Normally, I don't really care if you enjoy a video game that I think is bad. Lots of my friends fuck with Bethesda RPGs, I don't blame em at all.

If you enjoy Detroit: Become Human as a vapid murder mystery with a good buddy cop dynamic, also acceptable. If you think this is like, well written at all, or has anything to say on the topic of racism and isn't just the ramblings of a sex pest frenchman (I was going to add racist, but like, with frenchman it seems redundant), you should be placed under a conservatorship. I don't even think agreeing with "damn, why don't we sing racism away" makes you a bad person. It makes you someone at risk of being scammed by a wallet inspector on the street.

Like, the underlying story and themes are so fucking vile, the director of this game had to come out and say "nothing in this game is a political statement, and shouldn't be interpreted as a commentary on race". Which like, even if you take that statement at face value (which I don't), that means this motherfucker looked at the protests in Baltimore in 2015 and was like "cool aesthetic". Dumb! Again, if that works for you, no hate, no spite towards you, but like, please DM me because I can get you this bridge at a killer price. I'm glad you're enjoying season 25 of Big Mouth.

Intelligent System's hot streak from 1999-2008~ is so untouchable, this game is in the upper quartile of SRPGs I've played, despite fumbling the bag in so many different ways.

Path of Radiance is fucking ugly. The character portraits aren't "bad", but compared to Ryo Hirata's work on 2005's Dual Strike, or even the portraits in Radiant Dawn, it doesn't compare favorably. The rest of the game does look like complete ass. Everything looks muddy as shit, but in a way that doesn't even make sense on the Gamecube. The animated cutscenes are a nice addition, bu they're used in very few places, and have to accommodate for the fact that 90 percent of the cast can die permanently. The soundtrack's also my least favorite in the entire series. There aren't any standout tracks that deserve comparison to other highlights in the series, and at worst, it could actively detract from the atmosphere the game was trying to create (such as the ominous track that would play before the start of a few chapters, it sounded like a parody of a Saturday morning cartoon). It was so bad, despite playing this on the couch, I went over to plug in my headphones, assuming "oh, my speakers must just be bad". Path of Radiance feels very "cheap", like they wanted to crank out a budget title before the Gamecube died. The story's main theme (racism is bad) is admirable, but in my opinion totally fails, due to both the usual issues that "fantasy racism" runs into, and also being actually racist (Devdan, christ this character felt like something out of Deadly Premonition 2). I also don't think (outside of the last chapter) that a lot of the individual maps reach the heights that they did in FE games that would come before or after.

I still had a great time with Path of Radiance and I think it compares favorably to other games in the series. Despite having "worse" writing than Sacred Stones, this game's tone is still more appropriate than the Fates games. The cast of characters in Path of Radiance is very strong outside of a few unfortunate exceptions. I think the individual factions that make up the Crimean army have great chemistry not only with Ike and the core crew, but amongst themselves as well. Ike (as a narrative focus, in game he kinda sucks until the game hands him a broken personal weapon) is one of the best lords in the series, and through this game's optional pre-chapter cutscenes, is fleshed out even further. His relationships with his sister, Soren/Rolf (he had more chemistry with those two than Elincia, although their interactions were also delightful), Titania and the rest of his army are a treat to sit through. I was worried at first that all these extra conversations, on top of the returning (and vastly improved from the GBA games imo) support system would drag down the pace of the game, but they're one of this game's best selling points.

Path of Radiance is one of the easiest games in the series. This comes from the game's various stat boosters, along with the forging system and generous amount of gold provided, an easier time building up supports, the bonus XP system that lets you shower a character with levels whenever you feel like it, the lack of needing to have an item to promote and the low quality of enemies after the first third of the game (outside of defensive stats). If there is a character you want to use in Path of Radiance, the game doesn't get in the way. There's so many fun tools that the game gives you to tweak characters, that even complete losers like Rolf or Mia can be given enough resources dumped into them to turn into killing machines, and in a game as narratively driven as Path of Radiance, that's a very good quality.

Most of my time playing Path of Radiance, I could acknowledge that this game had serious flaws, but the core Fire Emblem experience is so focused and tight that those flaws don't linger in my head, and for the most part, I'm just having a great time. Even bad maps in Fire Emblem are still better than clunkers in other SRPGs (like Riovanes Castle's Roof from FFT), and none of the side objectives are finicky enough to warrant resetting over and over (like some of Geneology of the Holy War 's worst moments). Stellar way to send off the Gamecube without trying all that hard.

There's a pretty popular youtube video on this game, that talks about how aspects of this game appeals to a subsection of fighting game vets. Instead of a solo experience, it's a team based game. There's much less of a focus on oki/setplay. Combos, to the limited extent that they do exist, are very basic. Movement is king.

God bless the people who enjoy those aspects, but basically every competitive aspect about this game seems like a critique of all the fun and cool shit I like to do in fighting games. Out of the gate, having to play a fighting game and rely on another teammate, even if they're relegated to playing a mickey mouse cheap ass suit (rancid idea) is hell on earth to me. Having played the game when it came out with friends and having watched a decent amount of footage, nothing in this game stands out as like "damn, that was a really cool sequence". As a spectator game, I think it's incredibly hard to follow and as a player it comes off as totally disorienting.

There's so much emphasis put onto movement (that, I'm sorry, isn't as interesting as the movement tech in many other fighting games and is the main resource you have to care about) that other elements of the game like blocking are weaker and less interesting, because if you can spend meter to get the fuck out of the way, you should in a lot of cases unless you're specifically trying to conserve meter to avoid worse situations. I'm not gonna pretend like there isn't depth to boost meter management and that it doesn't lead to meaningful decisions in game, that would be disingenuous. I just don't think those decisions are interesting to play or watch.

I think this game's impact on fighting game is limited, and its popularity is always going to be hampered by logistical constraints and publisher incompetence. I don't hate MBON or its playerbase, but ideally it's impact on the genre remains relatively isolated.

A common refrain in my reviews are how I think that the mid 2010's were a nadir for the medium, and that post-Covid video games are back. I didn't play Pizza Tower prior to repeating this flippant statement over and over, but it sure as hell helps my argument.

Most of the time playing this, I didn't think of Wario Land 4. Despite it being a fantastic game, you don't need to play it, nor does it seem like it's trying to continue a conversation with a two decade old GBA launch title. Everything in this game feels so fresh and original and weird, but never to the expense of its super tight gameplay. Playing through this game, I don't think there's any individual level where I was like "damn, that's a dud, not looking forward to that on repeated playthroughs". Even the golf stage, which should have been a dud, was constructed in such a precise way as to stick out and be really goofy without seeming like a chore to cope with. Not even Wario Land 4 has that sort of consistency with its stages.

The exploration the game offers might not be everyone's favorite, but as a dull person with a giant backlog, I appreciate that every treasure/topping/etc in the game can be found by engaging with the level's mechanics. It felt like when I did miss an item, it was mostly due to the stage locking it off for failing a platforming puzzle, something the game does very rarely and replaying the level (especially with the layout fresh in your head) doesn't take very long. There's such a good flow to all the levels. Shoutouts to the final stage, it was a gimmick that I assume the entire playerbase saw coming a mile away, and they still stuck the landing.

It's just hard for me not to root for this game. The sound design, despite using heavy sampling and audio distortion like its inspiration, uses these techniques in a radically different way that sounds great and gives the game its own identity, same with the graphics. Mort the Chicken's in here, this is such an easy 5/5. If the extra campaign sneaks in characters from Iggy's Wrecking Balls, I will swear fealty to Tour De Pizza. Video games are so fucking back.

One of the only N64 games where the performance actively hurts my enjoyment of the game. Tetrisphere's gameplay loop isn't bad at all, but the game chugs like a CAVE shmup with too many bullets on screen. The difference being, instead of a helpful hardware exploit to make difficult sections manageable, the puzzle flow comes to a halt.

There's been late 90s/early 2000s D&B/Jungle reassessment, and while I do like a lot of soundtracks that fit into that genre, a lot are hookless, boring and repetitive. Tetrisphere's soundtrack is closer to the average than we'd like to admit.

You can name your mom, so throughout the entire game I had to deal with a character named Milf. Awful things happen to that woman.

What a strange, kinda slow, horny, racist, tonally incoherent SNES RPG. It plays the tragic elements of the story totally straight, but you still have wacky shit happening all the time. All that being said, the combat wasn't terrible, and the plot of the game stuck with me enough to where I didn't regret sitting through some of the slower parts. Nothing in the game really irritated me, and I played this game shortly after the translation dropped without a guide and basically had zero issues. I really wish the PS1 version would get a translation, it'd be very interesting to compare the two.

This isn't a must play RPG on the platform, but it has enough weird swag to warrant a playthrough for JRPG diehards.

As a Bemani/BMS simp, I would kill to have a client as slick and easy to set up as Clone Hero. Customization of elements of the UI is really easy to tweak. The game supports multiple instruments competently. Song packs are easy to find and cover ever commercial release from GH/RB and even more fanmade selections.

As much as I adore the Komoney in house artists and the days worth of music they've produced, I'm sorry, it's nice to have a rhythm game that has shit that people in my personal life have listened to before. It's not like you can boot up Pop'n Music and play Ace of Spades.

A relatively uncompromised portable version of Pop'n Music. The song list of heavily truncated from arcade versions, but there's still 80~ songs to pick from, ranging from PM3 songs to anime OPs. A good amount of the cast is selectable too!

The major issue is that Popn music on intended controllers is fucking hard. Playing this on a PSP is a major learning curve, and if you're willing to grind that out, you're probably better off just building a con with 9 buttons and grabbing a proper arcade rip.