He really went and invented save slots, very cool Miyamoto. He is the true ruler of Hyrule cuz he rules. Aside from that cool fact, Legend of Zelda still holds water. It took me 10 minutes to realize I was playing a weird mod as Zelda herself, perhaps I am not the observant gamer Miyamoto wanted in order to find all the...secrets...! As well as the... other secrets...?! I just can't look over the fact I saved Zelda with Zelda. Onto the finer details, this game is very peculiar because there are a rupeellions number of items to collect in order to progress. Make sure to inspect the labyrinths thoroughly. Maybe one of the first games to raise the question "how does this goofball carry all this?" this is probably why all these punks are fixing to rob me after I get any Triforce shard and leave the house. It's on sight and I'm in the crosshair.

Among all Link carries are the classics. The boomerang flabbergasts its victims, the candle is a safety hazard. The gift-wrapped C4 I rigged to explode in the middle of my speech on "do twinks deserve more or less?". You actually need a PhD in "Where's Wally?" to guess which spots to explode and arson to collect the goodies. The game can be completed without a guide... unless you consider your heart one. Dawww. Fuck it we ball, I don't need a job, I don't need marriage, I certainly don't need a guide. The game certainly gets more bearable with the Master Sword, though. LeBron, scream if you love the Master Sword! Shoot, LeBron reportedly forgot to retrieve the raft before leaving the room. No, Google, I'm not feeling lucky. I'm getting by on skill alone, although I constantly forget to pick up my bow. In the pp sized sword we trust.

Speaking of this sword, it can shoot a beam at max health. I am more often not at full health, so it's just a fun fact at this point. When do the fun facts officially become... just facts? Look at Ganon btw brooo he ate cement when he was 6 😭 fuck it we ball again let me close the distance gap between us, we have a button to mash boys and girls. Ain't no shot I'm losing after going through so many bosses... by the by, wouldn't you know it, the enemy variety is quite high. I seem to always find the perfect time to attack at the wrong time, I bet the Darknut facing me as soon as I press the button to deal unavoidable damage to me doesn't know I just shouted at him to eat my Darknuts!! save me Aonuma, Aonuma!!, Aonuma....save me...

I think navigating the map is pretty fun, depending on the day. But 2 months ago, yesterday and today (yeah I played this game at a pretty conspicuous schedule.) it is fun. I wish the enemies didn't respawn, what does mortality mean in literature if not enjoying the time spent with those who may go? The fish stalker is enough. Although not easy to farm rupees with him I'm tellin you

People really weren't joking when they said this game improves upon the original in every way. Gameplay-wise master chief’s movement feels significantly better, vehicles are actually controllable, and levels now consist of more than one repeated room. Aside from being super fun, Dual wielding weapons also brings in significantly more strategy to your gameplan for every level. You have to pay far more attention to your ammo levels, and making calls on what weapon to use when ends up being pretty important. Now that levels consist of more than one room, finding where you need to go has been made much easier, meaning nearly all frustrations I had with the first game have been dealt with in this one. Story-wise Halo 2 is also better in every conceivable way, which made me much more interested in the game during my playthrough. The original Halo’s story definitely had some interesting aspects to it, but I felt it wasn't particularly well told. Cutscenes were basic as well as few and far between, there was only a very small number of speaking characters, and the dialogue was often pretty cheesy. Halo 2 definitely does have its fair share of cheesy dialogue, but now there are real cutscenes all over the place, some real characters with actual depth, and even more crazy and cool scifi concepts explored. The cinematography in this game has also been massively improved over the original. I still get chills from watching that opening cutscene of master chief planting the covenant bomb. It also helps that the graphics are significantly better than the original, and fairly impressive for the Xbox. It's really hard for me to believe sometimes that Halo and Halo 2 even came out on the same system. My two complaints with this game is that, one, I don't particularly enjoy running through narrow, dark, crowded corridors filled with enemies that run straight at me and can 2 shot me (especially when one of the playable characters doesn't have a flashlight), and i'd say this game features a few too many levels with that structure. Two, the story ends really abruptly and out of nowhere on a fairly major cliffhanger. All said and done however, I think halo 2 is easily one of the best first person shooters ever made. It did everything the first game wasn't capable of, and I believe it's taught me why this series is so widely loved.

After many very good and a single bad 2D Mickey platformer of the 16-bit era, we end with one of the best looking and animated games of the 16-bit generation.

Mickey Mania takes Mickey on a platforming journey through his most iconic episodes such as Steamboat Willy, The Giant Beanstalk, The Mad Doctor etc. All the stages and sprites feel like that came right out of the cartoons as this is some of the best animations on a 16-bit device period.

With most other Mickey platfomers being a great Mario/Ducktales type of fun arcadey platformer, Mickey Mania takes a different approach of trying to be something more of a "cinematic" platformer. Something along the lines of SNES Dragon's Lair, Prince of Persia, Heart of Darkness, Another world etc. While I do think the idea is neat for a game about Mickey's classical episodes, the execution is not great.

The game is just not fun to play and is absurdly hard relying on a lot of trial and error moments, bad enemy placement, bad hitboxes, bad platform collision in the sense where you will sometimes be falling through the floor even though you clearly landed on the platform, and enemies you can barley see. So many bad and frustrating design choices that it just sucked any enjoyment I wanted to have with this game as I loved the premise and visuals.

After getting through a chuck of many trial and error moments, just shredding lives and continues to get through most of the game, the game has the gull of letting you know that this game actually does NOT give you infinite continues despite being based around trial and error. Normally I don't have an issue with finite continues, but the game doesn't tell you and whenever you are on the continue screen there is no counter of any sort. So you have a game that really wants you to die and try again but also forces you to start all the way from the begging if you do die. Really bad design and I won't be continuing this one.

Other than a few easily overlookable things, this is pretty much everything you could ask for in a remake of this game.

After well over a decade, it's about damn time we got a Paper Mario game that wasn't boring tripe with an identity crisis. Sure it's just a remake, but at least Intelligent Systems didn't screw it up and seems to understand why people love this game.

It is, for the most part, pretty much the same game with a lot of extra, subtle things that liven up everything. Characters have new animations for certain situations, there's a bunch of new music like themes for every partner, and characters make little Banjo Kazooie-esque noises when speaking. Only negative changes really are the 30fps (which really isn't that big of a deal) and not being able to skip through the text quickly. I'm pretty sure the latter might be because the game uses Origami King's engine which had the same text system. For the most part, it's a pretty faithful remake, about on par with the Super Mario RPG one.

Not much else to say. It's basically the definitive version of Thousand-Year Door. In other words, it's a better version of one of the greatest games of all time. Very much looking forward to seeing more and more people finally play this and understand why Paper Mario fans have been so frustrated for the past 15+ years.

What happened to the series I love. Seriously Mega Man X through X4 are excellent games with 5 being a very good game. Then X6 was a slap in the face money grab after the series was suppose to be finished with X5. Then X7 was one of the most abhorrently made games of all time. While X8 was a major step forward from X7 it still is a far cry from what this series was. It legitimately makes me sad that one of my favorite series ever died and in such an awful fashion to boot.

I digress. Mega Man X8 is not an awful game by any means but it definitely isn’t a quality game either. Instead of going back to the basics that made the series great they decided to give every level a gimmick. Some are ok and some are outright bad. The worst level by far was Giga Bolt Man O War’s stage. You are on the slowest floating type thing in the world with controls that make you think it’s part of X7 with no explanation on controls and it is at best bad and at worst infuriating.

I’m going to cut this review shorter than most and just say the story is ok, the music is ok, the art is ok, the gameplay is ok the game is just ok at best.

If you ever want to play this series, and you really should, just play through X-X5 like Keiji Inafune intended and not what he was against which is what Capcom ended up giving us for some extra cash.

Mega Man X Series Ranked:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/mega-man-x-series-ranked/

My 2024 ranked:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2024-ranked-1/

Existe dois tempos no mundo dos videogames, Antes de The last of us e Depois de The last of us.

Eu sei que parece exagero esse título e muita gente que não gosta de TLOU pode acabar negando muito isso, e ta tudo bem discordar. Porém, é um tanto quanto inegável que os jogos mudaram muito desde que The Last of Us foi lançado, seu jeito cinemático seu estilo de contar a história e toda a forma que a trama nos envolve, foi SIM algo revolucionário pra época que foi lançado.

A primeira vez que joguei The Last of Us foi la no PS3 e quando eu vi os gráficos e o estilo de gameplay desse jogo na época eu não consegui nem reagir direito, sabe foi um SUSTO daqueles grandes eu senti como se eu tivesse vendo pessoas na telinha, eu me encantava com os personagens e eu me envolvia na história cada vez que passava, detalhe: eu tinha apenas 10 anos de idade.

E eu até cheguei a fazer uma review aqui bem porca do título original la do PS3 que eu falei umas besteira, então nessa aqui vou me corrigir e vou pontuar tudo o que eu não pontuei.

Mas enfim, 10 anos de idade foi a primeira vez que eu joguei TLOU e agora que eu tenho 20 anos, pude rejogar essa obra que eu tanto amo em seu remake.. remake esse que sinceramente, é espetacular.

De primeira eu já senti aquela coisa de assustadora nos gráficos né não tem como não se assustar, a gameplay eu não posso dizer se teve tanta mudança da do PS3 já que eu joguei ela a muito tempo, mas posso te afirmar que a gameplay dele é parecida com a do 2 mas um tanto mais lenta e travadinha. Ah e um adendo: se você jogar com o Dualsense, os gatilhos adaptáveis são maravilhosos e dão uma imersão que vale a pena, eu não sei se isso atrapalha pra fazer outras run de uma maneira mais hardcore e etc, mas pra mim que jogou o jogo de forma casual achei fantástico.

O som e o silêncio e a ausência de vida se fazem presentes na ambientação do jogo, a versão de PS3 já tinha esse clima de tensão que nos deixa sempre com um pé atrás sobre aonde a gente vai pisar, mas o remake colocou isso em outro nível, até porque a qualidade de áudio de hoje em dia aumentou bastante, então agora o jogo ta muito mais limpo e traz uma experiência bem mais forte no lado de terror.

A história bom.. eu nem preciso dizer nada, todo mundo já sabe o quão incrivel e magnífica é a trama de The Last of Us, mas ainda assim eu quero dizer o quão divino esse jogo é. Cara, todo personagem que é apresentado pra você no jogo, é construído de um jeito extremamente cuidadoso e completo. Você se encontra com muita gente ruim, com muita gente boa, e todas elas tem uma personalidade forte marcante que fica na sua memória de uma forma ou de outra.

E não só de personagens eu gostaria de dizer aqui, eu também gostaria de elogiar a construção da sociedade nesse jogo. Já escrevi histórias e histórias então eu sei um pouco sobre o quão é difícil desenvolver uma sociedade no mundo que você ta criando. The Last of Us pega ali o modelo de nossa sociedade que conhecemos, e coloca ele em um estado de caos, e cara ela fica MUITO bem feita, a gente passa por varias facções varias pessoas tentando sobreviver e tudo é muito VIVO, algumas pessoas optam por métodos extremos de sobrevivência e outras optam por algo mais pacífico, você vai entender quando jogar, só tenho dizer que é perfeito o jeito que o mundo é representado nesse universo.

Bom.. já puxei muito saco né? Enfim, se quiserem jogar TLOU fiquem ligados que a versão de PC (qual eu joguei) ainda não ta la 100% e você pode passar por alguns bugs e crashes, a maioria dos bugs que passei foram só engraçados (como por exemplo personagens duplicados) e o crash se resolveu depois de um tempo. O jogo é tempo mediano você pode durar 14 horas ou mais pra zerar jogando no normal, mas eu jogando no muito fácil finalizei em 8 horas e 37 minutos, visão tropa!

I had not heard of Valiant Hearts until less than a week ago. As I fumbled through the PS Plus section of games I saw that it was available to play through it so I thought I just heard about this I guess it’s fate to play this.

Valiant Hearts is a heavy narrative game where you explore areas solving puzzles as you navigate a few wonderful characters through World War I. The puzzles start off very fun but they do start somewhat repeating by late game. Luckily this isn’t that bad as the game only lasts around 5ish hours or so. The gameplay is fun enough but definitely nothing special.

What is absolutely special about this game is the story and the characters. It’s a good dive into war and the effects it can have on people. How most people are just caught up in hell because of choices beyond their control and doing their best to navigate the cards they’ve been handed. I quickly fell in love with Emile, Karl, Marie, Victor, Freddie, Anne, and one of the greatest doggos in gaming Walt. The love and selflessness throughout the game between them is heartwarming. There are so many emotions that I went through from genuine joy to feeling heartbreak. I have only teared up a few times playing games but there is one part in the game, if you have played the game you know the part I’m talking about, that really really got to me. It was easily a top 3 most emotional moment in any game I’ve ever played. This story and its characters are the reason you need to play this.

It is easily one of the most underrated games that more people need to know is out there waiting for them. This an easy recommendation for literally anyone no matter what kind of games you are into.

It barely made my top 100 for the time being:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/my-favorite-100-video-game-of-all-time/


My 2024 ranked:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2024-ranked-1/

CREDITS USED: 12
RATING: Costed me a Big Mac combo

Probably the most popular CAVE shooter known to shmup fans. This a great Shmup and I can see myself replaying this one. It's an excellent sequel to DonPachi which addresses the pacing issue I had with that game. There is no repetition of levels, it's a 6 level journey all with cool unique locations, enemies and bosses. Gameplay is generally the same as all CAVE shooters, but this one in particular is hard as hell. Not sure what to expect from the other CAVE shooters so I can't compare how hard it is to the others. I did get through on my first playthrough with only 12 credits as opposed to 32 credits for DonPachi so I feel like this one is a little more balanced.

Besides the pacing and balancing, the only other big improvements from DonPachi are the beautiful backgrounds, improved sprites and that fucking soundtrack. I was so surprised of how good of a soundtrack this game had. Just all around banger rock music.

Loved this one and will come back to it to try to beat it using less credits.

I am a big fan of the phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, and having this mentality when it comes to making anything is usually the best to have, but at the same time, sometimes the product in question, like a sequel to a popular video game, needs to have a little kick in the ass, or one or two changes here or there, to really make it feel justified in its existence. This can directly be applied to Final Fight 2, which in all aspects was still a good game, and a decent follow-up to the original game, but it introduced pretty much nothing to change up the gameplay from the original game, which could be good for those that loved the original game to death, but for those that didn’t, it wouldn’t give them much of a reason to seek that, or any of the other FF games, out. But hey, the game still sold pretty well, so it was naturally gonna get a follow-up regardless, and we would get that follow-up just two years later with Final Fight 3.

I was actually pretty excited to come to this game, cause it has been quite a bit now since I last played one of these games, and I was curious to see how this one would turn out. I didn’t think it was necessarily gonna be too special, but I have been in a big beat-’em-up mood lately, and I was curious to see if they were actually gonna do more with this rather than just being “another Final Fight again”. So, I played through the thing, and as it turns out, it is just another Final Fight again!......... but only kinda. It does feel like somewhat of a proper follow-up to the previous games, since this one does actually offer some new additions compared to the previous game, but most of it is still your typical Final Fight beat-’em-up action, which is all good for me, yet it could be tiring for others.

The story is fairly straightforward, where after the defeat of the Mad Gear Gang in the previous game, the streets of Metro City have grown rampant with crime groups terrorizing the place, with the new Skull Cross Gang taking over as the dominant gang of the city, leading to a large riot being started in the prospect of taking over said city, so it is up to Mike Haggar and Guy, along with newcomers Lucia and Dean, to set out to defeat this new gang once and for all, and to save Metro City once again. Once again, it is a pretty straightforward story, one that we have seen plenty of times in beat-’em-up games, and like with most beat-’em-ups, you don’t need that complex of a plot to go out and start kicking ass all over again, so it is fine by me.

The graphics are good, looking almost identical to that from the previous two games, yet having just enough differences when it comes to the character sprites that you can at least tell something has changed….. barely, the music is also good, having plenty of decent tracks throughout, but nothing that is gonna get me raving and bobbing my head like the tracks you would hear from Streets of Rage 3 (random example, but it works, cause beat-’em-up), and the gameplay/control is pretty much what you think it is if you have played any of the previous Final Fight games, with there being some new additions sprinkled in to spice up your Final Fighting, but it is pretty much another Tuesday for fanatics of the genre.

The game is your typical beat-’em-up romp, where you take control of one of four characters, but if you know me at this point, you already know that I am gonna play as Mike Haggar, while refusing to play as anybody else for even a fraction of a second, go through six different levels through many different locations throughout Metro City, beat down a seemingly endless horde of thugs from the Skull Cross Gang using a plethora of moves at your disposal, gather plenty of weapons to help lay the smackdown on your foes while also gathering plenty of food and point items to assist you along the way, and take on plenty of big, beefy bosses that are relatively easy to defeat, just as long as you don’t mind the giant health bars that a lot of them have. You know the drill, ya punch people, they die, and you can have even more fun punching said people with a buddy, which is all well and good in my book, even if I wouldn’t be so quick to try to get anyone to play this with me, especially if they have already played any of the other Final Fights.

New to the series in this game is that now, instead of having the basic movesets that we have had, we now have additional moves that you can pull off while facing opponents, such as a dash manuver, a charging attack for that dash, throwing attacks, and unique techniques that can be performed for specific characters. This doesn’t change up the gameplay too much from what you are used to, but it is enough to make this game feel like the series is progressing forward, giving the player more to work with and making for a much more fun and versatile experience, so I can definitely appreciate that. Also new in this game is the addition of Super Moves, which pretty much work exactly how they would in a Street Fighter game: you go around, beat dudes up, and when it is charged, you enter a button combination and use it to absolutely ANNIHILATE an opponent. I didn’t really use these all too often, cause the difficulty wasn’t extreme enough to the point where I felt it was a necessity, but it did come in handy against plenty of boss fights, so it is definitely a much welcomed edition.

Now, for this next new feature, I have to ask those Final Fight 3 experts a question real quick….. am I a fucking idiot? Cause I didn’t notice this shit at all when I was playing the game. Apparently, according to what I have read online, there are multiple pathways that you can take in the game, to reach new areas and potentially hidden goodies, but I for the life of me didn’t see that at all in the main game. Yeah, I know there are hidden bonus stages that you can find in order to get more points, but most of the game seems like a clear straight shot from beginning to end, just like with the first two games, so either these branching paths are really well hidden, or I am just incredibly stupid. I will let you all in the comment section decide for yourself why it is the latter option rather than the former.

With all that out of the way though, most of the game is still your basic beat-’em-up through and through at the end of the day, meaning there isn’t really that much here for you to be excited about or want to try out if you weren’t too big into the previous two games. Yeah, the new moves and branching paths do make the game more fun and replayable, but in an era were there were already so many different beat-’em-ups out there, this one doesn’t do anything to make itself stand out from the crowd other than being “another Final Fight”, which is fine for me, but it probably wouldn’t be for others. Also, in terms of actual problems with the game, the dialogue that shows up in the cutscenes in this game is TERRIBLE, holy shit! Like, I am well aware that plenty of games back in the day had mistranslations up the whazoo, which is fine, but I don’t remember this ever being an issue for Final Fight before, yet it is plain as day here. Seriously, it even goes as far as being Mega Man and SNK levels of bad, it is hilarious. Look up the cutscenes at some point later, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

Overall, despite its lack of major change and some horrible translations for the dialogue, Final Fight 3 is still a decent beat-’em-up and entry in this series all around, with plenty of stages to go through with a buddy, while also not feeling like they last forever (cough, Final Fight 2, cough), plenty of new moves to try out, and just that overall energy and sense of fun that these games haven’t failed to deliver on just yet. I would recommend it for those who were big fans of the previous two games, as well as those who are big beat-’em-up fans in general, because while it isn’t too revolutionary or unique, it can still provide a decent hour of entertainment, especially with a buddy along for the ride. After all that though, I’m just wondering what the next game in the series is gonna- AAAAAAAND it’s a fighting game, GODDAMMIT, CAPCOM! Look, I get it, the games take place in the Street Fighter universe, so it makes sense, but not everything needs to be a fighting game! There’s only so much punching and kicking and killing one can do before they grow completely numb to it, I swear….

Game #597

Omne... save me...

BAYONETTA 2! Oh, where do I begin? Well, lets start AFTER the release of Bayonetta 1. After Devil May Cry 4 disappointed several folks (although I think its a solid game so far), Bayonetta rose from the ashes to create a legitimately great alternative for the character action game fans out there. Almost everyone loved Bayonetta when it dropped, critics, fans, dogs and cats, everybody. So it’d be a no-brainer to make a sequel with an even grander scope. This is also the first of the followi ng two titles in the franchise that were funded in part by Nintendo, and thus, are Nintendo-exclusive. No PC, PS4 or Xbox One version in sight. It's not an unexpected move, as Nintendo did fund the project after all, and hey, like I said, emulation is free. So, while the exclusivity did sting a little, it made sense. And, thank the lord, Bayonetta 2 looks and runs phenomenally on Wii U and the 2018 Switch port. It's a big step up from the Xbox 360 and- ugh, the PS3 version. You know, the one with a 30FPS cap (sometimes not even reaching that) and sub 720p graphics? That was a fucking mess. But with Bayonetta 2’s release on Wii U and Switch, they went out of their way to port Bayonetta 1 as well, and if you bought Bayonetta 2 physically, you got Bayonetta 1 for FREE! A great move by Platinum, and hey, the Wii U version is pretty good! Overshadowed by the subsequent versions, but there's some all new Nintendo-fied costumes. Bayonetta made the most graceful transition to the Wii U possible, but that’s to speak of the quality of Bayonetta 2 itself. Because, truth be told, Bayonetta 2... is AMAZING! Bayonetta 2 kicks off even greater than Bayonetta 1. After festive lesbianism occurs, the first level kicks off with Bayonetta and Jeanne riding on fighter jets. Show this to anyone who doesn't know what the hell Bayonetta is and watch their faces change and shift, as random shit just happens. But it’s a joy to watch. The cool shots, Bayonetta jumping up to the sky naked, uhhhhh yeah it’s GOATED. And when Moon River starts blasting, you KNOW your girl is back and better than ever.

Bayonetta 2 retains a majority of its predecessor’s systems. Like Bayonetta, the delay based combos return. For a quick rundown, punching, waiting, and then punching again results in a different, stronger combo compared to 3 punches in a row, with this philosophy applying to a majority of the combos. Spam is discouraged, therefore creating the perfect skill curve with combat. That was great about Bayonetta, and I'm glad to see that it returns in 2, however, Bayonetta 2 adds a new mechanic to make these awesome combos easier. The Umbran Climax is a rather controversial mechanic within the community, to be honest. But damn, if I can't help but absolutely love it. At the cost of a full magic meter, all of your attacks become souped up Wicked weaves, and tearing down a crowd of enemies never gets old to me. But I can't help but feel it's pretty unbalanced. Yeah, that's kind of the point, but I can't help but feel that it's a bit too braindead for my tastes. While the delay based combos are still present with Umbran Climax, they’re much less useful given the clear benefits of a strong AOE presence, so you’re incentivized to keep spamming attacks, because Umbran Climax only lasts so long. One last nitpick, taking damage while in Umbran Climax needs to have a better indicator. You don't take knockback during Umbran Climax, so it's usually hard to tell when you take damage. This only gets somewhat annoying for scoring purposes, but it's whatever if you're playing casually. I’m not saying to make her invincible, but some kind of score mitigation would be pretty nice. I'd also like to note that Bayonetta herself is also slightly weaker than the prior game to compensate for Umbran Climax, as well. To be honest, it’s not really noticeable in the game to game action, but Bayonetta does slightly less damage overall, including her Wicked Weaves. Adding onto this nerf is the ability for enemies to block attacks, which is something that I was surprised wasn’t in the original game. This keeps the player on their toes, and I really like how Bayonetta 2 still attempts to throw the player off at certain points. One of the better additions in Bayonetta 2 is the weapons.

Sure, weapons were in the original Bayonetta, but Bayonetta 2 greatly expands on this mechanic, as most of the weapons are cheaper and easier to get than ever before. I'm sad to say that I was never able to use the awesome chainsaws in Bayonetta 2, but the rest of the weapons are pretty great, at the very least. I really loved the Dual Swords at first, because you can charge it up and do an oh-so powerful slash straight through your enemies. But once I got the 3 Pronged Scythe, that’s all I used. At least on my Hands, because with my feet, I still wielded the Swords. The Scythe is awesome, if you hold it out for a bit, you shoot out 3 projectiles out of the Scythe a devastating attack for most foes, and it’s also fast as fuck, one of the best weapons in the game, here. I never took a liking to the Bow, as ranged combat in Bayonetta is pretty lame in my opinion, but the Flamethrowers were neat, and the whip is incredibly strong, too. Because of this, the combat feels a lot more dynamic and diverse, adding to the already high variety of Bayonetta 1. Also, can we talk about the improvements from Bayonetta 1? The bosses feel much improved here. No longer are they just massive moving hurtboxes, they actually feel a lot more fun to fight here. With Umbran Climax, it’s a lot easier to turn the tides in your favor, and the bosses feel so much more dynamic here. From flying in the sky, to surfing on a piece of board, Bayonetta 2 never stays in one area of gameplay for long, although there is a slight problem with Bayonetta 2’s combat. It’s highly reliant on Witch Time. Now, I love Witch Time as much as the next guy, but having it be almost mandatory to survive took a lot of the fun out of it. Nailing that perfect dodge was never necessary, but it was fun because it felt like a massive “up yours” to the enemy for being aggressive. Bayonetta 2 exhibits a similar feeling, but to a slightly lesser degree, as Witch Time is required to dodge certain attacks. It’s not too apparent, but it did feel a little lame when I noticed. But overall, Bayonetta 2’s combat is just as strong as beforehand, just like the fantastic enemy design of Bayonetta. It definitely has it’s issues, but yeah, this is great! But if there’s one issue I can point to with Bayonetta 2, it’s undoubtedly it’s difficulty.

The biggest disappointment is Bayonetta 2’s very low difficulty. Bayonetta was a very difficult game for newcomers, but very satisfying to master. Bayonetta 2 feels pretty tame in this regard. The difficulty has seen a severe drop from Bayonetta. I’d say Hard Mode Bayonetta 2 is more comparable to Bayonetta’s Normal difficulty. But there also lies an issue with Bayonetta 2’s score system. ITEMS. In Bayonetta, using items was a travesty upon your rank. It counted as a Death, but Bayonetta 2 entirely removes this aspect of scoring, a dumb as hell move in my eyes. Healing is fine to not count, as there’s a damage rank anyways, but being invincible, or super powered, or UMBRAN CLIMAX for free should absolutely be punished by the game. Sure, it definitely sucked to get Stone Ranks all of the time in Bayonetta 1, but it felt equally as great to do everything perfectly and get the Gold Rank. With Bayonetta 2, very rarely did I get anything below a Silver Rank. Does improving as a player have anything to do with that? Yeah, maybe. But even then, I made frequent use of items and still made it out with the game congratulating my for my efforts. In my opinion, for this to work, there either needed to be a significant item nerf, or items need to be made waaaaaay worse. But thankfully, the final boss is still just as difficult as ever, and now that’s my cue to to talk about the endgame

God, Bayonetta 2’s finale is almost perfect. No dawdling over some stupid, unfun Space Harrier clone, no boss rush, just constant, non-stop action throughout, and I love it. Rather than your typical boss rush, in Chapter 14, they go to the past, with you controlling a mech, and it's not just a fun distraction either. It still retains all of the same, delay based combos that Bayonetta has. Rather than changing up the gameplay style non-stop, they instead add to it, making Bayonetta 2 an incredibly focused game. The level design is so much more wider and expansive, encouraging exploration, but never slow down one bit. And this applies to the final boss, too. Like Bayonetta, the one on one fights with the Lumen Sage lead up to the final chapter, where another one on one fight commences before the second phase. And when the true phase kicks in, the fight against Aesir, it’s awesome. It’s another one on one fight, and for once in it’s runtime, Bayonetta 2 actually gets pretty damn difficult. I actually died a few times here, and I like that higher difficulty. But of course, like Bayonetta 1, a giant hair god, OMNE!!!!!, with womanly proportions (god, I love this game) is summoned, giving Aesir the good old Wizard’s Foot. Okay, last Smash Bros joke, I swe- SUDDENLY, JEANNE! Riding on a goddamn plane, too. She finishes the deal. summoning another hair demon, and fast forward a few months later, MORE Festive lesbianis- SUDDENLY, PLANE! AND ANGELS! Well, you know how this ends. LET’S DANCE, GENTLEMEN!


Despite my qualms with Bayonetta 2, especially when it comes to higher level play, Bayonetta 2 is a more than worthy sequel to the original. Each time I turned off the game, I wanted to hop back in as soon as possible, because the game is THAT good. The greater depth, the incredible visuals and music, and the awesome as hell combat left me satisfied and clamoring for more. It's hard to look at Bayonetta 2 without comparing it to it's elder sister, but I think it's a toss up as to which one I prefer. As a casual player, I found Bayonetta 2 to be a lot more inviting, but Bayonetta's high difficulty made me incredibly satisfied when I completed it. It's a very tough choice, especially as someone who's seen hardcore Bayonetta players compare it to the first game (completely understandable ftr), but I have to give the very, VERY slight edge to Bayonetta 2. Sure, it may be easier, but it's far from braindead, and the difficulty is more than made up for with better gameplay. Hell, that's my opinion, though. At the end of the day, I still love both of them equally, and I recommend giving each a playthrough for sure. Once again, a must play.

Well... the Bayonetta series has been going pretty well, but that positivity ends with Bayonetta 3. Spoiler alert, but if you've been stalking my log, you know I gave it a 5/10, and I have a LOT to say about it. Nothing good, though. So, yeah. Welp, I'mma get back to writing it. But I hope you enjoyed this review, it was a little delayed, but most of that time went into Bayonetta 3. So I hope you look forward to that, so in the meantime, I'll see myself out. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you later.

Caraca, que jogo divertido! Portal é um jogo que marcou muita gente e trás muita nostalgia para alguns. Porém, eu nunca havia jogado, então resolvi dar uma chance a ele, por muita indicação e curiosidade. E realmente, o jogo é muito divertido, e possui mecânicas muito legais e criativas, assim como os puzzles que são incríveis e alguns extremamente desafiadores, mas com as possibilidades que temos com a Portal Gun, podemos concluir os níveis com maestria, além da história, que apesar de não ser o foco, também é muito legal. O jogo é bem curto e antigo, mas segue divertido e criativo até hoje. Se procura algo diferente e muito legal, eu super recomendo jogarem Portal.

With the release of the remake of Thousand Year Door, I figured it'd be prudent to go back to the original and see the origins of Paper Mario for myself. With my first entry into the series being Super Paper Mario, I was, of course, expecting a more primitive experience with this, which it is, but in that very charming early 2000s Nintendo way where the polygonal style of the graphics really adds to the whole aesthetic in a cute and appealing way.

Story-wise, Paper Mario is as simple as they come, at least by Mario standards. Bowser has kidnapped Peach once again, and you must unite the macguffins and gather allies in order to save her. Even at the time, surely that premise was getting long in the tooth, but nevertheless, it's Paper Mario's storybook aesthetic and charming cast of characters that really make it something special.

There are 8 different characters that come along for the ride across the 8 different lands you travel to, each with their own combat abilities as well as overworld abilities that assist you in puzzle-solving and traversal. They're all great fun to use, with neat little backstories to them once you meet up, and they really help to keep things continually fresh throughout, with the pacing moving at a good clip.

The turn-based battle system is one of the Paper Mario games' big draws and here, even at its most simplistic, it's still great fun thanks to the 'action commands', which help in keeping your attention by encouraging timing-based button presses to either strengthen your attacks or your defence. Getting the right timing down can be easier said than done, however, and its probably my biggest qualm with the game. To be clear, it's right on cue when you need it to be more often than it isn't, but there are quite a few enemies with continuous attacks that require a series of precise presses, and those can be tricky to hit.

Whether this is down to the Nintendo Switch Online N64 emulation or the game itself is up for debate, as apparently the emulator introduces input latency and frame drops that weren't present in the original. Again, it's doable and not a huge hindrance, but it can be irritating.

Naturally, with 8 worlds to visit and roughly 2-3 hours of content in each, there are bound to be missteps and yes, not all the worlds are as entertaining; the flower world is one such example that is a bit of a slog since you have to backtrack a lot and solve puzzles that aren't always clear (such as the hedge maze). But still, quality does beat out quantity here, thankfully, even if some parts could do with shaving around the edges.

Overall, Paper Mario is endlessly charming, with lovely art direction and fun RPG-lite gameplay. There's definitely room for improvement in the battle system, level design and the writing (which was a little too simple and cutesy, but I don't particularly hold that against it, especially for Mario), but for a first outing, it's just pure Mario goodness.

8/10

This is a fairly mediocre version of Tetris. You've got a handful of game modes plus online play and that's kind of it. I had to guess what most of the game modes were though, since the game doesn't actually include a description of any of them. The music is pretty bland, and the visuals consist of mostly stock art that looks like the stuff you'd see on an apple tv in standby mode. An unfortunate side affect of this being exclusive to the Xbox 360 is that you need to play it with the 360 d-pad, which is way to sluggish and clunky to work well in the later levels of marathon mode. Definitely not my go-to Tetris game.

Blasphemous is an absolute anomaly for me. I love me some Metroidvanias but I always want either the movement options or combat to be high level for me to really enjoy it. Blasphemy’s movement is as basic as it gets and the combat is virtually one combo, hit, parry, hit, repeat. But for some reason even though this game does neither of those things this game just hits. While the combat isn’t impressive I appreciate the difficulty in boss battles, i appreciate the fact that for many bosses you will probably fail once or twice but you learn just enough to quickly pick up the right ideas to come back and go toe to toe with them. The boss fights are my favorite part of this game as they all feel quite a bit different and visually are very unique and well designed. While the combat and movement don’t always hit the third huge part of Metroidvanias, exploration, was very good. The map isn’t huge but it’s end up being bigger than you’d think and it’s full of secrets.

The art in this game is extremely good. The gothic culty religious themes they went for hit. Main characters and bosses are very unique and carefully designed. Each area is eerie yet beautiful. It has an overall pretty good sound track with a few top notch songs. Superb voice acting by the entire cast.

The best way I’ve heard a description of this game is through the awesome FallenGrace “A little Castlevania, a little Dark Souls.” If you are a fan of either of those series or Metroidvanias in general I would say this is a definite recommendation from me that you should play.

My 2024 ranked:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2024-ranked-1/

My Metroidvanias ranked:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/-metroidvanias-ive-played-ranked-/