2008

be careful! if you say in chat that you beat this game, it will sound like a euphemism for "masturbation" !

I'm currently 20 years old. Having not been alive to see them, I've had somewhat of a fascination with the 1990s ever since I was very little. 90s games and animation in particular have always had a grip on my brain, being so off the wall, so different from what I would see on TV and the games my siblings were playing. Even now, I'm always playing 4th gen games of basically random quality while a lot of my friends are talking about whatever the big new game is that I'm totally clueless on. This month's was Pizza Tower, which piqued my interest because I had actually heard about it years ago. From everything I've seen over time, it looked like a game right up my alley, so I decided recently to give it a go.

At its core, Pizza Tower is an ode to all that 90s stuff that I love. It's a bit ugly in style, but in that deliberate Ren & Stimpy or Ed, Edd n' Eddy kinda way, and I warmed up to it almost immediately. There's also a ton of recognizable 4th gen influence here, but the most obvious gameplay comparison, the one proudly worn on Pizza Tower's sleeve, is Wario Land 4. If Wario Land 4 is this purely satisfying to play, then I might as well get around to it as soon as possible. This game is so fucking fun, dude. It's such a blast from start to finish. I love the movement so much, how expressive it is, how fun it is to goof around with. The music is killer as well, only elevating the aesthetic and overall experience further. It really feels like you're playing through an old cartoon series.

My only gripe I can think of is with the bosses. They're not that bad, but they're considerably less intuitive than the core gameplay. It's sometimes hard to tell when you can hit them, though this isn't an issue with the earlier ones. They also each have double the health displayed on screen, which is just really bizarre to me. As soon as you deplete it, it refills and a second phase begins with more shit flying around. I don't have a problem with a second phase, I just wish the full health was more clearly illustrated, you know? Anyway, it might just be that I'm not very good, but each of the bosses took me several tries. I find that it really disrupts the flow of the high-octane levels inbetween. Though I suppose if they attempted to keep that speed going, there's a chance it would end up with Sonic Advance 2-esque bosses. That would probably be much worse.

At the end of the day, yeah this is really fucking good. Believe the hype, etc etc. It's clear a lot of love was put into this, and I think the 5 or so years it spent in development turned out to be totally worth it. Whether you're some kind of 90s nostalgist (or someone who's just into that kinda stuff like I am) or you just like really fast, speedrun-friendly games, Pizza Tower should be quite a treat for you.

the manual includes a coupon for cheetos but im terribly sorry to say it expired in december 1993

be careful! if you say in chat that you beat this game, it will sound like a euphemism for "masturbation" !

Paper Mario fanatics are kind of the worst, huh? They're like the most annoying attributes of Nintendo nerds amplified by ten; they constantly whine about how dead their series is, get into absurd fights over which game is the best, they shove their games down your throat without giving you room to breathe. I suppose it has died down a little since that recent installment for the Switch, but I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about. It gets really tiring sometimes to hear the same things hailed as godsends, and instead of making me want to check them out it just drives me away out of annoyance. This can also be said for stuff like Outer Wilds and Hollow Knight, but I remember tracing this feeling in my head back to games like this.

All that being said, this game is damn near masterful in many aspects. The amount of heart and soul thrown in is just staggering. The story in particular is one of Nintendo's finest and most captivating. You probably couldn't count all the memorable characters here if you had four hands, and same goes for the songs featured throughout. It's also a really good RPG for beginners, seeing as the difficulty as a whole is very very low up until the final two chapters. There's a lot to love here. I do love this game, and ultimately I can indeed see how it reached its status.

A big thing about the ridiculous levels of hype, though, is that it makes the lower points sting that much more. This game is absolutely not free of those, I can tell you that much. Most notably, the backtracking can be pretty exhausting. In particular, Chapter 4's ridiculous amounts of wandering back and forth reduce it to a tedious nightmare, even despite the introduction of Vivian, whom everybody loves and everybody should love.

Less significant, but still worth noting is that the battle system started to wear on my nerves after a while, though I guess this is usually an RPG problem as a whole. I guess it's pretty hard to get that right, admittedly. But things like the Twilight Town/Creepy Steeple fiasco, or Chapter 7's asinine fetch quest...they really just make me wonder, what was the point? Was there not a better way to pad those chapters out? I don't know, man.

And the thing is, I probably wouldn't be as worked up about moments like this if its fans didn't tout it around as a flawless masterwork. It feels like the cracks are bigger than they really are, since everything good has been already said and then some. Sometimes when things reach this status it's just easier to talk about the negatives, even if it really is a wonderful time as a whole.

So for the most part it looks like the aforementioned loud, annoying fans were right. But really, in the end I still don't think a return to form for this series is necessary. It's part of what makes those early ones special, how one of a kind they are. Every series eventually declines with time, and it's not really a big deal how early or late it happens.

It's also just that like, projects like Bug Fables? That has "oh, this is for the REAL fans" energy all over it. That shit is annoying. Not touching it with a ten foot pole. Gootbye.

Anyway, uh, it's like 2 AM. This is a very scatterbrained and ranty review, if you can't tell already. I tried to bum rush through the last three chapters of the game today and I am totally out of energy. It's also deliberately my 500th game logged, though, so I wanted to write something longer despite being tired. Ultimately I'm glad I caved in and gave this a go. I think it was worth it.

Konami teaches you the horrors of Europe

2012

Imagine being in the womb for nine months and your parents name you Ib like wouldn't that be fucked up or what

I've always been more partial to this than the original Super Mario Bros. It has not only more but better music, doesn't need warps across major chunks of the game to keep it from being a slog, and a much more interesting setting than the Mushroom Kingdom that hasn't really been explored since. Tell us more about Sarasaland. What the hell is going on in Sarasaland

There's no way he's all three of those things

After sitting around for about 30 minutes trying to think of something to say, I've realized Gunstar Heroes does a good enough job speaking for itself. It absolutely blows my mind how fucking fun it is, how good it looks, how well it establishes its cast with minimal dialogue. In all regards, it's maybe one of the best to ever do it.

A lot of people will recommend Alien Soldier over this from what I've seen, but it just has something missing compared to this one, probably due to being rushed out the door. I also find this to be a lot more digestible, less overwhelming, overall better to pick up and play. That's not to say you should miss out on Alien Soldier, though.

what if when each level began it said "MARIO SHART!" and he ๐Ÿ˜‚โ€‹๐Ÿ‡ธโ€‹โ€‹๐Ÿ‡ญโ€‹โ€‹๐Ÿ‡ฎโ€‹โ€‹๐Ÿ‡นโ€‹โ€‹๐Ÿ‡นโ€‹โ€‹๐Ÿ‡ชโ€‹โ€‹๐Ÿ‡ฉโ€‹ โ€‹๐Ÿ‡ญโ€‹โ€‹๐Ÿ‡ฎโ€‹โ€‹๐Ÿ‡ฒโ€‹โ€‹๐Ÿ‡ธโ€‹โ€‹๐Ÿ‡ชโ€‹โ€‹๐Ÿ‡ฑโ€‹โ€‹๐Ÿ‡ซโ€‹!!!๐Ÿ˜‚

If a little kid can beat Dracula's ass with haste I think he should just give up and like go find a career in I.T. or something

Did you know? he is jumping off a cliff because he is late for "Pizza" ๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚ SUBSCRIBE for more

Imagine getting all emblems in SADX and your reward is fucking Sonic Blast. What's with the tubes in these game gear games dude. What is the goddamn deal