I think this game has a weird learning curve and it has some odd spikes of difficulty here and there, but it grows on me with each playthrough. I love the one sequence nature of it, and it has some pretty tight level design. I like Zwei more in most regards but the challenge of this one is what really sets it apart for me. I wish I felt more for the music, like flight is such an incredible song, the best in video games, but every other song is a bit forgettable to me. I think my favorite level is the tunnel sequence, it's so intense and the boss in that is killer. It's definitely worth learning and beating

I've played a bunch of other tetris titles before and I always loved the game in its different forms. But I think this is the tetris game I've always dreamed of. I'm someone who just likes to play marathon tetris without anything too crazy and this game delivers on that. It's really fast, I just turn on the gba and I'm in a game within seconds. But what really puts this over the edge as a masterpiece is the customization. You can kinda make the game look and feel exactly the way you want if you put the time into all the various settings and features. Changing colors, rotation, screen shake, etc. I can see this giving the game a ton of longevity. For once I really like the other modes as well. I very much appreciate the game mode with classic tetris rules, I often just play that to really shake it up. But the other various modes really test your skills in different and valid ways that are fun. This has been my definitive bed time game for a week now and I love it very much.

I played this using the Yakuza Restored Patch on my jailbroken ps2, you can find that patch here and I'd highly recommend it. Ive heard this game has some obnoxious loading issues, but considering I was playing this off of my HDD I won't really factor that into my review as it never was really a problem. https://youtu.be/YXsiu9PUbxM?si=AebYm1WSkwDOm7NV

This game definitely gets a bad rap nowadays. People will just say to play the remake or skip it entirely. I've heard people say it's unplayable and that the combat is so bad. I really wanted to challenge that perception and start at beggining. Playing them from the two remakes, back to the older three games, then back to the new stuff just sounds a bit unappealing to me. I'd much rather see it's roots and how it grew mechanically. I'm glad I did because I found a lot to love about this despite its issues.

The star of the show here is Kamurocho. It's such a well realized setting, it's densely packed with unique interactions, big crowds, beautiful fixed camera shots, and fun stuff to do. I don't think I've felt an open city setting feel quite as alive as this. It's also just drenched in atmosphere. Thick fog, appropriate use of motion blur, very unique lighting are all indicative of the strengths of the ps2 aesthetic.

I think the story is quite good here and it helped me truck through the game. I really love all the characters. There were some really neat twists that actually got me, and it all comes together by the end. Kiryu's relationship with Haruka is the heart of this game and I really like how despite losing so much he finds a new family in her. I do have a hard time following these dense kind of noir stories, so I'm glad the broad strokes of the story satisfied me.

I think the combat isn't great, but it's definitely not unplayable. I think an issue with it is that it makes a bad first impression. Your dodge sucks, the lock on has a strange learning curve to it and your move set is very limited. But as you upgrade stuff and do more side missions that give you new moves, it does start to open up and become more functional. This is one of those where you just get stunlocked and knocked on your ass a lot which can be annoying. And also the game is just a bit too easy? Other than some weird bosses that kicked my ass it never really presents a challenge. And when it does get more intense the game showers you with restorative items. So you kinda just get into a lull of repetition with it. But I'd argue the game isn't really trying to give you the deepest combat system, what makes the game special is the experience of it and all the things you can do in the city, and that aspect of it really worked for me. It gets dangerously close to being boring but the game always picks itself up.

This series is definitely prohibitive to new players to catch up, I totally understand if someone wants to start with one of the more recent ones. But I think Yakuza 1 has a lot going for it and shouldn't be forgotten. If you really appreciate the ps2 era then you really should try it and see if you like it. It's a very unique experience and it was fun to experience the humble begginings of this giant series.

As a fan of the DKC series, this game ended up being disappointing. I've always heard this was some underlooked gem. It's some people's favorite which I can kinda understand. It has an interesting setting with its lakeside resort setting. While I don't like the overworld map all that much it is interesting and I don't really see a lot of 2D platformers trying to do what it does. There are even a couple of good levels! Where the gimmicks were actually cool and made me smile in the way the developers intended.

I just find so much of this game dull. The first two DKC games just have this excellent momentum to them. Short but dense levels with rhythmic and challenging platforming. They also feel grander than a lot of 2D platformers I've played. There is a sense of sincerety to its general themeing and music that makes them special. DKC3 just has none of these aspects, and while I didn't regret playing it, I felt the experience was that of a really bog standard nintendo platformer.

This game has a limited assortment of level themes they recycle through every world, so it's kind of like dkc1. I personally think dkc1 utilizes that better, there is a real sense of place to dk island and they pace out the stages better. DKC3s level themes get repetitive very quickly. I got to the point where I nearly wanted to shut the game off when I saw yet another boring treetop level. The music doesn't help either. Eveline Fischer is a great composer, but I just didn't feel most of her compositions here. Everything just feels too subdued. I understand it's going for like a laxidazical mood what with the Kongs being on vacation. But it's just a little too much in my opinion. It's storytelling is also lacking. It just has no sense of direction to it, and both of the games endings just left me scratching my head. Again it's missing the clear and sincere storytelling of the first two.

Maybe this is a little bit unfair, but the gameplay just feels entirely worse than DKC2. I think they were going for an overall slower pace, so they made things less fast and more heavy (even for Dixie). There's just nothing that feels cool to do. It's functional, but it doesnt have that crunchy feeling from dkc2 like when you jump and roll into enemies. There is technically no levels in this game that have the same gimmick. I think that in itself has merit but the length of the levels are too long, and the gimmicks themselves were largely pretentious. The bonus rooms are easier but more frustrating than dkc2(?) I found a lot of them easy to find and retry but they keep on recycling the same three game types and they all just got repetitive.

Boring is the operative word for this. I wish I can see what others do in DKC3 but it just felt like busy work by the end of it. DKC is full of games that had some kind of lasting effect on me. This one didn't, in fact it felt like it was trying everything in its power to not have an effect on me, which sucks.

I believe this game inspired many of the more modern story driven single player games that still release today. An emphasis on realistic combat and platforming, real-time character dialogue and a tight linear focus all date back to this game.

What really sets this game apart from something like Uncharted is its world building and platforming. There is a tangibility to a lot of stuff that would otherwise be purely gamey and it justifies its time bending premise quite well. The save system is something that informs the story and a thing that the characters react to. I love how it shows events in time to simultaneously prepare you for the challenges ahead but also give you a peak into the events of the story. Health upgrades are presented as these weird dreamlike sections of the castle that you experience suspended in time. There is a real mystique and character to the world that sets this game apart from everything I've played. This games pacing is excellent. Even though it's all set in one location and the mechanics are stagnant throughout the whole game, you are presented with interesting platforming challenges that are varied and cinematically satisfying. The games platforming isn't too hard but it's just hard enough to where you feel like the Prince is always at risk of danger when doing his parkour. There will often be platforming sections that feel like big puzzles, having to work out a big sequence of climbing, swinging and jumping until you finally get to the end. These are easily the highlight of the game for me and why I prefer this to the way Uncharted handles its similar gameplay. Uncharted feels more well produced in its controls and presentation, but it doesnt reach the creativity and challenge of this game.

The combat in this is atrocious though. The sword fights feel grounded and cool at times, but to achieve this, they sacrifice it feeling good and things being in your control. It is just a mess of context sensitive actions. You can never quite do the things you want to. When enemies back you into a corner it all falls apart and you just have to hope they don't block your attacks or you accidentally do a useful move that staggers them. On top of this you have to do a death blow when they are grounded which compounds the issues. Enemies are very poorly conveyed as well. I never quite know when I can hit them or not. I just kinda mash until they stop blocking. Unfortunately these combat sequences drag the game down when they happen. I wish it was something more simple or there was just much less of it.

While I praised its pacing and really creative presentation. The story itself is nothing to write home about. I do enjoy the Prince being this selfish chauvinistic protagonist that learns to be better by the end of it, but it feels like it missed a few steps at developing the characters. The game really wants to sell you on The Prince and Farah's relationship but I just never felt it. It can be cute sometimes but a lot of it just felt like Farah was just destined to fall for him because she's the only woman in the story and that rubbed me the wrong way. Like it's alright, and I even enjoyed the ending, but it fell flat for me overall.

Despite this games rather big issues the stuff it does well is just so great. It is a beautiful and well done experience that's often really smart. It has some of the best climbing mechanics I've seen in a game and it just captivated me until the end. It's very easy to see why this is such a classic and why it influenced so many games to come. Its still worth playing today.

After the hype cycle on this game ended, I started to turn on the game. I watched other people play it and complain about it. I also took a lot of time away from it and it's problems escalated in my head. I thought it was another game like Samus Returns. Something that was cool and refreshing at the time only for it to fall short from the other games in the series I love so much.

Funny enough, the reason I started to appreciate this more is because I am replaying Samus Returns. It does not hold up, and I find it to be one of the most monotonous and characterless metroid experiences out there. Metroid Dread pretty much corrects everything that Samus Returns did wrong and then some.

Dread is so well designed. Everything about it feels like a top shelf Nintendo/Metroid experience which is just so impressive for Mercurysteams second attempt. The game just feels SO good to play. It feels slick and modern in all the right ways. I don't think Samus has controlled better (though I have a soft spot for the weight and momentum of Super Metroid). They really polished the enemy design here. There will be a samey enemy counter here and there, but most of them are varied and have clever attack patterns. Most importantly, the combat is fluid. Countering and shooting feel effortless and fun. The game just has an excellent pace to it as well. It never feels like you are fighting or exploring too much, it knows exactly what it wants you to feel and when. It's a really sharp experience that just gets better and better as it goes on. It also feels quite different in terms of its power up progression. You often don't get items in the order that you'd expect them to and it creates a really interesting feeling if you are a fan.

I really love the narrative of this game. I would prefer Metroid to be a "planet of the week" type story as opposed to one continuous story. But in terms of tying up the 2D games it was everything I wanted. I loved seeing the Chozo being expanded on here. It's something I have always wanted to see, and it's done very well. It definitely takes a page from Metroid Fusion in its own way, where it feels like the environments can change in clever ways depending on where you are at in the story. I LOVE the X parasite infestation near the midpoint. The way the enemies change to reflect the mechanics of Metroid Fusion is so cool and feels really justified in the plot. Raven Beak is also one of my favorite villains in the series if not my favorite. You are a rat in his maze at all times. He is a manipulative and scheming villain. He has that DMC Vergil power dynamic going on that I really enjoy in games. I love how the environments reflect his character. His Chozo warrior pride is represented in the top parts of the map with all the mythic and ancient architecture. But on the lower end of the map you see the experiments and cold labs that show his disregard for life and villainy. It's all great stuff in my opinion.

The game has its issues that I'd like to see further ironed out if they get to make another one. While I enjoy the map design a lot more than in Samus Returns, there are a few setbacks that make it frustrating to explore, especially early on. The game has this kind of adherence to a flowstate. It is always guiding you in subtle ways to get you cleanly to its next objective. While some would say this is brilliant design, I find this to be counter to the way I play Metroid games. I like sussing my way through a map, hitting dead ends and that feeling of triumph when I can finally clear them with a newfound power up. This is something I feel Prime 1 does so well. It is a smaller map and it makes you backtrack a lot. But it is memorable, and each time you backtrack between areas it always feels good being able to explore just that little bit more to find secrets. Metroid Dread never feels like this to me. While you certainly can go off the beaten path, the levels can often feel winding and confusing if you do that, especially in the first half. They are huge maps, and I don't think Mercurysteam have quite nailed the memorable layouts of the previous games that just stick in your head. It also does something I really dislike where you make your own shortcuts that end up blocking sections of the map that you could explore before. This is the most frustrating in Ghavoran. There is one section in particular where you could potentially enter from a different area only to be faced with an ice missile grapple hook combo that you can't clear from that side. There are little stuff like that all over, and I wish the maps were less rigid overall.

I think the emmi are really cool on paper and there is clearly a lot of work that went into them. But their tension is ruined by the slap of the wrist checkpoint system. It's a concept that I'm not sure how they could've executed well. They all just kind of feel the same in their little clean lab rooms. They can't ever be that surprising because they are sanctioned to their own areas. And they are all taken down in the same way. The SA-X, despite its scripted nature, holds up a lot better for the fact that it feels like it can appear anywhere in the map and it's implied that it's actively hunting you down. I appreciate that they are there but they are definitely the weakest part of the game.

These flaws all sound damning, and on top of the poor soundtrack, it feels like it shouldn't click together. But it's just so solid regardless of that. The good heavily outweighs the bad here. The issues I have with the map design start to melt away the more it goes on, it has this incredible finale to it thats so satisfying and cool. Despite it's issues it's a really brilliant metroid game that is made with a lot of admiration for the series. It always sticks in my head and I'm very glad I had a positive experience going back to it.

I played the recent fan made snes port. Other than a map, being able to keep my beams (made sure not to stack them), and less slowdown than the NES version, I played this legit.

This games weird punishing design help make the growth you have throughout the game feel extremely good. Wandering around forever and finding the long beam for the first time is one of my fondest memories with this game. Despite it setting the groundwork for the entire series, it still feels very unique from its contemporaries in a few ways. It has a very loose sense of progression compared to the others. It feels like just knowing where things are and what order to get them can get you so far and make the game way less difficult. It's stressful, creepy, but also very charming in its limitations.

I don't think I'll go back to this though. I find a lot of it frustrating. There are a lot of hallways that just go on forever. The act of shooting stuff and jumping around has been done better in future titles. The bosses are very silly and I'm not really sure why they are there to begin with. It has baffling design choices that im sure youve all heard about by now. I guess my biggest problem with the game is that I'd rather play every other 2D entry in the series. Metroid 2 has a lot of the stuff I value from this game but on a more intimate and realized scale. I also appreciate Zero Mission more now, because the way it transforms metroid 1 into a fast, adventurous, comic booky feeling game is really cool to me. This is absolutely worth playing though, especially if you are a fan.

(Just remembered to list this one as I've played it a couple of times). I really love the vibes, art direction and music of this game. It's an obvious classic that has inspired a ton of my favorite games. It just has that capcom arcade difficulty that gets under my skin. I'm sure there is a mastery that can be achieved with this, but I could never really wrap my head around it's difficulty, and I'd just quarter spam my way through it.This is definitely my bias for Streets of Rage 2 talking, but it's certainly not as tuned as that game is and has a more loose feel for better and worse. Someday I'll really sit down with it and go for 1cc runs, but for now, eh.

I really love the live action cutscenes and look of this game. It gives it a life all its own and it looks very distinct from other action platformers. The music (in Shinobi X) is quite good and lends to the games atmosphere. That's where my positives end. This game sucks ass and it's one of the most tedious things I've ever played. It controls so much worse than shinobi 3. The levels in this are absolute cock and ball torture. There is this mine cart level and it just never ends, it neeeeever ends. There is nothing in this game that feels satisfying. I was certainly getting better at it, there is definitely a feeling of being able to get through stuff faster. But my only reward was more tedious bullshit. It's definitely worth checking out as an interesting oddity in the series but I would rather not touch this again.

This game has incredibly rewarding design. It has limited lives and continues but they feel purposeful in that the game is pushing you to get better with each playthrough. I streamed this game for my channel (link below). In my first playthrough I made it to the final level and lost all of my continues. In my second, I was able to get to the final boss with all my continues, but lost all of my continues trying to fight him. It was a crushing defeat that felt bad to me. After a while though, I wanted to try again. I streamed it again a couple days later and I was able to beat it with all of my continues in tact.

The reason I was able to go back to this again and again is because of how well designed every sequence of this is. The controls are a little weird to learn at first, but are incredibly fun once you master them. It's one of the best controlling 2D action platformers I've played yet. This is also carried by its carefully designed and varied levels. Every challenge feels fair and the games rising difficulty is expertly tuned. It also just has awesome level themes and the music really enhances the experience. The boss fights are incredibly sick, the final boss is a huge highlight, it was the perfect way to end the game. My only issue with this game is that it could have used proper support for the six button controller. I didn't know you could block by holding the attack button for the longest time. Also having Kunai and the sword mapped to the same button is incredibly silly. But these are things I was able to learn and adapt to.

I don't have any major problems with this one honestly. It just got better and more refined the more I played it. Conquering it felt like a great accomplishment. I consider it a definitive action platformer that I think everyone should play.

https://youtu.be/IL2gYrQBLbY?si=lIB6H2nFowgZOhDU

This has always been a rather underrated entry in the many spider-man games that exist. I remember, when I was a kid, being really disappointed that Shattered Dimensions threw away the open city gameplay that had been developing since Spider-Man 2 back in 2004. I think Edge of Time was doubly head scratching since that only had two of the four spider-men available from Shattered Dimensions. This is probably why I skipped the Beenox spidey games and why their reputation had been buried for so long. Now that Insomniac is making their own high quality Spidey games exclusive to Sony, there is no way these games can be ported or remastered, as Activision lost the rights to Spider-Man games a while back. Years later, I started hearing some pretty positive things about the storytelling in this game, and it seems to have gained a cult following amongst spider-man fans. I finally checked this out for myself and it was immediately apparent that I missed out on quite the hidden gem.

This games narrative is handled by an all time great comic writer, Peter David. He not only invented 2099, but he also wrote some of the best Peter Parker stories out there (I'd highly recommend Death of Jean DeWolfe). He was absolutely the perfect choice for creating this Peter and Miguel centric story. It results in this great and creative team up story that deconstructs Spider-Man as a character, and has fun time travel sci fi stuff going on. It's a very comic book story, but it's written with a lot of heart and understanding of the two characters. Peter and Miguel are a fantastic duo. The way their relationship develops through the in game banter is really great. The time paradox concept allows for some inventivs setpiece moments and it never feels overcomplicated. It's a narrative that's really surprising and smartly thought out, and it's what holds this game together.

It was interesting to go back to the Era before the hyper polished insomniac games were a thing. Instead of a high budget open world spidey game. You get a highly linear mid budget affair. This game has a lot of problems. It's combat is really limp feeling and never really gets much better or escalates in difficulty all that much. The world design is really boring and it's all just metallic complexes that look the same throughout the whole game. I do wish it took a page from Shattered Dimensions and made the two timelines visually distinct from one another. It is a very middling video game that has a very repetitious gameplay loop, but what escalates it so much is its pacing and time paradox concepts. The strict linearity allows for it to have a controlled narrative that keeps moving forward. Playing this makes me wish more linear spider-man games can exist right now. Playing as both spider-men across two timelines is seamless. You are constantly switching between both characters and solving problems for eachother. This aspect gives it a ticking clock element throughout most of it. Right before a section gets boring you are thrust into another engaging sequence. It has a constant sense of danger that really gripped me. Even if the games mechanics aren't polished, it works well enough and the games constantly shifting level design and challenges really brought the game together.

This combination of linearity and great storytelling makes this one of my absolute favorite Spider-Man games. It is also just the right length. It never overstayed its welcome and it ends at the right time. It's a game that's really intellegent in that it really understands its limitations and the advantages of its narrative. It also just has great adaptations of Peter and Miguel, some of the best ever put to screen. Josh Keaton and Christopher Daniel Barnes are perfect casting for Peter and Miguel, and I think it might have some of their best voice work in general. It was a feast for me as a fan of both characters. I am really happy I played this. I highly recommend this if you have a way to access it. It is a great spider-man game.

While my score is a bit low for this game. I would like to stress that this is a really excellent game that I'd recommend to almost anyone. It carries all of the strengths of the franchise and its interpretation of survival horror in the third person viewpoint is great most of the time! My criticisms of it come from a place of bias for the original and the unease I feel about its place in this series.

When I first picked it up, I felt it might be even better than the original. Stronger puzzles with stronger item placements makes for a really engaging redo of the RPD. It has some really good story reinterpretations that feel grounded, but it never shys too far away from the cheesy spirit of the original games. It's just that as I played it, more and more little things kept popping up that made me prefer the original. I really miss those fixed cameras, and I wish Capcom wouldn't keep stomping that style in the dirt. I find that it's stylish and claustrophobic angles added a lot of tension to the horror. Enemies always felt like a huge threat, its often shot in a way where its you being smaller against this dominant threat. I think this feeling is mostly gone in the change to third person. The advantage is that when enemies get really close to you, they really feel close to YOU, but it sacrifices those feelings of claustrophobia and dynamism I felt so much in those original games.

I hate to be this guy, but I really didn't like Mr. X in this game. The first few times he shows up are brilliant. I love how he is a constant threat to your progression. Eventually though, I found his appearances a bit annoying more than anything. The feelings of intimidation were lost the more times he showed up, and it was a pace breaker in a way that didnt feel good to me. I do also think the visuals aren't that great. I love the artistry of the original, I feel like that's mostly missing here. The lighting is often very strangely done, and of course the large amounts of dark hallways made the experience more samey than it was in the original. I feel like I can remember every room in the first RE2, but here, it's kinda fuzzy to me.

I did have a great time with this game. I had a lot of really tense moments and there was a lot of emergent gameplay mokents that were super memorable. But I wish Capcom didn't have to keep erasing and remaking these classic timeless games to give me that kind of experience. I would have appreciated this more if this was a new numbered entry with its own level design and ideas. These remakes really have their finger on the pulse for what makes the series so good, but it bugs me how much they leave behind from the originals to get there.

It's shocking how much this spins its wheels. It could have added so much to the FF7 story by being a prequel but nothing is gained at all. At its worst it's ruinous to the intentions of FF7's narrative. It overexplains things that absolutely did not need to be explained. It attempts to make Shinra and the Turks more likeable and less scummy, which misses the point of them to me.

Zack is a terrible character. He has this generic Shonen protagonist persona and its insufferable. The terrible writing does not help this. It thinks it's so smart, that it has so much to say. But it doesn't, it's a mindless narrative about honor and heroism or whatever. The relationships that Zack makes throughout the journey are so insisted on in the narrative and the game mechanics but they are all so one dimensional. I feel like this game is trying so hard to pretend that it's such a beautiful and meaningful story rather than actually being that. We have FF7! It's right there!

I'm very mixed on the gameplay. It has a lot of really cool ideas, and as far as reunion goes, the action always felt really crunchy and satisfying. At its best it does feel like a good translation of FF7s mechanics into a KH styled action RPG. But what absolutely kills it is the structure and the balancing. This game was made to be played on the go, so it has to have all of these really small bite sized optional missions. They are SO boring. They are there to give Zack new materia and new items, but they all play out the same in the same like four areas each time. I think the idea is that when the main game gets really hard they encourage you to do them. But the problem with that is the game is so easy all the time! The roulette wheel feels so tilted in your favor all the time. The materia fusion system is so busted and you just get these crazy strong materia that deletes encounters and ridiculously buffs your stats. I understand FF7 was like this too, but finding the powerful materia and making them grow stronger has you put in the work to do so. In Crisis Core, it feels like everything is just handed to you immediately. It makes it's systems and enemy encounters so boring. Why should I do more missions if I'm already overpowered throughout the entire storyline? It's really silly how this game is on the cusp of some really unique gameplay but it has so many cracks that show their face the more you play it.

I really wanted to like this game. There is appealing things about its gameplay loop that could be great if it was more finely tuned. It is very ambitious and I respect some of the creative things it's trying to do within the world of ff7. It's really trying, but it never sticks the landing. It's yet another unnecessary addition to FF7s story.