the fact that a game like super smash bros. could even happen is nothing short of a miracle. it's interesting to watch sakurai's eye for the platform/fighter hybrid develop over time - by the time he gets to kirby super star, smash's skeletal blueprint is there, clear as day. given the largely beat 'em up nature of the kirby series to that point, specifically the major titles sakurai had worked on (adventure and super star come to mind) this process becomes a lot more natural in hindsight, and the evidence is there that the smash bros. team were on their way to creating something truly special here.

despite having spent a decent amount of time in local competitive smash scenes, especially in the days of 3ds/wii u, i'll rep that smash 64 is absolutely the most fun entry to play with casual "rules" in mind. this is the smash game most heightened by items, wacky stages (or really, lack of competitively viable ones), and a lack of polish. this isn't to throw shade at smash 64's well-documented meta scene, but coming back to 64 and expecting to experience the same type of metagame mindset later titles like melee and ultimate offer might not be the wisest hope to carry. it doesn't help matters that the roster is so small, and two of its characters are head and shoulders over the rest on the tier list.

smash bros., as regularly quoted, was never MEANT to be a competitive game, though. there is room for it here, obviously, but i really do believe your best experiences to be found with this inaugural title are in order-a-pizza, 4 person trade off, items-on, basement-sleepover type experiences. that's the type of game smash 64 was clearly aiming to be. and hey, with all that commotion, you might be able to ignore how... off-kilter and unnerving parts of smash 64's aesthetic are. i feel the same way about melee for different reasons, but smash 64 just feels... off in an unpolished, ambient and muted way that i REALLY enjoy. sure, later smash titles might standardize and optimize design further - arguably polished to a tee by smash 4 and ultimate - but it's this cut-out, cardboard, toy-like design that keeps this uncanny valley feeling in play that i really adore.

the roster offered here is just about as perfect as one could've hoped for. considering the n64-era rollout cast, starting out with heavy hitters like mario, link, kirby, and pikachu makes perfect sense. rounding out the starter cast with fan-favorites donkey kong, fox, samus, and yoshi feel like essential, obvious choices. luigi rounds out the ken necessity for any fighter, captain falcon offers high-speed kinetic movement and attacks, jigglypuff is your dan hibiki/goofball pick, and ness is the dev sweetheart and would no doubt introduce generations upon generations of kids to mother - one of the best roster moves in series history.

it does make sense that mario would get two stages being nintendo's flagship franchise, and the rest of the stage picks are absolutely iconic - super well-rounded out choices. that said, i think access to final destination and maybe one more stage (a mother or f-zero one in particular?) would've gone to truly perfect the stage options. what's there though, save the generally disliked planet zebes stage, is essentially perfect pickings for a party fighter.

the art style and musical arrangements are all totally comfy, peak nintendo-at-their-best magic - and the extra 1-player options do enough to justify a purchase enough for someone intending to play alone. melee proved this series could only mature and expand from here, but as it stands, i think smash 64 IS worth returning to, and offers perhaps the best neutral, casual experience of the series without anyone feeling all too ahead of anyone else. perhaps the closest the series ever gets to the creator's intent without sacrificing flow for the sake of balance.

Making a big choice based narrative rpg game seems like a nightmare in ambition and effort. These kinds of projects require an intense workload and consistency across a whole team. Writing all these competing factions that are (ideally) well-written, building a decent stat system, ensuring all these systems mesh together, making sure its all FUN by the end of it all... its a huge task! I don't envy the sheer effort it all took.

I think its inevitable, under these conditions, that a game like this turns out to be rife with bugs. In fact, I think sometimes you need a game to have bugs. As much as some people may crave a perfect, fully immersive experience, I think the real heart of video games is laughing at a goofy glitch. And its a good reminder to an audience just how difficult it is to make a video game. They dedicated hours and hours of craft to force these disparate programs to play nice together, here's the stuff that slipped through the cracks. There's a sincerity to the flaws. Its almost community building in a weird way. We're all enjoying our passion for games here, why not share that awkward passionate sincerity alongside the devs, rather than against them?

And god damn can you feel the sheer weight of this studio's passion in this game. Troika studio was collapsing as this game was rushed out the door, but the team cared so much for the project, they worked on community patches to help even out the flaws they couldn't fix in house. In the decades since the game's release, the fan community built a more elaborate patch with rediscovered lost content, quality of life features, and little touches for a better experience. I could ramble about the clever writing or how the different upgrade systems add a specific challenge and thrill to the game, but it really comes down to four words: the game is fun! Its just fun to play! Playing all the politics, maneuvering different clever set-pieces, its all fun to dig your teeth into.

The two main flaws of the game are more issues of the time it came out and the nature of production. In the latter case, the final hours lose the game's perchant for multiple solutions to problems and kind of descend into endless corridors of enemies. I've heard some modern complaints lodged at new narrative rpgs for letting you talk down endbosses or things, claiming it means your villains don't actually stand for anything. While I understand that critique, I'll take that any day over the absolute slog that is the final hours of this game's combat. The combat is at its best in short chunks. Relying on it too much makes for a more exhaustive experience.

The other problem is, well, it is an 00s game. Split personality storylines, weird asian stereotypying... This is all coupled with a tendency towards some edgelord dialogue. I generally tried to play my character with the mentality of "bro i just work here." My character's been a vampire for like two days and the game wants me to be saying lines like "you will bow before ME, mortal!"

This is particularly noticeable when dealing with Heather Poe. The game gives you the chance to give a dying woman some blood. This is a clear good guy action to do. Save the human, gain some humanity back. Well, things aren't that simple. Giving a human vampire blood quickly makes them an addict. Heather quickly tracks you down and leaps all the way into putting herself in the role of slave. She calls you master, she offers you her college fund, she starts luring victims to your apartment, you can demand that she change her appearance... the whole situation is profoundly fucked. While the game does let you try to treat Heather gently, its all with an air of condescension. I'm not allowed to say "hey girl, wanna hear about my work day?" The options are all "Ah yes, you have been a good loyal pet." The writing is inclined to being a cool edgy vampire who's just better than humanity. That's excellent for that kind of roleplayer, but sometimes I want my character to just be a normal guy. I guess that speaks to a wider problem in video games though. Video games are inherently designed for the player. You will always be the big special person who everything revolves around.

Still, the game is a cult classic for a reason. There was love put into this game, from both creators and fans. The VTM universe is a complicated world and putting that system into a video game was a huge challenge to begin with. The fact this managed to pull it off despite everything going against it is truly a marvel.

It's one of those games that, as soon as you think or write about it, you immediately feel the urge to install it again and play it till the end. For me, this game belongs in my top 10 best games of all time. Unfortunately, the game came onto the market as a buggy and unfinished mess, but community patches have brought it to a state where there are no more excuses not to play it.

The atmosphere of this dark vampire-infested L.A. is simply unsurpassed, the music and the graphics contribute immensely to the generally gloomy mood. The RPG elements, which may seem a little confusing to some players, also ensure that I can completely immerse myself in a certain role and give the game replay value.

Above all, the writing is THE key reason why I enjoy this game so much. The writers have done a fantastic job here. The dialogue is so incredibly good, clever, funny and believable, something I unfortunately miss in many modern games. The main story was also exciting and each side mission has its own little sub-plot that fits seamlessly into the world of Bloodlines.

This game is a masterpiece and an absolute must for any RPG fan, especially if you like dark settings and vampires.

play vtmb if you like:
- vampires
-immersive sims
-good writing
-mid 2000s emo/punk scene
-video games
-fun

flawed... masterpiece? maybe not quite that, but this is a mess of trashy iconoclasm, campy pastiche in the form of action rpg. "rough around the edges" barely says it, as the game is clearly unfinished and a bit rushed in the late game, and some of its most compelling aspects are left only mostly realized. this isn't necessarily a bad thing, however.

i played as a tremere - a vampire clan devoted to thaumaturgy. blood mages, essentially. frustratingly, the sanguine magicks afforded to you aren't really given the time to shine, with guns and bare fists being better suited to most encounters (and the open use of thaumaturgy being a risk to the masquerade). at least blood shield is useful throughout, and looks fucking cool... though of course any mortal who sees a human-shaped mass of blood will run screaming through the streets. with a few more sections enabling creative use of stealth and vampiric abilities, this playthrough could've been extremely satisfying. in fairness, that's only one of the seven clans, and each of them offers a distinct style of play, philosophy, dialogue, and in at least one case experience of reality. so there's quite a bit of depth here. and to be clear, i absolutely did have a great time with abilities like blood boil, which lifts an enemy struggling helplessly into the air before they explode into chunks and obliterate any other enemies within range. combining that with the ability to entrance solo opponents and drain their blood (their blood is your mana), several areas were exhilarating to storm through. i really want to go through the game again as a sneaky nosferatu hacker, a brawling brujah liberator, and perhaps once more as a malkavian weirdo. may or may not look into the unofficial plus patch for those, which mods in some cut content along with a handful of other liberties taken.

what's present and adequately fleshed out here is mostly very good. santa monica, downtown los angeles, and hollywood are all great (downtown being my favorite), while chinatown is a pretty major letdown on a few levels. worst of all, the pastiche descends into really gross racial caricature in a few instances (along with the presence of some really shitty dialogue choices). it's a stain on an otherwise very special and unique game, so i'm inclined to forgive it somewhat, but this stuff absolutely has to be called out. it does help that it's not all othering crassness: there's a gentle beauty and melancholy to the vibes - the sounds of wind chimes and mourning doves fill the air. there's a distinct feeling that you're haunting these spaces, a living apparition... and something about that is both cathartic and serene.

i did have a really good time navigating the politics of the plotting and power struggles between sects - namely, the corpo-fascist camarilla and the anarchic... anarchs. tremere are treated with mistrust, since their 'pyramid' social structure is a selfish and clandestine lot, and they're known to aid the camarilla in service of their own interests. being me, however, i wanted to lend my plasmatic sorcery to the anarchs. how am i not gonna pick the team smiling jack (voiced by jake the dog) is on?! that is my guy. this presented an interesting conundrum or two, and ultimately i felt i was able to carve out the path i wanted to. (also, this is kinda neither here nor there but i wanted to point out that there are some pretty decent mods available, like this skin i used for my vamp's appearance. i love how mean she looks.)

a minor spoiler: one of my favorite moments was when someone runs up to you, recognizing you from before your embrace, and you have a choice: let her call a friend to say you've been found and risk losing stature in the masquerade, or kill her. or...! find a solution that results in neither a loss of humanity nor a strike against the masquerade. what i did was admit to being her lost friend, and then before she could make the call, placed her in a trance and mind-wiped her, leaving her standing there in a daze. vampire life is cold. but it was the most merciful thing i could do.

not unlike morrowind, it took me a long time to find my way into this game after bouncing off it more than once. obviously, it has its issues. what really matters to me is, again, there's just nothing else quite like this. i sincerely hope to see bloodlines 2 one day emerge from development purgatory. i do hope, as well, that if it sees the light of day (rather, the moon) it's reflective of white wolf's nowadays more openly progressive stance on representation, while maintaining that distinctively ragged edge of sordid night life.