Exactly what it says on the tin. Feels like a Captain Toad level but you play as Link. Which is ironic since that's how Captain Toad originally started as conceptually.

I don't know if it's just cause I haven't played OoT in a second (like, literally a month or two lol), but I kept messing up simple things. Walking slightly diagonal instead of straight which caused me to fall off a ton, repeatedly falling off vines I hooked to making me climb all the way to the top again, getting hit by Keese multiple times. Maybe I'm just tired, but all these stupid mistakes made this playthrough take way longer than it needed.

Anyway, this was fun. Big fan of putting Mario in Link's world and vice versa, it's always great fun. Hope this mod developer takes this concept further; I know a full game of this was going to be done by someone but that was cancelled, I'd love for it to come to fruition.

in my previous ace combat 2 review I briefly discussed control theory in the mechanical sense. every input to a system is manipulated and corrected upon to attempt to achieve a desired output, whether it's PID as mentioned in the previous post or LQR or some other more obscure variation. theoretically we can extrapolate these controllers and the actuators they drive to chains of controllers in sequence, all spitballing commands back and forth endlessly. my advisor once told me fighter jets are inherently unstable systems desperately wrangled to usability by their data synthesis routines. this "sensor fusion" complicates the matter; we control our fighter craft indirectly through another controller, obfuscating the point at which the command originates.

in a similar way, we interface with our craft through fingers gripped around the control column; a kind of cross-talk between physical device and flesh providing the controller of your mind and the controller of your plane with the illusion of direct communication. the yoke of a plane used to be directly tied to the craft's actuators, yet as time has gone on the scope of these vehicles has increased to the point where such direct leverage isn't feasible. now the control surface exposed inside the cockpit transmits signals via fly-by-wire to that central computer, which screens inputs and fuses together these signals with its own conceptions and assumptions; reinterpreting and redefining our input along the way. it provides only simulation and never true control; we always sit at its periphery, merely influencing lest our behavior yields catatrosphic results. so too does our body age, the actuators of our extremities atrophying and failing more and more to meaningfully turn our brain's desperate commands into action. organs slowing down in best cases or growing erratically in worst cases, the information and nutrients delivered in our blood finding it harder to squeeze through veins from atherosclerosis, and neurons dying, erasing our memories along with them. our consciousness begs for control the older we grow as it simultaneously loses the ability to assert its will.

where does the body end and the mind begin? at what interface in our aircraft does the body melt into the enclosure of the craft, where we begin perceiving the motions of the plane as motions of the self, inextricably linked? at what point can we transcend the limits of our being, sloughing off our skin into more powerful bodies? rena, trapped inside the prison of her body, restricted from ever tasting the kiss of sunlight, yearns for the embrace of her true self, the Night Raven. cynthia, with rationale never fully revealed to the player, seeks too to enjoin with the culmination of the human race within the electrosphere, removing the clunky interfaces of bodies to bodies in search of ethereal, unattainable connection. their stories are unquestionably entwined and offer repercussions on those around them, pulling everyone into the web of their desires. and through it all each one, whether as plain-spoken as keith or erich or idealistic as the former two, exist solely within the bounds of their aircraft. it is, after all, their only way with interfacing with world as conveyed through the game and its engine; the only place these characters can exert control and expression outside of prescribed and pre-recorded cutscenes. each interaction with these characters exists only through video streams in the electrosphere until the moment of takeoff, where finally they can interface with the world as it exists, within the bounds of these two discs.

thus it follows that abyssal dision, the christ of ouroboros, is the villain of this entry. having already unwillingly yielded himself to the pull of the electrosphere, he grapples with the truth that within the digital world the need for control dissipates. the only way to wield power remains externally in the physical dominion. thus he exerts his own will, now at one with his craft, having achieved everything rena and cynthia could ever dream of, clawing desperately for the ability to feel and live and want and fuck. and then you, nemo, the silent overseer of this, provide the antithesis to dision. the player, given the illusion of flesh within the bounds of an in-game aircraft, become the controller of life and death. the reaper. through your (admittedly binary) choices you shape the world in your image, with each path leading you to cutting off the evolutionary dead-end that is dision. once you're already committed to forgoing the physical limits of your body there simply is no going back!

control structures grow and propagate beyond the individual controller beings who make up this planet, elongating tendrils into the social structures of our kind. small communities expand into empires, into feudal fiefdoms of divinely-ordained control patterns, and eventually into mass financialization under capitalism. top-down hierarchies of CEOs and boards overseeing department leads down to individual managers and teams, whether silent and steady or as manically tempermental as the current gutting of twitter. in ac3 these expand into powers of their own - general resource and neucom - stateless, directionless entities going through the motions of imminent warfare without rhyme or reason. between them exists the UPEO, a supposedly neutral international body, financially affirming both sides while simultaneously being crushed between them, all while supporting a gormless mass of euro-asian countries barely referenced throughout the text. much like in real life, who provides the control asserted by the united nations? do our (in the US) implicitly anti-UN charter military actions somehow legitimize said institution by monopolizing violence on its behalf? this is what the mouthpieces on our side of the pond would have you believe, regardless of the tepid or non-existent objections from the first world or the aggrieved lashings of what remains of the second world. economic control through sanctions, institutional control through the UN Security Council and its prized rotating member seats, physical control through wage slavery, and mental control through the torrent of social media.

with ac3 there is the ability to choose sides, yet each wingman plaintively intones that there are no victors, and no allegiances. the compulsion of action is compulsion enough to drive one to fight for either side regardless of intrinsic motivation. even pledging fealty to ouroborous in a grasp at true revolutionary action devolves into killing one's idols. keith and fiona both serve and gain nothing, which shows complicity but at the same time a sort of tender sadness. it is an acceptance of no alternative, verbally impugning their controlling entity while being completely unable to actually affect change outside of its purview. this is unfortunate but honest to how we live; I see legions of my peers and students I've taught profess broadly leftist rhetoric and a desire to use their skills for good that end up desperately looking at chances to contribute to the public good while working for lockheed or raytheon or bloomberg or jane street or etc. etc. etc. the only "stable" alternative is to pursue a didactic profession as I have, and even then there's the perils of navigating away from amorphous sums of defense contracting research grants all while treading water as an adjunct or visiting lecturer for years. when I see erich desperately flailing in his position playing mercenary under the guise of peacekeeping, I see those I work with or used to work with, trapped in a superstructure without the perceived means to escape it.

within this framework, ac3 manages to weave actual threads of plot momentum through its missions, unlike the prior two ac entries which primarily barreled the player forward to military victory. rather than the driving top gun-style thrill of earlier games, ac3 prefers a more measured, dreary approach to its environments, scenario design, and sound. rushing through rain to exterminate another set of indecipherable targets as part of a bombing run is simply work, not a heroic endeavor. icy synth envelopes and jittery, fragmented percussion dominate the soundscape of these affairs. the tense canyon runs of prior games is transformed here into a foggy ravine where a river runs through, reflecting the entities above it not unlike the opening hour of panzer dragoon saga, which released a year before. here you trail a ghostly reconnaissance ship with rena to either a hidden laboratory shadowed by the cliffs or a dead end, both of which yield different follow-up missions (one where you earn rena's trust and assist her in locating her beloved night raven and one where you prevent a ship containing a biological weapon from colliding with towers in an industrial district). these small touches lend narrative cohesion to the experience, with ebbs and flows more suitable for a longer-form game.

unfortunately this also leads to the game's only notable problems: its repetition in mission layouts between routes and odd difficulty spikes. the first issue is inevitable given the structure, and easily ignorable if you space out each route a bit thanks to the different viewpoints you experience for each sortie and the variety of different specific objectives on each map (even if they just amount to hit X ground targets... but that's totally expected for psx ace combat). each route ending also features completely novel setpieces such as the XR-900 fleet hijacked at the end of general resource's campaign or the claustrophobic geofront invasion in the neucom ending. of these perhaps the only mission type repeated too often for its own good is the sphyrna battle, which occurs around five or six times and loses its luster quickly.

the difficulty spikes are more egregious, although there were only two main ones I personally struggled with: broken wings at the end of the UPEO route and self awareness at the end of ouroborous II. the former is simply a giant lopsided dogfight that will effectively wall the player if they don't understand the nature of the game's unique handling. the latter requires the player to assault a series of ground targets while the night raven is in pursuit. night raven often limits itself in fights (there are multiple fights against it where it will do little but evade you) but here it feels it necessary to blast you with a laser beam that has no warning beyond a small, untelegraphed sound effect. very frustrating mission that capped off my experience with the game rather poorly, but I can justify it by at least noting I was able to beat it through careful examination of its behavior (it struggles to accurately shoot when you are ascending, so moving in hill-like patterns will allow you to avoid its blasts up into high altitude and then careen back to earth faster than it can chase you as you swoop into to destroy a target).

in particular in comparison to ac2 this game requires a much more nuanced understanding of aircraft control. rolling the plane was the first difference that was apparent to me; where ac2 allows smooth and responsive rolling, ac3 includes an inertial element to the rotation that will cause more than a slight adjustment to apply significant torque, potentially overshooting your target angle. differences in aircraft are also more apparent, made particularly noticable for narrative reasons when demonstrating neucom's technological might in the high-power low-mobility remora craft in the mission power for life or when conducting a mission in the vacuum of space in, potentially the game's most well-known mission, zero gravity. planes overall turn wider, will gain much more noticable momentum when flying downward (hence the self awareness strategy), and stall more realistically, causing the engine to lose its energy transfer and create a wobbly descent rather than the abrupt free-fall in ac2. learning how to perform basic immelman turns and split Ss became imperative to remaining nimble in dogfights, and this eventually extended to true mobility in 3D space, where combinations of these "vertical" adjustments with lateral movements became bread-and-butter. ac2 never comes close to requiring this, and although the vast majority of missions in ac3 rarely approach anything more difficult than its predecessors, the late-game trials it assesses you with are satisfying.

this is on top of numerous quality of life changes and upgrades, such as enemy draw distance at nearly 8000 meters away instead of barely 3000, gorgeous cloud cover replacing flat skies, selectable weapons, and instant mission retries with no monetary penalty. of these the most notable is that updated HUD designed by mr. driller mainstay minoru sashida. ergonomically curved with tasteful sections dedicated to the radar and plane status, the altitude and speed readings are significantly more visible. the best addition of all is the orientation ring, which provides not only an immediate compass display but also an invaluable visual on how the plane is oriented: the cardinal directions rotate to reflect your perspective relative to the Z axis, and the overall ring detaches itself from surrounding the vehicle the further you alter the pitch. it's so intuitive and natural to the experience that it makes flying in the first-person mode seemingly a must.

with that it comes full circle: a further sense of realistic control enhancing the feeling of instability and obfuscated input. I have to imagine that the reason ac3 is the only ac to retain this flight model is for this reason... it directly impacts the ambiance of the game by reducing its grandiose trappings. death-defying maneuvers are the exception and not the rule. yet simultaneously it creates a sense of communion with your craft; rather than bending it to your will you must cooperate with it and its controller. from the brain to the fingers to the playstation controller to the engine to the flight modeling, each cooperating through different abstraction layers to provide the sensation of real control. not (entirely) compromised to simply entertain while still maintaining the player's sense of agency. all of this with the goal that via immersion you'll fuse in and become one. in effect, sublimation.

A game by absolute freaks, for absolute freaks. If you don't lab kart racers everyday like they're fighting games and try your hardest to complete EVERYTHING in those games, this game is NOT for you.
Almost avant-garde in how little it cares for the casual kart racer audience, forcing you to complete an excruciating tutorial that can take between 30 minutes and 1 hour. To complete one grand prix before you can unlock multiplayer (or use a cheat code). To complete FIVE grand prixes before you can unlock the ability to use old SRB2kart MODS! (or use a cheat code). To stay with one color for your character unless you collect the others, and collect all 82 to unlock time trials. Never has there been a game so obsessed with making players master its mechanics before letting them play with others, as if they were preparing you for real-life war or something.

The game even opens slowly walking you through every option, unlocking each thing in the menu, everything contextualized with Tails and Eggman speaking to you, as Metal Sonic. Clearly, the devs tried to defeat Sonic Robo Blast 2's unnecessarily long intro cutscene, and in their quest for Genesis nostalgiawanking, they made the awful choice of only having the button prompts of the Genesis controller in menus and tutorials, not a huge issue in controller, it is on keyboard, especially because this game just has way too many mechanics and when you finally have to use an obscure one, you gotta press every key or go to the menu to check what key you assigned as the Y Genesis button.

Back to the tutorial, what did they think they were making here, Final Fantasy XVII?? It doesn't even explain things that clearly and there's so much dialogue, no option to reread, just once and trial and error.
It'd be one thing to make a kart racer with a lot of complex mechanics if they all feel cohesive and the races really push you to your limits, like Sonic Riders or even Bomberman Fantasy Race, but I don't think this is it when the mechanics are like 8 different types of boosts, one for each hazard, a charged melee attack? A parry? Two different types of roulettes that by default you have to stop manually???
A lot of this doesn't even come up in the races, it's for the single-player challenges, if it is in the race, you can also probably brute force it and use boost mechanic #54 instead of boost mechanic #301 as originally intended.

There's potential here, but it doesn't feel as good as SRB2kart to be honest. I gave up at the drift section in the tutorial cuz I just couldn't get it to work and the only drift you HAVE to do to proceed is the ultra charged one that gives you max boost #302! If the kart stops moving while you try to drift you instead initiate, you guessed it, another boost mechanic, one that has its own separate dedicated button so why make the drift worse by putting it on that button as well?

I usually don't rank games if I know that they're just not for me or if I played that little, but I don't see how the things I complain about would really do any good to any game in any genre, and even if all players use a save file with everything unlocked, I'll have to stand my ground unless they rework everything.

They tried to make a kart racer with more complex mechanics than Sonic Riders, and thought they had to have THE MOST mechanics to do that. They saw that some Riders players missed mechanics because of the lack of a tutorial and thought they had to overtutorialize EVERYTHING and demanded they mastered the game before even letting them race.
Don't think this will ever catch on and most will probably continue to just play SRB2kart.

Sentado a beira de um velho pé de Jatobá, Noite de lua minguante, o vento grita histórias as folhas das arvores. Em algum vilarejo, o povo anda por ali. Seus passos são lentos, arrastados. As casas de madeira, com suas janelas estreitas e portas baixas, parecem ter emergido da terra, como cogumelos na merda após a chuva.

O velho Joaquim, de mãos enrugadas e olhos cansados, senta-se à soleira de sua casa. Ele acende um cachimbo de barro, o fumo dançando em espirais ao redor de sua cabeça. Seu olhar se perde no horizonte, como se buscasse respostas no mato.

O jovem Ronaldo, com um boné batido e pés descalços, caminha pela estrada de terra barrenta. Ele carrega consigo um saco de grãos, sua contribuição para o celeiro comunitário. Seus passos são firmes, como se ele fosse o guardião de uma tradição ancestral.

À noite, quando as estrelas sobem aos céus, os habitantes da aldeia se reúnem na praça central. O fogo crepita na fogueira, e os rostos com reações diversas se acendem pelo fogo. Eles contam histórias de heróis esquecidos, de batalhas épicas, tragédias malditas e de amores proibidos. E assim, a aldeia vive em seu próprio tempo, alheia às pressas do mundo exterior.

I think Sam & Max are the most gay-coded characters ever created and I honestly could not tell you why. Maybe its the suit and the height difference.

Anyway, it boggles my mind just how effortlessly and hilariously witty this game is. I feel like a lot the time attempts at comedy through fourth wall breaks and quippy witicisms come off as really forced and groan-worthy, but Sam & Max are able to pull it off so well. Their dynamic, wordy banter, disregard for the law and morality, and gleefully cynical outlook on the world is just delightful and makes the humor really work. It's paired with absolutely sublime art direction and animation to boot. Sometimes the puzzles are fairly obtuse, but I think that's the price you have to pay with some of these older adventure games.

I mean, why not? When Nobunaga ruled part of Japan, and was asked for his reasoning to go after the rest, he simply went "because it's there". I'm pretty sure he said that, I was alive for it. It was essentially the same mindset I had with finishing the Advance Collection.

Known as "Vampire's Kiss" for our PALs, "Dracula X" could only be assumed to be meant as "Dracula's Hug" rather than some attempt at the 2Xtreme movement of the 90s. You see, because in here Dracula gives you a nice little hug and a peck on the cheek, all before he kicks you down a hole in his dilapidated humble abode. It makes one wonder why Dracula would even bother with floors in general when he's more than capable of flying everywhere, especially if he's already figured out that the best defense against Belmonts is to simply either make them walk up stairs, or dare them to hop with their cement-infused boots across magical levitating platforms. Where these platforms are coming from is a mystery, but I assume it's where all those holes in Dracula's throne room came from, or perhaps that's the origin of all the gaps in the grand hallway where one slip up means Richter falling into an alternate stage that denies him the ability to rescue Maria's now completely useless ass.

"Wow, thanks Richter! Good luck on your quest, I'll make my way out now."

Bitch.

It's really intriguing how a final boss fight can completely overtake discussion, and it's quite telling what the legacy of the Dracula's Smooch version of the climactic finale leaves behind when there exists an entire guide on GameFAQs dedicated to it. A useful one at that. Part of me wishes the Game Gear version of Sonic 2 would have something like that for it's first boss, but I guess there's not much to be helped there beyond "I sure hope the balls don't hit me". To say that the fight with Dracula X is a slog would be shorting it a few hundred didgeridoos, because man I could've made some tasty pancakes in the time it took trying to wait out his ass to get into an advantageous position to hit his godawful hitbox along the pillar system he installed in his throne room prior to him calling in an assist from Devil Kazuya. Kaiser Sigma from X3 would puke at all the times I uselessly cracked my whip across Dracula X's forehead and had it not register, because Konami designed this game from the ground up with anti-blockbuster rental countermeasures instead of waiting for it to come out to us, thus destroying all potential goodwill it could have found as a demake later during the age of emulation, with an audience less upset at being bamboozled out of a more faithful and less mean-spirited retelling of the beloved PC Engine classic. Instead, Switch owners will be annoyed they have to deal with this while Requiem continues chilling as a PS4 exclusive nearly six years later.

Baffling, though not quite as baffling as the censorship where they kept the blood on the title screen, but got rid of Death's Mortal Kombat Deception-style Hara Kiri where he decapitates himself with his own scythe, meanwhile Richter in our version apparently explodes into a pile of flour for Dracula X to make his cookies from.

What cookie would Richter be? Puzzling...

My opinion was ever so slightly improved from forcing myself to replay this for completion-sake, but the most heartwarming thing I get out of Dracula's Kiss personally is seeing the font used at the bottom of the title screen for the copyright, and being reminded of a childhood banger in Konami's Biker Mice From Mars which uses the same thing, so I guess I'll go play that now instead. Ciao.

Recommended by Vee!

I don't know why but PS4 emulation of this game is rather buggy with some obvious graphical glitches in the hud and some really awful sound bugs later on. If you're going to play this game, definitely emulate it.

Nevertheless, this is EXACTLY what I mean when I talk about how the PS1 era was the best when it comes to experimentation. This is one of the first 3D platformers, even predating Mario 64, and the way this game does it is so fun! First person perspective + tank controls somehow works so well! And I love how the camera points down whenever you double jump, super helpful.

Aesthetics wise, this game is 10/10, easily. I love the way this game looks and sounds. Absolute peak PS1 surrealism, I adore it.

I was wondering while playing this "what if there was an alternate universe where this game became the norm rather than Mario 64?" Interesting thought, and I do actually prefer this game to Mario 64 in many ways. However, I do think it's for the best that Mario 64's control scheme took off.

Overall, excellent, excellent early PS1 classic that I'm so glad that I played through. It's short, like less than 2 hours short, so you really don't have an excuse! Go play this!!!