+a stellar year 1 graphical showcase for the sega genesis. a lot of nice parallax scrolling, multilayered backgrounds, and detailed character sprites
+a certain amount of care has been taken with the handling, more than for a usual title of this area anyway. crouch-walking is an excellent feature, and musashi's attacks are incredibly responsive, making sudden reactions to obstacles very satisfying
+lots of environment variety, even all within the same set of stages. part of the appeal of this game for a lot of people is how silly it's willing to be for the sake of originality
+the ost is godlike ofc because it's yuzo koshiro
+when there's flow there really is flow... the shurikens are very responsive and can take many enemies out in a hit. the game falters when it forces you to play the waiting game

-the control is really stiff sometimes, especially when it comes to the jumping. doing a double jump/somersault is an essential mechanic in the game and yet the window for actually pulling it off is slim, making it reminiscent of other awkward double jumps like crash bandicoot 3.
-replete with cheap deaths of all varieties, mainly bottomless pits and severe knockback from being hit, but also some insta-death surfaces. the level on the airplane where there's doors everywhere that open up and dump you outside.... ugh
-perhaps this is another thing people like about this game, but the level design is all over the place. sometimes this yields good results but there are many misses as well. it leaves the game feeling rather uneven
-can't say I was a big fan of any of the bosses. many of them are damage sponges and have repetitive patterns, which can be a pain to avoid over and over again with how large their hitboxes are... very 80s
-fuck that labryinth at the end lol
-making melee attacks context-dependent really bites... I wish I had the option to avoiding using shurikens when I don't have to without having to get up in the enemy's grill. especially annoying considering how many unique melee weapon animations are coded into the game and yet are very circumstancial to pull off

I can definitely see why this was a shining example of early 16-bit software from the perspective of other games at the time, but thanks to the clunky 80s arcade-holdover design it's a hard one to stomach today. definitely a "you had to be there" game lol. looking forward to playing shinobi 3 in the future regardless

+distinctive art style, it somehow is welcoming and cheerful while incorporating many sinister and unsettling elements, with a heavy emphasis on abstract, dreamlike visuals during gameplay
+flow-based gameplay that is intuitive to control and extremely dynamic. the systems reward flashy play and smooth transistions between interactables, and the camera always directs you to your next target without the need to explore or pause
+the music is amazing, up their with sega's other cd quality ost successes of the same era such as daytona usa and panzer dragoon
+good variety in setpieces, with each level feeling distinctive both from its particular obstacles as well as it design and layout
+the weird amount of effort put into stuff like the A-life system (a pre-chao garden system that maintains a continously growing and breeding population of creatures in the background of each level) and the secrets that appear when the game is powered on at certain times is extremely charming in its opaqueness
+I quite like how each level is segmented into two minute chunks, each of which is carefully designed to have an optimal route for scoring. it helps compartmentalize the game into sections to learn with individual rankings for each, while also balancing out your performance between the segments in case you happen to underperform in a given one
+the awkward 3d platforming segments when time runs out on the nights transformation has been panned but personally I appreciate it it. it faciliates an arcade-like timer system without halting progress completely via death/failure if your timer runs out
+such a satisfying score attack game, where every level feels like a rollercoaster to ride through, and every run seems like it can be improved with practice

-this game is allergic to explaining anything to you. once you understand what's going on (pick up blue orbs, dump them in the weird organic cage, do laps through the area for points, and then return to the main pavilion to start the next segment) it's natural, but a quick tutorial stage explaining each mechanic would have been greatly appreciated
-the bosses also could have used some more explaining up front, especially since there are no health bars or solid indicators letting you know you're even attacking properly. this is exacerbated by the fact that the methods for dealing with each boss are usually entirely different from one another, and some require use of special moves like the paraloop rather than just drilling into them
-definitely light on content, with a mere seven levels that take no more than 10 minutes each to beat. it's not as bare as some of the other saturn titles, but it could've at least used separate versions of twin seeds (the final level) for each character...

I first played this on real hardware at magfest and was sorely confused; I'm glad I returned to it and took some time to learn the mechanics. it's certainly an unorthodox design but at the same time thrilling. it feels like I'll be returning to this to play a level here or there often, much like with the rest of sega's excellent arcade-style games

Final Fantasy 1? Fine. Very archaic dungeon design and story but a neat intro for the series with customizing a basic but (hopefully) effective party and building it out as the game progresses. Found it surprisingly easy and didn't die outside of not paying attention during minor grinding sections, admittedly. It's a solid 6 out of 10 imo, too mindless to pique my interest but nothing offensive, one of the better classic rpgs of that era.
Final Fantasy II? Played for about an hour or two. Didn't understand how strong I needed to be so I kept grinding in the starting area. Stumbled on an encounter at the very bottom peninsula of that area, apparently way higher leveled enemies spawn there so I got one shot, losing all my progress. Dropped it, so i guess this is half completed idk.
Edit 1: I now understand the concept of a "Peninsula of Power"
Edit 2: Actually went ahead and finished it so I'll give something a bit more in-depth.
The most obvious thing to talk about when discussing FF2 is the progression system and in this case I can see what they were going for and its neat considering this was though of during the NES era but man is is not as focused as normal exp. Compared to something like the elder scroll games (which Im not a fan of in these games either but i digress), at least in those games you have standard level ups after a given amount of skill level ups in which you can up your base stats like HP/MP. In FF2, those two and stats like evasion, stamina, intelligence are also gained through acts like getting hit, using spells, evading, using more than half of your MP in battle, will increase stats. This way of fighting might make for a more dynamic way of building your party by the end but firstly, stat ups in this feel so random and sporadic it doesn't really make me think "hmm yes i should use up all my magic in every battle so i can get a bunch of mp stat ups", I just want to get through the battles as i would normally and any stat ups i do get just happen. Secondly, this all feels undermined by the fact the game just gives you a bunch of 1-shot spells (thanks toad) and that pretty much every boss fight in this is a cakewalk (including the final boss, even Chaos in FF1 needed some form of team buffing, HP recovering, standard RPG faire). Also its incredibly weird to me why the skill max is 16 but by the end of the game you'll barely have skills over 10 or 11. There doesn't seem to be any reason or need to have any skills maxed out and the 'rank' of enemies doesn't go over 7, not even half of the skill cap. Also with how spells work there's so many specifics with how you get 'gains', like how using a bunch of mana on the field (like when casting cure or life), I don't know and I don't think you earn any points toward raising MP. Also because buffs and other white magics can miss and are very situational these just sit at fucking level 1 (or 2!!!) and that once in a blue moon moment you do use Berserk or Basuna it just misses because they're spells you don't use frequently like Cure or Life. Im glad this is a lot more refined than the original NES game was but man there's still a lot of ironing out that would need to be done here. At the very least with how easy this game is to cheese it's not a super hard game by any means (except those Death Knights in the final dungeon that do about as much damage as the final boss and regularly appear in multiples, with giants accompanying them). Also, at least in this version certain stats don't decrease when other stats increase like in the nes version. Any 'fourth' character gives you is just the biggest jobber, I felt no need to give any of them any attention whatsoever because there's no reason to give them anything- your main team of 3 is all you need to focus on. The dungeon crawling is almost a lot more obnoxious as FF1 but with deadend rooms with nothing in them and higher encounter rates. Don't feel bad if you want to use online maps, honestly. Lastly, man- money almost felt like a joke after the first few hours? After you buy you're starting equipment there's nearly no reason to buy anything else in the game and a lot of other equipment is either gifted or dropped by others. And any tomes you get more than 4 of (really 3, those fourth party members can be ignored for all i care) can just be sold off for even more money.
Overall it's a good port but man its not a good game and while the story has interesting bits to it, its not really neat enough to really grab my attention other than 'man this is darker than the first game'. At least chocobos and dragoons (kinda) were introduced in this game. It's a 2 out of 10, there's nothing really here I can say I liked and while its not painfully bad, it boggles my mind as to why they left this progression system (almost) as sloppy as it was on the NES.

+insanely fast-paced, violent combat with a distinct platinum refinement to it
+making parries the main defensive option gives the combat a particularly aggressive bent, while still avoiding completely being a hack and slash
+the blade mode ability plus being able to get a full heal off of any enemy by ripping their artificial heart fucking rules, feels so satisfying
+even though it's not a proper kojima game they do a solid job making it "feel" like kojima's writing and incorporating metal gear lore/design
+excellent boss fights for the majority of the game, and they're usually pretty forgiving with the health pickups as well making learning each bosses' patterns less frustrating
+I sort of like the stealth honestly, I wish the radius for taking down an enemy was a little wider given how touchy the controls are but otherwise it's nice to approach certain areas this way with little penalty if you fail
+other than normal goons being cannon fodder as one would expect, many of the enemies are legitimately dangerous and it keeps the combat fresh late into the game
+this is a very setpiece-heavy game and it reminds me quite a bit of similar games from the generation before, one of the last of its kind for sure
+60fps on ps3.... this is so huge. obviously it's not perfect by any means but playing a ps3 action game actually running at 60 fps most of the time was shocking to me
+I honestly enjoy the story; even though it's all over the place it's a lot of fun and relatively cogent (especially considering the game it's a sequel to). it doesn't have time to explore some of its themes deeply but it really does try, which is a very important aspect of an mgs game imo
+definitely a platinum thing but I appreciate how this game both has a solid combo system and also makes it very acceptable to mash buttons. usually you can't have both and it's nice to see this game make it work
+so many off-the-wall insane cutscenes and sequences, they really cranked it up to 11 in ridiculousness. mariachi raiden...
+the ninja run sections are cute, I much prefer those to the random QTEs in bayonetta lol

-the camera is absolutely absymal, shockingly bad considering platinum's other work. an over-the-shoulder perspective just doesn't work for these kind of games, obscuring much of the screen with raiden esp when he's moving towards the camera, and the camera otherwise is prone to jittering and jumping inconveniently
-the second half of the game seems rushed, with two boss repeats, a 15-minute long chapter where you run through a previous area backwards, and very little in the way of regular combat sequences with a lot of cutscenes instead. thankfully the file 6 boss is an excellent fight
-enemy variety could be a little better... not that big of a deal because the game isn't very long
-I know he's a fan favorite and I loooooved his cutscenes but the armstrong fight was exceedingly frustrating on hard. it feels too focused on running willy nilly around the arena dodging his AoE moves without rewarding parries like the other bosses do, and fighting the camera the whole time doesn't help. most of the damage is dealt in QTE sequences which is a bad look imo, whereas on hard he can easily take out 2/3 of a health bar at once, or even instant death if he gets a wall-bounce during the flame walls section, esp since I had no reserve nanopaste. I could go on and on, and admittedly the fight was cake once nanopaste started dropping part of the way through, but this was such a difficulty spike after the previous bosses taking no more than 2 tries apiece (other than sundowner), I probably spent upwards of 20 continues here
-tutorials are pretty shoddy, and it really could use a more thorough explanation of Offensive Defense's properties especially since it's virtually mandatory for the second-to-final boss
-I could do without so many analog stick rotation QTEs, I hate having to put my palm on the stick over and over again, especially against the fucking mantiff enemies

for the first half especially I adored this game, and even though the second half left a sour taste in my mouth I still feel like this is an essential modern action game to try whether you're a metal gear fan or not. having played both zone of the enders 2nd runner and no more heroes 2 in the last month I'm given flashbacks to both of them in a positive way, and it's made me want to get back into playing platinum's oeuvre, esp since designer takahisa taura's ideas here seem to have leaked into nier automata and astral chain in some ways. also without question a must-own for ps3 owners given its excellent performance and metal gear ties

Man I really wanted to like this but jesus christ this just feels silly a lot of the time
30 hours of regugitating similar scenes, bad models, constant map transition scenes, bad effects, hit or miss puzzles just for the last 5 or 10 hours to have actual things happen isnt worth it. 999's structure made for a super enjoyable and fairly clever trip down alternative paths (with some pseudoscience) fun but the way this game attempts to accomplish that is obnoxious it feels like a good chunk of the game is just meandering through similar scenes to maybe get 1 or 2 useful pieces of information only for it to reach a final point in which its nothing but a nonstop of new, complex information to process. After a certain point in the final stretch I seriously wondered why this even really needed to be made? It's got some neat character moments, some puzzles are alright, its at least fairly forgiving with some QoL features (the flow chart/skip button). By the end the game gets interesting but would I say it's really worth the constant back-and-forth of the previous 30 hours, not really. Also god this game looks ugly like really, like christ this game would go up a point if I didnt have to stare at models that looked worse than mid-aughts gmod videos.

I don't really know where to begin with 13 Sentinels, mostly because hinting almost anything on the narrative side would spoil anything major. The most I can say is that 13 people summon robots to fight kaiju. I really don't want to say much because this is something where the less you know the better.
Instead I'll talk a bit about the RTS sections since those a bit more general. They're pretty fun on Intense but overall pretty simple with maybe a few interesting parts coming from the bonus objectives that might limit who you'll want to bring in. I like the visual designs of these section a bit although it can be a bit overwhelming in certain sections and later missions did tank the framerate a bit (especially the final mission). There's also a few QoL changes that I wish were present like knowing what the limit on turrets out was (I actually didnt realize you could send out more than 1 until late in the game admittedly), knowing what the max upgrade on weapons was, if there was even a limit on how many sentinel upgrades you can have, etc. Despite this, I enjoyed the combat sections a lot more than I thought and by that I mean I didnt realize interceptor and turret spam could trivialize a lot of maps until the last few battles. Still its fun to figure out what combos work best and min/maxing your sentinels for the final battle was incredibly satisfying. I'll also say that Area 2-10 will probably live in my heart as one of the best moments in the game imo; the music in this game is super good and that map exemplifies just how well Basicscape handled the music.
Everything I wrote basically accounts for not even 20% of the game, and not even the best parts of it. The other ~80% accounting for the narrative is insane and the way 13S handles it's structure, characters and the way you solve the mysteries are super satisfying. I don't want to say anymore than that because I would rather people interested in getting this find out for themselves what kinda game/narrative 13 Sentinels is. I had been distantly interested in seeing what Vanillaware was cooking up since seeing teaser trailers for it but after hearing rave reviews when it dropped last year had my interest piqued. I'm incredibly happy to say that 13 Sentinels not only satisfied my interest but surpassed them. I think a game like this deserves the praise its gotten with regards to how much ambition and love for the sci-fi genre went into this narrative, even with its RTS sections seeming weaker. I gushed about this game for this long and didn't even realize I never talked about the art, kind of the trademark accolade of any vanillaware game. It's great. More than great, even. All I can say is that I highly recommend picking this up, Vanillaware did a really good job and I loved every second of it (although area 3-10 was a pain on my run).

A very interesting and hoaky game courtesy of Uchikoshi. I enjoyed this game a lot but encountered a few bugs during my play time including one that had me reinstall the game (along with VLR). Definitely has a lot of braindead easy puzzles for most of it with most of the thinking coming from figuring out what hasn't been interacted with yet in the escape room. Thankfully the conveniences added to the most recent editions are very much appreciated and save the hassle of having to redo certain sections, escape rooms included. The character designs are super great but stylistically everything else is either just fine or unmemorable. The voice acting however is super fun mostly because of how nonchalant or over-the-top some of the performances can be at times. A super enjoyable experience especially when you hit the final route, although im worried whenever I hear this is the best in the series.
Junpei a real one though ngl