It’s interesting to see Gamefreak’s ability at crafting little open worlds evolve so quickly as they rapidly iterate and release new content so quickly. This is one of the best of these worlds yet, designed as a wheel with a tall, dense mountain in the middle and several biomes as the spokes, each with containing one of the “Six Wonders of Kitakami” which hilariously range from a circle of rocks to an unremarkable pond. The Kitakami region also contains elements pulling from the aesthetics of the Japanese inaka, reminiscent of aspects of Hisui and Johto in quite a few ways that I found delightful as a fan of those regions specifically.

The fact this is meant to be played in the post game, where players have Pokémon in the level 50+ range leads to a flattened level curve which allows you to go anywhere in the world and have a roughly equivalent experience, with a handful of trainer battles and actually putting me on the back foot and making me use items to stay alive, even in instances where my party outleveled the opponents by quite a bit.

The story also impresses by Pokémon standards, drawing parallels from the ancient regional myth of Ogrepon and the contemporary problems of the loner adolescent Kieran. It’s not deep by any means but it navigates its themes in a way that I just don’t expect from this series anymore. I think it fumbles the bag a little bit at the end, with a scene featuring Kieran that made me lose it laughing, and a cliffhanger for the second DLC that makes this end on an abrupt note.

I haven't binged a game like this in, well...27 years!

But like a total degenerate, I spent every waking moment on release weekend, doing nothing but adventuring with Mario, Mallow, Geno, and the gang. And I'm so glad I did. It's still difficult to believe we got this game - what has become an admittedly niche artifact of Nintendo's past. An artifact that draws legions of fans whenever a new turn-based Mario game releases and it's not an RPG. It was easy to believe that Nintendo burned every notion of SMRPG after Square abandoned them for Playstation and Final Fantasy, but apparently, the dream still lived.

SMRPG was a special game to me - something I iteratively rented from Video Update until I could finally reach a conclusion. And certainly one of my earliest experiences with the RPG genre. That seemed to be in the conceit for this game way back then - an easy and approachable entry point into the daunting world of RPGs. With charm, recognizable (and unrecognizable) Mushroom Kingdom characters, funny writing, and superb music, it really hit the mark in 1996. But does it do the same in 2023?

For better or worse, this is a 1:1 remake of SMRPG with a few bells and whistles. At times, it really feels like a video game from 1996. For those totally entranced by its nostalgic power, that's perfectly welcome. But I can see it being a struggle for gamers new to the experience. The platforming is still a little wonky and the lack of voice SFX is perhaps a bit jarring. But the game moves at the same breezy pace it always has - one area never overstaying its welcome. A 10 - 12 hour RPG may be a bit surprising to new players, but that's just the way it was.

With the addition of perfect action commands hitting all enemies, and perfect blocks being more forgiving, SMRPG is actually an easier game in 2023. While I would like a Hard mode for veterans, I was also okay with relaxing on my journey. What awaited me in post-game was certainly enough of a challenge...But I'll leave it at that.

This brought me back to 1996. No worries. Ignorance. Just me and a Super Nintendo on the weekends. I leave the safety of the present weekend tomorrow, back into the perils of adult life. But it was fun just being a kid again with SMRPG.

When it comes to major video game releases in the modern era of video games, we usually see a worldwide release applied to all of them, which makes sense. There are still plenty of games that are exclusive to certain regions, but for the most part, these games are released in every market in every territory, which is starting to slowly become the norm, as it should be. Of course though, as one would expect, worldwide releases were much more uncommon back in the day, and while a lot of video games would be released in multiple major territories across a certain amount of days to years, there have been a lot of games that have been released exclusively in a certain region to never be let out of said region, whether it be in North America, Europe, or more commonly, Japan. Over the years, however, a lot of these games that were once previously exclusive to one region are now being rereleased worldwide to other regions as well, which is honestly fantastic, as more people should be able to play these titles that once had a very limited audience. One such title that was gifted the mercy of being redistributed overseas after almost 30 years of release would be Psycho Dream.

Before this game was rereleased for Western territories, I had known about from watching one or two YouTube videos on it, and from what I saw, it looked cool enough, but definitely something that I wasn’t going to jump on as soon as possible. Eventually though, it saw a rerelease for the NSO service, making it available to play for the first time for Western audiences… even though some of the text is still in Japanese. So, I decided to check it out finally over alternatives to see how it actually was after all these years of knowing about it. And how is it actually? Well, I can tell you one thing, it is pretty basic, but it can still be a good time. It isn’t really all that complex, and you can beat it in less than an hour, but it provides a good enough time when you do get into it that you don’t feel like your time was wasted.

The story is actually pretty complex for a SNES game, which you obviously wouldn’t know if you can’t read Japanese text, but upon looking it up, you can see just how much more interesting the story is then the game itself, the graphics are pretty good, having a unique style to them, and plenty of impressive animations for yourself and all of the enemies, the music is… definitely music, with there being several good tracks, but nothing that really stuck out to me, the control works well enough, even if there were several instances of weird physics when it came to crouching and jumping, and the gameplay is what you would expect from a 2D action platformer, but with a bit of unique flair to it.

The game is your typical 2D action platformer, where you take control of either Ryo or Maria, one of them being a swordsman and one being a butterfly angel warrior, so it is pretty obvious which one you should pick from the beginning, go through a set of six stages, take out as many of the disgusting gross creatures that will attack you as you can, with each of them having pretty good designs, gather plenty of health, points, and powerup items that will give you much more versatility and protection over your foes, and fight plenty of big, disgusting bosses that will put your dodging skills to the test, each of them also having very good designs. For what it’s worth, despite having a set up that is extremely similar to many other games at the time, it does somewhat have its own unique charm, and again, it is good for the short time you have with it.

The game’s setting primarily takes place in many places in Japan, and while the types of locations is pretty typical, they are designed in a way to where they stand out from other levels of other games when you compare them side by side… that is, except for the final level, which looks like it was ripped from both Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Contra, and shoved together. Not exactly sure what they were thinking with that one, as it is the least visually interesting out of the six. Aside from that, the game also differs with how many times you can upgrade yourself with the powerups you get, with each character having about four separate levels of forms. Take those couple of elements, coupled with the special nuke attacks that you would expect from this kind of game, and you have yourself a game that is familiar, yet enjoyable at the same time.

That being said though, if you are someone who isn’t too into these types of games, then there is nothing that Psycho Dream has to offer you that you haven’t seen already. It can be fun for a good amount of time, but I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if plenty drop the game shortly after trying it out just because of how much it doesn’t really try. And speaking of not really trying, the game is extremely repetitive. The developers of this game are also the ones that made the Valis series, and based on what I have played of those games, I can definitely see that, but while the original Valis (or at least the remake) was able to stand on its own by having animated cutscenes with voice acting, energetic music, and colorful visuals that keep you wanting to play, Psycho Dream doesn’t really have that, and instead it just has you constantly walking from left to right, slashing at things, with little to no difference in challenge. Again, it isn’t bad, but it definitely can get boring at times.

Overall, despite it’s very interesting story and unique visual style, Psycho Dream is about as generic as action platformers get, and while it certainly isn’t bad, I must stress that, it really isn’t a game that you need to jump on the absolute millisecond you can. I guess I could recommend it for those who are fans of the Valis series, but for everyone else, there are plenty of other similar, and much more enjoyable, titles from the system that you could enjoy. So now that we got that out of the way, how about we get other BETTER games ported over to Western territories from Japan now? Like F-Zero Climax? Or maybe more of the original Fire Emblem titles? Or maybe… just maybe… we could finally get Mother-

Game #369

Despite my own personal thoughts on the game, Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll is a pretty creative and unique platformer for the NES. The isometric platforming, the Rare charm that can usually be found in their games, the enjoyable music and graphics, and the creative gameplay when compared to other platformers at the time, make it a pretty noteworthy title that didn’t get as much attention as many of the others, and while I myself couldn’t stand the game due to it’s horrendous control, especially in later portions of it, I can definitely see why plenty others could have a different opinion, and really like it. With all that being said, I don’t think this game really needed any kind of follow-up, and yet, we still got one anyway known as Sneaky Snakes, which has gotta be one of the most uninspired titles for a sequel ever.

Despite what the 1 out of 5 star rating may tell you, I have very conflicted feelings on this game. On one hand, a lot of the problems that I had with the original game have been fixed here (somewhat), making it much less aggravating for me to play and enjoy this one. On the other hand, the aggravation does come in through plenty of other elements seen later in the game, making it on the same level for me, if not even less so, then the original game. And this game doesn’t even get the benefit of the doubt of being one that I can see other people enjoying, or possibly being a hidden gem, because really, around all the bullshit and questionable design choices, it is also extremely bland, and not worth checking out if you have already seen the original game.

This time around, we actually have somewhat of a story, which involves the two snakes, Genghis and Atilla (weird references, but ok), saving another girl snake, which… I mean, I guess it is better than no story at all, the graphics are Game Boy graphics, but the sprites of the characters and the enemies do look close to what was seen in the original NES game, so they look good, the music is also enjoyable, even if there aren’t as many tracks as you were hoping there would be, the control is miles better then the original, giving you plenty of control over your character, even though it feels a little floaty, which isn’t really that preferable, and the gameplay follows the same structure as the original, but from a new perspective, which may be better or worse depending on who you ask.

The game is a 2D side-scrolling puzzle platformer, where you take control of one of the snakes, travel through plenty of stages taking place in several environments, defeat the enemies that gets in your way, gather items and points along the way, eat all the balls you can to extend your body, hit the bell at the end, and go through the goal. If you haven’t caught on what makes this different from the original yet, it is that rather then being an isometric platformer like the original, the game is a more traditional 2D platformer with a lot of the same elements and physics as the original, and this change can be seen as good and bad. On one hand, this removes a good chunk of the originality and creativity of the original, making it much less appealing to fans of the original as a result.

On the other hand, sweet merciful lord, THANK YOU. I wasn’t kidding in that previous review when I said that the controls and terrain were the aspects that truly ruined the game for me, because if those things were much more manageable, then it would’ve been a pretty decent game. Many others could probably excuse those issues, but for me, I couldn’t ignore it at all. Thankfully, this time around, not only is the terrain much easier to navigate, but the controls are also a lot more simple, making the game much more tolerable to play as a result. Needless to say, if I were to ever come back to one of these games in the future (which I probably won’t), it would be this one.

With all that being said though, where all of my previous issues with the game were taken care of, a load of other ones were put in their place: the gimmicks of the levels. Throughout the game, there are plenty of gimmicks to be found in the levels that change up how you progress through the stage, as well as getting the segments to your body. Such gimmicks include one with mosquito segments that have to carry you towards the goal (very erratically, mind you), needing to hit a bird in order to have it lay the segments as eggs, and several underwater levels to switch things up, including how you control. I will give these gimmicks credit for being pretty creative, especially compared to any of the gimmicks that were in the original game. On the other hand, these gimmicks make progressing through these stages a huge pain in the ass.

I stopped at Stage 12 of the game, because the gimmick in that level was just way too frustrating for me to properly want to pursue anymore, so I just decided to stop, and almost all of the other gimmicks I had experienced at that point were also pretty frustrating to a degree. When paired with the floaty jumps and all of the stage hazards that you have to deal with, trying to properly get a hang of these gimmicks to succeed is way harder than it needs to be, making the game significantly less fun in comparison, and making me never want to play these levels ever again. It doesn’t help when a number of the gimmicks, such as the mosquito and bird one, seem almost out of your control, cause the mosquitos will fly you wherever the fuck they want, usually to your death, and while the bird does have a set pattern it flies in, it will always lead to you getting smacked in the face by another obstacle, or falling into a pit. It’s no secret after that as to why I stopped playing the game.

Overall, while the game does fix a lot of the issues I had with the original, a lot of other issues decide to come right on in and take their place, resulting in a game that may play better, but one that is also significantly more agonizing with what the game wants you to do. I would recommend it only if you are a DIE-HARD fan of the original game, but if you aren’t, then you have no business ever touching this game in your entire life. Besides, the title is still stupid anyway. I mean, seriously, Sneaky Snakes? They aren’t even sneaky in the game! Except, of course, for sneaking by all of the shoppers, and not selling well at all. Oh yeah, I went there.

Game #317

I will admit, even if I did have a good amount of fun with the original Streets of Rage, it has aged pretty poorly over time, and while I wouldn’t consider it to be bad by any means, I wouldn’t tell people to start with it if they wanted to check out the Streets of Rage series. Maybe you could get some more fun out of it with a friend, but there are plenty of other options out there. Nevertheless, since the original was successful and noteworthy enough, it was going to get a follow-up, and unlike with Golden Axe, they were actually going to TRY with this game. It really makes a difference when developers actually care about the game that they are making, doesn’t it? This resulted in a sequel that has been critically acclaimed across the board, with many remembering it fondly, and it being considered one of the best beat-’em-ups and games of all time: Streets of Rage 2.

When viewed at from a surface level, this game really doesn’t do that much different from the original Streets of Rage, aside from a couple of changes, and for those that aren’t familiar with these games, they would probably question why you would even bother playing this title in comparison to the original. However, when you play through both the original game and this game, as I have, you can clearly see a big difference between the two, and it is obvious which one you would most likely prefer over the other. This is a fantastic follow-up to the original, as well as a fantastic game in general, and while I wouldn’t consider it to be one of the greatest beat-’em-ups of all time like others, and certainly not one of the greatest games of all time, I can say with confidence that I had an absolute blast revisiting this game, and I would definitely go back to playing it if I wanted to replay a beat-’em-up that wasn’t from Capcom.

The story is “evil comes back again, go stop them”, which is to be expected from a beat-’em-up from the 90s, so I won’t complain about it, the graphics are wonderful, being a major improvement from the original game, and providing plenty of distinct locations and colors to get absorbed in when viewing, the music is great, having a great soundtrack to accompany the ass-kicking you will be doing, even if not all of the tracks are memorable as others, the control is pretty similar to the original, although it feels much better to handle this time around, due to the variety of moves you can pull off, and how smooth it feels, and the gameplay is basically if you took the original Streets of Rage, polished it as much as you can, and added just enough onto it to make it feel like a new experience.

The game continues the beat-’em-up gameplay from the original, where you take control of one of four characters, each with their own individual stats to experiment with, go through a good handful of levels, beating up a seemingly endless supply of goons and baddies of various shapes and sizes, grab money, food items, and several weapons to help you out along the way, and fight plenty of tough bosses several times throughout the game. Like I mentioned earlier, this game doesn’t really do anything different from the original game, aside from adding new playable characters, as well changing up how special attacks work, which can be seen as a bit of a disappointment for some. Thankfully, what makes up for that is how good it feels to play.

While the original game was definitely still functional, it did still feel pretty rough for a beat-’em-up, and what didn’t help was with the bullshit bosses that would pop up at times, being some of the main hurdles I had when it came to enjoying that last entry. Thankfully this time around, it feels MUCH better to beat dudes up, especially with the accompanying soundtrack and visuals amping up the energy, and the bosses also aren’t that much of a problem… even if some of them can be annoying at times. It really shows just how much can be improved on in between installments, making for a solid beat-’em-up all around with no real issues to be seen (take that, Golden Axe).

Now, with all that being said, if you didn’t really get into the original game, I’m not exactly sure how much you can get into this one. Yes, it is no denying that it is a definite improvement over the original, but it doesn’t do that much to make it stand out from other beat-’em-ups available at the time, so if you didn’t really find the original to be all that interesting, you may not get anything out of this one. Thankfully though, I was able to have a good amount of fun with the original, and this game just managed to take that amount of fun that I did have with the original and double it, even way back in the day when I first played it, so I am glad that I decided to revisit it after all this time.

Overall, despite not adding that many new features at all, this was a great way of improving over what the original gave us, and it is still a wonderful game even after all the years since I played through it originally. I would definitely recommend it for those who were fans of the original Streets of Rage, or fans of beat-’em-ups in general, because you will definitely find something to like about this game. So, now that we have gotten to what many consider to be the peak of the series, I look forward to being disappointed by the later games… that probably won’t happen, but hey, you never know.

Game #318

Have you ever wanted to see a movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sigourney Weaver team up and battle aliens together to save the planet Earth in the distant future? Well, unfortunately, that movie doesn’t exist (in a perfect reality, it would), but thankfully, we have a game that is the closest thing we will ever get to that reality, known as S.C.A.T.: Special Cybernetic Attack Team. This is yet another obscure NES title from Natsume that I just happened to try out when looking through the library on the NSO, and I had some expectations for what I was getting into, considering my previous experiences with Journey to Sillius and Shadow of the Ninja. It may have a pretty stupid cover, but it should have gameplay that is good enough to make you ignore that cover, and it won’t last too long, so that it doesn’t feel like a burden to try to complete. Thankfully, most of those expectations were correct, as I did find the game to be good enough, even if it wasn’t really all that original, and it doesn’t offer much to experience other than the strange parallels that exist in it.

The story is basically what I said earlier, with it taking place in the year 2029, so I can see now that this takes place in the same universe as Shadow of the Ninja, the graphics are pretty average, having no real stand-out bad or good qualities about it, looking pretty much like every other average NES game at the time, the music is pretty good, but again, it is a pretty standard sounding soundtrack for the NES, with plenty of sound effects and noises we have heard before, so it offers nothing that will catch your attention, the control is good all around, feeling good to handle and not having any noticeable issues, and the gameplay is pretty unique for those who haven’t experienced anything like it before, but for those who are well aware of other games like this at the time, you would know that this is a straight-up copy of other games.

The game is basically just a lesser version of Forgotten Worlds by Capcom, and when you take a look at the two games side-by-side, you can really tell. You take control of either Arnold or Sigourney (yeah, those are their actual names, so that question from the beginning had a purpose), fly through several auto-scrolling stages, using a standard weapon and two “options” to take down enemies and obstacles that you run into, get weapon upgrades to experiment with and more health along the way as you shoot more things, and take on challenging enough bosses that will test your skills… somewhat. So yeah, if you didn’t pick up on it by now, this is pretty much EXACTLY how Forgotten Worlds plays, except without a shop to purchase upgrades, and you can only shoot in two directions rather than eight. From what I had researched, apparently this game was made “in the vein” of that game, as well as Section Z, so I don’t wanna assume that they were stealing from those games, but I dunno… seeing this gameplay, coupled with how they just inserted both Arnold and Sigourney as the main characters, it is pretty suspicious.

Aside from those pretty apparent similarities to those other games, if we were to ignore those, then the game itself is painfully average. At its core, there is nothing about the game that would make it stand out from any other NES game on the market, and if you were to have played any other NES game before this one, then you really wouldn’t be missing out if you were to ignore this one. It just seems like Natsume were the kings of making the most average-ass games imaginable for this system back in the day, which do nothing wrong, and can be a bit of fun, but they do nothing else, playing it way too safe, ultimately resulting in them just being a “whatever” batch of games.

Now, that’s not to say that these games are completely worthless, and don’t warrant your attention at all, because that isn’t the case. The game is still fun enough, having enough to entertain you for a good half-an-hour, and I imagine, if this was your first exposure to the NES, or the type of gameplay that Forgotten Worlds had to offer, then I’d imagine you would consider this your own personal favorite. Maybe even a hidden gem of yours, if you’d be bold enough to claim. And if that is the case, then more power to you, but for me, as someone who has played so many of these types of games at this point, you have to do at least something to make yourself separate from other titles, it could be anything at all! And yes, Arnold and Sigourney are definitely somethings that can help in doing that, but it isn’t enough, making it so that this is a game will be one that I had fond memories of playing once, and then never touching again.

Overall, while having some stand-out elements like the main characters and the gameplay being Forgotten Worlds but for NES, this is just yet another average NES game with average gameplay, average graphics, average music, average EVERYTHING. I would recommend it to you if you are a big fan of the system, and you wanted to see everything it had to offer, or if you are just wanting to have something to speed through real quick to kill some time, but otherwise, you can just easily forget about this title and move on with your day. But, before I end this, I do wanna give myself a pat on the back, for not making a single obvious scat joke throughout this entire review. As someone who likes to make obvious jokes a lot, it is a rarity that I avoid one of them at all.

Game #319