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What is essentially an add-on to an already completed script, but an incredibly heartfelt and inspired one at that. I've never been one to complain about the lack of juggling or the lack of canceling moves, I play these games for their narrative and how they tie into the gameplay seamlessly. There's much more to appreciate of what these games do than simply their combo game.

With that said, what stands out the most is Gaiden's narrative. There's a sense of entrapment and longing for emancipation the entire time, and when it's eventually reached, it feels bittersweet. Being knowing of Kiryu's condition in Infinite Wealth helps make this game feel even more like a swan song, and it drives home this sense of impending doom that haunts throughout the short span of the game.

You know what's coming, but seeing the way there is a whole other beast.

*Both replays of Mega Man 1 was played through the Legacy Collection.

Mega Man 1 is a solid foundation to an iconic series. The basics are there: jump, shoot, going through levels, beating up robot masters, and getting their abilities. The elements that formulate every Mega Man game came from here. Music is excellent and the visuals are classic, though the backgrounds are pretty basic by NES standards. Only flaws I have is Mega Man's stiff movement through jumps, the Wily Castle bosses, and some enemy placements were cheap. Overall, a solid game that gets beaten out by its sequels.

As a Mega Man fan who is playing through the Castlevania franchise, this was a nice little surprise. A parody spinoff of Castlevania puts you in the shoes of the long time antagonist, Dracula, when he was a child has you jumpn' and shootn' Mega Man style through levels with a boss usually waiting at the end.

Other comparisons to Mega Man is the fact when you defeat a boss at the end of a level you get a new weapon in the form of a charge blast, that you are able to switch. Some of these charge blasts are homing attacks, explosions or even the ability to turn you into a bat for a short period. The only other thing the gameplay does to really differentiate itself from Mega Man is the ability to shoot up (which if Mega Man could do, he would be so OP).

I do wish this game had the structure of a Mega Man game where you could choose your level order, considering bosses do give you weapons this time around, it would have been cool to find an order that gives you your favorite weapons first.

Level wise, the design is more focused on shooting enemies then platforming. There are a handful platforming sections but nothing too hard or stressful. You won't get the disappearing blocks over a bottomless pit type of challenge. Some of the level themes are cool as they take some of the designs from Castlevania and "kidify" them in artsyle. The first level itself is a straight up recreation of Dracula's castle from the original title and it was so cool reliving it. Other levels are more typical levels you'd see in a platformer like the Ice stage or Desert stage - not bad but nothing too great and original either.

The game difficulty is very fair for a NES game and Castlevania game nonetheless. Someone with decent experience with NES platformers should be able to beat this in one sitting with a good level of challenge.

I liked this little fun break from the rage inducing early Castlevania titles, especially as a fan of Mega Man this is a solid MM clone and treat.

genuinely more power to you if this game and other games in its genre are your cup of tea but i have never had such an unfun, frustrating experience playing something before up until this. like, i stuck it through, i did beat it, but i don’t even feel anything for completing it aside from “thank god it’s over so i don’t have to turn this on anymore”. i don’t feel any sense of accomplishment at all.

i like playing games for plot/story/characters, and maybe i could have liked this game just riding solely off of that (stranger of paradise is my favorite game of the year thus far and there’s about 10 minutes of story in it total), but whatever the plot is is not only spread incredibly thin across the entire runtime of the game, but the characters all speak in riddles and are all named similarly and i have no idea what anyone is like or who anyone is after a while. when i pull up at a new grace and melina goes “hey time to loredump to you about this location”, this doesn’t endear me to her character, i literally don’t know anything about her because the only time she talks to me she just wants to speak exposition at me. how am i even supposed to care when she goes human torch mode i don’t even know her! we’re not friends!!! this is like the driver ahead of you paying for your meal at the drive thru, like thanks dude, i don’t really know you but that was cool of you to do i guess?

this is probably the main reason why i like ranni the most since she has like 3 or 4 lines where she doesn’t just loredump at you, but then i minus points because she was angry at me while she was in amiibo form like girl i am trying to HELP YOU. anyways we’re gay married so i don’t mind that too much anymore.

again big power to you if this genre of game is something you enjoy, everyone has different things they like, i’m not trying to say “everyone should hate this it sucks”, this is probably a fantastic game, but this was so not fun for me personally. i was fine at the start but by the middle of the game and especially toward the end i was just frustrated and. Not Having Fun. and games are supposed to be fun. so idk.

the fact you can’t pause this game even in offline mode gets a full star taken off from me what the fuck dude

This game might not be my first introduction to Puyo Puyo, but this game was a major stepping stone to my interest in this series overall. Released in 2003, Puyo Pop Fever remains to be the "Reboot" of the Puyo Puyo series after Sega bought the rights to Puyo Puyo and it's characters and story. While this might not be the first game they've made under the holder (Minna De Puyo Puyo/Puyo Pop on the GBA was the first that featured characters from Puyo Puyo Sun and was a mix of that and Tsu), this one is notable for the reason I've gave it but why am I offering to give this one the long review treatment? Well because of how much it helped me discover a bunch of things about this era of gaming that I wished that jt can just come back: The age of video games where very bright asthetics, good and fun characters, and a charming story that isn't too dark or too convoluted.

PPF keeps everything of Puyo intact with the Sousai/offsetting rule being implemented, just as any other Puyo game released after Tsu. But this one introduces a new, intense mechanic: Fever mode. Once you offset, you've add a point to  the fever meter and once you offset enough, you'll fill it up to enter this mode where it gives you pre set chains to put yourself on the opponent. This may seem like a cheap way to work with the skill of building a chain if the game makes it up for you, but in my honest opinion, it strengthens your knowledge of it. When you first enter the mode, it starts off small and one's that you can possibly pull off by yourself on a normal playthrough. But the more you spend time in this mode, the more complex the chains get, and without knowledge of how to build an effective chain, could put you out of fever mode or just to make you end the match sooner. Another good point of fever is that it's a good competitive way to play Puyo if you're too used to the original way of playing it. Instead of having to make a giant chain to go one on one with another player, the goal can be that you can either do this, or make a chain that had a bunch of Puyos within one, to make them down quicker. Usually what you see when watching a TAS of Puyo. Now I don't know if this applies to modern Puyo games, But the oppertunnity can still present itself when it's there.

And that's pretty much the gameplay for Fever. There's your usual multi-player matches, endless fever (playing in fever mode for as long as you can), normal endless, and mission mode, but the characters and the story is my most favorite part of the game. I know that it really isn't coherent but then again this is a Puzzle game regardless. They don't need to have a deep story because the genre of the game doesn't match with deep storytelling. The story is just that Mrs. Accord lost her flying cane and is setting the students in Primp Town to retrieve it again. In the Hara Hara course, you're just training Puyo. Waku Waku is Amitie making an attempt to finally get it after Popoi had it at the end, with her not wanting an award for some reason, and the Hara Hara course is Raffina getting it but uh... I honestly don't remember her story much because there was the point where she got whacked in the head by the teacher and then was told after Raffina knew the truth about the whole thing that she still managed to get it regardless. Her ending was  bit skewed, but eh, at least it's better than having the same thing, lol.

And that's it for Puyo Pop Fever! Well, for the game at least. There's not much else to day, but I did have fond memories playing the GBA port and finishing all three courses, and the soundtrack are all great on their own. The voice acting for both regions is great, despite most complaining about the English VAs. The reason i like it? For the style the game was trying to do along with the fact that the characters themselves felt good with the English Voice Acting, it's just too perfect and best of all, you've got Raffina saying a cuss word. Literally life changing. That's about it though for this review. Maybe  I could've gotten a bit more detail on how it affected my life, but i believe that PPT was the original days where it kickstated ny interest into Puyo Puyo in general.

For the first Castlevania game that I seriously played (I have to give it to
OperatorArmisael (Formerly ChaosInsurgent49), one of the developers of the Terraria Metroid Mod Discord for giving me inspiration to try out Castlevania to even help me 100% it), this has to be one of the greatest Castlevania games that I've played. The fact that this game is ALSO a precursor to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night will FOREVER remind me of the transition from Metroid 2: Return of Samus/AM2R/Metroid: Samus Returns to Super Metroid, and I have enjoyed the heck out of the former. I don't have a lot to say about this entry, but this will be one that I might come back to give this game poper justice. (And for those that are in the Backloggd Discord that I was in seeing this, I left due to personal complications involving a series I and 2 other people tend to talk about a lot, and I don't expect for myself to come back I will be reviewing stuff though, which won't stop.

Back to Rondo of Blood. For my first entry to Castlevania, the controls are solid, the cutscenes are great, and the voice acting is sub-par in both regions (I played this as Rondo of Blood and not the original Japanese version, but I watched a TAS of the latter both as the goat named Ritcher Belmont and Maria Renard)

This game is rated e for everyone and there's a stripper in the game.

Do I need to say anything more? I mean you got the blue narsisist that yells straight, a Bootleg cheap copy Ryu from Street Fighter, Bub but make him a Discord Moderator, and a purple haired.... Sorceress that doesn't even fit within the vibe of Puzzle Bubble? All these characters are honestly goated. But a stripper in an Everyone rated game.

Nice going Taito!