Fruitless back-and-forths over Tomb Raider often put me in the same headspace: thinkin' about Oddworld. Now there's a solid cinematic platformer for the PlayStation 1, one with expressive characters, imaginative environments, a great sense of humor and actual messaging to compliment it's fun and often challenging puzzles. Lara can't like, mind control a bear and make it explode. I rest my case.
But opening up my copy of Abe's Oddysee immediately presents something bleakly funny: the definition of a quintology. Oh Lorne. Poor Lorne. They screwed the man at every turn. From pressing the first run of discs with a repeatable, game breaking bug (in Lorne's words, the person who made this call was not "a Gamer"), to Gamestop publishing a guide that immediately funneled new players into the most difficult hidden screens of the game, to his regrets over Exoddus and Sony throwing Soulstorm up on PS+ to die... Like Xenosaga and Shenmue, it doesn't matter if you have a story to tell or the creativity and temerity to do it, the games industry will chew you up and spit you out like some form of tangy meat popsicle. New n' tasty indeed.
Listen to Lorne Lanning talk about Oddworld for any length of time, and it becomes quickly apparent just how passionate and creatively driven he is. Ars Technica's extended War Stories interview is something I throw on at least once a year because I find his background to be fascinating, and his recollections on navigating creative and industrial fields leading to the formation of his studio, Oddworld Inhabitants, provides a considerable amount of insight as to how his worldview - and consequentially, the themes of Oddworld - formed.
Abe's Oddysee was always intended to have a message, and so gameplay was appropriately designed around the particular anxieties and beliefs Lorne wished to express. As funny as it would be to find Abe strapped, you don't shoot guns, something that was a point of contention with staff at Oddworld Inhabitants. Instead, you "shoot words" (and farts) through gamespeak, a mechanic that allows the player to interface on a more personal level with the game than simply pulling a trigger... Though through mind control, you do still do that. Sometimes the creative process demands compromise.
One complaint I would have about this system is that much of your time rescuing Modokons is front and backloaded, with an extremely lengthy middle game chronicling Abe's trials outside of Rupture Farms tucking most Modokon rescues behind hidden screens and portals. To a certain extent, loading the game so full of secrets is good and provides replayability, but I found the puzzles in which you're trying to disarm a hazardous area and lead as many Modokons to safety as possible to be more engaging than the segmented puzzle rooms of Paramonia and Scrabania. Elum, Abe's mount, does fill this role somewhat, but I twice had him despawn requiring me to reload a save and lose progress, so I'm a little upset with him right now.
The end game also gets absolutely brutal, placing checkpoints far and between sequences that require precise timing and manipulation of enemies. Controls are rarely the issue so much as understanding the order of operations to get through the multiple levels of Rupture Farms, but when everything clicks and you execute on a perfect run, it feels good. The end of Abe's Oddysee has some of the most genuinely tense moment-to-moment gameplay on the system, it is agonizing as it is great. Wait, what do you mean I didn't save enough Modokons? Hold on, why am I being teleported back to the start of Rupture Farms, wait--
While the experience of playing Oddysee can at times be a bit uneven and even frustrating, I do think it comes together into something really special. The texture of the pre-rendered environments, the clay-like quality of the character sprites, the ways in which Rupture's oppressive and hostile factory gives way to barren wastelands drained of resources and life all for the sake of capital, and how that is conveyed humorously both through the game's writing and the player's own machinations... it's great. I really like Abe's Oddysee. 3.5 out of 5 smooches on the cheek for Mr. Lanning, but not 5 because Lorne is apparently never allowed to have a quintology of anything. I don't make the rules.
But opening up my copy of Abe's Oddysee immediately presents something bleakly funny: the definition of a quintology. Oh Lorne. Poor Lorne. They screwed the man at every turn. From pressing the first run of discs with a repeatable, game breaking bug (in Lorne's words, the person who made this call was not "a Gamer"), to Gamestop publishing a guide that immediately funneled new players into the most difficult hidden screens of the game, to his regrets over Exoddus and Sony throwing Soulstorm up on PS+ to die... Like Xenosaga and Shenmue, it doesn't matter if you have a story to tell or the creativity and temerity to do it, the games industry will chew you up and spit you out like some form of tangy meat popsicle. New n' tasty indeed.
Listen to Lorne Lanning talk about Oddworld for any length of time, and it becomes quickly apparent just how passionate and creatively driven he is. Ars Technica's extended War Stories interview is something I throw on at least once a year because I find his background to be fascinating, and his recollections on navigating creative and industrial fields leading to the formation of his studio, Oddworld Inhabitants, provides a considerable amount of insight as to how his worldview - and consequentially, the themes of Oddworld - formed.
Abe's Oddysee was always intended to have a message, and so gameplay was appropriately designed around the particular anxieties and beliefs Lorne wished to express. As funny as it would be to find Abe strapped, you don't shoot guns, something that was a point of contention with staff at Oddworld Inhabitants. Instead, you "shoot words" (and farts) through gamespeak, a mechanic that allows the player to interface on a more personal level with the game than simply pulling a trigger... Though through mind control, you do still do that. Sometimes the creative process demands compromise.
One complaint I would have about this system is that much of your time rescuing Modokons is front and backloaded, with an extremely lengthy middle game chronicling Abe's trials outside of Rupture Farms tucking most Modokon rescues behind hidden screens and portals. To a certain extent, loading the game so full of secrets is good and provides replayability, but I found the puzzles in which you're trying to disarm a hazardous area and lead as many Modokons to safety as possible to be more engaging than the segmented puzzle rooms of Paramonia and Scrabania. Elum, Abe's mount, does fill this role somewhat, but I twice had him despawn requiring me to reload a save and lose progress, so I'm a little upset with him right now.
The end game also gets absolutely brutal, placing checkpoints far and between sequences that require precise timing and manipulation of enemies. Controls are rarely the issue so much as understanding the order of operations to get through the multiple levels of Rupture Farms, but when everything clicks and you execute on a perfect run, it feels good. The end of Abe's Oddysee has some of the most genuinely tense moment-to-moment gameplay on the system, it is agonizing as it is great. Wait, what do you mean I didn't save enough Modokons? Hold on, why am I being teleported back to the start of Rupture Farms, wait--
While the experience of playing Oddysee can at times be a bit uneven and even frustrating, I do think it comes together into something really special. The texture of the pre-rendered environments, the clay-like quality of the character sprites, the ways in which Rupture's oppressive and hostile factory gives way to barren wastelands drained of resources and life all for the sake of capital, and how that is conveyed humorously both through the game's writing and the player's own machinations... it's great. I really like Abe's Oddysee. 3.5 out of 5 smooches on the cheek for Mr. Lanning, but not 5 because Lorne is apparently never allowed to have a quintology of anything. I don't make the rules.
2015
Zero support for Sonic Shuffle. Garbage. Parsec wins again.
I'm probably going to repeat a lot of similar points that Larry Davis brought up in his review, so... what he said.
14 years after The Forgotten Sands, Prince of Persia is finally back, and the folks over at Ubisoft Monpellier understood the assignment: crap up good movement and puzzle solving with dreadful combat and an over-reliance on mobs of spongy enemies.
Parrying and punishing is the bread and butter of Sargon's kit, a rhythm you want to maintain to build meter for more devastating abilities, but when you're just trying to get to your next objective or explore some crypt, constantly getting beaned from all sides by low-level goons that have a bafflingly high HP pool gets really annoying. You might think bosses better leverage this system being that they're one-on-one encounters, but most fall into the same rote strategy of playing defensively until they open themselves up for a cinematic counter.
At least one of these bosses actively punishes dynamic play by spamming teleports and parries when the player behaves aggressively, resulting in a fight that requires you sit Sargon in a corner so the boss will fall into a pattern of throwing out the same three attacks, permitting you to plink away at his health at the end of each sequence. I'm pretty sure this isn't an intentional lesson so much as the AI doesn't know how to deal with you remaining still, but I would describe combat as being bizarrely passive despite how much you're given to work with.
The pendulum does eventually swing in the other direction when you gather up enough ingots to upgrade Sargon's weapons, but enemies never quite keep pace with the player's growth, resulting in a game that's entirely too frustrating in the early half and almost comically easy in the second.
And sure, you might argue that a search-action game is all about making the player feel progressively more empowered as they plumb the depths of whatever hostile labyrinth they're trapped in, but almost all the gains Sargon actually makes are bought and paid for with time crystals. In Super Metroid, Samus slowly gains abilities and expands her inventory through exploration. In Symphony of the Night, Alucard can find a variety of capes, armors, and weapons that allows the player to directly build their character. While The Lost Crown's most secluded areas occasionally house a heart container or equipable charm (most of which are borderline useless), they'll more often dead end with 40 crystals and a piece of paper with a full length Backloggd essay written on it -- I ain't reading that, I don't have time! Growth feels far more tied to the economics of the world and what you can afford than it does exploration. Hell, sometimes you'll even go out of your way to reach a secret alcove and find there's nothing at all.
Before I punch out from my shift at the hot take factory, where I work as a foreman to support my factory wife and my 2.5 factory kids, I will say that Lost Crown is a much more enjoyable experience when you decouple yourself from the typical search-action loop of exploring every nook and cranny and instead focus on the main path. There's some genuinely great platforming sequences and puzzles that make good use of Sargon's traversal abilities, and the layout of Mount Qaf is easy to read and navigate your way through thanks to the game setting objective markers and allowing you to photograph areas of interest for quick reference on the map.
The story has its share of contrivances, especially early on, but I did find myself surprisingly invested by the end of the game, and although most characters can be described as "well-meaning but criminally and suicidally stupid," the concept of Mount Qaf existing within a bubble of fractured space and time is enough to carry the narrative whenever the character writing falls short. I really like the idea that every character and NPC is perceiving time differently, some being displaced by decades whereas others are made to exist within a singular moment for eternity.
Lost Crown doesn't stick the landing for me. It gets a lot about the search-action formula wrong, particularly with character growth and incentivizing exploration off the beaten path. The combat is rough and excessive, and sometimes you'll spend ten minutes throwing yourself to a meat grinder trial-and-erroring your way through pattern memorization all for a pair of pants, but there's still something here. Traversal feels good, the visual design is great, and the core loop is satisfying enough to elevate Lost Crown from being a bad game to being perfectly mediocre, maybe even serviceable. In other words, it's a Prince of Persia game.
Gonna buy a shirt that says "I'd rather be playing Touhou Luna Nights."
14 years after The Forgotten Sands, Prince of Persia is finally back, and the folks over at Ubisoft Monpellier understood the assignment: crap up good movement and puzzle solving with dreadful combat and an over-reliance on mobs of spongy enemies.
Parrying and punishing is the bread and butter of Sargon's kit, a rhythm you want to maintain to build meter for more devastating abilities, but when you're just trying to get to your next objective or explore some crypt, constantly getting beaned from all sides by low-level goons that have a bafflingly high HP pool gets really annoying. You might think bosses better leverage this system being that they're one-on-one encounters, but most fall into the same rote strategy of playing defensively until they open themselves up for a cinematic counter.
At least one of these bosses actively punishes dynamic play by spamming teleports and parries when the player behaves aggressively, resulting in a fight that requires you sit Sargon in a corner so the boss will fall into a pattern of throwing out the same three attacks, permitting you to plink away at his health at the end of each sequence. I'm pretty sure this isn't an intentional lesson so much as the AI doesn't know how to deal with you remaining still, but I would describe combat as being bizarrely passive despite how much you're given to work with.
The pendulum does eventually swing in the other direction when you gather up enough ingots to upgrade Sargon's weapons, but enemies never quite keep pace with the player's growth, resulting in a game that's entirely too frustrating in the early half and almost comically easy in the second.
And sure, you might argue that a search-action game is all about making the player feel progressively more empowered as they plumb the depths of whatever hostile labyrinth they're trapped in, but almost all the gains Sargon actually makes are bought and paid for with time crystals. In Super Metroid, Samus slowly gains abilities and expands her inventory through exploration. In Symphony of the Night, Alucard can find a variety of capes, armors, and weapons that allows the player to directly build their character. While The Lost Crown's most secluded areas occasionally house a heart container or equipable charm (most of which are borderline useless), they'll more often dead end with 40 crystals and a piece of paper with a full length Backloggd essay written on it -- I ain't reading that, I don't have time! Growth feels far more tied to the economics of the world and what you can afford than it does exploration. Hell, sometimes you'll even go out of your way to reach a secret alcove and find there's nothing at all.
Before I punch out from my shift at the hot take factory, where I work as a foreman to support my factory wife and my 2.5 factory kids, I will say that Lost Crown is a much more enjoyable experience when you decouple yourself from the typical search-action loop of exploring every nook and cranny and instead focus on the main path. There's some genuinely great platforming sequences and puzzles that make good use of Sargon's traversal abilities, and the layout of Mount Qaf is easy to read and navigate your way through thanks to the game setting objective markers and allowing you to photograph areas of interest for quick reference on the map.
The story has its share of contrivances, especially early on, but I did find myself surprisingly invested by the end of the game, and although most characters can be described as "well-meaning but criminally and suicidally stupid," the concept of Mount Qaf existing within a bubble of fractured space and time is enough to carry the narrative whenever the character writing falls short. I really like the idea that every character and NPC is perceiving time differently, some being displaced by decades whereas others are made to exist within a singular moment for eternity.
Lost Crown doesn't stick the landing for me. It gets a lot about the search-action formula wrong, particularly with character growth and incentivizing exploration off the beaten path. The combat is rough and excessive, and sometimes you'll spend ten minutes throwing yourself to a meat grinder trial-and-erroring your way through pattern memorization all for a pair of pants, but there's still something here. Traversal feels good, the visual design is great, and the core loop is satisfying enough to elevate Lost Crown from being a bad game to being perfectly mediocre, maybe even serviceable. In other words, it's a Prince of Persia game.
Gonna buy a shirt that says "I'd rather be playing Touhou Luna Nights."
1998
I thought the aftermarket for PlayStation 1 games was more cost prohibitive, but you can get a complete copy of The Unholy War for only twenty dollars. What a steal for a demo of The Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.
The truth is, I've had a cinematic platformer itch for a while now that only Lorne Lanning can scratch, so I was in the market for both Oddworld games when I came across a bundle that had Oddysee, Exoddus , and a copy of The Unholy War. Nice, a free game [Note: if you get something extra as part of a bundle, you still paid for it.] I'd never heard of The Unholy War until then, and my suspicion is that it holds very little relevancy outside of 90s kids who enjoyed playing it with friends and have developed nostalgia for it.
After spending the better part of my morning with it, I could see that being the case had I actually played The Unholy War back in '98. It's a perfectly serviceable early 3D arena brawler with a good spread of characters, but there's nothing really remarkable outside of "strategy" mode, which attempts to marry the arena fighting with SRPG board navigation. This is where counterpicks matter the most, as it's very easy to lose one of your units if you put yourself against an enemy they're weak against, and it's likewise important for you asserting control over the board.
But this mode still feels like it's lacking something. The strategic layer is very bare and actual board movement feels crummy. There's an idea there, but the execution leaves something to be desired and it ultimately just feels like more steps to get to the brawling.
Part of what makes collecting fun - and buying bundles/lots of games in particular - is getting at stuff like this which you've never heard of or played before. The Unholy War might be a perfectly average game in my eyes, but I think it's neat. Probably won't play it again but would definitely pick it up off the shelf, hold it in my hands and think "I can play the demo to The Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver any time I want."
The truth is, I've had a cinematic platformer itch for a while now that only Lorne Lanning can scratch, so I was in the market for both Oddworld games when I came across a bundle that had Oddysee, Exoddus , and a copy of The Unholy War. Nice, a free game [Note: if you get something extra as part of a bundle, you still paid for it.] I'd never heard of The Unholy War until then, and my suspicion is that it holds very little relevancy outside of 90s kids who enjoyed playing it with friends and have developed nostalgia for it.
After spending the better part of my morning with it, I could see that being the case had I actually played The Unholy War back in '98. It's a perfectly serviceable early 3D arena brawler with a good spread of characters, but there's nothing really remarkable outside of "strategy" mode, which attempts to marry the arena fighting with SRPG board navigation. This is where counterpicks matter the most, as it's very easy to lose one of your units if you put yourself against an enemy they're weak against, and it's likewise important for you asserting control over the board.
But this mode still feels like it's lacking something. The strategic layer is very bare and actual board movement feels crummy. There's an idea there, but the execution leaves something to be desired and it ultimately just feels like more steps to get to the brawling.
Part of what makes collecting fun - and buying bundles/lots of games in particular - is getting at stuff like this which you've never heard of or played before. The Unholy War might be a perfectly average game in my eyes, but I think it's neat. Probably won't play it again but would definitely pick it up off the shelf, hold it in my hands and think "I can play the demo to The Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver any time I want."
2024
Press on, employee.
My friend Larry has been acting a little weird lately. He keeps standing in the corner staring at me, telling me we should play Home Safety Hotline in a voice that's not his, and there's this really horrible smell like rotten eggs that's been filling up my apartment. I don't know if it's related, but Larry - who has taken to crawling on the walls and ceiling - showed me the trailer and explained that it's created by Nick Lives, who previously worked on Hypno Space Outlaw. I was intrigued and then partook in a large feast of cornmeal that had been curiously laid out on the dining room table, as the voices in the walls demanded.
Home Safety Hotline sits the player down with a bestiary of common home hazards ranging from bees to Boggarts, house flies to Dorcha, which the player must refer to in order to properly diagnose the problems of callers who are currently in various states of duress. True to the real-world experience of working in a call center, the loop of taking a call and finding a solution can be a bit rote, and much of the challenge is borne from callers providing inaccurate or conflicting pieces of information. On some level, it almost feels like a Loveline simulator. Lot of calls about kids getting eaten tonight... Must be a full moon.
Caller: It... It... It stole me...! It stole me!! I'm not me anymore, I'm... it took me! I can't see myself anymore, I'm gone! Help me!! Help me get b--
Adam: Alright, I'm putting her on hold. Sick of her already... Drew, how many times do we get calls like this and the answer is always carpenter ants?
Drew: All the time.
Adam: Helen? Get yourself some Raid, babydoll.
Those expecting the heavy puzzle solving and obtuseness of Hypno Space Outlaw might then be a little disappointed with how straight-forward Hotline is, but it's really more a vehicle for some very imaginative and entertaining writing, and the excitement of seeing new entries in the bestiary unlock during each subsequent shift dulls how samey most nights are on a mechanical level. You won't hack into a bunch of weird databases or decipher codes here, and Hotline's central mystery doesn't leave many unanswered questions by the end of its short 3-4 hour run, but that's fine. In fact, after biting into several incredibly long games over the last couple of months, it's preferable.
My only real complaint is that the game only leverages audio queues once, and calls rarely share the same answer, which trivializes the late game through a simple process of elimination. Otherwise, I am so into what the game is going for that it feels like targeted content. It's hard to dig into specifics without spoiling some of the more inventive entries or giving away the plot, but I do appreciate how ranged and varied a lot of Hotline's creatures are. You'll frequently diagnose problems caused by benign beings like toilet Hobbs, which enjoy cleaning your bathroom and can be placated by providing them a single egg at night. You'll also have to deal with more abstract and frightening entities like memory wisps, which essentially give their victims Alzheimer's. No cure for that, you have to let them run their course. What can you say other than "good times?"
Maybe I'm predisposed to whatever kind of weird horror Nick Lives is putting out into the world (Night Signal looks interesting and I'm way into the premise of Please Insert Disc), reviews on here appear more mixed, but I do think this is worth checking out if you want something short, simple, and backed by some really fun writing. I have to go now, the soil is calling me...
My friend Larry has been acting a little weird lately. He keeps standing in the corner staring at me, telling me we should play Home Safety Hotline in a voice that's not his, and there's this really horrible smell like rotten eggs that's been filling up my apartment. I don't know if it's related, but Larry - who has taken to crawling on the walls and ceiling - showed me the trailer and explained that it's created by Nick Lives, who previously worked on Hypno Space Outlaw. I was intrigued and then partook in a large feast of cornmeal that had been curiously laid out on the dining room table, as the voices in the walls demanded.
Home Safety Hotline sits the player down with a bestiary of common home hazards ranging from bees to Boggarts, house flies to Dorcha, which the player must refer to in order to properly diagnose the problems of callers who are currently in various states of duress. True to the real-world experience of working in a call center, the loop of taking a call and finding a solution can be a bit rote, and much of the challenge is borne from callers providing inaccurate or conflicting pieces of information. On some level, it almost feels like a Loveline simulator. Lot of calls about kids getting eaten tonight... Must be a full moon.
Caller: It... It... It stole me...! It stole me!! I'm not me anymore, I'm... it took me! I can't see myself anymore, I'm gone! Help me!! Help me get b--
Adam: Alright, I'm putting her on hold. Sick of her already... Drew, how many times do we get calls like this and the answer is always carpenter ants?
Drew: All the time.
Adam: Helen? Get yourself some Raid, babydoll.
Those expecting the heavy puzzle solving and obtuseness of Hypno Space Outlaw might then be a little disappointed with how straight-forward Hotline is, but it's really more a vehicle for some very imaginative and entertaining writing, and the excitement of seeing new entries in the bestiary unlock during each subsequent shift dulls how samey most nights are on a mechanical level. You won't hack into a bunch of weird databases or decipher codes here, and Hotline's central mystery doesn't leave many unanswered questions by the end of its short 3-4 hour run, but that's fine. In fact, after biting into several incredibly long games over the last couple of months, it's preferable.
My only real complaint is that the game only leverages audio queues once, and calls rarely share the same answer, which trivializes the late game through a simple process of elimination. Otherwise, I am so into what the game is going for that it feels like targeted content. It's hard to dig into specifics without spoiling some of the more inventive entries or giving away the plot, but I do appreciate how ranged and varied a lot of Hotline's creatures are. You'll frequently diagnose problems caused by benign beings like toilet Hobbs, which enjoy cleaning your bathroom and can be placated by providing them a single egg at night. You'll also have to deal with more abstract and frightening entities like memory wisps, which essentially give their victims Alzheimer's. No cure for that, you have to let them run their course. What can you say other than "good times?"
Maybe I'm predisposed to whatever kind of weird horror Nick Lives is putting out into the world (Night Signal looks interesting and I'm way into the premise of Please Insert Disc), reviews on here appear more mixed, but I do think this is worth checking out if you want something short, simple, and backed by some really fun writing. I have to go now, the soil is calling me...
2001
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.
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.
2006
Now that the dust has settled, what do we all think of Sneak King?
Before this last playthrough, I would've said Sneak King was the best of the trilogy with Big Bumpin' being the worst, but nearly twenty years removed, I'm afraid to say the BK hierarchy has changed.
It's tragic, because Sneak King's opening sets you up for something special. A still shot of a darkened driveway... The King appears from the shadows, stalking about like a predator, his visage a cruel mockery of the human form intended to disarm and draw in his prey. But this beast is no man, and his attempt mimicry is all wrong, glassy-eyed and without life. And then you boot up the game proper and find that it's just a crusty stealth title that asks you to do the same exact thing over and over and over again.
If Pocket Bike Racer's problem was too little content, then Sneak King's is that there's too much. Twenty missions spread out over four levels, but every mission tasks you with essentially the same objective: deliver delicious Burger King meals to hungry masses. The most variety you'll get in how you go about that is in what order you'll need to hit up the various NPCs sulking around the map or how often you're allowed to make a mistake. Sometimes you'll need to deliver [X] amount of meals without getting caught or by climbing into trash cans (coincidentally where I found my copy of this game, I think someone threw it out by mistake) or popping out of houses, but the amount of repetition here really sucks all the fun out. The King doesn't even need to take pentazemin to stop his hands from shaking when delivering Original Chicken Sandwiches™, this game's got no meat on its bones!
The controls are also horrible, which is something I actually wouldn't accuse the other two games of. Say what you will about Big Bumpin' and Pocket Bike Racer, but movement at least feels serviceable. Sneak King inverts the Y-axis and makes climbing into cover so laborious that your mark will likely move away or collapse from hunger before you're able to get into position. The King shrugging his shoulders and shaking his damn head because I botched the timing on his sandwich delivery while the camera was juttering behind a tree branch, what the fuck do you want from me, man? When we get to the sawmill I'm throwing your ass in a woodchipper [Warning: do not do this. The King cannot be killed by conventional means, he will come back and he will be stronger.]
Despite how bad it is, Sneak King is often the entry in the BK Trilogy that people talk about, because it is the most conceptually interesting of the bunch and the one to lean the hardest into the marketing that gave life to this iteration of The King. Tactical Burger Delivery Action is such a good-dumb idea that at least one man has dedicated his time and income to collecting any copy of the game he can find, and by a magnitude of cents it is the most consistently expensive title in the series on the aftermarket. Curiously, graded copies of the game are actually worth less than open CIBs. I understand the economics of this and why that's the case, but it's very funny to think Sneak King inherently has more value when played.
Ohhhh, wait a minute... Sneak King sounds like sneaking. Shit, I just got it.
Before this last playthrough, I would've said Sneak King was the best of the trilogy with Big Bumpin' being the worst, but nearly twenty years removed, I'm afraid to say the BK hierarchy has changed.
It's tragic, because Sneak King's opening sets you up for something special. A still shot of a darkened driveway... The King appears from the shadows, stalking about like a predator, his visage a cruel mockery of the human form intended to disarm and draw in his prey. But this beast is no man, and his attempt mimicry is all wrong, glassy-eyed and without life. And then you boot up the game proper and find that it's just a crusty stealth title that asks you to do the same exact thing over and over and over again.
If Pocket Bike Racer's problem was too little content, then Sneak King's is that there's too much. Twenty missions spread out over four levels, but every mission tasks you with essentially the same objective: deliver delicious Burger King meals to hungry masses. The most variety you'll get in how you go about that is in what order you'll need to hit up the various NPCs sulking around the map or how often you're allowed to make a mistake. Sometimes you'll need to deliver [X] amount of meals without getting caught or by climbing into trash cans (coincidentally where I found my copy of this game, I think someone threw it out by mistake) or popping out of houses, but the amount of repetition here really sucks all the fun out. The King doesn't even need to take pentazemin to stop his hands from shaking when delivering Original Chicken Sandwiches™, this game's got no meat on its bones!
The controls are also horrible, which is something I actually wouldn't accuse the other two games of. Say what you will about Big Bumpin' and Pocket Bike Racer, but movement at least feels serviceable. Sneak King inverts the Y-axis and makes climbing into cover so laborious that your mark will likely move away or collapse from hunger before you're able to get into position. The King shrugging his shoulders and shaking his damn head because I botched the timing on his sandwich delivery while the camera was juttering behind a tree branch, what the fuck do you want from me, man? When we get to the sawmill I'm throwing your ass in a woodchipper [Warning: do not do this. The King cannot be killed by conventional means, he will come back and he will be stronger.]
Despite how bad it is, Sneak King is often the entry in the BK Trilogy that people talk about, because it is the most conceptually interesting of the bunch and the one to lean the hardest into the marketing that gave life to this iteration of The King. Tactical Burger Delivery Action is such a good-dumb idea that at least one man has dedicated his time and income to collecting any copy of the game he can find, and by a magnitude of cents it is the most consistently expensive title in the series on the aftermarket. Curiously, graded copies of the game are actually worth less than open CIBs. I understand the economics of this and why that's the case, but it's very funny to think Sneak King inherently has more value when played.
Ohhhh, wait a minute... Sneak King sounds like sneaking. Shit, I just got it.
2006
My intention was to flame broil you up an ironic treatise on the destructive nature of capitalism passed off as a review for a fast-food slop video game, but I can't nail the satire any more than my tiny hands can hold a Whopper™, and I've watched Brooke Burke eat shit failing to corner her way through a BK drive-thru on her stupid, dumbass looking clown bike so many times that I no longer have the mental capacity to anyway.
Pocket Bike Racer offers up four circuits and three CCs, which at first glance might deceive you into thinking there's a decent amount of game here, but you'll barely make it into your six-finger pour of Ten High you use to dull the sting of living before you realize there's only five tracks. Damn, not even the cheapest whiskey west of the Rockies can save you now. How do they stretch that out? Well, each circuit is just a different game mode, and it's all rote kart racer mainstays like free battle. This game cost about 3.99$ when it released in 2006, I don't know that it's fair to expect more from it, but the dearth of content and unimaginative gameplay makes this the least interesting of the three games in the BK Trilogy and the easiest one to drop.
As with Big Bumpin', the controls do feel competent at least. Nothing about the game is broken, it's just that like the King himself, there's no life behind its eyes. How is it possible that a game cynically released to capitalize on a successful marketing campaign for a fast-food company could lack a soul? A sobering thought.
Pocket Bike Racer offers up four circuits and three CCs, which at first glance might deceive you into thinking there's a decent amount of game here, but you'll barely make it into your six-finger pour of Ten High you use to dull the sting of living before you realize there's only five tracks. Damn, not even the cheapest whiskey west of the Rockies can save you now. How do they stretch that out? Well, each circuit is just a different game mode, and it's all rote kart racer mainstays like free battle. This game cost about 3.99$ when it released in 2006, I don't know that it's fair to expect more from it, but the dearth of content and unimaginative gameplay makes this the least interesting of the three games in the BK Trilogy and the easiest one to drop.
As with Big Bumpin', the controls do feel competent at least. Nothing about the game is broken, it's just that like the King himself, there's no life behind its eyes. How is it possible that a game cynically released to capitalize on a successful marketing campaign for a fast-food company could lack a soul? A sobering thought.
2006
How do you follow up a game that took 139 hours of your life to complete? Big Bumpin' babyyyyyyy wooo hell yeag they put wWhopper in a bumpber cart !!
I am suffering from acute Final Fantasy VII Rebirth dissociative disorder. The idea of playing any video game right now sounds dreadful, but I have a backlog full of games and I gotta stick to that grind, so I had to find something I could stomach. The Burger King Trilogy seemed like as good a choice as any. Each of these three games are short and require little skill, and frankly, they're all on par with some of the minigames in Rebirth. Sounded like a real smooth transition to me, like checking myself into the gaming equivalent of a methadone clinic. Dr. Drew is here, and he's going to ensure I don't get better for maximum profitability.
The last time I played Big Bumpin', or any of the Burger King games for that matter, was back in 2006 when they came out. A real banner year for me and the Xbox. I had these three games and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), and then my console red ringed a few months later when I rented Chrome Hounds. I was, however, at the right age for BK's bizarre "wake up with the king" campaign, and I was not impervious to its ill-effects. I bought all three of these when they released and tossed them years later, only to have one errant thought about the King waking up in some poor soul's bed which resulted in me grabbing them all again. It might surprise you to know you can easily find boxes full of unopened copies of Big Bumpin' behind Goodwills and on the side of freeways.
Big Bumpin' is a largely inoffensive collection of bumper car minigames, most of which play totally fine but offer very little whether played solo or with friends. Look, nobody had any expectations for this game when it came out, and its most notable qualities are being one of three Xbox/360 hybrid discs, a celebration of a very weird and very specific moment in fast food marketing and having the worst hockey minigame I've ever played. The standard hot potato, destruction derby, and keep-away modes are serviceable if dry, but that hockey game... I don't think a single point was scored that didn't come from the AI or myself knocking the puck into our own goal. I was drunk and listening to Loveline, I don't know what their excuse is.
"How do you guys kill yourselves over there in Korea," Adam asked Minka as I was running a clinic on Brooke Burke and a gigantic man-chicken with a gut full of grain alcohol at 1 in the god damned morning. I don't know the answer to that, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to go out from overconsumption of minigames. I want The King to lower my casket into the cold embrace of the Earth by pushing it in with a bumper car. It's what I deserve.
Marked as "mastered," even though having owned two copies of this game proves I have no willpower and am the master of nothing.
I am suffering from acute Final Fantasy VII Rebirth dissociative disorder. The idea of playing any video game right now sounds dreadful, but I have a backlog full of games and I gotta stick to that grind, so I had to find something I could stomach. The Burger King Trilogy seemed like as good a choice as any. Each of these three games are short and require little skill, and frankly, they're all on par with some of the minigames in Rebirth. Sounded like a real smooth transition to me, like checking myself into the gaming equivalent of a methadone clinic. Dr. Drew is here, and he's going to ensure I don't get better for maximum profitability.
The last time I played Big Bumpin', or any of the Burger King games for that matter, was back in 2006 when they came out. A real banner year for me and the Xbox. I had these three games and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), and then my console red ringed a few months later when I rented Chrome Hounds. I was, however, at the right age for BK's bizarre "wake up with the king" campaign, and I was not impervious to its ill-effects. I bought all three of these when they released and tossed them years later, only to have one errant thought about the King waking up in some poor soul's bed which resulted in me grabbing them all again. It might surprise you to know you can easily find boxes full of unopened copies of Big Bumpin' behind Goodwills and on the side of freeways.
Big Bumpin' is a largely inoffensive collection of bumper car minigames, most of which play totally fine but offer very little whether played solo or with friends. Look, nobody had any expectations for this game when it came out, and its most notable qualities are being one of three Xbox/360 hybrid discs, a celebration of a very weird and very specific moment in fast food marketing and having the worst hockey minigame I've ever played. The standard hot potato, destruction derby, and keep-away modes are serviceable if dry, but that hockey game... I don't think a single point was scored that didn't come from the AI or myself knocking the puck into our own goal. I was drunk and listening to Loveline, I don't know what their excuse is.
"How do you guys kill yourselves over there in Korea," Adam asked Minka as I was running a clinic on Brooke Burke and a gigantic man-chicken with a gut full of grain alcohol at 1 in the god damned morning. I don't know the answer to that, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to go out from overconsumption of minigames. I want The King to lower my casket into the cold embrace of the Earth by pushing it in with a bumper car. It's what I deserve.
Marked as "mastered," even though having owned two copies of this game proves I have no willpower and am the master of nothing.
This has got to have the weirdest story mode in any Mario Party I've ever played.
It's been several days now since I finished Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. I've been decompressing, letting my experience sit in the hopes that my thoughts might coalesce into something clear and concise. But this is a game that took me 139 hours to complete, easily the most time I've sunk into a single run of a video game, and naturally there's a lot of highs and lows in there. In some ways, Rebirth is everything I was hoping it would be, especially after embracing the more contentious changes Square made to Final Fantasy VII's continuity. In a lot of other ways, it's doing crunches for three hours straight so the number of collectables in Johnny's Seaside Inn goes up by [1].
In my review of Remake, I heaped a lot of praise on Square's audaciousness in regard to how they treated the source material, especially towards the end of the game. The promise that the "unknown journey will continue" removed some of the expectation for where the plot was headed, so much so that something as well-known as Aerith's death could once again be considered a genuine spoiler insofar that it was no longer a certainty. Rebirth certainly takes what Remake set up and goes places with it, though it backloads much of this and rushes through at a pace that makes some of the payoff a bit too vague and convoluted. It's got a lot more Zack though, and as a Zack fan, we're feastin'.
Rebirth does otherwise follow the plot of Final Fantasy VII's first disc with about as much faithfulness as Remake does, which is to say you'll still be visiting the Gold Saucer, experience an extended flashback to Nibelheim, and battle a fucked up looking wall in the Temple of the Ancients. Just like the last game, a lot of these familiar locations and moments are expanded upon and fleshed out using material introduced in the Complication of Final Fantasy VII and various spin-offs.
This was at times detrimental to Remake given its focus on Midgar, ballooning what was a three-to-four-hour chunk of gameplay into a full 40+ hour experience. Though Rebirth is packed to the point of bursting with superfluous content, it suffers fewer pacing issues thanks to the portion of the original game it covers, which already provided the player more moments to breathe between visits to dungeons and towns.
That's not to say all that side content is worthwhile. In fact, a lot of it is pretty tedious, excessive, and at times frustrating, and while it's optional on paper, some amount of it will be required either by force or by need. Lighting watch towers, collecting lifestream and summon intel, completing hunts, taking on special hunts, capturing chocobo, digging up valuable loot with said chocobo, completing air-courses with chocobo, jumping around in two different frog minigames, WHEELIES, getting the high score in shooting galleries, playing Not Rocket League, taking on VR battles, destroying your tendons in god damn Cactuar Crush, taking pictures of Cactuars, taking pictures for the photography club, finishing multiple tiers of 3D Brawler, playing Star Fox, riding the G-bike, performing in two different rhythm games, MORE WHEELIES, taking on brutal VR battles, redoing the pull-ups game from Remake but somehow worse, breaking boxes in Desert Rush, catching a bunch of ffffucking Moogles, playing a more truncated version of Intermission's otherwise excellent Fort Condor tower defense game, finding PlayArts figures in well-hidden rabbit holes, setting up automated attack patterns in Gears and Gambits, playing the piano very poorly, I FUCKING LOVE WHEELIES
This isn't even getting into Chocobo Races or Rebirth's persistent card game, Queen's Blood, which both feel like full games grafted on at the hip. Sure, you could do as I did and fall into the trap of trying to 100% a game and come to hate parts of it as a result, but I also think it's fair to say these games are designed in a way that try to pull the player into its side content. Indeed, the story will have you dip your toes into most minigames, and the promise of valuable gear, folios, and even a super-boss might be temptation enough to suck you into some truly dreadful stretches of gameplay. I stomached about 3/4's of what Rebirth had to offer and started to get burnt out, but by that point am I really not going to finish the rest of it?
Well, no, because the final side quest is currently bugged and cannot be completed. Very nice thing to run into after doing literally everything else.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth feels like a minigame compilation that is occasionally interested in being an action-RPG, but when it is, it's pretty damn good. I was already a fan of Remake's take on the familiar "active time battle" system that served as the series bedrock during much of its turn-based days. New to Rebirth are synergy skills, which both deal significant amounts of damage while conferring positive buffs to participating party members. And y-yeah, you know, like... you gotta beat a lot of side quests and stuff to get folios to buy new synergy skills, but if you're playing the game like a freak-ass maniac, you'll have a lot of fun messing around with different party combinations. Aerith can put on Barret's sunglasses and pose with him. She's so cool, I hope she doesn't get stabbed later.
The materia system is intact and has been expanded with new materia that allow for some pretty inventive builds, my personal favorite being Exploding Yuffie. Character playstyles carry over from the last game, though I found newcomers Cait Sith and Red XIII to be the least interesting of the bunch, and as far as I'm concerned, Cloud, Yuffie and Barret are the best combination and suitable for basically any combat encounter you'll find yourself in outside of sections where your party has been pre-determined.
A lot has been said about Rebirth's presentation and performance, and I think most complaints about it are extremely valid. Performance mode is one of the muddiest looking things I've seen and I play Nintendo 64 games on a CRT routinely. Remake's infamous door texture is carried spiritually into the wind-ranging vistas of Gaia, though the inconsistent texture work is better hidden when roaming around the open world. However, plenty of cutscenes are blocked in such a way that draws attention to low-res textures and objects, and I don't know, I think they could've swapped out Midgar's horrible looking skybox if they were going to focus on it this much.
Look, it's hopeless for me. I'm all in on Final Fantasy VII. I see Cid Highwind raise a hand to a woman and my brain goes as smooth as a marble. Palmer wanted butter for his tea, I stood up and clapped and said "yes, thank you, I will spend one HUNDRED hours of my life playing Leap Frog." I have the deluxe edition with two steelbooks, one for each disc, and worse than all of that... I tried to platinum the game. I'm already dead, man. Dump my ass in the Forgotten Capital.
I could say "Square ought to learn some restraint and reign it in with the final chapter," but even if they don't, I'll be on my hands and knees in front of the dog bowl ready for more wet slop. Mmm, diced Zack Fair for me, please!
It's been several days now since I finished Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. I've been decompressing, letting my experience sit in the hopes that my thoughts might coalesce into something clear and concise. But this is a game that took me 139 hours to complete, easily the most time I've sunk into a single run of a video game, and naturally there's a lot of highs and lows in there. In some ways, Rebirth is everything I was hoping it would be, especially after embracing the more contentious changes Square made to Final Fantasy VII's continuity. In a lot of other ways, it's doing crunches for three hours straight so the number of collectables in Johnny's Seaside Inn goes up by [1].
In my review of Remake, I heaped a lot of praise on Square's audaciousness in regard to how they treated the source material, especially towards the end of the game. The promise that the "unknown journey will continue" removed some of the expectation for where the plot was headed, so much so that something as well-known as Aerith's death could once again be considered a genuine spoiler insofar that it was no longer a certainty. Rebirth certainly takes what Remake set up and goes places with it, though it backloads much of this and rushes through at a pace that makes some of the payoff a bit too vague and convoluted. It's got a lot more Zack though, and as a Zack fan, we're feastin'.
Rebirth does otherwise follow the plot of Final Fantasy VII's first disc with about as much faithfulness as Remake does, which is to say you'll still be visiting the Gold Saucer, experience an extended flashback to Nibelheim, and battle a fucked up looking wall in the Temple of the Ancients. Just like the last game, a lot of these familiar locations and moments are expanded upon and fleshed out using material introduced in the Complication of Final Fantasy VII and various spin-offs.
This was at times detrimental to Remake given its focus on Midgar, ballooning what was a three-to-four-hour chunk of gameplay into a full 40+ hour experience. Though Rebirth is packed to the point of bursting with superfluous content, it suffers fewer pacing issues thanks to the portion of the original game it covers, which already provided the player more moments to breathe between visits to dungeons and towns.
That's not to say all that side content is worthwhile. In fact, a lot of it is pretty tedious, excessive, and at times frustrating, and while it's optional on paper, some amount of it will be required either by force or by need. Lighting watch towers, collecting lifestream and summon intel, completing hunts, taking on special hunts, capturing chocobo, digging up valuable loot with said chocobo, completing air-courses with chocobo, jumping around in two different frog minigames, WHEELIES, getting the high score in shooting galleries, playing Not Rocket League, taking on VR battles, destroying your tendons in god damn Cactuar Crush, taking pictures of Cactuars, taking pictures for the photography club, finishing multiple tiers of 3D Brawler, playing Star Fox, riding the G-bike, performing in two different rhythm games, MORE WHEELIES, taking on brutal VR battles, redoing the pull-ups game from Remake but somehow worse, breaking boxes in Desert Rush, catching a bunch of ffffucking Moogles, playing a more truncated version of Intermission's otherwise excellent Fort Condor tower defense game, finding PlayArts figures in well-hidden rabbit holes, setting up automated attack patterns in Gears and Gambits, playing the piano very poorly, I FUCKING LOVE WHEELIES
This isn't even getting into Chocobo Races or Rebirth's persistent card game, Queen's Blood, which both feel like full games grafted on at the hip. Sure, you could do as I did and fall into the trap of trying to 100% a game and come to hate parts of it as a result, but I also think it's fair to say these games are designed in a way that try to pull the player into its side content. Indeed, the story will have you dip your toes into most minigames, and the promise of valuable gear, folios, and even a super-boss might be temptation enough to suck you into some truly dreadful stretches of gameplay. I stomached about 3/4's of what Rebirth had to offer and started to get burnt out, but by that point am I really not going to finish the rest of it?
Well, no, because the final side quest is currently bugged and cannot be completed. Very nice thing to run into after doing literally everything else.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth feels like a minigame compilation that is occasionally interested in being an action-RPG, but when it is, it's pretty damn good. I was already a fan of Remake's take on the familiar "active time battle" system that served as the series bedrock during much of its turn-based days. New to Rebirth are synergy skills, which both deal significant amounts of damage while conferring positive buffs to participating party members. And y-yeah, you know, like... you gotta beat a lot of side quests and stuff to get folios to buy new synergy skills, but if you're playing the game like a freak-ass maniac, you'll have a lot of fun messing around with different party combinations. Aerith can put on Barret's sunglasses and pose with him. She's so cool, I hope she doesn't get stabbed later.
The materia system is intact and has been expanded with new materia that allow for some pretty inventive builds, my personal favorite being Exploding Yuffie. Character playstyles carry over from the last game, though I found newcomers Cait Sith and Red XIII to be the least interesting of the bunch, and as far as I'm concerned, Cloud, Yuffie and Barret are the best combination and suitable for basically any combat encounter you'll find yourself in outside of sections where your party has been pre-determined.
A lot has been said about Rebirth's presentation and performance, and I think most complaints about it are extremely valid. Performance mode is one of the muddiest looking things I've seen and I play Nintendo 64 games on a CRT routinely. Remake's infamous door texture is carried spiritually into the wind-ranging vistas of Gaia, though the inconsistent texture work is better hidden when roaming around the open world. However, plenty of cutscenes are blocked in such a way that draws attention to low-res textures and objects, and I don't know, I think they could've swapped out Midgar's horrible looking skybox if they were going to focus on it this much.
Look, it's hopeless for me. I'm all in on Final Fantasy VII. I see Cid Highwind raise a hand to a woman and my brain goes as smooth as a marble. Palmer wanted butter for his tea, I stood up and clapped and said "yes, thank you, I will spend one HUNDRED hours of my life playing Leap Frog." I have the deluxe edition with two steelbooks, one for each disc, and worse than all of that... I tried to platinum the game. I'm already dead, man. Dump my ass in the Forgotten Capital.
I could say "Square ought to learn some restraint and reign it in with the final chapter," but even if they don't, I'll be on my hands and knees in front of the dog bowl ready for more wet slop. Mmm, diced Zack Fair for me, please!
1997
Stop me if you've heard this one before: A vertical shoot-em-up with multiple routes, massive bosses, and multi-leveled shot types with secondary weapons that help you manage enemies on your flanks. AND it's on the Sega Saturn?
Blast Wind isn't doing anything unique, but that's fine, because it's a pretty damn good game even if it may feel derivative. I was watching Jeff Gerstmann ofGiant Bomb The Jeff Gerstmann Show rank NES games the other day, and he questioned if vertical shooters had run their course. I'd love to say the genre is still rich with games pushing the boundaries of what a shoot-em-up can be, but on my life I can't think of anything past Ikaruga that I would describe as anything other than "good but expected."
And that's Blast Wind in a nutshell. You've probably played a lot of games like this before, but it doesn't do anything wrong and pretty much nails what it's going for. Feels good, it's approachable but offers a solid challenge, the sprite-work is great, I like how the explosions sort of sound like a badly digitized voice going "bwaaaah," and the soundtrack is fantastic. Though it doesn't do anything revolutionary or break the vertical shoot-em-up mold, it doesn't need to.
However, that does mean Blast Wind's historical relevance is mostly limited to its rocky development, having failed an initial localization test that saw the game reworked into the more humorous Inazuma Saber, which also failed its own localization test. It took another four years before Blast Wind hit the home console market in Japan, and in such low quantities that it now fetches one of the highest aftermarket prices for a Sega Saturn game. It is funny looking back at old forum threads where people were speculating Blast Wind wouldn't hit triple digit prices back in 2005. Loose discs now command nearly 300$ with complete in box prices creeping just past that. Time makes fools of us all, though they were right about one thing, Blast Wind has nothing on Hyper Duel.
Blast Wind isn't doing anything unique, but that's fine, because it's a pretty damn good game even if it may feel derivative. I was watching Jeff Gerstmann of
And that's Blast Wind in a nutshell. You've probably played a lot of games like this before, but it doesn't do anything wrong and pretty much nails what it's going for. Feels good, it's approachable but offers a solid challenge, the sprite-work is great, I like how the explosions sort of sound like a badly digitized voice going "bwaaaah," and the soundtrack is fantastic. Though it doesn't do anything revolutionary or break the vertical shoot-em-up mold, it doesn't need to.
However, that does mean Blast Wind's historical relevance is mostly limited to its rocky development, having failed an initial localization test that saw the game reworked into the more humorous Inazuma Saber, which also failed its own localization test. It took another four years before Blast Wind hit the home console market in Japan, and in such low quantities that it now fetches one of the highest aftermarket prices for a Sega Saturn game. It is funny looking back at old forum threads where people were speculating Blast Wind wouldn't hit triple digit prices back in 2005. Loose discs now command nearly 300$ with complete in box prices creeping just past that. Time makes fools of us all, though they were right about one thing, Blast Wind has nothing on Hyper Duel.
My friend, Haro Kid, took a trip to Japan recently to visit Mr. Gundam, and was kind enough to pick me up a bundle of old video games for pennies on the dollar of what you'd pay in US aftermarket prices. Among them was Ranma 1/2: Chounai Gekitou-hen - meaning: Ranma 1/2: Neighborhood Combat Chapter - and boy am I glad she only paid about 7.25$ for this, because it sucks ass!
To be fair, I knew it was a bad game before I demanded Haro consume valuable luggage space and transport it all the way back to the United States. I've played Street Combat before, and a bunch of dire sprite swaps do little to cover up how messy of a fighting game this is, even if throwing out Rumiko Takahashi's immaculate character designs for generic, westernized heroes might make it more palatable to American 90's kids prior to Anime hitting the mainstream. They mapped jump to a button. Unforgivable.
All the hallmarks of a bad fighting game are here: AI that spams the same move over and over again, hit and hurt boxes that make no sense, bizarre attack priorities, sluggish animations, crummy controls... I'm not the kind of person who likes to toss around the phrase "bad game feel," but the game feels bad. Story mode is about five fights long and locked to Ranma, though you can play through it with other characters if you cheat. Not that it matters, because the cutscenes are the same no matter who you play as. Not to be entirely negative, Chounai Gekitou-hen being short is a mercy.
Still, having a copy of Street Combat in its original form is novel both as a Ranma 1/2 fan and someone who finds Anime's early history in the west fascinating. It's not good and I can't picture myself playing it again, but I don't regret it occupying shelf space, and frankly, having it in a nice protective cover and out of UV light is probably the greatest kindness anybody has done Chounai Gekitou-hen.
To be fair, I knew it was a bad game before I demanded Haro consume valuable luggage space and transport it all the way back to the United States. I've played Street Combat before, and a bunch of dire sprite swaps do little to cover up how messy of a fighting game this is, even if throwing out Rumiko Takahashi's immaculate character designs for generic, westernized heroes might make it more palatable to American 90's kids prior to Anime hitting the mainstream. They mapped jump to a button. Unforgivable.
All the hallmarks of a bad fighting game are here: AI that spams the same move over and over again, hit and hurt boxes that make no sense, bizarre attack priorities, sluggish animations, crummy controls... I'm not the kind of person who likes to toss around the phrase "bad game feel," but the game feels bad. Story mode is about five fights long and locked to Ranma, though you can play through it with other characters if you cheat. Not that it matters, because the cutscenes are the same no matter who you play as. Not to be entirely negative, Chounai Gekitou-hen being short is a mercy.
Still, having a copy of Street Combat in its original form is novel both as a Ranma 1/2 fan and someone who finds Anime's early history in the west fascinating. It's not good and I can't picture myself playing it again, but I don't regret it occupying shelf space, and frankly, having it in a nice protective cover and out of UV light is probably the greatest kindness anybody has done Chounai Gekitou-hen.
1999
About a year ago I'd never even heard of Koudelka, but that's the thing about being friends with TransWitchSammy, you're gonna find yourself waking up at 3 in the morning with "play Koudelka, it's peak...!" being whispered from your vents.
It's actually surprising that it's taken me this long to discover Koudelka and actually commit to playing it, because it's such a mish-mash of my favorite fifth generation design tropes that it seems made for me. Survival horror exploration, JRPG combat, haunting pre-rendered environments, a story told with maturity and supported by excellent voice acting...? Shit, it's even got music by Hiroki Kikuta of Secret of Mana fame, and he wrote, produced, and directed the game!
It's clear Kikuta had a well-defined vision for what he wanted Koudelka to be, being so involved with the project that he embedded himself in vocal recording sessions, opting to have all releases of the game share the same English dub. Vivianne Batthika (Koudelka), Michael Bradberry (Edward), and Scott Larson's (James) vocal performances are excellent, at times loud and theatrical in a way that suits the sort of "stage play" quality of the game's cutscenes. Character models are scarcely more detailed than those in Metal Gear Solid, rough and limited in all the ways you'd expect from this generation. Metal Gear Solid's workaround was the Codec, which used cut-outs to help connect the player to the characters, but Koudelka rarely zooms in on its characters to show us their emotional state (outside of FMVs, which are used whenever the action becomes more complex) and instead lends weight to the actor's performances with body language. Kikuta's choice to have his cast further embody their characters through mocap gives Koudelka a look that's so rarely seen on the PlayStation.
Softening up the image with a good scanline filter is something I would definitely recommend if you plan to play Koudelka through emulation, which you almost certainly would have to do since Price Charting pegs loose discs at around 142$. Maybe I'm spoiled, but the low-fidelity models can clash against the densely detailed backgrounds when viewed raw, and like most PlayStation games, there's a lot of dithering. Hitting Koudelka with a good shader can help desaturate some of the colors, and I feel a more muted pallet makes the game look even better.
As impressed as I am with the story, performances, and presentation (after shaders), the gameplay itself leaves a lot to be desired. Navigating the mansion is pretty typical survival horror fare, but there is a distinct lack of puzzles that the player needs to directly interface with to solve. For example, you might find a lock that requires an understanding of the Greek alphabet to open, but Koudelka and her companions will simply glean the answer from a note and apply the solution automatically. There's a puzzle involving some very basic math to change the counterbalance on a scale and another that requires you to rearrange the position of some dolls, and that's about the most you get. At least doing laps through the monastery feels good even if there isn't much meat to the progression. The frustrating thing is, you can see the frame of a good survival horror game in here, Koudelka just doesn't embrace it.
Likewise, the JRPG battle system is good but very dry. You navigate a sort of chess board where your position relative to the enemy's becomes a strategic factor... except magic and ranged weaponry is so grossly overpowered that by the middle of the game you'll probably have everyone outfitted with firearms and advanced spells, allowing you to comfortably take pot shots from the back row. Most battles devolve into spamming your more damaging moves, and while you can spec your characters however you wish, the short list of spells the game provides you bottlenecks your ability to craft particularly unique builds.
Koudelka has all these survival-horror and JRPG elements but it doesn't commit hard enough to either for my tastes, and so it rides out a lot of its short runtime on vibes and good storytelling, which is fine, but there's a better game here that just didn't coalesce.
I could go on, but at some point I'd just end up paraphrasing most of TransWitchSammy's video essay, which you should probably watch instead. She gets into a lot more detail about the production of the game, its themes, and stuff like the soundtrack (which is great), and I'd definitely defer to her as the resident Koudelka expert. I may keep going and give Shadow Hearts a shot, because I am interested in experiencing the series' transformation from this gloomy, mature story about religion, loss, and love to whatever goddamn goof-ass antics act as the driving force behind From the New World.
It's actually surprising that it's taken me this long to discover Koudelka and actually commit to playing it, because it's such a mish-mash of my favorite fifth generation design tropes that it seems made for me. Survival horror exploration, JRPG combat, haunting pre-rendered environments, a story told with maturity and supported by excellent voice acting...? Shit, it's even got music by Hiroki Kikuta of Secret of Mana fame, and he wrote, produced, and directed the game!
It's clear Kikuta had a well-defined vision for what he wanted Koudelka to be, being so involved with the project that he embedded himself in vocal recording sessions, opting to have all releases of the game share the same English dub. Vivianne Batthika (Koudelka), Michael Bradberry (Edward), and Scott Larson's (James) vocal performances are excellent, at times loud and theatrical in a way that suits the sort of "stage play" quality of the game's cutscenes. Character models are scarcely more detailed than those in Metal Gear Solid, rough and limited in all the ways you'd expect from this generation. Metal Gear Solid's workaround was the Codec, which used cut-outs to help connect the player to the characters, but Koudelka rarely zooms in on its characters to show us their emotional state (outside of FMVs, which are used whenever the action becomes more complex) and instead lends weight to the actor's performances with body language. Kikuta's choice to have his cast further embody their characters through mocap gives Koudelka a look that's so rarely seen on the PlayStation.
Softening up the image with a good scanline filter is something I would definitely recommend if you plan to play Koudelka through emulation, which you almost certainly would have to do since Price Charting pegs loose discs at around 142$. Maybe I'm spoiled, but the low-fidelity models can clash against the densely detailed backgrounds when viewed raw, and like most PlayStation games, there's a lot of dithering. Hitting Koudelka with a good shader can help desaturate some of the colors, and I feel a more muted pallet makes the game look even better.
As impressed as I am with the story, performances, and presentation (after shaders), the gameplay itself leaves a lot to be desired. Navigating the mansion is pretty typical survival horror fare, but there is a distinct lack of puzzles that the player needs to directly interface with to solve. For example, you might find a lock that requires an understanding of the Greek alphabet to open, but Koudelka and her companions will simply glean the answer from a note and apply the solution automatically. There's a puzzle involving some very basic math to change the counterbalance on a scale and another that requires you to rearrange the position of some dolls, and that's about the most you get. At least doing laps through the monastery feels good even if there isn't much meat to the progression. The frustrating thing is, you can see the frame of a good survival horror game in here, Koudelka just doesn't embrace it.
Likewise, the JRPG battle system is good but very dry. You navigate a sort of chess board where your position relative to the enemy's becomes a strategic factor... except magic and ranged weaponry is so grossly overpowered that by the middle of the game you'll probably have everyone outfitted with firearms and advanced spells, allowing you to comfortably take pot shots from the back row. Most battles devolve into spamming your more damaging moves, and while you can spec your characters however you wish, the short list of spells the game provides you bottlenecks your ability to craft particularly unique builds.
Koudelka has all these survival-horror and JRPG elements but it doesn't commit hard enough to either for my tastes, and so it rides out a lot of its short runtime on vibes and good storytelling, which is fine, but there's a better game here that just didn't coalesce.
I could go on, but at some point I'd just end up paraphrasing most of TransWitchSammy's video essay, which you should probably watch instead. She gets into a lot more detail about the production of the game, its themes, and stuff like the soundtrack (which is great), and I'd definitely defer to her as the resident Koudelka expert. I may keep going and give Shadow Hearts a shot, because I am interested in experiencing the series' transformation from this gloomy, mature story about religion, loss, and love to whatever goddamn goof-ass antics act as the driving force behind From the New World.
I've seen several people complain that this is just a repackaging of the GBA game that's compromised in several ways. I don't really know about that because I haven't played a WarioWare game a day in my life, I'm as bare and pure as the day I was born, covered in fluids and screaming in the corner of the WarioWare elevator as the door keeps opening up to wacky minigames. I don't know how I got here and I'm scared.
The multiplayer component seems to be the big draw, but "come over and play WarioWare, Inc: Mega Party Games!" doesn't have the same magnetism today that it probably did in 2003, and for that reason I experienced the game solo. Which, again, is just the GBA game (or so I'm told), and since it's all new to me, I had a good time with it regardless.
I am currently playing through Mario Party 6 with Appreciations and TransWitchSammy, and while that's obviously a more complex game, I do think it's funny to compare how minigames are designed between the two. WarioWare fires its microgames at you rapidly, but they're so simple and intuitive that you're rarely left wondering what's expected of you, which allows the game to maintain its pacing. Mario Party requires a team of adults carefully study the instructions to each minigame, examining them like a technical manual several times over before jumping into a practice game to ensure everything is operating correctly. Saw a log, pick your nose, dodge falling debris... Easy. I do that every day of my life. Navigate the Gomba maze in Hotel Goomba by punching Goombas in the back of the skull to coral them into the correct positions? Yeah, hold up, gonna need to do a couple dry runs.
"But George, that's an unfair comparison. The connection between the two is predicated on the presence of minigames as a generalized concept and is tenuous at best!" Oh, well look at what we have here. A Mario Party defender! Well guess what, I called Dribble and Spitz and they said they're coming to your house tonight!
The multiplayer component seems to be the big draw, but "come over and play WarioWare, Inc: Mega Party Games!" doesn't have the same magnetism today that it probably did in 2003, and for that reason I experienced the game solo. Which, again, is just the GBA game (or so I'm told), and since it's all new to me, I had a good time with it regardless.
I am currently playing through Mario Party 6 with Appreciations and TransWitchSammy, and while that's obviously a more complex game, I do think it's funny to compare how minigames are designed between the two. WarioWare fires its microgames at you rapidly, but they're so simple and intuitive that you're rarely left wondering what's expected of you, which allows the game to maintain its pacing. Mario Party requires a team of adults carefully study the instructions to each minigame, examining them like a technical manual several times over before jumping into a practice game to ensure everything is operating correctly. Saw a log, pick your nose, dodge falling debris... Easy. I do that every day of my life. Navigate the Gomba maze in Hotel Goomba by punching Goombas in the back of the skull to coral them into the correct positions? Yeah, hold up, gonna need to do a couple dry runs.
"But George, that's an unfair comparison. The connection between the two is predicated on the presence of minigames as a generalized concept and is tenuous at best!" Oh, well look at what we have here. A Mario Party defender! Well guess what, I called Dribble and Spitz and they said they're coming to your house tonight!
Jerry, it's Gen Fu! Tengu's here, Fame Douglas is dead, call me back!
Confession time: though I've repeatedly touted Dead or Alive 2 as my favorite game in the series, the majority of my playtime comes from the demo available on the second volume of Dreamcast Generator sample discs. Look, I was about 13-years-old, my parents weren't buying me the jiggle game, but despite DOA2 being patently Gooncore, I swear I liked it because it's fun to play. Jokes on them, anyway. They bought me Sonic Adventure 2. They couldn't have possibly anticipated Rouge the Bat! Nobody could've anticipated Rouge the Bat.......
Part of why DOA2's demo left such a strong impression on me was my total lack of exposure to 3D fighters at that time. I hadn't really played anything like it, and the game's relatively low difficulty coupled with its smooth controls made it a perfect way to ease into a new genre. I've played the full Dreamcast version via emulation over the years, but prior to installing a GDEMU in my system (which I just finished only a couple weeks ago), a copy of Hardcore that I grabbed for the PlayStation 2 was set to be my new version of choice... Until I played Ninja Gaiden Black and had realized Ultimate probably looks about as stunning.
Confession 2: I abhor people who tie their personality to media, but I will forfeit my finances and grant power of attorney to Itagaki if it allows me to fill my life with more Dead or Alive 2. I am as bad as those I criticize, if not worse.
The sharpness of the character models and environments, smooth performance, and glut of additional outfits (with Ninja Gaiden (2004) costumes available for Ayane and Ryu, a nice bonus after just finishing Black) might just make this my favorite release of the game if it weren't for one little thing... Aerosmith. The bulk of DOA2's backstory is bottled up in this opening, and I gotta listen to fucking Steven Tyler? Horrible. The sound of his voice is enough to ruin my day and is a stain on an otherwise flawless game. I'd hit him in the mouth if I weren't so sure he'd unlatch his jaw and swallow me like a god damned Kirby. I can't tell you how much I don't want that to happen to me again.
Thankfully, you can find an incredible amount of story in the game's manual, which might be a useful read if you want to know why there's vats full of Kasumi's or what Tengu's like, whole deal is. It's also completely unnecessary. I suggest you just watch the Dead or Alive movie instead and treat it as the series bible. That's what I've been doing for the last 15+ years and it's been working out just fine.
DOA2 is an arcade fighter through-and-through; easy to pick up and unlikely to demand much more than ten to fifteen minutes of your time if you want to run through a character's single-player campaign. That's exactly what I want from a game like this. Give me enough fun side modes (which DOA2 has plenty of, Survival being my personal favorite), make it feel good to play, offer me some outfits to unlock, and I'm happy. Just don't put Aerosmith in your game. That's all I'm asking, and for the most part, Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate delivers.
Confession time: though I've repeatedly touted Dead or Alive 2 as my favorite game in the series, the majority of my playtime comes from the demo available on the second volume of Dreamcast Generator sample discs. Look, I was about 13-years-old, my parents weren't buying me the jiggle game, but despite DOA2 being patently Gooncore, I swear I liked it because it's fun to play. Jokes on them, anyway. They bought me Sonic Adventure 2. They couldn't have possibly anticipated Rouge the Bat! Nobody could've anticipated Rouge the Bat.......
Part of why DOA2's demo left such a strong impression on me was my total lack of exposure to 3D fighters at that time. I hadn't really played anything like it, and the game's relatively low difficulty coupled with its smooth controls made it a perfect way to ease into a new genre. I've played the full Dreamcast version via emulation over the years, but prior to installing a GDEMU in my system (which I just finished only a couple weeks ago), a copy of Hardcore that I grabbed for the PlayStation 2 was set to be my new version of choice... Until I played Ninja Gaiden Black and had realized Ultimate probably looks about as stunning.
Confession 2: I abhor people who tie their personality to media, but I will forfeit my finances and grant power of attorney to Itagaki if it allows me to fill my life with more Dead or Alive 2. I am as bad as those I criticize, if not worse.
The sharpness of the character models and environments, smooth performance, and glut of additional outfits (with Ninja Gaiden (2004) costumes available for Ayane and Ryu, a nice bonus after just finishing Black) might just make this my favorite release of the game if it weren't for one little thing... Aerosmith. The bulk of DOA2's backstory is bottled up in this opening, and I gotta listen to fucking Steven Tyler? Horrible. The sound of his voice is enough to ruin my day and is a stain on an otherwise flawless game. I'd hit him in the mouth if I weren't so sure he'd unlatch his jaw and swallow me like a god damned Kirby. I can't tell you how much I don't want that to happen to me again.
Thankfully, you can find an incredible amount of story in the game's manual, which might be a useful read if you want to know why there's vats full of Kasumi's or what Tengu's like, whole deal is. It's also completely unnecessary. I suggest you just watch the Dead or Alive movie instead and treat it as the series bible. That's what I've been doing for the last 15+ years and it's been working out just fine.
DOA2 is an arcade fighter through-and-through; easy to pick up and unlikely to demand much more than ten to fifteen minutes of your time if you want to run through a character's single-player campaign. That's exactly what I want from a game like this. Give me enough fun side modes (which DOA2 has plenty of, Survival being my personal favorite), make it feel good to play, offer me some outfits to unlock, and I'm happy. Just don't put Aerosmith in your game. That's all I'm asking, and for the most part, Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate delivers.