FE1 is outdated. I think that's just a fact of life, but I'm making my judgement on the game that exists, not the fact that modern technology is capable of and has created better games. I'm trying to be fair to the game because it's old.

So, with that said, FE1 is actually pretty good! You can see that the core Fire Emblem gameplay loop started off very strong from the original. Several of the maps, while ugly to look at and very green due to technical limitations, are actually well designed and clever. This game does have some oddities and UI jank, such as the way the game handles items (the storage system that is the early archetype of the convoy) and the way that magic works, but you get pretty used to it after a few chapters and honestly, it's not that bad.

The ending falls off a little bit. The last few maps (21, 24, 25) are not that great, throwing a lot of bullshit at you for you to deal with. The final boss is only susceptible to Marth with the Falchion, which creates two problems:
a) you can softlock yourself out of being able to win the game in Chapter 19 if you don't get the spheres, or Chapter 22 if you don't get to the village with the spheres
b) Marth is not an amazing unit and if he can't get to Medeus and survive, it's over

But overall, I think this is a good game and an excellent start to the series. If you can get used to the quality of the NES, it's a worthwhile play if you're into Fire Emblem the series, if only to experience a historical relic.

And also, Bantu is good in this game. Never forget what they took from us.

perhaps the purest expression of simple beauty in a videogame ever, and easily my definitive example of what games can be as works of art. Katamari Damacy isn't as profound as Pathologic, as prescient as Metal Gear Solid 2, or as impactful as Yume Nikki, but what it represents as a capital G Game is something beyond anything else I've experienced. The most simple aspects of how it should feel to PLAY a videogame are the highlight here, it's never complex or intricate and never tries to be, accomplishing so much more through the sheer refinement of it's basic mechanics and the impeccable aesthetic presentation that surround them. One of the best soundtracks ever, some of the most effective gameplay progression ever, and Make the Moon is THE best final level -- maybe the best level period -- in any videogame I've ever played. So incredibly rewarding, and after everything the credits roll on a truly beautiful, transcendent moment that's stuck with me ever since the first time I saw it and will probably stick with me for the rest of my life. Seriously, I still tear up every time I hear Katamari of Love. One of those canon games, if we ever reach a point at which a "videogame canon" can be determined. I hear people say We Love Katamari is somehow even better than this, which is naturally pretty hard to believe, but I've been meaning to emulate it for years now. Maybe I'll finally get around to that soon...

I came back around to this after finishing New Super Mario Bros 2., and found this one to pretty lacking. It's frankly impressive how much of a difference just adding the incentive of coin collecting makes to a game's formula. This one on the other hand just felt like a standard Mario game. Perhaps the most baffling inclusion to this game is the Mega Mushroom (I presume it's called). There haven't been many instances I've found for it's use, aside from cheesing a fortress boss with it. Otherwise, levels are have too many gaps that prevent you from running straight and racking up those 1-UPs, not that you really need them, either. Still, it's fun to absolutely wreck shit on an early level and tear it apart, literally.

At the end of the day, it's Mario, just without anything that stands out.

This had to be my first log on this website. My favourite video game of all time. To this day, this is the only mainline Mario game that truly feels like an "experience". This is the game where all of Nintendo's signature ideologies came together to produce arguably the most complete package they have ever made. Honestly, I still can't believe a game this well-made even exists, let alone one as absurdly creative as this.

It's easy to take it for granted now, but the game's central concept is simultaneously so innovative, so ambitious, and so stupid that it's utterly mind boggling that it worked out so perfectly in execution. And the game still managed to fire on all cylinders in every other aspect too! This game is an utter miracle and I don't understand it.

A game I remember playing but never finishing as a kid - boy is it clear now why that was. Extremely charming and for most of the run time it's a fun Mario romp with a solid JRPG skeleton but when you hit a boss fight it reveals a streak of masochism. Boss fights are incredibly long and frustrating, with attack patterns lasting long past the "you have mastered this mechanic" range and into "dodge this attack with an incredibly small timing window 45 times in a row" territory. JRPG battles being a long slog is one thing, but the action component required for dodging attacks and attacking enemies is actually a physical drain - the final boss battle took me over an hour and left my hands and wrist in physical discomfort (note - you can definitely take breaks - you should in fact!). I don't know if I was chronically under leveled - it's definitely possible! But it was a real pain point in a game I otherwise had a pretty good time with.

The game is full of charm and nintendo polish - animations, puzzle mechanics, sound effects, and music are perfectly tuned and extremely satisfying. I can't say it was perfect or capital g Great, but it's definitely worth taking a look at to see what it's all about.

Dreadful, absolutely dreadful.

It's not just the rubber band mechanic, which makes your partner either constantly slow you down or get in your way by going one hundred miles per hour, making the camera shake as if you were both inside of a blender, nor is it just the fact that the power ups screw you over all the time, to the point where you need to wait for them to wear off until you can proceed with the stage, it's also the level design on its own.

I'm gonna be honest, this is one of the most boring games i have ever played in my life. It's bland, uninspiring; there are barely any enemies; there are no real obstacles that get in your way and the game does absolutely nothing interesting with the rubber band mechanic, you know, the mechanic on which the game is based on?

No interesting puzzles, no challenging platform, no rewarding exploration, no twists, no nothing.
Knuckles Chaotix is basically an abysmal 2D walking simulator that drags for over 2 hours.

Boss battles are ungodly too; making it a requirement to land a series of successful hits on an already difficult-to-control game is just straight up immoral.

The bonus stage is awful too; it's constantly suffering from slowdowns, and the 3D hexagonal tubes have this incredibly jarring clipping effect that makes you feel like you are constantly on the verge of falling off the stage, which, by the way, CAN actually happen.

Yes, music is awesome but that doesn't make the game worth it at all.
Would you like to listen to your favorite album while a herd of dogs bite your balls?
This game is like listening to your favorite album while a herd of dogs bite your balls.

PE2 is a sequel to one of my favourite games and after beating it, I am fascinated by how it manages to miss the mark on almost everything that made the first game great.

PE2 had Kenichi Iwao working on it and with Iwao's influence, there is now a much larger emphasis on horror for better and (mostly) for worse. The game now has tank controls, fixed camera angles, way creepier enemy design with how humanoid they now are and the OST now sports a large sense of ambiance. With all these changes, PE2 does manage to be somewhat unsettling at the beginning but any sense of lasting fear and suspense is thrown out the window due to the fact that you end up fighting enemies in this game just as much as you did in the 1st game. Therefore, encounters with enemies just end up feeling mundane not too long into the adventure, and even frustrating due to the tank controls making it way harder to evade attacks. This is especially bad during boss fights where dodging their attack radius sometimes just feels almost impossible. The fixed camera angles also just make the combat a chore in this game, sometimes enemies are so small that you have to wander around the room to find them and by the time you do, you're so close that your attacks miss them and you get hit. The fixed camera angles in this game serve zero purpose, they don't make encounters tense, only annoying and it is a massive step down from the top down view that PE1 had. This game also gives you way too much ammo with every area having a container with an infinite amount of handgun bullets. With how hard this game is trying to be like the classic RE games, it is bizarre to me that the survival aspect of those games is completely absent here.

Even though the combat is often a pain, I do like how PE2 handles its RPG elements. The levelling system has been overhauled and instead of featuring a traditional level up system, you instead gain EXP after battles which you can use as currency for reviving dormant parasite energy. It is really cool how it gives you complete control over what spells to unlock and it is the one area of this game that I'd consider to be an improvement over the 1st game. I'm a little bummed out that the weapon perk system from PE1 didn't return here though, it was a neat mechanic that made early game weapons atleast serve some use when you took them apart and I think PE2 removing this system is a step back.

As for the story, it's also inferior to the first game imo. I found it to be way harder to follow and the cast here is nowhere near as endearing this time around since the characters lack any natural-feeling dialogue that the 1st game had. Because of this, I never grew attached to characters like Kyle, Pierce or Douglas since they all just mostly talk about their circumstances and nothing else. Atleast you don't need to play the whole game again to get the true ending this time around.

This is one weird sequel. By trying to focus on the horror elements, I feel Square diminished a lot of the identity and charm that made PE1 special, but they also didn't push the horror direction far enough to make it effective. So, what's left is a weird mix of clashing ideas with combat that is too annoying for the game to work as an RPG, and half-baked horror elements that don't really work in making the game scary either. Massive disappointment

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Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes

Never understood why this is a hot take, but imo this is absolutely as good as any Banjo Kazooie game. It has its quirks but let's be honest, so do the originals. If there's any complaint, it's that your characters oddly feel too small in comparison to the levels - which makes some of the traversing feel a bit barren. It also does the "power ups that are only used in one or two specific circumstances ever" thing, but other than that I thought this totally passed the class. Unique character designs, nostalgic music, definable levels (unlike its sequel), a worthwhile challenge, fun collectables (except that one bullshit quill in the first level), and that classic sardonic humor commonly associated with the Rare platformer. Enemies are a little mid though. But by and large this is without a doubt a worthy successor to the 90s N64 collectathon genre. No clue where the hate is coming from; I get that a lot of people just absorbed their favorite YouTuber's opinion of this back in the day as their own without even giving it a fair shake, as is the case with a lot of these - but this is pretty much exactly what could have been hoped for out of this project. I found this to be a colorful, inspired, and overall lovely experience. Sorely underrated even by its supporters.