I've always preferred Wario Land games over Mario platformers. While Mario has used conventionally safe mechanics, Wario games usually have all sorts of weird and experimental things going on for it. I've always fancied how they seemingly go out of their way to outright troll the player and punish heavily for missteps, almost as if there is someone carefully designing parts of the levels to take up as much of the player's time as possible. With the fourth iteration of the series that aspect has somewhat toned down and more weight is put on time trials. Every level has a switch somewhere in them that opens the end portal and starts the clock you need to race to finish while collecting whatever it is left to collect in the level.

Wario's movement remains pretty much the same from the previous games. You still have the charge and jump and the controls are really solid and satisfying. It seems that the developers dropped the powerups almost completely in favour of a larger healthbar. There are still some enemies that give the character status effects that often are required to complete puzzled for progression, but Wario himself has only one standard form to play around with.

Bosses are also more traditional platformer bosses with specific ways of beating them. Bosses and enemies overall aren't very hard by themselves, but most of the game's difficulty comes from navigating the levels, clearing the puzzles and completing the time trials. On normal, these all are pretty generous and a casual platformer player shouldn't have too much trouble.

The game's look and feel is pretty par for the course at this point. The graphics are well polished with well defined backgrounds and foregrounds, animations are all cute (as cute as Wario can be of course) and the music slaps. Each level even has a hidden cd you can collect to get the level's theme in your collection. While the "worlds" themselves usually have some overarching theme, each level takes you into a different place with it's own gimmick and look, so no single location is going to grow stale (outside of those hotel and domino levels of course).

While collecting treasures is in the core of the game, I'm kinda left missing the exploration and finding all sorts of hidden paths and unique artefacts from previous games. It seems that progression was made more straight-forward, so you'll probably spend a little less time with this one. There is some replayability with multiple endings and harder modes, which makes some minor chances, mostly just decreases the time you have to clear everything.

It's more Wario, a little less trolling and a stellar GBA game.

This game has some surprising depths to it. At the beginning, I just went into the story mode and stumbled through it with mashing and executing strong combos when I unlocked them. I think I had actual issues with only one of the fights since I just couldn't get an opening, but in the end the game was over before it even properly began.

Turns out the meat of the game lies in the tournament mode, where you're pitted against some crazy strong enemies and have to really know the game if you don't want to get dunked completely. The story mode feels more or less like a tutorial where things don't get explained at all. The mechanics are left mostly for the player to figure out, for example I don't think how the distance affects your moves or how the stats and boosting them works were explained at all. Maybe it was all in the manual, but good luck finding one, if you can even understand what it says.

Once you figure out how everything works, the game becomes your oyster. It's really fun in a masochistic way to try mastering the game in the tournament mode. The game manages to be quite simplistic on the surface with limited controls, but the complexity comes from combos, patterns and different tactics you can utilize to beat pretty diverse cast of opponents.

The game looks and sounds pretty good. I haven't read or watched the works it's based on, but I have only good to say how this game looks. The characters have all their distinct designs and looks and the battles look like straight out of Virtual Boy (in a good way). Unfortunately, since I haven't consumed the original work, I had no idea who any of the characters are or what the story is. The game gives little to no story and seems more like a boxing game designed for fans of the series.

So, if you're fan of the series I think you would like this game at least for the duration of the story mode. For the rest, if a mix of Punch-Out and Teleroboxer sounds intriguing, give it a go.

Pretty much an upgraded experience to the first one, though I played the psp versions of both the first game and this one, so not much had changed mechanically. If you've played the first game, this is pretty much the same gameplay-wise, battles go pretty much by mashing X (outside of couple selected boss fights of course) and you can pretty much annihilate the game's challenge with the right skills, menu no jutsu and savescumming. Casually you probably won't even need those, but there are some late- and postgame content that seems to require some cheesing and guides to even find them.

Visually, this game is just as beautiful as the first one, maybe even more. The interiors seem to be 3D-renders and while it helps your pixelart-character to pop out in the scene, it makes actually navigating and interacting with the environment taxing. The pixelart itself is really well done and the little animations are cute, kinda reminiscent of jrpgs on SNES (gee, almost like they had the experience or something). There is also some FMVs and character art done by animation studio. These were a nice little touch, though the cutscenes were reserved for only major moments and showed only the main characters. I don't blame them, animation can get quite expensive.

I found the soundtrack to be tad underwhelming compared to the first game. I can still remember some of the songs from the first one, but hardly any of the songs here made an impact. I don't want to say that it was bad, the soundtrack definitely served it's purpose. There just isn't any songs that stood out or made me return to listen them again.

Then there is the story. This is probably the biggest upgrade to the first game I noticed. The main character in the first game was bland by design, someone the player could project themselves onto and relate with. The second game took a wildly different route and made two playable protagonists with their own stories and personalities. They are actual full-fledged characters with their own goals, dreams and weaknesses beyond just saving the world from evil. It's a bold choice and pays off somewhat, I really like Rena and her story whereas I find Claude rather irritating. I get it, he's supposed to be stupid teenager and have all this pressure and grow during the story, but he can get really insecure and insufferable. The side characters also shine well, some more than others. In the end I can't think of single boring side character who didn't have something interesting going on for them and I could enjoy myself with the story. Despite the name "Star Ocean", this game also continues the good tradition of the first game of introducing us to a scifi setting and then putting us in the middle of a medieval fantasy. I'm not saying you can't do medieval fantasy well, you just might feel rather fooled if you think you're going to play a scifi-rpg.

I can recommend this game if you like jrpgs. It got a bit more involved battle system than just turned-based and the story is great. It's not without it's shortcomings, but if you played and liked the first game, you're most likely going to love this one.

I've been hearing praises for this game for years already and now finally beat the PSP port. It's a solid indie game and I can see why it's so loved.

While the gameplay is really simple, it's been executed beautifully. Some people don't like the floaty jumping, but I personally don't mind and it's fun to explore around trying out where you can actually reach. The game also has a wide variety of weapons serving different playstyles, but you'll do well using just one or two of them during your whole playthrough. It also has some metroidvania flavor with gadgets and powerups you can use to reach places not reachable before, but these are often just sidemissions and are not required for progression.

The game is also mostly on the easier side if you play casually. Some of the bosses can get challenging, but they are often generous with pickups to refill your health and weapon xp, so you never feel completely helpless. With the normal ending, I never really felt challenged until the final bosses. Going for the true ending is a whole another story and the difficulty ramps up considerably, but you still don't feel like it's unfair. Ever challenge can be beaten with knowing your moveset and careful tactics.

This game also features a rather complex story and a beautiful soundtrack. The story is mainly told through dialogue with the npcs and you don't really have to fill anything in yourself, just play the game and focus on what people are telling you to uncover the mystery. While I appreciate "show don't tell" style of storytelling better, this type of serves it's purpose well enough and does it's job. The characters have all been made well and are interesting and I can't say I remember any boring cutscene and I was invested in the story fully.

It's a good game with a great cultural impact. If you haven't played it already, I can well recommend checking it out.

The massive popularity of the Batman movie can really be seen in the thought and care that was put into this game. The aesthetics are well-done and everything from graphics to the music is made to reproduce the same kind of gothic vibe the movie had. I can say that I enjoyed myself with this one.

On gameplay-wise, this is clearly a product of it's time. It's a NES-platformer that seems to be padding the gametime with challenge. It's not as painfully difficult than some other platformers released on the system, but the difficulty ramps up pretty fast during the last two levels. Especially the last one has some tricky and specific jumps you need to perform accurately or you can kiss your health goodbye. The only saving here grace is the generous amount of pickups the enemies drop.

Platforming itself is generally well done. Sure, there are some jumps that require pixel-perfect execution, but performing them is actually not too hard once you figure out what you need to do. The controls perform smoothly and the character's movement is consistent. My only gripe here is that jumping while holding d-pad locks you into that jump, but that's not too much of a hindrance. By the fourth level you've gotten a good idea how it all works and can perform jumps you didn't even realize are possible.

With the platforming requiring so much skill, the bosses themselves feel almost ridiculously easy in comparison. They often have pretty well telegraphed attacks and Batman's weapons seem to damage them pretty good. Only the last two bosses gave me any actual trouble.

My final thoughts are that it's a NES-era platformer. It can get pretty challenging, but clearing the challenge feels immensely satisfying. This game really makes you feel like Batman.

I feel like I would've gotten more out of this game had I watched Rugrats in the childhood, but I never did so I was left with a confused impression. Playing this game I could see the valiant attempt at making something the fans of the show could enjoy. There's tons of what I can assume are references and callbacks to the show itself, so clearly the dev team had some idea what they were doing designing a good tie-in. Unfortunately the technical side fall a little short.

The game greatly suffers from similar issues some other 3D-games were suffering at the time, with controls and camera placement still being figured out. However, this game had more problems than just the industry standard, hitboxes especially feeling like a hot mess and controls being especially janky. The camera jumps all over the place, making any sort of consistent and fluid movement impossible. Also, whenever there's any enemies you need to beat, aiming is way harder than probably intended with the character's movement and lack of any good perspective. Most of the times I lost health just while trying to pick up ammunition and turning towards enemies to launch it at them.

The saving grace for this game is the nonexistent difficulty and short length. Most of the challenge for me was fighting against the janky controller scheme and character trying to get stuck in every corner and piece of furniture around the house.

Can I recommend this? Not really, unless you're a big fan of the show. I can see the love the makers of this game poured in, but the execution was left severely lacking.

First Dragon Quest ever played and I guess I started off with a strong one. It had a solid impact with great story, satisfying battle system, charming art and bomb soundtrack.

The biggest thing that probably stands out from the game is the party planning and monster recruiting. There are number of monsters you can recruit, kit out and take into an adventure with you and I feel like they offer a great way to build the perfect party for a specific game styles. I ended up clearing the game with the family and couple support monsters but from what I read, some of the recruitable monsters get you through the game with breeze.

Obviously, with kitting out, there is the grind. If you want your party to have the levels and the gear to beat the threat, the game offers multiple grinding options to spend your life away with. My playtime was a little bit over 60 hours and I bet a half of that was spent with the slots trying to get a good sword or some dusty dungeon trying to encounter metal slimes. In the end, you can beat the game with less grinding than I did, I had the worst of luck and was way too prepared for the final boss.

While the game's style can be a little limiting in expressing it, the story manages to hit extremely well. It's borderline comical how much the player character goes through, but in my opinion it made actually clearing the challenges all more satisfying. The story is often delivered via cutscenes and dialogue, the former being the stronger way of the two. Usually when you gain an important piece of information through dialogue, it's delivered in pretty nonchalant way, almost like in passing which is made even more infuriating by the awful accents of some npcs that were for some reason included in the DS release. However in the end I'm not playing this game for it's dialogue and can't expect them to do every single moment a carefully crafted cutscene.

This game looks really great. The art and designs by the late Akira Toriyama are just as wacky and imaginative as you get and some of the monsters are almost like ripped straight out of the pages of Dragon Ball or Dr. Slump. As someone who grew up reading those series', it felt a little nostalgic. I also love how the DS version uses the both screens to display the scene around the player character, which brings even more depth to already impressive sceneries.

Overall, it's a great game, though it gets a bit grindy especially towards the end. If you like JRPGs and haven't tried it out yet, I can confidently urge you to do so.

I'm not a big shmup guy, but this game was an enjoyable experience. It's not terribly long by itself, but to reach the ending you have to essentially beat the game twice, the second time around being a lot harder.

I've gotten used to arcade games being rather stingy with resources so it was a pleasant surprise to see this game hand you out upgrades and bombs like candy. This happens even when you die so getting back up to speed is no trouble at all. While the levels are rather bullet hell-y, I never felt too overwhelmed or bullshitted until the end of the latter half. At least bosses aren't too heavy with projectiles. Some bosses even made themselves rather easy with their directional attacks.

The little story there was I found a bit bland and was saved by the characters and the humor they brought. I find the whole game a little anticlimactic, like the story was only an afterthought. In the end it's not like I play shmups for their story so no big deal at all.

It's a decent game, though it turns into bit of a quarter burner during the latter half.

This was definitely an enjoyable one. Bloodlines is a bit on the easier and shorter than some of the other Castlevanias I have played before, but it's a tight and consistent experience.

Like many probably have said before, this game looks and sounds absolutely beautiful. It really takes everything it can out of the limited hardware to offer a memorable gothic experience, even showing couple clever visual tricks to show that the devs really knew what they were doing. While the level design itself is nothing really to call home about, the bosses managed to keep the pace up with their interesting designs and mechanics.

As a platformer, the game gets a pass from me. The controls feel really limited and stiff at times and while I didn't have to fight the controller itself at any point, it felt like every input needed to be firm and made with two week's notice. In the end, this didn't bother me too much since the game seems to rely more on spacing and careful actions rather than quick last-minute ones.

I can confidently recommend playing it if you're interested in more classic Castlevania games. There are two playable characters that offer some alternative routes to levels, so it even has some replay value.

I never even knew about the show before this game and while I can appreciate that the game was certainly made to cater the fans of that show, I really didn't feel a strong connection here. At least the developers clearly knew what they were doing and instead of doing a quick tie-in game with zero effort, they actually made a serviceable platformer.

The gimmick of this game is switching out the character you're playing as to help you clear obstacles. In the end it didn't have that big of an impact to the game, the only places I actually swapped out were when a boulder or dirt was blocking my path. As a platformer, the game starts out slow and easy, but the difficulty keeps ramping up steadily. However, I never got the feeling that game was being unfair and even the trickier spots could be cleared with skill and careful maneuvering.

While the controls are generally solid, there manages to be couple hiccups. Dashing felt really awkward at times and most of the times it happened by accident since the timing to press the d-pad twice is pretty generous. Also I had to be really careful attacking an enemy when I came off ladders since it's easy to press the attack button while still holding the up button, which activates the special attack. However, outside of these little gripes, moving and mechanics felt really solid and satisfying.

If you happen to have been a fan of this show, you should definitely give it a go. For the rest, it's just an okay platformer.

It's a pretty decent kart racer. The game doesn't really go out of it's way to do anything cool or inventive, it feels pretty much stitched together from earlier more popular games trying to prefect those mechanics. It starts pretty easy, the first easy tournament just eases you into driving but at the hard tournament you need to have master it all if you want to even make it to the top 3.

Aesthetics-wise it looks like an early 2000s cartoon for kids with a varied gang of quirky kids. I enjoyed the designs and sounds, but I can see those becoming grating for some people after a while.

The AI is brutal and seems to either cheat or be quick to capitalize on any mistake the player makes. It's fortunately easy to recover, but advancing in ranks is uphill skating every time since the other racers hardly do any mistakes. Only times I saw them spin out was when hit with a weapon.

I also absolutely hate sand and everything it stands for.

It's a fine enough game, but to get the most out of it get yourselves a party of friends so at least you'll fumble together.

I first gave the original Gamecube release a go but ended up completing this on Switch. I first blamed controls but in the end it was because I didn't realize how the boss works, so might give it another go sometime. However, the remaster is a perfectly good way to play this game.

The atmosphere is probably the best thing about this game and I really liked exploring the planet and it's varied locations. All the backdrops and surroundings are designed to look just as interesting as the previous 2D-entries, maybe even a bit more interesting with the third dimension added. The normal metroidvania-formula also works well and searching for new upgrades felt rewarding and satisfying.

Where it falls a little is how slow everything feels. Compared to the 2D-games, movement feels sluggish and crossing maps to backtrack feels way too much of a chore. The saving grace here is that the endgame upgrades are designed to make movement and backtracking faster, but it still feels way too slow compared to a 2D metroid game. I also feel like this would've done better as 3rd person shooter rather than 1st person, but at least the hud was more than immersive.

The combat also is done well, although switching between different beams for different enemies is little bit too complicated with the twin stick controller scheme. Some of the harder bosses are really iconic and memorable, in both good and bad, and there wasn't a single boss I would call outright horrendous or unfair. The game offers a great adventure and now having played this, I can see why the original is so liked.

It's pretty much a standard Kirby game. Everything about the game just screams plain cute and charming, but gameplay itself manages to be actually quite hard. There isn't much too much unfairness in my opinion, levels and bosses can be willed through with sheer perseverance and they have their patterns that aren't too difficult to master.

It wasn't until the end until the game started to show it's cracks. The levels felt like going on and on with difficult spots and while the last world has some shorter levels, they still manage to ruin them with trial-and-error-autoscroller segments. Still, King Dedede returned back to normal formula and managed to be fair boss, though on the tougher side.

The colorization hack itself does a great job bringing this game to GBC. It even runs well on the original hardware with a flash cart. (I've learned this isn't a given with all GB hacks.)

I've been hearing about this game a lot and now that I played it myself, I can just say that it either fails to live up to the hype or just horribly outdated.

I played the arcade version and while it's not the worst offender of quarter burning, there is definitely quite a lot at play. While it feels at times that you can actually just beat enemies with pure skill without losing any lives, you'll end up fighting against the clunky controls and stiff characters and are quickly reminded your place by damage sponging enemies. There is some leeway given with the rideable creatures with flame attacks that just annihilate enemies if you manage to get one, but even then it's just a matter of a time before some enemy manages to get a lucky hit in and kick you off your mount.

Some of the enemies are notoriously though mainly because they have a shit ton of health. The big armored enemies and skeletons are already a bit of a pain, but the devs just had to make you ride it all the way through and put couple skeletons into the final boss to make sure you spend the last of your allowance trying to beat the guy. I've never really been a fan of this type of difficulty.

Despite the criticism, the game is quite fun played with a friend. The story is pretty straight to the point and magic is abundant and satisfying to use if things get though. Golden Axe is one of those games that are experiences, but you're not really going to look back at too fondly.

Playing this after the third installment, it's pretty much the same deal but just shorter, which isn't a bad thing at all. As an arcade game, it felt to be on the fairer side, you can actually get pretty far with a quarter even on your first playthrough and it doesn't feel as unfair as some of the quarter-churners I've seen.

The high-paced action keeps up all the way to the end and the bosses are pretty memorable in their design. I can see how the third one was a direct follow-up, expanding the role of the vehicles whereas here they felt like a neat addition or a temporary power-up (or maybe I just lost them too fast).

Unfortunately the game suffers from pretty heavy slowdowns which really take away from the otherwise awesome action. I've heard there is some ways around those with overclocking or emulation, but it's a sad blemish on otherwise great game.