I have every Borderlands game but guess who comes back to this gem?
This is the OG Borderlands with BL2 being the peak. Other games are just made by otherworldly people who doesn't understand what basic BL fans basically want.
It was fun, with it's humor, gameplay, references and easter eggs. Even after all those years, it still holds up. I have the urge and passion to 100% this game and it's DLCs.
Hearing Tannis go insane over time was fun. And I liked the reference to Diablo 2 with the Rakkinishu boss.

I guess this GOTY Enhanced version are made by the same people who made the other modern garbages as this game has been worked on more than a few times and still has memory leak which forces you to restart the game as you will be getting 3 FPS. Also the dialogues are bugged and sometimes they won't play which causes you to miss out on the story and the missions (where claptrap informs you that there are new missions at a person/bounty board)
And the best bug yet! Clipping out the map and falling to your demise and you don't even respawn until you restart your save.

I played BL1 and BL2 with passion but the other games just sucked the passion and soul out of me just like those dementors from Harry Potter.
I have no hope for the future of this franchise and the upcoming movie.
Thanks a lot for where you've taken this franchise, Randy Pitchford.

There’s a misconception that “innovation is actually in the indie scene”, this is not without some merit of course, as the triple A landscape is following what seems like the same 12 templates of what they think “good game design” is. But indie games are just as derivative and trend chasing. This doesn’t have to be a negative either, as every once in a while a game comes along that uses current trends well, in Little Nightmare's case, that amounts to a great experience.

Little Nightmares is clearly chasing the 2010s fad of indie horror games having a heavy emphasis on hiding. I personally don’t care for that kind of game play, but given this is presented as a 25.d platformer with (mostly) fixed camera angles, it peaked my interest and I enjoyed my time with it.

The game does a good job of helping you get your bearings. After a brief ten second introductory cut scene that sets up the main antagonist, our MC Six wakes up in a boiler room with leeway to explore every single mechanic. If you see a dark area, you press B to use your lighter to illuminate it, then you’ll see cans and boxes strewn about, which you can pick up with the right trigger and throw, then big boxes and pipes to climb, hide in, and jump on, and finally a long narrow hallway you can use to practice sprinting, this tutorial ends after this room and the game expects you to have memorized all of these basics. In an era where games (aimed at adults especially) have over bearing and over explanatory tutorials that tell you everything, it was refreshing to play a relatively modern game that just let you figure stuff out on your own.

But tutorials often don’t just end with the player figuring out functions, they also have the need to show what the player should expect from the game for the entire experience, or at least give them a good generalized idea. Which is why I want to highlight the first sprinting section.

The game at first makes you think you only need two quick bursts to get past three rooms, but the reality is that the second sprint is one long, continuous one, but it is highly unlikely you will get this on your first attempt. As the room you dash through is a child's bedroom riddled with tons of objects to climb, and other points of interest highlighted in the shadows, which will make you stop and try going somewhere else instead of just the (correct) straight line. This is a brilliant way of communicating to the player to be observant and on edge, which requires them to not act with out thinking, but instead to over think a little while acting, which is great for a horror game. If a developer has a player on auto pilot when playing a horror game for the first time, the level design has failed, good level design in horror games forces the player to over think, and fear making a mistake.

I am not someone who foolishly believes there are games out there with out any kind of pathing, games have always given the player some indication of where to go or what to do next. And Little Nightmares is very good at this aspect. If a surface has juts and grooves, it’s probably climbable, if an object is framed prominently, it’s most likely of some importance, if an area is subtly lit up, you should probably focus on it. None of these are gaudily presented either with some stupid detective vision mechanic or streaks of paint on already bright or lightly colored objects, the game expects you to come to these obvious logical conclusions yourself and that is (sadly) so refreshing.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though when it comes to navigation, there was more than a few times where I got stuck on a lip in floor or a jut on a wall that the fixed angles didn’t do the best job of indicating where there, as the game is more obviously focused on the giants you have to avoid and has to frame them prominently. Some clipping through these lips and juts would have been appreciated, as it would make some set pieces a little less annoying.

When not hiding from the aforementioned giants, you’ll be solving puzzles to progress, these puzzles aren’t mind benders by any means, but they do require some thought to solve and never feel too easy. What makes them fun to figure out is that they play into what ever setting you are in at the moment, you will need to push a suitcase to pull a lever to drop a hide away bed down, or place chunks of meat into a grinder to make a rope of sausages, or close a stove door to make the chef giant panic and clear a path, to list a few examples. This helps the setting of the Maw feel like a character itself that six is exploiting to escape, and makes what could have been banal and mundane in another setting feel much more impactful.

And avoiding each of the giants is mostly a competent affair. Aside from some leeches you’ll run past in chapter 1, the only enemies you will encounter in the game are the giants, and they are designed mostly well enough to enjoy studying how to get past them.

The Janitor clearly had the most effort put into his sections and sets a good impression by being the first one you’ll encounter, with his long, lanky arms, he can catch you quickly and from (mostly) any distance in the room, so you’ll need to have memorized what kind of surfaces you can climb, what boxes and furniture to hide in, and how fast you should be going, given that he is blind and can hear you the second you sprint or push an object over. If you have been paying attention to the contents of the rooms he patrols, you’ll notice he has taken many toys from his victims as trophies. When you do encounter him later, you’ll naturally pick up on the need to throw cymbal monkeys that make noise that he will run over to play with, or turn on a TV with a nursery rhyme that he hyper focuses on. This then culminates into a solid boss encounter where you have to study the movements of his arms until they form a diamond, which indicates you can dash forward and pull two bars from under a door to cut them off. It feels incredibly cathartic to have a brief encounter after spending hours getting stalked and harassed, with said harassers most prominent features being destroyed incredibly fitting penance for his over persistence.

I wish I could lob the same praise to the other three giants, but the game streamlines them heavily in favor of keeping the pacing tight. Not a bad compromise of course, horror games should be short as over familiarity will breed indifference, but I would have liked the Chef encounters to use the kitchen a little more than just closing a stove door as mentioned above, then avoiding broken plates, and finally riding a meat hook while being chased at the end of the chapter (compounded by the final area having the aforementioned annoying lips and juts that you will probably get caught on a few times and end up dying because of it). The majority of the chapter aside from the final section is just hiding from the chefs under furniture or throwing something generic to distract them, and while the great pathing and aesthetics of the kitchen make this fun enough to do, the lack of using the area’s character is disappointing.

And while the next chapter in the restaurant does use the area’s character to some effect, it’s not enough to make up for the annoyances of the guests hit boxes being a little too long which led me to dying a handful of times and essentially had me rolling my eyes and sensibly chuckling at basically having to know exactly where to sprint across the tables speed run style. This could have had the potential of being a good change of pace to being an almost pure reflex section if the chef’s chapter was better, but instead it just compounds how the game trims a little too much fat.

And the last chapter really exemplifies that trimming, you simply push over a vase to get a key, do a brief and easy chase sequence, and then an incredibly bland final boss fight where you hold a mirror in a direction a handful of times, with the end of each sequence causing six to fall down briefly and forcing you wait a bit. It’s a very half assed climax to an otherwise well made game.

I saved talking about this until now cause I really don’t need to go into much detail as to how annoying these kind of sections are in games. At several points through out the game, Six will be struck with hunger, which will trigger a slow walking section. These are meant to make the player feel powerless, but the game proper already does that, Six can not fight back, she only engages in combat twice through out the entire game in the boss fights mentioned above. All these sections do is serve to annoy you and pad out the play time.

The game has a rather hands off approach to story telling and I greatly appreciated it.

The maw its self seems to be a metaphor for cyclical over consumption and the livestock industry, as the corpulent guests that seem to be an analogy for the mega rich can’t help engorging themselves on the bodies of dead humans, and even have no issue being fed the corpses of their own kind to keep themselves sustained, you also have the two chefs who are rather emotionless and indifferent in feeding into this dangerous and horrifically evil hedonism and addiction, and the janitor who works rather well as an allegory for workers who openly abuse livestock due to their perceived low value of life. While the presentation of these themes will be overly blunt for some, the execution is still good when combined with the games excellent art direction and atmosphere, combine this with the fact that the game has no voice acting or dialogue, and it makes this execution all the more effective in getting the player to think about what they experienced.

Visually Little nightmares is fantastic, and it was one of the main reasons I enjoyed it more than I probably would have if it had any other setting.

The first thing that strikes you about the maw is the scale, six is the size of a mouse in comparison to most objects and creatures around her and it makes almost every room feel oppressive and weighty in atmosphere. The lighting is incredible, with points of interest naturally hidden in shadow making you want to investigate to move forward, or moments of darkness having things be outlined just well enough to make you feel even more uneasy, and even when the rooms are brightly lit, there is still several disturbing elements and decorations, macabre paintings of murder and other monsters you never see are almost everywhere, bloody tools are displayed prominently on work benches, kitchen tables are covered in the filth from severed limbs, and so on.

The textures are quite detailed, you’ll have things like patches of rust on filing cabinets, gashes from tools on tables with fine wood, fuzzy rugs where you can count each individual strand of fabric, and lovely wet sheens coating the pipework during the transitional hallways you’ll be running through between chapters.

Then you also have the brilliance of six wearing a bright yellow coat with a distinct and unique diamond shaped hood so that the player never loses track of her when navigating the rooms. It’s clear Tariser studios wanted the visuals to enhance and compliment the game play, and they do a fantastic job at doing so.

Several paragraphs ago I mentioned that the level design its self, from a functional standpoint, is fine, and in most games it would just be ok. The point I am making here though is that even the most simple level design can be made much more enjoyable to solve when developers integrate the aesthetics of the world or tropes of the genre into them. During the janitor chase sequences for example, the fastest way to avoid him is to go through the lowest shelf, but you risk tipping over more objects he has laid there for alarms, meanwhile the safe but long way is to climb up the nearby stack of books to highest shelf. They’re simple solutions yes, but given this is a horror game, where quick pacing but slight over thinking is paramount, having two easy to execute, while still having varying levels of risk, choices to make in the moment, is brilliant. Nowadays many people assume good level design just means “execution of multiple button functions for one problem”, when it’s a broad skill that can implement many approaches.

Lastly on this, it is so refreshing to play a relatively modern game that has influences that aren’t just other video games. One of the many things I dislike about modern video games is that they have seemingly forgot that there are other forms of entertainment out there.

It seems every FPS now is inspired only by Bioshock, halo, or classic doom. It seems like every 3d platformer now is obsessed with having the player just press buttons in the air mario 64 speed run style and only make worlds based on other platformer templates. I could (and will in other reviews) go on about this, but I was so relieved that Little Nightmares’s aesthetic (and story to a small degree) influences were films like Spirited away (there’s homages everywhere, like the scene where Chihiro climbs the stairs or the guests entering the resort, and the Janitor is definitely based on Kamaji) and western horror films like Nightmare on Elm street and session 9 (you will never escape the chair), As someone who counts Spirited Away and Session 9 among his favorite films, this was great for me and fans of all three that I have mentioned will get a lot out of this game because of it. If you are tired of modern games being far too cannibalistic in terms of inspiration, this will be a breath of fresh air for you.

Musically the game is passable. You have your forgettable ambient music that most 2010s video games are so found of that thankfully isn’t intrusive due to the game being so puzzle focused, which is fine as that could be very annoying to players that are stuck. And then there’s the darker ambient tracks that will ramp up in pace when being stalked by one of the giants. If you’ve played an indie horror game in the last 12 years, you’ve heard this all before, really the only impressive thing is your controllers rumble pulsing to the beat when getting chased. Other than that, you certainly won’t be compelled enough to seek out the tracks on their own.


Little Nightmares is a good of example of less being more and taking into account just how much richer and more fulfilling video games used to be, and still can be, when they take influence from non gaming sources. In the hands of other studios, you could assume the game would just be taking cues from nothing but the resident evil remakes and outlast. But that thankfully isn’t the case. It’s a well crafted 5 hour experience that wears its film influences on its sleeves with pride and integrates the character of its world aesthetics and the tropes and needs of its genre into its level design to the full benefit of the medium it’s in. Poor music, the awful slow walking sections, and the over truncation of the last two chapters aside, it’s one of the better modern games I have played in a very long time.

8/10.

Well, we got an After Burner II situation with this game, except they add practically no new content to the game. They do make it so that you can play with up to eight people, there are new songs, it looks nicer, and the time of day can change, but in terms of the game itself, nothing changes. It is definitely the superior version of the original game, but that is only by a very slim margin, so if you wanted to check out the original Ridge Racer, but slightly better, then this game is for you!

Update #9

If you have been following my reviews on this website for quite a while now, you would know that I have played quite a few Gradius games at this point… well, “a few” of them is putting it lightly. Either way, through my experience with playing almost 10 of these games now, I have really enjoyed my time with them. Yeah, not much changes between each entry, but it just has this simple loop of gameplay that always makes me wanna go back and play more of it, despite how repetitive it gets, or how much the game wants to beat my face in. With all that being said though, there is one aspect of the series that I have been… neglecting up to this point. Not because I don’t want to address it, but more so because I both wanted to focus on the main series of games before jumping into whatever else this franchise has got to offer, and because… I am somewhat afraid of what I might find when I do address it. But hey, I guess I gotta bite the bullet sooner or later, and we will start to bite said bullet by reviewing the first game in that series, Parodius: The Octopus Saves the Earth.

For those who don’t know, Parodius is essentially the sister series to Gradius, being made not too long after the first Gradius originally came out, and is primarily known for being a parody series meant to make fun of Gradius. Most of the elements Gradius is known for is present, but a lot of the other aspects it has such as the enemies, bosses, environments, and the characters you play as are all radically changed to be as stupid, cute, or even inappropriate as possible, which does make it all the more interesting as a result. So, I decided to give the first game a try, and it was a good time, being what you would expect from Gradius gameplay-wise, but also giving you a hilarious and unique experience in every other way.

The story is just as stupid as the game itself, where a space octopus named Tako, whose main purpose in life is programming dreams for all the stupid humans on Earth, are all suddenly being eaten up by the nefarious Bug, who is a giant space tapir, so it is up to Tako, along with a bunch of other colorful characters, to go storm into his lair and get him to cut that shit out… yes, that is actually the story of the game, and I love it so much. The graphics are… exactly what you would expect from a Gradius game, but all of the different designs for the enemies, bosses, and characters do make it more visually appealing, so I will give it that, the music is pretty good, having a good mix of both great tunes and stupid ones to make you feel right at home with this game, and the control/gameplay is Gradius through and through, so you will feel right at home… somewhat, when you decide to play the game for yourself.

The game is a vertical space shooter, where you can take control of either Tako, the penguin from Antarctic Adventure, Goemon (yes, that Goemon), Popolon from Knightmare, or the Vic Viper just in case this feels too weird for you, go through a set of six levels through plenty colorful and weird environments in space, shoot whatever strange creatures you encounter along your way while making sure to dodge every single projectile towards you, gather plenty of upgrades to select to make yourself much faster and stronger than your foes, and take on plenty of bosses that will test your speed and reflexes while you question what the fuck you are looking at. It’s Gradius, folks, so you know exactly what you are gonna get once you step over that starting gate, but at the end of the day, it still ends up being fun for big fans like me, even if it doesn’t reach the same quality as other titles in the series.

When I say it is just a Gradius game at its core, I mean it, as it plays identically to one, with no changes made to the gameplay whatsoever to advance the series. That may cause some to be turned away, but it makes up for its lack of innovation with its style. Like with TwinBee, the game’s primary appeal is with the strange elements you will see throughout your journey, except unlike with TwinBee, the weirdness scale is turned all the way up to 100 here. You have the option of playing as an octopus, a penguin, a knight, or some japanese guy while flying through space, you fight off enemies such as penguin heads, fighter pilots, literal pieces of shit, and giant moles that come out of the ground.

The bosses that you can face can range from a giant penguin, a giant tapir, a… weird bag hanging on a string (I don’t know what they are called), or even two giant, disgusting maids, and some of the levels you go through include one an ice kingdom, one filled with birthday cakes, and one full of religious gravestones and worship sites that remind you to constantly be in fear of whatever god is looming over you, just waiting to strike………………………….. but yay, cake! It is all extremely weird, uncomfortable, and oh so wonderful, making this one of the most disturbingly creative shmups I have ever played in terms of the visuals and variety, which is scary, because the further I go, there’s probably gonna be even more weird shit they throw at me in future games.

With all that being said though, if none of the insanity that occurs in this game is enough to win you over, then at the end of the day, it is just another Gradius game. If you have played any other game in the series before this, then you know exactly what you will get out of it, and thus, you will probably skip it to go onto other titles that manage to provide more engaging gameplay. As for me though, I will gladly embrace all of the stupidity this game gave me, as well as whatever else this series wants to throw at me later down the road. I think my favorite weird element to come out of this entire game is with the second boss, where before the fight, you are able to choose between one of three hands that are either rock, paper, or scissors, and depending on what you choose, you can immediately kill the boss, who is a giant hand, without having to fight him at all. It’s shit like that that gives a game personality, and I am all here for it.

Overall, despite doing nothing to change up the core gameplay whatsoever, the original Parodius makes up for that with its insane, whacky charm that I desperately want to see more of, and as a whole, makes for a good time, one that I am glad that I decided to finally experience. I would recommend it for those of you who are Gradius fans, as well as those who love it when games aren’t afraid to get weird, because while this is a very simple kind of weird, it is still my kind of weird, and I love it for that. So, now that I have started off this series, I do have one requirement going forward: each game after this one has to get even weirder than this, to the point where when I am done with the entire series, my face will have melted off, and I can see the edge of the universe.

Game #511

The legacy of mediocrity reaches its grand finale.

Before I begin I need to address some things in case they are brought up in the comments, as I have had genuine idiots start fights with me on my previous souls-borne reviews over the dumbest capital G gamer shit. I will number these points and I have taken care to truncate them to be as concise and brief as possible, if you wish to skip on down to the review proper, control+F to “Dark Souls 3 was one of the most bland”. I understand that my reviews on this site are incredibly long as is, but I have to bring these up.

1. I have been accused by Souls fans on here of “Not explaining things” because the explanations I give are not to their personal satisfaction, just because someone’s point isn’t something you would like to digest, does not mean they did not explain something. When I say things like “Ranged Magic and Co-op break bosses cause they only focus one player cause their AI is only built for one player”, that is an explanation. I do not need to do animation by animation break downs of every single boss or regular enemy. That would make this hundreds of paragraphs long and that is ridiculous to expect.

2. I do not care about your personal play style or about how you played the game. This is a review. I have to take a different approach when playing the game for that reason. I have to test what mechanics are well made and which ones are poorly balanced and broken. I can not “just ignore it”, a flaw in a product does not vanish by just not paying attention to it, it is fair game to criticize it for existing as that is what a review does. I am giving the game an EXAM, this is not an ADVERTISEMENT.

3.Reviews and advertisements ARE NOT the same thing, a review tells you the pros and cons of a product, from a THIRD PARTY. An advertisement only tells you what the company trying to get you to buy the product wants you to think the selling points are. I am not here to validate your preconceived opinions of a game you already like (or dislike). If you like these games, that’s fine, but if you come at me, I will defend my position. If I have already debunked something, I am not going to waste my time (or yours) arguing against it again. Think before you respond.

4. If you want to play these games a certain way, have at it! But I am not here to validate said challenge runs or play styles, when I say a mechanic is pointless cause there is an objectively better option, I, and let me be CLEAR, AM NOT SAYING THAT YOU HAVE TO STOP PLAYING THAT WAY. I can not believe I have to clarify this to grown men and women on a video game website but Souls fans for what ever reason really struggle to comprehend this.

5. While in the last year and a half I have reviewed DLC packs and expansions as their own games, to remain consistent with my previous Souls reviews, I will integrate the DLC into the entire review proper. I will do this by using examples from both DLC packs when talking about the game play, graphics, music etc.

Dark Souls 3 was one of the most bland, designed by committee, boring jrpgs I have played in years. From soft has learned almost absolutely nothing from their previous four mediocre jrpgs in this mediocre franchise.

Now lets address the “almost” first. It took them five whole games, but they finally fixed the estus mechanic that was always some form of fucked in the previous games and ruined any kind of intended tension (Grasses, Humanities and Crystals in DeS, DS1 and 2, needing to grind for vials in BB). You can not use other recovery items this time, and you must choose between health and magic estus depending on your equipment load out. You are given a little more than enough estus to get through an area and your estus restores a good third of your health, making it actually feel important this time, rather than just another healing option that previous entries were plagued with.

This however comes at the expense of the level design. BloodBorne’s big rooms of nothing and long hallways with item nooks return with a vengeance here, you will never get lost as you just have to explore a big room’s nooks then go straight, or a narrow hallway’s nooks and go straight. It’s honestly pathetic at how under designed every area feels. There is very little if any genuine traps, with the only area in the game feeling genuinely designed being the catacombs with its arrow flinging button traps and massive bone spheres. But those aren’t even common enough in that area to feel threatening, only appearing once and twice respectively. Shortcuts also feel less like shortcuts more like regular elevators at this point, there isn’t a rewarding feeling in finding them, because the areas don’t take that long to navigate in the first place, given how much ground you cover while running back and forth.

There are some occasional stage hazards like giants and archers, but aside from a conjuring giant in the ringed city, killing these hazards eliminates them permanently and removes any further tension, the aformentioned giant isn’t even that much of a threat, as a few charged R2s from a high level weapon kill him in a few hits.

The game has completely given up any psychological aspect to the world and navigation. While DS2 and BB let you warp anywhere you have been from the start, they at the very least gave each of the bonfires in an area plenty of space to at least TRY and add some sort of tension, despite how easy those games were. DS3 has zero tension.

Bonfires are constant, take for example the undead settlement. The placement of the second bonfire in the undead settlement is laugh out loud worthy. Being right behind the first gate you stroll up to from when you arrive in 60 seconds. This is a problem all the way to the late game, after killing the Dragon slayer armour and lighting his bonfire, there is another bonfire right next to it at the entrance to the grand archives, for example.

The reason there are so many bonfires so close to each other can only mean one thing. It’s no secret that Sony and Namco use these games false perception of being “difficult” for marketing purposes, and with so many plentiful bonfires for checkpoints, you can just feel the cynicism in the design here as this is clearly made to help streamers and youtubers make quick and cheap “rage compilations” for free advertisement. If you actually play these games like the JRPGs they are however, that intended cynical design falls flat on its ass.

I will say this however, Dark Souls 3 is very good at conveying a sense of scale, due to how close the camera is to you this time and how tall the geometry is, the world feels massive. And the draw distance and landmarks of where you have been and will get too are a nice touch when at a high elevation.

On the surface it seems that from soft has tried to make ranged magic less useful and more balanced than previous games. The MP bar from Demons souls makes a return and the only way to restore it is with blue estus, and unless you start as a pyromancer or sorcerer, the bar is much smaller to compensate and try to make you use your melee weapon more. The stamina bar is also made small at the start to try and convince you to invest in endurance early to roll more often. Of course the gains to FP are quite high if you invest early on, I boosted all the way to 30 FP and had more than enough FP for boss fights so long as I took along two magic estus. And with as little as 30 endurance you’ll have more than enough stamina to block and roll your way to easy kills. With around 40 strength and 20 dex, 35 intelligence and 35 faith 100% of enemies and all but one boss in the game is a matter of when you will kill them than if.

A heavy investment in Vitality is also obviously needed to wear some pieces of heavy armour and for holding great shields that can fully absorb or mitigate attacks. And as long as you keep your preferred weapon upgraded (any weapon in the game will serve you well till the end game pretty much with few exceptions, I used an early game dark sword infused with a heavy gem for my entire run) you’ll find that the RPG mechanics of the game once again break the action parts of the advertised “tough” game play wide open once again.

You may be wondering why I listed my stats two paragraphs ago that high, and that’s due to the fact that exp gain in DS3 is very high, most likely to help along streamers so they can quickly power up and power through more of the game to make more cheap rage compilation content. A good 20 or so hours grinding in the high wall will make you more than strong enough for the endgame (most regular play throughs of this I studied had normal, everyday people, beating this in the mid 60s), hammering home just how easy these games have always been.

I said earlier that the attempt to balance out magic was only on the surface, and here’s why, enemy AI from the dregs outside the fire link shrine to the soul of cinder have no way of countering magic and pyromancies as their AI is entirely focused on on melee fighting, again, even if they don’t get stun locked when hit with ranged magic, they still zerg rush you like morons and by the time they reach you, if a regular enemy, you’ll be able to finish them off easily with your melee weapon. Even enemies that do cast magic make the effort to get close enough to you so can dash towards them, which makes them revert to melee mode, and ruins any potential solution to this classic flaw of the franchise.

Pyromanices are incredibly overpowered in the game, this seems intentional, given the massive circle jerk of fire related imagery and themes being drilled into you to drive the plot forward and establish the lore of the game. It’s not going to be an uncommon strategy to summon a helper for a boss and snipe them from afar with great fire ball and watch their HP melt. Some bosses are even more flammable solo, like aldritch, as simply having the grass crest shield, the chloranthony ring and a quick r1 finger is more than enough to kill him in less than 90 seconds with great fire ball.

The bosses haven’t improved from Bloodborne (or any of the previous four games really). They are still completely lost when you summon and snipe them with magic. And the DPS of either AI or especially a human partner is so high that the extra health they get from summons matters little. The bigger bosses are still camera devouring monstrosities that are genuinely laughable given how bad your visibility is when they get close, as the camera is not, and has never been, designed around enemies that large and it makes fighting them more a battle with the camera than the intended eldritch gods they want you to think you are fighting.


The game is also strangely obsessed with giving many of the bosses multiple phases. While this is common in JRPGs, these are more meant for skill checks to make sure the player isn’t mindlessly brute forcing their way through the game and in general are used sparingly. DS3 of course has dozens of multi phase bosses starting with the Abyss watchers all the way to the Soul of Cinder. To balance these fights out these bosses have less health than usual ones, but this makes the laughable action part of the combat even more so, because when you actually play these games as the RPGs they are instead of the circle button youtube rage compilations they aren’t. You see how poorly thought out so many aspects of them really are. As the lower health pools mean fuck all when you actually level up and equip properly.

There is one boss that is an exception to most of these criticisms. Dark eater Midir is an optional boss you fight in the ringed city, and the way you need to fight him is via casting poison magic. Since he has the most HP of any boss in the game, this means the poison will do 1K damage to him each time due to its scaling effect, which is critical to wear him down quickly, otherwise, you will most likely run out of estus due to how strong his attacks are. Co-op is a non factor for this fight as it will just bloat his health and fuck you over, and he resists magic and pyromancies. If he wasn’t huge and devoured the camera, the series could have had its first genuinely good boss fight, but alas, you should never underestimate souls games for underachieving.

The combat in general feels like it was retroactively changed to be more like bloodborne at the last minute. Enemies and bosses are much more aggressive and are more prone to use combo attacks, it’s clear that From soft has gone all in on the R1+circle button simulator jokes, as the hit boxes on boss and regular mook attacks are less about blocking and whacking R1 at the right time, and more rolling and then hitting R1. This becomes less and less of an issue the more you invest in stamina and upgrade your shields, but it’s still hilarious that from soft turned the combat into what even their own fans jokingly refer to it as.

Invasions are still annoying and immersion breaking. They’ve never added anything to enhance these games and have always been a tacked on multiplayer feature that should have died along with the 7th generation when that plagued damn near every game. Thankfully I always leveled high enough to mitigate this annoyance, but still had my fair share of them, which forced me to use the broken Alt F4 build before carrying on with the session. What’s especially funny is that the game has a separate PVP mode which isn’t available until very late in the game. Why invasions are even here anymore is baffling considering it was given its own dedicated mode that could prevent any of these annoyances from occurring in the first place.

Visually Dark souls 3 is as strong as you would expect from the series now. Stunning lighting and impressively huge level geometry are paired with detailed textures like scratches and gashes in your shields and armour, chips in your melee weapons sharp ends, and lovely cloth physics that flow elegantly and realistically. This is topped of with some amazing particle effects. Attacks feel like they have a strong effect when you see an explosion of sparks or magic dust.

Unfortunately due to the fire themed circle jerking in the story, your character pulsates an ugly and gaudy ember effect. This just bizarre to see as almost none of the enemies have this effect and look stunning regardless. We already know the player character is fire themed due to being called the ashen one, an ugly ember effect is not needed.

The animations are the best in the series so far, for as bland and mediocre as the boss fights are, the gorgeous and over exaggerated animations of the Abyss watchers unorthodox great sword swings, the animalistic claw swipes of the wyverns and midir, and many others are a sight to behold. Regular mook attacks are on the same level. With some like the tar demons pulsating pustules changing depending on the attack being an outstanding detail.

Menu UI has been fixed again, with BloodBorne's awful and unintuitive vertical menus gone. DS2’s horizontal menus return and the layouts do an excellent job of showing you where everything is, you even have dented tabs at the top this time to eliminate any possible confusion.

Musically, Dark Souls 3 is mostly quite bland.

While legendary video game composer Motoi Saukraba does return, he only does a handful of tracks this time. Said tracks are the best in the game, as Sakuraba is a master of his craft. Vordt of the Boreal Valley’s powerful horn section and thundering percussion set a strong first impression when you encounter the game’s first real boss. Then there’s Curse Rotted Greatwoods ominous strings and haunted chants, the foreboding violins of Crystal Sages, the scatter shot booming horns of Wolnir and the Bombastic fast paced tempo of Nameless King that sounds like it was ripped straight out of the Tales games. These will be the highlight of the game musically for you and don’t disappoint.

Most of the tracks are composed by Yuka Kitamura, and while she does a generally competent job, it’s very easy to notice she’s more or less just trying to copy Sakuraba’s style but rely more heavily on violins. The majority of her tracks start off the same way, with a big booming hook, followed by heavy use of violins. There is talent here and from what I have sampled of her Sekiro score (I have not played that one yet), she really comes into her own in that game. In the case of DS3, it seems more that she’s composing in a style that doesn’t suit her and it falls flat due to that.

I’ve saved talking about the story till last cause it’s nothing special.

In my Dark Souls 2 review I touched upon that the conclusive, makes you wonder what may happen but good enough endings to Dark Souls 1 was made completely pointless by the existence of Dark souls 2, the choices you can make in that game are also nullified by the existence of Dark souls 3, as both protagonists chose to link the flame and continue the world as is. Dark Souls 3, to its credit, does try and work with this buy having the linking of the flame become a tradition of sorts, which each successive linker becoming a lord of cinder. And toys with this tradition by having the linking of the flame not happen for what seems like hundreds or even thousands of years. The previous Lords of Cinder have gone mad during this time and it is up to the Ashen one to link the flame yet again before it is to late.

A solid premise on paper, but the execution is as expected, quite poor and under cooked. The story in typical souls fashion is presented in a very bare bones way and you are expected to get more from the lore of the world than the actual plot proper. You collect your lords of cinders ashes, and then make one of three choices that do nothing interesting with the souls formula. You become a god and subjugate the masses, link the flame and preserve the world, or let it die. All of these choices transpire in very brief cut scenes before fading to black. Given the series hasn’t continued at the time I post this, it seems that the choices are actual weighty choices now, but ring hollow with how bare bones the story is, being nothing but a quick premise, uninteresting macguffin hunt, and then rushed choices.

The side quests don’t feel fulfilling but this is to be expected, as they’ve always felt more like tacked on framing devices to get rings and spells rather than genuine side stories in a (on paper) rich world seemingly brimming with information. You will know that people like Greirat and Sirrius will die as that’s just how these games go at this point, and you’ll roll your eyes and power through to get the good equipment their quest will bring you in spite of their half assed implementation.

The lore this time isn’t even a modicum of interesting due to Lothric being Lordran several centuries in the future. DS3 is filled to the brim with lazy pandering towards DS1, like Oscars corpse being right in front of you at the start to give you your estus, Anor Londo briefly returning for cheap nostalgia claps, and the final boss fight taking place in the Kiln of the first flame which also plays Gywnn’s theme in the second phase, just to name a few of many eye rolling homages you will encounter.

The original characters for this game don’t feel interesting at all due the fact that they just contribute to the theme of cycles that the trilogy is built around. The lords of cinder for example are just people who did the same thing DS1 and 2 hero did and they’re nothing more than obstacles in your path due to how underwritten everything is.

Both DLC packs like the base game share the premise of a solid idea of a plot on paper but like the base game suffer from extremely skeletal, bare minimum execution to even forgetting the premise near the end in Ringed City’s case.

Arriendel’s premise of a magical world found inside a painting fading away due to the painting in the real world starting to rot due to not being preserved well is a very interesting idea. But aside from a few houses full of pus and fleshy walls, and anthropomorphic birds with huge rotten penises (yeah I don’t know how to parse that either), that premise is barely touched upon, and when you do finish the DLC, your entire journey feels like it was meaningless because you just accelerated what was already happening in the first place.

That leaves us with the Ringed City. Another interesting premise, the Ringed City which takes place in the same sort of dimension the Kiln is in, presents it’s self as a “Landfill of realms” so to speak. But this “Landfill of realms” is really just window dressing. Sure you’ll see buildings from Dark Souls 1 and 2 along the way, but the actual plot, if you can call it that, is about you confronting Gael at the end of the world to get a hold of the Dark soul, which he has been devouring pieces of before he returns to his niece in the painted world to save it. You then kill Gael and the hyped up “Grand finale of the soulsborne franchise” just kind of ends with him falling over, you don’t even get a cut scene for this. It makes the Ringed City feel incredibly unfinished, and given how I just described it in the entire paragraph, it probably was unfinished and rushed out.


Dark Souls 3 is a mediocre cap off to a mediocre franchise. Filled with both cynical design choices like plentiful bonfires to help along the uninformed twitch streamer rage compilation audience, to continued poorly designed boss fights, ok at best combat, under designed levels, bland music and a bare bones, by the numbers soulsborne plot that does nothing interesting with the formula. It was one of the blandest, most low effort JRPGs I have ever played and in this franchise that is saying something.

There has never been anything special about this series, its reputation as “difficult”, that comes from deceptive advertisements deliberately targeted at people who have never played a JRPG in their life, is far more anger inducing than any of the games could ever hope to be. Its mechanics it apes and takes from other series are also done much better in those inspirations. The only remarkable thing about these games has been an incredible talent at underachieving with their potential. From soft can not make action JRPGs with Zelda combat, but they can make interesting on paper worlds. A narrower, non RPG focus is something I feel would lead to a much better output from this developer, and the existence of Sekiro and Armoured core 6 at a glance feel like a breath of fresh air. Hopefully, those are better than the mediocrity this franchise has plagued the entire medium with since 2009.

4/10.

So it goes, the repeating blunders of pi(lots). I can't help but laugh every time I hit the green & go boom, knowing it's as much a technical choice as absurd design. Believability aside, it's nice to face consequences for mismanaging your velocity & inertia. Just dodging the targets and naught else would get dull, an adjective I simply can't slap on River Raid.

Carol Shaw knew a good role model when she saw one. Konami's Scramble isn't quite as well-recognized today for the precedents it set, both for arcade shooters & genres beyond. Yet she was quick to adapt that game's scrolling, segmented yet connected world into something the VCS could handle. Making any equivalent of a tiered power-up system was out of the question, but River Raid compensates with its little touches. The skill progression in this title really sneaks up on you, much to my delight.

Acceleration, deceleration, & yanking that yoke—combine that with fuel management, plus the scoring rubric, and it's a lot more to absorb than normal for a VCS shooter. I made it to 50k points before feeling sated, having cleared maybe a couple tens of stages (neatly separated by the bridges you demolish), and I could go for seconds. Maybe some extra time & finesse could have added more of a soundscape here, albeit limited by the POKEY like usual. But there's a completeness, the beginnings of verisimilitude in this genre which you only saw inklings of before on consoles. Scramble's paradigm had come to the Atari.

Shaw's coding smarts are all over this, too. From pseudo-random endless shooting, to the play area using mirrored sections to minimize flickering, River Raid pushes its technical tier even beyond the smooth vertical scrolling. Going from 3D Tic-Tac-Toe to this must have felt triumphant. Her later works for Activision across Intellivision & succeeding Atari consoles carry on the pedigree made clear here. Worry not over fears of River Raid's reputation being outdated or unearned, reader. It's a worthy highlight of the 2600 library which I could fire up anytime in any mood.

If we just ignore those few bumps in the road that popped up every now and then, the Battletoads series has had a pretty good run at this point, being one of the consistently good series that Rare had put out back then. Of course, they aren’t as approachable as other games, given how they love for nothing more then to see you throw that controller against that wall behind you, but if you can press through the difficult challenges, you will find a set of varied, interesting, and enjoyable beat-’em-ups featuring fun visuals, a colorful cast of characters, and plenty of goofy violence to go along with it. But naturally, not all good things can last forever, and for a while, the Battletoads would vanish into the ether, but before they went, they had one last hurrah that was released to the public, known simply as Battletoads….. or Battletoads Arcade, so that we don’t confuse it with the original Battletoads………. or the one on Game Boy (names are stupid).

Out of all of the Battletoads games that had been released, this was always the one that caught my interest the most, because it had such a unique style and attitude that seemed perfect for this series. Even when you place this game right alongside all the others, there is just something about it that stands out, with the visual style, animations, and character designs playing a heavy part in that. However, I had only played it for a little bit before the day that I started typing this review, so I figured it was about time to get it out of the way and see what was so captivating about it… even though it is obvious for those who have already played it, and yeah, I ended up enjoying it pretty much all the way through.

The story is the same goddamn story that every other game in the series has had, where the Dark Queen is being a bitch, and the Toads have to go teach her a lesson, making this series feel more like a warty version of Mario with how little things change in-between games, the graphics are the best that the series has had so far, looking much more punk-esque and detailed, including plenty of great, brutal animations, while still having the style of Battletoads, the music is pretty good, sounding funky and “rad” enough for the time period, while also having that bit of “edge” to it that this game is trying to go for, and the controls/gameplay are what you would come to expect out of a Battletoads game, and both aspects feel great to get a handle on and experience.

The game is an arcade beat-’em-up, where you take control of one of the three Battletoads, go through a set of five lengthy levels, each taking place in some alien world with different environmental motifs, beat the ever-loving fuck out of everything that moves using your fists, feet, and whatever over-the-top weapon that your body can morph into while doing so, eat plenty of flies that will buzz around at points to gain more life so that you can keep kicking ass, and fight plenty of big, bad, and brutal bosses with just as much brutality and force, to show that you are the baddest toad in the galaxy. A lot of it is standard for what you get from any Battletoads game, or any arcade game of the time for that matter, but the little changes, combined with the unique presentation, makes this one of the most notable and best titles in the series, and it makes playing it all the better.

From the moment you see a bit of gameplay, you will notice that the game looks much grittier and, again, punk-esque then any of the other games before, giving it the attitude and spunk that this kind of game absolutely relishes in. It is one of the most appealing parts about the game, while making sure to keep the feel of Battletoads alive and well throughout, so if you don’t get into the style immediately, then you probably wouldn’t get into this game. Right alongside the style, another thing that you will need to get used to is the violence, because HOLY FUCK, compared to the previous games, this game is as bloody and violent as all hell. It makes sense, since this game wasn’t stuck with the limitations that Nintendo would put on them, but some of the stuff you can see in this game is over-the-top in and gruesome in the best way possible. Blood will fly out of your enemies when you hit them, heads will get chopped up, with the bodies spurting blood everywhere, and some of the attacks that you pull off could be considered cartoonish fatalities that were left out of Mortal Kombat. One such example is with Zitz, who has an attack where he can pin an enemy to the ground, repeatedly punch them in the face, turn his hand into a drill, and ANNIHILATE the son of a bitch. It may be overkill, but it is a glorious kind of overkill that I never get tired of.

If we ignore both of those elements though, most of the game is just your standard Battletoads affair. Most of the stages are your typical beat-’em-up format, and what we got here, this is definitely the best form of combat that the series has had so far. The over-the-top attacks that you can pull off, coupled with the sounds, graphics, and animations that play out whenever you beat up a goon make it all the sweeter and the more satisfying. Aside from these segments though, there aren’t really too many instances of the gameplay changing up on you, aside from two different instances: one where you are descending down a shaft on a rope, like in previous games, and the final stage, where you will mount a turret in a plane and shoot down everything in your way. Both of these segments are pretty fun to go through, and while they don’t introduce too many new elements to the series, they are a nice change of pace from the typical routine you go through in the game. And finally, for the first time in any Battletoads game, there is three-player simultaneous multiplayer, where you and two other buddies can join forces as all of the Battletoads and lay the smackdown on any of the forces the Dark Queen can send your way. You can still have a great time with the game in single-player mode, but getting two others to play with you is definitely the way to go.

Despite all the good qualities that this game has going for it though, you can’t help but notice that really, at the end of the day, it is essentially just another Battletoads game for the most part. Nothing about the gameplay, story, or means of progression has changed up at all from most of the other games, which could make this feel pretty generic and repetitive for those who are wanting something more from the series. This doesn’t ruin the game in the slightest for me, but it could turn some away. Secondly, this game does have arcade syndrome, but thankfully, it is one of the most mild cases of the syndrome that I have ever seen. It can take quite a bit to take out some certain enemies, who can either counter a lot of your attacks really easily, or they manage to repeat a specific attack that can incapacitate you really easily. Thankfully though, it doesn’t feel too overwhelming a lot of the time, and you never feel a sense that there are too many enemies to deal with at once, which makes this one of the more “fair” arcade games that I have played in a while. That’s pretty surprising, because this is BATTLETOADS we are talking about, a series known for being notoriously difficult, and yet, this game is much more fair than other arcade titles. Gotta be thankful for that.

Overall, despite its repetitive gameplay at times and its mild case of arcade syndrome, Battletoads for the arcade is one of the most visually distinct and fun games in the entire series, featuring plenty of kick-ass, cartoony action, along with a style that very little arcade games have ever managed to replicate in any way. I would absolutely recommend it for those who were fans of previous Battletoads games, as well as those who are big fans of arcade beat-’em-ups, because while not the most original of the bunch, it is definitely one of the most visually distinct and fun ones of the bunch. It’s too bad though that, since this game did so poorly, the series ended up going on hiatus for over two decades. The world just couldn’t handle the intense, toad action that this game presented them with. A bunch of WEAKLINGS, I tell ya.

Game #504

I am getting so sick and tired about talking about this fucking game. Don’t get me wrong, I still love it even after all that I have said about it, but there is something called too much of a good thing, and that is what we got here with Street Fighter II. Capcom was just so determined to make this game better and better and better AND BETTER to where they just kept releasing updates for it, and somehow, nobody back then caught onto how repetitive this was getting. Thankfully though, there is one more update that they had released after Super Street Fighter II, and it would be the last update that the game would ever get… at least, it would be for the next 7 years or so, but we may as well just pretend that this is the last one for now. This final version would be released in 1994, 3 years after the game initially came out, and it would be known as Super Street Fighter II Turbo.

If you all remember the base version of Super Street Fighter II, you would know that, in terms of an update, it added quite a lot of new features to the game, including quite a few new characters to play as, the new moves you can pull off, and the visual overhaul that the game got, making it the best version of the game at that time. As for this update though, it doesn’t really add too much more to the experience as a whole, but what it does add does make it stand out from the rest, and makes it a noteworthy experience. So, I don’t wanna sound like a broken record, but naturally, this would end up being the best version of Street Fighter II that we would have access to at this time, but as an update, it just barely misses the mark of quality that SSFII had. With that being said though, it is still pretty good.

For starters, if you all remember back to SSFII, one of the biggest complaints that that update has was when it reverted the game back to the fighting speed of the original SFII and the Champion Edition. Yes, it still SFII at its core, and it was still fun to play, but people had gotten so used to the increased fighting speed that SFII Turbo gave them, that this change made it seem like a bit of a downgrade. So, not only did we get the Turbo speed back for this game, but we also got so much more. Now, the fighting speed of the game was completely customizable, with four different options available to switch between, allowing the player to be able to set up their optimal SFII experience. It isn’t that much to write home about, but the fact that players are given an option to do this is pretty admirable for the devs to include.

Secondly, of course, we have the updates to the game itself. The intro was changed up to where you could see bits of fights interspersed with Ryu throwing a hadoken at you, which is pretty neat, new animations were made for a lot of the characters, and the HUD for the fights had gotten an updated look. Out of all the changes though, the biggest definitely had to be with the Super Meter, where while fighting, you can build up this meter all the way, and when it was full, you could unleash a devastating combo which could turn the tide of a match in seconds, deciding who the true winner will be. Of course, this wasn’t the first instance of a fighting game having a super meter or super moves of any kind, but naturally, this game would be the one to coin the terms and popularize them in the first place, to where they would be featured in MANY different fighting games all the way to this day. Not to mention, they are incredibly satisfying to pull off, even if I do have trouble getting it to work because I suck.

Disregarding all that though, without a doubt, the biggest change made in the entire game would be with the addition of one final new character, Akuma, and for those of you who have played this version of SFII, then you know that he is the best character in the game. Not only does he have an awesome design, looking incredibly menacing and tough to take on, but he is also extremely powerful, being faster and stronger than every character in the game, to the point where he is banned from being used in official tournaments of the game, which is quite an honor, if you ask me. Unfortunately though, he is a secret character, meaning that in order to actually play as him in this version, you have to input a series of commands at the character select screen before choosing your character… which I never figured out how to properly do, because again, I suck. But hey, even if you can’t play as him, you can fight him for yourself if you reach the final fight of the game without losing a single match, so good luck with that, and have fun getting your ass kicked.

If I were to compare this to the other versions of SFII that we had gotten before this, I would say that this one is probably the second best out of the bunch. Sure, it didn’t off too many new changes to the formula as a whole, and at this point, this game was so over bloated that fans were probably begging for something new to jump into at some point, but it did introduce plenty of changes that would not only become a staple of the Street Fighter series, but also with the fighting genre as a whole once again, such as with the introduction of secret characters. Not to mention, despite being almost 30 years old, this version of Street Fighter II has managed to retain an active competitive scene, with tournaments often being held to this very day. That is pretty damn impressive, and it just goes to show how strong the longevity of this game really is at the end of the day.

Overall, despite not introducing as much content as SSFII, this is still the best version of SFII that had been released at this point in the game’s history, bringing about new changes that would become series staples, as well as still being a blast to play, whether competitively, or even just for having fun with your friends. I would definitely recommend it for those of you who enjoyed the previous versions of the game, or for those who are just fans of fighting games in general, because despite not being the absolute best version of the game we would end up getting, it still manages to hold a legacy that not much else could truly match. But anyways, now that we got this version out of the way, I am happy to say that I am FREE! I no longer have to cover any more versions of this game!........... at least for now anyway, but I don’t care, I will rejoice anyway!

Update #6

Today we are doing the JAPANESE GOLDEN AXE SPECIAL! Yes this is not the Arcade game which I think is enjoyable. This is for the Japan only PC Engine CD and WonderSwan Color ports! Sadly they don’t have their own pages still so you get them here. So anyway, on with the short reviews!

PC Engine CD version

I played this one last year so replaying this sucked. This was a port handled by Telenet and you would be amazed at how terrible this version is. It not only looks hideous but it’s not even all that good feeling. It just feels off just enough for some moments to feel frustrating. Golden Axe was never perfect, especially once you learn how to 1CC it which I’d argue makes the game worse. This version does so little to improve the experience and having such an awful presentation and sound doesn’t make up for it.

The port adds in cutscenes for the beginning, before Death Adder, and the ending for each character. This also means the game lacks co-op but these cutscenes just feel like nothing. They’re not even good looking and I’m not sure who even did them. If it’s the same people who did stuff like Valis II then I’m questioning how it’s a lot uglier. It’s not even done all that well anyway because the rest of the story is told and shown in the same exact way as the Arcade version. The only real compliment I can give is the music not sucking.

This port is just so baffling. Why is it so bad?? You could argue the score is too mean but I’m just wondering how a port like this even fails this horribly. The Mega Drive version had already existed and was a much better port, even adding new content. If you told me this port was some elaborate scheme from Sega to make the Mega Drive look better, I’d believe you because I refuse to believe this is the best they could do. I really don’t know who to blame for why the port is so abysmal but you should avoid this version at all costs, even as a joke it’s not worth it. What a disappointment.

WonderSwan Color version

In some ways I’m surprised with this port. I thought to myself this could be a good one on our hands. This came out in 2002 and was developed by Bandai. The possibilities to make this a cool port of the game was in our hands and it’s not very good.

What’s weird is this is actually a port of the MD version, it has the same beginner mode and duel mode. There’s even the additional content, it’s really weird to see this as no other version to my knowledge uses this version as a base. The gameplay is weird. It’s not an awful feeling or anything but the AI being terrible kills it. Want my advice? Just move and jump slash and you’ll win most of the game. For some reason the AI is awful at dealing with this strategy. In fact, the AI just has awful pathing in general as it’s constantly getting stuck on walls just running into them forever.

Even the final boss is a total joke and I think they messed up his magic in this port. I swear when he does the magic, it just doesn’t hurt you. If it does, it must not do barely anything because my bars don’t go down. Did they forget to code it so it can hurt you even when you have i-frames? This version also has saving but why you would even need this is beyond me, the game is really short. At least it keeps the co-op and the music is actually pretty nice for the handheld. Why did both ports get the music right in their own different ways?

I’m torn on this version because I feel like in some ways it should be fun but the fact you’re constantly doing jump slashes just makes the game boring and it’s still not a good substitute for the MD version which wasn’t perfect either. I’m not even sure who this was for back in the day. Did people in Japan clamor for Golden Axe on the go? I guess it doesn’t hurt to try it as a curiosity but don’t expect much out of the adventure.

Ending

It’s unfortunate neither of these were good. I guess my dumb ideas have to punish me for not playing good ports. Maybe next time we should let Americans try the series out. Surely nothing could go wrong with that! Oh man there’s also that new game coming whenever, the ride truly never ends…

[AVGN voice] More like faxing in a doodie! [Cue skit]

Simon's Quest never stood a chance. Zelda II? Just another competitor for the best NES action-RPG of 1987. Xanadu who? That ain't affordable! Why buy a home computer when you can get the [approximate] thrills of computer role-playing action on your TV?! Faxanadu, baby. It's only the lovechild of two of Japan's most lauded developers, seizing the chance to entertain untold numbers of schoolboys with fantasy swashbuckling and dungeoneering like nothing else. Well, maybe that last part's an exaggeration. Maybe this was the best you could get on a cartridge, but any kid lucky enough to own a Famicom Disk System had similar titles well within reach, all iterating on the likes of Xanadu, Zelda, Metroid, and Castlevania.

Poisoned roots flow from the base of World Tree, our hero's old home now corrupted by a cosmic evil. Faxanadu toys with a kind of dark fantasy that had so far evaded the Famicom's library, bewitching its owners with sojourns into caverns, forests, castles, and places that should not be. The people once called Dwarfs now scour this Yggdrasil in mutated forms, and the wise men of the realm wait patiently by desecrated fountains and shrines, hoping for a hero patient and skilled enough to heed their call. While I'm happy to report the game comports itself admirably versus the other ARPGs in the room, its niggling flaws and inability to transcend its inspirations pose a problem for the game today. Nonetheless, it's a testament to how quickly its developers improved at making Famicom exclusives, and one of the breeziest but filling genre exercises that Hudson Soft made for the system.

| "Daggers and wingboots, mantras and monsters await you." |

Famicom Xanadu, as the portmanteau suggests, had a mission to fulfill: bring Nihon Falcom's seminal 1985 PC RPG to the console-bound masses, no matter what it costed Hudson. The two companies knew each other distantly via the Japanese PC games market already, and this collaboration marked the start of a several years' long partnership. Hudson later ported key Falcom titles like Ys I & II and Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes to the former's new console of choice, the PC Engine (CD). Falcom, meanwhile, reaped the crop, collecting hefty residuals from sales of their games on platforms they had no experience with, expertly handled by their partners from Hokkaido. From '87 onward, Falcom made inroads on the far larger console market without having to divert their staff away from the tighter, more competitive J-PC realm, at least until they made their own PC-to-console push in the early '90s.

What we now deem the side-scrolling ARPG had blossomed beyond its niche by '87, thanks to early hits like Namco's Dragon Buster and the diversification shown with cult classics like Layla and Mugen Senshi Valis. Developers tackling the genre sought to meld dungeon crawling, cinematic pacing, and skillful play into something you could play on the simplest of systems. In that sense, '87 was maybe the most important year in ARPG history: Falcom came out swinging with three of the genre's all-time classics (Ys, Sorcerian, and Drasle Family), followed by the likes of Konami (Maze of Gailous, Arumana no Kiseki), Capcom (Black Tiger), Westone (Wonder Boy in Monster Land), Game Arts (Zeliard), and even the NES remake of Rygar. I bring all these up to explain why I've rated Faxanadu roughly in the middle of the pack. There was a lot of competition in the ARPG space at this point in time, and Hudson arguably came in on the back foot.

You'd be right to doubt Hudson's record with console-oriented adventures after the janky results of Challenger, Milon's Secret Castle, Mickey Mousecapade, and arguably the first Adventure Island. The company had triumphed early on with solid renditions of Lode Runner and former J-PC games like Binary Land, but their competitors had leapfrogged them in the art of hours-long Famicom blockbusters. 1987 saw a lot of ups and downs for Hudson's various Famicom teams, with Faxanadu thankfully indicating an end to all but the occasional abject failure. Such a turning point helped double-fold for their upcoming PC Engine projects. Neutopia and Dungeon Explorer, derivative as they are, benefited greatly from the lessons in relatively consistent design that the developer learned this fateful year. I wish we knew who precisely worked on Faxanadu other than musical maestros Jun Chikuma and Toshiaki Takimoto, but good job to everyone else!

The adventure starts off in the main castle town, Eolis, beneath our once verdant World Tree. Despondent residents mill around streets and dim rooms, waiting for relief. The "dwarfs", now resembling creatures from the likes of Alien or Metroid, creep around the town walls, forcing new players to learn the jumping mechanics within the first few minutes. A desperate passer-by hands over their ring, the symbol of Elf kind and one's ticket to an audience with Eolis' king. He tells of a meteorite, crash landed high up within the World Tree, which has poisoned most of the waterways and especially the Dwarf fortress, leading to decay and depression all throughout. After receiving 1500 "golds" and the opportunity to train strength or magic (which just fills those bars, no stat increases here…), players must set off to reactivate the fountains, subdue the Dwarf incursions, and vanquish the evil brought here from outer space.

| "I am free from injury because of the ointment!" |

An immediate strength of Faxanadu is its pacing, with most of the game following a linear progression from below to atop the Tree, foisting small and large challenges upon you with plenty of leniency. The protagonist mainly grows via obtaining new equipment: swords, magic spells, armor, and shields, all buyable or present in corners of the world. Stat progression happens invisibly via changing equipment, while the visible EXP state simply correlates to each title a guru/priest bestows upon you at each temple. This all ties into a robust password save feature, allowing players to recover their progress (ex. equipment, key items, story flags, etc.) and rarely have to retread familiar ground. It took me roughly 7-to-8 hours to clear my first playthrough (not counting fiddling with emulator settings), and maybe an hour of that time involved any notable backtracking.

So, like with Ys and other item-focused ARPGs, there's never much worry about character building, just a well-incentivized goal of getting the best loot (which appears on your guy!) and reaching victory via guile and quick reactions. Controls are mostly well adjusted, both for '87 and compared to the larger Famicom library. Up +/down + A to either use magic or your active item takes some getting used to, but there's little in the way of obscure combat/movement mechanics to complicate things. What I will criticize, however, is the stiff, inconsistent jumping and collision physics. It's admirable of Hudson to test players' ability to time jumps and approach enemies with caution, yet I had way too many close calls where I should have just landed on platforms, only to fall and subsequently retry a section. Regarding enemy hitboxes, these are fine for the most part, but vexing when their attacks bump you back as far as they do. Since Faxanadu is a flip-screen adventure, not a fully scrolling one, this means baddies can and will force you off-screen, prompting extra loading times and enemy respawns which hurt an already precarious balance between affordances for players and the AI alike.

There's way to mitigate getting cornered or too low on health to continue, thankfully, as Faxanadu offers Red Potions, Hourglasses, and other power-ups that let you tank damage, stop time, so on and so forth. Most of the time one should stock up on these at shops in-town, but it's possible to find them out in the wild, either reappearing indefinitely or spawned after defeating a specific set of monsters on the right screen. Better yet, just use magic to avoid risking upfront damage entirely! The spells here evoke their counterparts from Falcom's Xanadu, but are generally simpler, being mostly front-ejecting projectiles and a late-game option which curves and flies upward. Judicious alternation between melee and magic makes the biggest difference in clearing dungeons and traversing the overworld. I would have appreciated more variety in types of weapons, spells, and restoratives on offer, but altogether there's plenty to work with here, especially compared to most Famicom contemporaries.

| "The power of the Hourglass is gone." |

It's by the halfway point—a daredevil trip into the skies, preceding a long and arduous trip through the World Tree's foggy, forlorn trunk full of abandoned sites—that Faxanadu shows its hand, warts and all. This game excels most when rewarding the player's tenacity with a sense of discovery, the feeling of a larger universe than can feasibly be shown. Lengthy hallways inside roots and branches give way to dusty castles possessed by the deranged, where warlocks, monstrosities, and confused soldiers patrol for Elves to slaughter. Each "tower" offers its own set of action, platforming, and item challenges, striving to fully exploit the game's possibility space. I always had a hoot strapping on some Wing Boots, levitating high above foes and hazards (bottomless death pits never appear, thankfully), only to slam right into a miniboss or something cool like that.

See, there's just one (or two, or three) problem(s) with what Faxanadu's, uh, doing here: it rarely if ever captures the tension and complexity of its source material. Xanadu on PC-88 had many flaws of its own, but one couldn't deny the sheer ambition, variety of traps and monsters, and involved leveling + customization Yoshio Kiya and co. managed to squeeze onto those floppies. Here, with limited storage (no Disk System upgrade here!) and a need to accommodate much younger players, Hudson's take on the concept finds itself at an awkward crossroads. The line between regular enemy, miniboss, and boss blurs without confidence. Chikuma's soundtrack, though somewhat catchy and appropriate, struggles to rise above the aural noise reserving sound channels she really needed for her arrangements. A mix of engaging but merely competent platforming and simplistic hack 'n' cast combat makes locations like the Tower of Suffer feel like, erm, suffering. Some truly ill-thought level design comes to mind, too, like mooks patrolling right in front of doors you need to exit and enter (meaning certain death in some scenarios), let alone the lack of unlockable shortcuts or fast travel by late-game.

To further illustrate my reservations, let's look at the keys system, maybe the most belabored aspect of Faxanadu. Many doors throughout the adventure require you to manually equip specific keys (jack, joker, king, queen, and ace) from the inventory, then use them to proceed. Since you can't drop any expendable items at any point, this can lead to accidentally stocking up the wrong type of key, and there's only 8 item slots to work with! So let's say I try selling them off in town, the logical thing to try. It turns out you can only sell specific types to key vendors who already stock them, meaning I'm stuck with early-game items by endgame unless I do way more backtracking than should be necessary. Going in, I honestly thought I'd get more frustrated with the Pendant bug than something like this, but here we are. In terms of which problems are intentional design or just coincidental, I'm unsure where the Pendant's infamous (and seemingly contradictory) damage debuff falls, but Hudson knew what they were doing with keys here. Inventory management, coupled with slow-ass text speeds, can quickly put a damper on one's fun if you aren't careful.

Though Faxanadu is still more intuitive and less guide-dependent than its spiritual predecessor, I find Falcom's game so much more consistent, dedicated to stumping the player while making their accomplishments feel that much more meaningful (and avoiding many aforementioned pitfalls like with keys!). Obtaining better gear and then demolishing them through hitbox cheese is fun, but I wish Hudson could have either added more features to enrich the experience, or taken a bit more time to sand off the edges which remind you this game's trying to evoke Japanese PC RPG jank. For example, where the hell's crouching in this ARPG full of monsters that attack from above and below? Why can't I attack at all on ladders except after getting hit, thus bugging out my hero's sprite and letting me act? With all these omissions and issues working against the player, it's hard not to feel like the latter half of the game becomes a slog. It all starts to feel rushed by the end, especially when fighting the final boss in all its Giger-esque glory. Perhaps the droning, repetitive nature of OG Xanadu is hard to stomach now, yet I find more conviction in that release's design direction than here. Close but no cigar, I feel.

| "Don't have negative thoughts. Remember your mantras." |

I don't hold any production difficulties or inexperience against Hudson staff, despite my hangups, and Faxanadu accomplishes more than it's often given credit. One's moxie in battle and exploration often leads to hidden rewards, or the satisfaction of clobbering bad guys before they ever get the chance to react. Minibosses show up frequently as the story progresses, with each posing a unique problem to solve (will I jump over fireballs or block them with my shield? or how about pinning these jumping eldritch things against the wall to not dodge all the time?). While it can be tedious to backtrack all the way to the beginning or grind for a big wallet early on, doing so grants access to a couple of the best items in the game, rewarding anyone who takes their time to learn the game ASAP and preserve one's life long enough.

Hudson seemed to have a knack for immediately following poor design choices with smart ones; one screen filled with hard-to-hit ranged attackers can just as quickly lead to another with health-dropping fodder! I find Faxanadu pleasantly accessible for an ARPG of its vintage despite the pendulum swinging from quite (sometimes) very good sequences to weak ones. Hit feedback's always satisfying, as is the crunchy but legible audiovisual design. Having just eight items means, in an ideal run, you can stock a bevy of potions and powerful items to seize the advantage, especially when fighting those damn flying bees or disabling bigger guys' means of claiming space. At its best, the game makes you feel empowered through both well-paced encounters and some of the more satisfyingly cheesy strategies one can pull off in an ARPG. Figuring out simply where to go and what to do is also a highlight, thanks to nicely written NPCs throughout the realm giving you hints and clearly delineating questlines.

However, Faxanadu's most convincing strengths lie in the atmospheres it evokes, defying the Famicom's limitations to create something rarely matched in 8-bit xRPGs. Simply put, it looks incredible for an '87 console game. Tile upon tile of ornate details, greebles, and textures found both in pixels and CRT blurs combine to illustrate an otherwise fairly generic world in greater depth. Florid passages transition into harsh fortresses, then heading into the Tree's ethereal insides, without ever feeling thrown together. This game does much better at capturing the interminable, oppressive sadness and claustrophobia of Falcom's Xanadu while providing real variety in environments. (I wish each town looked more unique after Eolis, but I doubt they had enough memory to achieve that.) By the game's finale, I felt that creeping dread on my back which the best gothic adventures provide, somehow captured within the confines of Hudson's simple premise and handiwork.

In a year of superlative action role-playing titans, Faxanadu takes a pratfall or two, desperate to keep up, and I can't help but admire it.