Cheap and short action platformer that plays like Megaman but with a different power up system. The visual style is easily the most striking thing about it and gives it a great vibe. Levels and bosses strike a good balance of being challenging enough to not be push overs but not so hard that you'll get frustrated. Also enjoyed the unlockable duck mode in which you have to flap your way through the run and gun levels with no offensive capabilities. Nothing amazing but easy to recommend as a good time for 2 bucks.

Its funny going back and playing this after playing Rift Apart since it feels like it is doing so much more than Rift Apart with so much less. This is despite the fact that for 2003 this is what a big budget triple AAA game looked like. Going Commando probably tries the least out of the PS2 era games to have a compelling story but damn does it build on the original so successfully as a game that every Ratchet and Clank game to this day is still essentially Going Commando with a new story and fancier graphics.

Enjoyable little visual novel that has good humor and interesting topics that feels held back by its structure and length. The speed dating aspect feels like an odd fit for the characters they made for the game and pretty much none of it even feels slightly romantic even when its trying to be. For a game called speed dating for ghosts it felt much more like therapy for ghosts. And the interesting part of having to choose a partner at the end of a session gets nullified due to how the game makes it super easy and encourages you to experience the dates with every ghost. You wont even get the last chapter of the game if you don't. I tend to dig short games and stories but almost every characters date and convos tend to feel a bit rushed, it is definitely an enjoyable time but I couldn't help but feel these characters and stories deserved a more natural wrapper and some breathing time.

Dont know how to rate this one. The graphic update in the environments is masterful, but the character work while well done technically doesn't feel quite as much of a slam dunk. Some of the new mechanics are interesting but they really don't change how the game works that much and seem like something that needs to be explored in a game designed around them. Its a very competent remake but Super Mario RPG wasn't really in need of it, the original Super Nintendo game doesn't really have any design decisions that would turn off a modern player and the new things added while cool dont really warrant a whole graphical overhaul. Also weirdly some things weren't even updated, the credits sequence is still 95% the original sprite work. There are changes and new boss fight rematches and it is a great playthrough but probably didn't need to be made. Feels like it only exists so they can charge 60 bucks, a more modest remaster of the original that retained the original music and graphics would have been just as good.

Universal acclaim from users and review outlets combined with a great concept but I thought was super lacking and has a lot of my modern action design pet peeves. The shooting and the Tony Hawk movement and scoring do not at any point actually feel like they go together in this game. Dont get me wrong the game plays well and feels good on a basic game feel level, but to actually aim while moving this fast they have to give you an absurdly generous amount of slow-mo to do pretty much anything which takes away a lot of the fun of being on rollerskates. What is even the point of putting the character on roller skates if the game is begging you to hit the slow mo button every 2 seconds to aim and shoot at a bad guy. The scoring and missions from Tony Hawk also feel completely awkwardly tacked on and dont mesh well with the combat. In Tony Hawk the missions and score is the whole game so you can focus on it but this is a combat arena shooter and worrying about missions and score feel like chores duct taped to the game so it can be a 3 hour game instead of a 45 minute game. The Skate letter equivalents dont actually grant you any power ups or help you in combat in any way, the game wants you to do a variety of tricks for score but the same basic grab will always fill your ammo up no matter what. And like every modern action game you have a big super overpowered invincible dodge roll to avoid all the chaos which isnt necessarily negative on its own but in a game where I am going fast on rollerskates why the hell am I dodge rolling to get away from danger? Shouldnt moving super fast and skillfully through the level be how I avoid taking damage instead of just hitting the invincibility button. Somehow turns great art and solid game feel into a boring action game that falls short of all its inspirations.

Super good and influential rail shooter that's lock on mechanic is still being copied to this day. Its a lot slower than some of Sega's other rail shooters but it makes up for it in pure vibes and novel mechanics. From the very first level the open water and ruined architecture, accompanied by an outstanding orchestral piece of unusually high production of the time (CD audio in games was not new, but tended to be mainly synthesizer music or rock music that sounded like it was recorded in someone's garage) set the mood and tone of the game. Even the synthesizer tracks tend to be huge stand outs filled with intense tribal drums that fit the action and mood well. The design of the world is undeniably inspired by Moebius's Arzach (Moebius even drew the Japanese cover of the game) and Miyazaki's Nausicaa. Its a testament to how good Team Andromeda's art team was that the influence isn't lost in the finished game through the Sega Saturn's primitive 3D rendering.

The rail you follow also feels very dynamic in how you move through the environment which gives moving through the world a more natural and cinematic feeling. As side effect of this decision is that it can be a bit hard to avoid and dodge enemies and obstacles in some sections since you aren't always moving straight and its can be hard to judge the depth of a scene while the camera moves and sways. It isn't too big of an issue and I think the tradeoff is completely worth it, it really helps add to the intensity of the game. The game's lock on targeting has been copied to death, but its nice to play it and see how well the game balances it with the traditional shot. Most projectiles can't be locked on to causing you to juggle between the regular and lock on shots, and if a boss or enemy only has one vulnerable area it is often much more efficient to hammer the fire button than pelt it with lock on shots over and over again. Sometimes though it feels like some shots cant really be avoided or shot down reasonably which can hurt the game feel a bit. Dying sends you back to the start of the level which feels a bit too harsh. Not even from a difficulty standpoint but it really hurts the flow of the game, especially because most the stages tend to have a surprising amount of dead time in them which you will have to sit through again every time you die. The game could have benefitted from having a checkpoint in the middle of the level or at the boss and made up for that by cranking the damage up slightly to make up for it and it would make the game flow and feel a lot better to play through over and over again. It also wouldn't be quite as much as a problem if the mechanics had a bit more going on, its hard to say exactly what it needs but it feels like it is missing something to really take it to the next level.

Panzer Dragoon is still a pretty darn good playthrough and a strong early Saturn game worth playing, definitely look forward to making my way through its sequels at some point this year.

The best Ratchet game since a Crack in Time and an absolutely stunning technical show piece to christen my new 3060 graphics card with with. The amount of things going on at screen at any one time while never dipping in framerate at 1440p was an absolute delight and the game was never not a looker at any point. I found myself staring at the environments and looking at every nook and cranny to appreciate all $81 million they spent on this game. The levels themselves tend to be bigger and stuffed with unique detail and npcs in a way that the series has never done before which makes the worlds feel a lot more lived in than previous games.

But outside of being a visual showcase the game delivers a great arsenal of weapons instead of relying on the set of weapons from the Future trilogy like the last two games. All of them tend to be a blast to use even if it feels like they aren't quite as unique or gimmicky as past weaponry and most guns feel useful which isn't always the case in these games. Sadly it keeps the Raritanium system first introduced in Tools of Destruction which makes the natural gun level ups incremental and boring while you have to specifically spend raritanium for more interesting and worthwhile upgrades. There is a reason Crack in Time dropped this system and I dont know why they keep bringing it back. But unlike Ratchet PS4 most guns feel pretty solid from a base state, too many guns in Ratchet PS4 required raritanium upgrades to be even somewhat usable. But the side effect of the final level 5 upgrade barely being noticeable stays, I struggle to even tell you what even changes with most of the guns at level 5. Its a real shame since the guns used to sometimes literally change beyond recognition and all of that creative spark is missing from the upgrades this time around.

Rift Apart also inherits some problems from Ratchet PS4, mainly changing the camera to be a third person shooter camera instead of a platfomer camera. This might seem like a smart change but aiming is a very unimportant part of the combat in Ratchet as its more about dodging and crowd control so always making the player aim stops the game from having unique camera behavior in combat sections. Combined with the fact that Rift Apart tends to have larger battle arenas and farther away enemies than the original PS2 games it makes getting hit by things you can't see a much more common occurrence. Changing the FOV is basically a must for a comfortable camera which I am not even sure you can do on the PS5, but it is way too close by default.

The combat flow also gets a shake up with the inclusion of the phantom dash which is a multipurpose invincible air dash that feels quite good to use. Its a fun addition to combat and platforming but it does feel a little bit overpowered. Often times after finishing a fight I would walk around and notice that the combat arena was filled with rifts and swingshot points and all sorts of things to encourage movement through the arena but 9 times out of 10 just hunkering down and unloading your huge arsenal of weapons and abusing your phantom dash will work out perfectly even on hard mode.

The dimensional rifts push the spectacle and set pieces of the game hard and are where a lot of the spark and joy of the game come from. The first time you go through the dimensional rifts and see how fast and effortlessly the game can swap between busy environments is a huge wow moment and the game finds lots of fun ways to use the rift gimmick. Enemies of different factions and environments will often disrupt combat through the rifts adding the chaos delightfully, while other times you will be tossed through dimensions to change the fighting arena rapidly. Even when there is no dimensional trickery, setpieces tend to be full of things going on that will delight and surprise you throughout the whole game. It makes the areas and events feel more thought out and helps elevate them above feeling like "video game levels".

The story though feels a little weak and a bit of a retread of a Crack in Time without the emotional core. The whole dimensional incident feels like something Clank would never do after spending a whole game learning about how the forces of the Universe need to be upheld and not to be played with. Revisiting Ratchet having the possibility of finally reuniting with the Lombaxes feels like they have run out of ideas, this story beat was explored thoroughly in the Future trilogy and it feels like they have run out of ideas. Rivet and Kit seemed to have potential and their relationship is obviously supposed to parallel Ratchet and Clank's rocky start but it all feels a bit rushed, all four main characters spend too much time not being together for them to really get the most out of the dynamic. And at this point I dont know why Insomniac has insisted on making Nefarious appear in every game but it really made the overall conflict and villain extremely boring. Villains used to actually have motivations and reasons in this series but now its just Nefarious being evil for evil's sake. With the rest of the story not being super strong it made me really notice and miss the "edge" that has been missing from the series for a long time. It wasn't as huge of an issue for the Future games since they made up for it with strong mystery and character writing, but everything is so over the top nice and wholesome in this game it almost feels like this game is in a different dimension than the PS2 originals which were full of sarcasm and wit. You can see how the capitalist critique that the early stories and settings were built off of has eroded into nothingness. The weapon vendor in this game is a character we are supposed to like instead of a faceless mega corporation that dubiously sells weapons to the people. The story is never actively bad or terrible but it feels flat, shallow, and like a lot of potential is unfulfilled throughout.

And as an extension to the story critiques maybe the aspect of the game that bothered me the most throughout the whole game is that the game never, and I mean never, shuts up. It is extremely impressive that almost every second of this game has unique dialogue attached to it in someway but oh my goodness is it too much. Its a shame because a lot of it does add to the game, story moments given throughout gameplay, jokes and little stories from npcs all around but the sheer volume of it distracts and the annoying gets mixed in with the important and good. A lot of games that have voiced dialogue throughout normal gameplay tend to have slower movement styles so its easier to time and control the pace of dialogues, but by the third level you are given hover boots and are already playing a fast paced shooter platformer hybrid so its super easy to move and shoot so fast that the game cant keep up and multiple dialogues interrupt each other. Its never really a good thing when annoying tutorial or enemy jokes interrupt actual good dialogue. Also I want to shove Zurkon Jr into the Sun, I dont know what Insomniac's fascination with the Zurkon family is but please retire them Mr Zurkon was a lot more charming when he was a weapon and his whole family werent main characters. The game would be significantly improved if about 40% of all gameplay dialogue was cut, I wont get bored I promise Insomniac please let me actually think and feel things on my own while I play.

Ratchet and Clank continues to be the pizza of video games where even when its not at its best its still pretty darn good. It probably should've ended with a Crack in Time, but even with its flaws still a game that is a good time and flows well and is one of the best looking games ever made.

A very polished Donkey Kong Country clone that is a good deal of fun while you are playing, but its the kind of game you will immediately forget about once you put the controller down. I don't know if I have ever played a game simultaneously so polished and so devoid of original ideas. It copies so liberally from DKC and occasionally Rayman Origins but doesn't build or twist the ideas in any meaningful way. Across all its levels you will not encounter a single idea or mechanic you have not seen done better in another game.

The titular Masks are absurdly underwhelming as they just recreate Squawks, the swimming mechanics of DKCR (seriously you need a powerup to have the exact swimming mechanics of DKCR) and a dragon power up which is a more complicated version of the mine cart levels. The tiger mask is the only one that isn't just a watered down Donkey Kong Country mechanic and it feels like it is from a bizarre better version of Kaze that we didn't get to play. The Dragon autorunner levels even miss the entire emotional core of what makes minecart levels work too. You roar when you get the mask and have a double jump and a dive giving off the feeling of power, its a terrible fit for recreating the minecart levels since the whole point of them being auto scrollers in a minecart is to make you feel like you are in peril and have little control of what is happening. If the team behind Kaze just put in a bit of creativity and actually think harder about why their influences do certain things their next game will surely be great but this is not that game.