It has been awhile since I've felt this way about a game ever.. It has been so long since I've felt really emotional and connected with a game. And I thank monolith soft for creating this masterpiece. This is my first xenoblade game actually and I'm now eager to play the previous games. Just recently got myself XC2 and I can't wait to play that one after.. Xenoblade is literally a 10/10 for the storyline, A 10/10 for the absolute god tier music, and a 10/10 for the overall experience.. I love the cast so much. This is my first xenoblade game after all.. and I absolutely have no regrets picking it up and playing through it. Thank you Monolith soft <3

16:22 12/24/2023

If there is one video game console out there that I have very little experience with as a whole, in terms of both the system and the games, would be with the TurboGrafx-16, or the PC Engine for those of you who care about that kind of shit. It’s a shame though, because it seems like there are so many great titles for the system that have been lost over time, and while I myself have played one or two of these titles throughout my life, most of the library is an absolute mystery to me. So, I figured I would go ahead and try to check out more TurboGrafx-16 games (key word being “try”) so that I can see if there are any hidden gems out there that are permanently stapled to this console. Before I get there though, I may as well start off with the character who is said to be the mascot of the system, Bonk, and his first game, Bonk’s Adventure.

I have zero experience with Bonk as a whole, as I have never played any game in the series before, but I have known of him for quite some time. It didn’t look like anything too grand or special, but it had some kind of odd charm to it, not just in terms of its presentation, but also due to some of its… odd qualities. But hey, again, maybe there is something to Bonk that makes his games some of the best that you could have for the TG-16, so I decided to play through the first game to see if that was the case………… it wasn’t the case. From what we got here, it’s a good game, and I’m sure owners of the system would have a pretty good time with it, but it isn’t anything too unique or original compared to other platformers out there.

The story is straight out of “How to Make a Platformer from the 80’s and 90’s for Dummies”, where the fair maiden Princess Za is kidnapped by the evil King Drool and taken away from her home on Moonland, so it is up to Bonk to set out on a mission to rescue her, which is the most stereotypical plot you could ask for, but hey, Mario did it, and he sold millions of copies, so why can’t Bonk do that too? The graphics are good, looking like a much more detailed version of an NES game, and having plenty of good sprites for the enemies, bosses, and Bonk himself, but it is nothing too exciting, the music is pretty good, with some catchy 8-bit tunes to listen to while you are going around and bonking all over the place, even if none of them stand out as anything to listen to, and the gameplay/controls are pretty basic for a game like this, but it is all put together in a way that works and is fun to play, with the exception of a few snags in the road I did encounter.

The game is your typical 2D platformer, where you take control of Bonk the caveman, go through a set of five worlds, each filled with a set of different stages to conquer, defeat many different enemies using your giant noggin to bonk the shit out of someone, whether by jumping or just hitting them regularly, gather plenty of different food items to heal yourself, as well as some power ups and upgrades to make your journey a little easier, and take on plenty of prehistoric foes that will give you a good challenge if you aren’t using your head like you should. It is a simple set up with a simple execution, but it manages to be fun enough, and bonking all these losers in the head does feel satisfying when you get it right.

A lot of the charm and uniqueness from this game, from what I experienced, is not just seen from all the different enemies and bosses that you fight, but also Bonk himself, who is one of the most expressive protagonists I have seen from this era of video games. He has so many faces for anything that he does, such as when he is climbing up a wall with his big-ass teeth, whenever he gets hit and his eyes bulge out like a cartoon character, and even when he gets a power up, where he bugs the fuck out, with his head exploding and him floating up in the air for a few seconds. It is weird as hell, but I am a big fan of weird, and again, it adds a lot of charm and fun to whatever it is you are doing and facing in this game. The same can also be said for the upgrades and abilities you can get, such as with the powerups where you can headbutt the ground and stun all of the enemies, extra hearts that will give you more health for whatever lies ahead, and temporary invincibility so that you can blaze through a lot of your problems lickety-split of you know what you are doing. Granted some of these power ups are temporary, which kinda sucks, but they do help out a lot when you have them, and you have them for enough time to where you can make good use out of them before they run out.

The temporary power ups aren’t the only issue that I have with this game though, as there are some that I did have, with the biggest issues being with Bonk himself, or more so how he controls. I don’t know how to describe it, but something about Bonk’s momentum feels very… off, and you can feel it whenever you try to run and jump a specific distance, whenever you fall off of a ledge and onto another platform, and whenever you are in a tight space and need to bonk somethings. Again, I don’t exactly know how to describe it, but for those of you who have played the game before, you’d know what I am talking about. You can especially feel it whenever you try to climb up a wall or swim up a water stream, which doesn’t feel great to do at all, and I hate having to do that whenever it pops up, such as in stages that require you to go upwards in order to complete them. Aside from that, there is also a unnecessary boss rush here, which I love about as much as a trip to the doctor, and how it is just yet another prehistoric platformer at the end of the day. It is one of the earliest ones that were made, to my knowledge, but given how many there were back in the day, they all tend to blend together after a while.

Overall, despite some control issues and some common platforming tropes that I wish weren’t there, for his first title, Bonk’s Adventure managed to still be a good time, providing plenty of fun platforming challenges to take on, fun bosses to fight, and the zany charm that I would expect from a character with as big a head as that one. I would recommend it for those who are fans of old-school 2D platformers, as well as those who also want to see just what kind of games the TG-16 has, because despite how there are plenty of other games out there that are better than this, Bonk is literally the perfect place to start for those of you who want to go down that route. Oh yeah, and by the way, there is also an arcade version of this game that’s apparently much more different then this version, and I would play it, but… I don’t want to. I am just one man, and there are too many other games calling my name at the moment, so I apologize to all you bonking fanatics out there.

Game #553

As I mentioned in my review for the first Dragon Quest, I bought the mobile versions of the original Dragon Quest trilogy on a whim years ago. Last year I decided to finally finish the first game, and now I've chosen to finish its sequel this year. Dragon Quest II is a sequel that is surprisingly a vast improvement to its predecessor.

In terms of gameplay, its exactly the same as the first game, but considering that Dragon Quest is a series known for following tradition that is no surprise. This time however, you're not alone. You get two party members to assist you on your journey, the Prince of Cannock and the Princess of Moonbrooke. Having these party members is pretty much a necessity as the character you play as doesn't have magic this time and the latter parts of the game, especially the final boss would be much harder without them. The other noteble addition is the ability to sail across the land on your ship which has been included in every other game in the series onward. These additions come a long way in making the game feel fresh and interesting in comparison to the first game.

Dragon Quest II is a massive step forward, but there were some things I didn't like about it. My first issue is something that bothered me with the original as well, and that issue would be the random encounter rate. While I can understand why they were a thing in the RPGs of old, it gets really annoying getting spammed with encounters every two steps I make, especially when I'm lost or trying to traverse a new area. My other issue is that the game can be pretty cryptic at times when it comes to finding all the things you need to progress. I looked up guides significantly more this time than I did for DQ1 mostly just to find out where to go or where to find a certain item.

As for grinding in this game? Surprisingly, it wasn't too bad. Enemies drop reasonable amount of exp to where if you do need to grind, you won't need to for long. It's probably just an improvement they added in later versions they made, but considering that grinding seems to be a gripe that most people seem to have, I expected worse.

Dragon Quest II is in my opinion an underappreciated game that laid a lot of the groundwork for the rest of the series. It felt much more like an adventure in comparison to its predecessor. Considering how the original trilogy is on basically everything these days, I'd suggest either emulating or dropping a couple bucks on either the Switch or mobile versions. It may not be as good as the entries afterwards, but with the amount of improvements it makes its definitely worth a playthrough.

And so ends my re-journey through the mainline Ape Escape games. This, like 2, was one I rented and played a decent bit as a kid, and didn't remember being quite as good as 2, but still being very good. While there is a fair bit in 3 that is more "different" from 2 than outright "better", there is also a lot here that is plain better. It took me around 8 hours to complete the Japanese version of the game and capture every monkey.

Ape Escape 3 is the most colorful and wacky of the mainline games, continuing the pace that 2 set down, and that extends into the story. Specter, the evil mastermind monkey from the previous two games, has escaped once again and is using the Freaky Monkey Five and his legion of monkeys (over 400 to capture this time around!) to try and take over the world. But this time, he's got an ace up his sleeve: a human accomplice! Dr. Tomouki (which is a fairly amazing pun that also is nearly a real name "tomo" being "friend" and "uki" being the sound a monkey makes in Japanese) is the delightfully camp, afro-sporting human scientist aiding Specter in his plot to turn all of humanity into hapless couch potatoes by brainwashing them with immensely inane monkey-based television programming. It's up to the series new heroes (the other ones having been couch potato'd), twins Satoru and Sayaka and their super scientist mother, to stop him!

Each level takes the form of a TV show the monkeys are filming on location somewhere, and you're capturing enough of them to shut down their broadcasts, while each member of the Freaky Monkey Five guard a transmission tower you need to beat them to destroy. This gives all sorts of opportunity (which the game takes in spades) for all sorts of pop culture parodies for the kind of shows the monkeys are making, from their horror show "Monday the 16th" to their hotspring documentary to their Star Wars parody (complete, of course, with Darth Vader monkey to fight). All of the silliness, from the main characters to Specter to the Freaky Monkey Five to the absolutely wonderful Dr. Tomouki, has been cranked up to 11, and it's all in a way I absolutely adore. Even the music is a significant improvement, and I'd go as far as to say that 3 has better music than even the first game. The only real downside is that the game hits some significant framerate problems in certain stages due to how much is going on, but that luckily doesn't affect the actual gameplay much (certainly not as badly as the first game's slowdown harms its gameplay).

The gameplay itself is very familiar from the previous two games, but has been modified in a way to further tighten up the gameplay improvements introduced in 2 as well as add a new gimmick entirely. You're still going from stage to stage, using your tools to fight and catch monkeys, but thankfully the incredible bloat of tools in the 2nd game has been massively trimmed back down to a far more manageable 8 (down from the like 14 or 15 in 2). The number of monkeys you need to catch in each stage has been pumped up a fair bit though, and their frequency within the stages (not nearly as many droughts with no monkeys to fight like 2 has in its later stages) as well as their natural ability to avoid your net have also been increased. The level design is significantly better as a result, leading to stages that are often smaller compared to its predecessor, but more content-dense and overall difficult due to just how good the monkeys are at avoiding capture. Even normal enemies are a bit more complicated this time around, as Dr. Tomouki's little robot minions all have turnkeys on them somewhere that you can aim for to do far more damage than a normal body hit.

To even the odds in your favor a bit, the game gives you its most noticeable change to the gameplay of the previous two entries: transformations! By holding down both R buttons, you can initiate a transformation into a super form that you can use for about 30 seconds (or longer if you keep getting powerups to fill your meter more). You unlock more and more transformations as you progress through the game for a grand total of 9, and while there is certainly a power curve as you go along (the 8th being the best and the 9th being a secret finding tool), they all have some kind of special ability (either combat or mobility-wise) that gives them their own sense of usefulness. Each of the two twins even has their own (admittedly predictably gendered) cosmetic version of each costume, like how Satoru has his Fantasy Knight and Sayaka has her Fantasy Witch.

This is sorta where the game hits its stumbling blocks. It can feel at times, particularly as you progress through the game, that the power difference between your normal form and the transformations is too significant. Fighting enemies, especially monkeys, is really difficult as your normal form, particularly with how good their auto-dodges are (not to mention if they hit you hard enough they can steal your tools!), but your transformations are often enough to totally wipe the floor with them. While I would say that the bosses in this game are overall a little better than the ones in 2, if you fight them with the appropriate transformation, you can really trivialize most of the fights difficulty-wise (although they're still quite fun even then).

Beyond that, there are some other presentation issues the game has that serve to harm the overall experience. The twins are effectively entirely similar with the one exception that Sayaka, the girl, is basically an easy mode the game doesn't tell you about. Certain monkeys will see her and be so struck by her that they fall in love and sit on the ground harmlessly waiting to be captured. Ignoring the fact that she's a 4th grader and that this is still a relatively small number of the overall monkeys in the game (less than 10%), it's still a handicap that Satoru doesn't receive in any form, and it's a bad way to make the game de facto easier for people who wanna play as the girl character (presumably from the perspective of the game's developers, girls :/).

Then there's also the fact of how all of the personalities are cranked up in their silliness, and that also goes for Monkey Yellow, whose queer-coded creepiness has been further worsened to make him an outright child predator with how he gives Satoru (a 4th grader) the choice of fighting him or going on a date with him before his boss fight. These are by no means a deal-breaker for me for the game, and Sony had the good sense to remove that Monkey Yellow thing from the English version at least in part (he gives Satoru the choice of fighting him or "being [his] personal chef forever and ever"), it's still something that erk'd me enough that I can't not mention it here.

The last thing I'll mention is the side games in Ape Escape 3. All 3 games have 3 unlockable fairly substantial mini-games you can unlock through the course of the game, but Ape Escape 3 has something really special: Mesal Gear Solid. It's an official crossover with Konami (as MGS3 got its own Ape Escape-based mini-game) where you play as Pipo Snake, guided on your tactical espionage mission by Solid Snake himself (all as a favor for the professor of Ape Escape from his "high school buddy" Colonel Campbell X3). It's a really solid and quite substantial (although obviously very silly) side mode that does a good job of replicating the feel of the first two MGS games but using assets and enemies from Ape Escape 3 that you unlock after beating the main game. It's a really neat historical curiosity, as well as likely the tricky licensing reason that has led to Ape Escape 3 never joining its sister games on PSN, if I had to guess (and also likely why the series never got a trilogy release on PS3 like basically every other major Sony IP did last generation).

Verdict: Highly Recommended. Warts and all, Ape Escape 3 is still the best the franchise ever got. While it's certainly a shame that the series never really continued after this, and that Ape Escape 3 is really only playable these days on this original PS2 release, it's still a platformer that has weathered the test of time really well, and is still loads of fun. If you like 3D platformers and don't mind needing to probably shell out a decent bit for the physical release of this, then this is a game that's a no-brainer to pick up and give a whirl.

In a set of fighting games that weren’t trying anything to really stand out from each other, getting more repetitive with each one I tried out, the original Samurai Shodown managed to be a breath of fresh air for me, and I ended up really enjoying it. Sure, it was more or less just another SNK fighting game at its core, but with the inclusion of weapons, more emphasis on story, and several other factors that made fights more enjoyable, it was definitely one of my favorite fighting games that I have played from the company so far. Not to mention, it was very well-received by audiences and was commercially successful, so SNK decided to make the series yet another staple fighting franchise of theirs… right alongside their million other staple fighting franchises, and they would make sure of that with the release of the next game in the series, Samurai Shodown II.

Typically, whenever I go into one of these fighting games, I am not one to get all too excited to see what they are all about, since a lot of the ones that I have checked out so far don’t really do that much to expand upon the gameplay, and it just feels like another installment for the sake of it (cough, Fatal Fury 2, cough, Art of Fighting 2, cough). However, since I really loved my time with the original Samurai Shodown, I was more then ready to jump into the next game, and now that I have, I am happy to say that this game is even better than the original, as it manages to deliver the same fast-based, weapon-using goodness from before, along with several new enhancements that definitely improve the experience. It isn’t too much of a leap in quality, with not too many substantial changes, but hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, y’know what I mean?

The story is, as to be expected, pretty basic, where one year after the original game, an evil spirit by the name of Mizuki seeks to spread chaos and destruction across the land, so it is up to the warriors of the previous game, accompanied by a few new ones, to take the fight to Mizuki and save the world once again, which is a premise most would definitely expect from this game, but hey, any excuse to slice dudes up with a sword is good enough for me. The graphics are almost identical to that of every other SNK fighter released at this time, to the point where if you put them all together, you could hardly tell them apart, but it still looks great, and the animations for all the characters and moves are really great, the music is really enjoyable, having plenty of great tracks that fit the theme and setting of the game, and are pretty great to battle opponents to, and the gameplay/control is a major departure from the original title, being extremely experimental when compared to most of the other fighting games from the company so far, but it would pave the way for the series forward from here on out…………… nah, just kidding, it’s the same shit they have done a million times before.

The game is a 2D fighting game, where you take control of one of 15 warriors, most being from the original game and some being new, take on plenty of different opponents in a wide variety of locations, throw out plenty of different attacks using whatever weapon you currently have equipped, while also mixing in plenty of different combos and special moves to get a major advantage over your opponents, grab whatever items are thrown into the ring while also making sure to avoid any bombs that are also thrown into the ring, and bask in glorious victory when you take out every single enemy set before you… or, you know, feel absolute shame when you give up and move onto something else instead. Those who have played the original game, or any other SNK fighting game for that matter, should know exactly what they are getting into with this title, which can be a great thing or a bad thing depending on who you ask. For me, it is definitely a great thing, as it manages to take the gameplay from the original and make it just that extra bit more fun and addicting.

Not much has changed about the main structure of gameplay when compared to the original game. You are still just primarily going through plenty of CPU opponents, take them all down one by one, and face off against friends if they are up for it. What has changed, however, would be when it comes to the techniques that you can pull off in the field, such as being able to dash forward and backwards, smaller jumps, and ducking. All of these don’t sound like too much of a major addition to the formula, but it does make fights that much more involved, and it allows for plenty of versatility against how you can deal with an opponent while trying to get plenty of hits in. In addition, there is also the new parry system that was implemented, where if you are able to successfully input the command whenever an opponent tries to hit you, they will be stunned momentarily so that you can get a clear shot in. Once again, this isn’t too much of a big change, but if you can properly take advantage of this move and apply it to any situation, you can make short work of an opponent in no time.

With all that being said though, if none of that really sounds like your cup of tea, then this is essentially just yet another fighting game from SNK, which they RARELY ever do, obviously. It can be extremely fun if you were a big fan of the first game and the series as a whole, like I am starting to become, but it isn’t gonna change things up too much to where you absolutely need to jump on it immediately after playing the original game. Even then though, I still would consider this to be a big improvement over the original game, not just because of all that stuff I just mentioned before, but the difficulty also feels much more manageable here, and the gameplay is still just as fast and reactionary as ever, making for a lot of great fights that can happen throughout your time playing it.

Overall, despite there not being too many changes present in the main gameplay, this game manages to feel like not only a natural evolution for the series after what we had in the first game, but also yet another really fun time as a whole, with great new mechanics to learn and take advantage of, plenty of new characters to try out and get accustomed to, and plenty of fun fights to take on. I would definitely recommend it for those who loved the original game, as well as those who love fighting games in general, because I’m sure you could get plenty of fun out of it for an afternoon or so, especially with some friends to join you. But anyway, at this point, this is usually when I would leave some kind of joke to end the review off, but Imma be real with y’all, it is like 1AM when I am typing this, and I just really want to get to bed. See you all tomorrow when I review another random game from the past nobody remembers… falls asleep on keyboard

Game #552

There are some classic memes that flow through games and become a part of the language of gaming. Explosive barrels being red, depowering the player after the tutorial, consumables you'll "save for later" but never use, and bad water levels being examples of these tropes.

And if you want a game to blame for starting the "bad water level" trope, it's probably this one.

Game is unfairly punishing in combat, platforming and player guidance, likely due to it being designed in a time where games wanted you to pump endless quarters into machines to progress. It gets 1 bonus star for being nostalgic to me.

It's a shame this game got overlooked by Goldeneye. This game was an improvement in just about every way. By far my most played N64 game.

Graphics and sound were better, cyberpunk aesthetic was more interesting imo, missions were more interesting and objectives better constructed, the multiplayer offered far better customization as well as the ability to fill your game with bots for a more online FPS feel, the shooting range challenges alone were grade A, the characters weren't as serious and there was a perfect amount of cheesy dialogue.

I played the Combat Simulator so much against AI "simulants' set to 'DarkSim' difficulty and "JudgeSim' personality type that when I played Goldeneye against my friends I would almost never die and they wouldn't want to play anymore.

This game is beautiful visually, musically and thematically from beginning to end. The opening and ending cinematic are extremely powerful and you will feel them at a core level. There's no dialogue or text through the entirety of the game, it's story and meanings are all conveyed abstractly primarily through color and the state of decay of the world around you. The games audio profile consists of the pitter patter of lightly played piano in quiet moments to orchestral swells when the playable character is in the grips of strong emotional transitions. Everything just works really well to pull similar emotions out from within you.

I won't say much about it, but the story is about young woman and her journey through the five stages of grief as outlined by the Kubler-Ross model.

The gameplay works but is the weakest element of the game. You navigate the world primarily linearly, though there are some points where you have a branching path to individual collectibles you need to progress. Most of your interaction will be light platforming with some minor navigation based power-up puzzles. I don't see anyone having too much trouble getting through this game no matter their skill level.

I started this game one evening and really wished I could have completed it in one sitting. I feel it's emotional journey would have been more impactful from start to end without a break. It's definitely doable seeing the game is about 4 hours long, I just couldn't get it done. I ended up finishing the game on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee. The kids woke up just as I was completing the last few segments. I then was bombarded with kid questions about what was happening on screen as I was going through all the accompanying emotions with welled up eyes. I then had to attempt to distill the meaning of grief and it's five stages in a kid friendly way as my 3 and 5 year old jumped up and down all over the couch.

I highly recommend this game to just about anyone who is looking to go on an abstract artsy emotional journey.