MaxyBee
This took me 9 years to beat. Only 140ish hours, so clearly I took a LONG break in there somewhere, but that was kind of the issue. Years of not playing meant the pals I was in a FC with had moved on, and each attempt to return I was met with the difficulty of playing with strangers, who in turn were having to deal with me trying to remember how to play. It was stressful and humiliating whenever the boot came in. But I slowly relearned my monk, and was elated when NPC teams became an option, allowing me to feel less pressure and just enjoy a fairly good mmo.
I feel like now I’m moving Heavensward this’ll only get better and better, as promised by others, but I had an okay time playing this that made my time playing feel worthwhile, and I definitely skipped most cutscenes because the plot was pretty crap.
Worth it all to have a Fat Chocobo.
I feel like now I’m moving Heavensward this’ll only get better and better, as promised by others, but I had an okay time playing this that made my time playing feel worthwhile, and I definitely skipped most cutscenes because the plot was pretty crap.
Worth it all to have a Fat Chocobo.
Oh, they separated the ports out from rhe arcade version.
The SNES version is a genuinely impressive port completely fucked by whatever issue caused that two year delay before each round started.
It has Sagat, and I play Sagat, so still got some worth to it.
The SNES version is a genuinely impressive port completely fucked by whatever issue caused that two year delay before each round started.
It has Sagat, and I play Sagat, so still got some worth to it.
This review contains spoilers
This is an odd one. As a game it kind of blows. The setting and core concept are poorly explored and don't match Metroid or the puzzle design. A facility like this simply should not require different explosives and lasers to unlock doors on fairly benign levels. The enemy design is balls. Literally. The final stretch with constantly draining health, trying to get to health machines before you die is a pain in the arse rather than tense, especially as it isn't always clear what will progress you. Trial and error, and save states were necessary.
But the mechanical stuff is grand. Minor changes to things like your morph ball bombs (your ball now pulses rather than drops bombs) show an intent to be different, and I learned things about the shinespark I never knew before.
I just wish it was in a better game. One for the fans, if nothing else.
But the mechanical stuff is grand. Minor changes to things like your morph ball bombs (your ball now pulses rather than drops bombs) show an intent to be different, and I learned things about the shinespark I never knew before.
I just wish it was in a better game. One for the fans, if nothing else.
2020
I've unlocked the cursed bosses and I think I'm done, at least for now, through a combination of satisfaction with this milestone and fatigue starting to set in.
A twin stick shooter roguelike that feels like if Metal Slug was strapped to Binding of Isaac, but without the wildly creative gameplay of the former or the captivating aesthetic of the latter. That should be an insult, but those are the heights of run 'n gun and rogue-likes, and to have aimed for those and missed (the point) is no bad thing.
After some time away I may come back and check out the cursed bosses and the dlc, but for now Neon Abyss gets three stars, a vague thumbs up, and off of my steam deck.
A twin stick shooter roguelike that feels like if Metal Slug was strapped to Binding of Isaac, but without the wildly creative gameplay of the former or the captivating aesthetic of the latter. That should be an insult, but those are the heights of run 'n gun and rogue-likes, and to have aimed for those and missed (the point) is no bad thing.
After some time away I may come back and check out the cursed bosses and the dlc, but for now Neon Abyss gets three stars, a vague thumbs up, and off of my steam deck.
2020
Calico... is it good? I have no idea. A wonkily strung together island of twee interactions and cute quests where everything feels barely functional, but in a charmingly naff way. Like walking up a hill might make you flail every direction, but in exchange you can rotate any animal you hold and wiggle them about. The bakinng might seem like pure chaos, but when you're shrunk down tiny and forced to play pool to make a tart maybe that's okay?
And it just ends. It just ends. There's still quests to do, people to meet and animals to rotate, but the credit roll just pops up when I least expected it.
I dunno. Not a clue. I think I like Calico. But it's not a good game. Just a cute one.
And it just ends. It just ends. There's still quests to do, people to meet and animals to rotate, but the credit roll just pops up when I least expected it.
I dunno. Not a clue. I think I like Calico. But it's not a good game. Just a cute one.
This review contains spoilers
This review is based on a single playthrough, wherein I:
- met 8 of the girls, 6 of which I got into tokimeki state by the end
- focused mostly on athletics
- ended up with Nozomi Kiyokawa
- failed to get a 2nd rate job
- did not have a single bomb go off during my run
With these sorts of romance games it feels disingenuous to try for other routes, so I think it's probably important to break down how things went in comparison to other reviewers' runs.
This is an interesting game to play, having seen Tim Rogers' lengthy review of the playstation version, and knowing that a greater version (multiple versions, even) is out in the world. The work on this SNES port (and the fan-translation itself) is really impressive, but a small part of me know that what I really want is a more advanced version with voice acting and a scrolling background that moves smoother than the one in this.
Mechanically it's neat, reminding of everything from simgirl to dark souls to an excel spreadsheet. Put numbers in, do better. Simple. Use the phone to go on dates, gather information, or pester the rich kid. So far, so simple, though a lapse in memory meant I forgot how to get girls' numbers in this, which could have been fatal. I enjoyed how certain scenes and girls are locked behind combinations of different numbers, though them usually being numbers that go up together kind of made it feel a bit arbritrary, which... I mean it kind of is. If you know the numbers you want you're basically just committing to a goal and waiting for scenes to break up the monotony.
The scenes are good, though. Walks home, special occasions, and hall bumpings happen automatically, but dates require you to organise them, and to choose options that won't fuck off your date. The dates are cute, and the second you realise that there are special scenes if you take the right girl to the right place at the right time they suddenly become the main attraction. Of COURSE I want to take Nozomi bowling in Winter so she can fucking kill me with an errant ball. Yes I want to feel vaguely guilty when Shiori reminds me of childhood adventures that make us feel fated, all while I treat her as largely tertiary. And yes, I want to see Yujari get a wet t-shirt, or so the game has decided. They're all sweet moments, and hunting them out actually makes it way easier to stat bombless throughout.
I'm told the bomb system goes away in later games, and I'm disappointed to learn that, because it's an easy to manage system that makes sure you give all your friendships attention, and allows you to ascribe some negative personality traits to the girls and flesh them out a bit. For the most part the only girls who came close to bombing me were Yuko (of course, she's a firecracker, chaotic energy that wants your attention) and Shiori (creating the impression of a childhood friend who, while uninterested in me romantically, damn well doesn't want to share me, made all the more believable by the blank expression she usually regarded me with), and both felt all the more interesting for it.
This game rules, if it wasn't clear. A well-written, well-made game whose influence you can feel in more modern romance games with very little effort, and in a bunch of other game types if you squint a little.
Now imagine if I was playing a better version of it!
- met 8 of the girls, 6 of which I got into tokimeki state by the end
- focused mostly on athletics
- ended up with Nozomi Kiyokawa
- failed to get a 2nd rate job
- did not have a single bomb go off during my run
With these sorts of romance games it feels disingenuous to try for other routes, so I think it's probably important to break down how things went in comparison to other reviewers' runs.
This is an interesting game to play, having seen Tim Rogers' lengthy review of the playstation version, and knowing that a greater version (multiple versions, even) is out in the world. The work on this SNES port (and the fan-translation itself) is really impressive, but a small part of me know that what I really want is a more advanced version with voice acting and a scrolling background that moves smoother than the one in this.
Mechanically it's neat, reminding of everything from simgirl to dark souls to an excel spreadsheet. Put numbers in, do better. Simple. Use the phone to go on dates, gather information, or pester the rich kid. So far, so simple, though a lapse in memory meant I forgot how to get girls' numbers in this, which could have been fatal. I enjoyed how certain scenes and girls are locked behind combinations of different numbers, though them usually being numbers that go up together kind of made it feel a bit arbritrary, which... I mean it kind of is. If you know the numbers you want you're basically just committing to a goal and waiting for scenes to break up the monotony.
The scenes are good, though. Walks home, special occasions, and hall bumpings happen automatically, but dates require you to organise them, and to choose options that won't fuck off your date. The dates are cute, and the second you realise that there are special scenes if you take the right girl to the right place at the right time they suddenly become the main attraction. Of COURSE I want to take Nozomi bowling in Winter so she can fucking kill me with an errant ball. Yes I want to feel vaguely guilty when Shiori reminds me of childhood adventures that make us feel fated, all while I treat her as largely tertiary. And yes, I want to see Yujari get a wet t-shirt, or so the game has decided. They're all sweet moments, and hunting them out actually makes it way easier to stat bombless throughout.
I'm told the bomb system goes away in later games, and I'm disappointed to learn that, because it's an easy to manage system that makes sure you give all your friendships attention, and allows you to ascribe some negative personality traits to the girls and flesh them out a bit. For the most part the only girls who came close to bombing me were Yuko (of course, she's a firecracker, chaotic energy that wants your attention) and Shiori (creating the impression of a childhood friend who, while uninterested in me romantically, damn well doesn't want to share me, made all the more believable by the blank expression she usually regarded me with), and both felt all the more interesting for it.
This game rules, if it wasn't clear. A well-written, well-made game whose influence you can feel in more modern romance games with very little effort, and in a bunch of other game types if you squint a little.
Now imagine if I was playing a better version of it!
2007
This just might be the worst 3D Mario game. Actually, that's unkind. It's the least good. I still quite liked Mario Galaxy, but there's just several things that hold it back, none more than it being that it isn't fun to play as Mario.
A real strength of Mario 64 is that movement feels amazing. As it should, considering how much developmental focus was given to just making Mario control well. Sunshine is... mostly good, with the fludd propping up Mario against the subtractions made of his moveset. Mario in Galaxy is just... sluggish, lacking in moves and whose key new ability, a spinning attack with a forced cooldown, is mostly used in platforming to kill momentum, rather than anything additive. It feels bad. I don't like it.
The levels are heavily frontloaded. You can go straight to the final boss without even going to the final level hub, and after the dwindling returns of the previous two hubs, it's sorely tempting. The levels you do get if you go completionist on it (well, Mario completionist, there's the DO IT ALL AGAIN side of things, too) are fine, all the levels are fine, but that's damning in a Mario game.
Boss fights are formulaic and bland, I wasn't much into any of them, though the daredevil comets did add some thrills. Nintendo in its Wii era was pretty handholdy even by their standards, and while this isn't the banner for it it isn't far off.
Speaking of handholding, you can't excuse the linearity of these levels just because you can play them out of order a bit. For all the grandeur of the presentation most levels are just big tubes.
And that presentation really is grand. For all the harm of not being HD at a time where that was the hot concept, this game is gorgeous, polished to a mirror shine. The look if Mario and his world feels feels fully realised compared to prior entries, even as you're flung lightyears away from anything familiar.
The gravity mechanics are great, not a revolution but still something substantial that allows for the odd bit of mind-bending design, even if the controls aren't quite ideal for it. I'm excited to see if Galaxy 2 improves on this base one day.
Swimming is series best to this point, especially with shells involved. I actually liked water sections way more here than in most platformers and that's a rare accomplishment.
So yes, the least good 3D Mario, an idea still worth an above average score. Three stars.
A real strength of Mario 64 is that movement feels amazing. As it should, considering how much developmental focus was given to just making Mario control well. Sunshine is... mostly good, with the fludd propping up Mario against the subtractions made of his moveset. Mario in Galaxy is just... sluggish, lacking in moves and whose key new ability, a spinning attack with a forced cooldown, is mostly used in platforming to kill momentum, rather than anything additive. It feels bad. I don't like it.
The levels are heavily frontloaded. You can go straight to the final boss without even going to the final level hub, and after the dwindling returns of the previous two hubs, it's sorely tempting. The levels you do get if you go completionist on it (well, Mario completionist, there's the DO IT ALL AGAIN side of things, too) are fine, all the levels are fine, but that's damning in a Mario game.
Boss fights are formulaic and bland, I wasn't much into any of them, though the daredevil comets did add some thrills. Nintendo in its Wii era was pretty handholdy even by their standards, and while this isn't the banner for it it isn't far off.
Speaking of handholding, you can't excuse the linearity of these levels just because you can play them out of order a bit. For all the grandeur of the presentation most levels are just big tubes.
And that presentation really is grand. For all the harm of not being HD at a time where that was the hot concept, this game is gorgeous, polished to a mirror shine. The look if Mario and his world feels feels fully realised compared to prior entries, even as you're flung lightyears away from anything familiar.
The gravity mechanics are great, not a revolution but still something substantial that allows for the odd bit of mind-bending design, even if the controls aren't quite ideal for it. I'm excited to see if Galaxy 2 improves on this base one day.
Swimming is series best to this point, especially with shells involved. I actually liked water sections way more here than in most platformers and that's a rare accomplishment.
So yes, the least good 3D Mario, an idea still worth an above average score. Three stars.
It's hard to tell what's fucked in Sunshine for poor emulation or what's fucked because it was held together by tape and optimism.
A decent collection with nothing special to it, save a music player, which a Switch isn't best made to be. Docked compromises for Galaxy are kind of shit, but this is a great game, a good game, and an okay game all lumped together, which is worth around £30 and 3 stars.
A decent collection with nothing special to it, save a music player, which a Switch isn't best made to be. Docked compromises for Galaxy are kind of shit, but this is a great game, a good game, and an okay game all lumped together, which is worth around £30 and 3 stars.
I've not thought about this in years, and I'll soon forget it again, but this game is so emblematic of crucial time wasted on Kongregate day in and day out, and I'll never forgive it for that.
2018
Every hour, every minute, every second spent in thus game took me from idle enjoyment to an increasingly nagging question: why does this compare so poorly to Powerwash Simulator?
They're both in that family of chill task-oriented client-mission simulator games where you plug away at a job, and I half-expected the variety of House Flipper to keep it around the same level, but it lacks the polish, the pleasantness, the humour, the aesthetics, the charm, the individuality that comes from my favoured job sim, and instead feels like point-accruing and wealth-hoarding to no end. Do I want to turn my shack into a proper house with my nigh-infinite funds from my boring ass jobs? Do I fuck. It doesn't feel like the idea is even sold to me, let alone any unique expression in the missions. Yes I can make everything look like shit while still filling bars or abandon jobs early, but to what end? What's the point? It doesn't feel good. There's no flow. This game simply has no rizz.
It doesn't even do a fun time lapse to show what cool shit I did. I just have to... what, enjoy the memories?
I won't. I refuse. Two stars. Just because bland isn't always enough to bottom out entirely. It has its moments. I think. I just can't think of any right now.
They're both in that family of chill task-oriented client-mission simulator games where you plug away at a job, and I half-expected the variety of House Flipper to keep it around the same level, but it lacks the polish, the pleasantness, the humour, the aesthetics, the charm, the individuality that comes from my favoured job sim, and instead feels like point-accruing and wealth-hoarding to no end. Do I want to turn my shack into a proper house with my nigh-infinite funds from my boring ass jobs? Do I fuck. It doesn't feel like the idea is even sold to me, let alone any unique expression in the missions. Yes I can make everything look like shit while still filling bars or abandon jobs early, but to what end? What's the point? It doesn't feel good. There's no flow. This game simply has no rizz.
It doesn't even do a fun time lapse to show what cool shit I did. I just have to... what, enjoy the memories?
I won't. I refuse. Two stars. Just because bland isn't always enough to bottom out entirely. It has its moments. I think. I just can't think of any right now.
2020
What a lovely little pack-in. I don’t know if I need a single other ps5 game to take advantage of the controller’s features, but to have one like this -for free- makes me smile.
The whole game controls well, even with almost completely needless combat and all the challenge of a day at the beach. As a thing to just play through it’s magnificent. Just let the gamefeel wash over you and smile. Don’t think, just feel. But also look at this Sony product. Collect the Sony products. We’ve made it easy for you, come on. You can even rotate it a but when you succeed. Come on. Look at these electronics. Did you own them? Bet you did you little console mark. We made them into 3D objects so you can remember, and celebrate us. Come. Celebrate the Sony Playstation brand.
You are not immune to propaganda. But at least this is nice propaganda. Comfortable. Don’t think about what that means.
Don’t.
The whole game controls well, even with almost completely needless combat and all the challenge of a day at the beach. As a thing to just play through it’s magnificent. Just let the gamefeel wash over you and smile. Don’t think, just feel. But also look at this Sony product. Collect the Sony products. We’ve made it easy for you, come on. You can even rotate it a but when you succeed. Come on. Look at these electronics. Did you own them? Bet you did you little console mark. We made them into 3D objects so you can remember, and celebrate us. Come. Celebrate the Sony Playstation brand.
You are not immune to propaganda. But at least this is nice propaganda. Comfortable. Don’t think about what that means.
Don’t.
Really fun to play! Really shitty to look at.
What’s there is fun! There’s not much there.
They’re adding more stuff as they go! Behind paywalls that feel a bit too expensive.
Your favourite wrestlers are here! Except the ones that aren’t, and the ones that are are in looks or personas considerably out of date.
It has minigames! Shit ones.
I dunno, it’s a game of two halves, but the negatives outweigh the positives, and you kind of wish they’d call time on it and work on an iterative sequel rather than pouring resources into a game whose rep has driven people away.
Also why does everyone do the freakish bulging eyes celebration when they get a belt? You’ve got all these personalities but no personality, you dig? A shame,
What’s there is fun! There’s not much there.
They’re adding more stuff as they go! Behind paywalls that feel a bit too expensive.
Your favourite wrestlers are here! Except the ones that aren’t, and the ones that are are in looks or personas considerably out of date.
It has minigames! Shit ones.
I dunno, it’s a game of two halves, but the negatives outweigh the positives, and you kind of wish they’d call time on it and work on an iterative sequel rather than pouring resources into a game whose rep has driven people away.
Also why does everyone do the freakish bulging eyes celebration when they get a belt? You’ve got all these personalities but no personality, you dig? A shame,
2017
Do we not talk about the level design of Metroid enough? Of Metroidvanias/search action titles in general? Is it not one of, if not THE most important aspect to these titles, both a casual play perspective and those of sequence breakers and speed runners?
This is a game that removes that fundamental part of these titles, replacing it with a random arrangement of pre-designed rooms that essentially exist in isolation. No matter how good one specific bit of design can be, one well-designed landmark, it is an island unto itself, interacting not one bit with the world outside of it. To turn a search action title into a roguelike in this specific manner feels utterly, woefully pointless.
It’s not like parts of this aren’t proven ideas heading in. Randomisers match the same thrilling ‘what power-up will I get here’ feeling that Fight provides, but without the sort of genius level design of a Super Metroid, the ability to skillfully navigate without the intended power-ups are lost, and so a power-up that allows progress HAS to be in the rough area you’re playing within. The concepts are proven, it’s in the execution that they fail.
Some positives. It looks good, and the unpleasant fleshiness of enemies and environments carries the machines vs meat theming of the storyline really well. It feels good to play, power-ups depending, and by the end of a run you feel obscenely powerful, firing endless projectiles all over the screen constantly. That visual and feeling is at the centre of many a quality roguelike, and the creators should be proud of that.
The music is inoffensive, which is to say I barely noticed it. Almost criminal in a search action title, but not the worst thing in gaming overall. There’s just a high bar here.
And that’s… maybe all there is to say. I didn’t hate this, despite the fundamental failure that’s at its core. That’s worth something, but that something only amounts to two stars. If I believed in half stars it may be higher, but I don’t, so it isn’t. Get it cheap if you get the chance, don’t if you don’t.
you absolutely can still sequence break, and you unlock a key retro ability by doing so, but in this game all that really means is ‘I made it through a hot/dark room without dying’.
This is a game that removes that fundamental part of these titles, replacing it with a random arrangement of pre-designed rooms that essentially exist in isolation. No matter how good one specific bit of design can be, one well-designed landmark, it is an island unto itself, interacting not one bit with the world outside of it. To turn a search action title into a roguelike in this specific manner feels utterly, woefully pointless.
It’s not like parts of this aren’t proven ideas heading in. Randomisers match the same thrilling ‘what power-up will I get here’ feeling that Fight provides, but without the sort of genius level design of a Super Metroid, the ability to skillfully navigate without the intended power-ups are lost, and so a power-up that allows progress HAS to be in the rough area you’re playing within. The concepts are proven, it’s in the execution that they fail.
Some positives. It looks good, and the unpleasant fleshiness of enemies and environments carries the machines vs meat theming of the storyline really well. It feels good to play, power-ups depending, and by the end of a run you feel obscenely powerful, firing endless projectiles all over the screen constantly. That visual and feeling is at the centre of many a quality roguelike, and the creators should be proud of that.
The music is inoffensive, which is to say I barely noticed it. Almost criminal in a search action title, but not the worst thing in gaming overall. There’s just a high bar here.
And that’s… maybe all there is to say. I didn’t hate this, despite the fundamental failure that’s at its core. That’s worth something, but that something only amounts to two stars. If I believed in half stars it may be higher, but I don’t, so it isn’t. Get it cheap if you get the chance, don’t if you don’t.
you absolutely can still sequence break, and you unlock a key retro ability by doing so, but in this game all that really means is ‘I made it through a hot/dark room without dying’.
No clever review this time. This is just a very good golf game that feels like Kirby's Dream Course, while being a smidge more grounded. Great course design, simple mechanics, and the pure satisfaction of a hole in one is just fantastic. Amazing little multiplayer game, thankfully preserved and translated in this modern age.
A most excellent beat 'em up, with all the touches one needs to feel like the developers gave a shit about the subject matter.
If there was one significant failing, it's my own for never once managing to get a multiplayer game of this going, despite it clearly being designed to be played that specific way, but as I'm saying, that's on me.
Even without others this is a joy to play, and the story objectives and secrets add some time onto what would otherwise be quite a short game. Usagi's the way to go for me specifically, because I'm an Usagi Yojimbo fan before I'm a Turtles fan nowadays, but the whole cast of playable characters are a good time. Well worth anyone's time.
If there was one significant failing, it's my own for never once managing to get a multiplayer game of this going, despite it clearly being designed to be played that specific way, but as I'm saying, that's on me.
Even without others this is a joy to play, and the story objectives and secrets add some time onto what would otherwise be quite a short game. Usagi's the way to go for me specifically, because I'm an Usagi Yojimbo fan before I'm a Turtles fan nowadays, but the whole cast of playable characters are a good time. Well worth anyone's time.