OK so this game started out great, stunning looking but is a stutter mess better then launch tho, combat is fun with sekiro and BB gameplay integrated, artstyle and initial bosses also good, level design was pretty linear unlike any other souls like but it was still good, 2 world concept started out basic but then it become quite integral part to move around.
But holy shit this game have one of the worst and confusing level design as it goes on after the initial section, like I can't comprehend how horrible this shit is, the combat become stale after a while as new weapon drops and other shit are pretty generic, but the level design is so shit I just couldn't bare it and had to just drop it

It may look like one of those cheap titles that you would find at the bottom of the bargain bin at the store, but for what it was, Snow Bros. turned out to be a really fun game, with colorful and fun visuals that keep you engaged the entire time, simple and fun gameplay that anyone could get behind, and plenty of power-ups that were fun to use against the many foes that you would face. I still stand by the opinion that that game is even better than the original Bubble Bobble, since it was pretty much a clone of that game, and I will gladly be burned alive for having that opinion by anyone that says otherwise. And hey, it managed to find moderate success, not just through its original arcade release, but also from the several ports that it would get soon afterwards, which meant that a sequel was bound to happen. Oddly though, this sequel didn’t come out until four years later, and it would come out to the public with the dumbest-ass title I have ever seen for one of these games, Snow Bros. 2: With New Elves.

In a complete inverse of patterns for me, I generally wasn’t really too keen on getting to this game after completing the original game, and I don’t really know why to be honest. I did love the original game, so you would expect me to be more then willing to jump on into the sequel to see how it is, but I dunno, I don’t know if I trust Toaplan to capture that same spark twice like Taito managed to. Nevertheless, I went into the game with an open mind like I do with most of the games I play, and I’m glad I did, because it turned out to be a pretty good game after all. I wouldn’t say it is quite as good as the original game, but it still manages to be a pretty fun time that fans of the previous game will be able to have a blast with from start to finish.

The story is pretty much the exact same as the previous game, where the fair princess of the land is captured by a sinister alien menace, so it is up to Nick (and not Tom, because who needs the second bro in a game called Snow BROS., am I right?) and his three new buddies to set out to save the day by defeating this alien menace and getting the princess back, which I would comment on as being generic and lazy, but I’m still hung up on whatever happened to Tom to care that much. The graphics are pretty great, looking somewhat similar to that of the original game, but having much more creative designs for all the enemies, levels, and bosses, although sometimes they can get a little TOO creative, which I will get to in a bit, the music is just as energetic, lively, and exciting to listen to as the first game, and there are quite a good few tracks to find here, even if none of them stuck out to me personally, and the gameplay/control does the exact opposite of what Bubble Bobble did with its sequel by sticking pretty closely to its roots, not changing things up too drastically and building upon the base gameplay, which was probably the best option they could’ve gone with in this case.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of either Nick, Bobby, Roy, or Richard, go through a set of six different worlds, each containing their own sets of levels for you to conquer, take out every enemy you see using whatever tools you have at your disposal before they can take you down, gather plenty of different power ups to make yourself stronger and give yourself a better chance at surviving whatever may be coming up, and several bosses that will not only test your skill in terms of speed and reflexes, but will also terrify you as you look on in horror at what they look like, causing you to have nightmares when go to bed at night……….. seriously, there is a lot of unsettling shit here. Like with Truxton II, Snow Bros. 2 doesn’t do that much to try to reinvent what the original game is all about, leaving things very familiar for those who did play the original game, while also still providing a little more things here to where it doesn’t feel like a complete copy of its predecessor.

Unlike most of these kinds of games, where they expand upon the moves that you can pull off and nothing else, this game manages to somewhat evolve both the moves you pull off AND its approach to implementing platforming. Most of the levels have you doing the typical Bubble Bobble stuff, which is always still very fun to do, but now there are one or two levels here and there that will require you to climb to the top of this tower to avoid death from some spikes or lava below, and while it can be tricky to nail some certain jumps at times, because your jump still really sucks in this game, it was a nice change of pace from the regular levels when they come up. Aside from that though, when it comes to the enhancements made to the powerups, there aren’t too many that I could notice, but all of the powerups from the previous game do make a return, which is great to see, and there is even a new super form that you can find which you can use to take out all the enemies in a stage lickety-split upon using it. Mix all of that together with some cute little cutscenes in-between each world, and what you have here is an all around solid romp that you can easily have fun with, now with up to four players at a time, which I can only imagine must be the most chaotic shit in the world.

However, despite how solid the game is for the most part, it is also very short, being just as long as the original game, if not shorter, as there aren’t as many levels as there were in the previous game, and they don’t take long to beat at all, which does kind of suck, especially when it comes to those platforming levels that I mentioned earlier. Again, these stages can be really fun, but there are only two of them in the entire game, and they each count as a sole world, which means that there were a couple of instances where I would complete a world, move onto the next one, complete one level there, and then go onto the next one just like that, almost like there was no purpose to that world whatsoever. Ignoring that though, the only other critiques that I could give the game is that it may feel a little too same-y to the original game at plenty of times, and the added dash of nightmare fuel certainly didn’t help things out either.

Overall though, despite how short, same-y, and creepy it is, this still managed to be a very solid sequel to that of the original game, and a pretty damn good time as a whole, feeling like a proper evolution by expanding upon all the elements found in that original game, adding some new features at times to keep things fresh, and still having the weird, yet lovable charm to make people wanna go back to it after that four-year wait. I would recommend it for those who were big fans of the original Snow Bros., as well as those who are fans of any of the other Bubble Bobble type games out there, because while this one isn’t so much different from those others, it can still be just as chaotic and fun as any other game of its kind, and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day. Unfortunately though, this tale does end on a bit of a tragic note, because this would be the last game ever made by Toaplan before they would shut their doors, never to be seen again, which is definitely a shame to be sure. But hey, Truxton and Snow Bros. are both making a comeback pretty soon, so that is something to get excited about at least…………. even though both of those games are probably gonna suck.

Game #585

I did it in co-op and only enjoyed bits of the gameplay because of that

any time a character opened their mouth both me and my friend would laugh at how bad not only the writing was but the voice acting as well, the gameplay was shallow the side activities were boring, there was fuck all traffic density or pedestrians, every single song on the radio sucked, all the cars handled like shit and any cars that had something resembling speed like the hoverbikes would rubberband and suddenly lose all speed on the tiniest of imperfections in the road.

the only slightly redeeming thing was the map cause it had a fair bit of variety in the areas and was very large but it was also strangely flat but I found it more interesting than steelport, there one was a side quest where you participate in a LARP game and it was the only part where the tone the game seems to be going for worked the best but besides that none of the side content left any impressions on me

I'd try talk about the story but honestly nothing of note happens and none of the characters are interesting enough to even mention and the game just seems to give up in the last 3 missions.

I went into this with an incredibly open-mind having been a Saints Row fan since Saints Row 2 but this game is so much worse than I imagined and its no wonder this game is basically responsible for the death of a company

I have a lot of mixed feelings on this game, I really enjoy the level concepts a lot more here first than the first game and the music is also similar in this regard, I think as a follow-up game its 100% worth playing. but there's some things to be aware of heading into it, it loses a lot of the simplicity that made the first banjo such an enjoyable experience and went more in the direction of padding runtime with unnecessary and poorly implemented backtracking, I cant count how many collectibles I straight up never collect in regular playthroughs due the tedious nature and that's just to start, notes were given a reduced presence and instead of collecting a single note at a time you instead collect bundles which sounds great on paper however less notes means less notes to direct the player to where they actually need to be going which in this game is devastating in some areas

Banjo & Kazooies Moveset (both together and seperately) has greatly expanded but while some of the moves feel like integral new parts of the moveset others can feel like bloat, the split pads were also poorly used in my opinion and kinda groaned whenever I encountered them.

all in all I'd recommend it if you liked the first one but just be aware that its a much longer and tedious collect-a-thon


p.s: this game loses an entire star to Grunty Industries*

so to start off I like this game a fair bit, maybe slightly more than the first one but I prefer it due to its more polished gun play and addition of strafing rather than it having more interesting planets (although the giant destroyed gadgetron facility was a really cool opening shot), I found the music a lot less memorable than the first game and also not as atmospheric, in the first game the music really set the tone and vibe of planets and had me turning my game volume up at several points just to be able to hear them to their fullest,

the game has sudden and abrupt difficulty spikes in the latter half that kinda come out of nowhere, I had been steamrolling everything up until the planet Snivelak and speaking of Snivelak the boss fight on this planet was absolutely abysmal and unfun despite the impressive technical aspect of it being accomplished on the PS2 and I felt very similarly about the spaceflight sections, while they are cool concepts and were smoothed out much more in later games I had alot of difficulty locating enemies and even hitting them as they are incredibly small targets,

the story of this game also kinda goes all over the place likely due the rewrites the game underwent and it felt incredibly inconsistent, arenas were introduced in this game and arenas having always been my favourite I was kinda excited to visit a PS2 ratchet arena that I had no experience with, I was sorely disappointed with the variety but had alot of fun with it nonetheless and really enjoyed some of the more specific challenges like surviving a ton of rounds with only 300 lancer bullets,

all in all I do like this game but it trades a lot of blows with the first game and I found its planets less memorable but its arsenal of weapons much more interesting, I didnt like space combat, but I really liked the hoverbike sections this time around and so on. I can understand why this is a lot of peoples favourite ratchet & clank game and absolutely do not hate it despite the issues I had with it.