stockholm syndrome the video game. I made an initial review last night about how bad the level design gets after around stage 6 and how it's the opposite of the lost levels in the sense that it's a far more ambitious game that lacks infinite continues and was made difficult with the purpose of making the player spend more time. so naturally i spent the next day practicing levels and strategies and by god i was able to do it and I'm able to see more of the positives in it.

i beat it without savestates or warps so i have full bragging rights but i will say this game is really, really fucking addictive. disgustingly so, probably because it actually plays so well when you aren't losing lives as quickly the depreciation of Yen, and the variety, general game feel, satisfying sound design and player feedback are all so good. so good that it carries the game's (still imo even after beating it) terrible level design in its latter half. it's creative and it's rewarding to master but i've never played another nes game with so many hazards and so much bullshit that you'll need to pause buffer or have played stages upwards of 3 times to reliably commit to memory. the lifebar is basically a lie because almost everything after stage 2 either kills you in 1 or 2 hits and you NEED to know how to effectively and safely deal with them. it's a shame so many people dropped it and weren't able to beat the turbo tunnel because that honestly wound up being my favourite level and I think it's at least worth seeing some of the stuff rare pulled off since it's incredibly creative and impressive for the nes.

because all of this i highly recommend playing the japanese version instead. rare actually realised they made the game too difficult and ironically made that version easier. i tried just a few levels just for the sake of comparison and I can attest to that, even the turbo tunnel, and that's for the better. maybe it was a good thing that blockbuster went down under considering how many games were made harder for western audiences JUST so that people couldn't beat them with a single rental or so that they had to actually buy it. it also proves that games back then weren't just made harder for the west when brought overseas, they'd be harder no matter what.