A 2020 HD remake of 1996's Chex Quest somehow feels even weirder a concept than the original pack-in. The transition to polygonal assets leaves the whole thing feeling kinda cheap, and sheds a lot of the naive innocence that the original exuded. That being said, it is interesting to see the levels reimagined with the allowance of layered verticality – an impossibility of the DOOM engine. The most fun I had with this was seeing how nearly 30-year-old levels had been tweaked and translated into a new engine while still trying to capture the spirit of the original. Unfortunately, only the first level and Arboretum really feel evocative of their predecessors. The other levels are just sorta generic industrial space venues, which, is pretty appropriate to the originals, but they don't feel like particularly great callbacks.

The levels aren't the only thing that suffered from the shift to 3D, though. The movement kinda feels like ass, with very little feedback and an awful acceleration lag when trying to sprint. The weapons, too, have little-to-no feedback and straight-up don't function like they should. The shotgun has no spread, the rocket launcher feels like there's no splash damage, and the plasma rifle's projectiles are incredibly slow. It's charming that they retain their original sound effects, but their referential inclusion spurs little more than a "huh, that's neat!" after first noticing.

Surprisingly, the best part of this game is the writing. They've really leaned into the corniness of this game's very existence, with Captain Fred Chexter slinging cheeseball one-liner after cheeseball one-liner. I think this gets the closest to capturing the spirit of the original, but it's a bright spot awash in a sea of mediocrity.

Super Castlevania IV is just a game I wish I liked more. And I can't even truly explain why. The graphics are awesome for such an early SNES game, it's really impressive, and the visual details are pretty cool. The music, I see it as an acquired taste. At first, I didn't enjoy it, I didn't really get the appeal. I don't love it now, but I can appreciate it much more. And Treasury is STILL the best song in the game. I don't need to say this, it's already been said a hundred times before, but the atmosphere is great, and the music definitely adds to that. I like the new additions and mechanics, such as mid air control, 8-direction whipping, whip swinging (this is my favorite), flaccid whip (kinda wish this could've been mapped to L button or somethin though), etc, etc. Now let's get to the bad parts. First of all, this isn't really part of the game, this game is HELLA overrated. Second, the level design is not good. Third, this isn't something I find that big a deal as other people, but the weapon balancing is weird, too (whip good, cross good, everything else SUCKS). Fourth, ALL OF STAGE 8. And you may think, "These complaints seem minor for the game to get a 6/10 rating." And to that, I would agree. As I said before, I don't really know how to explain why I dislike this game, I just do. Consider me a member of the Super Castlevania IV haters. This game, frankly, isn't that super.

Also...what the hell? Why does everyone say this game is easy? Definitely one of the hardest Classicvanias I've played, second to probably Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse.

[ZeusDeeGoose's Virtual Boy Review Series: Part 1 of 24]
Virtual Lab is like one of those weird games you see in your nightmares that turn out to be real. That’s the best way I can describe this game. Everything about it feels surreal to me. I watched Nathaniel Bandy play this game in his video on the Virtual Boy, and it looked really off to me. So off that I stopped the video and started playing it for myself. First off, why is there a girl with massive bouncing breasts on screen? I’m glad I played this on an emulator, because apparently it bounces in 3D on real hardware. Second off, good god, the controls are laggy like no other game I’ve played. You have like 1 second of delay before you actually move a piece. Why this delay exists is beyond me. Emulator lag? Doubt it. VB emulation has existed since the late 2000’s. And thirdly, good god, the game is nearly impossible. You have these weird tube thingies, and you have to close them off, either with the wall, or a cap tube. You CANNOT cap it with another tube, and this ultimately kills what could've been a fine timewaster. Very often you'll just die because you fucked up ONCE. Combined with the awful controls, don't be surprised if you hear the game over music several times. Hell, the game just randomly decides you'll die because it doesn't give you a cap piece. So don't be surprised if you go back to the first stage SEVERAL times before seeing any success. Oh, and the graphics? I appreciate the IBS reference from the Binding of Isaac, but this game is gross as fuck. The “worms” are like some weird sperm-like monster. The only redeeming quality about this game is that the song in the background is actually kinda catchy. The arrangement sucks, but the composition is actually pretty decent. But overall, this might actually be one of the worst games I've ever played. But hey, props to the dev. Apparently they're a VTuber now, and they're having a great time. Unfortunately for me, I didn't.

Terraria kind of left me feeling… mixed? IDK, at least the main quest, made me feel kind of sour afterwards. It really isn't a bad game; hell, I enjoyed it quite a bit and still do. But I do feel like the game kind of got better, and simultaneously fell off in hardmode. If you didn’t know, most of Terraria’s progression is based on killing bosses. Many of these bosses are pretty well designed; particularly in the EARLY game. But the late hardmode bosses are really, really dogshit. A lot of them feel poorly designed around the player’s moveset and hitboxes, but not even considering that, a lot are a fucking bitch to summon, PARTICULARLY in hardmode. While the mech bosses and the Golem are pretty easy to summon on their own, the rest are quite annoying to even attempt. Plantera requires you to find a small bulb in the Jungle Underground, which takes forever. And then you have to go through the process of building an arena, prepping your NPCs, potions, etc. And if you die? Find a new bulb, because fuck you. And then the Moon Lord can be annoying to summon because if you fail too many times, you have to start the whole Lunar Events over again. That's just an annoying design choice IMO, maybe they could've had Moon Lord be a random spawn at night like the Eye of Cthulhu? And if you aren't ready to face him, just go underground for a few minutes. I get that they want players to get prepared for the harder fights in the game, but still. As a random example, The Binding of Isaac (which has a lot of parallels I could make here) has you face bosses needed for progression that you could face by chance, but they also had guaranteed methods (albeit more difficult methods) of achieving the same end goal. For example, you can kill Hush by taking Mama Mega in a shop, or by killing Mom’s Heart in 30 minutes. I could totally imagine something like this working for Terraria too, and they actually DO this, but only for certain bosses. And then we have the boss fights themselves. What happened here? Golem is probably my least favorite fight in the whole game. You're in a cramped as fuck area and there's traps everywhere. You can't even mine around you to build a semi-decent arena. So you just end up getting your shit wrecked with barely any room to dodge. And while I found the Lunatic Cultists to be a really great fight, the Towers were such an anti-climax. They're not even that hard, they're just annoying. You have to kill a hundred enemies that deal nearly a fourth of your HP. They aren't that hard to dodge, but they trip me up on occasion. And then you fight the Tower… and they suck, too. They barely even attack you, so you can just spam the Terra Blade until they die. At least they have good drops! And the Moon Lord himself… this fight just confuses me if anything. There's so much small shit on screen that deals a bunch of damage, and the massive ”fuck you” laser (with NO visual telegraph btw) does a shit ton of damage. It felt like a fluke if anything when I killed the boss. Now, to any of these, you could say “skill issue”. And TBH yeah I see where you're coming from. But I did nearly everything according to the wiki (minus one accessory and getting 500 HP; I had 480), and I still wasn't sure why I died at points. But for every bad thing I have to say about Terraria, I still think I can recommend this game. For one, the boss fights! For every Moon Lord and the four fucking Towers, there are lots of good bosses! The Empress of Light is easily the best fight in the game, being a great test of your moveset, being ACTUALLY FUCKING TELEGRAPHED, and also just being visually stunning. Also, the fucking music. That's all. While I don't like summoning Plantera, making his arena and finally killing him was very satisfying. It helps that he’s an easier boss to kill. I'm a fan of the Mechanical bosses, too. They were a nice upgrade in difficulty from the original bosses. Another thing I love about Terraria is its music. Do I even need to say anything about the Terraria soundtrack? It's popular for a reason. My favorite tracks would be “Mushrooms”, “Boss 1”, “Boss 2”, and of course, “Empress of Light”. I also love the fact that Terraria has progressive difficulty, making sure the game is never too easy, nor too hard. And despite my quarrels with Terraria’s Hardmode bosses, I absolutely love the new items in Hardmode. They transform Terraria from “oh it's just 2d minecraft” into something that can easily stand on it's own. And do I even need to say anything about the large amount of content in Terraria? One of my best friends on the internet (@DragonMals) has over 3000 hours in it, and more in tModLoader. I myself have been enjoying it for years at this point. So yeah, I do like this game. Quite a bit, actually. But I'm not head over heels for it, per se. I might go back for a few playthroughs every now and then, but for now at least, I think I'm finished. Overall, I'd give it around an 6/10. A good game, but it's a loooooong shot from a masterpiece.

I'm a big fan of SRPGs and games where you can recruit peasants so, naturally, I really enjoyed Legends of Eisenwald. In terms of gameplay the title is like a combination of HoM&M and Disciples so good things all around.
I particularly like how there are entire unit trees for every recruitable unit like in Mount & Blade, so even the most humble peasants can remain viable in the late game with the right upgrades and equipment.
The main campaign is pretty good too, although it can get a bit repetitive. Nevertheless I enjoyed the story, the game allows you to make some choices that are morally ambiguous at best. I liked that.