Altermentality
1993
Playing this gave me the conviction that it's actually criminal Nintendo will throw up games onto its Switch Online service for western audiences without translating them. I get that it's an extra expense, but hey, I'm paying them for this. It's honestly impressive how much of this you can get, even the little tutorials, without understanding a character of Japanese. But it sure would be nice to enjoy the flavor text, and I fear the lack of translation will turn people off from a solid, cute, very enjoyable little title.
I'm not a fighting game person, but playing through the story mode was really fun, and encouraged me to try out all of the playable roster (8 for story mode) as the various abilities for each might give you an advantage when you find yourself stuck. The last set of fighters in story mode are clones of your own roster, but more powerful, which seems unfair but makes it more satisfying when you beat them.
I love that the mascot is essentially the comedy character, as well. Still, drill guy for life.
I'm not a fighting game person, but playing through the story mode was really fun, and encouraged me to try out all of the playable roster (8 for story mode) as the various abilities for each might give you an advantage when you find yourself stuck. The last set of fighters in story mode are clones of your own roster, but more powerful, which seems unfair but makes it more satisfying when you beat them.
I love that the mascot is essentially the comedy character, as well. Still, drill guy for life.
Better than Letter Adventure because it has Cookie Monster, and Elmo does sick tricks with his jetski in the Land of Chocolate.
In all seriousness, this Elmo game and its twin are fairly amusing as a meme speedrun race for adults, but they emulate really badly (like, frequently crashing and freezing) and for some strange reason the N64 emulation community has not collectively worked very hard to change that. So unless you have an everdrive or the cartridges, it's probably not worth trying to make it work out for 20 minutes of gameplay.
As an actual game for children, this duology was perhaps more useful in teaching toddlers how to hold an N64 controller and navigate virtual 3D space than actually teaching them anything about reading or numbers. If you can recognize how a letter/number is written once, you can probably do it 20 times. p and q or b and d might be the only challenges. I dunno, I don't have kids yet though. When I do I can share this with them and see what they think, and possibly be the first person to actually subject children to this perfectly harmless but also unimpressive edutainment game in like 25 years. I'll get back to you someday.
In all seriousness, this Elmo game and its twin are fairly amusing as a meme speedrun race for adults, but they emulate really badly (like, frequently crashing and freezing) and for some strange reason the N64 emulation community has not collectively worked very hard to change that. So unless you have an everdrive or the cartridges, it's probably not worth trying to make it work out for 20 minutes of gameplay.
As an actual game for children, this duology was perhaps more useful in teaching toddlers how to hold an N64 controller and navigate virtual 3D space than actually teaching them anything about reading or numbers. If you can recognize how a letter/number is written once, you can probably do it 20 times. p and q or b and d might be the only challenges. I dunno, I don't have kids yet though. When I do I can share this with them and see what they think, and possibly be the first person to actually subject children to this perfectly harmless but also unimpressive edutainment game in like 25 years. I'll get back to you someday.
If I had a nickel for every N64 game where you get through all the levels and have an initial confrontation with the villain (who is a stereotypical green Halloween witch), but to get the true final battle you have to go back and get VERY close to full-completing the game, I'd have two nickels.
This game actually holds up extremely well... for the most part. The graphics are simple, which is all they need to be for a game like this, and there are a surprising amount of charming and unique details interspersed throughout the levels, with pleasant colors and textures. The music is great, but there aren't that many songs, and hearing the same relatively short loop for three levels in a row gets tiring, no matter how much of a banger it is. Apparently the way they got around N64 music limitations was just... actually making the songs shorter by cutting out parts of them, the "calmer" parts that made them seem less repetitive. The PS1 and Dreamcast versions apparently have more levels too, including more bonuses with varied gameplay, not to mention other features like voice acting and rendered preview images before levels. In my quest to play every decent game on the N64, I have once again fallen victim to the inferior version of a product.
Version differences aside- the simplicity of this game is another reason it holds up so well. The only buttons required outside of menuing are the dpad or stick, with A and B merely zooming in and out. Everything is accomplished by walking around to collect dots (including the classic power pellets that will let you devour your foes), walking onto switches, and interacting with other things in the environment. I could see this kind of simple appeal finding an audience in the indie market today. Yet even here there somehow manages to be camera issues, with a camera that often lags behind your movement. If you don't stop and wait for it to catch up, you can run into some rude surprises.
The top-down maze format is filled with block-pushing puzzles, which almost always involve TNT blocks that explode on a timer and will blow up other blocks in your way, but also the old standby of ice blocks that can cool lava enough to make a temporary bridge, and other types of environmental puzzles and interactions. Nothing is too hard to figure out, but it's fun and engaging enough to keep you going.
Unfortunately, this game has a massive flaw: the stringency of its requirements to access the final boss. You have to get the VAST majority of stars in the game, which are gained from either finding every fruit in a level, every dot, or completing a time trial. Let's talk about those first two. They can ostensibly both be accomplished on a single run, but for some levels you actually can't get everything until you've beaten the first boss (after completing every level at least once) and received a special key, so you might spend time trying to collect everything only to later realize you're gated off from initial success. What's more, there are often "points of no return" in the levels, so if you missed something, get ready to do the whole thing all over again because there's no way to go back.
The time trials, though. They remove all key blocks from the level, making them shorter overall (as there are lots of side areas you won't have to visit)... But even so, they are EXTREMELY demanding (with a few exceptions) and will require routing, practice, and near perfect execution- including avoiding enemies who will take time off your clock instead of damaging you. Depending on how much damage they would normally do, this can be as much as 20 or even 30 seconds. Your attempt could be functionally over after one hit. The challenge could be fun and rewarding but the investment rarely seemed worth it. You will have to do at least a few of them, so choose wisely.
It's easy to sour on an overall fun experience when you have to slog your way through the same levels several times, repeating the same puzzles, with the same walking pace and non-variable gameplay. Even just hacking off five or ten of the required stars would have encouraged people to revisit levels and engage with the time trial mechanics without ending up feeling like a job.
It's a charming and unique game which, due to its simplicity, doesn't really feel dated... but far outstays its welcome. By the end, I definitely felt the maze madness setting in.
This game actually holds up extremely well... for the most part. The graphics are simple, which is all they need to be for a game like this, and there are a surprising amount of charming and unique details interspersed throughout the levels, with pleasant colors and textures. The music is great, but there aren't that many songs, and hearing the same relatively short loop for three levels in a row gets tiring, no matter how much of a banger it is. Apparently the way they got around N64 music limitations was just... actually making the songs shorter by cutting out parts of them, the "calmer" parts that made them seem less repetitive. The PS1 and Dreamcast versions apparently have more levels too, including more bonuses with varied gameplay, not to mention other features like voice acting and rendered preview images before levels. In my quest to play every decent game on the N64, I have once again fallen victim to the inferior version of a product.
Version differences aside- the simplicity of this game is another reason it holds up so well. The only buttons required outside of menuing are the dpad or stick, with A and B merely zooming in and out. Everything is accomplished by walking around to collect dots (including the classic power pellets that will let you devour your foes), walking onto switches, and interacting with other things in the environment. I could see this kind of simple appeal finding an audience in the indie market today. Yet even here there somehow manages to be camera issues, with a camera that often lags behind your movement. If you don't stop and wait for it to catch up, you can run into some rude surprises.
The top-down maze format is filled with block-pushing puzzles, which almost always involve TNT blocks that explode on a timer and will blow up other blocks in your way, but also the old standby of ice blocks that can cool lava enough to make a temporary bridge, and other types of environmental puzzles and interactions. Nothing is too hard to figure out, but it's fun and engaging enough to keep you going.
Unfortunately, this game has a massive flaw: the stringency of its requirements to access the final boss. You have to get the VAST majority of stars in the game, which are gained from either finding every fruit in a level, every dot, or completing a time trial. Let's talk about those first two. They can ostensibly both be accomplished on a single run, but for some levels you actually can't get everything until you've beaten the first boss (after completing every level at least once) and received a special key, so you might spend time trying to collect everything only to later realize you're gated off from initial success. What's more, there are often "points of no return" in the levels, so if you missed something, get ready to do the whole thing all over again because there's no way to go back.
The time trials, though. They remove all key blocks from the level, making them shorter overall (as there are lots of side areas you won't have to visit)... But even so, they are EXTREMELY demanding (with a few exceptions) and will require routing, practice, and near perfect execution- including avoiding enemies who will take time off your clock instead of damaging you. Depending on how much damage they would normally do, this can be as much as 20 or even 30 seconds. Your attempt could be functionally over after one hit. The challenge could be fun and rewarding but the investment rarely seemed worth it. You will have to do at least a few of them, so choose wisely.
It's easy to sour on an overall fun experience when you have to slog your way through the same levels several times, repeating the same puzzles, with the same walking pace and non-variable gameplay. Even just hacking off five or ten of the required stars would have encouraged people to revisit levels and engage with the time trial mechanics without ending up feeling like a job.
It's a charming and unique game which, due to its simplicity, doesn't really feel dated... but far outstays its welcome. By the end, I definitely felt the maze madness setting in.
2020
Decided to try this game on a whim based on the huge appeal of a monster-collecting Metroidvania, where your creatures' abilities are needed to traverse the world. I thought the exploration was going to be the main draw, and the battles an afterthought. However, everything else about the game soon became outdone by the intricacy and challenging nature of its battle mechanics.
Presentation-wise, the game has fairly simple but effective pixel art. The humans are nondescript little pixel people, but the monsters look great and are animated well even in their small overworld form, which is important not only for battle but because every single one can follow you around. The monster journal provides some gorgeous pixel portraits that give you a more detailed look at what each creature really looks like. As for the music, it ranges from passable to rather good. I got pretty tired of the basic battle theme, which all too often interrupted the atmospheric songs of certain areas.
The main story is pretty basic, including a twist that was really easy to see coming if you're paying attention (although I would rather a twist be predictable than come out of nowhere with absolutely no way to figure it out), but this game shines more in the background worldbuilding it establishes, including a ton of detail on each monster, its behavior and its history with humans in the sanctuary. Speaking of which, the creature designs are in general very cute and charming, and it's tempting to just use a team full of your absolute favorites like you could get away with doing in Pokemon, but that may not be an option because if you're not putting thought into team composition, this game will kick your butt.
So let's talk about that. Battles always consist of three monsters vs. three monsters (with keeper duels featuring a full team of six, a backup mon swapping in when one of the active three is defeated). The interplay of abilities in your current grouping of three will be vital to victory. Each monster has a detailed skill tree, and you get to choose a new skill every time you level up (but there is a level cap so you can never grind so much that you just fill out the entire tree). These include not only new attacks, but plenty of passive effects. Buffs, debuffs, shielding, healing- all of these considerations are important, because this game is NOT easy, and throws a lot of opponents at you who actually have good strategies, and will wipe the floor with you if you aren't thinking through your own team synergy and actions carefully. In fact, the vast majority of damage done on a given turn (at least in my case) comes about "off-turn" at the start of your opponents' movement via debuffs like poison, bleed, burn, the chill-congeal combo, etc.
If it sounds complicated... well, there's even more that goes into the stats. Each monster also has a weapon slot and three additional equipment slots, all of which can be improved via crafting, you can feed your monsters to give them small boosts, past a certain point you can change your monsters into one of two color-shifted forms which confer different advantages... there's a LOT to keep track of. That's what makes this game so interesting, but if you're just looking for a mindless fun time unwinding with cute creatures (no shame in that!) this may not be for you. When I was stuck on a certain battle near the end, I changed to "casual" mode out of curiosity and didn't find it to be much easier, since the opponent's team strategy was still good enough to compensate for having less health in this difficulty setting.
That said, if you DO find a team comp that works well for you, a lot of this game can end up being kind of a slog, as you don't really need to switch up your team and you can get through most battles using the same strategy. And then suddenly the game throws a curveball of a boss battle at you, and you feel the need to totally re-evaluate. Still, unless you're playing on the highest difficulty level, don't believe anyone who says you absolutely must follow a certain team comp or strategy to get through. I used plenty of early or mid-game mons that I liked and managed to win without constantly resetting my skill trees to min-max or creating an entirely new team just to deal with one boss, or anything like that. I saw some people get turned off of this game by difficulty spikes, but there are lots of ways to get through a tough battle, you just have to find one that works.
As for the Metroidvania aspects, it does feel good to move around the world, and it's neat that sometimes the game gates you by a required ability and you're left to find the appropriate monster(s) by looking at the monster journal and figuring out which ability could help you. A couple times there were story gates with hints that you needed a different monster, but mostly it's up to you to figure out how to solve a problem, or if you're even able to at that point or might need to revisit with a later-game companion. Unfortunately, while some creatures do cool movement-related stuff, a lot of monster abilities boil down to simply activating elemental orbs, and most of the world's puzzles are based on... pulling levers to open gates in the correct order. WOW I got tired of seeing those levers.
To sum it up, this game is a very interesting combo of genres, and they might not always mesh together smoothly. Certain parts can start to feel tedious or like a slog, as developing too good of a team might have you suffering from success as you grind through repetitive battles. But if you're looking for a challenging RPG experience that makes you think, with some charming creature designs into the bargain, this game could become your new obsession.
Presentation-wise, the game has fairly simple but effective pixel art. The humans are nondescript little pixel people, but the monsters look great and are animated well even in their small overworld form, which is important not only for battle but because every single one can follow you around. The monster journal provides some gorgeous pixel portraits that give you a more detailed look at what each creature really looks like. As for the music, it ranges from passable to rather good. I got pretty tired of the basic battle theme, which all too often interrupted the atmospheric songs of certain areas.
The main story is pretty basic, including a twist that was really easy to see coming if you're paying attention (although I would rather a twist be predictable than come out of nowhere with absolutely no way to figure it out), but this game shines more in the background worldbuilding it establishes, including a ton of detail on each monster, its behavior and its history with humans in the sanctuary. Speaking of which, the creature designs are in general very cute and charming, and it's tempting to just use a team full of your absolute favorites like you could get away with doing in Pokemon, but that may not be an option because if you're not putting thought into team composition, this game will kick your butt.
So let's talk about that. Battles always consist of three monsters vs. three monsters (with keeper duels featuring a full team of six, a backup mon swapping in when one of the active three is defeated). The interplay of abilities in your current grouping of three will be vital to victory. Each monster has a detailed skill tree, and you get to choose a new skill every time you level up (but there is a level cap so you can never grind so much that you just fill out the entire tree). These include not only new attacks, but plenty of passive effects. Buffs, debuffs, shielding, healing- all of these considerations are important, because this game is NOT easy, and throws a lot of opponents at you who actually have good strategies, and will wipe the floor with you if you aren't thinking through your own team synergy and actions carefully. In fact, the vast majority of damage done on a given turn (at least in my case) comes about "off-turn" at the start of your opponents' movement via debuffs like poison, bleed, burn, the chill-congeal combo, etc.
If it sounds complicated... well, there's even more that goes into the stats. Each monster also has a weapon slot and three additional equipment slots, all of which can be improved via crafting, you can feed your monsters to give them small boosts, past a certain point you can change your monsters into one of two color-shifted forms which confer different advantages... there's a LOT to keep track of. That's what makes this game so interesting, but if you're just looking for a mindless fun time unwinding with cute creatures (no shame in that!) this may not be for you. When I was stuck on a certain battle near the end, I changed to "casual" mode out of curiosity and didn't find it to be much easier, since the opponent's team strategy was still good enough to compensate for having less health in this difficulty setting.
That said, if you DO find a team comp that works well for you, a lot of this game can end up being kind of a slog, as you don't really need to switch up your team and you can get through most battles using the same strategy. And then suddenly the game throws a curveball of a boss battle at you, and you feel the need to totally re-evaluate. Still, unless you're playing on the highest difficulty level, don't believe anyone who says you absolutely must follow a certain team comp or strategy to get through. I used plenty of early or mid-game mons that I liked and managed to win without constantly resetting my skill trees to min-max or creating an entirely new team just to deal with one boss, or anything like that. I saw some people get turned off of this game by difficulty spikes, but there are lots of ways to get through a tough battle, you just have to find one that works.
As for the Metroidvania aspects, it does feel good to move around the world, and it's neat that sometimes the game gates you by a required ability and you're left to find the appropriate monster(s) by looking at the monster journal and figuring out which ability could help you. A couple times there were story gates with hints that you needed a different monster, but mostly it's up to you to figure out how to solve a problem, or if you're even able to at that point or might need to revisit with a later-game companion. Unfortunately, while some creatures do cool movement-related stuff, a lot of monster abilities boil down to simply activating elemental orbs, and most of the world's puzzles are based on... pulling levers to open gates in the correct order. WOW I got tired of seeing those levers.
To sum it up, this game is a very interesting combo of genres, and they might not always mesh together smoothly. Certain parts can start to feel tedious or like a slog, as developing too good of a team might have you suffering from success as you grind through repetitive battles. But if you're looking for a challenging RPG experience that makes you think, with some charming creature designs into the bargain, this game could become your new obsession.
If you're interested in Mario history or seeing what some of your friends might have grown up addicted to (if you didn't have it yourself on GBA), this is a diversion worth checking out for a little while. I basically just played through every cup to get a win on 100cc and roll credits ... had I spent more time with the game trying to take it seriously, I think the more frustrating aspects would have gotten on my nerves far more. But I don't need to unlock the SNES courses because I already played way too much SMK growing up (which may be why I was primed to cut this game some slack).
Still, I think the aesthetics and track ideas here are really nice, considering the limitations they had to work with, and started to lay the groundwork for some of the really cool ideas the MK series went on to explore. Intelligent Systems brought the same care and creativity for the Mushroom Kingdom that they were introducing in Paper Mario at this time (even literally including Bowser's floating castle from the first PM game). Including their love of Yoshi's Island elements and stylistic inspiration.
I dunno, people seem quick to write this one off, but I think it has its charm. There's very little reason to go back to it, of course, except as a curiosity. See what it's all about, and if you hate the controls, it's fine to leave this one in the past.
Still, I think the aesthetics and track ideas here are really nice, considering the limitations they had to work with, and started to lay the groundwork for some of the really cool ideas the MK series went on to explore. Intelligent Systems brought the same care and creativity for the Mushroom Kingdom that they were introducing in Paper Mario at this time (even literally including Bowser's floating castle from the first PM game). Including their love of Yoshi's Island elements and stylistic inspiration.
I dunno, people seem quick to write this one off, but I think it has its charm. There's very little reason to go back to it, of course, except as a curiosity. See what it's all about, and if you hate the controls, it's fine to leave this one in the past.
It's impossible to be upset at Bomberman. He's Bomberman, look at him!! It's also kinda hard to be mad at his little friend Pommy, even though I want to be. And therefore, I find it impossible to say I truly disliked this game, or think it was some kind of mistake, even though I had to drag myself through it.
Let's talk about aesthetics first. Following in the footsteps of the other Bomberman games on N64, this game has some truly exceptional music, with talented and recognizable names on board. What's more, after you've defeated the boss on each planet (which comes a fair bit before you'll actually be done with a given planet), more instrumentation gets added to the world's music track, which is a really fun detail. The level and enemy themes also work pretty well, and are substantially more interesting than the first Bomberman 64's rather generic areas, taking you from a casino planet to an apocalyptic city in the midst of a zombie outbreak and gang war. Overall, the simplistic style of the Bomberman universe and character design ethos is a perfect fit for the N64's limitations, leading to a game with plenty of visual charm.
The thing that stands out to me most about this game is its ambition. There's an unexpectedly detailed JRPG styled story, complete with extreme stakes, and a surprising amount of dialogue. Believe it or not, I enjoy when otherwise "simple" franchises attempt this sort of thing now and then. The story and structure actually reminded me a LOT of Super Paper Mario, which for me is one of the highest compliments I could give something. I want to love this! The main baddie is an emo cowboy and there are are interstitial "at the villain's lair" segments, gosh darn it!! The problem is that most of the characters' personalities are one-note, if there's a discernible note at all, without enough there to justify their amount of dialogue or the gravity with which the plot later wants to treat them. Still, I'm not going to fault them for trying, and it was fun.
The game's structure is puzzle-dungeon based, and solving problems with the various elemental bombs you're given (and there are a LOT by the end of the game) can be quite fun. That said, with so many options, certain solutions can just as much feel like a guessing game. Why do my super-overpowered earth bombs not destroy this gate, but my basic fire bombs do?
All of the pieces were in place for a game I would actually appreciate and love, and about halfway through it, I was ready to say this was my favorite Bomberman game on N64, despite its flaws. But over time, the game's innate problems just started to build up more and more to a degree where I no longer wanted to play the game, and forced myself through it. (This echoed the two GameFAQs guides I occasionally consulted, one of which was less than half complete, and the other in which the author had to recruit others to help with later sections as they did not finish it personally.)
First of all, each level consists of a series of lots of little rooms, and enemies will respawn when you leave a room and re-enter. This makes backtracking for exploration or puzzle-solving a massive pain. But what's more, the game frequently uses the classic Zelda dungeon structure where you'll have to defeat all the enemies in a given room before the doors will unlock and you can move on. This means you'll have to be fighting through the same rooms again and again- and this means patience, placing bombs, waiting for them to explode, trying not to get hit or blow yourself up in often cramped spaces.
Oh, and the only time you can save is when you beat a level. The levels are LONG. So, you want to get started on a planet? Get comfy and grab a drink; you're gonna be there a WHILE. You'd best commit. Granted, I'm a very slow gamer, but I don't think there was any planet that took me under an hour. (An hour of praying my N64 wasn't going to crash, as it sometimes does.) Once you figure out what to do, it'd be much faster, but finding out how to make progress can stop you in your tracks for a bit.
The checkpointing in the levels is the major source of the time sink. Some levels are structured in such a way that you can open up shortcuts and paths for yourself which can be utilized between lives, but this is very often not the case, and any death will result in you having to redo quite a bit, including certain puzzles which might involve pushing statues around or the like. AND THEN, when the game DOES give you a legitimate checkpoint (as in a change of where you respawn), it's often so unhelpful as to be almost insulting, maybe just a room or two out from your previous spawn point.
Aside from these major structural issues, there are a number of smaller frustrations that add up. In addition to the plentiful amount of "power-downs" that spawn as pickups, there are enemies that, if they hit you, will remove all your power-ups in
a given category (bomb number, bomb strength, or movement speed), rendering Bomberman instantly weak or- worst of all- extremely slow, until you find some boxes to blow up that will tediously get you back to where you were before.
Now imagine all that combined with how many things in this game can insta-kill you, from spikes to water and lava (that you have to build bridges over while trying not to harm yourself in the process because every chunk of an ice bridge is itself formed from an exploding bomb) to simply miscalculating your wind-bomb-blast as you propel yourself over a pit. Or falling into a pit because there was a small hole you couldn't even see.
All of these issues add up to a game that feels extremely punishing, but Bomberman's little friend Pommy is an aspect that COULD make an unfriendly game much friendlier. Based on food you find in the world, he can evolve into a number of really cute designs, and later evolutions can damage enemies for you (while earlier ones will just stun them and frankly, he will be mostly useless). The problem is, on a regular playthrough, both me and my partner and the random person whose let's play I watched and the OTHER random person whose cutscene collection I watched, never got past his second form. The amount of grinding for food you'd have to do to get Pommy into a state where he's actually useful doesn't seem to happen naturally over most playthroughs.
Pommy can be controlled by a second player, and could potentially be useful at strategically stunning enemies even in earlier forms, but for the vast majority of people who aren't going to be able to recruit a friend or loved one into playing Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! with them, he pretty much just gets in the way and spends most of the time stunned himself.
But the absolute worst thing that happened to me is that I completed all the requirements to get the good ending and "true" final boss, but due to extreme bad luck in the final level, had something happen which locked me into the bad ending anyway, and which I would have had to replay about half the level to revert (and even then there's a chance it could have happened again, with save-scumming not being an option). I don't want to spoil the details, but that's a thing that can happen and you might want to look it up before going in. So I accepted my bad ending, complete with bad final boss which seems to actually be more difficult than the other one, and just watched the good ending on Youtube. I was ready to be done.
Upon writing this review, while re-listening to this game's soundtrack, I decided to bump it up from a two and a half to a three on sheer ambition. This is a strange, unique game that very few people have played or even know about. Even some people (including myself until the past few years) who've heard of it assume that it was only released in Japan. The game deserves love and praise for some of its mechanics and the amount of care they put into certain details. Like I mentioned above, I would rather a game be ambitious in its story and structure than a franchise constantly playing it safe. I just really, really wish it wasn't dragged down by so much frustrating nonsense, leading to an overall experience that's very hard to recommend. Even Bomberman seems to spend most of this game being either confused or pissed off.
Let's talk about aesthetics first. Following in the footsteps of the other Bomberman games on N64, this game has some truly exceptional music, with talented and recognizable names on board. What's more, after you've defeated the boss on each planet (which comes a fair bit before you'll actually be done with a given planet), more instrumentation gets added to the world's music track, which is a really fun detail. The level and enemy themes also work pretty well, and are substantially more interesting than the first Bomberman 64's rather generic areas, taking you from a casino planet to an apocalyptic city in the midst of a zombie outbreak and gang war. Overall, the simplistic style of the Bomberman universe and character design ethos is a perfect fit for the N64's limitations, leading to a game with plenty of visual charm.
The thing that stands out to me most about this game is its ambition. There's an unexpectedly detailed JRPG styled story, complete with extreme stakes, and a surprising amount of dialogue. Believe it or not, I enjoy when otherwise "simple" franchises attempt this sort of thing now and then. The story and structure actually reminded me a LOT of Super Paper Mario, which for me is one of the highest compliments I could give something. I want to love this! The main baddie is an emo cowboy and there are are interstitial "at the villain's lair" segments, gosh darn it!! The problem is that most of the characters' personalities are one-note, if there's a discernible note at all, without enough there to justify their amount of dialogue or the gravity with which the plot later wants to treat them. Still, I'm not going to fault them for trying, and it was fun.
The game's structure is puzzle-dungeon based, and solving problems with the various elemental bombs you're given (and there are a LOT by the end of the game) can be quite fun. That said, with so many options, certain solutions can just as much feel like a guessing game. Why do my super-overpowered earth bombs not destroy this gate, but my basic fire bombs do?
All of the pieces were in place for a game I would actually appreciate and love, and about halfway through it, I was ready to say this was my favorite Bomberman game on N64, despite its flaws. But over time, the game's innate problems just started to build up more and more to a degree where I no longer wanted to play the game, and forced myself through it. (This echoed the two GameFAQs guides I occasionally consulted, one of which was less than half complete, and the other in which the author had to recruit others to help with later sections as they did not finish it personally.)
First of all, each level consists of a series of lots of little rooms, and enemies will respawn when you leave a room and re-enter. This makes backtracking for exploration or puzzle-solving a massive pain. But what's more, the game frequently uses the classic Zelda dungeon structure where you'll have to defeat all the enemies in a given room before the doors will unlock and you can move on. This means you'll have to be fighting through the same rooms again and again- and this means patience, placing bombs, waiting for them to explode, trying not to get hit or blow yourself up in often cramped spaces.
Oh, and the only time you can save is when you beat a level. The levels are LONG. So, you want to get started on a planet? Get comfy and grab a drink; you're gonna be there a WHILE. You'd best commit. Granted, I'm a very slow gamer, but I don't think there was any planet that took me under an hour. (An hour of praying my N64 wasn't going to crash, as it sometimes does.) Once you figure out what to do, it'd be much faster, but finding out how to make progress can stop you in your tracks for a bit.
The checkpointing in the levels is the major source of the time sink. Some levels are structured in such a way that you can open up shortcuts and paths for yourself which can be utilized between lives, but this is very often not the case, and any death will result in you having to redo quite a bit, including certain puzzles which might involve pushing statues around or the like. AND THEN, when the game DOES give you a legitimate checkpoint (as in a change of where you respawn), it's often so unhelpful as to be almost insulting, maybe just a room or two out from your previous spawn point.
Aside from these major structural issues, there are a number of smaller frustrations that add up. In addition to the plentiful amount of "power-downs" that spawn as pickups, there are enemies that, if they hit you, will remove all your power-ups in
a given category (bomb number, bomb strength, or movement speed), rendering Bomberman instantly weak or- worst of all- extremely slow, until you find some boxes to blow up that will tediously get you back to where you were before.
Now imagine all that combined with how many things in this game can insta-kill you, from spikes to water and lava (that you have to build bridges over while trying not to harm yourself in the process because every chunk of an ice bridge is itself formed from an exploding bomb) to simply miscalculating your wind-bomb-blast as you propel yourself over a pit. Or falling into a pit because there was a small hole you couldn't even see.
All of these issues add up to a game that feels extremely punishing, but Bomberman's little friend Pommy is an aspect that COULD make an unfriendly game much friendlier. Based on food you find in the world, he can evolve into a number of really cute designs, and later evolutions can damage enemies for you (while earlier ones will just stun them and frankly, he will be mostly useless). The problem is, on a regular playthrough, both me and my partner and the random person whose let's play I watched and the OTHER random person whose cutscene collection I watched, never got past his second form. The amount of grinding for food you'd have to do to get Pommy into a state where he's actually useful doesn't seem to happen naturally over most playthroughs.
Pommy can be controlled by a second player, and could potentially be useful at strategically stunning enemies even in earlier forms, but for the vast majority of people who aren't going to be able to recruit a friend or loved one into playing Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! with them, he pretty much just gets in the way and spends most of the time stunned himself.
But the absolute worst thing that happened to me is that I completed all the requirements to get the good ending and "true" final boss, but due to extreme bad luck in the final level, had something happen which locked me into the bad ending anyway, and which I would have had to replay about half the level to revert (and even then there's a chance it could have happened again, with save-scumming not being an option). I don't want to spoil the details, but that's a thing that can happen and you might want to look it up before going in. So I accepted my bad ending, complete with bad final boss which seems to actually be more difficult than the other one, and just watched the good ending on Youtube. I was ready to be done.
Upon writing this review, while re-listening to this game's soundtrack, I decided to bump it up from a two and a half to a three on sheer ambition. This is a strange, unique game that very few people have played or even know about. Even some people (including myself until the past few years) who've heard of it assume that it was only released in Japan. The game deserves love and praise for some of its mechanics and the amount of care they put into certain details. Like I mentioned above, I would rather a game be ambitious in its story and structure than a franchise constantly playing it safe. I just really, really wish it wasn't dragged down by so much frustrating nonsense, leading to an overall experience that's very hard to recommend. Even Bomberman seems to spend most of this game being either confused or pissed off.
1993
The original Shining Force was a solid start, but as expected, this game improves upon it in just about every way. There are a number of quality-of-life improvements that are a huge step up from the original (you no longer have to open a menu to speak to NPCs or open a chest but can just press a single interact button, wow!) and the battles have been sped up. You also get a big overworld to explore, which increasingly opens up throughout the story, rather than being shepherded from one isolated area to the next in a chapter-based structure like the first. The only problem here is that revisiting old areas can sometimes trigger re-fights of battles, and that grind is not something you want or need in a game like this.
On top of that, the artistic aspects are (mostly) better, with the sprite art being even more charming and full of personality (you'll especially be wowed by the transformations some of the characters go through upon promotion), and the story being far more involved. It's still a pretty basic fantasy plot, and not everything pays off super well, but it's a lot less straightforward than the original, with more involvement and input from various characters. The story of a group of people driven away from their homeland and having to settle elsewhere is easy to empathize with, and the characters grow on you, from your legendary bird pal Peter (who is called "Ash" in the manual for some reason and is a MONSTER in battle), to your gruff but kind mentor Astral. I'm not sure if it was just awkward and unintentional localization or not, but there were some lines that made me laugh out loud at their unexpected bluntness. My only major problem was the terribly awkward ending (there is another review on this site that goes into detail). The first was so much better in the elegance and power of its finale.
As with the first, the strategy gameplay is sort of slow and archaic, but is still fun, rewarding, and relatively forgiving (in that there is no permadeath and your characters will just keep leveling up the more you fight). I also found less of a problem with characters seeming non-viable upon recruitment than the first game (with a few exceptions... I never figured out how to make Slade NOT suck, which is a shame because I really wanted to use the rat man). I played on the hard difficulty, which is actually the third most difficult (with there being two more above that - Super and "Ouch!"), and noticed a few difficulty spikes in an otherwise smooth experience. The chess battle was one of these, but also a high point of the game which forced me to think harder than usual and made some things click about the strategy of this game that I hadn't considered before. The first two Shining Force games rely heavily on positioning and moving your group as a unit- anyone sent out too far on their own can be easily punished. While it can take patience, moving your group as a slower blob and waiting for enemies to come to you, with careful consideration to where in the blob you position your healers and distance-fighters, is often the smarter approach.
Overall, this is a game I would recommend to those who want a comfy old-school RPG. Try the first if you're extra-patient and tolerant of archaic menuing, but if you don't think that describes you, come straight here. There's a lot of charm and, while the climactic act kinda stretched on for a bit too long, for the most part the game doesn't overstay its welcome.
Also the main town song SLAPS
On top of that, the artistic aspects are (mostly) better, with the sprite art being even more charming and full of personality (you'll especially be wowed by the transformations some of the characters go through upon promotion), and the story being far more involved. It's still a pretty basic fantasy plot, and not everything pays off super well, but it's a lot less straightforward than the original, with more involvement and input from various characters. The story of a group of people driven away from their homeland and having to settle elsewhere is easy to empathize with, and the characters grow on you, from your legendary bird pal Peter (who is called "Ash" in the manual for some reason and is a MONSTER in battle), to your gruff but kind mentor Astral. I'm not sure if it was just awkward and unintentional localization or not, but there were some lines that made me laugh out loud at their unexpected bluntness. My only major problem was the terribly awkward ending (there is another review on this site that goes into detail). The first was so much better in the elegance and power of its finale.
As with the first, the strategy gameplay is sort of slow and archaic, but is still fun, rewarding, and relatively forgiving (in that there is no permadeath and your characters will just keep leveling up the more you fight). I also found less of a problem with characters seeming non-viable upon recruitment than the first game (with a few exceptions... I never figured out how to make Slade NOT suck, which is a shame because I really wanted to use the rat man). I played on the hard difficulty, which is actually the third most difficult (with there being two more above that - Super and "Ouch!"), and noticed a few difficulty spikes in an otherwise smooth experience. The chess battle was one of these, but also a high point of the game which forced me to think harder than usual and made some things click about the strategy of this game that I hadn't considered before. The first two Shining Force games rely heavily on positioning and moving your group as a unit- anyone sent out too far on their own can be easily punished. While it can take patience, moving your group as a slower blob and waiting for enemies to come to you, with careful consideration to where in the blob you position your healers and distance-fighters, is often the smarter approach.
Overall, this is a game I would recommend to those who want a comfy old-school RPG. Try the first if you're extra-patient and tolerant of archaic menuing, but if you don't think that describes you, come straight here. There's a lot of charm and, while the climactic act kinda stretched on for a bit too long, for the most part the game doesn't overstay its welcome.
Also the main town song SLAPS
1992
Now that I finally have access to the Genesis games on the Switch (very few of which I had played because I was not a Sega kid whatsoever), I was recommended to check out Shining Force, at least the sequel which is supposedly an overall improvement. But I'm glad I started here so I can see that evolution when I get there.
The first Shining Force is a very archaic game in its menuing and the pacing of battles, and the information the game makes available to you vs. having to read the manual (and even then there's stuff that isn't really explained). It's a bit like going back to early-gen Pokemon. But if you can have patience with all that, there is a lot of charm here. I enjoyed the character design a lot, and the constant variety of people who inhabit this world and your party, from centaurs to bird people and more. Even the ones who look like humans might be dwarves, elves or halflings. The spritework is very charming and effective, and the localization is pretty solid despite the unremarkable story. The ending made me surprisingly emotional.
It's not a hard game, and battle strategy can be limited. A frustrating point is that you kind of have to commit to your chosen party members (you can only bring 12 into battle at a time), as if any of your characters fall too far behind in levels they quickly become useless and, unfortunately, if they don't do much damage to their enemies then neither will they receive much experience, meaning that you can't really make them viable again unless you were to grind an absurd amount. Thankfully, there is no permadeath, nor are there even game overs (you'll just get sent back to the last town if you lose), so grinding (at least grinding your already viable characters) IS an option if you're having trouble with a battle. Some characters do no damage even initially as soon as you recruit them, and might get stronger later on, but it seemed like it would be quite a project, so I tended to just not invest in anyone who wasn't providing an immediate payoff.
A fun but potentially annoying aspect is that the boosts your characters get from leveling up is random, and decided at the point of their leveling up (I tested this using the rewind feature once but after that didn't abuse it to get luckier rolls, though you could if you wanted lol). So some level-ups could be huge for a given character while the next one does almost nothing for them. You also can't make anyone too OP because their boosts will peter off and disappear completely (or almost completely) once they hit a certain level. This could lead to every playthrough feeling a bit different in which characters are your "stars".
Finally, this game appears to have a few secrets, as I did my best to explore and talk to NPCs but I know I missed getting a few characters in my party.
This game was a charming mix of tactical battles in between RPG towns and setpieces. Although it can be slow paced and tedious, sometimes too simple and sometimes frustrating with some of its hidden mechanics, I kept coming back for more and enjoyed the experience.
The first Shining Force is a very archaic game in its menuing and the pacing of battles, and the information the game makes available to you vs. having to read the manual (and even then there's stuff that isn't really explained). It's a bit like going back to early-gen Pokemon. But if you can have patience with all that, there is a lot of charm here. I enjoyed the character design a lot, and the constant variety of people who inhabit this world and your party, from centaurs to bird people and more. Even the ones who look like humans might be dwarves, elves or halflings. The spritework is very charming and effective, and the localization is pretty solid despite the unremarkable story. The ending made me surprisingly emotional.
It's not a hard game, and battle strategy can be limited. A frustrating point is that you kind of have to commit to your chosen party members (you can only bring 12 into battle at a time), as if any of your characters fall too far behind in levels they quickly become useless and, unfortunately, if they don't do much damage to their enemies then neither will they receive much experience, meaning that you can't really make them viable again unless you were to grind an absurd amount. Thankfully, there is no permadeath, nor are there even game overs (you'll just get sent back to the last town if you lose), so grinding (at least grinding your already viable characters) IS an option if you're having trouble with a battle. Some characters do no damage even initially as soon as you recruit them, and might get stronger later on, but it seemed like it would be quite a project, so I tended to just not invest in anyone who wasn't providing an immediate payoff.
A fun but potentially annoying aspect is that the boosts your characters get from leveling up is random, and decided at the point of their leveling up (I tested this using the rewind feature once but after that didn't abuse it to get luckier rolls, though you could if you wanted lol). So some level-ups could be huge for a given character while the next one does almost nothing for them. You also can't make anyone too OP because their boosts will peter off and disappear completely (or almost completely) once they hit a certain level. This could lead to every playthrough feeling a bit different in which characters are your "stars".
Finally, this game appears to have a few secrets, as I did my best to explore and talk to NPCs but I know I missed getting a few characters in my party.
This game was a charming mix of tactical battles in between RPG towns and setpieces. Although it can be slow paced and tedious, sometimes too simple and sometimes frustrating with some of its hidden mechanics, I kept coming back for more and enjoyed the experience.
1997
For context, I haven't played the other GB Castlevanias, but as a fan of the series in general, decided to give this a try. I'd heard it was bad, and I wish I could disagree.
Sonia has two modes: agonizingly slow... and twice as fast + invincible. You can only use the invincible "burning mode" once per life, and it doesn't last for long, but it should be enough to get you past the more frustrating spots and help you mindlessly blast through bosses. But as cheap as it may feel, you wouldn't want it otherwise; one of the shorter Castlevanias, yet also one of the cheapest, this game basically begs you to use its built-in mechanics to brute force your way through. I didn't feel like I had cheated myself by making liberal use of Burning Mode, as the game just isn't really fun to play except in that brief span of feeling overpowered. In addition, the adventure overall has an option called "light mode" where you can choose to give your file a constantly fully-powered whip. I didn't play with this, but wish I had, since there didn't end up being much of a challenge regardless, and by the time I was halfway done I just wanted to make it to the end.
I know people have praised that Sonia can change direction while jumping, and also walk/whip while ducking, which is apparently a step up from the previous GB titles… but the default feel is still clumsy, especially with the change in the subweapon system removing a lot of the player's toolkit and creativity. Something I normally adore about Castlevania games is hunting down the best strategic subweapon for your preference and needs, but here you get power-ups one by one after beating various levels, making the game feel very limited until later on.
This game has some annoying enemy placement (and they'll respawn if you scroll the screen, too), and is filled with bats that will knock you around before you can maneuver your horizontal whip to kill them. The devs also loved tall vertical rooms which the hardware cannot handle, leading to slowdown every time.
The final boss is a test of learning patterns and figuring out where to stand, which is... ok if you like that sort of thing, I guess. It actually made me feel engaged for once.
The idea of the first vampire-hunting Belmont being a young woman is cool, and I was happy to see my boy Alucard show up... until the implication that the two of them were an item, which was weird. It also makes the implications for the future of the Belmont clan weird. They really drive home the strong independent girl thing, and yet have to make sure to tie her into having a romantic involvement with beloved Alucard from that better game. In the end, I don't mind that this is no longer canon.
When I was in high school I had a MegaMan game on my calculator. That’s what this game reminds me of. This is the beautiful and elegant idea of Castlevania stripped down to its barest essentials, so that you might play it portably. Isn’t that cool?? At the time, getting the Castlevania experience on a road trip must have been entertaining enough to get some to cut this game some slack. In the modern era, only the most hardcore and curious of fans need bother.
Sonia has two modes: agonizingly slow... and twice as fast + invincible. You can only use the invincible "burning mode" once per life, and it doesn't last for long, but it should be enough to get you past the more frustrating spots and help you mindlessly blast through bosses. But as cheap as it may feel, you wouldn't want it otherwise; one of the shorter Castlevanias, yet also one of the cheapest, this game basically begs you to use its built-in mechanics to brute force your way through. I didn't feel like I had cheated myself by making liberal use of Burning Mode, as the game just isn't really fun to play except in that brief span of feeling overpowered. In addition, the adventure overall has an option called "light mode" where you can choose to give your file a constantly fully-powered whip. I didn't play with this, but wish I had, since there didn't end up being much of a challenge regardless, and by the time I was halfway done I just wanted to make it to the end.
I know people have praised that Sonia can change direction while jumping, and also walk/whip while ducking, which is apparently a step up from the previous GB titles… but the default feel is still clumsy, especially with the change in the subweapon system removing a lot of the player's toolkit and creativity. Something I normally adore about Castlevania games is hunting down the best strategic subweapon for your preference and needs, but here you get power-ups one by one after beating various levels, making the game feel very limited until later on.
This game has some annoying enemy placement (and they'll respawn if you scroll the screen, too), and is filled with bats that will knock you around before you can maneuver your horizontal whip to kill them. The devs also loved tall vertical rooms which the hardware cannot handle, leading to slowdown every time.
The final boss is a test of learning patterns and figuring out where to stand, which is... ok if you like that sort of thing, I guess. It actually made me feel engaged for once.
The idea of the first vampire-hunting Belmont being a young woman is cool, and I was happy to see my boy Alucard show up... until the implication that the two of them were an item, which was weird. It also makes the implications for the future of the Belmont clan weird. They really drive home the strong independent girl thing, and yet have to make sure to tie her into having a romantic involvement with beloved Alucard from that better game. In the end, I don't mind that this is no longer canon.
When I was in high school I had a MegaMan game on my calculator. That’s what this game reminds me of. This is the beautiful and elegant idea of Castlevania stripped down to its barest essentials, so that you might play it portably. Isn’t that cool?? At the time, getting the Castlevania experience on a road trip must have been entertaining enough to get some to cut this game some slack. In the modern era, only the most hardcore and curious of fans need bother.
I first tried playing this game about twelve years ago and didn't get very far, then came back to it a year ago from the beginning and got a bit further, and finally in the past few weeks pushed through from the beginning all over again, to the final boss. Now I will put the cartridge away to rest forever.
I mention this just to set a little background that this game didn't exactly have me captivated and begging for more. That said, it's a better game than you might expect, given Gex's "meme game" status. Bubsy this is not, despite their "oh my gosh please just be quiet" similarities. There's the core of something pretty fun here, just with a lot of stumbling blocks.
What's good: the theming in the levels is actually really fun. Gex dresses up in some cute costumes for each, and every level has a completely unique identity and assets. The music is also quite catchy and well done (although the overbearingly dreary overworld tune and the first world's manic Christmas-carol nightmare aren't the best examples of this, so it might take a while before you believe it).
The gameplay... well, first of all, this game was built with a D-pad in mind, and feels somewhat unnatural to play with a stick, or takes some getting used to at the very least. You can try to play with the N64's d-pad if you really want to. Really you should just play the PS1 version from what I can gather, for the cutscenes, better music quality, and because to put it simply, it was just built for it.
100%ing this game seems awful because of the fly tokens. Much like Banjo-Kazooie's notes, there are exactly 100 in each level, and they use the same system of all disappearing if you die. But unlike Banjo-Kazooie (with the exception of perhaps the last two levels), I would say it's a LOT easier to die in this game. You have to defeat pretty much every enemy in the levels to get all the tokens too, putting you in increased danger, because Gex's tail time is very much not the most elegant or dependable attack. Not to mention some of them are hidden in otherwise-harmless creatures you have to chase down (and they are great at getting away from you), or inside objects you might not think were interactable or breakable at first. (Or sometimes you think you've done what you needed, only to find that a certain object is actually interactable twice or three times.)
Another issue is that the levels will only let you do one mission at a time; like Super Mario 64, you'll get kicked out and have to come back in once you've grabbed one of your main collectibles. However, the level design is such that you'll often have to repeat earlier, more linear sections every time you restart the level, before you get back to more open areas or split paths where your objectives are actually located. There's really no reason that you should get kicked out either; as far as I can see, no matter what mission you select at the beginning, the most it does is give you a different hint cutscene, and the state of the level never actually changes. So you can actually go for any remote at any time.
In other words, this game takes a system from Banjo-Kazooie and a system from Mario 64 which worked fine for their respective games, and mashes them together in the worst way possible.
It honestly makes me pretty sad, because I do GENUINELY love the theming of this game, and if it was structured better, I'd love to have discovered a surprising hidden gem. Gex himself kind of grew on me too. He says some indecipherable shit but if he says anything truly offensive in this game I either missed it or it went over my head. But other than that, he's just kind of a weirdo who, despite how cool and hip he was supposed to be, gives off an "ok grandpa let's get you to bed" vibe. No one understands what he's talking about. But I also spout off references to my obsessions at random times, so I feel you, buddy.
I mention this just to set a little background that this game didn't exactly have me captivated and begging for more. That said, it's a better game than you might expect, given Gex's "meme game" status. Bubsy this is not, despite their "oh my gosh please just be quiet" similarities. There's the core of something pretty fun here, just with a lot of stumbling blocks.
What's good: the theming in the levels is actually really fun. Gex dresses up in some cute costumes for each, and every level has a completely unique identity and assets. The music is also quite catchy and well done (although the overbearingly dreary overworld tune and the first world's manic Christmas-carol nightmare aren't the best examples of this, so it might take a while before you believe it).
The gameplay... well, first of all, this game was built with a D-pad in mind, and feels somewhat unnatural to play with a stick, or takes some getting used to at the very least. You can try to play with the N64's d-pad if you really want to. Really you should just play the PS1 version from what I can gather, for the cutscenes, better music quality, and because to put it simply, it was just built for it.
100%ing this game seems awful because of the fly tokens. Much like Banjo-Kazooie's notes, there are exactly 100 in each level, and they use the same system of all disappearing if you die. But unlike Banjo-Kazooie (with the exception of perhaps the last two levels), I would say it's a LOT easier to die in this game. You have to defeat pretty much every enemy in the levels to get all the tokens too, putting you in increased danger, because Gex's tail time is very much not the most elegant or dependable attack. Not to mention some of them are hidden in otherwise-harmless creatures you have to chase down (and they are great at getting away from you), or inside objects you might not think were interactable or breakable at first. (Or sometimes you think you've done what you needed, only to find that a certain object is actually interactable twice or three times.)
Another issue is that the levels will only let you do one mission at a time; like Super Mario 64, you'll get kicked out and have to come back in once you've grabbed one of your main collectibles. However, the level design is such that you'll often have to repeat earlier, more linear sections every time you restart the level, before you get back to more open areas or split paths where your objectives are actually located. There's really no reason that you should get kicked out either; as far as I can see, no matter what mission you select at the beginning, the most it does is give you a different hint cutscene, and the state of the level never actually changes. So you can actually go for any remote at any time.
In other words, this game takes a system from Banjo-Kazooie and a system from Mario 64 which worked fine for their respective games, and mashes them together in the worst way possible.
It honestly makes me pretty sad, because I do GENUINELY love the theming of this game, and if it was structured better, I'd love to have discovered a surprising hidden gem. Gex himself kind of grew on me too. He says some indecipherable shit but if he says anything truly offensive in this game I either missed it or it went over my head. But other than that, he's just kind of a weirdo who, despite how cool and hip he was supposed to be, gives off an "ok grandpa let's get you to bed" vibe. No one understands what he's talking about. But I also spout off references to my obsessions at random times, so I feel you, buddy.
2021
Rarely have I gone through such a roller coaster of opinions on a game. I have been waiting for dozens of hours to talk about this game, waiting until I beat it, which... took me many, many attempts. I like to think of myself as smart enough, but this game made me feel like an idiot. Let me tell you about it.
Let's start with the undeniably good. The indie market may be oversaturated with pixel art, but Loop Hero contains some of the best of such stylings I've ever seen in a game. The sprites you'll see for the majority of gameplay are necessarily simple, but the artistry and design of the character portraits and story depictions (although there aren't many of the latter) are astonishing. Add to that some VERY good music, and this game's artistic qualities are simply top-notch: dark, sparse and minimalistic to set the mood, and hitting hard with spectacular detail where needed. It's to the extent that I'd recommend checking the game out for a while, even if you end up dropping it, just to get a taste of this aesthetic. It's haunting.
The story follows an outline that most gamers will have seen before - the humble human against cosmic forces bent on destruction - but it's done well and told with care and compassion. It's a tale of scraping by in a world that cries out for you to give in to nihilism, and literally crafting meaning from the shreds of purpose you're given, and that's the kind of story I can get behind time and time again.
So, the gameplay. The basic gameplay loop (har har) I found to be as addicting as it was often incredibly frustrating. When I first heard about this game upon its release, I didn't look too deeply into it, but thought it was mostly an idle game: set things up, let it run for a while, check back in on things, and so on. I picked it up recently thinking it would make for a good thing to play while multitasking. What I learned is that while this game builds off of idle game elements, and the combat and movement is hands-off, success requires constant micromanagement. Building out the world, updating your equipment, making sure you adopt certain traits soon enough to take full advantage of them- even just having to manually restart every loop. In earlier chapters, yes, if you're just grinding for resources, you can survive for a while by setting things up and then letting the game play out for a couple minutes while you look away. In later chapters you will want to constantly pause the action to build and manage, then unpause to progress, and there is hardly anything idle about it besides the combat.
If you just let the game run too much without micro-managing, you will die. And that's not the end of the world. But you will have lost the vast majority of the resources you gained on a given expedition- and this is a bad feeling. You have wasted a significant amount of time. Knowing when to bail on an attempt, so that you can go back to the camp and start building up cross-run benefits, is as important a part of the game as trying to beat the bosses. That said, while grinding will benefit you to an extent, any improvements beyond unlocking new cards for your deck are generally very small and build up agonizingly slowly.
This is a roguelite, but it's less about rolling with what's given to you on radically different runs, and more about learning how the game works, how cards synergize with each other, and what overall strategies are tenable for each class. To put it a different way: it's less about reacting on the fly, and more about solving an overall puzzle. Because of this, I unfortunately feel that there's little replay value once you've beaten it. You can always try different classes and strategies, but it's not like the game itself is going to feel like a radically different experience.
The game tends to take a "YOU figure it out" approach to explaining its mechanics and how map tiles can interact. On the one hand, figuring some of this stuff out on your own can be immensely satisfying. On the other, it can be hard to tell if you're just getting unlucky or are on the totally wrong track. I reached a high point of frustration with this game where it seemed like nothing I tried allowed me to get anywhere near the final boss. It was then that I started looking up strategies online, something I normally dislike doing as I'm stubborn and try to figure things out for myself. Seeing other people's builds, from minmaxing efficiency to things that seemed unbelievably impressive or just silly, renewed my appreciation for the game and the elegance of its systems. It really is one where you'll benefit from checking out videos, reddit or wikis- something I should have done sooner.
In the end, my final victory was a mix of both evolving my strategy and getting lucky; getting the traits I needed early enough in a run for them to be of immense use (there are various RNG rewards in this game that will either be near useless or overpowered, depending when in the run you have the chance to take them).
To sum it up: Loop Hero is a game of outstanding aesthetic value and mixed gameplay satisfaction- it often feels grindy and samey, but when everything comes together just right, you can stand back and look at the world you've created with pride.
Let's start with the undeniably good. The indie market may be oversaturated with pixel art, but Loop Hero contains some of the best of such stylings I've ever seen in a game. The sprites you'll see for the majority of gameplay are necessarily simple, but the artistry and design of the character portraits and story depictions (although there aren't many of the latter) are astonishing. Add to that some VERY good music, and this game's artistic qualities are simply top-notch: dark, sparse and minimalistic to set the mood, and hitting hard with spectacular detail where needed. It's to the extent that I'd recommend checking the game out for a while, even if you end up dropping it, just to get a taste of this aesthetic. It's haunting.
The story follows an outline that most gamers will have seen before - the humble human against cosmic forces bent on destruction - but it's done well and told with care and compassion. It's a tale of scraping by in a world that cries out for you to give in to nihilism, and literally crafting meaning from the shreds of purpose you're given, and that's the kind of story I can get behind time and time again.
So, the gameplay. The basic gameplay loop (har har) I found to be as addicting as it was often incredibly frustrating. When I first heard about this game upon its release, I didn't look too deeply into it, but thought it was mostly an idle game: set things up, let it run for a while, check back in on things, and so on. I picked it up recently thinking it would make for a good thing to play while multitasking. What I learned is that while this game builds off of idle game elements, and the combat and movement is hands-off, success requires constant micromanagement. Building out the world, updating your equipment, making sure you adopt certain traits soon enough to take full advantage of them- even just having to manually restart every loop. In earlier chapters, yes, if you're just grinding for resources, you can survive for a while by setting things up and then letting the game play out for a couple minutes while you look away. In later chapters you will want to constantly pause the action to build and manage, then unpause to progress, and there is hardly anything idle about it besides the combat.
If you just let the game run too much without micro-managing, you will die. And that's not the end of the world. But you will have lost the vast majority of the resources you gained on a given expedition- and this is a bad feeling. You have wasted a significant amount of time. Knowing when to bail on an attempt, so that you can go back to the camp and start building up cross-run benefits, is as important a part of the game as trying to beat the bosses. That said, while grinding will benefit you to an extent, any improvements beyond unlocking new cards for your deck are generally very small and build up agonizingly slowly.
This is a roguelite, but it's less about rolling with what's given to you on radically different runs, and more about learning how the game works, how cards synergize with each other, and what overall strategies are tenable for each class. To put it a different way: it's less about reacting on the fly, and more about solving an overall puzzle. Because of this, I unfortunately feel that there's little replay value once you've beaten it. You can always try different classes and strategies, but it's not like the game itself is going to feel like a radically different experience.
The game tends to take a "YOU figure it out" approach to explaining its mechanics and how map tiles can interact. On the one hand, figuring some of this stuff out on your own can be immensely satisfying. On the other, it can be hard to tell if you're just getting unlucky or are on the totally wrong track. I reached a high point of frustration with this game where it seemed like nothing I tried allowed me to get anywhere near the final boss. It was then that I started looking up strategies online, something I normally dislike doing as I'm stubborn and try to figure things out for myself. Seeing other people's builds, from minmaxing efficiency to things that seemed unbelievably impressive or just silly, renewed my appreciation for the game and the elegance of its systems. It really is one where you'll benefit from checking out videos, reddit or wikis- something I should have done sooner.
In the end, my final victory was a mix of both evolving my strategy and getting lucky; getting the traits I needed early enough in a run for them to be of immense use (there are various RNG rewards in this game that will either be near useless or overpowered, depending when in the run you have the chance to take them).
To sum it up: Loop Hero is a game of outstanding aesthetic value and mixed gameplay satisfaction- it often feels grindy and samey, but when everything comes together just right, you can stand back and look at the world you've created with pride.
True to form, I'm not as harsh on this game as many people are. I love a good Metroidvania, and while there's little reason to play this over many other options both modern and classic, I still love Castlevania and I had a good time. Yes, parts of it are a struggle but I enjoyed the survivalist feel that added to the game, and the immense feeling of relief upon finding the next save room. It still mostly felt like a comfy experience to me, despite how punishing it could get.
The DSS system is a cool hook, but I ended the game with only about half the cards, despite all the backtracking I did. As many others will point out, the drop rates for these are way too low, making the system much more difficult to engage in than it should be. I did find a personal favorite combo and get a lot of enjoyment out of it in the latter parts of the game. The built-in notices in the Advance Collection telling you if an enemy even drops a card or not, and if you already have the one for your current foe, are at least a blessing. On that note, the game essentially having an entire built-in DSS/enemy/item guide is cool as well, if almost feeling a little cheaty to consult too much.
Saves and warps are often spaced out in an awkward way that makes walk-backs to the nearest safe locale (or an area that you want to revisit and further explore) a pain in the ass, especially since certain rooms demand you take a circuitous route up and down instead of just being able to quickly get from one end to the other.
Final boss knocks off at least half a star on its own. Cool aesthetic design, truly awful game design. The second phase is all the fun of trying to swat a fly that never lands and keeps buzzing around the room.
My words probably say three stars, but my heart says three and a half, because Nathan is my himbo king who breaks rocks with his head, be nice to him.
The DSS system is a cool hook, but I ended the game with only about half the cards, despite all the backtracking I did. As many others will point out, the drop rates for these are way too low, making the system much more difficult to engage in than it should be. I did find a personal favorite combo and get a lot of enjoyment out of it in the latter parts of the game. The built-in notices in the Advance Collection telling you if an enemy even drops a card or not, and if you already have the one for your current foe, are at least a blessing. On that note, the game essentially having an entire built-in DSS/enemy/item guide is cool as well, if almost feeling a little cheaty to consult too much.
Saves and warps are often spaced out in an awkward way that makes walk-backs to the nearest safe locale (or an area that you want to revisit and further explore) a pain in the ass, especially since certain rooms demand you take a circuitous route up and down instead of just being able to quickly get from one end to the other.
Final boss knocks off at least half a star on its own. Cool aesthetic design, truly awful game design. The second phase is all the fun of trying to swat a fly that never lands and keeps buzzing around the room.
My words probably say three stars, but my heart says three and a half, because Nathan is my himbo king who breaks rocks with his head, be nice to him.
2001
With a brilliantly-crafted art style that still holds up, fun and customizable gameplay, and tons of charm and heart, this is a game that stands the test of time. The characters are loveable, and there are plenty of side-quests and bonus exploration you can engage in if you hit a wall on a boss in the main story. It's just a world that's fun to exist in. Would have loved to grow up with this one, but it was still a pleasure to play for the first time in 2023.
My one major complaint is that as fun as the voice-work is, the audio mixing makes it hard to understand what they're saying in cutscenes, especially if you're like me and have some struggles with auditory processing. The controls can also seem pretty ungainly at first, but you get used to it. Although some bosses and dungeons can seem like a difficulty spike, once you know what you're up against and figure out a working strategy - or if you're desperate, you can go grind for the next defense upgrade, weapon upgrade, or more health - you'll be rewarded with finding it wasn't so hard after all.
My one major complaint is that as fun as the voice-work is, the audio mixing makes it hard to understand what they're saying in cutscenes, especially if you're like me and have some struggles with auditory processing. The controls can also seem pretty ungainly at first, but you get used to it. Although some bosses and dungeons can seem like a difficulty spike, once you know what you're up against and figure out a working strategy - or if you're desperate, you can go grind for the next defense upgrade, weapon upgrade, or more health - you'll be rewarded with finding it wasn't so hard after all.
2023
Logging as "retired" because I'm feeling the addiction wear off. Nevertheless, this was a great comfort game for pockets of spare time in the past few weeks. I'll probably never actually place first and that's ok. Trying to beat rivals and climb up the ranks is satisfying enough. Running into people I recognize from twitch or twitter is always fun too.
I'm not a big racing games person, but for all the F-Zero fans out there, I hope this game proves to Nintendo that they need not invest everything in Mario Kart alone; there's a lot of value in this style of racing that requires a bit more "resource management" as it were (boosting = health) and a strategic mind. The style and setting of F-Zero also have great appeal, even in a pared down retro version like this, and I like the classic comic artwork they went with for this release (I know it's pulled from an actual old F-Zero comic).
Even if, like me, you're not big on racing, I recommend checking this out. It's a lot of fun and very addicting. If you already have NSO, it's free, so why not?
I'm not a big racing games person, but for all the F-Zero fans out there, I hope this game proves to Nintendo that they need not invest everything in Mario Kart alone; there's a lot of value in this style of racing that requires a bit more "resource management" as it were (boosting = health) and a strategic mind. The style and setting of F-Zero also have great appeal, even in a pared down retro version like this, and I like the classic comic artwork they went with for this release (I know it's pulled from an actual old F-Zero comic).
Even if, like me, you're not big on racing, I recommend checking this out. It's a lot of fun and very addicting. If you already have NSO, it's free, so why not?
Edit: After some further reflection and discussion with friends, knocking down to a 3 instead of the former 3.5 and adding more detail to the review. Here's hoping Wolf 2 doesn't disappoint, if it really does still come out.
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A story which keeps you entertained and hooked well enough to keep going, with some cool exploration and haunting atmosphere, but nowhere near the capabilities of old Telltale at their best. What probably should have been three episodes (or even just a smoother non-episodic story) are stretched thin into five, resulting in each episode being either surprisingly short or padded, or somehow both at once. Honestly the vignette backstory of the third episode is going to stick with me more than anything from the main plot.
I will say, as someone with no prior knowledge of the franchise, the worldbuilding they were working off of did get me interested in checking out the books or show at some point down the line, so hey! It worked from a marketing tie-in perspective.
What about Telltale's signature choice-based gameplay? Some choices that seemed critical ended up having very little impact on the plot, while major story outcomes were just as likely to be decided by stuff you didn't realize was important at all, as if this game is an exploration of the butterfly effect. Some plot payoffs were based on finding random items in the exploration segments (which were often quite out of the way), so I ended up getting some negative results just because I didn't want to spend a large chunk of my limited free time scouring under debris in multiple episodes.
A decent enough comeback, though. The game looks lovely and ran well, and did captivate me enough, but it's hard to recommend unless you just REALLY love this style of game: unwinding at the end of the day with an interactive story that isn't too taxing on the wrists. And y'know what? I do. So I enjoyed it. (Shoutouts to my friends at the Telling the Tale podcast or I would not have discovered that!)
So yeah, I liked it! Mostly! But by comparison with a lot of other story-focused games I've played, its technical polish doesn't hide the fact that the story itself is rather low-tier. The central romance does a lot of heavy lifting, but its ultimate fate is one of the things that falls victim to the "hidden" nature of many of this game's choices, being decided by some things you couldn't have possibly foreseen were related. You can see that as a statement on futility and fate being out of our hands, or just annoying. I guess that choice is still up to you.
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A story which keeps you entertained and hooked well enough to keep going, with some cool exploration and haunting atmosphere, but nowhere near the capabilities of old Telltale at their best. What probably should have been three episodes (or even just a smoother non-episodic story) are stretched thin into five, resulting in each episode being either surprisingly short or padded, or somehow both at once. Honestly the vignette backstory of the third episode is going to stick with me more than anything from the main plot.
I will say, as someone with no prior knowledge of the franchise, the worldbuilding they were working off of did get me interested in checking out the books or show at some point down the line, so hey! It worked from a marketing tie-in perspective.
What about Telltale's signature choice-based gameplay? Some choices that seemed critical ended up having very little impact on the plot, while major story outcomes were just as likely to be decided by stuff you didn't realize was important at all, as if this game is an exploration of the butterfly effect. Some plot payoffs were based on finding random items in the exploration segments (which were often quite out of the way), so I ended up getting some negative results just because I didn't want to spend a large chunk of my limited free time scouring under debris in multiple episodes.
A decent enough comeback, though. The game looks lovely and ran well, and did captivate me enough, but it's hard to recommend unless you just REALLY love this style of game: unwinding at the end of the day with an interactive story that isn't too taxing on the wrists. And y'know what? I do. So I enjoyed it. (Shoutouts to my friends at the Telling the Tale podcast or I would not have discovered that!)
So yeah, I liked it! Mostly! But by comparison with a lot of other story-focused games I've played, its technical polish doesn't hide the fact that the story itself is rather low-tier. The central romance does a lot of heavy lifting, but its ultimate fate is one of the things that falls victim to the "hidden" nature of many of this game's choices, being decided by some things you couldn't have possibly foreseen were related. You can see that as a statement on futility and fate being out of our hands, or just annoying. I guess that choice is still up to you.