While some of the modes aren't as good as others (Hole of Druaga is kind of a slog on the higher difficulties), I genuinely think the World Tour mode is absolutely adrenaline pumping, with high paced and dense gameplay that keeps you coming back over and over. You absolutely need to be on your toes and making quick decisions all of the time. Heavily overlooked, in my opinion, probably my favourite arcade puzzle game after TGM (which I'm a lot worse at).

Just keep in mind that in order to get to the harder content you need to beat all of the easier content. If that doesn't sit well with you, maybe look at Mr Driller G instead, which is just as good and only focuses on the core gameplay. If you enjoy the variety of this package though then there's few downsides here.

Also this soundtrack goes from like 0 to 100 a lot it is very very strange but extremely memorable and I love it

Beaten on 8Mhz (in the M88 emulator) as that is what Japanese consumers would have been playing this on at the time of release. Full disclosure, I did use savestates to act as "extra lives" but beat every level normally in one sitting. I'd like to see if I can beat this with "FF" lives at some point but that will wait for a bit. I'm writing this review basically immediately after beating this game at like 5 in the morning

This game is like genuinely one of the worst games I have ever played, but also incredibly fun if you have the mindset for it. It's extremely difficult. It's just absolutely baffling that it exists at all, a weird Super Mario Bros sequel for a couple of two japanese home computers. It even predates the Lost Levels! There's a bit of a misunderstanding about this game online since I think there's a fair amount of people who just assume it's a port, and some who are just aware of some of its surface level stuff (there's stuff based on the arcade games, the scrolling is messed up etc).

The game just feels like complete shit to play. I'm under the suspicion that the PC-88 port was fairly low effort, and it is incredibly aggressive to play. I will not refer to its aesthetics as while they are pretty ugly I don't think it particularly detracts from the game. The game has some fun ideas like introducing enemies from the Arcade games but most of them are just unkillable and painful to deal with. The additional items introduced are also far too sparse and situational.

Mario controls ridiculously terribly in 8mhz mode (which again, is what PC-88 owners would have been using for videogames) and I frankly think it has to be played to be believed. Every single jump in the game becomes a challenge and you have to be incredibly methodical with your movement, while still being fast due to the strict time limits on the stages. This game even frequently makes you do jumps from 1x1 block to 1x1 block, which is incredibly difficult. Making things worse, the game actually slows down if you have a mushroom, since Super Mario is made from two objects, as opposed to small Mario who is just one. As a result of this, a mushroom is vital due to giving you far better reaction times, given how absurdly fast this game is. The amount of blind jumps in this game that are hidden away by screen transitions insane by the way. I mean like actual blind jumps, no hints. There's even a blind jump from a 1x1 block to another! It's ridiculous!

I don't think people are quite aware that this game is just genuinely broken in a lot of ways. One notable example that walled me for months was when a platform refused to spawn in 4-3. I had assumed that I had emulation issues, or maybe even a bad dump, and I had been searching around ages for a solution. I later discovered that you are supposed to collapse a pair of platforms earlier in the level, because there too many platforms in existence. If you do not, that platform, which is vital for progression, does not spawn. It's insane how consistent this is, given that the game has a pretty frequent issue with just not spawning enemies or powerups sometimes.

It's strange because while I do genuinely think this game is completely awful, and blatantly the worst Mario game ever made, I think it must be played to be believed. I had so much fun progressing through this game over a long time with my friends in calls, it was such a spectacle and the game just kept giving in how obscene it was. I hope more people talk about this game because it's genuinely one of the most fascinating things relating to the Mario series, and another example of how strange third party Mario offerings were (perhaps the most interesting, in my opinion).

Side note, do not play this in Retroarch! 4-4 broke for me in it and lead to me having to switch to M88, which worked flawlessly.

i believe this game suffers from "umineko syndrome", as in, in order to finish it you /really/ have to commit to it, which in turn makes it so you're gonna give it a high rating (since you were probably already primed to do so since hour 30 or so, or otherwise you wouldn't have kept playing)

now, with that aside:

PEAK
PEAK
PEAK
PEAK
PEAK
PEAK
PEAK
PEAK
PEAK
FUCK BINAH
PEAK
PEAK
PEAK
PEAK
PEAK

LISA: The Painful is one of my favorite games ever made, so this rating is a surprisingly bitter one that I'm forced to make.

The story? Oh no nothing's wrong there. Everything writing-wise, both old and new, are top notch. The secret content is beautifully written (here's a tip, try resting at the very first campfire once you've acquired all the boat parts in Area 3) and it ties together well into the secret content of LISA: The Joyful - Definitive Edition. All in all, it's a great package deal.

but

This Unity remake is marred by a number of minor flaws that all come together to make certain experiences feel less... weighty. Many of the sound effects feel less punchy than they used to. Some of the battle animations happen too fast. Some attacks don't even register properly, meaning certain storytelling moments in combat (which I will not spoil) lose the weight and impact that they had previously.

It's genuinely unfortunate that I have to discuss this at all because I am incredibly sympathetic to Dingaling and Serenity Forge. Remaking an RPGMaker game in Unity while retaining the feel of the original game and allowing for Austin to use the new engine for some new, creative sequences (see my earlier hint if you would like to learn more). Even so, it's a criticism I really hoped upon release that I wouldn't have to make.

They're still patching the game, so it's not as if these problems will necessarily be around forever, and hell, the overworld itself is translated near flawlessly. It's just in combat where the problems lie. I really hope it gets fixed up so I can give this version of the game the five star rating it deserves.

So which should you play? The original? Definitive?

Honestly, I would almost argue playing both. Do one run in the original game, then do a run in Definitive. Definitive adds new content that is 1000% worth playing despite the hiccups, but I think that a first time player would be losing something if they only played Definitive and not the legacy version. It's a tough sell, but I think this game is just that good. I literally played it twice in two days. It's the kind of game I relish.

But I think it's time I give LISA a rest....

is what I would say if I didn't have something to say about the Joyful!!!

"If a stupid pothead with barely enough time spent enjoying this game like me can do it on Level-Die, I have no idea what is wrong with certain people whose job it is to inform the gaming public."

This quote was in the description of a video that was meant as a response to IGN's now infamous review of this game by a user named Saurian, 14 years ago. All there was to the video was a demonstration of the user's skill with the combat system. (You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyfbtSyX3mc)

Everyone knows of IGN's infamous 3/10 review. Before I knew of God Hand, I knew of that image that compared this game's 3.0 score to Imagine Party Babyz 7.5 score, which was meant to show the sheer incompetence of IGN. Now for me, I'm a little more laid back when I see mainstream game reviewers' scores since the majority of them are written by independent writers which may not reflect the whole staff's opinion, yet is put onto review aggregate websites as the companies score, rather than the independent writer. Chris Roper, the man who wrote the God Hand review, didn't even do the review for Imagine Party Babyz, but people look at both reviews as it was written by one entity, which I feel is a major problem with mainstream game reviewing outlets as a whole.

That being said though, Chris Roper's review is still awful, the whole thing is written with a clear level of frustration towards the game, to the point where it becomes condescending, but that doesn't mean there aren't valid points within the review. It's got weird tank controls that feel out of place for a 3rd person action beat 'em up. The level design revolves around basic geometry and shapes and textures look very low-res (The cage that's used for the Chihuahua race isn't even textured), the game uses random elements for spawning items and even spawning demons from dead enemies, and the game doesn't refill health upon entering new sections in a stage.

I think what caused such backlash from game critics for God Hand was its time of release. God Hand was a late 2006 PS2 release, and the PS2 gen saw what was considered the golden age of character action games. We got Devil May Cry 1 & 3, Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2, Viewtiful Joe, Okami, Resident Evil 4, God of War, among other games. Comparing to all of those games that released within that time frame, God Hand's tank controls and basic level design looked outdated and primitive. The budget for this game was most likely 5 dollars and was used so Shinji Mikami could get lunch for the single day it was developed.

Here's the thing though: None of that fucking matters.

Never before have I played a game that didn't give a single flying shit about looking pretty or adding in less samey enemy types or making the game easier to give it more appeal. God Hand sacrificed all of those things to make it the game it is: a game about constantly testing the player.

God Hand's most notorious mechanic is the dynamic difficulty system. Similar to Resident Evil 4, the game will make enemy AI more aggressive, do new moves, or even group up in pairs more depending on what level you are at (it goes from Lvl 1, 2, 3, Die) but unlike RE4, God Hand doesn't hide it in the background. It's constantly in your face at the bottom left-hand screen at all times, letting the player know what level they are at and when they'll get to the next one. When playing the game for the first few hours, you'll most likely stay around the level 1-2 area, but later on, when you get more accustomed to the game's mechanics, you might start staying around the level 3 and level Die area, even if the game starts throwing more challenging enemy types at you.

That's when I realized something special about God Hand. It subtlety fixes one of the biggest hurdles in the action game genre: Ranking systems. Most action games have a system where at the end of each level, it tallies how well you did on certain aspect like time, combos, and even collecting currency and gives the player an award adjusted to how well they did (be it a higher letter or a shinier trophy.). While these are meant to encourage repeat playthroughs, they can also be frustrating to newer players, as they are constantly being told they aren't doing good enough, despite action games being about learning mechanics and repeating those levels to get better at them. You aren't encouraged to know what to look out for on each level to even get a good rank for your first time either, which that in itself causes more confusion or frustration to newer players.

God Hand instead takes those ranking systems and discards them, and rather than tally you at the end of a level, you are being shown just exactly how good you are doing, and at the end of each stage you are rewarded with more money based on how many enemies you killed at the rank you were in, rather than giving you a trophy that's only meant for bragging rights. I believe this is what makes God Hand so inherently fun on the face of it. It's not only a great action game with tightly designed combat, enemies, and bosses, but also a game that actively encourages the player to get better at it. I first feared that moment I hit level 3, but as the game went on, I kept wanting to get on level Die. Weaving effortlessly through your enemies punches and counter-attacking crowds of enemies with your sweep kicks, or launching them in the air and hitting them with a Shoryuken to a kick in the face sending them flying. Your adrenaline starts pumping as you see that meter go higher and higher. You think you are getting good at God Hand, and it's starting to take its gloves off for you, the player. But you start to feel like a god yourself. You feel like you can punch a hole through concrete, the game's challenge is just so exciting... and then it kicks your ass! You feel like you've been brutalized. I've had this happen to me with each death, but never once I did I ever get tired of this game. I kept going at it, because every time I hit level Die and survived those encounters, I never felt a more satisfying feeling in a video game.

I think about the quote I introduced in the first paragraph a lot, because despite God Hand being one of the most challenging games I've ever played, it is also a game I think anyone can enjoy, and I'm very glad I got to play it myself. It's compromised in so many areas, but what it does right left me with one of the most satisfying and memorable action games I've ever played. So, from the bottom of my heart: Play God Hand... it's probably better than Imagine Party Babyz.

RATS, RATS, WE ARE THE RATS,
CELEBRATING YET ANOTHER BIRTHDAY BASH
[MICHAEL] IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY TODAY
CAKE AND ICE CREAM IS ON IT'S WAY
AND [MICHAEL], YOU'RE SUCH A GOOD BOY THIS YEAR
OPEN UP YOUR GIFTS WHILE WE ALL CHEER