Emijx
2017
Sonic Forces is like the prime example of how perfect Sonic Generations is. Combining Classic and Modern playstyles ended up being really fun in that game, and it feels like they tried copy pasting it into this game and fucked up abysmally.
The Modern Sonic stages are fine enough, the Avatar stages are really...boring, the duo stages are haphazardly combined mechanics of both the modern stages and the avatar stages which make it not work well for either side too much, and the classic sonic stages would be fine if they didn't fuck with his physics and controls to the point of ruining the character.
There's plenty of stuff here and none of it works well enough. Level design, writing, Avatar designs, the level physics, boss fights, pretty much the only thing that really still holds up is the score, which is even still not nearly as good as other sonic games which is a shame. Even if you're getting this for free, that's way too much. It's not worth owning, let alone playing, let alone finishing.
The Modern Sonic stages are fine enough, the Avatar stages are really...boring, the duo stages are haphazardly combined mechanics of both the modern stages and the avatar stages which make it not work well for either side too much, and the classic sonic stages would be fine if they didn't fuck with his physics and controls to the point of ruining the character.
There's plenty of stuff here and none of it works well enough. Level design, writing, Avatar designs, the level physics, boss fights, pretty much the only thing that really still holds up is the score, which is even still not nearly as good as other sonic games which is a shame. Even if you're getting this for free, that's way too much. It's not worth owning, let alone playing, let alone finishing.
You know what, Sonic Adventure 2 can absolutely go by the motto "Does it's job". Is it better than the first game? Yeah. Is it funner than the first game? At points, yeah. Is it considered more interesting than the first game? Sure. Do I like it more than the first game? At points, absolutely not.
The Action stages are much better so now that Sonic and Shadow's stages are playable, their sections might just be the best. The Hunt stages are just as good as the last game, albeit held way back by the radar only focusing on one target at a time in order, forcing a lot more blindly scowering through the level multiple times to find individual fragments/keys. The Mech stages might be the worst because a ton of the time you're slowly trodding through the entire level while a high pitched sound is screaming in your ears as you try and not die by various different enemies.
Overall, it's better than most of SA1, but it's really not too hard to beat SA1 in quality of stage design, objectives, the implementation of Big the Cat, and plot. But yeah they sure did it with this one.
The Action stages are much better so now that Sonic and Shadow's stages are playable, their sections might just be the best. The Hunt stages are just as good as the last game, albeit held way back by the radar only focusing on one target at a time in order, forcing a lot more blindly scowering through the level multiple times to find individual fragments/keys. The Mech stages might be the worst because a ton of the time you're slowly trodding through the entire level while a high pitched sound is screaming in your ears as you try and not die by various different enemies.
Overall, it's better than most of SA1, but it's really not too hard to beat SA1 in quality of stage design, objectives, the implementation of Big the Cat, and plot. But yeah they sure did it with this one.
2001
Luigi's Mansion is one of those required gems that you have to play if you're a fan of Nintendo's work. It's a very good example of what they like to do: Do something different with a franchise or character people already know of.
I think it holds up pretty damn well, although the late game gets really repetitive and spammy with the ghosts, especially with the blackout/Van Ghoul fight. All in all though, it's early Gamecube and it sure does hold up decently well in Current Year IF you can get used to the sometimes rough around the edges controls.
I think it holds up pretty damn well, although the late game gets really repetitive and spammy with the ghosts, especially with the blackout/Van Ghoul fight. All in all though, it's early Gamecube and it sure does hold up decently well in Current Year IF you can get used to the sometimes rough around the edges controls.
Sonic Adventure DX is a weird thing. It was the first real attempt at creating a sonic story that was serious and it pulls that off about as well as the original Resident Evil pulls off it's Voice Acting in a serious and realistic way.
The Sonic part of it is almost absolutely the worst part of the game due to being way too clunky and awful to control at high speeds while trying to do sorta annoying platforming, the Tails' part is just screaming at you "WOW LOOK AT HOW BAD SONIC'S LEVEL DESIGN IS, BUT I SWEAR WE CAN DO BETTER!", Knuckles has some features that are debatably better than the search stages in Adventure 2, Amy's story is only redeemable because it's better than Sonic's by virtue of being the shortest story in the game, Big is a wonderful case of "Not bad, but god is it not alright", and Gamma is a very mixed bag of "Wow, I can see why the mech stages are a thing in SA2" and "We got rid of actual Tails stages in SA2 for more of THIS?!?"
As a whole, it's entirely understandable why it's been largely abandoned by the greater sonic community in favor of SA2. There isn't a Super Mario Galaxy 1 vs 2 kind of comparison. SA2 knew what it was doing, knew what it was ditching, and all in all is a much more complete and whole experience. But we really shouldn't give so much shit to SA1 either. There's a lot of decent stuff here. Not amazing, but decent. And it's a necessary thing to have in order to have SA2.
If you play a ton of SA2, you should go back and play SA1 through to the entire end. If nothing else, it'll give you a wonderful examination as to just how much better SA2 is. At least for the simple virtue of making Sonic's stages tremendously better.
The Sonic part of it is almost absolutely the worst part of the game due to being way too clunky and awful to control at high speeds while trying to do sorta annoying platforming, the Tails' part is just screaming at you "WOW LOOK AT HOW BAD SONIC'S LEVEL DESIGN IS, BUT I SWEAR WE CAN DO BETTER!", Knuckles has some features that are debatably better than the search stages in Adventure 2, Amy's story is only redeemable because it's better than Sonic's by virtue of being the shortest story in the game, Big is a wonderful case of "Not bad, but god is it not alright", and Gamma is a very mixed bag of "Wow, I can see why the mech stages are a thing in SA2" and "We got rid of actual Tails stages in SA2 for more of THIS?!?"
As a whole, it's entirely understandable why it's been largely abandoned by the greater sonic community in favor of SA2. There isn't a Super Mario Galaxy 1 vs 2 kind of comparison. SA2 knew what it was doing, knew what it was ditching, and all in all is a much more complete and whole experience. But we really shouldn't give so much shit to SA1 either. There's a lot of decent stuff here. Not amazing, but decent. And it's a necessary thing to have in order to have SA2.
If you play a ton of SA2, you should go back and play SA1 through to the entire end. If nothing else, it'll give you a wonderful examination as to just how much better SA2 is. At least for the simple virtue of making Sonic's stages tremendously better.
The wonderful undersea world of SB:BFBBR is great. But holy heck is it outdated in certain spots. The wonderful remaster of this makes it so much more beautiful, and so much more vibrant and personable and magnificent. The only problem with it is in certain spots it feels like it's a 2004-esque game.
They're very minor things, like animations being messed up, weird physics engine mishaps, some robots are still aggressively even more rough than the rest. The stuff such as that makes it very clear that it's a REMASTER of a game from the Gamecube era, not it's own separate thing.
However, even with that, the game is still incredibly solid as a collectathon while not feeling super super bloated. Spatulas come in often enough to keep giving the player incentive to keep playing. The boss fights are super great. The levels (for the most part) are fun to play through and the writing is really really good too.
But MAN is it a remake of a gamecube game.
They're very minor things, like animations being messed up, weird physics engine mishaps, some robots are still aggressively even more rough than the rest. The stuff such as that makes it very clear that it's a REMASTER of a game from the Gamecube era, not it's own separate thing.
However, even with that, the game is still incredibly solid as a collectathon while not feeling super super bloated. Spatulas come in often enough to keep giving the player incentive to keep playing. The boss fights are super great. The levels (for the most part) are fun to play through and the writing is really really good too.
But MAN is it a remake of a gamecube game.
Look, the obvious needs to be said. Yes it's an RPGMaker game, yeah it's a MLP Fangame, and yeah a majority of the plot is (believe it or not) about the lesbian romance between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. The gameplay is super simple and shallow, the game is incredibly short (Probably like 3-4 hours MAX, and that's with doing everything in the game. It's more like 2 if you're just blitzing to the end).
But the art is alright, the writing is good, the music is at times super good, and it doesn't last long enough to be awful. If you like the fan side of MLP, it's not the worst thing that has come out of it in a while. If you feel like playing it, it sure is a game and it'll pass the time good enough.
But the art is alright, the writing is good, the music is at times super good, and it doesn't last long enough to be awful. If you like the fan side of MLP, it's not the worst thing that has come out of it in a while. If you feel like playing it, it sure is a game and it'll pass the time good enough.
2008
Fallout 3 gets a really bad rap for being a worse New Vegas, and honestly it kinda deserves it? Lots of bugs, the side quests all end up being either go get a thing or go kill a thing, the colors of the wasteland aren't really that interesting, and the climax of the game is a glorified escort mission as cool as it ends up being.
THAT BEING SAID, it's still my favorite Fallout game. Yeah the level cap is stupid, but you get a perk every single level, making your character absurdly powerful by the time you hit 30. The weapons you can find in the overworld are really fun to fuck around with by that point too, and most importantly if you choose to break the game over your knee by giving yourself god mode, infinite ammo, and choose to hunt down the MIRV Launcher, you've given yourself a one way ticket to the most goddamn fun I've had in the capital wasteland in centuries. You just have to prepare to fight tooth and nail with the game to keep it from constantly crashing...
THAT BEING SAID, it's still my favorite Fallout game. Yeah the level cap is stupid, but you get a perk every single level, making your character absurdly powerful by the time you hit 30. The weapons you can find in the overworld are really fun to fuck around with by that point too, and most importantly if you choose to break the game over your knee by giving yourself god mode, infinite ammo, and choose to hunt down the MIRV Launcher, you've given yourself a one way ticket to the most goddamn fun I've had in the capital wasteland in centuries. You just have to prepare to fight tooth and nail with the game to keep it from constantly crashing...
Ok, let's just get this out of the way. It's a porn game. It's a porn game with a lot of animated pixels moving in a very erotic fashion with the goal to make the viewer aroused. It's a porn game.
But if you can put the porn aside (which is very hard ((pun not intended)) because there are tits EVERYWHERE in this game), it's a fantastic metroidvania. Genuinely might be one of the best. The difficulty purely rests in how well you play the game and how much you're willing to go through and 100% it, the different items present a new way to beat bosses if you don't just want to button mash the bosses to death, the backtracking isn't too evil, and there's never a portion where it feels like you're stuck doing the exact same thing for 3 hours because save points are plentiful and your healing is absurdly generous. Actually a really fun game to 100% and I could see it being a blast for people to pick up and speedrun.
Just wish there wasn't so much sex in this game, that way I can play it without having to worry about all my friends giving me weird glances when I boot it up....
But if you can put the porn aside (which is very hard ((pun not intended)) because there are tits EVERYWHERE in this game), it's a fantastic metroidvania. Genuinely might be one of the best. The difficulty purely rests in how well you play the game and how much you're willing to go through and 100% it, the different items present a new way to beat bosses if you don't just want to button mash the bosses to death, the backtracking isn't too evil, and there's never a portion where it feels like you're stuck doing the exact same thing for 3 hours because save points are plentiful and your healing is absurdly generous. Actually a really fun game to 100% and I could see it being a blast for people to pick up and speedrun.
Just wish there wasn't so much sex in this game, that way I can play it without having to worry about all my friends giving me weird glances when I boot it up....
2024
A half decent pit of ideas blatantly stolen from other games cobbled together into a survival game based mess. Coming from a developer who is openly and aggressively into making AI the future of everything, jerking themselves off while doing so. Nothing about this game is original, even down to the shitty clashing artstyles evoking a kind of "Nintendo Hire This Man" aura. There's no life, no charm, and god forbid any sort of reason to pick this game up.
If you get it, you're better off getting other games. If you want to spite Nintendo, congrats you're not buying their games anyway so why bother buying this one instead? If you're staying away because you were educated on what the fuck is going on behind the scenes? Good, stay away.
There's nothing good or interesting about this game and it should be treated as it truly is: A soulless cash grab made by a handful of AI bros. If the trailer wasn't widely circulated, nobody would buy it and nobody would give a shit about it. Good timing for bad circumstances.
If you get it, you're better off getting other games. If you want to spite Nintendo, congrats you're not buying their games anyway so why bother buying this one instead? If you're staying away because you were educated on what the fuck is going on behind the scenes? Good, stay away.
There's nothing good or interesting about this game and it should be treated as it truly is: A soulless cash grab made by a handful of AI bros. If the trailer wasn't widely circulated, nobody would buy it and nobody would give a shit about it. Good timing for bad circumstances.
This review contains spoilers
When you think of Castlevania as a game series, you probably think of hot vampires, whips, folklore, and maybe ever so slight levels of homoerotic tension. When I think of Castlevania, I think of high schoolers, long fur trench coats, soul stealing, guns, and some of the funniest writing decisions ever in a game that takes itself so seriously. We simply aren't the same.
I adore Aria of Sorrow, it's such a fun time. There's no greater pleasure in the Castlevania series than playing as a high schooler who's actually the soon to be reincarnation of Dracula running around with a Positron Rifle summoning cats to gnaw the ankles of my enemies. It's truly incredible.
Genuinely the only issue is if you're looking to 100% it, there's a lot of grinding to get to that perfect soul completion, but goddamn that aside is it one of the best games on the GBA and one of the best Castlevanias outside of SOTN and the glorious pachinko machines....
I adore Aria of Sorrow, it's such a fun time. There's no greater pleasure in the Castlevania series than playing as a high schooler who's actually the soon to be reincarnation of Dracula running around with a Positron Rifle summoning cats to gnaw the ankles of my enemies. It's truly incredible.
Genuinely the only issue is if you're looking to 100% it, there's a lot of grinding to get to that perfect soul completion, but goddamn that aside is it one of the best games on the GBA and one of the best Castlevanias outside of SOTN and the glorious pachinko machines....
2023
Alright, let's get this out of the way. The only way you're playing this game is random matchmaking online multiplayer. And let me tell you the community that gets super into this game is 7 different grades of pure saturated dog ass when it comes to people skills. You'll hear all sorts of "colorful" commentary on all sorts of subjects all while those people happily inform you that you're terrible at the game while they're running 0/10/1. This is an unavoidable fact of life when you play CS2.
But past that, after muting the ingame voice chat and trying your damn hardest to ignore the text chat that you can't disable for god knows why, this game is a fucking blast if you can get a group of friends together to fuck around in it. The strategy and the figuring out how the hell to do certain things, figuring out the guns you like, blowing thousands of dollars for skins that will give you the fleeting hit of dopamine to keep going in life for whatever reason, it's all here and it's all done pretty damn well. A lovely balance for some of the most toxic vile shit I've heard and read outside of a League of Legends lobby.
But past that, after muting the ingame voice chat and trying your damn hardest to ignore the text chat that you can't disable for god knows why, this game is a fucking blast if you can get a group of friends together to fuck around in it. The strategy and the figuring out how the hell to do certain things, figuring out the guns you like, blowing thousands of dollars for skins that will give you the fleeting hit of dopamine to keep going in life for whatever reason, it's all here and it's all done pretty damn well. A lovely balance for some of the most toxic vile shit I've heard and read outside of a League of Legends lobby.
There's noting like sitting down and playing one of the greatest games of all time, which just so happens to be a remake of TWO of the best games of all time. It's pretty, it's fluid, it's fun, it's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2. And it's the fuel of a pure unbridled drug addiction.
2010
Super Meat Boy was the original "The Dark Souls of (Insert Genre Here)" and I stand by that. Is it actually that hard? No, it's not. But it's a fucking Heritage Site of those old "Get Gud" game design philosophies. But unlike Dark Souls, or the more recent games in the IP, Super Meat Boy takes it's gameplay and puts a heavy focus on it. It's smooth. So at the very least give it a try.
Every now and again I get the urge to play one of these funky elephant games, and I've got to fight tooth and nail to play their old versions on Newgrounds or AG, or Kongregate. And it's nice, but it's got hoops. I have no idea if anyone else does this as much as I've done since I was a kid.
Having all of these games easily accessible on Steam, for $15 which seems like absolutely pennies to have a decent slice of my childhood playable on a whim, especially with Elephant Quest being sometimes unplayable with the AG connection being mucky nowadays, I'd pay more than that just to get to play these games once let alone for years on.
I'm not sure where I'm going, I might make games, I might just sit at home and encourage other people to do what they want by throwing money at them. But this gives me hope that no matter what happens, if I do it or others, we're gonna get some special stuff. Even if all that stuff isn't directly a game starring a blue elephant.
Although if we got another Elephant game, I don't think I'd complain.
Having all of these games easily accessible on Steam, for $15 which seems like absolutely pennies to have a decent slice of my childhood playable on a whim, especially with Elephant Quest being sometimes unplayable with the AG connection being mucky nowadays, I'd pay more than that just to get to play these games once let alone for years on.
I'm not sure where I'm going, I might make games, I might just sit at home and encourage other people to do what they want by throwing money at them. But this gives me hope that no matter what happens, if I do it or others, we're gonna get some special stuff. Even if all that stuff isn't directly a game starring a blue elephant.
Although if we got another Elephant game, I don't think I'd complain.
2023
There's nothing more fun than riding around and tricking off of stuff in this vibrant colorful city and being reminded that this game was likely a huge part of why Sega decided to include Jet Set Radio in their big old "Wow look at our new era of upcoming games" spree at TGA2023. It feels fucking fun, dude. It's a jam to run around, it's a jam to listen to all the music, it's a jam to just explore and get all the achievements, and most importantly it's a fucking blast to look at in a world where most triple a games are terrified of the word "Pastel".