Xpert74
Fun take on Tetris. I'm not the biggest fan of Tetris myself (I always just thought it was alright), but I do like the little twists and turns that this adds to the Tetris formula, which are inspired by the Clow Cards from Cardcaptor Sakura.
Speaking of Cardcaptor Sakura - I love Cardcaptor Sakura omg. If I have to play Tetris, it helps to have it alongside a license from my favorite anime series of all time. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Speaking of Cardcaptor Sakura - I love Cardcaptor Sakura omg. If I have to play Tetris, it helps to have it alongside a license from my favorite anime series of all time. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
1995
What the fuck. This game is incredible. Why does no one talk about this? Oh my gosh. I would put it up there alongside games like Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania: Rondo of Blood as being one of the absolute greatest action-platformers I've ever played in my life. Great balance between challenging platforming, methodically-paced combat, and boss fights that demand both a mastery of the mechanics, as well as the patience to learn their attack patterns. It's a disservice that more people don't talk about this one.
I 1CCed this game. mwehe
I 1CCed this game. mwehe
2020
Pretty cool. Not as amazing as REmake 2 was, but this isn't a bad game at all. It does make some curious decisions with its approach to being a remake of Resident Evil 3 in particular, but the end result I had a good time with. Better than I was expecting, going in.
An early notable license for Sega, which culminated in a series of games that will likely never be rereleased.
Moonwalker for Genesis is alright, I'd say. It's basically a Shinobi game, except a little on the easier side (at least, until you start encountering Thriller zombies), and somewhat slower in pace. The FM synth renditions of Michael Jackson's songs sound alright, and there's a decent amount of enemy variety here. The controls sometimes felt a bit awkward to me however, and some enemies are particularly annoying to deal with (the aforementioned Thriller zombies) – especially considering you have to defeat some of them dozens or hundreds of times by the end of the game.
Overall – this is okay. Definitely a standout historical piece – a snapshot in time, when Michael Jackson was arguably at the peak of his popularity, and lent his likeness and feedback to a game for Sega's up and coming system. I don't think this is a must-play, but it's an interesting curiosity.
Moonwalker for Genesis is alright, I'd say. It's basically a Shinobi game, except a little on the easier side (at least, until you start encountering Thriller zombies), and somewhat slower in pace. The FM synth renditions of Michael Jackson's songs sound alright, and there's a decent amount of enemy variety here. The controls sometimes felt a bit awkward to me however, and some enemies are particularly annoying to deal with (the aforementioned Thriller zombies) – especially considering you have to defeat some of them dozens or hundreds of times by the end of the game.
Overall – this is okay. Definitely a standout historical piece – a snapshot in time, when Michael Jackson was arguably at the peak of his popularity, and lent his likeness and feedback to a game for Sega's up and coming system. I don't think this is a must-play, but it's an interesting curiosity.
Really great follow-up to The Revenge of Shinobi, while establishing some of the groundwork that would later lead to Shinobi Legions. Compared to the other Shinobi games I've been playing lately, I feel like this is somewhat on the easier side, but all things considered, it still makes for a fairly consistent challenge, and I had a good time pulling off a 1CC of it.
beat with the Unworked Designs patch.
...it's not really very good, lol. It's basically a clunky awkward action-platformer with some adventure elements, as localized by Seth MacFarlane. It had its moments, but gosh there was a lot wrong with it. I think I like it more than Ys V, but I would put pretty much every other Falcom game I've played so far over it.
If the other versions of Popful Mail ever got translation patches, I would be curious to try them. The Sega CD version is apparently pretty different from the older computer versions, and those are all apparently pretty different from the Super Famicom game as well.
...it's not really very good, lol. It's basically a clunky awkward action-platformer with some adventure elements, as localized by Seth MacFarlane. It had its moments, but gosh there was a lot wrong with it. I think I like it more than Ys V, but I would put pretty much every other Falcom game I've played so far over it.
If the other versions of Popful Mail ever got translation patches, I would be curious to try them. The Sega CD version is apparently pretty different from the older computer versions, and those are all apparently pretty different from the Super Famicom game as well.
1994
Generally a good story-driven experience, although the perviness can be a bit overbearing and some aspects of the plot are a bit too easy to predict. I feel like some things about this are better than in Snatcher, while other things I think Snatcher handled better. At the end of the day, both Snatcher and Policenauts are good, if flawed, adventure games.
I did get to play this one using a Virtua Gun on my CRT TV, so that's pretty exciting! It was fun to play that way, although I had trouble doing any of the target practice stuff to a satisfactory degree. The amount of shooting in the endgame is also excessive enough that I felt my trigger finger really wearing out by the end, so be prepared for what you're getting yourself into if you go that route!
I did get to play this one using a Virtua Gun on my CRT TV, so that's pretty exciting! It was fun to play that way, although I had trouble doing any of the target practice stuff to a satisfactory degree. The amount of shooting in the endgame is also excessive enough that I felt my trigger finger really wearing out by the end, so be prepared for what you're getting yourself into if you go that route!
2023
I've beaten the original Resident Evil 4 over 30 times now. Needless to say, I really enjoy it, and still find reason to revisit it from time to time.
With that in mind... I personally was not demanding a Resident Evil 4 remake by any means. But, since I also didn't demand a Resident Evil 2 remake (I still think the original RE2 is excellent), yet ended up adoring the Resident Evil 2 remake when that released - I figured I kinda had to at least see what the Resident Evil 4 remake was about.
When the RE4 remake was announced, I figured it should ideally focus on two things -
1. deliver its own take on the story/gameplay of Resident Evil 4 - don't just give us a bland retread of what we've already played
2. consider revisiting some of the story elements in the original RE4 that felt kind of rushed or half-baked, so that they make more sense from a narrative perspective
I am pleased to say, that this remake delivers on both of those fronts! The Resident Evil 4 remake is not a replacement for the original, nor is it trying to be one. It is very clearly aiming to be its own thing, and as a huge fan of the original, I appreciate this all the more for that. From the de-emphasis of the knife (giving the knife a durability meter, while also adding parrying, really makes it a much more defensive mechanic, so that you cannot rely on using the knife 100% of the time to save ammo - and thus, the ammo drops are actually valuable here!), to the added layer of stealth (not a significant part of the game's design, but it is satisfying to dabble in it here and there, prior to an all-out battle igniting), to this game's removal of certain tricks that Resident Evil 4 players had grown to rely on (in the original RE4, you could initiate an animation, such as meleeing an enemy or hopping a fence, in order to get free I-frames and avoid oncoming damage, from an enemy weapon or explosive or etc. In REmake 4 however, you can actually be attacked while hopping a fence or climbing a ladder or etc., so you can't cheese these moments anymore!)... this really kept me on my toes throughout. It was very exciting.
The revised story was nice to see, as well. It still retains the cheesy over-the-top vibe of the original, while also providing added context, and recontextualizing certain character motivations and actions. The shuffling around of different story elements and scenes from the original, also helps the pacing here, and genuinely surprised me at a few points, without feeling unnecessary. It ends up feeling like it took a rough first draft, and refined it to make a much more interesting story. The original game's still very charmingly silly fun, of course, but I'm glad to have a new take on the story, here.
I should note that I played this on Hardcore difficulty, however. The game itself states that Hardcore difficulty is for people who have played the original Resident Evil 4 before, and that is just... straight-up wrong. A complete, utter lie. It's ridiculous that Capcom insists that this is the case, because your Resident Evil 4 skills will not carry over to this game, at all! I did eventually develop some strategies that helped me through to the end of the game, without lowering the difficulty - but my gosh it was brutal. There were several sequences that I spent literally hours retrying, because of how hard this got at times. Part of me wonders if I would have had a better time playing on Standard difficulty instead... but either way, I adapted. If I ever replay this, I might consider dropping it to Normal, so that I can get a feel for the default difficulty here. If I get to the point where I'm replaying this a lot, and starting to find the lower difficulties too easy, then I might consider trying Hardcore again, or even Professional difficulty. We'll see.
But at any rate - REmake 4 is excellent. I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a new kind of Resident Evil 4 experience. Now I just hope that Capcom goes back and actually remakes a game that wasn't very good in the first place, like Code Veronica. I really hope Capcom doesn't skip that again in favor of just remaking Resident Evil 5 or something. But we'll see...
With that in mind... I personally was not demanding a Resident Evil 4 remake by any means. But, since I also didn't demand a Resident Evil 2 remake (I still think the original RE2 is excellent), yet ended up adoring the Resident Evil 2 remake when that released - I figured I kinda had to at least see what the Resident Evil 4 remake was about.
When the RE4 remake was announced, I figured it should ideally focus on two things -
1. deliver its own take on the story/gameplay of Resident Evil 4 - don't just give us a bland retread of what we've already played
2. consider revisiting some of the story elements in the original RE4 that felt kind of rushed or half-baked, so that they make more sense from a narrative perspective
I am pleased to say, that this remake delivers on both of those fronts! The Resident Evil 4 remake is not a replacement for the original, nor is it trying to be one. It is very clearly aiming to be its own thing, and as a huge fan of the original, I appreciate this all the more for that. From the de-emphasis of the knife (giving the knife a durability meter, while also adding parrying, really makes it a much more defensive mechanic, so that you cannot rely on using the knife 100% of the time to save ammo - and thus, the ammo drops are actually valuable here!), to the added layer of stealth (not a significant part of the game's design, but it is satisfying to dabble in it here and there, prior to an all-out battle igniting), to this game's removal of certain tricks that Resident Evil 4 players had grown to rely on (in the original RE4, you could initiate an animation, such as meleeing an enemy or hopping a fence, in order to get free I-frames and avoid oncoming damage, from an enemy weapon or explosive or etc. In REmake 4 however, you can actually be attacked while hopping a fence or climbing a ladder or etc., so you can't cheese these moments anymore!)... this really kept me on my toes throughout. It was very exciting.
The revised story was nice to see, as well. It still retains the cheesy over-the-top vibe of the original, while also providing added context, and recontextualizing certain character motivations and actions. The shuffling around of different story elements and scenes from the original, also helps the pacing here, and genuinely surprised me at a few points, without feeling unnecessary. It ends up feeling like it took a rough first draft, and refined it to make a much more interesting story. The original game's still very charmingly silly fun, of course, but I'm glad to have a new take on the story, here.
I should note that I played this on Hardcore difficulty, however. The game itself states that Hardcore difficulty is for people who have played the original Resident Evil 4 before, and that is just... straight-up wrong. A complete, utter lie. It's ridiculous that Capcom insists that this is the case, because your Resident Evil 4 skills will not carry over to this game, at all! I did eventually develop some strategies that helped me through to the end of the game, without lowering the difficulty - but my gosh it was brutal. There were several sequences that I spent literally hours retrying, because of how hard this got at times. Part of me wonders if I would have had a better time playing on Standard difficulty instead... but either way, I adapted. If I ever replay this, I might consider dropping it to Normal, so that I can get a feel for the default difficulty here. If I get to the point where I'm replaying this a lot, and starting to find the lower difficulties too easy, then I might consider trying Hardcore again, or even Professional difficulty. We'll see.
But at any rate - REmake 4 is excellent. I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a new kind of Resident Evil 4 experience. Now I just hope that Capcom goes back and actually remakes a game that wasn't very good in the first place, like Code Veronica. I really hope Capcom doesn't skip that again in favor of just remaking Resident Evil 5 or something. But we'll see...
1988
Gain Ground is a very unusual game, that can be hard to really understand if you don't know what you're getting yourself into. However, once you understand how it works, and the design philosophy going into it, I think it actually becomes a pretty fascinating experience. I feel like the simplest way to describe this, is that it takes the design philosophy of a strategy game like Fire Emblem, and melds that into the context of a run-and-gun shooter.
I like this quite a bit, but at times I do find it a little bit bullshit in its design. It does demand a lot of patience from the player, but if you can deal with it, you will find a surprisingly rewarding experience. The Rambo and viking guys are the best units, by far.
I like this quite a bit, but at times I do find it a little bit bullshit in its design. It does demand a lot of patience from the player, but if you can deal with it, you will find a surprisingly rewarding experience. The Rambo and viking guys are the best units, by far.
(beat on 2024-02-12; did a 1CC on 02-13)
Life on Earth: Reimagined is a spinoff/prequel (as far as I can tell) to Kai Magazine Software's other game, Life on Mars. I have not played Life on Mars - I personally avoided picking it up because it's a Metroidvania, and I don't personally care much for that genre. Life on Earth, however, has a very different type of experience it's going for - that of a straightforward, stage-based 2D action-platformer.
Life on Earth: Reimagined's store description describes it as a mix of Contra, Shinobi III, and Rolling Thunder... and yeah, that's pretty accurate. Life on Earth feels specifically like it's trying to meld two different sorts of sidescrollers together - the frantic run-and-gun shooting of Contra, with the more deliberately-paced, mechanics-heavy nature of Shinobi. Those might sound incompatible, but to the developers' credit, I think they do a pretty good job of fusing the two together.
The protagonist you control, a questionably-attired woman named Dr. Zhira Kenthara, carries a gun, that functions as a standard semi-auto rifle, just like in Contra. This default gun has unlimited ammo. You can also pick up ammo for one of 3 other weapon types - a rapid-fire machine gun, a spread-firing shotgun, and an explosive grenade launcher that fires with a bit of an arc. These guns do have ammo that you need to maintain (unless playing on one of the specialty difficulty settings), so the game encourages you to frequently switch weapon types (by tapping the start button; holding the start button pauses), and save your ammo for when you really need it.
Beyond the guns, you also have a separate attack button, which always unleashes a strike at melee range. This can deal good damage, but its horizontal range is (understandably) a bit limited, so it can be risky to rely too heavily on. Like Shinobi, you can also do melee attacks with your regular fire button, if an enemy is close enough for you to do so. Other miscellaneous mechanics include (but are not limited to) dive-kicking (a classic Shinobi III move - and which can actually let you climb walls here, if you practice with them! Good stuff), and also tapping left or right twice to dash (attacking while dashing does a lunging strike, like in Shinobi III). You can also hold up to jump higher.
When it comes down to it, I do think Life on Earth: Reimagined is generally fun to play. I have not played the original Life on Earth for the MSX line of computers, so I cannot compare the two. But as a standalone experience, this is pretty solid. It's also fairly forgiving overall, given that you have infinite continues as well as a relatively lengthy health bar on most difficulties - the developers outright designed this game with the intent of encouraging players to 1CC it, and as I've personally 1CCed it myself, I can affirm that it's very doable! There are some parts of the game that are particularly brutal, however. As an example - about a third of the way in, there's an auto-scrolling section as you escape an exploding building, which is very rough, as one mistake can kill you, and your default run speed is not fast enough to outrun the explosion, which means you need to dash as frequently as possible. Pretty nasty!
I do think this game could use a bit more polish. While the art design is generally appealing, the stages don't do a good job of distinguishing which elements are part of the foreground or background, and it can be very easy to not realize that a platform is actually there. One particular stage later on has several platforms, that are all the same color as the wall/ground, and you basically just kinda have to know they're there ahead of time (or be willing to jump in various directions randomly) in order to get yourself across them. At least they don't have a bottomless pit there! But I do think the stages could utilize color more effectively, to make such elements easier to see.
I also think the pacing is... a bit weird? I do think this does a pretty good job of mixing disparate influences together overall, but it's not without its faults. Sometimes it feels like a bit of a slog to clear enough enemies away to safely proceed, and it can feel a bit awkward to shift gears back and forth between how you approach a combat encounter (switching between Contra-style “blow shit up” and Shinobi-style “take down enemies methodically” approaches), in order to skirt by as unscathed as possible.
The writing could use some work, too. The English script is... serviceable, but pretty rough. There are several typos and grammatical errors, and the localization in general feels kinda stiff and clunky. I can understand the story possibly being an afterthought (I'm assuming it was written after the fact, to tie the stages together), but it's pretty funny to see Zhira consistently fail to successfully communicate with anyone to explain what exactly is going on, or how she's not the mass murderer that she's been accused of being in the intro... as she then goes on to mass-murder a ton of people lol.
All in all, Life on Earth: Reimagined is pretty laser-focused on being a specific thing - it's a 2D action game that takes influence from multiple games the development team liked, while featuring a hot girl character to play as and maybe ogle. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, when it comes down to it - it feels like they made the game they wanted to make, and I'm happy for them. I think there's some room for improvement, but I generally enjoyed my time playing through this, and I think it was worth purchasing - I may have reason to check out Life on Mars as a result of having played this one, it so happens. I do hope they can eventually release a ROM of this digitally however - not a huge fan of having to pull out and hook up my Genesis just to play this game. Let me play this on MiSTer!
Life on Earth: Reimagined is a spinoff/prequel (as far as I can tell) to Kai Magazine Software's other game, Life on Mars. I have not played Life on Mars - I personally avoided picking it up because it's a Metroidvania, and I don't personally care much for that genre. Life on Earth, however, has a very different type of experience it's going for - that of a straightforward, stage-based 2D action-platformer.
Life on Earth: Reimagined's store description describes it as a mix of Contra, Shinobi III, and Rolling Thunder... and yeah, that's pretty accurate. Life on Earth feels specifically like it's trying to meld two different sorts of sidescrollers together - the frantic run-and-gun shooting of Contra, with the more deliberately-paced, mechanics-heavy nature of Shinobi. Those might sound incompatible, but to the developers' credit, I think they do a pretty good job of fusing the two together.
The protagonist you control, a questionably-attired woman named Dr. Zhira Kenthara, carries a gun, that functions as a standard semi-auto rifle, just like in Contra. This default gun has unlimited ammo. You can also pick up ammo for one of 3 other weapon types - a rapid-fire machine gun, a spread-firing shotgun, and an explosive grenade launcher that fires with a bit of an arc. These guns do have ammo that you need to maintain (unless playing on one of the specialty difficulty settings), so the game encourages you to frequently switch weapon types (by tapping the start button; holding the start button pauses), and save your ammo for when you really need it.
Beyond the guns, you also have a separate attack button, which always unleashes a strike at melee range. This can deal good damage, but its horizontal range is (understandably) a bit limited, so it can be risky to rely too heavily on. Like Shinobi, you can also do melee attacks with your regular fire button, if an enemy is close enough for you to do so. Other miscellaneous mechanics include (but are not limited to) dive-kicking (a classic Shinobi III move - and which can actually let you climb walls here, if you practice with them! Good stuff), and also tapping left or right twice to dash (attacking while dashing does a lunging strike, like in Shinobi III). You can also hold up to jump higher.
When it comes down to it, I do think Life on Earth: Reimagined is generally fun to play. I have not played the original Life on Earth for the MSX line of computers, so I cannot compare the two. But as a standalone experience, this is pretty solid. It's also fairly forgiving overall, given that you have infinite continues as well as a relatively lengthy health bar on most difficulties - the developers outright designed this game with the intent of encouraging players to 1CC it, and as I've personally 1CCed it myself, I can affirm that it's very doable! There are some parts of the game that are particularly brutal, however. As an example - about a third of the way in, there's an auto-scrolling section as you escape an exploding building, which is very rough, as one mistake can kill you, and your default run speed is not fast enough to outrun the explosion, which means you need to dash as frequently as possible. Pretty nasty!
I do think this game could use a bit more polish. While the art design is generally appealing, the stages don't do a good job of distinguishing which elements are part of the foreground or background, and it can be very easy to not realize that a platform is actually there. One particular stage later on has several platforms, that are all the same color as the wall/ground, and you basically just kinda have to know they're there ahead of time (or be willing to jump in various directions randomly) in order to get yourself across them. At least they don't have a bottomless pit there! But I do think the stages could utilize color more effectively, to make such elements easier to see.
I also think the pacing is... a bit weird? I do think this does a pretty good job of mixing disparate influences together overall, but it's not without its faults. Sometimes it feels like a bit of a slog to clear enough enemies away to safely proceed, and it can feel a bit awkward to shift gears back and forth between how you approach a combat encounter (switching between Contra-style “blow shit up” and Shinobi-style “take down enemies methodically” approaches), in order to skirt by as unscathed as possible.
The writing could use some work, too. The English script is... serviceable, but pretty rough. There are several typos and grammatical errors, and the localization in general feels kinda stiff and clunky. I can understand the story possibly being an afterthought (I'm assuming it was written after the fact, to tie the stages together), but it's pretty funny to see Zhira consistently fail to successfully communicate with anyone to explain what exactly is going on, or how she's not the mass murderer that she's been accused of being in the intro... as she then goes on to mass-murder a ton of people lol.
All in all, Life on Earth: Reimagined is pretty laser-focused on being a specific thing - it's a 2D action game that takes influence from multiple games the development team liked, while featuring a hot girl character to play as and maybe ogle. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, when it comes down to it - it feels like they made the game they wanted to make, and I'm happy for them. I think there's some room for improvement, but I generally enjoyed my time playing through this, and I think it was worth purchasing - I may have reason to check out Life on Mars as a result of having played this one, it so happens. I do hope they can eventually release a ROM of this digitally however - not a huge fan of having to pull out and hook up my Genesis just to play this game. Let me play this on MiSTer!
1996
After several attempts to play through Quake over the years - each of which were abandoned at some point during the first two episodes... I've finally finished Quake, for the first time.
All in all - it's cool. I don't like it nearly as much as Doom, but then again, not much can really compare to Doom as far as FPSes go. Part of it is just due to personal preference (I prefer the more cheesy metal vibe of Doom over the gritty industrial vibe of Quake), but I also happen to find certain Quake enemies (the Shamblers, most notoriously) kind of annoying to fight, in a way that isn't very fun to deal with. It makes some encounters feel less enjoyable than they could have been. But overall, it's not a bad game at all. I'm glad I was able to finish it at long last.
All in all - it's cool. I don't like it nearly as much as Doom, but then again, not much can really compare to Doom as far as FPSes go. Part of it is just due to personal preference (I prefer the more cheesy metal vibe of Doom over the gritty industrial vibe of Quake), but I also happen to find certain Quake enemies (the Shamblers, most notoriously) kind of annoying to fight, in a way that isn't very fun to deal with. It makes some encounters feel less enjoyable than they could have been. But overall, it's not a bad game at all. I'm glad I was able to finish it at long last.
1987
Athena, and the theme song, both deserve a better game. This is just a quarter-muncher slog through repetitive environments and tedious boss fights.
Really solid methodically-paced action-platformer. Really demands patience of the player. I don't think I'd put it as high as Shinobi Legions, but I am definitely enjoying my trek through the Shinobi series as of late. These games are generally really really awesome.
Very engaging horror/adventure/romance experience. This game makes the simple act of running around talking to NPCs feel exciting and intriguing throughout. The presentation is also top-notch, with a gorgeous soundtrack and art style that combines hand-painted backgrounds with 2D pixel-art sprites. It all comes together quite nicely.
There are maybe a couple minor nitpicks I have - mostly connected to the way the witching hour segments work (it can be annoyingly vague to figure out how to proceed at times, as well as irritating to deal with certain enemies - thankfully a recent patch made this less painful to deal with), as well as how the overall collection of endings are grouped up/constructed. I also wish the game let you fastforward text more consistently.
But really, as an overall experience, I had a great time going through this. It weaves both charming, uplifting moments together with truly horrific, disturbing scenes, and keeps you guessing what will happen next. I think it's well worth giving a shot, if you're prepared.
(I got 100% achievements/all endings)
There are maybe a couple minor nitpicks I have - mostly connected to the way the witching hour segments work (it can be annoyingly vague to figure out how to proceed at times, as well as irritating to deal with certain enemies - thankfully a recent patch made this less painful to deal with), as well as how the overall collection of endings are grouped up/constructed. I also wish the game let you fastforward text more consistently.
But really, as an overall experience, I had a great time going through this. It weaves both charming, uplifting moments together with truly horrific, disturbing scenes, and keeps you guessing what will happen next. I think it's well worth giving a shot, if you're prepared.
(I got 100% achievements/all endings)
This is an alright game. The lack of budget is noticeable (there's only about 6 different possible themes for each course, which means some racetracks look nearly identical to one another. This allows for heavy amounts of asset reuse), and I find it a bit weird that most characters you need to spend in-game currency to unlock. But it's actually pretty fun to race in - this game really emphasizes drifting and getting extra speed boosts in the process. I had a good time with the core gameplay, but this leaves a bit to be desired.