I played a lot of Castlevania inspired indie games that just wouldn't click with me--and playing a real fuckin Castlevania made me realize that the hyper specific situations made by the game's eclectic line up of weapons and interesting enemies is what makes Castlevania one of a kind in the first place. Macabre, badass atmosphere and super interesting level design for the SNES era (MODE SEVEN CASTLE CYLLINDAR) are compounded by some of my favorite boss fights ever. I'm admittedly kind of a yo yo and not afraid to use save states on games like these, but this is truly the kind of game where any number of brute force retries won't help you if you don't grasp the boss characters' patterns and specific weaknesses. Presicely what I wanted this era's update of Castlevania to be.

While not a terribly robust game, it still manages to make its predecessors look like a tech demo. A lot of the lulzy internet humor still remains but it's far and away the most genuinely written game in the series--characters that were once joke machines finally get some nice depth. The resource system feels significantly more well refined than before and feels far less like a frustrating shot in the dark, meeting a good balance between clear matters of inference and strategy but not to the point that you can exploit the game to overly slant your stats.

Not astonishing but a good place for the series to head--was very nice to score with Polly Geist one last time, and as implied above, the best written iteration of her too!

Roughly just as good as the last game, but that's inherently means for a score dock in a sequel. The first game is fun for a bit and this one isn't bad, but I don't care for the changes to the line up of love interests, the series' juvenile humor is starting to lose its audacious charm by now, and being saddled with a bestie you might not even like right off the bat defeats the purpose of exploring your options over a longer playthrough. By this installment you're more or less encouraged to pick someone to go after right off the bat and that's kind of a bummer, I felt less restricted to explore hotties in the last game, weirdly.

Won over my dream goth gf Joy though so I can't complain too much. Have a feeling Roadtrip is more the evolution I'm looking for.

Had some ups and downs with this one, but as you can tell by the star rating, it came around by the end. Of course Splatoon's multiplayer is one of the most creative addictive ever. No real question there.

I can't say I expected the story mode to throw me so many curve balls. There were points I was really down on it--levels could get gimmicky and repetitive and considering how much of Splatoon's appeal is the distinct and spirited aesthetic, I don't get why level after level has that empty, chrome aesthetic going on.

Where it really shined was among climactic moments. The boss battles really brought in the flavor I was looking for--especially the very final boss, one of the most white knuckle intense and challenging fights of the year and all behind a truly surreal and memorable villain design befitting of Splatoon. That last stretch really made the story mode worthwhile, and alongside the ever fun multiplayer, really cemented this among my favorite games this year.

The 'Smash-ification' of Guilty Gear has its heart in the right place, but it came out kinda terrible IMO. Applying fast paced, split second platforming inputs to stiff ArcSys characters creates a truly unpalatable cocktail, fueled by a gradual special move meter system that largely encourages just waiting for the special you'll get and spamming that once you find out it works. Do you really want a fighting game where the principal mechanic is...waiting?

My 'completion' status pertains strictly to the story mode for Inquisitor--and the story bits in between were so milquetoast that I felt I would've lost nothing by just trying the vanilla arcade mode. Worth noting that these cutscenes can't be skipped, and they're as impossible to give a shit about as you'd expect. On a similar note, ArcSys, I know you're proud of your genuinely very good special move animations, but they're cool in your other games because they're kinda hard to pull off. Seeing the same twenty second short film every time my opponent stone walls me into their finisher, which is easy with this game's simplifed inputs and energy system, makes me look at it way less fondly.

The characters are still nice, I guess--as one would expect. I see the importance of making anime fighters more accessible, but GG Strive and Dragon Ball Fighterz were reasonably obtainable systems but didn't baby their players like this game, and they became a couple of the biggest names in the FGC. This will absolutely end up buried by its mediocrity in the shadows of giants like those, and I don't pity it a bit.

From a technical standpoint, this is an incredibly impressive collection--the technical fixes they employ are beyond reproach and retain an authentic experience of these games while fixing their quality of life in every spot that makes sense, without totally holding your hand.

Sadly only a small handful of these games are really worth playing in my eyes--not that any of them are BAD mind you--but if you went through a checklist of what makes each one a bit redundant by a better, similar experience on this very collection, I'd be hardpressed to say any of these games are really worth playing besides Turtles in Time? A lot of the games on here are GOOD, but will you get anything from any of them that you just wouldn't on Turtles in Time? Mayyyybe Tournament Fighters if you have no way to play Street Fighter and would really like to.

Perhaps some other year I'd be more impressed with this, but so shortly after Shredder's Revenge this was something I was glad to just rent, screw around with for a few days, and send back. With retro collections as eclectic as those released by Capcom this generation have been, the weird electric seaweed level from the NES TMNT just does not sound appealing.

With satisfying bosses and improved artwork, this game makes the original TMNT beat em up for arcades look pathetic. Excellent use of Shredder too--for such a small touch the way his first encounter is just fucking with you while you clear a crowd of enemies from afar is so in character and excellent.

That said, as a big fan of Turtles and beat em ups, playing this today, I'm not sure I get how this was such a pioneer for the genre. If you ask me, the additional weapons of Final Fight, super moves of Streets of Rage, and unconventional levels of Double Dragon all have done so much more for beat em ups to this day, and make Turtles in Time, honestly, look a little basic by comparison despite those games predating this one.