sort of same-y, and rather difficult to muster the patience to finish. though i will say it probably has the best classical battle system post-snes.

unreal

what it lacks in third strike’s “lightning in a bottle” disposition it makes up for in complete aesthetic insanity

couldn’t get enough of this even when the puzzles are somewhat needlessly opaque.

If you do not like ecco the dolphin you are not my friend

crazy how the psp entry happens to be the most definitive and endlessly replayable one. also visually stunning not just “for a psp game” but even compared 5 and 4. soundtrack is mostly just an amalgamation of hits from the last few but the new ones also rock.

not as impressive and clean as i’d been lead to believe. upgrade system is mostly boring aside from a few strange weapon combos, i wouldn’t say any of the bosses are “bad” but the strangeness of how they are ordered cannot be overstated. visuals are great, soundtrack is banging, and there are very good moments of high-stress shmup goodness.

i want to fuck devil jin so bad

mechanically its mostly boring but idk the weird polygonal sprites and character reactions are good enough that it ends up winning me over. also donkey kong is my best friend <3

The definition of rock solid. Really, the only issues I have with it lie in its rather small moveset variation between characters, but after a few playthroughs it actually kind of works with such a stiffly realistic game.

The most fighting game fighting game ever made. Mechanically infallible, so strange to actually play as every character is a mixture of unplayable and game-breakingly overpowered. excellent work.

brutal, cold, actively adversarial towards the player in a way no other game made before it accomplished. hard to completely describe how beautiful some of the later stages are.

Always registered as a prototype of MvC but kind of mechanically better than that whole series? Genuinely fluid sprite work, very little character choices but way more customizability than you'd first think from a game like it, soundtrack goes hard! What's not to like?