Zelda 2 is one of those games. How many times on this site alone have you seen it called the "black sheep" of the series? NES sequels always seem to have that happen to them, huh? While Zelda 2 certainly isn't great, it certainly is misunderstood. Attempting to discard it in favor of its older brother is thoughtless, and truth be told: your favorite Zelda game probably takes notable cues from this one.

So, yes, as a sequel to the original The Legend of Zelda, this game is certainly weird at first glance. 2D action?! RPG elements?! But as I see it, this is ultimately a continuation of the ideas the first game had. After all, Zelda was always an adventure game inspired by the various roleplaying media of the era—clearly, that hasn't changed. What has changed, however, is the scale. Zelda 2 is a much grander adventure, and every one of those (retroactive) "weird aspects" is to support this baseline.

The most refined part of the game is the combat, by far. Even before this game was Zelda, it was an action game. When the game zooms in and allows you to control the now master-swordsman Link in his prime, is Zelda 2 at its strongest.
Actual gameplay consists of a fighting game-like high-low system and various enemies that will challenge you to block and jump effectively. Study your enemy and strike when the time is right. The push and pull of battles can feel like an actual swordfight, and it's amazing they got it this right on their first try. Zelda as a series would continue to capture this, too— Ocarina of Time's own systems are directly inspired by Zelda 2.

Of course, for all the praise I sang for it, the main gameplay is far from perfect. I failed to mention palaces at all-- and that's because they're pretty uneventful. They're cute little mazes, sure, but at the end of the day, it's simply more combat with a different enemy set. The late game ones suffer the most-- they are typically unfair... and tangentially, the combat itself can be, too. While the high low system is good, the game not giving you ample time to use it is not. Moblins throwing untelegraphed 3 frame lows, blue Iron Knuckles and their absolutely horrendous beam spam, and whatever the hell is going on with those Chicken Knights at the end of the game. Good luck if you failed to find the up-stab...

And to speak of "finding" things, one of the larger criticisms of both NES Zeldas is their cryptic nature. During the first half, I disagree with this notion: the game tells you everything you need to know—and even things you don't. Towns are crucial, and not just for magic; townspeople are a vital source of information. Nearly no house in the game is useless. 

And to speak of "finding" things, one of the larger criticisms of both NES Zeldas is their cryptic nature. During the first half, I disagree with this notion: the game tells you everything you need to know—and even things you don't. Towns are crucial, and not just for magic; townspeople are a vital source of information. Nearly no house in the game is useless. 

And then you get to the second half of the game, where Zelda 2 throws all of that away for impossible to decipher hints—two particularly bad ones IN A ROW! New Kasuto, to this day, has got to be one of the most bullshit moments I have ever seen in a video game. 

"Use the hammer to cut down this particular tree tile-- there's a required town there!"

It's unbelievable, and it seriously hampers what was before that a surprisingly clear game that further uses a connection to RPGs well. Again, Zelda as a series continued to use this aspect long past 2's time. The presentation of a larger Hyrule with a few settlements and an otherwise downright hostile wilderness is certainly reminiscent of another, more Wild entry.

Sure, Zelda 2 is the black sheep of the series. But to just mark it as a footnote of early installment weirdness and call it a day is wrong. It's far more important than that. Yet, my personal score for the game fails to reach high heights. I love Zelda 2, I truly do, but as a game it's ... unsatisfactory. It's hard to put the feeling into words.

But I hope maybe I've given this misunderstood entry some due justice it deserves.

"But McPig, it's just a game like Wario Land 4! How do we give it its own identity?"

McPig takes a bite out of his 23rd pizza slice today-- Supreme with stuffed crust.

"Any of you fellas ever play Sonic Rush?"

Dr. Wily's Revenge sure is a Mega Man game on the Game Boy. Effectively, it is "The Best Hits of Mega Man 1 and 2"-- and that sounds pretty good on paper. It could even be a better game than both of those if it took the good parts from each!

It's... really not, though. Mega Man controls funky in this game and he feels like he's always on ice (much more than the first two NES games with similar mechanics did) and the level design is not all that. It's not really bad, but it's not particularly interesting. Basic platforming, annoying enemy placement due to the screen size and underutilized gimmicks. It ends up feeling more like lobotomized Mega Man than the "best hits" it's supposed to be. Even in quantity it feels this way-- Mega Man 2 barely even features in this game. You just do a boss rush to steal all their powers and then the game immediately ends after. Could it have killed them to have more than 6 stages?

Enker's pretty cool though. Surely the next GB exclusive character will be even better!

Never in a million years could you be emotionally ready for what this game has in store for you. No game reviewer could ever replicate the authentic experience-- but I will nevertheless continue the cycle.

Bubsy 3D is the series' absolutely inexperienced, rushed, and frankly daft jump into 3D. These bumblefuck devs who clearly didn't know what the hell they were doing (as per the previous Bubsy games) being one of the first major games utilizing the mid 90s' innovative new console technology? Give me a break. But this context only means so much alone-- how does Bubsy 3D actually play on its own merits?

Well, I'm glad you asked, dear reader! It's only indescribably awful!

Predictably, Bubsy 3D uses tank controls. While okay on its own, one of the biggest issues with literally just walking around arises fairly quickly: there's no strafe. While there is "side-hopping", that ability is beyond useless. Bubsy hops to the side about 4mm every 2 seconds. That shit is not strafing. These things together mean that Bubsy cannot move at a reasonable pace in any direction besides straight forward when he's grounded. Even then, Bubsy somehow still controls like he did in the 2D games! Extremely sluggish to get started, but he cannot stop moving once he does. It's the perfect shitstorm for bad platforming.

And while on that subject, I want to dedicate a whole section to jumping in Bubsy 3D. That sounds insane, but I need you to hear me out. Bubsy 3D has the worst jumping I have ever experienced in a video game before. Ice Climber can go eat its heart out. Every single goddamn time you press X, the entire camera shifts to an overhead view. This creates an incredibly nauseating effect that you just have to deal with to even PLAY THE FUCKING GAME! Even if you are able to stomach it like I could, the camera shifting forbids you from being able to see in front of you while you jump, creating many scenarios where semi-blind jumps are required. The singular strength of the camera, knowing exactly where you are going to land, is ruined by Bubsy controlling exactly as he does in the air as he does on the ground. It is impossible to land precisely.

But gameplay wise, the worst sin of them all isn't in the controls. It yet again is in the level design. Unfair enemy placement is a given-- the entire series up to this point has had that. 3D's defining feature (which is similar to Bubsy 2's) are the agonizing levels that have zero respect to your time as a player. Most of them are designed in layers. If you make a mistake and fall onto a lower one, you now need to trudge back through the areas you went through previously (provided you even got to a checkpoint) or sacrifice a life... and on a game over you restart the stage. This is ignoring that the levels are consistently 30 minute long affairs, if not longer. By the end of the game I felt like I was actually losing my fucking mind, it was horrible.

These things are already enough to give the game the rating it does, but the presentation isn't great either. Every single of piece of voice acting sounds like it was recorded through a rotary phone underwater and then warbled in Audacity for good measure. There's a 5 minute long intro and I genuinely did not register a single bit of it because I couldn't understand anything the characters were saying. Bubsy's quips didn't really annoy me because half the time I was so confused I couldn't even get angry at him. The music is frustratingly repetitive-- even if I don't really hate it on its own, and the graphics are the best part of the game... and even that looks like an extremely unfinished prototype of what a 3D video game should look like.

There's a lot more specifics to talk about in this game-- the horrible bosses, the asinine requirements for 100% completion, the slightly more tolerable swimming levels... but all that's not for this review.

Please, for your own sake, don't waste your time with this game out of curiosity. It didn't kill the cat for no reason.

Remakes are always a hot topic, aren't they? The Wily Wars is no different-- even if not all that many people have played the damn thing. I've no need to discuss the actual games in this review; if you want to see those, they're all here: (MM1, MM2, MM3). Instead, I'll be focusing on the things that have changed in between the versions.

So, let's get the elephant in the room out of the way first: I disagree heavily with the common connotation that the Genesis versions of these games have worse presentation-- they simply don't. All of the games consistently look better than they did on the NES. The music is a lot more mixed, though... there's quite a handful I think are better or equal to their original counterparts but there's also tons of tracks that got ruined. It isn't unlistenable, but it is unfortunate.

No, my issues with the game arise with the various gameplay changes. For example, Mega Man walks like he has to contemplate the idea of going forward every time you want to move from a standstill, and it totally destroys the natural flow of all of these games. There were various times where I wanted to be quick on the draw with my platforming but I couldn't because I physically just can't move. This is totally eliminated by shooting as you walk, but like, why is it even a thing? There's also some other pretty big things, like a damage decrease for many bullets (that look like yours) down to 1 hit point, and a couple of sections where it feels like they didn't account for the game running differently. Flash Man is totally fucked in this game-- it has to be played to be believed.

This isn't to say all of the changes are bad: in fact, most of them are good. A lot of the shittier enemies and bosses in the first 3 games have been seriously toned down to be bearable. Fire Man, Elec Man, Quick Man? All gutted. There's also a few bosses who've been made harder which I appreciated too. Contrary to what I've seen others say there was no slowdown either-- this is apparently not true on console/emulator, but I played the Switch Online version of this game, so I'm reviewing that.

It's why I think the remakes are ultimately decent but not much more. They fix some of the larger issues and other minor bugs (especially in 3) in these games, but they really don't do much else and actively break other things. I can't fully recommend playing them because of the poor controls but most other things are better when you get down to it.

Oh yeah, and the Wily Tower is there too.
It's mid.

Bubsy returns for more in this sequel they were too lazy to come up with a pun for in the title. It's still awful.

Bubsy 2 is formatted quite differently from the first game, so a lot of criticism from the first doesn't apply in the same way. Instead of being a straightforward platformer it's much more free-form, allowing you to pick from sets of levels and those levels often being designed like mazes. It sort of reminds me of Sonic CD. The issue then, is that Bubsy takes literally all of the flaws from that game and none of the positives at all. The levels are confusing in extremely poor ways-- arrows that point you in incorrect directions, instances where you need to go into a door multiple times as it leads to multiple different places like it's fucking Yume Nikki, and level mechanics that disguise themselves as background objects are just a tip of the iceberg on how Bubsy 2 designs its stages.

While all that may sound worse than the original, (and it is) there ARE improvements. One of the biggest being that Bubsy does not die in one hit anymore! This change is HUGE-- if I didn't know any better I would assume this game might be good hearing about it isolated. It makes both fighting enemies and scrolling the god-damn screen forward FAR less frustrating. Concerning fighting enemies, there's another improvement too: items. Bubsy 2 features both a gun and a screen clearing bomb, and they help immensely. The game's difficulty in general has been toned down and it makes for a much more "pleasant" (see: boring) experience for the most part. There's still definitely sections that have the amount of bullshit the first game did, but they're few and far between.

The worst part of this game though, is the presentation. The level themes and backgrounds feel like they were designed by an truly uncreative person on drugs thinking it'd help them be original. As for the music? Well, the positive is that this game has dynamic music. The negative, is that it plays at seemingly random times creating a truly dissonant and insanity inducing soundtrack. You can't look this up on YouTube-- you have to play it for yourself (or watch gameplay) to truly understand what I mean.

Overall, this game is terrible, and is even worse than the first one in places. I consider it better, but it's extremely reasonable to think overwise. Bubsy still sucks and you're an extreme contrarian if you say he doesn't.

This review's for the singleplayer exclusively. I've a lot to talk about with the multiplayer and it deserves its own review.

That out of the way, let me start with some context. Splatoon Hero Modes suck. While Splatoon itself is an intensely competently designed shooter, the singleplayer campaigns have always felt half baked and like they don't do anything interesting with their mechanics. Splatoon 2's is especially guilty of this-- it's the only campaign in the series I would genuinely call bad.

So how does Splatoon 3's stack up? Well, instead of being linear and "World-based" like 1 and 2's campaigns, 3's is more open and "challenge-based" with its levels being focused on more unique aspects. However, that isn't going to do anything without good levels, and I think that's where the game falters. It starts extremely strong-- the first site in particular is a great introduction to the world of Alterna. But slowly the levels start to feel more and more derivative and the game starts falling into the trap that the other story modes do, albeit inconsistently. Sometimes you get levels like the ones based around Special Weapons and they're incredibly unique and fun, and other times it's like... bro, this is like the 4th level you've made me play based around Soaker Blocks. I understand how they work, are you going to do anything interesting with them? The bosses are lacking, too. Only a few have anything to them, and one of them is the first main boss. I was hoping they'd get more complex, but they literally only get more simple as time goes on.

Now, Splatoon 3's story mode often gets compared to Octo Expansion, and it isn't unfounded; they have an almost identical format. So why don't I like this anywhere near as much? It's very simple-- the levels aren't as engaging. Octo Expansion being much more challenging and mechanically and thematically interesting really blows everything else Splatoon does out of the water. If you take a moment and compare the two Wily Castles in both games (NILS and Rocket) you can really see what I mean. Both sequences start with a no-gear-level but it feels so much more earned and exciting in the Octo Expansion. This isn't a review for that game so I won't go too in depth, but when one is aping the other this hard little Splatoon 3 needs to sit down and be put in its place.

Despite that though, Splatoon 3's no slouch in its theming. I mentioned the world of Alterna once already, and I really did mean what I said. The cold and desolate design of the area and levels being framed as "tests" from a sentient AI really gives it a Portal feel (a comparison I stole from my friend) and the story behind the world is surprisingly gripping for what it is-- which I won't spoil. Also, the OST is great-- it's the one thing the singleplayer does better than the multiplayer.

Overall-- I like the singleplayer. It's easily the best out of the main 3... but I know Splatoon can do better. It's shown me it can, and when it just gives me a half-baked version of what was a full baked experience, it only gives me cravings for that better thing.

Freedom Planet is fun... after you've already played through it. Everyone knows the deal with the story; while I think it's a little bit overhated, it definitely was written by an edgy middle schooler who watched way too much My Little Pony, so I'm not gonna defend it further. The bigger issue is the poor combat: many scenarios in the game feel like needless enemy spam, enemies that can drain your health in 2 seconds, or both at the same time. Hell, there's even a moment where explicit enemy spam happens with the bulkiest mooks in the game. It's not good. The bosses aren't much better-- a lot of them are pretty unfair and don't have proper indication on their attacks. You will die a few times to shit you could not have seen coming. Even when you've already figured that out, they're not super interesting any other time either. It feels like the devs were inspired by Treasure games and left out the part that makes them fun.

Otherwise, though, it's a pretty solid speed platformer with occasionally notable theming (check out Fortune Night), on point level design, and two characters with rather high skill ceilings and movement depth, and also Carol. Those alone makes the game worth trying... and honestly, they're really the only main draw to it, too.

If you like Genesis' platformer roster, check it out, but don't expect a masterpiece or even something you'll like much at all.

Hell. Yes.
It's been a while I've played a game that is so unapologetically 90s, and more importantly unapologetically itself. Battle Mania Daiginjou takes the already enjoyable theming of the first game and turns it up to eleven. (Literally, listen to the music.) Oftentimes I found myself astonished at just how cool it was-- the focus on Japanese culture for this one is awesome and gives way to some really unique setpieces, and the humor is more consistent than the original's, appearing all throughout the game this time. There's a totally random anime eyecatcher at one point and it's both sick and absolutely hilarious.

Gameplay wise, Daiginjou doesn't slack either. The level design is generally a lot more interesting than it was before- there's practically always more action on the screen, especially in the later stages. The biggest improvement, though, are the new control options. 8-Way shooting makes the game a lot more fun, and I appreciate the settings for the probe-- it gives the game the replayability a shoot 'em up should have. Daiginjou has a lot more meat on its bones too, being longer than the first game-- though I think its ending isn't quite definitive. I was left wanting more after finishing the game, which is probably my biggest criticism of it.

Overall, Battle Mania Daiginjou is an excellent game, and my favorite shmup to date. It's also easily the best Dirty Pair game out there, so if you've been looking for your (playable) fix of the Lovely Angels like I have, here it is.

Yeah, I guess I have to review this one too. Again, played through Wily Wars-- and this time it actually matters.
Mega Man 3 is such a nothing game. I myself am struggling to find things to say about it in this review. The game is your bog standard Mega Man fare. Yeah, this game introduces the slide and the first endgame section that is not the Wily Castle, being the Doc Robots... but it doesn't do anything with them at all.
If Mega Man 3 isn't being incredibly basic, then it's being bad: it has the worse weapon set thus far-- so much as to even have the "useful in absolutely no situations" Spark Shot, and in the original game the Doc Robots are frustratingly designed. But otherwise... there's nothing. You can fucking kill the final boss in a singular hit with Top Spin, and you want me to give an in-depth review? This game doesn't deserve one.

I haven't felt this empty playing something in a very long time, so props to that.

Mega Man 2... I don't like it. I didn't before, and playing it through Wily Wars didn't change my feelings on it.
There's not a major amount to talk about with the game-- ultimately it is still Mega Man and I think it has some good fun in it: Air Man and Bubble Man's stages are pretty good, and I can appreciate a handful of the robot master fights more than I did in 1.

It stops there, though. Very many levels in Mega Man 2 just straight up suck. The block section in Heat Man, the beams in Quick Man, the entirety of the Wily Castle... any semblance of fun turns into frustration going through those levels. Having things in your game you absolutely have to die to because you didn't see the future and predict them coming is not good game design. Even without that, the stages still falter. I don't want to make this review too long citing specific level details, but here's an example: Wily 4, has a wonderful segment where there's multiple Sniper Joes in corridors where you can't even jump over their shots. Great level design. The bosses don't fare much better-- Quick and Wood Man suck, and again the Wily bosses make me want to rip my hair out. The aforementioned Wily 4 has the goddamn Boobeam Trap. Mega Man 1 was silly sometimes, sure, but the bullshit in 2 is ridiculous. 2's pacing also is much worse--I really don't like the boss rush at the end of the game that serves to just waste your time and resources. That fast paced arcade feel of the first game is totally absent. Are we just going to keep ignoring these things so we can keep up the Mega Man 2 circlejerk? Of course, you're crazy for insinuating the game has any flaws.

Mega Man 2 is incredibly overrated and far from the best game in the series. It doesn't deserve the legendary status it's attained.

I was originally going to write a little joke and leave it at that because I'm playing these games through the Wily Wars versions, but I have more to say about Mega Man than "little jokes."

I like Mega Man 1. I genuinely actually do-- it's a simple platformer and the roots of the series meaning it's kind of barebones... except somehow, it has more focus than some of its successors. That focus isn't always there, of course; there's your footholders, (the shooting platforms) your terrible boss fights and your forced magnet beam usage, but I had genuine fun playing through more than a few of the stages. It has the best weapon set in the series until 4, and great pace that gives it this nice arcade feel that most of the other games squander, for better or worse respectively.
It's not the best game ever-- you see the ranking, I'm not saying it is... but I had fun with it. And yes, use the pause glitch on the Yellow Devil. Not because it's hard, but because it removes 30 years of your life if you don't.

God, I wish this site had .5s...

I wish ZeroRanger wasn't sold to me as the best thing mankind has ever created. I appreciate the game for what it is and the ambition it has-- everything people say about that aspect of the game is true. What it has to say as a story and as a meta-commentary of arcade games and shoot 'em ups particularly is awesome. I even like the funny gimmick at the end because it's not really a big deal; this game is short and not all that hard. Even without the story at play the presentation still carries. The music is excellent, and while the green/orange gimmick can cause issues for some it has the foresight to feature a colorblind mode, which is appreciated. I really liked a section of the game where iconography you know is reused yet altered, creating a feeling of "this isn't quite right." There's even some nice little touches like the B and C ship models having different flavor texts.

But I can't really get down with much else. The gameplay in this game is woefully uninteresting, and when you're making game that encourages high scoring that's not really a good thing. In some ways it makes ZeroRanger feel like it's a "shump for people who don't like shumps," due to its heavily reliance on its story, which is not dissimilar to some other popular things with a similar deal going on. I know it isn't that pretentious: this game is clearly inspired by a lot of things, shumps most definitely included... but it rubs me the wrong way.

I didn't beat the true final boss, and I guess you could call me "filtered" for that but if this game was enjoyable during instances that weren't the normal final boss fights I would jump right back on that shit... but as it stands, ZeroRanger is a far better concept than it is as a game.