1996
Unlike other fantastic ports of puzzle games, this is different than the Saturn game in pretty big (and negative) ways. The reduction of the amount of rows you get, in addition to changes to the way pieces are cleared make this feel like an incomplete minigame compared to the original. It also doesn't help they used the same (awful) 3D graphics, but just digitized them with all the love of the Gameboy Mortal Kombat ports. This could have been Baku Baku's premier platform, and instead we lost a treasure of puzzle gaming to the ages.
Or at least, we could have had a decent thing to play on the Game Gear between Collumns
Or at least, we could have had a decent thing to play on the Game Gear between Collumns
For what is glorified shovleware, it's a nice time. The controls are really good for a Gameboy game and the sprite art contextually is great, but it's held back by the ridiculously short levels and overall runtime. If this game was four times the length and with a bit more to flesh it out, this could have been a hidden gem.
2012
Cool theme, quick lil' DSiWare puzzle game. Not exceptionally interesting but it's not an awful time sink. The puzzles are difficult and well thought out for the most part.
I would actually grind this game if it had functional rollback.
2023
The system mechanics encourage a type of aggression that discourages other playstyles. I don't like throw loops. The metagame is stale as hell. It's also still SF, so like, there's a lot of "footsies" (we both trade shimmies for like 10 seconds) and like, that appeals to a lot of people and god bless em, I think it's boring as fuck.
This game is going to age like wine. All of the bonkers ass shit people say they want in tag fighters is here, if not turned up to 12. If you aren't a lab rat, you need not apply.
Like, don't tell me "oh wow, UMVC3 rollback when" and then turn around and say "buh buh buh this game has unblockables and TODs and Adachi exists". This game is a buckwild mess, and should be embraced as such.
Like, don't tell me "oh wow, UMVC3 rollback when" and then turn around and say "buh buh buh this game has unblockables and TODs and Adachi exists". This game is a buckwild mess, and should be embraced as such.
I can't hit confirm to save my life.
Parries and relatively high damage off of supers give this game a very distinct taste, not one that I enjoy playing. Aesthetically this game is a classic, and there are mechanics that this introduced to FGs that would be refined better later on. It's probably for the best this game exists in the state that it does, but it also solidified my issues with Street Fighter as a whole.
One of the least essential games I've ever played. The score isn't indicative of the quality of assets or because of technical issues. When I check out older games, I do try to see these games through the context in which they were released. Even by this time, even on the Playstation 1, even if you are just looking for a platformer that would appeal to small children that saw this being advertised on some Fox-related VHS rental, there are better alternatives.
Nothing in this game from an artistic standpoint resonates with me. I am a slither-wizard enthusiast. From Renekton to the entire Blindwater Congregation, if you show me a flat fuck running around, having a good time, I'm probably gonna feel some attachment. I don't care about Croc at all. I think his design invokes feelings of plain oatmeal. There's no personality to Croc shown in game. He doesn't even do anything cool or have like, a fun powerup. You have a tail swipe with no range. You have a ground pound with very little impact. Croc's movement, demeanor, and personality feels like you're playing someone with arthritis. He doesn't even control as poorly as many other platformer characters on the same console, but nothing is fun or engaging, and I can't imagine it would have been to the target audience even at the time. People complained about the tank controls of this platformer, but that would imply you needed precision platforming in the first place. This game isn't going to ask precision from you, this game isn't asking for anything other than to lay down in bed.
(There are also good, or at least more interesting platformers with tank controls.)
Take everything I said about Croc himself, and apply that to every other aspect of the game. The soundtrack sounds less ambitious than most of the licensed PS1 games I've played through. When I picture the level design in my head, I get visions of AI hallucinations. Everything blends together and I can see the entire game in my head, and nothing distinctive all at once. The only level that stood out at all was the optional final boss of the game, and it was fucking terrible. This game doesn't need a remake, and the fact one is on the way (or already out, I don't care) is baffling.
This game is timeless, in that I can't imagine any time since it's existence where I'd rather be playing Croc over anything else I had access to.
Nothing in this game from an artistic standpoint resonates with me. I am a slither-wizard enthusiast. From Renekton to the entire Blindwater Congregation, if you show me a flat fuck running around, having a good time, I'm probably gonna feel some attachment. I don't care about Croc at all. I think his design invokes feelings of plain oatmeal. There's no personality to Croc shown in game. He doesn't even do anything cool or have like, a fun powerup. You have a tail swipe with no range. You have a ground pound with very little impact. Croc's movement, demeanor, and personality feels like you're playing someone with arthritis. He doesn't even control as poorly as many other platformer characters on the same console, but nothing is fun or engaging, and I can't imagine it would have been to the target audience even at the time. People complained about the tank controls of this platformer, but that would imply you needed precision platforming in the first place. This game isn't going to ask precision from you, this game isn't asking for anything other than to lay down in bed.
(There are also good, or at least more interesting platformers with tank controls.)
Take everything I said about Croc himself, and apply that to every other aspect of the game. The soundtrack sounds less ambitious than most of the licensed PS1 games I've played through. When I picture the level design in my head, I get visions of AI hallucinations. Everything blends together and I can see the entire game in my head, and nothing distinctive all at once. The only level that stood out at all was the optional final boss of the game, and it was fucking terrible. This game doesn't need a remake, and the fact one is on the way (or already out, I don't care) is baffling.
This game is timeless, in that I can't imagine any time since it's existence where I'd rather be playing Croc over anything else I had access to.
2024
There's been a thematic subgenre in video games that's been coming into prominence the last couple of years. It's inspired by high octane action games like MGR and DMC and both an understanding that needlessly dark presentation is kinda cheesy, but a willingness to accept the positive elements of said presentation to a limited point. Followers of this aesthetic would wince in pain if you called them edgy. They long to be in on the joke, while still wanting to appear "cool" to their peers. These are the Sol Badguy players of the world, mechanically "proficient" at their pursuits, but still willing to look at these (mostly, there are notable exceptions) masculine protagonists and shout "that's literally me" at the screen, with the hope that others will them them in the same light. Slave Zero X is a game I'm glad I've played, because it both manages to encapsulate the appeal of this thematic current, along with how bankrupt it is in a lot of ways.
Before I rip into the game, the music's good, the sprite work is mostly really solid, I didn't have any issues understanding what was happening on the screen most of the time, and the voice acting, within the limitations of the story, was solid. This was clearly an indie title on a budget. Good on you for getting Jamieson Price, I'm eternally grateful he seems to be willing to voice whatever as long as you buy him Dennys first. Effort went into making this game look really cool.
Mechanically, this game is creatively bankrupt. The developers really liked Arcsys fighters without understanding why specific systems were put into place. In Guilty Gear, there's an ability every character has access to called psych burst. It's full at the beginning of the round, and you can use it at almost any time during the match to push the opponent away from you, even while you're being attacked. It is a solution to two major issues:
1) The lax combo rules of the game allow for unintended game states that might otherwise hurt the competitive integrity, including infinite combos.
2) Even during intended game states, Gear combos can be long and it feels bad for the other player to watch one player do ray charles shit on their stick for 30 seconds while they sit there not playing a video game. Burst gives them a change to interact with longer combos.
These aren't issues Slave Zero X should have at all. There are times where the player gets wailed on by enemies, but it feels less like the encounters are thought out and will combo you in a cohesive manner (outside of a few late game fights) and more that you're going to get chaingrabbed by a recolor of the same enemy you've been fighting since stage 2. It even behaves the same way it does in Guilty Gear, where if you use it in a neutral state and the shockwave of this burst hits an opponent, you gain full meter. There doesn't seem to be any retooling of this game mechanic to fit a sidescrolling brawler, they just slapped it in there because it's in Gear.
Meter is also inspired by Guilty Gear in a very superficial way. In Gear, you gain meter through aggressive actions, and this meter is spent on a variety of actions ranging from combo extensions to critical defensive options that make the game a chore to play without. There's a lot of right ways to spend meter, but lacking it at a critical time could cost you a round, making management important. Most importantly, you can spend your meter doing cool and flashy shit that doesn't take deep mechanical understanding of the game to care about. Slave Zero X's meter is boring as sin. You mostly regain it through gibbing enemies that have already been dealt enough damage to be considered defeated (this is a major issue, because enemy variety is low and they already come off as a bit damage spongy). You spend that meter not on meter exclusive moves, but on:
- paying a slight amount of meter to backdash cancel attacks (I almost never had to do this)
- canceling the startup of weak attacks into "EX moves", which are just heavy attacks with tweaks to frame data/damage/properties (like the ability to hit an opponent off the ground with an enhanced air attack as opposed to a normal version). They're not fundamentally different attacks, nor do they change your decision making, they just allow for longer combo extensions.
- A "Devil Trigger" enhanced state that allows you use unlimited EX moves, and heals you for all damage dealt.
If I made this sound interesting, I apologize, none of it is. Meter problems go away with just a few shop upgrades (there are no new weapons or moves to buy), and enemy fodder is so omnipresent that after the first 1/4th of the game, in combination with using burst to get meter back, I spent a large chunk of this game in this enhanced state. There aren't a ton of visual differences between having this state and not having this state. You don't get exclusive moves. The healing doesn't even really matter that much, as you'll be able to either juggle 90 percent of the game with the same stale kit of moves, or have to deal with bosses with such a limited period of vulnerability that you'll get three swings off before the meter's drained. It's so fucking lame, and it pretends like what you're doing is the next coming of Bayonetta. This game pretends like it's this tough as nails, very technical brawler for people who want a break practicing sidewinder loops, but most of it can be handled by light attack - stuff - launcher - juggle until they blow up, and if not, fights take 3 min and mostly consist of learning when to parry (because of course this game has a parry) or where to fuck off until the game decides that it's your turn to play. I didn't feel like I got better after playing this game. I sure as hell didn't feel the need to enter the game's training mode, and thank god because even though they advertised it being there, it's a more barebones mode than games from over twenty years ago.
I had fun with this game still. While the game lacks the memorable set-pieces of the games it was inspired by, and very much wore out its welcome after the 3rd of it's 5 hour playtime, this wasn't an aggravating experience (outside of the dreadful platforming sections, an overwhelming majority of my deaths were to a train environmental hazard early on). But for the most part, when playing this game, I just thought "wow, Hakumen from Blazblue sure is a cool character". Hakumen has airdashes, this power fantasy arcsys inspired brawler doesn't have airdashes. Haukmen's counters are really cool, and he has a variety of them. X's parries don't lead to anything other than "cool, you can keep mashing attack, unless the enemy pressed the super armor button again. Hakumen's "I get to use all of my stuff for free" enhanced state, Mugen, is sick as hell because it allows a normally limited character to ignore the rules of the game for six seconds, and potentially one shot the opponent. X's enhanced state puts me to sleep. The fact they both happen to be robotic, eyeless, long white haired, katana wielding nerds is besides the point.
There's also a story. "Rip and tear until its done" turns into a slightly deeper emotional connection between the main protagonist and the sentient and fucked up bio-mechanical suit. There's little here with any emotional sincerity, and the setting doesn't even come off as interesting as the 25 year old game the devs took the setting from. There is some homo-eroticism between Shou (X) and Not Zero, game respect game it's about the most bold decision the Slave Zero X staff took, intentionally or not.
Is it totally fair to compare Slave Zero X's failures to its inspirations? Probably not, but the game constantly invites the comparisons and doesn't do enough original to deflect away from them. It's a game that wants you to think it's the next best thing since high-frequency katana sliced bread, but lacks any convictions of its own and comes off as a very reserved, scared project because of it. The game arrogantly sets itself up for a sequel, and I hope they throw everything in the game part of the game out, and start from the drawing board. Slave Zero X is a game that promises a combat canvas, and hands you a 4 pack of crayola crayons instead.
Before I rip into the game, the music's good, the sprite work is mostly really solid, I didn't have any issues understanding what was happening on the screen most of the time, and the voice acting, within the limitations of the story, was solid. This was clearly an indie title on a budget. Good on you for getting Jamieson Price, I'm eternally grateful he seems to be willing to voice whatever as long as you buy him Dennys first. Effort went into making this game look really cool.
Mechanically, this game is creatively bankrupt. The developers really liked Arcsys fighters without understanding why specific systems were put into place. In Guilty Gear, there's an ability every character has access to called psych burst. It's full at the beginning of the round, and you can use it at almost any time during the match to push the opponent away from you, even while you're being attacked. It is a solution to two major issues:
1) The lax combo rules of the game allow for unintended game states that might otherwise hurt the competitive integrity, including infinite combos.
2) Even during intended game states, Gear combos can be long and it feels bad for the other player to watch one player do ray charles shit on their stick for 30 seconds while they sit there not playing a video game. Burst gives them a change to interact with longer combos.
These aren't issues Slave Zero X should have at all. There are times where the player gets wailed on by enemies, but it feels less like the encounters are thought out and will combo you in a cohesive manner (outside of a few late game fights) and more that you're going to get chaingrabbed by a recolor of the same enemy you've been fighting since stage 2. It even behaves the same way it does in Guilty Gear, where if you use it in a neutral state and the shockwave of this burst hits an opponent, you gain full meter. There doesn't seem to be any retooling of this game mechanic to fit a sidescrolling brawler, they just slapped it in there because it's in Gear.
Meter is also inspired by Guilty Gear in a very superficial way. In Gear, you gain meter through aggressive actions, and this meter is spent on a variety of actions ranging from combo extensions to critical defensive options that make the game a chore to play without. There's a lot of right ways to spend meter, but lacking it at a critical time could cost you a round, making management important. Most importantly, you can spend your meter doing cool and flashy shit that doesn't take deep mechanical understanding of the game to care about. Slave Zero X's meter is boring as sin. You mostly regain it through gibbing enemies that have already been dealt enough damage to be considered defeated (this is a major issue, because enemy variety is low and they already come off as a bit damage spongy). You spend that meter not on meter exclusive moves, but on:
- paying a slight amount of meter to backdash cancel attacks (I almost never had to do this)
- canceling the startup of weak attacks into "EX moves", which are just heavy attacks with tweaks to frame data/damage/properties (like the ability to hit an opponent off the ground with an enhanced air attack as opposed to a normal version). They're not fundamentally different attacks, nor do they change your decision making, they just allow for longer combo extensions.
- A "Devil Trigger" enhanced state that allows you use unlimited EX moves, and heals you for all damage dealt.
If I made this sound interesting, I apologize, none of it is. Meter problems go away with just a few shop upgrades (there are no new weapons or moves to buy), and enemy fodder is so omnipresent that after the first 1/4th of the game, in combination with using burst to get meter back, I spent a large chunk of this game in this enhanced state. There aren't a ton of visual differences between having this state and not having this state. You don't get exclusive moves. The healing doesn't even really matter that much, as you'll be able to either juggle 90 percent of the game with the same stale kit of moves, or have to deal with bosses with such a limited period of vulnerability that you'll get three swings off before the meter's drained. It's so fucking lame, and it pretends like what you're doing is the next coming of Bayonetta. This game pretends like it's this tough as nails, very technical brawler for people who want a break practicing sidewinder loops, but most of it can be handled by light attack - stuff - launcher - juggle until they blow up, and if not, fights take 3 min and mostly consist of learning when to parry (because of course this game has a parry) or where to fuck off until the game decides that it's your turn to play. I didn't feel like I got better after playing this game. I sure as hell didn't feel the need to enter the game's training mode, and thank god because even though they advertised it being there, it's a more barebones mode than games from over twenty years ago.
I had fun with this game still. While the game lacks the memorable set-pieces of the games it was inspired by, and very much wore out its welcome after the 3rd of it's 5 hour playtime, this wasn't an aggravating experience (outside of the dreadful platforming sections, an overwhelming majority of my deaths were to a train environmental hazard early on). But for the most part, when playing this game, I just thought "wow, Hakumen from Blazblue sure is a cool character". Hakumen has airdashes, this power fantasy arcsys inspired brawler doesn't have airdashes. Haukmen's counters are really cool, and he has a variety of them. X's parries don't lead to anything other than "cool, you can keep mashing attack, unless the enemy pressed the super armor button again. Hakumen's "I get to use all of my stuff for free" enhanced state, Mugen, is sick as hell because it allows a normally limited character to ignore the rules of the game for six seconds, and potentially one shot the opponent. X's enhanced state puts me to sleep. The fact they both happen to be robotic, eyeless, long white haired, katana wielding nerds is besides the point.
There's also a story. "Rip and tear until its done" turns into a slightly deeper emotional connection between the main protagonist and the sentient and fucked up bio-mechanical suit. There's little here with any emotional sincerity, and the setting doesn't even come off as interesting as the 25 year old game the devs took the setting from. There is some homo-eroticism between Shou (X) and Not Zero, game respect game it's about the most bold decision the Slave Zero X staff took, intentionally or not.
Is it totally fair to compare Slave Zero X's failures to its inspirations? Probably not, but the game constantly invites the comparisons and doesn't do enough original to deflect away from them. It's a game that wants you to think it's the next best thing since high-frequency katana sliced bread, but lacks any convictions of its own and comes off as a very reserved, scared project because of it. The game arrogantly sets itself up for a sequel, and I hope they throw everything in the game part of the game out, and start from the drawing board. Slave Zero X is a game that promises a combat canvas, and hands you a 4 pack of crayola crayons instead.
"I hate white people. I want them all to die. When I see white people, I black out, from rage. Wagwan... bombaclott."
my recorded notes of the Jigglypuff matchup
my recorded notes of the Jigglypuff matchup
1994
Sigma is, at the very least, the worst thing to happen to the collective Mega Man franchise. Just as he brought down the previous game, whatever little inclusion he had into X2 felt like an anchor weighing down this otherwise fantastic sequel.
I feel like this game added more frustrating elements than the original, but the sense of forward momentum and action that X2 delivers on mostly makes up for it. I think the music's better, and while the game doesn't look much better than the original, there wasn't much that needed to be improved upon. The transparency layered effects are more graphically impressive than the wireframe 3D elements. It doesn't matter how many graphical enhancement chips you include onto a cartridge, Sigma is still going to be active detriment to the experience. I hope that moving forward, he's replaced with anything else. Or nothing. If I had to choose between jumping down the pit to fight Sigma as the final boss or fight a stationary supercomputer, I'm choosing the later every day of the week.
Also they should make a Mega Man game staring Zero. Wouldn't that be neat?
I feel like this game added more frustrating elements than the original, but the sense of forward momentum and action that X2 delivers on mostly makes up for it. I think the music's better, and while the game doesn't look much better than the original, there wasn't much that needed to be improved upon. The transparency layered effects are more graphically impressive than the wireframe 3D elements. It doesn't matter how many graphical enhancement chips you include onto a cartridge, Sigma is still going to be active detriment to the experience. I hope that moving forward, he's replaced with anything else. Or nothing. If I had to choose between jumping down the pit to fight Sigma as the final boss or fight a stationary supercomputer, I'm choosing the later every day of the week.
Also they should make a Mega Man game staring Zero. Wouldn't that be neat?
why did they start naming these games like this
like who asked for "Ratchet and Clank: We're gonna fuck you in the ass (with guns)"
like who asked for "Ratchet and Clank: We're gonna fuck you in the ass (with guns)"
they didn't have to go as hard as they did with the music for this port
The Guilty Gear vacation arc.
The best character in the game? The stylish, hard to play mids dispenser. Pote/Axl/Zato? Bottom tier, get that shit out of here. (I don't actually have a problem with any of these characters tbh) Venom? They let him do more cool shit than in +R somehow. Faust? Basically the same character as before (perfect). Don't wanna learn how to perform hard parries? Don't even worry about it, blitz shield has you covered. Danger time? You better believe it's still here, and just as stupid as ever.
Rev 2's in a really good state for a game without any updates in the forseeable future, especially with the rollback update. It's not perfect, nor is the port even as good as +R's and it'll probably degrade as time goes on. As a competitive game, it's different (in really cool ways) that, even though I still prefer +R, Xrd is game I regularly put time into and I'm glad that it has its own unique flavor. It still needs a lot of quality of life fixes that +R enjoys, and while I think the balance is better than something like Centralfiction, the lower half of the roster really could use a bit of love.
I wasn't around for Xrd's entire lifespan, there might be more frustrations to be had with the game if you were, in the same way that I can't stand Strive, and that's understandable. I still think Xrd rules for what it is, and I don't see the game going away anytime soon. If you're on the fence and see the game on sale, pick it up.
The best character in the game? The stylish, hard to play mids dispenser. Pote/Axl/Zato? Bottom tier, get that shit out of here. (I don't actually have a problem with any of these characters tbh) Venom? They let him do more cool shit than in +R somehow. Faust? Basically the same character as before (perfect). Don't wanna learn how to perform hard parries? Don't even worry about it, blitz shield has you covered. Danger time? You better believe it's still here, and just as stupid as ever.
Rev 2's in a really good state for a game without any updates in the forseeable future, especially with the rollback update. It's not perfect, nor is the port even as good as +R's and it'll probably degrade as time goes on. As a competitive game, it's different (in really cool ways) that, even though I still prefer +R, Xrd is game I regularly put time into and I'm glad that it has its own unique flavor. It still needs a lot of quality of life fixes that +R enjoys, and while I think the balance is better than something like Centralfiction, the lower half of the roster really could use a bit of love.
I wasn't around for Xrd's entire lifespan, there might be more frustrations to be had with the game if you were, in the same way that I can't stand Strive, and that's understandable. I still think Xrd rules for what it is, and I don't see the game going away anytime soon. If you're on the fence and see the game on sale, pick it up.