ja_nathen
22 Reviews liked by ja_nathen
Slay the Princess
2023
Having to make my own decisions was a terrifying experience. I will never do it again. And before anyone asks, I did it, everyone! I fixed her! (I got the good ending)
It was one of the best visual novels I have ever played. Great voice acting, great story, and the voices in my head are accurate. It's impressive that they are still updating the game, and a big update that'll extend the game by 25% is on its way. It's also not a very long game; I finished it in 5 hours because I took my sweet time and wandered around.
There was a sequence where I refused to continue doing what I was told, and the game shut down after the entity told me, "I will be here when you are ready" or something. I was flabbergasted. Next time I opened the game, that same entity welcomed me, and I continued where I left off.
I just wished that the Voice of the Hero and the Narrator's voice wasn't so identical.
It is truly a unique experience and a must-play.
It was one of the best visual novels I have ever played. Great voice acting, great story, and the voices in my head are accurate. It's impressive that they are still updating the game, and a big update that'll extend the game by 25% is on its way. It's also not a very long game; I finished it in 5 hours because I took my sweet time and wandered around.
There was a sequence where I refused to continue doing what I was told, and the game shut down after the entity told me, "I will be here when you are ready" or something. I was flabbergasted. Next time I opened the game, that same entity welcomed me, and I continued where I left off.
I just wished that the Voice of the Hero and the Narrator's voice wasn't so identical.
It is truly a unique experience and a must-play.
Duke Nukem Forever
2011
ENG: I'm not going to elaborate too much because it's not a game that deserves it. Its standardization of gameplay mechanics more similar to those of a generic Call of Duty were justly vilified at the time as much as its rancid humor. On that I agree. What I disagree on, which was said at the time, is the belief that this was REALLY the saga, a thing of the past that as of today is outdated. But no, Duke Nukem is not at all what is shown in Forever. Playably it was innovative, powerful, ingenious, and Duke Nukem as a character was a genuinely funny stereotype of 80s Hollywood action movies. Forever never seems to understand either the mechanics or the Duke character as such. If you played this horrifying piece of garbage, and were left with only this, I recommend you give the original a look. Because this is not Duke Nukem, never was and never will be.
ESP: No me voy a explayar mucho porque no es un juego que lo merezca. Su estandarización de mecánicas jugables más similares a las de un Call of Duty genérico fueron justamente vilipendiadas en su momento tanto como su humor rancio. En eso estoy de acuerdo. En lo que no estoy de acuerdo, que en su momento se dijo, es la creencia de que esto era REALMENTE la saga, una cosa del pasado que a día de hoy está desfasada. Pero no, Duke Nukem para nada es lo que se muestra en Forever. Jugablemente era innovador, potente, ingenioso, y Duke Nukem como personaje era un estereotipo genuinamente gracioso de las películas de acción hollywoodenses de los 80s. Forever nunca parece entender ni a las mecánicas, ni al personaje de Duke como tal. Si jugaste a este bodrio horripilante, y te quedaste solo con esto, te recomiendo que le des un vistazo al original. Porque esto no es Duke Nukem, nunca lo fue ni lo será.
ESP: No me voy a explayar mucho porque no es un juego que lo merezca. Su estandarización de mecánicas jugables más similares a las de un Call of Duty genérico fueron justamente vilipendiadas en su momento tanto como su humor rancio. En eso estoy de acuerdo. En lo que no estoy de acuerdo, que en su momento se dijo, es la creencia de que esto era REALMENTE la saga, una cosa del pasado que a día de hoy está desfasada. Pero no, Duke Nukem para nada es lo que se muestra en Forever. Jugablemente era innovador, potente, ingenioso, y Duke Nukem como personaje era un estereotipo genuinamente gracioso de las películas de acción hollywoodenses de los 80s. Forever nunca parece entender ni a las mecánicas, ni al personaje de Duke como tal. Si jugaste a este bodrio horripilante, y te quedaste solo con esto, te recomiendo que le des un vistazo al original. Porque esto no es Duke Nukem, nunca lo fue ni lo será.
FitXR
2019
This is less of a review and more just personal accountability. I've struggled with my weight for years and only dabbled in VR fitness apps here and there - but I'm gonna be using FitXR to try and finally shed this weight and feel good about myself.
Any words of encouragement would be welcome :)
Any words of encouragement would be welcome :)
Banjo-Tooie
2000
As I stated in my Kazooie review, I replayed the game two times back in September of 2023. With Kazooie, that doesn't seem too crazy because it's about half the length of Tooie. However, I also replayed this game twice as well. And with it being twice as long, or maybe even longer for some people, as Kazooie? Seems a bit nuts right? Well, I really went Banjo crazy that month because after beating both games once, I couldn't stop thinking about them which led to me replaying them again right away. The thing is, that whole time I couldn't stop thinking about playing them again...I was thinking about Tooie pretty much. I don't know what happened to me because I went from thinking this game was just decent and definitely worse than Kazooie, to thinking it was amazing and super addicting and better than Kazooie overall. After replaying both games yet again, do I still think this? Probably, tho it's a bit complicated.
If you played Kazooie prior, the first thing you'll notice with Tooie is just how much Banjo and Kazooie's moveset has improved. The roll attack lasts longer, is more mobile and has a nice visual of Kazooie shielding Banjo. The normal attack you perform by standing still, which before was a simple claw move by Banjo, is now replaced by a more effective stationary rat-a-tat rap. The swimming is now WAY better naturally and doesn't require you to hold the R button for it to be good. In fact I don't think the R button does anything when swimming lol. You can now flip-flap directly out of a talon trot. When you do a beak buster, you can now move forward while you're doing rather than staying in place. This change can actually lead to some exploits you can perform too which is rad. These along with some non move-set changes like how whenever you speed up the text it makes the characters talk faster and doesn't pitch up their voices (which was an issue I had forgot to mention in Kazooie), the camera is slower but smoother to use and is overall an improvement, Banjo's backpack animates now when he walks and something about it is incredibly satisfying to me idk why, and the biggest thing is now notes don't get reset when you die (for a reason I'll get into later). All of these improvements drastically enhance the basic gameplay and I honestly miss a ton of these whenever I go back to Kazooie.
That's all fine and dandy, but how about new moves? Well, Tooie's got you covered because it's got like double the amount of moves in Kazooie. The biggest addition is the split-up mechanic. Now you can play as Banjo and Kazooie separately which makes for some clever puzzles. Each singular character gets their own specific moves and while Kazooie's are generally really fun, Banjo's are mostly situational. Kazooie's consist of moves that aren't as context-specific like the ability to glide on her own, her own backflip that's better than the normal one, and the ability to hatch eggs which gets used quite a bit. Banjo's however, besides the first one that lets him pick up and move objects which can lead to some fun puzzles, aren't used that much. He has an ability that let's him recover HP which is nice but only gets used a couple times overall and isn't as helpful as you think because lives aren't an issue anymore. I actually forgot to say they don't exist anymore and it's actually better to die sometimes because it respawns you at the last split-ip bad/beginning of the world which can work in your favor. But anyways, his other two abilities which let him go in dangerous liquids and the other let's him go in his backpack like a burlap sack to cross dangerous obstacles, just aren't used much and are incredibly situational. They all feel pretty samey too unlike Kazooie's, so overall I'd say Kazooie had the better new moves overall. This isn't even getting into all the new moves they both got together. There's 4 new egg types: Fire, Grenade, Ice and Clockwork. All have various uses and are fun additions. There are two new shoes, the claw clamber boots and the springy step shoes. The springy step shoes feel a little derivative because of the jump pads but they're still cool. The claw clamber boots however let you walk on designated parts of walls and it's awesome. There's the bill drill which is also kind of situational but is super satisfying to use. You can now fire eggs in first-person, which can be a little tricky at first with the N64 joystick but is also fun. Because of this, the game also added egg shooting in the air and water when going in first-person mode. The first-person shooting also leads into this FPS mode where you use Kazooie as a gun, certainly riding on the success of Goldeneye, and they can be super fun as well. All of these additions, plus the split-up stuff just really add to their whole move set and makes traversing through worlds a ton of fun.
Speaking of the worlds in this game, they're overall a lot bigger than Kazooie's. The first couple are kinda comparable in size to the first game's but by the time you get to Terrydactyland, they become just massive in size. You'd think this would be super annoying compared to Kazooie, but the game added warp pads that can warp you all over the level. These are the reason I never found the game tedious, if the game didn't have them or if they were awful like DK 64's warps, then the game would be way worse than it is. Anyways, the world's are much bigger in size and there's a lot more things you can do in each world. Though, overall there are less collectables because notes are now in bundles of 5 and 20. So overall the game has less of a focus on tons of collectables like the notes and more of a focus on the jiggys themselves. Jiggy's require way more steps than they did in Kazooie and this turns a lot of people off of the game. A bit understandable but the game is clearly trying to be more of a slower paced adventure platformer rather than Kazooie's brisk pace. I like both approaches but when it comes to Tooie's unique world themes like a run-down amusement park, a dinosaur world and a combined fire and ice world, I definitely prefer just how creative Tooie gets.
I mentioned how Jiggy's take longer to get because more steps are involved, and that's partly because of Mumbo Jumbo and Humba Wumba. In this game, Humba is the one that transforms you and Mumbo is actually a playable character. It greatly depends on the world but overall, I think this is a fun change. Mumbo has a very basic moveset compared to BK but his whole deal is using his magic on specific Mumbo pads. This is incredibly situational ofc and depending on the world it can be a bit tedious, but it can also lead to some interesting puzzles where you have to switch back and forth between BK and Mumbo. Same thing with Humba, sometimes you actually have to switch between Mumbo and then the Humba transformation. Mostly in the later levels do they make these portions kinda puzzling. In terms of everything new they added, this is probably the weakest addition just because it can lead to some tedium, I'll admit that, however I personally never had much of an issue with it tho I also have the whole game memorized at this point so take that as you will.
Besides all that, one of my absolute favorite additions was the fact a lot of the world's are interconnected. Early on, you'll help this mayan cat character out in recovering this idol. Well, you obtain it from this caveman in a weird looking cave and bring it back to him. That's strange though, you're in a world called Mayahem Temple and you just saw a caveman. What gives? Well it turns out, you just entered Terrydactyland when you did that, the aformentioned dinosaur world. This happens a lot in this game where you'll briefly cross over from one world into another or even unlock paths to directly travel between each one. The most memorable one is where you have to feed a different tribe of (good) cavemen this time, and to do so, you unlock a shortcut between Terrydactyland and WitchyWorld. You pick up some burgers from this one character, use the claw clamber boots you get from Grunty Industries and walk along the wall to feed them. All these working parts and interconnectivity just make the world feel alive and I love it.
I mentioned how you had to get the claw clamber boots from Grunty Industries, which is world 6, and use them for a jiggy in Terrydactyland which is world 5. Banjo Kazooie did this exact same thing only once, where you had to backtrack with an ability from another world. Tooie does this way more often and because of that and the interconnectivity of the world, it kind of feels like a 3D metroidvania at points which is awesome. Anyways, people seem to have an issue with backtracking in this game and I don't get it. The more complex jiggy's I understand, but the backtracking is not required as there's enough jiggy's in the game for you to beat the final boss. And even then, there really aren't that many backtracking jiggy's in general. Maybe like 12 or 13 of the 90 jiggy's require backtracking I think? Either way I think that complaint is majorly overblown and is not an issue at all to me, again the Mumbo and Humba stuff I can understand but backtracking to old levels with future abilities? Never even crossed my mind as an issue.
Something else this game added was a boss for every world and they're all really fun. Some are better than others, Lord Woo Fak Fak for example is probably the worst, but I really like how almost every single one of them are large in scope. They really feel menacing even if some of them are pathetically easy.
The game is also way funnier and a lot more cynical in general which I dig. Kazooie was both of these things as well but Tooie cranks it up to the max. The game literally starts off with Bottles dying and Kazooie going "well, he wasnt the most popular character anyways". The game is just full of this tongue-in cheese cynicism. The cast of side characters is not only WAY larger, they're more distinct and memorable just because the dialogue is so much better. There's literally an immigration joke when BK have to help some actual aliens, it's amazing. I think this, plus the interconnected worlds and more unique world themes, are THE main things I like over Kazooie. That plus the improved move set ofc.
The OST is again wondeful just like the first game, but instead of being upbeat, catchy tunes..Grant went for a more atmospheric darker ost this time around. Because worlds are much larger and take more time to beat, I think this change is for the better since the music track won't get old at all. Some of my favorite songs were Grunty Industries, Weldar's Theme and Mr Patch's Theme.
Yes I know two of those are from Grunty Industries. I honestly don't get the hate at all for that world. Something like Terrydactyland I can get, even if I still like it, because it's a massive world with empty space in a lot of it. However, Grunty Industries is a complex, zelda dungeon-like world and it's amazingly designed. I guess if you went into Tooie expecting it to just be like Kazooie, you'd hate it however it's very fun to explore and again super well-designed. It's not even that easy to get lost imo, it's a multi-layered world with distinct set-pieces rather than a super large open world. Sorry for the rant, I just don't get Grunty Industries hate lol. Something I did end up feeling a tiny bit sour on this time around was Hailfire Peaks. I still really like that world, and think the theming is awesome. However the fire side is a little too big for its bridges I will admit and the lag gets really bad sometimes there. The game can get laggy throughout portions of the game, which is only a thing on the N64 version, but there especially it's pretty bad.
One more thing before I mention the endgame and close out the review, is Canary Mary. Canary Mary has methods that make her very doable but she's still easily the worst part of the game and the only part I straight up dislike and dread doing. Her first button mashing races in Glittergulch Mine are perfectly fine. Her races in Cloud CuckooLand tho are insane. If you aren't doing the pause trick, idk how it's humenaly possible to win without using a turbo controller or something. The 2nd race isn't as bad because you can stay near her until the very end and then button mash to hell to pass her right before she can catch up. These races are easily doable with the right methods but the fact you have to do them this way, it just stinks man. But luckily this is only for 100% and only a tiny portion of the actual game so it's not the worst thing in the world.
I talked about a lot of improvements this game has over Kazooie. If there's one thing Kazooie destroys Tooie on however, it's the quiz section and final boss. Gone is the charming board game aesthetic of Kazooie, now you have a typical game show-esque quiz game where you have to answer enough questions to beat Grunty's sisters. It's not bad but it pales in comparison to Kazooie's version as it's less charming and even has less question types. Yeah, I won't miss the Gruntilda specific questions but no sound/music quizzes? That's kinda lame. Again, it's not bad and is only disappointing when compared to Kazooie. The final boss is also not nearly as good as Kazooie's. Is the Hag 1 harder? Most definitely but it's not as memorable as the Gruntilda fight from Kazooie and isn't as fun. It's a solid fight overall but compared to Kazooie's, just a bit lackluster.
So do I like Tooie more than Kazooie? In many ways, hell yes. It improves on many things like the duo's moveset, the writing is way funnier and the interconnectivity between worlds felt like a logical step to take after Kazooie. It may have the weaker end boss and quiz show, it's definitely and easier game to replay/100% and the Canary Mary rematch race is the worst thing between both games, however I'm still feeling like I may like this just slightly more than Kazooie just because of how ambitious and fun it is. It's kinda like Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 where each game has is own strengths over the other and it's just hard to choose what's better. Either way, it's still a 10/10 like the first game and one of my favorite games ever now. Easily in my top 3 N64 games, alongside the first game and Majora's Mask of course. Either way, if you see people saying you shouldn't play this game after you've beaten Kazooie. Don't listen to them, give this a try and you might fall become infatuated with it like I have.
This Banjo double feature was fun but I reckon it's time to play some Kirby again. Stay tuned for a Dreamland 2 review coming soon!
If you played Kazooie prior, the first thing you'll notice with Tooie is just how much Banjo and Kazooie's moveset has improved. The roll attack lasts longer, is more mobile and has a nice visual of Kazooie shielding Banjo. The normal attack you perform by standing still, which before was a simple claw move by Banjo, is now replaced by a more effective stationary rat-a-tat rap. The swimming is now WAY better naturally and doesn't require you to hold the R button for it to be good. In fact I don't think the R button does anything when swimming lol. You can now flip-flap directly out of a talon trot. When you do a beak buster, you can now move forward while you're doing rather than staying in place. This change can actually lead to some exploits you can perform too which is rad. These along with some non move-set changes like how whenever you speed up the text it makes the characters talk faster and doesn't pitch up their voices (which was an issue I had forgot to mention in Kazooie), the camera is slower but smoother to use and is overall an improvement, Banjo's backpack animates now when he walks and something about it is incredibly satisfying to me idk why, and the biggest thing is now notes don't get reset when you die (for a reason I'll get into later). All of these improvements drastically enhance the basic gameplay and I honestly miss a ton of these whenever I go back to Kazooie.
That's all fine and dandy, but how about new moves? Well, Tooie's got you covered because it's got like double the amount of moves in Kazooie. The biggest addition is the split-up mechanic. Now you can play as Banjo and Kazooie separately which makes for some clever puzzles. Each singular character gets their own specific moves and while Kazooie's are generally really fun, Banjo's are mostly situational. Kazooie's consist of moves that aren't as context-specific like the ability to glide on her own, her own backflip that's better than the normal one, and the ability to hatch eggs which gets used quite a bit. Banjo's however, besides the first one that lets him pick up and move objects which can lead to some fun puzzles, aren't used that much. He has an ability that let's him recover HP which is nice but only gets used a couple times overall and isn't as helpful as you think because lives aren't an issue anymore. I actually forgot to say they don't exist anymore and it's actually better to die sometimes because it respawns you at the last split-ip bad/beginning of the world which can work in your favor. But anyways, his other two abilities which let him go in dangerous liquids and the other let's him go in his backpack like a burlap sack to cross dangerous obstacles, just aren't used much and are incredibly situational. They all feel pretty samey too unlike Kazooie's, so overall I'd say Kazooie had the better new moves overall. This isn't even getting into all the new moves they both got together. There's 4 new egg types: Fire, Grenade, Ice and Clockwork. All have various uses and are fun additions. There are two new shoes, the claw clamber boots and the springy step shoes. The springy step shoes feel a little derivative because of the jump pads but they're still cool. The claw clamber boots however let you walk on designated parts of walls and it's awesome. There's the bill drill which is also kind of situational but is super satisfying to use. You can now fire eggs in first-person, which can be a little tricky at first with the N64 joystick but is also fun. Because of this, the game also added egg shooting in the air and water when going in first-person mode. The first-person shooting also leads into this FPS mode where you use Kazooie as a gun, certainly riding on the success of Goldeneye, and they can be super fun as well. All of these additions, plus the split-up stuff just really add to their whole move set and makes traversing through worlds a ton of fun.
Speaking of the worlds in this game, they're overall a lot bigger than Kazooie's. The first couple are kinda comparable in size to the first game's but by the time you get to Terrydactyland, they become just massive in size. You'd think this would be super annoying compared to Kazooie, but the game added warp pads that can warp you all over the level. These are the reason I never found the game tedious, if the game didn't have them or if they were awful like DK 64's warps, then the game would be way worse than it is. Anyways, the world's are much bigger in size and there's a lot more things you can do in each world. Though, overall there are less collectables because notes are now in bundles of 5 and 20. So overall the game has less of a focus on tons of collectables like the notes and more of a focus on the jiggys themselves. Jiggy's require way more steps than they did in Kazooie and this turns a lot of people off of the game. A bit understandable but the game is clearly trying to be more of a slower paced adventure platformer rather than Kazooie's brisk pace. I like both approaches but when it comes to Tooie's unique world themes like a run-down amusement park, a dinosaur world and a combined fire and ice world, I definitely prefer just how creative Tooie gets.
I mentioned how Jiggy's take longer to get because more steps are involved, and that's partly because of Mumbo Jumbo and Humba Wumba. In this game, Humba is the one that transforms you and Mumbo is actually a playable character. It greatly depends on the world but overall, I think this is a fun change. Mumbo has a very basic moveset compared to BK but his whole deal is using his magic on specific Mumbo pads. This is incredibly situational ofc and depending on the world it can be a bit tedious, but it can also lead to some interesting puzzles where you have to switch back and forth between BK and Mumbo. Same thing with Humba, sometimes you actually have to switch between Mumbo and then the Humba transformation. Mostly in the later levels do they make these portions kinda puzzling. In terms of everything new they added, this is probably the weakest addition just because it can lead to some tedium, I'll admit that, however I personally never had much of an issue with it tho I also have the whole game memorized at this point so take that as you will.
Besides all that, one of my absolute favorite additions was the fact a lot of the world's are interconnected. Early on, you'll help this mayan cat character out in recovering this idol. Well, you obtain it from this caveman in a weird looking cave and bring it back to him. That's strange though, you're in a world called Mayahem Temple and you just saw a caveman. What gives? Well it turns out, you just entered Terrydactyland when you did that, the aformentioned dinosaur world. This happens a lot in this game where you'll briefly cross over from one world into another or even unlock paths to directly travel between each one. The most memorable one is where you have to feed a different tribe of (good) cavemen this time, and to do so, you unlock a shortcut between Terrydactyland and WitchyWorld. You pick up some burgers from this one character, use the claw clamber boots you get from Grunty Industries and walk along the wall to feed them. All these working parts and interconnectivity just make the world feel alive and I love it.
I mentioned how you had to get the claw clamber boots from Grunty Industries, which is world 6, and use them for a jiggy in Terrydactyland which is world 5. Banjo Kazooie did this exact same thing only once, where you had to backtrack with an ability from another world. Tooie does this way more often and because of that and the interconnectivity of the world, it kind of feels like a 3D metroidvania at points which is awesome. Anyways, people seem to have an issue with backtracking in this game and I don't get it. The more complex jiggy's I understand, but the backtracking is not required as there's enough jiggy's in the game for you to beat the final boss. And even then, there really aren't that many backtracking jiggy's in general. Maybe like 12 or 13 of the 90 jiggy's require backtracking I think? Either way I think that complaint is majorly overblown and is not an issue at all to me, again the Mumbo and Humba stuff I can understand but backtracking to old levels with future abilities? Never even crossed my mind as an issue.
Something else this game added was a boss for every world and they're all really fun. Some are better than others, Lord Woo Fak Fak for example is probably the worst, but I really like how almost every single one of them are large in scope. They really feel menacing even if some of them are pathetically easy.
The game is also way funnier and a lot more cynical in general which I dig. Kazooie was both of these things as well but Tooie cranks it up to the max. The game literally starts off with Bottles dying and Kazooie going "well, he wasnt the most popular character anyways". The game is just full of this tongue-in cheese cynicism. The cast of side characters is not only WAY larger, they're more distinct and memorable just because the dialogue is so much better. There's literally an immigration joke when BK have to help some actual aliens, it's amazing. I think this, plus the interconnected worlds and more unique world themes, are THE main things I like over Kazooie. That plus the improved move set ofc.
The OST is again wondeful just like the first game, but instead of being upbeat, catchy tunes..Grant went for a more atmospheric darker ost this time around. Because worlds are much larger and take more time to beat, I think this change is for the better since the music track won't get old at all. Some of my favorite songs were Grunty Industries, Weldar's Theme and Mr Patch's Theme.
Yes I know two of those are from Grunty Industries. I honestly don't get the hate at all for that world. Something like Terrydactyland I can get, even if I still like it, because it's a massive world with empty space in a lot of it. However, Grunty Industries is a complex, zelda dungeon-like world and it's amazingly designed. I guess if you went into Tooie expecting it to just be like Kazooie, you'd hate it however it's very fun to explore and again super well-designed. It's not even that easy to get lost imo, it's a multi-layered world with distinct set-pieces rather than a super large open world. Sorry for the rant, I just don't get Grunty Industries hate lol. Something I did end up feeling a tiny bit sour on this time around was Hailfire Peaks. I still really like that world, and think the theming is awesome. However the fire side is a little too big for its bridges I will admit and the lag gets really bad sometimes there. The game can get laggy throughout portions of the game, which is only a thing on the N64 version, but there especially it's pretty bad.
One more thing before I mention the endgame and close out the review, is Canary Mary. Canary Mary has methods that make her very doable but she's still easily the worst part of the game and the only part I straight up dislike and dread doing. Her first button mashing races in Glittergulch Mine are perfectly fine. Her races in Cloud CuckooLand tho are insane. If you aren't doing the pause trick, idk how it's humenaly possible to win without using a turbo controller or something. The 2nd race isn't as bad because you can stay near her until the very end and then button mash to hell to pass her right before she can catch up. These races are easily doable with the right methods but the fact you have to do them this way, it just stinks man. But luckily this is only for 100% and only a tiny portion of the actual game so it's not the worst thing in the world.
I talked about a lot of improvements this game has over Kazooie. If there's one thing Kazooie destroys Tooie on however, it's the quiz section and final boss. Gone is the charming board game aesthetic of Kazooie, now you have a typical game show-esque quiz game where you have to answer enough questions to beat Grunty's sisters. It's not bad but it pales in comparison to Kazooie's version as it's less charming and even has less question types. Yeah, I won't miss the Gruntilda specific questions but no sound/music quizzes? That's kinda lame. Again, it's not bad and is only disappointing when compared to Kazooie. The final boss is also not nearly as good as Kazooie's. Is the Hag 1 harder? Most definitely but it's not as memorable as the Gruntilda fight from Kazooie and isn't as fun. It's a solid fight overall but compared to Kazooie's, just a bit lackluster.
So do I like Tooie more than Kazooie? In many ways, hell yes. It improves on many things like the duo's moveset, the writing is way funnier and the interconnectivity between worlds felt like a logical step to take after Kazooie. It may have the weaker end boss and quiz show, it's definitely and easier game to replay/100% and the Canary Mary rematch race is the worst thing between both games, however I'm still feeling like I may like this just slightly more than Kazooie just because of how ambitious and fun it is. It's kinda like Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 where each game has is own strengths over the other and it's just hard to choose what's better. Either way, it's still a 10/10 like the first game and one of my favorite games ever now. Easily in my top 3 N64 games, alongside the first game and Majora's Mask of course. Either way, if you see people saying you shouldn't play this game after you've beaten Kazooie. Don't listen to them, give this a try and you might fall become infatuated with it like I have.
This Banjo double feature was fun but I reckon it's time to play some Kirby again. Stay tuned for a Dreamland 2 review coming soon!
This game sucks
Alan Wake II
2023
Pep's Season of Spooks - Game 18
The culmination of everything Remedy Entertainment have worked for in the last 22 years.
I'm not going to post a lengthy review for this one, you absolutely need to play this if you can. This sets a new standard for storytelling in games. It looks incredible and plays great, with excellent writing and acting throughout the twisty plot. I'm genuinely going to be thinking about this game for weeks, possibly even months.
Sorry RE4 Remake, Alan Wake II just beat you out for my horror game of the year.
Scary Rating 7/10 - Overall Rating 9/10
The culmination of everything Remedy Entertainment have worked for in the last 22 years.
I'm not going to post a lengthy review for this one, you absolutely need to play this if you can. This sets a new standard for storytelling in games. It looks incredible and plays great, with excellent writing and acting throughout the twisty plot. I'm genuinely going to be thinking about this game for weeks, possibly even months.
Sorry RE4 Remake, Alan Wake II just beat you out for my horror game of the year.
Scary Rating 7/10 - Overall Rating 9/10
I learned a valuable lesson from this game. To solve any problem you just need a big stick.
Problem with your boss? Hit him with a stick.
Your partner doesn't care about you? Hit her with a stick.
Your rent is due? Hit your landlord with a stick
Zombie apocalypse? You guessed right!
Problem with your boss? Hit him with a stick.
Your partner doesn't care about you? Hit her with a stick.
Your rent is due? Hit your landlord with a stick
Zombie apocalypse? You guessed right!
Alone in the Dark 2
1993
It took Resident Evil 16 years to go from innovative survival horror blueprint to cinematic action self-parody. Alone In The Dark did it in 1.
This game is absolutely awful and just miserable to play blind; many parts are still painful even with a guide. The whole thing revolves around guessing what the designer was thinking and avoiding constant softlocks.
That said, once you know exactly what to do, you can beat the whole thing in under 90 minutes and it turns into a comedy masterpiece. Dressing up as Santa to gun down mafia pirate zombies while listening to Donkey Kong Country-ass bops? Hell fucking yeah dude.
This game is absolutely awful and just miserable to play blind; many parts are still painful even with a guide. The whole thing revolves around guessing what the designer was thinking and avoiding constant softlocks.
That said, once you know exactly what to do, you can beat the whole thing in under 90 minutes and it turns into a comedy masterpiece. Dressing up as Santa to gun down mafia pirate zombies while listening to Donkey Kong Country-ass bops? Hell fucking yeah dude.
Legendary
2008
Worked on this one. One of the developers tried to get me fired for breaking the sequence in the tower where you can experiment on the monsters. He was unsuccessful.
Return to Grace
2023
A solid narrative puzzle adventure game. The characters are really the shining point of the game as they're a joy to listen to and their interactions with each other's distinct personality's are really the bright spot of this game. The graphics are stylized to be like a cartoon much like Deliver Us the Moon with a retro-futuristic style reminiscent of the 50's.
The atmosphere was also great with some very pretty views. The story started off a little weak, then picked up at the middle and the falling action and then somewhat fell off at the end. I enjoyed the game for what it was, an indie mystery puzzle game.
The atmosphere was also great with some very pretty views. The story started off a little weak, then picked up at the middle and the falling action and then somewhat fell off at the end. I enjoyed the game for what it was, an indie mystery puzzle game.
The Artful Escape
2021
A great story about family and legacy that's heavier on art then actual gameplay which I enjoy. The gameplay mostly consists of rhythm minigames but as I said the audio and visuals while the minigames are going on are some of the main draws for me. The story hits very close to home as it's about standing out from your parents and learning who you are separate from them while also appreciating and understanding where you came from.
The Walking Dead
2012
One of the greatest choose your own story games hands down. Great characters who you'll grow to love and appreciate. Some of the later games begin to feel lifeless and rigid whereas the characters feel like real people with their own motivations and distinct personality. That feeling of anyone could die at any time heavily adds tension to the great story. You follow Lee an escaped convict and father figure for an orphaned girl, their interactions are what makes this game for me. The game is a standard telltale game with mostly puzzle solving and qte's along with heavy story based choices, though for many games like this, the gameplay takes a backseat which I think fits well for the story they're trying to tell. The graphics are stylized to look much more faithful to the comics with cell shading and animated characters. Overall one of my favorite story-based games of all time.
Tomb Raider II
1997
Why the fuck is 50% of this game set on a fucking shipwreck? Why is there so much combat? The combat is ass. Later in the game they start putting like 6 dudes with auto aim into rooms or just have Snow Leopards spawn around corners in pairs. The controls are still jank as fuck too. The Level design is thankfully still really good. I do not get why they make you explore things that aren't tombs for half of this. TR1 had this great balance of exploration and combat, everything felt well laid out. TR2 has you doing jank ass vehicle sections while exploring mostly buildings while 45 guys show up to shoot at you. I do not get it at all.
Hell yeah
Shadow Man
1999
This review contains spoilers
Shadow Man for the Nintendo 64 is a “Metroidvania '' styled action adventure horror flavor game developed by Acclaim Studios Teeside, whose only other games that I’m seeing were NBA Jam titles and the N64 Port of Forsaken. According to Wikipedia (yeah I know, can’t really trust it to be honest), the studio went about creating the engine first before being pitched by their parent company around eight different comic book series to adapt. This one was chosen, and I’d say that’s a pretty damn good choice considering how cool and gothic it is. The only other tidbit I found in terms of development was around six million dollars or more was the approximate budget. Granted if you compare it to games like Shenmue with that cool 70 million it’s merely a drop in the bucket but six million was considered a lot in terms of the general ballpark budget of that era.
My introduction to this game was rather unknown to be honest, but I remember being hyper fascinated (still am to this day) with exclusive games and I think I might have looked up a list of games to buy on the N64 and thought “oh shit this looks cool let's add it to the list” without looking into whether or not it was an actual exclusive? Since then I picked it up at some point at the local retro gaming store for about 10 dollars and it was one of my first N64 games ever. However, I didn’t touch it due to the fact that getting the N64 to run on an HDTV with an HDMI thing was next to near impossible and that’s how I would’ve preferred to have played it. I ended up buying an old CRTV from my buddy Elliot for 40 dollars and that’s how I managed to play it, with crunchy pixels and all; while playing the Gamecube looks like shit on it, the good ol’ 64 didn’t. There’s also the fact that I’ve been trying to hit up at least one game per console this year and this is the main one that I could “play through” and actually beat other than Super Mario 64. As such, playing this on the console was an experience to say the least…not always a great one however.
The gameplay is something that could be described as a “3D Metroidvania” according to Wikipedia and whoever else. That certainly is what the game is like, as you’re engaging in exploring the labyrinthian styled maze throughout Deadside from the gates into it, to the Cathedral to all of the areas inside the cathedral. Every single area is confusing as hell but after finding your way through the maze you’ll start to memorize little bits and pieces. In this case, I’ll admit to using a combination of a written guide (posted below) and a youtube playthrough of the remaster in case the written guide is confusing as hell (which it often is, considering it’s written by a unique personality in 2001 lol), mainly because if I didn’t use it then I would be stuck playing this game for hundreds of hours because I’m a bit on the slow side sometimes.
Each of these areas have other little areas connecting to other little areas via portals that need to be unlocked by collecting Dark Souls or through fleshy bridges that connect you via realms. The Dark Souls are basically the main collectibles of the game, one that helps you activate certain paths but also power your Shadow Gun, arguably your main form of defense throughout the game due to its unlimited ammo and the fact you get health when you take an enemy out. That’s not to say that there aren’t other weapons: through your journey you’ll be picking up other puzzle pieces that moonlight as weapons such as the Baton, which is a melee weapon that shoots flames while opening little gates to the Enseigne, which you can use as a shield of sorts to even weapons only usable in the Liveside (around halfway through the game?) such as the shotgun or the machine gun. None however is as powerful as the Violator, which certainly lives up to its name eviscerating enemies, and if you get all of the Dark Souls and open the gate behind your spawn point in the beginning of the game on top of a Waterfall then you can get a second one.
Before I move on from the weapons, the other collectible of choice to pick up are the Cadeaux, of which there are hundreds of them. If you’re able to collect 500 or so and bring them back to the Temple of Life then you can trade them for health upgrades. I was only able to get to level 9 of 10 before I gave up but you can technically survive without getting any of them, even if it is a bit on the difficult side. The only other pickups available other than ammo, Cadeaux and Dark Souls are orange energy orbs (for the special weapons like the Enseigne) and health orbs. Now keep in mind, you’ll never be able to pick everything up immediately, the game is hellbent on making you explore every nook and cranny and as such you’ll need to get certain abilities in order to come back to earlier areas and unlock new pathways that you weren’t able to unlock before. This’ll help you unlock even more keys or weapons to unlock even more pathways to the future.
The ultimate goal of the game is again to get all the Dark Souls and defeat Legion and all of his minions. In this goal, you’ll eventually run into the Cathedral of Pain where there will be multiple pathways to different gates that lead to Legion’s enforcers, known as the Five. Now keep in mind, you’ll need to get the three pieces of L’Eclipsque in order to have the Liveside turn to night time so Shadow Man can use his powers in Liveside against the Five. Once you do, you can enter their domains though you’ll need to find Retractors in order to do so, which helps open up the other flesh gates that help you get to other locations. Now luckily three of these five minions are located in the prison, but you’ll also go to an abandoned hotel in New York and through the sewers and subway tunnels of London, England to get another. Most of these bosses and even general combat encounters can be done by walking backwards with one of your many guns and (along with strafing), just unloading everything you got. However, with the bosses make sure that when they’re down to finish them off with the Shadow Gun or else you’ll just be wasting ammo and they’ll get back up. This leads into my main criticism for the game, a thing that Shadow Man can’t exactly control the best so I can’t totally blame it.
If I were to criticize one aspect that’s mainly on the N64 would be the controller support. Now most of it you can get by with just fine if you know what you’re doing. You can lock on aim with R, shoot your weapon with B (though fun fact, you can dual wield weapons by going to one in your inventory and pressing the back Z button. I didn’t know this till’ VERY late in the game so have fun controlling both), A to jump, and the left C button is for opening doors and such. You’ll use these buttons mainly but please keep in mind that the platforming in the game isn’t great with the camera angles, a lot of which requires you to jump backwards in order to do stuff. Now you’ll still probably fail doing this until you master distance, but the other C buttons control the camera angles going left and right which I didn’t know until much later in the game so use this to your advantage. Keep in mind, controlling the camera is cumbersome not only in parkour but sometimes in combat. Some enemies charge up to you really quick, and sometimes with the smaller rooms and stuff cluttering these small rooms, mixed with the one thumbstick and the lock on, sometimes slipping through it gets painful to navigate combat situations quickly. With this final point in mind, checkpoints are also few and far between so if you’re in say, London, as an example then you better know where you’re going with the maze-like locations because it’s hell getting back to where you were. This is coming from someone who only just started playing the N64 however, so I’m sure the N64 veterans are looking at me and spitting down on me from wherever they are. For the most part however, with enough practice you’ll get used to all of the systems enough to make it besides a few frustrating parts here and there.
One thing to note is unlockables: there are certain unlockables that you can obtain from called the Book of Shadows. However, beyond each port of the game it seems to work differently; in the N64 version you’re able to get cheat codes from entering certain areas, mostly skins of enemies (or Bloodshot from Valiant Comics apparently though I don’t think I saw that one) while the others just seem to unlock concept art. Other than that, I think I have everything covered that I wanted to cover with Shadow Man. Again I know there’s a lot more to this game, but the truth is that the structure makes it so complex that I’m sure I’ll miss some stuff anyways. My main feeling about it is that I’m not really into the Metroidvania genre, and I respect it so I can’t dock points based on that, nor will I dock points based on a structure controlled by the warped machinations of the N64 controller anyways lol. However, I’m simply not a fan of the camera, and some of the strange jumps asked of me and a lot of that led to me putting the game off numerous times between the two months I started playing this game.
The plot of the game is as follows: you play as Michael LeRoi, one of many in a long line of Shadow Men, voodoo priests blessed with supernatural warriors who are assigned to defend the Earth from any dark and evil threats. Of course your handler/lover, Mama Nettie, has a prophetic dream about an army of serial killers named “The Five”, who are planning on bringing forth the Apocalypse to the world via a giant army hidden inside of a cathedral located in “The Deadside”, the supernatural plane of existence. All of these are under one evil force: Legion; who have given these serial killers corrupting powers in exchange for their allegiance. Of course, Legion also plans to steal the Dark Souls, evil souls of corrupting power for use in their plans too. Nettie wants Michael to take them all, and after giving him files on all of the serial killers (written by Thomas Deacon, later seen in the sequel), sends him off to Deadside to meet up with Jaunty, a sarcastic irish skull snake demon thing. More briefing from there, and you’re off to see the wizard to collect the dark souls, take down the serial killers and bring an end to Legion’s reign.
Now here’s the main thing of the game: it’s open nature almost ensures that you’ll be missing out on some things. For example, the next two plot points that I remember playing it involve encountering the ghost of your brother, Luke, inside the heart of the asylum before he disappears and runs away. That, and after finding all three parts of L’Eclipse and bringing it back to Mama Nettie, she uses her powers to force the world into nighttime so your Shadowman powers are effective to go against the killers in their place of home, putting her into a permanent coma until it’s done. With this in mind, you’ll find bits and pieces of lore here and there by going back after finding certain places and collecting things to Jaunty and Nettie where you’ll either discuss your findings or get chided to go back and do the job. Otherwise everything’s part of a puzzle and you’re kind of left to your own devices to figure that out.
The final parts I can remember to bring up involve taking down all five serial killers in three different locations. After traveling to New York, London and a prison in Texas to take down The Five as well as shut down some of the machinery, the ghost of your brother Luke gathers your attention again, and Michael chases him down only to encounter him on a throne. SURPRISE, it’s Legion and he’s influenced countless generations and kickstarted the prophecy that Nettie has seen in the first place, only to get you to bring all of the Dark Souls to him so he can use it to take over the world. However, Michael is powerful as hell and after putting all the bullets in him you can, you take him down and escape from the Asylum while the Earth is saved. A simple plot, one that I’m sure is missing a lot of details. Truth be told, while you can play this game on it’s own terms, it’s a bit better to sit down and do some research into the backstory of Michael LeRoi. I don’t read the comics, however what I understand from IMDB is that this game is partially based on a Garth Ennis run? I’ll just post the wiki page for Michael down below if you’d like to look into it yourself.
Audio Design for the most part is pretty solid, keep in mind I played it on a CRTV so it’s going to sound crunchy regardless. The music is pretty atmospheric and stripped down for the most part, with some electronic sounding stuff mixed within it. The main tracks I remember hearing were Deadside and the Main Theme at the menu. I felt that Tim Haywood did a pretty good job for the most part, and helped make Shadow Man’s world its own unique and breathing creature. The sound effects are great too from the guns (especially the Shadow Gun) feeling punchy and powerful, to the footsteps to the horrific groans of all the creatures dwelling to basically murder you. The voice acting and dialogue for this game is something I can say is a bit schlocky sometimes but it’s charming and a lot of fun in its own right. Redd Pepper voices Mike LeRoi here and oftentimes he plays the effective but clueless hero well, turning up the ham at certain points in the game to great effect. Lani Minella does well with Aunt Nettie though I’ll always enjoy Barry Meade as Jaunty, the sarcastic and snide tapeworm looking bastard. He’s a funny dude and always delivers his lines well, in a game that’s kind of hit or miss sometimes whether or not it’s a bit stilted. Still though, I don’t have any complaints otherwise because I felt the voice cast did a good job immersing me in that world.
The art direction and atmosphere for this game are pretty damn cool and are probably the highlight of the game for me. It’s straight up horror themed, and Deadside looks phenomenal in its direction. Every location that you travel looks unique and interesting, overwhelming in its confusion but purposeful all the same. Pretentious bullshit aside, it looks pretty damn good and I’m not going to complain. The highlights for me are the outside of the Cathedral itself, a giant monolith of space that makes it look intimidating as if it was a prison of sorts. In fact, I’ll even go out on a limb here and say I’m genuinely surprised that the N64 was able to make such a monolithic location like this but maybe I’m just underestimating the console. Some locations look like a barren wasteland, and some look fleshy and disgusting, and some just look like they come out of a steampunk hellscape fantasy. It depends on where you go but they all look pretty good and blend in seamlessly. The monster designs are also pretty creepy, whether they’re two headed creatures with no legs crawling at you with their hands or those annoying pterodactyl dinosaur looking fucks, or even the butcher hook people in the asylum that made me shit my pants trying to avoid their attacks. Again, they all do a pretty solid job making it all blend in together so I can’t have anything bad to say about much of it except for a few things.
Shadowman for the Nintendo 64 is one of those games that I can say is a bit of a flawed gem in my eyes. I wouldn’t ever want to play this game again but I can respect its place in video game cult classic history. The world is immaculate, oppressive, maze-like, hellish like the Deadside would be, but by the end my soul would also be dead on the inside. However, I also feel like this isn’t necessarily the game’s fault persay, but on the consoles that it was put on. The N64 controller isn’t the best, neither was the Dreamcast controller at the time. The two consoles that could probably host this the best were the PC version (which I haven’t played yet) and the Playstation 1 version, which according to the reviews were ass and barely playable on the hardware. However, in the years of this game’s release I felt like Shadow Man (at least in the gaming world) became arguably more renowned and rightfully so for the world and atmosphere surrounding it. Out of all of the Valiant Comics characters, arguably Shadow Man and Bloodshot are the most popular, though I’m kind of sad that the game’s success didn’t translate to further games of any sorts.
Regardless however, The cult classic nature of this game is a success story of sorts, one which led to a sequel on the Playstation 2 (lost to time sadly), a movie adaptation pitch with Ice Cube that didn’t end up happening (WESTSYYYYYYYDE), as well as a remaster of this game released by our heroes Nightdive Studios. I got a copy of the remaster a couple of years ago by a buddy of mine on Steam (shoutout to DarkRaptor) so ONE day I will play the remaster, but probably years from now when I have this game flushed out of my system. I hope one day that Nightdive will take the time perhaps to remaster the second game, but in other news with Shadowman: a new Shadowman game featuring Jack Boniface called Shadow Man: Darque Legacy, which is apparently a single player Souls-like game which I have mixed feelings about but nonetheless it’s there.
Links:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/n64/198601-shadow-man/faqs/11447 (Guide)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-IdlK1Z0YA0 (Other Youtube Channel I used as guide)
https://www.neoseeker.com/shadowman/cheats/n64/ (N64 Cheats)
https://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649 (Comparative game budgets)
https://www.newspapers.com/article/newsday/93946368/
https://variety.com/1999/film/news/artisan-warms-up-to-ice-cube-1117756828/ (Film Sources)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Man_(Michael_LeRoi)
https://shadowman.fandom.com/wiki/Michael_LeRoi (Backstory Sources)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ShadowMan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y27O551VOJ0&ab_channel=ORDOVIZIUMVIDEOGAME-OSTCHANNEL (Soundtrack)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0292231/
https://manuall.co.uk/nintendo-n64-shadow-man/
My introduction to this game was rather unknown to be honest, but I remember being hyper fascinated (still am to this day) with exclusive games and I think I might have looked up a list of games to buy on the N64 and thought “oh shit this looks cool let's add it to the list” without looking into whether or not it was an actual exclusive? Since then I picked it up at some point at the local retro gaming store for about 10 dollars and it was one of my first N64 games ever. However, I didn’t touch it due to the fact that getting the N64 to run on an HDTV with an HDMI thing was next to near impossible and that’s how I would’ve preferred to have played it. I ended up buying an old CRTV from my buddy Elliot for 40 dollars and that’s how I managed to play it, with crunchy pixels and all; while playing the Gamecube looks like shit on it, the good ol’ 64 didn’t. There’s also the fact that I’ve been trying to hit up at least one game per console this year and this is the main one that I could “play through” and actually beat other than Super Mario 64. As such, playing this on the console was an experience to say the least…not always a great one however.
The gameplay is something that could be described as a “3D Metroidvania” according to Wikipedia and whoever else. That certainly is what the game is like, as you’re engaging in exploring the labyrinthian styled maze throughout Deadside from the gates into it, to the Cathedral to all of the areas inside the cathedral. Every single area is confusing as hell but after finding your way through the maze you’ll start to memorize little bits and pieces. In this case, I’ll admit to using a combination of a written guide (posted below) and a youtube playthrough of the remaster in case the written guide is confusing as hell (which it often is, considering it’s written by a unique personality in 2001 lol), mainly because if I didn’t use it then I would be stuck playing this game for hundreds of hours because I’m a bit on the slow side sometimes.
Each of these areas have other little areas connecting to other little areas via portals that need to be unlocked by collecting Dark Souls or through fleshy bridges that connect you via realms. The Dark Souls are basically the main collectibles of the game, one that helps you activate certain paths but also power your Shadow Gun, arguably your main form of defense throughout the game due to its unlimited ammo and the fact you get health when you take an enemy out. That’s not to say that there aren’t other weapons: through your journey you’ll be picking up other puzzle pieces that moonlight as weapons such as the Baton, which is a melee weapon that shoots flames while opening little gates to the Enseigne, which you can use as a shield of sorts to even weapons only usable in the Liveside (around halfway through the game?) such as the shotgun or the machine gun. None however is as powerful as the Violator, which certainly lives up to its name eviscerating enemies, and if you get all of the Dark Souls and open the gate behind your spawn point in the beginning of the game on top of a Waterfall then you can get a second one.
Before I move on from the weapons, the other collectible of choice to pick up are the Cadeaux, of which there are hundreds of them. If you’re able to collect 500 or so and bring them back to the Temple of Life then you can trade them for health upgrades. I was only able to get to level 9 of 10 before I gave up but you can technically survive without getting any of them, even if it is a bit on the difficult side. The only other pickups available other than ammo, Cadeaux and Dark Souls are orange energy orbs (for the special weapons like the Enseigne) and health orbs. Now keep in mind, you’ll never be able to pick everything up immediately, the game is hellbent on making you explore every nook and cranny and as such you’ll need to get certain abilities in order to come back to earlier areas and unlock new pathways that you weren’t able to unlock before. This’ll help you unlock even more keys or weapons to unlock even more pathways to the future.
The ultimate goal of the game is again to get all the Dark Souls and defeat Legion and all of his minions. In this goal, you’ll eventually run into the Cathedral of Pain where there will be multiple pathways to different gates that lead to Legion’s enforcers, known as the Five. Now keep in mind, you’ll need to get the three pieces of L’Eclipsque in order to have the Liveside turn to night time so Shadow Man can use his powers in Liveside against the Five. Once you do, you can enter their domains though you’ll need to find Retractors in order to do so, which helps open up the other flesh gates that help you get to other locations. Now luckily three of these five minions are located in the prison, but you’ll also go to an abandoned hotel in New York and through the sewers and subway tunnels of London, England to get another. Most of these bosses and even general combat encounters can be done by walking backwards with one of your many guns and (along with strafing), just unloading everything you got. However, with the bosses make sure that when they’re down to finish them off with the Shadow Gun or else you’ll just be wasting ammo and they’ll get back up. This leads into my main criticism for the game, a thing that Shadow Man can’t exactly control the best so I can’t totally blame it.
If I were to criticize one aspect that’s mainly on the N64 would be the controller support. Now most of it you can get by with just fine if you know what you’re doing. You can lock on aim with R, shoot your weapon with B (though fun fact, you can dual wield weapons by going to one in your inventory and pressing the back Z button. I didn’t know this till’ VERY late in the game so have fun controlling both), A to jump, and the left C button is for opening doors and such. You’ll use these buttons mainly but please keep in mind that the platforming in the game isn’t great with the camera angles, a lot of which requires you to jump backwards in order to do stuff. Now you’ll still probably fail doing this until you master distance, but the other C buttons control the camera angles going left and right which I didn’t know until much later in the game so use this to your advantage. Keep in mind, controlling the camera is cumbersome not only in parkour but sometimes in combat. Some enemies charge up to you really quick, and sometimes with the smaller rooms and stuff cluttering these small rooms, mixed with the one thumbstick and the lock on, sometimes slipping through it gets painful to navigate combat situations quickly. With this final point in mind, checkpoints are also few and far between so if you’re in say, London, as an example then you better know where you’re going with the maze-like locations because it’s hell getting back to where you were. This is coming from someone who only just started playing the N64 however, so I’m sure the N64 veterans are looking at me and spitting down on me from wherever they are. For the most part however, with enough practice you’ll get used to all of the systems enough to make it besides a few frustrating parts here and there.
One thing to note is unlockables: there are certain unlockables that you can obtain from called the Book of Shadows. However, beyond each port of the game it seems to work differently; in the N64 version you’re able to get cheat codes from entering certain areas, mostly skins of enemies (or Bloodshot from Valiant Comics apparently though I don’t think I saw that one) while the others just seem to unlock concept art. Other than that, I think I have everything covered that I wanted to cover with Shadow Man. Again I know there’s a lot more to this game, but the truth is that the structure makes it so complex that I’m sure I’ll miss some stuff anyways. My main feeling about it is that I’m not really into the Metroidvania genre, and I respect it so I can’t dock points based on that, nor will I dock points based on a structure controlled by the warped machinations of the N64 controller anyways lol. However, I’m simply not a fan of the camera, and some of the strange jumps asked of me and a lot of that led to me putting the game off numerous times between the two months I started playing this game.
The plot of the game is as follows: you play as Michael LeRoi, one of many in a long line of Shadow Men, voodoo priests blessed with supernatural warriors who are assigned to defend the Earth from any dark and evil threats. Of course your handler/lover, Mama Nettie, has a prophetic dream about an army of serial killers named “The Five”, who are planning on bringing forth the Apocalypse to the world via a giant army hidden inside of a cathedral located in “The Deadside”, the supernatural plane of existence. All of these are under one evil force: Legion; who have given these serial killers corrupting powers in exchange for their allegiance. Of course, Legion also plans to steal the Dark Souls, evil souls of corrupting power for use in their plans too. Nettie wants Michael to take them all, and after giving him files on all of the serial killers (written by Thomas Deacon, later seen in the sequel), sends him off to Deadside to meet up with Jaunty, a sarcastic irish skull snake demon thing. More briefing from there, and you’re off to see the wizard to collect the dark souls, take down the serial killers and bring an end to Legion’s reign.
Now here’s the main thing of the game: it’s open nature almost ensures that you’ll be missing out on some things. For example, the next two plot points that I remember playing it involve encountering the ghost of your brother, Luke, inside the heart of the asylum before he disappears and runs away. That, and after finding all three parts of L’Eclipse and bringing it back to Mama Nettie, she uses her powers to force the world into nighttime so your Shadowman powers are effective to go against the killers in their place of home, putting her into a permanent coma until it’s done. With this in mind, you’ll find bits and pieces of lore here and there by going back after finding certain places and collecting things to Jaunty and Nettie where you’ll either discuss your findings or get chided to go back and do the job. Otherwise everything’s part of a puzzle and you’re kind of left to your own devices to figure that out.
The final parts I can remember to bring up involve taking down all five serial killers in three different locations. After traveling to New York, London and a prison in Texas to take down The Five as well as shut down some of the machinery, the ghost of your brother Luke gathers your attention again, and Michael chases him down only to encounter him on a throne. SURPRISE, it’s Legion and he’s influenced countless generations and kickstarted the prophecy that Nettie has seen in the first place, only to get you to bring all of the Dark Souls to him so he can use it to take over the world. However, Michael is powerful as hell and after putting all the bullets in him you can, you take him down and escape from the Asylum while the Earth is saved. A simple plot, one that I’m sure is missing a lot of details. Truth be told, while you can play this game on it’s own terms, it’s a bit better to sit down and do some research into the backstory of Michael LeRoi. I don’t read the comics, however what I understand from IMDB is that this game is partially based on a Garth Ennis run? I’ll just post the wiki page for Michael down below if you’d like to look into it yourself.
Audio Design for the most part is pretty solid, keep in mind I played it on a CRTV so it’s going to sound crunchy regardless. The music is pretty atmospheric and stripped down for the most part, with some electronic sounding stuff mixed within it. The main tracks I remember hearing were Deadside and the Main Theme at the menu. I felt that Tim Haywood did a pretty good job for the most part, and helped make Shadow Man’s world its own unique and breathing creature. The sound effects are great too from the guns (especially the Shadow Gun) feeling punchy and powerful, to the footsteps to the horrific groans of all the creatures dwelling to basically murder you. The voice acting and dialogue for this game is something I can say is a bit schlocky sometimes but it’s charming and a lot of fun in its own right. Redd Pepper voices Mike LeRoi here and oftentimes he plays the effective but clueless hero well, turning up the ham at certain points in the game to great effect. Lani Minella does well with Aunt Nettie though I’ll always enjoy Barry Meade as Jaunty, the sarcastic and snide tapeworm looking bastard. He’s a funny dude and always delivers his lines well, in a game that’s kind of hit or miss sometimes whether or not it’s a bit stilted. Still though, I don’t have any complaints otherwise because I felt the voice cast did a good job immersing me in that world.
The art direction and atmosphere for this game are pretty damn cool and are probably the highlight of the game for me. It’s straight up horror themed, and Deadside looks phenomenal in its direction. Every location that you travel looks unique and interesting, overwhelming in its confusion but purposeful all the same. Pretentious bullshit aside, it looks pretty damn good and I’m not going to complain. The highlights for me are the outside of the Cathedral itself, a giant monolith of space that makes it look intimidating as if it was a prison of sorts. In fact, I’ll even go out on a limb here and say I’m genuinely surprised that the N64 was able to make such a monolithic location like this but maybe I’m just underestimating the console. Some locations look like a barren wasteland, and some look fleshy and disgusting, and some just look like they come out of a steampunk hellscape fantasy. It depends on where you go but they all look pretty good and blend in seamlessly. The monster designs are also pretty creepy, whether they’re two headed creatures with no legs crawling at you with their hands or those annoying pterodactyl dinosaur looking fucks, or even the butcher hook people in the asylum that made me shit my pants trying to avoid their attacks. Again, they all do a pretty solid job making it all blend in together so I can’t have anything bad to say about much of it except for a few things.
Shadowman for the Nintendo 64 is one of those games that I can say is a bit of a flawed gem in my eyes. I wouldn’t ever want to play this game again but I can respect its place in video game cult classic history. The world is immaculate, oppressive, maze-like, hellish like the Deadside would be, but by the end my soul would also be dead on the inside. However, I also feel like this isn’t necessarily the game’s fault persay, but on the consoles that it was put on. The N64 controller isn’t the best, neither was the Dreamcast controller at the time. The two consoles that could probably host this the best were the PC version (which I haven’t played yet) and the Playstation 1 version, which according to the reviews were ass and barely playable on the hardware. However, in the years of this game’s release I felt like Shadow Man (at least in the gaming world) became arguably more renowned and rightfully so for the world and atmosphere surrounding it. Out of all of the Valiant Comics characters, arguably Shadow Man and Bloodshot are the most popular, though I’m kind of sad that the game’s success didn’t translate to further games of any sorts.
Regardless however, The cult classic nature of this game is a success story of sorts, one which led to a sequel on the Playstation 2 (lost to time sadly), a movie adaptation pitch with Ice Cube that didn’t end up happening (WESTSYYYYYYYDE), as well as a remaster of this game released by our heroes Nightdive Studios. I got a copy of the remaster a couple of years ago by a buddy of mine on Steam (shoutout to DarkRaptor) so ONE day I will play the remaster, but probably years from now when I have this game flushed out of my system. I hope one day that Nightdive will take the time perhaps to remaster the second game, but in other news with Shadowman: a new Shadowman game featuring Jack Boniface called Shadow Man: Darque Legacy, which is apparently a single player Souls-like game which I have mixed feelings about but nonetheless it’s there.
Links:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/n64/198601-shadow-man/faqs/11447 (Guide)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-IdlK1Z0YA0 (Other Youtube Channel I used as guide)
https://www.neoseeker.com/shadowman/cheats/n64/ (N64 Cheats)
https://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649 (Comparative game budgets)
https://www.newspapers.com/article/newsday/93946368/
https://variety.com/1999/film/news/artisan-warms-up-to-ice-cube-1117756828/ (Film Sources)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Man_(Michael_LeRoi)
https://shadowman.fandom.com/wiki/Michael_LeRoi (Backstory Sources)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/ShadowMan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y27O551VOJ0&ab_channel=ORDOVIZIUMVIDEOGAME-OSTCHANNEL (Soundtrack)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0292231/
https://manuall.co.uk/nintendo-n64-shadow-man/