CW: mentions of suicide, spoilers later on

I want to go on record for the most part and say that I love YIIK for what its concept is and what it sets out to do. I can really see the amount of love they poured into this project, however flawed it may be, and I will defend its existence in whatever way I can. That said I wish I could score it higher but I have the same gripes with everyone else about the gameplay and dialogue.

The gameplay is slow-paced and downright unreadable in some situations, such as that one pixel minigame where you have to parry that weird yellow smiley ball guy and there's no telegraphing barring the split second window the game gives you. And, as a bonus, if you miss at any point the remaining characters also get hit. The system offers no breathing room with the action-based combat so learning new skills comes with a toss-up rather than being a new and engaging way to play the game. If you completely miss the action, you won't hit at all. There's also this weird elemental system that feels sort of shoved in? I find it weird to have an elemental system in a game where none of the characters use elemental magic. All that combined with the fact that the fastest of battles take at least 20 seconds wears down on my excitement pretty fast. There's also random encounters when you travel in the overview map which is really not for me. I was getting kind of annoyed trying to find the right town to go to and find a crosswalk and having those aforementioned battles really felt like padding. I feel like the random encounters should have been put into the dedicated monster dungeons they had. Dungeons were also not very much fun for me as any puzzles kinda felt slow to operate or were kind of clunky. I seriously can't believe that they have two types of barriers that require different abilities to be removed. Surely you can do better than that.

There was also some functionality issues with one part of the first dungeon. There's this one part where you're supposed to aim and throw a cat in a direction to flip a lever, but it's meant to be played with a controller which means that you're meant to have an analogue stick for it, which means that I had to use my ARROW KEYS FOR ANALOGUE. Only by sheer miracle was I able to get those levers.

That aside, YIIK really delivers well on the overall vibes. The graphics, music and atmosphere are top-notch especially when it leans into the unsettling surrealism part, such as Wind Town at night or the Warehouse. I also loved the world seemingly breaking apart and changing art direction as Y2K approaches, ripping apart the universe. I could also stare at the title screen all day, it's so soothing~

The story, however, I could sadly not say the same. Unfortunately, it's presented in the worst way possible with it explained with long monologues presenting all these in-universe concepts as matter-of-fact within the main plot, rather than letting the player experience them unfiltered and learning more about them through reading and side quests. The Soul Space and leaving one's own universe through emotional distress is an intriguing and nuanced concept that gets talked about as if it's supposed to be normal and we're as dumb as Alex for not knowing about it before. Don't get me wrong, these concepts can work! They just need breathing room to be digested. I think Homestuck does a great job with that in its beginning pages, with it letting the reader slowly understand the rules of the universe and rewarding them with humor and awesome battle sequences. YIIK's presentation made my brain hurt.

It's also hard to see how this ties in with the game's supposed message about self-improvement and becoming a better person, at least within the main route. That message in of itself is scattered and has no narrative structure save for a few actions. One being Alex's neglectfulness of his studies placing his mom in a state of financial worry that doesn't amount to anything considering it gets resolved WITHOUT Alex manning up and getting himself a job. The other is causing Rory's suicide. Instead of taking responsibility and changing his actions to try and improve himself later on, he just talks to himself about how much of a shitty person he is and continues to keep the focus on himself. And the universe affirms him for it. Even in the alternate ending RORY'S GHOST FORGIVES HIM, WHAT???

It's funny that the song's one track by Toby Fox made me care about this game more than anything. Don't get me wrong, all of the music sounds great but Toby's is phenomenal. It might even be my favorite of his. It's a simple chiptune battle track, but it's hauntingly somber like a lonely voice crying out for a sense of purpose. This is paired with the album cover they chose for the official OST release, while just being a random screenshot from the upcoming YIIK I.V, still managed to tell a story. Alex ashamedly looking at a wide-eyed Sammy for some sort of guidance or comfort but seeing that she's just as scared as he is. I even came up with a line from the song's melody. It's cheesy, I know, but good music is a very powerful tool for conveying messages and not just emotions and tone.

"You thought you were ready to embrace change, but you didn't expect the change to change you."

If I'm being honest with myself, I would've wanted to take this story in a completely different direction about Alex being thrust into adult life and him avoiding his responsibilities and new-found feelings through bizarre adventures that only serve as a mere distraction. His own feelings of inferiority masked by a huge ego and attitude being slowly brought down as he realizes how pointless his adventuring is and how much joy he gets out of being with his friends. Sammy and the Essentia could stay as misleading and antagonistic distractions, but the culmination could be Alex finally realizing that none of this is actually worth the battle. I don't know, I think this game has hindered my rationalizing skills a bit.

I cannot stress enough though, how excited I am for YIIK I.V and how it addresses all of its current flaws. The new battle system looks great and snappy, if a bit disorienting. I also like that they're tapping into the surrealism, and flexing their scripting muscles with new cutscenes. It looks like they're planning on keeping the monologues in but they're making them more interesting by presenting Alex an MC at an open mic night recounting his tales, which is a fair enough compromise if the devs are that keen about keeping that vision for him. I personally don't think I.V will solve all of its problems, but it will definitely make things more interesting and I respect the hell out of the devs for standing by their game.

Alright so before we begin I admit that while this is my second playthrough, the last one was on the Gamecube collection and this one is on the Switch collection meaning it does not have the proper Guns 'n' Roses names. This is bullshit and a blight upon the experience, and I continue to live in the world of Grizzly Slash and Mattrex and Dark Dizzy and of course, Duff McWhalen, forevermore, amen.

I'm definitely not In Step with most of the fans when it comes to Megaman and X in particular. I remember this one being very poorly regarded, but I don't actually know why and I think it's pretty good! I like it more than X4 but less than the part of X4 where Zero has his hilarious breakdown because come on that's iconic. I think this mainly comes down to it being incredibly, comically easy. Very easy to get the sicko armor that flies with invincibility and honestly it's not hard without that either. Since I'm going way out of order, I'm coming back to this after X7 and it contrasts particularly well with that game, which is extremely frustrating. I love X7 as a hot mess but I'm not going to go back and play around with it, whereas I actually do want to do that with X5.

And there's a good REASON to do so! The game's time limit, while not adding much tension to the process of completing levels per se, filters down into a series of upgrades, both the kind that you can equip and passive health/weapon energy boosters. The system is completely opaque, but if you start messing around and making different choices than you can end up with different options available to you, and they weren't afraid to give you some really powerful ones. This is on top of having different character/armor options in the first place. It just feels like you're racing towards and end point and having to make choices instead of indulging in a big wide-open buffet like normal Megaman, even though you still really kinda are because the time limit is fake. The worst thing that could even happen is getting locked into a bad ending which is actually more detialed than the good one anyway.

Speaking of which, I think trying to really talk about the plot of this game would require me to understand what the fuck is going on in Megaman X. Since my third eye remains decidedly closed, I just think about how it was supposed to go into Megaman Zero. It was supposed to be an ending. I can see some of the plot threads there, but I wonder which ending was really meant to be the one. Both? Does it matter? What got changed in the plot of those four games to make it fit? Why do I care when none of it makes even a single iota of sense? These are all mysteries, their answers lost to time. I'm probably more interested in the creative process than the plot. But still! There's a whole funny man named Dynamo who has nothing to do with anything in this game! Was he gonna show up in MMZ? Probably not!!!

For sure, I have no thesis statement for Megaman X5 aside from hey, I like a dumb simple Megaman X. A few of the levels in this are clunkers, but there's also enough to make it feel like they were experimenting with this one while still keeping within the formula. That's probably the platonic ideal the franchise game. Everything else I didn't talk about here is just kinda little tiny annoying bullshit like oooooh the hitboxes are a little wonky who cares

It's October babyyyy so I'm playing some Castles Vania and trying to clear a few I've never beaten. I have beaten Bloodlines but this time I played as Eric "The Other Guy With A Spear" Alcarde.

Bloodlines is always going to be attached to Contra: Hard Corps in my head for reasons that are probably pretty obvious: both Genesis entries in an established Konami franchise that are really weird and exist alongside a more well-known SNES cousin. The biggest difference there is probably that Contra III: The Alien Wars is considered like the bang-on pinnacle of that franchise where Super Castlevania IV is itself a weirdo that I have affection for in spite of the cruel insults and mockery hurled upon it from the rabble. But you know whatever.

The hilarity starts from the usual perfunctary backstory, as this game tries to bring the original Bram Stoker novel into canon without anybody involved having actually read it. Elizabeth Bathory also gets involved, and we all love to see that. You can play as the Belmont-surrogate John Morris, who is normal Castlevania whip guy, or Eric, who has a spear and is the traditional Castlevania leather skirt guy. At the time, this was the most modern setting for a Castlevania, and it does come up in exactly one level set in a German munitions factory where you fight goofy skeletons in WWI helmets, but for the most part everything here is just an extension of the NES games with some fancier bells and whistles.

Where CV4 on SNES was a showcase of gratuitous Mode 7 effects, Bloodlines understands the appeal of the Genesis and provides you with staples such as "vectorman floating ball enemies and projectiles" and "incredible number of mid-bosses." I don't know how much staff this shared with the eventual creation of Treasure, but the specific sensibility that they would eventually have is on full display in Bloodlines as it is in Hard Corps. Solid arcade gameplay combined with making you fight all kinds of weird shit in a variety of locations. Bloodlines sends you all over the world, but even the levels that take place in castles (fully half of them) you'll get wild stuff. One boss is that vase/two faces illusion but like, a ghost? And you fight it? The final level has a segment where a third of the screen has its view shifted to the right like you're looking through a series of mirrors. Indie platformers would eventually get into that kind of thing years later but it's really fun to see in a Sega Genesis Castlevania.

Playwise, this is very recognizably Castlevania. The whip and the staircases and all that. It's a lot more normal action game than the NES entries, for lack of a better way to put it. The subweapons are all a lot more similar than they normally are, and there's only three of them. They do each have a stronger throw mode that uses more ammo but since all three kind of just go forward in different ways it makes them even more samey. None of them are as broken as they could be in previous titles, either.

I don't say any of that to suggest the game is bad, or not a real Castlevania or any of that shit, but to note that the change to 16-bit consoles allowed for some exploration of what Castlevania could now be. Both Bloodlines and CV4 have whip swing moves that work totally differently, for example. This is the only classicvania as far as I can remember with a move that gives honest-to-god iframes, Eric's spring-jump. Playing a long time without getting hit can give you a big powerup that makes your attack much stronger and lets you activate a super subweapon, which isn't totally divorced from previous Castlevanias but feels more like you're playing Ghouls 'n' Ghosts or something.

So in my final evaluation this one kicks ass. Now I'm going to play the gameboy ones and suffer

So everyone says this one sucks shit. They're right. It's agonizing on pretty much every level. I save-stated my way through this after the first half of the game and feel no regret.

BUT YOU KNOW this still got me thinking because I have simply not played anything that sucked in this specific way in quite some time. It reminds me of the kind of stuff I would build in Klik 'n' Play et al back in the day. Requires absurd memorization of arbitrary moves. Takes advantage of quirks of the game system, like screen transitions, to screw you over. Does not feel like it was made for anyone outside of the level designer.

This gives it a certain charm. Even though I never played it as a kid, there's a nostalgia here that has nothing to do with the game itself. It recalls a time of my life when I would play flash games online that also sucked shit but generally ran at a better frame rate.

Anyway I don't think I saw any one-star reviews so I'm giving it that. Half a star is reasonable though I just like adding some variety.

In the year 2001, something new was birthed.

A good video game.

The apex of an era. Of a franchise. Of a hedgehog. Cowards will tell you the game "aged poorly" becauase they are fundamentally weak. It's only gotten better with age as we've through the era of Shadow the Hedgehog being a cool guy to the era of Shadow the Hedgehog being a cringe guy and now into the golden age of Shadow the Hedgehog being the Best Guy.

The masses will hate me because I tell the truth. They'll say shit like "all the levels that aren't Sonic and Shadow suck" because they have failed to reached the zen state of running around them like a maniac racking up points and getting it faster. I'm right and I won't be stopped from saying it any more. It's the best Sonic.

Chao are cute too tbh

Sonia Belmont, girlfriend to Alucard and sadly stricken from the timeline. Anime legend. She has the ability to go super saiyan and become invincible for a few seconds. What more could one ask for?

Okay probably like, a better game. We could ask for that. This is in many ways somehow the worst of the Gameboy 'Vanias but about halfway through it's incredibly bizarre idiosyncrasies kind of won me over. It was one of the times I went down an entire, multi-room path full of enemies only to discover it was a dead end containing one (1) chicken drumstick at the end which gave me back maybe half of what I lost.

There's a sort of accidental survival horror element here. Enemies are frequently nigh-impossible to properly dodge both due to their placement and movements and also the extremely "hmm" hitboxes, but they very rarely do significant damage. The levels are very, very long slogs. Your 'burning mode' can be activated at-will once per life per level to give you invincibility, extra strength and speed, but there are segments that seem intended to force you into using it. This is also the literal only classicvania where the first whip powerup doesn't come free from the first candle you hit every time.

All that said, checkpoints are very frequent and running out of lives doesn't send you any further back than that. The difficulty is entirely a facade, propped up by a number of hidden items you need to find to get a slightly expanded ending. Instead of subweapons, each level earns you a new magic power which you can select freely, including a heal for a whopping 20 hearts. It's actually kind of cozy in a way, despite the rampant frustration of bats that start at the top of the screen and can only fly directly downwards onto your head god DAMMIT

Some good things: Alucard is in this and looking like his SOTN self because this game came out in nineteen ninety fucking seven. There are some very neat enemy sprites, including one of my favorite Dracula forms. Having a super invincible mode you can do is objectively very cool. It reminded me of shitty old games I made as a kid again, something that just seems to be endemic to monochrome handhelds

Despite being one of the most popular and influential games of all time, somehow, Doom 2 is still severely underrated.

Someone who agrees is Danbo, fellow Doom lover and developer of the shmup Blue Revolver. In his old article (https://blog.danbo.vg/post/50094276897/the-most-misunderstood-game-of-all-time) he explains:

"While Doom was no doubt the product of a bunch of nerds doing what they love, the game offers a more intelligent gameplay palette than just about any other pure FPS in the world...Doom perfection is achieved where the visceral meets the intelligent."

Everyone knows the obvious: the timeless joy of the Super Shotgun, the surreal demonic aesthetic, the beloved metal MIDIs that rip off Metallica and Slayer, and so on. But there's an iceberg of elements below the surface that oft go overlooked by those uninitiated in deeper Dooming ways. To bring up just a few examples:

The famous BFG is a brilliant, quirky weapon that operates like some bizarre hybrid of a delayed-fire rocket launcher and shotgun. The ball does a good chunk of damage, but the real firepower is in the spread of 40 invisible tracers that shoot out from you a bit after the ball explodes, in the direction you initially fired. You can fire at packs of enemies to spread out the damage for crowd control, or get right up next to something to put all the tracers on it for massive destruction (both incredibly useful and incredibly dangerous against Cyberdemons). You can fire the BFG at long range, do other things (run around, switch weapons), then move into position for the tracers as the ball makes impact. You can hide behind cover, shoot the ball into a wall, then quickly peek outside cover to forgo the ball damage in favor of safety. You can even shoot, realize that you're in a bad position, and retreat, wasting ammo but possibly saving your life.

Switching weapons is both critical to success and surprisingly slow, especially if you compare with Doom's modern entries. But this adds commitment, that deep shard of the action game's soul, in a way that ties into the ever-present ammo system. Say you pump two Super Shotgun blasts into a Revenant, and are confident that it's a hair away from death. You can switch to the Chaingun to fire a quick burst, which is highly ammo-efficient, but takes time and leaves you vulnerable. You can stick with the Super Shotgun, which trades ammo for safety and speed. You can even use the Rocket Launcher to put heavy damage on another foe while killing the first with splash damage, but this opens the door for the classic-yet-catastrophic rocket to your own face. id could have easily made the weapon switch speed near-instant, but whether by intention or happenstance, they didn't, and the game is better for it.

I could go on and on about all the nuances that add to the game, but there are two critical elements that set Doom apart from every other FPS. The first is its emphasis on space control. Take the humble Pinky, for instance: low health and it's bites are easily dodged, so not much threat, right? Well, put Doomguy in a room with fifty of them (Doom 2 MAP08: Tricks and Traps for instance) and the assessment rapidly changes. If you're not careful, you'll be surrounded on all sides, and while killing a few may be easy, others will quickly rush into the gaps to further constrict you. Controlling territory with movement and smart (or copious) use of ammo is critical to survival. Now imagine how much the situation would evolve with just a single Archvile added to the mix!

The other aspect, almost completely unique to Doom as far as I know, is monster infighting and its importance. Baiting one monster type to attack another will cause it to switch aggro and retaliate. Purposefully leaving some monsters alive to tear each other apart can save you tons of ammo, but also presents a huge risk, as the resulting fight is more chaotic and dangerous.

A great example is the slime pit in Alien Vendetta's MAP14: Overwhelming Odds. The whole pit is filled with Pinkies, and the only way to exit the pit is a lift opposite the switch you need to hit. But hitting the switch releases two Cyberdemons, who can easily kill you if you get trapped, but can also easily dispatch the Pinkies and save you lots of ammo. How many Pinkies do you kill to get to the lift safely, vs. how many do you leave alive for the Cyberdemons? A little later, you need to return to the pit to activate another switch, which releases a massive cloud of Cacodemons. Do you kill the Cyberdemons before hitting the switch, while the field is nice and clear, but go it alone against the Cacos? Or do you leave the Cyberdemons to thin out the horde, then risk fighting them with random Cacos floating around? Or maybe you only kill one Cyberdemon to split the difference? I've tried all of these strategies, and each has its own strengths, weaknesses, and gameplay flow.

It's truly astonishing to me how much id managed to get right so early on. The fundamentals here are rock-solid, and the blend of fast paced action, using enemies against each other, heavy resource management, and a thick coating of atmosphere for good measure prefigures Resident Evil 4 by a decade. All the dynamic layers of decision-making I yearn for in action games are here, weaving into each other in wonderful interplay. Split-second decisions and execution are, as always, a matter of life and death, but also affect your health and ammo, which leaks into the next encounters. Making too hasty of a retreat at the wrong time can cost you precious territory and create openings for monsters to stake out unfavorable positions, the consequences of which might not be felt until later in the fight. The overall route you devise for tackling a map can vastly change how the onslaught plays out, both in terms of what gear you have access to and what mix of monsters are active.

It should be an obvious conclusion by now that the map has a massive impact on gameplay, especially if you are pistol starting. (sidenote: you should absolutely pistol start levels, lower the difficulty if you have to) Placement of monsters, weapons, resources, and geometry will make or break the experience. and the true mapping virtuoso has a commanding sense of how to arrange these elements to create gripping scenarios that challenge, terrify, surprise, and delight.

Danbo again:

"It’s not artificial intelligence you fight when you’re locked in a room full of Barons of Hell and Revenants and voicelessly asked to pick a side in the resulting infighting (It’ll take more ammo to finish off the barons, but revenants are more likely to give you a nasty right hook or slap you with a rocket in the process) - it’s human intelligence."

Doom 1 and 2's base maps, given the time and constraints id was working under, are an admirable work and good bit of fun, and have undoubtedly served as a crucial creative jumping-off point for the community. But they weren't able to reveal the true brilliance of the game's design: it would be the Casali brothers' Plutonia Experiment, distributed commercially in Final Doom by id a couple years after Doom 2, that began to show off how careful arrangement could bring out the best (and most deadly) in each monster.

As Doomworld's Not Jabba puts it, in their epic history Roots of Doom Mapping (https://www.doomworld.com/25years/the-roots-of-doom-mapping/):

"The Casali brothers laid so much groundwork that all combat-oriented mapping has been a series of footnotes to Plutonia."

The Doom 2 enemies in particular are some of the best ever made, and in Plutonia we can see that each contribute something unique. Hell Knights are balanced bruisers who eat space, health, and ammo in equal measure. Revenants are fragile, but their fast movespeed and homing missiles demand nimble footwork. Chaingunners fall over to stiff breezes, but call forth lead torrents within their sightlines. Mancubi and Arachnotrons lay down blankets of fire, but can be easily dodged close up and are especially prone to starting infights. Pain Elementals are harmless if you stop their Lost Souls from spawning, but sponge up piles of ammo if you let them roam free for too long. Archviles exert their tyrannical rule through long range, delayed-hitscan fire attacks, and they brutally punish inaction by resurrecting nearby fallen foes.

Since the release of Final Doom, Doom's almost 30-year-old community has been steadily building on this foundation, its continued vitality attributable to a complex mix of historical circumstance, id's openness to fan modifications (a stance I am immensely greatful for, and has been highly influential in PC gaming at large), and love of Doom. I confess that I have only begun to dip my toes into the vast world of custom maps, but the tremendous fun I've had so far, as well as the glowing reception for projects like Scythe 2, Valiant, Ancient Aliens, and Sunlust, has me eager to dive deeper. This is a community that most games would kill for, and the fact that it's gone largely overlooked, even by many fellow lovers of game mechanics, can only be described as utterly criminal.

An all-around great resource for learning more is MtPain27's Dean of Doom Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/MtPain27), where he reviews both new and old WADs level-by-level. His love of Doom is infectious, and he gives a great sense for the age, breadth, and brilliance of the mapping scene. Skilled players like Decino (https://www.youtube.com/c/decino) can also help show off the deeper aspects of gameplay, as well as engine quirks to add to your knowledge repertoire.

There are certainly some problems with the game (random damage and berserk with the chainsaw come to mind) but these are negligible when juxtaposed with the whole. I am utterly awed and humbled by what has been created here, and I don't see anything comparable emerging again. This is the type of game you could spend your whole life exploring and mastering.

Simply put: One of the greatest games of all time.

Veredito: É exatamente o que diz na embalagem.

My Nintendo Picross é o esperado: um jogo de puzzles picross (de novo: pense em uma versão um pouco mais complexa e viciante de Campo Minado onde você acaba desenhando pixelarts simples) baseado no Twilight Princess. Se tem algo que ele se destaca é nos modos Micross e Mega Picross, que trazem uma diversidade bacana ao gênero.

Infelizmente nenhum dos dois é super bem aproveitado - só tem um Micross e ele é ridicularmente fácil, principalmente para o que seria o último desafio do jogo, e os Mega Picross repetem as mesmas imagens do picross normal - mas dão uma variedade bacaninha mesmo assim.