Survival horror games wish they could give me the same level of "edge of my seat tension to jumping out of my seat release" as I experienced waiting for the title screen of Dragon's Dogma 2 to say "Dragon's Dogma 2".

Dragon's Dogma 2 is a game I have a metric fuckton to say about, to the point that I kind of hate having to open by discussing its rocky launch. Capcom's unfortunate habit of higher-ups forcing their devs to add microtransactions into a game, that are seemingly intentionally made as useless as possible to counteract this, is nothing new. The fact there was active misinformation about their nature, owing both to Dragon's Dogma being far more niche than an RE, MH or DMC, and people not fact checking, was. The golden rule applies as ever; if you think you need to spend real money on a port crystal, Rift crystals or jail key, don't. Everything is readily available in game, you'll be fine. They even turned the ox cart you escort early in the original into a fast travel point between towns, so not only do you have options, you can choose to watch the world roll by as you go, or, possible monster interference notwithstanding, doze off and arrive in mere moments. Isn't that grand?

Aside from that, the PC version was also a hot mess, which is a lot harder an issue to shrug off. DD2 is a pretty huge game, far more so than the modern REs or DMC5, all of which were running on the same engine and providing stellar experiences on PC. Monster Hunter is the closest comparison, and I think both World and Rise's PC ports went through similar states of needing to be fixed up, but one was a PS4 and Xbox One title, and the other launched on the Switch. DD2 leads the charge as, to my recollection, Capcom's first strictly 9th gen title, with a huge, interconnected world with nary a load screen in sight while venturing on foot, and it runs at 30FPS on consoles with the odd dips. Definitely surprising, given it's directed by a man known for prioritising 60FPS gameplay with the most popular titles he's helmed, but it was never too egregious from my experiences.

But hey, from what I heard, it ran like absolute piss on PC at launch, so maybe it was a callback to how DD1 ran on PS360 at launch? No idea what the technical stuff under the hood is like, nor the state of the PC release at time of writing, but if push comes to shove, it might do you good to hold off until some further patches, or a discount, if that's your only option. Denuvo and some pretty absurd spec requirements probably aren't helping, either. What a damn shame, since Dark Arisen's PC port played a huge factor in a ton of eyes being put on the game over the years.

But getting away from what transpired around launch, what is Dragon's Dogma 2? It's Dragon's Dogma with a fucking budget. The original game was woefully incomplete, roughly 50 to 60% of its planned content just straight up missing. Plot points get picked up and dropped off, the game's finale is massively padded, we never got to go to the moon. There was always that want, from myself, and people playing at launch in 2012, to see what the game could've been like if given a full budget and dev time. Rather than take the approach of a DMC5 to the original's DMC4, however, DD2 feels more like Itsuno getting a mulligan. As such, a lot of similar structural beats will feel pretty familiar to returning players, complete with a lot of story relegated to the oodles of side quests, and spoiler alert, the moon still remains out of our grasp. Can you imagine how sick it would've been to bring the RE Engine's abbreviation (REach for the moon) full circle like that? For shame.

Don't take me likening DD2 to a mulligan as a negative, mind. Warts and all, DD1 is one of the best games I've ever played, and I'll talk more on that swiftly. But I'll openly admit, there were parts of me that were left ever so slightly wanting. Wanting those vocations from the now dead DD Online, or the beastmaster vocation we all thought V from Devil May Cry 5 was a testing ground for. Wanting another bombastic J-rock title theme. Wanting pawns and NPCs to be that little bit more quotable as in the original. Okay, those last two are nitpicks, but that's besides the point. There was a part of me that wanted some of, if not all the DDO vocations to get a second lease on life, but alas. I'll just have to wait for fans to get private servers rolling. Maybe the game was over schedule due to the pandemic, maybe Capcom just wanted it out for the end of the fiscal year to bolster their quarterly reports a touch. Itsuno stands by the game not being unfinished, so I'll trust him, but regardless. Whatever the reason, it made a small part of me yearn for just a little bit more Dragon's Dogma.

But that's only because I love Dragon's Dogma. And on a gameplay level, Dragon's Dogma 2 is more Dragon's Dogma. Everything from the original is here and accounted for. The game's unique approach to adventuring, asking you to watch the limits of what you're carrying and picking the right time to set out on your trek, should you not choose to fast travel, returns with a vengeance. A turnoff for some, especially with no infinite ferrystone this go around, but I was eager to cock a leg because of how much fun I was having exploring the world and going around boiling goblins and saurians with my sorcerer. The pawn system returns, and is just as cool as ever, allowing a still entirely single player game to feel like it has its own community, with pawns recruited by other players gaining quest or enemy knowledge and using their tactics or acting as guides on your own adventure. Could've done without the loss gauge, a new mechanic preventing HP from being recovered until the party rest at either an inn or campfire, but you could always argue that's another point in favour of the game for making it feel like an adventure, or preventing you from growing complacent and spamming your heals or relying on your trusty Mage.

And then there's the combat. DD1's left and right hand skills might be gone, and in some respects, I missed it. Especially now there's 4 skills on the face buttons, rather than 3, the thought of having 8 total on top of the regular moves on offer, was an itch the game really left me yearning to scratch... but it never got under my skin much, because DD2 is using DD1's combat and building on it. Vocations new and old, climbing on monsters to target their weak points or stagger them, synergy between player and pawn when casting magic simultaneously, it's all here and with more to offer. Sure, I wish there was more enemy variety; goblins, saurians, bandits, harpies, knackers and oozes being the lion's share of basic mooks, and the odd boss monsters throughout the world, from ogres, cyclops and griffins to the odd dragons, are here too, but when I'm having as much fun as I am both during exploration and combat, it's honestly something I'm more than willing to let slide from the amount of enjoyment I'm getting.

Through most of the game, I was swapping between the old familiar vocations of Fighter, Sorcerer and Magick Archer, but the brand new Mystic Spearhand became a quick favourite with its unique approach to combat, offering a telekinetic grab on smaller foes to be used like ammo, timing inputs for follow ups and teleports, to even an AOE move that just makes your party invincible for a couple seconds. It's kinda cracked. The Warfarer was my endgame pick, juggling Fighter's sword and Magic Archer's bow for handy coverage of both ranged and close quarters. It's not quite the full on vocation switch I'd dreamt of, especially given its ability to swap weapons takes up a skill slot and only leaves you with three to pull from your unlocked pool therein, but I had the goofiest grin on my face as I peppered enemies with my auto targeting magic projectiles, swapped weapons, and closed the distance for a Blink Strike.

And I didn't even use all the vocations, either! My pawn was running wild with the Thief vocation into the end game, and it's focus on huge damage and its sick grapple hook were awesome to see, but I never got to try it firsthand. Nor did I try the similarly new Trickster vocation, or returning Mage, Warrior or Archer. There's even entire chunks of the game I missed; new bosses like Medusa and the entire Sphinx side quest I never experienced, along with the crackhead mechanic of the Dragonsplague, wherein your pawn can go apeshit and wipe out an entire town if you're ignorant to the signs.

And in spite of an almost 65 hour playthrough now under my belt, I already want to go back again. I wanna get those trophies I missed, do those side quests I skipped over, try the other vocations, just like how I felt with the original game last year. That's one of the best things I can say about a game; that even after a lengthy first playthrough like that, that I already want to get right back into it and go another round. I almost feel thankful the PC version isn't too optimised on the Steam Deck yet; otherwise I fear I'd literally never be able to put the fucking thing down. I haven't even talked about things concerning the postgame, where Itsuno's true crackhead (endearing) vision comes into play. With its own unique mechanics that almost seem designed to punish the complacent player, I want anyone reading this to experience that shit blind like I did. It's not another Everfall, that's all I'll say.

And that's exactly what Dragon's Dogma 2 is. Itsuno's vision. The one that he couldn't make a reality with the budget, time and hardware afforded to him over a decade ago. To the many who bounced off the original Dragon's Dogma for many a reason, you probably aren't going to be swayed by the sequel's commitment to some of its more contentious, less friendly mechanics. But that's because Dragon's Dogma wasn't meant to be a massive, mainstream RPG hit. Hideki Kamiya, when developing the original Devil May Cry, claimed he'd rather have 10% of people love DMC, than to have 90% of people like it, and I wouldn't be surprised if Itsuno was thinking along a similar line of logic. Dragon's Dogma wasn't meant for everyone. But goddamn it, it was meant for me, and I'm so happy to have had such a great time playing both the original, and now its sequel that makes that humble little 7th gen JRPG feel like a mere tech demo in comparison. An all timer that I'm ecstatic to have experienced.

Itsuno-san, I fucking kneel.

Siactro does it again! "It", being making another cool little retro inspired 3D platformer!

While Toree 1 and 2 felt like really cool speedrun games that got a bit of inspiration from Sonic with their emphasis on the fact, Kiwi goes for more of an N64 collectathon inspired design, while still keeping true to what makes Toree what it is. That being, a dirt cheap 3D platformer that you can get through in about an hour or so, and being pretty good! The small handful of levels on offer have enough to explore in order to find all the mcguffins, that you only need 40 of to complete the game, even if the platforming isn't the most insanely intricate or in depth of its genre. Rather, Kiwi focuses on aerial movement, with a single jump, but also a glide and the ability to impale yourself into a wall to scale them. The levels give you plenty of chances to cruise through the air, and it's really fun to just let loose and glide over grand stretches of landmass, like Knuckles in Sonic Frontiers if he was actually fun. The movement really resonating with me in the same way as plenty of the 3D Mario games and the like. The environments might not be as big as the average other title in the genre, but the movement on offer is plenty fun, even if I personally am partial to Toree's more breakneck ground-based gameplay.

But you know what Kiwi really nails? Those vibes. It nails the N64 aesthetic without being hampered by the draw distance issues, complete with a catchy OST. Between the beach, desert and haunted castle, it all just feels like an N64 game that got lost in time, in all the right ways. Its difficulty is also pretty chill, so it's a great game to just unwind with if you're home from work and wanna kill some time before bed. Might leave players in search of a harder experience wanting, but I can get behind the dev team's commitment to making short burst experiences that just about anybody can play. And at the end of the day, even if the game doesn't end up clicking with you? It isn't gonna cost you much in the way of either time or money, so there's no harm in giving it a shot!

With a pretty damn short dev cycle of around 11 months, RGG got off lucky by having the groundwork of the original Yakuza laid out for them. Even still, making a sequel to be bigger and better than the original Yakuza, a game that was both made on a pretty huge scale, and had a massive budget, would still be a hefty feat. But goddamn, did they deliver.

Sure enough, Yakuza 2 manages to be bigger than its predecessor in just about every way, even if it's due to a lot of the groundwork with both combat and the overworld being laid out from the 2005 original. The vibes of Kamurocho, as well as the new Sotenbori and brief trip to Shinseicho are as on point as ever, as they were in the original. The combat's taken a massive jump, with a few essential moves from Yakuza 1 being unlocked from the start; a really cool and handy feature! There's also a lot less lock-on related issues, and small but appreciated quality of life improvements like weapons taking up their own slots on the inventory, and the ability to send an item back to the hideout if you collect something with a full inventory. There's a few new moves, some insane new Heat Moves, the good stuff. It's everything a good sequel should be, and that especially extends to the OST, and the story.

While the OST is something I'd need to give a few more listens to, mostly so I know track names and can hear them better over the sounds of punching and weapons, the music of the game was absolutely fantastic. From regular battles in the streets, to the major bosses closing off the chapters, just about every battle track had me gripping my controller, locked into the moment and only served to hype me up to kick ass. The good shit, definitely going to have it on the Spotify playlist for a bit.

And man, that story. Between expanding upon Kiryu as a character, both on his own and with his relationships with the extended cast of both returning and new cast members alike, to the much grander scope it goes onto take with Japan and Korea going to blows. Ryuji has gotta be one of the sickest rivals I've seen in a game in some time; basically the closest this series would have to a Vergil, if I had to guess. Sayama was a great female lead to tag along with Kiryu, with the pair getting a ton of both heartfelt and somber moments throughout. And Daigo was a chad who I wish got more screentime, but I'm pretty sure he shows up later throughout the series, so hell yeah. But without giving too much away, one of the best things Yakuza 2 manages to do is absolutely throttle the players with twists, especially by the end of the title. From the cold opening covering the Jingweon Massacre, all the way through to the climax, it's sincere, heartfelt, dramatic, hype, everything I look for in a great story.

And all in all? Yakuza 2's just about everything I look for in a great game. Long as it took me to complete, thanks mostly to work kicking my ass, I had an absolute blast with it from start to finish. It's one of those cases where I'm basically bordering on giving the game a flat 10/10, so consider my 9/10 subject to change. Might be my favourite of the series thus far, at least until I replay 0 at some point later down the line, though it's really the DMC3 VS 5 sort of toss up, where I could go back and forth. Excellent game regardless of any internal debate, sure glad I didn't play that whack ass remake as my first experience with the game!

Pretty impressive as far as indie F-Zero inspired titles go! There's a faurky hefty amount of content with 4 cups of 6 races each, a track editor, and even online play that, while I didn't try out, is a pretty insane offering for a game that's still in early access. For the £10 price tag, there's a lot of content in here that I think make it worthwhile! I mean, I grabbed it for about half price on sale a bit ago so I might be biased, but ehhh who's gonna hold me under the flame for that?

But it's the devs' commitment to the feel of F-Zero that really lands Super Pilot as something worth keeping my eyes on. A lot of the tracks are solid enough, but it's when I press the triggers and do that cool strafe drift that I know I'm back home. The boost-HP system gets changed slightly to be a cooldown that refills when you aren't boosting, which is honestly fine by me. I think it does a good job easing newbies into F-Zero's mechanics without being quite so punishing. That said, the weird hybrid of Sonic Riders and Mario Kart's drift boost wasn't really clicking with me, but that might just be a skill issue I need to get over. Though, I really think the game could use an offensive maneuver like the spin or the weird ball move from GX. It gets rid of a lot of the strategy of the series; choosing whether to target opponents close in the ranks to you, or to pick off small fry for the sake of it, and all to earn extra lives and make a wider break in the rankings was one of my favourite parts of X and especially GX. Game's still in development, so I'll be crossing my fingers the devs stumble across one of the two reviews on Backloggd.

On the whole, though, super impressive! Here's hoping Super Pilot comes out of early access some day, and ends up being even better than it is, cause there's some real potential for a good title to become great!

Oh damn, I totally forgot to review this and Chip N Dale when I decided to shotgun them back to back in a day off work!

Uhhh, yeah, it's pretty good! DuckTales was always talked up in the late-2000's internet as one of the best licensed games around, but it fell into the chasm of one of those many widely beloved titles that I only sampled over my early years dabbling with emulators. It's not as good as people made it out to be, but hey, it's good! The music's toe-tapping goodness, the spritework is great, and the gameplay's pretty solid 2D action! Not without issues, mind, because I immediately got reminded why I never got too far in the title when the Amazon level effectively walled me to needing to grind for gold, and Transylvania was a kind of annoying slog, but it got better as it went on; a good platformer if you've got an hour and a half to kill, and its influence on modern platforming classics like Shovel Knight can't be overlooked.

Final 5 minutes of the game felt insanely tacked on though, like what the fuck was that final boss?

Awww yeah, now that's a motherfucking video game sequel.

Ace Combat 2 is more Ace Combat. Bigger, bolder, better, the hallmarks of a killer sequel are all here and accounted for. The satisfying air combat dogfighting is even more fun, the campaign has more going on with alternative routes to up the replayability, and the soundtrack is as rocking as ever. Top notch stuff all around!

But what really makes AC2 better than the first game is that the "Alert! Body damaged!" sound effect only plays once or twice after getting shot, rather than 12 times in a row like the original.

Genuinely cannot even think of this game without associating it with 2016-era commentary YouTube. I was hearing Memeulous in my head the whole time I was playing this stupid ass game.

Yeah it's alright. Kinda just accidentally booted it up and then kept it on my "Playing" tab for a fucking year but it's alright. Probably the best "jumping from the roofs of moving vehicles" video game ever made, unless you count the Big Blue stage from Smash Bros. It gets kinda bullshit at points, but it's very much a "what you see is what you get" kinda game, and it knows what it wants out of itself. Worth a try, even if it's really nothing mindblowing by any stretch of the word.

Honestly? Kinda surprised at how well this holds up! Not to say I expected the original Ace Combat to be a bad time at all; I figured it'd just kind of okay. It's certainly got a bit of early PS1 energy to it with some whacky pop in, but overall? A pretty damn fun time!

The game controls pretty smooth, assuming your current plane isn't rocking the mobility of a brick, making the constant aerial dogfights a blast. In fact, plenty of the missions were great fun to play, and that motherfucking soundtrack was the cherry on top. Shit's pure electricity right in my veins; exactly the type of heavy rock you need to get you in the zone. And with a pretty damn short runtime, it all makes for a real neat way to kill an evening, and a bunch of enemy fighter planes. Good stuff, bring on the sequels!

Second verse, same as the first! Gunman Clive 2 is just more Gunman Clive, with all the same pros and cons I gave the original title. There's a few more vehicle based schmup segments, an entire level that's based around the control screwing anti-gravity gimmick I complained about (and yes, it was the worst level in the game), and a worse PC port most noticably. I dunno if I just had bad luck, but this damn thing just wasn't picking up my PS5 controller and made me use the keyboard for a Mega Man game; an experience of cramping my fingers I've not experienced since the early-2010s.

But yeah, it's just about as run of the mill of a sequel as you can get, for better or worse! Honestly think I'd have come away more positive if I weren't straining my fingers through the entire experience, but alas. For incredibly affordable price points, and with runtimes of roughly an hour each if you're skilled? These are some decent Mega Man-likes if you're really itching for a a little something to keep you occupied while the series is still in hibernation.

You ever wanted Mega Man but kinda stylised and set in the Wild West? Boy, do I have the game for you! Gunman Clive's a pretty neat hour long thing; simple as all get out with Mega Man being the obvious template for mechanics. You jump, shoot, get shot at, fight the odd boss, you know the rigamarole. You've got alternate guns, the spreader from Contra, a bomb gun and something akin to the Wave Beam from Metroid, but they're treated like schmup power-ups, rather than Mega Man. Kind of a shame, think it might've worked to the game's benefit to have the more traditional robot master weapon acquisition.

But you know what does work for the game's benefit, kinda? The pacing! Every stage is a bite sized challenge, usually only a few screens long. It makes the game go by at an insanely brisk pace, but also doesn't let every level feel like it's quite getting the time it needs to stretch its legs. Kind of a shame, but I suppose something was gonna have to give. One thing's for sure; if I were playing this in between secondary school classes on my 3DS, it'd be like crack to me. The game's got a few kinda irksome sections, to be sure, with spikes instantly killing you in spite of invincibility frames being chief among them. The antigravity section near the end that had me holding left on the d-pad threw me through a fuck of a loop, could've done without that stage, but ya know, every Mega Man-like has a level or two.

But that's kind of the thing. How much of a game can you complain about, when those bad segments are just brief enough to not get on your nerves too much? Combined with the game's dirt cheap price point, it's hard to not at least suggest you give Gunman Clive a shot. If anything, I don't think either my time or money were wasted, and that's always a good feeling to have, even when you're dealing with a game in the lower end of the good half of the review scale.

For being made by the same team behind the fantastic Blazing Chrome, a game that might as well be Contra with the serial numbers filed off, Oniken very much feels like them trying to get their feet in the door.

It manages to simultaneously manages to be one of the absolute best, and absolute worst NES throwbacks I've played from the indie scene. It's bursting with style, between its flashy visuals, pretty alright chiptune soundtrack, and to top it off? The core gameplay is pretty damn fun! It's a really cool throwback to stuff like Ninja Gaiden and the sort, even down to the emphasis on story delivered via cutscenes that made the original NG such an iconic staple of the NES library. The game's tough as nails, and I can't lie, when I managed to clear a no death run of a level, there was always that feeling of "Fuck yeah, I did that shit! Me!"

But Oniken unfortunately doesn't stop at just trying to be a cool throwback to stuff like Ninja Gaiden. It brings a lot of the bullshit of the game's final levels, and a lot of less positive quirks of other NES titles from the time. Between losing power-ups upon getting hit enough, a pretty strict focus on the more bullshit kind of trial and error that marries with a life system, and a checkpoint allergy in its overly long levels that I haven't seen since Jak 2, it's unfortunate that I can't look at the game as positively as I wish I could.

It's not that the game is hard; I loved Blazing Chrome, and I'm no stranger to tougher NES platformers like the Mega Man titles or, well, the first Ninja Gaiden. But Oniken doesn't know when to let up so it often swims into the deep end of "Bullshit hard NES game that the devs didn't want you beating over the weekend rental period", and that kinda bites. I can definitely appreciate it for getting a dev team who'd go on to make a banger shooter into the industry, and who knows? If you're into getting your balls really crushed, you might find something to like here more than I did! But as it stands? I really wish I liked it more than I do.

Azure Striker Gunvolt is what I'd like to call "IntiCreates as fuck". Inti are a pretty solid dev team, capable of making pretty great Mega Man titles! The Zero series' worst entry is just okay and it gets better as it goes on, and I stand by Mega Man 9 and 10 being real good! Haven't played the ZX series yet, but I think that, when not being helmed by that Westaboo NFT grifting FUCK Keiji Inafune, IntiCreates can put out some great stuff! Gunvolt was essentially their attempt at spiritually succeeding the Zero series, in a much more successful way than Inafune's less than successful attempt at revitalising the classic series... and it's pretty good!

Okay, to start with the good stuff? Man, Gunvolt's got style. Slick pixel art that feels right at home with their other outings, and the anime aesthetic of the surprisingly wide cast are just the right kind of legally distinct Mega Man rejects that I can seriously dig the hell out of. There were points where I was thinking to myself, "Hey, that reminds me of [insert Mega Man character here!]", and I mean that in an endearing kind of way. PS1 X keyart is my peak aesthetic, and while Gunvolt's own key art doesn't hit quite that level... yeah, it looks pretty good! Sadly can't tell you much on the soundtrack though, nothing really stuck with me.

But in regards to gameplay, Gunvolt plays pretty well! It's standard Mega Man X/Zero fare; you go fast, you shoot dudes, jump up walls, the good shit. What sets Gunvolt apart is the flashfield mechanic, allowing you to create an AOE damage ball around Gunvolt as you see fit. You've also got the game's main gimmick of tagging enemies with shots to allow it homing properties onto anything you've tagged, which is really neat. It even factors it into a lot of the level design, with a stage featuring a blackout that you need to illuminate with Flashfield, and tag switches and then use the flashfield to activate them all at once. It can also tank a few hits for you in exchange for losing some meter, and while you have a cooldown meter to worry about, you can also immediately recharge it by coming to a stop and double-tapping down on the D-pad to mitigate it. It's a way more interesting gimmick than Mighty No 9's whole dashing into enemies mechanic turned out to be. Cool stuff, was kind of surprised it wasn't made more of a major focus in regards to the level design.

In fact, it probably would've helped some of the levels feel better to play. There's just kind of a lot of holding right and shooting here, with a few forced combat rooms complete with enemies that can suddenly spawn in on top of you for good measure. Some levels try and spice things up, like a brief switch puzzle section that even had an antigravity section and the aforementioned tagging switches, but they're pretty few and far between. Not much sets the stages apart in my mind aside from the odd memorable gimmick, but I'm sure many a different person could argue that about many a Mega Man level, so maybe it's just a me problem.

As an aside, I'm also kinda down with the idea of the game's small optional mission system. Before starting a stage, you can set up to 3 missions to tackle on your run, with nothing at all going to risk if you fail, and only rewards coming should you succeed. Most of them amount to "Beat the stage in under X minutes", or doing something related to a stage's unique gimmick, beating it with at least a B rank, stuff like that. It's a really neat way of encouraging players to push themselves, and to aid returning players should they want to get more out of the game. Especially if you're going for the game's brutal S and S+ ranks, that require a completely perfect run. Think the game's too easy? Well, put up or shut up, cause the ranking system'll kick your ego back down.

So we've got a good basis for a title here! But then Gunvolt starts doing stuff that gave me the vibes of Mega Man Zero 1... and that's not the Zero game you should be giving me vibes of. The game's got RPG elements, with a level up system, materials to acquire after every stage, and missions to complete as you play. These are ideas I'm okay with in concept, but Gunvolt's execution kind of falters. The level up system giving you skills and upping your HP is fine, even if they inherently make the game a bit grindier in the same vien as Zero 1 and 2, but it's the materials that made me really groan. In addition to getting drops from enemies, you can get a chance to basically play a goddamn lottery scratch card at the end of a level, with more tries depending on your rank. You can somewhat mitigate it by playing missions as you go, and you might even end up landing a few lucky pick-ups from getting lucky, but having a system like this be fairly RNG dependant is the kind of thing I kind of roll my eyes at in a Mega Man style title. The upgrades you can get are pretty neat, though, ranging from the usual air dash, double jump, damage reduction, and the dedicated skills varying from AOE attacks to on-demand healing, that's all great! I'm all for the player being able to find their own playstyles. The issue's more with the aquiring of materials, rather than them being there in the first place. Still, as long as I'm not grinding enemies for basic attack upgrades like in Zero 1, I'm at least a little happy.

It's some of Gunvolt's bosses that kind of bring the game down a bit for me, though. I genuinely couldn't tell if the game actually has the usual Mega Man weakness chain, despite the game giving your gun a few modifiers. I was mostly sticking with the basic rapid fire shot, so maybe I could've switched things up and made a few sections easier on myself. Either way, most of the bosses just kinda went in one ear and out the other, not too many of them being all that challenging. Elise can go die in a fire, though, and the true final boss actually went pretty hard.

So, what's the deal with Azure Striker Gunvolt? Well, it's a pretty good Mega Man-like! Not IntiCreates' best, and it's definitely rough around the edges, but I think the high points outweigh the lows. If you're hankering for more Mega Man in another drought era for the franchise, it's well worth a shot! It feels like a GBA-era Mega Man that got lost in time, and I dig a lot of what it does. Here's hoping the sequels pick up on what this one did and makes for an even better time!

Damn, they made a whole game based on that MS Paint stage in Smash Bros!

Pac-Land holds up remarkably for being basically the first true 2D platformer, all things considered. It genuinely feels like someone tried to come up with the idea of "What if Pac-Man just needed to get to a place?", and tried to integrate it around the base concept of Pac Man being a guy who gets chased by and eats ghosts, with the four being as much a threat to you as the environmental hazards. its status as an high-score chasing arcade title focused on running to build up points, it feels kind of like a proto-endless runner if you think about it. Also makes Pac-Man getting a cameo in Sonic Dash really funny in hindsight.

There's definitely some "pre-Mario" conventions the game struggles from, but I didn't find double tapping the move button to dash to be one of them; I've played enough Smash Bros and Kirby to not really flinch at the double input dash like some may. That being said, I hope that whoever thought needing to spam the D-pad to increase time gained from springboards falls into a river IRL. Beyond that, the game looks kinda putrid, but the soundtrack's got some memorable melodies that are held back by less than stellar instrumentation; the real Sonic 4 problem of a 2D platformer. Beyond all that, there's not much to say about Pac-Land. More so than a game of any defining quality, it's more an interesting little period piece of what one of gaming's most beloved genres was before Super Mario Bros redifined and became the baseline for it a mere year later.