My biggest white whale of games that I couldn't beat as a kid that I'm straight-up abandoning this time because while I'm able to cruise through it now as an adult it's boring as FUCK, gameplay wise. I'm actually stopping at the exact same spot I was stuck at all those years ago with collecting a total of 35 monkeys to progress. I stopped at this place back then because I was terrible at video games, though I did very much like the game. I'm stopping at it today because I'm not backtracking to dig around for a bunch of popcorn containers or whatever in order to get more monkeys. If this wasn't so tedious to play I definitely would go out of my way to do that. Watched the rest of it on YouTube and to my actual surprise all I had left with the game is another running section and a stupid easy boss fight. Since first playing this game 20 years ago and getting stuck I definitely thought there was A LOT more beyond where I left off but no this is actually like a four hour game which I'm thankful for because I was getting really tired of it at this point and for it to end where it ends instead of continuing to drag out the same basic missions for another level or two is a plus, I guess. Glad to know I actually got through 90% of it as a kid. Not a good game but very good vibes from the Looney Tunes gang. The game really gets them right so of course it's very funny which helped make all the terrible gameplay tolerable and because of that I'll spare this one.

Played this on PS5 (PS4 version) and it was fun for an hour or two. It's mostly about navigating menus in order to keep your crew in check, activating specific crews' abilities and complete objectives like dropping bombs on a target and taking recon photos yourselves. While not on a mission you can use credits that you earn from mission to upgrade your crew's gear and plane. Navigating the menus can be a bit clunky but you'll get used to it pretty quickly. Since most of the game is doing bombing runs the missions can get pretty one-note, and every time the game does a different kind of objective (like escorting a naval battleship), it somehow ends up being not as fun as the usual objectives. There's also issues such as the gunner crew AI aiming the opposite way of the enemies at times, which can be frustrating to watch since it gives enemy planes time to get in range to shoot. It's a shame, this game could be so much more.

Raizing's first game tows the line between the literalism and weight of 4th gen art production with the maximalism, polish and particles of the coming 5th gen of shooters. The shmup loop is nothing special but the use of space and physical presence is something you rarely see in shmups - crowds tossing non-lethal crap at you during a boss rush, enemies that slam giant marble columns across the broad side of your ship, airborne fighters that buckle and lose altitude as you destroy their jets, just to name a few. This is a standard of visual design I want to see much, MUCH more of in the indie space.

I have been plying SRB2Kart near the time it came out and have my own server (Becky House hiii) and have been observing whatever I can of Ring Racers secret Frankenstien’s lab development so I make this review from a place of passion and dissatisfaction I guess

I don’t know my exact hours but i’ve played basically as soon as I got up to now as i’m typing this so it has to be at least near or over 10 hours. Also no stars since I don’t think this is a game that can be rates by stars.

Its interesting to me. The game is so ambitious yet so aimless, so ready to give you accessibility options but also takes away options that were in the first game . This game is so so so so much but so valid at the same time.

There’s so many mechanics. You can drop down in the air now, you collect rings to go fast. if you have a ring item it can overcharge you and make you have a speed boost for awhile AND you use rings to go faster on slopes (I hate this but more on that later), new items like 200+ stages (including the bonus ones), a fucking spindash, and a tail whip that you can use when you have zero rings.

All of this sounds kinda cool right? Well actually the way they are implemented sucks so bad. Firstly, the drop. You think it’d useful because of V1 air time problem but holy fuck it has a bounce (and i tested you can literally bounce forever if you time it right) and the bounce does so much harm than good. Half the time I make the right choice and use it to land I bounce and if the stage has a lit or a part with no rails, I bounce off and have to wait to respawn. and its like LOL whats the point in that mechanic.

Speaking of useless mechanics lets talk about spin dashing and shortcuts because they go in tandem because they invented a new problem for themselves to solve because of the spindash. You hold down the. button and charge a spindash basically you know sonic shit. The only problem is that it halts your momentum and with a game all about that it is hard to justify using it. you typically use it for the starting linefor a start boost, which is now like sonic riders one except bad cause you can completely die during it and it last so long already so if some bullshit happens to you have fun waiting like 10-20 seconds of just not playing the game. because of the start line change, you NOW charge the spindash and let go at the right time for the boost which is kinda ok but the spindash also has no cancel so sometimes I fuck the timing up by a second and try to fix it and remember “oh yeah this propels me forward now” and i’m dead. I think a cancel and a little faster charging time is the true say to make it worse hell you lose rings anyways for holding it too long so lol.

An even more sorta useless mechanic is the tailspin which you can do when you have 0 rings. on paper sounds sick but this game is alll about those fucking rings. if you have less than 20 you just go slower than ofher people, if they hit you when you have 0 or negative rings you tumble and man all i’ll say about the tumbling is that it is the most annoying and boring thing to have to sit througj after seeing bullshit. now that I explained the extra stuff of the ring mechanics you understand why this move kinda sucks. I feeel like you should be able to use it anytime for like a penalty of 2 rings, but because of the ring button making you faster so you can go on slope and they’re both mapped to one button, you have to WASTE. all of your rings, let go of the button, and THEN you can do it and it can like deflect jawz and stuff, but its so must risk for very specific situation it might as well not be in the damn game.

And I haven’t even talked about the stage bloat really or how the stages are kinda either under designed or overly design (play green hills in v1 and then play it in ring racers lol). I haven’t talked about how they lock online and even addons through a kirby air ride smash checklist box, hell they even make you search for colors in the damn game you don’t even get the right to have all the fucking colors. You have to play like so many hours just to be able to play as some of the characters fuck you have to do mystic melody sonic adventure 2 shrines to get some of these characters its just ridiculous I feel it feels like the devs heard people talking shit about the former single player and got so mad they fucking put too much single player i can’t believe i’m saying that man.

I haven’t even mentioned the fucking long patronizing tutorials that does not teach you any cool new mechanics or how the items work but they teach you how to fucking drift and like yeah thats nice for new comers (if this game was actually beginner friendly) but like the fact you have to do a race and shit just to skip it no button is ridiculous.

The game is ridiculous it feels like you have to play it in a specific ways or the devs will spit on you basically in way. It just feels spiteful in a way I don’t know maybe if the game updates and mod support flourishes it will be fine but the stages are overly designed, items feel like they got overly nerfed or they’re way way way too good, you get hit snd tumble so often it just kills your whole momentum for the race, and i’m tired and kinda want to make an actual video for this so i’m gonna end the review here for now but fuck. I’m just decently disappointed because from what I played there is a fun good game in this genuinely I just wish it didn’t come with a overly bloated and daunting bad game.

I really do love this game but MAN was it hard to go back to, especially after playing Zero 1 and 2. I really can't point to anything inherintly wrong with Blaster Master; it's level design is solid, music is quite good (save for area 8, that shit sucks), the game has a solid challenge, and exploration is quite fun. But unfortunately, the main issue with the game is the era it was released in. Limited lives (which is a death sentence in metroidvanias), no saving, no map, insta-kills, et cetera. I would love if this game got a modern remaster or something, because the core of a great game is here. But unfortunately, I can only recommend the original Famicom version (with infinite continues).

Very much an interesting experiment in the style of games like Lack of Love. The soundtrack itself was supervised by the late, great Ryuichi Sakamato (according to a Japanese website.) The music was composed by Takuma Sato, who deserves to be more well known, as the soundtrack to this game is something that would not be foreign to the most ambient, relaxing moments of Donkey Kong Country.

I think Ryuichi Sakamato might have taken from this game in his experience directing L.O.L, and the similarities do not start only with the music, but with the main idea of the game itself: helping animals. It's one of those "Symbiosis Simulators". It's an interesting balance here between semi-realistic animals (like a pretty realistic Axolotl) and crazy, somewhat far off surrealist creatures which only resemble their counterparts.

We have a huge cow with, uh, 8 udders which have the potential to hurt you (I'll spare you the details). This is the same cow that is represented by the cool boxart. There is a black rabbit, that looks like something out of Lack of Love, with it's minimalistic, polka-dot design riff on the form of a real rabbit. The whole game oscillates on the spectrum of realism, and more often then not it goes towards the unreal, surrealistic side. It's an uncanny valley where it feels just real enough, however.

The spaces you walk around in are surprisingly expansive. Granted, they are literally just prerendered backdrops that you walk through (albeit beautiful ones). However, based on where you walk forward in said backdrops, you will be led to different parts of the environment. The environments are all biomes, and you get there by typing in a 3-string word on a pillar at the start of the game. The biomes are aquatic, subterranean (kind of deserts and caves), a lush forest-like area, and the literal last area of the game. You can spawn in any of these, as it is mostly random.

Now, to the main gimmick of the game, which is a kind of proto-Scribblenauts idea where you can type in any verb, and your avatar (the weird squiggly spiraled golden triangle guy) will perform the action. You need to type in the right verbs to help the animals. Sometimes, it's simple, other times its frustrating. Even at the very beginning of the game, I was stuck. In my frustration, I typed in "go", and finally a kind of 'movement board' appeared which allows you to move in various directions in the game, and I was shocked. In a good way, rest assured. I felt like a magician (though it was the game doing the heavy lifting).

Luckily, there is a really in-depth analysis and walkthrough on youtube by a user named Dilan. Mad props to him for his and his friends determination in not only emailing people involved but pushing through and helping people complete the game.

I'm shelving it, but please know that I will finish this aesthetically wonderful and mythologically/spiritually rich game (even if the mythology is nooot very reflective of actual
Mayan belief systems).

I am no Cotton expert, and can only judge this game on its own merits as opposed to how it stacks up with the rest of the series... but goddamn is it addictive. A harmony of well-crafted, diverse levels, an easy-to-understand-but-difficult-to-master scoring system, and unfussy control and gameplay. You essentially do not have to dodge in this game if you score it properly -- and scoring is what makes it truly fun (something I would not, personally, say of very many shoot-em-ups).

The other thing that Cotton Fantasy has going for it is its massive amount of content. I played the game with one character (Cotton) using one route (the standard one) and had a blast. There are, however, 7 other characters to experiment with, each with its own style / gimmick that fundamentally affects the gameplay, and six secret stages that you're able to swap into a run in place of a standard one. There were a couple stages I really disliked (fuck Blue Sky) so I'm looking forward to exploring alternatives.

There are some visibility and hitbox issues that bugged me (background elements appearing dangerous but actually being harmless or vice versa; boss hitboxes being WAY smaller than their sprites) but with a little replaying and learning the irritation was assuaged. The game is just, insanely fun.