The only notable thing about this game is the little trivia of "wow, Disney animators themselves worked on the sprites!" - and yeah, the sprites look pretty damn good. That's it though.

Comparing this to the Capcom-developed counterpart on the SNES is frankly an embarassment - Mega Drive Aladdin has worse backgrounds, worse music (compare the Genie level on both games, holy shit) and exponentially worse controls and gameplay. Having a sword instead of jumping on enemies sounds cooler in theory, but in practice, the sword just plain sucks. On top of that, platforming feels clunky, enemies have questionable placement, level design is just kinda strange...

It's just not a good time to me, and it's mind-boggling that this game has a better reputation than the SNES one. How.

If you just want to finish this game, you can just rush towards the end without a care in the world, since you have unlimited continues, and just respawn on the spot. The rating system will tell you that you suck though.

This rating system is what makes this game brutal, if you decide that you want to A-rank or, God forbid, Star-rank it, which requires doing it very fast, getting as many points as possible, and not getting hit once.

Super appealing art style too. Very easy game to pick-up-and-play, and it's cool that it's as hard as you want it to be - you can change the strength of Strider's blade to a ridiculous level, just by changing a simple in-game option. Plus, when you finish the game, you unlock Strider Hien, who's incredibly satisfying to use.

My very first contact with Monhun was many, many years ago - I was looking for something new on the PSP, then I saw some absolute madperson pitch Monster Hunter (probably Freedom Unite) as "Pokémon for adults!". I tried it and obviously hated it, and didn't touch the series again until now.

And damn that crazy person with that non-sensical comparison, because this gameplay loop really got me, and I already have plans to play other games in the series. Everytime I'd fight a monster, I would take a look at the weapon upgrades, and then spend another few hours to craft something that caught my eye, because "it'll be helpful against this next monster!"

Then on my way to craft what I wanted, I'd see another thing and decide aaah why not craft this one too... it's non-stop and truly intoxicating, I think I spent an extra 10 hours just crafting shit to fight the elder dragons. It's true though that I don't know the extent of QoLs introduced to the series in MH, there's always the possibility that I'm a filthy casual that will be filtered by previous entries.

Monster Hunter World can be a very annoying game on occasion though, I grew to really dislike monster's roars because it feels like they are programmed to happen in the most inconvenient times possible. Seeing certain items on the ground is very difficult, I had to use a mod to highlight them (dropped monster materials for instance). Also used a mod to allow skippable cutscenes because *wow that's a choice.

And Zorah Magdaros is just a fucking bore.

But they got me. I'll check out previous gens eventually and see what I think, but at the very least, I plan to be there day one for Monster Hunter Wilds.

Extremely experimental, to the point where it's a detriment to the game imo. The idea is really cool, but it's so much to keep track of, and it never, ever feels comfortable to do it all. Crouching, for example, takes a double-tap of the d-pad, and is the only way to do the offensive dash.

The pacing is also off because Treasure interrupts the stages constantly with cutscenes and story.

This Saturn version features limited continues, which is completely unhinged for a 1997 console game. I've played it because the English version of the PS1 release is a harder game, courtesy of Working Designs.

Overall, not sure if I actually enjoyed this. It sure is unique and I'm glad I've played it, but I don't want anything to do with it again.

Wow, this game is a mess on the database, with each individual port inexplicably having their own page, except for a couple of the home computer ports for some reason? And IGDB declined my attempt to just put every port on the same damn page.

I've played the Supergrafx version, which doesn't even show up on the search because it's listed with the Japanese name, my god video game databases are a disaster.

Anyway, this is one of those games where I seriously question if it's actually "good", or if nerds have just been gaslit into believing that, Battletoads style. It's surely visually appealing, but this "fuck the player!" design philosophy of the 80s and early 90s is just... not good. It's a lot of memorization and trial and error and even RNG - not every weapon is built the same, and what weapon you get is completely random.

As much of a "beginner's shmup" as I have ever seen, but it's a little too much probably. I'm an almost complete beginner at shmups and it was too simple even for me.

It's incredibly lenient with a full health bar, incredibly generous money to buy a revival potion for instance, infinite lives, a shield that blocks most bullets... but also fails to change stuff up or just be very exciting. I think one of the appeals of the genre to me is the ever-changing arsenal/power-ups during the level., and the great feeling you get when you fully upgrade your ship and get a huge beam of destruction or something.

In Magical Chase, you just buy your beam from a shop, and can maybe buy another type in the next shop, which appear once per level I think? There are no "upgrades" to your shots really.

The last level also features a boss rush, which is one of the gaming tropes I personally detest the most.

The most interesting thing about this game is that it was developed by some GOATs of the JRPG genre - it was directed by Hiroshi Minagawa, with music by Hitoshi Sakimoto, art director and composer respectively of the Ivalice games, among other credits.

I tried. The Battle Network subseries has a strong cult following, and after hearing how much of an improvement this sequel is over the 1st game, I decided to give it a shot.

Boy I can't imagine how dreadful the first game is then. This features basically nothing that I enjoy in RPGs - your skills in combat are governed by RNG basically, there's no sense of progress or improvement, and the writing is basic with a localization that is clearly subpar, to put it mildly. I was just bored really.

Not for me at all.

I'm... not sure why I finished this? 1941 is the only game in this system that I actually thought was "decent", with everything else ranging from incredibly mediocre to just plain bad (and Ghouls 'n Ghosts just filtered me), but this is the only one of those I actually beat. I did rewind the hell out of it, but what compelled me to waste one hour on this? No idea.

It's just bad. Enemies come from both directions, with not much you can do. Your ship is slooooow, only getting faster with pick-ups - at which point your ship might become too damn fast and hard to control. There is a stage with magnetic floor and ceiling which is a complete disgrace. I could not hurt the final boss at all, and can only assume it requires a specific weapon type - of which you can't fully select, enemies drop those.

It's the only game in the system with unlimited continues though... at least it has that.

Absurd, enormous, titanic. It took us a looooong time, but we finally have a "definitive" version of one of the best games in the series, and one of the most fun rpgs of all time - the possibility to earn as much as 4x the ABP allows even greater experimentation with the all-time great job system. On this playthrough, I even found out that a bard can be very useful. A bard! Absurd.

You can break the game at your leisure, with scandalous combos like the classic Rapid Fire + Dual Wield, and Spellblade + anything really (Dance has some RNG involved, but it's also a deadly combination).

Or make a challenging playthrough where you restrict what jobs you can use, such as the popular Four Job Fiesta challenge. It's all up to you.

On top of that, what the story lacks in nuance or depth, it delivers on an insane amount of charm and even humour. Ghido is one of the most entertaining characters in the franchise, and Exdeath just chews the scenery anytime he's on screen - the fucker is a sentient evil tree that turns into a splinter at one point of the story, it's truly glorious. Keep your villains with elaborate backstories and "sympathetic" motivations, I sometimes miss just having a douchebag that's evil just because.

This version also offers the best renditions of some of the series' most iconic tracks, such as Dear Friends (this version actually gave me goosebumps), Battle on the Big Bridge, and the best ending theme of Final Fantasy just got better.

The only negative thing I can say is that playing this made me truly sad that this is somehow the last time a mainline FF featured the job system. That is insane to me.

Decidedly better than Gate of Thunder, though there a couple of unhinged design choices:

Having limited continues is the work of a maniac considering the gameplay loop, where you repeat a stage but keep your money to improve your shit.

Powering up your weapon takes forever because each power pickup (of which not every enemy drops btw) gives you a tiny bar on your meter. Taking a single hit however removes THREE bars. Are you kidding me.

No i-frames. It's very easy to lose all your life in like 2 seconds.

The final boss is highly questionable, felt like I bumbled my way to victory.

But beyond those, this is cool as hell. Being able to touch the floor and ceiling felt strangely liberating. When I died on a stage boss and thought "oh no, I'll have to replay the whole stage", then the game continued me on the boss, my joy was unspeakable. Same when I saw them giving me full health, power and bombs in the final boss, and infinite power. Weirdly generous for a shmup, thank you.

An unlimited continue cheat is a must however. The fuck were they thinking.

Something about the readability feels off here, I suffered numerous deaths where I went "what killed me?", or would occasionally lose track of my ship when I had the two smaller ships out. Stages also felt claustrophobic, with both ceiling and floor being fatal upon touching.

Also not a fan of the difficulty, feels like it consists of "gotcha!" moments that rely on memorization and trial and error - moreso than other shmups I played.

Was also not a fan of the boss design, which semeed to mostly consist of "his weak point is hidden until he does a specific attack for a brief moment"

Ultimately, it's fine