I’m not gonna lie this beyond exceeded my expectations. This game fixes all my problems with part 1 and elevates the story of the original. The game oozes charm with its characters, world, and minigames, the story doesn’t have as much “filler” as part 1, the combat is addicting, and the side quests and activities are near cdpr game level. There are a few hiccups and like part 1, the events of the final chapter requires multiple YouTube videos to fully understand, but man, I loved this game so much

Also the whole party of characters in this game are so awesome

Actually this may be one of the best games I’ve ever played

This remake fixed all my issues with portable (which is still a great game, just dated). Persona 3 Reload is a triumph and shows that over a decade from the last, persona remakes are totally worth it. The quality of life changes make the game more accessible, the new additions in the dorm and add more charm to the story yet don’t take away from it, and as always, Atlus presentation is A++!! I’ve been hoping for a p3 remake since I beat portable in 2019, and I am beyond happy knowing this was worth the wait.

Pros:
- Modernizes a classic without taking away the original’s charm
- QOL changes help make game more accessible
- The new music arrangements are on par with the original soundrack
- New content is great
- Great voice cast; social link dialogue is awesome to finally have!
- 0 glitches or bugs, sadly that is not the standard these days and it should be!
- It has Atlus UI lol

Cons:
- Occasionally TOO easy (normal difficulty)
- Weird lighting choices (dorm, etc.)
- The answer is paid DLC (I understand FemC not being in the game because that’s like a whole other game)
- Would have liked a little bit more new content, in the same vein of the new Strega episodes (like on the bridge in the summer with you know who)

Literally a bootleg. Midway took the sprites, engine, and even some of the level design from Shin'en's surprisingly solid EU-exclusive Maya The Bee games, stripped out all of the animation, made the controls worse, and dropped Manfred Linzner's great GAX music, just to sell an inferior product to America in the hopes of capitalizing off The Bee Movie. And on top of that, Midway released it on the DS too with zero changes, and it still looks worse than Shin'en's work on the GBA?

This game is so weird. I don't even care about Maya The Bee, but Shin'en deserved better than this, man.

So, my birthday is February 10th. Of course I posted about this in various online chats I was in, which led to someone I know on the How Long to Beat discord posted a single image and a joke that "here's a game you should play! ;)"

https://i.imgur.com/3kxNFxv.jpg

So once I looked at How Long to beat and saw it was like a 2 hour game I had to do it. And that's why I downloaded and played The Bugs Bunny Birthdat Blowout in 2023 of all things. So, what are my thoughts? Well, it isn't a horrible game, just one with some critical flaws that make it wear thin despite the modest playtime. The ol' Bugs Birthday Bashorama is pretty much what you'd expect from the NES in that it is a sidescrolling platformer, with one button to attack and another to jump. Six levels with four stages each. Basic stuff. Bugs controls...fine enough, not the tightest platformer ever but far from the worst, although the game's low framerate makes it sometimes feel less responsive than you'd like. I think the bigger issue comes from Bugs' hammer attack, which simply has too little range, and a bit of a windup to it. The end result is that trying to hit enemies WITHOUT getting hit yourself is frustrating, fortunately the only enemies you usually need to kill basically don't attack except by moving. But it does get pretty silly when you hammer a frog and its sprite just teleports forward and then it keeps jumping and hits you. Or lands in front of you and you're back to square one.

This game's difficulty is at war with itself, although it lands squarely in the "very easy" category. The way it gets there is mildly frustrating, in that the game is full of a lot of "Gotcha!" trickery (platforms that disappear under you being the biggest ones, with at least one required blind drop into a pit area that lands you on one and means you WILL die if you don't know to jump instantly, but also hidden enemies or the like), but when you aren't getting had the jumps are fairly reasonable and the game is mostly timing based and very easy. This is especially true because the game showers you with extra lives via the (pretty random, admittedly) bonus games (I even got a +50 lives near the end!), so you get some serious trial-and-error gameplay going on! It's far from the worst you'll get on the NES, but it does get tiring by the end of the game.

Let's talk about something good, if not fully utilized given it is a random liscensed game from 1990. I think the idea of this game's collectible, the carrots, turning into platforms for you to use after collecting them is an interesting design space. You do get some tricky jumps where you have to jump to collect them, land back onto the main stage and then use them, but they're rather few and far in between. I could totally see some modern 2D platformer use them well though, like hidden secret paths only done by backtracking after grabbing collectibles, or mix and matching it with stuff like crumbling platforms (I was shocked this game never did it) or moving platforms or whatever. It did make me think about the level design in a different way than a lot of games, so good on it. Also while the gotchas wear thin, they DO feel like they really fit the tone of Looney Tunes and Bugs in specific.

Why does this game have so many bosses when it reuses them so much? Daffy is a boss in EVERY world and like every time he is PATHETICALLY easy that's actually hilarious but also not good gameplay. You fight Elmer Fudd like three times. The fight does not change any time. The final boss is the only one who uses a truly different strategy, although Pepe le Pew is at least a bit unique. If you can't make unique bosses, at least scale them back a little bit to avoid the endless repition.

Anyway this game's plot is David Fincher's The Game so that obviously gives it an extra half star-