For today’s review, I am gonna spare you all from my usual terrible intros, because before playing this game, I had absolutely no clue that this thing even existed. I was just casually scrolling around on the internet, looking for a game to play before I had to go back to the hellscape I call my own life, and I found this game called Hagane - The Final Conflict, and it sounded like it was gonna be the most generic thing ever. I mean, that is the impression that I got just from looking at both the name and cover of the game, which look like something most people would potentially pass up on renting whenever they would be strolling through their local Blockbuster. But hey, it was probably gonna be better then the next two games that I am gonna be reviewing after this, so I figured I would go ahead and give it a shot to see how it was.

When I did start up the game though, I then realized just from taking one look at the stage screen and listening to the music that I had actually seen this game before, but it had been a very long time since I had seen it. All I remember from seeing it is that it was apparently incredibly difficult, which did make me somewhat nervous to continue going, but not only did I find that the difficulty wasn’t really all that bad, but also that this game… actually kinda fucking rules. It was definitely lacking in several areas, which may or may not have contributed to it not being commonly known, but even ignoring those few factors, I had a great time playing this game, and I would easily say it is one of the best hidden gems that I have played from the SNES line-up.

The story is fairly simple for a game that has this setting and title, where a ninja clan known as the Fuma clan is attacked by the evil Koma clan, with them killing most of their members and stealing their most sacred treasure, the Holy Grail. However, in the depths of the chaos, one man by the name of Hagane survived the attack, and seeing this, a mysterious figure known as Momochi took him and brought him back to full strength, transforming his body to that of a cyborg with superior strength, speed, and intelligence, while still keeping his brain intact. With these new enhancements at his disposal, Hagane then vows to take revenge on the Koma clan, setting out to destroy them all and to reclaim the Holy Grail. It is a pretty basic revenge plot, and one that you won’t be getting if you just rely on the game’s cinematics, but it is good enough for those that are wanting to know a little more about what is going on and why your main character is so cool.

The graphics are… good enough, not looking too different from plenty of other games of the era that share a similar setting and premise, but it is impressive enough for the time, especially with the cutscenes, the music is… also good enough, having plenty of decent tracks for when you will be running through these levels and slicing down everyone you see, but nothing stuck out to me as being really great or memorable, the control is incredible, feeling just as snappy, responsive, and fast as you would want a game like this to be, even if the jumping can take a little getting used to at points, and the gameplay is also just as fun, fast, and snappy, while also making sure to challenge you in plenty of areas to encourage you to keep going.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Hagane, go through a set of five different stages, each having multiple sections that will have you going through several different locations to reach your goal, slash through plenty of different enemies, big or small, using whatever different weapons you wish to use while swapping out between them at any point, gather plenty of ammunition for said weapons, health pickups, 1-ups, and items that can expand how much health you have to help you out for the journey ahead, and take on plenty of big bad bosses, who were actually not that hard to take on, while still providing a decent enough challenge to where it didn’t feel like I was kicking around a toddler for a minute or so before moving on to kicking around the next toddler. For those of you who have played other similar action platformers in the past, such as Ninja Gaiden or Shinobi, then this kind of gameplay style should be very familiar to you, and also for those of you who have played those two games, you would know exactly what makes one of these games work, and let me tell you, Hagane: The Final Conflict works REALLY well, and was great to play from start to finish.

If you couldn’t tell already at this point, this game is an action platformer themed around ninjas, and if you are asking me, one of the most important things about a platformer surrounding ninjas is that the movement must be quick, and the combat must be fast and satisfying. I mean, that’s what ninjas are all about, right? Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi both managed to accomplish this by giving the player plenty of speed to work with and a satisfying basic attack to use to slice down your enemies, while making sure to kick your teeth in every once in a while just to remind you what game you’re playing, ya idiot. This game manages to do all of that and then some, providing very fast combat, a vast arrangement of weapons for you to choose from, plenty of different platforming challenges to face using different kinds of abilities, and different types of gameplay segments to make sure that the gameplay feels fresh and interesting the more you go through it.

Not to mention, the weapons that do get to use throughout the journey are very helpful. I mainly just stuck with the sword for most of the journey, because my inner Ninja Gaiden and Strider wouldn’t let me switch to anything else for a fraction of a second, but at points, it was nice to see what other weapons could do, such as a shuriken that you can throw at enemies and grenades that can deal some pretty explosive damage. In addition, there was also the chain, a weapon that could not only be used to hurt enemies from a distance, but also allows you to reach higher areas when simple jumps just won’t do the trick, which I used towards my advantage a total of… one time, but hey, it was neat to see it there. Mix all that with a special screen-nuke attack that can come in handy when you are in a pinch, and you have an arsenal that is both versatile and entertaining to mess around with, which is the best possible kind of arsenal that you can have in any game like this.

So nothing about the gameplay or difficulty stood out to me as anything to complain about, because while it was challenging in many areas and some of the platforming could’ve been handled a bit better, it wasn’t enough to where I ended up getting mad or too aggravated, and I managed to have a good time with it. My one major gripe with the game, ultimately, would have to be with its presentation. Now, if you have been reading these reviews for a while, you would know that I prioritize gameplay over everything else, because in most circumstances, if the game isn’t fun to play, then that kinda defeats the whole purpose of me liking it or playing it at the end of the day. However, I still do think that presentation plays a big factor into how much one can enjoy a game, and when it comes to Hagane, it is one of the most generic looking and sounding games from this era. Yeah, it still looks and sounds pretty good for the era, but none of it stands out as being anything original or eye-catching, looking too much like any other ninja-themed game on the market, hence why most people probably didn’t own it back in the day, and why it now costs about an arm and a leg for a used copy on eBay. It isn’t enough to where it makes the gameplay any worse, but it is something to bring up nonetheless.

Overall, despite its bland visuals and soundtrack, this still remains as one of the best hidden gems that I have ever gotten to experience from the SNES library, giving the right amount of satisfying combat and platforming elements you could want from a ninja game, keeping the challenge high but not to the point of being unfair, and being short enough to where you can breeze through it in an hour or so and feel satisfied by what you had just experienced. I would definitely recommend it for those who are big fans of other titles like Ninja Gaiden or Shinobi, as well as those who are looking for something new to play for your SNES system, because I would definitely say it is worth loading up on your SNES emulator and giving a shot… cause you probably won’t be buying an actual physical copy of it for yourself, unless you have hundreds of dollars just collecting dust somewhere. It does suck though that this game never did get any kind of continuation or follow-up, cause I would’ve definitely loved to see a sequel come along to expand on what this game does, or even a hack-’n-slash reboot in the same vein as what Ninja Gaiden or Shinobi did. But hey, a man can dream, I guess…

Game #560

It makes complete sense that, out of all of the old Hudson Soft franchises that Konami would bring back into the modern gaming scene, Bomberman would be the one that they would choose, but the iteration of Bomberman they would bring back was a bit of a surprise. They have released a small variety of Bomberman games in the past couple of years, like Amazing Bomberman and whatever this stupid weeb shit is, but for the most part, the series has had its primary focus on the Super Bomberman set of games, starting with Super Bomberman R, and continuing on with other titles like Super Bomberman R2, which was released last year. These games could be considered completely separate entities from the other Super Bomberman games, considering how they look and feel much different from those games, but if that is the case, then why would they even bother putting the “Super” in that title in the first place? Not to mention, it is interesting seeing this kind of take on the character and its world in recent years, which has gotten me interested in this little sub-series, even if most of it has nothing to do with what is currently being made. But anyways, I figured I would start to give the sub-series a try by, of course, starting out with the first game, Super Bomberman.

I haven’t played this particular iteration of Bomberman before, nor any of the other games in this sub-series aside from SBR, but I have seen it in action several times before, primarily due to this video by Sr. Pelo, which, if you haven’t watched it, please do so, cause it is funny shit. But anyway, it did make me wanna try out the game, even though when going into it, I wasn’t expecting much from it. It was probably just gonna be another Bomberman game, just this time on the SNES, and to be fair, it is mostly just that, but there was enough new stuff there, as well as enough charm and character, to where I ended up having a pretty great time with the game as a whole, and I would say it is my favorite Bomberman game that I have played so far.

The story is somewhat complex for this franchise, but not by much, where a robot tournament is being held by the evil Carat Diamond in Diamond City, with the robots in the tournament having the same capabilities that Bomberman have, taken from the Black Bomberman after being kidnapped by them, but soon after, Black Bomberman escapes their clutches and goes to warn the White Bomberman as to what is going on, so it is up to the two of them to team up and take on Carat Diamond and his evil minions to stop their dastardly deeds. It is a simple premise, yet one that is somewhat creative and enjoyable, even though you will most likely not know what the fuck is going on in the game itself if you didn’t try reading up on the plot beforehand.

The graphics are fantastic, having plenty of personality and detail put into all of the enemies, characters, and bosses throughout the stages, and the game’s overall style is much more preferable then what had come before it on the NES, the music is pretty sweet, having plenty of great tracks that I really grew to love while playing through the game, such as this one and this one, which I never got tired of listening to when they popped up in the game, and the gameplay/control is exactly like previous Bomberman games, so you should know almost exactly what to expect if you have played literally any other game in the series before, but compared to past games, it does add in a few new additions that make the game that much more fun addicting to play for me, hence why it is now my favorite title in the series so far.

The game is an isometric maze game, where you take control of whatever color of Bomberman you choose, go through a set of six different worlds, most of them containing their own set of levels that you have to conquer, use your bombs to blow up whatever debris is around you and blow up the many foes that you will encounter, while also making sure to not blow up yourself in the process, gather plenty of power ups that can either increase your massive firepower to heights you never thought possible, or become a detriment to you and cause you grief, because why would you pick up something that has a skull on it, you fucking idiot, and take on several bosses that will provide a bit of challenge if you aren’t quite ready for them. Most of it is your standard Bomberman experience, nothing to really get too impressed by, but it is the added charm and character from the graphics and animations in this game, coupled with the new additions to the series, that made me end up loving it more than I probably ever would have if they weren’t there to begin with.

While this isn’t the first game in the series to introduce them, this game now has boss fights, something that was severely lacking in the original two NES Bomberman games, with the bosses ranging from your generic big bad robots to a nightmare-inducing clown head that I want away from me as soon as possible. These bosses, as a whole, aren’t really all that challenging, and if you know what you are doing, you can take down a lot of them pretty easily, with the exception of the final boss, who does require a little more strategy to take on, and I did struggle quite a bit with him. Nevertheless, these bosses still provided fun enough challenges, and it was a nice change of pace to take these guys on whenever I got to them.

In addition, you can now play through the main game with a friend, who will control Black Bomberman and can do just as many things as the White Bomberman can do. I myself didn’t have the pleasure of playing through the game with a friend, because I am a lonely sack of shit, but the fact that the option is there is still pretty neat, and I imagine that that would be the best way to play through the main mode… even if you can still blow each other up with your bombs. If you are not a fan of doing that in a co-operative setting, then not to fear, because as is tradition with Bomberman, there is a Battle Mode where you and up three other people (with the multitap, of course) can duke it out in an explosive match in the arena to see which one of you truly is the mightiest Bomberman of them all. Naturally, this is definitely where most of the fun that this game offers is gonna be had, and from what I have played, this is definitely the best multiplayer mode that the series has had so far, even if other games after this obviously have managed to surpass this by a long shot.

Of course though, given that this is a Bomberman game that we are talking about, most of it is still the same old shit that you have been doing time and time again, and for those who can’t get into these games, or even for those who have gotten sick of them, there will be nothing in this game that will win you over above the others. Yeah, there are those new features and enhanced modes that I mentioned, but most of these additions are just standard features you can find in any other game, so having them here really doesn’t seem like a selling point, unless you are someone who is a big fan of the series like I am. Also, some parts of the game were somewhat annoying to deal with, such as World 5 of the main mode, which was just a gauntlet against the Robot Bombermen that were made, and let me tell you, fighting them was just… sharp inhale, SO MUCH FUN (kill me). But hey, despite all that, for a game that is over 30 years old at this point in a series full of plenty of other, very similar games, it still manages to be a fun time regardless, and that is all I care about at the end of the day.

Overall, despite not that much change, Super Bomberman managed to take the typical Bomberman formula, give it a new coat of paint, and expand on it enough to where I can say it is a great time, one that is great to play whether through the single-player mode or with some buddies in some versus matches, and one that fans of the series can get a kick out of all the same. I would definitely recommend it for those who are big fans of this series, as well as those who just couldn’t get into what past games like Bomberman 1 or 2 gave them, because while there isn’t much new here, it manages to polish up most of the rough edges and add enough personality to where you could get a kick out of it regardless of what came before. satisfied sigh... you know what, I am glad that I decided to stick to these games, cause each entry just seems to be getting better and better as I keep playing them, and it makes me wanna get to the next game as soon as possible! But, of course, I gotta look at some other stuff first, just to not make things too stale. So, I’ll see you all in a month or so when I inevitably play Super Bomberman 2, and probably forget this game ever existed at all.

Game #559

Well, after taking a brief detour into the spin-off world of this franchise with a surprisingly great puzzle game, I think it’s about time that I stepped back into the proper set of Bubble Bobble games. For every single one of these games that I had reviewed before, I had already had prior knowledge of them from previous playthroughs I did in the past, but from here on out, everything is gonna be brand new for me, so I am curious to see how exactly Taito manages to evolve this franchise over the next few entries, while also hopefully trying to not destroy it in the process. But of course, because consistency is a myth, we have yet another confusing entry in the series that calls itself Bubble Bobble II, which is not only supposed to be a sequel to the original game, it also apparently takes place after the events of Parasol Stars. I would question this, but I think the best way to approach this series’s continuity is how one should approach the Zelda timeline: pretending it doesn’t exist. So, I managed to do that and have a good ol’ time with the game in question, Bubble Symphony.

Like I mentioned before, I had never played this particular entry in the series before, but I was pretty excited to check it out for several reasons, primarily because this was gonna be the first time that I was gonna be playing the arcade versions of one of these games. Not to say that the other versions of the previous games were bad, but it is clear from what I have heard that the arcade versions are the true versions of these games, so I was ready to go in and fully see one of these games in their full, intended glory. So now that I have played one of these games in their full intended glory, I can certainly say that… it’s a Bubble Bobble game alright, but that’s not a bad thing in this case. It still manages to be a great game, giving fans plenty of what they love about this franchise, while bringing in some changes and nice surprises to make you want to see everything this game has to offer.

The story is appropriately simple for this franchise, where four kids named Bubblun, Bobblun, Kululun, and Cororon are having a good time reading some books like model citizens, but while doing so, they inadvertently unleash the evil Hyper Drunk into the world, who turns them into dragons and sent into another world, so it is up to the four of them to find their way back home, defeat Hyper Drunk, and find a way to return back to normal, which is not only a good enough plot for one of these games, but it also proves just how dangerous books can be, so thank god something showed us the truth. The graphics are pretty great, not only being as bright, colorful, and energetic as you could ever want, but also having great designs for all of the characters, enemies, and bosses that make the game a joy to look at, the music is pretty good, once again not having too many tracks, and the ones that are there are played over and over again, but they are good tracks to listen to, even if they aren’t as catchy as the classic tunes, and the gameplay/control is almost identical to that of previous Bubble Bobble games, with a few twists and turns here or there, so fans and newcomers alike should be able to jump in and have a good time with it immediately.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of one of the four kids that I mentioned earlier, go through many different levels spanning across many different worlds, shoot many enemies in the face with your unlimited supply of bubbles so that you can pop them out of existence and collect their remains in the form of delicious fruits and other various items, gather plenty of different power ups and items which can not only change what your bubbles can do, but also give you temporary boosts and lead towards getting the best ending of the game, and take on several bosses that will give you a hard time if you aren’t rapid-firing your bubble power like crazy at them to take them out really quickly. Anyone who has played Bubble Bobble before this will be able to understand pretty much everything this game is doing, as there aren’t really any huge changes to the formula to shake things up, but not only is the main gameplay still fun enough to where you don’t care too much about that, but also the game has a touch of personality and charm that none of the games previously have managed to match, even if very close.

Given how this is meant to be a sequel to the original Bubble Bobble, it does implement some things that weren’t present in that game originally, such as with the inclusion of more power ups to mess around with and more bosses to fight, and while none of these are anything too new to the franchise as a whole, the way they are implemented in this game does feel pretty natural and very fun to experience. It feels like this is the proper evolution of the original title, not needing to completely reinvent the main gameplay or change up any of the characters and scenarios, which definitely helps it out a lot more in the end. Not to mention, the core elements of the original game that are brought back here are vastly improved upon, such as with the playable characters, with there being not only more options to choose from, but each one is distinct from each other, having their own attribute to take advantage of, which is pretty neat, and does allow for a lot of experimentation to see which kind of playstyle suits you best, even if I just mainly stuck with Bubblun for most of the journey.

Much like in the typical Bubble Bobble fashion, the game also has a lot of things to do and see, having many different worlds to see and levels to beat, while also having a ton of replay value as well. After beating each world, you are given the choice of what different world you want to go to next, with there being specific paths you can take that will lead to several different endings, encouraging you to replay the game to take different routes to see what else you can find. Not to mention, each of the worlds have unique themes to them, such as the generic ones like a dessert-themed world and a toy-themed world, or eve ones that are based on other Taito properties, like Space Invaders and Kiki KaiKai (Pocky & Rocky? What the fuck is that?). It is really weird to see these kinds of worlds in this world, but at the same time, my huge-ass smile signifies how much I like them, and the game wouldn’t be as great if they weren’t in there at all.

If none of that bubbles your bobble though (I am so sorry), then there probably won’t be much else here to win you over if you weren’t into the other games. Most of it is your typical Bubble Bobble affair, where ya blow bubbles, ya pop enemies, they turn into weird objects, and you question what drugs you took before turning on the game: we all know how this goes at this point. Even if you ignore that though, there are still those elements that I, a true Bubble Bobbler at heart, still am not a fan of, such as the fact that you need to find all of these separate objects in order to get the true ending. While it isn’t as cryptic as the original game, it is random enough to where it can be a pain at times, especially since you are always on a time limit, and I don’t want that whale ghost to bubble my bobble at all.

Overall, despite not that much change and some elements of the franchise being here that I just want to leave me alone, this was still yet another great entry in this great series, full with enough energy and adorable vibes that makes me wanna keep playing, plenty for you to do and see, and small changes that do the job at making this feel like a true sequel to the original, despite all the other follow-ups that came beforehand. I would definitely recommend it for those who are big fans of the series, or for those who have never played this series before, because even if the game is a little more obscure than others, it is a great place to start, and I’m sure you’ll have a great time with it, even with a friend right alongside you. And since I can’t think of any joke to end this review off of, I guess I will make a promise to you all that, from this point on, I will never EVER make a “bubble your bobble” joke again. Probably already lost enough followers as is just from that joke, no need to keep bobbling it up like that.

Game #558

Back in 2022, I played Dr Robotniks Mean Bean Machine. I knew it was Puyo Puyo with Sonic characters, but I wanted to give it a try since I was playing a lot of Sonic games around that time. Turns out I sucked at it! Only got to like stage 6 before I gave up, and even then I'm surprised I got that far lol.

Kirby's Avalanche is Puyo Puyo again, only Kirby themed. This time around I only got to stage 3 before I quit(if were not counting the starter stages which I did complete). Idk man, my brain just melts sometimes whenever I'm playing. I'm way more of a Tetris guy than a Puyo Puyo guy, but those early stages were somewhat fun I'd say.

Besides me liking Kirby more than Sonic, something I definitely thought put this over Mean Bean Machije was the dialogue before each stage. Goddamn, Kirby is savage in this one. Maybe feels a little out of character, especially for how he is nowadays but it was very entertaining. Had to look up all the scenes cuz I knew I didn't want to miss them. If anything, its worth it to see them alone cuz they're hilarious.

Considering how short this game is too, the length of the OST is super short as well but the couple stage themes being remixes of Kirby's Adventure songs was nice.

Yeah, as you can see, I don't have much to say about this one. It's Puyo Puyo but Kirby themed like I said and I got filtered by Puyo Puyo yet again 😢. Guess that series just isn't for me haha. Kinda stinks this is another Kirby game I ended up not beating but it will probably be the last (unless one of the future spinoffs filter me as well). Either way, next Kirby game is Dreamland 2 so I'm happy to finally get to another mainline again.

You know what I haven’t done in a hot minute or so? Make fun of ADK, so let’s do that again! I mean, why not, it should be a fun thing to do, and besides, not doing so has been eating at my soul. I have been too nice to them recently, with me actually somehow liking World Heroes 2 Jet, so it only feels right to go to one of their older products, to examine how bland and uninspired it is, and then point out all of the other ridiculous elements present in said product along the way. But what other ground have they covered? They’ve done fighting games, they’ve done platformers, they’ve done run ‘n guns, so what else can they screw up at… looking at list... a beat-’em-up? Oh, that’s perfect! So now, for most of you at home, let’s go ahead and talk about a game that you all have never heard of in your life, Ninja Combat.

Like you, I had no clue that this game existed until I decided to look it up for myself, and based on what I did see about it, it looked extremely underwhelming. It was a launch title for the Neo Geo systems back in the day, so that is to be expected, but that doesn’t automatically spell out the quality of a game. I mean, Super Mario World was a launch title, and we still love that game, so who’s to say that this game wouldn’t be any better or worse? Well, unfortunately though, it isn’t quite on the same level as Super Mario World, and it wasn’t bad enough to where I could have fun ripping it to shreds, so the most I can say is that it is just… there. It does it’s job, and I bet you could have a good time with it with the right person to join you, but if you aren’t immediately on board with what the game gives you from the minute you press the start button, then you are gonna be in for a very mediocre time.

The story is just as generic as the game itself, where the evil Shadow Family starts to take over New York with the help of their Ninja Tower and all the baddies that dwell within it, so it is up to the brothers Joe and Hayabusa, along with a few other faces they run into along the way, to storm the tower and take the family down, which can only be an exciting plot if you have never played any other game in your life, which, let’s be honest, the chances of this being someone’s first game are VERY slim. The graphics are ok, looking on the same level as all of ADK’s other games I have played so far, meaning that it looks on par with other Neo Geo titles, but somehow feels cheap and artificial when you play it, the music is fine, having decent tracks for the levels and boss fights, but they are gonna leave your mind just as quickly as the game itself when you are done with it, and the gameplay/control is very generic and simple for the genre, but somehow it feels more soulless and generic then most of the other beat-’em-up games I have ever played… but it somehow isn’t as bad as Rushing Beat, so it gets a gold star!

The game is your typical hack and slash beat-’em-up, where you take control of Joe, Hayabusa, or any of the other characters you meet along the way, take on seven different stages through several different generic environments on your way to take on whatever lies in the Ninja Tower, slice down plenty of enemies using plenty of different attacks, including a special attack that you can pull off if you have enough health, gather plenty of weapons to help you out along the way, as well as scrolls that can grant you increased strength and speed, along with extra lives at points, and take on plenty of bosses that do look threatening enough, but is about as challenging as breathing air… or at least, if you have infinite credits like I do. You see it, you know it, you love it, you know what you are getting into with the game, but as I have mentioned several times already, aside from one or two admirable aspects of the game, there isn’t really anything here to make this anything more than a generic time waster for a half hour before you never touch it again.

I will say, despite how generic and soulless the game is as a whole, I did like some aspects about it, such as how it handles additional characters and power-ups. Like I mentioned before, there are those scrolls that upgrade your character as you keep going, which is pretty sweet to get and hang onto, and for the first couple of stages, whenever you beat them, you end up unlocking a new character that you can switch to in-between stages, and they can be fun to mess around with, especially Musashi, who became my go-to character for the remainder of the game. However, that’s really where all of my compliments end, as when you play the game for yourself, you can feel all the care and love that the developers DIDN’T put into this, especially when it comes to your main attack, which is so broken that you can pretty much just spam it and take care of whatever comes your way. Yeah, bosses require a bit more strategy, but most of the other enemies aren’t a threat whatsoever, and you can defeat them all with one hand while checking your phone, which I’m pretty sure I did at one point.

In addition to that, there are also the typical roadblocks that I ran into when it came to what I don’t enjoy in these kinds of games, such as arcade syndrome, where the game throws many enemies at you at once and expects you to deal with them all before they get the chance to take you down, and there are repeating bosses, which aren’t too bad most of the time, but there was at least one instance where a boss was repeated TWICE, because I guess the devs just loved fighting him so much, they wanted us to feel that same love as well. With all that said and done, again, I will say that the game as a whole isn’t really all that bad. It accomplishes what it sets out to do, and again, if you need some way to kill 30 minutes, it is a good way to do so, but with nothing here to not only stand out, but also make it seem like the devs had any kind of idea how to make an engaging product, why would you choose to play it over anything else?

Overall, despite the fun-at-times combat and some gameplay features that I did end up liking, this is one of the most “nothing” beat-’em-ups that I have ever played, doing the bare minimum and showing off what the Neo Geo is capable of, but not giving any reason for players to return to it, or even choose it over the many better games in the genre that came out before and since. I would recommend it for those who are obsessed with the genre, as well as those who want an idea of one of the earliest points in the Neo Geo’s lifespan, but aside from that, I would just stick to other titles if you want some great beat-’em-up action with your friends. But, I will say, there is one thing very appealing about this game that only this company and SNK can manage to pull off to make me want to check out every one of their games from this era: the voice acting. Like most of these games, it is so terrible, that if you don’t have any interest in playing this yourself, at least give a listen to the “cutscenes” in the game. You won’t regret it.

Game #557

Scorn is an uneven balance of Riven-like alien techno-puzzling and atmospheric existential horror akin to SOMA. The art is a perfect amalgamation of Giger & Beksiński, fleshy organic architecture amassed across the surface of a dying world. The first two-thirds present particularly engaging core puzzles, as you slowly unpick the purpose of the machines you are revving up, often leading to some sort of sacrifice of an innocent(?) being (ranging from tiny weird guys to enormous weird guys) in this abject world. The wordless communication of the narrative through exploration, the environment & your ritualistic puzzling is refreshing (in a time where many games won't. shut. up).

The alien life wandering the flesh-corridors are alluring at first, with some interesting behaviours ambivalent to, & decentering, the player. But their placement and the very awkward feeling combat generates annoyance rather than tension, a very clumsy implementation of what was probably envisioned as a ‘living’ world but grew smaller in scope as they struggled to bring this to release. This is most evident in the very dull final chapter where a (puzzle) boss and most puzzles are solved with blunt-force explosives. Despite my final impressions, Ebb has a really strong foundation here and I look forward to seeing how they grow.

Narratively, this was a treat to experience for the first time over covid. Few pieces of media can keep me guessing through to the end the way this game did. It lets you know early on that it’s willing to nosedive from its lighthearted tone directly into some truly shocking, depressing places, completely change the scope of the narrative without warning, and that nothing is off the table when it comes to its world ending stakes. The characters as well are so diverse, memorable, developed and have a familial band dynamic comparable to that of The Last Airbender. The game is constant surprise after surprise and it never lets up until the credits roll. Gameplay-wise it’s great as well. Turn based games usually have to work a bit harder to win me over, but then again, this game isn’t really turn based. The active time battle system and all the different ways you can mess around with materia and summons gives you tons of freedom to customize to your whim, think outside the box and break the game in creative ways. Oh did I mention the OST? Top 3 of all time, and it ain’t #3. I whistle some of these tracks to myself at work all the time.

I do have a couple gripes. I played the Playstation Classic version, which is based on the original release, which was littered with translation errors which especially made the game’s midsection a bit tough to follow. It’s also a very minigamey game, and I found them inconsistent in quality. I’m really glad the Playstation Classic had it’s own save scumming feature because without it, grinding the Gold Saucer for the Omni Slash most definitely would’ve seen a hole punched in my TV. And for as much as it subverts a lot of my least favourite JRPG tropes, it still features some of them in full force, like random encounters.

It’s flawed, but it’s high points hit high and there’s a good reason why Square has milked this game like few others in their catalogue.

Have you ever watched somebody play a game, said somebody being one of your friends or somebody online, and they just… you know… suck? Like, they COMPLETELY suck. Whether they are playing the game for the first time, or they have a good amount of experience with it, they just can’t seem to get the handle of it, whether it be trying to pass a specific challenge or just try to play the game in general, and you watch as they just can’t figure it out in. In some scenarios, you could potentially offer your input to try to help them out, or, if you are anything like me, you sit back and laugh at their misery all the way through. Not only that, but you also think to yourself “Hey, you know what, I’m good at video games… I could do a much better job at playing this game then this CHUMP could”, which was basically my mindset whenever I went into X-Kaliber 2097.

I had never played this game before the day I am typing this review, nor do I really know anything about it, but I have seen it before, primarily through a YouTube video featuring Arin of the Game Grumps playing the game. He didn’t really get far at all, getting destroyed by the first boss, which could be looked at from two different perspectives. On one hand, maybe the boss was just actually pretty difficult, or, on the other hand, considering some of Arin’s previous endeavors when trying to play games meant for children, maybe he just straight up fucking blows, which is a distinct possibility. I figured, since enough time has passed, I would give the game a shot myself to see if it is actually as hard as it looks, and from my experience, I can say that it is not… or at least, it isn’t completely impossible anyway. But anyway, you all came here to hear me review a game, not show up some rando on the internet, and from what I played, I can say that X-Kaliber 2097 is………. ok. It’s fine for what it is, and it has some appeal to it, but it doesn’t offer anything too special that plenty of other games at the time were also doing.

The story is typical for a game like this, where in the far future of 2097, the world has fallen, and crime has run rampant throughout, all run by a mysterious individual named Raptor, who ends up kidnapping one of the only humans unaffected by the crime known as Alix, so it is up to Slash, Alix’s partner/friend/possibleloveinterest, to equip himself with the X-Kaliber blade and go rescue her, which… I mean, what do you want me to say, it’s a Mario plot, and Mario plots are about as exciting as waking up in the morning. The graphics are alright, having detailed visuals for the enemies, stages, and bosses, but it all looks very generic for a SNES title, which can also be said for the music, which, while not bad by any means, isn’t anything all too special, and some tracks are repeated over and over again, but it sounds good enough for what you will be doing in the game, and the gameplay/control is simple enough, having some complex mechanics for the combat, but most of it is your standard SNES platformer affair that you know all too well.

The game is a 2D hack and slash platformer, where you take control of Slash, go through six different stages full of generic SNES-era environments we have all seen plenty of times, slash your way through plenty of enemies while combating any enemy fire that you will see along the way, gather plenty of food items to heal yourself in the nick of time so that you don’t end up as a rotting corpse on the floor, and take on plenty of one-on-one fights with the game’s bosses, who will provide a great amount of challenge and will test how much you can spam your sword swipe when necessary to fend them off. It is a game that solely relies on its difficulty most of the time to carry itself, which in this case isn’t necessarily a good thing, because outside of all that, there isn’t much else to get too excited about here. But hey, it still manages to be decent, so I guess I can’t fault it for that.

What you see is what you get with this kind of game, as it is as straight and narrow as you would expect. You run from left to right, up, down, or whatever direction the game chooses, you slash a bunch of dudes, you get items, you cry whenever you get hit and inevitably die, it is all too familiar for platforming enthusiasts like myself. It feels like it is trying to be something like Strider or Run Saber, except it forgot about the part where the gameplay needs to be fast and exciting in order to achieve a fraction of that likability. Outside of the main game though, there is also a Duel Mode present in the game, which pretty much functions like a fighting game mode. You pick between six of the game’s characters, fight a friend in a one-on-one battle, and see which one of you is the best person in the friend group while everyone else cowers in shame. I didn’t play this mode for this review, but from what I have seen, it doesn’t really look like anything too fun, and is just something tacked onto the package just in case you are tired of getting smacked from the main mode.

Which speaking of, that is one thing I can give this game, because where it fails to bring the same energy and fun that Strider and Run Saber has, it does bring in the difficulty that those games had, because HOLY FUCK, it is hard. For the record, I did play through the whole thing on Normal mode, and even then, there were plenty of enemies coming in to take shots at me, throwing in attacks that I couldn’t quite avoid in time, and a limited amount of range for your attacks which can lead to some disastrous encounters if you aren’t prepared. Not to mention, the bosses are on an entirely different level when it comes to their difficulty, as it feels like luck whether or not you can win some of these… but then you get to bosses like Raptor, who you can just defeat by repeating the same basic attack over and over again with how open he leaves himself most of the time, so reality, maybe I really am just a chump who can’t play most of this game properly without getting smacked down.

Overall, despite how the main gameplay does work well enough, as well as how brutal the game can be at times, X-Kaliber 2097 is one of the most average and lifeless games I have ever played from the SNES, having all of the ingredients here that could make for a pretty great hidden gem for the system, but not knowing what to do with any of them, which ends up making one of the most forgettable gaming experiences that I have had in recent memory. I would only recommend it for those who desperately need something new to play, specifically from this era, because otherwise, there are many, MANY better options for you out there. But anyway, before we end this review off, I would like to point out that, for some unexplained reason, this game has SEVEN difficulty options… SEVEN, ranging from Very Easy to Hardest. Normal is just the third difficulty option, so I can’t even imagine what it would be like to try to play on the Hardest setting. My guess is that, once you enter the first level, Slash just immediately has a heart attack and dies, giving you an instant game over. It would be a much better alternative then going through what he does have to go through.

Game #556

A very hard, windingly long for the genre, story-based precision platformer with lots of celebrity cameos and a singular artistic vision from its one-man team Paul Helman, former developer on PS1 PAL-exclusive game Terracon, who describes Horace as "his life's work"
Said vision comes off as that of a British Gen X Dad whose sense of humor consists of quotes from 80s movies and who will share his weed with you, his beloved child, even though you're a year or two underage because "it's better you get it here than from some stranger"
Sounds obnoxious I know but it's a lot more endearing if you have people with some or all of those attributes in your life, give some respect to Gen X they only created the entirety of the cancelled future eternal present pop cultural landscape in which you inhabit, therefore it's okay if their sense of humor is mostly composed of "do you remember That Guy from That Movie"

It's Celeste if it was about a robot trying to attain personhood and if you accept the game on its own pretenses and check your cynicism at the door it's just as likely to make you cry, worked on me at least, yeah I said it this game made me cry, it really goes to faraway places from where it starts and achieves its objective of setting out to be a grand journey encompassing the whole spectrum of human emotion, whether it's grief at the inevitability of death, comedy at the way the main character's unshakable morality and robotic bluntness clash with the world around him, and inconsolable rage at some of these level designs, this game truly has every emotion contained within its couple gigabytes
Inspired by the 1979 film Being There, if that means anything to you, it's a coming-of-age story that starts out feeling a little childish at the start because you follow Horace over his entire life with all the ups and downs that entails, as he learns the ropes of the world like an inquisitive child would, and by the end of the game you truly feel like you were right there with him through an entire lifetime of victories and traumas
Maybe Celeste is selling the game's unique approach a bit short, its edge in this genre is that of employing lots of walking on ceilings and walls and spheres with your magical grandfatherly loafer shoes, which is always something that appeals to me, joining the small-but-honorable pantheon of such famous ceiling-walker platformers as Gravity Armor MetalStorm, VVVVVV, and of course Super Mario Galaxy, especially that game's 2D side-scrolling segments
It's also somewhat of a collectathon, with a big open-ended map focused around maximizing the fun factor of the main character's quest to cleanse the world by collecting one million pieces of junk (don't worry, there's not exactly one million item pickups)
Some people might think this game too difficult, with an obvious case of "the programmer mastered the game" difficulty, but games where you're not in a life-or-death struggle all the time bore me, so I really liked this game's difficulty curve

I think what makes this game work so much on me is the way nobody can accuse it of not swinging for the fences, it earns its characters, endears them to you despite the difficulty in taking seriously its Newgrounds-ass sprite comics-ass cutscenes and the monotone text-to-speech delivery
Everyone is given ample amounts of screentime and plenty of chronological years to grow over and when someone betrays you it genuinely hurts despite being understandable from their perspective

Some people (myself?) have interpreted the "critically mixed" (according to Normal People) film Bicentennial Man as being a trans and/or autistic analogy, whether or not that was the initial intention of the writer, and I think the same can be said for Horace
The both of them are about a character who is built different, singled-out for not looking and acting the same way as others, and an uphill decades-long battle to assert personhood in a normative society that keeps telling you you're not good enough to have that, in the process being very straightforward in how the titular android endures and is alienated by brutal systemic oppression from being part of a group that is legally designated to be less human than those making the rules

It's been a couple years since I played it (ignore where it says completed again, just wanted to leave a real review this time) otherwise I'd quote the game itself or something, but if you want a memorable existential treatise on how horrifying it would be to exist as an artificial humanoid who cannot die in a world suffused by the stench of your flesh-based loved ones' deaths, AND you want to humiliate Twin Galaxies former world record holder Billy Mitchell, then have I got the game for you

One of the more prominent types of arcade games out there that I don’t really have too much experience with would be with light-gun games, which is a shame too, considering that, from the little experience I do have with them, they can be some of the most fun games you can get from the arcade. I remember playing quite a lot of these games back in the day whenever my family and I would go somewhere that had an arcade, such as a Jurassic Park game I can’t remember the name of, a Terminator game that I can’t remember the name of, and of course, The House of the Dead, which my Dad and I would play more than any of the others because of how fun it was. It has been quite a while though since those good ol’ days, and I haven’t really touched any other games from this genre for quite a while (or at least, any good ones), so I figured I would finally jump back into things with one of the more primitive games in the genre, Lethal Enforcers.

I have had zero experience with this game or series before playing it for this review, but I was aware of it to an extent, given how it was one of the games that sparked controversy in 1993 for how “realistic” and “violent” it was, right alongside the original Mortal Kombat and Night Trap. Aside from that though, I knew nothing about it, but just from taking one look at the game through a video, I immediately said to myself “Wow, this looks really fucking dumb…….. I’m sold”, and decided to give it a spin. From that playthrough, I can certainly say that this is the light-gun game of all time, but not gonna lie… I kinda can’t help but love it, not just because it still works well enough for a game in this genre, but also because it is just as dumb as that video from before made it out to be, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The story is practically non-existent, where one day, a local Chicago cop by the name of Don Marshall is enjoying himself on his break, when all of a sudden he gets a call on dispatch informing him that a large crime syndicate has taken over the city, and most of other officers have either been badly wounded or killed, so it is up to him and Unnamed Partner Cop (I can’t find her name online if she has one) to go stop these criminals once and for all, which just sounds like your typical day in Chicago to me, but hey, it works well enough for a basic premise. The graphics are… certainly something, to say the least, and they look incredibly crusty nowadays, but it must’ve looked pretty impressive for the time that it came out, so I’ll give it credit for that, the music is pretty great, giving off that good ol’ arcade Konami feel, sounding like it came straight from one of their TMNT games as well, which makes it all the more enjoyable to listen to, and the gameplay/control is as basic and barebones as you can expect from a light-gun game, which is to be expected from a game like this, but it was enough for me at the end of the day.

The game is a light-gun shooter, where you take control of either Don Marshall or Unnamed Partner Cop, go through a set of five different levels, each with a different crime that you have to stop, shoot down any thug on screen before they get the chance to shoot you down, but don’t shoot any innocent civilians or other cops that will get in your way constantly (because why wouldn’t they), gather plenty of different guns to help you out against the many threats that you will be facing while out on the job, take on several bonus stages to see how many targets you can shoot before time runs out for additional points, and take on some big and tough bosses, who will truly test you in how fast you can shoot down their many bullets and get only one shot in before you try to reload and then immediately die as a result………….. yeah, it’s one of those games. All of this is pretty standard for that of a light-gun game, and for what we have here, it works well enough, but it isn’t anything you haven’t seen from any other light-gun game released before or since this game. However, like I mentioned before, there is one thing that did ultimately draw me into it and made me love it despite all of that… how stupid it is.

Given the fact that this game uses digitized footage of real actors and voice clips not just for the short cinematics at the beginning of each level, but also for all the enemies and they’re animations, you can tell just what kind of game we are dealing with here, and just like with something like Night Trap, you will most likely get the most enjoyment out of this game just from watching and listening to it. All of the stages look like they are just a bunch of images ripped straight from the internet and placed together, the movements for all of the enemies are incredibly stiff and ridiculous, the voice acting you will hear from everybody is horribly done, making all of the lines spoken in this game hilarious to some extent, and then there are the death animations for the bosses, which are just… oh so glorious. It fits perfectly right alongside the many other terrible FMV-type games out there, and thankfully, the gameplay still manages to be simple, yet enjoyable enough to where you will have a good time playing the game while goofily smiling at everything else.

However, dumbass visuals and voice acting can only get you so far, and for Lethal Enforcers, it isn’t quite far enough to where I would say it is a masterclass of this genre. It is a very typical light-gun game in every way, where ya point, ya shoot, ya die a lot because of arcade syndrome, ya input coins into the machine until your Mom decides she won’t give you anymore change to keep going, we all know how it goes at this point. There have been many games that have come out since this that manage to do this much better, so there isn’t too much here aside from the crusty visuals that will make people want to come back to it. Not to mention, while I do appreciate how there are different weapons you can acquire throughout the game, most of them are practically pointless, since most of the enemies you will encounter usually die in one hit. Yeah, you could save the weapons for the few tougher enemies and the bosses you encounter, but considering how you lose said weapons after only getting hit once, that is more than likely not gonna go well for you.

Overall, despite its basic gameplay and outdated visuals, the original Lethal Enforcers still managed to be a fun time regardless, providing a good amount of light-gun gameplay without feeling like it overstays its welcome (for the most part), as well as plenty of goofy visuals and lines of dialogue to where someone like me would want to see everything it has to offer, just to see how much dumber it could get as it goes. I would recommend it for those who are fans of other light-gun games, as well as those who enjoy dated products like Night Trap, because while other games can certainly do what this game does but better, this one could still provide a good amount of fun regardless, especially with a friend alongside you. I just hope that, for the sequel, they double down on all of the stupidity that was found in this game to make something even more beautifully cheesy. From what I have seen though, that game is gonna be going for a cowboy theme, so needless to say, I have nothing to worry about in that regard.

Game #555

So I knew the next Kirby game I had to play, Kirby's Dream Course, had a two player mode. I only ever played the single player for a bit years ago but never the multiplayer. I always heard it was more fun to play it that way, so I was excited to find out the NSO version supported online multiplayer. Me and my friend wheatie decided to play together.

This is essentially Kirby golf. Okay it's not quite that simple, it's a little more complex than that. The goal is the same as golf where you have to get it in the hole, and it tracks the amount of moves you do (at least in the single player) but you can change the angle of your shot in many more ways than golf, not to mention Kirby's copy abilities from Adventure are here. In the multiplayer mode, your goal is to have the most stars by the end of all 8 courses. You get a star by killing an enemy, two by getting in the hole at the end, AND you can steal the other persons stars if you're feeling devious. Me and wheatie played all 4 courses (except we sadly could not finish the final one because we disconnected at the very end) and I'd say we were pretty much tied in terms of how good we were at the game. It was chaotic, frustrating and a lot of fun and definitely the best way to play the game.

Going into the single-player though, while fun it definitely got a bit old after a while in comparison. Some of those later courses can have some really rough stages, especially since it's a bit different compared to the two-player mode. Instead of going for the most stars, you go for low par and survival. See, every time you kill an enemy, you get a tomato. You have 4 tomatoes from the start, and each time you make a move, it uses one. If you fall off the stage, automatic death. This can get quite frustrating since if you game over, it sends you back to the beginning of that course. It can be quite annoying if you get stuck on a particular level, but it could easily have been less forgiving and send you back to very beginning. Also that final boss, there's only one boss in the entire game and it feels so undercooked lol. You just spam the A button and Dedede's done. Either way, the single player is still fun, it's just not as fun as multiplayer.

Quick thing on the visuals and ost, they're both alright? Visuals are nice for the most part but the isometric angle can really make some of the stages look awkward. Especially with your line that shows where you're going to make the shot. If you played the game you'll now what I mean. The OST has some nice remixes but I found a chunk of it kinda forgettable which is a shame.

In the end though, I had a fun time (mostly cuz I played with wheatie), and it's definitely a better spinoff than Pinball Land. Next is the last spinoff before another mainline game, Kirby's Avalanche. Knowing it's a Puyo Puyo reskin, just like Mean Bean Machine, has me not looking forward to it because I got filtered hard by Mean Bean Machine lol. Ah well, look forward to that soon!

6.5/10

A long time ago, there was a little game company known as Game Freak, who around this time hadn’t really done anything too noteworthy in the industry. Sure, later down the road, they would make some absolute, guaranteed everybody-knows-them-by-heart hits, like HarmoKnight, Drill Dozer, and Tembo the Badass Elephant, but around this time, they made much smaller and more simple games, such as original titles like Mendel Palace, or even games based on already established franchises like Yoshi for the NES and Mario & Wario. All of these games were good in their own way (I assume anyway, because who the fuck actually played Mendel Palace), but none of them would be anything that most would consider to be spectacular, able to stand on their own and be beloved by many to this day. That would all change though when they would go onto making one game, one game that would launch them into a string of successes that are still going on to this very day, and this game would simply be known as…………. Pulseman.

For a good while now, I have been very curious about checking out some of Game Freak’s lesser-known titles, because I hadn’t really played that many of them. I have obviously played Yoshi, as you can see here, and I also played this other thing of theirs called Pokemon, but you probably don’t care too much about that, which wouldn’t be surprising, since clearly nobody knows what that game is, but aside from those two, I haven’t checked out anything else they have made. Pulseman is one that I have had my eye on for quite some time, not only because I love the design of Pulseman himself, but also because it looked like a lot of fun from the brief bits and pieces that I have seen of it. Not to mention, it was only released for us Americans through the Sega Channel, and as we all know, all of the best games were locked behind that service. So, I finally decided to try it out, and yeah, I did end up having a pretty great time with it, with the game managing to keep things fun and engaging pretty much all the way through, even if there were several issues that did pop up from time to time, although none of that stopped me from enjoying myself.

The story is……… quite something, to say the least, where the world is thrown into chaos by the evil Doc Waruyama and his Galaxy Gang, so it is up to Pulseman to set out to stop this mad man from getting away with his evil deeds, which isn’t really all that creative or interesting, but the weird and stupid stuff comes in when you learn about how Pulseman was created, which definitely caught me off guard. So, apparently, there was this scientist named Doc Yoshiyama, who created an artificial intelligence named C-Life, who was able to feel, think, and express complex emotions much like a human. After some time passes, he ends up falling in love with what he has created, and since he probably is a big fan of the movie Her, he uploads himself into his computer, where he and C-Life then proceed to have passionate sex, and from this sex, Pulseman is born…………………….. yes, that is actually part of the plot of this game, and I don’t know whether or not I should be impressed by the fact that they put that in this game, or concerned about someone at Game Freak wanting to fuck their computer.

But anyway, the graphics are, to me at least, fantastic, not only having wonderful designs for Pulseman and several of the other characters, but also having plenty of bright and colorful environments pleasant throughout the game that you travel through, even if they can be a little too much on the eyes at times, especially for those with epilepsy, the music is pretty decent, having plenty of great tunes to listen to while running through plenty of these stages, even if it doesn’t reach the same quality as other soundtracks from the Genesis, and the gameplay/control is pretty solid all around, being very simple on the surface level, but having plenty of gimmicks and challenges that keep you on your toes and have you experiment with what you can do, which kept things fun and engaging for me all throughout.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Pulseman, go through seven different stages through plenty of stand-out locations all across the globe, take out plenty of enemies along the way and conquer a handful of platforming challenges using your electrical powers for combat and transportation, gather plenty of different health items, extra lives, and temporary power-ups to help you along the way with whatever you are dealing with, take on several bonus stages to get extra lives by turning yourself into a game of Breakout, and take on plenty of bosses that will challenge you in plenty of ways, while still being pretty manageable to defeat. In many ways, it is just a standard platformer through and through, so anyone burnt out on the genre wouldn’t be able to get into it just from hearing a description like that, but like with several other games on this same system, the style and charm it has does most of the heavy lifting, while also still managing to keep the main gameplay fun, addicting, and, dare I say, electrifying.

Since this is a platformer that was made on the Genesis that was made after Sonic the Hedgehog, one of the key aspects of the gameplay is speed and momentum, which I think plays a huge part in why I was having such a good time with the game. Not only are there a lot of instances where there are plenty of narrow pathways for you to run down, gain plenty of speed, and blast your way through enemies and platforming challenges using proper jumps and attacks, but some of your more powerful attacks are charged up through running, where you can then launch a ball of lightning out of your hands to just obliterate your foes. This also manages to be a great way to aid you in proceeding through levels as well, as you can charge yourself up into being a ball of electricity that bounces around the screen for a good bit, which can not only allow you to reach higher places much easier, but also ride on electric currents that are pretty fun to grind along and jump to and from flawlessly.

Of course though, this game isn’t a Sonic the Hedgehog, so it doesn’t focus primarily on speed, and there are still plenty of different platforming challenges to take on, and for the most part, they were great to take on. Some of them can get pretty repetitive, such as having to constantly break these walls of bricks to proceed forward at plenty of moments, but thankfully, this is interrupted with plenty of other sequences throughout the game. They manage to keep the gameplay consistently exciting and engaging, while also being properly mixed with the more speedy sections of the game. Also, one other part I also really enjoyed is whenever you are fighting the Dark Pulseman boss, and you have to defeat him by stunning him by clashing with him in mid-air before hitting him, complete with slowdown and sparks flying to emphasize the impact. It isn’t much, but that shit makes my brain go brr in the best way possible, and made that entire boss fight much more enjoyable, even if it did get somewhat tedious after a bit.

I won’t lie though, this game is far from perfect, as despite how much fun I was having with the game, I can see plenty of its imperfections clear as day. The level design for some of the stages could definitely be improved on, such as with plenty of instances where you need to get through these very narrow gaps in order to proceed through the level, and it can take a little bit to get through them. Sure, you can always just turn into a ball of electricity to bypass these sections, but doing that can be pretty clunky at points, so it does slow things down to a halt, which I wasn’t a fan of whenever that kind of stuff popped up. Not to mention, there were several glitches that I ran into while I was playing the game, such as instances where I would walk through walls, get stuck in some parts of the ground, and even one or two instances where I was thrown to the other side of the screen for seemingly no reason. I’m not sure if that is just because of the fact that I was playing this on the NSO, but even then, it is clear that this game needed a little more polishing up before it was shipped out to the market.

Overall, despite some clunky level design here and there, as well as those few glitches that I did encounter, I ended up having a great time with Pulseman, being one of the most fun, fast, and engaging platformers on the system that doesn’t involve any blue rodents, and it is definitely one of the best late-release games for the system. I would definitely recommend it for those of you who are a big fan of old-school platformers, as well as those who only know Game Freak for Poke- I MEAN, uh, frantically looks through list… Little Town Hero (sure, why not), because if you think they are merely a one-trick pony and nothing more, this game can truly show just what kind of other games they are truly capable of. Just, you know, ignore that part about the story where the man fucked the computer, and it gave birth to a creature. Definitely wasn’t expecting to learn that myself today.

Game #554