In terms of content, holy shit, Brawl is just showing off at this point. Brawl's single-player, the oft-beloved and fondly-remembered Subspace Emissary, is not only a mastercraft of silent, slapsticky storytelling, but the perfect representation of what a kid sees in their head whenever they imagine their favorite characters fighting or teaming up against an all-encompassing force. It's also an incredibly thorough and finely-crafted single-player experience, absolutely loaded with unique and expansive levels of its own that imbue the single player with a sense of adventurous, dynamic gravitas that the other, more sinewy Smash single-player modes simply don't have. Outside of the Subspace Emissary, Brawl has a metric assload of stages compared to the paltry amount of arenas in Melee & 64, a dizzying amount of Stickers, CDs, and Trophies to collect (all of which can be viewed and listened to in separate rooms of their own), an Arcade-style boss rush mode, a weird pinball-Galaga fixed-shooter trophy-collection minigame, Classic Mode, All-Star Mode, Photo Mode, Tourney Mode, and an entire collection of fully-playable demos of retro games, ranging from Ice Climber to F-Zero to Ocarina of Time. You can also make you own custom stages! And there's online multiplayer, too! Like, yeah, the custom stages are pretty hilariously small and don't give you a whole lot to work with, and the Wii's online capabilities and connection rates were notoriously bullshit (especially when it came to Brawl's lobbies), but you have to consider the fact that these options even exist at all.

Brawl feels like a celebration of gaming itself. And it's not just Nintendo games, either - Sonic is finally in this game, a choice that not only shook the industry but compelled the nine-year-old me to buy this game and get into the Smash series as a whole (yes, Brawl was my first Smash games; I was barely learning how to walk and formulate words when Melee came out). Brawl is jam-packed with content and unlockables and reasons to keep coming back to the game, keep playing it. Brawl is a great time with friends and it's a great time on your own - Brawl holds a very special place in a lot of gamers' hearts, yours truly included, in spite of the controversial nature of Brawl to the fighting game community as a whole.

And yes, Brawl is controversial, in spite of all the glowing praise I just gave it, so let's address the elephant in the room. Brawl is a great party game, but Brawl is a terrible competitive fighting game, lmao. The funniest thing about Brawl is that HAL and Sakurai actively introduced elements into Smash to make it more of a casual experience. I mean... tripping! You can just... randomly trip now! Why else, other than to drag this game back into the party-game realm where it belongs, would they include such a jarring feature? But even if we completely ignore the infamous 'tripping' mechanic, Brawl is absolutely broken to its core. Chain-grabbing is so easy that some characters can just use the grab move as an infinite. Numerous characters can fly now, like Charizard, Meta Knight, and Pit. Smash Balls & Final Smashes - another fun new feature! - range from unbelievably busted to hilariously lame. Hitstun is virtually nonexistent and combo-building in this game is practically impossible, turning Brawl into an incredibly floaty experience. The high-tiers of Brawl are intimidating and the low-tiers are fucking pitiable. Olimar's menacing little Pikmin. Diddy Kong's terror-inducing bananas. Meta Knight. META KNIGHT. The entire meta of the game revolves a man with meta in his NAME. The previous games before Brawl were broken and buggy messes, sure, but Brawl is shameless about its fragility as a competitive game. You can almost hear Sakurai laugh every time some stupid new thing was discovered and promptly banned, like Fox's shine-stalling, Dedede's infinite, Meta Knight's scrooging, and hell, sometimes even Meta Knight as a playable character gets banned from tourneys.

But you know what? I don't care. Brawl wears its glitchy heart on its sleeve and I can't help but admire its shameless confidence. It's my secret favorite of the series, not just because of the fact that I actually enjoy how casual, lighthearted, and funny Brawl's mechanics are, but the fact that A.) Brawl's dysfunctional mechanics don't stop it from being an enjoyable casual fighting game in its own right, and B.) Brawl has so much fucking content that it almost felt I was robbing Nintendo for getting this game for only sixty bucks back in the day. Yes, Nintendo, a company notorious for overpricing pretty much all of their games (sixty dollars for EMULATIONS of three 2D Mario games). Brawl was a game with a hundred dollars' worth of content all for the bargain-bin price of sixty dollars, and it's all thanks to HAL ^ and Sakurai himself for their impeccable attention to detail and their love of the craft. As competitively garbage as Brawl actually is, well... Smash was never made to be competitive (at least not at this point in time). So, if anything, Brawl is the truest and purest form of Smash Bros on the market. Whether you like it or not, this is always how Sakurai intended for you to play Smash, and I for one still enjoy it just as much as I did as an impressionable and starry-eyed kid.

^ (Technically this was developed by "Sora LTD" and a few others, but Sora LTD is just a shell company of Sakurai's and HAL Labratory's, so...)

GO FOR BROKE
This one, oh boy this one. Countless hours spent. I’ve rarely gone a week without playing this damned game at least a little bit. Street Fighter Alpha 3 to this day is still one of the most unique but also divisive entries in the entire series, and my opinion has changed on it like 800 times. It’s good? It’s GOAT? Favorite fighter of all time? Second favorite? IDK. But what I DO know is that this game is awesome, and that I haven’t shut up about this thing for over a year now. I feel it is finally time to just barf out why I love this game so much, I am so motivated to get this message out to the world.
Alpha 3 to me perfectly encapsulates what the Alpha series is all about. It’s absolutely SEEPING with energy and aesthetic. Greatest character select screen in existence maybe. Fonts of like 5 different sizes scrolling all over the top and bottom of this thing, you’d think it would be clunky and incomprehensible but nah, it works. I always loved the character portraits and how they line up with both the character select and versus screen, courtesy of my man BENGUS. And man the VERSUS SCREEN??? The way the text for your name and ism pops in is literally genius, who animated this? This is combined alongside one of the coolest transitions I’ve ever seen in a video game, with the shape of the “door” closing being based on whatever ism you picked (A/Z-ism, X-ism, V-ism), and it’s also just so satisfying to watch.
The UI and just general aesthetics of Alpha 2 have been completely overhauled here. All of these thick fonts and colors are simplistic but somehow also very detailed and intricate. For me, anyway, they scream 90’s COOL aesthetic. Your health and super meter bars change color (and shape) based on your ism, and just generally the amount of effort put into the differences of isms here are very commendable. Honestly on the topic of that, I should discuss the gameplay.
The gameplay in this one is sick. There are three different fighting styles you get to pick, first there’s X-ism, which is a giant Super Turbo homage which limits your moveset but gives you insane damage output. A-ism is essentially the mechanics introduced from the first Alpha game (and also the best for beginners), and V-ism is the custom combo shit from Alpha 2 now made into it’s own fighting style. This is great, and for casual play makes the game more fun and diverse. Competitively… Everyone just picks V-ism because of the juggle combos here. On the topic of combos, Alpha 3 is THE most juggle heavy entry in the entire series, disregarding the EX lineup. Even without V-ism, so many moves will just LAUNCH your opponents which gives you time to followup and increase that combo count, it’s so fun to mess with. Alpha 3 generally just encourages aggressive gameplay, and it’s accentuated by the guard crush feature. Essentially, now the game will punish you if you try to just block constantly, as the guard meter being emptied leaves you vulnerable for attack. Did I mention I love this game because it’s fast? Once you get those turbo settings on, the matches in this game are t-i-g-h-t and lightning fast, which makes good play super rewarding. It’s my absolute favorite aspect of the Alpha series.
Alpha 3’s roster only introduces like- four new characters, with the rest of the roster additions being veterans from previous games. That being said, 25 (28 if you include secret characters, 29 counting Shin Bison) in the vanilla roster is nothing to scoff at. What’s even better is that every character has a bio whenever you pick them (only game in the series to do this from what I remember), along with three scripted fights in the arcade ladder, each with dialogue to boot. But to get even CRAZIER, the revisions of this game had even more. PS1/Dreamcast/Saturn added SIX extra characters, as well as making the secret characters properly integrated into the game with their own campaigns and portrait art, the GBA version added THREE characters from Capcom Vs SNK 2, and the PSP version added ONE character from Capcom Trashy Evolution! Meaning that Alpha 3 went from 29 fighters to THIRTY NINE CHARACTERS. Insanity. Now, for the newcomers, were they good? Karin was a great addition to the roster, her fighting styles and combos are fun, AND she’s a fun rival for Sakura. R. Mika is great and fits the energy of Alpha 3, sadly she’s low tier in terms of playability. Juli and Juni are mainly Cammy clones, but they’re great for expanding the lore, and really help establish the pure EVIL M. Bison is in this series. This roster is just fantastical every time I think about it, and I've even started trying out more of the characters I'm not used to for fun! Maybe someday I'll even become a world warrior.
I have countless memories of fighting the boss, Shin Bison. I remember thinking this guy was like, the hardest thing ever, but once you understand the rules of this fight, it’s not nearly as difficult. That being said, he’s still super annoying. Try to jump in? Stand HK or air grab. Whiff? Punish by sweep. Aaaaand he’s teleported behind me hasn't he [gets thrown which does a ton of damage in this game for some reason]. Everyone brings up that STUPID super move, but honestly the AI is so predictable with this. If his meter is full and he does that air dive move, 90% guarantee he will do it. Just block. Everything else about this fight is more difficult anyway. In the arcade version specifically, getting a game over to this dude was painful, you’re locked into a bad ending and that’s it, no second chances, back to the beginning of the arcade ladder for you. It’s surprisingly punishing, but in the age of save states and the console versions removing this “feature”, it’s not too big of a deal.
The music is great, unsurprisingly. This game’s soundtrack goes for an entirely different vibe from the previous entries, and it fits the tone of Alpha 3 for me. The amount of electronic instruments and guitars are blood pumping and just get you ready to go crazy on your opponent. Brave Or Grave is honestly one of THE best final boss themes in fighting games period, and it gets you SO hyped to wipe the floor with Shin Bison fr fr. Honestly just listen to the music yourself, it’s worth the time.
I’ve played this game’s arcade mode like over 30 times at this point, it’s so addicting. I love this game, so many memories to share honestly. I’ve even considered buying a physical copy of EVERY version of this game (yes, including the Saturn one, I’m THAT insane). I love this game so much I literally have like probably 5 more paragraphs of things I could write about this game because it has SO MUCH POLISH and SO. MUCH. CONTENT. There are like- 10 or 15 extra modes in the console versions I could write about, almost all of which I have played just for the heck of it. I sat down and did the 100 kumite mode which is 100 FIGHTS BACK TO BACK and I did the entire thing which took me almost an hour. I actually can never tire of this game, it’s so special and unique to me. I couldn’t even think of a proper closer for this review because I want to just keep typing about it!!! Who knows, maybe I could write a third review that covers what stuff I missed!!! But in the end, can I recommend this game to anyone? Well…
“IT ALL DEPENDS ON YOUR SKILL… GO FOR IT, MAN!!!”

A weird title serving as a Sonic Pocket Adventure esque demake hybrid of Mega Man X1 and X2 with little to distinguish itself beside that fact. It's cool to see them try and squish 2 full SNES titles onto the GBC, but too many concessions were made for very little benefit, ranging from the cumbersome method of using the dash, to the game's dumb structure of splitting the campaign into halves, then allowing you to play the full adventure only after completing the two halves separated. Just play the SNES originals, there's little here to really consider worth sinking your teeth into.

I started the game thinking "it's kinda crazy how often I see this mascot character everywhere even though the game is like a really basic old match 3 game" but then I ended spending at least a couple hours standing alone at a halo 2 lan party playing it until the very end. I can see there being a lot of depth in how one can approach
a stage, especially when it comes to score attack. The rng can be pretty ruthless, especially when you're trying to clear the last 2 colors at the end of a stage. Thank god I was on a free play machine. Where's my shirt.

The start of a great franchise, but the worst game of them all. CPU’s are cheating, getting ridiculous amounts of items without driving into item boxes, driving through Thwomps like they didn’t exist, not to mention the special items that are different for each character that only the CPU’s can get. Controls are way different and slidey, but after some getting used to, it can be good fun

Great if you wanna play a very difficult & unfair Mario Kart, or experience CPU torture with a friend.

Ridiculous while also being completely serious, Snake Eater runs the gamut of emotions - it will make you laugh and cry and occasionally raise a curious eyebrow.

MGS showed the world how a cinematic video game could work but MGS3 took it several steps further. And the new camera style in Subsistence pushed it into a perfect 10.

Quite simply one of the greatest pieces of digital entertainment ever made. You haven't lived until you've played Snake Eater.