Dynamite Headdy is a very mixed bag with some things I loved and thing I hated. Ending in a game that I felt extremely mid about.

As always, I'll start with the positives. Far and away the star of the show is the visuals and music. Not that I have a long library of Genesis games I've played but it may be the best mix of visuals and music. The colors pop on every level and every character and just visually a marvel for the early 90's.
The gameplay is super simple but the way they take your simple move set and use it in complex ways through intelligent level design. The levels aren't just great but several of the levels have amazing names, with the first amazingly named level of Toyz in the Hood.

While the level design ideas were awesome the gameplay is extremely basic. The upgrades are also very basic with most fights leaving you wanting more variety. Except for the few times the do give you variety which ends up being awful. What I mean by that is most of the time you or the enemy is standing still giving you time to aim and fire your head in one of 8 directions to hit them. Well sometimes the enemy is either moving way to fast to both aim and dodge. Or even worse the enemy grabs you flailing you around where you have to aim your head at the enemy while it's moving and you're moving (against your control) and trying to aim your head while that's all going on. It's annoying, infuriating at times, and extremely stupid in my humble opinion. I do think the difficulty is unbalanced, as sometimes it was a breeze to run through a level or boss and sometimes the bosses were insane with balancing dodging and attacking.

Overall, I think it's a fine game. I could easily see someone saying the love it but I could also see reasons people may hate it. If the gameplay was a little different I feel I would probably rate this game much higher.

My 2024 rankings:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2024-ranked-1/

Hm yeah. How many times did they make Super Mario Kart? These racers have contracts with a death clause or sum? At least, the game is an upgrade from 64. Holy crivvens! It's another kind of mediocre, taking some mediocrities from both ancestors, at the same time being able to boast about not having a Vanilla Lake 2 or Yoshi Valley in its midst. How cool is that? My boy Luigi can drift tho but only if he don't use the drift button. If you catch my drift. What a dreadful concept... they're racing on a road made out of butter, cut them some slack will you? I don't know what we're beating if not allegations. In 1st game fashion, everything is flat as crepe around these parts. I can see the horizon in the distance. I can see my future as a goon media reviewer. So, yes... the courses are pretty cool! Huh??? Trust the process.

These NPCs are NOT cheating anymore, the gadzookery they employ is fine-tuned and approved by the company. At what cost? 2 luigillion dollars. Who asked for the coin mechanic to be brought back? Intsys has priorities I wish they did not have. All these racers could embody the "your uber driver has arrived" energy very well. In Super Circuit, we trust in good 'ol Vietnam tactics as they've worked so far. Say hello to familiar old items and not a shred of creativity in making new ones. Damn. Controlling better than its predecessors with cool gamemodes on the GBA is its only claim to fame? We raced our way into an early grave with this one. We not gettin them good like we used to anymore.

Their voices are like, crunched crunched. Kinda sounds like the rusted hinges of the gates of Hell opening everytime I pass a racer, don't it. Kinda hope it doesn't affect my "SkillPoints.cs"😊 oh, but what is that ranking thing? I don't think it deserved so many parameters... who's the fucking nerd at Intsys that applied their Fire Emblem rhetoric to the funny kart game? Bring out the Excel tables chat. I've also tested that new Quick Run mode; I mean, I did not have my fill, might as well test something new, but it's just racing on tracks like usual. Wait, "usual"? That's the VS mode from MK DS! They deadnamed the mode 😭 this shit was not it Nintendo, never cook again. Other modes are the usual fair although I cannot confirm since the Super Circuiters aint wanna fw me in Battle Mode. AITA?

Let's talk about the menu... or not. Just sayin it looks nice. It's not gay to compliment a fellow menu, ya hear! Most of the time my pookies we're gonna be racing anyways. In either Mario Circuit, Mario Circuit 1, Mario Circuit 2, Mario Circuit 3, Mario Circuit 4- hol on, yeah that's a lot of em! The new courses are, graphically, hittin the spot. They even nailed the lighting. We're just short of Ray-Tracing in our good old GBA. It's also easy to navigate, more than you'd think. Why? idk, Intsys magic. They changed between laps sometimes, well we got that feature in the first game tho ahah. Shy Guy Beach/Cheep-Cheep Island is also my favorite piece of music in the series. The only problem I've had with courses is some like Lakeside Park are kinda fucked up because you can go from rank 1 to rank 8 if you accidentally go over "walls" that were actually ramps. Pokémon players on suicide watch

This is my favorite Zelda game.

After loving Ocarina of Time for the 3DS and N64, I wanted to play more Zelda. I can't remember if this was the next one I played, but it was certainly not too far behind me first playing OOT. I still remember getting an expansion pass and DK64 for christmas one year and getting Majora's Mask not too long after (I think? Or maybe I also got it on Christmas I forget). I played it and I remember just loving it. I had trouble with some of its time loop content, but I was absolutely hooked. I remember having a prima guide I would use for all the specific time stuff and all the stray fairies. I even remember busting that out in the middle of my Let's Play I did back on my (now deleted) old Youtube channel. I really loved this game but I also didn't replay it much at all. I played the 3DS version but as for the original, back in 2022, it was only my third time playing this game basically. Still, revisiting it then made me appreciate the game even more than I did before. So much so, I decided to bump it to a 10/10 because you its spectacular. Now though? Not only is it still a 10/10 in my eyes, but it will also be cemented in my top 5 for a long time I reckon.

The story this time around is the weirdest it's even been in a Zelda game to date. Link, after transforming back to his child self at the end of OOT, is wandering through some woods on Epona when suddenly two fairies spook her knocking Link to the ground. Then this masked figure appears out of nowhere, steals Link's ocarina and eventually Epona and escapes. Link runs after them, falls down a very trippy hole and lands in front of both fairies and the masked fella. Right away, this mysterious fella puts a spell on Link and transforms him into a Deku! One of the fairies leaves with the masked fella while the other is accidentally left behind with Link. This fairy is Tatl, the other fairy is Tael and the masked fella is Skull Kid we eventually learn from Tatl. Tatl wants to get back to them and so she apologizes to Link for the earlier instance and pleads him to help her in reuniting with Tael and Skull Kid. Once you go further and try to escape out of wherever you had been, you end up in mesmerizing clock tower of sorts. As you try to leave, a strange fella (that might seem familiar if you played OOT) stops you. "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" is what he says. This is the happy mask salesman, and he tells you he can change Link back to his human form if he gets his ocarina back, but he also has to get the mask skull kid was wearing and stole from him back as well. You then spend 3 days in Clock town, a town in the land of Termina, and learn that people of Clock town are worried that the moon above you will fall and kill everyone. If you look up, yeah there is a very menacing moon that is much closer than usual. You do some things around clock town that eventually lead Link on top of the clock tower. He gets his ocarina back, remembers the song of time, plays it and somehow gets transported back to the beginning of those 3 days. The happy mask salesman transforms Link back to the human form, while also turning the deku form he was in into a mask he can use anytime, and then when learning Link didn't get the mask back..tells him why he wants it back so badly. The mask is Majora's Mask, an evil mask with dangerous powers to control the one who wears it. Thus, it's up to Link to get the mask back in the end. He also must worry about the moon, that will eventually crash down on Termina, killing everyone. He must explore Termina to see how he could possily do that though. I'll spare anymore story details but yeah this story is very weird and also depressing because the entire time you play, you realize in just 3days everyone and everything will be destroyed by the moon. And for that reason, I love the story of this game. It's not as grand or as a classic of a story as something like ALTTP or OOT, it's more experimental and thought-provoking which I love.

Let's get into the general gameplay loop. The three-day cycle mechanic is something you either love or hate I've noticed. There are three days before the moon crashes into Termina. You can only stop it from doing so at this point, by playing the song of time and going back to the beginning of the three-day cycle. Any progress with quests or dungeons is reset and any consumables are gone from your inventory. The catch is, you keep stuff like ocarina songs, weapons, your masks, your dungeon items etc. I can kind of see why people wouldn't like this mechanic but with the song of inverted time, you get PLENTY of time per three day cycle. I literally beat every dungeon on the first day, besides stone tower but that was because I was dumb, so like running out of time is kinda hard to do I feel. If you don't know to play this song before the start of each cycle, I can understand the frustration tho. As it stands however, I really love it personally as it feels really good to plan out a cycle, get it done as well as other stuff if you have time and then finally playing the song of time so you can save everything you did. That's the other thing, you can only fully save by resetting a cycle. Owl statues let you temporarily save but if you reset the game again after owl saving and don't owl save again, you go back to your actual save. I personally never had an issue with the save system in this game and again actually find it pretty satisfying.

The three day cycle plays a big part in the different events that happen throughout Termina. For example, the only way to get in Romani Ranch without going out of your way to get a powder keg, is to wait until day 3. This is because day 1 and 2 has a giant boulder blocking the entrance. The only issue is Romani, who is the sister of Cremia that owns the ranch, will be all weird on day 3. She will just spout nonsense and Cremia is worried about her and only wished she listened to her before. If you want to see what she means and what happened, you must wait until you get a powder keg, explode the boulder on day 1, and you'll see Romani in the ranch all good. She says that aliens are going to come very early that morning to steal their cows, so you wait until the time she tells you and yeah you defend the ranch from the aliens until sunrise. Then she's all good on day 3. I know that was a long explanation for one side quest, and that's not even getting into the milk delivery one that Cremia gives you the next day and can only be done if you fend off the aliens, but that's just how a lot of the side quests are. They can be very dependent on the time of day and three-day cycle but as such they're MUCH more fleshed out and way more interesting than the ones in OOT. There's a reason people say they're the best in the entire series, though that's also because a big chunk of the games run time is all this side activity. It just makes the entire world of Termina feel so alive, even compared to OOT the world feels way more realized here. That's not even getting into the Anju and Kafei side quest that is easily the most fleshed out in the game.

This game had a very short development cycle, notoriously so, so they had to reuse a lot of assets including character models. However, with these more fleshed out side quests, and the fact the game feels all weird and a bit dream-like at times, I think the reused models from OOT actually maybe elevates the game a bit because of the atmosphere it provides. That's not to say everything is reused. There are still plenty of new character models too. In fact, there are several new Goron and Zora designs that I think vastly improved those races and made them feel more distinct. The biggest improvement to a race though is the Dekus. Not only do they actually have an actual location here, the Deku palace. Unlike OOT, there actually are distinct designs here like the Deku king and princess and the Deku butler. Just makes me like the Dekus a lot more than I did in OOT.

Something else that's more fleshed out in this game is its overworld. Termina field is way more interesting visually than Hyrule field, and the secrets are way better too. It visually looks better because of the four different regions making each section of Termina feel different. It also helps this game just looks a lot better visually in general, no doubt due to the expansion pass. The secrets aren't just random bombable holes. They're pretty much all holes still, but they're either just under a boulder like before or are open already and you just have to actually find them. Like some of them are hidden in tall grass and the only way you'd know is because butterflies tend to fly above them. That's not just a random invisible hole you'd only know is there because of a rumble add-on, that's a natural visual cue which I much prefer. Also, the main Zelda theme here is just such a banger and I prefer it over Hyrule Field's theme. The areas that branch from Termina field are all great too in terms of their secrets, though they were also good in OOT as well. Outside of this though, you have Clock Town. I think this is hands down the best hub world/starting town (whatever you want to call it) of all time. It has memorable characters, it has plenty of things to do, you go there A LOT and will learn all the ins and outs of it., it has it all. That combined with the impending doom of the moon, and the various dialogue of what they are thinking on each day. It's just so good. The dialogue actually can change in each day as well. By day 3, some characters could be cowering in fear knowing they are about to die while others have accepted it and want you to make sure they have no regrets. The characters in Clock Town honestly make the story.

Still on the gameplay side of things, let's talk about masks. There are 24 masks in this game and they all do something. Some transform you into races with different move sets, others are just used with side quests but it's up to you to learn when they're needed. Going back to the transformation masks, they're all amazing. You already know Deku Link is a thing but he has the ability to go into flowers that shoot you out into the air so you can fly temporarily and get to certain places. You have a nifty spin that's pretty fast and you can also shoot magic bubbles as a projectile. Goron Link is strong and tough, can actually use those aforementioned powder kegs and is easily the fastest thing on land because of his roll. Seriously it's fun as hell to just roll through termina field. Small tangent quick, I also much prefer getting around in Termina compared to Hyrule. Instead of having just an alright warp method, you not only have a much better one here. You can also use Goron Link to get around super fast AND if you have no magic or just want to play as Link, you can use the bunny hood which like doubles your speed. It's great. Anyways, the third transformation is Zora Link. Zora Link is taller and can grab some taller ledges (I think Goron Link can do that too actually), you have an attack that's basically the boomerang from OOT and the most important thing is you can swim in water. The Zora swimming in this game is phenomenal, it's very response and feels amazing to use and it's just super-fast as well. All three transformations are amazing, and I honestly can't pick a favorite. There's also the giant's mask which is used in one boss fight. Kinda cool but it's just the same as Link's move set. Fierce Diety though is insanely powerful and super cool, but you also don't get that until the very end of the game, right before the final boss.

The set of dungeons in this game are all great I feel. There's only four but they all feel realized and distinct from one another. Woodfall is the most basic and doesn't have a central mechanic like the other three but it's a damn good first dungeon and probably my favorite starting dungeon in the series. Very visually appealing too, and the boss at the end, Odolwa, is great because you can defeat him however you like. Do you want to defeat him by stunning him with arrows? How about with Deku Link? It gives you options which I love. Snowhead is maybe my least favorite of the four dungeons but it's mechanic of the center having a column you can change in size with Goron Link is really cool. That and it has easily my favorite boss in the game and probably my favorite boss in Zelda, Goht. It's simple, just attack him by chasing him as Goron Link. Simple yet a ton of fun due to Goron rolling being naturally a blast. Great bay has you changing the flow of water and it's honestly a lot better than the water temple because Zora Link isn't tedious like the iron boots. That plus the visuals and music, makes me like the dungeon itself better than the first two. Unfortunately, I'm not a big fan of Gyorg. It's somewhat tedious to fight and doesn't make great use of Zora Link, however it doesn't damper the dungeon itself which is fantastic. The final dungeon, Stone Tower, is the best of the four and one of my favorite dungeons in the series. It not only makes use of all three transformations, it not only makes good use of the mirror shield and the light arrows, but it's main mechanic is you can flip the temple upside down. This mechanic or reusing the dungeon but being upside down, is brilliant and changes the feel of the dungeon way more than you think. It can definitely be a bit confusing on a first playthrough, I was even confused on this most recent playthrough because I forgot about something (dumb on my part tbh) but the complexity and use of the main mechanic is just fabulous. It's a shame the boss of the dungeon also isn't that great. It's better than Gyorg and isn't frustrating as it is just easy. You put the giant's mask on, and hack away at Twinmold. You have your normal moveset so it kinda just feels like a normal enemy. Kinda cool power trip but yeah it's not as good as the first two temple bosses. Then Majora's Mask, the final boss, and its other phases are really cool and weird and disturbing but they are always so easy because I always use Fierce Diety Link which breaks the fight. It's an amazing reward for sure, you must have every mask in the game and give them to the kids in the moon. I also have to say I love the moons visuals so much, they're so surreal.

This game has my favorite OST in any Zelda game. It's so atmospheric and depressing and melancholic I love it. My absolute favorite song will always be Song of Healing. It's hauntingly beautiful yet full of hope at the same time. Honestly, it's in my top 10 VGM ever, it's simply hypnotic in how good it is. Another song that was always like that for me, is Astral Observatory. I'd literally fall asleep to this back in the day it was so calming to listen to. The Final Hours theme that plays during those last 6 hours are the opposite of Song of Healing, instead they make you feel hopeless and accepting of your fate. Tragic yet fitting for the game, I just love how many emotions this soundtrack can pull out of you. That's not to say there aren't catchy more upbeat songs. Deku Palace definitely fits in that regard and the Stone Tower Temple is probably my favorite dungeon theme in the series, it's so good. I can talk about this game's soundtrack all day, just know it's peak.

This is my longest review at this point and I'm really glad I could do this game justice. Back in 2022, I was trying to think of how to write a review for this game. For days I was putting it off, until randomly I decided to do a shitty two sentence review just so I can be done with it. I never felt good about that because I truly wanted to get my full thoughts out as I just adore this game. Hopefully I've finally done so here, and I hope if you did read this entire thing, that you enjoyed it. I have nothing else to say except play this game, you won't regret it.

Ahh, my three favorite colors. Black, white, and checkered.

Also known as green green and green if you're on OG gameboy.

Played on NSO Gameboy

This DLC put me through the wringer every chance it could. The bosses are the hardest in the game and a few I'd say are among the hardest FromSoft bosses. Despite that, the majority of them were consistently challenging while still being fun. The presentation and landscapes remain a staple coming from base Elden Ring with some of my favorite areas in the game coming from the DLC. One thing I'd like to say was a massive improvement was the music, almost all of the remembrance bosses had epic boss themes that seemed more DS3-esque. Also, the lore and story remain interesting and I can't wait to do a full nose dive and understand it completely.

I didn't expect this DLC to be so large, it's basically Elden Ring 2. It sucks to be done with it all but this is far from a goodbye. Elden Ring as a whole is the most replayable game for me, and to have this much new content with so many new challenges and builds to explore only adds another 20 years to how long I'll be replaying this game.

The dlcs in previous fromsoftware game were always without exception, the best part of those games, they even saved dark souls 2 from mediocrity by being genuinely good pieces of content. So does this one live up to the hype? Um.......kinda?. It's like what elden ring is to the franchise, has the highest highs in all of souls, and the lowest lows(not including a certain "frigid" area from dark souls 2 I won't name)


Visually this is a masterpiece, nothing more to add, it is firmly one of the BEST looking games ever made. Level design is at a all time high, the main boss fights left my jaw on the floor but I also feel like fromsoftware forgot the "tough but fair" title they so proudly had. This is just tough, fair is long gone.
The exploration on the other hand, is top notch. It's like your first playthrough of elden ring, you have so many things to do(and you don't know that a lot of these are reused bosses/shit items) and places to find and hard to wrap your head around it. It is magical. Very few games can evoke such a feeling of pure wonder from me(outer wilds my beloved)



I find it, as a piece of art, very authentic in its design. It’s elden ring at max, unfiltered, raw. For better......or for worse. It’s the experience that will make the fans fall in love with the game even more and confirm the doubts of the people who were critical of the base game.


And like it or not, Demon’s Souls is gone from this, please make your peace with that.


But I do hope this is the last dark souls-esque game/dlc by from. I will still be excited for whatever they make next since it seems I'm unable to get burned out on souls apparently and can't remove Miyazaki's dick out of my mouth but I want them to focus on other games. They showed that they can make competent games that aren't dark souls again(e.g. sekiro, armored core 6) so why not leave dark souls/dark souls open world edition alone to rest?

final boss is a troll fight. it was either not tested or intentionally unfair. it is a skill issue for sure, but ive beat orphan of kos, ludwig, ishin, demon of hatred, nameless king, sister friede, and none of them felt unfair. the boss fight just isnt fun more than anything. messmer and divine beast were great, they were both hard but fair for the most part, idk what happened this time.

i think, maybe, that everyone involved with the boss was just too focused on making the flashiest, coolest ending ever instead of focusing on making a fight thats reasonable. i think its probably my least favorite fight in any of the souls games i've played (DS1, DS3 n DLC, Bloodborne n DLC, Sekiro, this fucking game) right next to Malenia. i can either cheese them in 2 minutes or beat them in 10 hours. either way its not enjoyable, i dont fucking care if im just not good enough.

honestly i think half of the game's issues with its bosses would be fixed if the camera is moved further back for certain bosses. if the boss is too quick, or too big, just move the camera back so i can actually see whats happening. i mean that literally happens in Sekiro, idk why its not in here. like i want to enjoy messmer and divine beast more than i do but 20% of the time i cannot tell whats going on.

the leveling system for the land of shadow is also complete dog shit. if a boss is too hard because the bosses are intentionally juiced to kill you instantly, you can grind to make them easier but instead of killing mobs you just walk around and find little pieces of trash that make the bosses easier its so dumb.

im not willing to be negative overall because of the occasional poor boss design. everything else is as good as anything from has ever done. but the bosses are most of the appeal of a fromsoft game, its a problem if the final boss of the game just kicks you in the teeth without a fight.

one more thing, this dlc is 40 dollars. you can get bloodborne for 10. you can get dark souls 2 and all its dlc for the same price as this. you can get dark souls remastered for the same price as this. like there is no world you can justify this dlc alone being 4 times as expensive as bloodborne. im honestly surprised this hasnt been discussed at all.