difficult for me to put a meaningful rating on this in 2022. if i'd been able to play this in 1987, it might've changed my life. this weird, occult, seemingly very japanese interpretation of wizardry stands in stark contrast to other rpgs from japan in the mid/late '80s. (instead, my first atlus rpg would be nocturne. "it changed my life" might sound over the top, but it absolutely has informed my tastes in the time since.)

now... well, it's very easy for me to appreciate how incredibly cool this looks for a famicom game from that time, but i might be inclined to recommend playing the remade version contained within kyuuyaku megami tensei instead (unless you want to set everything aside and give this game some serious attention (and it helps if you already like the nes)). the main reason for this, really, is just that moving through corridors feels a bit too stiff and disorienting, frame by frame, while kyuuyaku at least adds some animation to your surroundings when turning left or right and moving forward feels a touch smoother. i should add that this may not be true of dds: megami tensei 2 (also part of the sfc kyuuyaku package), which i understand has uniquely great music for a famicom title due to a special chip in the cartridge, but i'll have to find out about that another time.

Idk I got annoyed w this one and felt more positive on the first game. It's louder and gorier for sure, but the horror atmosphere feels subdued in favor of grimier designs with more detail but less artistry. And for how much later this one released, none of the gameplay has meaningfully improved. Makes it transparent how much content has to be reused over the runtime to meet a decent length. Also just felt harder than 1, but more annoyingly so. So many bosses that feel too memorization heavy for a game with such deceptive hitboxes - hell, so many sections like the elevator escape that are LITERALLY nothing but memorization checks. Maybe I'd be more positive if I save stated this one too - for all I know maybe 1 was also bad like this. My fault for having a boomer identity crisis.

Whole game feels like a copout? Fuck are you trying to make a good ending out of 1's intentionally harrowing setup for? 'You save Jennifer this time' fuck off, that's such a boring ass reversal.

holy shit, i can't believe i actually played this game. for a bit of context, and i played deadly premonition years ago on PC. i picked it up when i was on sale, iirc i bought it with some CS GO skins i sold lmfao. long story short, i absolutely loved it lol. i was getting into lynch's work at the time, specially twin peaks, so the "small town open world detective" genre really appealed to me. i was kinda disappointed to find that there weren't much games like it though, maybe alan wake or la noire had some of it but none had THE dp feel, except for this one obscure japan-only PS1 game: mizzurna falls, developed by none other than legendary HUMAN entertainment. these guys were responsible for a lot of PS1 horror classics, such as clock tower, or other still untranslated but legendary games like suda51's moonlight syndrome & twilight syndrome.

so yeah, i probably spent years drooling over this game, i almost started japanese classes with the sole purpose of playing this (and maybe SMT: DS, thank god i didn't cus devil summoner sucks lmao), but after a while i forgot about it i guess. then, one fateful day last year i read a news article about this game, and it said that a fan translation has been completed and released!!! holy shit!!!

so it was time to finally download, burn the cd and play it. i have to say, though, that it took me like six months to finally sit down and play it lol. part of that is cuz of work, and university, but mostly i was just afraid that i was gonna be disappointed. i had so much expectation for this game...

and yeah, upon finally starting it, i found all the glaring issues: the controlls are stiff as FUCK, the framerate is all over the place, the graphics are buggy as hell, the music is really annoying and repetitive in the first hour of gameplay or so, the fighting is horrible, the in-game schedule is INCREDIBLY demanding, to the point that multiple events can happen at the same time and crash your playthrough alltoghether. some necesary stuff is completely missable, and there's little hint that it's important. honestly, i recommend playing this game with a guide to make it enjoyable lol.

but all that aside, i loved this game. the town clearly feels more alive than deadly premonition lmao, even for a PS1 game it still has a rather nice open world experience. the story is pretty interesting, it's not a total cheesefest like clock tower. the characters are interesting, the exploration is really fun, and the mystery just works! it's a lot of fun just going around the town meeting new characters and getting into fist fights with random people for no reason. finding clues, following leads, idk i love a good mystery lol.

i honestly can't recomend this game enough if you're like me and love PSX horror and deadly premonition, this game is absolutely for you. hell, anyone who's willing to move past the stiff gameplay is gonna find a really ambitious and different game, even to this day, and it's really something coming from relatively smaller company than other psx developers.

so yeah, that's it lol. mizzurna falls is probably one of my favourite PSX games so far, not because it's a masterpiece, but in part because of all it means to me, and how unique it is (pls game companies make more open world mystery games!! i literally live for this shit). btw massive thanks to the translation team! ngl after all the drama that ensued after project mizzurna and how much dialogue this game has, it's incredible they managed to pull it off. kudos!

So begins my journey into the PC Engine library. It seems to have a bit of a headstart in the 4th gen of consoles, even predating the Genesis' 1988 launch in Japan. It seems as though it didn't gain nearly as much traction overseas however, and it has a notably smaller library.

This is a launch title for its US release, featuring some guy with an axe. I can imagine it was pretty crazy for 1988, but I find this game to be really unappealing on the visual side. The black outlines on everything really just looks kind of ugly, like nobody on screen is meshing with their surroundings well. The music is damn solid, though, and the gameplay is pretty alright aside from Zone 5. The titular axe you wield gets more powerful as you progress, allowing you to completely mow down enemies from earlier stages, which is super satisfying. The fully powered axe in particular is broken as hell, but you have to wait for it to charge. Level design isn't too standout, but probably because there's more focus on plowing through everything.

So this is a pretty decent start we have going on here. I downloaded about 10 or so .pce roms today, and I'll try to get one or two more done today and see how those hold up.

🚨LOVELY GAME ALERT🚨

ABOUT AN ELF is full of boppin dembow beats, politecore trap music, occasional violin, a magical world brought to life with flawless art pop stylings (held back only by the budget of this game’s two-person (‼️‼️) development team) and 🔍 clue-based combat (I love guessing games!).
⚡️
it’s about an elf too: she’s adorable, charming, approachable, delusional, with dreams of an elftopian promised land. She reminds me of one of my favorite people IRL, and if you’re lucky, it’ll hit like that for you too! Elf princess Dam is accompanied by Roland, feline hero-in-training. Wasn’t expecting there to be totally heartwarming moments along their adventure, but yup. They’re here tho!
💦
About An Elf reimagines the fantasy adventure paradigm of many classic RPGs as a visual novel with free-associative guesswork being it’s core combat gameplay mechanic. Win by correctly matching a visual clue with one of your elemental magic affinity of your weapons. For example, does a video of a goldfish mean you should select water magic or fire magic?

So blessed this work of art exists. Issa vibe.
👀 Watch the trailer

ELF LOVE
🤍🧚🏿‍♀️

I'm just gonna list out thoughts rather than write things in essay form, probably the best thing the biggest rip off in gaming deserves. It'll save me time on all those boring shmups with five thousand hours of dead air.

-Genuinely wondering what they were thinking putting the 2P only game at number one.
-Star Evil starting you right in front of an obstacle will forever be the funniest shit to me, the fact that the second stage is even worse with this is hysterical.
-Don't play Illuminator in a dim-lit room on CRT.
-"G-Force FGT." stands for G-Force Fighters, not the warship or the slur.
-The lack of playtesting for the jumping in Ooze and 80% of the other sidescrolling platformer games still makes me wonder who cleared it. It's still better than Ice Climber though.
-The giant cabbages that are supposed to be trees in Silver Sword are forever imprinted in my mind for some reason. Cabbages are just really funny to me I guess.
-Critical Bypass is probably legitimately the worst thing on here, if I can't even look at your game without getting a headache there's a big fuckin' problem.
-Can confirm that Alfred n the Fettuc boots up on everdrive, I like how he only attacks to the right, I can only assume they're right-handed to an impossible degree or something.
-My playthrough of Dam Busters was really easy until it was ended by a panda platypus thing spawning directly on top of me.
-Why is the jumping sometimes fine like in Haunted Halls?
-The first boss for Megalonia didn't spawn in and the game crashed when I tried to in-game reset.
-Meong, lmao. That's it, that's my review of it.
-Space Dreams is probably the ugliest shit on the entire game that isn't actively trying to damage my vision like Critical Bypass.
-I always liked how in Streemerz the enemies, power ups and yourself turn into a poverty version of Mr. Yuk upon death.
-Micro Mike is just Volkmire's Inferno from Battletoads on crack, it rules. Also the enemies sometimes just decide to spawn in entirely in one area and guarantee a lost life. It's fantastic.
-I want to hang out with the Dollar General version of Blaze Fielding in Slashers.
-Dat Crazy Shuffle theme tho.
-The very idea of Fuzz Power is great, just a hairy guy trying to avoid blow dryers and brushes. Fuck proper grooming.
-Mash Man is fuckin' hilarious, just Fuzz Power but hipster phase.
-Bits and Pieces is the coolest game on here in terms of concept, at least it would be if you could like punch or something. Just a dude going around punching the shit out of monsters in a graveyard, that's all I need. At least the jumping works until the game decides to spawn in three enemies together and guarantee a hit.
-Bleeps and Blips was when they actually ran out of ideas, "fuck it just throw a bunch of unused assets in it that's the game!"
-Boss rules. Just a frog guy running around with a gun having his day ruined by people chucking bombs out their windows.
-I instantly died and game over'd in Hambo due to a ball spawning on me, I have no clue why there's only one life in Hambo.
-Time?
-Genuinely was impressed by the flipping ninja in Ninja Assault, just had my expectations lowered way past rock bottom by all the other shit I guess.
-I wish I had more to say about Cheetahmen other than being impressed that they were expecting to make toylines out of this shit like every other TMNT rip off series.

I feel like running through Action 52 should be a Backloggd initiation. I'll probably play the Genesis version eventually whenever I'm bored again and outside is terrible.

Slashers is still better than Urban Champion at least.

EDIT: That was a lot more than I expected, hopefully this isn't too shitty to read.

I think that most reviews I see for this game, and much of the discussion around it is prefaced with "I don't really play JRPGs" is very telling. Says nothing meaningful, does nothing meaningful, unless you think it's shallow message that feels equivalent to a "phones are BAD" comic, complete with the most absurd cardboard cutouts of "society's corrupt elite" to topple over and be done with, still has any sort of meaning. It puts up a veneer of teen rebellion and progressiveness but never does anything with it, and in most cases actively works against itself. Persona 5 is the kind of game that tells the player "Did you know creeping on and sexually abusing women is bad?" And then immediately heelturn and dress said target of abuse (who's 16 btw) in a skintight bodysuit with a big boob window, give her a whip, and call her "Panther".

Everything from it's gameplay to it's writing to it's setting has been done before and far, far better. But it sure does look and sound nice so I guess it's good