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.

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.

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.

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.

who invited Mr. Sinister like actually who let him in it's not as bad as people say, but it still isn't all too great. I ran the game twice in my own time, once normally, and a second time to confirm a suspicion of mine: that a majority of the game's difficulty comes from not having autofire, and "gotcha" moments where enemies will condition you into one part of the screen and mix you up immediately after. That, combined with Silver Surfer's enormous-ass hurtbox and the enemies moving faster than you in most instances, the game becomes more about memorization than any twitch reaction or dexterity. In my eyes, that makes the game a tad boring. That said, it's not all bad. For one, the aesthetics are firing on all cylinders, especially the music. Tim and Geoff Follin's score for this game elevate it to meme status alone. This has to be some of the hardest frickin music to be played by an NES. Visually it's appealing enough, though Reptyl's second stage suffers from the same water tileset issue that makes my eyes cringe in Bubble Man's stage in Mega Man 2. That, and enemy bullets are a bit small so perception check deaths are expected. All in all, not the horribly designed, difficult experience it was billed as, but not really tapping into the potential of its genre or IP, though the music is beyond excellent.