SolidSnake777000
9 reviews liked by SolidSnake777000
Super Mario Land
1989
I like this one way more than I should. Something about being able to play through a fun little game in 30 minutes is really nice. The Game Boy is full of that, and I really like it. The gravity in this game is really weird, but the rest of the game makes up for it. I actually prefer it over its sequel.
Ape Escape
1999
I played this around two months ago as of typing this, so pardon me if my memory on the game is a little bit hazy.
I always knew Ape Escape to be a beloved game, one that fans continually ask for despite having no expectations for it to actually make a comeback, and Sony showing no interest. I've heard it called one of the best platformers ever and one of the PS1's finest releases. Yet, I really knew nothing about it. At all.
So imagine my surprise when I start playing this game and it has the wackiest control scheme I've ever seen. This was the premier game for the Dualshock controller - a series of controller which stays updated and well-liked to this day - being the first game to outright require the controller. And boy do they make you use it. Nowadays, it's hard to think of the right control stick as anything but camera control unless a game has a locked camera to begin with, but here, it's required for a bunch of vital and basic actions. It's very interesting, and I mostly got the hang of it fairly quickly; my natural senses to use it for camera control would take over at times, but it was manageable, and even enjoyable, but I can see why this would throw some people off of enjoying the game. Control is important, after all. But I think Ape Escape understands that due to the fact that every single button on the controller has a notable use, and changes depending on what you are doing. I know that's kind of the case for most games, at least now, but there's something about Ape Escape that makes it more pronounced here than in your typical game today.
There is a big caveat however, that being the pretty awful camera. You can center the camera behind you at the tap of a button, which is a necessity since all other camera control is out of your hands. The camera would be not the best but still manageable if that was the worst of it, but unfortunately, all too often, the camera would be in a fixed position that I think is supposed to give you a good view of what's going on, but actually makes things much harder to deal with. And when you're trying to chase after some chimps, the last thing you want is for one to pull out a machine gun and shoot you, but the SECOND thing you don't want is to not be able to see anything in trying to catch said chimps. Funny enough, at times the camera would be pretty much directly overhead, and this was actually much preferred over the typical over-the-shoulder angle, but it was only when the game felt like it. That angle is how I like to play Pikmin, so I kind of wish it was a thing here, it's very handy for trying to get just the right angle to catch a monkey.
Speaking of the actual monkey catching, I must admit that this is also not a strong suit of the game until quite late. The baton and net they give you from the offset as your bread and butter for catching monkeys just feel like they always come up too short and require, what feels like, very precise angling, which makes even some of the easiest monkeys hard catches. This might be a personal skill issue, but I can't tell you how many times I let out a "Come on" in annoyance after putting down the net failed to connect despite looking like it should have hit.
Other than that, though, this game is fantastic. Well, ok, the story isn't good and the voice acting is funny-bad for everyone except maybe the professor. But it's a late 90s 3D platformer, is anyone really expecting greatness from either of those aspects? Specter is great, though. The music is fantastic, there's a pretty good variety of set pieces here, including bringing in a t-rex, hell yeah. The gadgets are also very fun to use. As soon as I got the slingshot, it was a staple of my kit, and I really liked using the hover stick thing (it's been a minute, I don't remember the names). The platforming is kind of awkward, sometimes outright bad, but successfully making it through a platforming segment felt earned. Oh, and once I unlocked the boxing glove, it was so over for the primates, that thing is so OP, it's no wonder they left it for the last ape cleanup before giving it to you, but it's extremely fun to use and made the dinky baton superfluous outside of needing to turn cranks from time to time.
One thing I definitely did not know about going into this game are the side modes. I'm a huge fan of weirdly ambitious side modes and Ape Escape was no exception. There's a skiing racing game that's clearly not super polished, but is shockingly fun and deep for what you'd expect. A monkey boxing mode which I didn't really understand but it was at least kind of amusing to see their rubber arms flail around like a Stretch Armstrong. And my favorite, a simple but addictive space shooter. There's no ending to it, you just go go go till you can't anymore. I put a good twenty or so minutes into it; it would have been longer, but I had other things to move onto so I had to force myself to stop.
So yeah, I'm quite impressed by this game. I'm always hesitant to dive into a very well-received game, because I tend to find them underwhelming compared to the hype. But not Ape Escape, it surprised me and pushed all the right buttons.
Also, I like how at the very end they just suddenly make the only girl character a huge asshole for no reason. She just very suddenly becomes really mean but it's actually really funny, especially with the line deliveries.
I always knew Ape Escape to be a beloved game, one that fans continually ask for despite having no expectations for it to actually make a comeback, and Sony showing no interest. I've heard it called one of the best platformers ever and one of the PS1's finest releases. Yet, I really knew nothing about it. At all.
So imagine my surprise when I start playing this game and it has the wackiest control scheme I've ever seen. This was the premier game for the Dualshock controller - a series of controller which stays updated and well-liked to this day - being the first game to outright require the controller. And boy do they make you use it. Nowadays, it's hard to think of the right control stick as anything but camera control unless a game has a locked camera to begin with, but here, it's required for a bunch of vital and basic actions. It's very interesting, and I mostly got the hang of it fairly quickly; my natural senses to use it for camera control would take over at times, but it was manageable, and even enjoyable, but I can see why this would throw some people off of enjoying the game. Control is important, after all. But I think Ape Escape understands that due to the fact that every single button on the controller has a notable use, and changes depending on what you are doing. I know that's kind of the case for most games, at least now, but there's something about Ape Escape that makes it more pronounced here than in your typical game today.
There is a big caveat however, that being the pretty awful camera. You can center the camera behind you at the tap of a button, which is a necessity since all other camera control is out of your hands. The camera would be not the best but still manageable if that was the worst of it, but unfortunately, all too often, the camera would be in a fixed position that I think is supposed to give you a good view of what's going on, but actually makes things much harder to deal with. And when you're trying to chase after some chimps, the last thing you want is for one to pull out a machine gun and shoot you, but the SECOND thing you don't want is to not be able to see anything in trying to catch said chimps. Funny enough, at times the camera would be pretty much directly overhead, and this was actually much preferred over the typical over-the-shoulder angle, but it was only when the game felt like it. That angle is how I like to play Pikmin, so I kind of wish it was a thing here, it's very handy for trying to get just the right angle to catch a monkey.
Speaking of the actual monkey catching, I must admit that this is also not a strong suit of the game until quite late. The baton and net they give you from the offset as your bread and butter for catching monkeys just feel like they always come up too short and require, what feels like, very precise angling, which makes even some of the easiest monkeys hard catches. This might be a personal skill issue, but I can't tell you how many times I let out a "Come on" in annoyance after putting down the net failed to connect despite looking like it should have hit.
Other than that, though, this game is fantastic. Well, ok, the story isn't good and the voice acting is funny-bad for everyone except maybe the professor. But it's a late 90s 3D platformer, is anyone really expecting greatness from either of those aspects? Specter is great, though. The music is fantastic, there's a pretty good variety of set pieces here, including bringing in a t-rex, hell yeah. The gadgets are also very fun to use. As soon as I got the slingshot, it was a staple of my kit, and I really liked using the hover stick thing (it's been a minute, I don't remember the names). The platforming is kind of awkward, sometimes outright bad, but successfully making it through a platforming segment felt earned. Oh, and once I unlocked the boxing glove, it was so over for the primates, that thing is so OP, it's no wonder they left it for the last ape cleanup before giving it to you, but it's extremely fun to use and made the dinky baton superfluous outside of needing to turn cranks from time to time.
One thing I definitely did not know about going into this game are the side modes. I'm a huge fan of weirdly ambitious side modes and Ape Escape was no exception. There's a skiing racing game that's clearly not super polished, but is shockingly fun and deep for what you'd expect. A monkey boxing mode which I didn't really understand but it was at least kind of amusing to see their rubber arms flail around like a Stretch Armstrong. And my favorite, a simple but addictive space shooter. There's no ending to it, you just go go go till you can't anymore. I put a good twenty or so minutes into it; it would have been longer, but I had other things to move onto so I had to force myself to stop.
So yeah, I'm quite impressed by this game. I'm always hesitant to dive into a very well-received game, because I tend to find them underwhelming compared to the hype. But not Ape Escape, it surprised me and pushed all the right buttons.
Also, I like how at the very end they just suddenly make the only girl character a huge asshole for no reason. She just very suddenly becomes really mean but it's actually really funny, especially with the line deliveries.
After the disappointment of a sequel Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2 was, I needed something to cleanse the palette, so I went with something I had prior experience with and knew was good - Naruto: Clash of Ninja 2. I grew up playing the first two Clash of Ninja games, at first as frequent rentals, and then I later owned one of them (I think it was the first one but I don’t remember for sure), so I already knew I was going to be into this one, especially because I already enjoyed the first one in my recent replay despite its brevity and lack of general content.
Clash of Ninja 2 is an improvement in almost every way. A story mode that’s over double the length and lets you play as different characters than just Naruto, a new kind of battle, more stages, and many more characters.
Before hopping into the positives, I wanna mention the only thing that got worse between games, even if it’s not a big deal: cutscene presentations. The first game had cutscenes where portraits of the characters would be talking to each other, turning, moving around, and making dynamic facial expression while the story progressed. It’s still mostly the same, but instead of the characters’ entire upper halves being shown, instead it’s just headshots. It’s a small change that doesn’t really matter (especially if you’re familiar with the series - just skip the cutscenes), but it oversimplified the already simple cutscenes of the first game, and I’m not really sure why.
Speaking of the story, it simply goes from the Land of Waves arc through the Chunin Exams arc, so basically the only first two arcs, though the Chunin Exams is a pretty long one. There’s no frills - if anything, it leaves things out, so there’s not much point talking about it. If you’ve not watched or read Naruto, this likely won’t impress you, but if you’re familiar, it’s a fun review. Because the Chunin Exams arc is so much longer than Land of Waves, this story mode is easily the meatier experience of the two games, it would have been twice the length only doing the latter story.
The gameplay here is pretty exactly the same as last time. In fact, I really don’t think anything has changed, just that more characters were added. You won’t hear me complaining about that, though, because I felt the first game’s gameplay was great as it was. It’s not gonna be as deep as actual fighting games, and I’ve heard other people refer to this as a “button masher” in fact, but I kind of resent that notion. There are legitimate combos and strategies at play here. You can get away with mashing in some cases, but if you actually take some time to learn the game and characters, you’ll have a much better time.
This game includes quite a few more characters, and most of them I found to be quite fun. The first game had 9 unique characters with one unlockable clone. This game has 20 unique fighters, two unlockable forms, and what’s pretty much an Echo fighter; two characters are pretty much just joke characters, but they’re treated just the same as the main cast. A whole lot more to work with, and with the variety of playable characters and opponents, I felt much more compelled to do as much as possible. I played the one player arcade mode with every character I unlocked, and even gave a whack at the Time Attack and Survival modes. Hell, I wanted to continue until I had unlocked everything because there really is so much more to unlock. The problem is that it just becomes really grindy. To unlock everything, you need in game money. To get in game money, you need to grind out battles. Obviously they don’t expect you to sit there all day and raise up money, but that’s my only real option. I decided to throw in the towel when the next character I needed to unlock cost $15,000 and I knew there were still two others that cost way way more - $50,000 and $100,000. Geez! - and you just simply do not raise money fast enough for me to want to do that. On top of that, I still had seven stages to buy, and more story mode chapters! And a bunch of less-important stuff.
Speaking of, you’re able to buy extra chapters for the story mode after beating the main mode. I only bought one of them. It was pretty basic, and they don’t seem all too crazy, but it’s neat that it’s there.
Man, I wish I kept track of memory cards as a kid. Maybe one day I would have unlocked everything, but as an adult now, there’s simply too much without a fast enough way to unlock it all. Yeah, I could probably cheat it, but I also don’t care enough.
In the end, I highly recommend this game to Naruto fans, or to people who like simple fighting games. I like this one a lot.
I didn’t really give too much time to each character besides Naruto himself, but I’d probably say my main is Shikamaru. Oh, and I don’t really know where to put these, so I’ll toss them here, here are some small details I really liked:
-You can play as Kankuro’s puppet, Karasu (or “Crow” as the game titles him), by itself in this game. But Kankuro is still controlling him, you can see the chakra connective lines the whole time, and Kankuro hangs out in the backgrounds of stages.
-All characters simply block attacks when holding away with the exception of Shikamaru. He’s unique in that he’ll do dodging animations; though it’s functionally the same as a block.
-Akamaru is one of the two joke characters of the game, being just a puppy. When you use the substitution jutsu with him to get out of a combo, instead of a log appearing in his place, a bone will show up, it’s a cute detail.
Clash of Ninja 2 is an improvement in almost every way. A story mode that’s over double the length and lets you play as different characters than just Naruto, a new kind of battle, more stages, and many more characters.
Before hopping into the positives, I wanna mention the only thing that got worse between games, even if it’s not a big deal: cutscene presentations. The first game had cutscenes where portraits of the characters would be talking to each other, turning, moving around, and making dynamic facial expression while the story progressed. It’s still mostly the same, but instead of the characters’ entire upper halves being shown, instead it’s just headshots. It’s a small change that doesn’t really matter (especially if you’re familiar with the series - just skip the cutscenes), but it oversimplified the already simple cutscenes of the first game, and I’m not really sure why.
Speaking of the story, it simply goes from the Land of Waves arc through the Chunin Exams arc, so basically the only first two arcs, though the Chunin Exams is a pretty long one. There’s no frills - if anything, it leaves things out, so there’s not much point talking about it. If you’ve not watched or read Naruto, this likely won’t impress you, but if you’re familiar, it’s a fun review. Because the Chunin Exams arc is so much longer than Land of Waves, this story mode is easily the meatier experience of the two games, it would have been twice the length only doing the latter story.
The gameplay here is pretty exactly the same as last time. In fact, I really don’t think anything has changed, just that more characters were added. You won’t hear me complaining about that, though, because I felt the first game’s gameplay was great as it was. It’s not gonna be as deep as actual fighting games, and I’ve heard other people refer to this as a “button masher” in fact, but I kind of resent that notion. There are legitimate combos and strategies at play here. You can get away with mashing in some cases, but if you actually take some time to learn the game and characters, you’ll have a much better time.
This game includes quite a few more characters, and most of them I found to be quite fun. The first game had 9 unique characters with one unlockable clone. This game has 20 unique fighters, two unlockable forms, and what’s pretty much an Echo fighter; two characters are pretty much just joke characters, but they’re treated just the same as the main cast. A whole lot more to work with, and with the variety of playable characters and opponents, I felt much more compelled to do as much as possible. I played the one player arcade mode with every character I unlocked, and even gave a whack at the Time Attack and Survival modes. Hell, I wanted to continue until I had unlocked everything because there really is so much more to unlock. The problem is that it just becomes really grindy. To unlock everything, you need in game money. To get in game money, you need to grind out battles. Obviously they don’t expect you to sit there all day and raise up money, but that’s my only real option. I decided to throw in the towel when the next character I needed to unlock cost $15,000 and I knew there were still two others that cost way way more - $50,000 and $100,000. Geez! - and you just simply do not raise money fast enough for me to want to do that. On top of that, I still had seven stages to buy, and more story mode chapters! And a bunch of less-important stuff.
Speaking of, you’re able to buy extra chapters for the story mode after beating the main mode. I only bought one of them. It was pretty basic, and they don’t seem all too crazy, but it’s neat that it’s there.
Man, I wish I kept track of memory cards as a kid. Maybe one day I would have unlocked everything, but as an adult now, there’s simply too much without a fast enough way to unlock it all. Yeah, I could probably cheat it, but I also don’t care enough.
In the end, I highly recommend this game to Naruto fans, or to people who like simple fighting games. I like this one a lot.
I didn’t really give too much time to each character besides Naruto himself, but I’d probably say my main is Shikamaru. Oh, and I don’t really know where to put these, so I’ll toss them here, here are some small details I really liked:
-You can play as Kankuro’s puppet, Karasu (or “Crow” as the game titles him), by itself in this game. But Kankuro is still controlling him, you can see the chakra connective lines the whole time, and Kankuro hangs out in the backgrounds of stages.
-All characters simply block attacks when holding away with the exception of Shikamaru. He’s unique in that he’ll do dodging animations; though it’s functionally the same as a block.
-Akamaru is one of the two joke characters of the game, being just a puppy. When you use the substitution jutsu with him to get out of a combo, instead of a log appearing in his place, a bone will show up, it’s a cute detail.
The Kamehameha is the powerhouse of the Cell
(ok that was a lame one)
So I think 2024 might just be the year where I become fine with dropping games and not thinking "but I'll consider this part of my backlog, I'll finish it eventually." Between Spider-Man and this game, I just have not been feeling all the games I've played this year, and ya know? There's nothing wrong with just dropping them forever. I don't need them.
But why am I doing so with Budokai 2? After all, I did give the first one a generally positive rating and review, and this one seems at least slightly more well-liked. Well, this game ended up cutting things I liked from the first one, having a worse singleplayer experience, and didn't improve on the main gameplay practically at all.
The main singleplayer mode of Budokai was simply a retelling of the Dragon Ball Z story up until the Cell Saga, with fully animated and voice acted cutscenes. This game went for... something different. Each chapter takes place on a board, where the player and computer enemies take turns moving one space across the board where they can grab power-ups, collectibles, story-important items, and run into each other to fight. The immediate comparison people make is Mario Party, but that is way too high of praise for this. You can only move one space, board events are nothing more than getting teleporting across the map or more enemies appearing (from my experience), there's no sort of fun items or minigames, it's just a slow, boring trek to your goal. I see the appeal of trying something new, and on paper I adore the idea of a Dragon Ball board game in one of these, but in execution it was just so bad. Not to mention the extreme repetition. For example, the very first board has Raditz, Nappa, and respawning Saibamen. Each of the Saibamen is a battle, but defeating them doesn't really matter because more will grow, they only serve as an annoying obstacle. Then Nappa and Raditz both take 2-3 battles to fully defeat due to how the health works on the board. It's so repetitive, and it only gets worse.
One thing I was really looking forward to with this game was the Buu Saga. Despite being a Dragon Ball fan for most of my life, I've never really experienced the Buu Saga. The games I've played never goes over it, Dragon Ball Z Kai didn't cover it back when I watched it, not even Dragon Ball Z Abridged covers it. It's surprisingly elusive for such a major thing for the series as a whole. And, well, Buu is all over this cover and it only makes sense that it'd focus on the Buu Saga, right? Well, to be fair, it does seem like the story mode of this game largely focuses on the Buu Saga, it seems like the longest part of the story. But I didn't get to it. And even if I did, this would be a pathetic way to experience the story. The version of the DBZ story that plays in this game is so watered down and mismatched that I wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of the Buu arc. Raditz and Nappa come to Earth to collect the Dragon Balls for Frieza and nothing else; Vegeta doesn't exist in this Saiyan Saga, only appearing in the second Frieza arc board; Cell shows up, absorbs the androids with no preamble, and then you just fight him three times and that's all she wrote. What is going on here? Maybe they do things better with the Buu Saga, go over it a bit more in-depth, but I'm not sticking around to find out.
On top of the gameplay being repetitive, they really didn't improve the basic gameplay much at all. You can now use Kamehamehas (and other similar moves) on command instead of needing to use a combo first. They're much more effective post-combo than using them dry, but there were many times where I wish I could whip it out whenever in Budokai 1, so it's greatly appreciated. Some characters' special moves also have more dynamic inputs (pressing a series of buttons to do fusion, rotating the control stick ungodly fast to reach full potential with an attack, and guessing what button your opponent will press in order to hit them), but I honestly found these more unapproachable than anything. I didn't have to deal with them in the story, but the tutorial had them and they weren't very fun to play with there.
This game also has an all new artstyle. I thought the previous game's artstyle was really charming, albeit evident that it was the earliest 3D DBZ game. This one is probably more conventionally pleasant - more cel-shaded with thick outlines - and I think most people would prefer it overall. I'm not sure if I prefer it overall or not, though, because this game foregoes the great fully animated cutscenes for textboxes. I would have loved to see these models and setpieces in a similar way to the first game, but that just wasn't the case.
I totally get why this game has a higher average rating than the first game, but I just can't personally stand by it. I hear great things about Budokai 3, though, so perhaps that'll be a big improvement? I sure hope so.
(ok that was a lame one)
So I think 2024 might just be the year where I become fine with dropping games and not thinking "but I'll consider this part of my backlog, I'll finish it eventually." Between Spider-Man and this game, I just have not been feeling all the games I've played this year, and ya know? There's nothing wrong with just dropping them forever. I don't need them.
But why am I doing so with Budokai 2? After all, I did give the first one a generally positive rating and review, and this one seems at least slightly more well-liked. Well, this game ended up cutting things I liked from the first one, having a worse singleplayer experience, and didn't improve on the main gameplay practically at all.
The main singleplayer mode of Budokai was simply a retelling of the Dragon Ball Z story up until the Cell Saga, with fully animated and voice acted cutscenes. This game went for... something different. Each chapter takes place on a board, where the player and computer enemies take turns moving one space across the board where they can grab power-ups, collectibles, story-important items, and run into each other to fight. The immediate comparison people make is Mario Party, but that is way too high of praise for this. You can only move one space, board events are nothing more than getting teleporting across the map or more enemies appearing (from my experience), there's no sort of fun items or minigames, it's just a slow, boring trek to your goal. I see the appeal of trying something new, and on paper I adore the idea of a Dragon Ball board game in one of these, but in execution it was just so bad. Not to mention the extreme repetition. For example, the very first board has Raditz, Nappa, and respawning Saibamen. Each of the Saibamen is a battle, but defeating them doesn't really matter because more will grow, they only serve as an annoying obstacle. Then Nappa and Raditz both take 2-3 battles to fully defeat due to how the health works on the board. It's so repetitive, and it only gets worse.
One thing I was really looking forward to with this game was the Buu Saga. Despite being a Dragon Ball fan for most of my life, I've never really experienced the Buu Saga. The games I've played never goes over it, Dragon Ball Z Kai didn't cover it back when I watched it, not even Dragon Ball Z Abridged covers it. It's surprisingly elusive for such a major thing for the series as a whole. And, well, Buu is all over this cover and it only makes sense that it'd focus on the Buu Saga, right? Well, to be fair, it does seem like the story mode of this game largely focuses on the Buu Saga, it seems like the longest part of the story. But I didn't get to it. And even if I did, this would be a pathetic way to experience the story. The version of the DBZ story that plays in this game is so watered down and mismatched that I wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of the Buu arc. Raditz and Nappa come to Earth to collect the Dragon Balls for Frieza and nothing else; Vegeta doesn't exist in this Saiyan Saga, only appearing in the second Frieza arc board; Cell shows up, absorbs the androids with no preamble, and then you just fight him three times and that's all she wrote. What is going on here? Maybe they do things better with the Buu Saga, go over it a bit more in-depth, but I'm not sticking around to find out.
On top of the gameplay being repetitive, they really didn't improve the basic gameplay much at all. You can now use Kamehamehas (and other similar moves) on command instead of needing to use a combo first. They're much more effective post-combo than using them dry, but there were many times where I wish I could whip it out whenever in Budokai 1, so it's greatly appreciated. Some characters' special moves also have more dynamic inputs (pressing a series of buttons to do fusion, rotating the control stick ungodly fast to reach full potential with an attack, and guessing what button your opponent will press in order to hit them), but I honestly found these more unapproachable than anything. I didn't have to deal with them in the story, but the tutorial had them and they weren't very fun to play with there.
This game also has an all new artstyle. I thought the previous game's artstyle was really charming, albeit evident that it was the earliest 3D DBZ game. This one is probably more conventionally pleasant - more cel-shaded with thick outlines - and I think most people would prefer it overall. I'm not sure if I prefer it overall or not, though, because this game foregoes the great fully animated cutscenes for textboxes. I would have loved to see these models and setpieces in a similar way to the first game, but that just wasn't the case.
I totally get why this game has a higher average rating than the first game, but I just can't personally stand by it. I hear great things about Budokai 3, though, so perhaps that'll be a big improvement? I sure hope so.
Happy Leap Day everyone! Er, what does this have to do with Leap Day? Uh... there's a big froggy
This is a game I grew up playing, and even back then I knew this was such a small package. The main story of this game can be beaten in 10-20 minutes due to it only covering the Land of Waves arc of the series, and a very abridged version at that. You have one fight against all the characters in the game (except Naruto, since you play as him), with fully voice acted cutscenes of the characters' PNGs moving around; simple, but charming.
Besides the main story, the main feature is the one player mode in which you, again, fight each character of the game, just without any sort of story. Doing so with each character unlocks their bio which taught me that Naruto is a Libra. Apparently if you do the One Player mode with every character twice, something is unlocked with Naruto and Kakashi... but I'm not doing that, I'm sorry. It wouldn't really take that long in the grand scheme of things, but this game got outclassed in the same year it came out, no less twenty-one years later. I also don't even actually know if that unlocks anything. Since this game was outclassed so fast, information is limited.
Oh yeah, apparently this game and Clash of Ninja 2 came out in the same year? In Japan, this one came out in April 2003, while the sequel came out in December 2003. Even in NA, this one released in March 2006, and 2 in September 2006. That's so crazy to me. I can't even think of how or why that happened.
Even though I did play this as a kid and am nostalgic for it, I remember Clash of Ninja 2 much more. And from what I recall and have heard, there's really no reason to not just jump straight to that one. It also covers the Land of Waves arc (with a new kind of battle, too), and goes beyond that to possibly the most well-known arc of the series, the Chunin Exams.
It might be weird to give this three and a half stars given all that I've said has been a bit negative, but just because there's not much reason to play a game doesn't mean it's bad, yeah? I find the gameplay to be shallow, but quite fun, and there's a quaint feel to it all. Like I said, I grew up with the show, more specifically the English dub, so the voices, quotes, settings, music, graphics.... it all just feels so comfortable to me.
Edit: Everyone is calling this a button masher 😭 I actually tried to use some strategy. Am I stupid?
This is a game I grew up playing, and even back then I knew this was such a small package. The main story of this game can be beaten in 10-20 minutes due to it only covering the Land of Waves arc of the series, and a very abridged version at that. You have one fight against all the characters in the game (except Naruto, since you play as him), with fully voice acted cutscenes of the characters' PNGs moving around; simple, but charming.
Besides the main story, the main feature is the one player mode in which you, again, fight each character of the game, just without any sort of story. Doing so with each character unlocks their bio which taught me that Naruto is a Libra. Apparently if you do the One Player mode with every character twice, something is unlocked with Naruto and Kakashi... but I'm not doing that, I'm sorry. It wouldn't really take that long in the grand scheme of things, but this game got outclassed in the same year it came out, no less twenty-one years later. I also don't even actually know if that unlocks anything. Since this game was outclassed so fast, information is limited.
Oh yeah, apparently this game and Clash of Ninja 2 came out in the same year? In Japan, this one came out in April 2003, while the sequel came out in December 2003. Even in NA, this one released in March 2006, and 2 in September 2006. That's so crazy to me. I can't even think of how or why that happened.
Even though I did play this as a kid and am nostalgic for it, I remember Clash of Ninja 2 much more. And from what I recall and have heard, there's really no reason to not just jump straight to that one. It also covers the Land of Waves arc (with a new kind of battle, too), and goes beyond that to possibly the most well-known arc of the series, the Chunin Exams.
It might be weird to give this three and a half stars given all that I've said has been a bit negative, but just because there's not much reason to play a game doesn't mean it's bad, yeah? I find the gameplay to be shallow, but quite fun, and there's a quaint feel to it all. Like I said, I grew up with the show, more specifically the English dub, so the voices, quotes, settings, music, graphics.... it all just feels so comfortable to me.
Edit: Everyone is calling this a button masher 😭 I actually tried to use some strategy. Am I stupid?
Vegeta's gonna drop his BALLS when he sees how good we've blocked his overhead. He's gonna be like "oh no, my Dragon Balls!"
I've been a Dragon Ball fan for a very long time, yet I've never really played the games. Play a little bit of Budokai Tenkaichi 3 at a friend's house as a kid, I adored Raging Blast 2 (hope to play that again eventually), and I played 20-ish minutes of FighterZ. But I always wanted to dive into the games more, so I might try to do so more this year, starting with the Budokai games.
I always loved seeing gameplay of this game growing up cause even by the mid-2000s it looked way older than it actually was, subsequent games pretty quickly looking more their time, it made it charming. Though I was also much less interested back then because the Budokai Tenkaichi games looked way more like actual DBZ battles (and with insane rosters).
The story of Budokai is pretty simply just retelling the plot of Dragon Ball Z up until the Buu Saga. This is a pretty eyerolling thing nowadays because so, so many DBZ games have just retold the show/manga instead of doing something original, and it's 50/50 on if it does the Buu Saga (the Buu Saga is skipped so often that I still don't really know everything that happens in it or the order of events or much about Buu himself). However, in 2002, it was pretty novel (I assume) as the story hadn't been repackaged for a fully voice acted 3D game before. I love the Saiyan, Frieza, and Android Sagas, so I don't mind re-experiencing them since it's been a while for me, though I couldn't help but notice how much is skipped throughout.
The battles between the Z Fighters and Nappa/Saibamen is a mere footnote. Krillin, Gohan, and Vegeta collecting the Dragon Balls and fighting the Frieza's minions and the Ginyu Force are just mentioned in a few words and shown minorly in cutscenes. Once Goku is taken out from his heart virus, there's a few fights as Piccolo (the only character you play as besides Goku and Gohan iirc), but there are a number of other encounters that are skipped. As it turns out, though the game doesn't tell you this, after doing the main story (the final fight between Gohan and Cell), you are able to go back and play through most chapters of the story that wasn't previously covered. Piccolo vs. Saibamen, Piccolo vs. Nappa, Vegeta vs. Recoome, etc. Did they think players would find the game too bloated if they included these parts at first? I think people new to DBZ would be quite confused by this. Hell, Dodoria isn't even in this retread despite being a playable character in tournaments/duels. How strange.
However, the story retread has some nice surprises as well. After filling in the missing chapters, another chapter will unlock where you play a "what if" scenario where the villains win. You beat Goku and his friends as Frieza and he has his wish for eternal life granted, for instance. Nothing too crazy, but neat to see before it would become more common in the games. I recommend the Cell one more than the others if you don't feel like going for them all.
Besides the story mode, there's two modes of the game. Duels (PvP battles) and the World Tournament. The tournament is where you'll be spending most of your time. If you want 100% then, uh, you're in for a long ride. There are 23 characters in this game, each of which have a bunch of skills you need to purchase from Mr. Popo. You only get money by placing 1st or 2nd in the tournament, so you're gonna be grinding it out a lot. But that's not the worst of it. Each character has a particular skill that can only be gained by Shenron granting you a wish; to do so, you need to buy all seven Dragon Balls individually for every single character. Yeah, no thanks, that's so much grinding. And the tournament sounds like a not ideal time for such grinding as simply being launched out of the ring once takes you out of the tournament. Save yourself the trouble and don't try for 100%.
Oh, there's also a Hercule mode after you unlock him. I didn't feel like unlocking stuff so I didn't go after it, but it sounds like it a sort of arcadey mode where you only play as Hercule and fight in various nontypical conditions.
But none of this speaks to the main gameplay. How is it? Well, it's much more of a standard fighter than a lot of other DBZ games succeeding it. Fights are mostly 2D, but with the ability to shuffle along the z-axis, mainly just to dodge attacks (ala Tekken... I think. I haven't played Tekken). Most DBZ games allow you to input a command to do special moves - Kamehameha, Galick Gun, etc. - at the cost of some Ki energy, but instead you have to do specific combos in order to pull them off here. Punch > punch > punch > punch > Ki energy for a Kamehameha, things like that. That one in particular works well, but I found that anything more complicated was quite inconsistent. This is very likely a "me" issue, just not able to execute the commands correctly, but it seemed like they'd only come out when I wasn't trying to do them instead of when I was trying for one. Not helping things is how you regain lost Ki. You have to hold the guard button, then double tap (and then hold) the direction away from your opponent. It sounds simple, but it felt so finnicky, and there was never a good opportunity to charge Ki. Getting opponents away is already a task, but once you start charging up, your enemy will just blitz you anyway. Later games (from my limited experience) will have the computers charge their own energy when you start because of how annoying it is otherwise, but I guess they didn't consider that in this first time.
The main gameplay was a lot deeper than I expected, and I was continually discovering things as I played, which was pretty cool. But the previously mentioned hang-ups really hurt the experience on harder battles. Speaking of which, the final fights against Frieza and Cell, and Piccolo's fight against Napa were huge random difficulty spikes. They fight so much harder, and you are given less health than them. There are a lot of easy fights between these ones, so it truly is just one hard battle that's really annoying, followed by a bunch of rather easy ones, and then a random hard one again. It made the lack of specials working all the more frustrating cause I was counting on them to help me out, but they just never worked for me (again, this might just be a me thing). I like the idea of making specials a sort of reward for doing a combo, but it more often than not came at my detriment.
Also, something that was quite comical to me is that losing Ki energy will make characters revert forms. Perfect Cell, for example, will revert to his first form upon being low on Ki. Not even his second form, it's only the first and last form I'm pretty sure, same with Frieza. This makes no sense in-universe because Cell can only revert to old forms if the androids he absorbed are knocked out of him, but here he just goes back to basics if he's a little tired. It was amusing in these cases, though it was kind of annoying when you want to keep Super Saiyan but it's so cumbersome to charge Ki and it keeps dropping.
Overall, Budokai is a good time. It's frustrating at times, but when a battle is going well, it's fun, and I find the graphics quite charming, and the roster surprisingly large. It's very much an early take on this kind of game, though. It wears its age on its sleeve, but that's part of the appeal, to me.
also if you do the post-game chapters, the finally boss is technically yamcha, that's perfect
Wish I could rate this 3.25 stars, but I can't. I'm gonna round down.
I've been a Dragon Ball fan for a very long time, yet I've never really played the games. Play a little bit of Budokai Tenkaichi 3 at a friend's house as a kid, I adored Raging Blast 2 (hope to play that again eventually), and I played 20-ish minutes of FighterZ. But I always wanted to dive into the games more, so I might try to do so more this year, starting with the Budokai games.
I always loved seeing gameplay of this game growing up cause even by the mid-2000s it looked way older than it actually was, subsequent games pretty quickly looking more their time, it made it charming. Though I was also much less interested back then because the Budokai Tenkaichi games looked way more like actual DBZ battles (and with insane rosters).
The story of Budokai is pretty simply just retelling the plot of Dragon Ball Z up until the Buu Saga. This is a pretty eyerolling thing nowadays because so, so many DBZ games have just retold the show/manga instead of doing something original, and it's 50/50 on if it does the Buu Saga (the Buu Saga is skipped so often that I still don't really know everything that happens in it or the order of events or much about Buu himself). However, in 2002, it was pretty novel (I assume) as the story hadn't been repackaged for a fully voice acted 3D game before. I love the Saiyan, Frieza, and Android Sagas, so I don't mind re-experiencing them since it's been a while for me, though I couldn't help but notice how much is skipped throughout.
The battles between the Z Fighters and Nappa/Saibamen is a mere footnote. Krillin, Gohan, and Vegeta collecting the Dragon Balls and fighting the Frieza's minions and the Ginyu Force are just mentioned in a few words and shown minorly in cutscenes. Once Goku is taken out from his heart virus, there's a few fights as Piccolo (the only character you play as besides Goku and Gohan iirc), but there are a number of other encounters that are skipped. As it turns out, though the game doesn't tell you this, after doing the main story (the final fight between Gohan and Cell), you are able to go back and play through most chapters of the story that wasn't previously covered. Piccolo vs. Saibamen, Piccolo vs. Nappa, Vegeta vs. Recoome, etc. Did they think players would find the game too bloated if they included these parts at first? I think people new to DBZ would be quite confused by this. Hell, Dodoria isn't even in this retread despite being a playable character in tournaments/duels. How strange.
However, the story retread has some nice surprises as well. After filling in the missing chapters, another chapter will unlock where you play a "what if" scenario where the villains win. You beat Goku and his friends as Frieza and he has his wish for eternal life granted, for instance. Nothing too crazy, but neat to see before it would become more common in the games. I recommend the Cell one more than the others if you don't feel like going for them all.
Besides the story mode, there's two modes of the game. Duels (PvP battles) and the World Tournament. The tournament is where you'll be spending most of your time. If you want 100% then, uh, you're in for a long ride. There are 23 characters in this game, each of which have a bunch of skills you need to purchase from Mr. Popo. You only get money by placing 1st or 2nd in the tournament, so you're gonna be grinding it out a lot. But that's not the worst of it. Each character has a particular skill that can only be gained by Shenron granting you a wish; to do so, you need to buy all seven Dragon Balls individually for every single character. Yeah, no thanks, that's so much grinding. And the tournament sounds like a not ideal time for such grinding as simply being launched out of the ring once takes you out of the tournament. Save yourself the trouble and don't try for 100%.
Oh, there's also a Hercule mode after you unlock him. I didn't feel like unlocking stuff so I didn't go after it, but it sounds like it a sort of arcadey mode where you only play as Hercule and fight in various nontypical conditions.
But none of this speaks to the main gameplay. How is it? Well, it's much more of a standard fighter than a lot of other DBZ games succeeding it. Fights are mostly 2D, but with the ability to shuffle along the z-axis, mainly just to dodge attacks (ala Tekken... I think. I haven't played Tekken). Most DBZ games allow you to input a command to do special moves - Kamehameha, Galick Gun, etc. - at the cost of some Ki energy, but instead you have to do specific combos in order to pull them off here. Punch > punch > punch > punch > Ki energy for a Kamehameha, things like that. That one in particular works well, but I found that anything more complicated was quite inconsistent. This is very likely a "me" issue, just not able to execute the commands correctly, but it seemed like they'd only come out when I wasn't trying to do them instead of when I was trying for one. Not helping things is how you regain lost Ki. You have to hold the guard button, then double tap (and then hold) the direction away from your opponent. It sounds simple, but it felt so finnicky, and there was never a good opportunity to charge Ki. Getting opponents away is already a task, but once you start charging up, your enemy will just blitz you anyway. Later games (from my limited experience) will have the computers charge their own energy when you start because of how annoying it is otherwise, but I guess they didn't consider that in this first time.
The main gameplay was a lot deeper than I expected, and I was continually discovering things as I played, which was pretty cool. But the previously mentioned hang-ups really hurt the experience on harder battles. Speaking of which, the final fights against Frieza and Cell, and Piccolo's fight against Napa were huge random difficulty spikes. They fight so much harder, and you are given less health than them. There are a lot of easy fights between these ones, so it truly is just one hard battle that's really annoying, followed by a bunch of rather easy ones, and then a random hard one again. It made the lack of specials working all the more frustrating cause I was counting on them to help me out, but they just never worked for me (again, this might just be a me thing). I like the idea of making specials a sort of reward for doing a combo, but it more often than not came at my detriment.
Also, something that was quite comical to me is that losing Ki energy will make characters revert forms. Perfect Cell, for example, will revert to his first form upon being low on Ki. Not even his second form, it's only the first and last form I'm pretty sure, same with Frieza. This makes no sense in-universe because Cell can only revert to old forms if the androids he absorbed are knocked out of him, but here he just goes back to basics if he's a little tired. It was amusing in these cases, though it was kind of annoying when you want to keep Super Saiyan but it's so cumbersome to charge Ki and it keeps dropping.
Overall, Budokai is a good time. It's frustrating at times, but when a battle is going well, it's fun, and I find the graphics quite charming, and the roster surprisingly large. It's very much an early take on this kind of game, though. It wears its age on its sleeve, but that's part of the appeal, to me.
also if you do the post-game chapters, the finally boss is technically yamcha, that's perfect
Wish I could rate this 3.25 stars, but I can't. I'm gonna round down.
Doom
1993
I loved that part where he doomed all over those guys.
Cacodemon is the greatest gift the video game industry has given us.
Cacodemon is the greatest gift the video game industry has given us.
When I think back on Danganronpa, I feel its enduring popularity and fanbase was achieved by the perfect storm. It was an edgy Japanese high school murder mystery in the early to mid 2010s. Emo culture was still fresh in our memories, anime was becoming well and truly mainstream with zoomers, and it left enough questions unanswered for fans to come together in online communities to discuss the game, concoct their own theories, and give it word-of-mouth.
The game's visuals also ensured that it would be a hit. Whether it was for the pink blood, the cardboard cutout characters, or the ingeniously designed mascot Monokuma, Danganronpa made a lasting impression on our eyes and minds. As the celebrated cartoonist Zachary Hadel, of Smiling Friends fame, would say, Danganronpa looks 'iconic.'
I say all this because, hell, I was one of those edgy zoomers - one of the first, in fact. I played this game when it was still a PSP exclusive, using the fan translation that I still feel is superior to its official counterpart.
Rarely has a game been so perfect for a certain demographic, but that's not to say that Danganronpa's appeal has faded for newcomers. Its dark humour, memorable cast, striking visual style and absorbing plot handily secure its place in the pantheon of visual novels. If you haven't played Danganronpa before, the best time to play it is now. NOW. Before Alzheimer's disease sets in. Upupupupu!
The game's visuals also ensured that it would be a hit. Whether it was for the pink blood, the cardboard cutout characters, or the ingeniously designed mascot Monokuma, Danganronpa made a lasting impression on our eyes and minds. As the celebrated cartoonist Zachary Hadel, of Smiling Friends fame, would say, Danganronpa looks 'iconic.'
I say all this because, hell, I was one of those edgy zoomers - one of the first, in fact. I played this game when it was still a PSP exclusive, using the fan translation that I still feel is superior to its official counterpart.
Rarely has a game been so perfect for a certain demographic, but that's not to say that Danganronpa's appeal has faded for newcomers. Its dark humour, memorable cast, striking visual style and absorbing plot handily secure its place in the pantheon of visual novels. If you haven't played Danganronpa before, the best time to play it is now. NOW. Before Alzheimer's disease sets in. Upupupupu!
Rule of Rose
2006
Rule of Rose is a beautiful yet severely flawed game that badly needs a remake, but at the same time it shouldn't have one. To trust a modern developer to capture its magic would be too much of a gamble, and I don't mean that as a dig at modern developers. The thing is, even if the story is set in the 1920s, this game's heart is in the 2000s - the golden age of Japanese horror, Silent Hill and PlayStation 2. A time when politicians were still scared of Marilyn Manson, and denied this game a UK/Australian release for purportedly featuring child torture and sadomasochism.
It was exaggerated, and to be very honest, the British school system at the time had more child torture on a regular basis and got away with it. But enough talk about hand-wringers. What's this game really like?
In terms of its presentation, Rule of Rose is stellar. The interface, the visual style, and the music is absolutely gorgeous - but also sparse; only a few tracks are used throughout the game, being mostly unaccompanied violin. There is a surprising number of high-quality CG-animated cutscenes in this game. Rule of Rose, both in style and substance, looks really good from a distance.
The 1920s England setting was fascinating, and the story absorbed me. It had intrigue, revulsion, tragedy and drama. Rule of Rose deserves credit both for being more transgressive than other games/movies of the time dared - though it's still very tame compared to the controversy it generated - and for portraying things like homosexuality in a very matter-of-fact and non-exploitative way that modern games and movies could learn from.
Unfortunately, the gameplay is fucking awful. The combat is some of the worst I've seen in any video game. It's completely broken, feels like they tried to program Silent Hill's combat (which wasn't great to begin with) and gave up 10% of the way in. Even though there isn't a lot of combat, it still feels like there's too much of it. The enemy designs are also hysterically funny instead of being creepy. From the moment you see your first mouldy scarecrow of an enemy, the game loses any chance it ever had of scaring you.
Exploration doesn't fare much better. Your dog companion - who is useless in combat - simply acts as a living walkthrough, smelling your way to the next plot-related item. The main character's running animation has something terribly wrong with it, and despite being a running animation it's somehow almost slower than walking.
Lastly, for some odd arbitrary reason, about half of the cutscenes have voice acting, and half don't, even extremely plot-important ones. This lends to the feeling that the game is somewhat unfinished. It manages to tell its story, but it doesn't do it particularly well. In a broken way, it does achieve greatness - the story and imagery of this game lingers on in my heart, years after the fact. Unfortunately, so does the frustration. I recommend Rule of Rose to patient fans of old-school survival horror, who are used to the bullshit these games put us through. For the more expeditiously-inclined, a YouTube game-movie should suffice.
It was exaggerated, and to be very honest, the British school system at the time had more child torture on a regular basis and got away with it. But enough talk about hand-wringers. What's this game really like?
In terms of its presentation, Rule of Rose is stellar. The interface, the visual style, and the music is absolutely gorgeous - but also sparse; only a few tracks are used throughout the game, being mostly unaccompanied violin. There is a surprising number of high-quality CG-animated cutscenes in this game. Rule of Rose, both in style and substance, looks really good from a distance.
The 1920s England setting was fascinating, and the story absorbed me. It had intrigue, revulsion, tragedy and drama. Rule of Rose deserves credit both for being more transgressive than other games/movies of the time dared - though it's still very tame compared to the controversy it generated - and for portraying things like homosexuality in a very matter-of-fact and non-exploitative way that modern games and movies could learn from.
Unfortunately, the gameplay is fucking awful. The combat is some of the worst I've seen in any video game. It's completely broken, feels like they tried to program Silent Hill's combat (which wasn't great to begin with) and gave up 10% of the way in. Even though there isn't a lot of combat, it still feels like there's too much of it. The enemy designs are also hysterically funny instead of being creepy. From the moment you see your first mouldy scarecrow of an enemy, the game loses any chance it ever had of scaring you.
Exploration doesn't fare much better. Your dog companion - who is useless in combat - simply acts as a living walkthrough, smelling your way to the next plot-related item. The main character's running animation has something terribly wrong with it, and despite being a running animation it's somehow almost slower than walking.
Lastly, for some odd arbitrary reason, about half of the cutscenes have voice acting, and half don't, even extremely plot-important ones. This lends to the feeling that the game is somewhat unfinished. It manages to tell its story, but it doesn't do it particularly well. In a broken way, it does achieve greatness - the story and imagery of this game lingers on in my heart, years after the fact. Unfortunately, so does the frustration. I recommend Rule of Rose to patient fans of old-school survival horror, who are used to the bullshit these games put us through. For the more expeditiously-inclined, a YouTube game-movie should suffice.