I'm a huge fan of Resident Evil '96. I've played it beginning to end at least 6 times at this point, and I don't plan on leaving it behind anytime soon. That being said, I actually never properly sat down to fully complete a run through of it's 2002 remake. If you're familiar with me, you know I have…. choice words about the implications of a remake and how they influence the games industry, but REmake 1 in particular always looked like the one to break the mold of issues MOST remakes have. And I'm glad to say that after playing it, it pretty much did everything I wanted out of the experience and more.
I need to start things off by saying how fucking BEAUTIFUL this game looks. This is a game that looked a generation ahead when it first came out and visually speaking it's still one of the best games out there. The backgrounds are all pre-rendered images, meaning that the game can run higher quality character models over them compared to fully 3D games at the time and it is drop dead gorgeous. The best looking classic RE by a mile, not to discredit the fantastic backgrounds of RE2 or 3 though.
Every single area has been greatly expanded, tons of new puzzles, items, etc. The first mansion visit is still the meatiest and nonlinear part of the game, just like the original, but I do think that the succeeding areas are still given a good upgrade. Pretty underwhelming segments from the original like the shark arena, or the caves for example are a significant improvement here. Also worth mentioning that the new puzzles are probably some of the trickiest in the classic entries, and some are extremely tense too!
The biggest new addition adds to the increased tensity of this remake, that being the crimson heads, transforming one of the weakest enemy types from the original game, the zombie, into a ticking time bomb that is ready to strike once more after you've "killed" it. Would you rather let it rise once more, or waste your precious kerosene to permanently be rid of one…? REmake is a genuinely scary game, the amount of new jumpscares and door opening enemies makes truly any room feel unsafe, you can't always have a breather area anymore. I felt tense my entire playthrough, even shaking a bit in some areas like the caves.
But what is without a doubt the most genius aspect of this game to me, is how it works as a REMAKE. Unlike plenty of other remakes across the years, this one does not fall into any of the common traps that they usually do. It's a full realization of the original artistic vision, it preserves all the prior content while adding ONTO what was there originally to such a natural degree it's hard to believe it wasn't there to begin with. All of the changed puzzles, item placements, and scares also makes this an astounding HORROR game remake, because even veterans of the original game have no idea what to expect, it's like actually so crazy how well this remake really works.
Alongside the 1996 original, REmake has easily placed itself among one of my favorite games of all time. Please play this game, and if you can, play the original too! Because all it does is elevate an already fantastic survival horror experience. It's among Capcom's finest and easily one of the best games I've ever played.

Ryukishi is a hack and a fraud, I can’t believe I spent 60+ hours on this nonsense of a VN just for it to tell me that life is worth living and trust my friends and not some deep methodical pretentious mumbo jumbo. I hate this game.
That being said I love this game. Ryukishi you madman, how did you do it. I started this all the way back in late July and I’ve consistently been hooked on where the story was going to go next. I really love the characters, the uncanny atmosphere, all that jazz. This review is mostly focused on the answer arcs of the series but the question arcs are undeniably just as important to the overall experience.
The contrast of Meakashi to its successors makes for a really damn engaging opener for the answer arcs. The complete brutality of it all while also forming one of the most morally gray characters so far makes for possibly my favorite chapter in the whole series. It can get unbearably brutal at points, but that just means that it is accomplishing its purpose. It’s a story of how the abused becomes the abuser, and the things people will do for love. It’s a story that shows the real horrors aren’t the demons or curses, it’s ourselves. Easily the most tragic chapter of the VN, and I have to admit I got a little emotional towards the end despite what terrible things our MC did along the way.
Tsumihoroboshi comparatively starts an upwards trajectory of hope after the extremely bleak first five chapters, Rena and Keiichi shine their brightest here, making for some of the most hype moments in the entire story, and ultimately the message that this chapter establishes is rather inspiring, it’s about breaking “fate”.
Minagoroshi is….. complicated. I always see the highest praise for this one but honestly I didn’t really get it? It does wrap up a lot of the remaining questions for the audience which is cool and all, but I found this chapter overall to be a bit of a slog for me to go through. Maybe it was burnout? Not sure. The bigger moments still really hit hard but in the end I still can’t put my finger on why I’m not too hot on this chapter. Still good though.
Matsuribayashi is the last main arc of the series, although I still have Rei to go through to properly cap things off. However, this is still a great finale on its own. A liiiiiitle drawn out, sure, but overall pretty earned? We get insight on the core perpetrator, one last section to gather all our clues together for one final showdown, and… a very good showdown at that! The actual ending itself was a tad underwhelming but maybe I’m an entitled ace attorney brat who wants flashier finales or something. Most of what happened I sort of predicted, which isn’t a bad thing, moreso me not imagining the story could organically end any other way, which isn’t a bad thing.
Woah woah woah, okay we’re not done here, because I still have some things to say before signing off. Despite what that star rating will tell you, I must say that Higurashi is NOT a flawless masterpiece!!!! Sorry Ryukishibros but I still got some choice words to say about this man and his stories. The fanservice sucks!!!! Nothing will ever excuse this and I just need to get this out of the way because it is EASILY the most frustrating thing about this VN and it makes me hesitate to call it near perfect. Also yadda yadda yadda the prose can be repetitive and annoying, it’s a dice roll on if you get a raw line or not etc etc etc. I’ve talked to people who consider Higurashi like, high art, and while I can respect their passion, this is far from the best story ever told. It’s just a really really good one that’s impressive, especially considering the context it was released in. Dunno, can’t look at the maid cafe scenes and be like “yooo this is flawless peak that no other writer can achieve!!!” If anything Higurashi is very derivative of works by other writers (the quirky tsukihime inspired visual novel!!!!), it’s a celebration of stories as a whole, while still being unique in it’s own right. Anyway I hope that didn’t come off as hate, because I genuinely love this game so much, it’s one of my favorite long term video game experiences ever, and I love being apart of this community (seriously WTC shitposting is funny af) but I do NOT think it is free from criticism, not even close.

And so my journey into the odd world of Visual Novels begins. Feel free to block me if I become a pretentious VN elitist because of it. There's so much to see, not just from 07th, but from KEY Visual Arts, Type Moon, Leaf, etc. Words cannot describe how excited I am to further dip my toes into the medium.

Do I recommend this? Well….. I suppose? The first chapter is free on steam so there really is nothing to lose trying this. There are poor aspects of the writing you’ll just have to bear with, moments that will make you go “Ryukishi what the fuck is wrong with you,” but I think if you can brute force those aspects, you have a wonderful story that has earned it’s place in the visual novel industry. I don’t care that the OG artwork is corny, I don’t care if the story gets silly, it’s HIGURASHI: WHEN THEY CRY. It's a genuinely passionately created piece of media. I eagerly await to try Ryukishi’s other works in the future, for When They Cry once more.

In my never ending journey of not reviewing KOF 2001 despite the fact I really want to, I recently played through and beat the true final boss of SvC Chaos and decided it was time to give this game a fair write up. Despite how interesting this game is there aren’t really many reviews that go in more detail on this game (or interesting reviews on a lot of neat fighting games in general), and it’s honestly kind of a shame! So now I’m gonna rant about it for a while because I feel that I have a lot to share.
Might as well kick this out of the way first, lol. The presentation is bad. I’m still not sure what happened here but the stages in this game, with a few exceptions, are UGLY. Completely colorless and devoid of any personality or style. I can’t even be corny and say something like “oh they’re ass but they still got a vibe, y’know” cuz like. They don’t. There IS no vibe. Same deal with the music, which easily has to be one of the worst OSTs I’ve heard in a fighting game. Aside from like, 2 or 3 tracks, everything manages to sound either annoying or incredibly bland. The sound design is ripped from KOF 2003 and just like that game the lack of oomph or satisfying audio feedback because of it is really frustrating. On the flipside I actually do have some praises to sing about the character sprites, not that they’re a complete win, but I gotta give credit where credit is due. Some of the new/redrawn sprites in this game are unironically fantastic (Terry, Shiki, Demitri, Chun Li, Balrog to name a few). It’s really damn cool seeing these Capcom characters in the SNK art style, and I think that most of them landed here. Still not entirely fond of Ryu/Ken/Akuma very clearly being traced SFII sprites but I can live with it.
I can understand the praises for the roster here, but I would still say it’s kinda overrated? Like, sure, there are a lot of crazy and creative picks here, but there’s still an uncanny amount of shotos here alongside just “meh” inclusions (why Choi???). That being said I appreciate picks like Tessa and Shiki, they’re fun inclusions that really spice things up. If you play the “Super Plus” bootleg, which essentially makes every hidden character and boss of the game be on the main roster like God intended, this game actually does have a fairly meaty roster to choose from.
Might as well be my segue here to talk about the gameplay and, eugh. It’s not terrible per se but hitboxes feel wack as hell, the sound issues that I described earlier make playing the game not feel satisfying to play sometimes, but most importantly the rejection of most SNK exclusive mechanics is really damning. No running? no rolling? no traditional max mode? Yeah, so SNK basically made an SNK game… that doesn’t play like an SNK game. It plays more like a Capcom game. And hey, I like how Capcom games play, but… I wanna see Capcom mechanics in a Capcom game, not an SNK game. Part of why I generally prefer SNK (or I guess more specifically, KOF in these instances) games is because of the running and rolling mechanics allowing more flexibility. It’s especially frustrating because I think this game would be a lot more fun if it played like KOF 2002 but with Capcom guest characters. Ah well, this game is stupid fun casually though. Super Plus edition on Fightcade is some of the most fun I’ve had with a kusoge (up there with Sailormoon S).
Lastly, what I wanted to talk about the most. Tonal problems. In contrast to Capcom’s more colorful, energetic, and upbeat games in the CvS series, SNK Playmore went the complete opposite and made one of the most bleak and depressing fighting games out there. And hey, I’m all for a more serious take on a crossover sometimes, but the tone this game settles for isn’t befitting of both Capcom or SNK. I don’t know how canon the supplementary material is but it is really weird to have your crossover take place in purgatory of all things. I really wish that Playmore just went down having fun with the crossover aspect. It sorta does, like the pre-battle conversations being rather humorous, but it feels like really odd tonal dissonance. I don’t see it discussed online much but I absolutely despise the heaven/makai spell transformations in this game because of the way it's framed. When you do something like midnight bliss from Vampire Savior (which is also in this game because of Demitri, which is neat), it’s cute and funny because the game treats it as a joke while also having fanservice. The animal and demon transformations in this game by comparison are purposely made to be upsetting, characters like Balrog and Hugo literally cry for example, which just really sucks because these are concepts that the game should just have fun with! Treat it as a joke! Screw the whole purgatory stuff, make the transformations funny rather than making really creepy demon designs for the characters. Puppy Kasumi is funny tho so 10/10
The arcade mode is especially brutal. This is actually the only fighting game I've ever played online more than arcade mode and it's because not only is the enemy AI super frustrating, but the bosses suck too. Good luck beating Athena or Red Arremer! Especially when you only have one chance to beat them, and if you don't, transformation and bad ending for you (once again, tying into the tonal problems I have!) Dunno, mainly just rambling but this aspect of SvC always upsetted me.
I used to hate this game a lot back in 2022, and while I sort of enjoy it nowadays as the silly kusoge Vs series game, I can’t help but ultimately feel disappointed. An SNK vs Capcom game made by SNK, on paper, is something that has the potential to unironically be my favorite fighting game of all time. Especially if it used the mechanics I loved from KOF and had similar production values to games like KOF 2000, that would’ve been my dream game, but things happen I suppose. SvC Chaos isn’t a bad game, but it’s not particularly great either, outside of casual play. It’s just a sad game in my eyes.

I ended up putting this game off for a long time despite knowing I’d really like it. So color me surprised when I played it and… I liked it. The insanely tedious and repetitive tasks each day when combined with the immaculate tropical atmosphere makes for one of the most unique experiences I’ve ever had in a video game. The writing is also really clever and metatextual, and I appreciate the ties this game has to The Silver Case both narratively and thematically. Plenty of other reviews on this site have said why this game is so great, so I’m not gonna waste your time with a long analysis of the sort. funny blah blah blah DS feeling! meta! ludonarrative! vibes! localize the PS2 version! suda!!! mondo!! KILL THE PAST! For my second KTP game, it’s another swing and a hit as far as I’m concerned.
KILLER7 IS COMING SOON….

It’s common these days to immediately clown on the usage of terms like “soul” and “passion” when describing the creation and production of media. However, one game I could never not describe as such is KOF 2000. Mainly because of the many issues going down at SNK during development, it’s a game that, artistically, screams out to me so much.
I mean, this game was made in the middle of SNK filing for bankruptcy, for Christ’s sake. The devs knew they were going down under. This game was not going to be the miracle that would save them from this terrible situation. And yet, the team still dedicated every single ounce of their energy that they would for really any other game they made. It has the arranged soundtrack, a console port, jaw droppingly good stages and character animations, it’s all here and accounted for. But what makes things even better is you can really see this game as a somewhat somber farewell to the original SNK. The extra strikers are tons of homages to KOF, Fatal Fury, Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown, etc. The soundtrack of this game is also so tonally perfect, both compositionally and name wise. So many tracks have such a sense of finality to them, like KD-0084, Inner Shade, Ice Place, Zero, and of course Goodbye Esaka, a track literally naming itself as SNK’s final goodbyes to it’s home station in Osaka, Japan.
With this context, the destruction of Southtown in the ending is very clearly representative of the state of the company. The place where it all began back with SNK’s first fighting game Fatal Fury, completely in shambles. And yet there’s still a feeling of hope to all this destruction. A lead to a new beginning, perhaps…?
Gameplay wise it’s a huge step up from ‘99, pushing the striker system to its limits while also having a more solid roster and game feel. I really like the new characters, especially Kula my beloved <3. Some strikers are absolutely NASTY in this game, and it’s horribly imbalanced, but it’s stupid fun. The presentation with the gorgeous stages and UI design is of the finest quality, which is saying a lot knowing the production values of the previous entries. Even with plenty of the reused character sprites, there’s also lots of new ones that are of the same quality, which really goes to show how well the old ones hold up.
Sometimes this is my favorite KOF game, sometimes it’s 02UM, but at the end of this day it’s definitely up there for me and a game I have the utmost respect for. The developers cared TOO MUCH making this game, and I applaud them for their effort despite the situation surrounding SNK. I’ll always love KOF 02, 02UM, and XI, but 2000 is the last true KOF game from an artistic standpoint. And what a way to go out. Holy fuck.

The struggle for me to understand this series has been unreal. I have a myriad of things that turn me off from Pokemon, just as a franchise, that is the reason why I’ve only finished a handful of the games despite enjoying a lot of qualities about them. My main issues come from pacing and gameplay, I like JRPGs but Pokemon often feels too slow for my liking and I prefer having multiple party members out at once in my turn based games compared to being 1v1s where you swap your party out. Factor in added frustrations because of my impatience regarding level curves, exp distribution, finding which mons I want etc. and it’s a recipe for something that I can’t enjoy. But, oddly enough, I don’t try giving up on it, because I want to understand. I really do.
Out of the games in the series I played prior to this, the original Black and White was my favorite. Not just because of the story, but the pacing and linear progression made it more consistently engaging for me, and the very clearly western inspired region of Unova hit close to home. Tie that with a fantastic OST, character designs, and risky design decisions like the pokemon distribution being solely new mons during the story it was the one game that I could say I genuinely liked as a complete package.
So, clearly, the next step would be to play the sequels. And that’s correct! But this was at a time before I knew how to emulate games, and ALSO the time where this game was artificially inflated to a 100+ USD value and uh… Well yeah I didn’t get an opportunity to even try it. After getting access to emulation tools I’ve sampled this game a handful of times here or there, but out of nowhere earlier this year I finally pulled together the energy to just sit down and finish this damn game for once, because I knew I would like it.
And like it I did. Shockingly even more than I expected. BW2 pulls everything I liked about the first game and amplifies it to a crazy level. The presentation is absolutely INSANE, with all the added trainer animations, flashier UI, and drop dead amazing soundtrack. BW1 already looked great but this game makes it look like a beta by comparison. Even the character designs in this entry are an upgrade, alongside my absolute favorite art style in the whole series. Rosa’s design is still up there for me as a character design I’d put as one of my favorites in general, it strikes the right balance of colorful, cute, flashy, but practical. Nate is also amazing with his stupid Pineapple cut lmao. I think Pokemon fans are overly negative for some absurd reason but I cannot entirely blame them for being harsh on the presentation of more recent entries because of the bar set by this game.
Story was also a major draw of BW1 and… I think it’s still pretty good here! BW2’s story does something only a sequel can do. The schism between old and new members of Team Plasma is such a unique facet of the story here. Those who live in regret because they truly believed they were helping the world, vs those who still side with Ghetsis solely because they desire world domination. Hugh is regarded as a weaker side to the story, and I do agree on that. Even so, I think the intent behind his inclusion is really interesting, and opens up an odd thread regarding the use of Poke Balls as a concept, which… the game oddly drops immediately after its brought up? I’m not sure why, though. Personally the most disappointing aspect of the story to me is that we are never given a followup on what happened to Hilbert/Hilda in this game. They just sorta… disappear which is a letdown. Not even as some postgame superboss like Red from G/S/C… Oh well. It honestly would’ve been cool if they served a role in the story similar to Vent/Aile in Mega Man ZX Advent, but no use mulling over it. Overall I don’t understand why this game’s story gets so much flack. I’ve seen it criticized as being “just another pokemon story” but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Structurally, maybe, but many things it touches upon are rarely a thing in these games.
Also I need to highlight the density of content this game offers. Not only do you get so much to do in the main story, but beating the campaign is just the beginning. Pokemon World Tournament is a HUGE loving tribute to the first four generations of the series, having battles against every gym leader and champion from those games alongside full remixes and reanimated sprites. The pokemon distribution in this series is among the absolute best, giving you access to plenty of fan favorites from the older games combined with Unova’s already great new original monsters. I was constantly switching out my team because there’s so many great ones to pick from! This game also introduced wild Eevees which should’ve been a thing since the beginning, but I’m glad it’s finally here! It’s just so much fun.
Maybe the rating I gave is a tad exaggerated. Just maybe. But I also really needed this game. There’s so many things I could still write about, like how Iris is handled (so proud of u :)) or the insanity of Colress’ battle theme, or how much I adore Pokestar Studios and how it finally breathes personality into the protagonists. Regardless of my opinions on whatever Pokemon games I try after this one… Man, I’m just so glad I finally found one of these games (alongside the original Black and White) that I can say I fully understand.

I’ve been playing this game nonstop for two weeks, constantly thinking about how I want to get my thoughts out on this one. Radiant Dawn gets a fair amount of distaste these days because of what it does wrong, and it’s totally fair, but I can’t get myself to dislike this game even with the myriad of problems.
For every stupid thing RD does, it does three other things that are pure genius. The sheer scale of everything makes this the largest and most ambitious FE game to date, even outdoing Genealogy of the Holy War. There’s a huge amount of map variety, with objectives and units constantly changing to help tell the story. It’s far from being a boring FE game because the game never stops mixing things up every chapter or so. While it can be very hectic both in gameplay and story, I can’t help but admire what was done here. Every single map, even the ones I disliked, made me go “wow, that was a neat concept for a map and it feels unique compared to everything else so far!” The gameplay-story integration is also up there with the Jugdral titles, especially the finale of part 3 which is one of my favorite maps in the whole series. When in tandem with the fantastic Tellius mechanics such as shove/rescue and BEXP it also creates an immensely fun gameplay experience.
The story is mixed overall and i think PoR had a more solidly constructed narrative, but RD has a lot of interesting concepts and plot threads that are thrown around, and when combined with the ludonarrative aspects of the gameplay, makes it super engaging. There’s definitely a lot of “huh” moments closer to the end, though, and the final part is a really odd curveball after the very dense political drama the rest of the game was, but the themes it uses are probably the best use of said themes in the entire series.
I dunno man, I adore Radiant Dawn. There’s like 800 problems you could pick at with this game and I still wouldn’t give a shit. It’s the quintessential Fire Emblem game in my eyes, it has something for really any fan of the series. Maybe not the whole package will jive with someone, but I think you’ll get at least one section of the game that appeals to your tastes. Radiant Dawn is messy, ambitious, and maybe tries to bite off more than it can chew. But at the same time, I almost wouldn’t have it any other way.

I recently began my dive into "traditional" visual novels with Higurashi: When They Cry back in July, and since then I've opened myself to a whole world of these games that I am SO excited to get into and experience for myself. One of the more commonly brought up developers for when i brought up recommendations from friends were games by the studio KEY, mainly AIR, Clannad, Little Busters, and of course Planetarian. Looking up the length of this game and seeing it was only a few hours made me decide this would be my first KEY game to experience. So after wrapping up chapter 2 of Higurashi, I immediately hopped onto this.
Planetarian is not some mind boggling experience, but it is certainly a great one, and offers a lot despite its 3-4 hour run time. There's really only two characters here, the "junker" protagonist, and the robot Hoshino Yumemi. At first their dynamic might be hard to read through, but there's this eventual sense of understanding they have and it makes the story super captivating. Not only that, but the post apocalyptic atmosphere and theming is immaculate. There are aspects to the story that might feel cliche or corny, but there's a genuine heart to this game, and I think you have to take its release date into account. I also have to give props for this game being an early 2000's PC VN and not harboring any poor taste eroge content for the sake of sales, Planetarian is focused on giving you this comfy- yet sad tale in full honesty.
I would really recommend trying this. It's 10 dollars on steam, sometimes discounted to 3 or 5 bucks, which is absolutely worth your money. KEY, in my opinion, certainly earned the cash I gave them to experience this, and I implore you give it a try too.

Sailor Stars is a fantastic finale to the anime that was 90's Sailor Moon. Unfortunately in the game department this time, I had nothing to pull from related to this season aside from this and Fuwa Fuwa Panic 2. A friend of mine helped me set up a Pico emulator, which I needed just for this review.
The game itself is absolutely nothing very special. It's a handful of mini games you can finish in about a minute each, and it obviously was just meant to occupy very young kids who were fans of the series. That being said, the minigames have this somewhat ironic enjoyability to them, for me anyway, and the spritework is vdry cute and colorful. You can finish this in about 15 minutes or less, but I wouldn't recommend this unless you're like me and trying to finish every single Sailor Moon game.
I adore this series, though. I don't have a problem calling it my favorite anime of all time, and I only played this game so I had an excuse to talk about it a little more while also filling out my game per season quota. I'm a bit sad I have finished the show, but I'm so happy I got into it to begin with, and it's something I will willingly revisit if I need a smile on my face. I also plan on reviewing Another Story and the fighting games eventually, so stay tuned!