That sure was... a video game I guess?

Ocarina of Time has long been lauded as one of the greatest games of all time, and in some aspects it's not hard to see how much influence it would have in the years going forward. It planted the seeds for multiple new genres of the medium, from the Character Action Game to Open World. It's still visually impressive even today, and it has an incredible atmosphere.

But by golly, the flaws of this game are just so many that it almost overshadows the rest of the experience, and what was once impressive in 1998 is not so in 2023.

Hyrule Field. It's big, it's open, and it is almost absolutely barren aside from the few flying pineapples and Stalfos at night time. Sure, it's visually impressive but for the first half of this game it is utterly miserable to go through.

Playing as Young Link is quite the struggle just because moving through that field with him to go anywhere takes forever. You spend most of your time sidehopping which is nowhere near as cool as say, Alucard's Backdashing in Symphony, and just results in the first half of this game having a very sluggish pace.

Compared to other Zelda titles, even Zelda 1, it's just way too fucking slow. Now getting Epona and the Fast Travel Songs does mitigate the issue somewhat but you can only get those in the second half of the game, which means until that point you are stuck with the utterly snail-like Young Link.

Dungeons... god. I can count with maybe 2 fingers the amount of dungeons in this game that I sort of liked, those being Dodongo's Cavern and the Spirit Temple. Everything else ranged from either being kind of dull and uninteresting (Forest Temple, Water Temple), to actively annoying and unpleasant (Fire Temple, Jabu Jabu, Ice Cavern).

As an aside, how the hell is the Water Temple considered the worst dungeon in a game where both Jabu Jabu and the Ice Cavern exist? Jabu Jabu is a aesthetic nightmare with many places that just look the same and enemies you can't hit without the boomerang, as well as being an escort mission, and Ice Cavern... fucking christ, Ice physics with a Link who has some of the most awkward movement in the series... no thanks. Water Dungeon was at most just boring to go through, the switching of the boots was not nearly as bad as I was told. (Even then I liked the Iron Boots because they make funny noises, I guess I'm just easy to please)

Onto the unpleasant dungeons, Fire Dungeon was ass less because of the actual Fire and more because of how terrible Link controls. Link will sometimes just jump if you're even remotely near an edge, and in Fire Dungeon's case that can result in you falling several floors down and having to redo a fuck ton of things to get back to where you were. I genuinely hate having to platform with Link in this game simply because of this. There will be points where Link is landing directly on top of a box and yet he'll still careen to his death. It's fucking irritating.

Spirit Temple was cool at least, since it was one of the few times where the game actually asks the player to use everything in their toolset, and not just as Adult Link but also as Child Link. I wish we had more dungeons that actually incorporated the time travel aspect this game has, but alas we don't get that.

Combat, is mediocre. This isn't really too much of a sticking point since arguably combat isn't that important for Zelda but it was still a little disappointing, especially with the bosses.

There is not a single boss in this game that was genuinely compelling. Just like with the dungeons we have two camps, bosses that were a snoozefest and bosses that were irritating, as well as the additional third group that has both.

Twinrova, god I hate Twinrova. In concept it's a super cool fight, you reflect the magic from the one sister to the sister weak to their magic. The problem is that sometimes you just flat out can't hit the other sister because they are on the other side of the screen. Then the second phase happens and is worse because it just becomes a fucking waiting game of hoping she'll launch three of the same spell so you can absorb it with your shield and hit her with it.

On the opposite camp we have Volvagia... what a nothing fight. There was a point during it where I just stood still for 30 seconds and took no damage, and then I was able to completely body the damn thing.

Even Dark Link was a joke, with me just doing thrust attacks utterly annihilating the poor guy.

Really the only boss I even sort of liked besides King Dodongo was Bongo Bongo, simply because it asked me to use more than one tool which was cool.

The Ganon fight was cool from a visual and thematic standpoint but was also way too easy for a final boss. Maybe that was the point but it just didn't feel satisfying to me.

Minigames. I will now completely break the rational character I've been writing as up to this point to rant about this. I HATE every minigame in this game, and I HATE that Heart Pieces and Ammo Upgrades are locked behind them. Now I'm sure you'll probably say "oh but those are optional" and sure you're not wrong, but I just like having more health you dig? I like to be more capable, and having more health and ammo is a way to doing that. I would complain less if a single minigame in this game wasn't some of the worst shit imaginable.

The bow/slingshot games are easily the worst of the bunch, you have no reticle. In regular combat this isn't so bad since A. Lock-on is available, and B. You are way less limited in your ammo capacity, so you have many opportunities to adjust your aim. Not so with these. Limited ammo, no lock on, and you have to get it PERFECT, which is just the Gonorrhea Icing on this AIDS Cake.

The others aren't much better, Bombchu Bowling can be utter hell until you find a consistent strategy, the Treasure Chest minigame is just pure guess work (unless you've done a dungeon you can only unlock in the second half of the game). The Dampe Racing is a pain in the ass, and isn't optional the first time since you need the Hookshot to progress. The Horseback racing to get Epona just feels tacked on and makes the process of getting her feel slow and repetitive.

Really the only ones that I didn't outright hate were the jam sessions with the Skull Kids and the Frogs.

The least offensive was surprisingly the fishing minigame, was really easy to figure out. (And very obvious that Sonic Adventure stole from it wholesale).

In general I am just a person who hates minigames locking upgrades, as someone who grew up with Sonic and having things locked behind Special Stages I have just always hated the concept. Maybe these won't bug you, but for me they were easily the lowest point of the game, not helped at all by their genuine lack of quality.

So that brings me to my final issue, which is more an issue that encapsulates problems this franchise has more so than anything: Zelda herself.

I think it is kind of ridiculous how whenever Zelda does anything in this game, it backfires horribly. She sends Link to get the Pendants so he can get the Master Sword and stop Ganondorf from getting to the Sacred Realm... only for doing so to result in him getting there anyway, making her entire plan fall apart.

Then there's her as Shiek, who in my opinion is just... such wasted potential. Shiek only exposits to Link and teaches him the Fast Travel Songs. Outside of that, the only thing of note is that Shiek gets her ass beaten by a fucking ghost and then proceeds to do nothing about it. Would it not have been cool to at least have a dungeon where you and Shiek work together? I mean, Jabu Jabu had a similar premise with Ruto and while I think it didn't work there, the potential for a good dungeon using teamwork between you and Shiek would be cool. Unfortunately we didn't get that.

And of course, the moment she removes the Shiek disguise, she is almost immediately captured by Ganondorf. It's just really upsetting.

I won't lie, this criticism is also amplified by things that happen in Tears of the Kingdom, but I can't help but feel like that stuff really started being set in stone with Ocarina.

Zelda is never allowed to have genuine agency, and whenever she is she or the world is always summarily punished for it. Her entire thing ends in three timelines where the world gets fucked over by Ganondorf in some capacity. I can't help but feel like this series reeks of misogyny when the main female lead isn't allowed to be anything but a damsel and can't genuinely do anything without being punished for doing so. It's just a little fucking uncomfortable to me.

This applies to the entire series too, and while talking in Tokyo Millennium I basically came to the conclusion that Zelda is only allowed true agency when:
A. She's in Super Smash Bros.
B. She's not even in the game
C. The Fucking CDI Games
D. Spirit Tracks, where she spends most of the game dead

I just can't help but see these underlying signals Nintendo is trying to send to me which in big bold letters spell out the word "MISOGYNY".

To conclude, I don't hate Ocarina of Time but it sure just is ok. It's so ok, it's average, and arguably that's far worse than just being bad.

I left this game feeling filled but disappointed at the same time. Maybe it's my fault for playing this as a break game from Tears of the Kingdom, which has been an utterly phenomenal time that I genuinely could not put down, and I'm measuring OoT against it but at the same time I feel like I would always be disappointed.

Ocarina of Time has long been lauded as one of the greatest games of all time, but to me it's just another game to checkmark off the list. A game that doesn't impress, but doesn't fill me with pure animosity.

It's just ok.

动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Plague Doctor 六四天安門事件 The Sephirah protests of 2022 天安門大屠殺 The Ppodae Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Angela Struggle 大躍進政策 The Day One Reset文化大革命 The Great Hod Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Abnormalities 自由 Money 獨立 One Sin and One Hundred Good Deeds 多黨制 Aleph Breach 台灣 臺灣 Nothing There 中華民國 Republic of Malkuth 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Abnormalities 達賴喇嘛 Jeff Bezos 法輪功 Elon Musk 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Yesod Information Team 諾貝爾和平獎 Noon Ordeal 劉暁波 Michael Roa Valdamjong 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Opened Can of WellCheers 劉曉波动态网自由门

So, I have a massive habit of dropping Metroidvanias. I don't hate the genre or anything, and I 100% respect the impact it has had on gaming as a whole but I just lose interest very quick.

For me, the exploration value of Metroidvanias is lost because I just don't like the feeling of being aimless. It's a very personal issue, stems from chronic depression and a lifetime of existential dread that makes me question my purpose, not the game's fault. So usually when I pick up a Metroidvania and I get lost, I usually wind up finding another game that catches my interest and move to that.

Super Metroid winds up being one of those situations, a game I played about half of in March earlier this year only to drop it to play Competitive Pokémon with my friends. From that initial experience I used a guide, something I find would be frowned upon by most enthusiasts of the Metroidvania genre, but something I had to do to stay fully invested. I wound up pretty happy though with that experience, found a lot of useful things, fought badass battles with space monsters, it was a good time.

Fast forward to today and I have now destroyed Mother Brain and the Planet Zebes all with an 85% collection rate thanks to the StrategyWiki. I may not be the prime audience for Metroidvanias, but the feeling of adrenaline when you're facing a boss like Ridley, or the intrigue of defeating an enemy in an unorthodox way like electrocuting it, unlocking abilities like Screw Attack that make you completely invulnerable, there's a lot of things that give me the player great satisfaction. When the Baby Metroid saved me and gave me Hyper Beam, I was hype as fuck.

Super Metroid is a great video game, but I'm giving it a 4 star rating mostly because the genre doesn't grip me like others do. It's a very personal thing, but I ultimately respect this game and fully plan to replay it someday.

I was planning on writing my Fate/Stay Night review first but given that hyperlinks are broken at the time of writing this, I figured I'd instead talk about this masterpiece.

Minor Spoilers for Disco Elysium btw

Disco Elysium is such an impressive work of writing and player immersion. With every part of the dilapidated district of Martinaise filled with either a deep centuries long spanning bit of lore, or a very bizarre and wacky character who will, somewhere along the line, tie into the main narrative in one way or another.

The gameplay is very much akin to something like the Classic Fallout games, with the isometric perspective and actions being determined by skill checks and dice rolls. Disco Elysium however far improves on this by streamlining its design.

Easily the worst aspect of Classic Fallout was it's incredibly slow and thoroughly unpleasant turn-based combat. Even as someone who enjoys turn-based RPGs, Fallout 1 and 2's combat was just way too monotonous and luck-based to points of absurdity where trying to stab something at point blank range with a knife would have a 70% chance of missing in the early game. Disco Elysium nixes this problem by removing combat in its entirety, and instead makes the skill checks both have more of a focus in terms of engagement and narrative importance.

The Skills themselves take the forms of voices inside your character's head. They all have their own unique characteristics that make them stand out despite having the same voice, and they all contribute in advising what actions they think you should take.

Honestly the general characterization of the game in general is just so good. Everyone feels like someone you could find on the street, from the jerkass third-person speaking brat Cuno to the delusional and tired drunk Idiot Doom Spiral or the weirdly trippy party boy Egg Head. All of them feel real in a way that few game characters often do, and they all have their roles to play in the investigation.

That's honestly my favorite part of the whole game, the fact that all of the most innocuous, seemingly unrelated things will, in some way, shape or form contribute to the main plot in ways that awed me to no end.

That's part of what makes it so special, the fact that this world, this district of Martinaise is so full of narrative threads that tie together in the most insane of ways is just something so delightful that to spoil more would do a disservice to you reading this review.

Play Disco Elysium, explore the streets of Martinaise and uncover the mysteries of both the investigation, and yourself.

P.S.
Kim is the fucking GOAT.

There I was, utterly and completely defeated after finishing Rondo of Blood. I had honestly believed that maybe I should quit playing video games because I had reached my limits with my lack of satisfaction with that game. I thought that I would never feel rewarded for playing a game after how miserable I was.

Upon booting up Symphony of the Night however, I instantly clicked with it and what followed was a magical experience that reaffirmed my love for the medium and what can be done with it.

My firm belief is that Symphony of the Night takes concepts that Rondo introduced and brings them to their logical endpoint through the shift in genre from Platformer to Metroidvania (I'm not calling them Search Action Games, it's such a boring and dull way to describe a genre built on discovery that I'd literally prefer calling them "Pretzel Games" over that.)

Rondo introduced new movement options and Item Crashes into the formula. Symphony expands upon this by giving Alucard a wealth of movement from his backdash (which can be chainspammed with Shields for quick horizontal movement), to his various transformations like the Wolf and Bat, alongside a variety of spells like using Dracula's own Hellfire move or Soul Steal allowing you to regenerate your health by consuming the life of the enemies around you. The spells themselves require good input (that or the capacity to spam the fuck out of the d-pad like me) like in a fighting game.

Rondo also introduced the Alternate Stages and finding different routes to progress, which Symphony takes to the next level through the Metroidvania style. Having different areas connect in various ways be it unlocking magic doors, or shafts or accessing them via your transformations.

Just via these alone I see Symphony as an evolution of these concepts rather than just a wholesale deviation from Classicvania entirely. It retains the best elements and integrates them in new and exciting ways.

Graphically the game is gorgeous. Out of the Castlevania games I've experienced so far Symphony is the most breathtaking with its incredibly detailed sprites and level backgrounds. Every enemy pops out in just the right ways giving them all sorts of life and energy that I don't think the series had captured quite as well before.

The backgrounds having parallax views of the sky, and at points having 3D renders of parts of the castle like a tower that rotates as you move along the screen just fits with the peak 90s aesthetic.

The soundtrack is damn near perfection, blending haunting orchestral tracks with hard guitar riffs, it's like Rondo's soundtrack on Steroids. The Tragic Prince is my personal favorite track of the game, encapsulating so much of the vibe that Symphony carries throughout. Though the Prologue and Dracula's Castle tracks are both close contenders as well. The game varies from both these hardcore tracks to more atmospheric pieces dependent on the location.

Honestly the only part of the soundtrack I could consider not great is Finale Toccata, but that's only because it gets overused in the Inverted Castle to such an extent that it becomes borderline tiresome to listen to. Not an awful track, there just needed to be more variety for the Inverted Castle.

Back onto the gameplay I will say that if there is one complaint I can understand directed towards this game it is that it is really easy. Symphony of the Night is an incredibly easy game to break over your knee if you have the right equipment, be it rare drops like the Crissaegrim or fixed drops like the Shield Rod and the Alucard Shield.

With such equipment, regular enemies and bosses basically become jokes as they are wiped out within seconds requiring little to no effort or strategy. The final boss can be evaporated within about 3 seconds using either of the weapons I just listed.

For some people that could be a very understandable turnoff but to me I find it fits with the general vibe the game goes for.

Symphony of the Night is a power fantasy game starring an attractive dhampyr prince getting progressively more and more powerful as he explores the expanses of Castlevania and the Inverted Castle until he eventually becomes an untouchable god that all monsters fear. It's just innately satisfying seeing Alucard return to that level of strength after it's been taken away from him.

I guess another thing I can bring up is the Inverted Castle itself. I know that it is a somewhat common complaint from people that the Inverted Castle feels tacked on, and I can understand it. However, upon experiencing it for myself... I can't dislike it to be quite honest.

By the time you reach the Inverted Castle you have unlocked all of the movement abilities required to go wherever you please in whatever order, and any secret rooms you discovered in the Normal Castle will be in their designated reverse locations in the Inverted one, giving you the edge in progression through said knowledge.

If anything the Inverted Castle is probably the purest Metroidvania experience, though I think part of the reason a lot of people dislike it is because Finale Toccata is playing 60% of the time and that can get draining.

However it was in the Inverted Castle that I learned to appreciate my movement abilities specifically the Gravity Jump and the Bat Transformation, as you need them in order to progress through the more unnatural platforming sections.

It's just more Symphony and in my eyes, that can't be a bad thing.

It's really unsurprising that this game along with Super Metroid inspired an entire genre of games to follow, there is just something inherently fun about exploring the unknown and getting stronger as you do it, and with Symphony's build variety and learnable techniques I think it's a game that will provide a different experience every time you play...

And that's not even bringing up Richter mode.

Symphony renewed my faith in video games as a medium, and if there was any Castlevania I'd tell you to pick up no questions asked, it would be this. A damn near perfect game.

=================================================

Demon, death is too good for you!

Metroid: Samus Returns is a game I bought about a year after its release. I went with my friend Simon to one of the local retro game stores, saw it there for 15 bucks and bought it. I bought it and didn't bother touching it for 3 years.

I don't know what was compelling me not to play it, whether it was disinterest, or having heard bad reviews about it back in that time, but I never felt like picking it up.

Now, in the middle of my massive Metroid binge after playing Dread, AM2R, and Zero Mission, I finally picked it up... and realized it is extremely middling.

First off, this game is fucking long in comparison to most other Metroidvanias I've played. That 100% completion itself wasn't so much the cause as much as it was the level design itself. Areas are extremely massive with not much going on, making treks through certain parts of the game (looking at you, Area 3) an absolute chore.

Then there's the enemy variety, which is to say there isn't any. There are a lot of reskinned enemy types constantly littered throughout the game. I know this is a remake of a Gameboy game, but I know the 3DS is at least powerful enough to have enemy variety. Even AM2R got this aspect right, and that was a fan game developed over the course of 10 years by mostly just one person.

Hunting Metroids is when the game reaches its most tedious. Metroid fights all feel the same, despite having more moves than in the original game, and even AM2R. The arenas you fight them in are all incredibly similar, and at points you'll have to chase a Metroid from room to room... which is one of the worst things I've experienced in this franchise as of now.

It's like everything in this game was designed to be a slog. From the pace-breaking parry that you can only do while standing still, to the items locked behind crystals that only the Baby Metroid can break at THE VERY END OF THE GAME. It all feels like padding.

Boss Fights outside of the Metroid specific ones suck, they're too fucking long for 2D Metroid. The one thing that stands out though is that bosses in this game actually show a change in coloration (or physical damage in Diggernaut's case) which Dread doesn't have... why is this not in Dread? The bosses also do way too much fucking damage. 3 fucking bars of health for one attack by Diggernaut, and I'm wearing the Gravity Suit, I'm sorry but that's fucking ridiculous.

All and all, the game itself is perfectly functional, but it has layers and layers of bullshit that keep it from being a higher rating. Not a game I see myself playing again, as in my opinion it has zero replay value.

I'm glad it exists for helping the franchise come back, and gave us Dread with its myriad improvements on this game, but I don't feel you have to play this game to support Metroid anymore. Play Dread to support Metroid, and play AM2R if you want the best Metroid II experience.

I started playing this after I suffered my panic attack that I mentioned in my WWE review, and honestly between this and watching AEW I've been able to mostly recuperate.

Katamari Damacy is such an interesting game because I don't think there will be another that catches the unique calming, weird, goofy vibe that is brought out by both the aesthetics and the gameplay itself.

You roll the Katamari, you grow the Katamari, you hear the screams of the damned within the Katamari, and you make the Katamari into a great big star. It's simple yet difficult to do, which makes it very satisfying to me in particular.

Honestly this game would be the perfect destress if it wasn't for the alarm that plays when you have 30 seconds left in a level. The music is all peppy, covering a variety of different genres, and with the exception of one track, they were all extremely calming.

I love the dialogue from the King of the Cosmos, a very entertaining character, and his and the Prince's designs are absolutely iconic.

Honestly you're missing out if you haven't experienced this game yet, it's a genuine beauty of a game and proves that video games can be so weird and different and yet still be a joy to play.

I don't think I can fairly criticize this game though as it has gotten me through a tough time in my life. Regardless, you should try it anyway.

I got this from the Epic Games Store because it was free but like, this is probably one of the most mid games I've ever experienced to the point that it makes me want a refund for a free game.

The gameplay isn't really complex but because of the roguelike design there can just be points where the level design sucks and really in order to actually progress you need to hope you get lucky with drops so you can buy stats for your next run through.

I don't see the appeal in this game other than the physical/mental disorders that your characters can have which mostly doesn't do anything to actually make the experience inherently interesting in any shape or form.

I would argue it's harmless but it's not something I would honestly recommend, it's basically a halfassed Metroidvania with none of the depth of the best ones in the genre.

Why is this game such a downgrade from the first one? I ask this sincerely because playing this game has caused me to have a bit of a breakdown much like when I played Rondo of Blood for the first time.

I enjoyed Curse of the Moon quite a bit, it was a challenging experience but it never felt like it was overbearingly so. I played two playthroughs of that game on the Veteran difficulty because I felt like it was a fair challenge that never felt truly unpleasant and it was incredibly replayable due to how your characters would allow you to utilize their skills to go through different routes discovering new secrets.

The levels were all well crafted and memorable, the bosses difficult but still fun...

Curse of the Moon 2 kind of just throws all of that out of the window for the sake of "difficulty".

Certain challenges in CotM2 simply revolve around trying to compensate for one character's ability, that being Hachi's invincibility move. It constantly drains Weapon Points though so trying to use it all the time is not the brightest idea but the game just loves making long hallways with several obstacles trying to fuck you all at once with the only solution being Hachi's invincibility.

Instead of being interesting, it comes off as the devs taking a massive shit on the enemy placement that was far better in the first game, where enemies weren't just focused on a singular characters abilities but their combined abilities.

Need a challenge right before the boss door? Put a fuck ton of enemies that can't be reasonably avoided to make the player waste Weapon Ammo using Hachi's invincibility. Truly, an excellent idea rather than something fun or interesting.

None of the stages in this game are particularly thrilling, there's no real set piece that quite got my attention unlike in the first game. No train ride, or climbing up a stormy ship. Instead we get fucking Mario level tropes, back to back. We've got Jungle Land, Followed by The Mine, Followed by Ice Land, Followed by Lava Land. Sometimes the game will even flat out reuse a set piece from the first game, like Level 8 just doing the insect horde thing that Level 8 in the first game did, oh but there's a big orb that chases you the whole level.

Then there's the bosses. Some are just not very interesting, the Dragon-Symbiote and the Alien Soldier looking boss in Stage 4 having really routine patterns that are more dull than anything, and then you have shit like the Pharaoh in Stage 6 which can eat a fucking dick even when you know what you're doing. So much fucking shit on the screen it's basically sensory overload, or the final boss of the second episode reminding me of the True Final Boss of Aria of Sorrow during its first phase... god I just got so tired with this game.

It's not enough that you have to beat the game once, or twice, the game expects you to play through these uninteresting, unfun stages three times facing off against miserable excuses for bosses just to see scraps of new content.

The second episode in particular is where I just called it quits on continuing on Veteran Difficulty because it just didn't feel worth the fucking effort. It would be fine enough if it just took away Dominique, that makes the challenge hard enough but they also take away Zangetsu's new moveset halfway through the run and it just... fucking sucks so much. It's like the devs thought "ah, people will like the game if we just make the difficulty to dick levels without it being remotely interesting."

The characters are easily the best part of the game, I like Dominique, she's essentially Eric Lecarde from Bloodlines but with the ability to heal and a subweapon that works as a one use revive item. Robert is a cool ranged fighter, with his javelin subweapon being incredibly useful and Hachi is a corgi in a mech.

However even then I still have issues: Hachi's hover fucking sucks balls.

This may be a completely personal thing, but I'm used to hovers usually being activated by a second button press in games. You jump and then press the button again holding it down to hover.

With Hachi, you have to hold on the first jump and it feels so wrong to me. It's an issue that is especially exacerbated when switching characters mid jump to try and progress to a different route, since I think the timing for the hover is determined on the jump made before the switch so you have to hold the button while switching and it just feels really fucking weird.

In the EX Episode, which you get after beating Chapter 2 you get the characters from the first game back, which is cool, and you get to explore the levels in whatever order you like... but by this point I was clocked out on this game. I just wanted the trainwreck to stop, because I had stopped having fun midway through Episode 1.

Episode EX then does the tired, terrible practice that many games love to do, a trope I absolutely despised and is alone why I lowered my rating by a star: Throwing in a shmup level at the last fucking minute with no regard to the fact that such a skill set has not been taught to the player throughout the course of this entire fucking experience.

I hate when games do this shit, I hated it in Kingdom Hearts 2, I hated it in Devil May Cry, and I especially hate it in this game. 7 minutes of one of the most mediocre shmup sections I've ever played in a game, with a ship with a large as fuck hurtbox, slippery as fuck controls that don't feel remotely precise, obstacles that blend in with the background, god it is so anti Me-Core I wanted to tear my hair out.

Please, devs. If you're going to incorporate a shmup level at the last second of your fucking game, do me a fucking favor and MAKE A FUCKING SHMUP INSTEAD AND DON'T PULL SHIT LIKE THIS FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!!!!

THIS IS THE MOST TIRED FUCKING TRITE NONSENSE BULLSHIT THAT YOU CAN DO WITH A VIDEO GAME, SHOVING IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GAMEPLAY STYLE THAT THE PLAYER HAS NOT BEEN TRAINED BY THE GAME TO DO, EXPECTING PROFICIENCY OUT OF THE UNPRACTICED. IT'S FUCKING BONEHEADED STUPID BULLSHIT THAT IS NEVER GOOD, AND THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR WHY GAMES NEED TO SHOVE IN CRAP LIKE THIS, JUST MAKE A FUCKING SHMUP INSTEAD, I DIDN'T COME TO A CLASSICVANIA GAME TO PLAY A FUCKING SHMUP!!!

All it winds up doing is making me not want to play shmups because it shows an extremely terrible example of the genre. It's like if I tried to sell you a car in the middle of a movie, but the car has square wheels, a broken windshield, and I took a fat shit on the driver's seat. It's unappealing, stop doing it.

I'll acknowledge this rant here is completely petty, but fuck, shit like this has got to fucking stop. It needs to be realized that forcing in unrelated gameplay styles into your game is not a good practice and never was.

All in all what I've come to realize is that I don't enjoy difficult games, honestly I've been dealing with this thought in the back of my head ever since I got called out for not enjoying Order of Ecclesia because it was "difficult". But then I've also played things like God Hand, DMC3, Ultrakill, games that are difficult and that I've enjoyed quite a lot.

And what I've come to realize is that I need to stop playing games to try and feel adequate as a "Gamer". Forcing myself through things like Celeste, Rondo of Blood, etc, doesn't result in a feeling of satisfaction but one of exhaustion and relief that I don't have to go back. And maybe that's fine, maybe I don't have to try and prove myself as a "Gamer", it's not like such a title has any actual value.

If anything coming to this bizarre realization is probably for the best, it'll be healthier for me to instead enjoy things catered to me and not to someone who isn't me, difficult or not.

Curse of the Moon 2 still sucks ass though just fucking play the first one instead.