2020
I played the first half of the game normally, found the combat to be slow and plodding and the Mario RPG timing system overly punishing if you get anything less than great, so for the second half of the game I turned on auto win, farted through the game and had a good enough time. God bless.
Crash games are basically 2D platformers in a 3D enviornment so it's no surprise that this fairly derivative, fairly competent game manages to come off as a decent enough facsimile of a Crash game. There's some minor control issues and questionable design decisions that make the game play worse (keeping the limited double jump of crash 3 while removing mid air slide jump cancelling) but it's an acceptable portable distraction. Also zoom the camera out ffs uh oh you jump too high now everything's a leap of faith!!!!!!! Wieners.
The game is pretty much every bit of the classic it's made out to be. Aesthetically the game hits on all fronts and it plays well too. Only real issues is it's a tad too short and it tries to make up for it with the inverted castle gimmick and I couldn't be arsed to will my way through it. I also found that by the end of the game it's too easy to be overpowered if you bother to do any exploring and you can fart through most areas with relative ease. I killed the fake final boss in four attacks which is probably the point but also felt like the culmination of my experience with the last couple of areas of the game. None of this matters though because you get to hit giant ghost books with nunchaku.
A fun enough licensed beat-em-up romp through several levels explicity designed around episodes of the show. Not neccesarily for anyone that's never seen the show before but I guess that's the point isn't it? Jack and The Zombies is probably my favourite episode of the show and it's the basis for the fourth level so I can't complain.
Shadow of the Colossus is the ultimate style over substance videogame. Enjoy the giant wonderful open world that doesn't have shit all in it other than esoteric collectibles and healing shrines in a videogame where damage heals over time. Enjoy grandiose, epic battles with hulking monstrosities that never become as complex as they maybe should. And then on top of awkward controls, enjoy a camera and a horse whose main function is to wrestle control away from you. While these gripes permeate the game's 7 hour runtime, it's never bad enough to drastically spoil the gameplay experience. Except for the final boss though, that shit blows.
2016
The only reason the score is this high is that the game is aware that it's shit and that made it kind of endearing. Also, the voice acting is pretty solid and the post-it note conversations between Bob and Ted are usually worth going out of your way to read for a chuckle.
Cordially,
Skikkiks
Cordially,
Skikkiks
2020
Pretty jank, mechanics are shallow and humour can be more miss than hit. However it ended up being rather addicting and honestly the whole package is kind of endearing? With continued refinement and support it'll hopefully end up being good.
This review contains spoilers
While this game can have glimmers of MGS1's charm and didn't annoy me nearly as much as 2's Big Shell, I found the game to be good but not great.
Probably the most damning aspect of the game is its gameplay and how little any of it actually matters. While the game probably shines in gimmick runs on harder difficulties, if you're just a schlub who wants to simply beat the game on it's normal difficulty, you can just walk forward with little to no resistance no matter how alerted guards are. It is a little funny to see how little of a fuck you can give about anything and still manage to clear areas, but that sense of joy won't cover the game's full runtime.
The story also gets a lot of praise but outside of some wacky moments and enjoyable cartoon characters, I found it hard to get invested in any of it? I blame this feeling on the various Kojima trademarked exposition dumps, especially the final cutscene vomiting out a bunch of character motivations when I was mentally checked out at like... the motorcycle segment where I chucked stun grenades at enemies for like 30 straight minutes four hours prior to the end.
And speaking of the motorcycle segment, this game has a lot of story beats just ripped off from the first game which is absolutely hilarious considering the second game's entire meta gimmick and it's probably intentional hack writing and I'll give it up, fuck it.
The real takeaway I'm getting out of this game is that Kojima will never make something as funny or charming as the original Metal Gear Solid for me and I am in no rush to see how it all unfolds, even though I heard four is everyone's favourite.
Probably the most damning aspect of the game is its gameplay and how little any of it actually matters. While the game probably shines in gimmick runs on harder difficulties, if you're just a schlub who wants to simply beat the game on it's normal difficulty, you can just walk forward with little to no resistance no matter how alerted guards are. It is a little funny to see how little of a fuck you can give about anything and still manage to clear areas, but that sense of joy won't cover the game's full runtime.
The story also gets a lot of praise but outside of some wacky moments and enjoyable cartoon characters, I found it hard to get invested in any of it? I blame this feeling on the various Kojima trademarked exposition dumps, especially the final cutscene vomiting out a bunch of character motivations when I was mentally checked out at like... the motorcycle segment where I chucked stun grenades at enemies for like 30 straight minutes four hours prior to the end.
And speaking of the motorcycle segment, this game has a lot of story beats just ripped off from the first game which is absolutely hilarious considering the second game's entire meta gimmick and it's probably intentional hack writing and I'll give it up, fuck it.
The real takeaway I'm getting out of this game is that Kojima will never make something as funny or charming as the original Metal Gear Solid for me and I am in no rush to see how it all unfolds, even though I heard four is everyone's favourite.
2014
Pretty neat srpg with an amogus gimmick. The gameplay largely centers around sharing action economy between your characters and chaining attacks so that when one character attack one enemy, all allies in range also attack.
The amogus stuff is also neat, during each chapter you're tasked with snuffing out the random traitor amongst your ranks and every chapter ends with you killing one of your characters you believe to be the traitor. Whenever you kill a character, their skills can be transferred and another character can use them.
The game mainly falters with really weird writing which made me never give a shit about the plot and the actual process of snuffing the traitor out being kind of a crapshoot really. Other than that, game kind of neat!
The amogus stuff is also neat, during each chapter you're tasked with snuffing out the random traitor amongst your ranks and every chapter ends with you killing one of your characters you believe to be the traitor. Whenever you kill a character, their skills can be transferred and another character can use them.
The game mainly falters with really weird writing which made me never give a shit about the plot and the actual process of snuffing the traitor out being kind of a crapshoot really. Other than that, game kind of neat!
it's probably more of a 7 but I had to either reset and quit out of the game for the last four levels because either enemies stopped existing or the game just didn't trigger doors opening
that being said, for as fun as "wow!!!!!!! four spidermen cool!!!!!!!!!!" is, 3/4 of them are functionally the same gameplay wise while the other 1/4 is also the same but the stealth element at least gives noir SOMETHING different to do.
also damn here's the big finale level (authors note: it sucks) what is 2099 gonna do? uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... fall fast? yeah ship it
that being said, for as fun as "wow!!!!!!! four spidermen cool!!!!!!!!!!" is, 3/4 of them are functionally the same gameplay wise while the other 1/4 is also the same but the stealth element at least gives noir SOMETHING different to do.
also damn here's the big finale level (authors note: it sucks) what is 2099 gonna do? uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... fall fast? yeah ship it
2021
it's a pretty well controlling one dollar videogame, but the eversion-esque stuff is both stupid and not prevalent enough and there's nothing to do with the unlockable characters.
The game, while different in key mechanics, is essentially Touhou: Luna Nights again. Which is absolutely fine, because I finished Luna Nights loving it and wanting more. However, I got 96% map completion in this game in under 6 hours, so now this game is leaving me wanting more too! Well played, Team Ladybug! Well played!
2013
This review contains spoilers
I gave Toad fuckin money and that shithead still went to the farm, fuckin 'ell
2021
An easy breezy collectathon that's too easy, short, and repetitive to be that interesting really. The only actual interesting thing about the game is it's uncanny resemblance to Giant Squid's The Pathless in its general structure. Outside of that it reminds me a lot of the Super Mario 3D Land Special levels where the levels revolve around mechanics found in 3D World and then the other shines that aren't the 5 cat coin and bowser block shines are usually one of a few gimmicks like blue coins, find the key, shadow luigi etc that don't do much to stave off the repetition.
So yeah fuck the ruins giga bell hidden cats, fuck the 3rd cat coin in clawswipe colosseum, and I dunno fuck powerups in general I don't need that shit just make the galaxy spin the forever base default movement tool god bless.
So yeah fuck the ruins giga bell hidden cats, fuck the 3rd cat coin in clawswipe colosseum, and I dunno fuck powerups in general I don't need that shit just make the galaxy spin the forever base default movement tool god bless.
2003
The epitome of the mid 2000s generation 5 licensed game. It's biggest sin is being aggressively janky in every way due to a lack of polish. As a giant fan of Futurama and a glutton for 3D platformers I didn't hate my time with it!