Circus Electrique is a game that wears it's inspiration on it's sleeve.

As a more accessible Darkest Dungeon set in a Victorian steampunk world you play the role of Amelia Craig, a journalist returning to the newly opened 'Circus Electrique'. The circus is run by your uncle Randolph, a man she blames for her mothers death. Finding herself coming to a place she vowed never to return to at the same time as London is beset by 'the maddening' where people are turning vicious and attack for no reason leaves Amelia and the members of the Circus left to find out what is causing it.

The story premise is actually pretty good overall and some of the characters are well realized but it does take time to truly get anywhere and revelations fell a little flat or were predictable with a truly nothing of an ending final scene really deflating the entire experience. In a similar vein the gameplay initially seems interesting mixing circus management and exploration and combat. Despite London's current event 'the show must go on!' after all. However it feels overly drawn out towards the end with no variation leaving it feeling rather rote.

Initially the circus shows must be set up meaning you have to split your characters into two teams, the circus performers who will put on a show and the circus combatants who will explore outside on a tile like map in regions of London. Each battle counts as a day completed which will often also complete the show. Each show requires certain stats to preform (music, awe, happiness and whatever the other symbol means) and will gain certain resources and rewards at the end depending on how you do. Each member of the circus you recruit has different stats and requires resource to level up skills or even food to maintain. Even on hard however these resources were coming out of my ears to the point I had 2.5k food and used 15 a day n the final chapter. It all became rather meaningless.

Each troupe members vocation is their combat class in battle. Clown, Strongman, Snake Charmer, Belly dancer, Juggler, Ventriloquist, Acrobat etc. The character designs for each class are pretty good though I must admit. They had a very stylized almost caricature version of circus performers from that era that are pretty striking. Each class has different skills and even among the same class there is some variation on both skills and circus stats. They get recruited from a random pool you can refresh meaning to get the best characters for what you want to build party wise involves a lot of save scumming for the RNG or just making do. Exploring the map aside from battles will reveal scenarios to choose from for the right answers for prizes and you can choose different paths that you can then later replay. It's all kind of the same though and the lack of variety is really felt including in combat where I used the same team for most of the game. It felt like I was just going through the motions by the end.

Aside from dragging a little and the disappointing ending I had other issues too with trophies just not unlocking for no reason and though I reset the game and got some of them at least one is completely locked out meaning I would need to do a full playthrough again to obtain which further soured me at the end on the whole affair.

Overall the Circus Electrique isn't a bad game however, in fact aspects of it are good both mechanically and artistically but it's missing that headline act for a really sell out experience. Still if you ever though Darkest Dungeon was too hard and what you really want is to see a clown throw a ball at a robot bear then this might be the game for you.

+ Nice premise.
+ I like the character and art designs.

- Ending was kinda disappointing.
- Gets stale towards the end.
- I experienced some trophy bugs.

Reviewing Castlevania Symphony of the Night is an interesting one because there is just nothing new I could possibly say about it really as a game that other far better writers with more analytical tendency's haven't covered in greater depth. The thing is though this was my first Castlevania, my first Metroidvania, and it had quite an impact on me.

I was about 20 when I first played Symphony of the Night. I'd never actually played a Castlevania game before but found the limited edition copy of this with artbook and soundtrack in a second hand store. The first thing that grabbed my attention when walking by was the amazing cover artwork by Ayami Kojima. I've always enjoyed gothic architecture, historical buildings, clothing and legends (of which vampires certainly is one of interest). Seeing that cover of a vampiric figure holding his sword upright with the moon, Castle and massive collar mixed with the slightly muted colour palette was extremely striking compared with many other drab or blocky covers in the store. The gothic atmosphere imparted in that one image left such an impression on me I had to have the game.

The artwork in the book in the back of the double CD case complimented the cover and after flipping through I popped the game in and away I went. I'm not sure what I fully expected but the hybrid mix of exploration with action RPG mechanics was a delight. It's a fairly standard affair now days, not only for the Castlevanias that came afterwards but for the dozens of indie games that have taken influence from it. The fact is though that back then this game was so influential that the genre is often simply named 'Metroidvania' partially after it. I'd never played anything like it at the time, and going back to it again over 20 years later for this digital rerelease I'm extremely pleased it's held up remarkably well on almost all fronts.

"It's strange... this castle is different than I remember it."

For those unaware, Symphony of the Night brings back Alucard the son of Dracula, a character from Castelvania III as the main character. It's a direct sequel to Rondo of Blood and Dracula's Castle has once again risen only a few years after fading away when Richter Belmont defeated Dracula..... Having actually played Rondo of Blood now a few weeks ago it makes the start all the more impactful as well as Maria's presence in the game and is a really interesting start set up literally playing against the final boss from the game before just as a prologue.

The castle itself is easy to navigate with a good map and yet it's littered with secrets as are the spells and weapons. Alucard has a variety of equipment that he can find and equip from swords, shields, hammers, cloaks etc. Additionally he can find spells and abilities for turning into a bat, a wolf or mist which help him to unlock further areas of the castle and traverse in a more fluid way. The amount of items and little easter eggs and secrets to find is quite impressive. On this playthrough trophy hunting I learned there was a sword that summons skeletons to briefly fight for you. Literally every time I play this I find something new. Playing through again after beating the game as a second character of Richter isn't something I'd tried before either and his completely different move set and abilities as a more traditional Classicvania character just add that much more life to a game.

"What is a man?! A miserable little pile of secrets!"

Great art and gameplay mechanics aside would be nothing however without Symphony of the Night's stellar audio. This particular version is the remaster based on Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. This is the redubbed and rewritten version over the original 1997 release and to be honest I prefer it. The voice acting is just way better but I appreciate that is entirely subjective and you may prefer the more over the top iconic dialogue. Regardless of the version you play though, the soundtrack is an absolute striker. I could choose almost any song from the soundtrack and it would be not only a great piece but also a perfect accompaniment to build that atmosphere.

I went into this because Castlevania Nocturne is coming soon on Netflix and it's been in my backlog to replay for sometime but I'm really glad I did. It's been some years since I last played it and it's great to not only see that it still holds up to the test of time competing with almost any Metroidvania in the genre but also that it can still surprise me with content I never knew about. Replaying some games with memories through rose tinted glasses vcan sometimes be a let down and are better left in memories, but not Symphony of the Night. This is a game that influenced a lot but taken just at it's own merit it's still a fantastic experience.

I still hate the clocktower though.

+ Gorgeous 2D sprites mixed with 3D rendering.
+ Iconic soundtrack.
+ Insanely good artwork and atmosphere.

- Some small sound popping and map issues due to emulation over the original release.

On a side note, for anyone interested in retro games or Castlevania I recommend this video and channel The Making of Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Dracula X by Strafefox.

The Trails series is like comfort food to me. At a time in which Japanese role playing games were struggling to the HD transition in the PS3 era after how they flourished on previous systems, I had begun to lose hope in the genre. Trails of Cold Steel came out and I actually bought it by accident forgetting a joke pre-order I had done on a friends recommendation until it arrived at my door. Trying it out initially I thought it was another bust.

The tropes, the cliches, I doubted it would be worth my time.

Persisting through though and I became hooked, the game went into world building and character development in a way I didn't expect. Each area was alive, npcs all had mini stories going on about their lives and place in the world you could find out about. Independent of your character, their lives and the world around them progressed independently. It was fascinating, I'd never seen this before and soon discovered not only were there other games in the series prior on handheld that had passed me by but they were part of one interconnected universe. The missing link between these series being a duology, Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure. I'd watched playthroughs of them with a fan English patch to understand story elements but finally getting to play them after the western publisher NISA teamed with the fan group in what I can only say was a fantastic move was a great experience. At this point I know what I am getting with these games, as I said, they are comfort food. I'm getting fishing, cooking, a story that's a slow burn with some insane highs and set pieces and I'm getting a beautiful soundtrack to tie it all together but they are genuinely a joy.

Once again we follow Lloyd Bannings of the Special Support Section and the rest of his team both new and old. It has been some time since the end of Zero and each of the team has moved away to hone their skills and talents in the fallout before regrouping together. Crossbell has a new mayor however and pressure from the two empires either side is mounting with difficult times on the horizon.

Azure's greatest story strength interestingly is also it's greatest weakness in that it's not so much a sequel to Zero, but more of a 'part 2'. It's set in the same location of the Citystate of Crossbell, with the same dungeons you end up visiting time and time again. It's truly slow initially, especially if you played Zero before hand as it feels a little too much like Deja vu. That said your characters of the Crossbell Police Special Support Section have grown as a team and walked these paths, met the people and it was like checking in on a much loved friend seeing how things have progressed since our last visit, familiar as it may be. At a point though the game just stops that warm visit and unleashes crazy story beat after beat that's hard to put down.

Story and worldbuilding aside, Azure is a turn based JRPG when it comes to beating down monsters, mercenaries and legendary heroes. You can have 4 party members in battle at once with two characters in support. Each character's turn is based on their speed, and can either attack, cast arts (magic spells), use crafts (special attack and support moves specific to that character) or use items. The characters them selves each have their own strengths with different weapons. Lloyd uses point blank tonfas to strike his foes where as Ellie uses guns for example. Aside from basic equipment each character can equip coloured gems called quartz that will effect their stats and the type of spells they can cast depending on the combination. There are loads of build types you can experiment with using different elements and equipment until your party is unstoppable even on Nightmare mode, I loved tinkering and trying to aim for the best party I could but it's not a necessity.

Presentation wise for those unaware, though I mentioned it above this was originally a PSP game so visually it has the graphics of that era from 2011. I personally don't care, I am always one that art is the most important factor and in that Trails to Azure shines. Fantastic character art, colour and character sprites in a cohesive vision make it a lovely game to look at. I played the PlayStation version which is the worst release though it must be noted. The PC and Switch versions were made by another team with better textures. I don't care but for people who do for the minor improvement in visually fidelity on such an old title, make sure you know which platform to get it on.

Overall you've played the Trails series to this point, then this is one of the best in the series. The characters, world building and highs are all stellar and well worth your time. If you haven't played a Trails game yet? Start with Trails in the Sky.

You'll either thank me or curse me 10 games later.

Played this with Weatherby here from Backloggd. We'd played a decent amount of the Shredder's Revenge base game together so tried this DLC and it's more of a mixed experience overall.

For more hardcore Turtles fans than I will get a bit more out of it. Though I'd watched the 80's cartoons and original live action movies I haven't really kept up with the Turtles since then except through Nostalgia. Fortunately I had a Weatherby on hand to explain to me who the new character in Dimension Shellhock are. Usagi Yojimbo a Samurai Rabbit I recognized and Karai who I'd never seen before. These characters are really the highlight and the reason you'd want this DLC. Both have their own unique move sets and mix things up from the base game's original roster. They both play well fitting in perfectly with the established team. The way Karai poses with her ass out at the end of every round or even when dead on the floor like Black Widow in a marvel poster will never not be funny to me. Someone at Dotemu is thirsty for sure....

Unfortunately that's kind of where my enjoyment ends. The new survival mode is just tacked on extremely bare bones and poorly explained. I think it bugged out on us initially giving no explanations for any power ups or how the mode works which it did do on subsequent attempts. Essentially you travel through multiple worlds collecting crystal's either from enemy drops or round complete bonus's until you hit the amount to move to the next one. The worlds are pretty varied, there is an 8 bit retro world, a comic book one, an Edo period etc. There are a few new enemies which were more annoying than fun to deal with and a variety of power ups to help you through like leaching health, starting the round in rampage mode etc. The most amusing was morphing into Shredder, Rocksteady or Bebop with a mini health bar but having extremely barebones moves, there isn't even a proper jump attack, just the ground one in mid air. when you die and end of world crystals you get unlock new upgrades like more hp, extra lives etc. but only for that particular character you play as.

Overall the mode is fun enough to play in co-op but feels thrown together. It's neither got enough new content to make it interesting, not varied enough to hold my attention and the mechanics aren't deep enough to justify the rogue like, survival aspect. It just doesn't feel like meaningful content. I did enjoy the new characters, and in their defense it's fairly cheap but I'd rather have had a couple of proper stages specifically for those characters, maybe an epilogue to Shredder's Revenge story wise with a couple of brand new boss fights. It would have felt less like an afterthought that they ended up with here.

+ Usagi Yojimbo and Karai are great new characters with fun move sets and animations.
+ New tracks by Tee Lopes slam.

- Survival mode feels like a slapped together afterthought.
- Lack of new bosses or other content.

Now this, this is it. This is the Gradius experience I've been looking for. Gradius is a series I've wanted to love but it's constant stagnant level design, enemy design and visuals just made every game feel almost like remixes of the original. They felt uninspired, stale and though there are flashes of promise they never hit a height to open up that potential. Gradius Gaiden feels like the first true sequel to the original Gradius, it just took Konami 11 years to get there, or 20 for it's eventual Western release. Gaiden takes all the aspects of Gradius and builds or reuses them in fresher ways to make it both exciting yet familiar all at once.

This being a console release immediately made it more accessible for a start. That artificial arcade difficulty has been removed so it's now still challenging without being controller throwing obnoxious. After a cool cutscene you can choose between 4 different ships with their own unique weapons, the Vic Viper, Lord British (a ship from the spin off Salamander series), Jade Knight and Falchion β.

Once the game starts the action doesn't take long to get going and many staples of the series like the Easter Island Statue heads, volcanoes, and flame dragons are there though with some twists. The Easter statues fire giant lasers, volcanoes can now be destroyed before erupting and the flame dragons are used as attack weapons out of a bacterial ship rather than a solar flare in an interesting twist. The new stuff though is more important mixed in with giant snow caterpillars, ship graveyards, crytal levels and many of the bosses are really cool to fight and don't just feel like the same basic ship from every other Gradius game. The game is fun, feels pretty action heavy and stage 8's sequence while hard was especially intense. I loved it.

Visually Gaiden really uses the PlayStation's capabilities with coloured detailed sprites, transparency effects etc. There are some really cool little features like one boss that spins the whole level around you whilst enclosed, or crystals that reflect lasers for example. It is very intricate looking and has a good soundtrack to boot, and I don't just mean music as the vocal narration the series is known for is a lot more pronounced and audibly clearer with my favorite part being the spinning boss mentioned above verbally taunting you during the fight which I've not really seen before in a shoot 'em up. The OST is fantastic with the traditional Gradius theme ramped up but the whole OST is really worth a listen too.

Honestly I don't have much bad to say about this game. It's balanced right, it looks gorgeous, the music is great, it's a blend of old and new in a fresh way and have you seen that cover art?

Capcom's done amazing work in preserving it's game legacy moving forward into modern platforms in the last few years in ways few developers of their age and lineage have. There are currently 7 MegaMan collections, Phoenix Wright collections, Fighting Game and Street Fighter collections, Arcade Stadium options, and Devil May Cry HD Collections. Hell they even ported Ghost Trick recently to more modern platforms recently.

With this push also came the Capcom Beat 'em Up Bundle. A collection of 7 fairly obscure ports of arcade specific beat 'em ups. Overall it's a good collection. The ports are well done, each play smoothly and Capcom included the ability to play online with friends including setting up lobbies, playing either the English or Japanese releases. It includes art galleries for original concept art from all 7 games as well as a few pieces of gorgeous art made specifically for the collection. It feels like some effort was put into making this rather than just a quick cash grab I really appreciated. I played all the games online with a friend as well as offline solo and found it all very smooth. Due to the arcade nature of the game Capcom also allow infinite credits for people to play all the way through as these games can get hard by design.

Where the collection is a bit disappointing is the included games. It's great that Battle Circuit and Armored Warriors are on here as the first time they have had a home console release and some of the others are pretty hard titles to play legally, (I'd never heard of Warriors of Fate) but it's more what is missing that is more telling. It doesn't have The Punisher, Aliens vs Predator, Cadillac's vs Dinosaurs, Dungeons and Dragons : Tower of Doom or Shadow Over Mystara which are in my opinion the best Capcom games in that genre. My suspicion is it's a licensing issue that the cost wouldn't be worth their inclusion as they aren't Capcom intellectual property. A similar problem with porting most of the Onimusha franchise due to actor likeness. That said though Aliens vs Predator did appear on Capcom Home Arcade console and the fact that Final Fight 2 and 3 weren't included as bonus games (or console versions of Knights of the Round or Captain Commando) was also kind of sad to see. It's a great collection, but it could have been a truly amazing one.

What is here though is a piece of Capcom Arcade beat 'em up history more than worth playing. Not all the games are great, A couple I actively would never play again actually but the fact that Capcom did release them for me to find that out and with some effort put in is an absolute credit to them. Now port Megaman X Command Mission, A Resident Evil Outbreak bundle with online play, Dino Crisis and a Breath of Fire collection please Capcom!

My scores for the games:

Armored Warriors 4.5/5
Battle Circuit 3.5/5
King of Dragons 3.5/5
Captain Commando 2.5/5
Final Fight 2/5
Knights of the Round 2/5
Warriors of Fate 2/5

The most insane thing about Battle Circuit to me is that it was originally developed as a racing game. Though I'm not sure of details it seems to be one on foot? And despite being rumored complete was never released. This would explain the name as well as the bizarre cast of Wacky Racers like characters such as the eye patch wearing pink ostrich originally named Pinky, squirrel girl, and a plant like Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors fighting aliens from Mars Attacks and Elvis Impersonators.

Overall this is just a weird game. It kind of reminded me of a newer and better Captain Commando with a hodge podge of different things squished together like different colored play dough slapped into a ball. Still turning a racing game into a sci-fi beat 'em up about Bounty Hunters on an alternate Earth in an almost comic book style works surprisingly well. Every enemy you defeat drops coins you can gather that between levels you can then use them in a shop to purchase some new moves for the character your using. These attacks and combos if you learn them give quite an extra option to combat and felt closer to a fighting game. Each character additionally has a power up move either for speed, strength, power, etc. You trigger it in mid air with a bright coloured flash to my friend screaming "agggghhh" as his retinas are seared. I laughed, he screamed.

As bonkers and interesting as this game is it didn't quite hit all the right notes for me in the end though. Some of the character attack sound effects get annoying quickly, pinky in particular. Not all of the bosses are really all that interesting to fight, especially the final boss, the music is ok but not great etc. It's a good game that gets by mostly on it's stand out presentation due to it's unique art designs and great use of colour and animations. It doesn't reach the level of some of Capcom's other beat 'em ups like Armored Warriors, Aliens, vs Predator, Cadillac's vs Dinosaurs or The Punisher. In Battle Circuit's credit though not many do.

Did I mention you can play as a girl riding a pink ostrich with an eye patch?

+ Weird characters and art design.
+ Move buying mechanic is neat.
+ Pink Ostrich. Eye Patch.

- Bosses are kinda mostly dull.
- Pink Ostrich. Eye Patch. Attack sound effect.

Dodgeball Academia is what you get if you mix any sports anime with Pokémon like battle encounters.

Though it's a little flawed in places it's overall a charming unique little game. with a lot to like. You play the role of Otto, a new student at Dodgeball Academia, a rather prestigious school but one that underneath is struggling. They have placed all their bets on this years inner school tournament to save the school allowing them to keep the legendary dodgeball and Otto and his band of odd team mates will be a big part of that. Along the way he will play against all sorts of weird characters and situations in which Dodgeball will inevitably save the day! It's a fairly straightforward game in it's 10 hour run but must of the cast are extremely likeable, unique and the dialog is often surprisingly funny.

Each of the games played is set up like an RPG battle encounter as mentioned above. Walking through the campus in the line of sight of a student they will challenge you to a game like Pokémon trainers do. Each character in the match has HP, a super, a charge throw and certain character locked skills. Some catch the ball, others counter etc. It's all pretty basic but the game does throw some things in to mix it up with elemental balls and knocked out characters being able to throw balls in from the sideline to keep an eye out for. Even with mixing things up as much as they can the matches themselves get old kind of fast. Your team mates merely copy your movement ad actions in random to you rather than act on their own. This leaves it all feels a little too basic in some ways yet that shouldn't be mistaken for easy. Far from it, certain battles will have abrupt difficulty spikes where I found myself pounded by balls.

The visual design is a treat, it really reminded me of Saturday morning cartoons in some ways. The characters are all pretty unique but cohesively fit with each other but the game jokes about it in several instances like how npcs look the same or the marvelous chin of George the giant pickle headed receptionist and it all works absolutely to the game's credit and the small Brazilian team behind it. The soundtrack is also a surprising stand out with this peppy upbeat music that match the content and art style perfectly.

This was one of the games on my Sport RPGS list and I'm really glad I gave it a go. The battle system could do with refining and I would have liked more locations than just the Dodgeball Academia Campus (like a nearby town) would have really improved it but even so it's fun, has great visual and music design and is full of wistful charm in a lot of ways.

Recommended.

+ Charming atmosphere.
+ Can be funny at times.
+ Great visual and music design.

- Battles get stale after a while.
- Some odd difficulty spikes.

Playing the Capcom Beat 'em up bundle I was really starting to think that only Capcom's licensed games like Aliens vs. Predator, The Punisher etc. were truly worth playing. With my friend and I generally being pretty uninspired by Knights of Round, Warriors of Fate and Final Fight we weren't expecting much with Armored Warriors next in our playlist but it came out and kicked us in the teeth out of nowhere.

Simply put it plays superbly well. It's incredibly fluid with smooth animations, frame rate and unique attacks. The mechs you pilot all have melee attacks as well as ranged weapons with limited ammo. As you destroy enemies they will drop more guns, missile launchers, claws, drill arms among other weapons which have completely different animations and attacks. This all gives the game a lot of variety but that doesn't even include replaceable legs like tank tracks that allow you to jump like a spiked ball, spider legs that allow you to spin jump and launch an orbital bombardment or a flying rocket pack. The attack options are pretty exceptional for a beat 'em up that only mech customization of swapping parts would really allow. Other interesting things we noticed for the genre was a difference between solo and co-op play that some sections will drop a huge tank like unit exclusive to multiplayer both your mechs will attach too as weapons. One character controls it moving and attacks while the others only attack. It's only for a limited time but it's a pretty cool feature allowing you to have dealt some boss damage additionally.

Visually I think the game is stunning. It's sprite work is Capcom at it's peak and everything is colourful yet designed in a way to be as clear to the player as possible from each other, enemies and backgrounds. The mech designs are excellent, my favorite being the super fast yellow one allowing me to dash and jump around the screen like a lunatic. There are four to choose from and similar to any beat 'em up they have their pros and cons for speed to power ratios depending on which character you choose.

The story isn't much to write home about and there is some small niggles around picking up weapons by accident I often have due to button limitations on arcade machines. They are tiny issues, inconsequential at worst to an otherwise fantastic looking and playing arcade beat 'em up. I had an absolute blast playing this and will easily come back to this time and time again. Who doesn't love a chunky mech firing a volley of rockets off before power drilling through several enemies while their friend shouts "use the vulcan!" as they fire their gun quoting a line from 90's anime New Dominion Tank Police they know off by heart? I mean who?

Recommended.

+ Gorgeous Visuals.
+ Swapping parts is a great mechanic adding variety.
+ Smooth playing with excellent visual and mechanical design.

A hidden gem.

Did you know the Sega Saturn had over 1000 games released on it? You wouldn't think so as they were primarily Japanese only releases with the western markets only received a quarter of that number. Fortunately in something I have spoken about before, fan communities are doing the work a lot of the companies either won't or can't, in bringing these games English patches so players years later, (25 in Bulk slash's case) can still enjoy them or experience them for the first time. Now I'm really highlighting this for the review because of the effort the fan base went to here is a step beyond what is normally done and the reason why. You see not only did the group translate the English text, create an English manual for it but they actually hired/found actors for an English dub of it. Aside from being genuinely impressed with the work and dedication on display. It's actually kind of needed due to the fast paced action and gameplay design along with your chosen navigator.

The premise of the game is very much like a Gundam storyline. An, intergalactic war, a military coup with you at the centre. You play the role of Chris Dooley a pilot for the S.D.F fighting to stop the coup but you aren't alone with your Manageable Intelligent Support System (M.I.S.S.), aka your navigator. There is one on each level that are hidden in most cases and will give different endings depending on your bond with them in how long you use them for etc. . It's a very arcady feeling shoot 'em up set in 7 Stages with a little flexibility in which order you play them in. Each level has different objectives, a couple are just to destroy targets, an escort mission, a bomb delivery level, infiltrating bases etc. and as part of that the navigator is pretty much necessary. The tagline in the translated manual is:

"Her voice is your only hope"

Now while an exaggeration, she will talk to you at a press of a button with an icon directing you to your target. The patch makers felt doing this with subtitles and playing at the same time wouldn't have been as useful and I agree. A quick "behind you!" to direct you the way you need to go or where a threat is while wrestling with the controls goes a long way, and wrestle I did initially. This is coming from someone who grew up with the system but I'm simply used to more precise control systems now and it really took a while to get back into the groove. Once I did though I was flying, firing landing and attacking to my hearts content.

The visual aesthetic is great, like just check out the opening cinematic and music. If that doesn't appeal to you walk away now. It's got this 80's / 90's vibe running through it's core and the English fandub voices match it extremely well. Not every voice is quite a winner for me but when I showed the patch trailer to a friend they said the voices matched 90's dubbed gaming perfectly like it could have launched like that and been believable and compared with titles like Burning Rangers at the time? I see his point.

He also said the game looked awesome. You know what? Having played it, he was right. It is awesome.

+ English fan work is kinda bonkers.
+ Game is legitimately a fantastic time.
+ Music, art and action are a delight.

- Controls are clunky to get used to initially due to Saturn limitations.

Capcom's influence in gaming is pretty legendary. Their name allegedly is from a term it coined in it's heavier arcade days early on in their history "CAPsule COMputers" This was because, according to wikipedia:

"Capsule" alludes to how Capcom likened its game software to "a capsule packed to the brim with gaming fun",

It's a pity then that CAPtain COMmando a 1991 beat 'em up doesn't manage to quite hit that description despite using a similar naming convention.

It plays over 9 stages with a choice of 4 playable characters, and the most immediate thing that leaps out is how shoddy the playable character design is. A Sherriff with a quiff, a ninja, a mummy and a baby piloting a mech. They are mostly ugly. The art design just doesn't have any cohesion to it and that extends throughout the game with levels from sewer chases, meseums, aquariums, space stations and ninja samurai villages (including bizarre deaths of being cut in half which are a total tonal shift from the colourful visual design) just nothing fits together well like it's ideas from various games mashed together and not a single rhyme or reason is given for it. Not that that is a terrible thing on it's own, sometimes that kind of puzzle fitting of elements works. No one would argue how well Demon's Souls came together or the legendary Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. For Captain Commando it just feels obviously out of place and takes itself too seriously to be funny with it.

As a game it plays fine though it's very basic. Attack, jump and a special attack using both buttons that eats a bit of health but hits enemies around you when surrounded. The basic move set is identical to Final Fight only you can dash and attack at the end which made it infinitely more playable than the latter. The enemies can be irritating when en masse on later stages. Some with weapons that drop when attacked you can pick up to fight with like missile launchers so useless they won't kill enemies you and can't be used close range leaving you a sitting duck hilariously. There are also guns, shuriken and weird mechs you jump on to punch or freeze enemies that feel hugely less effective than simply punching someone. Some of the bosses are pure money sinks if I was playing this on an actual arcade to boot. The final boss especially was an exercise in frustration if I didn't have infinite continues. Freeze, on fire, on fire, freeze, punch.

....

Anyway trauma being relived aside I am grateful for the Capcom Beat 'em Up bundle for finally allowing me to finally play the game that Captain Commando originated from after being amused by him in Marvel vs Capcom 2 over 20 years ago but I can absolutely see why they had him as a cameo only going forward. An ok game overall, just forgettable and lacking in synergy.

Every so often I go through my PSN backlog in alphabetical order, it's just the way my mind works. Because I have done this fairly often it's easy to get further each time and I skip rpgs if I am already playing one, which being me, I normally am. Anyway, this time I shot through to 'C' and hit the Capcom Beat 'em up bundle and figured it was time to dip in and the second game on it I played was the King of Dragons.

I'd never heard of this before but it's actually pretty good. There is a review here on backloggd that mentions "Golden Axe but good" and playing it for the second time I could really feel that. It came out two years after Sega's fantasy brawler and the influence is noticeable in a couple of places with thieves with bags running in looking left and right or dragon riders that it's hard not to think "Yup that's Golden Axe" upon seeing it. The King of Dragons though isn't a Golden Axe Clone it's far more than that. You get to choose from a cast of 5 classes all fairly trite. Elf has a bow, Dwarf has an axe, Fighter looks like Conan the Barbarian's stunt double etc. Each class levels up as you play, and there are weapon upgrades found in chests or after bosses that boost the weapon power as well as cosmetic appearance of their attacks. These are pretty much impossible to miss but it does give a nice impression of playing a beat 'em up RPG even if it's just window dressing for your brain.

It's surprisingly long at 16 stages though most of them are only a few minutes to beat with a boss at the end. There is pretty good enemy variety even with a few palette swaps here and there and each of the bosses look pretty neat with the hydra and (not) Smaug as standouts. Despite that and it's genre as an arcade game I felt it was pretty manageable and balanced. This is especially evident going from Final Fight to this was such a big difference. Final Fight made me feel like a black hole pulling every thug in a 30 mile radius to me as I moved. You don't get hugely swarmed in The King of the Dragons, you get two lives per continue, a powerful magic attack pops on screen when you die to boot and the ranged classes especially seem pretty powerful. The thing is there is nothing hugely special about this game. It looks nice, colorful, good animations, decent music, not too hard, some nice art designs. It's just a good time.

Definitely a purchase if you like generic fantasy world's and late 80's early 90's aesthetics. It has online co-op in the Capcom Beat 'em up bundle too which is how I played it initially as a friend giving the extra fun of laughing at the Dwarf being a national long jump champion.

With the upcoming new series of Netflix's Castlevania: Nocturne coming next month I figured now was a good time to finally play Rondo of Blood as it's based around it and it's one of the few games in the series I have yet to get to. Considering the first game I played was Symphony of the Night which is linked to Rondo so strongly this has been long in line for a correction.

The first thing that really hit me playing through this is the soundtrack. Being originally released on the TurboGrafix-CD really allowed for higher quality sound over previous games in the series and it really shows. There are classic versions of Vampire Killer and Bloody Tears in an almost rock funk version mixed with a load of unique tracks and almost all of them are fantastic. In addition to it's great audio I think this is one of the best looking Classicvania games to boot. The opening scene of Richter Belmont riding a cart through the rain after a sequence with a man speaking German for the opening set up is so amazingly atmospheric still considering the game is 30 years old at this point. The game makes use of a lot of in game almost anime cinematics for certain story scenes or when hidden characters are rescued. It's a shame the English voice acting is so painful to listen to but that almost gives it it's own retro charm.

It's a shame then that Rondo of Blood comes with the same weaknesses as all the games before it feeling stiff to control, with cheap enemy placements. Take the last section of Stage 5 on the alternate route for example. You have to jump or kill medusa heads while getting past spears being thrust from above on platforms that if you jump onto will spin to throw you into the water for an instant death. Now not every level is like this but it almost has a punishing design like it's an arcade game trying to take your money which just seems needlessly difficult for no reason. You can unlock a secondary character Maria Renard who controls in a much smoother manner and is generally seen as easier to use with a double jump, slide and ranged attacks making her have better utility than Richter which for my old man reactions I appreciated. Even using Maria however this game is no cake walk without practice. Having said all that though by the time I was on my second playthrough I could no damage a lot of the bosses as I'd learned learned their attack patterns on my first load of attempts.

That aside though I can't really fault the game much. There are two routes to take with new areas and bosses, tons of secret locations and hidden goodies to find and the game looks and sounds fantastic. It's not quite my favorite Classicvania game but it's pretty high up there as an overall package.

+ Great visual and art design.
+ Kick ass soundtrack.
+ Some decent replay value with different routes, two playable characters and secrets.

- Some of the level and enemy placement are cheap and needlessly frustrating.