I’ve known about this game for a minute and just avoided it because of the cover art. It didn't really look like my kind of game. What reminded me of this game's existence was seeing a tweet around a week ago that Wild Woody was added to an NSFW kart racing game. I had to do a double take, but it was actually real. I shouldn’t be surprised considering the name of the game, but, like, wow. I consider myself to be a fan of the Sega CD, so I did want to give this game a try.

The controls are some of the worst I’ve seen in the medium. When jumping, Woody stutters when rising and falling, so it ends up feeling like you’re rubber banding in an online game. Woody’s main form of attacking is jumping on enemies, which will play out an animation where he sinks into the enemy while erasing them from the level. There’s been times where I would try jumping on enemies upwards of 5 times in a row and it would still not register! He’s also got this sketch ability where you’ll have to press the pause button, flip through the sketch book to find the ability you want to use, and activate it, which plays out an animation. Admittedly, a cool idea, but badly integrated since you can only use 2 of these before having to get a powerup later in the level. For the most part, these are useless in the sense that they obstruct the flow of the game and are never good enough to where you’d even think of using them instead of just damage boosting through whatever enemy is in front of you. Abilities are mostly some awkward projectile or something that transforms you into something for more jump height and movement speed, all controlling as bad if not worse than your standard form. For example, there’s ones that turn you into a kangaroo and hobby horse.

This game is not good in the level design department either. Wild Woody has the design philosophies of Sonic CD with these large, incoherent mazes I’ve gotten lost in for some embarrassingly long times. Also cluttered with enemy placements that, at times, make taking damage feel unavoidable. It’s so bad you’re better off just damage boosting through everything since you’ll probably take more damage trying to avoid them. The enemies also really like throwing unfair projectiles, which you can’t even avoid at times. It’s evident this game was a rush job, and the stage design really makes that show. I get the vibe that they made the levels and didn’t even try playing through the game because a ton of stages have platforming segments that are way too awkward to perform consistently. In the Mount Olympus stage, there is a part where you literally have to take a leap of faith and hope you land on a small platform instead of falling below the area and having to climb back up again. I haven’t mentioned yet that Woody has an ability where he can erase areas of the map to find secrets and progress through the stage. That’s fine; at the start of the game, they highlight these areas to let you know you can erase them, but past level 1, they never mark them again. So, there are areas I’ve gotten trapped in where you just have to waste time guessing where the erasable floor or wall is. Funnily enough, they also increase the time to do so in later stages if it wasn’t already cryptic enough, because then you’ll have to wait longer to erase things with no prior indication.

First impressions of the music from stage 1 sound bad initially, but make more sense since Ron Thal who did the music, said that he made the soundtrack start off silly and progressively get more intense throughout. So even though the first song sounds like a prog rock cover of a nursery rhyme, it does start to pick up the pace with the later stages. My favorite songs are the space stage theme and this song that went unused due to a presumed programming bug. It's a bit goofy, but the high-tempo drums and the piano make for a pretty kickass boss theme, so it’s sad this song didn’t make it in.

How was this released?! Ristar literally came out earlier in the year, and this was supposed to be the swan-song for the Sega CD? How unfortunate… It’s a shame because I think this game had the potential to be pretty cool. I also think it's hilarious that the platforming mascot shit got so out of hand that they made one for a fucking pencil… At least the soundtrack is good.

Mega Man was always one of those series that I reveered as a child but didn’t exactly play a lot. I mean, this series is one of the NES franchises, and as a teen raised by AVGN and those inspired by him, I just always heard about this motherfucker. So much so, that I got Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10 on the Wii when the released way back when. A new game with NES graphics, I mean, I ate them up at the time. I got the second volume of the Legacy Collection because it not only had those two that I played a lot of as a kid, but also the 8th installment, which I had seen recently is very coveted among true fans of this series.

However, before moving on to the latter three games in this collection I felt obligated to play this one, and it may have soured me on Mega Man before I even got going! I feel like a lot of people are lukewarm on this installment, anyways, but I think I’m just lukewarm on the whole thing. See, because Mega Man is a series defined by its legacy as a classic NES game, it feels like every new game was designed not to be updated because half of the appeal, according to the designers, are those clunky and old school things that make a game less fun. Mega Man doesn’t crouch because, well, Mega Man doesn’t crouch. It doesn’t matter how nice it would be to have different heights for your attack, Mega Man DOESN’T CROUCH! Also, spikes are an instant death. It doesn’t matter that levels seemed designed without that fact in mind, and there are sections of some levels that seem like they want to launch you in the spikes once just to teach you about a level’s gimmick, but then you get sent back to the beginning. But, I mean, what can ya do? In Mega Man, spikes are an instant death. Because they always were.

Needless to say this game made me angry. Thank god for the Legacy Collection’s “LOAD LAST CHECKPOINT” option. I was clicking that button, plenty. The password system was honestly really funny, because I haven’t played a game that used that in ages, and I figured by the SNES we weren’t really using that for these bigger games. However! Then I remembered, after figuring I would just give up on the Wily’s Castle levels, that I can input a password to get me to the end! So I did, and then the boss kicked my ass, then when the second phases started, I said “actually, forget it.”

Sparkster, my man. We gotta talk about your obsession with replacing my hedgehog-shaped heart.

You ever wish you grew up with something instead of looking at it through the lens of a jaded 30-year old who's played every piece of trashware and who-gives-a-shit release that had been readily available to them to emulate for the last two decades? You start wondering why they made the introduction fight with your rival skippable, when it's required for the golden ending due to the chaos emerald-laced sword you pull out in the cutscene afterwards, which goes along with the other six swords you're supposed to find later. Two of those swords just being things given to you, either from another fight with your rival or from some run amok stick figure mech in the final stage that sticks it into the ground for you and goes "hasta la pasta" as it heads off to Cucamonga to chill with the big wooden mannequin from Dynamite Headdy.

You ask yourself why the stage where you control your giant mech rampaging through downtown enemy territory is arguably the lowest point of the game. Why do the dumb little chicken walker mechs that the lizard soldiers use take so many rocket-propelled fist punches, thus enabling the auto-scrolling gameplay to become an act of juggling like a Tekken match? Why does Axel Gear in his already-repaired mech feel the need to show up in the background, and sometimes aim behind you where you can't interact with his giant flaming bowling balls and awkwardly punch them back to his ugly face and continue the segment? Why must we rematch in a rock'em sock'em robots bout again where I bait your projectile, and quickly run up and uppercut you in the jaw as you stare in amazement at my ability to block? How many times must we teach you this lesson old man?

Sparkster seems to have gotten a bit more jaded just like me, he's not quite as jovial and happy to be the hero like in Rocket Knight Adventures and has adopted a determined demeanor and a strut that could challenge a Belmont. He now refuses to use projectiles, because he has bought into his own hype and believes that all he needs is a sword and an expensive jetpack he bought at the Possum Boutique that automatically fills his meter. He's developed a gambling problem and started pulling slot machines full-time with all that jewelry he's acquired, and will continue doing so even after a bomb lands on top of his skull out of thin air. His overbearing hubris that has stacked on top of him after defeating the evil swine will surely be the end of him, but not if I can help it! I'll be the one to guide him to safety through the corridor-infested journey of his, and we'll surely take down the confusing mess of an airship layout that is his enemy's getaway vehicle and save the princess!

I still believe in him, for he is the coolest. Godspeed, hero boy.

outside of the (understandably) on-the-nose coloured doorways nearly every instance of environmental interaction is rich and tactile. thirty years later it's still a wonder to grope and paw at every (Possibly Maybe) malleable surface and leverage every new upgrade toward greater structural manipulation and command

in ensuring how and when are given as much significance as what and where it forms a relationship between actor and environment that bears uncommonly personal patterns and markings as you learn to use Your body as an implement to interface with the world. sidepaths and back alleys that carve Under - Over - Through reshape the familiar thru layered mechanical discovery and shift the internal v external dynamic in turn; mastery of the self begetting exponential mastery of the other

a fitting problem then that the biocircuitry, plunging intestinal mazes, and gloomy dark ambient synthesis quickly become less something to endure so much as to dominate; the dissonance for show, and the brutality nakedly glamorous and one sided. so much of it exists in service to the pursuit of (Your) power, kneeling with its neck outstretched waiting to feel bones shatter for Your gratification. sure, I feel obscenely powerful, but I'd rather feel anything else

strange scene it is
every thing in flames

I love this dev. They come up with such smart and high concept ideas, and though this didnt hit in the way 7 Days did for me, I still enjoyed the time I spent with it. Normally, personality tests as a concept are something I don't particularly subscribe to (especially as a gameplay format), but in the case of Refind Self it works incredibly well. Playing as an android, simultaneously teaching her humanity while also exercising your own freedom of choice is a very endearing route of storytelling. The grief and kindness expressed through the options you chose, the limited amount of time you have to play reflecting the wind-up android's existence... as seems to always be the case, this dev is very careful and smart in the way they go about presenting their world. I love their artstyle, love the philosophy behind it. The only thing I could say these games lack is music, as each only has a few tracks (few meaning 2 or 3) that don't loop especially well. Highly suggest this dev's catalog for anyone looking for a unique and short, lovingly crafted experience. Really excited to see what they put out next ☆

Check it out, it's 14-year-old me with a GameBoy Advance speaker pressed against his ear canal, mouth open while he pipes the most goopy-ass version of Scrap Brain Zone directly into his skull.

You can add Sonic Advance to the growing pile of reviews where I state, "I haven't played this since it came out." It's in good company, the Burger King Trilogy is in there. It's been so long that abandoning my previously held opinions on Sonic Advance and going in with no expectations was easy enough, though I did assume the consensus from my mutuals would be that Advance is among the best and most cherished of Sonic's handheld outings only to find it's pulled around a 3/5 average. A little surprising considering some of those mutuals think more highly of Sonic than I do, but now that I've closed the 20+ year gap... yeah, 3/5 seems about right!

Congratulations to Sonic Advance, because that practically makes it the best "traditional" handheld Sonic I've played.

Like the Game Gear games, Sonic Advance doesn't match the pace and feel of the Genesis titles, but the better hardware does allow for a much closer approximation, one that's pleasant enough in hand and which is only noticeably off to the kinds of people who are entirely too invested in this stuff. Like me. I just bought another copy of Sonic Mania, I'm up to five now, so I'd like to think I'm qualified enough to say that the way Sonic and his friend make contact with destructible objects and how they bounce off them doesn't quite pass the sniff test with me but it hardly ruins the game.

In fact, Sonic's physics feel perfectly in place with the way levels are designed, and that's really the most important thing. For the most part, stage design is pretty good. There's a nice mix of platforming and speed and plenty of routes that are made or less accessible depending on who you play as. The game does completely hit a wall and burn most of its good will by the time you get to Angel Island, though. The introduction of numerous bottomless pits, many of which the level directly funnels you into, is aggravating, and it's a problem that persists into the two single act zones that follow.

Also, not a fan of Amy. Dislike playing as her immensely. She felt bad in Adventure and she feels even worse here. These zones aren't improved by shafting you with a character that has a lower speed cap and movement abilities that purposefully feel bad. I'm sure there's some lunatic out there waiting in the wings who has dedicated a significant portion of their time to perfecting Amy's tech and will insist that it's not the game, it's the player. I don't care, I'm putting Amy in the contraption now.

Despite Sonic Advance's sloppy end game, I was pleasantly surprised with it overall, and that maybe says more about my insanely low expectations for a handheld Sonic than it does the game itself. Uh, end of review.

for some reason the last time I played this like maybe 15 years ago i wasn't really into it despite loving it a whole lot when it first came out. i guess i wasn't feeling like getting into all the mechanics again and just kinda dropped the replay.

i can attest now after a long while that i was initially correct there's no other game like this in every aspect. it's stylish, it's gorgeous, it's really fun, it might genuinely be the Kamiya game with most attitude imprinted in it and that's saying a LOT.

Viewtiful Joe tells a fun light story both about how fictional worlds suck due to how stagnant they are and how shitty it feels to be a one-hit wonder in any art career. which is extremely ironic considering this game got like two sequels, one spin-off, a whole anime and then simply -disappeared- from the face of the earth aside from getting costume references and being in 2 vs. titles. No ports, no interest, nothing.

at the end of the day i think i might like this more than Bayonetta in regards to which is my favorite Kamiya game... while Bayo was definitely influential to me in a lot of important aspects, Viewtiful Joe might just have changed how i viewed videogames as a whole.

Homestar Ruiner - 6/10
Strong Badia The Free - 7.5/10
Baddest of the Bands - 7.5/10
Dangeresque 3 - 10/10
8-Bit is Enough - 8.5/10

When I played this for the first time in middle school i thought it was the bees knees, but it's got a lot of filler coming back to it - the rapid-fire razor-sharp comedy of homestar is hard to stretch out to 5 games at 4-hour length each. The snippets of good content is definitely worth the trip though

Best part of the experience was getting to Dangeresque 3 in a call with Vi, it's always a treat seeing ppl react to strong bad stuff for the first time