I waited a long time to finally put my hands on this game, and good lord did it not disappoint. This really is the best direction HAL could've taken for Kirby's transition to full 3D, controlling Kirby the entire game just feels so natural and responsive, and the camera angle choices aid to that panoramic feel of a level quite a lot, also Kirby can now parry and it's pure GAS.
Even though the game never feels challenging (except for the third Arena tournament), the game shows a good balance in difficulty between worlds, with no steep difficulty curves to only let you focus on having more of a relaxing and fun time rather than a tedious one, which is what Kirby has been more of as a series. Even the bosses follow this rule while also compensating with interesting character designs and very varied movesets.
In terms of content, Forgotten Land offers a very wide variety of it, sometimes in a chain reaction fashion: The imprisoned Waddle Dees you save on every level are sent to a little town they help to construct, giving you access to additional stuff you can interact with like a Restaurant, a pond for fishing, and even a workshop to upgrade your copy abilities, and it's amazing to me because of how well executed and cute it all is. There are also portals to obtain rare stones for the worshop, hidden tasks to save more of the Waddle Dees and even more levels after you beat the main game!

To summarize on a humorous note, this game made me realize that in order to make your platformer good, there is two key components you gotta include: an extremely banger soundtrack and an unlockable little fishing mini-game 🐟
Kirby and the Forgotten Land has both.

Heartbreaking. After playing through the first DOOM RPG I was left genuinely at a loss when it came to thinking of what they could have possibly improved upon to create a bigger, better sequel. Maybe take out some of the level grinding, but even that wasn't too much of an issue in what is basically still the most perfect transition to another genre any franchise has ever made thus far as of this writing. So, the most I reasonably expected to get here was a follow-up that would simply end up being just more of the same. A good, fun time, but nothing to really write home about due to the familiarity. Certainly wouldn't have guessed they would try to radically redefine the experience in ways that ultimately left me highly disappointed. This is such a letdown.

Underneath its flashy exterior of impressive, stylish graphics and frequent cutscenes that make it a technical marvel by J2ME standards, lies a hollow interior where all the new features such as hacking minigames, three playable characters/classes (that really offer no distinguishable differences outside of maybe the occasional line of dialogue from NPCs), and the ability to loot dead bodies provide merely the illusion of added depth. Yeah, they got rid of the leveling grinding, but in the process made leveling up at all feel totally pointless. The change to a linear campaign structure with no option to backtrack to previously completed stages for extra EXP means there's only ever a set amount you’ll be able to acquire at any given time. Therefore, it’s essentially predetermined how strong you can be at specific points. Arrive at a particularly difficult boss or encounter and you’re supposed to rely on special “nano drink” consumables that grant massive temporary stat boosts rather than the work you put into building yourself up beforehand. It causes the whole thing to come off as cheap and overly scripted.

The same great turn-based action remains however, so it’s not a complete wash. As a result, I think my biggest problem might just be how this simply doesn’t feel like DOOM anymore. That irritating element of silly comedy that reared its ugly little head here and there in the preceding RPG has spread like a virus to every inch of this subsequent adventure. From squirt guns filled with holy water that give enemies googly eyes to searching dead bodies solely to turn up useless joke items like pocket lint or severed fingers, the tone is overall extremely goofy in a similar manner to how nearly all our modern movies and TV shows are now since the MCU reshaped the Hollywood blockbuster formula. For those such as myself who prefer the mix of ‘80s action machismo and horror the property is typically known for, this is disgraceful.

They haven't necessarily created an outright bad game here. Honestly, by all reasonable and fair standards it's entirely competent across the board. Their efforts to expand upon the original while making it more appealing to the masses though, has dreadfully stripped it of its soul. Undoubtedly among the strongest proof I've yet seen that sometimes less is in fact actually more.

6/10

Before moving on from Postal 2 for a bit to see what the later entries in the franchise have to offer, there was one last stone I had to turn over. This officially licensed Russian expansion from, get this, Akella and one of its own internal studios. Yeah, that’s right. The company responsible for the nigh universally hated Postal III. After playing this though, it's not hard to see why Running with Scissors might have thought they'd be up to the task of making the third main installment. It’s actually quite solid.

That's because this is more along the lines of a fan-made total conversion mod than anything. The new protagonist even uses the exact same character model as the Dude despite what the cover art shows for crying out loud. So, this is enjoyable simply because base P2 is enjoyable. That’s not to say there aren’t any distinguishing characteristics to make it worthwhile. You can tell most of the effort went into the entirely original map. I’ve never been to Russia, but this looks like nearly every picture I’ve seen of a typical Russian town and considering it was made by actual citizens from there I’d wager it’s a pretty accurate, if somewhat satirized given the property’s brand, depiction that’s a blast to explore. There are also a ton of cool new NPC models to check out, a few of which are surprisingly detailed and well done.

I think the biggest thing people will have a problem with here is the writing. So far this is the most immature piece of the Postal series I’ve experienced, and I highly doubt that will differ by the time I’m finished with my marathon through it. The plot which puts you in the role of an amnesiac ex-pornstar on a quest to recover his missing manhood after awaking to find himself the victim of an unwanted sex-change operation feels as if it was penned by a bunch of twelve-year-olds. The "comedy" frequently dips into homophobic and borderline transphobic “jokes” because that was the sort of thing that was funny back in the 2000s, especially in countries like that. Plus, there’s a shocking amount of smut as well. RWS was prone to throwing up images of those half-naked IRL models they used to promote the games with on walls here and there, but Corkscrew Rules regularly displays blatant pornography in the form of fully nude women on its posters and billboards!

So, should you check this out? Only if you can handle what is easily the most offensive content any Postal game has to offer. Not to mention, it can be kind of a pain to get a translated/dubbed version running if you too aren't very computer savvy since the one on Steam's Workshop is broken (although not being able to understand the dialogue would probably be a plus). For better and worse though, this is essentially Russian Postal 2 and it's pretty fascinating because of that.

7/10

Random notes you may find interesting:

- The campaign only goes from Monday to Thursday rather than the whole workweek

- Objectives are doled out in a linear manner, and even when you are given the option to visit more than a single place at a time you're supposed to do it in a specific order.

- In the original, unmodified version you can't pee and there are only three new weapons, but in the tweaked English-dubbed release they reskinned a couple guns to better fit the setting, added a drunk visual effect whenever you drink vodka, and gave you the ability to urinate, but only straight down (because you have a vagina instead of a penis).

- Believe it or not, there is a legitimately humorous bit where every secretary you talk to in a business just sends you to a different one on another floor before you can eventually reach "the boss" you were looking for in the first place. It stands as the sole clever moment in the entire package.

Hearing that new video game system you’re about to buy comes with a free title designed to show off its special capabilities likely calls to mind some paltry minigame compilation à la Welcome Park on PS Vita. Sony has actually preloaded their latest home console with a full-fledged 3D collect-a-thon platformer of remarkable quality though! It may not end up being as iconic as Wii Sports, but is a very welcome member of the PS5’s library nonetheless.

It feels like a gleeful celebration of the company’s long history. Not in a supercilious, self-aggrandizing way, but in a manner more akin to sitting down with an old friend and reminiscing fond memories. Everywhere you look there’s an Easter egg or deep cut reference that’s been lovingly placed there to bring a smile to the face of any abiding PlayStation devotee while reminding them of the types of experiences they can’t get anywhere else.

As delightful as all of that is though, it’s the gameplay that matters most and if that didn’t hold up then this package would carry no value. Astro’s Playroom manages to succeed due to spacing out the stages meant to make use of the controller’s unique functions with excellent traditional ones that you can explore and grab things in at your leisure. The levels that see you tilting the DualSense and playing around with its touchpad and adaptive triggers admittedly are a tad gimmicky (especially those dang frog suit sections), but remain fun in spite of that by never outstaying their welcome.

Another aspect that really impressed me was the sheer amount of interactivity. In the starting hub area alone, you can smack all of the little Bots to have them tag along behind you and amass a huge horde of followers. What purpose does this serve? None as far as I can tell! It's just a single example of the many neat little features the devs have included that allow you to find extra amusement in engaging with your surroundings. It's something I wish more games would do.

This might also be the perfect length, striking that nice balance between charming demo you spend a little time with before moving on to the games you actually bought the console for and a more fulfilling offering that can keep you coming back for a few additional hours via the healthy amount of collectibles to hunt down. AP won't be on any top ten of the PS5's lifespan lists when all is said and done, yet is a fantastic freebie regardless that there's absolutely no reason for you to not check out if you own the hardware.

9/10

Man... I've been single too long. I got the "simp" ending as I'm dubbing it, as shamed as I am to admit it.

This game was super cool. The visuals were eerie and serene at the same time. The music and presentation complimented each other in both the horror and romantic elements. The hand drawn art had and an incredibly unique and consistent style.

I have a hard time labelling this as "horror," though. It was creepy at times but never made me too scared. The writing at times was clever and other times felt like it got caught up in its own riddles. I'm still not quite sure what the truly happened at the end, but I also think that's part of what makes it an effective art piece. I'll certainly be thinking about this game for a while and, after sitting with it for some time, am excited to see how I analyze it.

As far as gameplay goes, this is a visual novel so it's not much more than clicking dialogue options. However, one thing I was impressed with was how many different options there are. Often times in games like this, it'll give you a "good" and "bad" option, but never much more than that; in this game I felt like they give you a wide array of options spanning all the gray in between the black and white. This made for more compelling choices and I found it stressful to make decisions at times.

The two voice actors in this game both performed excellently; without their commitment the game may not have worked. The Princess conveyed both creepiness and innocence and the voices in your head each had their own flair. Only critique is I wish their was more distinction between The Narrator and the Hero. Every other voice in your head felt unique, but the two most common voices felt a bit similar.

Overall, this was quite a ride. I found myself making choices based on feeling more than logic and that's irregular to how my brain usually works. I think it's a testament to the game that it made me think differently than normal.

Taking any sort of dormant franchise and bringing it back into the “modern” era is always a risky move, no matter what the franchise in question is, but it was clear that Rare was able to pull this off seamlessly with the original Donkey Kong Country for the SNES. Sure, the bosses may have been lacking in plenty of areas, and there is some bullshit to be found when it comes to some of the secrets, but all of that is made up for with the game’s tight platformer, superb gameplay, wonderful gimmicks, impressive graphics for the time, and wonderful music, tying everything up together in one, banana-flavored package that many have enjoyed ever since it had initially released. Not only that, but the game was also extremely successful, selling over 9.3 MILLION copies, so it was clear that both Rare and Nintendo needed to keep this money train rolling with a sequel of some kind. However, this is the part of Rare’s life as a company where they were going to go through a bit of character development: they were sitting on a gold mine with this property, so they couldn’t just hash out something cheap and terrible like they did with Battletoads. They needed to make sure that this game was better than the rest, the true king of the jungle, one that can stand amongst the greatest of the greats, and personally, if you were to ask me, I think they succeeded in doing that and then some with Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest.

While I did get the original DKC as one of the first games on my SNES, and I would go onto playing it a lot because of that, I initially didn’t get DKC2 for quite some time, even though I was well aware of it existing for a while. It was only when another video game convention managed to roll through my town a good couple of years ago that I was able to snag myself a physical copy of the game to try it out, and HOT DAMN, I definitely should’ve hopped on it a lot sooner before then. The original game was already great enough as is, but this game manages to take everything that game did, expand upon it, and improve upon every criticism that I could have with that game, making for what I would say is not only a perfect sequel, but also a masterpiece of the platforming genre.

The story is just that little more complex when compared to the extremely simplistic premise of DKC 1, where while relaxing on the beach, Donkey Kong is suddenly ambushed and kidnapped by a group of Kremlings, who take him to the dastardly Kaptain K. Rool. Shortly after this, he then sends a message to the other Kongs, saying that if they want to ever see DK again, they need to give him the banana hoard that he failed to get from the previous game, which the Kongs refuse to give up, so it is up to Diddy Kong now, alongside his girlfriend Dixie Kong, to travel through the lands of Crocodile Isle, save DK, and defeat Kaptain K. Rool once and for all. It is still a very basic premise, one that decided it wanted to be even more like Mario and involve a kidnapping of some kind, but it is still an effective story, and not gonna lie, having the main character of the previous game be the one that needs rescuing in this is a bit of a nice twist.

The graphics are pretty great, looking on par with the original game in many different aspects, but also expanding on the visuals with much more creative environment, character, enemy and boss designs, with great animations paired right alongside them as well, the music is fantastic once again, having plenty of incredible tracks that range from the menacing and exciting like this one, to the much more calm and serene like this one, all of which are an absolute joy to listen to even after all this time, and the gameplay/control is just as tight, fun, and masterfully put together as last time, not only providing plenty of fun levels and gimmicks for you to mess with ahead, but also plenty of challenges ahead that will make you feel like a true champ for conquering.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of either Diddy Kong once again or Dixie Kong, go through many different worlds of varying shape and size, each having a very different, unique theme that makes them stand out from each other, while also not feeling like complete copies of what came before in the previous game, defeat plenty of enemies using various techniques while gathering plenty of different bananas, collectibles, animal buddies, and power-ups along the way to help you out, run into many other members of the Kong family such as Funky Kong, who is STILL the coolest motherfucker on the planet, Wrinkly Kong, the one that reminds you of all the horrible teachers that you had back in school, and Swanky Kong, the one that will prove to you just how much of a dumbass you really are, who will each help you out in their own way (except for Cranky again, who I’m surprised hasn’t dropped dead from a heart attack at this point), and take on plenty of bosses who, unlike the last game, are not only very fun to fight, but also have a level of creativity to them that makes taking them each on feel incredibly fun and rewarding. As any good sequel does, this game takes all the great elements from the previous game and retains all of their great qualities, while expanding on them just enough to make it even better than before, and trust me, back when I first played this a long time ago after only having the original game some time, I was FLOORED by just how massive the jump in quality really was, despite not being all too clear by just looking at it.

For starters, since he is now the damsel in distress of this game, you can’t play as DK anymore, which does kinda suck, but hey, at least you still get to play as Diddy Kong, who still plays just as wonderfully as he did in that original game, being very nimble and quick. Not only that, but we now also have Dixie Kong in the crew, who when you start to play as for the first time, you will decide from there on out to ONLY play as Dixie Kong whenever you get the chance, because she is AWESOME in this game. Not only does she have all the same strengths (and weaknesses) as Diddy Kong, but she can also twirl around in the air with her hair, allowing her to safely glide over plenty of obstacles, which, by default, makes her the better character to play as. It’s just like when you discover how Peach can float in Super Mario Bros. 2: it is just broken enough to where you will stick with it for the whole game, and you will accept no other alternatives……….. except when you are forced to.

The game features just as many different kinds of levels as you would find in the original game, this time featuring plenty of new, creative gimmicks that do make it feel a lot more exciting and fun to play. Of course, at first, you just get your standard kinds of levels, where you just run through, jumping on enemies, collecting things, and watching Diddy perform a rap at the end of the stage, just as a means of getting you back into the groove of things, which it manages to do so very smoothly. This then leads onto the levels then quickly spicing things up, with levels where you will have to change the temperature of the water via some magic seals, making it so that you gotta make a mad dash through before you end up dead, levels where you have to ascend up a pirate ship quickly before the water catches up to you so that the piranhas will eat you, levels where you will have to maneuver on hot air balloons to catch hot steam over molten lava, and even levels where you are riding a roller coaster while being chased by a creepy spector, needing to hit checkmark barrels to open gates to avoid your own ghastly demise. Those are only just SOME of the gimmicks that you will encounter with the levels in this game, and they are much more fun to mess around with this time, making the game feel more like a proper evolution of what came before it other then just a simple retread.

This can also be seen in the game’s difficulty, because this game is HARD AS FUCK, even more so compared to DKC 1. Sure, there are plenty of easy levels that you will run into that will take no time to beat, but even by the second world of the game, you will be running into plenty of tricky platforming challenges, enemies that you can’t take out as easily as you would like to, gimmicks that push you to the limit in many different ways, even forcing you to play as certain animal buddies in some levels, and then you add getting the collectibles on top of that, and that adds a whole nother layer to the difficulty in many different instances. This even extends further beyond what you would expect to see from traditional video game difficulty, which can be seen with the simple aspect of saving the game, where you initially can save the game normally once in each world, but then after that one time, you then have to pay banana coins each time, making it so that you will now focus on collecting these things much more in levels, which can lead to plenty of other roadblocks as well. Hell, if that doesn’t convince you enough, how about the fact that there is an enemy in this game who, if he touches you, can zap away your lives from your life counter until you ultimately have nothing left? That is just one of the many cruel ways that this game can fuck you over if you aren’t ready.

However, with all that being said, the harsh difficulty that the game presents you with is one of the reasons why the game is so fantastic to begin with. It truly feels like you are being presented with a challenge, where the original DKC could be seen as the training grounds for you to get used to how this kind of game works and what it could throw your way, and now this game is the true test of everything you have learned, throwing whatever it can at you to kill you, while also giving you everything that you need to conquer every single challenge you face. It never feels unfair in that regard, which makes playing through these levels much more fun, especially whenever you do eventually succeed in beating some of these challenges, as the wave of satisfaction washes over you, making you feel like you truly have accomplished something here today, and that feeling carries out through most of the game.

But of course, what would a DKC game be without having some sort of collectible, and this game has plenty of them for you to find. There are still the many different bonus areas you can find, each giving you a Kremkoin for beating them, as well as the new DK coins that you can get in each level, which if you get enough of them, you can place yourself amongst the others in the Video Game Heroes Contest, allowing you to beat out Mario, Yoshi, Link, and even non-Nintendo characters like Sonic and Earthworm Jim. It’s a pretty cute easter egg to get, and it does prove once and for all that DKC is better then all of those other games, and you can’t change that fact no matter what you say. That’s not all the reward you can get though, as with the Kremkoins in hand, you can then gain access to the Lost World, a bonus world of the game that houses some of the hardest levels in the entire game, such as one level where you have to complete multiple sections as each of the animal buddies that you found throughout the whole game. Needless to say, these levels are no joke, but again, completing them only adds to the satisfaction you feel throughout, and helps you stand on top as the best Video Game Hero of all time.

Overall, if I haven’t made it clear enough at this point, this is a near-perfect sequel to the original DKC in just about every way, and one of the best games that you could find from the SNES era, not only providing many more fun levels to run through, exciting boss fights, incredible music, and gameplay that is as fresh and tight as ever, but it also provides quite a hefty challenge that feels oh so satisfying to overcome, leading to plenty of neat rewards waiting around the corner. I would absolutely recommend it, not just for those who played and loved the original DKC, but also to anyone in general, because it is just that damn good to where if you haven’t tried it out at least once, then do yourself a favor and load it up, possibly with a friend to join you, and get ready to have a blast. satisfied sigh... man, it felt great to revisit this game again after so long, and it really has me looking forward to what comes next in this series. I mean, come on, how could they possibly screw it up at this point now?............... oh right, with a stupid little fuck named Kiddie Kong, that’s how.

Game #586

Think the best way of articulating why I find this supposedly old/outdated fighter sick as someone who came to it without ever having played a subsequent SNK fighter is the infamous Geese Howard boss fight. In a vacuum, he's as cheap as its reputation would lead you to believe: his Reppuken has damage output that's approximately one third of your health as well as range high enough for it to severely limit your options against him and he can also casually invalidate the attacks you manage to land on him with a throw that does comparable damage to the Reppuken. Prepare to see that screen of your character falling out the window often.
However, the more times you die to him, the more predictable (no pun intended) his AI starts to become. If you jump forward and attack, he will always go forward and attack. If you try to approach him by using a special, he'll prevent you from doing so with the Reppuken. If you stand still, he'll do the same for a bit before making his move. So you have to pick up on every little quirk on his AI and find out how to bait him into a situation where he gets hit. While the sheer damage of his heavy hitting attacks would seem unfair, getting one hit on him more often than not means throwing him out of his comfort zone and turning that one hit into multiple, thus doing a similar amount of damage to what he would have done to you with one hit. If you keep this up, you can even get him into a situation where your special move will land on the early frames of his Reppuken, interrupting said attack. Through this plan of attack as well as, my noob at fighting games ass was able to eventually 2-0 him and throw him out the window like he did to me 28 times.
With its small player roster of three characters and its arcade mode that faces you off against opponents designed with no expectations of being playable, Fatal Fury 1 feels like it was designed as a single player game first and with multiplayer as an afterthought. And I am being 100% unironic when I say this design philosophy makes me feel like I became a better fighting game player, be it through learning how to exploit the habits of seemingly unbeatable opponents or by building up the ability to press buttons faster to make the most of those small moments of vulnerability when they pop up. As someone whose engagement with fighting games has usually been respecting them from the sidelines and/or having a quick laugh in a run of arcade mode on the lowest difficulty, I truly get them now.