Well, I finally got to play the original OutRun cabinet! The deluxe one to be specific, where the car you sit in physically shakes and turns you to match what's on screen. I thought it was pretty cool, but completely freaked my wife out when she tried it out lol. I've never been a fan of OutRun's premise I'll be honest - with it not being really a racing game, but more of a "beat the timer with a bunch of stuff in your way" kinda game, but OutRun in comparison to other car driving games at the time is GORGEOUS and plays like something we've never seen before this, allowing the player to really feel like they're in control of the car on-screen.

I'm sure if I spent more time with OutRun, I would eventually get a handle on how to play it properly, but when rating the game, I can't not rate it as anything lower than a 4-Star because this is one of those arcade games that completely revolutionized arcade history and became one of Sega's most successful cabinets to date. Gorgeous graphics, amazing music (implementing a radio to add to the immersion of driving - 12 years before GTA!), and unbelievable controls... you can even change gear! Every gamer should check OutRun out at least once in their life.

4/5

It took about ~300 deaths, but I fucking did it.

Almost everything in my original review still holds up. The Ice Caves is probably my least favorite area in the game but I still liked it, and Temple was a good sendoff to the game.

Hell? Doesn't exist, what are you talking about?

Fine and would have been 3.5 stars otherwise but from now on I am taking a full star off any game on the DS that makes me blow into the mic. I lost half of my day today trying to figure out which core has a button that emulates it only to find none of them work, plugging in “walk through walls” cheats when I needed to bypass it otherwise only to find you also have to blow on a map too! Why does Nintendo have to make every single console of theirs double as a fuckin bop-it? Who is asking for this shit?! I don’t want motion controls on my switch, I don’t want to blow these damn ass candles out, I don’t want to swing my Wii nunchucks around every time I want to hit a bagompagomplin with the master sword. I suppose it might all just there for anti-piracy purposes. Well, if it is, it worked! Good job, Mario inc, now no one is playing “extremely okay Wind Waker 2 on a touchscreen” in 2024, guaranteed.

Also the old man in the beginning needs to chill out. Link just got done rescuing the whole world from reincarnated Ganondorf the scourge of Hyrule himself, wielding the master sword of legend and bearing the triforce of courage to boot, just for this geezer to be like “mmMmM tHerEs MoNstErs OuT tHerE, leT mE TeaCh YoU HoW to UsE a sWorD.” Oh no, a bunch of chuchus and bats, anything but that. My man, I’m pretty sure I already know how to use a sword.

The game begins by dropping your car at the top of an active volcano. I obviously tried to drive the car straight into the lava, but the game FADES TO BLACK BEFORE YOU REACH THE HOT MOLTEN GOODNESS. What is the point of all the realistic graphics if I can't even melt my car???

A little while later, while driving through a cloud of kicked up dust, the commentator shouted "WOOOO RIGHT INTO THE EYE OF THE STORM!!" Gamers, I furrowed my brow so hard at him. It was a dust cloud! There is no eye! The eye is the calm area in the middle of a tornado or something, a phenomenon in which the center of the destructive force is the safest place to be! That doesn't apply to the current situation at all!

I generally try not to be a Surly Nitpicky Gamer Boy™, but a lot of big budget AAA games really do bring it out of me. I get it, it's very pretty and the cars go fast. But I finally tried Ridge Racer Type 4 a few months ago, and the cars in that 26-year-old game not only felt better to drive, but it had an actual visual identity that was beyond cool. This is just boring!

If you at one point in your life ever decided to play a Gradius game, but you just didn’t think that there was enough Japan in the game to please your needs, then Parodius may be able to satiate your cravings, while making you break your hands in the process of trying to beat it for yourself. This was close to the experience I had when checking out the original game, which was basically your typical Gradius game that came with all the sweet powerups and the insane difficulty that you would expect, but right alongside that was a whole bunch of charming oddities, which range from the enemies and the music, all the way up to the bosses, which made me have a good time with the game as a whole, even if the gameplay was nothing to write home about. Nevertheless, I assume that that original game was pretty successful back when it first came out, because it would then spawn its own series of games that would be released right alongside Gradius, starting with the sequel to the game, Parodius! From Myth to Laughter.

Out of all of the games in the series, this was the one I was most familiar with before going into it, not because I had played it before, but I had seen a good chunk of the game in a video I made a long time ago, and while I hadn’t seen the full thing in action, I pretty much knew what I was getting into. You know, aside from the fact that this was just another Gradius game, so it was probably gonna play just like all the others, and WHADDYA KNOW, that is exactly what we get here. However, once again, the insanity of the visuals and designs of the stages, enemies, and bosses present make the game wonderful to play, and aside from one or two issues that I have with the game as a whole (which you could probably guess), it was a really good time from start to finish.

The story is fairly simple, yet weird for a shmup like this, where the Great Octopus threatens to destroy Earth and all of the inhabitants that live on it, so it is up to Tako, the octopus from the last game, to set out to stop this from happening, right alongside his pals, Vic Viper, TwinBee, and Pentarou, which is pretty much exactly what I expected from the premise of one of these games, and I wouldn’t change it any other way. The graphics are wonderful, not only being very vibrant and colorful for most of the stages, but also having plenty of detailed, goofy, and insane designs for many of the enemies and bosses, which are quite bewildering to see in the best way possible, the music is just as weird as the visuals, with most of the songs either being remixes of classic Gradius tunes (I will never get tired of this track, no matter what game it appears in), but also zany remixes of classical music as well, which is oddly fitting for this game, and I ended up loving a lot of the tracks, and the gameplay/control has basically been imprinted into your brain to where you will automatically know what to do right from the get go, but you can play as a penguin flying in space that can get other penguins following him to shoot projectiles, which automatically makes this game a masterpiece.

The game is a horizontally scrolling shmup, where you take control of one of the weird and wonderful characters I mentioned earlier, each with their own unique movesets and configurations for the weapons, go through plenty of different stages through many varied and odd environments, shoot down every single living thing that you see on screen, because more than likely, that thing will try to kill you in one way or another, gather plenty of different power ups that you can equip and upgrade whenever you need to, or find bells that you can shoot to get different kinds of power ups that will give you plenty of different, temporary advantages, and take on plenty of silly and absurd, yet challenging bosses that will keep you on your toes, unless you have the laser ability with four options following you, in which case you can just blaze right through them in most instances. If you have experience with any other Gradius game released before this and since, you will know what to expect from this game, but if you love this style of gameplay like me, and you don’t mind a dash of weirdness sprinkled in there, then you will feel right at home when you play this title.

Like with the previous game, the main thing that makes this game stand out from all of the others is the odd selection of… things that you will be seeing throughout your journey, which a newcomer like me would look at and wonder what drug he took before he started playing this, while others may be used to this type of imagery and be completely fine with it. Most of the enemies you encounter will consist of penguins, along with plenty of other random animals like fish, crabs, hornets, and whatever else the game decides to pull out of its ass, like clowns that will shoot at you and lips that will shoot their own teeth at you. That’s not even getting into the bosses either, which are without a doubt both the most horrifying and wonderful aspects of this game, where you will encounter such creatures as a flying pirate ship with a cat head on the front, and eagle dressed like Uncle Sam, a puffer fish that will inflate to cover almost the entire screen while you shoot at it, a random sumo wrestler, and a giant naked woman covering herself with a sheet while deploying babies in bubbles to kill you. I can only imagine that this is all relatively tame compared to what other games in the series probably throw at the player, and I would question why the hell any of this is here, but at this point, I have just decided to accept the madness and ride along with it, and I end up having a lot of fun with that mindset.

Obviously, one of the things that holds this game back is that it is a Gradius game, so it does practically nothing to change up the gameplay or innovate on the genre as a whole, but that doesn’t matter so much to me in this case, given how fun the gameplay can still be, and how satisfying it us to fully upgrade yourself to where you can start to decimate everything around you. However, that in itself is a little hard to do, due to this game’s difficulty, because HOLY FUCK, they aren’t pulling punches this time around. I know, I know, I always say these games are hard, and that is never gonna change anytime soon, but I swear, this might just be the hardest Gradius game I have played so far. You need to have the reflexes of a god or the ability to slow down time in order to avoid some of the shit this game throws at you, and while you can get pretty lucky at some points, it almost never tones the difficulty down whatsoever, making it so that I died hundreds of times before I was able to finish it off. I have never seen so many dead penguins in one place before, and now that I have, I can say with great certainty that I don’t feel bad about killing that giant space octopus whatsoever.

Overall, despite a lack of change and the difficulty still managing to surprise me with just how unforgiving it can be, this is still yet another solid entry in this sub-series and franchise as a whole, providing the same fun and addicting experience that fans have come to love with this series, while also still providing enough weird and insane elements to where you wanna see it all out just to know what else the game will pull out of its ass by the end. I would definitely recommend it for fans of the Gradius series as a whole, as well as those who are big fans of other shmups or cute ‘em ups, because while this may not be as crazy or weird as others out there, it still managed to make me laugh and smile for most of the journey, and I’m sure the same can apply to many others as well. Now, if you excuse me, I need to go stare at the ceiling for like a good hour or so, just so that I can get all of the insanity out of my mind. Gotta be well-rested and prepared for the next time I try to play one of these games, y’know.

Game #551

Oh great, I’m reviewing Final Fantasy. A game that has been talked about for decades. While I do sometimes talk about popular games, it’s stuff like this I’m inexperienced with that makes me feel I shouldn’t really be one talking about the subject. I want to someday talk about a lot of the entries in this series. Besides the spinoff Seiken Densetsu, I’ve never beaten a Final Fantasy game. After all of these years I’ve finally done it and here is my story…

It all started with that blue screen that gives a small amount of story with a nice song to accompany it. I guess to start weirdly would be the music as I wanna get upfront and say the OST as a whole is amazing for the Famicom. It was composed by Nobuo Uematsu and it’s some amazing stuff, probably some of the best of the 1987 catalog of the Famicom. Once you start a new save I got to pick my party. If you’re wondering who I chose and will probably determine if you’ll keep reading or not. I picked a Fighter, Red Mage, White Mage, and Black Mage. Really wish the letter limit wasn’t four letters so I just ended up using the closest canon names they had. So began the journey of Zest, Puff, Floe, and Teol!

Surprisingly it starts off pretty basic, saving a Princess from a guy named Garland. First I had to get ready and it can feel pretty daunting for me as I’m not really told what’s helpful for my team. Even weirder is you have to buy magic and not get it from level ups so it’s off to grind. Battles seem pretty simple but wow you can fight a lot of them at once, it feels like it can be daunting at times but with enough skill, It’s not too bad. The one nice thing about having mages is I can rely on both offensive and defensive magic. Though this weird spell charges mechanic is something I’m not a fan of and I’ll go over why later.

The first dungeon is short and you can’t even get every treasure in here at first and even the first boss Garland is a joke. So I beat him and save the Princess but obviously that’s just the beginning. A new bridge is constructed and when you cross it, one of the best things happens in the game. You’re given a bit of text as the title of the game and credits are shown, really giving me the feeling of “Yes, I feel so ready to save the day!”

Now I’m off doing things following the plot, going into dungeons, and even getting multiple vehicles to ride in. You get one pretty early which is the ship which is pretty cool. The world isn’t too big but it still feels like a big world especially once you get more into it. Then I eventually found what would be the first main dungeon that wasn’t a floor only dungeon and wow I wasn’t having the most fun. I kept having to leave the place to heal and I began to realize having spell charges really limits what I can do in fights. Though later on you’ll learn Cottages can heal spell charges which is nice. Since I wanted to preserve spells for bosses, I ended up just running away most of the time which isn’t the most fun thing to do in an RPG. It also doesn’t help that the Black and White mages are as frail as a piece of glass. It can be a bit frustrating at times.

Still going through the world, there’s some cool things here and there and beating bosses with relative ease, even ones like the Kraken. I gotta praise the design of monsters too, they really look nice and there’s a nice variety of them and while there are recolors, it’s understandable. The art for stuff like the box is also legendarily great as well and they are unforgettable. Even the player sprites are good looking too. The world also looks pretty nice too and I like how some parts like the Town of Melmond show the decay of the Earth thanks to one of the Chaos Four. I got a little sidetrack there, my bad.

The more I went through the game, I did start to really appreciate all of the magic I could use and even grinding wasn’t too awful as I didn’t do too much of it even for getting Gil. There’s also a cool airship you can ride late into the game and it’s so fast and fun but landing with it can suck sometimes. You even get to upgrade your characters with brand new sprites and abilities and it feels so good to see this happen! There are still some issues that pissed me off. The worst thing in the game has to be the poison status. It’s not even poison being annoying but it screws with your team placement, I hate rearranging it every single time! This is also one of those early RPGs where you can miss if you direct a character to hit an enemy that dies to someone else which can lead to strategy and thought but can be annoying when you feel it’s too RNG at times who dies at what. I wish it was easier to view stats for weapons and armor as it ends up being easier to use a guide for comparisons. I also struggled with inventory management and ended up throwing a lot of weapons and armor away. The game is also known for being buggy but I didn’t really have any issue with this regard.

By the time I got to the end of the game, I was ready but nervous. I was at level 34 and ended at 35. This dungeon isn’t too long but enemies can be dangerous so more running but you have to rematch all of the Chaos 4 again and they’re harder. Oh that reminds me, some might wonder did I fight the Warmech? No, I didn’t. Sorry. Oh yeah I forgot that place also took place in space? That’s really cool. This final place also takes place 2,000 years in the past which is something I would have never expected to see in a FF game. Finally I got to the final boss and wow it’s actually that easy first boss from the beginning but now he’s Chaos. This fight is rough and worse of all he can heal all of his health. I thankfully had a lot of buffs on so I was eventually able to defeat him and the game ends with the world saved. It was weird to see the game end on the characters getting amnesia? Like should I not feel happy it didn’t all end well? Maybe I didn’t read it right, oh well the world is saved!

I feel on and off about this game. I want to think I enjoyed it, regardless of the issues. I could have talked about more moments and I know this feels a little too small of a review but I just don’t want to bore people. In the end, I think it’s a good game. I find it such an interesting game for 1987 especially since it could have failed had Dragon Quest III not receive a delay. FF would become one of Square’s biggest IPs. Two sequels would get made on the Famicom and I’ll play through II sometime this year. FFI also got some remakes which first started on the WonderSwan Color. It also has a MSX2 version with a fan translation. Though I’m sure nowadays the Pixel Remaster is the go-to version for people looking to play the game. It was a good start but I’m wondering how the sequel will fare. Guess I’ll have to wait and see. Thanks for reading!

Sonic adventure 2 is everything a sequel should aspire to be. The levels, bosses, writing, characters, and story are all greatly improved upon in this game. For a start, the levels in this game are all really great. Each one has its own charm to it and city escape is probably one of the best opening levels of all time. My one complaint is the grind railing in the last level, it's often clunky and very difficult to platform on. I liked that Sega cut down the stories from 7 to 2, I think it makes for a nicer game to play and not feeling like it's starting to drag. Another thing that makes the game a bit nicer is the lack of the hub world, in sa1 it was fun at the start but by the time you played the 7 stories it was just a burden to get through. I liked the knuckles/rouge stages more in this game than sa1, not sure why though. One thing I will say is there are TOO many fucking eggman/tails levels, like am I playing a sonic game or am I playing armoured core. I really think they could have cut down on these and put more sonic/shadow levels in. There's only 4 shadow levels in this game which sucks because Shadow's my favourite character (if you couldn't tell already from my previous reviews). This game is also a great introduction to shadow, it shows the kind of character he is, and his backstory and motives with maria which makes for a touching story. Whilst being stupidly easy like the first game the bosses in sa2 are still all really good, it's clear that a lot of thought was put into each and every one of the fights. The music is absolutely superb which is no suprise for a sonic game, each track is extremely iconic and memorable. One complaint I have is that sometimes it was like I was watching a fucking christopher Nolan movie with how atrocious the audio mixing is, half the time the only reason I know what they are saying is because I'm reading the subtitles. Overall, despite some minor flaws sonic adventure 2 is still one of the greatest games ever made and extremely worthy of 5 stars.

QUICK NOTE: If you like 1) writing reviews, and 2) free games, check out my Perpetual Steam Game Giveaway here on Backloggd!

Sights & Sounds
- Tacoma looks quite nice, but won't wow you with impressive textures, mindbending lighting effects, or ridiculous particle physics. The setting, however, is really quite nice. The titular spaceship isn't as expansive or richly detailed as you might find in a game like Prey (2017) or Alien: Isolation (it's more akin to the size of the ship in Observation), but it still pleases the eyes and serves as an excellent backdrop for the narrative
- For an artsy game this short, no VO work would have been a bit of a disappointment, so I was happy find that Tacoma is fully voiced. And it's very competent VO work to boot, with one of the characters singing a touching rendition of Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?"
- Other than that, there's not a ton to the soundrack other than a licensed song here or there. Most of the time, you're inundated in eerie silence, poring over audio logs for story, or listening to the rhythmic clanging of your bootsoles against the steel floor of the station
- Taken together, Tacoma's audiovisual design serves as a very effective vehicle for delivering the game's story

Story & Vibes
- As you probably ascertained from reading the previous section, Tacoma takes place on a space station. The player character is a corporate investigator who has been sent to the now abandoned ship to figure out what happened to the crew. What follows is a thoughtful exploration of humanity's place in an increasingly automated world. In fact, the events that you're investigating take place on "Obsolesence Day", the holday where humanity celebrates the advent of AI control over labor
- Corporate stooges stay well away; Tacoma has some thoughts regarding the C-suite suits that pull the levers. Effectively, the narrative prophesizes that those in power will eventually lose enough of their own humanity that they'll become more heartless and soulless than the AIs they employ. Similarly, if you're one of those, shall we say, "intellectually uncurious" types that doesn't like politics in their video games, you too should avoid this title. In fact, take up knitting or something and leave video games to people who actually enjoy them. This game has a lot of thoughts on the topic of worker rights
- But the narrative wouldn't be as good as it is if it were purely a philosophical treatise. You learn a bit of backstory about each of the Tacoma's six crew members (really, seven if you count the ship's AI). While their plotlines do tie into the game's overall themes, there's plenty of poignant beats that delve into their aspirations, fears, families, and personalities. It's really impressive how well the devs managed to pack so much narrative depth into a game that clocks in under four hours
- Despite the depth of the characters and the heady subject matter, the vibes feel lonesome and a little austere. You're all alone on a corporate space station, after all. And all that alone time gives you ample opportunity to consider what the game is trying to say
- In some ways, 2024 is a particularly interesting time to be playing this game. Now that AI (particularly LLMs) have become so commonplace, you really don't have to stretch your imagination much to envision a future like this. Will the AIs be friendly? Will governments try to protect humanity and our livelihoods? Can capitalism continue to exist when every worker has been replaced by an algorithm? Can humanity? Tacoma will give you a lot to chew on mentally

Playability & Replayability
- While the game is mostly a walking simulator, there are some investigation mechanics in play. As you follow your handler's instructions that take you on a data-gathering expedition from module to module in the Tacoma, you'll stumble upon various scenes that the ship's AI has recorded (with varying levels of file corruption). As your data is downloading, you can watch a holographic recreation of the events those scenes contain
- In addition to moving the game forward, these holograms will dole out the plot bit by bit to explain what truly happened to the crew. During these segments, you'll have the ability to fast-forward, rewind, and pause the recording. Doing so will often reveal moments where a crew member will have their wristband computer open; these can be investigated for more lore and keycodes needed for accessing safes and new parts of the ship
- In addition to each crewmate's personal device on their wrist, you'll find workstations scattered about the station. Be sure to dig into these as well for more backstory and clues
- Given that I 100%ed the game, I'm probably not coming back for a replay

Overall Impressions & Performance
- As a complete package, I was pleasantly suprised by Tacoma. This is one of those games that gets bundled all the time, so I thought it was just a filler title to up the game count of those packages. Instead, it's a high quality walking simulator with an excellent story that doesn't overstay its welcome
- The engaging plot full of intrigue and twists paired with the thoughtful exploration of political and economic themes was impressive given the 3-4 hour run time. It's as long as a James Cameron movie, but has much more to say
- Tacoma ran flawlessly on the Steam Deck. Given that the visuals aren't the focus, I'd say didn't feel like I was missing out on anything by playing on a portable display

Final Verdict
8/10. With how often this game gets bundled, it's possible that Tacoma is already sitting in your backlog somewhere. If not, keep an eye out for a sale. This is an easy recommend for people who enjoy sci-fi, investigation, or intrigue and aren't put off by an intellectually engaging experience