2013

Knack was so epic that I had to play other games instead because it was just that epic.

Tong Poo sounds like a fake asian name by a racist person

The peak of action platforming. Never before have I been so proud of being a "Godspeed Edgeman."

If Elf Bowling is an SSS on my patented* "Elf Video Game for Game Boy Advance Tier List," than Elf: The Movie is a middling C. I thought you were better than this, Will Ferrell.

This review contains spoilers

What's with these Windows Movie Maker-ass transitions? The game is beautiful otherwise. I highly advise playing with headphones unless you want to hear your poor Dreamcast's disc reader try to kill itself. Huge props to the folks responsible for the English patch. I find it unfortunate that the subtitles had a hard time getting out of overscan.

That aside this game kinda sorta sucks. I'm not gonna rate it because I just don't have the suitable experience to critique a game in this genre but by god is this game boring. The devs seemed to take cues from the Devil May Cry 2 book so they could make the most deliberately flaccid way to hit things in a video game. This is a shmup where shooting enemies is lame. That says it all right there. I have no problem with this game wanting to be a more theme park-ey take on Cotton where you ogle at beautiful scenery as you mindlessly destroy everything in your path. Thankfully, they did get the big mood you need for this kind of game right. Rainbow Cotton delivers on the visual and auditory pedigree of previous entries while adapting it to a laid-back 3D game flawlessly. It's just a shame that they didn't figure to put that same amount of effort into the game itself.

Also that ending sure was avant-garde. The way it explores the concept of candy and the lengths one may truly go to satiate their appetite and the false belief that these innocent treats will save us. We naturally associate candies with a simpler time, when we didn't have to face the struggles of hunger. It excellently demonstrates how manipulative candy manufactures are. I wasn't expecting such a thoughtful commentary on consumerism in a game that seemed so innocent.

Imagine how awesome it would be if all the time and effort spent on this was instead allocated to an actual Mega Man X game as opposed to a piece of shit gacha game. I will never understand why they would try to revive a franchise this way. If you just make a new game that appeals to fans while doing new things, as if it was released after the last main entry without a long break, then people will be satisfied and the game will do well! Capcom themselves did this with Devil May Cry 5 and look how that turned out!

I can't stand people who say that you should "just play Kiwami man!!!!" Yakuza Kiwami is the original but completely devoid of it's original style and character, entirely upending it with reused assets and a combat system that are lazily lifted from another game released a decade after. It's additions only serve to pad out an otherwise very well-paced game, and they sometimes just straight up take away from specific moments. The original's gritty look is replaced with the same generic look as Yakuza 0 without the late-80s aesthetic that contextualized that game and really held the visuals together. Yakuza Kiwami doesn't even recreate the original, it uses another game's systems and visuals in an attempt to replace it. It is straight up disrespectful to the integrity of the original and 0. People who support lousy games like this need to shut the fuck up. I hate them.

Sorry, not a review, I just needed a place to rant.

It uses the same siren sound effect from Sonic Adventure 2 and that drives me nuts. Once you notice it you can't un-notice it.

Ghostbusters
They're back in town
You need to pee
That is so crazy
What the fuck?
You need to pee
You call the Ghostbusters
They extract it!
There was ghosts
In your bladder
What the fuck?
yeayeyahaeyhyahe

you need to take the pee
crazy ghost peepee
that is insanity

Ghostbusters
Use their machine
To hook it up
To your dick
What?
It hurts?
When they activate it to remove ghosts?
Wuuut?


I did that all from memory what the fuck is wrong with me

In an industry that continues to blindly chase accessibility, I can't help but appreciate a game that unabashedly tells you to play "its way." Funny to imagine a game as acclaimed as this coming out today and being regarded as "dated" for being like it is. We no longer accept games that simply want us to play "their way," because "some people can't play that way!" Even funnier seeing the medium doggedly pursuing the status of "real art" even though they keep compromising it for the sake of appealing to all audiences. You know, even when the game is a violent action title. Ninja Gaiden Black hasn't endured in the same way that other action games have for a reason. Maybe "the game's way" is too hard, maybe the checkpoints are too far apart, maybe it doesn't have a manual lock-on feature. But it wants you to play "its way" for a reason. Too many checkpoints may trivialize certain encounters or make them blend together. Some encounters are intense battles which would be made far less threatening and engaging if they had the same stakes as a casual brawl while exploring an exciting new area.

This is just one example of Ninja Gaiden Black teaching you to play "its way." Once you've begun playing "its way," you become one with the systems. Every attack is punishing so dodging them is always satisfying. There aren't rigid attack windows, you must dynamically react to every enemy to begin your ultra-crunchy violent massacres. You need to be committed to your decisions, every move has weight and can determine whether you live or die, but everything is so quick that the amount of possible decisions is never compromised. The game becomes a simple matter of reacting and attacking, pushed forward by a perfectly paced campaign through an intriguing world with the best visuals of the entire generation. It becomes almost hypnotic...

The definitive "bad day game" so you can feel better about yourself

One thing that I find unfortunate about the influence of popular games like Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time is this belief that, while there was indeed 3D games before them, these were still the only ones that really mattered. I say that because Panzer Dragoon proved on a console that was as hard to develop on as the Sega Saturn, talented developers could still put out games which showed the value of 3D in a time where Super Mario 64 was still well over a year away. Even without the subtlety of an analog stick, Panzer Dragoon is a shining example of why the 3D revolution was one worth jumping on.

Contrary to what the title of the game may imply, you don’t actually control a dragon. Instead, you very explicitly control a man riding a dragon, and because of that you can feel the consequences of a creature like this. It reacts naturally to sudden movements with phenomenal animations. Seriously, I have no idea how they nailed the visual aspect of the dragon so well! The design and animation is elegant and beautiful but also gritty and down-to-earth. The game wants you to feel the majesty of the creature and the feeling of being whisked away into a grand alien world, while managing to feel grounded enough to where it doesn’t feel like a Disney whimsy adventure; the amazement is only heightened by the feeling that the game won’t pull its punches. And that adventure sure is amazing! I just can’t stress enough how beautiful everything in this game is. From the rippling water of the first stage that stretches as far as the eye can see with immersive reflections to the rough sands shortly after, the game never lets up on the sights and even more so the sounds. Nothing beats actually being there, in the experience of Panzer Dragoon.

The particularly exceptional part is how effortlessly the mechanics weave you through the adventure. All 3 main face buttons will shoot at enemies and lock on to them if you hold down the button. You should know what to expect. The main element that sets Panzer Dragoon apart is the aforementioned tangibility of the dragon and the dynamic way the player switches their view. X, Y, and Z will zoom the camera in and out, and the triggers will cause the player to enter a first-person mode and rotate in the corresponding direction. A lot of rail shooters since have had the player shoot in different directions via a scripted setpiece, but Panzer Dragoon is confident enough in its own level design to permit the greater degree of freedom. It creates a sense of one-ness with the player and the character, which is what I think is truly great about this game. It just isn’t something you can accomplish in 2D games and likely wouldn’t have happened if the game didn’t need to prove its worth over its forebears.

Played on Sega Saturn via the Sonic Jam compilation.

It’s always seemed odd to me that Sonic 3 is the fan favorite when, in many ways, it is the least exemplary game of what Sonic actually represents, at least out of the trilogy. In the process of pushing the supplementary elements to their peak, I can’t help but feel that it lost a bit of what made the previous games special in the first place.

Stages are now more segmented than before, stressing the core facets of Sonic in set increments based on what the game wants you to experience at any given point. And that isn’t a bad thing at all in and of itself, but it creates a strange mismatch between the loosey-goosey mechanics that are meant to be stretched in wide-open stages with several different ways of traversing them and the new more fixed way the levels are designed. And no, having a bunch of different pathways doesn’t exonerate the game of this, because those pathways don’t naturally lead in and out of each other in ways that dynamically interact with the mechanics. They just sort-of… exist for their own sake. They exist to make the characters feel more distinct from each other and to stress the inherent enjoyment of exploring, which is fine! I’m just trying to say that it doesn’t feel like Sonic in the same way the other games do. Take Mushroom Hill for example. You can move around the stage in a lot of ways, but they aren’t systemic; they don’t naturally interact with the mechanics. You go fast because the game has taught you to go fast at these specific times and you explore because the game has taught you to explore at this specific time. Compare this to Emerald Hill, where most paths offer gameplay that is fit to purpose for their location and naturally lead to each other.

I think that because of this, Sonic 3 is much more focused on the situational interactions, which, again, is perfectly fine. But, again, it isn’t really fit for a game that plays like this. Launch Base is a fun zone because you speed through these amazing setpieces and roll under lasers. Lasers are cool! My point here is that it is fun because of what it is on its own, and not because Sonic is in it. It is often elevated by fantastic narrative design that naturally weaves the player through a believable world full of super impressive sights and some of the best sounds produced on the Genesis. Sonic 3 is a well above average platformer that stands its ground, but the definitive Sonic experience? Not a chance. I hope this doesn’t piss anyone off. When I was younger this was like my favorite game ever but, well, people change. It was probably a good thing that I had distanced myself from these games for a bit. While I’ve played them so much in the past that I still remember them thoroughly, the time has allowed me to re-evaluate how I really feel about them.

There’s something exciting about playing obscure or rare games, especially when you’ve been aware of them for a long time. Many years ago I played Tempo for 32X, a platformer developed by Red. Soon after, I discovered that it has a Saturn sequel called Super Tempo, boasting more of the amazing animation from the original in a more refined, straightforward title. Unfortunately, I didn’t exactly have a powerful computer and Saturn emulation wasn’t quite there to begin with, so I couldn’t play the game. Despite this, I would go online to watch the intro on-loop and listen to the soundtrack a bunch. It seemed like such a strange game, one that would be forever out of the reach of my quaint little world. I am now a mildly fat man who owns a Sega Saturn so I can now speak to the quality of the game… er, I can speak to the quality of the first fifteen minutes of the game, and it is, uh, definitely a game. It exists. If you couldn’t tell, this is a convoluted way of illustrating how big of a deal that playing fucking Panzer Dragoon Saga is to me. THE illusive hidden masterpiece of the medium… and I’ve played it! If you’ll forgive my pretentiousness (and forget your jealousy of my now endless street cred), I can’t help but look back on not only that Super Tempo experience but also my entire history with games. It feels like I’ve gone so far playing something that there was simply no chance for me to play earlier.

Panzer Dragoon Saga itself reflects its legendary, mythical legacy perfectly. I’m not sure if I would call this one of the best games ever made, but it is certainly one of the most exemplary pieces of the art form out there. You can feel every bit of blood, sweat, and tears that were poured into this game at every level.

The Panzer Dragoon series started with adapting an overtly direct, arcade-y genre to a concept album art show. Despite this, it was still quite a humble game; 6 stages, average in length, decently challenging. Zwei would expand significantly with a far more mechanically robust game that relied less on the original’s innovative perspective-based turning and beautiful environments which had driven the experience. Saga sticks out in this regard because it was made from the ground-up in a genre that is better suited to this kind-of experience.

The previous titles had always laid their inspirations bare, but Saga is the most explicit in that regard. It often feels like a direct adaptation of the ideas and images depicted by the likes of Dune, Star Wars, Evangelion, et cetera, with the freedom to do whatever the hell it wants with it to best suit this medium. The game cuts down their ideas to only the bare essentials, expands on them in wonderfully gamey ways, and allows the rest to exist by implication. I am especially fond of the reticle system carried over from the other Panzer Dragoon games. Super unique for a game like this and it offers a very tangible, interactive element to the world without being disruptive or confusing like many other games that do something similar. It supports the atmosphere and beautiful visuals perfectly. Speaking of which…

The original Panzer Dragoon had set an amazing first impression with a beefy FMV intro and beautiful visuals. Zwei boosts the frame rate and environmental detail even further, and Saga is probably the most impressive game of the generation. The Sega Saturn is often derided for being weaker in terms of general 3D rendering than the PlayStation and N64, which I can now say is kinda bogus. Yes, it is different, but just like the other two consoles of the generation, your impression of the machine’s capabilities are dependent on what games you play for it. The first two Panzer Dragoon games perfectly utilize the system’s infinitely-scrolling background layers to create vast stages that do a great deal in selling the atmosphere. Saga is interesting in this regard because it is the kind-of game that the system is simply not made to run, yet it still manages to not only compete with games on other platforms but even outmatch them in several ways. The lighting in particular stands out as something that likely isn’t possible on other platforms. The world features the vastness of the previous Panzer Dragoon series while being navigated on a much smaller scale. Other Saturn games tend to have a weird problem where objects layered on top of the background/floor layer tend to look like they are floating when the camera moves, and sometimes this is noticeable with 2D elements in Panzer Dragoon Saga, but for the most part weird anomalies like this are entirely absent.

Before I mentioned that someone’s impression of a platform’s capabilities is dependent on what games they associate with said platforms, and a luxury the PlayStation and N64 had was a long enough lifespan to where late releases could truly take advantage of their power. I bring this up because Panzer Dragoon Saga released in January of 1998. For reference, N64 classics like Banjo Kazooie and Ocarina of Time were still many months away. I suppose I don’t really have a point here outside of pointing out how astonishing it is that a game released before the competing platforms’ biggest heavy hitters dropped still managed to technically outpace them in several ways.

The soundtrack follows suit, though I’m even less equipped to speak on the matter and to be honest a lot of it just didn’t resonate with me. Don’t get me wrong, I love the instrumentation and general tone of it; it supports the game superbly. I think that it is mostly that I hold it to the standard that the original game established, which it wouldn’t ever be able to match anyway. I imagine this will change on subsequent playthroughs, and for all I know that is the only reason why the music from the previous games left a bit more of an impression on me. The final dungeon features a very grating piece which may be why I’ve walked away from it with a lesser impression than others.

One of the most unique features of the original Panzer Dragoon is the innovative turning system that took full advantage of the wide-open 3D environments. Saga being a fully 3D RPG where the player can freely explore their surroundings, so the novelty is diminished. Saga compensates with a strategic, movement-based battle system.

The game features a charging mechanic comparable to that of Chrono Trigger (and probably Final Fantasy, though I haven’t played any of them to know). The player has three gauges that will automatically charge when staying still. When one is filled, the player can expend it to open the menu and select one of several actions. The player has a standard Laser attack which will lock-on to multiple foes. There is also a Gun attack that will target a specific enemy. Some enemies are immune to one or the other, which creates an interesting dynamic in more complex fights. The Laser is stronger overall, but you might want to focus your attack on one specific target to prevent enemies from reflecting it. Laser attacks are also upgraded by simply leveling up, whereas the Gun is upgraded by purchasing equipment at Item shops. Guns are much more specific in their application, particularly the one that will deal massive damage to a single weak spot but lackluster damage otherwise.

The Berserk ability from Zwei is expanded here to become limited-resource actions ranging from elemental attacks to healing. The Berserk abilities that the player earns are dictated by the Class that your dragon is in, which is another inventive mechanic. Basically, the player can customize their dragon to emphasize Attack, Defense, Agility, and Spiritual Power, each of which directly takes away from another class. Other games have similar customization options, but Panzer Dragoon Saga’s confidence in its sheer breadth can’t help but encourage the player to experiment as much as possible.

What really tips the battle system over the edge is how movement around the enemy is tied into charging. Basically, the player can rotate around the enemy in four different increments to aim attacks. Enemies can sometimes only be attacked from specific directions, or are weaker in different directions. The enemies will attack the player in patterns, forcing you to move around to dodge incoming fire. A radar is displayed at the bottom of the screen to help with this.

I am particularly fond of the Drone enemies, who will spin an oval-shaped… thing around themselves that prevents attacks from certain directions. The oval thing is thin, so the player has to pay close attention to the rotation to determine how to attack the enemy. Thoughtful enemy design like this is littered throughout the game. It always feels so considered and meticulous, despite how many possibilities are rendered with the customization system.

Even though the battle system is as engaging as it is, I would be lying if I said that it didn’t partially fizzle out in the final fourth or so of the game. The back half of the game in general has been criticized for featuring far more basic dungeon design than the earlier parts of the game, which is understandable. I think that the more straightforward design works given the tone and pace of this part of the game, but that doesn’t mean that the battles within the dungeons don’t get a little uninteresting after a while.

It is unfortunate that the level design gets more bland in the late game because Panzer Dragoon Saga otherwise appeals to non-RPG fans as well as you could hope. My description of the battle system may make it seem more convoluted than it actually is, as the game forgoes many tropes of other RPGs. While it is technically turn-based, the heavy reactionary elements give it an action game-like flair that many will find attractive.

The game also doesn’t fall into the trapping of overly long openings that these kinds of games usually fall into. The opens on with protagonist Edge, a “hunter,” asking one of his commanders (question mark?) why they are guarding some random excavation site on the outskirts of nowhere. And suddenly they are attacked by a leader of their own Empire by the name of Craymen, who went rogue to capture a mysterious girl who has ties to ancient times. After being knocked unconscious by Craymen, Edge wakes up to find all of his friends dead. After trying to chase after Craymen’s ship, he is shot into a canyon and supposedly killed, but is somehow resurrected and finds himself alive in a cave. In said cave he comes across a powerful dragon who helps him escape and has some sort-of strange bond to Edge. He then sets out to find Craymen and enact revenge for his fallen comrades.

Outside of the action-packed opening, the presentation of the story in Saga is surprisingly subdued. That isn’t to imply that there is any lesser production value than other, more bombastic games. Far from it! The animation, both in-game and in the 90 minutes of FMV cutscenes are great, though I can’t help but feel like the decision to mostly have the dialogue voiced in Japanese is unfortunate. The fictional language is featured for the opening and ending, and I’d honestly rather them just stick to that or the actual language. Despite this blemish, the voice acting is phenomenal across the board and most impressively, the game features voices for every piece of dialogue exchanged between characters.

Edge’s quest for vengeance is overtly morally questionable, which applies to all of the other characters as well. The plot revolves around an ancient macguffin known as the Tower, a great, uh, tower that can bring peace or destruction or whatever else to the world. The two main parties looking for the Tower, Craymen’s fleet and the Empire, are really interesting to contend with in the story. Little details like logs mentioning Craymen from the Empire that Edge obtains, to the different fleet’s progress towards finding the tower being displayed on the World Map really sell the idea that you are navigating all of these different morally ambiguous parties to untangle a big conspiracy.

(This would be the point to click off to avoid spoilers!)

In the late game, once all of these have been dealt with and Edge is left unsatisfied after fulfilling his original mission, the grander plot begins to reveal itself. Removed from all of the extraneous elements, the character dynamics and suspense that the game had built up for the last fifteen hours is unleashed in a beautiful display. It perfectly sets up the final dungeon, where the player must tumble down the location that the entire plot had revolved around, with the only character that Edge can place his full trust in. Yeah, the romantic subtext is laid on pretty thick in the late game, and I think it’s fine. It gives a certain distinctly human purity and heart to the game that helps propel the back half’s pace.

That is, until the final (for real this time) ending segment where Edge confronts Sestren, an ancient being held within the center of the Tower. Edge is subjected to 20 doses of hallucinogens and must fight Sestren. It is implied that he stops him, but well… Sestren explains that the “Divine Visitor” has brought a human along with him. Turns out the human is not Edge, but the player!

I understand that the twist here might come across as pretentious or corny, or lazy given how well the game otherwise establishes its world, but I think that this doesn’t really apply to this situation in particular. The rise of risky, pulpy indie games has left the act of fourth wall-breaking in games to be predictable and lazy. The thing is though that I don’t really feel like this game is just acknowledging “oh, isn’t it quirky that this is a video game?” It is more like the game acknowledging the player’s place in the game; the player’s place in the art. How you interpret the story is challenged by the game recognizing that you are just as much a part of this interactive work as the work itself is. It even makes perfect sense from an in-universe perspective, so it can’t just be written off as a cop-out. I’d say that it is brilliant and I highly respect the confidence in its execution.

When I play Panzer Dragoon Saga, I feel like I’m playing a classic. Not just a classic, but one of the defining games of the entire genre or medium. Something like this just feels made to be an all-time classic that is held up as “one of those games that you need to play before you die,” yet it isn’t. In an alternate world, the Saturn might have sold gangbusters in the states and Saga would be remembered as one of the greats. We do not live in that world. In a way, the game’s inaccessibility makes it even more special. There is something almost bittersweet about knowing that I played a game that, if released in a just ever so slightly different landscape, would have become one of the most legendary ever made.

Pandra's Box is one of the coolest extras menus/settings in any game I've played. It really ties the whole thing together, and the original feels kinda thin without an equivalent.