Emijx
2016
Highway Blossoms has a fantastic story. It's genuinely really good for a cute little road trip/treasure hunting story with two disaster lesbians. The visuals are good, the writing is alright, the voice acting is only slightly grating at certain times, the music is fine, and there's even some optional smut for the people who don't just want to experience a wholesome story.
Now you might read that and then ask "Why did you only give it 2 stars? Is it not a good game with all that praise?" and that's the thing. It's not a game. Highway Blossoms is a prime thing to point at when it comes to the whole "What makes something a game" argument.
I'm not playing a game when I play through Highway Blossoms, I'm reading a book but instead of flipping a page every few minutes I'm mashing spacebar a couple thousand times. The story is good but you're not acting in it, you're just a third party. There's no action the player can take to do anything, you're just reading a book or listening to the characters speak to one another. There is no gameplay. It does not exist.
I think Highway Blossoms is a beautiful and really engaging story with all sorts of twists and turns. And I do recommend you give it a read. But I wish that way to experience it was as an anime, or a short mini series, or a book. Or anything that doesn't destroy your mouse or your keyboard to read. It took me about 10 hours to finish, but it probably could be read through in about 9. After that it'll sit in your steam library for the rest of time. Because past your first reading, there's no reason to go back.
Now you might read that and then ask "Why did you only give it 2 stars? Is it not a good game with all that praise?" and that's the thing. It's not a game. Highway Blossoms is a prime thing to point at when it comes to the whole "What makes something a game" argument.
I'm not playing a game when I play through Highway Blossoms, I'm reading a book but instead of flipping a page every few minutes I'm mashing spacebar a couple thousand times. The story is good but you're not acting in it, you're just a third party. There's no action the player can take to do anything, you're just reading a book or listening to the characters speak to one another. There is no gameplay. It does not exist.
I think Highway Blossoms is a beautiful and really engaging story with all sorts of twists and turns. And I do recommend you give it a read. But I wish that way to experience it was as an anime, or a short mini series, or a book. Or anything that doesn't destroy your mouse or your keyboard to read. It took me about 10 hours to finish, but it probably could be read through in about 9. After that it'll sit in your steam library for the rest of time. Because past your first reading, there's no reason to go back.
There's noting like sitting down and playing one of the greatest games of all time, which just so happens to be a remake of TWO of the best games of all time. It's pretty, it's fluid, it's fun, it's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2. And it's the fuel of a pure unbridled drug addiction.
This review contains spoilers
When you think of Castlevania as a game series, you probably think of hot vampires, whips, folklore, and maybe ever so slight levels of homoerotic tension. When I think of Castlevania, I think of high schoolers, long fur trench coats, soul stealing, guns, and some of the funniest writing decisions ever in a game that takes itself so seriously. We simply aren't the same.
I adore Aria of Sorrow, it's such a fun time. There's no greater pleasure in the Castlevania series than playing as a high schooler who's actually the soon to be reincarnation of Dracula running around with a Positron Rifle summoning cats to gnaw the ankles of my enemies. It's truly incredible.
Genuinely the only issue is if you're looking to 100% it, there's a lot of grinding to get to that perfect soul completion, but goddamn that aside is it one of the best games on the GBA and one of the best Castlevanias outside of SOTN and the glorious pachinko machines....
I adore Aria of Sorrow, it's such a fun time. There's no greater pleasure in the Castlevania series than playing as a high schooler who's actually the soon to be reincarnation of Dracula running around with a Positron Rifle summoning cats to gnaw the ankles of my enemies. It's truly incredible.
Genuinely the only issue is if you're looking to 100% it, there's a lot of grinding to get to that perfect soul completion, but goddamn that aside is it one of the best games on the GBA and one of the best Castlevanias outside of SOTN and the glorious pachinko machines....
2010
Super Meat Boy was the original "The Dark Souls of (Insert Genre Here)" and I stand by that. Is it actually that hard? No, it's not. But it's a fucking Heritage Site of those old "Get Gud" game design philosophies. But unlike Dark Souls, or the more recent games in the IP, Super Meat Boy takes it's gameplay and puts a heavy focus on it. It's smooth. So at the very least give it a try.
Every now and again I get the urge to play one of these funky elephant games, and I've got to fight tooth and nail to play their old versions on Newgrounds or AG, or Kongregate. And it's nice, but it's got hoops. I have no idea if anyone else does this as much as I've done since I was a kid.
Having all of these games easily accessible on Steam, for $15 which seems like absolutely pennies to have a decent slice of my childhood playable on a whim, especially with Elephant Quest being sometimes unplayable with the AG connection being mucky nowadays, I'd pay more than that just to get to play these games once let alone for years on.
I'm not sure where I'm going, I might make games, I might just sit at home and encourage other people to do what they want by throwing money at them. But this gives me hope that no matter what happens, if I do it or others, we're gonna get some special stuff. Even if all that stuff isn't directly a game starring a blue elephant.
Although if we got another Elephant game, I don't think I'd complain.
Having all of these games easily accessible on Steam, for $15 which seems like absolutely pennies to have a decent slice of my childhood playable on a whim, especially with Elephant Quest being sometimes unplayable with the AG connection being mucky nowadays, I'd pay more than that just to get to play these games once let alone for years on.
I'm not sure where I'm going, I might make games, I might just sit at home and encourage other people to do what they want by throwing money at them. But this gives me hope that no matter what happens, if I do it or others, we're gonna get some special stuff. Even if all that stuff isn't directly a game starring a blue elephant.
Although if we got another Elephant game, I don't think I'd complain.
2008
Fallout 3 gets a really bad rap for being a worse New Vegas, and honestly it kinda deserves it? Lots of bugs, the side quests all end up being either go get a thing or go kill a thing, the colors of the wasteland aren't really that interesting, and the climax of the game is a glorified escort mission as cool as it ends up being.
THAT BEING SAID, it's still my favorite Fallout game. Yeah the level cap is stupid, but you get a perk every single level, making your character absurdly powerful by the time you hit 30. The weapons you can find in the overworld are really fun to fuck around with by that point too, and most importantly if you choose to break the game over your knee by giving yourself god mode, infinite ammo, and choose to hunt down the MIRV Launcher, you've given yourself a one way ticket to the most goddamn fun I've had in the capital wasteland in centuries. You just have to prepare to fight tooth and nail with the game to keep it from constantly crashing...
THAT BEING SAID, it's still my favorite Fallout game. Yeah the level cap is stupid, but you get a perk every single level, making your character absurdly powerful by the time you hit 30. The weapons you can find in the overworld are really fun to fuck around with by that point too, and most importantly if you choose to break the game over your knee by giving yourself god mode, infinite ammo, and choose to hunt down the MIRV Launcher, you've given yourself a one way ticket to the most goddamn fun I've had in the capital wasteland in centuries. You just have to prepare to fight tooth and nail with the game to keep it from constantly crashing...
Look, the obvious needs to be said. Yes it's an RPGMaker game, yeah it's a MLP Fangame, and yeah a majority of the plot is (believe it or not) about the lesbian romance between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. The gameplay is super simple and shallow, the game is incredibly short (Probably like 3-4 hours MAX, and that's with doing everything in the game. It's more like 2 if you're just blitzing to the end).
But the art is alright, the writing is good, the music is at times super good, and it doesn't last long enough to be awful. If you like the fan side of MLP, it's not the worst thing that has come out of it in a while. If you feel like playing it, it sure is a game and it'll pass the time good enough.
But the art is alright, the writing is good, the music is at times super good, and it doesn't last long enough to be awful. If you like the fan side of MLP, it's not the worst thing that has come out of it in a while. If you feel like playing it, it sure is a game and it'll pass the time good enough.
The wonderful undersea world of SB:BFBBR is great. But holy heck is it outdated in certain spots. The wonderful remaster of this makes it so much more beautiful, and so much more vibrant and personable and magnificent. The only problem with it is in certain spots it feels like it's a 2004-esque game.
They're very minor things, like animations being messed up, weird physics engine mishaps, some robots are still aggressively even more rough than the rest. The stuff such as that makes it very clear that it's a REMASTER of a game from the Gamecube era, not it's own separate thing.
However, even with that, the game is still incredibly solid as a collectathon while not feeling super super bloated. Spatulas come in often enough to keep giving the player incentive to keep playing. The boss fights are super great. The levels (for the most part) are fun to play through and the writing is really really good too.
But MAN is it a remake of a gamecube game.
They're very minor things, like animations being messed up, weird physics engine mishaps, some robots are still aggressively even more rough than the rest. The stuff such as that makes it very clear that it's a REMASTER of a game from the Gamecube era, not it's own separate thing.
However, even with that, the game is still incredibly solid as a collectathon while not feeling super super bloated. Spatulas come in often enough to keep giving the player incentive to keep playing. The boss fights are super great. The levels (for the most part) are fun to play through and the writing is really really good too.
But MAN is it a remake of a gamecube game.
Sonic Adventure DX is a weird thing. It was the first real attempt at creating a sonic story that was serious and it pulls that off about as well as the original Resident Evil pulls off it's Voice Acting in a serious and realistic way.
The Sonic part of it is almost absolutely the worst part of the game due to being way too clunky and awful to control at high speeds while trying to do sorta annoying platforming, the Tails' part is just screaming at you "WOW LOOK AT HOW BAD SONIC'S LEVEL DESIGN IS, BUT I SWEAR WE CAN DO BETTER!", Knuckles has some features that are debatably better than the search stages in Adventure 2, Amy's story is only redeemable because it's better than Sonic's by virtue of being the shortest story in the game, Big is a wonderful case of "Not bad, but god is it not alright", and Gamma is a very mixed bag of "Wow, I can see why the mech stages are a thing in SA2" and "We got rid of actual Tails stages in SA2 for more of THIS?!?"
As a whole, it's entirely understandable why it's been largely abandoned by the greater sonic community in favor of SA2. There isn't a Super Mario Galaxy 1 vs 2 kind of comparison. SA2 knew what it was doing, knew what it was ditching, and all in all is a much more complete and whole experience. But we really shouldn't give so much shit to SA1 either. There's a lot of decent stuff here. Not amazing, but decent. And it's a necessary thing to have in order to have SA2.
If you play a ton of SA2, you should go back and play SA1 through to the entire end. If nothing else, it'll give you a wonderful examination as to just how much better SA2 is. At least for the simple virtue of making Sonic's stages tremendously better.
The Sonic part of it is almost absolutely the worst part of the game due to being way too clunky and awful to control at high speeds while trying to do sorta annoying platforming, the Tails' part is just screaming at you "WOW LOOK AT HOW BAD SONIC'S LEVEL DESIGN IS, BUT I SWEAR WE CAN DO BETTER!", Knuckles has some features that are debatably better than the search stages in Adventure 2, Amy's story is only redeemable because it's better than Sonic's by virtue of being the shortest story in the game, Big is a wonderful case of "Not bad, but god is it not alright", and Gamma is a very mixed bag of "Wow, I can see why the mech stages are a thing in SA2" and "We got rid of actual Tails stages in SA2 for more of THIS?!?"
As a whole, it's entirely understandable why it's been largely abandoned by the greater sonic community in favor of SA2. There isn't a Super Mario Galaxy 1 vs 2 kind of comparison. SA2 knew what it was doing, knew what it was ditching, and all in all is a much more complete and whole experience. But we really shouldn't give so much shit to SA1 either. There's a lot of decent stuff here. Not amazing, but decent. And it's a necessary thing to have in order to have SA2.
If you play a ton of SA2, you should go back and play SA1 through to the entire end. If nothing else, it'll give you a wonderful examination as to just how much better SA2 is. At least for the simple virtue of making Sonic's stages tremendously better.
Rockstar has an amazing catalog of games that exist to shock, and exist to emulate realism, but to me my favorite game of theirs will ALWAYS be Bully. I don't care what anyone else says.
This game is what happens when you get adults who are really good at writing to write really flawed and awful characters, all with seemingly the express purpose of making the already flawed and messed up protagonist seem like a good guy and it's done well in spades. The dialogue is great, the missions are all really fun and interesting, the gameplay is super satisfying, the minigames and collectables are fun to do and mostly give lovely rewards, and the story is really satisfying to play through even with it only taking about 15 hours compared to the usual Rockstar length of 30 or more.
Only complaint I have to throw up here is playing this game on modern hardware leads to a lot of crashes, but there's a number of fan patches that fix the game up to be something a fair bit more playable. If you only have the choice of playing 1 Rockstar game, and you don't want to play GTA because it's way too controversial, pick up Bully. It's just messed up to be entertaining while not pushing that to an uncomfortable point...usually.
This game is what happens when you get adults who are really good at writing to write really flawed and awful characters, all with seemingly the express purpose of making the already flawed and messed up protagonist seem like a good guy and it's done well in spades. The dialogue is great, the missions are all really fun and interesting, the gameplay is super satisfying, the minigames and collectables are fun to do and mostly give lovely rewards, and the story is really satisfying to play through even with it only taking about 15 hours compared to the usual Rockstar length of 30 or more.
Only complaint I have to throw up here is playing this game on modern hardware leads to a lot of crashes, but there's a number of fan patches that fix the game up to be something a fair bit more playable. If you only have the choice of playing 1 Rockstar game, and you don't want to play GTA because it's way too controversial, pick up Bully. It's just messed up to be entertaining while not pushing that to an uncomfortable point...usually.
You know what, Sonic Adventure 2 can absolutely go by the motto "Does it's job". Is it better than the first game? Yeah. Is it funner than the first game? At points, yeah. Is it considered more interesting than the first game? Sure. Do I like it more than the first game? At points, absolutely not.
The Action stages are much better so now that Sonic and Shadow's stages are playable, their sections might just be the best. The Hunt stages are just as good as the last game, albeit held way back by the radar only focusing on one target at a time in order, forcing a lot more blindly scowering through the level multiple times to find individual fragments/keys. The Mech stages might be the worst because a ton of the time you're slowly trodding through the entire level while a high pitched sound is screaming in your ears as you try and not die by various different enemies.
Overall, it's better than most of SA1, but it's really not too hard to beat SA1 in quality of stage design, objectives, the implementation of Big the Cat, and plot. But yeah they sure did it with this one.
The Action stages are much better so now that Sonic and Shadow's stages are playable, their sections might just be the best. The Hunt stages are just as good as the last game, albeit held way back by the radar only focusing on one target at a time in order, forcing a lot more blindly scowering through the level multiple times to find individual fragments/keys. The Mech stages might be the worst because a ton of the time you're slowly trodding through the entire level while a high pitched sound is screaming in your ears as you try and not die by various different enemies.
Overall, it's better than most of SA1, but it's really not too hard to beat SA1 in quality of stage design, objectives, the implementation of Big the Cat, and plot. But yeah they sure did it with this one.
2017
Sonic Forces is like the prime example of how perfect Sonic Generations is. Combining Classic and Modern playstyles ended up being really fun in that game, and it feels like they tried copy pasting it into this game and fucked up abysmally.
The Modern Sonic stages are fine enough, the Avatar stages are really...boring, the duo stages are haphazardly combined mechanics of both the modern stages and the avatar stages which make it not work well for either side too much, and the classic sonic stages would be fine if they didn't fuck with his physics and controls to the point of ruining the character.
There's plenty of stuff here and none of it works well enough. Level design, writing, Avatar designs, the level physics, boss fights, pretty much the only thing that really still holds up is the score, which is even still not nearly as good as other sonic games which is a shame. Even if you're getting this for free, that's way too much. It's not worth owning, let alone playing, let alone finishing.
The Modern Sonic stages are fine enough, the Avatar stages are really...boring, the duo stages are haphazardly combined mechanics of both the modern stages and the avatar stages which make it not work well for either side too much, and the classic sonic stages would be fine if they didn't fuck with his physics and controls to the point of ruining the character.
There's plenty of stuff here and none of it works well enough. Level design, writing, Avatar designs, the level physics, boss fights, pretty much the only thing that really still holds up is the score, which is even still not nearly as good as other sonic games which is a shame. Even if you're getting this for free, that's way too much. It's not worth owning, let alone playing, let alone finishing.
2010
FO:NV is like...the one Fallout that most fans point to as "The Best One." and it's extremely clear why. All of the things they changed or added, the flexibility of quests, the DLC stories are all some of the best in the series, it's not made by Bethesda so it's SLIGHTLY more stable, the characters are fucking fantastic, the Companions even more so a majority of the time, the main story is varied in how you end it, it looks really nice even nowadays, and it's super enjoyable in a ton of different ways depending on how you build your character.
FO:NV had a fucking massive advantage when it comes to game development because it wasn't developed by Bethesda, it was developed by a group of people who were heavily familiar with the franchise before 3 vs just by 3. They had a plan, they had ideas, they had a whole suite ready to go and they just outright nailed it. So goddamn well. If you're an open world game lover, and you haven't picked up F:NV? I mean Why Not? Go for it. Be a post apoc cowboy and go to goddamn town already.
FO:NV had a fucking massive advantage when it comes to game development because it wasn't developed by Bethesda, it was developed by a group of people who were heavily familiar with the franchise before 3 vs just by 3. They had a plan, they had ideas, they had a whole suite ready to go and they just outright nailed it. So goddamn well. If you're an open world game lover, and you haven't picked up F:NV? I mean Why Not? Go for it. Be a post apoc cowboy and go to goddamn town already.
2011
3D Sonic game after 3D Sonic game, the same sentiment comes up for me: "This sure is an attempt to bring Sonic into a 3D space, huh?"
It's hard to bring the fastest thing alive into such a wide open and detailed space. It's to that end that most of the super well regarded Sonic games are usually most of the 2D ones, SA2, and MAAAAAAAAYBE Colors. But there's one 3D Sonic game that breaks that mold, that being Generations.
I've talked before about how Sonic Forces is just the most blatant example of how absolutely grand Generations is. And after playing the whole thing through again, I can't understate how accurate that description is. Generations doesn't overstay it's welcome, with nice level design and controls that feel not only better than Forces, but better than ANY of the Sonic games on this thus far and possibly continuing down.
There's not much to really say beyond if you're a Sonic fan and haven't played Generations, you're forced to play it now. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules I just enforce them. Just a slight warning, the game can be a little messy with it's camera angles and the non-rival boss fights can be real annoying in the later third...
It's hard to bring the fastest thing alive into such a wide open and detailed space. It's to that end that most of the super well regarded Sonic games are usually most of the 2D ones, SA2, and MAAAAAAAAYBE Colors. But there's one 3D Sonic game that breaks that mold, that being Generations.
I've talked before about how Sonic Forces is just the most blatant example of how absolutely grand Generations is. And after playing the whole thing through again, I can't understate how accurate that description is. Generations doesn't overstay it's welcome, with nice level design and controls that feel not only better than Forces, but better than ANY of the Sonic games on this thus far and possibly continuing down.
There's not much to really say beyond if you're a Sonic fan and haven't played Generations, you're forced to play it now. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules I just enforce them. Just a slight warning, the game can be a little messy with it's camera angles and the non-rival boss fights can be real annoying in the later third...
Tie in games for children cartoons are supposed to be bad, but CROSSOVER tie in games for children cartoons are supposed to somehow be worse. From cheap knockoff fighting games to cheap knockoff racers, they're not supposed to be good at all. They're shovelware to throw at kids who recognize the absorbent sponge on the front and cry at their parents until they give up and buy it for them.
Nick games however are surprisingly different, and so far out of the 2 games I've played that have Nick properties, both have been really good, and for some reason both of them have "Battle For" in their titles...
Nicktoons: Battle For Volcano Island is an old Gamecube/PS2 3D platforming Beat-em-up that plays...surprisingly well. The platforming is kinda tight, the fighting is quick but fun, the game has some surprisingly funny lines, and the music kinda hits it out of the park at times. Is it a perfect game? Fuuuuuck no, the hitboxes are weird, the combat can be entirely avoided 98% of the time, and graphically it looks strikingly similar to an N64 game and even looked dated at the time. But it's still pretty good, and could even be an absurdly fun speed game if people wanna sit down and grind it out...
Nick games however are surprisingly different, and so far out of the 2 games I've played that have Nick properties, both have been really good, and for some reason both of them have "Battle For" in their titles...
Nicktoons: Battle For Volcano Island is an old Gamecube/PS2 3D platforming Beat-em-up that plays...surprisingly well. The platforming is kinda tight, the fighting is quick but fun, the game has some surprisingly funny lines, and the music kinda hits it out of the park at times. Is it a perfect game? Fuuuuuck no, the hitboxes are weird, the combat can be entirely avoided 98% of the time, and graphically it looks strikingly similar to an N64 game and even looked dated at the time. But it's still pretty good, and could even be an absurdly fun speed game if people wanna sit down and grind it out...