Not really much to say about this one, as it is essentially just Tetris and Dr. Mario, except they look nicer now. There is a new game mode that switches between the two games as you are playing them against another opponent, but it doesn’t really change anything around to the point where it feels like that much of a substantial addition. Not to mention, the music is butchered compared to the originals, to where it makes me wanna down a bottle of Dr. Mario’s pills, so that I won’t have to listen to it anymore from the fact that I’ll be dead.

Remakes #12 and 13

Taking any sort of dormant franchise and bringing it back into the “modern” era is always a risky move, no matter what the franchise in question is, but it was clear that Rare was able to pull this off seamlessly with the original Donkey Kong Country for the SNES. Sure, the bosses may have been lacking in plenty of areas, and there is some bullshit to be found when it comes to some of the secrets, but all of that is made up for with the game’s tight platformer, superb gameplay, wonderful gimmicks, impressive graphics for the time, and wonderful music, tying everything up together in one, banana-flavored package that many have enjoyed ever since it had initially released. Not only that, but the game was also extremely successful, selling over 9.3 MILLION copies, so it was clear that both Rare and Nintendo needed to keep this money train rolling with a sequel of some kind. However, this is the part of Rare’s life as a company where they were going to go through a bit of character development: they were sitting on a gold mine with this property, so they couldn’t just hash out something cheap and terrible like they did with Battletoads. They needed to make sure that this game was better than the rest, the true king of the jungle, one that can stand amongst the greatest of the greats, and personally, if you were to ask me, I think they succeeded in doing that and then some with Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest.

While I did get the original DKC as one of the first games on my SNES, and I would go onto playing it a lot because of that, I initially didn’t get DKC2 for quite some time, even though I was well aware of it existing for a while. It was only when another video game convention managed to roll through my town a good couple of years ago that I was able to snag myself a physical copy of the game to try it out, and HOT DAMN, I definitely should’ve hopped on it a lot sooner before then. The original game was already great enough as is, but this game manages to take everything that game did, expand upon it, and improve upon every criticism that I could have with that game, making for what I would say is not only a perfect sequel, but also a masterpiece of the platforming genre.

The story is just that little more complex when compared to the extremely simplistic premise of DKC 1, where while relaxing on the beach, Donkey Kong is suddenly ambushed and kidnapped by a group of Kremlings, who take him to the dastardly Kaptain K. Rool. Shortly after this, he then sends a message to the other Kongs, saying that if they want to ever see DK again, they need to give him the banana hoard that he failed to get from the previous game, which the Kongs refuse to give up, so it is up to Diddy Kong now, alongside his girlfriend Dixie Kong, to travel through the lands of Crocodile Isle, save DK, and defeat Kaptain K. Rool once and for all. It is still a very basic premise, one that decided it wanted to be even more like Mario and involve a kidnapping of some kind, but it is still an effective story, and not gonna lie, having the main character of the previous game be the one that needs rescuing in this is a bit of a nice twist.

The graphics are pretty great, looking on par with the original game in many different aspects, but also expanding on the visuals with much more creative environment, character, enemy and boss designs, with great animations paired right alongside them as well, the music is fantastic once again, having plenty of incredible tracks that range from the menacing and exciting like this one, to the much more calm and serene like this one, all of which are an absolute joy to listen to even after all this time, and the gameplay/control is just as tight, fun, and masterfully put together as last time, not only providing plenty of fun levels and gimmicks for you to mess with ahead, but also plenty of challenges ahead that will make you feel like a true champ for conquering.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of either Diddy Kong once again or Dixie Kong, go through many different worlds of varying shape and size, each having a very different, unique theme that makes them stand out from each other, while also not feeling like complete copies of what came before in the previous game, defeat plenty of enemies using various techniques while gathering plenty of different bananas, collectibles, animal buddies, and power-ups along the way to help you out, run into many other members of the Kong family such as Funky Kong, who is STILL the coolest motherfucker on the planet, Wrinkly Kong, the one that reminds you of all the horrible teachers that you had back in school, and Swanky Kong, the one that will prove to you just how much of a dumbass you really are, who will each help you out in their own way (except for Cranky again, who I’m surprised hasn’t dropped dead from a heart attack at this point), and take on plenty of bosses who, unlike the last game, are not only very fun to fight, but also have a level of creativity to them that makes taking them each on feel incredibly fun and rewarding. As any good sequel does, this game takes all the great elements from the previous game and retains all of their great qualities, while expanding on them just enough to make it even better than before, and trust me, back when I first played this a long time ago after only having the original game some time, I was FLOORED by just how massive the jump in quality really was, despite not being all too clear by just looking at it.

For starters, since he is now the damsel in distress of this game, you can’t play as DK anymore, which does kinda suck, but hey, at least you still get to play as Diddy Kong, who still plays just as wonderfully as he did in that original game, being very nimble and quick. Not only that, but we now also have Dixie Kong in the crew, who when you start to play as for the first time, you will decide from there on out to ONLY play as Dixie Kong whenever you get the chance, because she is AWESOME in this game. Not only does she have all the same strengths (and weaknesses) as Diddy Kong, but she can also twirl around in the air with her hair, allowing her to safely glide over plenty of obstacles, which, by default, makes her the better character to play as. It’s just like when you discover how Peach can float in Super Mario Bros. 2: it is just broken enough to where you will stick with it for the whole game, and you will accept no other alternatives……….. except when you are forced to.

The game features just as many different kinds of levels as you would find in the original game, this time featuring plenty of new, creative gimmicks that do make it feel a lot more exciting and fun to play. Of course, at first, you just get your standard kinds of levels, where you just run through, jumping on enemies, collecting things, and watching Diddy perform a rap at the end of the stage, just as a means of getting you back into the groove of things, which it manages to do so very smoothly. This then leads onto the levels then quickly spicing things up, with levels where you will have to change the temperature of the water via some magic seals, making it so that you gotta make a mad dash through before you end up dead, levels where you have to ascend up a pirate ship quickly before the water catches up to you so that the piranhas will eat you, levels where you will have to maneuver on hot air balloons to catch hot steam over molten lava, and even levels where you are riding a roller coaster while being chased by a creepy spector, needing to hit checkmark barrels to open gates to avoid your own ghastly demise. Those are only just SOME of the gimmicks that you will encounter with the levels in this game, and they are much more fun to mess around with this time, making the game feel more like a proper evolution of what came before it other then just a simple retread.

This can also be seen in the game’s difficulty, because this game is HARD AS FUCK, even more so compared to DKC 1. Sure, there are plenty of easy levels that you will run into that will take no time to beat, but even by the second world of the game, you will be running into plenty of tricky platforming challenges, enemies that you can’t take out as easily as you would like to, gimmicks that push you to the limit in many different ways, even forcing you to play as certain animal buddies in some levels, and then you add getting the collectibles on top of that, and that adds a whole nother layer to the difficulty in many different instances. This even extends further beyond what you would expect to see from traditional video game difficulty, which can be seen with the simple aspect of saving the game, where you initially can save the game normally once in each world, but then after that one time, you then have to pay banana coins each time, making it so that you will now focus on collecting these things much more in levels, which can lead to plenty of other roadblocks as well. Hell, if that doesn’t convince you enough, how about the fact that there is an enemy in this game who, if he touches you, can zap away your lives from your life counter until you ultimately have nothing left? That is just one of the many cruel ways that this game can fuck you over if you aren’t ready.

However, with all that being said, the harsh difficulty that the game presents you with is one of the reasons why the game is so fantastic to begin with. It truly feels like you are being presented with a challenge, where the original DKC could be seen as the training grounds for you to get used to how this kind of game works and what it could throw your way, and now this game is the true test of everything you have learned, throwing whatever it can at you to kill you, while also giving you everything that you need to conquer every single challenge you face. It never feels unfair in that regard, which makes playing through these levels much more fun, especially whenever you do eventually succeed in beating some of these challenges, as the wave of satisfaction washes over you, making you feel like you truly have accomplished something here today, and that feeling carries out through most of the game.

But of course, what would a DKC game be without having some sort of collectible, and this game has plenty of them for you to find. There are still the many different bonus areas you can find, each giving you a Kremkoin for beating them, as well as the new DK coins that you can get in each level, which if you get enough of them, you can place yourself amongst the others in the Video Game Heroes Contest, allowing you to beat out Mario, Yoshi, Link, and even non-Nintendo characters like Sonic and Earthworm Jim. It’s a pretty cute easter egg to get, and it does prove once and for all that DKC is better then all of those other games, and you can’t change that fact no matter what you say. That’s not all the reward you can get though, as with the Kremkoins in hand, you can then gain access to the Lost World, a bonus world of the game that houses some of the hardest levels in the entire game, such as one level where you have to complete multiple sections as each of the animal buddies that you found throughout the whole game. Needless to say, these levels are no joke, but again, completing them only adds to the satisfaction you feel throughout, and helps you stand on top as the best Video Game Hero of all time.

Overall, if I haven’t made it clear enough at this point, this is a near-perfect sequel to the original DKC in just about every way, and one of the best games that you could find from the SNES era, not only providing many more fun levels to run through, exciting boss fights, incredible music, and gameplay that is as fresh and tight as ever, but it also provides quite a hefty challenge that feels oh so satisfying to overcome, leading to plenty of neat rewards waiting around the corner. I would absolutely recommend it, not just for those who played and loved the original DKC, but also to anyone in general, because it is just that damn good to where if you haven’t tried it out at least once, then do yourself a favor and load it up, possibly with a friend to join you, and get ready to have a blast. satisfied sigh... man, it felt great to revisit this game again after so long, and it really has me looking forward to what comes next in this series. I mean, come on, how could they possibly screw it up at this point now?............... oh right, with a stupid little fuck named Kiddie Kong, that’s how.

Game #586

Seeing Animal Well getting so many perfect scores kind of put me on the offensive with it, and that's not fair. I should be looking at it in a vacuum, removed of comparisons to other Metroidvanias, and the opening gambit of a comedy YouTuber who had the gall to start his own publishing house. It's a game that invites scrutiny, but not on those criteria.

The core of Animal Well is its sense of physicality. There's a very grounded and well-supported sense of logic behind each puzzle and obstacle. There doesn't appear to be any attention given to lore or narrative (and if there is, it's hidden behind additional challenges in the post-game). Your player character is essentially a walking sprite tile, with little other defining features. You get a sense of how high they jump and how fast they move, and that's all you learn about them. As far as I can tell, they don't even have a name. The design's focus is on utility above all else. You gain an inventory of toys, and find out how they can be used in a range of different scenarios. Unlike a lot of games in the genre, your items don't feel like elaborate keys, only introduced to solve specific sets of puzzles, but useful tools that you'll need to experiment with to discover their full value.

The game's ruthlessly abstract, rarely giving any explanation of its ideas. You have to figure it all out through experimentation. It wraps itself up in neon pixels and ambient soundscapes, and you just pick away at it, slowly uncovering more of the map and gaining a deeper understanding of how to traverse it. I spent hours doddering around with puzzles before I realised what I was focusing on was optional post-game content, and discovered what my immediate objective was supposed to be. I have to go really far back to find other games that took such a hands-off approach. Like, 8-bit microcomputer far back. And none of those games could dream of approaching this level of complexity. The closest modern comparison I can think of is VVVVVV, and that's, what, fourteen years old now? I think you only get these games when one guy makes the whole thing himself, and spends an entire console generation tinkering around with ideas, reworking the entire thing each time some new mechanic has an unintended knock-on effect. When someone never has to get a team on-board with their logic, and can just play around with the esoteric ruleset that lives in their own head.

Animals appear to be the game's one constant theme, and I think it's probably just because the developer liked them and they're fun to draw. It doesn't appear to be making any statement about real-world animals, and they all appear in different scales with clashing art styles. Some are cartoony, some are realistic, some have complex logic and a wide range of movement, some are very constrained and function as part of the fundamental level design. They're just a soft face on an otherwise abstract gamepiece. They're not the point. It almost seems coincidental that so many of the things that the game's made up of are animals. Play this game for the experimental approach to Metroidvania design, and the ever-expanding depth. Don't play it because it has Animal in the name.

It's a good game, but it feels a little cold to me. Like they didn't want to give us something to love. I'm not saying it should have Kirby in it (not that I'd complain, but the suggestion would undermine the point I'm making), but a big part of what I love about Metroid is how cool Samus is, and how exciting it is to see her doing cool stuff. Animal Well can feel a little like playing with a desktoy or something. It's so barebones in its expression of character and worldbuilding, and that's not going to be a problem for a lot of people, but it makes me feel a little too detached from it. Again, I can try to appreciate it on its own merits, but it's my main complaint. Maybe it's childish, but I like being the cool hero on the big adventure. Metroid Dread makes this look like Minesweeper.

Is it weird to say this is my favorite classic Megaman game?

I know it is notorious for being a messy rushed title hold together by a couple of coding strings and a bit of luck.... but I dunno I preferred it a lot more than the other classics.

It legit has some of the best OST, with themes of Blues, Snake Man, Spark Man, Hard Man, Top Man.....seriously I do love this soundtrack even more than most of the tracks from Megaman 2.

The leveles are cool and even if janky really fun to traverse.
The addition to the slide give so much more to megaman's movement.
And Rush is a such better companion than ITEM-1 and ITEM-2 from MM2.

The Wily fights can be annoying, especially with the subbosses, and Proto man boss fights can be either frutrating or just boring, with nothing in between... but I dunno I still find the experience really enduring.

I also love how it feels like an "endgame" for the trilogy: it brings back the bosses from 2, even if just as data, and it has a ending that showcases everyone, not just megaman and his siblings, but also every other robot master, with a music that is able to sound emotional even with the soundfont of the NES....

I get why people don't like it as the others, but I feel this is my fave.

Timed exclusivity really sucks, you know what I mean? Like, you have this brand new game that is coming out, it looks so cool and fun, and you can’t wait to get your hands on it to play it for yourself… but then you find out it is exclusive to a console that you don’t have, and you have to wait even longer for them to release it to the console that you actually have. It is a real kick in the nads to be sure, and what’s crazy about this is that this has been a practice that has been a part of the industry for quite a while. For example, back in the days of the NES and SNES, Nintendo had a strict grip on their titles from third-party developers, requiring them to be exclusive to their systems for a year or so before they can be ported over to any other system (yeah, bet you thought they were only shitty towards their customers, didn’t ya?). However, there have been several cases over the years when developers have managed to find loopholes around this rule, managing to bring their games over to other systems while altering them just enough to where they won’t be upsetting the big N, such as the case with today’s game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist.

For those of you who are aware of this game, then you would also know that this game is, in the most technical sense, the Genesis version of Turtles in Time. A lot of the game looks and plays exactly how that game does, but again, due to Nintendo being the spoiled child of the video game industry, Konami had to change A LOT of the game around, which in turn pretty much made it its own completely original game. Because of this, I had debated for a long time whether or not I should actually play the game for myself, because if it was essentially just another version of Turtles In Time, then why would I even bother? However, I looked into it more extensively, realized how different the game is from the original, and figured I would go ahead and give it a shot anyways, and I’m glad I did, as I thought it was pretty good for the most part. Is it better than Turtles In Time? HELL NO, but on its own, it is still a really good TMNT game that was fun to run through, and as an alternative for those who couldn’t get Turtles In Time back in the day, it does a great job at bringing the feel of that game over to this system.

The story is somewhat altered from the original game, where this time, instead of just the Statue of Liberty being taken away by the Shredder, the entirety of Manhattan is taken away, and the Shredder himself looks JACKED AS FUCK, so it is up to the turtles to set out once again, take down the Shredder and other foes, and save Manhattan, which is just about as ridiculous of a set up as the original game, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The graphics are pretty good, looking just about on par with the original game in terms of the general visuals, animations, and character designs, making it still very pleasing to look at, the music is great, with plenty of great tunes to be heard throughout, but a lot of the tracks are pretty much just lower quality versions of the original game’s tracks, so needless to say, I would much rather be listening to this over this, and the gameplay/control is what you would expect from a TMNT game as before, being just as action packed, fluid, and fun as ever, even if you have less options then before in a multitude of areas.

The game is your typical arcade style beat-’em-up, where you take control of one of the four Ninja Turtles, go through a set of five different levels themed around many different locations you would expect from this kind of game, cut your way through many different enemies such as Foot Soldiers, Pizza Monsters, The Thing from Marvel (obviously), and so on, using whatever ninja skills and tools that you have at your disposal, gather plenty of different pizzas that can not only heal you whenever you need it most, but it can also give you a temporary special attack so you can show those foot soldiers what’s what, and take on plenty of familiar faces as bosses, who can give you a hard time unless you have played Turtles In Time as much as I have, in which case, they aren’t exactly much of a threat. You know the drill by now, it is your typical TMNT experience, where you beat up dudes, eat the cheesy good stuff, and make the Shredder cry for his mommy, it comes with the territory, but it still manages to be fun regardless, and somewhat refreshing for those who were much more familiar with the original game.

Let me tell you, as someone who has been playing Turtles In Time for years up to this point, it was WEIRD going into this game, because despite how similar it is to that original game, it changes things up dramatically in several ways. Rather than focusing on a bunch of short, yet fast levels, the game only has about 4 and a half really long levels, which is an interesting change, as it not only excludes several levels from the original version, but it also combines several levels together from that game and the previous TMNT arcade game, which was neat to see. Not to mention, with these new levels comes with new bosses, with some obviously returning from the original game, but then you got new ones like a human version of Baxter Stockman, and even Tatsu from the live-action TMNT movies, both of which are… slightly annoying to fight, but it was cool to take these guys on regardless. Oh yeah, and you can also switch between different styles for the turtles themselves, which is a neat little feature, for those of you who care about that kind of shit.

But regardless, the game is still a TMNT beat-’em-up, which means you know exactly what to expect, which can cause those who are getting tired of these TMNT beat-’em-ups to groan and move onto something else, but it is perfectly fine for the rest of us. The game still manages to have satisfying combat, a good sense of speed with how you move about and take down your foes, and with a friend to join you by your side, you will be able to have a great time with this as you would with any other version of the game. It does kinda suck that some things did have to be omitted from this version, such as the fact that you can’t throw enemies at the screen, but hey, even with all that was lost in this version, what was left over and added onto it still makes for an experience that is well worth going through.

However, not everything about this game managed to live up to the original game, as there was one level of the game that I did not enjoy at all, which would be the fourth level of the game, The Gauntlet. Not only is the level itself really short, but it is also really boring, not having too much going on, and instead, it just leads you right into a boss rush, which not only feels completely unnecessary for a game as short as this, but also manages to piss me off specifically, as the guy who hates most boss rushes with a burning passion. Yeah, there is the Baxter Stockman boss at the end of it all, which is fine and all, but that doesn’t make up for most of this level being a repetitive slog that acts as a stain on an otherwise perfectly fine revision of a beloved arcade classic.

Overall though, despite The Gauntlet needing to go fuck itself, The Hyperstone Heist will never quite outshine Turtles In Time in terms of overall quality, but it still manages to be a really fun and very well done version of the game regardless, bringing you the same fast and fun gameplay of the original, new features and stages that were neat to see in action, and a great co-op experience if you have the right buddy to go on the journey with ya. I would recommend it for those who are big fans of Turtles In Time, as well as those who are big fans of beat-’em-ups in general, because while it may not blow you away, it still manages to be an entertaining romp through and through, and isn’t that what really matters at the end of the day? I’m just glad that I finally managed to play this game after so long, so I can get that demon off of my back for the foreseeable future. Although, now that I think about it, since I did play through this now, I suppose now I’m gonna have to play TMNT Re-Shelled at some point, aren’t I?......................... uhhhhhhhh………… don’t worry, I’ll think of some way to get out of playing it, just give me some time…

Game #582

It's wild that the icon of speed was tied to the posterchild for poor 50Hz optimisation, and yet, in 1991, Europe still loved him. Wherever you bought your copy of Sonic 1, the ROM was the same, and European Mega Drives were not built to play that shit. Regardless, PAL Sonic 1 has a daydreamy quality that I remain attached to. It makes the surrealness stand out more. The weird geometry and scrolling Special Stage birds that turn to fish. The slower pace means there's more opportunity for your attention towards drift to the backgrounds, and why are there prison bars all over Marble Zone's underground? The technical showcase aspect of it all was lost on me as a 5 year-old, but paired with all the old hippies who were animating sequences on the episodes of Sesame Street I'd watch daily, I was skipping past taking interest in the wonders of the world around me, and jumping headfirst into a fascination with the psychedelic. Don't cry for us, America. To you, it was just a bit of fun, but for us, Mobius was a dream. No wonder so much of the world's poetry comes from Europe. It's a real bummer that when Sonic transitioned to 3D, Sega's big question was "what if he lived in a city with people and a public transit system?"

Sonic 1 is a gorgeous game, and Naoto Oshima has a real skill for character design. Games had attempted to be this vibrant and dense with colour before, but when they were, they were likely the most rancid Amiga games ever made. Before Sonic, the Mega Drive was selling itself on the cutting-edge visuals of Castle of Illusion, which looks about a generation behind this. Everything was defined by the dimensions of the sprite tiles. Sonic's world is full of slopes, twisting tunnels and crumbling rock, and it all had a direct effect on your movement. Sure, Mario 3 let you slide on your arse, but in Sonic, every angle of geometry had an impact. It had taken a couple of years to convince weary customers that the jump to 16-bit actually meant anything, but after Sonic, there was no doubt.

I think a big factor that puts off older players who didn't grow up with Sonic is that it's neither strict enough to demand skilful play, nor easy enough to not constantly bump into dead ends and enemies. That ring system is a double-edged sword. Unlike the more respected Shinobis and Dynamite Headdys, you can get through it, but first-timers are just going to have a really sloppy run. For young players, who could never complete a game before, it was a godsend. We learned every curve of land and every terrible spikepit off by heart, and when we play it now, we're all incredible at the game. We're not confounded by springs that send you shooting into traps, or the giant Scrap Brain sawblades. When we play, it's with that intended sense of attitude. I think my later affinity for skateboarding games can be traced back to Sonic, with its momentum-based movement and giant halfpipes. There wasn't really anything that played like that in the early 3D days until THPS came along.

Sonic 1 instantly became the boring one when it started to get sequels, but I think it retains the strongest sense of atmosphere. It's the artsiest game in the series, with its far-out influences and only the sparsest interest in worldbuilding. It really doesn't hold much resemblance to the hideous multimedia juggernaut that the franchise has become. Sonic's a breezy little game that you can get through in around an hour, and it remains a lovely experience. Just make sure to leave yourself 12.5% longer if you're playing on a European machine.

"Character action" has never done it for me. I feel the floaty combos and distant cameras really dampen the impact of combat. I'm so glad that we live in the timeline where instead of representing the future of the Resident Evil series, Devil May Cry became its own franchise. Resident Evil 4 was a game that Capcom attempted to make several times, before begging Mikami to come back to the director's seat, and even he scrapped a couple of false starts before he settled on the game he ought to be making. The change in camera was the big thing that players talked about, but it was the shift in focus and tone that really made Resi 4 so beloved by its biggest fans. Mikami had gained skill, establishing multiple complementary mechanics and tying that to a campaign, but he was also more confident in his own sense of humour and whimsy. Resi 4 was a game with a real sense of personality, but it was compromised by the pressures of the surrounding franchise, the publisher and the fanbase. For his next game, he'd disregard all these aspects and make it entirely for himself.

When I first played God Hand, it took about five seconds before I knew I loved it. It's very much built on the back of Resi 4, but makes no apologies for its eccentricities. It takes the weight and impact of Resident Evil 4's shotgun and puts that behind each punch. Resi 4 utilised the sensibilities of modern games just enough to adopt a mostly useless camera manipulation system to the right analogue stick, but God Hand foregoes those conventions entirely, tethering it to your critical dodge system. God Hand doesn't care about any other game. It's fully confident in what it's doing.

God Hand's vibe is a very divisive thing, and not something you can choose to opt out of, but a truly cultured mind will undoubtedly side with it. Its sense of humour comes from a very specific place. It's a deep affection for Fist of the North Star and low-budget 70s kung fu films, but there's so much fondness for late-80s and early-90s action games, too. It loves the ridiculous, digitised voice clips from Altered Beast and Final Fight. The greatest joy is when you encounter an absurd, one-off, late-game disco miniboss, and he hits you with the same audio clips as the standard grunts from Level 1. This is a game full of explosive barrels and giant fruit. Shinji Mikami started production on Resident Evil 4 trying to fulfil the obligation to make his scariest game ever, and by the end, he got so bored with that direction that he created a giant stone robot Salazar that chased you through brick walls. God Hand was the logical next step for him.

There's a focus to God Hand's ambitions that implies Clover really knew what they had with it. A few ridiculous bosses and minigames notwithstanding, the levels are typically fairly boxy and nondescript. All the attention is on the distribution of enemies and items. It's spectacularly un-fancy. Flat ground and big brick walls that disappear when the camera gets too close to them. It doesn't care. The fighting feels great, and we're having a great time with all these stupid baddies. Fuck everything else.

Your moveset is fully customisable. Between levels, you're given the opportunity to buy new moves, and apply them to your controls, either as specials tethered to a specific button combination, or even as part of the standard combo you get while mashing the square button. It offers players real versatility as they figure out their preferred playstyles, and what works for them, while trying something less intuitive can open you up to new approaches. There are quick kicks and punches that overwhelm opponents, heavy-damage moves that take longer to pull off, guard breaks, and long-range attacks that can help with crowd control. There are certain moves and dodges that are highly exploitable, and risk breaking the game's balance. Clover are aware of this though, and whenever they found a strategy that made the game boring, they made sure to penalise you for using it by boosting the difficulty massively whenever you try it.

That's the big feature. The difficulty. God Hand starts out really hard, and when the game registers that you've dodged too many attacks or landed too many successive hits, it gets harder. This was a secret system in Resi 4, but in God Hand, it's part of your on-screen HUD, always letting you know when you've raised or lowered a difficulty level. Enemies hit harder, health pick-ups drop less frequently, and attacks become harder to land. The game's constantly drawing you to the edge of your abilities, and if you die, you have to try the entire section again from the start. It never feels too dispiriting, though. You retain all cash you've picked up after you died, and you feel encouraged by a drop in difficulty. If you do well enough on your next attempt, it won't take long before the difficulty gets back to where it was. There's also some fun surprises for those who get good enough to maintain a Level 3 or Level Die streak for long enough, with some special enemy spawns and stuff. You feel rewarded for getting good, but never patronised or pandered to. Your reward is a game that felt as thrilling as it did when you first tried it.

It's the little eccentricities in God Hand's design that I really admire. Pick up a barrel and Gene will instantly shift his direction to the nearest enemy, eliminating any extraneous aiming bullshit, and pushing your attention towards the opportunity for some cheap long-distance damage. If an item spawns, it remains there until you pick it up, giving you the opportunity to save it for when you really need it, even if the backtracking route becomes a little ridiculous. Since the camera is so stubbornly committed to viewing Gene's back, they've implemented a radar system to keep track of surrounding enemies, and it makes little sense in the context of the scenario, but the game doesn't care about that stuff. It's another thing that makes the fights against gorillas and rock stars more fun, so run with it. Between each section of the game, you're given the opportunity to save, or warp to a kind of mid-game hub world, with a shop, training area and casino, which you can use to unlock better moves and upgrades when you need them most. You can gain money by taking the honest route and chipping away at its toughest challenges, or take the less honourable route with slot machines and gambling on poison chihuahua races. It's blunt, utilitarian, and it's entirely complementary to the way God Hand feels to play.

It's the consistency in tone and intention that completes the package. God Hand knows what it is, and how it feels, and it never betrays that. It doesn't obsess over lore or characters, but it really has fun in introducing new baddies and scenarios to put you in. And I really like its taste. I like that all the big bosses meet up at a secret hell table to exchange barbs between levels. I like the fight on an enormous Venetian gondola. I like the dumb, weird, repetitive soundtrack. The developers are world-class talents, and they just wanted to make a dumb, stupid, fun game.

I probably ought to give the soundtrack a little more credit. This is from Masafumi Takada, out on loan from Grasshopper Manufacture before he became a real gun for hire, working on Vanquish, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Danganronpa and Smash Bros Ultimate. He's great at elaborate, high-energy compositions, but his work on God Hand is some of his dumbest stuff. It's great. The constant Miami 5-0 surf rock, the warbling Elvis boss fight music, and the Flight of the Bumblebee guitar for the fight against a giant fly. He's having the time of his life on this one, fully liberated from the pressures to convey a consistent tone or atmosphere. It's stunning work, and he makes the correct call every time he has to write a new piece of BGM for God Hand.

Shinij Mikami is a bit of an enigma, and his work on Resident Evil has unfortunately typecast him as a horror director, but he's never expressed a real affinity for the genre. He was put into that position under an obligation to Ghouls 'n Ghosts' Tokuro Fujiwara, and the game he ended up making was full of corny heroes and giant snakes. The subject matter was a shock to audiences in the mid-nineties, but in reality, it wasn't that far removed from his work on SNES Aladdin. By my estimation, God Hand's the closest we've come to seeing the real Mikami through his work. He's made Resident Evil 4, and he wants to leave that behind him, but EA and ZeniMax kept dragging him back to his biggest hit.

God Hand feels like the only point in history God Hand could have happened, and it's pretty wild that it did in the first place. I mean, it makes sense that once you hand Capcom the Resi 4 Gold Master disc, they'll let you do whatever you want, but they were so rattled by the result that they fired all of their key talent and started making calls to Canada to produce Dead Rising 2. Confidence in Japanese development was at an all-time low after 2006, and the PS3 and Xbox 360 resulted in some of the most embarrassing entries in many legacy franchises. The PlayStation was born out of a SNES project, and that ethos was what drove the first decade of Sony Computer Entertainment. Afterwards, a new game proposal would not be greenlit without referencing the design of the latest Grand Theft Auto. The Konami, Namco, Square and Capcom that we have today don't reflect who they were in the nineties and early 2000s. To me, God Hand feels like the final page of that chapter. But, man, what a fucking statement to close out on.

Throughout my many years of playing games from Sega’s lineup of consoles, the one console that I have little to zero experience with whatsoever would be the Sega Saturn. I have played some games from the system, such as Nights Into Dreams and maaaaaaaaaaaaybe Sonic R, even though I’m not sure if that’s a real game, but aside from those two, I have had zero experience with any Sega Saturn exclusive games whatsoever. It is a shame too, considering that from what I have seen, it looks like there are a lot of quality games for the system, ones that probably don’t reach the same quality as many other games of the era, but enough to where anyone who owned the system could definitely get their money’s worth from a nice selection of titles to choose from. So, I figured it is about time that I dip my toes further into the pool that is the Sega Saturn library, starting with a game that was a launch title for the system for us Americans, Clockwork Knight.

I have never played this game or it’s sequel before, but I have known about them for quite a while, seeing them being played on some YouTube channels that I have been subscribed to over the years. It looked charming enough with its toy-themed setting, and it did look short enough to where I could get through it in one afternoon, so I figured “Why the hell not?”, and I did blaze through it in that same afternoon, finding a charming and fun game that… doesn’t really do that much. It is a solid platformer all throughout for the most part, and it does the job that it is supposed to do, but there are definitely plenty of other titles that were out around this time that could do what this game did a whole lot better.

The story is fairly standard for a game like this, where in a seemingly average household at midnight, all of the toys in the house are brought to life by the voice of lovely Clockwork Fairy Princess Chelsea, and everybody goes about their merry way as a result, but suddenly, she is kidnapped by an unknown and mysterious force, so it is up to Sir Tongara de Pepperoucha III, or just Pepper, to set out on a journey to rescue her and stop her vile kidnapper, which is all presented in a charming, yet understandably terrifying, intro cutscene, which does give the story much more charm despite how generic it is. The graphics are pretty good, using pre-rendered sprites for the characters and enemies like Donkey Kong Country, and mixing them together with 3D polygonal environments, all of which blend together pretty well, despite it obviously looking dated, the music is pretty good, having plenty of enjoyable tunes to listen to throughout your journey, and the gameplay/control is pretty standard for a 2D platformer, but it all works out pretty well, and you can get a handle on things with no problem whatsoever.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Pepper, go through four different worlds, each with two levels and a boss, all themed around different toys and other objects and places you would find in an average house, go through many different platforming challenges while taking out plenty of enemies using your trusty keyblade weapon (wait a minute…), gather plenty of different coins, health upgrades and pickups, and extra lives to give you an advantage for what comes up ahead later down the road, and take on several boss fights that range from being piss easy to mildly annoying, all for the purpose of saving the one girl who is responsible for your entire existence. It’s the same song and dance you have seen time and time again, with very little to make it stand out amongst other titles, but again, it does manage to still be fun for the time it lasts, and its simplicity does help make it more appealing for those like myself who were looking for something to play from the console as an introduction.

Given that this was a launch title for the Sega Saturn (for us Americans, anyway), it is important for the game to not only be fun, but to also show off some of the things that the system was capable of, and while it doesn’t push the system to its limits, it does a good job at showing some of the things it can do. There are plenty of different cutscenes throughout the game, showing the characters animated with a CG style, and while nowadays these cutscenes look terrifying just from the toy designs alone, I imagine this must’ve looked really impressive back in the day. Not only that, but once again, the pre-rendered sprites for the characters and enemies mesh together really well with the 3D environments, and the main gameplay style is familiar enough for those who owned plenty of other well-known titles for the Sega Genesis, being able to bring them into this new generation smoothly without anything too crazy or intimidating getting in the way.

With all that being said though, from the lens of a modern-day player like myself, there isn’t much else the game has going for it other then that. It is a very basic platformer, where ya run, ya jump, ya grab the shiny objects, ya save the girl, ya drill these guys in the ass with your keyblade, we all know how it goes. It manages to do everything right, and it feels good to play, but at the same time, it doesn’t go out of its way to really shake things up or do anything crazy, which leads it to being somewhat generic as a result. Not to mention, the game is REALLY short, only having eight main levels and five bosses, all of which can be beaten fairly quickly if you know what you are doing, which is definitely a letdown. If only there was maybe one or two more worlds with more fleshed out mechanics, as well as possibly adding one or two more levels to the already existing worlds, then maybe this would feel like a complete package, but as it stands, it does feel like it ends too quickly once you beat the final boss, leaving you wanting a little more.

Overall, despite how basic and short the game is, Clockwork Knight manages to not only do a good job at being a launch title for the Sega Saturn, but also for being just an all around enjoyable platformer, full of plenty of platforming challenges for those that are fans of the genre, an impressive visual style and graphics for the time, and having a sense of charm to it that does make it much more appealing as a result. I would definitely recommend it for those who are looking for something to play on the system, or for those who are just fans of 90s platformers in general, because while this isn’t the meatiest one of the bunch, it should provide a good amount of fun and leaves you satisfied by the end of it all. Although, speaking of which, it does kinda suck that it ends on a cliffhanger of all things, which really paints a picture of what they are trying to do. “Aw, you wanna know what happens to Chelsea? Well, you can certainly find out, for a small $60 fee, thank you very much…”

Game #570

I had no sword at all for two and a half hours.

I eventually found Biggoron's Sword on sale for 15 Rupees in the Goron City shop as Adult Link. However, as an incredibly frustrated young Alex learned in 1999, you cannot defeat Ganon in Ocarina of Time with the Biggoron Sword. In order to finish the game, the final blow must come from the Master Sword.

During my first playthrough of this (or any) randomizer, the Master Sword was the very last item that I found. This is what it took for me to find it:

• Both the Master Sword and the Kokiri Sword were in the Fire Temple in optional chests, with the Master Sword's chest requiring the Scarecrow Song to reach it. But I couldn't get to either of those without access to the Megaton Hammer, as the room to the left of the Temple entrance where you encounter Darunia had no keys in it. (The key to the door on the right side of the entry hall turned out to be in the Boss Key chest)

• The Hammer was in the Gerudo Training Grounds, where I was gated by my lack of Hover Boots.

• The Hover Boots were in Jabu-Jabu's belly in place of the Zora's Sapphire, and I couldn't complete that section without the Boomerang.

• The Boomerang was in the Castle Town moat in place of the Ocarina of Time, but I needed the 3 Spiritual Stones before Zelda would chuck it in there.

• The Kokiri Emerald was in one of the Gibdo coffins in the Bottom of the Well, so I needed the Lens of Truth to discover that.

• And the Lens of Truth was sold by a Business Scrub in Dodongo's Cavern. I got a good deal though, it was only 10 rupees!

Obviously, I had no idea where the Master Sword would be, so this wasn't a plan or a list of instructions I followed, it's just how things shook out. And I had a great time! I used Ship of Harkinian's randomizer, and there are some fantastic options that made the constant back-and-forth scouring of Hyrule more feasible. The most useful ones were unbreakable Deku Sticks (absolutely critical since I didn't find a sword for a while), changing Link's age with the Song of Time, Bunny Hood increasing speed like in Majora's Mask, and ageless items (allowing Young Link to use the Hookshot, for example). I was incredibly impressed with Ship of Harkinian as a whole, and will definitely put more playthroughs into that, randomized or not.

wherever tifa lockhart and vincent valentine go, i'll be there

shitty in a very distinctly cool way. makes me miss when i'd walk into the arcade of a movie theater or w/e in the late 90s/early 00s and chuck a few of my parents' quarters away on something barely playable that looked rad as hell to my idiot child brain. i love how easy it is to cheese the AI with spamming specific attacks, the whole experience is just a flailing mess and it rules. makes me wanna boot up power stone or something, it's been like two decades since i've even thought about games like this, but i know my life is only enhanced by their existence

tifa's design here makes her look like an action figure for pervert otakus, but w/e i like spamming triangle and juggling the bad guy when they're close and spamming tifa hadouken when they're far away and winning. girls are so cool. i like the powers dog that has a red XIII alt and the animorph girl and the guy who shoots rockets out his leg. don't like the old guy with the annoying stick or the yoyo cop tho. i'll play the minigames and quest mode someday maybe, idk just something about blasting through an arcade mode that appeals more to me in these types of games

adding this to my "games that would fucking rule at slumber parties even though i'm turning 32 in a week and all the friends i could have slumber parties with are productive adults who live halfway across the country from me and also i have crippling student debt" list! shirtless sephiroth tho

You never really hear about PS3 homebrew, do you? After hacking my PS3, I found out why. It's a fucking pain in the arse.

If you know where to look, and join a private discord, you can find people modding old PS3 games. I almost found myself motivated to pursue this when I found out that fans have brought back MGS4's online mode, but that didn't feel like something I needed. Apparently, having the whole of Revolver and Magical Mystery Tour as Rock Band DLC was.

I guess it speaks to how earnestly I love The Beatles. They weren't just a bunch of guys who played good songs. When they emerged out of the early sixties, they were like a whole new kind of person. They broke the conventions of what an adult was supposed to be, and with their wit, intelligence and compassion, made all those guys look ridiculous. They made it okay not to live for the expectations of society or your family name, but your passions. Maybe you're not a fan of the band personally, and that's fine, but I think if you have any interest in pop media, fringe political thought or the embrace of foreign cultures, I think you owe some gratitude to The Beatles' influence. I can't imagine there would be a videogame industry without The Fabs. (This is beside the point, but did you know all those Atari 2600 cover artists were Yellow Submarine animators?)

Playing PS3 Rock Band in 2024 at all is a pain in the arse. If you didn't buy all the equipment 15 years ago, and held onto them for the following decade and a half, you have some very expensive eBay purchases ahead of you if you want to get in on this. I've still got a couple of the guitars, but thanks to multiple house moves, and weird, malicious flatmates who may not have appreciated my vocals on Debaser, those USB dongles were long gone. And it's not as if you can just buy any old dongle. With very few exceptions, they will only pair with their specific controller. And I have one of those fancy George Harrison Gretsch Duo Jets that you couldn't even buy in highstreet shops. I'm not willing to readily give up how much I spent on the dongle when it finally showed up for sale. Unless you're emulating (and seriously, if you're new to all this, please consider emulating), there's no new devices that are compatible with the PS3 games. Harmonix remedied this a little bit with the release of Rock Band 4, which supported full song exports for the previous games (which require DLC keys that are no longer purchasable) and are still playable on PS5 and Xbox Series consoles today, but one-off games like The Beatles Rock Band, which didn't allow you to transfer their highly-valued content to other titles, are still trapped on PS3, Wii and 360, with all their awkward "it made sense at the time" quirks.

So, hacking. I'm not confident I can recall the process well enough to provide even the most rudimentary of tutorials, but if you're going to hack your PS3, you'll need to be on a specific outdated firmware release, and it matters what kind of PS3 you have. You can utilise custom firmware on original PS3s and some slim models, but if, like me, you currently own a "superslim", you'll have more limited access to homebrew software. You can still do it though, with the Homebrew Enabler software ("PS3HEN"), but it's just a little more awkward. Each custom song needs to be transferred to the PS3 via FTP software (something that the installation guidelines only give a cursory mention of, and I hadn't used since college), you may need to make a direct Ethernet connection between your computer and PS3, and you'll need to keep every track in a special folder on your PC to use an executable to recompile the full tracklist each time you want to modify it. You also have to transfer over a special bit of software to make the game modifiable in the first place, and in the haze of everything I tried and retried, I really can't remember how I did this. This isn't a casual undertaking.

I'd argue Harmonix are one of the most under-valued development studios out there. Even in their smaller games, like Super Beat Sports, that nobody cares about, they're stuffed to the brim with extra modes and optional content. Rock Band was an insane logistical undertaking. Not only are thousands of songs accurately transcribed for multiple instruments and difficulty settings, but the on-stage bands are authentically animated, too. They made enormous bespoke electric drumkit controllers and sold them to American normies. By the peak of all their energy and ambition, on Rock Band 3, they were even including tracks for two backing vocalists, "Pro Guitar" mode (which would have you plug in either a midi-compatible electric guitar or a special, expensive plastic one with buttons on every string of every fret, to play the real guitar parts) and keytar, and barely anybody was playing the game like that. That doesn't even scratch the surface of how much of an undertaking it was to acquire the licences to an incredible range of pop and rock songs from a huge number of different publishing houses, and re-sell them. Of course, modders don't have to worry about the legal aspect, but it's just as ambitious for them to attempt reverse engineering the game to play home-made content and match the level of quality that Harmonix established.

There are amateurish custom Beatles Rock Band DLC tracks out there, but they're not the ones made by the core TBRB Customs devs. For the most part, you'd really struggle to tell them apart from the official Harmonix ones without prior knowledge. Sure, they have to lean on the handful of environments that were established for the original game, some of the surreal Pepperland visuals wear a little thin when applied to multiple songs, and in a post-Get Back world, Twickenham and Apple Studios seem like crucial Beatle locations, so it's a shame that they haven't been incorporated, but man, they managed to hack the Magical Mystery Tour bus into this. Would you have even the slightest idea how to make your PS3 games do that? They've been pretty clever, utilising the established assets to animate each new song, and the multiple costume changes during Glass Onion's callbacks are a particular treat.

TBRB Customs have set themselves the goal of creating custom DLC for every studio-recorded Beatles album, including the Past Masters singles collections and Giles Martin's remix album, Love. It's a lofty ambition, and the team have approached the to-do list with a completionist mindset. Frustratingly, this means that many of the most wanted tracks have been held off on for now, while we're stuck pissing around for the files for Sie Leibt Dich and Hold Me Tight. So far, there's been a huge number of tracks from With The Beatles and A Hard Day's Night, but no All I've Got To Do or You Can't Do That, and I personally find that extremely distressing. No Baby's In Black, no Hide Your Love Away, no Bad Boy, upsettingly few White Album songs - we're promised them in the future, but apparently, there were no new releases in the whole of 2023, and the team's recent focus has been on making previous tracks available for the Wii version of the game. I really want to believe they'll complete the tracklist, but I worry their energy may run dry when they see how many years they'll need to devote to the process.

There's also the fact that the modders seem to be young American Beatles fans. The kind who cried over 2023's Now & Then and think all of Paul McCartney's solo career is worth paying attention to. They don't have the same interest in the back catalogue as us slightly older fans who still think John was the big Beatle to like, despite the things he's alleged to have done after hearing of Nixon's reelection. They're insular and memey, and if you look into the more amateurish Anthology and Solo Career projects, you'll have to wade through some rake of Spongebob shit to get some comparatively rough content. It's very annoying that they've made a custom track for George's terrible White Album off-cut, Circles, while we're still waiting for Happiness is a Warm Gun, but I shouldn't upset the babies too much while they're working so diligently on my precious Rock Band DLC.

There's always a bit of a fear of custom Rock Band stuff. The most hardcore fans seem to be those who never got over Through the Fire and Flames, and not just guys who really like songs. While the focus in this DLC has been on matching Harmonix's precedent, there's still a wee bit of that Guitar Hero elite in here. We were never supposed to play the tape loop at the end of Strawberry Fields Forever, and I think you know this. Please take your job more seriously, unpaid hobbyists.

Many have approached the custom content as a thing strictly for emulators, and sensibly, it's the only way I can recommend a fan to go through this rigmarole. That strips out so much of Rock Band's appeal for me, though. For me, accessibility was such a draw to these games. I've played them at house parties with exchange students who really struggled with conversational English, but were delighted to see those falling note icons and become part of the band. If fellow Big Bad Beatleborgs are over, I can show them my special game that has twice as many songs as anybody else's copy, and we can delight in playing the whole of the Long Tall Sally EP. Nobody should go through the embarrassment of having to navigate a docked Steam Deck in front of another person. Now I've got everything set up, Beatles Rock Band is just as inviting to casuals as it was in 2009. I can grumble about minor details or the trajectory of the project, but really, it's so cool that any of this is possible.

If you at one point in your life ever decided to play a Gradius game, but you just didn’t think that there was enough Japan in the game to please your needs, then Parodius may be able to satiate your cravings, while making you break your hands in the process of trying to beat it for yourself. This was close to the experience I had when checking out the original game, which was basically your typical Gradius game that came with all the sweet powerups and the insane difficulty that you would expect, but right alongside that was a whole bunch of charming oddities, which range from the enemies and the music, all the way up to the bosses, which made me have a good time with the game as a whole, even if the gameplay was nothing to write home about. Nevertheless, I assume that that original game was pretty successful back when it first came out, because it would then spawn its own series of games that would be released right alongside Gradius, starting with the sequel to the game, Parodius! From Myth to Laughter.

Out of all of the games in the series, this was the one I was most familiar with before going into it, not because I had played it before, but I had seen a good chunk of the game in a video I made a long time ago, and while I hadn’t seen the full thing in action, I pretty much knew what I was getting into. You know, aside from the fact that this was just another Gradius game, so it was probably gonna play just like all the others, and WHADDYA KNOW, that is exactly what we get here. However, once again, the insanity of the visuals and designs of the stages, enemies, and bosses present make the game wonderful to play, and aside from one or two issues that I have with the game as a whole (which you could probably guess), it was a really good time from start to finish.

The story is fairly simple, yet weird for a shmup like this, where the Great Octopus threatens to destroy Earth and all of the inhabitants that live on it, so it is up to Tako, the octopus from the last game, to set out to stop this from happening, right alongside his pals, Vic Viper, TwinBee, and Pentarou, which is pretty much exactly what I expected from the premise of one of these games, and I wouldn’t change it any other way. The graphics are wonderful, not only being very vibrant and colorful for most of the stages, but also having plenty of detailed, goofy, and insane designs for many of the enemies and bosses, which are quite bewildering to see in the best way possible, the music is just as weird as the visuals, with most of the songs either being remixes of classic Gradius tunes (I will never get tired of this track, no matter what game it appears in), but also zany remixes of classical music as well, which is oddly fitting for this game, and I ended up loving a lot of the tracks, and the gameplay/control has basically been imprinted into your brain to where you will automatically know what to do right from the get go, but you can play as a penguin flying in space that can get other penguins following him to shoot projectiles, which automatically makes this game a masterpiece.

The game is a horizontally scrolling shmup, where you take control of one of the weird and wonderful characters I mentioned earlier, each with their own unique movesets and configurations for the weapons, go through plenty of different stages through many varied and odd environments, shoot down every single living thing that you see on screen, because more than likely, that thing will try to kill you in one way or another, gather plenty of different power ups that you can equip and upgrade whenever you need to, or find bells that you can shoot to get different kinds of power ups that will give you plenty of different, temporary advantages, and take on plenty of silly and absurd, yet challenging bosses that will keep you on your toes, unless you have the laser ability with four options following you, in which case you can just blaze right through them in most instances. If you have experience with any other Gradius game released before this and since, you will know what to expect from this game, but if you love this style of gameplay like me, and you don’t mind a dash of weirdness sprinkled in there, then you will feel right at home when you play this title.

Like with the previous game, the main thing that makes this game stand out from all of the others is the odd selection of… things that you will be seeing throughout your journey, which a newcomer like me would look at and wonder what drug he took before he started playing this, while others may be used to this type of imagery and be completely fine with it. Most of the enemies you encounter will consist of penguins, along with plenty of other random animals like fish, crabs, hornets, and whatever else the game decides to pull out of its ass, like clowns that will shoot at you and lips that will shoot their own teeth at you. That’s not even getting into the bosses either, which are without a doubt both the most horrifying and wonderful aspects of this game, where you will encounter such creatures as a flying pirate ship with a cat head on the front, and eagle dressed like Uncle Sam, a puffer fish that will inflate to cover almost the entire screen while you shoot at it, a random sumo wrestler, and a giant naked woman covering herself with a sheet while deploying babies in bubbles to kill you. I can only imagine that this is all relatively tame compared to what other games in the series probably throw at the player, and I would question why the hell any of this is here, but at this point, I have just decided to accept the madness and ride along with it, and I end up having a lot of fun with that mindset.

Obviously, one of the things that holds this game back is that it is a Gradius game, so it does practically nothing to change up the gameplay or innovate on the genre as a whole, but that doesn’t matter so much to me in this case, given how fun the gameplay can still be, and how satisfying it us to fully upgrade yourself to where you can start to decimate everything around you. However, that in itself is a little hard to do, due to this game’s difficulty, because HOLY FUCK, they aren’t pulling punches this time around. I know, I know, I always say these games are hard, and that is never gonna change anytime soon, but I swear, this might just be the hardest Gradius game I have played so far. You need to have the reflexes of a god or the ability to slow down time in order to avoid some of the shit this game throws at you, and while you can get pretty lucky at some points, it almost never tones the difficulty down whatsoever, making it so that I died hundreds of times before I was able to finish it off. I have never seen so many dead penguins in one place before, and now that I have, I can say with great certainty that I don’t feel bad about killing that giant space octopus whatsoever.

Overall, despite a lack of change and the difficulty still managing to surprise me with just how unforgiving it can be, this is still yet another solid entry in this sub-series and franchise as a whole, providing the same fun and addicting experience that fans have come to love with this series, while also still providing enough weird and insane elements to where you wanna see it all out just to know what else the game will pull out of its ass by the end. I would definitely recommend it for fans of the Gradius series as a whole, as well as those who are big fans of other shmups or cute ‘em ups, because while this may not be as crazy or weird as others out there, it still managed to make me laugh and smile for most of the journey, and I’m sure the same can apply to many others as well. Now, if you excuse me, I need to go stare at the ceiling for like a good hour or so, just so that I can get all of the insanity out of my mind. Gotta be well-rested and prepared for the next time I try to play one of these games, y’know.

Game #551

For being pretty much the only wrestling game they would ever make, Capcom did a pretty great job with what we got from Saturday Night Slam Masters, providing plenty of possibilities for fights against many formidable opponents, fun moves to pull off, seamlessly implementing some fighter mechanics to make it more engaging, and having the feeling of being a proper wrestling game with the inclusion of items to use and intros for each individual character at the start of a match. The game was really good all around, and it would’ve been cool to see a proper followup to it at some point, expanding on the characters’ movesets, the type of rings you could enter, and possibly raising the stakes with new characters and story elements introduced…………… that would not happen though, and instead, we would get Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters II.

Despite being a wrestling game at its core, the original Slam Masters game did implement enough fighting game elements to where, when the time came to develop a sequel, I guess Capcom was just nervously twitching around, like a drug addict who needed their fix, and just exclaimed to themselves “FUCK IT!”. Thus, what we got out of this sequel was just your typical Capcom fighting game, still being themed around wrestlers and containing several wrestling techniques, while focusing on the one-and-one aspect above all else. That kinda sucks, but at the same time, this was a Capcom fighter from the mid-90s, and thus, it turned out to be pretty damn good, not quite on the same level as some of their other releases around the time, but still great enough to where anyone could go in and have a great time battling it out with friends.

The graphics are very similar to that of the original game, still being lively, having wonderful designs for all the characters and stages, while also having plenty of over-the-top animations for all of them, which is great to see, the music is still effective in getting you in the mood to perform a piledriver on any poor fool that dares to challenge you, and plenty of the tracks are great to listen to whenever they pop up, the control is greatly improved upon here, feeling a lot more smooth and responsive, which makes sense given the company is more suited to this genre, and the gameplay is… exactly like any other one-on-one Capcom fighter, so you know pretty much what you are going to get out of a game like this.

The game is a 2D fighting game, where you take control of one of the ten fighters from the original game, as well as any of the newcomers introduced here, or if you are me, you still just pick Mike Haggar anyway above anyone else, take on plenty of opponents in rings from all across the world, throw out plenty of punches, kicks, and special moves to deplete your opponents’ two health bars down to nothing, perform several wrestling moves during the fights just to remind you that this is supposed to be a wrestling series, and bask in your glorious victory as you prove to everyone else that you are the slammiest master of slam masters. Any Capcom fighting veteran would be able to jump into this with no problems, and for those who were big fans of the original game, while this is quite different from that previous title, you should be able to adjust to this new style pretty quickly and have a great time with it all the same.

While it is a fighting game at its core, the game still manages to keep the wrestling motif front and center, with all the characters being wrestlers of some kind, all of the fights taking place inside of a ring, and with the many different wrestling moves, throws, and techniques that you can pull off. It isn’t much compared to what you could do in the previous game, but hey, it is still there, and they can help change up the tide of a fight and add a little pizzazz into your typical match. Not only that, but unlike the original game, the characters in this game actual have some notable differences between each other, especially with some of the newcomers. For example, there is Rip Saber, a wrestler who is rocking a military theme, complete with military maneuvers and throwing grenades as part of their moveset, and then there is also The Wraith, who is pretty much a zombie-grim-reaper-wrestler-thing, with plenty of spooky techniques to accompany him. It is a little ridiculous when you compare it to the previous game, but since it all takes place in the Street Fighter universe, it all makes complete sense to me.

Despite all of that though, at the end of the day, this is still yet another Capcom 2D fighter, and it plays exactly like you have seen plenty of times before. It still manages to be fast and fun, especially with some friends to fight with, but there isn’t anything else to make this stand out or be more preferable from other options like Street Fighter II or its many, MANY different variations. Not to mention, if you were a die-hard fan of the original game, like it was one of your favorites of all time, then you definitely aren’t gonna like this game. Yeah, it still does have the wrestling theme and several of the moves, but it is a fighting game more than anything else, so it will probably be pretty disappointing for those hardcore wrestling fanatics.

Overall, despite not doing anything too special and completely abandoning the gameplay of the previous title, Ring of Destruction still lives up as a pretty good fighter, one that has plenty of fun with the wrestling motif while still providing the fun, fast-paced and addicting nature that you would find in any of Capcom’s other fighters from around that point. I would recommend it for those who are big fans of Capcom’s other fighters, as well as those who just need another thing to play with friends, because while it doesn’t stand on its own like the original game, you could certainly do a lot worse then what we got here. Too bad though that, after this game, we would never get another Slam Masters game again, and the series would forever be thrown into the realms of obscurity. But hey, the original game would at least get plenty of re-releases overtime………….. while this one would forever be stuck in the arcades. Way to go, guys.

Game #546