I have heard a ton of great things about the Ori games and since I needed a short game to fill some time in my backlog schedule and was recommended this one, I thought I'd give it a go. It's clear to me now that that was a mistake. While Ori and the Blind Forest was a short experience it was a very miserable and frustrating one.

Lets start out with the good, the game is drop-dead gorgeous to look at. The artstyle and world just look stunning, even with the blurrier graphics of the Switch the game just looks great. The music is also very good and matches the tone of the beautiful environments it plays in. And to give the gameplay a slight compliment, the basic metroidvania elements of getting new powers and exploring the interconnected world were fun and I never once got lost which is a huge plus for me here. And the story, though a bit lacking, is pretty sweet and has good themes.

Despite all these positives, Ori and the Blind Forest falters with its moment-to-moment gameplay and makes for an incredibly irritating experience rather than a fun one. A lot of the game's problems come from how Ori controls. Ori is incredibly light on her (at least I think it's a her) feet and moves around the world in a really loose and fluid way, the problem is the world is clearly not designed around this control style and it leads to much frustration. The game asks for precision in its platforming and that simply not something that's very easy to do with a character that's so floaty, at times it felt like I was playing Super Meat Boy only that I can tell that that's not what the developers intended it to feel like. On top of that the combat is just incredibly awful here. Because Ori is so light and fragile she can't really take a lot of hits from anything before dying, and unfortunately the enemies in this game are really good at hitting you. This wouldn't be a problem of course if you had substantial means to defend yourself, but of course, you don't. What you get is a little orb that can shoot out three light projectiles before having to take a second to recharge, meaning combat boils down to using these attacks and then dodging the attacks the enemies throw at you but since you control so lightly and there's no shield or dodge button you kinda just have to try and jump away from their attacks which I found most of the time just led to jumping straight into them instead. Now clearly combat is not supposed to be a focus here, as proven by a lack of boss fights or enemy gauntlets but at that point I just have to wonder, why make the game a metroidvania at all? Why not just refine the platforming elements (they clearly need it) and make a pretty good platformer? Was it really part of the developers' vision to make a metroidvania that has unfair and unsatisfying combat, or were they just doing it because its what all the cool games were doing? Anyways moving onto my final gripe with the gameplay, the save system is a mess. Instead of just having a button on the menu or a certain room to go to in order to save progress, Ori's way of saving progress comes from an in game ability that has it's whole meter and everything. By holding a button and using one point from the refillable energy meter, you're allowed to save your spot on any flat surface in the game (as long as it's stable and there's no enemies within eyesight that is) and if you die you will respawn back to this point. Because the game provides you with the materials to refill this energy meter often it becomes a main part of the gameplay, this allows you to save your spot before a particularly tricky set of enemy placements or platforming section to make the best of this, which in my eyes kinda confirms that they knew that both of these main aspects were not great and instead of fixing them they gave the player the equivalent of a save state button to try and remedy it. All these things add up to make a game that is truly frustrating to play and makes me forget about all the good aspects it has while I'm playing it.

I wanted to really like this game, its beautiful artstyle, spectacular music, and touching story cannot be understated, unfortunately though the same goes for its unproportionate and unfun gameplay. The problem with Ori and the Blind Forest is that I can tell there was passion behind it, it just wasn't placed into the right areas unfortunately.

Oh, Sonic Adventure 2...

At first, the shift from hub worlds to linear storytelling was a change I had to get used to - the pace of doing levels back to back feels way different from walking around Station Square aimlessly to get to the next stage and I didn't like how it felt here. However, my stance changed about halfway through the HERO story (which I played first), and I began to appreciate the storytelling of the sequel over SA1, because you get the story (on your side atleast) told in chronological order without having to puzzle it together and you constantly switch characters, so it doesn't get boring. So on the HERO side you're already getting a full story about Sonic and his friends alone, but the villains are contextualized in the DARK story. Personally, I preferred the DARK story, it just felt like the more complete package overall and the cast is more interesting.

As for the gameplay, Adventure 2 brought some noticeable changes to the Treasure Hunt stages, put an extended focus on mech levels (which play similar to Gamma from SA1) and also changes the physics and controls a bit from the first game - nothing worse than no longer being able to overly rely on Sonic's spindash, as it's not overpowered anymore. You get used to it fast, but that was a death sentence in the first hours of playing! Concerning the Treasure Hunt stages... I'm not a fan of what they did to the radar, the beeping noise is even more obnoxious (and louder) than before and only having the shards show up in a set order is frustrating. However, sometime during Knuckles' final level it came to me that I've developed stockholm syndrome towards the Treasure Hunt gameplay and after reflecting and replaying the Knuckles stages again, I had a lot more fun with them than before. They're an acquired taste, a guilty pleasure.

You know what else is guilty of being TOO LOUD? The mech levels - just hold down the lock-on button and you'll get a free trial of tinnitus, all while you've got a full Michael Bay movie with thirteen different kinds of explosions going down in the background. Weapons Bed might actually be one of the loudest levels I have ever played in ANY game. It's not like the audio mixing was good to begin with, the volume of sound effects during regular gameplay is so comically overtuned and you might as well believe the conversations in cutscenes were recorded during a rave by how often the voices get drowned out by the music. But generally, the soundtrack of Adventure 2 really delivers. Favorite songs are Escape from the City, Live & Learn and E.G.G.M.A.N.

Not much more to say, except that I missed out on the Chao Garden in this playthrough entirely, just because I had no clue how to hatch the eggs. A shame, cause that's apparently a big aspect of the game - so I'll be sure to check it out sometime. What else, Shadow and Rogue are awesome and this game is a blast to play despite the issues. I'm considering bumping it up to five stars if the Chao part of the game turns out to be good. It's just chaotic and fun.

In which other game can you experience Tails using his special move of crashing the game twice after telling Eggman how powerful he is? I can't think of one.

Despite how much marketing this game seemed to have such as sponsored streams by people who aren't even in the anime space, a demo, and so many ads (unless I was targeted because I frequent the DBZ side of the internet), and this being a full multimedia event with an anime, this was probably the hardest time I've ever had finding a game on release day and not because I think the game is flying off the shelves. Amazon had the order delayed to the following Monday, I couldn't find a copy and any video game carrying department store like Wal Mart or Target within a 45 minute drive and even fuckin pawngamestop didn't have copies but Stellar Blade apparently is in abundance. I ended up double dipping and grabbing a digital copy (praise be to whatever god allowed this game to be only 20GB) while the amazon order got situated because goddamn it, I was looking forward to this. I think this is one of those underproduced copy situations but it gave me time to read the manga before getting into this.

Akira Toriyama's work was one of my main gateways into anime back in the day, with DBZ's ocean dub because I'm that fucking old. His artstyle is something I will always enjoy its why I played games like Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest that to this day I think is such a standout in the genre. I'm glad another of his works is getting adapted in game form. I think his artstyle translated well in game, especially in terms of the bots (the machines you use throughout the game). That man really loved drawing vehicles and machines and it shows, especially since Sand Land's inception was because he just wanted to draw an old man with a tank which grew into something he never intended it to. Yes some characters I could see the "building blocks" and traits shared from his other work (I will always see Mr. Satan when I see that long square jaw) but his creature designs are also in full effect with giant cats with sabre teeth, dinosaurs with weird tails and prominent back and head spines, large toothed Pteranodons etc, they stand out even if the designs in game get re-used quite a bit with as much as a pallet swap and maybe one slight addition like a head piece to differentiate unless its a boss. There was also a design that was outright used in OG Dragon Ball that I was happy to see. There isn't as much to say about the style of the environments other than they look good and accurately reflect what they're named, Sand Land is very much a land of sand but I am grateful that it is not the only type of scenery available all throughout the game.

The story of the first half of the game mostly follows the manga, two demons venture out with an old man in a tank to find water, but some parts have had their order changed or elongated and there were brand new things added to what I assume more organically bridge into the second half which is entirely new. As I said in the intro, I read the manga but I did not watch the anime which I'm sure this new stuff is covered there. One of the notable new things added to the first half is the new party member, Ann. Originally it was just Rao, Beelzebub (who you play as) and Thief but she joins as the resident gearhead and a more organic style reason why the characters can get more bots because the manga was ONLY the tank. Well that is technically not true. Rao had a car but in the manga when it gets ruined it doesn't get fixed unlike in the game. I did enjoy the main group and think Ann was a great addition, though I can't say they aren't predictable as characters. Aside from a couple of the villains, the ones you spend the most of the time fighting against, I can't say I share the same feelings towards. They are just as basic, not that its a bad thing but it leads to some disengaging of interest in the narrative when I can predict every single plot beat introduced in the post manga content. I'm not saying I was expecting some Yoko Taro or Kojima level narrative and Sand land's is by no means bad, it just didn't do enough to make the predictability engaging. What you think is going to happen after reading the synopsis, is more than likely what will happen. The voice acting is hit or miss with I think Rao having the worst of it which is bad because he is one of the main characters with more of the important lines. I feel like they were going for the "battle hardened, tired old man has seen some shit" route but he is mostly so monotone it comes off as disinterested and doesn't match the character's emotion that is portrayed by the model's animations a lot of the time. Most other named characters were either good or fine but outside of the actual cutscenes, the stilted line reading that is common in this style of game makes even VA's like Kira Buckland (Ann's VA) unable to reach the levels we know they can. The dialogue that occurred during traversal also repeated a lot, and I mean A LOT. The dialogue updates after story beats but I heard the same line of dialogue three times on average when exploring ruins or doing story based dungeons. Its not as if they're allergic to dead air because there's plenty of times without it but other times they talk like its some first party sony game giving you a hint every 10 seconds. "We could get up here, if we had a bot that could jump" Beelzebub says as I am JUMPING IN THE JUMP BOT. This happens every time. I was also surprised that I enjoyed the music. Make no mistake you get plenty of "Desert Music" but the tracks that play specifically in the dungeons and towns at night were pretty beautiful.

So how's the gameplay then? Does it carry it if the narrative is as standard as I say? Depends. Do you like driving around? Because you will be doing A LOT of that. I would say 75% of the game was me driving a bot across the maps and doing various activities. There's grotto's to explore, hills to jump up (the game calls them hills but they're more like tall rock formations), field bosses to fight, bases to raid where some are stealth based and others are combat, ruins to explore and radio towers to fix, bounties and races. Those radio towers are not something you have to climb don't worry, and their requirement to fix might as well be non existent with how little you need and how plentiful those resources are as never once did I have to take a leave and come back to fix it and yes it does populate the map with undiscovered activities in the area. The grottos are just these small single room caves that have chests or ore deposits, maybe an enemy or two inside and sometimes need rocks destroyed to access. The hills are these tall rock formations that usually have a group of enemies you should defeat before jumping to the top and getting the treasure or ore deposits. Treasure chests have either materials or parts for the bots in them with the latter being in the large variant of chests. Ruins are generally larger than the grottos and sometimes have multiple entrances. Going through them you'll run into enemies, platforming challenges, and destructible rocks while you look for chests and ore deposits where both tend to be exclusive materials which in my case was assorted coins and old variants of metals. Unless I was just being blind, which is possible, the ruins always seemed to just...end. There wasn't really a noticeable "end point" or even a boss outside of specific mission based circumstances. It made them feel pretty limp, I'll be honest. The field bosses are differently designed but larger versions of the dinosaurs, panthers and crocs who's movesets aren't much different from their grunt counterparts. The human bosses are strictly from missions and have a lot more going for them than their animal counterparts or underlings. They are not just palette swaps with basic gear on their bots like what you find in the field, they have unique or specific optional parts for their bots to make the fights a bit more interesting such as emp mines, large missile packs or a grapple that then shoves 4 drills in you for massive damage.

If you aren't doing those then your time is spent driving around in whatever bot of your choice (until you need to swap for a specific feature one has), grabbing materials so you can upgrade your bots, finding fast travel points, shooting enemies and doing side quests whose contents aren't all that engaging outside of what worldbuilding they do and what they reward. The traversal gets a lot better once you get the first "traversal oriented bot" as early on it is pretty brutal with how slow the tank is even with boost. It was a good design choice to have the boost feature of bots be infinite outside of combat but I'd be lying if I said traversal didn't wear on me when those objectives where nowhere near the fast travel points. There is also a water mechanic. NO WAIT ITS NOT WHAT YOU THINK! It is not for thirst, its actually a heal and if your water bottle is full then its a revive should you die outside of your bot. A bot reaching 0 hp is game over though, no matter how many others you have on your person. The water can be refilled at the various water tanks around the map which is one of your discoverable fast travel point options. There were not many frame drops that I ran into while playing either. I only ever saw them when destroying rocks that blocked grottos, though this game does to the "low framerate mobs when far away" thing which never really bothered me to be honest.

Speaking of side quests, I won't call it a meta game but there's this hub you get early on called Spino. This town starts out with nothing, but as you do side quests they usually end with you telling someone "Hey, this town need people. Why don't you come on down?". This gets the town to grow and become more developed, get more facilities and upgrade said facilities so you can in turn upgrade your bots and just give people with nowhere to go a nice place to live in this harsh sandy land. It reminds me of building up colony 9 in Xenoblade Chronicles. Most side quests leading to "Come to Brazil Spino!" however is part of the reason why they aren't so engaging, the other being their standard side quests gameplay of "get this thing" or "find this person" or "kill this dinosaur" which is also not very captivating. I was doing them for what I got out it not because it was more game to play. You also gain access to a customizable room that you can decorate with furnishings you either buy, craft or find and can even put your bots in them which can also be expanded in size. I am not someone who really cares about interior design so I didn't spend much time on it and can't tell you if its good or bad. If you played Yakuza 8, its similar to the room you have on Dondoko Island.

Combat is generally pretty simple but it also tests your threat assessment abilities and if you've been keeping your bots of choice up to snuff. Generally though it boils down to driving around the encounter and taking shots at the enemy bots and using secondary weapons to pick off the foot soldiers as well as shooting down their missiles. You also need to suspend your disbelief because this game does the whole "The MCs don't kill, everyone they ever fought survived being shot by a tank cannon at point blank range and/or survived their bot exploding into a ball of fire". I'll give the game this though, you see the foot soldier enemies either have the dizzy stars or run away after to take down their hp fully (animals seems to actually die though, fuck their lives I guess) but I call bullshit on the ones in the bots. This also makes the times when the game talks about death to hit a lot more than it should which took me aback each time. Story based boss fights are different story as they have their phases the go in and out of and as you would expect, require a bit more actual ability to lead your shots than an normal encounter as they can be very mobile because yes this game asks that as well as having bullet drop for things like the tank cannon. There is also out of bot combat and Beelzebub is no slouch in that regard. He has his light and heavy attacks which as you should expect and the latter can be charged. Pressing heavy after a light will change the combo ender plus he can do ariel combos and the previous combo rules apply. My favorite was the 5 hit with the heavy ender which makes Beelzebub do that Chun Li super move, Tenshokyaku. Not only that, he can dodge cancel attacks even in the air. I LOVE DODGE CANCELING! Him along with the party have abilities they can use with Beelzebub having a meter and his party having cooldowns but otherwise your party will be fighting on their own. Rao has some moves for an old man, I gotta say.

I've brought up bots a lot so I'll get into them now. There are many different bots although there is some overlap between their unique function and those that overlap seem to have one lean more towards combat and the other traversal. If I wasn't doing every side quest as they appeared they would have been gotten in a reasonable flow. The tank is well, a tank. It is slow but has a lot of health, does fantastic damage with its main cannon and will be your bread and butter more than likely though my personal favorite is the Battle Armor and its goofy style punches. Other bots are made to jump high, traverse over unsolid ground, move items or just be a fast traversal bot among other things but can be used in battle with no issues. That doesn't sound like a lot sure but coupled with the overlap, you're coming up close to 20 different bots you can build and upgrade. Yes this does mean this is a game where you're better off engaging in every encounter if you can as not all materials can be found, some must be crafted with what you have on your person (or I guess demon). I am not someone who upgrades anything and everything, only what I use, so I never had an issue with not having materials unless they physically were not obtainable yet at that point in the game. It seems to be the game's way of limiting your power, though it feels like anything that is under your level scales to you (everything in the first Sand Land map was level 18 like I was when I went back for cleanup) while things that were set above stay that way until you out level them (I ran into level 20's when I wanted to go to a previously unexplored map section when I was level 15).

Even with knowing going in that the bots were a large part of the game, I was still surprised with just how much you could do with the upgrading and customization. Each bot has a different amount of parts they can equip and each individual part can be upgraded but using the tank as an example you can change and upgrade the primary and secondary weapons, body, suspension, engine, option (bonus feature, in the tanks case something like extra armor) and then 2 chip slots for bonuses. Each one of these will change the visuals for that part of the tank, not all are unique but there's several different looks you will see. Not only will they change physically, and stats wise, which should be a given, but after a certain point in the game you can customize the paint on your bots and depending on your bot you can have a lot of things to paint as some weapons have multiple color sections you can adjust. There are also several slots for decals with rotation and size options and you can adjust the metallic and glossy finishes on each individual parts. I gave my tank the angry face with sharp teeth look, some Pteranodon emblems and made it black and white. This does cost paint to do each time so its not free, and you can unlock more colors by doing some side quests. I did not see any way to transmog parts so those of you weirdos who put aesthetics above stats will need to either deal with being underpowered, hope you find a stronger version of that part you like or upgrade that part with materials.

This was honestly a type of game that on paper I should not have enjoyed as I am pretty staunch in my stance of "traversal is generally the worst part of large map/open world games". Until the first traversal style bot is build, going around the map was a chore and I recommend not trying to do too much exploring until you get one. Combat while simple is still engaging enough due to the customizable builds of the bots and ability to make them your own with colors and decals, along with out of bot combat being fun as well. The activities could use more variety to them with more worthwhile rewards other than materials 99% of the time but at least fast travel points are plentiful once discovered. The story is by the numbers at every turn and even with enjoying the main cast, it was really Toriyama's art that did the lifting for me which is how I felt after reading the manga. I don't know why this game was giving me such a hard time to track down but I think it was worth the effort. Rest In Peace, Akira Toriyama. I'm glad more of your work is finally getting attention.

Labyrinth, come in.

You beat the allegations, my boy. The worst Sonic game allegations, that is. I’m not sure how I should feel about the fact that I had a somewhat decent time playing this game. I played it as a kid and must have never made it past the 2nd stage and all I remember is it feeling SLOW and AWFUL and I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON. Which seemed to be the general consensus among players.

Believe it or not, a big motivation to make me finally throw away the money for Sonic Origins Plus was to have another go at these Game Gear games that haunted me on Mega Collection Plus as a kid, as well as the ones that weren’t included there. When I opened up the menu for them, the first thing that caught my eye was the critically acclaimed masterpiece in question, and you know what? It was alright!!! ?? Bit of a stretch maybe. It certainly was not <good> but it was by no means awful neither.

Laughable story premise aside, Sonic is actually kinda fun to control here? I’m not fucking joking. Slow as shit means spin dash encouraged, and you can go real zoomy zoomy, it’s a satisfying challenge to cancel it at the right time. As a speedrun this could be fun as heck I’m tellin’ ya, the most fun I had here were the couple times where I had just grabbed all the keys and had a small amount of time to bolt it towards the goal. I think if the game was built fully around this concept it could have found a real decent identity.

But this is Sonic LABYRINTH, and hence the levels are LABYRINTHs, with doors taking you to all sorts of places, you gotta keep track of where you’re going, kinda fun right? Like a puzzle or a maze?? NO. This actually describes the level design for about 3 of the 12 regular stages, the rest is just random pointless BS. In general it just feels aimless; questionable teleporters, pointless powerups with straight up bad placement, strange enemies that do not look like they should be in a sonic game (truthfully they do kind of fit I just think this one is really funny), and bosses that really could have been much better had someone but a just a little bit more thought into them.

That said it is mostly just aimless, and not frustrating. The only exceptions being one fuck off hidden platform in 3-3, and the general map in 4-3. I mean f*cking look at this. I understand the vision with this final level to be honest, you gave us our Sonic Labyrinth but it’s just jarring without some semblance of a difficulty curve to precede it. You went from somewhat maze-like levels, to aimless bs, to the world’s most complicated stage that feels like a puzzle in itself trying to figure out where to go even when it’s right in front of you. My mate said we should do a drinking game where we play that level without looking at the map and take a drink everytime you go through a door and I admit that sounds like the best worst time and ohohohohhh I am tempted!!

There is the matter of the true ending being a little obtuse but I forgive that because it added a slight layer of replayability with the hint given at the end. That said, it's still hilariously shallow.

The take home today is that I think the game actually has a solid foundation and controls well, it's just mostly ruined by a number of horrible design decisions that scream like the developers did not give any shits whatsoever. Therefore since it's a Sonic game with “good ideas”, it's actually 5 stars and the most underrated game ever and you guys just don't get it you don't see the vision open your mind for once…

Except it doesn’t have many good ideas, it’s just a worse Sonic 3D Blast.

(Maybe more like a prototype, since this came out first, hm!)

(Part 2 of the Half Century Challenge, created by C_F. You can find their second review here)

Space… it’s huge… so huge in fact, that if you lost your car keys in it, they’d be almost impossible to find… and not only that, but also huge enough to host a limitless amount of potential, not just for us as a species to explore and discover, but also to take advantage of for video game concepts. I mean, why wouldn’t we? Space is pretty fucking cool, despite how terrifying it is when you think about it for too long, and there have been plenty of games made that take advantage of what could happen in space, such as countless battles against extra-terrestrial menaces, exploring the many worlds that could be out there and the inhabitants that live on them, and also some other… weird shit that I would rather not bring up. Hell, even in some of the earliest days of video gaming, space was used as the primary gimmick when it came to their concepts, such as the case with 1962’s Spacewar….. which is too old for the sake of this challenge, so instead, we’re gonna talk about Galaxy Game, which is essentially the same thing.

Going back to playing these games that were released over half a century ago is pretty jarring for anybody who has been playing video games for the past ten years or so, not only because of how primitive it is compared to literally everything else released ever since, but also because of the fact that, really, there is no game here at all. Of course, I can’t heavily criticize a game like this that much, but if you are to ever go about trying to play this, or Spacewar, yourself, then you will find it to be a nothing experience, one that you would get tired of extremely quickly, and would cause you to want to go back to playing… I dunno, whatever the cool kids play nowadays, like Fortnite or one of those shitty live service games. The only way one could fairly judge this “game” would be not as a video game, but as a piece of history, one that somewhat paved the way for many more games like it to come in the future, so with that perspective in mind, I can certainly say that Galaxy Game is, indeed, a game that was made at one point in history.

Even jumping into the game first thing makes you feel like you have stepped back into the stone age, with you greeted by a black title screen with only a few words placed on it that are made of dots. You are given the option to play just one game for a measly ten cents, or even three games for a whopping twenty-five cents, and when you shove your money straight through your computer screen with great force, you are then greeted by the game’s… “options”. You are seemingly given the option for things such as slow speed, two player matches, the inclusion of the sun and gravity, along with positive gravity. However, based on my experience (and by that, I mean trying to get any of these options to work), I found that all of them are pretty much the exact same thing, so all of these options are lies, and you should ignore them at all costs.

You are then thrusted into action after the most intense countdown I have ever seen in my entire life, and what you are greeted with is a field of stars, occupied by two jagged penises, one black and one white, which I can only assume are meant to be rocket ships of some kind, and right in the middle, you have a seizure-inducing square that I can only assume is meant to be the sun. From here, the game is afoot, as you take control of one of the penises and figure out how to control it, rotating around and having a fire button, and from there on, your objective is clear: you must go and destroy the other penis who is doing nothing whatsoever, just so that you can prove you are the most skilled fighter in the entire galaxy!

So you then start to propel yourself forward towards the other penis, only to find that you have the SLOWEST MOVING ROCKET IN VIDEOGAME HISTORY. Seriously, these things move slower than the sloths from Zootopia, with it taking ages for you to get anywhere, and if you at some point in the game ever need to TURN of all things to propel yourself in another direction, then oh-ho-ho-ho-ho BOY, may god have mercy on your soul. Most of the time you will probably just be flying across the screen at numerous points, just trying to position your penis properly (I apologize to everyone reading this) so that you can properly aim and fire at your opponent, while they just sit there, wondering if they left the oven on before coming out to space for this battle.

This was pretty much the experience I had with this game throughout my whole time playing it, not only trying to get the rocket to move how I wanted it to so I could land a shot, but also fighting the controls, as there would be multiple points where they would just stop working, with me being only able to fire while not turning or propelling myself forward, causing me to have to restart the game several times. But then, finally, after a good five minutes or so of this struggle…. IT HAPPENED. I managed to position the penis properly to where I was going towards the target, I fired a shot, it hit the target, and then it exploded into a glorious explosion of pixels, with this playing in my head as a result, allowing me to feel an immense rush of satisfaction, as I had finally defeated my non-lethal opponent!............. only to then be booted back to the menu screen shortly afterwards, reminding me that I was still playing Galaxy Fucking Game, and that I am a sad, sad man.

So yeah, in a lot of ways, this game is forever stuck in its time period, unable to be enjoyed properly by anyone nowadays due to the simple factor that it is outdated in every single way possible, giving you no reason to want to go back and try it out. However, like with Highnoon, it is very interesting to look back on, not just in terms of how video games like this were made at such a primitive age, but even to see some of its small, yet charming little quirks, such as how somebody paid 10 cents at one point to play a round of this, or even all of these options available to mess around with. It’s not something I could recommend anyone checking out unless they want to see a piece of video game history at work, because let me tell you, it is certainly nice to look at, but not much else. And with that, I will see you all next time for another game from the far past to talk about, with less talking about penises in that review………. I think…….

Game #573

Back in my original review, I think I sold Wrath of the Lamb a little short. I had called it one of the most unfun, bullshit things I had ever played coming from Edmund McMillen. But, there was one, small. Perhaps a tiny issue. Maybe with skill? Hell if I know...

Wrath of the Lamb is where The Binding of Isaac truly began, adding all types of new shit into the game. From bosses, to items, and even modes, Wrath of the Lamb is one of the most influential expansions to Isaac as a whole, and solidified the game as a masterpiece. Did 2011 simply not have enough content for you? Well, it's Wrath of the Lamb now, bitches!

This is where the alternate floors come into play, and the greater enemy variety is more apparent here than ever. I didn’t notice how limited 2011’s enemies were until I installed Wrath of the Lamb, because holy shit. This is way bigger! And the bosses? Far more intimidating than before. Each boss is far more devious than the previous Flash bosses, being faster and even more intimidating with the new music, which goes just as hard as the rest of the soundtrack. The difficulty of the game itself is so much higher than before. I nearly died on the first FLOOR when playing, it’s that grueling. In fact, it might be a little... too hard. I do really like Wrath of the Lamb (now that I don’t suck at it), but in GOD’S NAME, at least play Flash for a little bit before downloading it, because the type of shit you’ll encounter far exceeds the difficulty of any expansion to Isaac, and yes, even Repentance. To compensate, Angel rooms have now been added, and you can also manipulate them into spawning, and these have weaker items, like Rebirth, but the pool doesn’t suck now!!! Hooray! And, just like every previous Isaac expansion, there’s new story. There’s the Cathedral, and The Chest. Now, you might say that I already covered these, but Wrath of the Lamb’s Cathedral is NOT the same as Rebirth’s, not by a long shot. It’s a far more challenging area, with enemies being far superior and faster, and the final boss (Isaac) has been completely changed in Rebirth, honestly one of the only things Rebirth did worse compared to Flash. It’s a complete slap fight, with Isaac only firing and firing hundreds of tears towards you. After doing that for a bit, he stands up and starts firing homing tears in a D-Pad pattern, and does it even more frequently, before finally gaining flight, summoning so many enemies and light beams, descending down on the player. And this is where the true fight begins, easily being the hardest part of the battle. And the music, once again, is fucking incredible. After killing him, you get a piece of an image on the title, and I think you know what that means. So after 6 kills, you get The Polaroid trinket, and it drops after killing Mom. Now, go into the Chest dropped from killing Isaac, and bam. You’re in the final chapter of the game. This floor is essentially a victory lap, with every dropped chest being converted into items, and the final boss is Blue Baby. He’s essentially the Hard Mode of the Isaac fight, shooting even more tears, having more health, and having the ability to teleport across the room. And, for the final time, the Chest drops. The final ending shows numerous polaroids, showing Isaac’s memories, as the screen slowly fades to back, while the Library music plays in the background. Nightmare fuel. But, when it comes to the rest of Wrath of the Lamb, there’s not much to say that hasn’t been said already in my prior reviews. All of the new items are pretty cool, there’s even more run variety, and practically everything from Flash is fixed, so yeah. Wrath of the Lamb is pretty damn good, if I say so myself.



Except for ONE, tiny, SMALL issue. 100%ing Wrath of the Lamb is fucking TERRIBLE. Okay, so we all know the usual “defeat every boss with every character” stick, right? I neglected to mention this in my previous review, but Flash Isaac is just as straightforward as Afterbirth when it comes to 100%. But thought Flash was too easy? You sir, have not played Wrath of the Lamb. And it’s all due to a little update in 2015, without Mcillen’s involvement. Wrath of the Lamb wasn’t too taxing of a 100% prior. Sure, Isaac and ??? were pretty hard, but once you got it down the first time, the difficulty only snowballed. And the challenges weren’t so bad either, so 100% was pretty fun and engaging. But... in 2015... oh man, Curse Alert for those who care.

ETERNAL EDITION IS THE WORST FUCKING THING EVER INTRODUCED INTO THIS GODDAMN FRANCHISE. HOLY SHIT, WHERE DO I BEGIN WITH THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT??? There’s NO new items nor anything in this update, only Hard mode, taking most of, if not ALL of the fun out of 100%. That’s the entire fucking POINT of The Binding of Isaac. The achievements are difficult WITHIN REASON! You actually get shit for going out of your way to do something difficult. THAT’S WHY IT’S FUN! I need way more incentive to play Hard mode rather than an achievement on Steam. That’s what made Super Meat Boy 100% so fun. The Meat Ninja is actually a cool unlockable, even IF Leaderboards are disabled with him! Shit, if you couldn’t come up with any new items, just take some from Rebirth, that would be COOL and neat to see in the older version of Isaac. You use Godhead for your achievement icon already, why not go all the way? Oh, and Hard Mode? I kid you not, this is some f the most grueling, unfun BULLSHIT THAT I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED IN THE BINDING OF ISAAC. The D6 got nerfed for no fucking reason, the Eternal Bosses are controller breaking frustration, and the difficulty relies on heavy luck to even succeed. I’m not kidding when I say I had an awesome run but with low HP, and I had over 5 seconds of unavoidable damage that KILLED me and made me start ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the way back to the fucking Basement. Great and fun game design, Himsl. Oh, and whoever designed Eternal Monstro can eat a dick t- OH, OOPS! Eternal Edition isn’t fun. Don’t go for these achievements. Seriously, they’re awful. Wrath of the Lamb is an amazing game, but simply put, Eternal Edition just sucks.

But overall, Flash Isaac as a whole is pretty solid, despite Eternal Edition being far from the greatest. If you’re getting tired of Rebirth, I’d recommend trying out Flash, even for a little bit. It’s shockingly fun, and I think it held up pretty well. Hell, I'd say that it's on the same tier as Rebirth in terms of greatness. But thats enough dawdling. We all know what’s coming next. So it’s time for the finale, the PINNACLE of zeusdeegoose. Until then, my friends.

“Life isn't fair, isn't it? / Wrath forges his fury, his sin / From within he cries” “Wrath” by zeusdeegoose, Written on 4/22/24

Chat is this real?? With this second entry, do we have a great time in our hands? It took so long! (0 further console generations) we get new insights into a world of politics, with charismatic new faces and dialogue that still hits as hard, and gamers are invited to go outside touch seagrass for the first time 🥶😱😱 go yonder as you play a force of nature. Playing a game as an enemy type has its perks ngl there is so much soul in that. You're no Big but you're still Daddy, with your very own Little-Not-Sister-Not-Little to scrounge up. Which leaves me puzzled as to why there's still the option to harvest little sisters, the way I'm treatin Delta like "he don't bite tho" i aint no pitbull sugar mama I sweaaaaar

Eke out a living with the sweetness of violence, for the first step to salvation is through the game's big arsenal. Thanking whoever made weapons and plasmids a dual-wielding bundle, next time I play a Pokémon Nuzlocke i'll name one of the critters after you. Huh speaking of critters, I guess I need to talk about new enemy types, Big Sisters and Big Uncles. Ok, not uncle but the big splicers. Who aren't splicing. They're lame who cares atleast we got sisters now and new daddies to toy with (pause). Any family tree is fraught with drama, gang.

Weapons? Well there's a hacking tool, hacking has been improved, it seems easy until you realise that actions have consequences ; game doesn't pause and your life is in very real danger. What else improved? Well, photos methinks, they're videos now. Outside of the lore implications of this technological marvel, it's also less punishing. Delta is loaded to the brim, most of the weapons are the same as good ol' BioShock but reskinned to fit la creatura, it's harder to run out of ressources to my mixed reception, I'm alluding to running out of special ammo effective against armored enemies or french enemies or other types like that, this doesn't seem to happen ever.

When you really, really think about it, this is better than the sum of its part! I mean, it's some goofy nae nae golf game, but with the Kirby sauce! what ok so this game is kinda lit my brothers in christ, Kirby never misses an opportunity to suck EXCEPT he did, yup very sadge and all for the sake of violence, bumping into his foes like accidentally bumping into Senpai and sliding a date invite into the apology UwU enough of that just wanna say it's great how well the abilities fit into the mix. Despite Sakurai not working on this one, the abilities are still unbalanced! That U.F.O. Kirby said fuck off i'm headin out to do a side quest 💀 I didn't realize I could drive him the first time. We got Air Ride at home gentlemen.

The last level is the easiest and you're just given a buffet of abilities, while you skillfully mash that button of mass destruction. We gettin a hole in one with this one and with this hole 🗣️🗣️ HAL said "Special Tee Shot who???" but I gotta say, we all wanted Kirby to become ฿̶̘̪̖͇̼̫͇̣̰̏̈̏̔̀̎̇̓̾̚͜͝₳̶̢̧̘̝̟̻̔̍͘͠Ⱡ̷̮̼̅̇̓́̐̅̓Ⱡ̵͈͓̼͕̘̦͍̝͗͒̃̓͊͗̎̌͘͠ again, right? It can be a challenge in its own right to know where tf kinda direction Kirb is going in that 3D space. Where are we, some kind of Dream Course?? Well, the backgrounds do look pretty dreamy as always. Not too shabby, not too shabby... now draw Kirby naked in them! Oh, hold up.

Eight courses, eight levels in them, now that's a lot of holes 😳 notice how similar his story is to Sisyphus once you end up at the bottom of an hill? This game definitely has "ahah laugh at this user" moments like these, but it's definitely easy-going and casual. Whomstever worked on this shit your crunch work hours paid off!! I think it's funny when you use the "snail" technique and do snail pattern, that's the true "fuck it we ball" energy right there. Though once again, Dedede gets absolutely demolished in a spin-off. It took Avalanche for him to get serious'd!

A spin-off that, when you figure it out, runs like clockwork, but you don't have to figure it out! That's what all true warriors strive for. It even has multiplayer! I cannot criticize Dream's Course <--- just did

I hope this flopped and they didn't make any other entries, that'd be worth a laugh! I havent had any playing this. This mf Simon with his perfectly chiseled chin and wealthiest caveman in the cave rizz can't whip worth a damn. Is he asexual? Why does he think he's him? Call it y = b^x the way shit went off the rails so fast, what a difficulty curve folks. You have to be there to see it. There's not really a specific enemy to make fun of so I won't focus on that aspect. Except Dracula on steroids but those were different times, the basement dweller community has foregiven Dracula.

Let's breakdown how the game plays. There are no input cancels obviously this ain't no Tekken, once you jump you are vulnerable for around 1 second and to approximately 33 threats, you can only walk and slightly crouch, not to mention (I'll mention) the whip having more screentime where it doesnt hit once you press the destroy foes button. So basically you're dead on arrival. Also, sometimes you get hit by a projectile thats been destroyed or a mf who already vaporized. Shit that should only happen in Mexico and I don't wager Simon is having his pilgrimage there.

I've warmed up, but huh no physical activity to follow because I need to say good things about this decent game. The night is dark and the path is.. not always clear, especially stage 17 with those gears but it all looks great. Dracula looks like his breath smells of garlic which makes me worry about his health being a vampire and all, but I won't judge him if he stepped out the hospital just to whoop my ass he's just that guy. Not gonna lie I had to use save states between every hit because I didn't trust myself enough and I was playing the game on break I wanted to finish it today at least (as in friday 22nd march, I'm actually reviewing it on the day I finish a game which I usually never do and condone! But we do this ig)

Attention, this is more of a meta-commentary on the importance of positive and passionate criticism than a review.

This is the 4th time I've completed Castlevania IV, a game I discovered in 2011 thanks to the Angry Video Game Nerd's video. Even though criticism from him is now almost non-existent (it seems he only reads from a script and no longer writes his own texts), James was really important to me between 2007 and 2012 (roughly). Each video was a small event and the discovery of a terrible game. Yet in 2011, he made an exception to the rule and spoke passionately about a franchise he loved. Instead of bashing a game, he talked passionately about a game he particularly adored. I liked his style of criticism: a mix of his personal history with the game and a more objective analysis.

In 2024, I have mixed feelings about AVGN (and even being "a fan"), but I still appreciate his series on Castlevania because it tells the story of a gamer's passion rather than capitalizing on "hate content." In my opinion, talking about the content of something you really love is much harder than harsh criticism. I think this creator unfortunately surrounded himself with the wrong people who took advantage of his success. Watching an AVGN video now is painful: it feels like watching a caricature of a caricature.

Anyway, I immediately tried playing Castlevania IV, first on an emulator, then by buying a physical version. I really became a fan of this game, especially because of its sublime dark fantasy graphical style and its absolutely incredible music (there's even a very improbable jazz solo). Generally speaking, it's the unique atmosphere created that stands out, even though the game relies on well-known themes (the castle, bats, mummies, Dracula, etc.). The boss fights are memorable and the difficulty is very well balanced (though it's not exactly easy). So okay, the controls are a bit stiff and there's no save system, but that really doesn't matter to me. It's also one of the last classic platformer Castlevania games. I can only recommend it.