DoubleCakes
1992
This wasn’t the best game to return to. It’s still a lot of fun but the weapons are very ineffective. In an old review I said that the weapons were pretty good, but how wrong I was! I also said that the Cossack/Wily stages were stringent with weapon energy but with weapons useless as the ones you get in Mega Man 5, that’s not much of an issue.
The music is pretty good at least and the gameplay is solid, if a little all over the place in terms of difficulty.
The music is pretty good at least and the gameplay is solid, if a little all over the place in terms of difficulty.
This is one of the all-time great community game mode projects, a cornucopia of great levels, but the community nature of it means its very uneven. Some levels just aren't as good as the best and the difficulty will jump around a lot.
1993
A solid final outing for the last Mega Man game. I prefer Rush being out there as a dog and not Mega Man's armour, but the Super Armour is a cool idea. The mega buster isn't as overpowered as it was in *5* and the boss weapons are very useful.
Maybe what makes the game so easy is that everything is very useful. It also helps that the X/Wily stages aren't very sadistic.
Most importantly, the music is great. This could be the best Mega Man soundtrack on the NES. It goes to show that even late in the NES's lifespan, people were still cranking out great tunes.
Maybe what makes the game so easy is that everything is very useful. It also helps that the X/Wily stages aren't very sadistic.
Most importantly, the music is great. This could be the best Mega Man soundtrack on the NES. It goes to show that even late in the NES's lifespan, people were still cranking out great tunes.
1995
A pretty solid venture for the franchise.
People will complain about the movement in this game but even if Mega Man feels slower, I don't think it hurts the game. There's never a point where Mega Man's speed was an issue for me.
The music is pretty great even if the soundfont is a little weird. The game has an 80s future synth sound to it which I've grown accustomed to although the soundfont is shared with the SFX and many of them sound weak.
The level design is pretty solid with some cool gimmicks and I like the shop system and the powerup system where there are a bunch of powerups hidden around the world beyond your boss weapons and you can buy them from the shop or find them. It's the perfect progression for a classic Mega Man game.
The bosses are either damn easy once you have their weapon weakness, or awfully hard. Slash Man and Burst Man some of the hardest bosses in the game. The Wily Stage bosses are not very hard.
Speaking of the Wily Stages, Mega Man 7 breaks the traditions of all previous mainline games in that you can take a break between Wily Stages instead of having to do them sequentially with no chance to visit the shop or even explore previous stages. I prefer the line of Wily Stages in a row but it's a nice change. The game is audacious in that it sticks the 8 Robot Master rematch right before the two-stage final boss, which the second stage of the final boss being one of the hardest fights in the franchise.
The boss weapons are pretty solid it feels like there are some holes missing in the arsenal. On the other hand, I was inclined to use a lot of boss weapons even with the S. Adapter powerup.
People will complain about the movement in this game but even if Mega Man feels slower, I don't think it hurts the game. There's never a point where Mega Man's speed was an issue for me.
The music is pretty great even if the soundfont is a little weird. The game has an 80s future synth sound to it which I've grown accustomed to although the soundfont is shared with the SFX and many of them sound weak.
The level design is pretty solid with some cool gimmicks and I like the shop system and the powerup system where there are a bunch of powerups hidden around the world beyond your boss weapons and you can buy them from the shop or find them. It's the perfect progression for a classic Mega Man game.
The bosses are either damn easy once you have their weapon weakness, or awfully hard. Slash Man and Burst Man some of the hardest bosses in the game. The Wily Stage bosses are not very hard.
Speaking of the Wily Stages, Mega Man 7 breaks the traditions of all previous mainline games in that you can take a break between Wily Stages instead of having to do them sequentially with no chance to visit the shop or even explore previous stages. I prefer the line of Wily Stages in a row but it's a nice change. The game is audacious in that it sticks the 8 Robot Master rematch right before the two-stage final boss, which the second stage of the final boss being one of the hardest fights in the franchise.
The boss weapons are pretty solid it feels like there are some holes missing in the arsenal. On the other hand, I was inclined to use a lot of boss weapons even with the S. Adapter powerup.
2022
Plays great, music's great, graphics are great, and just about every level is astounding. While the story took awhile to get its hooks into me, by the end I was invested.
2000
Although still one of my favourite games for the PSX, this latest playthrough of FF9 made me turn on the game. A little bit, anyway.
Everyone complains about the slow combat but the combat is not just slow, it’s janky. There are pauses between every little thing and attacks and effects can queue up so you can select Vivi to cast Fire and then have to wait for 7 other combatants to take their turn before he uses it and by then he might have been hit with an attack and got KO’d. The battles of FF9 are massively frustrating.
Zooming out, what hurts the gameplay of FF9 the most is that while the mechanics are neat, most of their substance is wasted. A lot of small factors come together to invalidate a lot of skills and strategy that FF9 offers like passive skills and special abilities. It’s simply not fun to sink one’s teeth into the details of FF9’s gameplay.
I like the story and the characters although I find Zidane a little annoying and many characters have their arc concluded by the time Disc 3 arrives so they don’t have much presence once they hit their climax. It’s weird. I love this steampunk fantasy world, though. Not just the aesthetics, but the world and it’s mysterious lands. It’s a very mysterious fantasy planet.
A very solid game, though. Has a lot of great moments and I’m glad to have played it. This might be the last time, though. It took me almost two decades but I beat Ozma and now I’m ready to close the book on this one.
Everyone complains about the slow combat but the combat is not just slow, it’s janky. There are pauses between every little thing and attacks and effects can queue up so you can select Vivi to cast Fire and then have to wait for 7 other combatants to take their turn before he uses it and by then he might have been hit with an attack and got KO’d. The battles of FF9 are massively frustrating.
Zooming out, what hurts the gameplay of FF9 the most is that while the mechanics are neat, most of their substance is wasted. A lot of small factors come together to invalidate a lot of skills and strategy that FF9 offers like passive skills and special abilities. It’s simply not fun to sink one’s teeth into the details of FF9’s gameplay.
I like the story and the characters although I find Zidane a little annoying and many characters have their arc concluded by the time Disc 3 arrives so they don’t have much presence once they hit their climax. It’s weird. I love this steampunk fantasy world, though. Not just the aesthetics, but the world and it’s mysterious lands. It’s a very mysterious fantasy planet.
A very solid game, though. Has a lot of great moments and I’m glad to have played it. This might be the last time, though. It took me almost two decades but I beat Ozma and now I’m ready to close the book on this one.
Kinda disappointed with this one but at the same time it's a masterpiece!
This could have been something great but the environments are bland and the three heroes are some of the most stupidly annoying characters in all of JRPGs.
2004
It was better than the movie, at least.
I quit this one because the foreground and background art used the same colour palette. Ooooh, that kind of stuff bothers me!
This is Maximalist Mega Man. Everything is turned up to near-excess, including the difficulty. This romhack is appropriately hyped up in the community but I was caught off guard with how difficult it was. Each of the eight opening levels is as hard as the Wily Stages of other Mega Man games and at least 50% longer, usually with a couple extra mini-boss fights.
By the middle-late game I was getting used to the challenge but the final couple levels (including the Wily fights) were too much for me. I was playing with save states thinking that I could never beat this romhack legit, at least not anytime soon. Seriously, this romhack is harder than Mega Man 9.
That said, the game does give you a lot of safety nets (and there are plenty of assist features). There are a couple moments in the game where the game hands you a bunch of pickups (weapon energy, lives, E-tanks) to refill your stocks although it all feels very inelegant. If this romhack has any flaw is that it's inelegant. The game likes to pit you against a lot of different obstacles at once, usually pushing the NES hardware to its graphical limit. To compensate, you often find pickups waiting for you on common pathways. It's the ballistic solution to ballistic difficulty: give the player lots of health pickups to keep their health bar up.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but even a single early level can be a trial. The good news is that there are plenty of mechanics that even the odds for you and are considerate to the playing experience (for example, weapon energy refilling a bit each time you die). The weapons are great, if maybe overpowered. I found myself using the Dive Man weapon– with its 8-way shooting ability– more than any other. Getting the traversal items was a nail-biting challenge although the items are very powerful if obtained.
What makes this romhack special isn’t just the impressive technical aspect, like all sorts of enemies and gameplay types packed into the game, it’s the fact that the creators made something that is distinctly Mega Man but also has its own identity. There’s swaths of creativity in how levels unfold and the kind of gameplay detours that Minus Infinity takes. The creators made decisions with this romhack that hadn't been made before my Mega Man proper and they had their own spin on it.
This truly is one of the best romhacks.
By the middle-late game I was getting used to the challenge but the final couple levels (including the Wily fights) were too much for me. I was playing with save states thinking that I could never beat this romhack legit, at least not anytime soon. Seriously, this romhack is harder than Mega Man 9.
That said, the game does give you a lot of safety nets (and there are plenty of assist features). There are a couple moments in the game where the game hands you a bunch of pickups (weapon energy, lives, E-tanks) to refill your stocks although it all feels very inelegant. If this romhack has any flaw is that it's inelegant. The game likes to pit you against a lot of different obstacles at once, usually pushing the NES hardware to its graphical limit. To compensate, you often find pickups waiting for you on common pathways. It's the ballistic solution to ballistic difficulty: give the player lots of health pickups to keep their health bar up.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but even a single early level can be a trial. The good news is that there are plenty of mechanics that even the odds for you and are considerate to the playing experience (for example, weapon energy refilling a bit each time you die). The weapons are great, if maybe overpowered. I found myself using the Dive Man weapon– with its 8-way shooting ability– more than any other. Getting the traversal items was a nail-biting challenge although the items are very powerful if obtained.
What makes this romhack special isn’t just the impressive technical aspect, like all sorts of enemies and gameplay types packed into the game, it’s the fact that the creators made something that is distinctly Mega Man but also has its own identity. There’s swaths of creativity in how levels unfold and the kind of gameplay detours that Minus Infinity takes. The creators made decisions with this romhack that hadn't been made before my Mega Man proper and they had their own spin on it.
This truly is one of the best romhacks.
1990
A real blight on the video game industry, my consciousness, and humanity in general.
2008
Replayed this one and resisted the temptation of using the Collection's additional save features. I took on this challenge raw!
So what do I think of the game? Mega Man 9 is the best version of this expression of retro-styled Mega Man. The levels are tight and interesting. The boss weapons are unique and multi-faceted (got a lot of use out of each). The boss fights themselves are challenging but satisfying to master. The shop feature is appreciated and useful although I wish the text was sped up.
The Wily Stages might be a titch too hard but they're still pretty good although I have my complaints for the banality of the first Wily Stage boss and Twin Devils. I like how the campaign eschews the template of later day Mega Man NES titles and has the 8 Robot Master levels then the final four Wily Stages. They're pretty hard but having that singular gantlet (in which you can prepare with many lives and E-tanks) is a strong, tight gameplay decision.
This is pitch-perfect simplicity. It's a handful of the franchise's mechanics with a lot excess stripped away and refined until it came out just right.
So what do I think of the game? Mega Man 9 is the best version of this expression of retro-styled Mega Man. The levels are tight and interesting. The boss weapons are unique and multi-faceted (got a lot of use out of each). The boss fights themselves are challenging but satisfying to master. The shop feature is appreciated and useful although I wish the text was sped up.
The Wily Stages might be a titch too hard but they're still pretty good although I have my complaints for the banality of the first Wily Stage boss and Twin Devils. I like how the campaign eschews the template of later day Mega Man NES titles and has the 8 Robot Master levels then the final four Wily Stages. They're pretty hard but having that singular gantlet (in which you can prepare with many lives and E-tanks) is a strong, tight gameplay decision.
This is pitch-perfect simplicity. It's a handful of the franchise's mechanics with a lot excess stripped away and refined until it came out just right.
I'm not one for multiplayer so my judgement is exclusively on the single-player campaigns: which are very detailed and immersive if a little repetitive. I think it's cool that players got to explore the history of southeast Asian lands.
I've completed all 131 campaign scenarios (and then some) of the official Age of Empires II HD release. Keep in mind, I've not gotten to the Definitive edition yet so I don't know what it changes, but looking back at this HD version: how does it hold up?
Man, there's a lot of jank to AoE2's engine that's hard to go back to and even this HD remaster– it doesn't solve the problem very well. Controlling groups of units is cumbersome and sometimes dysfunctional. I had several times where I would attack move a group of units and they'd just walk past enemies that were attacking them. It can be frustrating to micromanage when the unit AI is stuck back in 2000 with how inconsistent it can be. Compared to Rise of Nations, which even today still controls pretty great.
That said, I still love this game with my whole heart, and I have for over two decades now! Even if I prefer the antiquated historical setting of the first AoE, the realms of this medieval game are still charming. I love the pixel art and overall art direction. The expansions add in a lot of new lands types and civilization aesthetics that fill the game with all sorts of pretty toys.
While I still like the original campaigns (AoK and the Conquerors) for their first brush with scenario triggers, the Forgotten expansion pack (which I played back when it was a mod) pushed scenario design forward with lots of details and quirks even if it could get overabundant with those widgets. The African Kingdoms and Rise of the Rajas don't drastically change the fundamentals of gameplay but the extra civs and rich campaigns were wonderful to experience.
Now done all campaigns, I can put this to rest and be glad that this title has been in my life for so long.
Man, there's a lot of jank to AoE2's engine that's hard to go back to and even this HD remaster– it doesn't solve the problem very well. Controlling groups of units is cumbersome and sometimes dysfunctional. I had several times where I would attack move a group of units and they'd just walk past enemies that were attacking them. It can be frustrating to micromanage when the unit AI is stuck back in 2000 with how inconsistent it can be. Compared to Rise of Nations, which even today still controls pretty great.
That said, I still love this game with my whole heart, and I have for over two decades now! Even if I prefer the antiquated historical setting of the first AoE, the realms of this medieval game are still charming. I love the pixel art and overall art direction. The expansions add in a lot of new lands types and civilization aesthetics that fill the game with all sorts of pretty toys.
While I still like the original campaigns (AoK and the Conquerors) for their first brush with scenario triggers, the Forgotten expansion pack (which I played back when it was a mod) pushed scenario design forward with lots of details and quirks even if it could get overabundant with those widgets. The African Kingdoms and Rise of the Rajas don't drastically change the fundamentals of gameplay but the extra civs and rich campaigns were wonderful to experience.
Now done all campaigns, I can put this to rest and be glad that this title has been in my life for so long.