I've wanted to play a good Batman game for a long time, heck even a good DC game. The last good Batman game I played was the Lego Batman series, which I loved, but I could never bring myself to play the Arkham series despite hearing that it was incredible. I've seen gameplay and things of all sort but naturally I would want to start with the first game, Asylum, but I never had the system for it since I was team Nintendo so I tried the demo on my old laptop...it couldn't run decently enough to be comfortable with, my laptop was old and non-beefy and I wasn't even too big of a fan of what I played in that demo.

Arkham Knight came out and I had a PS4, along with that came ‘Return to Arkham’ but I didn't have enough interest to pursue either. Spider-Man for PS4 comes out and people compared it to Batman. I loved that game but I wouldn't care to see the same gameplay put into a different game. So, what made me break down and get Arkham City then? Well I can confirm that you play as Bruce Wayne. This very much interested me because I like playing both parts, I like the little bubble of ordinary inside of an unordinary world. I thought we might get a slice of life out of Bruce Wayne...but in reality, it’s just one scene at the beginning of the game and it’s a good sequence but not the Bruce Wayne I was hoping for (kind of representative of the game if I’m honest). I tried the demo out and it grew on me.

Not only do you play as Bruce Wayne but you play as Catwoman and with this Game of the Year edition, it comes with added costumes (which is kind of just a bonus since I wouldn't normally care about that) but I particularly like using the Dark Knight Returns outfit because it makes me feel like I'm Ben Affleck's Batman. I would use either the 70's or Animated one more but I can't help but feel they look out of place, it's not the game's fault though, I felt that way with some of the Spider-Man costumes. With that, this game has a pretty big cast of villains especially if you count the side missions.

Catwoman isn’t as involved as I would have liked. I remember seeing promos for this game and being like "Catwoman and Batman working together!" Well not really, you save Catwoman then you play as her to save Batman. Then after the credits roll Catwoman comes back? Why did the credits roll if the game wasn't over? Well Catwoman is apparently DLC. I'd be disappointed if I paid to get 4 episodes (missions) of playing as Catwoman, it's not even a proper cohesive story and barely ties into Batman's at all, I played the ending and didn't even know it was the ending of her story, I had to look it up because you just pick up the stuff and it’s over.

For the console version, you can pick specific episodes and pick the costumes through that but with the PC version (might just be GOTY edition, I don't know) you have to change it as if you would Batman's and the two extra suits (Halloween and Animated) you have to pick either Year One or Animated Batman and it automatically switches to her alternate costume, which is kind of lame that she doesn't even get her own menu. As for the challenges, you get a menu for all of them and even Harley Quinn's Revenge so I don’t know what to think. I'm not usually one for challenges but you can play as Nightwing and see (some of) Wayne Manor, which is pretty cool.

The gameplay is pretty much what a beat-em-up would be like in a 3D environment. They focus a lot on combat and for good reason. One thing I've known before I even played the game and kind of respected was that you know an enemy is down for the count when you hear that crack and then the slow motion for the final enemy in the group, if I didn't know better that Batman is a ‘pacifist’ of sorts, I would’ve mistaken him for a killer because there are some brutal take-downs and Batman is cold and merciless with his personality like he's fed up with your b.s. (Poor Tim though). The take-downs stay fresh, showing me combos I haven't seen before, so yeah it's kind of just button mashing but I'm okay with that, it has a lot of thought, care and effort put into every move on the developer's end and they don't really make it so easy either. I feel like Spider-Man made it more balanced but it doesn't feel like Spider-Man to me so I almost can't compare it. That could be because I played Spider-Man on PS4 and this on PC but I doubt it, I notice a lot of different things that Spider-Man did differently, maybe it just used some elements, so that inital concern is out of the window.

This seems like a very short game, the credits started rolling and I was like "Really?" I would've done more side-quests but I figured I still had a while, plus it doesn't always let you do them when some main missions have urgency. Speaking of, Batman just leaves some of the victims there, like the nurses and the scientists, he's like "Wait here" and then comes back late in the game and is like "You're good at hiding...so keep doing it." Like dude, you just abandoned these guys the whole game, I get the urgency and stuff but they're desperate and we never really even got them out (unless that's a side mission I don't know about but I really doubt it)

Now Harley Quinn's Revenge.

It made me realize that people play this game very differently, maybe they have a different difficulty set, the console version is very different or maybe they unlocked something I don't know about but I see them knocking out 3 enemies at a time then KO’ing each and every one, I'm not sure how they knocked that many out at once and I'm not sure how they got them to stay down long enough to take them down one after the other, not to mention mastering the Critical Hit meter. It's not a very long story though, I've seen videos that finish it in an hour, for me it took maybe 2 and I didn't even do the final boss, I just got fed up because I would do a part so many times, get to the end then not be able to take out the last guy, I just looked the cutscene up on YouTube.But I like Batman most for Stealth and Robin for combat. Maybe I'll play Arkham Knight some day, I don't know, I imagine it improves a whole lot. As I was saying, it’s a good game just not what I expected.

The story is the best so far but the gameplay was slightly better before.

I didn't play the original GameCube or PS2 versions of the first two games so I expected going into this system was going to be different for me, but other than some quality of life changes, I found that this game carries over a lot more elements than I thought.

There's no sprint but honestly it's not that bad, he does a brisk jog most of the time. You can't save whenever but there are relatively frequent places as long as you're not engaged in something. You can't pause cutscenes but you can enable to skip them in the menu. You can't just change difficulty for some reason. Which is especially weird because if you fail an amount of times, it asks you if you want to lower it "temporarily" (if you're on normal). In fact, I'll just tell you what part I used it for.

There's a part where the police chase you and it tells you to tap X if you get caught but tapping it doesn't do anything, I let it go and it had the exact same results. That's the thing, it doesn't matter how many times you press a prompt, sometimes you'll just fail anyway and I think that's stupid especially when it's a boss holding you in a chokehold or something. Same with quick time events, sometimes the timing is crazy fast, it's not fatal if you miss it but really annoying when you're trying to do a combo.

Chasing in general isn't done as actively or relentlessly. In Kiwami, you could see them on the map but here they just kind of pop up and surprise you which isn't all that bad most of the time but it can get annoying if you just did one and then another comes straight after.

As far as the actual remaster aspects, Heat mode is activated by rapidly tapping R2 but R2 isn't an easily tappable button, it's a trigger. It loads before the menu and then loads again afterwards (not a load screen, the save data) then when you go to save it always saves twice, no matter what button you push, it saves and then saves again. Those aren't necessarily that bad but minor inconveniences.

Holding R1 in a fight lets you play it more like a fighting game by having the camera swivel. Combat is really very similar, almost where we left off so you don't have to worry too much about downgrading. You still have to upgrade individual aspects but you don't have to do the skill tree of abilities, they're luckily just unlocked through level, it feels a lot more organized that way to me.

As for story, it starts out with a flash forward revealing the catalyst of this game, the thing is, it backtracks. It doesn't need to have that flash forward, it could just be told linearly and probably have a greater effect. You don't even reach the same part from the beginning until you're already hours in. It's not like an out of context, only able to be understood at the ending thing and it's not even playable, it's just there.

But after that we get some of the stuff I was waiting for. Now some people will be turned off by this but just wait and see. Kiryu moves to Okinawa to take care of an orphanage and you actually interact with these kids and help solve their problems. Sometimes it's the little slice of life stuff like that, that makes this series special for me.

And because of that, I feel like we have some good characters. I've felt most of the Yakuza characters have just been mid in the last 2 games but this game has a good amount of good characters and I actually came to care about these kids. I think Nagoshi was finally out of the practice stage and the series fully started to blossom here. 🌸 There're problems that carry over from the past games but I'm not going to bother reiterating.

It definitely has some of the best moments so far but there's a butcher scene...he may be a bad guy but I'm still not a fan of it and the graphics really didn't age well for the scene in particular, everything else isn't too much of a downgrade in my opinion though.

You can use your phone camera for certain quick time events to capture little memes to put on your blog, I ended up doing those the most because I wasn't all that impressed by the side missions. I believe that's where certain special attacks come from.

There isn't a funeral chase sequence, luckily, but there are returning things like the Colosseum, which I personally don't care to see keep returning over and over. I've more or less accepted that Kamurocho is going to be a main stay but this series rhymes a little too much. I'd like to see something actually done with the Purgatory because you get there and what? Walk a hallway with all these buildings you can't interact with to get to one set location? When you have the potential for all these side quests? When I first saw it, I thought of Wall Market from FF7 and it has the potential to be like that but it just isn't.

Sometimes there will be a big heavy duty guy holding a chair or something in your way and unless you have a weapon or special move handy, you're pretty much screwed and even then, you drop the weapon if he hits you and it takes more time to pick it up than it does for him to hit you again so it can get stuck at his feet so you're limited to just little punches here and there and more or less tanking his hits.

I found Kiwami 2 to be the longest but this one was on par with my Kiwami 1 length, clocking in at 17 hours. There's also "premium adventure" which unlocks after you finish the game, adding more minigames, modes and costumes. A good game for sure, probably a 7 or 7.5/10, if it wasn't for some gameplay aspects, I'd say this was the best one so far.

I really dislike writing these together but I wanted to be able to say everything for certain in terms of how you should go about playing it and comparisons between the two.

I'm not going to really talk about story too much because the story is the game and the game is the story but imagine a kid who's gotten into some trouble but a detective takes him under his wing. This is his first proper mission without his teacher. (He's still there but he's doing a different case).

This is an Ace Attorney style game from before Ace Attorney was even born. This visual novel has the added bonus of gorgeous graphics, designs and animations. Sometimes there are even little things in the background to catch your attention like a kid messing around in his shoe locker, it's pretty funny.

This even has Smash history. Yep. Ayumi was a Smash trophy in Melee and I believe even a spirit in Ultimate.

If I've hooked you, then let's proceed.

So which game should you play first? Originally, the games released with the Missing Heir and then the Girl Who Stands Behind released after as a prequel. I feel like it wouldn't be a wrong answer to play it either way because you learn more about these characters. Playing this The Missing Heir will give you insight to the main character because it's an amnesia story. It can add context to certain scenes in TGWSB, if you want to already have those scenes in mind, you should start with TGWSB. If you want to get the context first then play TMH. It's nothing major in terms of plot points. Neither is mandatory to enjoy the other. I personally played TGWSB first but I think I'd have rather went with TMH. But I'm also the kind of person that likes playing sequels and then going back to the ones before it, it doesn't cause me as much issue as some other might have.

There's also a naming system that allows you to carry over your chosen name (as long as you have the save data) from one game to the next (doesn't matter which order). You don't have to do that though, it's just a fun little continuity thing. As far as length goes, my Switch says "Played for 5 hours or more" for each but it matters how you play visual novels. The text boxes are voiced but you can just skip those if you want, I kind of do half and half.

There are some points where it feels like you will need to ask the same questions over again even to the same answer because there are only so many options. I don't think it runs the same way as Ace though where you have to ask in a specific order to get the desired answer or penalizes you for guessing wrong. In fact, I didn't look anything up until Chapter 11 where you have 4 places you can visit around the school, I did every option for every area but how it works is that you have done that option already but it wasn't triggered yet because you had to do something else so I guess something I did triggered the Old School Building's surroundings because ended up being the solution. It also had a mysterious "Open" option. I've noticed that sometimes it'll have an option already available that can't be used yet (like checking the trash can) but that Open option was never relevant to that area.

There are no romance options or alternate endings but there is a "personality test" and "compatibility" with Ayumi at the ending of TGWSB but that's actually gained by what order you ask things (when interacting with her specifically), as well as looking at other girls too many times but it doesn't affect anything, just what sentences you get at the ending to say "what kind of person you are" but I feel it could've benefitted by giving you actual choices to determine those things especially with a game as trial and error as this. It's just not as clear cut as I'd like it to be and the reward seems lacking.

What I will say is that The Missing Heir seems like a proper sequel graphically. I mentioned the animations with the last game being good but this improves upon it even further, which is odd considering these remakes released at the same time and I suppose were developed at the same time.

I liked TMH more than TGWSB but as a report card for both games, I think that the story is decent, Ayumi is great, the animations are exquisite, but the gameplay is sort of lacking. I've played a few visual novels so I know that sometimes you can get lost with options and have to test the grounds but sometimes you do everything and then need to do it again and don't even know why you're doing it. Sometimes they correlate to what the character is saying, and you can pick up on it but that's only sometimes. I think that's part of the reason I liked The Missing Heir more, is that I played it with a walkthrough and I played TGWSB blind.

Now you might be thinking: "Why review Toy Story 3? That's a trivial game to review." Well for those who've played Toy Story 2 for PlayStation and N64 will know that that game holds a firm standing in platforming history, it's a darn fine game and stands as (probably the best) licensed game there is. So, surely a successor wouldn't live up to it but here we go anyway.

When I was a kid, I played the Toy Story 3 DS version before I even saw the movie and beat it the first day. To this day, it's probably the game that I've beat the most times and even speedran. Had I recorded it, I might hold the world record (the WR is currently 46 min!) but I am pretty rusty now and days and am kinda scared it won't live up to those memories because while I loved that game, it was too short.

"So, if I already played Toy Story 3, why am I playing it again but on Wii?" Because the Wii version is probably the most different of them all. You see, there's the PS2 version which is basically just the PSP version which just doesn't look as good as what I played. But the higher gen consoles at the time (PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii versions) might as well be a different story, this plays completely different from the one I remember on DS but that's not really a bad thing.

DS followed its story pretty much beat for beat the movie with some added mini games (particularly tower defense) but this one plays it with the Toy Box, which is what they really pushed in the marketing and I thought the DS version had when I bought it but then learned it didn't. The story DOES play out like the movie but it's a retelling. Hamm and friends are telling Bonnie's toys about how they got to where they are using- yep, you guessed it, toys. And that is the excuse for the Toy Box.

You can play as Woody, Buzz, Jessie and even ride Bullseye, which I don't believe the latter two were an option for the DS version.

You can even play the Buzz game from TS2, or at least their version of it. So, you can use Buzz's laser which can seem finicky with cough motion controls. Which as a kid, I wouldn't have minded but being older has gotten me to look at it differently. I think maybe I had it set up with the prime distance as a kid but now and days, I'm limited, because I have a different TV, different house, which equals different space.

Cutscenes are rendered pretty well and no they're not just FMVs of the movie! You can play the levels separately to get stuff that you missed. They did care about what they were putting into this game.

The thing the DS version has over this one is environments and Buzz. With Buzz, you could glide. That's half of what I remember about that game, is just gliding around as Buzz, without even having a place to go, just to feel the sensation of being able to do it. There's a glide in the Buzz videogame but he doesn't extend his wings, it's the not same glide and it's nowhere near as long, even the N64 TS2 had a better glide.

The camera drives me nuts with this game and it's really apparent in the Toy Box, trying to figure out where to go. The unreliable camera is actually what's keeping this back as a good speed-running game, so yes, it is another short one (WR: 32 min, about 8 levels + Toy Box). I'm sure it was made under a tight budget with an even tighter deadline though.

Now it does have some other issues like lag but that's also part of the Wii, but then there some cutscenes where music plays too loud over voices. Music cutting out with a sudden interruption of a cutscene then return where the music stopped right after.

How exactly is that Toy Box? It's good to have collectibles and to be able to customize buildings and villagers but it is experimental. It worked its way up to Disney Infinity, which the Toy Box mode in that is great but TS3 is the better game overall, at least from what I've played of Infinity. There are other collectibles and cards that you can view in Al's Toy Barn (not a level, not explorable) They're literally just pictures, hardly considered concept art, I've seen much better examples.

It's not a hard game but not so easy that it's baby stuff. They have hints that you can choose to use and sometimes I did actually use them. It's a good balanced kids game even if I do prefer TS2. Speaking of which, let me talk about licensed games in general. There are quite a few that I like, contrary to popular opinion but what I like most about them is to visit places that were in the show/movie. That's it! Make a fully explorable, 1x1 creation of that world and I will be happy. Toy Story 2 was the closest that I've found to that. The Kingdom Hearts series does pretty good with it too. I appreciate getting levels and stuff that are brand new never before seen content that feels like it fits right in with the movie (even this game does that) but I think most of us play them to feel like we're in the world that we're already familiar with.

The fact that licensed games have more or less gone away is a little sad to me but going back to some of them, I see why. Many of them were very similar, made on shoestring budgets with a tight schedule to coincide with the movie. I get that but then I look at stuff like Spider-Man 2, Battle for Bikini Bottom, and even Shrek has a few cool games. There's a demand for a niche part of those games, even now, and I would be happy to see them back in a new way, one that doesn't have to rely on a release schedule and can just come out like any normal game. Many of them are cultural icons anyway. Tell me you wouldn't play a Danny Phantom game or a Moana game or something of the sort even being that old. I get striking while the iron is hot but that seems close-minded in my opinion.

At first, it looks like a modern shooter with different guns and weird creatures and…Nolan North, but after a while it shows itself to be more of a Wolfenstein but with Russians. Then a Half Life and to be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about any of that but the idea has to do with time travel and being able to age and deage stuff. I've seen people say that it's not as good as it could be and it's really not but color me impressed when I saw that you could age a crate to make it all smushed, put it under a cracked open door and then de-age it to puff it up, prying the door open enough to crawl under. Like, tell me that's not cool.

But like the games I said, they explore these types of things a little more (aside from maybe the newer Wolfenstein games) but what's there is definitely fun to see and after this mechanic was introduced, it only seemed to get better.

You find a new element on the periodic table called E99 which you use to upgrade your tool and weapons and health so it's fun to collect. You also find weapon upgrades and blueprints so you can really fine tune it.

This is the Pc version and for some reason, sometimes it'll shoot more than I mean so say a shotgun will shoot twice instead of once, but it's not a big issue. I played it on normal and after the opening hours, ammo wasn't really as scarce.

It does have a thing or two to learn about storytelling though. The amount of times I heard the names Demichev and Barisov, that'd be the plot, it didn't have subtitles so it was a lot of mumbo jumbo most of the time. The beginning introduces you to this Demichev but that's about it, they talk about what a dystopia he's wrought but they barely show the guy doing it. You're expected to just wait until the end for a less than stellar battle and stupid reveal.

Kathryn is one of the reasons I started liking the game, she's a little like Alyx but she dies. I spoiled it for you, yes but the way I just explained it has about the same effect as it did in the story. It's an off-screen death after various time messages written on the wall warning you that it's going to happen and how it happens is-

You reverse the time on this boat to bring it back up and running long enough to get something off of it (as something of that mass will revert after so long) so there's this really cool segment of you escaping a ship that's falling apart around you and you're just about out but over the radio, Kathryn says that that's it, she's going in to get it. I was less than a minute before I got out and Barisov's there like "Yeah, she's gone but we can't let her death be in vain"…like never to be mentioned again, no sendoff, just written out of the story. That is until the ending, which I'll get to.

They give you an end game type ability where you can infinitely blast your impulse. It's kind of OP, I get it but I think if they were going to do that, they could've done better. You know how in Metroid, you upgrade your cannon to go through walls and in Super have this super duper blaster and in Dread just an annihilator. It should've been more like that than "infinite ammo", I like the color change from orange to blue but there's no visual difference other than that, it's not more powerful, just more, it doesn't even reach farther.

'Singularity' as in, the singular game this will have. There are 4 different endings and the main one's last line is literally- "Ha, what'd I tell you, there's never anything interesting here, right comrade." not a one of those endings is good or satisfying and just feels lazily pasted.

One of the common threads is that Kathryn appears alive in the literal last cutscene but in the past, writing the journal that started this whole journey…so many ways they could've set that up, so much there that I liked and was almost special just squandered in that last quarter, it didn't pay off. The way her death was handled actively ruined the game for me even if the story was already shaky from the start with the E99 bomb nonsense.

This is the most I think you start out with so far. From the ball to bombs to missiles to double jump. Speaking of ball bombs, how are those? They're about the same as the two that came before it, I think Zero Mission, while broken, was a bit more fun to mess around with.

You wanted more story outside of the logs? Well you got it and with voice acting this time around, there are actual characters! This means we learn more about the federation and I need to point out that the female suits remind me of Yori. They get attacked easily but they go out of their way to prove to you that they aren't stormtroopers and can actually hit stuff when they want to. But my question is, why would they have doors that require you to shoot live blaster fire just to traverse through a military facility? Isn't that, I don't know, dangerous?

The menu is more organized, just point and click. It assumes you've played the other games so while you can go into your logs and see what buttons to push, it doesn't hold your hand. You should already know stuff, like scanning for example. The scan doesn't completely fill every item with green, it just outlines it, which I find to be more visually pleasing than the former but you may have to double check just to make sure.

There are also achievements, like say you shoot 100 enemies, there's an achievement for that. What do they unlock? Credits that you can use in-menu to get art, extras, or back in the day, friend tokens. It gives it a better replay value and I kind of like seeing those little S's pop up. I mentioned how the story has voice acting and dialogue and stuff but does that make the scan logs less relevant? No, I found a lot of things out by reading the logs, treat it as the same as the other games but they did change something in return, how you get your endings. The endings no longer require you to scan everything in sight, instead you just have to collect items, whether you think that's better or not, I'm unsure. Can you still scan everything? Yes, it's worth an achievement.

Visors? How are those this time around? Well, similar to how I'd view the blaster, it's pretty concise, it's similarly handled to the 2D games, where you have other blasters but it's usually just upgraded instead of swapping all the time. The only exception to this is the extreme mode, which seems different enough to me anyway. The only other "visors" you get is the one to call your ship with, so I barely even count that and the X-Ray visor which is a lot cooler and cleaner than Prime 1, you only ever use it in a few instances anyway so with that said, I prefer it this way.

Back it up, "call your ship"? You know those outdoor platforms? Well if you can get to one of those and clear it out, you can call your ship there to park and make a save point.

There are some good little details like when you get the grapple, it changes her hand to just straight metal grey as if she's changing pieces of her armor when she gets a new item. If you shoot liquid (like this explosive gel) it will make a break in the flow, and pools will bubble and jiggle, ladies and gentlemen, we have jiggle physics. Samus also has my favorite suit of hers to date in this game, it just looks so cool.

I'm a sucker for interactive stuff and this pumps it up even more. It really makes the game feel like an on-rails arcade shooter at times and I dig it. I think it might be the attraction effect like where you're at an amusement park and you're aiming your water guns and lasers wherever you want just like the Wii Remote, so they gave it more freedom. While Prime 1 and 2 still had that (It's the Prime Trilogy version mind you), they were made for the Gamecube so it was held back a little without me even knowing. I don't think I've felt that since the Ghostbusters game. From an enemy slicing through a glass wall, causing Samus to shield her arms up to being able to press buttons on the ship, yes, that's right, you go planet to planet.

Can you fly the ship? No, you can upgrade it and tell it to land or pick something up. (But you can't land (or ride) it and pick something up at the same time for whatever reason?) And you can tell it to shoot missles at something (very rarely). In fact, that's a bit how I felt with a lot of things, like the robots for example. You can "activate" them but you can't control them, some people may not want that though, I know when Star Fox did it, people went bonkers.

The actual story reasons are kind of weird with Dark Samus just electrifying the hunters and all of the sudden they're all corrupted. I think there also could've been more development with the Hunters themselves before they split apart but I understand why it was done the way it was.

But anyway, let's tally up what I thought overall. It did a lot of things differently and a lot of things right, I would like to see more like this, especially seeing as this was made nearly 15 years ago, imagine the things they could do with a modern game. 4/5

Poppin' bottles in the ice, like a blizzard.

The health bar changes everything, it gives me nightmares. This is the first Sly game flipped on its head. So rather than a one-hit KO (unless you gained a horseshoe) you now have a health bar, a lot of enemies had a one hit ratio in the last game but this one, they're less like Crash villains and actually fight back. This sets off your health bar as "alerted" or spotted which is later a feature in Assassin's Creed, there are even trailing and chasing missions.

There are no longer lives because of this meter and makes it so the levels aren't built the same way to where you need checkpoints. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing because I feel like the jumps are more responsive (that could also just be me with more experience now) but sometimes the controls are too responsive so if there's a wire underneath another or something then sometimes it picks the one that you're not aiming for which has blown my cover before. It would've been a lot simpler to just auto-death from that than to have to try to reset it myself by taking damage.

The levels are no longer portals, they're set up inside the hub world so that you enter whatever building it's leading you to or even take place in the hub itself. There are waypoints activated from your binocucom, mostly easy to find. I can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing though because on one hand it fleshes out the area that you're in but on the other hand, it diminishes the amount of variety that was allowed in the last game so one level may look like an extension to the last. But once again, each level acts towards a grander mission, except rather than just collecting keys (unless it's a mission on its own), you collect intel and sabotage the enemy's plans, it's more in depth and makes for some wacky shenanigans.

Making up for that lost variety, one of the big selling points of this game is that there are now multiple playable characters which means separate levels for each. Bentley excels in tech and long range Murray in destruction and Sly in stealth, so it is indeed like I remember it. Basically, (when playing as Sly) unless Bentley says otherwise, you shouldn't fight or you'll fail the mission. You can get away, in fact, you have a run button now since your walk speed is more sneaky but it's a little bit louder so it's really only for getaways. With each character, I feel a slight disadvantage for traversal but it's not too overbearing. (Only Sly can tightrope walk and such)

Without horseshoes, you now have all these leftover coins and I've mentioned this in other games and this one actually follows through, it lets the coins act as currency to buy useful items, in this case the stuff that you would've unlocked from the bottles in the first game.

So, now the levels no longer hold the bottles but the hub worlds do. This makes it a bit harder because like I said with "unless Bentley says so", if you've started something to do with a level, go too far away from the area you've chosen and Bentley might make you abandon it. So only collect at certain times because it's easier when there's less to keep track of. (That's a good euphemism for this game overall tbh, it's a flip flop whether it's better or worse than its predecessor)

The vault is held in one of the levels but since it could be any of them, you do have the chance to go back to that level once you find it if you haven't had the chance to collect them all the first time around. The bottles still give you abilities, exclusive ones that the coins won't net you, so you actually have more abilities than the first game.

I've complained enough about the differences.

One of the games that I want more of is Beyond Good and Evil and I just haven't found anything like it...until I played this game, I mean you even get to take pictures (not like you would on PS4) but it's nice to see it implemented into the gameplay, especially seeing as BGAE came out just a year before this. And as much as I loved the first game, this one actually actively gave me ideas for how good that supposed movie could've been, it's just a shame we lost it (though maybe a blessing as well?)

I enjoy the story of this game more and while there are some things better, there are some things worse and I think my favoritism of the overall picture would be ratioed to Thievius Raccoonus.

I didn't mention this with the last one but you get rewarded the more quests you do, giving you more context and foreshadowing as well as connective tissue between the games. Reach all the planets you can.

By this point, Uncharted 1 and 2 were already released so you can imagine the inspiration they took to craft a more cinematic intro and setpiece. It's just too bad that was the only part. But I don't really care so much that they had to revive Shep, the only way I think I'd like it is if we actually got to perform surgery on him, like screw in the bolts and stuff. But I will say that even after just playing the first one, getting the band back together and getting a new ship that looks like the old one gets me pumped.

There's different gameplay too, so if you want to crouch behind something, no L3, just X. No combinations while bypassing either, instead it's one of two timed matching games (I prefer the combinations). There's ammo now and new layouts for everything so that it seems a bit more organized, even mission complete reports. But with that ammo is an assortment of guns. Rather than just switching them out for a better one, you can trade your load out at the start of each mission when you choose the characters, same with the upgrading tree if you want. I didn't even buy any weapons in the first game, but this one gives you more initiative to, it reminds me of Ratchet and Clank actually, it fits to your playstyle. My saved money carried over and so did my intimidation and charm factors so I was pretty well off. You can also mix and match armor. My one complaint with the shop system is that it can make the screen a little…cluttered.
Look at all those notifications, they don't disappear right away either. Also screw whoever came up with the idea to hide then vault in order to hurdle over a ledge, how stupid is that? It can be like an obstacle course sometimes, if you didn't want a jump button, don't make things you HAVE to climb. Then it gets really annoying when there are husks surrounding you and you can't move and when you do, you stick to the wall to hide. Smh.


Maps are updated to have objectives displayed under the planets which is a huge help. I didn't mind so much surveying the planets in the last game but I'll admit that I don't exactly miss it…Ok, you can survey planets but this time you actually use scanning stuff and mine for minerals to use to upgrade your ship, weapons, and etc. It comes off kind of tedious but I like the reward. There's no longer an in game mini map but instead you get a full one mapped to the R3 button. They really could've just done the same thing again but with a new story, characters and better graphics like they did KOTOR 2 but they went above and beyond to make this feel like a new game.


It makes you feel important. Everybody just seems so honored around you. You had people on the ship in the first game but they were just there. While they're here now, you have a cook (though I don't agree that he should be in Kaidan's spot) you have a secretary, you have a crew and sometimes they'll have idle conversations like "Yeah, my daughter's one year old." And stuff to kind of get them more active with the community, see what everyone thinks about it and how events are affecting their lives.


In fact, Chakwas is the one that says it "They just don't have the same enthusiasm" but I think rather the opposite. Instead of a band of misfits, it's all these people at their 9-5 office job (they even have a freaking water dispenser in the ship now), making it seem cool in the beginning but speculative in the long run because you're asking what Cerberus' true motives are and if they actually have good intentions. Yeah, they brought you back but can you trust them? Why do they have an AI system in every room? Why is everyone so suspicious of them? I mean we heard about them in the first game but we didn't really "know" about them and 2 years has passed since then so have they changed?

Anyway, there are gangs now but you don't join any of them, in fact, they're all against you. I would've liked to see a little Stormcloaks vs Imperials vs A middle road action but that's not a choice, I mean maybe it was planned, they each have characters but I'm saying maybe it was dropped partway through development.


And hubba hubba, there's a lot more romancables than I realized. One of which being your secretary so I updated my characters list with all the new stuff. The one thing I'll add to that is that there's only one of each species (other than human) to recruit so not every character from the last game will be a party member. With that said, try to recruit and get the loyalty missions done before the IFF because after that, it launches you into the final mission so be cautious and plan out everything you want before it. The credits also made me realize that each character had their own credits. They spent so much time on their characters that they had their own teams dedicated to each individual one, that's crazy but I guess the final product speaks for itself.


I did more or less every quest, there were some trivial fetch quests like finding the Volus' chit but I did all the anomalies, loyalties and 100% discovered all the systems taking me to around 32 hours of playtime, near double that of ME1. I'll give it a 3.5/5

(This is Legendary Edition btw)

I hear so many good things about this series, moreso about the later ones than the first one though. So I got the ME2 demo on Steam and...I didn't like it. I liked being able to customize a character but it looked plasticy and the gunplay felt rubbery. Part of that might have been me preferring to play third person games on console and first person on PC though. So Legendary Edition came out and I thought I'd give it another shot, especially if they fixed up some of my gripes. I always hear how great the characters and choices are, which were some of the things I liked from BioWare's previous games and wanted to see come to fruition. This time we'll start with the first game proper.

When you hover over an item, it makes a circle but no button appears in the middle, instead, it's at the top of the screen, which is weird. There's a map but you have to go into the menu to access it and it's kinda uninformative sometimes, or maybe I'm just using it wrong. But once you visit an area, you can fast travel to it, if it's a world that allows it. The pause menu itself doesn't tell you a whole lot when it comes to controls either, in fact, it doesn't tell you anything, some stuff it doesn't demo for you so you kind of just have to experiment.

The sprint is shaky like a high school student's Powerpoint presention transition so I prefer not to use it. The music is pretty nice at times, it's really noticeable on the Normandy.

I don't think I would've had the patience for this sort of thing back when I first tried it but playing KOTOR made me a bit more tolerant for the things that it carries over. In fact, I was hoping that it'd be better playing it versus watching it and I think that's the case, there's a certain atmosphere to it that you can get into.

You can definitely tell it's aged, despite being a remaster, the graphics are fine for the most part (Feros makes you blind as a bat though) but the lines can seem robotic (specifically with Shepherd) and animations stiff, there are good animations though too, just some are stiff. The photo mode is fun to play around with but limited in the elevator. Why would I want to take pics in the elevator you might ask, well that's when Liara does her-
https://64.media.tumblr.com/4917091bc90146b34611c18786246a31/8741bc43372f5f9d-87/s540x810/9d6633e46672cb91558d41846bae1853cf10a3f2.pnj

https://64.media.tumblr.com/a21d7d9d2318a32504a110441b88a008/8741bc43372f5f9d-4e/s540x810/c35673b2ae71104f11b9977fa776245b405e50e8.pnj

Twitter flagged this one as NSFW, lmao.

Uh anyway, sometimes choices can seem like a Telltale game where you pick one thing and it says another, some options have the same dialogue or responses, I'm not going to really complain about it though since it's not just this game that does that.

The elevator rides give you context to current quests as if it's breaking news or an infomercial. Depending on who you have in your party, different characters will have different things to say and have conversations with each other, even remarking at the landscape and certain things in the area. This isn't the only game to do that but it's all these elements combined that just add to the atmosphere I was talking about. When Liara's mother dies, everyone that I had in a party with her by that point had told me that I should check on her, is that chemistry or what?

Seeing the societal structures of all these aliens is very diverse and interesting to pick apart, it makes me interested in not only the character but think twice when I come across one of their species. Like say there's a krogan, I'd start out by just taking it out but after getting Wrex you decide to just not equip him when fighting them to avoid making him slaughter his own species. Then when he tells you about the Genophage, you feel guilty for killing them yourself. Then when he asks to be the one to bring an end to it, it makes you feel sad. In some ways, these guys are betrayed by their species, that and they're the ones betraying them to be on your team. Deep stuff.

I think eventually it even gets to be like Fire Emblem where you have optional recruits and if you're not careful, you can lose party members permanently but for now that's not really a problem. You sort of make what you will of the combat, you can choose to command your party members around but you don't have to. You can choose to do stuff with your weapons (ie upgrading, switching out) but you don't have to. You apparently pick a class at the beginning but I don't think I did that. I think you need to make a custom character while I just picked plain old default John Shepard, which I wouldn't normally do but when I tried the ME2 demo, my character looked funky to stare at all the time. Worry not, what you lack (in my case, decryption) can be resolved by equipping a party member with that ability so yes, there's a "skill tree" of sorts but I don't find it all that complicated, maybe to use but not to upgrade.

I think it'd benefit from having actual bosses, there are special characters you fight but they aren't all that different from regular enemies. And the villain is a little cliche with his "if you can't beat em, might as well join em" mentality and only speeding up the process. I know he thinks he's doing people a favor but I think it would've been better written if there was more than that. Say Sovereign gets revealed and now Shep knows what he's up against, Saren could've revealed that he wanted people to find out through him so that people would be made aware (like the council that never listens) and do something about it. And yeah he knew it was inevitable but he wanted to act as the warning. Something like that seems like it could've serviced the story better but we have a lot of other great stuff to look at.

I actually expected a lot of what I got to be in the later games and that this one would be bare bones but this is far from bare bones, I actually have no idea what to expect for the later titles' gameplay because this one introduced everything I knew of. I clocked in around 17 hours, it was a good experience that I found myself excited to come back to. 4/5

If you're playing this on Steam, make sure you opt out of beta on your account because for some people it doesn't launch the first time around (including me) and that's the way to fix it.

I gotta say, you start out as a police officer and it looks like it's going to be a crime to crime basis, you do one mission after the other in succession with no real overarching story or anything but then once the first few are over, you get promoted to a detective and the cases become fuller with more story and just content overall in them.

Sometimes you'll fail a mission only to have to rewatch the cutscene again, as far as I know, those are unskippable. I reached the infamous "Are they lying?" sections and I now understand because sometimes the voice and acting doesn't match the facial expressions they're making and some will be so bland that it's hard to tell. It's like that in real life but hard to put into a game. I can't really complain though because you can look up from your pad and see their face and 9/10 it's hilarious to look at, I wouldn't even call it a gameplay negative especially for a PS3 game. I look at it as "If just the eyes are moving, doubt. If their face or jaw contorts too then they're lying. And straight face is truth." That's not 100% of the time but it's what I go by. Sometimes they'll just be stating something which makes it a bit odd to categorize it and Phelps will say things differently than you might have wanted him to but I kind of understand why it's like that. Instinct points help too which act as your 50/50 and lifeline like in 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire'. I've been playing the OG version, the remastered version does things a bit differently but I don't think I would like it any better.

The car is fun to play around in, I've had so many laughs with it, leaving my partner then stopping for him to run up to the door then drive away from him, teasing over and over, it's so much fun. You can hop in any idle car or bump someone to make them get out then take their car, it might take from your score some but it's not too big of a deal unless you want the 5 star ranking only to get an achievement, you ARE the police afterall and do you play a GTA game to not abuse the system? Now, you can't just walk in anywhere or do anything quite like GTA, there are limits and you don't spend as much time roaming the streets. Each door with a golden knob or golden bar can be opened, the others cannot. You can actually run into people and knock them over leaving a blood streak on the sidewalk. A lot of them will be carrying flowers, you can knock that out of their hands, that's something I always liked in Spider-Man 2 for the Gamecube along with the dialogue "I'm walking here!" The world is great though. The little details I see and hear throughout the game just make all the difference and make it feel like a Noire experience. From the jazz music playing every now and then to the visual style, to the black and white mode and even me running into a pole and Bekowsky yelling at me "Do you think this is a tank!?", the way these people talk just feels classic and witty, like it has a vintage feel to it on top of everybody seeming like a bumhole that doesn't want to give any more info than asked, which makes your judgements on characters a lot easier, the faces can be goofy at times but the roles they're given are interesting and makes me want to either side with them or call them out for lying, it's one thing to make that a game feature, it's another to make me WANT to use it and this succeeds.

If you've played previous Rockstar games then it might be a bit of a different experience for you but in my case, this is my first, normally you play as a villain with Rockstar, this one, you don't and that interests me. As for actual story, it doesn't really matter how you play, you might be able to bag some of the crooks faster or easier or get achievements but it's all a pretty relative end goal, sometimes something will happen to the suspect but it's kind of rare but I feel like most of the gameplay makes up for the story.

A lot of the side missions are chase sequences and I did a majority of them but it's fun every now and then because you can shoot their feet or legs and they'll stop (shoot too much and it kills them though) you can fire warning shots, you can tackle, you can brawl, sometimes they'll take a hostage and you'll have to prevent them from shooting, it has a wide range of ways that you can handle it to either nip it in the bud or play with the chase. It could use a little more control to defuse the situation easier, like a melee button, because you don't control whether your gun is in hand or not, you can't brawl if there's a gun in your hand, but you can beat them over the head with it, the problem is that it's triggered, there's no melee button, so you kind of just have to guess where the hitbox is and hover around them until something happens and you arrest them (if they don't shoot you first). There isn't really a peaceful route though because most of the time, they'll be shooting at you so you don't have a choice but to take them out. You can hover the reticle over certain targets and they'll give in but I did it maybe once or twice, it didn't give me an option any other time, so I know they could've made it more peaceful.

The game is split up into sections where you get promoted to new types of cases, now I know that there are different people who specialize in different things so it's accurate but it's just odd to see it in a game because it's car after car mission and then it's homicide after homicide, I never felt too wore out on any of them, so they don't really overstay their welcome, it's just doing them all in succession rather than a car case then a homicide then an arson, it's a minor nitpick. You also get different partners with each department. Phelps himself is kind of milquetoast but he's probably the most levelheaded of the game, I kinda like him (except for that turning point). Brekowsky is funny. Galloway is a bumhole, I didn't mind driving away without him, he normally just sits there anyway. Roy is a racist meatlug, I didn't like him even when he wasn't the partner. And Biggs is tolerable and cooperative for the most part.

Make sure you collect at least some of the newspapers because luckily I did (all but 1, I was so peeved when found out though) and I saw the payoff during the major turn of the story for Phelps, it would've been pretty crappy without them, same with the ending. Now the ending itself isn't a "good" one in my opinion, I think it takes some things too fast and didn't really build up for certain parts of it but the game is long enough so it really could've. I do think it 'could' be a good ending with what it was implying, it's a bit bitter but a bit too subtle to really realize and understand it, I didn't even get the full perspective until I looked it up and thought "yeah, that makes sense".

The music is pretty brilliant as well as fitting.

I expected something like Tomb Raider Legend mixed with some photography and for the most part, that's what I got but I didn't expect as much combat as it has and it's not half bad. I didn't think I would even like the photo taking aspect especially with a GC controller but I ended up using it immensely (it's not always required).

There isn't really platforming or even a jump button unfortunately but I can tell that the people who put this together are gamers and put care into it because it's gleaming with personality and doesn't fall into common traps a lot of other games do. Take sidestepping for example, normally you can easily fall off the edge and many deaths in general are unjustified due to poor controls or poor execution. I never felt that with this game, sidestepping along an edge is literally just holding forward on the control stick, you don't get stuck, it's not insanely slow, and the puzzle like nature is actually pretty nice.

The vehicle controls are actually pretty accurate, I was easing through a minefield without breaking a sweat, the problem is the jumping and shooting. There's a certain boss you have to beat with the hovercraft (a few times) and it's hard to shoot at because you have to keep everything under control at once while keeping up with the boss.

Perhaps one of the defining features of this game is its tone. I would consider it an "inbetweener" it seems kid friendly for the most part but it's rated T for Teen, it has a dark side, which is mainly saved for the end but it's sprinkled throughout and not something I would expect to see in an average game style like this with its cartoony nature. Coming from the same guy who made Rayman, it starts to piece itself together, I can see why it's a cult-classic but I feel like you'd have to play it in order to see fully, especially with the sequel looking vastly different from this one.

For a good amount, I felt on top of the game because I had so many units, yet I never felt "underchallenged". Now, let's talk about the title. I'm not sure, why it's called that, I had a few fears with this game such as it being too edgy or raunchy for its own good but I don't believe any of those initial fears came to fruition. I would even play the sequel if it ever comes out. That ending boss was also pretty cool gameplay-wise.

I want to be clear about what type of game this is. It's very story driven, so it's pretty linear. The walking is kind of stiff but if you can learn to look past all that...
It has a polygon like style, semi-cyberpunk with its 2048 setting, reminding me of things like "i, Robot" and even Half-Life without the wasteland vibe. Except you don't have guns, you don't jump around the map, it's more like room to room interactions over action.

You play as Adam and Richard, two people in very similar situations (those are the mains, you play as some others along the way as well). They are two sides of the same coin, they've both been in a car accident and are recovering their memory so you're learning along with them. One has a good relationship with his family, the other doesn't. You do however get multiple choice answers, which I'm sure lead to different dialogue options. You can either be a jerk or slightly less of a jerk. I tried to do all the extra stuff which really made this game more interesting for me. There aren't side-quests but just little things here and there that feel very achievement based, whether they truly are or not. For example, you can give a homeless man some spare change or spend time with the kid before his bed time, the little stuff like that make me feel good about myself.
The linearity is pretty annoying because underneath this game's story, I see a lot of layers that could be picked if you were given the option. I won't complain too much about it though because I'm not against linear games.

As for story, Adam is kind of like Roxas but Richard, as I mentioned and hence his name, is a jerk and when you don't like your protagonist, it's hard to like the story. Remember that Mars mission that's supposedly going to happen in the years to come? Well that's in here too. I kind of went into this game blind, but I saw Mars talked about somewhere when I was researching it and became very interested as I've been looking for a Mars game for a good while. You don't actually explore Mars though, it's just this futuristic city. (sometimes Berlin or City5 as they call it) There are some posters on the wall in various clubs and stuff that I really hope that they'll make real as merch for the game, though I doubt it (they do have an artbook though).

I was put off by the ending because it had the potential to be good but it left too many holes. It didn't feel definitive. The ending is the one exception where your choices matter, there are two decisions in particular (the last two and you'll know when you see it), I did the 'best' ending and the 'worst' ending, though, that's kind of objective. The other two endings are basically the same just with the scenes interchangeable. There are certain characters that we never really get an answer as to what happened to them and then the place they decide to go...like they just forgot about Richard's 'status'.

When I paid for this, it was on sale for about 2$ so I'm not going to complain but it's just an average game, I wouldn't pay the normal 30$ for it.

I was excited when this game was announced, it looks like a bit of Stranger Things mixed with something else. I really liked how the main character looked so I bought it when it came out, I didn't watch much of it until it launched because I wanted to go in fresh and blind. I think that was the best way to go about it to be honest because it's sort of like a horror/thriller/action genre and I really like it.

I won't spoil it for you but here are some of my thoughts since I finished it. The game NAILS the eerie feeling, everything seems kind of out of the ordinary, I died laughing when I found the jukebox, but it introduces you to this world that you can't really describe. It keeps you on your toes and makes you think everyone could be a potential bad guy because everybody in this game seems crazy but I love it, it sets up that doubt. I imagined it to just be an asylum type prison thing where you had to escape and I was wrong (still would have been cool) but no, it's not even just an office area, it varies immensely, I didn't expect it to be so big.

The gun can change forms (shotgun, flare, pistol, etc. (no sniper sadly) and that's really cool because you can go and upgrade them and give them traits to make them better, I personally go for the shotgun which is rare for me and games.

Now this game isn't perfect, it has a few flaws. For example, for the bosses, if you die, then you get sent back to the last control point, which can be a hassle because you have to sit through a loading screen, run back, start the cut-scene again then mow the enemies down (except the very end, it seems generous there). This isn't new for any games, some have been much harsher but I guess KH spoils me with that restart the boss thing. Speaking of bosses, they aren't even really bosses, and there aren't even really levels, just missions. The 'bosses' are more like enemies that take a spotlight but just somewhat above average. It's not really at the end of every mission or anything, they're pretty rare tbh and it's different to see it that way. Does that make this game easy? Oh heck no, this game has one difficulty so if you want hard, it will give you hard, take the missions you want, I would say as many as you can.

I say that because each mission gives you ability points and crafting points which you can use for traits for Jesse (MC) and for your gun. Some may even be higher health, higher energy and such. I'm still going to try and go back to see how strong I can get but I did quite a few of the side missions already. Getting back to difficulty, there will be moments where you'll be like 'Ha I can cheese this' and just use your abilities to get away from the enemies but you need to look around every corner because they will make up for it later, there's always enemies on the prowl, even if you snag a control point.

Another thing I'm not a big fan of is wasting energy and ammo. I suppose that makes it more realistic but a lock on button would be pretty good, it's suppose to do it anyway but sometimes it takes an extra second and that can mean all the more. Just a minor nitpick that a KH fan such as myself gets spoiled with once again. There was a part where I got stuck on a loading screen and actually had to restart my game because it wouldn't let me teleport. Sometimes it lags and the frame-rate drops pretty quick but this is my copy, I don't think I've seen any problems with anybody else's yet, not on videos, not on reviews, I even looked up problems but I guess I'm the only one so take that in mind that it might just be the disc as well as me using a standard vanilla Playstation 4 vs a PS4 Pro which can run it better. I guess you could chalk that up as it really pushing the limits of the console but I can forgive it because for one the graphics look so dang good, there's even some live action stuff and it renders in real time so it needs to add that extra layer to make it look good (I know that's what it is because the only other game I saw do that was Minecraft) but it makes it look cinematic and that's a good trade in my opinion. (for this game at least)

The whole "Taking control of enemies" or seizing them leaves you vulnerable because it takes a few seconds to do it, but they're pretty generous and you can move freely as long as you have the thumb on the button and I think enemies even take it easy on you because I don't think I died while seizing an enemy once. You can also upgrade it so that the seizing time is shorter so I wanted to point out how well they did with that ability. I love the levitation and I can't get enough of the launching, that's my preferred method of combat now actually. At the beginning it was punching so...ha!

This was a really good game, reminds me of a stellar chiller thriller movie like the Shining, keeps up an aesthetic, has good gameplay, what's not to love?

This is the first Metroid game I ever beat.

The thing that was most noticeable to me when I started it is that it's been a while since I've played a GB game. I've missed that music. But other than that it feels pretty straightforward, definitely for those newbies of the series but I'm not complaining, that's "exactly what I needed". It has the normal "get the bomb, torpedo, morph ball" etc. but I assume that's every game.

Part of the thing that scares me about Metroid is that I won't know where I'm going or get stuck in a specific space but this one seemed to give me "exactly what I needed". Here's a map. Get the blinking Chozo spots and you'll be fine. You can figure out where to go pretty quick. I'm all for exploring in games but I think it's best done in a 3D space (and while I love my linear games) Metroid is kind of synonymous with mandatory exploration in order to proceed.

Why is that? I think it stemmed from "Here's what is making people finish our games faster so let's give them a handicap." much like how they made the SNES Lion King as difficult as it is. But I know it carried over into the franchise's later games as well. So I'm not too keen on EVERYTHING being hidden, I couldn't imagine playing this with NES graphics, you would never be able to finish it without a guide. Side stuff, I understand but having it be necessary is just going to be a hamper with me, whether I realize it or not. The overall atmosphere and scenarios get it though, I didn't see all the Alien movies but this is just what I would want out of a movie like that and I doubt any of them actually live up to it.

But I have some things that I hope the future of the series already improves on. For example, using bombs to jump as a morph ball. It feels like a very easy to miss mechanic and you just end up spamming the button until it works. Later you get the high jump mechanic which of course lets you jump as a ball without the bombs (just not as high) but why not let me start with it...?

There were some points where I got softlocked because I would speed boost in an area that wasn't all the way broken through and one end would get closed off while the other wasn't open to begin with. Now you can load up a save but I have a new solution...fast travel. I don't even need to elaborate. This one might be a little much to ask because I'm a baby but if you die and go back to a save point, can you make it so that save point heals you? Sometimes there just isn't a Chozo nearby, like when you're battling those metroid bloodsuckers, it's more just a chore to run farther, save points heal you in the pirate ship though for whatever reason. Now this one is justified, the ability to turn screw attack off. There are so many points where I have to freeze enemies to jump on them only to kill them.

I also wanted to mention this section where I thought I was softlocked in Brinstar when you get the Varia suit: I entered from the left instead of entering on the right to get the Chozo blocking the path. But there was a way to bring the little purple bugs to eat the vines in the lava after I got the Varia suit in order to come around the other side. Some of these mechanics feel experimental, like they were ahead of their time but I imagine they feel more fleshed out as time goes on. The movement feels pretty fantastic other than that, almost like I'm good at the game, it looks cool.

And you know what's crazy? The OG had 5 ENDINGS. This one has 8! That's insane, is this the first game that did that? (Looks it up) I guess Castlevania 2 and Metroid were neck and neck, coming out around the same time, revolutionary! I'm not sure how I got the one I got (I think it has to do with how you spent your time) but I just looked up the rest. You can even unlock the OG game with this version so it's hands-down superior, it even adds 2 extra areas. One of which feels similar to the concept of Dread, like a trial run. Overall, I had a fun time and didn't feel overwhelmed by the backtracking or dying. Even without the save states, I felt like the in-game save points were nice enough that I could just do it normally. Contrast that to Hollow Knight. Oy Vey.

Where do you go next after Zero Mission? Samus Returns aka Metroid 2? Metroid Prime which takes place between Metroid 1 and 2 or Super Metroid which is probably most accessible?

Well, here we are, where my journey originally started. I can definitely see where things went wrong too.

So, this game is mostly about immersion but its held back by the Gamecube, the controls are stiff, the aiming is a bit wonky because you're not using a C-stick and instead have to mostly rely on the lock-on, it's like a first person classic Resi game. Dodging can be a nightmare and scanning isn't always easy while you're fighting.

It doesn't feel like an adaptation of Zero Mission, I can tell this was going for something different, which I'm okay with, in fact, I think it needed because I found Super and ZeroM to be a bit too similar but now I understand why some people prefer 2D Metroid over 3D. (there's even a cool looking 2D fan remake of this one)

Now I know I just said that they went with something different here, more extreme, but I'm about to contradict that. You see, there are definitely elements here that are ripped straight out of the franchise. Enemies for example are very similar. You know those ones that circle the platforms? Those are here, which seems really odd to me considering they follow the same movement pattern, it just sticks out from the rest. This is Metroid's first jump to 3D afterall so surely there are some kinks to be worked out, much like Super Mario 64. Look at the sprites for the mushrooms (1-ups included) then versus now, if you didn't start with that version then it sticks out like sore thumb.

The ball could still use some work, I feel like it's not so reliant on jumping with bombs but it's more precise so whenever you do do it, it's hard, you can't just spam like you used to, there's a bit of timing and luck involved. But the ball itself is a bit slippery and the camera the ball specifically uses could use a bit of work as well. They did however make the save points heal you and even replenish your missiles so that's one thing off the checklist.

Perhaps my favorite highlight from this game is the bosses. I like these bosses, they feel more flexible with their attack patterns and how to beat them, I love to see variety rather than just a bunch of bullet sponges, setting this game apart from many other FPS'.

I talked about traversal and how that scared me with backtracking but I think I figured it out. It's a lot more fun going to these areas than the ones in Zero Mission (not to knock the ZM ones though) these areas just make a point to differentiate each other. Eventually it will tell you where to go, which is fun because sometimes I'd find myself walking around aimlessly like "Where is a door I haven't gone in yet?" There were even points where I'd have to approach an empty spot of the map only to see it blocked and have to approach from the complete other side of the map which I absolutely hated in ZM and am convinced only exists for that reason. If you're backed against a door, your shot can reflect off the door and hit you even if you're facing the opposite way. Then enemies have better range than you so they can shoot from a distance but unless you close that distance then you can't hit them back. Some people may like that but I'm just pointing out "It's there!".

For a GC game, it looks pretty good. Fish in the water. Water condensation and reflections on your helmet. Most times the music is even better than ZM. Lots of lore to collect and scan, I know I liked doing it in ResiReve and I liked doing it here (the percentage you scanned and collected amount to what your ending will be, similar to ZM). I'm glad I had the sense to collect the artifacts along the way though because they ended up being mandatory, which I'm surprised? You would think it would lead you to them unless it just planned on giving you the locations once needed them to progress?? Idk, I already had them all by that point.

I suppose if I had to ask for something specific for the future of the franchise, it would be a more involved story, I know Other M delves into that but I hear it's not that good. Don't be afraid to do something different in terms of structure either (gameplay included). Zelda handles story quite nicely with lack of dialogue (audio anyway), Halo found a way through Cortana and the Arbiter. Prime is cinematic about its approach but it's kind of like "yeah here's where you start, here's a map, fight some bosses AAAaand we'll see you at the end." As far as story does go, it looks to be that the Metroids aren't the ones at fault, it's the pirates for experimenting on them and trying to clone and fuse them which kind of reminds me of a lot of things but if that was the original plan to go with since the beginning then I think they were ahead of the curb and also might explain why there's so many Ridleys in the first place, as "Meta" means self referential, which in this case means 'not the original'. I really like that, I always assumed that the same Ridley was on the brink of death so they kept bringing him back by giving him mechanical parts.

The story seems contained pretty much exclusively through real means, how do you find intel on alien pirates? You scan their logs and translate them making Samus seem all the more alien and alone. Context is done through scanning and reading and I realized that a little later than I would've liked. While it brings a realistic and interesting spin on the narrative, some of the stuff can be said through cutscenes. That makes me sound like a weeb who only watches the dub because he doesn't like reading but that's not it at all, I did read, I mentioned Zelda, it's just that none of it is dialogue, it's second-hand. Accurate to the story but you have to work to get it. I never really read the collectable stuff in games because I never feel it necessary or even relevant half the time. But in this case, writing this down makes me like it more for its accuracy and feel guilty for how I'm approaching it but I know that not everyone will like that aspect.

I don't think I would've liked this when I originally started it as a kid anyway, I was more for games that you can pick up then throw back down and still know what you're doing when you return. I liked easier linear games that didn't require much exploration. So this probably would've kicked my butt back then, especially with those GC controls. I'm not sure that it's the best place to start with the franchise, not so much for story, but so much for getting the hang of the play-style and core concept in order to enjoy it to its fullest.

Final verdict is that it's a good game if you meet the requirements for a good time.

-Comfortable controls (whether it be GC, Wii, U or whatever else)

-A mindset to like Metroid in the first place

-That includes backtracking^^

-Determination to read the lore

If you can find a way to achieve those, I think you'll like it. Don't get me wrong, I was hard on this game but I can't give it anything lower than a 4/5. I am curious to see how the other ones stack up though because if this one was that good on its own then I would suppose that they could just keep building on it and make it better, right?