Might have been my favorite Mega Man so far if it wasn't for the Wily Capsule here.

Game is gorgeous and the new gameplay enhancements really improved the experience here. Moving to the SNES made the game in general just more fun to play honestly, hit detection is more noticeable etc.

Big hitbox was kinda annoying at first but you get to used to it. Cool game for the first classic megaman entry on SNES.

Came into this game with low expectations and not gonna lie, I sorta dug this game. It was pretty fun.

Art here was pretty good albeit a bit too colorful for my taste and the music here might be my favorite in the series so far especially with Aqua Man's stage and the stage select. The gameplay is definitely different here with the focus on gimmicks for some of the stages and they are hit or miss for me here. I would definitely say the stages are longer and albeit a bit easier with continues in each stage even if you run out of lives. Only thing to counteract this is that there are no more tanks other than using Rush to summon items when you need it once.

I think the game at its worst is Wily 1 where it takes the snowboarding segment from the Frost Man stage and made it extremely difficult. I also wasn't too fond of Astro Man's stage with the platforms and the overall design of the stages itself. The voice acting here is the most infamous part of this game and I didn't even mind it that much since it just oozes 90's anime dub charm to me.

It's definitely different from the other Mega Man games but it's still a solid experience that gets a lot more flak than I think it deserves. The voice acting does make it a product of its time in one way or another sadly.

Another story in the world we live in

I'll just say the title is misleading in the way you probably think what this game is.

Resonated with some lines but feels like this wasn't meant for me at all.

There really isn't much here and it's like 5 minutes but I hope the person is alright. This is just one of the many stories in this world.

Many would say Mega Man 9 is a return to form after the first SNES entry with 7 and the wildly unpopular 8. The gap from 8 to 9 is pretty big at 12 years and Inti Creates manages to make a homage to the NES style of Mega Man (specifically 2) that works well with consoles from 2 generations ago but manages to bring back the old pains of the NES games with it.

I can safely say Mega Man 9 has the best tight control and feel of any NES Mega Man game, there's little or completely no lag to movement. The weapons here are easily the best of the NES here with every weapon fulfilling a niche well to a degree other than the Concrete Shot which was used for the bosh rush and occasional stage hazards. Also felt the music here had a lot more going on with Galaxy Man's stage track just being a bop.

With that said, reverting to the NES style of Mega Man was cool but I felt like they took it a bit too far here. The removal of charge shot and slide were mechanics I enjoyed and made certain boss fights more mechanically engaging than just jumping at the right time. Not to mention the abundance of spikes compared to the past entries with some NES titles included made for much more challenging and tricky jumps than before. This game is notorious for its difficulty and it shows. Much less room for mistakes here.

Despite the grievances I have with the game, mostly in terms of the difficulty and removal of gameplay mechanics from the previous titles. This game does manage to bring back some of the classic gameplay that fans of 2 might enjoy and all in all a very solid title. I can see why people why adore this one a lot.

Mega Man 10 is a game that felt like more of a DLC to 9 than its own game. There were some cool things here but an overall downgrade to the quality here in most aspects was a bit too much to ignore.

I think the addition of the DLC characters was a cool concept and gave players an additional playstyle other than the traditional Mega Man but even then I would just rather play as the standard since I felt the game was designed for Mega Man mostly. There was apparently an easy mode here that made the game obscenely easy but it's really recommend you play on normal for the full experience.

I will be comparing it to 9 a bit here since it was made by same developer and in the same style but I will also compare it to the NES titles a bit as well. In comparison to 9, The weapons really felt short here other than the Water Shield and Triple Blade. The soundtrack here was hit or miss for me but I preferred 9's overall soundtrack as it was more consistent but in terms of the other NES games, this soundtrack wasn't actually bad as I'm sure they had more freedom being this game was released in 2010. Level design here was fairly worse than 9 but also seemed to have a reduction from spikes too. I would say this game is only a bit easier than 9 honestly.

All in all, people probably came into this expecting 9-2 and the game had some cool ideas but really didn't live up the quality and fresh ideas the development team here had for 9. With that said, this is still a Mega Man and you can't go wrong with it.

Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Connected is a side story taking place after the events of Xenoblade 1. It has some things going for it but it takes away a lot of the things that made the original with it.

Gonna really start by saying the soundtrack here is really good to the point it made the regular battles a little less tedious. The area itself was really cool to be around and most of the time, the same Xenoblade 1 combat is here albeit with some huge differences.

There are a fair bit of things that this "sequel/side story" didn't really do right. The combat here is the same but they removed chain attacks and skill trees for the ponspector system, I personally didn't mind ponspectors that much but I sorta did miss the active effect of choosing which attacks to do in a chain attack. The overall story here is literally just okay, don't expect anything groundbreaking like the first game. The level gaps here aren't the best thing here but from what I've seen, you can circumvent these for the most part with enemies giving decent experience and doing the ponspector quests (only side quests that give experience by the way) in which I managed to only clock in beating this at 6 hours. Even then the performance here really varies here if you're on portable mode, I had less than 20 fps in battles when I had all the ponspectors at certain moments here but some friends of mine mentioned there is almost no problem playing on TV mode so your experience varies here.

I can say I sorta dug this little story albeit it took some things away it could've kept. It really doesn't overstay its welcome either. I would say play this if you're either a huge Melia fan or want more Xenoblade 1 in which you'd probably already have the Definitive Edition this free story is included in.

Gorgeous ninja action

Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master is a really cool action/platformer that manages to be extremely fun with the tight controls, pretty graphics and cool looking stages.

Despite not being fond of platformers, there's a lot I like about this game. The stages themselves are surprisingly varied for a ninja action/platformer to the point it feels like a wacky ninja action movie in a good way. The music here is also pretty good especially Stage 6 here and the graphics hold it pretty well for a Genesis game.

Only minor grievances I would have is the limited continues and a specific part of the final stage but the game it self is short at 2 hours so it wouldn't be too hard to get back on track.

Nonetheless, this game is legit cool for its genre. It's 99 cents on Steam right now if you want a legit copy. Worth every cent honestly.

Ghost in the Shell is a third person shooter that manages to retain the charm and aesthetic of the movie and eventually anime but with some minor gripes that can make the game quite frustrating.

I think the best part about this game is the vibe and how it feels like you're playing out scenes from the movie/anime here. The cutscenes portraying the story are wonderful here and the soundtrack here is really good as well. Gameplay here takes a bit to get used but then it feels really good, the game is short so there's no meaningless content here.

Only real gripe is having a few slow downs especially during the final boss that made it a bit harder than it had to be and the special effects made seeing some attacks a bit hard to dodge which got me killed a few times.

I've only seen the movie and a bit of the S.A.C anime and this game really nails it here. Fun and pretty faithful to the source material here and a must play if you're a Ghost in the Shell fan.

A lot of people grew up on this game and for some people, this game was the epitome of their childhood/teenage years. Happy to see after playing this game for the first time almost 15 years after the game's original release date via the PC version, this game truly holds up well and is the peak of the series for me so far.

Gameplay here is an huge improvement from 1 and 2 just from the huge variety of weapons and equipment you can use that fill almost every niche your FPS needs. I don't think I ever suffered from having to "use the same 3 weapons" syndrome I had playing 1 and 2 here just from being able to use whatever I wanted. The music and setpieces here are also amazing and really give a lot of "finality" to Bungie's final mainline game here. Story was also pretty good and the ending was a good way to wrap out the "trilogy" here.

Biggest complaint here and seems to be a staple of the series is the somewhat HP sponge-like enemies granted it seems a bit less bothersome this time around because of the variety of weapons and the wonky checkpoint system that caused some frustration during my playthrough.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed the campaign here and I'm starting to realize why people love the Halo series so much. I haven't even touched the multiplayer here and people have said this is the peak of that as well for the series. Very worth the buildup playing 1 and 2 just to play this and holds up extremely well almost 15 years later.

Something very special

NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139... is a remake/remaster (maybe a mix of both) of Nier Replicant that was only released in Japan in 2010. The original release became a cult classic among many fans for its unique world, characters, world and soundtrack and then the series itself rose more to prominence with the release of Nier:Automata in 2017. I wish to preface this review with stating that I have played Automata before playing this game and didn't really enjoy it at all. What I can say after playing this game though is that this game really hits all the nails on the head for what I wanted in a game like this. It's somewhat close for me to even call it a masterpiece albeit there was some big "pacing" problems here among a lot of other things but even then it didn't really detract that much from the game itself. I will be vague about certain elements of this game for the sake of spoilers. This is a game you should really go in with no prior information.

After playing Automata and Drakengard 1, I can say the combat here is the most satisfying here and surprisingly even fun at times. The weapons have weight and the attacks feel like they actually have an effect on the enemy. That said, you could really make a case for Automata having a better combat system but I sorta preferred the "fun musou" with rewarding dodging and parrying mechanics here. I have to mention the soundtrack here does an excellent job of portraying the world with its melancholy feel with what I feel a bit of the upbeat "fantasy rpg" in it. That also said, the vocalist here for most of the tracks just makes the tracks really stand out compared to different games. The main cast here are very unique variants of your usual party members with one being a potty-mouthed woman that just wants to destroy and a kind-hearted young man with unfortunate circumstances. The story here is also the best part and albeit not me wanting to say much on it, I will say it was worth the 40 hour journey in the end.

This game really does a lot of things right but there are some moderately huge faults with it. Probably the biggest problem is the "pacing". You'll be required to do some tedious stuff for a good chunk of the game and the game really doesn't make it easier for you other than a mechanic they added but even with that, it doesn't completely fix the problem itself. I do sorta wish they condensed it a bit more and fit in certain elements with certain scenes to make it a bit less tedious for people here. Gonna also just say get used to running A LOT in this game. One other complaint I have is when you get to a certain point, the gameplay's difficulty curve just drops off the face of the earth for a good long while. A lot of things would just die in one hit and that demotivated me from participating in combat even more at that point which was a shame.

Honestly with that said, I really enjoyed what this game had to offer. The characters were very likable for me and the game did a wonderful job fleshing them out. Kinda glad I played this but I just wish it would be a bit less tedious to go through. It's gonna be a game I think about replaying then I just think about "THAT part" and it would probably dissuade me.

Dungeon crawling in a new style

Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan was a first-person dungeon crawler JRPG released for the 3DS in 2012 in Japan and 2013 in the US. It was the first 3DS Etrian Odyssey title released for the system and considered a good "starting point" for fans interested in the series. After a 58 hour long playthrough on normal, I can safely say that this is a very solid JRPG with good amounts of customization to your party, gameplay and incredibly well composed and performed music.

I'll start off by saying this game really nails the first-person dungeon gameplay well to an extent. The main mazes were interesting in design and each had very unique puzzles that made each maze different from the rest and designed well down to the specific interactions you can have in each dungeon. This is also helped by the incredible soundtrack this game has, I was honestly surprised how excellent the soundtrack for a game like this. The game nails each maze's theme with a specific ethereal and calming feel and manages to ramp up the seriousness in the final 2 mazes including a battle theme that might be in my top 10 favorite JRPG battle themes. The bread and butter of this game alongside the dungeons are the classes and the synergy you can have with the subclass system here. Each class here feels really unique in what they bring to your party included some very far out ideas that you really don't see in any other JRPG. There is a lot you can customize here with abilities and passives down to the specific dungeon skills each class has that you'll definitely need trekking through the long mazes. This game is also surprisingly difficult for it being considered "one of the easiest" in the series so really know what you're getting into here but the challenge was really satisfying to get through.

As much as I dug this game, there were some rough edges to the gameplay here in general. The general consensus for the fans of EO games have been "creating the map" by yourself and at first it was a bit tedious. I almost considered dropping the game because I found out the automap feature here only does the floor and not the walls so this is also something to keep in mind if you want to get into this game. Obtaining money was also a big problem when getting gear upgrades was getting costly for the amount of money you got in an hour of gameplay not being able to cover one piece of equipment so you really have to make each upgrade worth it. The final maze was also sorta a disappointment in the way it was structured to make the overall finale a bit more tedious than it had to be.

Despite how tedious it got, I still really enjoyed this game a lot. It had a great class/subclass system with the way you can customize your characters along with stellar soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro. If you can dig making your own map and this game kicking your ass, you'll enjoy Etrian Odyssey IV.

Monster Hunter Rise is an action role-playing game released for the Nintendo Switch on 2021 with a PC/Steam version on the way in the next year. I'd like to also share my personal experience with the series since this game has had a long history with varying entries and experiences. I mostly played the PSP Monster Hunter games for a while before going to Monster Hunter World completely skipping the 3DS era so not all of my experience here is from Monster Hunter World albeit a huge chunk of it. This game manages to nail a lot of things that I would say make the perfect monster hunter game for me despite the easier difficulty compared to the other titles and lack of content to the point it's not even finished yet at the typing of this review. Despite that, this has been one of the most fun action RPGs on Switch that looks and runs surprisingly well on the hardware.

Monster Hunter Rise manages to combine the "good" elements of the modern monster hunter games (World, Iceborne) and the past monster hunter games to create something that manages to please both here. The new additions to this installment with wirebugs and palamutes completely change the way you play the game in a positive way to the point I can't imagine a monster hunter game without them. This game also manages to bring back the more refined and quicker combat of World without the myriad of other problems the game brought in terms of the structure. That said not all weapons have been created equal here and I can't speak for most of them since I mostly played LBG/HBG/LS during my playthrough. The village and characters themselves actually bring a lot more charm than the previous entries could really do at the time with the limited hardware despite Monster Hunter always having charm in their games. The soundtrack also does a good job in doing this as it gives the village a quiet japanese aura to it and the special boss themes here really sell the grand and epic monsters you're fighting throughout the game and especially at the end. Something that manages to impress here is the general graphical and framerate performance of this game manages to keep 30 frames per second while having 4 people pelt a monster on the screen with various effects. The graphics here might make this one of the best looking games on the hybrid console so far with the developers at Capcom utilizing their amazing RE engine.

Despite my extreme enjoyment with this game, there are some things that I found a bit disappointing and felt tedious at times. The Rampage quests are sort of a mixed bag for me, it's a cool idea in concept but then playing it felt boring as you're relegated to tower defense and holding the right trigger until the counter signal comes up in which you can damage the monster in a normal sense. The rewards are worth it but you spend much longer in these quests compared to the normal hunts. Probably the biggest complaint about the game is the game's low difficulty compared to the rest of the series. I can say this is true as I rarely carted so far in the HR hunts solo compared to the previous entries, triple carting is rare even in the random player games you might get into.

I sorta told myself I was gonna wait for the PC release of this game to finally play it but I eventually caved in and bought it for the Switch. I spent 8 hours a day playing it for the first week I got it and I still have a lot to do. Monster Hunter Rise manages to be extremely addicting albeit easy and moves the series forward in a way I really can't see them moving back from.

Megaten's best repackaged for a new generation

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne is one of my favorite JRPGs of all time. It's a game I always think about and something I always bring up in conversation when I talk about what games people should play in my personal experiences. What the game lacks in story manages to excel in everything else: The world, the soundtrack, the gameplay, a game you really can't lose focus on unless you want to be punished on (at least on Hard mode). I completely understand that the initial price and what it adds and the disappointment from the longtime fans when they realized this remaster was looking more like a "port" compared to other JRPGs remasters like FFX and FFXII to the complete remakes like Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition which costs just as much or less than this version of the game at the moment. Nonetheless despite all that and the little it adds in the grand scope of things, it's Nocturne with voice acting and skill inheritance with the only caveat being Dante is replaced unless you got a DLC.

Gonna start by saying the voice acting here in the remaster is actually solid, there are some really "off" moments with I think one of the main characters not sounding appropriate for the character itself. It shines the most with the most imposing demons and bosses where you can actually feel the "power" of the demon speaking especially in the final boss and the "extra" boss after. Skill inheritance makes things a lot more convenient in terms of fusion and being able to make the demons the way you want them to the point I probably won't return to the PS2 version of Nocturne for this reason alone.

Sadly though this remaster isn't perfect or doesn't do enough to have "remaster" in the title, the game gets an upscale and widescreen support but sometimes the game uses some dynamic resolution during attacks in battles and makes things blurry albeit keeps the game smooth which is important. The game doesn't really add anything here thus being the same game content-wise to the Chronicles version at default which has Raidou and TDE which I'm alright with but it's also disappointing Dante has been relegated to DLC considering it's especially in the version the west was introduced to. The compressed music from the PS2 is still here despite the original reason the PS2 version was compressed to begin with was because of memory issues which shouldn't be a problem with modern consoles. The small nitpicks here are that sometimes when you interact with an item/person, you get a black screen for like less than second and it only got a bit annoying at most and the game only had a few slowdowns during scenes and a certain part of a dungeon but the impact is small since it only lasted a couple of seconds at most.

After 55 hours of playing the Switch version completely in portable mode, I can say the game has never crashed on me once and I was sorta expecting one at some point but it never came. For what the remaster flounders for me which isn't that much, the additions of voice acting and skill inheritance made it worth it in the end. I can say it's the better version of Nocturne but get it when it lowers in price or get it via other means if you want. Despite it all, it's still Nocturne in the end of the day and it's still one of the best JRPGs in the medium of video games.

The first adventure

Dragon Quest released on the NES back in 1986 and considered to be the grandfather of the JRPG genre. Despite the game being 35 years old and consider one of the earliest JRPGs, the game manages to hold up really well in a simple and extremely open format that let people create some unique experiences within the game albeit with a very simple premise.

This game does something a bit different that I didn't expect after playing a bunch of JRPGs was that it's very open and flexible which lets you really do what you want and at the pace you want, the game be fairly challenging at times despite the combat being 1v1 considering it's just you in the party but the random fights here really fast. The music is decent and the art here for the monsters (at least for the switch version) looked really nice and clean meanwhile the character art is a give or take thing but I didn't mind it that much. The game gives you the simple goal of "save the princess and defeat the evil lord" some items and you're essentially off. The world is small enough that it doesn't feel overwhelming than I thought it'd be and nails a good balance with exploring and progression. Surprisingly enough I didn't have much need to grind and instead you can actually just come back when you're strong enough compared to other JRPGs where it railroads you into a boss with no way to progress until you beat it. With that said, I didn't have to do grinding at all until the end where it was extremely hard to properly do the final boss at a point.

The game gives you tools eventually to curb enemy encounters but it can be a bit much depending on where you end up. I want to say the game might be a bit too simple even though the game gives you appropriate tools but I found the spells in battle lacking except for healing so I mostly just ended up attacking for like 99% of the game.

This game is short, simple and sweet. It's not really a hard game to grasp in terms of the way the systems are and the game does a good job of telling you where to go. They don't really make games where you can literally go anywhere on the world map at the start of a map and despite the simple gameplay, it did the job it was suppose to do which is "become the hero, save the princess, defeat the evil lord" and sometimes that's all you really need.

50,000 yen, priceless characters

The Silver Case is an adventure visual novel released by Grasshopper Manufacture for the PS1 in 1999 originally for the Japan audience eventually coming to PC and PS4 in the west in 2016-2017. Managing to make a studio for himself, this was his debut title for his own studio and the first game in the "kill the past" series. The Silver Case is a game that manages to tell a story in a unique way with it's presentation, artstyle, themes and writing that make it a unique experience that gets really crazy during the journey.

The overall stories here are well written along with characters that feel like real people with their own motives. You really learn to appreciate the characters and the way they interact with each other. The game is split into two main perspectives with each of them giving a unique look into the overall plot of the game and how they each connect with each other. The music here by Masafumi Takada does an excellent job of providing the atmosphere of a late 90's modern adventure game with almost a hint of cyberpunk in a sense almost. The presentation here has to be one of the high points this game gets and it's surprising since this game is almost 22 years old at this point. Each case brings a new color theme, background and specific camera angles that change throughout the story that makes each case have a real unique vibe to them including one that is pretty bleak throughout.

Probably the biggest weakest link is just the overall adventure segments here which can drag on a bit while if someone that really wants more story can seem much longer along especially with buildings with multiple floors.

Suda really managed to a tell a story 22 years ago that feels just as relevant as it is now with a few growing pains from being a PS1 title. This game will keep you on your feet throughout and make you understand that you have to "kill the past".