a real monument to mankind's willpower that this game that starts as a bait and switch remake of the original donkey kong has such a robust moveset, feels so correct and uncompromised, has 101 stages but feels like it could go on for way longer without stretching itself thin (i really disagree with the assessment it loses significant steam, world 9 is such a fun boss rush too). sincerely pretty mindblowing. the moveset alone makes this feel better than any other 2d mario if you ask me. sm64's older portable brother

very awkwardly paced - it auto reads and at a Very Very leisure pace. it's grating

the second half tries to do things that aren't be unoriginal slice of life bullshit but ends up being just an unnoteworthy series of downer scenes with no real impact to them, again not helped by the pace
because of this it's in a weird spot where the blatantly bad fiction first half has some appeal and the second doesn't really - as a whole it has more integrity and tries to do more than girlfriend of steel 2nd but it's harder to recommend because again it goes from bad but funny to just not good - while that one is bad but funny with some extremely cringeworthy moments sprinkled, exemplary bad fiction that doesn't even try to leave that realm

i like mana's hat
shoutout penpen

did we need to see her boobs on the mana ending, really
the special edition ending is one of the worst endings of all time though

I've got real admiration for the theatrical trappings, with panels falling off the back wall and gyrating stagehands gussying up the set as you stroll through, but I think coming back to this style of gameplay doesn't hit the same for me anymore. the treasure hyperfocus on impressive boss fights is here without the richer mechanics of gunstar heroes or alien soldier, leaving much stricter scenarios where the player has less leverage over the proceedings. it's heavily setpiece-driven and thus built upon cracking open whatever essential strategy solves each individual encounter rather than learning particular mechanics over the course of the game. a good example would be izayoi, who has a rapid arm extension attack that aims for your head, so if you throw your head above you right when she starts tracking, you can repeatedly have her whiff and then bop her in the face when she briefly exposes it afterwards. that's a cool little extension of the game's primary mechanic (you can throw your head in any direction), but once you lock it in the repetition of her behavior pattern and her cyclically available weak point make the fight rather static.

not sure what to think of the different abilities you can get with various heads throughout either. theoretically I could've enjoyed having them woven in through enemies or something else organic a la kirby, but having the abilities just sitting out in the open right where you need them feels a bit raw. it's especially apparent given how few there are that alter mobility or do anything other than make combat easier; perhaps a bit of tunnel vision on the developer's part, even though you can tell they attempted some actual level design here. you may get a sequence with some wall-climbing thanks to the spiky head ability, but these segments boil down just to "scale the wall with the powerup" without many complicating factors thrown in aside from a late-game segment where you use it to stall on the ceiling and avoid rocket trains zooming by. the way that abilities are applied in the boss fights also fall into a narrow paradigm, with more than a few bosses having abilities sitting around that effectively shut them off: time stop in multiple fights, both a bomb with crazy damage and invincibility in the aforementioned izayoi fight, and the hammer in both rever face and the final boss fight. really something where some sort of trade-off regarding grabbing the ability would've made more sense; the developers settled instead of interleaving junk abilities in the rotating ability selection that will inevitably cause you to eat a lot of damage until they wear off.

I've been wanting to play the Trouble Shooter series for years (or Battle Mania as the series is called in Japan.) due to it's overall premise. It's a bit of a parody of the shoot 'em up genre in some ways though it does try some mechanically interesting ideas with it.

You control two combat operatives called Madison and Crystal who have been hired to save a kidnapped prince. Both characters have jet packs and blasters as basic gear and in between each level can select between 4 special weapons for their packs. This power up is their super attack essentially, (like a bomb in other shoot 'em ups) that after use recharges to fire again like it's an 80's powerpack. There are a variety of choices from lightning waves, missile barrages and lasers. If you don't like one then you can change it on the next mission to find one you like most though I found some more useful than others but that did also vary by level.

The main weapons they carry don't change, Madison fires little blue balls whilst Crystal carries a blaster that rapid fires some kind of orange arc beams that seem really powerful. You can get a few basic power ups that strengthen their attack, (In Maddison's case expand her cone of fire) and some speed ups, health ups and slow downs as well as one option turret that flies along firing with you. Overall the upgrades are limited and will mostly come down to your choice of special weapon. So load outs and power ups are pretty limited but where Trouble Shooter is interesting is that Crystal is more like an invincible option that follows you rather than a playable character. Only Madison actually takes damage and with a push of a button you can have Crystal flip 180 to start firing backwards to cover the rear if needed or have them both face forward for a full frontal barrage.

It's a really neat little idea to have it as a flexible use mechanic and what got me so interested in the series in the first place but it's just so bizarrely underused as a mechanic. Some enemies come from behind occasionally and a couple of bosses move around making it useful but it just doesn't feel like the game is designed around it enough and the limited weapons and lack of equipable load outs for each character compound that further. The level designs occasionally use it like in the second level with buzz saws coming from both directions as you travel down an underground base shaft which I liked and one boss in particular utilised it more than the others. Speaking of levels the game has 6 short stages even for a shoot 'em up and there seems to be little variety between playthroughs and it's on the easy side.

Though I enjoyed playing this quite a bit I was hoping to like this game more than I did overall. On the presentation front it has some decent music Stage 5 theme especially stood out as action packed and upbeat when I played. I like the visuals with chunky colourful sprites, paralax scrolling, level settings and anime character portraits during scenes. The mechanics and story writing though leave it as a good overall experience but it could have been an amazing one. So a good game but with missing potential as a final verdict.

I hear the sequel takes the idea and amps it up to 11 so I look forward to trying that.

+ Nice visuals and music.
+ I like the cover art of two sci-fi aerobics instructors, haters be damned.
+ Two characters with left or right shooting options is neat...

-...but severely underutilised.

Thin crust, pepperoni, banana peppers, crushed red peppers, a little bit of grated parm of sean cheese, anchovies. You gotta have anchovies.

I wouldn't say I've been resistant to playing Pizza Tower, but I've definitely been dragging my heels. A classic case of Weatherby preferring to wait until something releases on console, or until a friend (thank you, Appreciations) buys it for me. Many cases of this happening. I am contractually mandated to play and finish The Evil Within 2 now because Larry Davis knew the only way I'd pick it up is if the overbearing weight of obligation forced me to. I guess you could say I get in my own way sometimes, but this sort of forceful nudging usually results in me having a good time, and Pizza Tower is no exception.

Barreling through enemies, charging through barriers, executing split-second rolls and leaps, careening into and up walls, and letting your momentum carry you to new areas all feels very Wario-esque, but I was surprised to see how much Pizza Tower took from other fast paced platformers like Sonic (I swear the sirens at the start of Not Legally Actionable Noid's boss fight are from Stardust Speedway), and even Super Metroid with how often you need to make tall vertical leaps à la Samus' shinespark. If you told me Pizza Tower was assembled and baked specifically for people suffering from terminal speedrunner brain, I'd believe you.

However, Pizza Tower is still very approachable for those who don't. I definitely had my share of botched inputs and there were a few sections that took me a number of attempts before I had the execution down, but once you fall into the right rhythm and embody Mr. Pepperoni or whatever the fuck his name is, it feels really good. It's also one of those games where executing on what it expects of you makes you feel like a speedrunner, even if it's actually taking you 30 whole minutes to beat the golf level.

My only real complaint is that you're never really at risk of losing a life until the chase sequence at the end of every level, and if you botch that you get to do the whole thing over again, which given the length of some levels is a bit of a problem. Though the game is checkpoint adverse, this is a somewhat minor complaint as I only managed to die probably four or five times during the course of the game.

I surprisingly don't have too much to say about the aesthetics other than that they're very good. Very 90s Nicktoons, lot of hyper-exaggerated faces and animations that lean so hard into the squash and stretch that you'd think everyone is made out of some kind of goop. That sort of elastic, malleable quality goes a long way towards selling the player on how chaotic, violent, and fast the game is. The soundtrack is terrific, too, and I especially like the full final boss suite and escape themes.

I think Pizza Tower is a pretty good game that I'm sure everyone reading this played months before I got to it, and you probably don't need me propping it up even more. I probably should've gotten to it much earlier in the year, but hey, better late than never. Excited for them to announce a physical edition for consoles in like, the next month.

Some camp, melodrama and self-indulgent projection - it sure is a 1992 visual novel for teenagers. Afaik it's not the first of its kind, I think I played a few on Master System (and that's before considering how text adventure and point & click fit into this conversation), but the restraint of its visual elements respects the 'novel' aspect very well, setting the least intrusive flavor possible so the reader imagine the rest from context clues. That alone makes this a titanic progenitor in the genre, whereas I feel many prior games are glorified cutscenes and limit the breadth of their story to what they can tangibly render in the game environment. Very interesting. Thank you C_F for sharing and streaming this with the gang.

Just your average tennis game, except the SFC version has the loser exclaim SHIT!

Hard to believe, but this is one of the better tennis games of its time. The NES tennis game is so shit, I remember honestly still preferring the Atari one over it lmao.

3/5