To make sure that I keep myself from going insane, I made sure to check out a video of this game before I decided to try and play it, just to see if it actually changed things up from the other two games at all, and spoiler alert, IT DOESN’T. Yes, you can now play as Lala, the environments change as you keep going, there is one new hazard and one new enemy, and you have infinite lives, but none of that matters, because it is the same goddamn game as the last two, and if you ask me, I think I have had enough adventures with Lolo to last a lifetime. So, I will just skip this one, and go onto playing another game that won’t make me wanna throw myself off a tower.

Game #530

Sometimes in life, when you strive to achieve something, but you keep failing at reaching that goal, you just gotta take a step back and realize… you will never reach that goal, and you should stop trying. Kind of a depressing reality, I know, but that was the reality I had to face when I tried to beat the original Puyo Puyo. It was a very simple puzzle game, one that many of us know and love, and one that I was able to get a handle of for a good couple of matches or so, until the game grabbed me by the wrist, threw me against the wall, and proceeded to crush all of my hopes and dreams while I could do nothing but watch and feel bad. It was somewhat discouraging, but hey, at the end of the day, I still managed to have a good time, and that’s all that matters. It just goes to show that, even if I do suck at something, I can still manage to have fun doing it (like reviewing things), so I figured I may as well go ahead and give the series another chance with Puyo Puyo 2- oh, wait, shit, fuck, bitch, tit, I’M SORRY… I meant Puyo Puyo Tsu… because Japan.

The idea of giving this game a proper review wasn’t something that I thought wouldn’t be necessary, and for those who aren’t familiar with it, upon first glance, you could see why. When you compare the two, this seems like it's just an update to the original and nothing more, not just in terms of graphics and style, but also in terms of gameplay, with very little changes made to the formula to make it seem like a proper evolution of the series. However, I then went ahead and did a little digging, and after playing it a bit more, I realized that there was more going on here then I realized. So, with these changes in mind, while I wouldn’t say this is a massive step-up in quality from the original, I would say that this is definitely the superior game of the two, and one that does manage to change up just enough to where it can be enjoyed by more due to the original’s limitations.

In many ways, it is practically identical to that of the original, having the same graphics and graphical style, having the same type of music, same control, same gameplay, basically if you have played Puyo Puyo 1, you have played Puyo Puyo 2 without even knowing it. The only real change is with the story, but even then, it is barely even noticeably different, as not only is it very similar to the original game’s plot, but it is a puzzle game, so nobody gives a shit about the plot! You are still just dropping goo guys down, matching them up, clearing them out when you match four of them at a time, and you can chain combos together to send loads of garbage over to your opponent and prove that you are the true ruler of this game. Any fan of Puyo Puyo can jump in and have a great time with it, as it still is pretty fun to play, and whenever you overcome a strong challenge, it does feel pretty good to pull off.

All of that is well and good, yes, but again, if you are unfamiliar with the game, you may just think it is Puyo Puyo 1 again, so why would you bother playing it over the original? Well, that would be because, for this game, several changes were made to the gameplay and the mechanics, which would not only become staple parts of the series, but would propel the series further into that spotlight where it comfortably sits now. The first of these new mechanics, known as “Offsetting”, makes it so that, whenever you clear out a set of Puyo, and you create clear Puyo to throw down onto your opponents screen, it can clear out any clear Puyo that your opponent had sent over to your side of the screen at that time. That way, you can prevent them from dumping tons of clear Puyo onto your side, and if you are fast enough, you can then send plenty of your own clear Puyo onto their side to screw them over. This, while not sounding like too much of a big change, is an incredible change to the formula, as it gives you the chance to keep yourself from being completely fucked over by opponents, while also not letting the gameplay get too easy to the point where it becomes boring… at least, for me anyway.

The second of these mechanics, known as “margin time”, makes it so that, as the match keeps going, the amount of clear Puyo that one can send to their opponent at a time increases, meaning that, if luck is in your favor, you can turn the tides on a match quickly and keep yourself in a calm, controllable state, while your opponent will be panicking, trying to figure out what to do to come back from what you did. Once again, this change isn’t anything too major, but it does help from keeping matches from going on forever, and again, when you are able to take proper advantage of these changes as the game goes along, it does feel pretty rewarding to do so. And finally, for certain versions of this game, there were several other modes that were made available to play on, such as a practice mode, and one that even allowed up to four player battles. While I myself don’t ever see myself ever trying to seek out these modes in this game, it is cool that that option does exist for those who are fans of the game.

Aside from all that though, there isn’t much I can say about this game that I haven’t already said back when I reviewed the original. It really is mostly just another Puyo Puyo game, and while there are brand new rules in place that make the matches in the game a little more bearable, it doesn’t really give much of an incentive for fans of the original to jump headfirst into it. But then again, from what I could gather, there really won’t be any major changes to the formula until Puyo Puyo 4, so really, I shouldn’t expect too much from these games anyway. They are still pretty fun regardless in the right circumstances, and I am glad that I still decided to give it a shot, even if I still completely suck at it.

Overall, despite a lack of major changes when compared to the original, Puyo Puyo 2 is pretty much a superior version of the original game, keeping the core fundamentals the same, while still being fun as ever, and adding just enough tiny changes to make the experience more preferable over the original any day of the week. I would recommend it for those who are huge Puyo Puyo fans, as well as those who are big puzzle game fans in general, but for everyone else, I would probably just stick to later titles in the series over this one. Although, even then, I’m not even sure I can say that this one is genuinely better then the original, because it never got its own version with Kirby in it. Any true fan of the series would know that that was where it peaked, and it has been downhill ever since.

Game #529

Falls just short of something incredible. Giant empty sandbox world where your goal is to eat, explore, and beat the brakes off of any creature that gets within a foot of you.

Jokes aside, you're trying to build a tower out of mammoth tusks that's tall enough for you to touch the sun and see the meaning of life...it's so cool that if it was more embraced and interwoven throughout the game it would be a must play. Instead it's left completely to sudden discovery, which makes the journey, while fun, feel pointless. It's a game in its purest form...you play and that's all.

It's going to stick with me purely from the audacity to develop such a laid back game about wandering but many modern indie titles have done it better. Try A Short Hike out instead, unless the early PSX strangeness of it is your main reason for playing.

Stalkers who prepare might live, Stalkers who do not will die. I was a Stalker who did NOT prepare, and I paid for it with hours of save scumming. This game is ominous, daring you to explore a place designed to be as hostile to you as possible, and in that mission it succeeds with abundance. Stalker does NOT feel good. It's overly technical, difficult to parse, and bleak in every shade and texture. To the extent that I don't know that I can recommend it.

But damn I really fell in love with it. I normally hate survival games, and dislike a LOT of tactical shooters. But Stalker captured the nostalgic feeling of playing Half-Life and other similar shooters as a kid out of her depth and reloading quick saves for her life. And it improved my shooting in other games?!? I genuinely cannot believe how well I've been aiming after getting through this? But be prepared to suffer. Due to supplies running out / armor breaking, I had to make the game's final push with no defense against radiation. It was a hell I could not have expected, and I made it with zero meds of any kind left. A single health kit or radiation med less and I would have had to reload hours of play. Which is going to haunt me more than the zone ever could have.

Sometimes, in order to make a worthwhile product in a video game genre that is already bloated at a certain point in time, you don’t need new or exciting gimmicks, but instead, you just need a really solid foundation to work on, and the original Truxton managed to succeed in that department. It was as generic as all vertical space shooters came, with a simple means of progression, a simple power-up system, simple bosses, all that jazz, but it managed to have incredibly detailed sprites, lighting fast gun-fire, and power-ups that made you feel unstoppable when using them, making for what I would say is an underappreciated shooter from the late 80s that more people should give a shot. Despite its lack of notoriety though, it still managed to be a success back when it came out, even if it didn’t reach the same numbers as other games, so Toaplan decided to keep that Truxton train moving right along with a sequel made 4 years after the original, simply known as Truxton II.

Just like with the original game, I hadn’t heard or seen anything about this game before going into, but since I am now a regular shmup geek at this point, it was safe to assume what I would be getting from this title, and my assumptions were proved to be correct when I sat down to play it. So, all that was left to do at that point was to see if it passed the Sequel Test: seeing if it took everything that the original game did, improved upon what had been done there, and make something similar, yet more satisfying to play, and whaddya know, Truxton II managed to pass that test with flying colors… just barely. It is a very fun time, and definitely the superior of the two games, even if it offers nothing new to the genre, and it does have its hiccups as well.

The story doesn’t matter cause it's a shmup, but just in case you were curious as to what it was, the Gidans are back, and you have to take control of the HyperFighter to take them down, which as sequel-y as it gets, but who cares, WE GOTTA SHOOT STUFF! The graphics are pretty good, looking similar enough to the original Truxton, but having much more detail added to the enemies, sprites, and the weapons to use, and it all looks oh so glorious in action, the music is incredible, with there being plenty of kick-ass tunes to destroy everything to, each one fitting the tone for that point in the adventure, and the gameplay/control is the same as it is in every shmup, except with twice the speed, firepower, and explosions, which is quite the improvement in my book.

The game is a vertical space shooter, where you take control of a HyperFighter, go through six interconnected stages, shoot down every single thing you see before it even has a chance at killing you using your main weapon or any bombs that you have in your disposal, gain plenty of said bombs, power-ups, and upgrades throughout the game to give yourself a much-needed chance against what lies ahead, and take on plenty of huge and dangerous bosses, testing your reflexes, skill, and patience in every way you can imagine. Those who had played the original Truxton will feel right at home here, as it is, in many ways, a very similar experience to the original, but hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, y’know? Truxton II managed to stick with that philosophy, while adding very small changes that do mostly benefit the experience as a whole… key word being “mostly”.

When I said they only made small changes to the game, I meant it, as aside from now having an auto-fire mechanic (thank GOD), upgrades that can boost your speed, and the ability to now pick up options for your ship, nothing else has changed. It is the same Truxton you have come to know, except this time now it is bigger, better, more powerful, more explosive, and much more rewarding. The power-ups still manage to provide that kick that a shmup like this needs, with there only being three to choose from, which at first are alright, but then you get the upgrades for said power-ups, and WOO BOY, now we are in business! Like the last game, I mostly stuck with the homing blue laser, because why would I try doing anything else, and not only was it still immensely helpful for taking out hordes of smaller enemies, as well as more beefy foes, but the game still manages to be challenging enough to where I can’t just stand still, hold the fire button, and read a book at the same time… otherwise that would just get boring.

However, despite how welcoming this challenge can be at first, it then gets extremely overwhelming, because this game is HARD AS FUCK. The original Truxton was already pretty difficult, but this feels like it is on another level of hard entirely, with there being points where you will get ambushed by swarms of enemies out of nowhere, needing to dodge what feels like a never-ending supply of bullets, while also having to deal with plenty of other bigger, more durable foes all at the same time. Trust me, you are gonna want to save your bombs, especially for certain bosses, because if you go in without any, you can kiss your sorry ass goodbye. Aside from that though, the only other real issue I could have about this game is that, despite how fun it remains, it is yet another generic space shooter. You aren’t getting anything new or exciting from this, which is not a problem for us shmup enthusiasts, but it will be for those who want a little more variety for their silly little space game.

Overall, despite a lack of change and the ball-crushing difficulty, Truxton II manages to just barely surpass the original game in just about every way, looking and sounding much better, making the gameplay much more hectic and enjoyable, and making the power-ups and upgrades you get all the more useful and satisfying to use. I would recommend it for those who liked the original Truxton, as well as those who are shmup fans in general, because it will manage to give you plenty of baddies to kill, and it will keep you on your toes long enough to where you will feel immensely satisfied when you overcome said challenges. It’s just a shame though that, after this title, there would be no more Truxton games ever made…………….. until 32 years later. Hey, better late than never, I guess.

Game #528

Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 9
A game of departures, of sorts. For developer D'avekki Studios, it's a departure from the "interactive movies" of their previous titles, as Murderous Muses is a fully-3D first-person puzzler that lets you wander around a spooky art gallery. And it's also a departure for everyone's favourite FMV actress Aislinn De'ath, as her character in this is A. blonde, and B. actually wearing shoes.

Murderous Muses has you play a night worker at the Argenta Gallery, on the small island community of Mirlhaven. By day, you hang up paintings and learn about the island's interesting, often macabre, history and customs. You quickly come to the realisation that something is very wrong with the place. One of D'avekki's key strengths in all of their games is their ability to world-build and add just the right amount of subtle horror. Even though their games are built mostly around just talking, there's a creeping dread to them, and it's way more effective for characters to imply all the cosmic horrors the D'avekkiverse holds rather than outright show them.

The main part of the game takes place at night, where you must solve the murder of renowned painter Mordechai Grey. Grey was murdered by one of his final six portrait subjects, and as you watch FMV clips of their portrait sessions (via spooky magic, don't worry about it) it becomes clear that they all have pretty solid motives for it. As with The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker, the killer is randomised every playthrough, but with Murderous Muses there's a lot more reason to do multiple playthroughs. During each of the game's three nights, there's a puzzle to solve, and solving the puzzle unlocks a room where you can pick up one of several urns. Placing the urn in the designated area unlocks extra videos, centred around the mysterious and sinister young girl, Kira. Kira seems to be at the centre of all the weird goings-on on the island, so if you're invested in the game's story it's well worth unlocking all of her videos, too.

Side note: Kira is played by Rachel Cowles, daughter of the game's creators, and has appeared in every single D'avekki game. Seeing her grown up a bit in this, compared to the other games, was quite sweet. For a child actor, especially in FMV games, her performances have always been pretty damn good (even if she overdoes the vocal fry way too much here).

So how do you figure out who the murderer is? Each night, the six suspects will have three words underneath their paintings. These three words are also placed on empty spaces in the gallery. Place the suspect's portrait on the empty space above each word, and you'll unlock a short clip of the suspect talking to Mordechai about that word and how it relates to them.

These clips are where you learn all about the characters, their lives, and how they're connected with Mordechai. An undertaker with an unusual appetite, a cancelled comedian (and his creepy puppet), a pair of tennis-playing twins... even for a D'avekki game, the motley crew of maybe-murderers assembled here is a particularly unlikeable bunch.

Watch three clips in the correct order as dictated under the suspect's portrait (which takes a bit of puzzling - the word under a portrait changes after you watch a clip, but they change in a specific order), and you unlock clips of police interviews. You're given a clue at the start of each night (in a fun cameo by Poe & Munro's Klemens Koehring) as to how Mordechai was murdered, and by using these clues you can determine whether each suspect is guilty or innocent in their police interview. If you decide a suspect is innocent, you can rule them out, and whichever suspect has three "guilty" interview answers at the end of the three nights is the killer. Simple!

The game only has one real problem, but it's a big one. My explanation of the game up above is a better tutorial than anything the game actually tells you. The game gives you a tutorial room which does a very poor job of actually explaining the mechanics, then the only other guidance you get is one other video guide, tucked away in a corner of the gallery that most players won't find on their first playthrough. Without a guide, most players will absolutely fumble through their first playthrough and most likely guess the wrong suspect - I got it wrong and the killer turned out to be the person I suspected second-least! Luckily, the game has a lot of replayability, and there's no real penalty for fucking up. After a couple of playthroughs, solving the murder actually becomes secondary to trying to unlock every clip and unravelling the mysteries of Mirlhaven Island.

As usual with D'avekki games, the acting is pretty strong all around. It's no surprise to say that Aislinn De'ath is the standout as undertaker Lilith, showing a lot of unexpected vulnerability in her performance. Also, my heart skipped a beat when I saw bonafide FMV legend Rupert Booth's name in the credits. There's even a part where he says "if I was to show you this...", which I swear was written deliberately. Rikki Stone also puts in great performance as the disgraced comedian Otto - he's a barrel of barely-suppressed rage and is very (intentionally) creepy.

Though it seems confusing from the outside, once you get to grips on what to do this becomes a very enjoyable, even relaxing, little puzzle game.

I've now played every D'avekki game released thus far! Safe to say I've become quite the fan of this studio, and they've definitely helped to develop a fondness for FMV that I never knew I had. I eagerly anticipate whatever comes next from them.

Read my reviews for the other D'avekki Studios games here: The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker, The Shapeshifting Detective, Dark Nights with Poe & Munro

Oh man I'm in love. If you play this in d-pad mode (run n gun) then you'll probably have a good time. It's tough but features a really accessible level skip if needed, and the aesthetic alone (Scud is built like an early 90s MTV animation bumper ad) makes it one of the most exciting titles on the Saturn.

But if you came for the light-gun mode? Well it's good and bad. It pretty much requires two light-guns, which while true to the spirit of the comic, is a huge difficulty both in terms of purchasing power and emulation. It's just got too many enemies for a single gun to get you through without the level skip, and that will likely disappoint some folks.

But it's an experience that, visually, stands unrivaled. It's going to live in my brain for a long time despite its many MANY flaws.

Out of all of the games that was released in the 80s to early 90s that featured Mickey Mouse as the star character, The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse was arguably the best game of the bunch that we would get. It wasn’t anything particularly new or exciting, just being a pretty basic platformer made for kids, but it was still solid enough, had great music, several different outfits to try out and mess around with, and that good ol’ 16-bit Capcom charm that oozes out of every game that they made back for the SNES. Not to mention, since this was Mickey Mouse that we’re talking about, it was pretty successful, selling over a million copies, so naturally, because Disney is all about making that good ol’ mouse money, they had Capcom working on a sequel pretty soon afterwards. Eventually, this sequel would be released to the public, and it would exhaustingly be known as The Great Circus Mystery Starring Mickey & Minnie.

Before playing this game for myself, this was the Magical Quest game that I had known the most about, as I had previously seen it in an unfinished video playthrough on YouTube, and at the time, I thought it looked decent enough. It didn’t look bad, but it looked like an average licensed platformer of that era, and now that I have played the first Magical Quest game, I could also make the assumption that this one wasn’t going to be that much more different or grand compared to the previous entry. I went ahead and played it anyway though, and all in all, I would consider this to be an improvement over the original game, and a pretty good game all on its own. It doesn’t change things up too drastically from the original game, and it is as simple as you would expect, but hey, I will take a licensed game that is simple yet sweet over one that is complex yet rotten, if you catch my drift.

The story is just as simple as the previous game, where Mickey and Minnie Mouse are on their way to meet up with their friends at the circus, when they meet up with a Goofy that wants to end it all, saying that everybody at the circus has randomly disappeared, and Donald Duck and Pluto are nowhere to be found, so it is up to Mickey and Minnie to not only find their friends, but find out what happened to all the circus performers, which is a… very boring plot, to be frank, but it is a Mickey Mouse game, so I’m not sure what else I was expecting. The graphics are… the exact same as the original game, but to be fair, it still does look pretty good, and all the sprites for the enemies, bosses, and Mickey & co. look pretty good, the music is very enjoyable again, still giving off that Capcom vibe, and having plenty of cheery to dreadful tunes to hear throughout, and the gameplay/control is almost identical to that of the original game, but with a few new additions added to make it that little bit more fun.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of either Mickey or Minnie Mouse, go through a set of six stages across plenty of different generic settings, run and jump all around while defeating enemies and collecting various items to help you out throughout your journey, either by giving you currency for shops or giving you more health, acquire several outfits that you can switch between at any time to help you either progress through the levels or give you an advantage against the foes in the game, and take on plenty of colorful and cartoony bosses, being easy enough to take on, while not too easy to the point of being boring. Those who have played the original Magical Quest game will know exactly what they are getting into with this game, and in many ways, it stands on the same level as the original game in terms of quality, but it still manages to be fun, while also incorporating previously said new elements to help make it more enjoyable.

If you somehow haven’t already picked up on it already, in this game, you now have the option to play as Minnie Mouse rather then Mickey, and she is… basically the exact same as Mickey in terms of everything, but hey, at least we have the option to play as her at all, so that is pretty nice to see. Not only that, but the game now features simultaneous co-op, where one person plays as Mickey and the other plays as Minnie, which is definitely the best way one could play this game, and while I didn’t play it in co-op, it does look like a good amount of fun to try out. In addition to this, some of the outfits from the last game are gone, but in their place, we now have all new outfits to help us out on our journey, such as the sweeper outfit, which allows you to vacuum up enemies to gain coins from them, and the cowboy outfit, which allows you to bounce around on a wooden horse, jump higher, and shoot a toy pistol to break blocks and take out enemies. While the sweeper outfit is very situational, and I didn’t really use it a whole bunch, I did really like using the cowboy outfit, especially for certain bosses and to help get through tricky spots.

If none of that sounds exciting to you though, then what you are left with is pretty much yet another Magical Quest game through and through. Not only are the graphics identical to the original game, but so is the gameplay, with it playing identically to the original for the most part, and not having that many new or exciting changes to be seen. It still manages to be fun, but again, if you weren’t really sold on the last game, then this one may not be able to convince you either. Not to mention, like the last game, there is also a boss rush, but it is also just as miniscule of a nuisance as the previous game’s boss rush. I would rather there not be a boss rush at all, but hey, a tiny boss rush is better than a regular one any day of the week.

Overall, despite very little change from its predecessor, The Great Circus Mystery does manage to be not only an enjoyable sequel, but still a pretty good game all on its own for the SNES era, providing the same amount of fun and whimsy as before, while also allowing the option for a pal to join alongside you to witness every bit of that same fun and whimsy. I would recommend it for those who were big fans of the original game, as well as those who just like Mickey Mouse and his pals in general, because even if it is a retread of old territory, that old territory is still fun to go back to to this day. Although, with all that being said, we never do end up finding out what happened to those circus performers in the game. Yeah, we defeat the big bad evil guy, and it is assumed that everything is all well and good now, but they never outright say everything went back to normal! So, if you think about it…………. those circus performers are probably dead.

Game #527

They say it ain’t easy being cheesy, and I certainly felt what they meant when I decided at random to take a look at the first game to feature the mascot of Cheetos as its main star, Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool. It was pretty much exactly what you would expect from a cheap 90s licensed game based on a brand of snack foods, being incredibly generic, having terrible control/movement speed, some of the lamest excuses of boss fights I have ever seen, no inclusion of continues or passwords whatsoever, and just having that feel of a cheap product smeared everywhere you look. It wasn’t completely terrible, but it was just bad enough to where I would swear off Cheetos for the rest of my life, sticking with Doritos from now on in case I needed some cheesy snacky goodness. Although… it has been quite a while since we did play that game, and I have had a hankering for some cheese-covered corn chips that aren’t shaped like a triangle……… ah fuck it, why not, I’ll have some more again. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? I would have to play Chester Cheetah: Wild Wild Quest? Yeah right, like that would happen…………………… wait, oh shit, I’m typing a review right now… which means………. NOOOOOO-

So yes, for some reason, I guess Too Cool to Fool was successful in its attempt to swindle money out of all the poor kids from the 90s in exchange for cheesy garbage, so as a result, it managed to get a sequel just one year later, and naturally, I wasn’t looking forward to playing it at all. Sure, the original game wasn’t terrible, so I didn’t immediately think this game was gonna be terrible, but there was still a good 99.9% chance it could’ve ended up being god awful. Finally though, after putting it off for long enough, I decided to give it a shot, and it was bad… but thankfully not doomsday levels of bad. For what it is worth, it is an improvement over the original game, and it does have an approach to gameplay that I prefer way more than what that game gave me, but it still manages to be cheap, licensed garbage that is just about as appealing as taking another bite of those god-forsaken chips.

The story picks up right from where the last game left off (I think), where while on his way to Hip City, Chester Cheetah loses his map due to Mean Eugene, the villain from the last game, chasing him down and ripping it up into ten pieces, scattering it all over the country, so it is up to Chester to get the pieces back to reach Hip City, which, much like the plot of the original game, is clearly perfect in any way, and if you question it or dislike it whatsoever, you simply aren’t wild enough to go on this quest. The graphics are… admittedly better then the previous game, with there being a lot more consistency in what you see and new environments to run through, but it is still mostly just a bunch of random colors thrown on the screen, the music is… actually not too bad, with there being several tracks that I ended up liking as I listened to them, but maybe I just have garbage taste, and the gameplay/control is, also admittedly, better than that of the original game, but not only does it still have some hiccups to be seen, but it doesn’t do anything to… you know, get creative.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of the raddest cheetah you have clearly ever seen, Chester Cheetah, go through a set of 9 and a half levels that take place in various locations around the United States, run and jump your way through these levels while bouncing on enemies to take them out, gather plenty of items that can either give you extra lives, a means of progressing, or an extra chance just in case you get hit, and fight several bosses that are about as complex and fun to fight as me counting the fingers I have on one hand. It is as creatively devoid as any shovelware game from this era can be, offering nothing new or exciting from many other games of the era, but again, it could’ve been a whole lot worse.

First of all, you can now choose to go through any of the levels in any order you want, which is pretty nice, even if none of the levels are that exciting or different from each other, and speaking of which, the levels themselves are pretty short, with you being able to run through them very quickly, so that helps out a lot when you want to get through the game as fast as possible. Not to mention, it isn’t simply just about reaching the end of the stage, as you will also need to find a piece of the map along the way, which is pretty neat… or at least, it would be if most of the map pieces weren’t just lying around in broad daylight, just waiting for you to grab them. Seriously, you could’ve at least hidden them a little better this time around.

And finally, like I mentioned earlier, this game actually has boss fights! No more awkward, dumbass endurance tests like from Too Cool to Fool, for instead, we have full on fights with various lovable characters from the Cheetos franchise, like Mean Eugene and… uh… Mean Eugene! As for the boss fights themselves, they are… ok. They are pretty simple, just your typical “bop them on the head three-four times to win” bosses, but hey, they are at least more fun to deal with then the shit from the last game. Not to mention, some of them can be pretty tricky if you don’t take advantage of some of the moves that Chester has at his disposal.

But now, it is time to get into the issues that ruin the game, with the first one being, of course, the controls. You all ever seen that Family Guy cutaway gag that involves Chester Cheetah snorting Cheeto dust like it’s cocaine? Well, I feel like I’d have to do the same thing to be able to play this game properly, because not only does Chester once again have inconsistent running speeds (even if it is improved from last time), but there were many different moments where it just felt straight up unresponsive. Moving felt incredibly stiff, and a lot of the time, whenever I would hit the jump or run buttons, the game wouldn’t register it at all, and I would end up dying in some scenario because apparently I wasn’t allowed to hit a button then. Not to mention, you die in one hit if you don’t have a bag of Cheetos, meaning it is most likely you will die to a lot of things that you can’t see coming or properly avoid.

And finally, there is slowdown EVERYWHERE in this game. When it comes to the SNES version of this game, it feels like this game can’t just go five seconds without some kind of slowdown issue occurring, and it’s not as if there are that many enemies on the screen when it happens either. I don’t inherently have a problem with slowdown too much in video games, as sometimes it can actually be helpful, but I do get bothered by it when it either effects my gameplay negatively, or it is constant. This, my friends, is the latter. Aside from all that though, a lot of it is your generic licensed game affair, being a pretty unpolished platformer that can be beaten very quickly, if you can get a handle on the shitty controls.

Overall, despite the improved gameplay, the inclusion of boss fights, and not being long enough to get mad about, Wild Wild Quest is yet another pointless piece of shovelware for a product that really didn’t need any kind of advertising like this, being as basic as it gets, having flawed fundamentals, and is about as slow as a slug that is being burned alive from having salt poured onto it. I would only recommend this for those who liked the previous Chester Cheetah game, but for everyone else, there are plenty of better platformers from this era, licensed or otherwise, that you can play over this. But anyway, with all that out of the way, I think I am now done with Cheetos for good, for real this time! Don’t need anymore shitty food-related games to ruin my day. Although, I am getting kinda thirsty… ooh, hey, when did this can of 7UP get here?

Game #526

I think it’s safe to say that, at this point, we have reached the start of what could be considered as Double Dragon’s mid-life crisis. It has had plenty of games at this point, each of them playing very similarly to each other while changing up elements every now and then, but over time, the games in series have been getting worse and worse, whether it be because of mechanics that ruin the game rather than enhance it, poor design choices seen everywhere you look, or just simply being too bland and boring when compared to many other games from the beat-’em-up genre. So, now that we are at the point of seemingly no return, what could Double Dragon do to possibly redeem itself after a handful of misfires? Well, of course, by throwing all of that shit completely out of the window, and doing something completely different! It’s a fool-proof plan, what could possibly go wrong?! Well, if Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls is anything to go by, everything can go wrong.

Rather than being a typical arcade-style beat-’em-up like every other game in the series, Double Dragon V was a fighting game, taking the Lee brothers and many other “well-known” faces from the series and making them fight to the death… supposedly. Not only that, but the game was primarily based on the Double Dragon cartoon series that was airing at the time… which I have never watched in my entire life, so that’s how you know that I am a proper candidate to fully judge this game. And finally, just to cement the feeling that this game was doomed from the start, it was not made by Technos, but instead by a completely different company named Leland Interactive Media, who I am almost certain you have never heard of in your life… again, what could possibly go wrong? So yeah, as you would expect, this is not really a good fighting game at all, or even a good game in general, but I wouldn’t say it is thaaaaaaaaat bad. Trust me, I have played Doomsday Warrior, so I know how bad one of these things can get, but not only does this game not come anywhere close to the same quality as other fighters at the time, but it doesn’t even try to be anything more than what it already is.

The story varies depending on who you play as, so assuming you are playing as one of the Lee brothers, the evil Shadow Master has created a virus known as the Shadow Plague, which he intends to spread all over the world with the help of his Shadow Warriors, so it is up to both Billy and Jimmy Lee to go put a stop to their evil plans, which sounds like a story that came straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon……… making it perfect for this game, since it is literally based on a Saturday morning cartoon. The graphics are good, having plenty of stages to fight in and having cartoony enough designs for both those and the sprites of the characters, although I will admit, some of the designs for the characters are either flat-out terrible, or just ugly, but not purposely ugly, the music is… definitely music, being energetic enough for a fighter, but something that you won’t wanna listen to after a while, especially with several tracks reused plenty of times, and the gameplay/control is the fighting game standard, with all the functions, moves, and features you would expect, but with a few more to try to convince you it is better then it is.

The game is a fighting game, where you take control of one of ten characters, either one of the Lee brothers or a member of the Shadow Warriors, take on plenty of different opponents in many different locations that are as generic as you think they are, throw out plenty of punches, kicks, combos, projectiles, and super moves to weaken your opponent further and further, make sure to dodge and block when appropriate to make sure to block any sort of attack that they try to throw your way, and check out the rest of the modes of the game that will allow you to do the same things again, but somewhat differently. For a fighting game, all of this is pretty standard, nothing too exciting, so as a Double Dragon fighting game, it manages to do what you would expect any of these games to do that takes a non-fighting IP and brings it into the genre, with a few unique features that do make it stand out from others.

In terms of the gameplay, once again, it is your typical fighting game affair: one-on-one battles where you jump around, throw out different combos, and try not to get slammed on your ass, while throwing out special moves to take down your opponents quickly. Most of it is nothing that you haven’t seen before from other fighting games at the time, with the exception of the Overkill mechanic, where whenever you defeat an enemy while using a certain attack, they will get straight up killed (most of the time), with a unique death animation playing alongside it that actually did manage to surprise me whenever I accidentally pulled one off while playing the game. If you think about it, these are essentially just Brutalities from Mortal Kombat before they were even a thing, and they are cool to see, even if some of them are repeated amongst several characters, and others are just… stupid.

In terms of everything else though, there is actually quite a lot here, with there being many different modes for you to try out just in case your typical vs. match gets too boring for you. There is, of course, said Vs. Match, where you can fight another opponent one-on-one to see who is the best, there is the Tournament Mode, which works pretty much like your typical Arcade mode, complete with multiple endings for every character you play as, there is the Quest Mode, which is the story mode of this game, but it plays mostly the same as Tournament Mode, except with little bits of dialogue in-between matches, there is Battle Demo mode, where you can put two CPU opponents in a ring and… watch them fight it out……… just in case you got tired of playing the game yourself, and finally, there are the Dossiers, which gives you info on each of the characters in the game, with the info itself being both hilarious and awful at the same time. Seriously, if you haven’t read some of these things, please do, because they are ironically really funny. But anyway, all of these modes work well enough for what they are, not delivering anything more than what you would expect them to, all meant to just fill out the Fighting Game Checklist so that you won’t be bitching about any of them not being there.

Speaking of bitching, it’s time for me to start my bitching, as all of the problems this game has lies within many of the typical areas. Most of it is very generic for a fighter, just selling itself as “a Double Dragon fighting game”, but not doing anything more to convince you to play it over others, and fighting game syndrome does play a factor in several instances, even if it is more manageable with the Options setting. When it comes to the gameplay itself, it feels pretty rigid, not feeling as bad or restrictive as other games like Doomsday Warrior or even the original Street Fighter, but it doesn’t feel as responsive, satisfying, or fluid as other fighters, even from this era, making it less then ideal for a fanatic of this genre. It’s not flat-out terrible, but you can definitely tell that a lot more can be done to improve on the experience.

Overall, despite a good handful of modes to mess around with and fun enough characters to try out, this is certainly not how you take a popular franchise like Double Dragon and make it into a fighting game, having no unique identity of its own, playing poorly when compared to others, and not providing any reason to want to fully explore it to see all the endings for all of the characters. I would recommend it for those who are big Double Dragon fans, as well as those who are fighting game fanatics out there, but there are many better options that you could try out instead, both in terms of fighting games and the Double Dragon series. And to think, this is only the first time we would get a Double Dragon fighting game, as one would be released just one year after this one. Although, I’m not sure how that one is gonna compare to this game, which has a wonderful assortment of characters like Bones, the skeleton with a machine gun, Icepick, a cyborg made of crystals that make him look like ice, and Dominique, a dominatrix wearing a skin-tight black suit, complete with a whip and a huge set of hooters……………………. alright, who let Leland Interactive Media put their fetish into my Double Dragon game?

Game #525