Call me Vee....Captain Vee.....

It's been about thirty years give or take since I had encountered that ghastly damn fiddler crab. I trudged and shuffled my way through hill tops, chemical plants, casinos, and even oil spills to find all those sparkly gemstones competing in those half pipe challenges. The challenges themselves were quite a treat back in those days. They're a tad fumbly bumbly visiting them now, and the bombs are quite dastardly placed. I wouldn't expect any less from that egg-ish bastard, but that crab took everything from me. My time, my money, my gems, as well as my leg. That crabominable nincompoop took it off when I tried to jump on him, I don't know how he hit me, but he did. Underhanded he was, that's why as of this paragraph I have gone off on my expedition to track down that bloody wanker. I'm gonna get him back for what he did, I will have my revenge...

Been about a weeks worth of travel on the range, we stopped at the casino as a resting stop after my fox companion nearly got tetanus from a Grounder jumping out of the wall in those ruins earlier. Crafty bunch they are, constantly talking about buckets of chicken for some reason too. After I lost all of my rings diving headfirst into an oversized slot machine, we continued onward through the caves dodging those damn lightning bugs. We were getting closer though, closer to his habitat. I could smell the fumes of discarded fossil fuel, past this ocean, we will be within his lair. It's a shame no one has yet to do something about all this oil, I wonder if it's the seahorses keeping the cleaning crews at bay...their cheesy poof spitball can knock an echidna on their arse.

After a couple hours we finally made it, the fabled Metropolis Zone, often mistakenly known as "Genocide City" by some goers. Sounds like something owned by a blonde arms dealing supervillain living in a Nimitz-class supercarrier. My foxy companion was nearly knocked off the lug nut elevator that we were using by an exploding starfish, that's how I knew we were even closer. The music was awfully catchy for such a dangerous area, no idea where it was coming from. I can only assume that crab was behind it. We searched high and low for what seemed like hours.......perhaps even days....but then, it happened. I spotted him. Perched up on the ledge like he was last time, the crustaceous criminal.

Shellcracker. Shellcracker.....

There's no mistaking it, I could never forget such a smarmy little fucker. You could get an entire team of astrophysicists and mathematicians to construct a diagram of when and how this damn crab's hitboxes function, but they still wouldn't be able to figure it out. Baffled beyond recognition at the thievery of which this arthropod operates, science couldn't possibly understand it. I couldn't either, but I had to get it. My revenge. I cannot allow him to continue his antics, who knows how many countless others he has stolen from. How many lives ruined. All by this fiddling fiddler's debauchery and scandalous behavior. I ushered my kitsune cohort to hand me my spear...and I could see Shellcracker's eyes narrow, he knew it was me....I have come for him....only one will leave this area alive. The hunt is on....

My heart was racing, the adrenaline was pumping, the memories of our last encounter rushed back to haunt me. I took my trusty spear and clutched it in my dominant hand, I readied my aim at my arch nemesis. Shellcracker did nothing but sneer at me in confidence, his gigantic claw was ready to lunge at me any second now. I was at a disadvantage, but I was determined, determined to crack his shell. We glared at each other for eons, waiting for one of us to make the first move. Birds flew out of the trees that had somehow grown in this factory, and I suddenly saw his pincer rush toward me. My life flashed before my eyes, and I jumped skywards out of the way for my dear life. In the air, it felt like time had frozen. I could see him below me, now was my chance. I threw my damned spear as hard as I could, straight for his mug. I couldn't even see straight, after only a second I heard a loud "POOF" afterwards. After landing, I took a quick glance back at the enemy, a thick cloud of smoke where he once was. It was done, my revenge is complete. Shellcracker....has been cracked.....

After the smoke cleared however, a rabbit hobbled out of the wreckage of what was once a sinister shellfish. They looked at me for a few seconds, with an odd look that unsettled me. They seemed thankful, thankful that I had defeated them... something I was unprepared for. The rabbit ran off without a care, leaving me there with an almost empty feel. I got my revenge...a selfish act for sure, one that I knew made me no better than the crab, but... was it truly as selfish as that shellfish? I wonder how I would've felt if I had not seen that rabbit afterwards. I took a ponder to this during our return trip home. Riding the gondola down the skies of Hill Top, I remembered all those moments from our last adventure. The journey through the Chemical Plant outracing that vile blue jelly, exploring those aquatic ruins nearly getting my face taken off by an arrow... it's quite odd. My eyes became heavy as I stared off into the sunset, tears were felt running down my cheeks as I looked again at my new keepsake that was his claw. I spoke to him.

"Thank you for the memories, old chum."

Check it out, it's 14-year-old me with a GameBoy Advance speaker pressed against his ear canal, mouth open while he pipes the most goopy-ass version of Scrap Brain Zone directly into his skull.

You can add Sonic Advance to the growing pile of reviews where I state, "I haven't played this since it came out." It's in good company, the Burger King Trilogy is in there. It's been so long that abandoning my previously held opinions on Sonic Advance and going in with no expectations was easy enough, though I did assume the consensus from my mutuals would be that Advance is among the best and most cherished of Sonic's handheld outings only to find it's pulled around a 3/5 average. A little surprising considering some of those mutuals think more highly of Sonic than I do, but now that I've closed the 20+ year gap... yeah, 3/5 seems about right!

Congratulations to Sonic Advance, because that practically makes it the best "traditional" handheld Sonic I've played.

Like the Game Gear games, Sonic Advance doesn't match the pace and feel of the Genesis titles, but the better hardware does allow for a much closer approximation, one that's pleasant enough in hand and which is only noticeably off to the kinds of people who are entirely too invested in this stuff. Like me. I just bought another copy of Sonic Mania, I'm up to five now, so I'd like to think I'm qualified enough to say that the way Sonic and his friend make contact with destructible objects and how they bounce off them doesn't quite pass the sniff test with me but it hardly ruins the game.

In fact, Sonic's physics feel perfectly in place with the way levels are designed, and that's really the most important thing. For the most part, stage design is pretty good. There's a nice mix of platforming and speed and plenty of routes that are made or less accessible depending on who you play as. The game does completely hit a wall and burn most of its good will by the time you get to Angel Island, though. The introduction of numerous bottomless pits, many of which the level directly funnels you into, is aggravating, and it's a problem that persists into the two single act zones that follow.

Also, not a fan of Amy. Dislike playing as her immensely. She felt bad in Adventure and she feels even worse here. These zones aren't improved by shafting you with a character that has a lower speed cap and movement abilities that purposefully feel bad. I'm sure there's some lunatic out there waiting in the wings who has dedicated a significant portion of their time to perfecting Amy's tech and will insist that it's not the game, it's the player. I don't care, I'm putting Amy in the contraption now.

Despite Sonic Advance's sloppy end game, I was pleasantly surprised with it overall, and that maybe says more about my insanely low expectations for a handheld Sonic than it does the game itself. Uh, end of review.

I had initially left Hotel Dusk kind of confused after I first beat it. Not by its story, but by its reputation. Looking back on it, I think the reason for my confusion was a disconnect between what I had assumed people liked about Hotel Dusk and what actually makes the game good, its mystery and puzzles VS its characters and art.

Hotel Dusks puzzles are, as kindly described as possible, basic. They’re the same kind of puzzles I came up with when I was trying to make puzzle text adventures in middle school. They’re oftentimes disjointed from the world they exist in or boringly simple. While playing Hotel Dusk, I just felt confused why anyone would go out of their way to give praise to a game where the code to a safe is written down in a connect the dots puzzle trapped underneath the safe, or where the room where you need to put pencil shavings into an electrical socket also happens to have a book of life hacks that tells you to do exactly that.

And then, after having beaten the game and slowly moving into its sequel, it crept up on me that I did actually like this game. I liked it a lot, in fact. It’s the kind of story where when I lay in bed at night trying to get to sleep, I’ll keep running through specific scenes, through the parts the struck a chord within me. Fitting in with the game’s art style of pencil sketches and muted colors, none of its particularly flashy. Or at least, all of its flash is entirely surface level, the game pushing you past a story about million dollar art thefts, crime syndicates, and a double agent cop into empathy and understanding towards the people involved in all of that. You meet the artist behind the million dollar paintings and realize how little he values his own work, how much that price tag had ruined his life and taken away his joy of painting.

One of the most plot critical characters, and one who’s involved in what I consider to be one of the best scenes in the games, isn’t even ever shown. Despite the game starting off by setting up Kyles search for Bradley as his main motivation, you as the player never get to meet Bradley. He’s not at Hotel Dusk, at least not right now. As you stumble your way into more and more critical info about Bradley, about what he’s been doing and why, the game suddenly very plainly paints a picture of him for you. Him in a hospital room, watching over the daughter of the person who led to his sister being killed, realizing that the two girls share the same name. Having either already killed the father in an act of revenge or preparing to do. You don’t get to find out, you don’t even really get confirmation any of it ever happened. It’s all just assumptions, Kyle imagining things trying to make sense of what little info he has on his ex-partner.

And despite just now giving great credit to the character of Bradley and his lack of actual appearance in the story, the game’s other greatest strength is its showing of its characters, of everyone staying in Hotel Dusk. The way these people emote and move is so good it’s hard for me to articulate but I keep telling friends about it. Seeing these characters move the way they do paints them so effectively as real people it’s inspiring. Extensive effort went in to capturing every character’s most basic movements, how they put a hand through their hair or position themselves while shrugging. When I saw that this game’s sequel changed Kyles smiling sprite, I ended up rambling about it on cohost for 300+ words because of how perfectly I think this game capture his emotions in those frames.

There are still spots of Hotel Dusk that irritate me. I am still irked that a character won’t recognize his own ID until after you show him a newspaper article about his dad, or that you aren’t allowed to return lost items to someone because you’ve just found a pen on the ground that you’re expected to investigate instead. But I’m prone to forgetting these frustrations as time passes from me actually having played the game, instead my memory shifting more towards the story and characters that resonated with me so thoroughly.

This review will be talking about both Hotel Dusk and Last Window as what makes them such great titles are shared between both of them.

These titles are some of the most grounded and personal works I have ever had the pleasure of going through. By personal, I do not mean something that relates to me specifically, but rather that the ideas and stories of these titles are something applicable to all of our real lives.

In both games there is this mystery that has plagued Kyle Hyde for several years, or even most of his life. Hotel Dusk and Last Window take place late in December of the years 1979 and 1980, respectively and there’s this very unique sense of urgency to solve these cases before the new year begins. At the end of every year, we look back on it, at all of it’s victories and failures, then we hope for a better future, and there’s also a sense to wrap everything from the the year up. These games manifest that sense of urgency into reality. In Hotel Dusk, everyone related to the case you’re investigating is in the same area but wait just one day and at least one will certainly leave and the puzzle will be left unfinished forever. In Last Window, the location of the case you’re investigating this time is going to be demolished in just two weeks, so you must solve the mystery before then and of course before the new year begins.

This very human concept of moving on from the past and the games general realistic setting is backed up by it’s lovable cast. Most of the characters relate to these themes, having these mysteries that have plagued them with expiry dates on the solution, and as you solve the mysteries of these side characters you slowly solve bits and parts of your own. Adding to the realistic feel of the games is the dialogue and character art. The dialogue and writing flows extremely well and naturally, it really does feel like these characters are actual people and the brilliant animations and movements done through rotoscoping makes these characters feel alive all the more.

The music is another aspect adding to this with less technological instruments and rather much more tangible ones befitting of games taking place in the late 70s and early 80s such as saxophones, pianos, drums, and the like.

All in all thoroughly enjoyable titles, I probably could’ve written a better review but it’s 12:30 am, I’m tired, but I also wanted to get my love for these games out there and did not want to wait until the morning!!
obligatory RIP Cing

Cape West is a game that’s pretty close to its originator but falls flat in ways so mundane it becomes incredibly frustrating.

The character driven behind the scenes view of a thrilling crime drama just isn’t there, at least not as much or as well done. Betty and Charles could be removed entirely with minimal changes to the story. Will is basically nonexistent despite the key role they play in the mystery and how much further his character could’ve gone. Dylans later twist is so heavily foreshadowed I think it completely detracts from every scene he shows up in before and after that twist is revealed. Mila, the 19 year old girl you met from the first game who had just woken up from a 10 year coma 6 months ago is now attending a fine arts school by herself, somehow, I guess.

And it’s sad too, cause Milas appearance marks the beginning of one of the best parts of the game, maybe the only area I think outshines the original. Hotel Dusks exploration of the melancholy feelings that come with Christmas was incomplete, in my opinion. I didn’t dislike it, it’s just that in game all of Kyles interactions with the subject come from interacting and talking to children. This makes a lot of sense, obviously a lot of the weird gray feelings people get from Christmas comes from putting on a performance of happiness for the children in their lives, I get that. But at the same time very little focus is given to those themes, there’s very little adult engagement with the topic. By and large the Christmas element of Hotel Dusk is putting up a Christmas tree for a kid because her dad didn’t. The interactions you have with that dad where you talk about Christmas are so short and brief, it just didn’t really feel fully explored to me.

But Cape West completely and fully brought it all together, in my opinion. Besides the brief return of Mila, the rest of Christmas is a pretty lackluster holiday for Kyle. His dinner plans get cancelled, he didn’t get gifts for anyone else, and he spends the night drinking with a friend after another one bailed on him. It captures those conflicting feelings of not really caring for Christmas, thinking it’s just another day of the week but also wanting to find reasons to celebrate, finding connections with people even when the plans you make with others keep falling apart. It’s all adults interacting with the holiday but not really celebrating it, remembering past winters alone, and that fits a lot better within the world of Hotel Dusk/Cape West than just putting up a tree and everyone smiling.

Unfortunately, though, besides how much I love the game’s 8th chapter, I just don’t have much to say otherwise. It’s just overall much more empty feeling a game, solving mysteries in Kyle’s past I honestly don’t think needed answering. Considering this game never even made it to the states due to Cing’s bankruptcy, I assume that this game was rushed and little underdone. It could’ve been something better, maybe, but it’s not.

It's been a few years since I played it to really talk about it in depth, but regardless:

It's a solid enough game with a generally likeable cast and interesting time travel shenanigans, but it ultimately just feels like a forgettable experience. Not much about it really stood out to me.

Mini spoiler rant but I also didn't really understand the villain's actions and motivations prior to the path he ended up going in leading to the events of the story. Perhaps I just didn't understand it at the time, but it didn't feel satisfying either way.

I'd recommend it for a casual playthrough, I first played it on my phone so it was easy enough to play it on my own pace or to just pass the time before doing something else. Otherwise it's up to you if you're interested enough.

Kirby's Adventure was actually the first game I ever let's played when I still had my old YouTube channel back in the day. I chose it because around that time, I got an NES and figured it was a good game to play first because it's so easy. Turns out, I really sucked at the game lol. Since I was using a camcorder and didn't know how to edit videos, I had to keep every single death in too. I may have sucked ass but I truly wish I still had those videos, as sadly they're lost to time now. Anyways, playing this again brought me right back to those memories of making the videos 10+ years ago, good AND bad memories.

Let's start with the biggest addition, the copy abilities. This was the first game to have then. And it kinda shows. You have a ton of classic abilities here; sword, hammer, cutter, needle etc. The NES was very limited with its buttons, so the move sets are super simplistic, but it works well. The reason I said "it kinda shows" was they have abilities that would later just be combined into one. Ice/freeze and fire/fireball. Freeze and fireball are both so much better than ice and fire, there was just no need to have both. But of course, they had to be split due to the NES controller only having two face buttons. Overall, a decent selection of copy abilities but not great imo.

For an NES game, and compared to dreamland 1's graphics, this game looks great. While I'm personally just not a fan of how NES games look in general, this game does have a very consistent color palette which I can commend. It's no Dreamland 3, but again it looks nice for the console it's on.

The OST is ofc good again, all Kirby games are. This game introduced a buncha songs that have become staples now. Butter Bridge is a big one, such a banger. Honestly might be my favorite version of that song too, it's that clean.

The level design is solid though I feel like no level really sticks out and they all just blend together. The levels have these switches that you can find in the stages that unlock little parts of the map outside of the levels, and let me tell you some of them are mean. I only found a couple this playthrough, but I feel like with some of them, you'd absolutely need a guide. Like I said, there's a map. Besides the main levels, there's other stuff you can do. There's little arena sections where you can fight a boss for a maxim tomato. There's a copy ability room where you can get a specific ability anytime you want. And then there's the little minigames that can net you some lives. All of them are fun but my personal favorite was always the crane game.

Something I did not like back then, and this still applies to the NSO version, is the lag that happens in game. Every single room you're gonna get some sort of lag, and sometimes it chugs hard when there's like 4 enemies on screen or a fire/ice/electric effect is happening. I get they wanted to make the game look super good but it was at the cost of the game not running well which stinks. Apparently the 3DS version fixes this funnily enough? But the E-Shop is now closed so ahhh that blows. Also I never really liked how you barely have any invincibility frames in this game. The game is easy but it can be super easy for enemies to stun lock you in certain circumstances, especially since enemies respawn. Not a huge issue but it did annoy me somewhat even on this replay.

This game brings back a lot of good memories but sadly this was never one of my favorite Kirby games. It's definitely a solid time but I like most of the other mainline games more. Honestly, I think I like Dreamland 1 more just because it's so short and comfy. Ah well, still recommended for anyone looking to get into Kirby or NES games in general!