Day One player, also Day One Kart player, it is a different handling beast than SRB2Kart and the tutorial does take a while, but beyond that, getting used to the curve of the new physics and juicing up the Kart with rings has been quite the new experience.

...I ended up playing six hours total last night after it launched. Six hours on DAY ONE.

...And a lot of that was spent online, as I've only completed four cups so far. It won me over.

Played all tracks in Power Edition- today being the first time I actually got to complete Advanced Reverse and Expert Reverse...the only two tracks that were missing for me to complete after beating the rest of the tracks normally in 2021 or so.

The coolest thing is to have achieved those runs with the Hornet of all things- which forces you to gearshift/play Daytona USA 1 style. So yeah, I can mark this one as completed...technically.

I think the only thing left now would be racing ALL TRACKS in Mirror mode...but I wouldn't bet on that unless I happened to feel like it again and get a good streak to beat all seven races again but in mirror mode.

First playthrough after years done- Tukikage had me lose several times but at least I got to beat him. The Bamsham fight will have to wait until I either somehow manage to survive Tukikage and everyone before him without losing once...or I accept using savestates to at least try that fight once.

AND HOURS LATER I GOT A GOOD RUN, FOUGHT BAMSHAM, LOST 10 TIMES, WON AT THE 11TH, AND THEN HAD TO FIGHT IT AGAIN ON MY TITLE DEFENSE...AAAAND SURRVIIIIVEEEEEDDDD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdrYej7IsqI

Baller game, very baller looking for the console it is one and very snappy to play- might be my favorite out of all the Punch-Out like games so far only because I haven't played the Wii game yet.

Bearing Arcade mode in LV8 diff was sure an experience. 44 minutes later but I did it with Yugo.

Kinda funny how the AI is SOMETIMES easily susceptible to throwing strings that can be evaded and punished with funny PPP string...but gotta admit that I only looked up properly how to Evade when Gado walling the life out of me in Stage 6 due to his attacks blockstun giving me little room for punishing until I started getting the hang of evades.

That aside, Bloody Roar is always pretty cool yah

2.5/5 because it still has Spikeout's gameplay and the SEGA vibes, new characters are cool, music has some bangers, but..

From the 5th stage onwards, you are going to absolutely get dogpiled by AI. You're essentially always fighting 1v3 against other players, but from there its where things get nasty: Try to focus on one guy and you'll get tackled by one or two more.

I spent too much time in Stage 6 and 7 just to complete those because of how common it was to get jumped, and even with the strat I saw in some videos that relied in using Lv2 Charge Attack > Throw [which is actually a strat in Spikeout too...except at least there you can stun enemies and bosses occasionally for a bit of time- here since its all player-like enemies, they quickly shake off it], it still takes a while.

Haven't beat Stage 8 yet, and I probably won't touch this in a while again due to that. Left on Shelved because I'm stupid and might come back to it but only because I saved a state at that stage to return whenever I feel like it.

Some bosses might be a tiny tiny bit baloney (AND THE STAGE 6-4 KNIGHTS) without the respawn invuln bomb spam trick, specially if you are on a fresh password reload without any fire powerups...but having that little trick on your sleeve to burn through annoying enemies and bosses if needed is not only really funny to watch but also helps with the run time whenever you happen to die to use it, and overall is something fun to use as the only game that has it. Reminds me of Sonic Adventure and the spam dash lol

That aside, its Bomberman. BUT IT HAS CO-OP, AND I PLAYED THIS THING THE WHOLE WAY IN CO-OP WITH A NEPHEW, AND IT WAS SO FUN.

First time I played it with him was in July 25, 2023, then hadn't played it again until today January 21, 2024 as of writing this and actually completed it. Two sessions and the game is done- short but sweet (had a password to restart from the last time we played).

Bomberman with co-op is such a simple but effective game not only because Bomberman itself is easy to pick up by kids, but also there's so much funny stuff that can happen when both are trying to get one enemy, or even surprises when your little nephew managed to ace that one last enemy remaining on a stage while you somehow ran out of lives. Even if many time its you carrying the stages, but teamwork is what makes it fun, y'know.

We even managed to complete the game, me giving a last stand to the final boss after my nephew died and ending the second phase without dying with the Bomb Punch, right as his dad said it was time to go. Still surreal to think that such perfect timing happened, but I'm glad that it did.

TL;DR: Play this game- alone it should be worth to power-up and survive with it or go ham with the respawn trick, but if you can play this with Co-op, then DEFINITELY do it. With friends, cousins or nephews, it is a blast that's easy to get, and really easy to get some laughs at.