I finally did muster through Super Mario Sunshine after about three and a half years of leaving it on the backburner, and I must say I still don't get it. It's not all bad but it's like, not very fun to me at all. I found its best moments to be pretty decent, and put up against Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy I don't really think it stands a chance in most if not all fields. I did not gel with the aesthetic, controls, or level design nearly as much as in either of them.

The biggest thing that irks me about Sunshine, though, is it doesn't feel as open as it lets on. You can beat the game with a minimum of 50 shines (I completed it with 53), but rather than a basic threshold to close off the final level, like how you can get any 70 stars in 64 to reach the end, you are required to do all the first seven missions of each level. In order, too. You can't go out of order like you can in 64, you have to do mission 1, then mission 2, etc. This works fine in Galaxy because the level design reflects it better, it's already more linear to begin with in its design and progression. Sunshine's level design does not reflect its linearity, it presents itself as a lot more open and implies a lot more freedom than you're actually provided. The end result takes away the feeling of free exploration, and it begins to feel more like crossing off a checklist than finding things yourself and reaping the rewards for doing so. Some of these required missions are frankly quite awful as well. A few of the bosses (Petey Piranha 2, Manta) are super tedious and slow, and some other missions littered around are bordering on unacceptable. I could not locate any enjoyment to be found in the "chuckster" mission, for example, and there's just no way to get around it without enduring it. If you have a star in 64 you really hate, chances are you can just work around it, but such is not the case this time.

I figure you can warm up to this with enough playthroughs, but the first is deeply unsatisfying and unrewarding. A competently made and designed game for the most part, but mundane and unenjoyable especially in comparison to the high points surrounding it in the series. Why would I want to play it some more in order to warm up to it if the first playthrough was so consistently rough? I dunno, man. It just doesn't really make sense to me. I really see now why this seems to be the most divisive of the 3D Mario entries, and try as I might to enjoy myself during its runtime, I can't seem to do so often enough to really call it something I like as an overall experience. I'm just glad I at least have it off my back now.

This game feels like if they made a Mario Party 4 minigame a full game.

And I love Mario Party 4 so that's fine by me.

I had vague memories of play this game as a kid. I remember the circus level, pyramid level, and slopes level, and I remember having a really hard time with Red Brief J. I was pretty surprised to learn that I had almost beaten this game as a kid even though I only played it maybe once at my grandparents' house? Maybe it was more than once.

Anyhow, this game is pretty damn easy and not super interesting in either of its genres - 3D platformer and beat 'em up. The combat is super simple, enemies offer virtually no lethality the majority of the time, and frankly I just avoided them most of the time in the second half since they're just boring. The only way to die in this game is by getting hit enough times, falling into pits takes you to a zone where you have to break boxes to find an exit and any damage you take there will just take away money (money which you only use to buy health, yipee). The fun of this game is pretty much entirely in exploration and bosses. there are a whole bunch of collectibles in each level. Most of them are pretty easy to find, but there are challenge rooms that have you solve some kind of puzzle or complete a platforming challenge and they're the most fun part of the game. That said, they are also pretty easy most of the time. The very last level had some challenging ones (and one puzzle that I don't know how you're supposed to do, I just cheesed it a bit).

Every level has a unique boss, and each world ends in another unique boss - there's actually more bosses in this game than levels. Honestly, they don't take much to figure out how to beat, but I appreciate making each boss special, and there are some wicked designs here. A marionette cherub, a medusa with a blue stone-cold face, a bigass spider, etc. They're overall very interestingly designed, and most of them are fun to fight even if they aren't difficult. I'd say the final boss is actually the worst one since you just run around a circle and hit crystals for eight or so cycles and its attacks are predictable and easy, it was a disappointing end to the game. All in all, the designs in Wario World are cool.

This might be the best-animated 3D Wario to date, he's very expressive, and mixing that with his iconic voice lines makes this Wario actually decently stylized. The music is jamming, and the vibes are great. I definitely wouldn't call this a GameCube must-play, but it's still a good time, I don't think most people would regret playing it.

Maybe one day, you’ll remember this place…

A Link to the Past starts on a stormy night...

I actually never have beaten any 2D Zelda games until now, for reasons that are a story for another time, but I have played an tried quiet a ton of them, some until the half-way point or even a bit after that, and the one thing they all share in common is how well they sell this larger than life epic, an adventure with its silly moments, but that it still feels consistently ‘’grand’’, and the menace of evil looming over the heads of everyone in Hyrule. This isn’t a complain, not in the slightest, and that isn’t the reasons I didn’t see any of those games to the finale, is just a part of their identity, like the dungeons, vast worlds opened by upgrades, and Octorocks…

Link’s Awakening begins on the quiet coast…

…But Koholint Island felt different. It still has the many dungeons with their bosses —some being not that great to be honest, at best they end too soon and at worst they are slow or overly simple—, it still has the usual items and upgrades, it has a TON of Octorocks ; in many ways, it still has the mark of 2D Zelda…only instead of feeling like an epic , at times it feels closer to a fairy tale.

Mist forest filled with secret passages and tricker raccoons, songs of fishes and frogs that give new life to what has been gone for a really long time, and what’s perhaps one of the funniest side quests in any game that’s essentially just an item-trade hunt, but it goes on and on across the entire island and your final reward is basically getting two items and scammed, it’s amazing!

There’s a joy to be found in the island, be it the in the little chats with the weird folk or the great search for the color dungeon; even when you aren’t at one of the incredible dungeons, which from a design perspective are the most fun I’ve had with 2D Zelda ever, I never felt like I was losing time or getting side-tracked. The little things like walking a Chomp-Chomp around and playing a crane machine feel just as important as getting the fabled legendary instruments, so mundane but at the same time so mysterious, so fun, so dream-like.

The diorama comparison was also completely on purpose, the toy-like feeling the remake offers is nothing short of amazing, everything feels made out of plastic and clay in such a purposeful way I got nothing but praise for it, and playing through this world reminded me of the tales I made while playing with my tales, distant memories flourishing amidst a world full of wonder and shells.

It sucks that it comes to a price; the game’s frames tank… a LOT, sometimes in the dungeons, but mostly out in the open, and it’s pretty noticeable. I understand that running a completely ‘’open’’ island with such wonderful visuals would have its consequences on performance but I would lie if I said it sometimes felt a lit too much, and I’m left wondering if maybe a bit more time in the oven or a patch or two would have helped things, ‘cause as it is it can feel jarring and take you out of the dream.

It's honestly a bit of a weird remake at times; the fact the jump item isn’t immediately binded to a button permanently boggles my mind considering just how essential jumping is for the whole adventure, especially the scroll sections; that plus how cryptic some enemies’ weaknesses can be compared to others which are pretty much clear as day and not being able to use the D-Pad in any way despite Link snapping into the eight set directions , I’m left wondering, more-so than after playing any other remake, how the original holds-up and if maybe it can feel more consistent. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still in love with the visuals, and things like the Telephone Hint Huts and are a godsend for people like me, but I feel like I’ve missed something by not playing the original… or maybe I’m just searching excuses to return to the island.

You have no idea the mental strength I’m putting in to not talk about every single interaction and moment, ‘cause Link’s Awakening feels special, like a dream, yes, but also like a pas memory, memories of spending summers at the beach and waling along hills, memories of thinking of adventure and meeting strange yet lovable folks, scattered memories from a distant past or even a completely different Goomba-infested reality, memories of songs so far away they are beginning to echo…

I feel like I’ve been missing something incredible by not playing this sooner, yet I’m happy to have finally clicked with one of Link’s adventures, and especially this one. It’s fun, it’s carefree, it’s exciting… and beautiful in its own particular, amazing way, to be honest…

…and then, it’ll become real.

Whip! Whip! is a really fun take on the arcade clear em up genre that Bubble Bobble and Snow Bros is apart of. The game looks cute, music is alright, story is silly and lighthearted, and the gameplay itself is really addicting. Chaining attacks together to maximize your score feels really good.

While I'm not too huge on the lack of continues, the game is pretty fast to get you back into it. There's 100 Levels and a post game challenge where you need to complete every level in one go.

If you're into games like Bubble Bobble, Snow Bros, and others like it I'd grab Whip! Whip! while you still can. Alpha Unit went defunct sometime ago and in lieu of that, the Switch version of the game was delisted. The game is somehow still up on Steam, so buy it while you're still able to.

Sparkster is so cool! They tick so many random checkboxes for me!

[X] Anthro
[X] Cool Armor
[X] Jet Pack
[X] Goggles (Goggles are cool)
[X] Expert Mech Pilot

What endeared them so much to me too was actually their idle animation! They look so jovial, they're happpy to be the hero! Sparkster doesn't brood (Ignore the NA cover here), he's anxious to start the day and get to the rescue of their fair princess! He's a gallant jet-propelled knight who's a zoom zoomin' all around and beating up all the bad guys! Mr. Nutz, Punky Skunk and Zero The Kamikaze Squirrel are so angry that Sparkster is actually awesome! They are so mad! Sonic's got nothin' on Sparkster! Except merchandise apparently! What gives Konami? Where's my Sparkster nendoroid , Sparkster YGO cards, Sparkster party accessories, and Sparkster line of clothing?

Ah well, knowing my luck they'd use this look instead, and I'd be an absurdly sad rabbit. Fuck that guy, this is the boy you want.

This game rips, it's Saturday Morning Cartoon down to the empowering theme music that blares from the first stage and goes off after every victory. Sparkster's here to fuck shit up! Those damn pigs won't know what hit'em! You got that patented Konami difficulty, but thankfully they kept themselves in line and didn't Bayou Billy this one. As a matter of fact we actually got all the difficulties unlocked by default over here in NA! Thank the lord above that Konami wasn't dumb enough to make their mascot platformer harder than 90% of the Famicom library, although they were cheeky enough to call Japanese "Normal" the "Children" difficulty and cut you off from the final boss if you played on that. Couldn't help yourselves could you?

Konami: "Nope."

Easily one of the most memorable titles I ever played on the Genesis back then, you know it's memorable when I didn't even own this shit and only played on Sega Channel! I so wish I had owned it growing up though! I would've been a master at it and been Rocket Royalty of some sorts.

You're the coolest Sparkster! Look at him! AAAAA HE'S SO FUCKIN' COOL!!!

This is a game where a bunch of talented developers were stuck in the same room for two years who were never told "no." Instead, they told each other "sure, bro."

Want to make a bunch of new mechanics that are both overcentralizing and near-irrelevant? Sure, bro.

Want to make a 30-60 minute long tutorial you can only skip by winning a race you only can win if you already know how to play the game somehow? Sure, bro.
(Don't even get me started on how the tutorial was before the first patch, the requirements to skip the tutorial were hidden AND you had to clear a max-level race. Actually evil.)

Want to generally nerf items while cranking the knockback to unfathomable degrees which creates scenarios where you can get knocked out of a top position and no item is reasonably strong enough to get you back where you were? Sure, bro.

Want to make items actively feel bad to get because the Ring system is so encouraged while also not letting you use Rings with an item in hand? Sure, bro.

Want to make like 200 tracks but they all have narrow tracks and very tight turns? Sure, bro. Also want to make any uphill slope kill your speed and make you have to STOP IN PLACE to Spin Dash upward VERY SLOWLY? Sure, bro.

Want to make a single player mode where the rubberbanding is overtuned (even after a near launch day nerf, mind you), the AIs will target you even when you're near dead-last, and the Rival explicitly cheats and will steal victories from you? Sure, bro.

Want to make an unlock system like Kirby Air Ride but make a bunch of requirements hard, cryptic, and/or straight up unrealistic to achieve unless you dedicate literal months of game time? Suuuuure, bro.

Despite its many, MANY problems, the game is still fun and I can see a version of this game where the new additions compliment base SRB2K rather than detract. The Rings being the omnipresent, overbearing problem is an issue I don't see being fixed, though. The devs seem really proud of their Ring system even if it kills the Kart aspect by making items less used/encouraged. I can always hope, though.

tl;dr Imagine if Mario Kart was mixed with F-Zero but all the worst parts of F-Zero were mixed in with a dash of unique jank and bad decisions. Enjoyable for kart-racer tryhards, completionists, and masochists, and nobody else.

Gave myself a day to kinda just sit with the whole experience of my first playthrough. Xenogears is one of those games that kinda just existed within the culture in a way where I always heard people vaguely gesture at its greatness, but never actually got any full details about what exactly made it so great. So for years and years and years and years and years I kinda just kept putting it off, playing many other games before and after it, hearing about its complexities but never really the details as of what those complexities were. Finally experiencing it for myself I completely get it.

An experience that is some parts Neon Genesis Evangelion, some parts Gundam some parts sci-fi novels and films, Xenogears wears all of its inspirations firmly on its sleeve and proudly bears it all as it goes into its own psychological, religious explorations of the self.

The ways in which it talks about running away from your problems rather than dealing with them and how that inevitably comes to bite you in the ass, there's a quite good example with the martial arts tournament you enter that genuinely surprised me when it happened.

The ways it delves into how trauma can inform and explain behaviors, can cause people to drift one way or another instead of facing the real problems within themselves, be lead to more and differing kinds of abuses, or completely shut themselves down due to their inability to truly cope with the things that've happened to them. But it also firmly discusses how important it is to continue to live, to continue to fight and go on despite the struggles we face in life, how we have to take responsibility for ourselves and the things we do despite our traumas, that again our traumas can be an explanation for behaviors and actions you may take, but at the end of the day you have to be responsible for your own actions.

There are a few characters I do wish were able to get more from the story (Rico, Maria, Chu Chu) and the very clear rushing of things does absolutely fuck with what was clearly supposed to be this ambitious and sprawling experience, though I will say in spite of the clear rush job that Disc 2 ends up as, I genuinely still quite loved the way they handle the presentation and style. Some of the quick cuts are really sharp and effective, I dig the kinda play stage type beat they do for some of the cutscenes they didn't have time to fully make enviornments for, I like the way they frame each part from differing characters POV's. There's a lot of cool things that make that second disc really interesting, kinda reflecting episodes 25 and 26 of NGE in ways.

It's such a strange feeling in ways cause like I kinda despised the gameplay at times (ground combat relies a bit too heavily on deathblows and grinding them out where-as I feel like the Gear combat is a bit better balanced in terms of building up to your deathblows and having to strategically manage your fuel levels in interesting ways). But even though I wasn't huge on the combat or some of the dungeon design (fuck Babel Tower) the whole thing just really came together for me. Everything it was doing was absolutely fuckin aces, it honestly reminded me of watching NGE for the first time as a teenager AS WELL AS watching both Shiki-Jitsu and Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0+1.0 with what exactly it was going for in its messaging and just how much it resonated with me. How much Fei's character arc resonated with me, how dense and packed of an experience it was overall.

I think I can safely say that I'm getting into the series cause I wanna see what else can come from anyone involved who was able to put this together.

We Love Katamari is an excellent followup and companion piece to Katamari Damacy. It's more Katmari as you've come to know and love, but it adds a lot more levels and tweaks to keep things fresh.

We Love Katamari digs into the addictive arcadey nature of old school Namco games in a satisfying way. You want to replay levels to make a bigger Katamari or make the Katamari faster than before-the addition of a retry button absolutely enhances this game's replay value, it was hard to put down.

The humor is zany and weird (much like Damacy) and I love how this game digs a bit into The King of All Cosmos's backstory and relationship with his father.

Overall a lovely game that I can come back to and replay often. Highly recommend this and Katamari Damacy if you're looking for something chill and funny.

The original Half-Life game has always been one of my favorite FPS games (potentially my favorite single player FPS unless you want to count Portal 2), so of course I was definitely interested in Black Mesa as a remake of the game, and on that note... yeah Black Mesa is really damn good.

I know it's a bit corny to be like "haha the fans did it better" but considering how Half-Life: Source was pretty... middling, to say the least, even just as a Source port, I really feel Black Mesa takes much better advantage of the Source engine by just, well, recreating all the assets and art within the engine, resulting in the game just looking visually gorgeous overall - to the point where it doesn't look out of place with more modern FPS games and is easy to forget that it's based off of a game from 1998. I really liked the atmosphere of the original as it is, but Black Mesa enhances it with improved lighting and models. Xen especially looks absolutely gorgeous with the environment, lighting and just seeing all the creatures of space around you in the sky and whatnot.

Not to mention, in addition to being a massive visual overhaul, the game does make some changes to the original gameplay and stage design. This does make it a bit less faithful as a remake to the original, but at the same time I think the aspects that were remade mostly bring about an even better experience. In addition to just being so much nicer looking, Xen in general is a lot more 'cohesive' in this game - whereas in the original it was basically just a bunch of floating platforms that you could get past in a few minutes, Black Mesa actually has you exploring the planet - still involving platforming but taking you through a few different environments with a greater focus on puzzles throughout the journey. It just makes it feel a lot more 'alive', and more like an actual planet, rather than in the original where it was basically just kind of a video game level thrown together. Plus, while this is a bit more related to the story rather than the core game design, I also really liked how Interloper (the final chapter before the final boss) had you interacting with the Vortagaunts in the context of their own society, which without spoiling too much, actually kind of provides some context why they appear more friendly in Half-Life 2 despite being common enemies in the original.

If I did have a criticism on a game design level though, it's that the Interloper chapter does feel a bit too drawn out in my opinion. I think a lot of it just comes down to there being a ton of 'conveyour' sections which you basically have to stand and wait for periods of time while occasionally fighting enemies and avoiding hazards, with the puzzles and setpieces towards the end of the stage kind of just getting more repetitive to the point where about halfway in I was just constantly wishing the chapter would end already.

Otherwise, the same gameplay of Half-Life 1 is pretty much intact - the gunplay and movement especially feels just as good here as they did in the original and there's a really good use of the game's environments in finding ways to traverse.

My only other major criticism of any sort is that the native Linux version of this game is pretty broken. I started the game via the native Linux version and I pretty much immediately noticed issues with the lighting where reflections and shadows would constantly flicker and appear 'broken up' for lack of a better word on top of just being inconsistent with the environment in general (sometimes the lighting would completely change/cut out just by walking two steps in the same exact area and room), and I also noticed some objects that I assume were from later parts of the game appearing transparently through the walls of the room I was in. Plus, after looking it up, I did see quite a few reports of people experiencing massive frame drops throughout the game but I didn't really play the game's native Linux version long enough to really run into anything like that. The next solution was playing the game's Windows version through Proton and that worked better but at the same time, I did run into somewhat frequent stuttering and frame drops, plus the game crashing pretty frequently even after I turned down the settings. Lo and behold, I didn't run into these issues when I ultimately decided to play through the rest of the game on my actual Windows partition on the exact same hardware and at Max settings (at worst the frame rate dipping to ~30FPS at some intense points towards the end of the game). I say all that to warn you, if you're playing this game on Linux, I would recommend playing the game through Proton, but even then you might have to expect some issues. Also I guess the loading screens did feel a bit long but that's kind of just a weird quirk of the Source engine and I imagine it'd be better on an SSD.

But yeah, good fucking game and would definitely recommend playing it if you liked the original Half-Life.