiting at first, but getting the grab power-up makes it so much better than most instances of the buster in other titles. And the fortress stages are nuts, too. A shmup, a gorillion boss fights, including some from previous games like Enker, Punk, Ballade, and Quint, and a multi-stage final boss with Wily and Sunstar. On that note, MMV's Stardroids have pretty cool designs that go criminally underutilized throughout the series. My only major gripe here is that the game is far too easy. Even with all the stages and boss fights, my first playthrough was really short, and I wasn't really stumped on any one moment in the game. The game doesn't have to be a death march, but it could have benefited from pushing back a bit harder. Mega Man V is a fun and unique game, and, save for a few quirks, it definitely needs to be recognized as an entry that delivers just as much as the main series does.

it's a classic babyyyyyyyyy I like Mega Man X it fun and has wall jump :) tbh I don't even know what I could say about this game that hasn't already been said a million times before. I could just say it's good and be done with it, but it's more than just that. It's a game that manages this perfect balance of simplicity and depth. Everything is so easy to grasp, and simultaneously, it pushes you more and more to engage with it. It's fairly accessible, but still challenging enough to entertain you on revisits. The only thing I can really hold against this game is that the dash boots are in Chill Penguin's stage. Such an essential function of the game's movement should be available from the start. Other than that, however, Mega Man X is as clean as they come. and the soundtrack frickin rips too.

Mega Man X is a classic. For a lot of peeps, it's the best one. But they're also smelly people who like to be wrong, because the real best one is X2. It's a great sequel to an already great game. From Yuki Iwai's music embracing a more progressive sound to the more dynamic boss fights with characters changing forms and patterns in the heat of battle, this game expands very eloquently on X's mechanics. In fact, more so than the other improvements, X's dash being available from the start makes this an enormously more open-ended experience if you want to take on certain boss orders. There is an order that is "intended," that is to say, you can get all the armor pieces and Zero pretty easily with few revisits for heart tanks, but if you don't do it, you won't be locked out of important movement mechanics. That alone should make X2 stand head and shoulders above its predecessor, but it does so much more it's insane. If the rest of the series was like this, I'd have a hard time playing other games.

Honestly, this one was more fun than I remembered it being. While it has its share of dumb stuff like inputs being eaten during screen shake or bosses having their one pattern and effectively nothing else, there is still a lot of good in this game. The movement, for example, is some of the crispest in the series. The upwards dash is genius and I wish more games had it. On that note, double airdashing with the leg chip is even more satisfying and fun than any vertical options you find in other Mega Man games. There are some design decisions I don't fully agree with, though. The Nightmare Police being mandatory makes them less exciting to me than the X-Hunters, and the way different endings are triggered with them is more cryptic, which is a bit frustrating at times. Rather than finding them and defeating them, they must be beaten with their weakness weapon in order for them to die, changing the rematch in the fortress stages. The same goes with Vile. He needs to be found in the secret zones, but nothing comes from beating him unless you use his weakness and take Zero to Doppler Stage 2. Otherwise, you end up just going through the game as though he was just an extra boss and nothing else. And speaking of the bosses, they were a bit more disappointing this time around. While some were a bit interesting and challenging, most had very simple and, in the case of Blizzard Buffalo, stupid patterns that let you beat them without it even feeling like a fight at times. Kinuyo Yamashita's soundtrack is considered weaker than the other games in the series, but I think it's a bit underrated. A lot of X3's music, while a bit samey at times, delivered the energy needed for such a breakneck action game. All in all, I'd say, play it. It's held back in some spots by its design or technical issues, but the parts that matter most are firing on all cylinders.

boss room's down the hall heheheh It's a fun one. I like this game, but I do think that it's held back in a few regards. Specifically, the level design can feel lacking. While Cyber Peacock and Web Spider's stages feel more dynamic and interesting with their platforming layouts and challenges, others like Slash Beast and Storm Owl seem much less inspired. Maybe it's a lack of stellar setpieces, but the "straight hallway" approach to level design in a platformer is not something that should be used too often. The other aspect of this game I find lacking is the difficulty. While I understand that balancing difficulty can be like dancing on a tightrope, and that X4 is the only PS1 entry to not have an "Xtreme" difficulty setting to fall back on, I truly believe it would have benefited from having it. As it is, the game is too easy to beat, even with no upgrades or power-ups. This isn't exclusively a bad thing, however. It makes this game more accessible, which allows people to really enjoy the flashy spritework and animated cutscenes, which makes it one of the Mega Man games people recommend the most to new players, myself included. If you're looking for a gateway into this series, this and the original on SNES are your best bets.

This is not a good game. Not by a long shot. But I return to it often enough you'd think I love it. I don't know if I'm just insane here, but there are aspects of this game that I enjoy. The movement and general feel of the moment-to-moment gameplay builds upon X5, which built upon X4, which is really neat. The stages have cool, unique gimmicks too. It's like they really wanted to make a good game, but nothing went right. It just bungled it on every step. Somewhere in there is a game that's actually fun, and that's incredibly frustrating. I wish this game got a remake that addresses its flaws. I really believe that it could have been great.

Mega Man ZX was one of the few games in the series I hadn't cleared until I was gifted the collection and gave it a shot (Thank you so much, Drem!!). I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but what I got was a pretty awesome experience. An open-world approach not too unlike Zero 1 but with more reasons to return to old areas and more movement tools to open the world with was something I expected to be frustrating, but was pleasantly surprised by. The map is pretty useless; it really only tells you what zone you're in. However, the layouts of the individual rooms are simple enough that even a map that limited can suffice in a few areas. Outside of this, there's other gripes for me. Specifically, using the armors. Outside of their designated movement and exploration uses, I mostly just played as ZX. FX's Buster Edit and LX in general went virtually unused in combat. Regardless, this game offers a ton of ways to play with so many different armors and abilities, I'd definitely want to revisit it again in the future. Also the Omega fight was sick.

My favorite Metal Slug game. Though I do prefer the Metal Slug X release, and would recommend others play that release instead of the original, Metal Slug 2 does stand on its own as a pretty great game. Metal Slug X addresses most of the issues 2 had, specifically its slowdown, while also adding extra content and sound hardware capable of making the fantastic soundtrack really shine through. If you're looking for a good run-and-gun game to play, especially with a buddy, you can't go wrong with this one.

While it's likely the weakest entry in the original trilogy of Metal Slug games, it's a great game in its own right. The main difference here is that there's no insane twists or gimmicks, just pure run and gun action, which feels refreshing if you revisit this entry after playing through the other two. This has some of the best pacing in the series, too, with each mission feeling snappy and straightforward. It's a lean game, but that just means each little bit of it hits as hard as the rest.

It's fun for what it is, but it really has shown its age. "Why can't Metroid crawl" is what I kept asking myself each time I died. Why can't Metroid shoot down at the zoomers and geemers? Why can't Metroid jump out of the acid sometimes? Why can't Metroid even move in the acid sometimes? Why can't Metroid keep the Wave Beam and the Ice Beam? A lot of little issues like this permeate the game, from enemies smacking you out of a room before you even enter it, to acid pools that restrict your movement and eat your inputs (?) or just kill you, to fake acid and lava that hides important items and rooms. I understand the concept behind this game being labyrinthine and obtuse on purpose to encourage experimentation and exploration, and I was able to find every item save for a few on my first playthrough, but this game will definitely try your patience for its shenanigans. One recommendation I can make is to play the Famicom Disk System version, as it comes with a save feature instead of the NES's password system. That, and the sound is much nicer. Besides that, there's little you can do to mitigate your frustration outside of using a walkthrough or a romhack. Though I personally don't think it's necessary, it helps if you're not willing to put up with Metroid's tomfoolery.

I recently revisited this one on my free time. I had never attempted a 100% playthrough, but I wanted that Dark Samus cutscene really badly. I wanted all scans too but I apparently missed a pirate lore log in the frigate >_> Anyways, this is a good one. The environments are a bit game-y, what with the fire, ice, grass, and dirt aesthetics making up most of the game world, but they function well enough for it not to matter too much. The backtracking is horrendous, though. There are multiple instances of you having to leave an area by doing it backwards to return to an early part of the game for a power up that you need to progress in the area you were in before, meaning you do the zone forwards, backwards, and forwards again. That, and the Phazon Mines aren't all that great to traverse (on top of having the aforementioned backtracking issue). Its flaws definitely show, and some aspects of it aren't the most gracefully aged, but I can't deny this game's greatness. Its better bits are some of the coolest I've played in a video game.

Of all the games I've played throughout my childhood, this has to be the most formative for me. I feel like it was here that my love of eldritch creature designs and horror-inspired action began to take root. Having just now finished revisiting it (100% scans too!), I can confirm without a doubt in my mind that I love Metroid Prime 2. It's one of those games that just clicks with me on every front. It isn't just the aesthetic elements or atmosphere that accomplish this, either. The gameplay is a complete evolution of what the original Metroid Prime tried to achieve. It takes the ideas presented in the first game and runs with them. Returning mechanics like half pipes, spider ball, and beam swapping are now more involved and feel more creative. Real tension lingers, not just in the moody setting, but in the moment-to-moment gameplay. Enemies are dangerous, even late into the game when you're all decked out (Dark Commandos stink, though. They're the Chozo Ghosts of the game except somehow more annoying at times). The original story and setting that has little to do with pirates makes this game a breath of fresh air in that department as well. Even the backtracking is good here. There's points where you have to leave an area to go somewhere else to grab something. On your way back, there's always an elevator or a shortcut to take back to where you left off. Even if there isn't, you end up going through areas you haven't seen in a while with a whole new kit of tools that makes retracing your steps more fun since you're now collecting things you couldn't before. Even the Sky Temple key quest seems short once you realize there's elevators to every area in every area, not including the fast travel between temples. the boss fights here are the best in the series, too. Each one is a real threat, and your survival is dependent entirely on your ability. This game rocks. Easily the best entry in the Prime series, and possibly all of Metroid.

This is probably one of the more creative games I've seen. There really isn't much out there that feels the way NiGHTS does. I'll say, however, that this game demands multiple playthroughs. My first experience with this game was an uphill battle trying to figure out how things worked and what I even needed to do to progress. The camera wasn't much help with that, either, considering so much of the stage exists outside the screen. This means there's a lot of messing up and bumping around you have to do before discovering the way forward. Once deciphered, the game begins to show you its mechanical artistry. Its simple premise is complemented by splashes of variety and twists in the gameplay that keep things fresh and engaging, though they don't always work out. The game feels strange and cryptic until you learn how it works, at which point it feels quite easy to clear. But clearing it isn't the objective. Even hitting the necessary point threshold isn't what the game wants out of you. This is a game that wants you to play again and again, mastering every stage, obstacle and special mechanic to get a score you're satisfied with. It uses the threshold to incentivize you to play well, but also to push you to engage with it in a meaningful way. I'd say it was successful, considering I'm already thinking about booting it up again to raise my scores.

I played this one on stream with my girlfriend, and it was a ton of fun! Definitely the kind of game that gets enhanced by playing with friends. It's a short and sweet game that makes use of its mechanics and doesn't overstay its welcome. My only real complaint is that there are some clipping issues here and there, especially on stairways, which can make walking a bit of a hassle. Outside of that, it's a cute, comfy, silly little game with lots of charm.

This game plays like how crack feels. The sheer catharsis of getting a long chain in Panel de Pon is unlike anything in other puzzle games I've played, all because the setup happens simultaneously with the resolution, so as your blocks are falling and matching, you're still moving them around to get them to line up further in the chain. This is great because it makes your offense more engaging and timing-based. Defending in this game is great as well, since garbage lands on top of your tiles, not disrupting the flow of your previously-established setups. This means that swinging first doesn't immediately kill your opponent's momentum. If anything, receiving garbage is like receiving a giant damage boost, at which point the game becomes a fast-paced tug-of-war where you just keep moving things around until one of you can't go any further. This game's a gem among puzzle games, and a personal favorite of mine. If it wasn't for Tetris, I'd play this until I died.

I streamed this one a year and a half ago now. It was one of the better games I've streamed for sure, and one of the few I've felt compelled to complete by virtue of how it hooked me. I'll be honest, the story premise is stupid. Like, pantsu on head stupid. Outside of that, though, I loved playing this. The dungeon crawling, the characters, the music, everything. I never did the Chrysler Building segment, but I do have it on my list for the future. Thanks, Fain. I don't think I would have played this one if it wasn't for you.