(sega mega drive & genesis classics 56/58)

Wonder Boy in Monster World ditches the arcade-style gameplay of Monster Lair and goes for more of an adventure game approach, featuring light RPG elements, and I don't really know how I feel about it. I certainly didn't like having to go back and forth killing enemies to collect more gold. Not helping much is that you move pretty slowly. This whole game moves pretty slowly, honestly. I don't think the execution was that poor, but I kind of wish it was a more straightforward platformer or something.

The final boss is probably one of the most cluelessly designed video game moments I've ever seen. There's just so much nonsense on screen at the same time (including a frequently switching conveyor belt with a saw) that it all just juggles you around and makes short work of you before you can even regain control of yourself. Then, you start back up again at the last place you saved, which even at the nearest inn is a long, tedious walk back to the final boss, all just to eat shit again and loop the process around. I genuinely think this part might have not been playtested. I don't see how it ended up this way with nobody on the team thinking, "hmm, maybe this is a bit overkill." Perhaps they were just too busy designing those racist caricatures of natives you find in the forest levels.

I don't know if I think this is a better game than Monster Lair. They both have problems that settle them down at the same rating for me, and I wouldn't ever really be in a rush to replay either.

Last two games to do in the compilation are Landstalker and Ecco the Dolphin. God help me.

This game feels like playing a musou but with 3 enemies at a time. It's probably the easiest PS2 game I've ever played, including children's games - I also know for a fact VIIcels (/ˈsɛvᵊnsɛlz/ SEHVEHNCELLS; Japanese: クソオタク) would eat it up if it was just on the PSP and featured Sephiroth or Zack Fair for a single second.

Story is probably the worst dribble Kitase and Nomura ever scraped together, and I don't say that lightly. It's unintentionally funny every other cutscene. At one point Vincent is attacked by a dog from behind, and within one second he stomps on its head, kicks it 5 meters into the air and juggles it with his revolver DMC style. I laughed so hard I accidentally grabbed a nearby rope and in a fit of giggles put it in a noose around my neck. Close one! I nearly passed out during the final act, overwhelmed by the powerful retardation brainfryer beam-weapon that I know for a fact Square Enix installed directly in the code of this game.

It's genuinely rare to see this much budget spent on such a piece of garbage. There's so many extremely expensive cutscenes, including full (near) Advent Children level CGI, and it's all spent this fucking thing. It's possibly the worst thing to ever bear the Final Fantasy name. I award this game half a star for every cutscene Yuffie is in, because that's all its worth.

It's awesome though, you should play it.

This game is a hodgepodge of ideas and most if not all fail to stick. Playing as Bayonetta is still fun and satisfying, but having to unlock basic moves like the launcher for every weapon is an odd choice I'm not a fan of. Moves are no longer purchased at the Gates of Hell. Now you have a skill tree sub menu found by pressing the minus button, meaning you don't have to wait to find an entrance to the Gates of Hell while traversing levels like in the previous games. You can purchase moves whenever, but at the same time, this kind of renders the Gates of Hell worthless. You get new weapons by just playing normally, you no longer have to find LPs and bring them back to Rodin at the Gates of Hell. Buy the Moon of Mahaa-Kalaa and maybe a costume or two, then proceed to never bother with the Gates of Hell again.

Viola is the new character in the game and first impressions are pretty good! I like her punk aesthetic and she's a big goofball, but that's pretty much all she is. She's given plenty of moments to do a cool thing but ends up flubbing it every time. A complete jobber! Well, if she's not so great story wise, then her fighting style must be good at least, right? Sadly, she's lacking there too. Bayonetta gets plenty of new weapons and demon summons to go along with them. Viola only has one weapon and demon summon. You can buy her entire toolkit early on and even then her playstyle feels completely undercooked. Her parry/witch time blows! She desperately needed at least one other playstyle. At least her battle theme is good?

Another new addition to this game are the huge kaiju battles! Seeing these in the trailers leading up to the games' release had me excited because I'm simple-minded and I love big monsters fighting and destroying shit. Sadly, I didn't get to enjoy these either. The first one with the Font of Devastation: Sin Gomorrah (this name goes hard) felt weighty as it should, but then it just boils down to a game of rock paper scissors. The other kaiju battles play out differently but aren't any better, with the exception of one near the end. All I'm saying is that if No More Heroes 2 does a better kaiju battle than you, then you probably fucked up.

If you've heard anything about this game, then it's probably about how terrible the story is. I never cared about the story in the previous games, but at least there's stuff to appreciate in them, but here there's nothing! Again, just a bunch of ideas thrown in that fall flat or are there just because. I also hate to be that guy, but the game looks rather poor. Looking like a PS3 game should normally be a positive but the environments are so drab and empty. Speaking of drab, the main enemy force is also painfully boring and uninteresting. The angel and demon enemies of the previous games all had an outer shell and attacking them cracks the shell, revealing their true, usually grotesque, form underneath. In this game, the homunculi just explode into toothpaste goop.

I was completely stone-faced throughout most of the game. Even when I should have technically been popping off at hype moments I just sat there, expressionless. I had more emotions playing Dante's Inferno! If I had to describe this game with one word, it would be flaccid.