Suggested by @moschidae for this list. This probably wasn’t the kind of review you were hoping for, but I must be honest with my opinions.

Warning, this review does talk about suicide in the section about story.

To be honest, I haven’t played that many survival horror games. I’ve played a few Resident Evil games, Parasite Eve II, and little else. However, I think I have a decent grasp of how the genre usually works. Looking at the GameCube version of Resident Evil, you can see a lot of systems working together to make an incredible horror experience. Resource management, tight exploration, a few puzzles, story, atmosphere, etc etc… Maybe I’m being a bit harsh comparing one of the greatest of the genre to Yomawari: Midnight Shadows, but I do think it does a good job to show just how much this game falls on its face.

Let’s start with the gameplay. Most of the gameplay is walking around at night avoiding ghosts, exploration, and a few puzzles. You have a flashlight that can help you see spirits and a few items. As simple as this is, ghosts being invisible without the flashlight does add some good tension to gameplay. Anyway, let’s say you see a spirit and you want to get away from it. What do you do?

1. Just run away from it.
2. Hide in an object and wait for the ghosts to leave.
3. Throw one of two items at it.

This is 9/10 encounters in the game. Very few enemies non-boss have unique properties, and even the ones that do are very simple. Shining the flashlight at this enemy makes it stop. Shining the flashlight at this enemy wakes it up. Etc etc…. Almost all either have a set path/location or will chase you when you get close to them. Maybe if this game was super short this would be acceptable, but it lasts for 7.5 hours according to Howlongtobeat.com (It took me just short of 9 though). Even if it was short, this wouldn’t excuse just how cheap some of the obstacles can be sometimes. Often, the game feels like trial and error, especially since you die in one hit, honestly. This isn’t the worst because of how plentiful save points are, but the abundance of save points also means that there’s rarely any tension. You’ll pretty much never lose more than a minute of progress. The game even did the thing that Resident Evil did where you need a usable item to save, but pretty much every save point had one lying nearby, and I always had more than half of the max. It literally serves no purpose, along with all the other resource management. This is because not only are items plentiful, but most aren’t super useful. Maybe I’d be compelled to use them a little more if there was any tension, but usually just running past an enemy worked fine regardless. The most interesting items were extremely rare. There was one item that’s basically a portable hiding place. In a better game, there would be a few of these strewn about, such that it was a rare resource, but still have an impact on gameplay. Combine this with sparser save points, and this game would automatically be significantly better. Instead, this item only shows up in one area of the game. Why is this the case? Who knows.

Since horror can’t be derived from gameplay tension, it’s mostly done through jumpscares. Honestly, I’m not averse to jumpscares as a concept, but I find them more funny than anything, especially since I’m usually not startled by them, especially when I know it’s gonna show up. It’s not my go-to for what makes good horror, and this game is no different.

Next let’s talk about the exploration. It’s not particularly great. While you can ‘explore’, there are two caveats. One, you must go to a specific location to progress the story, and two, the game aggressively nudges you to go that way most of the time. There’s very little to find exploring. There are a few collectibles, and seemingly many optional areas, but these are not particularly important to a casual playthrough. So, there’s really no reason to actually explore, and the game the game doesn’t want you to anyway most of the time. Cool.

Honestly, the game got ever so slightly better in Chapter 6, as the checkpoints become more sparse, leading to more tension. This gave me a bit of hope. Of course, the game couldn’t let me be happy. First, they introduce an enemy that, while unique in behavior, is completely useless. All it does is block you. It can’t hurt you. WHY?!?!? One of the few unique enemies and it has no impact?!?! Then, there’s another new enemy type. All these guys do is sit there. That sounds easy to get around, right? Wrong, because the hitboxes on these guys is absolutely nonsensical. I know it’s a top down game though, so I thought, “Maybe it’s just perspective”. But just watch this!! Honestly, this would be a slight annoyance in most games, but it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back here! WHY?!?! WHY DOES IT DO THAT?!?! WHY CAN’T THIS GAME LET ME BE HAPPY!?!?!?!?!?!?

Ahem

Most Survival Horror games have puzzles, and Midnight Shadows kinda does. There’s few overt puzzles like the kind in Zelda or Resident Evil. The most puzzle-esque moments occur in the ‘boss fights’, where the game foreshadows how to defeat them with cutscenes, books, items, etc.... I like this, despite how obvious some of the hints can be. However, it’s not enough to make up for just how boring the rest of it is, especially since actually executing on the solution to a boss is just as boring and annoying as the rest of the game.

Since I’ve been really negative so far, let me give a positive: The game is really good when it comes to horror by exception. What I mean is that it knows when not to show you something. As I said earlier, you can’t see most spooky creatures unless you shine the flashlight on them. However, to run away from them, you obviously have to turn around. As such, when you’re running, you never know quite where the enemy is. This is pretty effective in a vacuum. A few neat things are done with the hiding mechanic too. Most of the time, it’s not great. You just go in a bush or whatever and wait for spirits to go away. You can’t see them, sure, but you also know they can’t hurt you while you hide. Not super engaging. However, they actually do something with it near the end. Yeah, just sitting there is annoying, but there’s a pretty effective moment later on where spoilers a monster basically kills another one while you’re hiding from them. It was a well-presented moment, and it sold me on the power of the spirit I was running from. Still, this moment wasn’t necessarily effective for gameplay, it was mainly just a story segment presented with a game mechanic.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about the story. Let me tell you, I rolled my eyes when the game opens with a character hanging themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I take this topic seriously. However, this game just throws it out right in the beginning in the most manipulative way possible. Why should I care about this other than basic empathy? I know nothing about this character! I’m fine with a story tackling pretty much any subject matter as long as its done with respect, but there’s nothing respectful about this! It’s manipulative!

Does the story really justify this? Not really, at least not in how voyeuristic it feels. If they wanted this opening, I think just implying suicide would’ve been better. The actual reason this girl hung herself was because her dog and dad died and her friend was leaving town. That and ghosts of course. I can’t really say the suicide element added anything overall, despite a literal noose being in the game logo. So we’re off to a really bad start here.

Okay, what if we ignore all that? The story is still mediocre. Spoilers, I guess? Early on, each chapter of the game goes like this: Haru is trying to find her friend Yui. At the beginning we play as Yui for a bit. Then, we play as Haru searching for Yui. Often Haru goes to where Yui was earlier, but Yui is no longer there. Then, Yui is in a new place now for some reason. There’s other stuff, but it doesn’t matter at all in terms of the overall story. As such, it feels pretty repetitive and meandering. I forgot to mention that there’s another character here, Yui’s dog. It’s a dog. For some reason though, it seems to always know where Yui is. It’s not a bloodhound, mind you, but a little Pomeranian. I looked up the breed of the dog, as I’m not a dog expert. However, the dog is a ghost expert for some reason. Honestly, the dog probably does more to find Yui than Haru does, at least in the first half of the game. Really, the dog is little more than a plot device though. The dog runs somewhere, and you have to follow it. Haru wouldn’t get anywhere without this dog. Why isn’t the dog the main character anyway? It can probably hold a flashlight in its mouth. Just let me play as the dog. At least then I wouldn’t have to listen to Haru’s dialogue, which basically adds nothing. Everything she says is either exactly what you’d expect her to say or is just an obvious observation that feels patronizing when pointed out. Later, they try to give her an arc of becoming braver and not being scared of the spirits, but this comes out of nowhere, and it doesn’t actually change the gameplay. She can say she’s not scared all she wants, but the gameplay still revolves around running away, and the heartbeat effect still gets really fast when a spirit is close. The dog was never afraid of ghosts though. Just let me play as the dog, please.

Anyway, surprise, it turns out Yui has been dead this whole time. This isn’t a surprise, considering she hung herself in the opening (Haru is the friend I mentioned earlier, in case you couldn’t tell. The game seems to imply she was dead for a decent amount of time though, and that her and Haru hung out a little bit while she was a ghost. This doesn’t make sense to me because later Haru can’t see her. What changed? That aside, this implication doesn’t make sense at all. Haru is a kid, so I’m sure she told her parents what she was doing. If Yui was missing or known to be dead, wouldn’t people question her about this? Maybe this did happen, but I’d think Haru would’ve brought it up. I guess there’s plausible deniability in this case.

The ending is honestly alright. It does one unique thing regarding actually taking advantage of being a game, and I liked how it ended with Haru having to let Yui go. It’s nice, but it’s also connected to the rest of the game and the actual message wasn’t built up to particularly well. So overall, the story is not great either.

I think the best part of the game is the audiovisuals. All of the backgrounds and monster designs look really good, and the game has some really good sound design. I really love how the menus are made of the main character’s drawings, as it really reminds you that you are indeed playing as a kid. I only had one problem with the audiovisuals, honestly. Occasionally the layers of objects will be off, like an object that should be behind Haru will appear in front of her, for example. Other than that, it’s really great, and it contributes to a decent atmosphere. It seems that this was the bulk of the effort, but it makes me wonder why the creators didn’t just make a manga or anime, considering how basic the gameplay is. It doesn’t really take advantage of the medium in any way that a show or comic couldn’t, and the best parts are the audiovisuals and story, which is perfectly doable in a show.

Anyway uhh… This game is awful. It’s a failure on almost every level. 2/10, although much closer to a 3. It’s saved by the audiovisuals. It’s been a while since I played something this bad. Play Luigi’s Mansion instead or something. Sorry @Moschidae. At least I enjoyed reviewing it.

I was visiting my brother the day after I bought this game and played it for a bit while visiting. He walked by and asked me, “Are you playing a knock-off Crash Bandicoot?” He was wrong with his assessment of this game, of course. At that point, I thought he was wrong because I was so early in the experience and didn’t have a grasp on the flaws of the game. In retrospect, He’s actually wrong because this is a Banjo Kazooie rip-off with a dash of Sonic Adventure.

My brother being wrong about stuff isn’t uncommon (He tried to tell me Newton’s Third Law of Motion made no sense one time), but I think that just demonstrates the significance of the fact that even he was able to tell this game was nothing special. Honestly though, I knew that going in. I had seen enough of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger to know it would probably be derivative of those two games. I knew it would be ludicrous to expect even a 7/10 experience from it. I just wanted to play a decent 3D Platformer. But the problem lies therein: This game is hardly a 3D Platformer.

I talked about this briefly in my Spyro 2 review, but there’s a lot of 3D Platformers where Platforming takes a backseat to other elements. Most of this seemingly started with Banjo-Kazooie, which is the game that cemented the ‘Collectathon’ genre: Platformers where you must collect a lot of things. Banjo itself de-emphasized platforming a lot, but it was still there. Every level had one or two focal points that the player has to climb to get a Jiggy. The moveset doesn’t have the flow of a Mario game or the sort, but it is a platforming moveset. While I’m not huge on the minigames, they’re inoffensive at the end of the day. A lot of games copied the core structure of Banjo-Kazooie but missed elements like the aforementioned that made it good, such as Ty the Tasmanian Tiger.

How much platforming is actually in this game? Not much. Your moveset consists of a jump, glide, a homing attack, and throwing boomerangs. Level design doesn’t really enhance the platforming either; It’s all very basic platforms and obstacles, and the most interesting things get is hitting coconut trees with boomerangs to create platforms. That happens once in the game. There’s no sense of momentum either. The homing attack may sound cool, but all it amounts to is mashing a button in certain situations. The platforming is bare. I’m not exaggerating, God of War II has just as in-depth platforming as this game. I mean, it has a double jump and glide, so I don’t think what I’m saying is facetious. So what else is there in Ty the Tasmanian Tiger? Well, random busywork. Turret sections, killing random enemies, annoying escort missions, collecting random macguffins, etc.... The game does have the good idea of having race sections in every level, but even those are pretty dull overall.

One of the levels in this game has you riding this big bull thing. You can’t get off of it. You can’t jump while on the bull. Think about that. There’s an entire level in this game where you can’t jump. In a 3D Platformer. So… there’s like 72 Thunder Eggs in this game (Think Stars, Jiggys, Tickets, etc…). 8 of those are in this Outback level. Imagine you were playing Doom, with its 36 levels in total, and suddenly, midway through the game, you just can’t shoot any guns for four levels. Instead, you’re now engaging in sword combat for the next four levels. After these four levels, you never touch the sword again. That is the equivalent of this level in Ty the Tasmanian Tiger.

The thing is, even though I understand why so many games were made like this, I’m still confused about one thing: Why do people like games like this, or at least are fine with them? Let me be clear: I am happy if you enjoy this game. Getting upset because someone else enjoys something that isn’t hurting anybody is probably the dumbest thing a person can do. But… WHY?!?! What about it is fun? I’m sure that if the hypothetical Doom situation I concocted actually happened, people would be pissed, so why is it acceptable here? You could argue that people don’t love this game anyway, but even in beloved games like Crash 3, Spyro 2, and Sonic Adventure 2, these kinds of diversions are abundant, so why do people love those games? Why?

Well, I have a theory. Imagine, for a moment, you wanted to make a First-Person Shooter. What would you need, at minimum? Well, you’d need some movement options such as running. You’d need at least one gun. You’d need enemies to shoot. You’d need levels for all of this to take place in. Code all of that up and you have a very barebones FPS.

Let’s do this with a 3D Platformer. You need movement options, with the bare minimum probably being running and jumping. You need a level to do it in. And… That’s it. That is all you need to make a 3D Platformer. It won’t be good, but it will be a 3D Platformer.

I think that when you realize this, why so many 3D Platformers deviate from platforming becomes clear. You can make a great, varied game purely about 3D Platforming. Super Mario 64, Marble Blast Ultra, and Super Sami Roll are good examples. You can add more moves. You can make the levels more interesting and add powerups. You can lean into aspects such as momentum. The thing is, you can also make a great 3D Platformer that focuses on driving vehicles, or shooting, or hack n’ slash combat, or situational stories. You could probably even make a good 3D Platformer with a bunch of minigames. How you fill in the blanks is just much less obvious with 3D Platformers than most other genres. As such, it actually makes sense that this kind of stuff is normalized in 3D Platformers, at least to some extent.

The diversions do need to be good though, which is where Ty the Tasmanian Tiger goes wrong. None of the diversions could make a good game in isolation, and they don't make a good game when spliced together into a platformer. But what about the other constant elements? Well, they’re not great. The combat is fine, but not enough to make up for everything else. Most of the time you can just mash buttons to dispatch common enemies. There are other kinds of boomerangs one can use, but they’re mostly for ‘puzzles’ and stuff. The bosses aren’t great either. Generally, I think the biggest issue is that the player is expected to do things that haven’t been taught in any way. For example, the final boss requires one to use an ice boomerang on turrets and then bite them to defeat them. The thing is, this was never established as a mechanic before this one fight. Usually, the best bosses in games take advantage of pre-established mechanics framed in new ways, so it’s a shame Ty went in the opposite direction.

Another big element that brings the game down is just the general level layouts. As an example of a great level, let’s look at Mad Monster Mansion from Banjo-Kazooie. Yes, I’m comparing it to Banjo again. Now, this level is actually pretty small. You have a house, a thorny hedge maze, a bog, and a church as the main points of interest. The house has a basement and main room. The Church has an inner area that has a few things to do in it. The bog is admittedly pretty basic with not that much of interest. The thorny hedge maze basically separates each point of interest. That sounds fairly typical of a game, but once you transform into a pumpkin, not only does it allow you touch the thorny hedges which changes how you interact with the level, but it also unlocks more areas in the house. Mad Monster Mansion is small, but it’s also layered. Compare this to pretty much every level of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. Most of the levels are… pretty big. Usually you can’t fast travel either, so you just have to slowly walk between areas of interest. Sometimes backtracking is very difficult as well. There’s no real layers to anything either. What you see is what you get. As such, exploration and collecting is usually underwhelming.

The stages also have the issue of a lack of variety. A lot of stage themes are reused at some point. I know this is all based on Australia, but still. Super Mario Sunshine stuck entirely to a tropical island theme, but it still had tons of variety. Australia has cities, right? I’m sure there’s some cool caves there too. Why not use stuff like that if you’re gonna stay faithful to the theming?

Alright, let’s discuss the story. Uh… I dunno, it’s fine. It’s about as cliché as an early 2000s 3D Platformer can get. It even has the edgy counterpart character who contributes pretty much nothing to the game. However, I do think there’s a fun level of self-awareness here that makes me like it a little more. The titular character isn’t as ‘’’’’’cool’’’’’’ as you’d think. He’s just a normal guy. Other characters make jokes and do action story cliches and he’ll just act confused or brush it off. He’s honestly an alright character, and I gotta admit, his design is alright too. He definitely has that Sonic appeal, although he’s definitely not as well designed.

I do think most of the other characters are pretty boring though. There’s this bird who gives you exposition and this koala that invents stuff, and at some point I had to wonder why they weren’t just combined into one singular character, because they’re not that well defined. The same goes for all the other characters, really. I mentioned the edgy counterpart Sly earlier, but his redemption is poorly developed. Shocking, I know.

Overall, not a good game. I hear that Ty 2 is better, so I might try that. Regardless, 4/10.

Oh, also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDIA_X1iqsY

First, I have to talk about the main little tidbit this game is infamous for. Feel free to skip these first two paragraphs. So the developers of this game, Argonaut, previously worked closely with Nintendo, developing Star Fox, which was an undoubtedly impressive title for the SNES. Nintendo did kinda screw Argonaut over by cancelling Star Fox 2 when it was nearly done and taking many staff who had moved to Japan, but the way this game ties into this story is that Argonaut supposedly showed a prototype of a 3D Yoshi game to Nintendo, which according to the founder Jez San, Miyamoto himself said was inspiration for Super Mario 64, thanking Jez San for the idea of a 3D Mario game. Jez San claims that Nintendo basically stole that idea from Argonaut while screwing them over. That Yoshi game, of course, went on to be Croc.

The thing is, I'm not sure if I really buy this. Even if it did happen, 3D was an inevitability. Jumping Flash released a year before Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot was also being developed, Alpha Waves came out far before any of these, the idea of a 3D Platformer wasn't that unique.

Even if it did happen, it doesn't really mean much. Super Mario 64 and Croc: Legend of the Gobbos are very different games. Let's start with the big thing: The controls. They're odd. In a lot of ways, your moveset is pretty basic. A jump, a tail attack, and a ground pound. Where things get odd is the actual movement. So, there is full analogue here, which is cool, but the camera is much different than modern games. The game uses a strange mix between tank controls and conventional analogue. Pressing left, for example, makes Croc run left while also turning the camera. If you just nudge the stick left, Croc stays and place and turns left. L and R are slow strafe moves. Got it? Well, there's more. In the air, the functionality of the shoulder buttons and stick are effectively reversed! Now, L and R turn Croc and left and Right on a stick move him left and right. It's very odd.

Honestly, once you get used to the controls, they're not bad. In fact, I had a decent amount of fun after getting the hang of the details. It also helps that the levels feel built around these controls. That's not to say the level design is great, it's definitely pretty basic, and one could argue that's kind of because the controls are so limiting. The first two world especially feel very repetitive in terms of level design, and the third and fourth kind of do too. I realized midway through that while this game was pretty consistent, it was also very generic. Most mechanics were very generic, most level themes were pretty generic, the most interesting thing about the game is the weird controls. Look at a game like Chameleon Twist, released the same year as this. It was very short. Its camera was inconsistent, to say the least. However, it was unique. This game isn't really unique. Look at Croc. Listen, I don't care if this game had the greatest gameplay ever, Croc would never be a cultural icon. His most distinct feature is a backpack.

Ironically, I thought the final world, which most people seem to hate, had by far the most unique ideas. Yeah, the penultimate level was a little too punishing, but each level felt distinct. It showed that they could've made a really good game with this basis, focusing more on puzzles and interacting with the environment.

Then there's the bosses. Uh... They suck. They're very easy, all take place in generic arenas, and defeating them is always the same. They attack, they get tired, you attack them, repeat. They also lack feedback. Often, I couldn't really tell if I was actually damaging a boss because any damage animations are way too subtle.

I think the best part here is the audiovisuals. Sure, the visual style is pretty uninspired, but the draw distance and detail is impressive. Also, the music is epic. Very good.

Alright, wasn't sure where to mention this, but I had to discuss it. You know how if one was to, say, stand on a relatively slow moving train, they wouldn't fly off? I believe it's called static friction? Well, in Croc even if you're just above a moving platform, your velocity matches that of the platform. It's just a very odd quirk.

So despite its problems, I liked the game. Will you like it? I dunno, maybe the upcoming Croc HD will make some modernizations. Regardless, 6/10, definitely closer to a 5 though.

It seems everyone's playing that shiny new Armored Core VI. I would be too, but my computer isn't all that great and can't really run it. You know what my PC can run though?

A PS2 Emulator.

So here we are. It may be called Armored Core 2, but it's really the fourth game in the series. With the '2' though, one may expect a little more than we got from Project Phantasma and Master of Arena. Did we get more?

Well, before we find out, I feel the need to disclose something. Anyone who has played the earlier Armored Core games know about Human+. Basically, getting deep in debt results in the player getting a permanent upgrade with the tradeoff that they restart the game. You can repeat this process several times to get more upgrades. It's a neat part of the game, and I decided to purposefully get all of the upgrades on purpose by grinding debt for an hour, simply to see what it's like. This probably made the game a decent amount easier for me than many others. The game wasn't really that hard, and while there are other reasons for that I'll get into later, it's almost certain that Human+ is part of what made the game easy.

With that out of the way, what's new to this game? The game definitely sticks close to the PS1 games, but there's a decent amount of new stuff and improvements. First, let's talk about the player's new moves and options. For me, the overboost is one of the best new improvements. Not only does it provide a quick movement option that makes duels really fun while also being another reason to carefully manage energy, but it also means that backtracking takes less time. You also activate it by pressing R3, which means you don't have to take your thumb off of the camera stick to activate it.

...Except the right stick isn't used for the camera. The left stick isn't used for movement either. The control scheme is the same as it was on the PS1. Look, I'm not against unconventional controls, but there's no logic behind the control scheme. Yeah, you can map the camera to the face buttons, but that doesn't compare to a stick. Ok, It was a PS2 launch title, I guess I can accept it. They better fix it with the next game though.

There are new part types here. For example, we have the radiator. Now, if you get hit a bunch by enemies, you begin to overheat, which drains your health. The radiator counteracts that. This is a fine mechanic, but it doesn't really add much. Not much is actually done with the radiator that a defense stat and defense optional part couldn't also accomplish from a design standpoint. This is unfortunate, because it became clear in the PS1 games each part type was unique and served a purpose, even ones you may not expect like the FCS.

There's also hover legs, which are very quick. They also hover on water, which helps for a few missions. The last big loadout additions are extensions and inside parts. These are anti-missile systems, light movement options, mines, anti-lockon systems, and other miscellaneous actions. These were neat, but I didn't use them that much because I was trying to keep my AC light. Still, there's some neat stuff here. For some reason, you have to access inside parts by pressing your 'change right weapon' button. Just a small thing, but I wish they had enough space to just have a button for it. Hmm, maybe if the camera control could be controlled with a stick or something...

So really, it's mostly the same old kind of stuff. This is fun, but I think there could've been a bit more done to improve on the customization.

Anyway, how are you going to afford these new parts? There's so much, and you don't have much disposable income when starting out. You could go do a mission, but you'll go in debt if you fail, so it might be a good idea to tackle the arena. In retrospect, while Master of Arena making the arena a focus was a good idea to differentiate it from the other PS1 games, Armored Core 2 cements the fact that it works best as a diversion that's mostly disconnected from the main game. Initially fought in the arena just to get more money without the risk of missions, but eventually I just got really engaged with it and got to Rank 1. The pacing of these missions is surprisingly good because many upcoming and defeated Ravens will taunt and encourage you respectively in mail, letting you know when a boss is coming up. Dare I say, the arena is better than the main missions here. It was really challenging and I had to consider all of my parts and the map I chose to fight on. It also led to me being super rich by the end of the game, so I could afford pretty much every part I wanted.

So what about the story missions? They're good. The level design is generally less confusing than that of the PS1 games, the missions feel varied, they're a good length, etc... Levels are overall more consistent, but I can't help but feel they're still basically the same kind of stuff as those of the PS1 games, especially since some of the missions are just remakes of missions from those games. Isn't it a bit early to be doing that guys? The game takes place on Mars, but they don't take advantage of that very often. Make a low-gravity or space mission, maybe have a big sandstorm or something, I dunno. There's a lot of missed potential.

Then there's the story. Once again, it's mostly the same kind of stuff. There is a bit more characterization when it comes to some side characters and the main villain, but it's the same main framework as previous games, except now all a lot of the more covert stuff isn't present. When I saw that the first mission in the original Armored Core tasked the player with attacking protesters, it conveyed the world of the game well. Many missions felt like they create mini-storylines too. However, that's not nearly as pronounced in this game. Apparently the Ravens are slaves or something, but this wasn't really explained well in any capacity. I was really hoping for a bit more here.

So overall, while Armored Core 2 is a pretty good game, it's just a little too similar to its predecessors for me to call it great. If you liked the PS1 games, you will probably like this, and vice versa. 7/10. I'm tackling these in order, so Another Age is next. See you then.

Anyone who follows me on this website probably knows I like Armored Core. Depending on how good later games are, I could see myself calling it one of my favorite game series. I love the customization, the interesting approaches to difficulty, even many of the games’ stories in how they present their themes. However, even I think this game feels tired.

The main thing that I heard about Another Age before going in was that the story was sparse and there’s no arena. Instead, there’s around 100 missions that can be tackled in a non-linear order. This kind of concerned me, because the arena was my favorite part in Armored Core 2, and while I wasn’t huge on that game’s story, I was hoping to see some improvements instead of a removal. Plus, the arena is important for balancing. If you don’t have the arena, there’s nothing to really stop players from deep debt, even if Human+ sticks a band-aid on the wound.

Well, that’s the first thing: Losing missions no longer loses you money. Ammo and repair is still costly and the payouts are usually lower to compensate for the lower risk, but I’m still not a fan of the new focus and the consequential changes. Project Phantasma and Master of Arena were certainly expansions on the first game, but they had original stories and added new things. Another Age, by comparison, removes stuff. Little story, no arena, and not too many new parts. I did get a lot of use out of the quick turn extension and a laser rifle, but the rest are nothing special. There’s nothing wrong with changing and even removing stuff. However, most of what they did was simply remove the most unique elements in the series.

It should be clear that the game lives or dies on the missions. And so, the game dies. These missions went for quantity over quality. There are some cool ones. For example, there’s one where you shoot escape pods so they destroy the MTs inside before they land. There’s another where you jump from plane to plane fighting enemies. However, for each good mission, there’s at least two boring ones and a bad one. For an example of a bad one, there’s one mission where you have to go from floor to floor on elevators defeating enemies. All this really entails is killing enemies in a room, sitting in elevator for 20 seconds, reaching the next floor and repeating. What really sticks out about this mission to me is that they took an already boring mission (Kill all enemies/destroy a bunch of stuff, which already makes up like half of the missions here), and just stuck in elevator rides where you do nothing. It’s also worth noting that the missions in this game miss two major things:

1. A sense of continuity
2. A sense of dynamism

Let’s start with the first of these two. Despite having pretty much no story, this game does have a few mini stories within mission groups, but they don’t really leave much impact. Other than that, there’s really no overarching story. This is obviously because the game is non-linear in terms of what missions you do, but it ultimately means there’s no sense of escalation. Was it really worth sacrificing pacing for non-linearity? Even with the non-linear structure, there could’ve been a better attempt at worldbuilding or something. I mean, even the first game in this series, despite not having an arena, had a Raven ranking. It served no gameplay function, but it enhanced the world and encouraged the player. Players see themselves going up on this ranking and want to hit #1 by completing more missions. The only thing encouraging you here is your own intrinsic motivation (Which for me wasn’t particularly high), and the mission completion %. That’s it. What we have here is pretty much nothing. Nothing feels important or intriguing. Very few characters even have names.

What about the second element though? It’s always exciting in any game when you go in expecting something simple and end up on a greater quest. The most basic and common application of this in this series is ending a few missions with an unexpected AC boss. It happens a lot because it keeps the player on edge and makes missions a little more interesting. The biggest issue in Another Age is how often there’s no dynamism with missions. They’re too straightforward. Very rarely does your mission objective stray from the briefing. I honestly think that a better approach would’ve been fewer, longer missions that have a lot of variety and are dynamic. The developers would’ve had to make some changes to how the game handles resource management probably, but I think it could’ve been done, and it would’ve been much better in my opinion. At the very least, they should’ve prioritized quality over quantity, as I can’t take playing 100 of these generally middling missions.

That brings us to the final nail in the coffin: This game makes you complete every mission to beat the game. As if this game wasn’t repetitive enough. You can’t choose missions that you don’t like, only the order in which you play them. This did honestly mean all of the final missions were really tense, as they were the ones I skipped over before, but it doesn’t make the ending any less disappointing. Upon beating the final mission (Which has no real plot significance, of course), the game immediately goes to credits. No cutscene or anything.

Also, the game still doesn’t use analog sticks for movement and camera. Come on, you couldn’t just add that in? Ok, I guess this is an expansion game. They better add it in Armored core 3 though.

To be honest, while I have been critical of this series, it’s just very easy for me to keep playing them in a way that I don’t with other games. I finish them very fast. It was a little harder for this one though, taking me much more time to complete. Maybe that’s partially because it’s simply longer and I’ve returned to school, but I still beat Armored Core 2 very quickly. Overall, I’d say it’s the worst in the series I played so far. Well, aside from Armored Core V maybe, but that’s a story for another time…

In my Master of Arena review, I said that Armored Core was very similar to Pokemon. It’s clear that my comparison was far more apt than I initially thought. Both series have a very good basis with a lot of customization, but it seems that just like Pokemon, this series is pumping out releases in a way that isn’t good for these games. One-year development cycles weren’t uncommon in the 90s. The thing is, as technology has grown, so has the timeframe needed to take advantage of that tech. I’m afraid that as this series goes on, FromSoft won’t compensate for this. Hopefully I’m wrong. 4/10, very close to a 5.

Suggested by @Drax for this list.

A while back I did a review of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. I specifically pointed out that one level featured no jumping, which I said was ridiculous for a 3D Platformer. Removing jumping in a game focused on 3D movement is a bold choice. Jumping is the players main and usually only way to interact with the Z-Axis in a 3D Platformer. Removing that interaction is a decision that the developers of Ty made rather flippantly.

By comparison, Snake Pass feels much more deliberate. In a genre about moving around in 3D spaces, the simple act of moving forward can take some conscious effort. In the game, ground movement is fastest when you move in a zigzag pattern as opposed to simply moving forward. While not hard, it’s certainly more conscious to wiggle the control stick back and forth rather than just push forward. This mirrors real life, as many snakes themselves move in this zigzag pattern. This philosophy applies to the whole game, with the important note that it’s still a fantastical setting. Snakes can’t jump. They can do quick attacks that may look like jumps, but there’s nothing to attack in this game. The most vertical distance you can gain in this game is raising your head a small amount. As such, all platforming is done by climbing things. Wrapping around protruding surfaces and using them as foundation for more movement, extending from a platform to get a collectible or maybe take a slither of faith hoping you land on another nearby platform. Your other tools aside from slithering and lifting your head are a button to hold your grip and a bird friend that will lift your tail. That last one may sound a little overpowered, but the bird can lift only the tail, and it also results in no counterweight to the head when you’re dangling off of a pole or the like. It’s all fairly simple, but it allows for a decent amount of varied platforming and a little nuance. It’s almost puzzle-like in how it works, as often there’s multiple ways to tackle a challenge, but experimentation can find one particular way that works really well.

One interesting element of the level design is that the complexity of platforms actually decreased as the game went on. Earlier on, there were wooden structures with several protrusions one could use to pull themselves up with, but by the end, platforms had much less support. This isn’t to say the level design became lazy, it was consistently solid throughout. The game has a linear progression of levels, but the levels themselves are non-linear, and you can collect the three gems needed to proceed in any order. The first set of levels is pretty tame, which makes sense considering how unconventional this game is, but in due time you’re dealing with more and more moving platforms and diagonal structures. I was worried early on that the checkpoint system would create issues. It’s basic, with no lives and the simple system of respawning at the last checkpoint and losing all item progress. Generally I’m fine with this ’’’’outdated’’’’ system, but considering this game is all-or-nothing in terms of health and a movement system that could make excessive backtracking annoying, I was kinda worried. However, the game thankfully positions checkpoint near the most challenging segments, optional or not.

While I think the level design is good, it definitely feels a little monotonous to an extent. While the latter three worlds do feature at least one main mixup, the implementation of these is mixed. This game features some pretty solid sections in the water level, for example. However, the third world just introduces lava, which doesn’t really do anything the previous established threats of pits and spikes couldn’t. The last world’s gimmick is by far the most consistently present, being wind. It requires you to be very careful in many cases, but in others it allows for more speed and freedom than ever before. While we’re on problems, there’s these switches that you have to pull to activate platforms and the like. While pulling these switches with your snake body is initially novel, the utilization of these switches remain the same from start to end. More could’ve been done to add more unique environmental interaction here.

The problem of monotonous theming extends to the visuals as well. The game’s world are themed around grass, water, fire, and air. Already this is pretty underwhelming, but the individual worlds just look very similar. The most stark difference are just lighting and skybox changes. This comes with the tradeoff of very polished visuals. The wider game has a jungle ruins theme, and it’s all very bright and colorful. However I still feel the lack of visual variety is worth mentioning. We have some great music here though. That’s because the composer was David Wise, known for the first two Donkey Kong Country games, composed for this game too. I’m not sure if his soundtrack here is as strong as those two, but it’s great regardless. It fits the tone and theme of the game and is just generally very good.

This is probably one of the shorter reviews that I’ve done for this list, but Snake Pass is a pretty simple game. It knows exactly what it is and doesn’t bog itself down with unnecessary fluff. No combat, No pointless diversion, and little story. However, it’s also a very novel game throughout its short length. In that spirit of brevity, I’m gonna end it here. This was a very good game, and one of the better 3D Platformers I’ve played. 7/10, honestly close to an 8.

If you follow me and have played this game, you may have known this review was coming. I'm always on the lookout for a new 3D Platformer and this one got a lot of praise. I heard it was a 3D Castleroid with a platforming focus. The only other game that I know of that fits that description is Blue Fire, which, while a fine game, was pretty uninspired in many ways. As such, I was looking forward to seeing if this game reached the potential of the concept.

In many ways, it does. This game has one of the best movesets for platforming of any 3D Platformer. Expressive, unique, but also classical. Many of these moves are conceptually similar to those in other platformers, but the execution makes them special. There's a wall kick, but you only get three per jump, and you're given a lot more control of what angle you jump out. There's a slide into a long jump, but it's fully committal. There's even this hidden, crazy side jump that's hard to use but super good. Pretty much all of these are upgrades characteristic of the Castleroid structure. One problem I had with Blue Fire is that the platforming upgrades just trivialized sections, but in Pseudoregalia, the upgrades make the gameplay more complex. At first I thought I was really clever doing some sequence breaking here and there, but eventually I realized there's no real sequence to break at all in many cases. Several challenges can be cleared with a multitude of move combinations, and it's up to you to discover how to progress. It also helps that your moveset will increase your mobility, making backtracking much faster in general. It's a really awesome way to blend Platforming and Castleroid structure.

The more contentious part of this game is the exploration and the lack of a map. However, I believe the root of the problem is the level design. The rooms independently are pretty well designed, but it's looking at them altogether when some issues emerge. Many rooms are distinct to an extent, but considering the game's low-poly, low detail style, it can feel somewhat homogeneous. Really though, I think the main issue is that the path to the boss keys feel the same as the other paths. The door needed to advance will look just like the door that might just be an alternate path to where you just came from and nothing else. If you look at the Castlevania series, notice that not only is it portrayed that you need to get to the top of the castle, but the required detours from that path also have a clear direction, it makes a little more sense why many people get confused here. Very rarely is there an intuitive direction to go, as most entrances to important rooms are placed right beside entrances to less important rooms that might possibly have an upgrade but could very well not (They probably should've added more health/stat upgrades...). Of course, this wouldn't be as big of an issue if you simply had a map, but for game as small as this, I think a map isn't particularly necessary. If the doors to rooms were more unique (And not covered by fog), it would be easier to tell where you've been, even without a map. It's not a big deal, and I'm sure if I replayed this game the issue would be far less detrimental to my time, but it's still a problem.

The other thing that kinda holds this game back is combat. I mean, it's fine I guess. There's few enemy types, the ones that are here a pretty simply designed, and your attacks never progress beyond a 3-hit combo. You get benefits for fighting, but most of those are to solve problems caused by the combat in the first place. You can just run past most enemies, but if that's a positive, something went wrong here. It feels added out of a sense of obligation, which is the worst feeling to have about something in a game. The only boss fight is the final boss, which is solid overall, but it still kind of irks me that a platforming game has to end with a fight where platforming is mostly an afterthought. There's not even a final section to the bossfight here. Once you get all of the keys and go to the big door, it's straight to the boss. There was a missed opportunity for a final area that tested you on all of your abilities. Oh well.

It's a pretty good 3D Platformer, but it doesn't quite reach its potential. 7/10, very close to an 8.

I’m not too familiar with the Ninja Gaiden series. The only other game I’ve played to a significant degree is the NES original. So, one may wonder, why did I play the modern Ninja Gaiden II instead of its more beloved predecessor Ninja Gaiden Black? Well, I’m not like other Backloggd users. I say ‘Castleroid’ instead of ‘Metroidvania’, I don’t quote other users in my reviews, I hate ironic humour, I always commit to my comedic bits unwaveringly, and I just like playing sequels before the original games (The real reason is that I had trouble trying to emulate Black and happened to see this one at a game store).

All of that being said, the game is pretty good, but fairly different than other action games I’ve played. To quote user Herbert in his review of Ultrakill, “Doom Eternal was Ninja Gaiden Black (for FPS games)”. I can’t attest to how similar Doom Eternal is to Ninja Gaiden Black, but it is pretty similar to the latter’s sequel. The brutality, the need to consider every enemy, the gratifying finisher moves, a bit of platforming every once and a while, etc… However, part of the reason I like Ninja Gaiden II much more than Doom Eternal is that you have options in this game. The best way to display this is the fact that this game has achievements for clearing the story with a single weapon. Anyone whose played Doom Eternal knows that trying to use one weapon in that game is pretty much impossible due to the way enemies and resources are designed. You will use every weapon in the ‘right’ way, or you just won’t take down enemies efficiently. Personally, this kind of restriction is not appealing.

In Ninja Gaiden II, there’s still ‘right’ ways to take down enemies, there’s just way more of them. You have a pretty solid set of weapons to use, swords, claws, staffs, chain blades, and more. Each one has different moves that will greatly change the way you need to fight. Attack power, speed, range, mobility, and even specific moves are all things to consider when choosing a weapon to wield. I mostly stuck to the Dragon Sword because it was quick and allowed for a lot of mobility and the Lunar staff because it had good range and crowd control, but I’d switch to the other weapons for certain situations too. This game is far from accessible or easy, but this one allowance is what makes the game engaging for me. Certain moves work well for certain situations, but I had to learn them for myself, and if I didn’t like that move, I could try another weapons’ alternative that, while not identical, would usually get the job done. You also have a good selection of ranged weapons that have different use cases, usually firing quick shots can be a nice disruptor while a focused attack can be used to kill weaker ranged enemies.

It also helps that the normal enemy design, while extremely brutal at times, makes fights super fun. While you have the potential to eviscerate enemies, they can do the same to you. Enemies will lose body parts in fights, and if you don’t finish them off, they will suicide attack you for a third of your health, so every enemy needs to be taken seriously. I know some people say the camera is ‘outdated’, but the truth is that enemies are too aggressive and plenty to be approached with a lock-on akin to Ocarina of Time, and the soft lock-on here was pretty consistent for me personally. Anyway, the multitude of strong enemies means you’ll need to master finishers, essence charges, and a few fundamental combos like the izuna drop to annihilate your enemies. What ties this together is the covertly brilliant ‘lasting damage system’. While health pickups are generous and you actually recover health when no enemies are nearby, your max health will slowly go down the more damage you take, and the only way to restore it is with save points and items. This makes every fight feel tense, because not only can one wrong move massively cut down your health, but even if you do overcome this particular challenge, you’re going into your next fight with a bit of a disadvantage. This means many fights have not only the frantic, all-or-nothing feeling that games with generous checkpoints do, but also the tension and call to mastery that more scarce checkpoints create. More games need to try something like this.

Honestly though, while the common enemies are mostly great, the bosses are a bit mixed. There are some good ones, and they’re usually the most conventional opponents, humanoid bosses that are hard but feel fairly similar in design to common enemies. However, way too many require you to use the bow, and I don’t mean you just fire off a shot and then go in with your blades, you have to stand still, charge an arrow for a few seconds, and shoot, and for some bosses this is the optimal way to deal damage for the entire fight, at least to my knowledge. Really though, I think one issue that hurts all bosses a little is that you can’t combo on them nearly as hard as with normal enemies. All of this makes the fights feel a little more reserved in a way I don’t entirely like that for this kind of game.

I suppose that brings us to the level design. Apparently Ninja Gaiden Black has an interconnected map similar to a Metroidvania or something, but this game has mostly linear levels. They’re pretty solid. It’s hard to get lost, but you do have some optional areas and backtracking to keep things interesting. Ranged enemies are often placed in areas above, and you usually want to deal with them first, be it by shooting them a lot or climbing up and dealing with close-range. There’s some light platforming present, which is thankfully much better than in games like God of War where it’s boring and one mistake instantly kills you. The level design is mostly a really nice blend of fighting and light platforming, and some attacks even depend on jumping off walls to use, which means level design has an added importance to fights that works well with the agility of Ryu.

Alright, I usually only nitpick the stories of games (We’d be here a while if I did so with this one), but there were a lot of specific gameplay moments that really annoyed me. First though, I have to talk about the performance and glitches. I played this game vanilla on 360, so maybe this isn’t the best way to play the game, but frame drops weren’t uncommon and there were a significant amount of glitches. One time, an enemy got stuck behind a gate. The only way to open this gate is to kill the enemy, and since I couldn’t reach the enemy, I had to reload a save. One time these enemies that sprout up from underground started coming up too high before suddenly disappearing and repeating. This made the fight trivial but annoying. A few times an enemy just started standing in the air for some reason. These kinds of things weren’t super common, but they happened enough that I’m convinced that this game needed a little more polish. Load times can be pretty long too, and that one staircase fight’s reputation is completely earned. It would be really cool if it wasn’t in slow-mo! And look, I like hard games, but sometimes this game is just mean. After beating a boss one time, it just exploded and killed me in one hit. “Ok, next time I’ll run away before it explodes.” I thought. Still, it killed me in one hit despite me being far away from the explosion. I don’t usually like looking stuff up for games, but I ended up just searching the solution so I wouldn’t waste more of my time, and it turns out you just have to block it. This is the definition of a beginner’s trap. It’s trivial to avoid if you know about it, but the punishment is harsh if you don’t. Another time, I killed a boss on an island surrounded by lava. This isn’t a big deal because Ryu can obviously run on lava, but some sadistic bastard at Tecmo decided to put some lava bombs under the lava on the way to the exit. I didn’t notice the subtle tell of these bombs, so I died and had to fight the boss again. Again, dealing with these is no problem if you’re aware of them, so their inclusion serves no purpose other than to punish someone who already defeated a hard boss.

It's honestly the stuff in the previous paragraph that made me bump this down from an 8 to a 7/10. This does mean a replay on an emulator/updated version might have the potential to bring it back up to an 8, but I think I want to play Ninja Gaiden Black first. If that game has what I like about this one and what I don’t like isn’t present, I could see it becoming a personal favorite. As for this game, 7/10.

Suggested by @MrTheMan for This list.

It seems that every indie game nowadays has to be a spiritual successor to something or a combination of two games. I can empathize with developers, as this is a good way to sell a game at the end of the day, but it means that often, the games that have the most potential to experiment will stick too close to their inspirations. While concepts like Dark Souls Castleroid, Quake mixed with Blood, and Super Metroid with more platforming can be cool, rarely do they reach the height of the games they’re inspired by.

Ultrakill is one of those few cases that just about does. You can’t deny the influences here, because typing devilmayquake.com into your search engine of choice will lead you to this game’s steam page. This game is a clear attempt to make a stylish, expressive boomer shooter-character action hybrid. While this concept sounds cool, the actually details of executing the concept seem somewhat dubious. How do you combine the flashy excess of Devil May Cry with the raw simplicity of Quake into a good game?

I think one of the best ways to demonstrate this game’s qualities is with one of its most iconic elements: the coin. Basically, you flip a coin into the air, and if you shoot the coin with a hitscan gun, your bullet will become stronger and hit the nearest enemy’s weakspot. The first positive of the coin is that it allows for a lot of strategies. You can use it to hit enemies around corners, shoot through an enemy, hit the coin, and then hit another enemy, hit a lot of coins to build up more damage, and more. This simple idea allows for a lot of strategies, and this applies to the rest of the surprisingly small loadout. Honestly, the guns are pretty conventional at a glance, but their alternate fires give a little more complexity and uniqueness, at least as much as you can have for a game so dedicated to being fast paced. The nailgun has a magnet for attracting shots, there’s these rockets that you can hold in place and let fly after a few seconds, it’s not the most unique weapon loadout I’ve seen but they’re all fun to use and fit the game.

Another positive of the coin is that it basically tells you an enemy’s weak spot when you use it. It’s a kinda genius way to show weaknesses for enemies, as while it’s a pretty simple method, it’s not overtly signaled to players. This is indicative of how the game lets the players figure out mechanics on their own with minimal guidance. When you get a new weapon, a brief summary of the weapon appears on screen, and you go through a small section to demonstrate the weapon’s properties. While this game can occasionally be overwhelming, it gives enough wiggle room and information to let the player choose their playstyle. This leads well into the third positive of the coin…

It’s just cool. This is, of course, subjective, but ricocheting shots off coins is awesome, as is a lot of other stuff in this game. You can slide around and rocket jump, punch projectiles back at enemies, you can also punch shotgun blasts after you shoot them to make them stronger. There’s a great mix of options being balanced while also just being intrinsically fun to use. In this way, Ultrakill does have some of the “Rule of Cool” appeal of Devil May Cry, although I wouldn’t call it quite as over-the-top. Unfortunately, you can’t surf on enemies or use motorcycles as weapons in this game.

The coin does show one of the issues with the games, which is that abilities are kinda easy to spam. The obvious note is that most guns have no ammo or reloading. Spam that shotgun all you want, you’ll never run out of bullets! This is fine, my main issue is how easy it is to get alt fires and dashes back, which usually return after a cooldown. Considering that one of the main mechanics is that the only way to recover health is to get up-close-and-personal with the enemy, I don’t get why they didn’t put a kill or damage requirement to earn alt fires back. I suppose this is less of a problem as the skill ceiling goes up (missing a coin-deflected railgun shot is kinda just punishment enough sometimes), but I think some of these guns could’ve used more punishment for missing shots.

Just like how the coin deflects shots from linear-shooting guns, the level design here is more linear than any of its influences. Most of the time, backtracking is minimal, which I’m honestly fine with. This doesn’t stop the developers from hiding a few secrets, which were fun to find. Most encounters take place in arenas that feature solid cover and verticality, and the enemies that populate these arenas are also pretty varied in terms of how you want to take them down. There’s a decent amount of visual variety here, and while I’d hesitate to call it cohesive in the greater game, each act’s levels usually lead naturally enough into the next one.

This game also has a story. Much how I couldn’t think of a way to tie this to the coin metaphor, I feel like the story is somewhat tonally disconnected from the rest of the experience. For how “Rule of cool” this game is, I’m surprised that they try to build lore and stuff. They even have optional history books in a few levels. The story stuff is fine, I guess. I don’t really care much about Gabriel as a character, although he is a pretty decent rival character a la Vergil or Genshin. It’s easy enough to ignore either way, and I can’t imagine the story being the main appeal to anyone.

Ultrakill is still in early access (As of now, ACT II is complete), but I’d say it’s worth buying regardless. If you’re experienced with fast-paced FPS games, go ahead and try the demo, and if you like it, toss the creators some coins and buy the full game at some point. Honestly, those who aren’t as familiar with games like this may be better off trying the essentials like Doom or Quake first, as I think this game works best with knowledge of games like that. I’m gonna give Ultrakill a 9/10, close to an 8.