>fun beat em up that actually opens up co-op in a genre founded in having co-op
>great animation and vibe
>Mike Patton in the opening

Yes

This was my first Devil May Cry game which might not be an ideal pick but I think it has given me a great appreciation and weird lens to view the series generally.

When I first purchased a used copy of this game back in 2019, I bought it alongside Resident Evil 4 for the Playstation 2 (aka I am the kind of weirdo who immediately fixated on this being spawned from RE4's development). When I REALLY went through the game and dropped it around mission 20 it was 2020 and I was frustrated with the game more than anything but still respecting of it being the first action game. Like many other times I choose a game to finish I felt internally compelled to pick this up with no logistical reason besides my internal emotions after finishing the last game, maybe I was nostalgic for when I was in college with this game and listening to the DMC1/3 ost or maybe living on my own weirdly reminds me of how isolated yet ever-so-characteristically quippy Dante is in this game.

Anyways (lol)

Devil May Cry to me is still a lot of fun but it is the definition of unrefined and a key transitional game between the PS1 and PS2 be it the direct usage of fixed cameras when everything moves as dynamically as you'd expect in an action game, random mechanics thrown in to sort of add some diversity in the gameplay, or maybe the fact that I still wonder if this game was ever designed to not be split up into levels and that maybe it was going to be one continuous map before some genius(?) realized it would not be a good idea at all for an action game.

Summary: Momma's boy action game good (and kind of overhated? like idk go back in time and try and tell these guys how to make an action game lol), still pretty janky but this was 6 hours so that really ain't that bad

Real talk I am baffled that Capcom is just throwing out Resident Evil remakes that don't need to exist meanwhile this game would probably be insane with a remake, like I'm saying this as someone who hates the trend like literally why did RE4 get a remake before this LOL (I do in fact know why). The horror presentation here to where it feels like the premise was Dante being so powerful that these things don't impact him that much feels like an underutilized idea.

Zelda used to be THE biggest piece of media in my life and I genuinely think this was the last part of that for me if I’ll be honest.

While it does suffer from baffling design decisions that even had 11/12-year-old me scratching my head when it released (who genuinely would enjoy fighting the same boss 3 times honestly), the unique gameplay of the motion controls and the actual sense of adventure that elevated the formula what we got in Ocarina of time has made this an adventure I still think about vs the last two Zelda games I played that have the opposite problem. This felt like an actual unique place to explore with weird characters, heck it visually still looks great 10 years later.

https://youtu.be/fee1uS_gn0A?feature=shared

If Street Fighter II made an entire genre of video games go from novelty time waster to at least a somewhat contest where skills felt like an aspect of the equation then Tekken 3 goes the extra mile and makes the contest a full blown sport.

What’s the evidence for this? Well a very direct piece I found while playing this game on my system was how fast the loading times were. There is very little empty time when you play arcade mode and this game is almost 30 years old now, even continuing after losing is so fast you’re always given a chance to come back and get better. Another piece comes with what moves and movement mean here, Tekken feels “realistic” in the sense that your actions change where you are in the space of the map where your opponent can go in other directions because of the 3D with sidestepping being as powerful as blocking at times. With the movement, you could easily be a walking tank fishing out pain or you could full blown spring at your opponent and end a whole round in less than 30 seconds if you’re that fast.

I’m sure there are broken aspects in this game (it is 27 years old at the time of me writing this lmao) and I have not played Tekken 1 and 2 but based on hearing how 1+2 were slow and I’m sitting here playing a game as fast and tense as this I just think the evidence that this is a significant piece of fighting game software because of all these design aspects says enough.

Tekken 3 good, Tekken 3 significant, Tekken 3 addicting, Tekken 3 more like Heckken 3/3, Tekken 3

This was the first ever game I really got into on the Switch coincidentally during a time period where I started going through the original pre-Z dragon ball manga.

This game is not even remotely perfectly balanced but also you look at half of those Dragon Ball Super episodes and it’s like bruh we’re not here for “fair” we’re here for fun and Toriyama’s world and storytelling and frankly I think the casual mashup of rpg mechanics and 3D fighting here was solid enough to still be memorable.

I’d love to see a version (or sequel) of this game that properly takes all of these ideas and goes the extra mile to maybe make something legitimately competitive but in this form it is Dragon Ball and I do in fact love Dragon Ball.

A day in the life of THE STRIDER!!!:
>Perform Olympic-level jumps on a whim because I’m just gonna assume his parents made him take gymnastics that long
>Be animated like you’re from a 1970’s anime
>Get thrown into a wall by the jock and shatter instantly
>Cry

As 2023 folded into 2024 I sat thinking about what new experiences I could have that I've missed out on and then uh I suddenly was like "wow I want to replay Shin Megami Tensei 1" so here I am and I finally played through the GBA port that fans graciously worked to have the only official script the game has had so far from Atlus and I put this on my 3DS of all systems just to add onto this.

Shin Megami Tensei 1 is the most influential video game I have played so far in my life as someone who likes to make games to be quite honest, back when I got into the series I initially started the SNES version of this game after years of wanting to play it (and the iphone version) when I was 15 but I was too much of a anti-fun baby to sit down and just get all the stuff set up. After playing this game I immediately made my own game that took a bunch of ideas from this one to the point that I'd say it's a clone, my imagination was just blown wide open by how this game combined horror and dungeon crawling beautifully and 5 years later I'm still in love with it frankly.

The best way I can describe what makes this game good is that it's a JRPG set in a metropolitan setting, buildings and traversing the city and world itself are confusing and you could very well end up being stuck down a winding path that could kill you if you take a bad turn. Shin Megami Tensei is a game that thrives in a Super Famicom-era sense of maturity with not only this very realistic setting but also an almost David Lynch-esc obsession with creating a dream-like situation blended with very apparent Akira and Devilman elements. I haven't really played a lot of PC games but looking at those games at the time and playing even a bit of Wizardry, what I can say is rather than Dragon Quest being simplification for home consoles of a dainty adventure in a mystical world Shin Megami Tensei takes very direct RPG elements and weirdo PC gameplay ideas for the home console (or in this case now ported to portable) experience.
That being said the weakest aspect of this true RPG by the numbers design comes down to alignments, a system determining which specific faction in the game you side with which can determine what enemies you can recruit and what options you have in the story even but is determined by story actions and battle-to-battle situations, which this port alleviates (at least based on my memory of the SF original). Another minor flaw that only crept into this replay is that the game is very easy to break once you know a few tricks to where I'd say this was the smoothest SMT experience I have which is kind of funny. I genuinely believe that (spoiler for mechanic that you can exploit here) the use of stunning enemies with ice and electric attacks was probably something that made the later Press Turn system exist so in of itself SMT1 is rough and very early but man yeah idk SMT Nocturne really kind of flipped everything in this era of the franchise on its head yet I still find the archaic aspect of this era in the franchise very appealing (Soul Hackers is indeed the most addicting megaten game in my opinion).

Going to this port now, wow besides having the GBA sound chip this is a stupidly good port and from all the evidence I've gathered this was based on the Playstation 1 port so maybe just play that one instead lmao. What's added only on this version of the game (that I still don't know how to use) is small story content you get from defeating bosses which is very cool and jarring if you've only played the Super Famicom version like I did lmao.

Overall: I am still a Shin Megami Tensei maniac lol

A mini essay reflection disguised as a too generous review of a simple fun game:

House of the Dead 2 is not an insanely interesting game in the grand scheme of the history of planet Earth.
Taking together every corner that has currently been explored by the medium, quite frankly
the novely of this game to me that makes it addicting is that it strips away a lot of the
extra flair of multiple hits, machine guns, etc. that overtook the light-gun genre for precise aiming and intense moments
where very literally saving a person changes the way you move through the game. It's not even
remotely as good as Resident Evil 4 but I'm not gonna pretend like it doesn't at least get
into that ballpark in my opinion. When I play this game it reminds me of idk Trigun or Hellsing
like you gotta just be quick and precise or else you're screwed it's as simple as that
but sometimes that's all you need to have fun.

It's strange since I've been a solitary mostly-JRPG person for most of my life but I just keep going
to arcades lately, I think because now that I'm living on my own and I've never gone to an actual
GOOD arcade that doesn't have iOS-esc games it just seems very unique that I can stop by some
machines that are very literally 20+ years old but still fun.
Anyways because of this specific aspect of the medium where people can
walk by, play the games themselves, and such it creates an entirely different dynamic that I've sort of touched
upon in my Pac-Mania review. I'm certain back when arcades were popular that this was some people's only form of
video game discussion long before the dream of transmitting opinions over networks even existed in the public
conscious.

Ever since beating Metal Slug X with infinite credits on my Nintendo Switch I developed a habit of just trying to have a "perfect run" where I go as far as I can
with one credit over and over again just to keep getting good and to hopefully finish a game in a single run. I guess this is how arcade games
are supposed to be played but obviously there's the other end of just putting money in to keep going:
skill vs cash the age old conflict I guess. While going through House of the Dead 2 I had a very bizarre
situation occur where as I was playing this game I saw in the reflection of the game's screen that an old man
in a United States Punisher sweater was standing right behind me. I can't really count how many times
I stopped by to play this game after work but it was just something I did for fun and I wanted to beat it someday
so here I was, going through the first stage motions really. I was doing very well this round to say the
least, getting every head shot (sometimes that's not even enough to get regular zombies down this game is that picky lol),
and I saved a couple of people but this man stood very still directly behind me and I kept seeing him in the screen. I waited and kept going
through the game, I was curious what he would say but he just stood there looking at me and the game. In this
game where very literally the main character somehow knows IN A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE that some random bloodstain
belonged to a guy only known as "G" this old man standing behind me just watched and barely moved like he was seeing something. Legitimate
fear spread through my body and I made the decision to purposefully lose the round and immediately bolt away,
afraid of whatever he was going to say to me and going out of the building into my car where I drove all the way home (lol).
Part of me debated about even making this review but I feel like part of my proof of "hey this game is kind of fun
and an intense zombie experience" would have to go into the fact that this rando in LITERALLY A PUNISHER SWEATER
was looking at me breezing through the game like I was in VR training when this is the kind of video game
where they couldn't even seriously deliver the line "I'm sorry there was nothing we could do".
It's just strange, you can't even have a good time without projecting or being projected onto and video games
very much have always had this problem yet I've heard the opinionated statement "Fortnite makes people violent" uttered aloud
by an older adult. I think I've seen people throw around the phrase "that's violent" or "that can make people violent" for media more than
I've seen people address legitimate signs of violence, it's always some form of dehumanizing and never the real solution
most of the time isn't it. Obviously this is all coming from my biased perspective but I've met my fair share of people
who unreasonably have thrown this at me or others even in this age where video games aren't as new as they once were when
titles like Doom and Mortal Kombat were dropping so I just felt like I had to come here and I guess put my piece here, it's
something the medium has and will keep dealing with but it's a subject that has been misguided by bad actors or people who just don't care.

House of the Dead 2 is goofy fun. There's nothing much besides that when you look at it.