If you try and play Shinobi like a traditional hack-and-slash combo-heavy character action game, you'll probably find yourself getting frustrated within minutes. You can't dash or jump cancel sword swing animations, nor can you rotate your character's swings during the animation, so button mashing is discouraged and every attack matters that much more. Instead, the goal is to wrap up enemy encounters as quickly as possible, diving and dashing between foes to chain them together in a manner akin to abusing Sonic's homing attack (albeit with tougher execution). This is encouraged two-fold: firstly, Hotsuma's cursed sword requires sacrifices in the form of enemy blood (and running out of souls will cause the sword to sap his health instead), so slaying foes is in succession the most effective way to farm souls and satiate the sword's hunger. Just as importantly however, successfully chaining enemies builds up Hotsuma's damage output, so it becomes integral to prioritize weaker and clustered enemies so later hits can deal massive damage to bulkier foes; it's a great way to both highlight Shinobi's arcade puzzle-like qualities of efficiently navigating a room as well as giving the player a viable and clean strategy to quickly dispose of spongier enemies. This also applies towards boss fights, and there's nothing more satisfying than biding your time, waiting for the boss's goons to stack up, and then tearing your way through to finally slice the boss in one fell swoop.

To be fair, while a lot of Shinobi's criticism comes in the form of not understanding the above Tate system, there are other factors at play. I can admit that Shinobi doesn't feel very beginner friendly despite the seeming simplicity of its core concepts; there's no tutorial or in-game explanation of the game's mechanics, and if you don't understand basics like wall-running or stealth dashing behind foes to get around enemy stances (since side and back attacks deal more damage and some foes can block frontal strikes), you'll find yourself getting walled and wombo comboed by foes rather quickly due to what appears to be a lack of both invincibility frames and the game's inclination towards stun-heavy enemy attacks. Moreover, the game is definitely quite punishing: health drops can feel a bit scarce at times, jumps feel quite committal since you can't alter your aerial drift mid-jump and must rely on expending your double jump or dash, and falling off the stage will result in instant death with no midway checkpoints attached to any stage. That said, the biggest challenge for me was the rudimentary camera. It's fairly static, and as a result, it becomes a bit of a chore having to constantly rotate the camera mid-combat to spot all appearing foes so you don't have to attack while they're off-screen. The lock-on system makes it easier to target singular enemies at a time (and is often essential because there's no way to dash upwards/downwards towards foes without it), but it does present the additional issue of constantly needing to tilt the camera up and down afterwards: if the camera is pointed downwards, aerial enemies and floating collectibles are tough to spot, but if the camera is pointed upwards, then blind platforming becomes a nightmare. The other prevalent critique that comes to mind are the level designs themselves: while I don't have complaints towards enemy placements, I find that the level design motifs tend to bleed into one another within individual stages (i.e. specific platform and wall placements are repeated verbatim within the span of a few minutes), which can make the stages feel like they drag on too long, especially when no midway checkpoints exist. I also wish that there weren't so many straight corridors/tunnels present throughout the game, and could have done with more open room environments with wall-running opportunities. Finally, the final boss was unfortunately a miserable experience due to wonky mob hurtboxes (my sword kept phasing through and missing the spawned small-fry), the multitude of stun-heavy attacks from foes, and the element of luck involved (since the final boss loved to turn temporarily invulnerable or teleport away many instances after I had successfully chained the weaker minions for damage).

Even despite my criticisms however, I don't think Shinobi is anywhere as hard as a lot of players have made it out to be, and it is exactly what I had envisioned a ninja game to be: swift and efficient bread & butter combat that emphasized quick thinking and efficient traversal just as much as steady reflexes. It really never gets old slashing and dashing between scores of foes, and then cutting straight away to a cinematic of Hotsuma dramatically turning his blade while his prey is simultaneously sliced to shreds behind him. In conjunction, I certainly enjoyed the campy narrative regarding themes of light vs dark and revenge and honor between a bunch of folks who studied the blade. Lastly, the varied and fantastic soundtrack alongside the sleek visuals was the cherry on top to elevate those vibes. If you're willing to meet this game halfway despite all the classic 2000s PS2 jank and the intimidating learning curve, then I think you'll find a truly exhilarating experience that was ahead of its time in many ways despite the lack of polish, and a title that I think modern developers could learn a lot from.

i am still not into the gameplay of turn-based rpgs, and i'm particularly critical of the way this one does it. no health bars or real explanations for whatever your actions are going to do, so it kind of feels like all the numbers showing up don't mean a whole lot to me and that i'm just bashing enemies blindly. you eventually develop a sense for what you're doing, but at first this really puzzled me and made me put off continuing the game for a long while. and while the whole game has much better QOL than i initially expected, there's still a lot of reasons to complain: you're slow, the movement through the menus can drag, saving the game's a bit of a chore, all around there's many tedious bits about this game that push me away.

it, then, says a lot that even in spite of all those setbacks i loved this experience. the world this game creates is absolutely brimming with creativity, fueled by its own absurdist logic and goofy kookiness that i find impossible not to love. the story is so fun to follow, even if at times it feels like it's being held together by duct tape. the emotional punches hit hard, and so do the horror elements filling up the later parts of the game. what a time.

also any game that makes me give stuff names is going to be subjected to losing a slight bit of emotional impact because i just had to name the main characters shit like "DUDE" and "BROOO" and that i'm attacking enemies with "PSI BALLS α"

While not the longest of games in the series, and they would ultimately pale in comparison to what would come later, the arcade Punch-Out and Super Punch-Out were still pretty good games, ones that still hold up almost 40 years after they released, still having a lot of personality and charm to it. With that being said though, these two games would end up being outshined greatly when Nintendo decided to take the series to the NES. And not only that, but they would also be doing so with the face of the, at the time, undisputed champion of the ring, Mike Tyson. This would occur when the at the time president of Nintendo of America saw him in action, and made a deal to use his likeness in the game… for three years, until then replacing him with a different character who nobody cares about for future releases of the game. That kinda sucks, but hey, that’s just business after all. Can’t do anything about it.

This is the very first game in the Punch-Out series that I have played, and the one that I spent the most time playing overall. There was something about it that seemed so charming and fun, despite it being a boxing game, that I had a great time playing it back in the day, even though I got my ass kicked many times, especially by Bald Bull, who I just couldn’t beat at the time, no matter what I tried. But now, I have beaten the entire game, and from my experience, I still had a pretty great time. Much like its arcade counterpart, there isn’t too many changes made to the sport in this game, and it isn’t that complicated or unique, but it stands out on its own from every other boxing game at the time by having that Nintendo charm spread all throughout, but having the difficulty to keep that drive to beat your opponents down much alive as you keep going.

The graphics, while definitely not even close to the quality of the original arcade titles, are still pretty good for the NES, and the character sprites and designs still retain the charm and energy seen from those titles, the music, while there aren’t too many tracks to listen to, are iconic, and still pretty good to listen to nowadays as you beat up people from around the world, the controls are simple, being what you would expect for a boxing game, but being all that you need in order to take on your numerous opponents, and the gameplay is pretty similar to that of the original games, but bigger, badder, and brutal-er.

Like with the other games, the game is a boxing game, where you take control of Little Mac, which is the best name for a main character in this universe, and you take on many different opponents in the ring from many different countries around the world, dodging, ducking, and counterattacking blows to learn your opponents’ moveset and get the upper hand, and become the ultimate title holder by the end of the game. Being an adaptation, not much of the formula is changed from the arcade games (if at all), but what makes this version much more appealing and iconic is not only because it was at home and more replayable, of course, but because there was more stuff here, not only in terms of the little segments that add more charm and story to the game, such as the training with Little Mac and Doc, but also how much longer the game lasts.

In the original two Punch-Out games, if you were good enough, you could beat both of them individually in less than 10 minutes. Yes, you could refight opponents on a much harder difficulty, but really, if you don’t want to do that, then there is no point to doing it. You won, plain and simple, go home at that point. But here, there are many more opponents and plenty more fights, so you will be at it for a while, and while a lot of the opponents have the same methods of attacking, a good chunk of them having different gimmicks of how they will try to take you down, such as with Bald Bull charging straight at you at certain times for a one hit KO, or King Hippo being more of a puzzle boss, where you have to find out exactly how to deal damage to him before he gets knocked down for good. It isn’t entirely complicated, and you can figure it out pretty quickly, but it is very memorable and extremely satisfying to take down a lot of these opponents.

And speaking of, this brings us to the main attraction of this game… Mike Tyso- I MEAN, Mr. Dream… yeah, definitely not as cool. He is the final boss of the game, and HOO BOY, if you aren’t ready for it, he will remind you as to why he was the champion of not just the game, but in real life boxing. If you aren’t too careful, he could instantly knock you down, and timing exactly when to dodge his attacks and when to counterattack yourself is a lot more hard and precise then it sounds. Yes, he has a clear pattern like everyone else, but with the speed he executes these attacks, and the damage he does to you in the process, it is no secret as to why he is considered one of the hardest bosses of the 8-bit era. Luckily though, I beat him! I just, you know, have to go to the hospital to fix my broken fingers after this fight.

If there were any complaints that I could give to the game, it would be that, while I do appreciate how much longer the game is compared to the originals, it does suffer from padding out the length for no reason. For the last main circuit in the game, you will need to refight a good number of the opponents you had already faced previously, and yes, while they are harder, they are practically unchanged from their original fight in terms of their movesets, so it is moreso about enduring these characters once again to eventually take them down once more to proceed forward. Yeah, not a big fan of that. It’s even weirder because, at that point, they had several other characters from the arcade titles they could’ve used, and they also could’ve made new characters as well, so I don’t understand why these rematches need to exist at all.

Overall, despite having a lot of unnecessary rematches, as well as the game being absolutely relentless with certain fights, the original Punch-Out for the NES still holds up extremely well, and while I wouldn’t say it is as good as later titles in the series, it still stands on its own for being what not only a Punch-Out game, but a boxing game for consoles should aspire to be. I definitely recommend it, not just for those who are fans of the later Punch-Out titles, but for those who wanna find out what else Nintendo had up their sleeves when it came to the NES library. Still though, kinda sucks that they couldn’t keep using Mike Tyson for the later releases. I mean, aside from contract expirations, what reasons would Nintendo POSSIBLY have for NOT wanting Mike Tyson to appear in their video games for general audiences?..... Wait, wha-

Game #272

I opted out of Vis and Weatherby's race because I hadn't played this once before and I was feeling lazy. I did get around to it shortly after though and I do think their frustration is pretty warranted.

This game is purely built around inconvenience. From the massive mazelike levels, to the weird inconsistent physics, to the awful special stages, to the joke characters. If you look at the tech demo that was made before this (titled Sonic Crackers for some reason) you can see there wasn't even much refining done to the core mechanics. It's all just so awkward and frustrating. Not really worth a go, but it's admittedly pretty funny to watch a friend suffer through it.

At least the bad ending is kinda amusing in how blunt and outlandish it is. If you don't get through those shitty special stages Metal Sonic WILL proceed to destroy the city and Kill Thousands

Ok, come on… you can do this, Mega… it’s just one more game, and you won’t have to worry about this stupid twat for a long time… deep breath... exhale... ok, HEY THERE! So, we have now come on to the final main installment in the Alex Kidd franchise, not counting the remake of the original or the BMX game that doesn’t exist. Not only that, but this last installment would be released for the Sega Master System this time and not for the Sega Genesis, because I guess Sega didn’t want to make any money at that point in time. And for this last hurrah for this forgotten mascot, we got ourselves… a crossover with Shinobi? Or, in actuality, it is a Shinobi game with Alex Kidd shoehorned into it.

See, this was originally supposed to be a Shinobi game that was made with a cutesy style, similar to that of Kid Dracula for Castlevania, or Wanpaku Graffiti for Splatterhouse. But, somewhere along in development, I guess they decided to put Alex Kidd in the main role instead. Somewhat of a weird choice, but then again, given how haphazardly this franchise was treated back when it was a thing, I am not really surprised. So, after this decision, we were then given Alex Kidd in Shinobi World.

Oh my god… I can’t believe it, guys… we’ve done it. I didn’t think it was possible, but we’ve done it! After five games, we have found an Alex Kidd game… that is ACTUALLY GOOD. EVERYTHING HAS GONE TOPSY-TURVEY! CATS AND DOGS ARE LIVING TOGETHER, WORLD PEACE HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN DECLARED, AND NINTENDO IS ACTUALLY TREATING THEIR CUSTOMERS WITH GENUINE RESPECT! IT IS ALL ABSOLUTE MADNESS!................... ok, but no, in all seriousness, this is actually a pretty good game. It may not be the most complex game of its time, and it once again shakes up the Alex Kidd formula (even though we really didn’t need it to be shaken up AGAIN), but for what we got here, I actually found myself to be enjoying it, and that is a blessing from the gods at this point.

The story is, yet again, your typical “guy saves girl” storyline, so the transformation of Alex Kidd into being just Sega’s Mario has been fully completed, the graphics are basically the same as every other Alex Kidd game on the Master System, so nothing to comment on there, the music is actually pretty good, but probably because it is Shinobi music and not Alex Kidd music, so that makes sense, the control is solid enough, even if climbing up poles and ropes could be awkward sometimes, and the gameplay is very simple, but again, it is a much needed improvement over the other Alex Kidd games, even if it yet again changes the formula.

The game pretty much plays exactly like a Shinobi game, where it is a 2D action platformer, where you go left to right through several stages, taking out plenty of enemies that stand in your way, gathering health items and powerups along the way, and taking on several bosses to reach your ultimate goal. Yes, it is pretty standard, and if this was just another Shinobi game, it probably wouldn’t be all that special, but for being an Alex Kidd game, it is a breath of fresh air compared to everything else, and the game itself was also pretty fun to play as well. It plays just as well as any of the other Shinobi games, and it is short enough to where you won’t be wasting your time on it. That may disappoint others, but I am much more of a fan of short and sweet games rather then long and tedious ones.

With that being said, if you are a fan of Alex Kidd, but not a fan of Shinobi, then there really isn’t that much for you here. It is just Shinobi: Starring Alex Kidd in the most literal sense, which some fans of Alex Kidd could like, but if you much prefer the gameplay of the other titles, then there isn’t that much here for you. In terms of the game itself though, I didn’t really have too many problems with it. I guess I could say it doesn’t really change things up in comparison to other Shinobi games, which is kinda lame, and in terms of the cutesy parody style that this game is going for, it doesn’t really do that much. Sure, it has that cute style to it, but other then the whacky bosses you face (with one of them literally just being a parody of Mario), there isn’t really any semblance of that kind of game here. Not to mention, there is a mini boss rush near the end of the game, but thankfully, it doesn’t last all that long, so it didn’t bother me that much.

Overall, while it really isn’t all that special of a game, not only is this a good Shinobi game, but it is a GREAT Alex Kidd game, and I now finally learned how to love Alex Kidd… just, you know, place him in a completely different game, and then you are all taken care of. I would recommend it for both Alex Kidd and Shinobi fans, as there is something there for both of these groups, and for those who just need a way to kill, like, 30 minutes of time. Now, with all that being done, I am finally done with Alex Kidd for a long time, and I am very happy about that, believe me……………………… I have to do it, don’t I? sigh, alright, fine, I’ll play the BMX game, but that won’t be for a long time. I wanna play some more good games until then.

Game #262

I wouldn't call this game outright good, but I definitely have played worse games from around this time.

Obviously, it still has its issues. The biggest one being the collision detection with the holes being way too strict. So strict that most of the time, getting out of one is followed by immediately falling back in. And while I do feel like it should have been more lenient, there is a solution of simply not holding a direction once you get out so you can check your surroundings.

And at the end of the day, the reason the game turned out the way it did was corporate greed. The game's sole developer, Howard Warshaw, was given just five weeks to make what he could to have it ready by Christmas. For comparison, most Atari games, even the ones that look and play like ass, take multiple people 5-6 months.

So yeah. A flawed game, but those "Top 10 Worst Video Games Ever" lists need to stop actin like it's the Battlefield Earth of the Atari

Completed as part of the Nintendo Wii release of Super Mario All-Stars and played in front of a live studio audience (LordDarias, Jenny, MagneticBurn, and Xenon.) I bring this up only because sheer obstinance and a desire to prove something was the main motivating factor in completing this baneful piece of video game "entertainment," and were it not for that I'd have probably dropped this around world 5 and played the good Super Mario 2 instead.

The history of The Lost Levels is extremely well documented, but to quickly recap: Takashi Tezuka took over the directorial role of Super Mario Bros. 2 from Miyamoto, who was busy on The Legend of Zelda, and set about designing the game with the philosophy that Japanese players mastered the previous Mario and needed something more challenging. Worried that he maybe went a little too far in some places, Tezuka slapped the tagline "for Super Players" on the box as a warning, and marketing was crafted around the game's high difficulty, featuring footage of Mario getting his shit rocked and children screaming at the TV. The more well-known beats of this story follow from Howard Phillips rejecting the game after being bewildered by Miyamoto's sadism (misattributed), and a reworked version of Doki Doki Literature Club releasing soon after as a proper follow-up to the original Super Mario Bros.. Arguably one of the most significant decisions in game history, and one that the Mario franchise as a whole owes a considerable amount of its identity to.

Not that The Lost Levels hasn't left its own mark on gaming. The entire concept of Kaizo hacks and similar brutal-by-design platformers originates here. The kind of intentionally malicious software designed for people who either loath themselves, have too much free time, or who suffer from speedrunner brain and actually enjoy making pixel-perfect jumps as part of a well-practiced routine. Although I think games don't necessarily have to be fun so long as they're trying to evoke another reaction by design, I do, you know, like to enjoy myself as a matter of personal preference. Trolling the player with deadly power-ups, hidden blocks, and fake exits is funny up to a point, but like any joke that gets stretched out for too long, it gets tiresome.

The Lost Levels' infamous level of difficulty is borne from incredibly rigid game design. The player is given progressively less freedom in how they approach the game, to the point that it imposes a narrow set of rules to complete each level and actively punishes the player for stepping out of line. Mario getting brained on the bottom of a hidden block and immediately eating shit because he had the audacity to jump over a hammer bro a few pixels later than what the game expected of him stops being amusing when you're experiencing it on world 8. Maze levels - the worst part of the original Super Mario Bros. - show up in greater frequency, as if to cement this design philosophy of "screw you, play the way we want you to." There are no checkpoints in castle levels, which are always designed to be the most sadistic in a world's batch of four, but by around world 7 the concept of check points are about as dead as God. They cease to be. Do the level right or don't do it at all. Thankfully, All-Stars throws the player a bone and lets them retry a level they game overed on rather than restart the whole world, a kindness the original version of the game does not afford.

Now before anyone reads all of that and just assumes grandpa and his arthritic thumbs suffered from a case of the "not-skilleds," I'd like to point out that I am a Super Player™. That's right, I beat this without save states. I could say I did this because I had originally intended to play it on real hardware, but the truth is... I couldn't remember the save state hotkeys in Dolphin and was too lazy to check. Or that was the case for about half of The Lost Levels, because after a certain point it was absolutely a matter of not letting the game beat me. I've extolled the virtues of quitting games you don't like, but The Lost Levels felt like such a personal attack I went back to being the old me.

I did it, though! I learned the game and I beat it on its own terms... Its very specific terms, where every level is like its own contract. As something of a Lost Levels expert, I will say the game is not without its positives. Actually overcoming a level you're stuck on and executing with a level of precision that appeases the beast results in a profound sense of satisfaction. There were moments after some of the crueler levels where I started to understand what people see in Kaizo games. It's the sense of accomplishment, the feeling of all that tension melting away, perhaps even the cheers and encouragement of your friends hitting you like a drug. But it is also undercut somewhat by the fact that you're celebrating never having to do any of that bullshit ever again. I made that impossible jump, I can die now without doing it a second time. That's my reward.

I think Jenny put it best when she said "this game sucks."

So far in this series, we have had a trilogy of frustrating, yet wonderful games on the NES (all the problems with Simon’s Quest aside), and two handheld titles that weren’t quite perfect, with Castlevania: The Adventure in particular being extremely flawed, but for what they were, they were pretty effective as the first handheld titles for the series. Oh yeah, and there was also that one arcade title as well, but shhhhh, we don’t talk about that game in this household. Now, after this slew of titles, it was about time that this series was brought to the next generation of systems, with Masahiro Ueno being up to the task, not only deciding to make the game less frustrating in comparison to previous games, but also making a game that would be a remake of sorts of the original Castlevania. So, after two years of development, Super Castlevania IV was released to the public, and has since been praised and enjoyed for many decades to come.

This is considered to be one of, if not THE best, game in the entire Castlevania series, and when you play it, you can definitely see why. I myself wouldn’t consider it the best game in the series, as there would be several games made later down the road that I would say I enjoyed a lot more then this game, but don’t think that I am saying this game is bad, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. In my opinion, this is what I would consider the PERFECT rendition of the original Castlevania, and it is executed flawlessly in practically everything that it sets out to do. Yeah, it is kind of a step back when compared to Castlevania III and the features that game introduced (which is understandable, but still), and some of the bosses can be a huge pain in the ass, but none of those things ruined my experience with what is the perfect way the Castlevania series could have entered the 16-bit era.

The story is… basically the exact same as the original Castlevania, which is completely fine, as you really don’t need a big story to get you into the action, the graphics are absolutely fantastic, not only having the perfect look for these gothic environments, but also having fantastic atmosphere, which can even be seen as early on as the intro cutscene and the title screen, the music is GODLY, with plenty of original tracks along with remixes of classic themes, and there are some real head-bangers to be heard from this, the control is… I’m not ready to gush about them just yet, we will get to them eventually, and the gameplay is a pretty good evolution of the classic formula, while keeping things mostly familiar for those who are coming from the previous games in the series.

The game is your typical 2D Castlevania title, where you travel through many different side-scrolling levels, whipping many different gothic monsters along the way, gathering hearts, sub-weapons, and items to help you deal with the many baddies seen throughout, and taking on many larger-then life bosses, with the bosses themselves having great variety, either being classic monsters we have seen before, or new types of monsters with their own gimmick. Yeah, the game sticks closely to the original formula from the original Castlevania, which is kind of a letdown, again, considering what Castlevania III brought to the table, but what makes up for this is how the game manages to take this formula and perfect it.

Playing through the game overall does feel a lot less frustrating then that of the original game, with there not being too many instances of cheap damage or deaths that you will encounter. Now don’t get me wrong, this game is still pretty damn hard (after all, it wouldn’t be a Castlevania game if it was easy), but a lot of the hardships you will encounter can be taken care of pretty easily, and you will feel responsible for the damage you take and deaths you suffer… well, most of the time anyway. There will be several bosses, especially towards the end, where you will have quite a difficult time with them, as they are relentless, but thankfully, with the help of the unlimited continues, they shouldn’t take too long for you to take down once you learn their patterns.

One of the defining features of this game, and one of the reasons that I absolutely adore it, is with the control. This game has the BEST control scheme out of any of the classic Castlevania games, and I wish the future games would’ve stuck to, but hey, at least we have it here. For all of the previous game, while the control was enough to get a hang of, it was still pretty limited, with a very stiff movement and being unable to change your jump in midair. Thankfully now, despite still have a somewhat stiff movement, you can change your direction in midair while jumping, as well as do things like jump onto stairs to help you get through places faster. It may not sound like much, but it does help out a lot, making the pacing much faster, and giving you an edge up over the enemies. And speaking of getting an edge up over the enemies, this also goes into your whip, which is the best that it has been and will ever be in any of these games. Not only does it still pack a punch and have a great length, especially with the powerups, but you can also whip it in 8 different directions, as well as being able to… flail it around like an idiot, for some reason. I don’t need to explain to you how helpful this maneuverability and attack range is, allowing me to get plenty of hits and kills in on enemies that, if the attacking was the same as the original game, I would never be able to do easily without some damage.

Overall, despite some slight hiccups to be found here and there, this is definitely the best entry in the Castlevania series so far, and one of the best in the entire series. If you were a fan of the original trilogy of games, or you want to experience the series but don’t know where to start, then I would highly recommend it, as I guarantee that you will have at least some fun with it. I can’t even think of an ending joke this time around, the game is just too good. Go play it. NOW.

Game #254

Mega Man: The Power Battle is a cool little novelty, taking the formula of Mega Man and converting it into a fighting game taking down the Robot Masters from their respective games as either Mega Man, Proto Man, or Bass. For what it is it's kind of fun, though if you have played most of the classic series, you'll have no problem playing this game. This has got to be the easiest fighting game I've played not because I'm familiar with the core gameplay (I mean I am), but with the continue system. Every time you die and put in another credit, you resume the gameplay with the opponent's health remaining unchanged after taking some damage. I experienced everything in like half an hour, and there was no incentive for me to keep playing. I recommend it to those who love to explore the weird world of Mega Man spinoffs, but don't expect much from this one.

Similar to Donkey Kong 64, this was a game that was also stuck in my backlog for a very long time. I don't remember exactly when I got Quest 64 but I remember starting it around 2012-2013-ish which was not too long after my initial unfinished DK64 playthrough. Similar to that game, I had around 2 unfinished playthroughs before I decided I would put an end to the journey through it once and for all years later. Despite what a lot of players and critics think, I find Quest 64 to be a guilty pleasure of mine.

Quest 64 is the textbook definition of basic. Most of the areas you explore look basic, the NPCs are generic, the fact you only have 4 elements to cast spells from, the story (or what little there actually is of it), and even the MC's name are all so plain and average it would put most people to sleep. However, I'm an average person with a sometimes below-average taste in video games so it isn't too surprising I would enjoy it. Mini rant aside, its simplicity is also one of Quest's greatest qualities.

Before I get deeper into the game, the first thing I'd like to mention is how pretty the graphics look for its time. It's classic N64 eye-candy and played a big role in my curiosity in trying this game out. Quest 64 has 4 types of spells, water, rock, fire, and wind. Each of them have attacks that are of those 4 elements, but some additional perks like being able to heal or weaken your enemies' defenses are linked to leveling up certain elements. It isn't much, but having more doesn't always equate to being better. There are two ways to level up your spells, the first way is to do it the regular way by fighting enemies and watching your spirit/exp build up and the second is by searching for spirits scattered all around the game's towns and overworld. Collecting spirits is a clever way of leveling up as it not only benefits you for going slightly out of your way but also heavily reduces the need to grind. You also gain more MP by using spells and HP by either using your staff to attack or by taking damage. Since you will be doing that by simply playing the game, you won't have trouble building those stats and should have more than enough HP & MP by the time you reach the endgame. Quest 64 is pretty short for an RPG. It only took me about 8-10 hours long and it doesn't overstay its welcome for very long. Even though I appreciate a lot of what Quest 64 does, it still has some obvious problems.

The spells are not well-balanced at all. Besides leveling up wind for the first boss, it & fire become pretty much irrelevant for the rest of the game. A lot of RPGs have broken spells and abilities but for a game as simplistic as Quest 64, they definitely could have found a way to make each element useful. The characters have virtually no personality. It may not have the most complex story or anything, but I wish that the MC, his dad, and the villains had at least SOME personality and more information about them. The overworld and dungeons also could have included more details that could indicate where you are or/and also add a little more variety to them. I couldn't count how many times I got lost despite its linearity. This was a problem that greatly contributed to why it took me so long to beat the game.

It's certainly no Final Fantasy killer but Quest isn't as bad as people say it is and it had the potential to become a good franchise had the sequel have gotten released. For those who are new to RPGs or just want something that isn't very complex, Quest 64 isn't as terrible of a choice as one may be led to believe.

If you know me, you know I absolutely love games with demons in them. Demons are an avenue for artists to draw the most insane shit you have ever seen, absolutely nothing is off the table if you're designing a demon. There are games that I loved that I would not have even considered playing if they did not have demons in them, so saying "oh yeah, this game has demons in it!" is a really good way to get me to try it.

Helltaker is not a demon game. It is a game about women with horns and tails. 0/10, everyone lied to me when they said this was right up my alley. I do like a good suit, and I like how protag-kun's design has actual personality and isn't just the most generic thing you've ever seen, but I can't forgive false advertising like this. If you love demons, you will not get ANYTHING out of Helltaker. Smh.

MultiVersus is the definition of a mediocre fighting/party game. A crossover with all of the Warner Bros IPs sounds cool on paper but falls flat in its gameplay. If I can describe the gameplay for MultiVersus, it'll be the "button-mash to win" type. It's definitely like Smash Bros, but for that series there is some skill involved to take down other players; MultiVersus has none of that. I wish I spent more time on this before the Open Beta was shut down until its eventual full release in 2024, but I've seen about everything the game has to offer. I also hate how the developers monetize an Open Beta with microtransactions and offer Deluxe Editions, and the fact that this won Best Fighting Game last year that could've been given to other games such as King of Fighters XV is beyond me.