My first Donkey Kong Country game was Returns for the Wii. I got it for Christmas the year it came out (that or it was 2011 I forget) and I remember being so excited to play it. While nowadays, I'm not the biggest Returns fan personally, I can't deny it started my love for the DKC series. Once I got into Super Nintendo games with Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island, I decided I wanted to play the very first Donkey Kong Country game since at that point I still only played Returns. I bought it at my local flea market I believe and really enjoyed it. I mentioned how Yoshi's Island always reminds me of the weekend, since I would play that a lot during that time, and the same applies here too. While I think the sequel does everything this game does but better, I still think the original is a really fun time.

The general gameplay of Donkey Kong Country is you run, jump and roll. Those are basics of course, as each level has other aspects that change gameplay up like barrel cannons you can shoot out of or ropes you can jump on but the general gameplay is pretty simple. The controls are basically perfect, rolling feels super good to perform, and if you know the layout of the levels it's very easy to just speedrun through levels since both Donkey and Diddy are relatively fast. Speaking about the characters, Diddy Kong's first appearance was in this game, and he honestly upstages Donkey Kong. If you get a DK barrel, you can get the other Kong along and they basically act as a 2nd hit. You can switch freely and this is helpful since they each have different attributes to them. Donkey Kong is slower but heavier so he can kill certain enemies that Diddy can't. Diddy just feels better to play as he's faster than Donkey and also has a smaller hitbox. Both are valuable, but Donkey is more situational and is mostly just used for one enemy type (and even then, Diddy can defeat them by rolling into them) so Diddy Kong is my much-preferred Kong to use.

As for collectables in the levels, you have bananas of course. The main plot involves King K Rool stealing DK's banana hoard and he must go after him and his baddies to obtain them back. I think the reasoning behind there being so many littered throughout the levels is he just dropped them or something but either way, they act as coins and getting 100 earns you a life. You can collect letters that spell out KONG and they also give you a life. You can also collect these animal buddy tokens, and getting three of a specific buddy lets you collect these stars, and every 100 you collect ALSO gives you a life. Besides all this, you can also find secret bonus rooms. These all contain all the aformentioned items, or just lives straight up, but these can be a pain to find. I wouldn't have an issue normally since these are optional bonus rooms so it makes sense they'd be really hidden, but getting every single one is how you get 101% in the game, so if you're a completionist you must find them all. The real issue then is, a good chunk of them are just kinda bullshit. You'll have some that are very easy to spot and are self-explanatory. But then you have ones that are completely hidden and sometimes even require blind jumps into pits. I know they wanted you to buy a guide or a Nintendo Power back then to find these locations, but I don't find random pit bonuses or random breakable wall bonuses fun ever. I used a guide for like 80% of these cuz I only ever 100%ed this game once before, so I forgot most of these. The sequel can be like this too, but it generally handled bonus room locations a lot better. Alongside all the collectables and bonus rooms, you also have animal buddies. These are fun as they change up the gameplay slightly. Rambi can kill usually unkillable (unless you have a barrel) enemies by running into them. Expresso can jump a bit higher and float over large gaps. Enguarde swims faster in water and has an attack you can perform. Winky...well Winky just jumps really high, tho he can also jump on usually harmful enemies too and he's honestly underrated. These guys appear enough where they don't just feel like one-off gimmicks or anything.

The levels themselves are generally well designed. They're simpler than the sequels, and I feel like there's generally more bullshit due to enemies suddenly appearing on screen randomly, but there's a nice flow to the levels. Visually, I think it just looks alright. The characters themselves looks good, I just think some of the backgrounds don't look great compared to others, and definitely compared to 2's backgrounds. I think it also doesn't help that the level themes aren't too interesting in this game. You have jungles and mines and factories and Mayan temples and some of these are more unique than others, but they don't exactly lead to very vibrant colors. When it hits, it hits. The one jungle level with the sunset is really nice and I like the ice caves. The factories are kind of cool near the end too, but overall, I think the level settings can be a bit bland here. Not like Returns tho, since that is very formulaic with its level themes but compared to 2, 1 is not as good in that regard.

The bosses in this game are kind of a joke. All of them, besides King K Rool, are incredibly easy and just feel like a slightly tougher regular enemy. They could've easily had no bosses and it would've been fine so I guess it's not like they detract from the game too much, however 2 did bosses way better.

This may be my hottest take though. I don't love the OST. A big reason for that is most of the OST was in Returns, and so I had always felt there was an identity crisis with this game which is not the game's fault and is more a me thing because I played Returns first. Even outside of that, some of the songs I just never really got into...but objectively the OST is quite solid. There are still bangers like Aquatic Ambience and Gang-Plank Galleon of course. Also a shoutout to Fear Factory, that one's nice too. Even though I don't love the OST, it's still good overall, I just much prefer 2's tbh.

I've kind of been complaining about things here or there despite praising the gameplay. Something else I'll praise about this game tho is its Rare charm. Animations are very charming between characters. Donkey and Diddy both get terrified when you're at the edge of a cliff. They do a charming celebration whenever you defeat a boss or complete a bonus room. Diddy Kong throws his hat down and stomps on it when he loses a bonus room. The dialogue between the other characters like Cranky or Funky or Candy are very charming too. There's a fake-out Kremlin credits that happens when you get halfway into King K Rool's fight, and the actual credits have humorous cutscenes between characters. Not only is this game charming as hell, but it also created all these well-known characters too. We wouldn't have Diddy Kong or Cranky Kong or Funky Kong if it wasn't for this game. We wouldn't have my man K Rool either, he's such a memorable villain. The Kremlins themselves are very memorable and cartoony. I think besides the actual gameplay, the best thing DKC1 does is the worldbuilding and charm. Before this, we just had DK and DK Jr. It's all thanks to Rare, that we have as many memorable characters as we do now.

I may have some issues with this game, and I think 2 fixes them all pretty much, but this is still a classic for a reason and is staple Super Nintendo game. I was honestly thinking about dropping this to a 7, even up until writing most of this review, but it wasn't until the paragraph before this did, I really ponder and think about how many staple characters this game created and just how charming this game is in general. It's very important to entire DK series as a whole and is a very fun platformer at that! However, as I've said several times in this review, 2 is better in every way and I'm going to be replaying that soon so stay tuned for that review!

Operation: Armored Liberty is a very bland and empty first person shooter that gets old after 5 minutes. There are maximum maybe 10 enemies per level, all of which are all giant, empty squares. Sometimes it took me around a full minute just to move from enemy to enemy. There is no story aside from one still image of a guy pointing at a white board with text on it telling you to go and kill your enemies. There is also no music so if you want to play you'd better hope you enjoy the constant never ending compressed sound of a tank engine humming through your GBA speaker. This game is trash.

"The mark of my divinity shall scar thy DNA"

Not gonna lie, having some shapeshifting humanoid weapon or some dude in a robot mask looking something straight out of a tokusatsu show or an Icy Hot lookin ass superhuman god cult leader isn't exactly my definition of "street" fighting but i can definitely say that this game puts the "street" in Street Fighter from the moment i first boot up the game and hearing that beautiful opening theme song and hearing the announcer's voice and man this game just oozes personality and it's like the game embraces street culture in a way that feels authentic and fresh from the soundtracks and everything and this type of urban/hiphop feel of the game continues in Street Fighter 6 which was my first exposure to the soundtrack of a Street Fighter game.

And then there's the overall style and presentation of the game. The character designs, backgrounds all have this distinct street-like feel to it with characters like Dudley and despite his overall British swag, that man's got some real boxing finesse and then there are the two twins from Hong Kong like Yun and Yang which not gonna lie probably has the most unusually dark and brooding and for some reason almost sounds like the 007 intro at the beginning of the theme song for two wacky teens riding skateboards but whatever.

The animations in this game are just down right smooth and absolutely mesmerizing to look at and definitely holds up still to this day. Sure the game might not have the most realistic graphics like Street Fighter 6 which has this mix of cartoony and realistic look to it but there's a timeless quality to the animation that makes it just as enjoyable to watch now as it was back then like Elena's fluid and meticiously rotoscoped animations or Twelve's almost smooth and silky-like movement (which kinda makes sense considering he can shapeshift).

Now since i'm mostly a Tekken guy, I find the controls to be kind of overwhelming since i'm so used to Tekken's 1234 button layout and not the 6 button layout which made it difficult for me to do it on a keyboard (yes i sometimes play Tekken on a keyboard) and the timing and execution of moves in this game are also different. Tekken’s combos often rely on stringing together a series of moves while this game emphasizes precise inputs and timing for moves like special attacks and supers and the parry system requires precise timing to deflect attacks, which can be tough as shit to nail down if you’re not used to that kind of mechanic and you can probably imagine how my fight with the final boss went.

And then there's the whole motion input thing for special moves like quarter circles, half-circles, etc and these can feel pretty alien because i'm so accustomed to Tekken's simpler directional inputs like seriously trying to consistently do a Shoryuken and then a Hadouken then a Hurricane Kick and finish it off with that one Akuma super where spin kicks his enemy to the air.

But regardless of all that, 3rd Strike is still one of the best and most influential game i've ever played. I was exposed to the existance of this game because of the infamous EVO 2004 moment with the Daigo parry and only like a month ago i think do i get to experience the beauty of this game. Had a hell of a time playing this game and getting my ass kicked online through Fightcade and i'll try to put some more time getting comfy with the controls of this game.

Was this necessary?





























Bonus half a point because Sackboy is awesome.

As some of you might have picked up on, I’ve been in a Mega Man mood recently. Ever since beating and reviewing Mega Man World 4, I’ve been thinking a lot more about classic Mega Man and have been starting to get back into the series after not having played it for a while. And while I’ve really been wanting to finish Mega Man 11, I also thought it’d be fun to look back on some of the earlier Game Boy Mega Man titles that I hadn’t beaten yet. So what better Game Boy game to start with than with the first one? Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge (which, if I may add, has a much better name than the rest of the Game Boy games going forward) is a game that definitely took me by surprise with how good it ended up being, especially for being Minakuchi Engineering’s first attempt at a Mega Man World game. Like the other Game Boy Mega Man games, this game remixes enemies and gimmicks from Mega Man 1 (and sorrrta 2? But we’ll get to that later). While I love the first 2 NES Mega Man games, they can be pretty tough to come back to due to some pretty deplorable design decisions that can make playing these games pretty tedious at times. However, I was pleasantly surprised with how much Dr. Wily’s Revenge fine-tuned the elements of these two games, to the point where I kind of prefer it over Mega Man 1 and 2, even if Dr. Wily’s Revenge comes with its own fair share of bullshit. Overall, it was a nice time if anything, so let’s dive right into the review and talk about why I think Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge is a pretty neat game.

Whenever I talk about classic Mega Man, I like to start with the level design, as it’s an incredibly important part in making any platformer (but especially classic Mega Man) play so well. I won’t go too in-depth on how Dr. Wily’s Revenge tries to shake things up from its NES counterparts, as a lot of what I said in my Mega Man World 4 review applies here as well. Dr. Wily’s Revenge still uses entirely new gimmicks to make the game feel like a fresh experience, and even when it doesn’t, it still uses its pre-existing ideas in creative ways. While Dr. Wily’s Revenge doesn’t use nearly as many entirely new gimmicks and enemies as, say, Mega Man World 4, it more than makes up for it by fine-tuning the elements of Mega Man 1 and 2 to an insane degree. I was genuinely surprised with how much I enjoyed the first four levels of Dr. Wily’s Revenge, and I think part of that came from the fact that they removed a lot of what made Mega Man 1 and 2 tedious, so that they could fine-tune and focus on the elements that made those two games so fun. For example, you no longer have to deal with the terrible, awful, no good carrier platforms in Ice Man’s stage, nor do you have to deal with the pretty redundant yoku block sections there either. Instead, that stage takes you down to an ice cave where you hop on falling icicles to reach higher areas, which is genuinely quite creative and leagues better than Ice Man’s stage in the NES version. Fire Man’s stage also contains falling flame enemies that you have to jump past at the right time, which I prefer over the way they fell in the NES version. I also appreciate the way this game uses Mega Man 2 elements in its Mega Man 1 stages, like the section with the cloud enemies in Elec Man’s stage, which feels fitting for the stage itself and is quite fun. Plus, the flame throwing enemies can finally find their home in an actual fire themed stage! It’s just really nice to see how these older stages utilize newer gimmicks in a way that still feels fitting for the stage itself, and it’s something I wish the Mega Man World games did more often. So, if you couldn’t already tell from the many praises I’ve sung about these first four stages, I think they’ve aged really well and are still pretty fun to play. My only real gripe with these stages are their short length, which I don’t entirely mind, as this is still a Game Boy Mega Man game. However, because of this, some of the stage gimmicks or enemies can end up feeling underutilized at times, mainly the ones in Ice Man’s stage. This isn’t really a massive issue as these stages are still fun, but I’d still like to see these ideas expanded upon someday. But simply put, these stages are surprisingly well designed and fun to charge through. Even if you don’t ever intend on finishing or playing Dr. Wily’s Revenge, I’d still recommend at least checking out the Robot Master stages. They’re definitely the best part of the game in my opinion.

Now that we’ve talked about the stages, let’s discuss the Robot Masters waiting for you inside them. And spoiler alert, they’re not very good. I’ve said this in my Mega Man World 4 review, but I’m not too big a fan of the way the NES Mega Man games handled their Robot Masters. They either don’t have much of a discernible pattern to decipher and can be way too hard to dodge because of it, or are way too easy to the point where the stage may as well just hand you the weapon on a silver platter. Mega Man 1’s Robot Masters are particularly egregioius with this. If you don’t know their patterns, they’re going to be some of the most erratic and unfair bosses you’ve ever had to deal with, but are insanely easy to cheese if you do. Thankfully, Dr. Wily’s Revenge actually opted to change Mega Man 1’s Robot Master patterns, having them play differently to their NES counterparts. While this seems like a good opportunity to iron out the kinks of the old fights, these new fights just kind of just come with new problems instead. And my main problem with all 4 of these Robot Master fights is that they’re WAY too easy to completely cheese. All of them (barring Ice Man, but his fight doesn’t change much to begin with) can be completely invalidated if you’re able to figure out how to do so, which in itself, isn’t hard to figure out in the first place! Like, take Elec Man. He’ll move away from you when he starts the battle. When you shoot, he jumps towards your location. So if you just keep shooting to where he doesn’t get too close, he’ll never shoot his Elec Beam at you, so you’ve basically figured out how to do Elec Man’s fight damage-free, every time. You don’t even have to move! What about Fire Man? This one’s a bit better because instead of only needing to use one button, you need two. He’ll run towards you, shoot out a flame for you to jump over, and then shoot out another one once you attack. But, do you see what I mean? When most of the Robot Masters in the game are so easy to trivialize, you don’t really feel rewarded at the end of the stage. Like, they may as well not even be in the game at all. And sure, you could argue that most Robot Masters are like this, as they become a lot easier once you actually know their pattern. But it’s not just about figuring out their pattern. It’s about reflexes as well. Sure, you can memorize how they move and what they shoot out, but you have to be the one to be able to respond to these movements and actually pull it off. When you know a Robot Master’s pattern, it’s not a guaranteed win, so when you pull off a fight without taking damage or even just without dying, you feel rewarded because your skill and your reflexes were able to get you that far. You should not be able to automatically win once you know the patterns of the Robot Masters. They should still feel challenging to the player, even after you’ve figured out how they move, because they stand between you and those glorious special weapons, and you should feel rewarded for rightfully earning these new tools. Unfortunately, because of these unwhelming fights, Dr. Wily’s Revenge doesn’t really do a good job of making you feel that way.

While we’re on the topic of the game’s special weapon roster, it’s kiiind of a mixed bag??? But not really in the way you’d expect it to be. It’s kinda weird, so bear with me here. At the start of the game, you of course have four robot masters to choose from, and thus, are able to get four special weapons, plus a pretty good utility item in Carry. This is the really good half of DWR’s weapon roster, and the five special weapons you’ll be using throughout most of the game. Mega Man 1 has a surprisingly great weapon roster, and the four weapons they brought to this game still manage to be fantastic, even in these new stages. They see plenty of uses across the game, feel balanced, and are really fun to use when you do so. Upon beating your fourth Robot Master, you also get the utility weapon Carry, alongside their usual weapon. This is essentially this game’s answer to Items 1-3 from Mega Man 2. Functionally, it’s very similar to Item 1, but it spawns directly below you, which is a nice piece of utility for when you need a 2nd jump or need to save yourself from falling into spikes or a pit (Keep this last part in mind, as it will be important later). So, this weapon roster’s looking fantastic already, but what about the other half of the weapons? Well, after beating the first Wily stage, you gain access to half of the weapons from Mega Man 2, as well as Enker’s special weapon, the Mirror Buster. And this is where the weapon roster of Dr. Wily’s Revenge starts to become a mixed bag for me. And it’s weird, because it’s not even like any of these weapons are that bad. Mirror Buster is a pretty solid weapon that reflects projectiles back at foes, even if it is a little situational. The Mega Man 2 weapons are actually pretty decent here too, hell, Bubble Lead even got buffed, which is always nice to see. So, what’s wrong with this half of the weapons? Well, it’s the fact that you don’t get to use them very often, AKA, you don’t get to use them until the very last stage. I know it’s common for Game Boy Mega Man games to save the Mega Man Killer weapons until the last stage, which makes sense, as they typically tend to be quite good. But when HALF of your weapon roster is only available for the final stage in the game, that’s when your weapon roster starts to feel a bit awkward. Dr. Wily’s Revenge doesn’t have a bad weapon roster or anything, but I really wish so much of it didn’t have to be saved for the very end of the game. But while we’re on the topic of this game’s endgame, let’s talk about it, because it’s definitely the longest part of the game, and probably the part I take the most issue with.

Dr. Wily’s Revenge’s endgame is… well, it’s not great. While it’s not anything absolutely atrocious (it’s certainly better than Mega Man 2’s endgame), this is where the cracks of this game really start to show. You start off in Dr. Wily’s Castle, and I have two main issues with this stage in particular, one of which being its length. I know that Dr. Wily stages are meant to feel like gauntlets to fully test out your skill and weapon roster, but this single stage alone is almost as long as the four Robot Master stages combined. The jump in length from any of the Robot Master stages to this one is insane, and is not at all helped by the two mole sections in this stage. I do not like these enemies or any of the sections they happen to inhabit. They weren’t fun in Mega Man 2, they weren’t fun in Mega Man 10, and they aren’t fun here. That’s because these sections always have you slowwwwly inching to the end of the room, while spamming some sort of special weapon (Fire Storm in this case) to try and get through the blockade of boring burrowing bastards. They’re not particularly challenging, they’re not rewarding in the slightest, and only ever serve to increase the length of this already long stage. My other main problem with Wily’s Castle is the leap of faith drops present throughout this stage. I briefly touched upon this when discussing Mega Man World 4’s level design, but I didn’t go into too much detail because these instances were few and far between. But in this stage, if you’re about to drop down into a section, you better know what’s below you, because if you don’t, chances are you'll be taking a faceful of spikes and you’ll have to do a chunk of the stage all over again. The game sort of attempts to mitigate this with the aforementioned Carry item. Like I said earlier, you can summon a platform directly below you when you use this item, which could potentially save you from an imminent spike death. The only problem is, you’d need to know beforehand to have this weapon equipped before dropping into an area, so if you don’t have Carry equipped or ready to be selected, you’re not safe from a potential spike death. Plus, why have these falling sections in the first place? Why not just use more of that room space to create more fun and unique ways to challenge the enemies as opposed to just another section where you drop onto an enemy or onto spikes? Thankfully, the castle stage still manages to be relatively well designed barring those sections, as the rest of the stage has some fun enemy and gimmick usage, plus the weapons are incredibly useful here. But compared to the first four stages, it definitely feels like a big drop in quality. So after you get through Wily’s Castle, you’ve got a choice of four teleporters. You enter them, and now you’re face-to-face with… four of the bosses in Mega Man 2? They don’t get their own stage, which is kind of disappointing, and you instead have to fight them here. There’s not much to talk about with these fights as they’re relatively unchanged from how they were in Mega Man 2, and while they’re a lot better than the first four Robot Master fights, they still don’t feel all that great to fight. But once you’ve defeated them and gained their weapon, you can finally face off against the game’s special boss, Enker. And yeah, this fight sucks too. But unlike Ballade, where his fight just had a lot of problems that were built up over time, this fight just has one thing ruining it, and that’s that Enker’s staff has a HUGE hitbox! So, the gist of this fight is that you’re supposed to react to Enker’s movements across the screen, like whether he’ll run straight towards you, jump to the edge of the screen, etc. However, even if you predict Enker’s movements correctly, you’re punished for it because you’re still gonna get hit by his big ass staff as he’s charging up his attack anyways! If not for that, I wouldn’t mind this fight, but as it stands, it just turns into another awkward “win the damage race” fight, just like with Ballade.

Once you’ve defeated Enker and gained the remaining half of your weapon roster, you still have one more stage left to go. Wily escapes from his castle and the camera pans up to show a giant floating fortress in the sky, also known as the Wily Star. I really don’t have much to say about this stage, mainly just because it’s pretty easy. It’s a bit better than Wily’s Castle, due to there not being too many cheap deaths and none of those mole sections (thank God), but it’s just kind of forgettable, and still really long too. Because of that, I really don’t have much to say about this stage, so once you’ve gotten past everything there and collected that extra life before the final boss, it’s time to face off against Wily. His first form shoots out the sawblade enemies from Cut Man’s stage towards you, while his second form requires that you reflect his shots with the Mirror Buster while dodging a claw that occasionally tries to attack you. One thing that kind of sucks about this phase in particular is that you respawn in the boss room, so if you happen to die too many times on Wily’s 2nd phase and run out of Mirror Buster ammo, you’re basically forced to get game over here. However, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about that, as like Wily Star, both of these Wily phases are pretty easy if you know what you’re doing. Once you get in the groove of things, you should be able to take out Wily pretty easily, and once you do so, that’s the end of Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge.

It was pretty fun being able to finally check out the game that started the Mega Man World saga. While Dr. Wily’s Revenge definitely has a lot of problems, like its endgame, weird handling of weapons, and underwhelming bosses, I still had a fun enough time with it, and I feel like it aged surprisingly well despite these flaws. You could definitely see Minakuchi Engineering’s design philosophy with the Mega Man World games start to blossom here, and while this game admittedly isn’t anything too special in terms of Mega Man games, I could still tell that it had a lot of passion and love put into it. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how Minakuchi Engineering handles the rest of the Mega Man World games from here and… huh? Minakuchi Engineering didn’t make Mega Man World 2? Instead it was done by a developer team who didn’t know anything about Mega Man??? Well, that’s certainly going to be an interesting one to talk about. For now, I’ll leave the review at this. Dr. Wily’s Revenge was definitely an interesting game for me to play and check out. I’d still recommend Mega Man World 5 and even World 4 if you really wanted to play a Mega Man Game Boy game, but after which, come take a look at this one, even if only to see where Game Boy Mega Man got its initial jumpstart. (6/10)

much like life, being trans is awful. having to live your life as a compromised version of yourself, not quite belonging anywhere, even among the people who love you most, and constantly struggling with the feeling that you can't do what you want to do because people won’t let you or won't understand. there is a sense of loneliness, of isolation, a sense that you're not ever going to be understood and that you'll always be just a little off, a little too clockable, a little too different. there is an incredible sadness to the whole experience.

as for the positive aspect? i'm still working that out. i'm not lucky enough to have a family that supports me. i live in a state of constant fear and apathy, knowing that no matter what i do, i'll never be the girl i've always had in my head.

the problem is, i'm a pretty miserable person, and i take it out on everyone around me. i hate my life, and i can't be happy being a man and i don't know what to do about it. but i do know that i hate this situation i'm in, and the idea that i can't escape it. it's like i have an anchor dragging me down, and i can't get out of the water.

i know there's a lot of trans people who are really happy, and i'm happy for them. for me, it's not been a good experience, and i'm not at all sure it's going to get better. but it has given me some perspective on life.

my perspective on gender has led me to have unfortunate habits of psychoanalyzing everyone i see, recognizing patterns and trying to understand why they do what they do. it has given me a sense of being misunderstood and that it's everyone else's fault. because of this, i'm very judgmental. it's like i've dissociated from all of society, there's no human connection or emotions behind the faces and words. it's almost like i'm a vampire. it's not exactly easy being this way, and i wish i had been born different, but at least i know that, at the end of the day, no one is ever going to be able to understand me completely.

my feelings are a complicated mess, and trying to explain them to people who don't understand gender dysphoria is difficult, so it's easier to go without trying, especially if it was easier for everyone to assume i'm cis than have me talk about my feelings. it's just easier to keep people at arms length, let them make their own assumptions and let them feel comfortable in their own bubble. but if i tried to interact with people, i'd just be putting them in an awkward position, trying to understand what i'm saying. it's easier for everyone to just assume.

“Bayonetta? More like Mayonetta, ‘cause this shit spread me apart!” This joke was brought to you by the legendary @QuentTheSlayer.

The Bayonetta series! One of the most acclaimed franchises I’ve seen in general that nobody ever played. Yeah, can you believe that Bayonetta 2 barely cracked 1 million copies on Switch as of 2021? That's not terrible by any means, but you’d think it’d be a lot higher, since it was practically the Wii U’s only pride and joy, and 3/4ths of the series were heavily funded and promoted by Nintendo, plus almost every DMC game has sold like hotcakes, but no. Oh, sorry to any NES Remix 2 fans out there! Apparently, it wasn't a killer app for the failing Wii U console. Shocker. But, when Bayonetta 2 launched in 2014, they also ported Bayonetta 1 to Wii U, and a few years later, Xbox One, PS4, and the PC. The PC version is the definitive way to play the game, in my opinion. It can run up to 4K resolution, and usually maintains a stable 60fps, unlike a majority of the console versions, which don’t. A shame that Bayonetta 1 has only seen a PC release, because 2 and 3 will probably always be locked to Nintendo Switch and Wii U, as those 2 were Nintendo-funded, and also receive FPS issues, more so Bayonetta 3. But hey, emulation is always free, I suppose. And for the record, in these playthroughs, I will be emulating 2 and 3, just for the best experience possible. An almost locked 60FPS is crucial for almost any modern character action game nowadays, so I just bit the bullet. And for you rare few, I have my lawyers on speed dial if you want to contest this.

Okay, jokes aside, what the hell is a “Bayonetta”? Aside from her name being a clear nod to the weapon, the Bayonet, Bayonetta herself has become an icon within the hack n’ slash genre, and also the fighting game scene. Bayonetta was birthed from the absolute legend, Hideki Kamiya, who also directed the first Devil May Cry title. Rather than a male lead, Bayonetta was designed from the ground up, as a female witch who wielded four guns at a time. Although some shade was initially thrown at the beehive hairstyle, mimicking traditional witch hats, and lacked glasses initially, eventually, they came to a witch, with a heavy focus on the attractiveness of the character. Bayonetta, from the ground up, was designed to be attractive as all get-out, if you couldn’t tell from the box art. This girl just leaves it hanging out there like it’s nobody’s business! Hell, this even floods into gameplay a little bit. The infamous torture attacks have Bayonetta seductively execute her foes, the innuendos, “Climax”, yeah. Hideki Kamiya and crew knew what they were doing, and it shows. However, in spite of the less-than-modest presentation of Bayonetta herself, I’d actually go out on a limb to say that it empowers Bayonetta as a character. In the cutscenes, we see Bayonetta doing all of this wacky shit. She’s having fun! Flirting with her enemies, dancing around them, as she aims to secure the kill. It really makes Bayonetta out as an unstoppable badass, deliberately belittling her foes as she defeats them all promptly. I'm not a woman, so I don't really want to comment on if Bayonetta is necessarily sexist or not, but personally, I never really felt that way. The opening cutscene demonstrates this, with Bayonetta, ambushed by angels while working as a nun, decimating every single Angel in her way with style and grace. And when things get dire, as the angels barely miss her, slicing her nun attire in the products, she fully awakens to her power. And then, the ICONIC song HAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, HAAAAA, AAAAAA, AAAAAAA, AAA, x6 FLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY ME TO THE MOON AND LET ME PLAYYYYYYYY AMONG THE STAAAAAAAAAAARS begins at full volume. I love this fucking track. Bayonetta has a good ass soundtrack and if you contest that fact, you're subhuman. But, back to the story and character design itself, giving Bayonetta this massive reach over her enemies demonstrates to the player how powerful Bayonetta is, and how powerful the player CAN be, with the game’s COMBAT.

GOD, Bayonetta's combat makes me SWOON. Never have I ever been so addicted to the controls of a game alone. Each time I listen to Fly Me to the Moon (Infinite Climax), I just want to start Bayonetta all over again. Bayonetta’s combat is EXCELLENT. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Hell, I might even say I enjoy the gameplay loop a little more than Devil May Cry’s gameplay loop, although I’m not entirely sure. Bayonetta herself has a few simple attacks; a punch, kick, shooting, and dodging. You’ll primarily be fighting your foes face on, but that’s not to say your guns don’t get some decent use either. You have 4 guns; two on your hands, and two on your feet. By holding an attack button, you can shoot the guns to give a little extra damage out, corresponding to which attack you throw out. So, punch to shoot the hand guns, or kick to shoot the heel guns. Or, alternatively, you can shoot your hand guns on your own, if you don’t feel like punching enemies in the face. But believe me folks, it doesn’t end there. The combo system of Bayonetta goes far deeper than you may think. Bayonetta retains the delay-based systems of Devil May Cry, but given the choice of hands and guns, the combos become much, MUCH deeper than before. Your average Devil May Cry combo goes like this. Slash, slash, wait, slash, slash. Whereas an average Bayonetta combo goes like this; Punch, punch, kick, kick, wait, kick. It adds complexity, but still remains simple enough to master. Bayonetta’s other main stick is her Witch Time, and upon dodging a majority of attacks at the last second, Bayonetta will slow down time for every enemy, and yeah, it’s as satisfying as it sounds. Outside of looking and feeling really good to do, the obvious benefit of slowing down time also adds a score multiplier to each attack done in Witch Time. So there’s no real reason to not be in Witch Time as much as possible, even if you can’t land a few attacks in. It feels great to pull off each time, just getting to wail on your enemies each time feels immaculate to watch and play. Even more immaculate is the Climaxes and Executions, which have you executing enemies in just the cutest way possible, usually killing them in a single shot. So, all of this versatility sounds pretty overpowered, right? How does Bayon- Wait, I’ve already used this segway in my Repentance review. Shit.

Straight and to the point, Bayonetta is one of the most deviously difficult games that I’ve ever played. Goddamn, I wasn’t expecting to die THIS much when going in. I knew that it wouldn’t be an easy game, but FUCK the Witch Hunts, seriously. But if it isn’t one of the most consistently fair games that I’ve played, too. Every attack is cued to perfection. To avoid frustration, most attacks have a bright shine and sound cue to it. The attacks themselves hit incredibly hard, but if you can dodge them, you’ll be a master of Bayonetta. Guess which camp I fell in? I was planning on doing a no items run of Bayonetta, but at Chapter 9, I caved. The game was just too hard for me. But, that’s okay, because before that, I was only getting Stone ranks, and each use of an item counts as half of a death, so there really wasn’t much difference in my overall score. What DID have an effect on my score were the Quick Time Events, though.

God, these just need to go. Bayonetta is an amazing game and all that jazz, but MAN, these got on my nerves really quickly. My main problem is that a grand majority of them lead to an instant death for no good reason at all, and they quite literally show up out of nowhere. At the very least, at least make the failure state cause minor damage or make it repeatable, because an outright kill from something you couldn’t see coming is not fun game design. Imagine that you’re on the way to a Pure Platinum in Chapter 2. You haven’t got hit a single time, and when you finally kill the boss without damage, you set down the controller satisfyingly, only to forget the instant kill at the VERY end of the chapter. Come on, dude! Talk about cheap and frustrating design. This especially hurt as someone who has really good hand-eye coordination, and played the Steam release with a Switch Pro Controller, as the direction of buttons doesn’t line up with the prompts on screen, as inputting the wrong buttons very frequently leads to Bayonetta’s demise. And don’t input them TOO early, because that kills you, too! For some reason. Speaking of bosses, they were... somewhat of a mixed bag. None of them are outright terrible, but there’s definitely a fair share of hot air between them. Sometimes, there’s not a whole lot to do other than firing your guns at them. They also have QTEs, although most are optional, thankfully. And failing usually doesn’t kill you, thank the fucking lord. Also on the plus side, all of the Jeanne fights were AWESOME. She serves as a skill check; Witch Time and guns won’t work for a majority of attacks, and she’s among the most threatening bosses in the entire game, packing speed and some hella’ Wicked weaves. Each encounter is almost perfectly crafted, requiring the utmost mastery of skills. And that music, man. Every 10/10 game NEEDS a 10/10 soundtrack, too. It’s simply inseparable. Jeanne is essentially the Vergil of Bayonetta, and those DMC comparisons don’t stop there.

Like DMC, you can buy abilities in the shop, all of which are of great variety and utility. In fact, I’d go as far to say that Bayonetta has a greater variety of skills than a majority of Devil May Cry games (obviously disregarding DMC 2). Good GOD, the moves you can pull off are so distinctive from one another. The Beast Within moves are among the best in the entire game, the Breakdance is a great AOE attack, also useful for revealing those hidden halos and other items, man. It’s all so good! Sure, the heel stomp attack could be a little more useful, but for the most part, all of these abilities are awesome! Uhhhh. I’m out of good segways. Shit.

Okay, time to talk about the final few chapters, and WOW, these aren’t all that great, unfortunately. Chapter 14 is mostly Space Harrier that just lasts far too long. At the end, there’s a Jeanne fight, though, which is my personal favorite of the Jeanne fights, because she has the best, most difficult attacks of them all. I kind of wonder why they didn’t just split the two chapters, though. Imagine fucking up the Platinum and then having to do Space Harrier all over again. Ugh. Chapter 15 is a... boss rush. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s just kind of... okay. Chapter 16, the final traditional misson, is just a boss fight, against Balder, and the fight would’ve been PERFECT, if it weren’t for the fucking camera. It’s like Jeanne; no Witch Time, no guns, just you and a fight to the death. The camera is just far too up close. But it's still a great send-off, into the EPILOUGE, of course. The FINAL final boss, Jubileus, is a solid little send off to the game, but I think it's just a bit too easy? First off though, Jubileus is fucking hot and you cannot say otherwise, but secondly, the boss herself hovers above you, slamming sword thingies down, and those shoot projectiles at you. Not too bad to dodge, you just Witch Time them, and bam. Beat their asses. She'll also end up changing the arena every now and then, one covered in lava, one in ice, and one in the middle of a tornado. You, once again, have to destroy the swords she plants down, and Witch Time is the key to success. Really, her fight is pretty straightforward. Most of her attacks are pretty slow and predictable, and the one that poses a threat is the Black Hole attack, which is a reset, but other than that… yeah. It's fun, but too easy in my opinion. But of course, this is capped off with the most awesome Climax. Bayonetta does an awesome 20 second long dance, summoning a massive hair demon with oddly feminine proportions (god this game is weird and I love it), and it beats the shit out Jubileus in one fell love tap, knocking Jubileus’s soul out of her body into the goddamn SUN. Yeah, talk about a fucking climax. Oh, you can control her soul as she falls? You know what? Fuck Jupiter, am I righ- I DIED??? …Okay, that makes sense. Anyways one dumb decision later, Jubileus’s body falls to the earth, brief lesbianism occurs, we destroy her body, Bayonetta dies, actually no, bisexualism occurs, Bayo winks, CREDIT ROLL!!!!

No hyperbole or anything, Bayonetta is one of my favorite games that I've played this year, and maybe one of my favorite games of all time. A must play for almost anybody. Sure, the game has it's low points (how the FUCK did i not mention Grace and Glory during this???), but overall, it's REALLY fucking fun, and serves as one of the best character action games ever made, andI'll for sure be returning for Hard Mode and afterwards, INFINITE CLIMAX (funny). Bayonetta is on Steam, PS4, and Xbox One for 10 bucks, and the game more than makes up for that price, I'd say. I'm not sure about Xbox 360 and PS3, but Bayonetta is also on Switch for $30, which is a bit of an eh deal, but hey, you get a $20 discount for Bayonetta 2 if you buy it. Speaking of Bayonetta 2, that's NOT up next, but rather Bayonetta: Bloody Fate. Yeah, for the first time in zeusdeegoose history, we have a cross-media review series (if you discount Isaac I guess). I'm still playing through Bayonetta 2, and it seems destined to be another banger, but hey, we'll see in the review. I don't know about Bayonetta 3 as I actually haven't even touched it, but from what I heard, there's some… opinions on it. But, once again we'll see. But, the moral of the story? Bayonetta is awesome and I like it. Go buy 15 copies of it right now, and I hope that you have an awesome day.

I know I said Block Ball was close to being one of the best spinoff games I played in this Kirbyathon thus far, until it kinda shit the bed a bit in the endgame, however I think Kirby's Star Stacker actually is the best Kirby spinoff up to this point (behind Dream Course at least).

It's a puzzle game, like Kirby's Avalanche, except this game is way easier in general than Puyo Puyo. Because I suck at Puyo Puyo, I found this more fun. Instead of having to set up complex combos to defeat your opponent, you just have to clear lines with stars in them to beat each stage. Combos are a thing in this game, and they also give you stars depending on how long they are, but they are way easier to perform in this game and technically aren't necessary to beat a stage. Something I do like about these combos tho is, once you start racking up combos, it throws out stars that can get you more lines if your animal buddies are in the right spots. Speaking of them, that's who you're lining up with the stars. Kine, Koo and Rick along with the stars are the main "blocks" in this game. They have a sort of chibi look and it's super cute. There are other blocks too to mix the gameplay up, like bomb blocks that clear a whole row, these blocks you must clear in a line to unlock a star inside and blocks that act like stars but don't give you stars. Use all these blocks efficiently to get the required number of stars you need. It's honestly pretty fun.

Outside of this main mode, you have a VS mode you can play with a friend. Obviously, I didn't touch this, but the other two modes, I did a bit. Those are just clear as many stars as you can till you die, and clear as many stars as you can before time runs out. They're fun little time wasters and just add more content to the game.

This is yet again, another game I technically didn't beat. The game had four difficulties and I beat them all. It got pretty tough at the end of the fourth one, but I was able to complete it. Then a hidden fifth difficulty unlocked, and it had 50 levels! The other difficulties prior only had 16 levels each (besides the easy mode which had 8). I beat the first level of the "insane" difficulty and decided I had my fill, as I probably would start to dislike the game if I did all 50 levels lol.

Not much to say with this one, despite it being one of the better Kirby spinoffs. It's just a fun little time, and more fun than Puyo Puyo imo. I know there's a Super Nintendo version, so if it's just like this game but with improved graphics and music, I know I'll enjoy that too!