Picture this scenario in your head, if you would. It is late 1991, and you are an average kid living an average life. You hear about this video game console known as the Sega Genesis, and you see this new game that had come out a while back for the system known as Sonic the Hedgehog. You are blown away by it, not just by the graphics and the gameplay, but also just how fast it was going compared to other games at the time, and you are sold on it. So, for Christmas, you ask for both a Sega Genesis and a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog, and you have a great feeling that you will be getting those things for the holiday. The day finally comes, you open up your presents with glee, and you feel… slightly thrown off. Instead of getting a Sega Genesis and a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog, you got a Sega Master System and a copy of… Sonic the Hedgehog. Eh, close enough, right?

So yeah, sometime after the original Sonic the Hedgehog, they made a separate companion game for both the Sega Master System and the Game Gear, and it was developed by a company called Ancient, with this being their first game they developed (always a good sign). Obviously, the Sega Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog would be both better, quality-wise, and more well remembered then this game, but as a companion game, Sonic the Hedgehog for the Master System is… pretty alright. It is obviously inferior to the original game, and there are questionable design choices present everywhere you look, but for an 8-bit Sonic game, it does its job well enough.

The story is the exact same as the original, so no need to comment on that, the graphics are pretty good for the Master System, and they fit well enough with the Sonic style, the music is actually pretty great, which I really wasn’t expecting for this game, the control is around the same level as the original game, although you obviously can’t go as fast as the original, and the gameplay is your typical Sonic affair, which is pretty fun at points, while serviceable for the rest of the time.

The game is still your average 2D platformer, where you run through many different side-scrolling stages, defeating enemies and collecting rings along the way, finding alternate paths with optional goodies (and by that, I mean six of them), and fight bosses at the end of each zone. It all functions pretty much exactly like the original game, but of course, it is held back by the system’s limitations, making it more platform-oriented overall, which works for the game that we have here. There are also several new stages to be seen, along with repeats from the original game (even though I didn’t wanna see them again), which provides enough variety throughout the game.

Just like with the original game as well, you can also collect the six Chaos Emeralds in order to get a different ending, adding a bit of replayability to the game, but unlike the original, you don’t get them by going into special stages. Instead, they are located in several of the levels, and you simply just have to find them and collect them. It may not be as exciting or involved as with the original, but it is way more convenient and less annoying then the special stages from the original game. And speaking of which, Special Stages also make a return in this game, but instead of them being used to collect Chaos Emeralds, they are meant to get extra lives and continues, which is very helpful, and a nice change of pace compared to the rest of the game.

Now, with all of that said, there are plenty of problems with the game, although most of them are pretty circumstantial. For the problems present throughout the whole game, first off, whenever you get hit in the game, you lose all of your rings rather than being able to collect some of them back, which does suck, and in terms of the boss fights, most of them are simple enough, but you are given no rings when fighting them, making them much more annoying than they need to be. And speaking of more annoying then it needs to be, guess which level is back in this game? LABYRINTH ZONE, and it is just as god-awful as it was in the original game. Seriously, I hope the guy who created this level feels happy with himself, making a lot of kids in the 90s suffer because of it.

Aside from that, there are a lot of little problems present in the game, such as auto-scrolling levels (you know, in a game about GOING FAST(sometimes)), one of the Chaos Emeralds being placed in a bed of spikes, and there being leaps of faith that happen sometimes throughout the game, which can lead to several unwanted deaths. A lot of these problems all boil down to poor level design, and making the game needlessly difficult, but not by much at all, in reality. The game overall, I would say, is easier then the original Sonic (with an exception here or there), and it doesn’t last too long at all, so for being a short and somewhat easy game, I would say it is pretty alright, and I am glad that I finally chose to play it after all this time.

Overall, while it doesn’t even hold a candle to the Sega Genesis game, Sonic 1 on the Master System is still an alright companion piece for those who probably weren’t fortunate enough to get a Genesis back in the day, and I would recommend it for big fans of the classic Sonic games. For those who aren’t that much into Sonic… you can just skip this one. I mean, after all, this is gonna be a one time thing, and there aren’t gonna be anymore weird companion games made like this… right?

Game #227

STOP DOING HYPER REALISM
VIDEO GAMES WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE REAL LIFE
YEARS OF SO CALLED TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT YET NO REAL WORLD USE FOUND IN MAKING A GAME HAVE MORE REALISTIC VISUAL AESTHETICS THAN METAL GEAR SOLID 4

Wanted to look better anyway for a laugh? We had a tool for that, it was called "ART DIRECTION"

"Yes give me SLIGHTLY more smudges on that brown stained floor, give me slightly more lighting that completely destroys the art style at the cost of taking HALF A YEAR from my graphics card's life expectancy." - statements dreamed up by the utterly deranged.

Look at what NVidia and it's mafia of bitcoin miners have been demanding your money all this time, with all the decades worth of beautiful low spec games in your backlog.
???????????
"Hello I would like my games to run and look worse please"
They have played us for absolute fools.

Whenever deciding to check out any piece of media, it is always best to keep an open mind. Sure, there are things out there that you look at, get a good idea of what it is all about, and make a proper assumption about their quality based on that, but in many cases, you don’t really know how good or bad a product can be without giving it a proper shot. Hell, there have been plenty of points in the past where I would watch a movie, play a game, or whatever, thinking that it was gonna be nothing all that special, or it would just flat-out suck, and it ends up becoming one of my new personal favorites from whatever medium it comes from. So, I figured I needed to have this type of approach when it came to a game like NBA Jam.

If you have been keeping up with my reviews for a while now, you would know that I generally am not a fan of sports games in the slightest, as most of the time, they are usually not only incredibly similar to each other, but also have zero effort put into them to make one stand out from another, and are just pumped out non-stop for poor souls to waste their time and money on. There are obvious exceptions to this, but that is usually the case when it comes to a lot of these titles, and I had a sneaking suspicion that this game would end up like most of the others. I had heard from many YouTubers and others in the past that, out of all of the basketball games to be released back in the day, or just sports games in general, this was one of the best of the bunch, which made me very curious to try it out for the longest time. I figured it was about time that I do give it a fair chance, and it may not come off as a surprise to some of you, but I actually ended up having way more fun with it then I thought I would. It isn’t anything more than what it is advertised as, so you won’t be seeing anything too groundbreaking from it, but for what it is, it is some of the most fun I have ever had with a sports game in such a long time.

The graphics are pretty good, featuring good recreations of what a lot of the players here look like in real life, and the sprites for the players on the court do look… off, but still well done enough to where you can have a great time watching all of the action take place, the music is pretty good, not being there for a majority of the main game, but for all of the menus and segments, there are some enjoyable tunes to listen to that get you ready to play another round, the control is pretty solid, with you being able to do plenty with so little in order to score points, although it can take a little getting used to, in my case anyway, and the gameplay is pretty much what you would expect, but with all of the personality and energy that you would want from one of these games, which makes it worth checking out above all the rest.

The game is a basketball game, where you take control of one of many, MANY different basketball teams from 1992-1993 and 1993-1994 NBA seasons (depending on what version of the game you play), take on another team in a two-on-two game on the court, get the ball whenever you can to pass to your teammate and shoot it into your hoop whenever you can, use the turbo feature to keep up with the other players and shove them out of the way to make sure they never get the chance to score either, and enjoy all of this without any of the dumbass rules that really basketball has to keep you from going too buckwild… except for goaltending and 24-second violations, because you can’t have too much fun with this. A lot of it is pretty generic for a basketball game, so you wouldn’t really think too much of it on the surface, making you question why you would play it over any other basketball game released at the time or ever since, but if there is one thing that makes this game stand out from the rest, it is the energy and personality that it brings to the sport as a whole.

The game is already flashy and engaging enough with its appealing visuals and sound quality, but then there are plenty of other elements added to spice up the gameplay even more to make it that much more fun and exciting. While the game mostly sticks to the realistic movements and maneuvers one would typically see in a basketball games, there are also a lot of other movements that are over-the-top and greatly exaggerated, making a lot of the actions you can perform throughout the game feel exciting and extremely satisfying. Of course, a lot of that comes from whenever you shoot or dunk the ball into a hoop, and a lot of these movements can be pretty basic, but some of them get so incredibly ridiculous that you can’t help but love them, such as when you are able to not only set the net ON FIRE because of how awesome you are, but you are also able to straight up break the backboard of the hoop, and it is just the most glorious thing that I may have ever seen in any NBA game ever.

In addition to this, you also have an announcer that will be commenting on everything you do in the game, and while he doesn’t really do much to change up the gameplay, I just love listening to this guy talk. He adds a lot of the charm and personality that a game like this needs, and many of the phrases that he does say have become just as iconic as the game itself, with lines like “Boomshakalaka!”, “He’s heating up!”, and “He’s on fire!” being just some of the few most noteworthy ones you can hear. Seriously, how can you not love hearing that whenever you manage to score a perfect shot in the basket? Not only that, but whenever the announcer does say “he’s on fire”, you get an infinite turbo meter for a limited amount of time, making it easy to keep up with opponents, take the ball, and score even more points.

But of course, what would one of these games be without the many, MANY easter eggs that you can find? Throughout the game, you can see plenty of different ones that not only relate to the NBA and the players found in it, but also from Midway themselves and whatever whacky shit the devs thought of including in here. Depending on what version you play, you can enter different cheat codes to play as different characters, such as other players from the NBA, some of the devs that made the game, and even some pretty out-of-nowhere characters that you would never expect, such as the mascot for the Charlotte Hornets and even Bill fucking Clinton! I mean, c’mon, you can’t hate a game that allows you to dunk on basketball players as a former president. Aside from that though, there are also other codes that change up the game itself, such as one that gives everyone huge heads, one that makes all of the floors slippery to where you can fall down if you go too fast, and there is even a secret tank game that you can access just for the sake of it. All of this is incredibly stupid and unnecessary, and yet, it makes the game so much better just by being there, not only for the novelty of being there, but also allowing you to experiment with the many different modes and characters you can play as for many more matches.

At the end of the day though, it is still a basketball game through and through. You run around, shoot hoops, and try not to let the other team score as many points as you do, with there being no other modes to try out, so if you are not someone who enjoys these types of games, or you just aren’t a fan of basketball or sports in general, then you probably wouldn’t enjoy this game as much as others. Not to mention, in terms of the original version of NBA Jam, the one that I played for this review, there have updates to it made over the years which does add more content to the game, so if you are going to play this game, you would be better off sticking to one of those versions over this one. That doesn’t make this version bad whatsoever, but that is still something to consider if you want to play the game for yourself.

Overall, despite how simple it is and how it is outdated when compared to future editions of the game, NBA Jam may just be the best sports game that I have ever played from this era, and it may even be the best basketball game I have ever played in general, having the exact energy that a game like this should have, along with plenty of personality and extras for you to try out that make it truly one of a kind. I would absolutely recommend this game, not just for those who are fans of basketball or sports games, but for anyone to try out in general, because even for someone like me who avoids sports games like the plague, this managed to give me one hell of a good time regardless, and it will probably do the same for you. You see that, modern sports game designers? THIS is what more sports games should be like, alright? Not whatever shit EA usually pulls out of their ass for all the sport cucks to throw their money at every year.

Game #531

My parents shipped me off to a vocational school when I was 16, at their wits end with my hooliganism. I suppose they thought learning how to weld would sort me out or something. This school was a "last stop" for a lot of kids whose parents ran out of rope to give, or who were otherwise court ordered to attend short of ending up in juvie. A considerable amount of the student body had a rougher background than mine and came from homes more fractured or communities that were deeply disenfranchised.

And everyone there loved Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 (also, Gauntlet Legends, but we're not talking about that today.)

Actually, it may be more accurate to say they just loved Dragon Ball. Budokai 3 was the newest game at the time and so it got the most play, but it was just as common to find kids huddled around a CRT watching Dragon Ball GT. The guy who had that GT set was also had a copy of Big Money Rustlas and I'm sorry to report that I've been conditioned through overexposure to adore both. Many flavors of Faygo touched my lips during this era.

The thing about Dragon Ball is that it had penetrated so many social barriers by 2004 that it had attained total cultural saturation. Playing these games, Budokai 3 in particular, and simply sharing a love for the series helped me expand my social bubble and connect with others during a particularly low point in my life. I also mained Kid Buu, so everyone knew I was a motherfucker. My Dragon Ball GT loving, Juggalo, furry friend taught me to never hide who you are, and who I am is a little pink goblin that can't be touched and will send his fist through the ground to punch you in the groin.

Though I'm typically bad at fighting games, there was a period where I was so practiced at Budokai 3 that nailing precision dodges and teleport chains was purely reflexive. Sure, this is partly due to being confined to a facility where the only other things to do was play billiards or hang out at a rundown single-screen theater that mostly ran crap like The Ladykillers, but you know, some of that was pure talent! Revisiting it now for the first time since leaving that school felt like slipping into a warm bath. Familiar, cozy, and-- whoa wait shit why is Cell spamming his ultimate like that HELP!!

Budokai 3 plays a lot better than the previous two games but is still compromised in several areas. Characters control largely the same as each other with little in the way of unique playstyles, but the capsule system feels more robust and better allows you to create a build unique to you, for example. Techniques look flashy and do well to capture key moments from the show and manga, but the rush attack and accompanying button guessing minigame wears thin and becomes a pace breaker fast. There's a lot of give and take here, but you can unlock Kid Goku so I'm afraid it's just the best Budokai game there is. I'm sorry. I don't make the rules.

The story mode is limited to 11 of the roster's 32 characters, and most of its replayability comes in the form of alternate routes, hidden fights, and secrets. There's a good amount to do, but the jog through DBZ's main four arcs is severely truncated and at times plays fast and loose with its canon (Goku survives the Raditz fight in Piccolo's story, for example, but the game doesn't explore this fully.) Dialog is rife with spelling errors, kerning issues, and there's a number of portraits that are off-model. Characters who existed mostly on the periphery like Tien or Yamcha or even those who were present in the story but largely inactive during long stretches are represented here, but much of their story modes involve bouncing between disperate points on a map to get maybe two or three lines of dialog... Many of the Dragon Ball games of this era just assume you're deeply familiar with the story and don't make much of an effort, so it's not surprising that Budokai 3 offloads a considerable amount of its narrative to your imagination.

And I'm fine with that. Budokai 3 isn't perfect by any means, but like the very boring man that I am, I'm perfectly capable of recognizing its faults and enjoying it regardless. That's only possible with the maturity laying bricks for two years builds... I think, I don't know.

I had planned on replaying this much further down the road (maybe around September), but as Akira Toriyama's untimely passing affected fans all over the world, it made me reflect on my time with Budokai 3 and appreciate something I understood back in 2004: Dragon Ball suffers no barriers.