Small side-note: For some reason, Steam isn't showing up as a valid platform for this DLC on Backloggd, so I had to pick Switch even though I actually beat this on Steam.

By all means, this is a pretty bite-sized DLC. Perhaps I was expecting too much, but admittedly I was hoping there would be a second story mode campaign alongside the new Survival mode. That didn't happen, but this is still a pretty fun mode and a worthwhile addition to the game nonetheless. Plus, for only 8 bucks, you can't really go wrong.

The selling point here seems to be the playable characters. I haven't tried out Karai yet, but I was really looking forward to seeing Miyamoto Usagi in this game since I just started reading his comics about a year ago. Although he's a lot of fun to play, unfortunately I'm just not as good with him as I am with characters like Raphael and Splinter, so I had to swap to them to make much progress in Survival mode. Speaking of that mode, I'm relatively unfamiliar with roguelikes, having only really played Hades to the end (or, rather, one of many possible ends) and a tiny bit of Enter the Gungeon at a friend's house. From what I understand, the roguelike elements are quite light; you fight waves of enemies, and after beating a wave you have two portals with different powerups or benefits to grab. For instance, the Parasite perk lets you heal whenever you do damage for three waves, but it saps health from you if you aren't attacking enemies (it was barely noticeable for me though since I'm a pretty aggressive player in beat-em-ups). There's also some mutagen canister powerups that let you play as some of the bosses, specifically Bebop, Rocksteady, and Shredder. They're a lot of fun and very strong, especially since it works as a second health bar. The game has about seven dimensions, and you progress to the next one by collecting enough crystal shards. The shards are either very rare drops from enemies or obtained from going through a portal that has shards as its reward. One thing roguelikes are infamous for is punishment for dying, but thankfully the punishment here isn't all that bad since you don't really lose anything except for needing to start over from the first dimension again. You get permanent perks from leveling up, one of which gives you the ability to choose where you want to start at. You might think that feels like it eliminates the point of the roguelike, but, if you continue on after beating the intended final boss, you can't get back to exactly where you were (the dimensions are tied to "difficulty level" and a second harder run is just classified as Level 6+), so I guess that's still preserved. Also, the actual final boss was unfortunately a reskin of Super Shredder, but they did buff the fight so my complaints about the story battle against Super Shredder being underwhelming has been band-aided a little. Still only took me two tries to beat this new Super Shredder, though.

I think another big plus to this DLC are the skins you get. Unfortunately, they can't be used in Story mode as far as I know, but they do serve a really cool novelty within Survival mode. The different dimensions you traverse through are mostly based on specific parts of Turtle history, whether that be the obvious homage to their black and white comic routes or something more obscure like whatever Omnichannel 6 is meant to be. I'm a huge TMNT fan and I still didn't know what that was referencing, if anything at all. Regardless, the skins you unlock seem to be tied directly to these new dimensions you go to. There's also a good amount of skins you just get for free without needing to be unlocked and those are awesome too. Every character (except for Usagi of course) gets a skin based on the '80s live action TMNT movies, the 2003 TMNT cartoon, the 2012 TMNT cartoon, Rise of the TMNT, and the classic all-green Game Boy screen, respectively. As a huge fan of the 2003 cartoon in specific, I was really excited to see this, especially since it means characters like Splinter, Casey Jones, and Karai also got their 2003 versions. I wish I got to see Usagi's unlockable skins, but since I beat the mode almost entirely using Splinter I did get to see our favorite sensei rat's unlockable skins. He gets a black and white skin, a blue and white skin seemingly based on the screen of one of the Game Boy consoles (don't remember which one had that color combo), and an NES color pallet. These represent the Mirage comics dimension and the 8-Bit dimension.

Overall, I think this was a neat little addition to the game. Nothing too major, but the introduction of two new characters is appreciated and having a new game mode makes for more replay value. Survival mode wasn't all that interesting to me, but it did make for more beat-em-up action and I suppose that's all I could really ask for. Solid; earns 4 stars from me.

Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance II is one of the first games that spring to my head when I think of the PS2. As someone who was born only a year after the PS2 released, this game just feels very representative of the era to me: a short and simple hack-and-slash game where all you really need to do is go kill everything in sight (aside from the select few NPCs you talk to) and loot whatever you see. Of course, a lot of that is bias on my part, since I have very fond memories of playing this game with my brother when we were both kids. It makes for a great couch co-op experience, but I found its also still fun to blow through in single player even in 2023.

As far as this port job goes, it feels exactly like I remember it, just with the addition of keyboard controls and a few weird visual bugs that unfortunately popped up. The game did also lag a little whenever I skipped through dialogue just before certain boss fights, but it picks right back up once the cutscene ends. I will say that the current asking price is a bit too much in my opinion since this is pretty much an emulated PS2 game, but that doesn't really have to do with the game itself. The way the game looks takes a bit to get adjusted to. I think that cleaning up the visuals like this port did actually makes the game look worse than playing it on a PS2, if that makes sense. However, I am really satisfied with just how smoothly the game runs: there are virtually no loading times at all and saving is damn near instantaneous, unlike playing the original.

The gameplay is simple but effective. Press A (I played this on a 8BitDo Xbox controller) to attack, hold RT to block, press B to use spells, use up and down on the D-Pad to cycle through spells, press Y to jump. I think the only thing that might trip some people up is some of the actions mapped to the D-Pad, like how swapping weapons (if you've equipped multiple weapons) is on the left but toggling the mini map is on the right. Otherwise, its very straightforward. Admittedly some of my perception of the gameplay is colored by my class choice: as you'd expect in a game based on D&D, your choice of class affects how you play the game. I went with Barbarian, which is the prime candidate for any player that wants to just mindlessly attack everything in sight, and I like it that way. It might be just a tad more complex for people that play the Elf Necromancer or the Dwarf Rogue, but the fundamentals are still super simple. When you level up, you get points to put into abilities, whether they're passive or active. In my Barbarian playthrough, most skills were pretty obvious priorities: grab Death Blow for higher critical hit damage, grab that one passive that gives you a higher chance to get critical hits, max out your Barbarian's signature Rage ability, etc. I will say that I was surprised by the Rage since I'm mostly familiar with 5e (fifth edition) D&D; as it turns out, in whatever edition this game is based on, the Rage has you sacrifice defenses for more attack power, whereas in 5e you're both tankier and more powerful when you Rage. Barbarians also get a really cool ability called Hero's Arm that lets you dual-wield two handed weapons, which makes them really strong. I found that the bosses are a lot of fun, but most of them are either way too easy to just waltz in and destroy or are really hard until you find out the cheese you need to obliterate them. Any boss that uses melee attacks sucks at following you, so I took advantage of that with the last two bosses and ran in a circle the whole fight. They aren't quick enough to get right in your face, so you can just get free hits in while they're still trying to follow the circle you made. I think the only boss I actually had to think to defeat is the zombie pirate captain who has a bunch of mobs he can revive and make the fight a living hell. To beat that guy, you just need to lure all the other enemies away from the boss room and kill them first, then you can go give evil Captain Crunch an easy whooping. The structure of the game is split into acts: Act I, II, III, and IV. Act III is probably the shortest one since its just you entering all four elemental planes to kill one boss for each plane. Longest act for me was probably Act II, since you need to go through four different long areas with some diversions along the way to grab some special artifacts. The overall structure of the game after you rescue Randalla from the goblin camp in Act 1 pretty much just becomes "Talk to someone, they tell you to do a thing, go do the thing" on repeat, which might get on some people's nerves but I didn't mind it at all. Oh, also, the game has a pretty cool Workshop system that lets you upgrade your gear with a wide assortment of gems that each have different effects, so long as you have a Rune Stone available. You might be thinking the game is too generous with gold and potion drops early on, but don't underestimate just how expensive the Workshop can get and how many potions you'll drain through in some of the lategame boss fights. You also pretty much need to use the Workshop to make sure your gear is as good as it can be, at least in Act III and especially in Act IV. I went from having nearly 140,000 gold in the beginning of Act III to only around 30,000 by the end of Act IV.

The story isn't really anything special, but its still fun to go through. It takes place after the first game, as you might expect; basically, the vampire lord Mordoc (not Murdoch) has kidnapped the adventurers from the first game. His big plan is to take over the Onyx Tower after its previous ruler, Eldreth, was slain by the DA1 adventurers. You go all throughout the different lands of the Forgotten Realms to help the Harpers - pretty much planar peacemakers - with the ultimate goal of finding out what Mordoc is up to and taking him out, although the player character doesn't know who he is until pretty much the end of the game and they don't know what goal they're working towards until the beginning of Act III. You go to a surprising variety of locations; even just in Act II you get to go to some elaborate underground Dwarven ruins, a gothic castle with a dungeon underneath, a desert gorge crawling with gnolls, a cave near the sea, a fishman (or maybe they're frog men) religious temple, and a Lich's castle complete with an observatory at the top. Lots of classic, if not a bit tropey, D&D places to explore and tons of cool enemies to slaughter.

Overall, my appreciation for this game is definitely boosted by my nostalgia for it, but I still think its just a really fun time and a symbol of a bygone era. Earns a solid 4 stars from me.

Ever since it was first announced a year or so back, I was really interested in this game. At the time, all we had to go off of was a teaser showcasing the animated intro and a little bit of gameplay, but it was a glorious teaser nonetheless. Flash forward to this month, and the game released. I preordered it on Switch, so I've owned it since the day it came out. This is one of those few games I actually bought on two platforms: Switch and Steam (PC). In the end, it only took four hours for me to beat the game on PC, but those four hours were truly incredible. I may revisit the Switch version and beat it again later, but, despite how short the game is, I am usually not the kind of person to beat a game twice.

Let's get the elephant out of the room first. This game is full of visual charm and references to the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, from the character designs to the environments and even the music. Honestly I feel like there was actually more references crammed in here than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games made back in the day, at least out of the ones I've played. Perhaps as a result of this, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge" is one of those games based on a series that really feels like everyone involved adored the original source material. You'll see homages everywhere, even details as simple as the Foot ninjas working mundane jobs or masquerading as businessmen in the background of the levels. There's a few deeper cuts that I didn't get before playing this game, like how I didn't know Dirtbag, Groundchuck, and Tempestra existed before this game, but most of the references I understood and was really happy to see. I will say that, for some people, pretty much everything being some kind of reference to the show might come off as overbearing. I just see it as a labor of love that I feel should be appreciated. Its not necessarily thrown in your face, either; its not like you have the Turtles spouting stuff like "Hey I remember him!" It's just naturally included and I think that's cool. Worth noting that, in pretty much any other type of game, I wouldn't have cared too much about this sort of thing. I just think that details like this are really important in a licensed game, especially one based on an IP as beloved as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Krang takes over the Statue of Liberty to use as a giant fighting mech that shoots missiles and lasers out of its mouth, what's not to love?

With that out of the way, how about that gameplay? Well, I think it's stellar. The game is definitely what you would expect from a beat-'em-up, but it feels pretty fresh thanks to the surprisingly large variety of moves you can pull off and the decently varied level design. I'd say it has a fun quality of being something anyone could pick up, but takes time to fully master. Of course, one of the obvious games to compare this game to is Turtles in Time. Shredder's Revenge definitely does take plenty of cues from Turtles in Time; if you've played that game, you'll recognize some of the attacks in this game being taken straight out of it. However, the game doesn't feel derivative since you can tell this game was built from the ground up. It feels inspired by predecessors, but not like its trying too hard to be like those games. I also really appreciate the character variety in this game. Most Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games I've played only have you play as the main four, but this game lets you play as April O'Neil, Splinter, and even Casey Jones (after beating the game once). I haven't taken Casey out for a swing yet, but I did try out every character except for April. I think the developers at Dotemu did a great job in making everyone feel unique enough from each other. Its nothing all that mind blowing, but something as simple as their stats will mean you have to change up how you play them. I mostly took a liking to Raphael since I found that his decent speed, high power, and close range combat was well suited for my play style. I'm a button masher, what can I say? I don't fancy myself a rude dude, but I do quite enjoy Raphael's sense of humor.

As for my complaints about this game, honestly I have little to none. My only real complaints are very minor; I think that some of the voices for some characters sounded off and I wish that the Super Shredder fight was more tough. My problem with the voices really only got annoying to me with Shredder. I'm sure the actor they chose for Shredder is talented, but I really don't feel it was a good match and that's a shame considering he is the main bad guy of the Turtles. However, this game is really good overall. I'm glad that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles finally got a great game after several years of mediocre or just "okay" games. Shredder's Revenge gets a solid 4.5 stars from me for being an excellent game, but not one that I'd consider a masterpiece. It sets out to do certain things and it pulls them off very well, I couldn't really ask for anything more.

As a longtime fan of the Punch-Out series, I'm a little ashamed to say that this is the first time I've actually completed the Wii game. I've played it hundreds of times before, but always stopped either after beating Contender Mode or hitting a roadblock fight in Title Defense that I didn't have the patience to master. I've always loved everything about this game to death, so frankly I'm surprised it took me this long to try beating it, but I'm so glad I did. It's given me even more appreciation for the game. I vote with full bias giving this a 5 star but I really don't care, there is literally nothing I would change about this game.

Punch-Out Wii takes all the best aspects of its predecessors and puts them together, yet it still feels like its own distinct package. It takes the most inspiration from the NES Punch-Out, but it adds in fighters from both Super Punch-Outs (confusing, I know, but there's one on arcade and one on SNES). The way they translated the NES fighters for the regular fights is just so awesome; there are people out there that have articulated this better than I can, but they somehow managed to make it feel just like the original, from the charmingly goofy animations to the sound effects. Punch-Out Wii is absolute perfection of the series formula, if you ask me. Each fighter's pattern feels very satisfying to master - even the easy ones - and it just feels so fun to dodge, block, counter, and beat up your foes. Landing a Star Punch is very satisfying, too. In the later (harder) fights, you REALLY value your stars. That's partially because there's a great sense of risk and reward with stars: typically, the game encourages you to dodge then attack, but if you can intercept an enemy's attack with the right kind of punch at the right time you can get a star. So, whenever you're fighting, you have to decide whether you want to risk trying for a star or playing it safe to just dodge for the guaranteed damage. From what I found, each fighter has at least 4 unique ways to earn stars, and that's just really cool. Another cool thing about the game in my opinion is that each fighter has unique quirks that can add so much flavor to a fight, from the fact that Aran Ryan's punches need to be interrupted for you to be able to hurt him at all to Glass Joe taking a second to praise France. Some fighters also have cool exploits for ending a fight quick, typically in the form of one hit KOs, like how you can Star Punch ol' Glass Joe in the previously mentioned taunt he does for an instant KO. I found out the instant KO trick for the Great Tiger fight in Title Defense by complete accident and felt so accomplished when I did, especially since he was giving me a hard time. Punch-Out Wii is an excellent case of easy to learn but hard to master; aside from a few standout fights, chances are Contender Mode won't be too hard for you, but Title Defense makes even the easiest fighters from Contender a decent challenge. Some people might say that reusing the same boxers is a little lazy, and I can kind of see where they're coming from, but I think it was a great idea to make a new and much more difficult spin on the same fighters. They feel like evolutions of the previous fights while still adding at least one new trick up their sleeve. I noticed that a big theme with Title Defense fighters is attempting to throw off your sense of timing by alternating between speedy attacks and slow ones, which really messed with me many times, but the pattern is far from random so it never feels impossible to predict. The whole World Circuit and some of the Major Circuit fights in Title Defense mode are very tough, but that made it feel all the more satisfying once I figured it out and beat them.

Punch-Out Wii doesn't really have much of a story to speak of, so I'll make this paragraph for both story and characters. Basically, Little Mac is a young up-and-coming boxer coached by the lovable Doc Louis. Mac wants to rise up to the top of the WVBA boxing food chain, going from the Minor Circuit to the World Circuit. As his name implies, Mac is very short in comparison to the other boxers, which adds an extra layer of logic with the way the game is played (dodging is encouraged so heavily because you're so small to these hulking beasts). Once Mac braves through adversity and becomes the champ, Title Defense is unlocked. All the previous boxers come back for revenge and Mac has to beat them all to keep his title. Finally, once you do that, Mac's Last Stand is unlocked. Mac decides that he's going to go out with a bang, engaging in a gauntlet of fights against the same opponents yet again (aside from the surprise guest character Donkey Kong) that will only stop once he loses three times. By the end, we see Doc Louis standing in a museum with a photo of Little Mac training with him in honor of Mac's retirement, making for a bittersweet ending. So, yea, it's a very simple story, but is effective and honestly I wouldn't ask for anything more. Plus, there are some cool lore bits you learn through dialogue in the game, like how Doc Louis invented the Star Punch (learned through the "Doc Louis's Punch-Out" download only game which I really wish I owned). For the most part, though, that synopsis I gave is all you get for story. The characters are the real meat of the game if you ask me, they are so charming and goofy. Unfortunately they come with uncomfortable implications since they are all based on cultural or racial stereotypes, but I can't really say anything about that as someone who isn't part of any of the groups that might be impacted by this. I will say that I think its awesome that they all speak the main language of their home country, I've never seen a character speak Hindi or Turkish until I played this game and that's gotta mean at least something. Overall, though, they're a bunch of silly weirdos and I love them very much. Biggest standouts in my opinion are Doc Louis's unabashed positivity and goofiness, Disco Kid's flamboyant cheerful dancing, pretty much everything about King Hippo, Don Flamenco's infectious confidence (and arrogance), and Super Macho Man's amusing surfer dude lingo combined with his arrogance that reeks of Hollywood star, but frankly I think all of them are just so charming in their own ways. Mr. Sandman is a genuine badass and he's intimidating as hell, just as another example. Everyone's got some kind of unique personality that's interesting to see in action.

Here's a brief shoutout to the visual design of everything in the game. It's a pretty standard cel-shaded cartoony style from what I can tell, but man every character is just brimming with personality from how exaggerated their movement and facial expressions are. The game also just looks really good in my opinion, which is especially impressive to me considering that this is a Wii game and those aren't all known for looking great nowadays. Unfortunately there seems to be a strange issue with the characters eyes, where sometimes black lines will thicken to strange degrees, but I don't really notice that on original hardware (its mostly visible in those Punch-Out Wii HD videos I watch that are footage from an emulator).

So, yea, needless to say this is one of my favorite games and I love everything about it. I will say that I don't love it quite as much as Super Punch-Out (SNES), since I feel that game is just a lot more infinitely replayable to me and I have a lot of nostalgia bias for it. Nonetheless, I think Punch-Out Wii is just such a wonderful experience. I've been begging for it to get a port or remaster on Switch for what feels like such a long time by now, hoping that happens at some point but it might never happen.

SteamWorld Dig 2 is a very solid Metroidvania experience. After having played the first SteamWorld Dig to completion (not 100%) about three years ago and finding it good, it was cool to see how this sequel reiterates and improves upon everything established in that game. The core is still pretty much the same, but it is expanded through great additions. This game took me three days of constant play to beat.

Upgrading your character (this time its Dorothy McCrank instead of Rusty) feels more satisfying than ever, it has that classic Metroidvania quality of feeling underwhelming and simple at first but really blossoming later on. I was surprised by just how many upgrades and new equipment you get throughout the game; sure, some of them return from the first game, but there are some that are completely new. My only real complaint about the progression in SteamWorld Dig 2 is that the whole leveling system felt rather pointless to me. Everything you can upgrade is already walled off through the money you get from selling the ore you collect on your journey, which felt like quite a natural path of progression to me, so I see no need for blocking things further through the level system. Whenever I had enough in-game cash to buy the upgrades I wanted, I was high enough level for it anyway. Also, I never felt any stronger or more efficient from leveling; the game would tell me my stats improved or something, but I couldn't tell the difference.

The level design of SteamWorld Dig 2 is wonderfully cohesive. I have a bad tendency of getting lost and frustrated with not knowing where to go or how to solve a puzzle in games, but that didn't happen to me a single time here. I don't know how to explain it in better terms, its just that the design of the game made it to where finding secrets and figuring out puzzles felt very intuitive, yet still complex enough to make me think about how to do it. I managed to find more than half of the Artifacts in the game, which made me feel quite accomplished since typically I'm not good at hunting down secret collectibles.

SteamWorld Dig 2 feels nice to play, as well. The controls are solid. Dorothy gets upgrades later on - a jetpack and a grappling hook - that made movement a lot of fun for me. I don't have a lot to say about that, but I figured I'd make a short paragraph praising this since "game feel" is a very important aspect of making a game enjoyable.

I will say, the story was not very gripping to me. It has a strange way of seeming like its trying to be more engaging than it actually is, there's some narrative but it didn't really hit for me. At the end, some cool plot-points were being built up and hinted at, but just ended up not being true for what only felt like it happened for the sake of a plot twist. One thing I like is that we learn that the Shiners (zombie people basically) from the last game are actually sentient and Dorothy befriends them. That was pretty cool, but I feel this should have been a little more developed considering Rusty was killing these guys in the last game. This is a big reason why the twist ending, where the leader of the Shiners that has been helping you was actually the villain using you for their master plan all along, falls flat for me. Why even pretend like they were good folk in the first place when the last game didn't do that? I did not see any signs that the Shiner leader was evil, though its possible I just missed some. Also, the game often hints that Rusty was the villain, since there's even an entire cult that worships him, yet Rusty isn't evil at all and he only shows up at the very end when its revealed he's just being used as a living battery for the real villain's big mech. I don't know, the plot twists just fell flat for me. That's not too big a deal since I don't expect some sweeping narrative from these games, but I do find it a little disappointing since this game tried to put more emphasis on story.

The visuals and soundtrack of SteamWorld Dig 2 are great. Although the music isn't something I would listen to outside of the game, in the game it works well to establish atmosphere. This game's art style looks REALLY nice, I don't know how to describe it. It sort of looks like watercolor paintings to me, if I had to compare it to anything. The visual flair of SteamWorld Dig 2 is a huge improvement over the first game in my opinion.

Overall, SteamWorld Dig 2 is a great game. It has flaws (what game doesn't?) but the positives far outweigh them. SteamWorld Dig 2 gets a solid 4 stars from me.

As a longtime fan of the Punch-Out series introduced to it by Super Punch-Out on the SNES, I was really curious to try this one out. I never played the game that started it all until I bought this Arcade Archives version of it a few days ago (as of writing this review). Of course, that unfortunately means I can't attest to how accurate this game emulates the original experience, but it seemed solid to me overall. I used save states to beat this game since, honestly, it was giving me a real hard time. Also its worth noting that this game technically doesn't end, I'm just considering it completed because I beat Mr. Sandman and became the champion. Gameplay wise, this was certainly an interesting experience. Perhaps my lack of experience with arcade games is showing, but I found this game difficult to get used to. When you get hit, you are incapable of throwing out punches again until a pretty hefty and punishing delay. The dodging felt like it had a delay and lasts barely any time, which becomes a big problem when some attacks expect you to be quick on the draw to dodge or are thrown out really slowly. Normally not being able to throw punches after a hit wouldn't be a problem for me, but its more bothersome for this game since I felt like it encourages you to play aggressive instead of the opportunistic playstyle most other Punch-Out games encourage. On the plus side, generally your opponents don't guard as much as they do in other games, so you can get in plenty of free hits without having to dodge too much if you can predict where they're going to block. All these oddities aside, I found that, once I got used to the game, it felt pretty satisfying to dodge enemy attacks or predict when an enemy will drop their guard to wail on them a bunch. Its a bit clunky to me, but it still feels like Punch-Out and I respect that. This game is flawed and a little archaic in my opinion, so it will likely be my least revisited Punch-Out game, but I think it was overall a pretty solid game once I got used to it. Maybe one day I can beat all the opponents without using save states, but, for now, Pizza Pasta and Mr. Sandman continue to be my plague. Punch-Out arcade gets three stars from me. Its not great, but not at all bad. I'll definitely be trying out Super Punch-Out on Arcade Archives next...whenever I feel like it.

So, I've never considered myself much of a Zelda fan. I've attempted to play through this game many times and it just wasn't gripping me at all, same with Wind Waker (although I think that game's art style is gorgeous and its characters are very charming), A Link Between Worlds, and Breath of the Wild. However, after playing through a whole lot of Hyrule Warriors, it inspired me to try giving these Zelda games a chance again. I figured I'd start with this one since its the only old game in the TLoZ series I've played before aside from Link's Awakening and its one of the most acclaimed games in the series. I find that I respect this game a lot for its important contributions to the series and its strong legacy, but I just really was not super into this one. By the end, I felt like I was just completing it to get it done so I could move on to other things. I think I've learned that 2D Zelda is really not super up-my-alley, but it is fun to play every now and then.

This game really surprised me in a lot of ways. For one, I actually died a ton here. I could just chalk that up to my relative unfamiliarity with 2D Zelda but I was really terrible at this game for a good while and cherished every Piece of Heart and Fairy I got. I also tend to suck at exploration in games, quite frankly, so there were plenty of times I had to look up where to find the item needed to progress so I wasn't aimlessly searching every corner. Thankfully I was able to complete most dungeons with minimal use of guides, and I only ever used Restore Points near the end since I was just annoyed and wanted to finish the game already. The biggest thing that shocked me is how long the game is; I'm not sure why I was expecting it to be short but it took me nearly 30 hours to beat. There's a lot of content here and I was not expecting that to be the case.

As far as gameplay goes, yea its pretty standard 2D Zelda stuff, although that was probably pretty innovative at the time this game came out. Aside from some annoying enemies and secrets that I would have been running around like a headless chicken trying to find by myself, I think this was solid overall. You swing your sword or use magic items you find to take out your enemies. If you're feeling a little spicy you can also kill enemies by clocking them in the head with the throwable objects you find. Some enemies require specific weapons to die, like the goblin looking enemies that copy your movement in mirrored directions or some of the bosses. You can also stand still to block stuff with your shield; I'm used to having a dedicated block button in my games, but this works. It's usually more reliable to just avoid things though since its not always obvious what you can block, like the lasers from those statues with the rotating eyes (I think they're called Beamos) are unblockable but you can block the lasers from the eye symbols on walls or doors that you find in later dungeons once you get the Mirror Shield...except some of the eye lasers inexplicably just can't be blocked for some reason. Of course, as you'd expect, each dungeon has a lot of puzzles and they're pretty nifty. Thankfully, any secret areas that you have to bomb or dash into with the Pegasus Boots to open up are indicated visually, so there'll be an obvious crack in the wall or something to clue you in (although some of these don't actually lead to anything and are just there to trick you).

The story...uh, its there, I guess? I feel most, if not all, of the story is just window dressing for the barebones plot of "Go through these dungeons so you can save the seven sages and beat Ganon". There's a good bit of lore here but there's not much real story. Basically, Link is a kid who is part of the royal knight family. Zelda sends him a message through telekinesis. Your uncle goes out on a mission and he tells Link not to leave the house. Of course Link completely disregards that and he goes to the castle to save Zelda from the royal dungeon. Doesn't take long to meet up with his uncle, who got badly damaged in his quest to go fight the corruption taking over Hyrule Castle. He decides to give his sword and shield, telling Link he must go save Zelda. I guess she also told him that Link was going to rescue her. After saving Zelda, she stays with a priest at Sanctuary and tells you to go fight the evil wizard Agahnim for the good of Hyrule. Basically, Agahnim is an alter-ego of Ganon who usurped the kingdom, which he did so he could kidnap the descendants of the ancient seven wise men and dispel the seal that their ancestors put on the Golden Land for so long. I don't think it was really explained what this Golden Land is even meant to be, but it is undeniably connected to the Triforce. From here, Link needs to go to three dungeons that each award one magic pendant, which he needs all three of to pull out the Master Sword in the Lost Woods. Eventually you also have to go through the Dark World - an alternate version of the Light World created by Ganon - and do all seven dungeons there. After that, Link has the final showdown with Ganon, wins the Triforce, and the day is saved. So, the story is overall very basic, but I don't really expect amazing stories out of these games anyway so that wasn't much of a bummer to me.

I think this game was pretty good overall. I have some minor nitpicks like the ones I mentioned earlier and some ones I hadn't mentioned yet, like how it was driving me nuts that I had maxed out Rupees for a good portion of the game with basically nothing to spend them on. ALttP earns a good 4 stars out of me; I respect this game for its legacy, but its honestly not something I would ever want to go beat again, and I did end up getting quite bored of it my last few play sessions before completion.

After having been disappointed by how close Plague of Shadows is to Shovel of Hope, man am I glad to have a DLC campaign that feels truly unique. Specter of Torment is great, starring a very fun to control character, fun level design that takes advantage of said character's enjoyable mechanics, and a surprising amount of expansion into the lore and characters of the game. I'm thinking Specter of Torment is better than the base game, honestly, but we'll see if I still think its the best out of them all once I beat King of Cards and wrap up this Shovel Knight marathon I'm on.

The gameplay is better than Plague of Shadows by default just by actually having level design of its own. I was so glad I didn't have to go through what's basically the exact same levels again, lemme tell ya. The titular character, Specter Knight, has a really fun play style that seems to be speedier than both Plague Knight and Shovel Knight. He's not as weird to play as Plague Knight, but also not quite as simple as Shovel Knight, and his movement feels less floaty than both in my opinion. The main things that set Specter Knight apart are three unique abilities he has: he can position himself through slashing enemies or obstacles (when you're in the air there's a little slash that appears on enemies to indicate when you can propel yourself to cut through that enemy), grind on rails, and very briefly run up walls before falling off if you don't reach the top. The rail grinding is very situational since some levels don't have them at all, but you will need to familiarize yourself with his weak wall-run and positional slashing for every level since a lot of it is built around those mechanics. This contributes to Specter Knight generally feeling like a speedier character who gets a lot of use out of his movement options. Of course, he also gets a wide variety of Curios with spooky undead themed effects from giving red skulls to Red in the hub. They're basically just like Arcana from Plague of Shadows, except the meter used to use these spells is instead called Darkness. You get more Darkness and Will (health) from finding containers located in every level that have either Will or Darkness spirits that Specter Knight absorbs, and I found these weren't very difficult to find. If you miss any, you can just buy them from Missy in the hub; I only had to do that for two of the spirits. Speaking of the hub, I didn't talk about it much in my previous review, but it is worth noting that Specter of Torment ditches the whole Super Mario Bros. 3 overworld map system that both Shovel of Hope and Plague of Shadows had; instead, this campaign goes full Mega Man by letting you pick directly which level + boss you wanna fight in any order you want (except for the Tower of Fate levels at the very end). Instead of having to go to Zelda II style villages to get upgrades, everything is just right there in the hub for you to grab before you set out to fight the next knight. The mode generally feels much cleaner and more streamlined as a result in my opinion, there's no need to fumble with an overworld or anything of the sort and you can just go straight to the next stage. Overall, the gameplay is significantly better than Plague of Shadows, and, although its a tough pick, I think I would say Specter of Torment is also better than Shovel of Hope, the base game.

I feel that Specter of Torment was the first of these campaigns to really try to focus on the story and characters. Perhaps that's because this is a prequel that sets up the events before both Shovel of Hope and Plague of Shadows, although seemingly not King of Cards since, from what I've heard, that one takes place before all the others. Nonetheless, I think it did excellently, showcasing Specter Knight's tragic and interesting story as well as fleshing out a surprising amount of characters, like Black Knight and Reize (I never mentioned the latter in my reviews so far because he's just a random traveling boss who was completely irrelevant before this game). You can kinda already guess what Black Knight's true motivations were by the end of Shovel of Hope, for example, but here you see them get expanded upon through Black Knight's connections to Specter Knight and the dialogue they have throughout the story; Black Knight serves the Enchantress as a front because he hopes he, or someone else, can get through to her and turn her back into Shield Knight (of course Shovel Knight ends up being the one to do that in Shovel of Hope). As for the actual plot, it gets pieced together mostly through flashbacks that Specter Knight has throughout the game. As it turns out, he was a thief named Donovan in life. He had a close connection to another thief named Luan (he's also the father of Reize), and the two went to the Tower of Fate to steal a magic amulet because they believed it would keep Reize safe from the perilous adventures he would try to go on some day. That amulet is actually the Phase Locket, the infamous invincibility Relic from Shovel of Hope and the same Relic that Specter Knight is guarding in that game. When Donovan and Luan raided the Tower of Fate and successfully reached the Phase Locket, Shield Knight stopped them, warning that it was too dangerous to be used. Luan hesitates, but Donovan assumes that she's only saying this because she wants to take it for herself. Boss fight happens, then the tower starts to crumble, and in a very rash decision he would soon regret, Donovan takes the locket and attacks Luan for trying to stop him. The ground gives way and Donovan falls, nearly dying. That's when the Enchantress arrives and persuades him to join her in his dying breath; she stabs him with a scythe to raise him as an undead. As the newly created Specter Knight who wields the same scythe used to kill him, Donovan's goal is now to find eight knights across the land to recruit to create the Order of No Quarter, for which his reward will be an amulet that grants life, presumably so he can bring himself back to life. After a bit of progress in the game, Reize appears, much to Specter Knight's horror. The Enchantress easily defeats Reize and corrupts him with dark power, and now he barks orders at Specter Knight under the Enchantress's authority. Near the end of the game, Specter Knight seizes the opportunity to fight back against the Enchantress after Black Knight appears and reveals that the Enchantress is actually Shield Knight. That was the last straw for him to break free from her control, since Donovan blames Shield Knight for everything and loathes her. In the end, Donovan fights a monster version of Reize created by the Enchantress, and Donovan ultimately gives up his freedom in servitude to the Enchantress after using the amulet to restore Reize back to life. He finally fulfilled his promise to protect Reize, but at what cost? The end credits scene shows him leaving the Phase Locket in a chest, hoping Reize will find it...though, as we all know, Shovel Knight goes and steals it after defeating Specter Knight.

So, yea, I'd say Specter of Torment is excellent. I'm kinda flip-flopping on if I think its better than Shovel of Hope, but I think I would ultimately give it to Specter of Torment. A great expansion to this game. Earns 5 stars from me.

Super Mario Land 2 is one of those highly praised Mario games I hadn't played until now. Just like the other Game Boy Mario game I visited (Donkey Kong '94), I found myself enjoying my time with this game. It's short, but honestly sometimes I'm just looking for something short to blow through while still having fun. I find that the Game Boy is a great source for these kinds of games, perhaps because developers tended to want to emphasize the "Take it on the go" aspect of the Game Boy.

Admittedly, I haven't played the first Super Mario Land for more than a minute or two through a friend's copy, so I won't be mentioning that game more than a few times when talking about its sequel here. I think the core gameplay of Super Mario Land 2 is good, maybe even great. The physics are a little odd to get used to at first, mainly just because Mario's jumping feels slower and floatier than in most Mario games I've played, but once you get the hang of it Mario feels good to control. This game has a very basic platformer move-set, but hey this is classic Mario so I'm not gonna complain about that. One thing I will say is that the game does experience some occasional slowdown and screen crunch, but frankly those two quirks feel pretty much inevitable to pop up at some point with the Game Boy (although I'm no Game Boy connoisseur so take that with a pile of salt) and it was never the cause of any deaths for me. If you're really worried about it, just keep a steady slow pace and always be on the lookout for incoming enemies. Something I really like about the gameplay of Super Mario Land 2 is the way its structured. As soon as you make a save file, you get the choice of which world you want to go to in a hub area that's a bit similar to Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World. With the exception of the final area, everything's available to you right out the gate, so you can finish the worlds in any order you want. Might not matter to some, but that freedom of choice is pretty nice for others. Also, the difficulty curve manages to feel pretty natural for the most part even despite the freedom to pick any world as your first. The final level definitely beat me up a few times and gave me my first (and second) game over, but I expect the final level of a game to give me a tough time and its not some kind of tough as nails platformer.

Something I want to give props to is the visual design of this game. It looks really nice for a Game Boy game, although unfortunately I wasn't able to play it in color because the 3DS never got an option to use GBC colors on GB games and I will never understand why they didn't do it. The sprites are a bit big, unfortunately, so that adds to some extra screen crunch than what would've happened if things got scaled down (kinda like what happened with Donkey Kong Land but not anywhere near as terrible). Not too big of an issue, though. I love how the worlds are so strange and goofy, there's no way we would get a Halloween themed world or a level made up of bricks that look like LEGOs in a modern 2D Mario game. One of the enemies in that Halloween world just straight up has a Jason Voorhees style hockey mask and that was so weird to see in a Mario game. Yea, some levels have more generic themes than others, but there's also some pretty creative and fun visuals here. Space Land is pretty cool, although I don't get why Mario needed to wear an astronaut suit when he can indefinitely swim underwater with no need to breathe. That world also sees the return of Tatanga, the boss of Super Mario Land...which, as far as I know, is basically the only thing that ties this game to the first Super Mario Land. Overall, some pretty memorable and cool level designs here.

Unfortunately the music is less interesting than Super Mario Land to me. The fact that pretty much every song in Land 2 is a remix of the main theme or incorporates it into the melody in some way (I'm not a music guy I don't know what they call that) is rather disappointing, especially after Land had a great soundtrack of all original tunes. They're good and serve their purpose but I can't help but feel a bit disappointed with it.

Overall, pretty good game and definitely one of the greats out of the Game Boy games I've played. I rate it a solid 4 stars.

As of typing this review, I have just finished Ōkami HD. Man, what an experience. It took me 57 hours to complete (as per usual I didn't go for 100%), which is certainly much more of a time sink than I expected when I first jumped into the game. Nonetheless, I very much enjoyed my time with Ōkami HD. I have a lot more to say about it than I anticipated, so its time for me to pump out another ridiculously long review that no one reads.

Ōkami is such a nice game visually. Ordinarily, this is not something I would point out so early in my reviews, but I feel that the way this game looks is very important to its identity. It is based on a style of traditional paintings in Japan (unfortunately I can't tell you the specific style since I am not well-versed in Japanese history) that almost makes the game feel 2D since it feels like a painting. This artistic style is thematically tied together to key elements of the game in a few different ways. Perhaps the most obvious tie is that the entire game looking like an illustration makes sense when the main character - Amaterasu - draws with her tail to use her nature manipulation powers. The art style of Ōkami also immediately communicates visually to the player that its story is inspired by Japanese folklore (unless that player is unfamiliar with this style of traditional Japanese painting). I believe the softer and slightly washed out colors also makes for a good way to communicate mood: areas that shine brilliantly in the light are particularly vibrant, areas that are lit by the moon feel extra tranquil. There are also many locations of the games that are cursed with evil magic and it is easily and effectively communicated through the prominent use of colors.

Gameplay wise, Ōkami gave me some TLoZ vibes. Its an adventure game centering the journey of a god dog, Amaterasu, who is on a quest to restore nature and save humanity from evil. There's a good mix of platforming, puzzle-solving, and dungeon exploring. Overall, the game has a very linear sense of progression, but there's still a good amount of side quests to do and collectibles to find along the way. As you progress, you'll learn a wide berth of brush techniques that you can use to solve puzzles or interact with the world by drawing specific symbols. This is the big unique gameplay draw in my opinion. Pressing R1 (on PS4) instantly turns everything into a sepia-like filter and lets you draw anywhere, where you can then draw the symbols associated with brush techniques to do special things. For instance, Bloom is a circle, so you can draw a circle around a dead tree to bring it back to life for some fruit. You also get Praise for using your techniques to restore nature. Praise is a resource used for upgrading your character and you can use it to permanently increase your health, ink, wallet, or Astral Pouch. The Astral Pouch is a resource that will revive you when you die and its automatically filled by eating food you can find while exploring the land. Something I like about the structure of Ōkami is that its rare for anything you do to feel like a waste of time; fighting enemies gives you yen to buy items with, destroying things around you has a chance to restore your health and ink as well as give you money, and if you're ever lost you can keep doing both of those things so you feel like you're achieving something. While you're traveling, you can find animals around the world that you feed using bags of food that you either naturally find in your travels or buy from merchants. This is a side activity that doesn't really give you much, but is necessary for 100% completion since it fills up something in the menu called an Animal Tome. Certain NPCs at certain parts of the story give you the option to go fishing and, similar to the Animal Tome, this comes with a Fish Tome that you can complete. Both Tomes come with about a page or two of information about the animal that you can freely view after that animal has been fed or caught, which is a neat little detail the developers didn't have to include but did anyway. There are three other menus with reading sections: the Bestiary, the Treasure Tome, and the Travel Guides. The Bestiary will likely be finished by the time you beat the game and it has every enemy and boss you've fought. The available reading for the Bestiary tells you the lore of the enemy and gives hints of their weaknesses. On the other hand, Travel Guides are collectible scrolls that can be read for tips on how to use your brush techniques. You will likely not have all of them unless you are a thorough explorer, which I am unfortunately not. The Treasure Tome is where all the treasures you find are chronicled. The treasures serve as the main collectible of the game and you will find them in most chests you get, but they have no use other than filling the Treasure Tome and being sold for a pretty penny. Finally, the last collectible of note are the Stray Beads, which can be found in chests. They are rare and there is a shit ton of them to get. Each area you go to has 11 beads and there are a whopping 99 in total. They are kind of like this game's Korok Seeds except they have no practical use and are purely for 100% completion. That is a LOT of side content to engage with, but the game doesn't pressure you to engage with it if you don't want to. The only one of these I completed was the Animal Tome.

The combat in Ōkami is just alright. It never feels all that involved aside from figuring out an enemy's weakness. Some have patterns, others are just a "hit it until it dies" case. As the game progresses, you get several weapons of three different types: reflectors, rosaries, and glaives. You can equip one as your main weapon and another as a sub weapon, which the game seems to encourage switching between since the weapons can give different effects when equipped as a sub. I kept my combo of rosary main and reflector sub almost the whole game without feeling like I missed out on anything. For my play style, I found that Rosaries were by far the best, trading lower damage for long range was worth it for me. Overall, combat was very basic, so weapon choice doesn't seem to diversify it too much. Boss fights require slightly more complex strategies, but once you figure it out you'll realize that most of the time spent in those fights is waiting on them to show their weak point and then punishing it. It doesn't help that there's only a couple of bosses and you often have to refight them, which probably gets most annoying with Orochi himself since you have to fight him three times in the story and the fights are quite long in comparison to the others. You also do almost the exact same strategy every time you refight the bosses, there is no significant difference in your methods even though, by the point you rematch these bosses, you have a lot of brush techniques to play with. It doesn't help that, if you've been holding onto those Exorcism Slips like I did, you could just use a whole bunch of them to effortlessly destroy bosses. Exorcism Slips are items that deal unavoidable damage to enemies near you once they are used. I thought for sure that they wouldn't let you use them on bosses, so I didn't even try...until the final boss, when I was surprised to find that I could just relentlessly assault it with my slips and not have to try fighting. Almost wish I found that out earlier, but I am also glad I did not figure that out since you can buy the Exorcism Slips so you could probably cheese every boss fight if you have the cash.

Alright, after explaining everything about the game, let's get into some story. I found the characters of Ōkami to be quite enjoyable. This game somehow made me care about a living sheet of paper (if you know, you know). As for the main characters...Amaterasu doesn't speak, but she's fun. She is a cute stoic god dog that wants to help everyone, but she also has a sassy side; she makes her disinterest known when talking to people that bore her. There's also Issun, a boisterous Poncle (basically a sprite) that speaks for Amaterasu and travels with her the whole game. Anyone who's played this game will tell you how annoying Issun is. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, in truth he isn't too irritating if you just accept the fact he will be constantly talking every two seconds in cutscenes. He also explains things way too much, but I'm pretty dumb when playing games sometimes so I appreciate the extra help. Nonetheless, this guy is always explaining everything to you and I can see that getting on a player's nerves. Issun is an annoying character in general, too; he's an egotistical little dude that hits on literally every woman he sees and he has a short temper. It made me wish the women in the game would actually call him out for it but it never happens. It's worth noting that he does get some nice development since he starts to humble out a little more and he stops being an insufferable creep towards every woman he meets. In around the first quarter of the story, Susano is a major character and I thought he was pretty entertaining. He is the lazy descendent of the long-deceased legendary hero Nagi. He uses the title to boost his ego, but he really isn't very heroic in the beginning. In fact, he's the one that releases the big bad villain - Orochi - in the first place. Susano has a nice arc of turning from a big mouthed lazy wannabe hero to a true hero. Its not mind-blowing, but I think it works well; a precedent is set for his growth since he slowly becomes less afraid of real danger and gets better at the whole hero thing as the game goes on. Susano stops showing up in the story entirely after he gets the finishing blow on Orochi in the first 15 hours or so of the story, but it works since his arc is completed. Waka is another major character and he is probably my favorite character in the game. Waka is the mysterious flamboyant rival that gives prophecies to Amaterasu and Issun, duels Ammy at times, and pisses Issun off to no end. He often shows up to tease the duo and lead them the right way. The way his dialogue is written is pretty eccentric and fun, he has a cheesy way of talking and he randomly inserts French words in conversations despite there being no indication of other countries even existing in this game. There are hints that he's hiding something, but it isn't until the very end when this is finally seen. Waka is ultimately heroic in his goals, which I was glad to see since I was worried they were going to make him an awful twist villain. As for the other characters in the story, they are fairly minor but still plot important. Nonetheless, I don't feel they're worth explaining here; they have their charms but they are still side characters.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, Ōkami is a lot longer than I thought it would be. It has a fake out ending after about 15 or 20 hours worth of progression: although Amaterasu is successful in her quest to restore nature from Orochi's curse and defeat him, his death releases other evil spirits that create more problems for her to fix. For a brief summary of what the continued plot looks like: there's a dark magic fog in Sei-an City that plagues the citizens (turns out it's from the emperor who was cursed by one of the Orochi ghosts), you help the priestess Rao explore a ship for the Fox Rods only to find nothing there, you save a woman named Kaguya from imprisonment and help her learn who she is (this is resolved in like five minutes since you quickly find a bamboo rocket tied to her past that she leaves the planet with), you speak with the queen of Sei-an City, you activate a galaxy in the sky to get to the underwater city to speak to the Draconians to learn how to stop the Water Dragon, you go inside the dragon's body to get the Dragon Orb and stop it's rampage, both Rao and Himiko are killed by a demon called Ninetails, you go on a treacherous trip through Oni Island to beat up Ninetails, once you beat it it's revealed that Ninetails' spirit went to Kamui so you go there too, in Kamui you find a swordsman of the Oina Tribe named Oki that becomes an ally after a duel, you go to the mountain village of the Oina and agree to help the people there find Lika (the lost daughter of the chief), you go to the forest Yoshpet where you find Issun's home land and an old friend of Amaterasu, once you get through Yoshpet you find the Spirit Gate, going inside the Spirit Gate takes you to 100 years ago in the past of the first village of the game, you then go to the moon cave with Nagi to make sure the hero prophecy goes through as normal, you kill Orochi together with Nagi and your past self and rescue Lika, after that you return to your own time by going back in the Spirit Gate, you go to the Wawku Shrine to then go fight the remaining two demons, you eventually beat those demons with the help of Oki and your past self, the wrecked ark of legend activates afterwards (of course you go inside), the ark has a boss gauntlet, then FINALLY you fight the lord of darkness Yami and the game ends after you narrowly win the long battle. I skipped over details for the sake of making this breakdown as swift and easily understandable as I could. Nonetheless, for how surprisingly long the story of Ōkami is, I did not find it to be all that special. Everything connects full circle, though, and that's always nice. I know all the characters and some of the story-beats are based on Japanese mythology, but I do not have any background knowledge on what those myths are.

Overall I think Ōkami HD was a solid experience. My only real problems with it involve how sluggish it can feel at times when it comes to progression, the bland combat, the repetition of bosses (made worse by needing to rematch them a few times with little to no change in your strategy), and Issun being annoying. Ōkami HD gets a solid 3.5 stars from me.

This remake of Donkey Kong Country 2 is a game I had not played in a long time. I honestly felt quite nostalgic revisiting it. The game took me very little time to finish since I am already very familiar with the SNES game and I'm not the 100% completionist kind of player, but nonetheless I enjoyed my time with it. I don't think there is a whole lot to say about it though.

Donkey Kong Country 2 on the Game Boy Advance is essentially exactly the same as Donkey Kong Country 2 on the SNES when it comes to overall gameplay and levels. The game controls well, although it pretty much just emulates the SNES's controls which were already amazing. I will say that the jumping took some getting used to, not sure why but Diddy and Dixie feel like they jump considerably higher in this game with little opportunity to make smaller jumps and that really threw me off. Quite frankly, it made precise platforming suck in things like the barrel hopping in Snakey Chanty. Barrel throws also felt off to me; throws that I feel like would have hit an enemy just based off my muscle memory of the SNES game completely miss opponents. I actually died more times than I'd like to admit in my process of getting used to the differences in this remake's physics as compared to the original. I can beat DKC2 SNES without dying much but I saw the game over screen of DKC2 for the first time in several years playing this. Nonetheless, everything on the gameplay front is pretty solid and you could even make a case for it being better than the SNES version in some cases. The only real differences I noticed with level design is that some bonuses are a little different and the boss fights also have minor differences. While I admire this remake's ambition to be as faithful as possible considering how the Game Boy Advance comes with some flaws the SNES didn't have (I imagine it took a lot of work to remake all of that for the GBA), this approach being applied to a remake on a weaker console unfortunately results in the game feeling like a lesser experience in some ways. The music pretty much feels like a straight downgrade to me: I adore DKC2's soundtrack on the SNES but these versions just do not hit the spot at all. It's not terrible, though, and I did find it interesting to hear this soundtrack I love so much remade for another console. Of course, it should go without saying that this GBA remake looks worse visually than the SNES version. For some reason, the visuals are also noticeably oversaturated. I don't know what the reason for that is, but I guess it does give the game some unique identity. Also, Dixie Kong looks like she's wearing purple in this game. It could just be my screen (I was playing on Game Boy Advance SP and not DS so the colors can look different), but I do think it looks nice. Another notable thing about the visuals of this game is the scale of things. I could just be seeing something that's not there considering how its been a bit since I played DKC2 SNES (not a super long time, just been a good while), but it looks like everything is smaller than the original, which noticeably gives a bit more space for the screen. This can let you see incoming enemies and hazards a little better, but there were still a lot of times where the screen did not show me an enemy that I ended up catapulting right into. The screen seems to have a bias for upwards travel as opposed to falling down, which can be great for when you want to quickly scale platforms but there were many times I fell down and just immediately died to an enemy I couldn't see coming. This quirk of the screen made stages that focus on scrolling upwards like Toxic Tower and Slime Climb much tougher for me (because falling usually means immediate death you can't see coming) when its usually a breeze for me to beat on SNES.

I do think it is worth noting that this game does have some extra bells and whistles to try and make it feel more unique or add more to the original gameplay. The biggest point is that you can save whenever you want so long as you're in the level select, which is a great quality of life change. Saving also requires no banana coins and you keep both your lives and banana coins after saving. This change much better suits the way a portable console is meant to be played and it also helps make the game feel more modern. The rest of the changes are either fairly minor, entirely related to presentation, or both. Much more sound effects are present, and all of the sound effects from the SNES game have either been changed completely or remade to fit the GBA. Generally, these tend to have a more high pitched and cartoony sound to them than the original game (not to discount how silly those could be), but I think the vibe works well with how the game's visuals are lighter and the music is higher pitched. To me, these stylistic changes give the GBA remake game a more wacky tone that sort of departs from how the original game was. Whether or not this was entirely done out of a creative vision or because of limitations is beyond my knowledge, although I do know that the game actually has dialogue and cutscenes now that add to that jovial vibe (not to insinuate that the SNES game was some kind of very dark game). There's a cutscene that plays whenever you start a new file showing how exactly Donkey Kong got kidnapped. As it turns out, Donkey Kong was relaxing on the beach one day and then K. Rool's ship appears out of nowhere to quite literally catch DK by surprise. You get some dialogue from Cranky Kong whenever you beat a boss, who usually has something amusing or clever to say whenever he slowly walks up to Diddy and Dixie after a boss fight is over. There are also some minigames that I did not bother doing any of in this playthrough, although I remember playing them pretty often as a kid and not understanding any of it. There's a minigame where you race Expressos with an Expresso that you train up using the new golden feather collectibles scattered in the levels of the core game, a minigame where you pilot Funky's ship through mazes, a minigame where you grab bugs while avoiding Klubba, and a time attack mode. The Funky minigame is now done at Funky's Flights instead of its previous function of letting you travel to previous worlds, but this is only because you can now take a plane to go to other worlds whenever you're in the overworld through the Gyrocopter option in the Start menu. Worth noting that there is an entirely new boss unique to this remake called Kerozene. Unfortunately, whoever was in charge of designing this new character seems to have made his model and animations entirely 3D, which makes him look very out of place in comparison to the bosses from the original game. Kerozene is placed at the end of K. Rool's Keep, which seems like it would be a fitting decision if it weren't for the fact that K. Rool's Keep was deliberately designed to be the only world in the original game with no boss for a reason. In the original, its done to subvert expectations in a fun way, but here they slapped this big dumb 3D fire-spewing lizard man just because. Oh well, at least it was a decently fun boss fight.

Overall, Donkey Kong Country 2 on the Game Boy Advance is a pretty middle-of-the-road remake. Despite all my gripes with various aspects of this remake, I think I'd ultimately say this is pretty good at what it does, perhaps even great considering the limitations. It is a good recreation of the original game as far as pure gameplay goes, to the point you could even say it is better than the original in some ways even if the physics felt weird to me. However, the presentation suffers despite the game's added bonuses to presentation (cutscenes and dialogue), and that's really important to me personally as someone who loves the presentation of the original. Some changes are pretty charming, others felt out of place or pointless. The side content also felt quite pointless and tacked-on to me, and I did find it frustrating how awkward this remake felt in comparison to the smoothness of the original (in my opinion). I would not recommend you play this remake over the original, but I still give it massive credit for being as close as it is. Donkey Kong Country 2 GBA was an amazing option to have back when there were no ways to play the original portably; I remember I used to dream of finally having the opportunity to play the original Donkey Kong Country games portably in all their glory and these GBA remakes served as a good supplement for scratching that itch. I really do think its important that this game and the other Donkey Kong Country GBA remakes existed, as corny as that may sound. DKC2 GBA gets a solid 3.5 stars, not quite good enough to get 4 stars from me because my problems with it add up but I don't want to downplay this remake being pretty good overall.

After seeing this game often praised by Donkey Kong fans, I was very curious to try this. Having just beat it after typing this, I definitely understand why people call this game one of the best on the Game Boy, its a great time and its my favorite on the console so far. Unfortunately the iconic bait-and-switch of this game pretending to be a port of the arcade game just for it to be a huge game all on its own was not a surprise for me, but the game did still manage to shock me with just how much content is in it. It took me 22 hours to beat this game (though that's counting the times I left my 3DS on without playing the game so its not entirely accurate); frankly, I would have never expected to get anywhere near that amount of time on a Game Boy game that isn't an RPG. Honestly that is a bit of a negative for me since I much prefer when Game Boy games are short, though this game at least doesn't overstay its welcome which I'm very appreciative of.

Its interesting to me just how much mileage this game gets using the relatively simple style of the arcade Donkey Kong. It introduces some new abilities, like the backflip, handstand, and handstand jumps, plus it lets you pick up enemies and items like in Super Mario Bros 2 USA. Nonetheless, it still feels like a spiritual successor to the arcade game, taking its style and improving on it in meaningful ways. Small parts of this game's design actually take inspiration from Donkey Kong Jr., too, which I think is pretty neat since that game tends to go forgotten. The influence is mainly in specific stages, which will have ropes you need to climb to get to your destination, enemies that block those ropes, and fruit on those ropes that you can use to defeat the enemies.

Donkey Kong 94 has some very creative level design that I love. Trying to figure out how to get the collectibles in each stage and finishing the stage in general is handled in a way that is engaging but not overly complicated aside from a few standouts that I needed to watch a guide to complete. Whenever I sought outside help for the puzzles, I found that the solution was always just something I wasn't thinking of, so it never felt unfair to me. Your main goal in every stage (except for the Donkey Kong showdown stages) is to find the key and reach the door, but the stage design finds many creative ways to make you think about how you're going to get that key over to where the door is. One of my favorite stages is 5-9, which takes you through an area with a bunch of platforms that switching levers will turn on and off. Those levers have been present in many other levels before this one, but I had to really think about how to beat this stage and when I figured it out I felt so clever. In my opinion, the last three worlds - Desert, Iceberg, and Rocky Mountain - were definitely the peak of interesting level design in this game.

This game controls so nicely. It has probably the best controls out of any game I have played on the Game Boy. Mario's movement feels precise and fluid, I never felt like the game screwed me over through his movement. My only real problem is that jumps are very committal, but that's not new for an old Mario game and the game is balanced around this quirk. I just felt I should mention that since the Game Boy is an older console, so clunky controls sometimes happen in games. The only jankiness I have experienced in this game is that it feels like hammers just don't work on occasion; sometimes you'll still get hit by an enemy even when you're swinging your hammer at it. This was very rare, though, and it was the only potential glitch I recall encountering in this game.

As someone who was introduced to Donkey Kong through the Country games and was never much a fan of the original Donkey Kong, I was surprised by how much I really enjoyed this game. Its interesting how this game released so close to Donkey Kong Country and was pretty much the last game to have DK's classic design (of course before Donkey Kong Country introduced modern DK and revealed that Cranky Kong is classic DK). The ending also sets the seeds for a potential friendship between Mario and classic DK, which I think is a neat touch considering how modern DK became a good guy and has a decent friendship with Mario in the spin off games. Maybe it rubbed off on him from classic DK / Cranky Kong making amends...uh, my unwarranted DK lore spiel aside, I think this is a really good game, but its not quite going to get 5 stars from me. I'd say 4 and a half stars is a good ranking to give it.