- SHINOBI III: RETURN OF THE NINJA MASTER - GENESIS
I was recommended to play Revenge of Shinobi before this one, which I did, and I think I understand why now. The strengths of this game compared to Revenge are that it's a much more accessible experience, your moveset is a lot more versatile, the action's more exciting and the level design is more consistently good. But it feels like there's something missing, like it's style over substance in a way. That's in part due to being a much easier game, but it's not just that. I feel like Revenge was a lot more experimental in regards to level ideas and boss fights, whereas this one kinda plays it safe. The harder difficulty, while frustrating, really made you take in everything in a level and plan out your approach, while III is more about empowering the player. That said, Revenge had some pretty bullshit level design - things like enemies ambushing you from off-screen, blind jumps or pixel-perfect jumps - which only got better once you'd taken your time to learn the game, so I'm glad III cuts down on that, though not completely.
That's a lot of words just to make the comparison between the two games. Whether it's better or worse than the predecessor, I still had a pretty good time with it. I especially enjoyed tearing through enemies with the dash slash thingy. The final boss had what seemed to be an undodgeable attack, which kinda sucks.
- WORLD OF ILLUSION STARRING MICKEY MOUSE & DONALD DUCK - GENESIS
Beat it with both Mickey and Donald solo, but I first completed it with my husband in co-op. It's kind of a childhood game for me, I remembered it being super charming and fun to play with a friend. Playing it now after all these years... it's ok? It definitely has a lot of quirky charm, and the moments where you need to work together to progress are pretty memorable, plus every level has something new. But it's a bit on the janky side and can waste your time a lot - the mechanic of pulling your partner up with a rope is cute at first but is pretty slow and gets reused a lot without any variation. Other than that, by the end it can be a bit of a chore, with enemies that take multiple hits to kill and not much interesting platforming going on. Also we got softlocked due to glitches not once, but twice, one the same world no less, which forced us to replay earlier segments and reinforced how there's not much reason to play it more than once.
The cool thing though is you get unique levels depending on whether you're playing co-op, alone with Mickey or alone with Donald. But ultimately this game is a lot more memorable as a multiplayer experience.
- ALEX KIDD IN THE ENCHANTED CASTLE - GENESIS
Never played an Alex Kidd game before, so other than rock-paper-scissors I had no idea what I was getting into. At its best it's a pretty average, kinda bland platformer, with a little bit of early 90's charm but mostly just very aged. Gameplay-wise, it's floaty as hell. Alex just slides all over the place so making jumps just feels uncomfortable, and while there's not many (if any at all?) bottomless pits, dying in one hit from anything means you have zero let at any point and it ends up feeling surprisingly stressful.
You get equippable items from winning at jankenpon, which might as well be RNG. I got the feeling these minigames weren't completely random, like the AI was actually following some sort of pattern, but I was never sure, it ended up coming down to luck most of the time anyway. Because dying makes you lose your equipped items and jankenpon opportunities are not that common, it's a better strategy to farm for items at the beginning of the game. I didn't like most of the items anyways... the power bracelet at least makes the combat fun; some like the motorcycle and helicopter feel really awkward to control, while some others feel downright useless.
I don't regret having played it, but it was an overall uncomfortable experience. Even something as simple as money is a nuisance as it bounces away from you, and I think that says a lot about the game.
- HER STORY - PC
It's a... well, I'm not sure what genre I'd put it in honestly. You look through a database of video interviews in order to piece together a murder mystery. The catch is that you can only retrieve video clips by searching for keywords, and each search only shows you 5 results max, so you have to pick up on important words and phrases said in the interviews in order to search for more videos.
The gameplay doesn't amount to much more than "google simulator", but it does get pretty tricky. I hit a lot of moments where I was seemingly out of leads, and I had to really think outside the box to figure out new worthwhile search terms. The game doesn't really end until you decide you've understood Hannah's backstory and the circumstances behind the murder.
It's a pretty interesting experience, there's probably nothing else like it. The little gameplay there is is just a vehicle to tell this story in a very unique way, and said story is relatively open to interpretation.
- CASTLE OF ILLUSION STARRING MICKEY MOUSE - GENESIS
While it's nothing remarkable by today's standards, it's a pretty simple and pleasant platformer. The gameplay's straightforward, a bit slow-paced, but with a pretty decent flow. Due to the floaty physics, jumping from one enemy to another is easy to do and pretty fun. In the levels there's a good balance between straightforward and quirky ideas. There's this level in particular, a vertical level, where the exit is right at the start but it needs a key, so you gotta platform up some staircases first. Once you get the key at the very top, the stepcases transform into a series of slides that take you right back down while you collect gems. I found that pretty neat.
It's got a couple of 'old game' quirks - like how your projectile attack has a wind-up only if you're standing, so you'll throw faster if you do it in the air. The controls are generally pretty slippery. The level design also gets a bit obnoxious by the end, with traps that are badly telegraphed and inconsistent in behaviour.
- METAL GEAR SOLID - PLAYSTATION
This was my first time playing any Metal Gear. I considered playing the remake, but opted for the original as it's probably closest to Kojima's original intent. Even though I didn't grow up with this generation of games, I can appreciate how ambitious this must have been for the time. That said, the gameplay, which I expected to scare me away, is actually pretty streamlined, very "videogame-y" if that makes sense.
The level structure is fairly linear but you're encouraged, sometimes forced, to revisit previous areas with access to new paths and/or different obstacles strewn about. I kinda liked it as it allowed you to get more familiar with the various locations, even if not all of it was enthralling (
like the giant staircases, or Card Key Quest
).
The various weapons and tools you gradually accumulate all see some use, which is nice. I guess it's a luxury afforded by having a linear structure, as they can more easily control where you get new tools and present you with challenges designed for them. I found myself using pretty much everything I had at one point or another, except maybe for Claymores and grenades.
In terms of gameplay-related gripes, the controls are not exactly perfect. Snake's movement can feel imprecise, as you might sometimes cling to walls without wanting, or struggle to exit a crouch in the middle of a chase. The combat mechanics are rudimentary, which works to sway you towards a more stealthy approach, but becomes a problem during bosses, making them some of the least fun parts of the game in my opinion. To their credit though, all the bosses have interesting and cool premises, and there were a couple I actually liked, such as
Metal Gear Rex
.
To comment on the story real quick, it felt overly complicated in a lot of ways, which from what I understand is to be expected from Kojima, but it's enjoyable and relatively easy to follow where it matters, with a simple premise, likeable characters, cool twists and a nice balance between serious and lighthearted tone. My main gripe is with Meryl's character -
she's introduced as an inexperienced but courageous soldier, but contributes almost nothing meaningful to the conflict, making sparse appearances in the first half and becoming a damsel-in-distress/shoehorned love interest in the second half.
The wolfies are cute. There that should work for an ending
- SHOVEL KNIGHT: KING OF CARDS - PC
Man, playing these games makes me so happy, Yacht Club Games are so good at what they do. King Knight's shoulder bash mechanic is so simple, using only one button, but it's stupidly versatile and used in tons of fun ways. Levels are shorter than in the other campaigns, which disappointed me the first time I heard about it, but I feel this way they were able to explore the various level concepts even more thoroughly, and they're all brilliantly designed and fun to play. The writing might just be the best it's ever been in the series, as King Knight's character lends itself to tons of fun dialogue, and the game in general has so much personality, it's wonderful.
Joustus really worried me at first. It seemed so completely disconnected from what I've come to expect from the series, and even as an optional minigame I wasn't looking forward to playing through it for completion. Doesn't help that I was garbage at it when I started. But man did it become addictive by the end. I like how they had a very basic premise and went all out with different types of effects, arrows and even boss attacks. It really feels like a fully-fledged card game, in what is already a package with a ludicrous amount of content.
- SHOVEL KNIGHT: PLAGUE OF SHADOWS (replay) - PC
I wasn't a big fan when I first played it years ago, and I can now safely consider it the weakest out of all the campaigns. The gameplay concept is super interesting, but the execution isn't great. Plague Knight feels weird to control, with very weak jumps and awkward bomb-throwing arcs. You get a lot of ingredients for many different combinations of bombs, and some of them have great utility and can be fun to use, but most of them are not that practical and trying to use them ends up overcomplicating simple enemy encounters. The level design, which I'm sure is tweaked to accomodate for Plague Knight, is mostly taken straight from Shovel Knight's campaign, so it doesn't feel tailor-made for Plague Knight's abilities.
I do really like the story, mainly the romance between Plague Knight and Mona which is really cute. I also like all the fun acknowledgements that this is running in parellel with Shovel Knight's story, such as being able to see him run through town while you go through the sewers.
There were a few moments where the gameplay did click for me, so I can't say that I hated it. If anything I respect how weird and experimental it is. But it didn't work that well for me and was not super fun overall.
post 100% revised opinion: After doing a couple more runs for completion, the game has really grown on me. Learning the levels helped mitigate some of the frustration I had before, including what bombs work better for each situation. Instead of trying to experiment a lot and getting confused, I just stuck to the few combinations that worked for me. I ended up feeling much more in control during these runs, so I had more fun overall. Trying to speedrun the levels felt surprisingly cool, and it was especially exciting to discover new ways to just tear through bosses. Propeller Knight's stage can still go take a hike.
So yeah, even if I consider it the worst of the campaigns, I'm gonna go ahead and say it's still good. Just takes some time to really click
- SHOVEL KNIGHT SHOWDOWN - PC
Man I expected to like this game a lot more than I did, at least as a single-player experience. It was too chaotic for my liking, especially in story mode where you sometimes get pitted solo against teams of three dudes in a tiny stage with hazards. Most importantly, the AI reacts to your inputs and parries with perfect timing, to the point where it sometimes felt futile to even attempt to attack. It was at least pretty novel to try out all the different characters, and considering this whole mode was a free update to an already very meaty game, it's got a stupidly thick amount of content.
- MEGA MAN (WILY WARS) - GENESIS
Hasn't aged very well in my opinion. I view it the same way as something like the original Metroid - not very good in today's standards, very poorly designed in some aspects, but was extremely inventive for its time and laid the groundwork for much better games. Getting new weapons from defeated bosses is an awesome idea, and implemented farily well here. I can think of a couple of scenarios that seemed unfeasible with the regular gun, but suggested the use of a particular weapon to make them almost trivial. If anything I wish it were more balanced with the Mega Buster in mind. Some of the bosses are ludicrous even with the appropriate weapon, let alone with just the buster. That aside, shooting things is fun, the weapons are cool, the controls are tight and there's good variety in the levels.
There are some instances of pretty bad design though that kill it for me. That one section in Ice Man's stage, where you hop across propeller dudes that shoot sideways, is super tedious as it's down to RNG whether the enemies decide to align themselves for you. The fight against your clone is similarly dumb, and there are things like beginner's traps and annoying enemy placements. The Wily Wars version introduces its own quirks, such as a weird delay in Mega Man's ground movement, which you can get used to but is still pretty jarring.
- MEGA MAN 2 (WILY WARS) - GENESIS
The Wily stages are badly designed in my opinion and left a bad taste in my mouth, but overall I liked this game a whole lot better than the first, though it's hard to put my finger on why. I want to say the Robot Master stages are better designed, as it feels like there's fewer random elements, which was one of my biggest problems with Mega Man 1. The bosses are unbalanced but more interesting and fun overall, and the boss weapons are cooler to use for sure.
I think some of the boss weaknesses are a bit nonsensical, in part due to some of the Robot Master's abilities being pretty abstract. Is this good because it encourages you to experiment more with your weapons, or is it bad because it loses a bit of the elegance that the first game's system had? I can't really decide
Also I found out later that, on top of being based on the original Japanese difficulty, this version adds longer hit invincibility to enemies and bosses, which makes it the hardest version I guess???
- MEGA MAN 3 (WILY WARS) - GENESIS
I liked it, it's the most well-designed out of the first three games, in my opinion. The bosses are actually pretty fun to attempt with just the buster as they telegraph their attacks and have predictable patterns, while still being fairly challenging. The slide is a fantastic addition too, as is Rush.
My problem with this one is mostly that it's not very interesting or memorable, somehow? I played it twice and not much of it really stuck with me like Mega Man 2 did. It's also maybe a bit too easy - the endgame especially is a bit of a joke. Also the Doc Robot stages are sort of neat but they feel a bit like padding.
- WILY TOWER (WILY WARS) - GENESIS
I was looking forward to this one as the concept seemed pretty novel, and... it's fine. I like the idea of remixing different elements of the three games but they never got very clever with their setups. Some segments are pretty much lifted directly from the original games, which seems really pointless to me.
Some of the levels have alternate paths to take, which I really appreciated as it adds some replay value. The bosses were alright too, a bit awkward but fairly creative.
- SONIC ADVENTURE 2 (replay) - PC
Started out as a casual replay inbetween the Mega Mans, and evolved into a 100% completion run. It went surprisingly well! The hunting and mech stages were a bit of a struggle, but nothing too painful. My favorite part was probably exploring the stages and discovering things I'd never seen before. Final Rush in particular has so many cool shortcuts I never knew about.
Really the worst offender to me was the mandatory Chao stuff - I don't mind making intermittent visits to the garden inbetween stages, but by the time I'd A-ranked everything my Chao was still not good enough to clear all the races. I ended up using the infinite animal glitch to get that over with.
Really though, even though I didn't grow up with this game and was never a huge fan of it, this playthrough gave me a lot of appreciation for it. It obviously hasn't aged well, but it's got this silly, exciting energy to it and is super fun.
- SONIC FORCES - PS4
Playing this right after Sonic Adventure 2 was perhaps a bit unfair lol. It's not that it's necessarily a super bad game, but it's the bare minimum of a Sonic game as far as I'm concerned. It took the fun but flawed gameplay from the previous boost games and made it even more shallow, with little interaction required from the player for the most part. When you're not boosting through straight lines and controlling Sonic in an almost binary way, you're doing blocky precision platforming that highlights how bad the controls are across all characters, whether it's awkward acceleration or awkward jumps.
The custom character wasn't necessarily a bad idea, but the execution is pretty lame. None of the Wispons are very fun to use, at most they're tolerable but add very little interesting to the gameplay. My favorite thing about them is likely using the Burst Wispon to jump through the air, as trying to aim for the Wisp capsules to keep your jumps going can be pretty fun, but there's not many interesting setups that involve this mechanic anyway.
And there's soooo much padding. There's no good reason to have three types of collectibles per stage that you have to collect one-by-one in separate runs, and the missions pretty much amount to grinding for really mundane tasks like "defeat three enemies" or "use the Stomp three times".
I did say it's not necessarily a bad game, and that's because once you're familiar with the levels and the best way to clear them, it is at least weirdly relaxing. It's like comfort food I guess, you press a few buttons and see flashy things happen, and that's about it. It's alright if you want to turn your brain off for a bit. But it's got nothing going for it other than that, no special flair that gives it a unique identity. Hell, it reuses a lot from previous games in terms of aesthetics and mechanics. I didn't hate it but, it left me feeling pretty empty.
- ROAD RASH II - GENESIS
First impressions were pretty bad - I imagine it looks fairly impressive for a Genesis game, but the framerate is pretty abysmal and the controls are kind of unresponsive. But I managed to adjust somehow?? And man, when you get a good run going it's exhilarating. There's so many things that demand your attention, so many obstacles requiring very quick reflexes, and both cops and competing racers to worry about, who get especially aggressive in the later races. Managing to weave through it all and mantain your speed while you're at it makes you feel like you're on top of the world.
That said, yeah this game is super jank. Being able to attack your opponents is obviously a highlighted feature, but the bad framerate and the delay of your attacks makes it very hard to judge the timing to attack. The rules for when you get knocked off your bike are also not very clear, as I would often crash by virtue of merely touching an opponent while they get away scot free. Your view of obstacles can get blocked by the road so you pretty much have to learn through trial-and-error in order to survive, and even that might not be enough as certain obstacles spawn in random places.
I got a lot of playtime out of it but that mostly consisted of replaying the same 5 tracks over and over in different difficulties. The last difficulty levels are ridiculously tough, as it's hard enough to go the whole 6 minute race without getting busted or destroying your bike, let alone doing well enough to actually win. But hey I did it and I never have to play it ever again lol
- SONIC ADVANCE (replay) - GBA
Thought I'd play along with raocow as a way to revisit a childhood favorite. It holds up really well as a traditional Sonic romp with some interesting experimentation. The level design towards the latter half is a bit rough though, with bottomless pits and enemy ambushes galore. I'm still very fond of it but it doesn't quite reach the level of the Genesis games for me.
- POPEYE 2 - GAME BOY
Um, yeah, I only played this cause I had it on a bootleg multicart back in the day and I got the itch to revisit it. I was secretly hoping it might have been a hidden gem lol. Turns out it's as run-of-the-mill as it gets, with some added jank for good measure.
- SONIC ADVANCE 2 (replay) - GBA
Same deal as Advance the first, played along with raocow. My thoughts pretty much align with his at the end of the series - like, it's a very well polished game, it's exciting the first time around, and I appreciate some of the cool and inspired additions, such as the trick system and boost mode. But the level design starts to fall apart very quickly and basically punishes you for not playing the way it wants, with even more unmarked bottomless pits than its predecessor. This style of design where you're encouraged to just gun it and barely explore at all (SP rings aside) also pretty much invalidates all other playable characters, as the abilities that should make them unique are basically pointless. I wish I could love this game, I've got some nostalgia for it after all, but it really misses the mark.
- CHRONO TRIGGER - SNES
RPGs are a genre I'm still woefully unfamiliar with, and this one was recommended to me as the "ideal beginner RPG". With my admittedly limited knowledge of the genre, I feel like it's pretty much perfect. There's very little downtime in any respect, whether it's the active time combat system that encourages quick thinking and awareness of the enemies' positioning relative to your party, or the charming story that jumps between different times and scenarios without ever straying too far from the main conflict and remaining entertaining the whole time.
I like that the time travel premise is loose enough to not get into complicated time paradoxes and stuff like that, while there's still that attention to detail to ensure that these different time periods that are hundreds, sometimes millions of years apart, really do feel like they're connected and part of the same world. I also love all things you can do in the past to affect the future, such as offering some Jerky to a family in the middle ages so that their descendants change from overly greedy to overly giving.
Another thing I like is how flexible it is - like, at the end of the day it's a linear game, but it doesn't feel like it expects the player to rigidly follow a given path. You'll get put in jail and, maybe you'll try to escape, or maybe you'll let time pass and see what happens. Maybe you'll decide to fight the final boss early just to see if you can do it. Hell, reviving a certain major character in the story is optional, up to the player. This extends to the combat too, as the Dual and Triple tech system means you are overloaded with options depending on your party setup, and enemy/boss encounters are balanced well enough that you can feasibly adapt to what you have on the fly.
- SONIC GT - PC
It may only be 4 levels long, but it's nice to see a Sonic fan-game actually get completed. After a bit of a learning curve, and getting accustomed to a good helping of jank, mannn do I ever appreciate this game. It's not just the fact that it brings momentum-based gameplay into 3D with little to no automation - it also manages to maintain the level design philosophy of the Genesis games by eschewing precise platforming (for the most part) in favor of looser, flow-ier gameplay, and having tons of paths all around the levels which encourage you to take different routes on every replay without having to think too hard about it. I do have my fair share of gripes though, such as a lack of good level direction at times, or the atrocious bosses.
- MIRROR'S EDGE - PC
This had a pretty steep learning curve, and to be honest before I got the hang of it I kinda hated it. I guess I was too impatient, like I knew what the game was capable of looking like in the hands of a skilled player and I wanted to have that experience right off the bat, but I kept getting lost in the levels and getting stuck on platforming puzzles that feel obvious in retrospect. Doesn't help that the first play sessions made me horribly motion sick. That said, I've had a great deal of fun with it now that I've adjusted. Knowing exactly where to go and how to get there in the most efficient way means you get to breeze through stages in style, and that's pretty much exactly the experience I wanted from this game. Even better, the more you play you start picking up on little tricks and noticing shortcuts that both save you time and look super cool to perform. I can only really complain about the combat, which I don't think is a particularly hot take to have. I never had fun in sections where you're not allowed to stop and figure out where you're supposed to go because you're being mercilessly shot at. Once you know what you're doing though you can usually just run past enemies so it's all good.
- DORAEMON: NOBITA TO YOUSEI NO KUNI (replay) - SNES
Don't have much to say about the game itself, as it's just a pretty average platformer. Doesn't do anything remotely offensive, but doesn't stand out in any way either. The real value for me was re-experiencing a game from my childhood with newfound (basic) knowledge of Japanese, so I could finally understand the story after all these years. Turns out I wasn't missing much lol, but the reading practice was much appreciated.
- DORAEMON 2: NOBITA NO TOYS LAND DAIBOUKEN (replay) - SNES
Not too different from the second game. The presentation is slightly better, the controls are tighter, some streamlining here and there. At the end of the day it's still a very average platformer that doesn't do anything all that special. Some of the levels are too big for no good reason, and the level design often devolves into "1-tile blocks in the sky". The toy/carnival theme gets a bit repetitive and I'm not a big fan of it to begin with.
- VECTORMAN - GENESIS
I imagine this game was like a technical showpiece for the Genesis back in the day. It is pretty fancy-looking, but I feel like it's too enamored with its impressive graphics to the detriment of the gameplay. The game itself is actually pretty straightforward, but it can be hard to parse because there's so much detail and so many effects going around that get in the way of readability. That aside, I do like controlling Vectorman, he doesn't exactly excel in precise platforming but his movement and jumps feel nice, and shooting enemies is pretty satisfying.
The problem I have with this one is that it overstays its welcome a bit. I was basically ready for it to end about three levels before it actually ended. Like, the gameplay's fun but I don't think enough is done to make it feel varied. Even when they do introduce new enemies you're still approaching them the exact same way, and combat devolves into a monotonous button masher eventually. There's some levels I flat out don't like, like the fourth one that's an underwater vertical shaft with the same platforms repeated over and over as you climb. As an aside, you're incentivised to find all the TV's in each level to get bonus score at the end, so I get the impression the game wants me to explore, but whenever I did give myself the liberty to explore I'd often just run out of time, so I gave up exploring towards the end of the playthrough. To be fair though, I can see how you might be expected to do multiple playthroughs in order to learn the levels, and I do like how some of the open-ended levels make each playthrough feel a bit different.
Last thing I want to comment on is the really bizarre like, minigame levels? These one-off gimmick levels come completely ouf of left field, with no explanation on what you're meant to do, with a time limit of like 30 seconds. They just come out of nowhere and are so out of place that it's baffling. Also the final boss is really unfun. I dunno, the game is alright, it's kinda cool at times, but I don't know if I'm in a hurry to replay it anytime soon.
- DORAEMON 3: NOBITA TO TOKI NO HOUGYOKU - SNES
The third Doraemon game on SNES, and they actually switch things up this time! Instead of linear sidescrolling levels connected by a top-down overworld, you have a set of time periods that act as worlds, with a light Metroidvania structure. You explore and look for bosses or items to open access to new areas and progress in the story. Ultimately, though, it's still a very linear game, as the areas within the different time periods are straight lines with short detours that require specific characters to go through. Since you can only switch characters in the hub area for each world, you have to replay various sections with everybody in order to get everything, but once you've combed an area once there's no reason to ever return there. The game is also less focused on platforming and more on combat, which is fine I guess, but both are little more than serviceable anyway. I can respect them for trying to go in a different direction from the last two games, but the result is still an average platformer with a slightly different format.
- DORAEMON 4: NOBITA TO TSUKI NO OUKOKU - SNES
The last of the Doraemon games on SNES, and man, what happened here? The other entries may have been little more than average, but this one is such a massive step down in every single aspect. Aside from being yet another generic linear platformer, it's unpolished, the controls feel super jank, the presentation and themes are uninspired, and the level design is totally braindead, like they slapped level elements together without a single thought. I blew through it in like 3 days and it was extremely tedious. Kinda sad that my little Doraemon marathon had to end on such a sour note
/Switch
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