Castlevania: Rondo of Blood is about a young girl named Maria Bernard on her quest to rescue her friends from Dracula's clutches and-wait what? It's about Richter Belmont rescuing his girlfriend and other maidens from Dracula's clutches? Ah well you see, there's one slight issue with that. Richter controls like garbage. Slow, clunky, attacks barely hit. Which is why you do the smart thing: rescue Maria and then play the rest of the game as her. Maria actually controls well, her attacks hit and she's got added mobility that make the game infinitely more fun. It's also just really funny seeing all these horrors from the dark being defeated by a little girl.

As far as the game's difficulty goes, it's bullshit when you're playing as Richter cause he sucks but it's actually fair and balanced when you're playing as Maria. The levels are nice and short so even though this game has cringe knockback damage and game-overs force you to do the level all over again, it's never really an issue since you can quickly get back to where you were.....provided you're playing as Maria. Feels like that girl was made for speedrunning tbh. Also i wanna give a quick shoutout to the music, it is very based.

I played this game through the Requiem port that i bought for $5. It's decent action platformer with.....as long as you're playing as Maria. Oh and maybe look up a guide if you want everything, some of it's rather cryptic.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is a banger. Playing this game after Zelda 1 was an interesting experience, as it's the complete antithesis of that game's philosophy. In fact, in general, it has some deviations from the "traditional Zelda formula", mainly being how mechanically-focused the game is and the world's been dungefied. Stuff that really adds to this game's strengths.

I'm willing to say that this game probably has the best overall collection of dungeons in the series, maybe tied with Oracle of Ages. They are a lot shorter but they are way more focused. While the first two dungeons may not blow anyone away, the game brings it's S-tier dungeon design from the Lanayru Mining Facility onwards. Lanayru in particular just has the best dungeons because of Timeshift Stones. The Sandship deadass is on par with Stone Tower Temple from Majora's Mask imo, although i'd still give the edge to the latter for music. Speaking of, this is the first game i can say where most of the dungeon themes were actually good. Even Oracle of Ages didn't have this much good songs in it.

Combat is more involved than ever in this game, as this time your precision matters, as opposed to simply slashing away like in the rest of the series. The items are less offensively used but they allow for more utility, which fits in line with how mechanically focused this game is. Beetle an S-tier item.

Skyward Sword also just has a good narrative and i think with the soundtrack, it hits better than most Zelda narratives. Majora's Mask still clears but Skyward Sword managed to put it's story front and center in a way that didn't really bog it down like Twilight Princess did. It may have to do with the fact that Skyward Sword isn't really "traditionally Zelda". I mean maybe in the loosest sense but this is like calling Majora's Mask "traditionally Zelda". Girahim is great. Groose is the GOAT. This game probably has the best incarnation of Zelda? She's really good in this one, Spirit Tracks Zelda may rival her but lol, touch screen controls. Remake that game with actual controls like you did with this one Nintendo.

I will say though, i think the last stretch of the game was definitely padding. You have to make two mandatory revisits to each area. The first revisit has you doing the Silent Realms, which are great, followed by the next dungeon. The third revisit? Ehhhhh the only one that was actually interesting on the third revisit was the Faron Woods, when it gets impossibly flooded. Going back to Lanayru for the Gorge and going up Eldin Volcano a third time (Eldin just drew the short stick) was not great, although i will say that the Imprisoned Fights weren't as bad as people say they were. It's annoying but not terribly so. I'd rather that than hunt bugs in Twilight Princess again.

Idk how to end this one. Skyward Sword is a great game.
.....oh and yeah, i played with the updated button controls. Way better.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Walkthrough (because you're gonna need one)

This is the Zelda game that set the series formula into motion. I played this a while back as a kid and i thought i beat it but apparently i was misremembering. At any rate, I wanted to see how the game held up.

To start with what i like about the game, the opening is really damn good. Excellent. The rest? Well........i don't think it's that good tbh. Visually it holds up, the soundtrack is good, albeit repetitive. But the title to this review is not an exaggeration. So much shit is hidden from you for no reason. There are dungeons that require you to get something on the other end of the map just so you can enter it. Some dungeons like Skull Woods and Misery Mire quite literally have filler rooms, used to make the dungeons go on longer than they are. You can only use one item at a time which i'm not sure how much of that can be blamed on the SNES. Because there's four face buttons, i'm sure there's room. This leads to a lot of menuing that's kind of annoying. The dungeons themselves aren't anything special but like the series was taking it's first solid steps here so i won't hold it against it.

The breaking point is the last stretch of the game. This game's incarnation of Turtle Rock is a hot sack of dogshit. At the start, Zelda tells you "maybe you should get some magic potion" but with how the dungeon is designed, that feels more like a suggestion, because there's magic pick ups a lot. Turns out the boss of the dungeon will outlast your magic meter and there are no drops in the dungeon. So basically the devs told the player that after that long-ass trek to get to Turtle Rock, they should backtrack to get magic potion if they don't have it. But the final nail in the coffin is Ganon. Ganon, unlike the rest of the game, is actually hard. Not for good reasons though. The Golden Sword makes the fight easier but you need the Silver Arrows to actually kill him in the end. Does the game at any point tell you this? No. Maybe in the manual. Are the Silver Arrows in a spot that the player would come across naturally if they are that important? No. Not really. And i think this is why i never actually beat the game all those years ago. Cause of shit like this. So i just looked up the ending.

Like fellow classic SNES title Super Metroid, this game is very much a certified "walkthrough game", given it's a 90s game. But whereas Super Metroid still had a very good core gameplay, A Link to the Past is......honestly i'd put like half the series above it. A Link Between Worlds is just this game but way, way better and between me calling Ocarina of Time mid and now saying A Link to the Past is not that good, i fully expect to be executed at dawn tomorrow. It's been fun.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages is a fun time. This is the game that i chose to do the Linked run after playing Oracle of Ages and it's pretty good. Zelda's never really done overarching plots, even the direct sequels in the series are still standalone. So seeing something like that here is pretty neat.

I don't have too much to say about this one compared to Oracle of Ages. It's a lot simpler, focusing more on the combat than the puzzles. The item selection in this game is not that spectacular, apart from the Magnetic Gloves, which allow you to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow, and it was the most interesting implementation of magnetism in the series until Breath of the Wild's Magnesis (i say that like Zelda's dabbled in magnetics more than twice).

The game, like Ages, is still a certified walkthrough game because the tiny GameBoy screen makes it impossible to see what's ahead of you. However, this game is far tamer on that, there's nothing as bad as Crescent Island or Rolling Ridges here. Likely because it was intended as a Zelda 1 remake originally, the game doesn't really ask much of you to enter it's dungeons. Speaking of, like Ages, some of the dungeon songs are bangers, most notably Ancient Tower.

Any gripes i have with this game are the same as Ages. A lot of it is just GameBoy moment. Menuing being annoying, navigation being ass, stuff like that. Give this game the Link's Awakening HD treatment please.

I think Ages is superior but Seasons is definitely the simpler one to get into and i don't think that's bad at all. Reading up on the Linked differences, i'd also say your experience with this game is enhanced if you play Ages first (even if Nintendo claims Seasons happened first).

Luigi's Mansion 3 is a pretty fun game. There's honestly not a whole lot i can say about it if i'm being perfectly honest. It looks great, it plays great, i liked the set piece variety in most of the floors. The puzzles are fine for what this game is, they aren't complex at all and the hardest ones are still easier than the easiest Zelda puzzles. In another game, i would've complained about it but most of this game is just going from room to room, sucking up ghosts and finding the elevator button to advance to the next stage.

If there's one big issue i have with this game, it's filler. More than once, you'll be forced to backtrack to a previous floor and this always, always happens right after you unlock the next floor. And it's never justified, it exists purely for padding. Other times, there are floors that look neat visually but it's just a glorified boss room, which is disappointing in my opinion. There's also a certain gimmicky boss fight with just horrendous controls that it's easily the worst part of the game.

But besides all that, this game is fine. It ain't gonna blow your mind but it has charm. It also has a Kaiju fight sequence so bonus points.

First game i beat in 2022 and man, it is a good one. I was introduced to Vanillaware through the masterpiece that is 13 Sentinels but i've known that that game is a departure from what these guy usually do. Luckily a friend of mine gifted me Muramasa (along with fellow Vanillaware game Odin Sphere Leifthrasir) for Christmas and after a few days, i finally beat it. And boy, this game is pretty good.

As far as the visuals goes, this is easily one of the prettiest 2D games i've ever played. I know hand-drawn 2D art is Vanillaware's MO but it admittedly did not shine in it's full potential in 13 Sentinels. While the art in 13 Sentinels is pretty good, i feel like this game showed me what Vanillaware is truly capable of when it comes to 2D art. I would often be staring at the backgrounds of levels just because it was so neat and it helps that this game has a killer soundtrack as well, one that's better than what is in 13 Sentinels (even if that one was also good). I'm looking forward to seeing more of this talent when i eventually get to Odin Sphere.

Gameplay-wise, it is admittedly pretty braindead. I did not get any game overs at all until near the end. However, this made it for a great game to unwind with after coming home from work so the easy difficulty is absolutely fine here. Unwinding after a long day by cutting through legions of enemies will always be fun and, to make a comparison, the more i played it, the more i was feeling like "man, this is just Tales LMBS combat but actually good and fun to play". There is a harder difficulty as well but i did get bodied when i switched to it so i never really played the game on it. However, what i don't like about the gameplay is the level restrictions on all the Muramasas you can craft. On one hand, it's to prevent you from just saving up and crafting the most powerful one but on the other hand, like 70% of them are unusable unless you grind a lot in the optional Caves of Evil. It does not help that you need to be at a very high level to even view the alternate endings for each character, something that in the end, i just watched on YouTube. Ending rankings btw are Kisuke 2 > Momohime 2 > Kisuke 3 > Kisuke 1 = Momohime 1 > Momohime 3

Speaking of the plot, it's definitely not the point of the game. It was interesting coming from 13 Sentinels, a very heavy plot game, to this, where the plot is basically a non-factor. But that's ok, what's here works. It's honestly comparable to an Inti Creates game, even if i'm generally more invested in Inti Creates plots and characters.

If you're looking for a short and quick game to play, definitely check this one out.

Vanillaware i thank you for the meal. They once again did not miss. An excellently crafted SRPG with fun characters, good music, and of course, fantastic visuals. All of this formed to create a game that asked a very bold question: what if Genealogy of the Holy War was good?

Honestly despite the format obviously being different, that's not a joke. This game very much feels like FE4 in some ways and given the devs' obvious love for Fire Emblem (Alain is literally Marth), it makes sense for there to be some interesting similarities. The battles all take place on the overworld itself. The terrain that you see, the areas, that's what you're fighting on. The goal each time is to capture the enemy's main command post while defending your own and capturing outposts in between. It manages to convey that epic warfare feeling and actually gives weight to the whole "liberating" thing. I found myself looking to each battle and i legit started getting a bit disappointed when i knew i was running out of fights. Because it's just so good. The sheer flexibility that's on display here really allows this game to be replayed an endless amount of ways i think.

What i really like about the combat is that the battle forecast tells you exactly what will happen in that instance. It makes sense, given the sheer variety of factors that go into determining an outcome. Because the stages are real time, there's more that goes into the strategy than simply just parking your gigachad unit in a good spot and having enemies suicide on them. While there's normally no permadeath, the game still discourages suicide tactics since stamina limits how many times a squad can attack. Squads with zero stamina can't move, which isn't something you want happen to you in a real-time game. The enemy also plays by these rules though. Honestly, that goes for pretty much the entire game. Save for specific bosses, i don't think there's anything the enemy has that you don't.

Continuing on the gameplay, the classes all rock. Well almost all of them. But even the worst ones still fill their niches quite well and certainly have more versatility than Fire Emblem classes. For example, Armor Knights can actually do things. And the thing that helps all this versatility is that each class has both skills for in and out of combat (that is, map effects). For example, Armor Knights can negate damage taken from out of battle effects. Archers can make arrows rain down for AoE, bypassing enemy defenses because it's on the map. Witches can teleport the whole squad. There's quite a lot.

This write-up honestly doesn't cover all of it. Play the demo to get an idea.

When it comes to writing, there is a bit of a divide here. Is the writing as good as 13 Sentinels? lol no. 13 Sentinels' is still Vanillaware's magnum opus when it comes to storytelling. That said, there's a lot of elements to like here. The cast of characters is great and memorable and i like the game's take on Fire Emblem's Support system more than how Fire Emblem does it. I think Fire Emblem could learn something here, as Unicorn Overlord doesn't force it's Supports to completely stretch each conversation into the full CBA chain. I haven't gone through all the convos yet but i don't think there's a single character i dislike here. I also think the director is incredibly based for allowing every recruitable character to be recruited in one run. The game is inspired by Ogre Battle but not it's cryptic as hell character recruitment methods.

The game also has pretty good worldbuilding. You can get that through the convos, the Side Quests or just reading up the logs. Basically every location, however big or small, gets an entry and it does a good job at making the world feel alive. On the visual aspect, each country is very distinct from each other. I believe that visuals itself can serve as a form of worldbuilding, just look at Xenoblade. All of these elements, in my opinion, help support the main plot. The main plot itself is pretty basic but this is one of those games where you really don't get the full experience if you only stick to the main plot.

I really don't have anything really negative to say about this game. I do have a few minor nitpicks however. The Tactics system, as robust as it is, could've had a bit more specificity to it. And for how much control over things you have, a Path of Radiance-style "commands" system that you can give to AI controlled units would've helped. I also think it's kinda noticeable that the game ran out of money towards the end. In an interview they explained how they kept adding more and more recruitable characters which i feel kinda explains why a lot of the recruits are frontloaded into Cornia and Drakenhold. The Albion arc in particular is very short. Ironically, it's maps are probably the longest.

Vanillaware cooked, just like how they cooked all that delicious food in their games, good God, it's all gorgeous. I'd ask for a sequel to like, iron some stuff out but Vanillaware doesn't even do spiritual sequels so honestly, i'm ok with how this turned out. They spent 10 years on this game, ran out of money in the process, but it's ok because they put out an absolute banger. Want an FE4 remake? Just play this instead.

By this point, it's no surprise that 2D Metroid has consistently been based ever since Super Metroid. Samus Returns, the remake of GameBoy game Metroid II, continues that trend. As far as remakes go, this game could be compared to Fire Emblem Echoes (hey look, both of them came out the same year) where the original game was as barebones as barebones could be and so the remake is really more of a reimaginaing. It's still Metroid II but much like the Metroids in the game, it's evolved to something more.

What's interesting about Samus Returns is that the combat takes a more gradual approach. In the other 2D Metroids, even when you weren't actually at full power, it still kinda felt like you were. Not the case in Samus Returns, as Samus feels noticeably at her weakest at the start of this game (which is ironic since Fusion is actually when she's at her weakest). However, as you progress through the game, you get stronger and soon enough, you're back to how it feels like it should be. Combine this with the Counters (which admittedly do take some getting used to as they are the ideal way to kill until you get the Plasma Beam) and the Aeion abilities and you've got some pretty solid gameplay (especially since Scan Pulse is super based and they should keep that in future games). But what was most fun for me was the Morph Ball. I love how versatile it is in this game and it's mainly due to the Spider Ball upgrade.

The music has also seen some good stuff here. While the soundtrack isn't consistently as good as in Zero Mission, the remixes of existing tunes and brand new ones are pretty good. For example, the Lower Brinstar theme from Super Metroid shows up and in that game, i thought it was pretty unmemorable. Not bad, just unmemorable. But in Samus Returns, when it showed up in Area 4, i loved it. And speaking of remixes, i love that some of the songs incorporate the literal beeps and boops from Metroid II's """"soundtrack""'. And it's the music that really adds to the atmosphere of the game and i gotta say, i do not understand the notion that Samus Returns "doesn't capture the atmosphere of Metroid II". Because imma keep it real with y'all: Metroid II did not have atmosphere. Yes, there are games where the technical limitations add to the atmosphere but Metroid II is not one of those games and even if it was, it's not worth it to play on a tiny-ass screen where everything looks the same because no color and also no map.

I think where Samus Returns does fall short is the bosses. Most of them are various evolutions of Metroid. And by most, i mean only two bosses aren't Metroids. Fighting a Metroid evolution the first time is cool. Fighting it the fifth time isn't. And you have to do this 40 times. Even Fusion's bosses that take place in the narrowest of rooms were better than this. That being said, the low boss quality isn't a huge dent on this game.

Samus Returns is yet another fantastic addition to the 2D Metroid line and i absolutely can't wait to see what MercuryStream improve on with Metroid Dread.

Curse of the Moon 2 is pretty much the same as the first game. That classic-old school Castlevania feel but with a few more playable characters and that is fine. But whereas Curse of the Moon was pretty straight-forward, this game goes a little bit more wacky. I mean, one of the playable characters is a CORGI PILOTING A STEAMPUNK MECH so really, what else is there to say. The game's a masterpiece.

Ok jokes aside, the game isn't a masterpiece. While the core gameplay is fine, for some reason, Inti Creates decided that if you wanted to beat the game, you'll have to replay each of the seven levels three times before you can access the final level. And this honestly left a bad taste in my mouth. It's not that the levels themselves are bad but going through them three times with minimal variation just felt tedious. Curse of the Moon 1 was fine but nothing special but that game didn't force you to repeat levels. This one does, for some reason, and i was honestly prepared to give it a 5/10 but that last level saved it for me and i brought the score up to a 6/10. Both the level itself and the way you got there was honestly really cool and i ain't gonna question it because this is a game where one of the playable characters is a corgi in a mech.

Now my rating of this game is based on the single player but if you're able to bring a friend and play multiplayer, this game shoots up to like an 8/10. Just based on my experience with the multiplayer, this game is a blast to play with friends, especially when you can laugh at each other's incompetence.

THIS IS A REVIEW OF THE WII VERSION PLAYED ON WII U

Metroid Prime 2 is an overall improvement over Metroid Prime 1 that forgets it's an overall improvement halfway through the game. Let me explain. The biggest improvement this game did is cut down heavily on the backtracking. Each area on Aether is connected to each other, as opposed to Tallon IV in the first game where areas weren't connected to each other. As such, the moments when you did have to backtrack were nowhere near as bad, also the fact that they just happened less. During the first half of the game, the game is actually pretty clear on where you have to go which makes sense given this is a post-Fusion game. The introduction to the Luminoth was a very nice addition to the Metroid universe and i really do like that for once, Samus is actually able to save someone. Samus' story is one of loneliness and even the few friends she does make end up dying. But in this game at least, she actually does get to save lives (even if it wasn't the lives she was originally meant to go save).

The game is basically Metroid: A Link to the Past/Between Worlds and Dark Aether made for an interesting environment. Constantly having to stay in safe zones was a unique choice although i can't say Dark Aether's atmosphere is that much of a threat. Not only do Safe Zones heal you but they're everywhere. This is understandable tho, otherwise the Dark Aether segments wouldn't be as fun to go through.

.....around the halfway point is when this game starts running into the exact same problems Metroid Prime 1 had: lack of direction and bad boss fights. It starts in Torvus Bog when after getting the Boost Ball, you're supposed to go back to the Temple Grounds and get the Seeker Missile, because only then can you progress through the game. There's no indication that this is what you have to do and even if you turn on the Hint System, the hints come too late because by the time they do hit, you'd have probably been wandering around for 30 minutes (and considering this game came after both Fusion and Zero Mission, the lack of direction is kinda baffling). It also does not help that Torvus Bog is the water level, something Metroid's never been good at. It's particularly bad when you're forced to slog through an underwater section for 20 minutes before you can get the Gravity Suit (or Gravity Boost, in this game). This is also the part of the game that starts getting real cute and locks you into rooms you've already gone through and forces you to fight Space Pirate Commandos. But for once, the water level isn't actually the worst level in a Metroid game.

....Sanctuary Fortress gave me an absolutely miserable time. Rezbits that eat up like three Super Missiles and can hack your suit. Confusing as hell layout. Even more lack of direction and backtracking you aren't told about. Shitty maze puzzles. A barely functioning power-up in the form of the Screw Attack (look how they mascaraed my boy). But hey at least the area itself looks cool and had two cool bosses in the form of the Spider Guardian and Quadraxis.

....what is it with the Prime games having bad bosses, i don't get it? In Prime 2, the final boss of the Agon Wastes that i forget the name of was pretty cool. The Dark Samus fights are also pretty cool. Spider Guardian is a neat concept and Quadraxis is cool. That's it. The rest of the bosses are just annoying non-threatening damage sponges. Like c'mon. Well i should point out i was playing on Normal Mode here but the harder difficulties would've just given the bosses even more sponge and that's not something i needed.

And much like Prime 1, i used an 100% save file to skip the Sky Temple Key hunt because how in God's name do you make the endgame mcguffin hunt even worse than last time? In Prime 1, you're at least given hints as to where they are. In Prime 2, lol. The closest you get is the logs of deceased Luminoth that talk about the keys but give you about as much information as application-based math problems (nothing).

All of this combined with arguably the game's worst decision: ammo-based beams. For some unknown reason, the guys at Retro Studios thought it'd be very funny if Samus' beam upgrades had ammo. They thought it'd be even funnier if the Beam Ammo expansions were really rare. Considering how quickly they drain, all this did was make me not want to use the Light, Dark, and Annihilator beams during combat. Especially that last one since it drains both Light and Dark Ammo. The beams having ammo turned them from cool concepts into the lamest set of brand new abilities for Samus.

Prime 2 isn't a bad game and yes, it is an overall improvement over Prime 1.....when you compare it to Prime 1. Because in the grand scheme of things, the game isn't like, that good. It's just alright and unless Prime 3 ends up being really really good, then i don't understand how 2D vs 3D is even a debate for Metroid. Because as of right now, the Prime games, as fun as they can be at times, are only a mere shadow of 2D Metroid's greatness.

See you next mission.

While the first Endless Frontier was not a good game, Exceed is, as it made small but worthwhile improvements to the formula. The biggest change is the addition of an "Evade Gauge", which now telegraphs when enemies could nullify your damage should you break the combo. No more will it be left to complete chance whether or not breaking the combo would screw you over. In addition, you also can nullify enemy damage by expending 50% of the special meter and the enemy doesn't have to break their combo to allow you to do it but i've noticed that this only works sometimes. There'd be times where i have enough to nullify but the prompt never came up so i just had to eat a massive combo. Other improvements include not putting in boss fights every two rooms, being able to swap party members mid-fight and the addition of Assist Characters which simultaneously increase the party size by a lot without making them actually playable. The COM system also gets a bit reworked, certain combo routes expend less COM so it would be ideal to find these routes....but honestly the COM system still kinda sucks so i admittedly did turn on cheats to keep COM at max, which honestly made the game a bit smoother. I can safely say tho that i did not turn on every cheat imaginable like in Endless Frontier so that's a plus. However, while the fighting game/RPG hybrid style of combat is still fun, i do feel like some battles could drag a bit so the game as a whole feels longer than it is....kinda the reason why i burned out earlier in the year and had to place this game on hold for a while.

As far as the non-gameplay side of the things, the game itself just looks better than the previous one. The UI is cleaner, the sprites have been touched up and the remixes are better too. The character writing is fun too, this game is not serious at all and much like the Project X Zone games, there is a lot of fun banter here. Fun and horny because everyone who isn't MOMO from Xenosaga is sexually charged in this game. Like there's something kinda amazing about everyone just being incredibly horny. This is a trend throughout this crossover series in general but i think the horniness really reached it's peak in these two games. And while the plot itself is not serious, i do like there being actual villains this time when there barely were any in the first game and i especially like that some plot elements ended up planting the seeds for Project X Zone 2, a game that would be released five years later.

Though i went out of order, this wild ride of crossovers that began in Namco x Capcom and ended (as of now) in Project X Zone 2 has come to an end. While Endless Frontier Exceed isn't as good as Project X Zone 2, it's still a decent game and i'm glad i was able to end this series on a high note, both in chronological and personal play order. Once again, Monolith Soft was able to prove that they know the science of improving a game.

A few days ago, during a fun Mario Kart 8 session with friends, i asked a question: "which Mario Kart game has the best selection of original tracks". To find the answer to this question, i have decided to set out and play every Mario Kart game and by every game, i mean every game that isn't Super or Super Circuit because the tracks in those games are all the same.

Mario Kart 64 is a game i've played before, a long long time ago and i distinctly remember not liking it because how ass the drifting mechanics were. Coming back to it in current year and actually playing through all the cups this time, my opinion still hasn't really changed but i have more to say about it. The game, like most N64 games, is very much a product of it's time and hasn't particularly aged well. It set the foundation for future Mario Kart games and that should be respected, however, the game itself suffers from the fact that it is very much not fun to play and this does hold the tracks back significantly. Drifting sucks, hitboxes are wack (this is like the one game where it's possible to get hit by a fake item block) and basically everything is a hazard with insane stun. If i was a kid in 1996, i would not have enjoyed this game and playing with friends would only improve the experience marginally.

Also the AI cheats, this is a proven fact.

Edit: nah playing with friends is hilarious but only because playing bad games with friends is hilarious.

F-Zero is a game where you race and that's basically all there is to it. It is fun, the controls are good (unless you have to drift, in which it becomes ass), and the music is nice but honestly, this game is more like a tech demo or an arcade game and because of that, i don't feel like giving it a score. You don't really "beat" this game like you would in Mario Kart, there's no trophies or anything. In fact, much like an arcade game, this game is really more about the best score than actually, you know, beating it.
Honestly, once you've done one Grand Prix, you've done them all.

It does suck that there's no multiplayer mode tho.

Odin Sphere Leifthrasir is another banger game released by Vanillaware and between Muramasa and 13 Sentinels, the only other Vanillaware games i've played, this game falls in the middle of both camps. It has a strong gameplay-focus like Muramasa but it also has a good overarching narrative like 13 Sentinels. Though i wouldn't say Odin Sphere's plot is anywhere near as good as 13 Sentinels, i loved the sort of fairy tale simplicity that was going on in the narrative. It makes sense too, after all, this story is told through the eyes of a little girl reading books about legends from long ago. In fact, i would argue that Odin Sphere is a great example of "sometimes, simple is best". It's not a complicated tale and it's themes aren't particularly deep but it's characters have enough charm and it's through the simplicity of their stories that i was able to feel invested in them and their struggle. The overarching narrative also makes it really cool when you're able to see when two unrelated events are happening at the same time and how they may affect the overall narrative. The most noticeable example is when four of the five protagonists are in the Kingdom of Titania, fighting through the streets and the sewers are around basically the same time, yet for completely different reasons. But that's just the big one, as there are other moments in the narrative like this and it's just really cool to see. It adds an element of worldbuilding that you don't really tend to see in a lot of other games, even those that have excellent worldbuilding otherwise.

Character ranking: Velvet > Oswald = Gwendolyn >= Cornelius > Mercedes.

Gameplay-wise, it is a pretty fun 2D action game. I already found Muramasa to be fun and this game is just that but better. Unlike in Muramasa, each character plays completely differently so while the game can feel a bit repetitive in the areas you visit, it manages to mitigate that by giving everyone unique movesets. Gwendolyn and Cornelius are your standard lance and sword wielders respectively and i believe they came first because of how relatively simple they are to play as. Then Mercedes shakes things up by letting her fly freely and shoot very quickly, decimating enemies at the cost of her combo game. And if you were missing combos after playing as her, then good for you, because after Mercedes comes Oswald who literally has Devil Trigger. Velvet is a mix of Gwendolyn's range and Oswald's combo game thanks to her chains and as a result, she ended up becoming my favorite character to play as. Velvet really was a case of the best being saved for last.

Gameplay ranking: Velvet > Oswald > Cornelius = Gwendolyn > Mercedes.

The presentation of the game doesn't require me to say much. It's Vanillaware, makers of games with beautiful 2D art. I was really in love with how much this game embraced it's fantastical nature. Every stage background is gorgeous and the character designs are on point. Music good. I've got to say, this is easily the best-looking Vanillaware game. More of this please. I also have to give special shoutout to the command inputs. You're given five special inputs for your Psypher Skills but not only can you register more whenever you feel like it but you can even choose whether they are triggered by the D-pad or the control stick and whether or not they can only be activated on the ground or on the air. You don't see something like that in action-games a lot, at least i haven't. So good for you Vanillaware.

If there's any criticisms i have about the game, there is the repetition issue i mentioned earlier. Sure, it's mitigated by each character's unique movesets but if you continuously play this game, you might find yourself feeling a bit burned out. It's not super short like Muramasa is and it doesn't have the story/gameplay side thingy that 13 Sentinels has, so the possibility for burnout is there a little bit. As far as the story goes, while Mercedes grew on me as a character, i found her story to be the weakest one and that alongside the fact that i wished for a more combo-oriented character meant that i did admittedly have the least fun with her route, though it's not like i wasn't enjoying it. The presentation slightly tanks a bit whenever you do something in one character's story that leads into an event you already saw in another so the game just cuts to black and goes "and so, this this and that happened and now we go to the next scene". It's understandable why they did it but 13 Sentinels had several moments where you would see other character's stories playing out in the background while you're doing whoever's story it is you're doing at the moment. I won't hold it against Vanillaware for not doing something they end up doing in a later game, it would've been nice to see.

Odin Sphere is good and it gets the Armagon Seal of Approval.