Remarkably, the good majority of Zelda holds up in the current day. It's interesting to hear people call this a "guide game" in a negative lens because... that's always how it was marketed and sold to us. The manual that comes with the game not only expands quite a deal on the story and context of this first entry, but includes gorgeous artwork and maps - complete with walkthroughs for the first few dungeons - to get a new player started. This was indeed always meant to be an adventure, one the player would get their nose lost in manuals, handwritten notes and drawings, and of course not the least of which murmurings and tips passed between friends in the schoolyard and the fabled Nintendo hotline.

That said, the original Zelda experience isn't without flaw, for all of its adventure purist expression. I think Miyamoto and the team learned pretty quickly that an indicator for which bushes to burn, which boulders and walls to bomb, and stronger guidance for the sake of general gameplay flow were all in order by the time Link to the Past would roll around. The combat so desperately wants Link to have an arced swing of his sword, evidenced by how much combat relies on inter-tile maneuvering, but it's not quite there yet. Still a massive step in the right direction from the competitions' push-combat approach... much as I do like early Ys. What's here is still very solid, and a great deal of fun. I just replayed this with my best friend in an impromptu single session and it didn't drag at all. For as minimal and bare-bones as Zelda feels now, that adds to the unique charm and status it takes within its series and adventure games as a whole.

made it about to mission 13, doing an ironman and got my shit scuffed

i think that everything that made rekka no ken great is here but this is three failed playthroughs now, two out of apathy and now this one. the maps are too big, i feel like the enemy power ramp is too quick, i dunno. i remember running into this even when i was reloading fights, it just required too many reloads of long fights. and i refuse to get better or smarter!

to be real tho i really do like the idea of doing ironman playthroughs in these games, but without the freedom to train back benchers (they get mulched by a random wyvern knight) its pretty precarious. i might try rekka no ken this way, we'll see if that works out better.

stray thoughts:
1. its cool that roy can marry his social studies teacher
2. echidna is the baddie of all time

before reading this remember that I overall liked this game so I don't get death threats in the comments (or if you want to wish me death do it using an @ so I get the trophy lmao)

listen . i wanted to love fire emblem binding blade i really did . like theres some part of me that really wouldve ended up loving this game to death if it wasnt for the fact that its absolutely fucking tedious to play its not like this has no redeeming qualities but its pretty hard to just close an eye or maybe actually both eyes to some of the stuff that this throws at you

binding blade has actually a lot going for it bomb presentation amazing animations and art design addictive gameplay (:3 blatant lie) and the usual fire emblem flare in the story department but it really works a lot against its favor in many different ways

before I get to the weird stuff I want to really have a moment to say that the pixel art is incredible every single battle animation is intoxicatingly good and when you get to advanced spells there's some real eyecandy there im just gonna say this every single character portrait even if pretty simplistic drives the charm and the worldmap designs (in terms of aesthetic) are a delight to look at and even the backgrounds during the cutscene segments have a lot of details here and there that really add to the experience

unfortunately apart from this (that will become a staple for the other gba games anyway) I found this game kind of mid in every single aspect and you won't believe how much this ENRAGES ME UGHHJJ i swear I did my best to like this entry but it has too many downsides to actually say that this is at least at the same level of awakening for me . not even talking about echoes because that one is beyond everything else entirely

the story is pretty simplistic and doesn't get too many interesting plot points through a whopping amount of 25 chapters + like what 7 other chapters and thats a fucking shame apart from the beginning of the game and I'd say until you rescue lilina (one of my favorite character in this game actually) it really slows down for the entire game and picks up again only in the last chapters and since its just gonna be 20 chapters of absolutely nothing its a damn fucking flaw if you ask me most of the beats are gonna be like "our nation is against this nation and we are gonna defeat the main lord of this plot of land and then another and them another and then another until we get to the final boss and everyone's happy" and even when they get to interesting bits like the dragon lore stuff or the demon dragon infodumb in one of the last chapters I was so fucking exhausted of the story so far or lack thereof that I just wanted this torture to end im not even joking here

also I don't understand why the true ending is locked behind some extra quests whose conditions for their unlocking are a mystery to me as of yet I followed a guide so idc

granted there's some high points here and there again the whole lilina affair is probably my favorite part of the story and the dragon stuff is also cool and the final boss and ending are sad enough to make me at least enjoy the closing act but apart from that there's not a lot of stuff that I can say about the story besides its a fucking slog throughout but that's not gonna be so bad if the characters are charming !!!

they're not

this game strangely has a large cast of characters to the point that I only used like ¼ of the entire roster (which were also the only good ones anyway lmao) and yknow what happens when you make a game with too many characters ??? none of them will be properly developed thats right and thats a fucking shame if you ask me

tell me 5 characters in this game without looking on the Internet I'll wait

even the characters that should be the protagonists have to take a backseat most of the time because when you recruit the chapter character they're gonna steal the one liners for the most superficial character design ever and then get in your caravan and never speak again which means that most of these people won't have character development or anything ALTHOUGH !!! the supports DO give a little insight on the character relations and whatnot and when you recruit a new character that doesn't join automatically sometimes youre gonna need a specific character to make them do the talky talk but realistically apart from this theres absolutely nothing

clearly roy is gonna be the most deep character of the bunch and even there ? he's not really the deep anyway its like they put a shonen protagonist into the fire emblem universe and called it a day hes lawful he wants to kill the bad guy and can do nothing wrong DISCLAIMER echoes became one of my favorite games here and alm has the same problem you can get tanjiro from demon slayer and put him in the shoes of alm and it would be the same my problem is not about ROY but how generally this game handles characters and character development

other characters do have some kind of depth like fae which is a little dragon with a big heart and some kind of lore implication lilina is the love of my life and my sweet little angel but again after you save her she's just gonna sit her ass in the caravan and do her magic things I guess and … I already forgot who else there is

hector and eliwood are interesting but they're gonna be explored better in blazing blade anyway so whatever the red and green knights are as bland as ever there's dieck who is actually just zoro from one piece and there's also another reason why I want to fuck him shanna is very pretty and clarine is fucking funny sue is also an interesting character with zero depth apart from my tribe is very rural and we eat raw meat and I think I wanna sit on noahs face but I never really used him in battle anyway thea and larum are also very cute cath is an exception because I remember her for ruining my life milady can put her stilettos in my urethra and I want perceval to cum all over my face sophia is BEAUTIFUL but doesn't last 2 seconds in battle zeiss is also another face I'd sit on and I want douglas to choke me and fuck me raw

and guinivere is cool I guess not a fan of the damsel in distress just sitting around not doing anything trope

now again most of the characters are gonna just say a one liner and dip but some of them are really hot so I can excuse them

now the gameplay is basically usual fire emblem I'm not even gonna talk about it but I'm gonna say that this is definitely the most weirdly balanced one of the bunched I've played so far which is not a lot but still

some of the characters I mentioned are completely useless and again most of the characters you're gonna use are just gonna be like what 10 ? maybe even less because most of the characters here just suck and aren't even worth to put into battle to just then getting killed before even acquiring a level this game is so fucking unreal and difficult for no reason like who the fuck thought about ok let's make this game difficult by making the maps too large and/or intricate for their own good and making the hit rate be like 10% what am I even supposed to do with that im gonna go insane

so yeah basically if you want my advice just use Allan Lance Dieke Rutger Shin and maybe Sue Milady and then idk I also added to the bunch clarine and perceval now lilina is probably not good and you should just go with lugh but I wanted to use her in battle so I ended up leveling her up like hell and she became a fucking tank thank me later

and I guess that's basically it I can say that the music is also cool doesn't really excel in anything if I'm being really honest but it's serviceable and works well for the game in general so at least I'm gonna give this to the game I already talked badly about it long enough and I think there's some really interesting tracks here and there and for some reasons I ended up being a sucker for the sad songs like distant utopia is definitely an highlight if you ask me and the theme of guinivere just being depressed and miserable somehow ended up being my favorite theme out of the entirety of the tracklist idk it's such a beautiful song what the hell oh also I guess the polar region one is another highlight and there's a battle theme that I can't fight but yeah there's this one too if you're interested the name is [????????????] I'm pretty sure there's some other cool stuff I listened during my campaign I will be sure to check them out

(this is a consideration as soon as I finished the game maybe if I listen to the ost alone without getting frustrated at the game I'm gonna change my mind thank you)

all in all this is a fine game I just expected more from the "core fire emblem experience" if I had started from this one I'd have dropped the series marathon so fucking hard what the hell

this game is fucking impossible without savestates I want to talk with fire emblem fans who say umh achtually rebooting the game when a character dies is part of the whole experience hehe umh bro just say you got suicidal tendencies and go

Considering I've already written over 7,000 words on the original Tsui no Sora on this site, I intend to keep things a little shorter for now. My intentions below are to both discuss some route-by-route feelings in comparison to the original game, as well as further ruminate on the philosophical and thematic elements of both Tsui no Sora and Subarashiki Hibi. I'll give a spoiler warning when we jump full-on into dangerously heavy spoiler territory below. Still, mild spoilers for all three games within.

I don't think you need to have played the original game to appreciate the remake, you certainly need Subahibi, though. The original is helpful for understanding some of the deliberate deviations the remake gets at, some of which are pretty major, but you could feasibly play this with just Subahibi under your belt and get 85% of the point. It's hard to image what sort of impression the remake would land if not taken as an addition to the previous iterations of this story. I think above all else, SCA-Ji was able to more directly address additional influences over the original Tsui no Sora in the remake. Not only did he buckle down and more directly address the most obvious influence, being Nietzsche and particularly Zarathustra, but the influences of Spinoza and Lovecraft are even more clearly dug into and elaborated upon here in ways that are rewarding if you've spent time thinking about Subahibi for as long as many of us have.

Presentation-wise, the remake is a very interesting hodgepodge of KeroMakura styles and talents. Motoyon and SCA-Ji both take lead artistic roles here, and while SCA-Ji very much still draws in the same style he has since around the H2O and Subahibi days, Motoyon was clearly already adjust his style for the upcoming Sakura no Toki and so it comes off much more modernized. Motoyon also did most of the CGs, which are absolutely beautiful. Rarely as abstract as some of Subahibi's, but beautiful nontheless.
This sort of disorientation is largely supplemented by the fact that many background elements are ripped right from Subahibi, and the soundtrack is pretty much all the original ~15 second loops from the original Tsui no Sora. ... Until this isn't the case from Fourth View onwards, where elements of Subahibi begin to melt in from the soundtrack to a few pieces of CGs. The voice cast is largely different, and the only people who reprise their roles from Subarashiki Hibi do so with intent. Largely great performances all around. Each of the ending themes is an instrumental remix of one of the Tsui no Sora tracks and they're all fantastic. I think my favorites were Third View and Numinöse II.

On a route by route basis -

First View was a bit different from the original, largely in how it characterizes Yukito. I really liked the more grounded and empathetic view of his character this time around, and I wouldn't say it "replaces" the original because they're largely coming from places with different intentions. Otherwise, note for note, extremely faithful to the original everywhere it should've been. Second View was definitely interesting. There were a few moments of characterization missing that I loved in the original, even if they were small beats, and at first I wasn't sure how I felt about it. But once the plot started ramping up and the big deviations from the original plotline kicked in, largely revolving around Yasuko's feelings towards Kotomi I ended up absolutely loving it. Despite some minor nitpicks in the first half it's absolutely a stronger version of this story line. I have little in the way of notes for Third Route. It's just a straight up improvement over the original in every way. Admittedly cried to the ending.

... And that's where things got really interesting.

Massive spoilers for the remake and Subarashiki Hibi below.

I had heard tell that Yasuko of all characters was the protagonist of a new route in the remake, but somehow I wasn't expecting it to be earlier in the game than Takuji. I also wasn't expecting it to be arguably the best part of the game. She's simply one of SCA-Ji's best characters I've yet to experience. A deeply morally conflicting character who scratches directly at the wound that plagues every iteration of this story - the incessant babbling about existentialism and purposelessness of life means nothing in the face of love. And Yasuko is a character who has had her humanity stripped from her by force - but still clings to the subconscious believe that love is worth fighting for. You can say she's really fucked up for how she tries to get with Kotomi and you're definitely right, but by the end of the route, when she and Kiyoshi just get to have that heart to heart... shit, man, that's the point of the whole story. That's what each version of this game has been trying to say since 1999. Even if SCA-Ji himself couldn't have put it into words yet.

Final View was certainly interesting. I really loved that some of the abstract visions from the original game were left intact, 1999 artwork against 2010 backgrounds and all. I also really enjoyed how much Takuji and Riruru were given time to expand upon their relationship to one another. One of the strongest elements of the remake's stab at this story is how much it points its cast in the direction of "reality of the heart". In the same way that Yasuko had to come to terms with her feelings for Kotomi, Takuji has to do the same for Yukito - the nature of those feelings may be vague, but I chose to interpret it as an attraction of the mind. Maybe there's some homo-eroticism in there and I wouldn't deny that, but I think it's more that Takuji sees a home and a place of understanding in Yukito. I'm... gonna have to sit with the moment he hears Kimika's voice and unbox why that was for a minute. It's the most confounding and jaw-dropping moment in the entire route and it's gone within a second. Again, there are a few minor things I do miss from the original, especially some of the more abstract denpa effects like Riruru's number spiral form or the eyeball bleeding into the pool, but this version of Final View has many aspects that undeniably surpass the original and at the very least do the series as a whole serious justice.

And then there's the Numinöse duology. Numinöse I seems largely unchanged from the original, but that's fine - I already like that ending more than most. Numinöse II has some interesting changes itself, and the duology as a whole stands as a rather interesting conclusion to the series overall. I'm happy that SCA-Ji keeps it vague and never actually explains what Ayana is. The Nyarlathotep explanation is an interesting proposition, the Cthulhu explanation is also interesting, and the way she molds and shifts around her necessities and whims, or those of others... all interesting. As far as where I stand on Ayana, and the purpose of the End Sky itself? Well...

First off, it was incredibly gratifying to get SCA-Ji backing me up on my original read of what the End Sky represents - it's the doorway to an Übermenschian evolution, the discarding of humanity and subjectivity to become, as Riruru and Ayana put it, a "third-dimensional existence". I think this is the purpose of Yasuko saying what she does on the rooftop to Takuji - to discard humanity is to discard our ability to love, because love is founded in perception and irrational thought. It's not so much that the End Sky exists, or that it doesn't - it appears in many ways to many people, as an escape, as an evolution, as an ending. Perhaps that's why Kimika's voice reaches Takuji in the end, as a reminder that he is human, and is capable of a love that transcends his own delusions. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - Down the Rabbit-Hole I and the "good endings" of Subahibi are the entire point. They're the response SCA-Ji makes to himself and his work in Tsui no Sora, and now he's returned to this early work and planted seeds of that answer into the bleak and hopeless place he left behind in 1999. I do believe the only presence that actually does sit above humanity in all of this is Ayana - who is more of an idea than a tangible thing. I think you can rationalize that existence many ways: a monster, a schoolgirl, a cosmic terror, a god, a magical girl - but ultimately, Ayana is objectivity. She is the third-dimensional existence that plays out stories and creates scenarios for the purpose of understanding humanity. And if it's not directly her doing - though clarity on that isn't really necessary - then she's merely observing. It's not that she's cold, it's not that she's cruel, feelings just don't process for her. It's all an imitation or an attempt to emulate expression. But that begs the question, which she asks Yasuko - what's the difference in attempting to understand and engage with human emotion and actually having those emotions, considering neither exist on the plane of logical thinking or rationality either way? Where does the line blur between emulation and experience? Fantasy and reality? Truth or feelings? An ending or a beginning? Takuji or Yukito? Ayana or Kotomi? The End Sky. The unreachable all-knowingness that we seek in spite of its non-existence. Human ambition. Yearning to understand. Indulgence in sophistry. The answer was already in front of us. Live happily in the wonderful everyday.

SCA-Ji is the fucking man. That's the be-all-end-all of this whole thing.

Half-Century Challenge Series: https://www.backloggd.com/u/C_F/list/half-century-challenge/

HCC #3 = Pong (1972)

If there is any game that can be called synonymous with video games, it's Pong. When the term "video game" was first coined, it was because the average gamer experience consisted of playing something like tennis or ping pong on their TV. It's no coincidence the term "video game" came into mass usage during the early 1970s, right when Pong exploded.

The importance of Pong cannot be overstated. Dedicated Pong consoles, arcade cabinets, Atari ports, etc all rose into prominence. The idea of porting a game a million times for accessibility, and the sheer mass appeal Pong had over prior 0 player games or text adventures? It's breathtaking how much came out of the game. Remember, just 10 years prior if one wanted to play Space War, there were only a couple locations on earth where they could do so. Pong was even designed with controllers in mind, an early prototype to things like the Atari controller and by proxy controllers by companies like Nintendo or Sega.

One could even call it the genesis point of multiplayer gaming. Being able to play against both AI and another human was beyond novel. Fighting game arcade modes? They owe their thanks to Pong. Which in hindsight, makes it funny that my first time playing Pong was via the embedded port in Mortal Kombat 2. You see, in Mortal Kombat 2 if you win 250 matches in a row, you get to play one round of pong. So one evening as a child, I spent what must have been 2 or 3 hours killing the fake player 2 in my copy of MK2, just to play Pong for 30 seconds. I felt like I had been massively trolled.

That tangent aside, I brought up mini consoles earlier. Indeed, even Nintendo got their start in the game industry with the Color TV Game 6 which was directly inspired by Pong's success. Let alone the NES Classic Mini and SNES Classic Mini some half century later.

It would be easy for me to look at Pong and go "who gives a fuck" but honestly, I can't help but admire this abstract world with nothing more than a few white pixels. Everything comes from something. Even if it's not the most fun game to a newcomer in 2024, it still has plenty of usages. After all, it's a great project to recreate in languages like GML for the sake of learning game development. In fact, a friend and I actually did that for a narrative driven minigame compilation game a while back. https://c-fhacks.itch.io/aikon

With its sheer influence on the industry, the fact it's so helpful for learning game development, and that it's perfectly playable, Pong deserves this score. Perhaps even higher.

Next time: Maze (1973)

There is a moment in Mushihimesama where I started to feel guilty. Not for the act of playing the game or anything but upon hearing Reco the game's protagonist death scream a bit too frequently as I weave her into yet another purple ball of bug plasma. This really struck home though when I paused the game and the music and sound effects stopped but her scream continued, echoing into the void reminding me of my failure.

In case it's not apparent I'm still pretty green to shoot 'em ups though I've been investing time playing them more and more since joining backloggd. I see people here discussing in their reviews completing a 'one CC' run and I laugh at the the very idea of the practice it would take me to do such a thing. You see I normally play a shoot 'em up once, see the credits, take time to think about what I played, what did I like? what didn't I? and then move on. There is something about Mushihimesama though that keeps drawing me to play it again and again. For the first time I feel I almost understand hardcore STG players, at least a little bit.

The immediate thing I need to talk about with the actual game though is the cover art here. It's the thing that made me aware of this games existence. A friend here started playing it before I started delving more into the genre a couple of years ago and my first thought was "what on earth is that?" You only make first impressions once and it's absolutely sublime. Taking a mixture of anime and art nouveau with the curved backdrop, colours and flowing hair. It's like if Alphonse Mucha had become an anime artist and I utterly adore it. The art is one of the stand out elements of this title for both aesthetics and design. Taking influence from studio Ghibli's animated classic Nausica Valley of the Wind, you play the afore mentioned Princess Reco. She is due to be sacrificed to stop the Miasma that threatens her village from the giant Koju insects. On her 15th birthday she takes flight on her Rhinoceros beetle to stop them. The game's theme is entirely about insects bugs and nature, even the game's title Mushihimesama translates roughly to bug princess.

It spans five stages and I love the visuals and details. Lush looking forests, petrified centipede husks with fauna growing out of them, lava stages, crane flies floating on water and not to mention the way the stages are so active in the backgrounds. On one stage you can see this ginormous beetle fortress traveling under the canopy whilst you fight smaller enemies above before appearing as the boss. Another level with a giant beetle attached to a chasm wall that flies up to engage you. It's just a really cool looking title for concept art and in game visuals. Where it's clever though is in it's usage of art and colour in this design. This game is extremely vibrant with hues of green, red, blue, yellow all over but they reserve purple very specifically for enemy fire. Bright purple. Such a small thing but mechanically makes it very easy to understand what it a threat to you and is also very visually striking at the same time. I've played games where I simply couldn't see what was coming at me due to colour blends between backgrounds and fire. This eliminates that issue entirely, just because something is clear though, doesn't mean it is easy to avoid, this is a bullet hell after all.

This is my first real one in fact and I understand a good one for that because it's actually incredibly simple in a lot of ways through how it's been designed as mentioned above. You get one character Reco, but have three firing modes to choose from in how her bullets fire. She gets some basic power ups for her main gun and satellites which can be used either in a spread pattern or more focused fire. Seed bombs can briefly clear the screen of bullets to save you when firing and everything else is positioning and prioritising targets. There isn't a lot to learn at the base level but there is a lot to master. Knowing where to be on a level, taking out a bigger Koju first to control the flow and watching the onscreen bullets fade out or dodging through an absolute torrent of fire and coming out the other side is an absolute rush when it happens. I actually prefer playing it on Manic over normal difficulty despite the increase in bullet density coming my way because the game just feels good to play moment to moment but I am still learning a lot every time I play.

Though I am reviewing the arcade game here I played through once I would recommend getting the Mushihimesama HD release on steam for it's crisper visuals and extras I'll review separately another time. Regardless of version though I'm really glad this actually lived up to both the word of mouth around it and my expectations based on the art, fun music and footage I've seen. This is actually my first Cave game having weirdly played some games that eventually led to their formation prior. It's probably not my favourite shoot 'em up but I must say it's an extremely good one and I look forward to playing more of Cave's works.

Reco's death scream however will continue to haunt me for some time but I am getting better to prevent her suffering.

+ Concept art is gorgeous.
+ In game visuals and art are also gorgeous.
+ Simple clear design but still a challenge.

comfy doom and gloom. while its early parts feel small and a little oppressive, i still find it really easy to get into the tempo of king's field 4 and its slow-dance combat. and this one's even sludgier than the first 3 — which, if anything, might be attributed to the dreamlike, harpsichord-laden, sometimes even giallo-esque atmosphere i tend to associate with fromsoft's unique dungeon crawling action rpgs preceding demon's souls. of course, metaphysical dark fantasy mythopoeia remains the soul (forgive me) of their work, but king's field 4 distinguishes itself. being a game with some gnarly ps2 interlacing didn't hurt, if you ask me. if you can get used to the controls, this game is frankly quite refreshingly low-key (and i enjoy revisiting it).