Note that this isn't a proper review - more a recollection of what I remember about this game. I thought it was fine, I did Kotori's route, and it was kind of charming. Unfortunately, I then went for Ageha's route... and I HATED it. I hated it so much, it legitimately made me rage quit. The only other visual novel that made me rage quit is The Ditzy Demons Are in Love With Me. Except that VN is actually terrible, while this one was alright, but this one route absolutely soured my experience, and I didn't want to continue. Almost everyone becomes unlikeable, including Ageha herself, who was not obnoxious and actually a decent human during Kotori's route. I think I recall her sneaking into MC's room during night to snap photos, along with her sister... yeah, that's not questionable at all. Good character!

Besides that, I did notice another issue that persisted through the entire game - poor translation. Or rather, this game is FILLED with typos. Did no one care for quality control?

I do actually want to eventually come back to this one and see if it's any good... or if the rest of it is just as bad.

Space Chimps for Nintendo DS is a 2.5D platformer, developed by Wayforward Technologies. I wrote down a few of their licensed games after playing a surprisingly good Despicable Me: The Game: Minion Mayhem. Hotel Transilvania was a slightly worse, but still decent offering. Unfortunately, it was only going downhill, as Space Chimps demonstrates that the company is still capable of developing some typical licensed garbage.

The gameplay is a pretty standard 2D platforming, mostly. You can jump, you can barrel-roll in air which acts as an attack against all lifeforms, making the character spin as if it were a Sonic The Hedgehog game. You automatically enter this spinning state if you jump on top of an enemy, but it's always safer to enable it preemptively. You can wall-jump, but it only works on some surfaces, for some reason. Like, the game is not always consistent about which surfaces you can jump off of. You can also slide, which is only really useful in cave levels where you're told this move to slip into tight areas. It takes a second to initiate, so as a combat tool it's worthless. And it's not required in any other level, so its inclusion is questionable. There's also a dodge maneuver by pressing X. Haven't used it much either, but at least it sounds more useful than the slide. Unfortunately, the level design is pretty bland. The game is very similar to Garfield's Nightmare, in that it can have some good ideas and interesting gimmicks, but the level design leaves a lot to be desired. I'm not asking for Donkey Kong Country levels of execution, but at least something interesting. Actually, missed opportunity to turn this into a DKC-like, seeing as it stars primates. The only notable level is towards the end, after escaping the prison thing to the outside areas, which seem to have some festivies on-going. One of the sections has spikes everywhere, as if it were a Rayman game, where you have to carefully navigate on rolling things. And in the last portion, one of the gimmicks from an earlier level returns, the mantis creatures that swoop in certain areas, kinda similar to Donkey Kong Country 3 's Fire Ball Frenzy. Actually decent level design? Even the boss battle is decent, up to this point they weren't much of a challenge. This one has pattern recognition and stuff Unfortunately, you have to trudge through a lot of it's dull gameplay to get there.

There's actually another type of gameplay in this game - flying. And I dislike these. You just avoid upcoming hazards and try not to hit surfaces too much, but the collision can be occasionally janky, and the controls don't feel consistent, as they can feel... slippery. Like if you hold the d-pad for long and let go, you carry momentum. It could very well be the fact that the action takes place on both of the game's screens, and the game keeps you from being in-between of the screens. In any case, these don't feel good.

The game does offer some extras. You can collect coins, with each level having exactly 100, you can also collect 5 butterflies in each level, and depending on your performace, you can get up to 3 golden bananas. There's an in-game shop that allow you to buy extra outfits, like the "Dole®" shirt, or even abilities like a double jump (as you can imagine, it's very useful). At least there's some replay value to revisit all the levels to get some stuff. I don't know why you would want to replay its levels, but the option is there.

The graphics are pretty decent. Once again, similar to Garfield's Nightmare, it's a 3D game, with platforming levels taking place in a 2D plane, although I think that game's graphics are smoother. I did notice stutter when the enemies load. Speaking of enemy loading, some of them can appear right before my face, which feels unpolished. Speaking of unpolished, I did notice one area with cutoff, thanks to the camera panning while holding L button. The cutscenes are pre-rendered and feel a bit cheap. I get it, they definitely aren't going to be the same quality as the movie, and it's a common practice, but... these feel inconsistent, you can clearly feel the framerate dipping in said cinematics. The music is also pretty mediocre. Unfortunately, Jake Kaufman didn't lend his talent, and it kind of shows. Not that it's "bad", but its just so generic. There's probably one track that I can call decent. Another disappointment. Yet again, Garfield's Nightmare beats this game in that department. Can you already tell this is basically a worse Garfield's Nightmare? That game wasn't very good to begin with. One of the few things this game does better over that game is offer more replay value.

Overall, not a very good game, with mostly basic level design, occasionally janky mechanics and those frustrating flying levels, these monkeys are not worth your money (or time. or even space).

The Powerpuff Girls: Him and Seek for Game Boy Advance is a brawler type of game, with the plot revolving titular Powerpuff Girls going on a scavenger hunt for various items, as well as beating evil along the way.

The first three stages that can be played in any order act as a sort-of tutorial, and let you get aquainted with different girls' characteristics. Bubbles is quick and nimble when she needs to be, Buttercup is slow but hits harder, and Blossom is somewhere in the middle. All three characters can pefrorm close range punching attacks, as well as shoot lasers from further distance, but the laser spends energy that refills slowly. Each can also perform a unique action by holding R+A or R+B, and perform a super duper special move when all three are present. In these first three stages you can only play as a respective character and the game teaches you necessary mechanics. In Bubbles' level set in a zoo, you're told you can pick items and throw them, which is needed to complete that level, by finding all missing animals and throwing them back in the pens. After this, the items you find in other levels can be thrown at enemies, though they don't actually seem to do a lot of damage, and I found it more efficient to get close and personal. The combat isn't required for the Bubbles' stage (except for the boss battle), but for Blossom and Buttercup it's required. The combat is pretty simple and easy, but it's not mindless. Different enemies have different ranges of attacks and different weak spots, analizing your opponent is key to victory, and it's nice to have some variety. The bosses are much the same, find a way to abuse their weakness and the fight can end rather quickly. After you're done with the first stages, the girls assemble together and the story is pretty linear, you beat up a bunch of bad guys to get items from them.

When all three are together, you can switch between them and each have their own health and such, if one of the girls falls, the only way to restore them is to find Chemical X, which isn't common, although all three dying isn't very punishing, you're back to the start of the section you're on with all three alive, and you can save at any moment. It's not all flying around and fighting, there are a few moments where the gameplay changes. For Boogie Man, you're tasked with a simple rhythm game, tap an appropriate button when its at or near the circle. Once you're done visiting jail for Mojo Jojo, he hijacks the game and turns it into a Frogger clone to get to the base. I didn't really care for this mini-game to be honest. Lastly, for Him's lair, you have an autoscroller that is a sort of maze, you need to find the correct way out or you'll get teleported to the beginning of the section, and I didn't really like it as it felt a bit trial and error. There's also an optional pinball mini-game if you're looking for 100% completion. Speaking of 100% completion, after you beat all the bad guys, you're free to explore Townsville for more collectibles for the scavenger hunt, you're required to do some fetch questing, find one thing somewhere and exchange it for another, or just find the required item lying around. Thankfully it's not mandatory to get the credits rolling, I was three items short and got second place. Hey, second place is pretty good too, y'know.

The graphics are pretty decent, definitely feel like the show and the music is very good, and being one of the earlier games in GBA's life span, it doesn't sound very crunchy (compared to a different licensed game from the same year, Hey Arnold! The Movie). +1 point to Shin'en Multimedia.

Overall, an alright brawler with variety, the combat is actually kinda decent, though easy, but the gimmicks used for said variety don't always land, making it more of a mixed bag, though that doesn't make it a bad game.

Hey Arnold! The Movie for Game Boy Advance is a fine enough licensed platformer, the platforming mechanics are decent, and there's a nice bonus system where if you die you lose all power-ups which means the player should play more carefully, as these power-ups can be incredibly useful. You play as a few different characters, though aside from visual appearance they all play the same. The game isn't very long but there's a decent variety in gimmicks and objectives. The game doesn't offer saves, instead a password system, but the game features infinite continues, which is nice. The graphics are decent, as well as the music, though it's clearly an early GBA game, coming back in time from late licensed games (2005-2007), the music sounds a little crunchy, but it doesn't sound bad, there are a few tracks that I quite like. There's not much to say, really, another perfectly fine licensed game to keep children entertained.

I'm kind of surprised I enjoyed Deus Ex as much as I did. I wasn't too keen on stealth mechanics in the tutorial, but they're well integrated to the rest of the game. One big positive about this game is that many situations can be approached in different ways. You can try to play this like any regular First Person Shooter, but JC is a fairly squishy character. Play smart, not hard. All of this is complimented by intriguing plot, the many side objectives and role play opportunities, and an awesome soundtrack that includes some ambiant and techno music. Of course, it's not perfect. The close and personal melee combat never felt like it registered hits correctly, it seems like you can only hit an enemy when you're looking at them and only at specific frame of animations, and due to the hectic nature, that results in a lot of missed swings. It has some compatibility issues with modern PCs, so I had to patch it up. I noticed incorrect texture culling in certain areas, when they disappear to save on memory, a pretty common technique in games usually to unload areas or objects behind the player, but these textures disappeared from plain sight. Lastly, this Game of the Year Edition has a big problem. It uses older versions of the maps, that are buggier or missing some details. Of course, since this is the only version I've played, I don't know the differences, but I have no idea how that even happened. Still though, Deus Ex holds up remarkably well with its engaging gameplay, story, and replay value. It's definitely worthy of all the high praise it received.

Over the Hedge for the Nintendo DS is one of not so many licensed games with interesting development history. Instead of being developed as yet another licensed cash grab, the development studio, Vicarious Visions, was told to "knock this one out of the park", creating unique story set after the movie's plot (similar to Home Console/PC version), and other achievements such as FMV cutscenes and a 3D display on both screens. It was so impressive, that it won an award from IGN, "Best Game No One Played" category for DS games. But does this game stand out in other ways, particularly, the gameplay, which not many licensed games excell at?

Well, I'm happy to report that the game is not too bad. Kinda good actually. It's a mix of stealth, action and puzzle. Your goal for most stages is bring a certain item to the finish spot while avoiding various traps and getting caught by pets or people. The top screen displays a third person view (that can be changed to first person but you can't play like that, only if you want to see something closer) and top-down view on the botton screen that also shows vision cones for enemies and hazards, and is just helpful in general for seeing where the objects or enemies are from bird eye view. You control 3 different characters in different combinations, RJ, Verne and Hammy. All of them have different strength, jump height and have a unique ability, such as Verne's ability to hide in his shell, so nothing can harm him, and he can be tossed by RJ. The controls are tank controls - you can move forward and backwards but can't strafe, but the game works well enough with these controls so they aren't an issue. There are various traps such as lasers and gas hazards that can damage your characters and knock them out of commision. It usually means restarting a level, but if you have two characters in the same level, one can save another by touching them or using a microphone for a ranged unstun. Sometimes there are switches that can turn them off, usually permanently, but some are on a timer, so you gotta move fast. There are items that can make your mission easier such as a calling card, catnip, stinky cheese and so on, though I almost never used them because the game wasn't super difficult, with one exception, but its still nice to have them. You can find some in levels themselves as well as buy them with food items you can aquire. Again, the game isnt very difficult, but it makes for a nice accessibility for younger players, I suppose.

While most missions you'll be getting an item to the goal, there's still a decent variety. Sometimes you'll have an easy time getting to the item, but the traps will activate when trying to bring said item back, some puzzles using cooperation. I think what carries these missions is the level design. While the objective and general layout are the same, the trap placement, pets or humans and other stuff make the levels feel fresh and engaging. There are standout levels, such as one level where RJ automatically throws stuff out of window for Verne to pick up, but he has to avoid detection, then another level you have a similar concept, but you control RJ stuck in the house to throw an item necessary for completion. There are a couple levels on a timer where you have to collect batteries or light bulbs, by just touching them, so no time wasted on picking them individually and bringing them to the goal spot. Overall, I found the game pretty engaging and decently enjoyable.

Graphically, yeah. As I mentioned before, the game uses 3D for both screens, and it looks rather impressive, considering that normally DS can only have one screen displaying 3D, some coding trickery is required to achieve such effect. I can recommend Modern Vintage Gamer's video on DS Graphics if you're interested in this subject. The game looks pretty good and the framerate is steady. The music is decent, only issue is that it sounds relatively low quality for DS. Also, some tracks don't loop properly.

Of course, Over the Hedge is not without issues. There's some jank involving jumping, and occasionally I couldn't jump over traps and get stunned by them. There are a few instances where pets or humans chasing me clipping through objects trying to catch up. One dog legit phased through a wall. And in one level I got hit by a human through a wall which was annoying. There are a few instances of weird hit box collision. One time I simply turned in place and got hit by smoke, and one time I threw an item and a trap on the other side of the wall somehow activated and hit me. I also phased through walls a couple times. The very last mission where you lure Gladys through cameras was one of the most frustrating things I've experienced in a while. That human that hit me through a wall was Gladys, which annoyed me. Taxidermist Henry consistently blocked the way out, which is one instance where I had to use an item to get by. It was such a difficulty spike. Another small issue is that I probably would've liked more missions, this game is pretty short.

With that said, I like this game well enough. The gameplay is solid with some variety and good level design, unique story and characters and impressive graphics. Perhaps it's not "Best Game No One Played", but it's still a good game in its own right.

So I discovered the first Medal of Honor is a PS1-exclusive first person shooter, so I got curious and decided to check it out. And, I think it holds up remarkably well. In my Alien Resurrection review, I made a following statement:

the game was the first, or at least one of the earliest games to utilize dual stick control scheme which has become a standard in modern gaming

I might have exaggerated when I said “the game was the first”. Medal of Honor does feature a preset that allows for one stick to move, and the other to move the camera if you have a Dualshock controller. There are probably earlier examples of these controls that I’m not aware of (also, I’m talking about double analog controls in the context of a first person shooter, I know Ape Escape exists). Anyway, I thought these controls worked pretty well. Of course, just aiming with the camera isn’t precise or advisable, since there’s no reticle. That’s where aiming mode comes in, press and hold the left stick to aim. The game is inspired quite a bit by Rare’s Goldeneye 007, and it shows. I thought standing still and aiming while taking shots would be detrimental, but it worked fine in the end, and you can lean slightly left or right if you tilt the pressed stick, although it’s more for aiming accuracy rather than dodging. There are “stealth” missions where you act as a spy, you’re required to “shoot” your documents to make people let you pass and to avoid suspicion, although some people of higher ranking can bust you. Failing doesn’t result in an instant failure and isn’t severe enough, which I’m thankful for, although it’s still better to be sneaky. I’m also thankful that there are only a three of these levels in the entire game.

There’s a decent variety of weapons, although your arsenal changes from mission to mission. In one level you get a sniper rifle, in the other, a rocket launcher. There are a few minor things I like about combat. For one, the enemies will actually try to use your grenades against you or just kick them out of the way. It’s satisfying to throw a grenade, then stun them with a regular shot so that the grenade explodes in their hand. Although, the AI isn’t always smart about them, as they can kick a grenade towards a wall, bouncing back at them. Another small touch I like, is that the helmets are actually protective. I thought it was a neat thing in Darkest of Days, but I discovered this game did it MUCH earlier. It’s a mechanic I don’t see very often in First Person Shooters (not that I’ve played that many). The difficulty is mostly smooth, there aren’t any checkpoints, but there are rarely moments of frustration when you lose, actually, some levels are pretty short. That being said, it does get pretty tough towards the end, which automatic rifle men tearing you apart in seconds, and rocket launcher enemies, colliding with a rocket is pretty much an instant death, which does feel a bit much.

The graphics are actually pretty nice, the characters are well animated, and there are plenty for being hit in different areas. The framerate is mostly steady, with rare instances where there are many enemies that slow down the game. The only issue I have with the presentation is the draw distance, it’s not very far. Usually, it’s not actually an issue, but it can be difficult to spot enemies, like in that mine level towards the end where you have an open area and a rocket guy on the bridge, whom you can’t see and pick from the distance. And they can just bamboozle you from bad eyesight. When zooming in using a sniper rifle, you can see the geometry popping in and it still doesn’t give you much of visibility. The music and sound effects are cinematic, which I guess is to be expected from a Steven Spielberg production. And I’m not complaining, it sounds unique.

Overall, I had a surprisingly good and fun time with Medal of Honor for the Playstation. I can call this game a classic, the dual stick controls work well, the presentation is nice, and the gameplay is enjoyable. If you’re a fan of first person shooters, and especially if you’re a fan of retro games, this first entry into popular series may surprise you.

This game definitely feels like it hasn't aged all that well. I found myself to be consistently frustrated with the game's design, with trial and error and occasionally straight up cheap death moments. I cannot imagine playing this game without save scumming, and while I'm thankful that you can save at any time, that shouldn't excuse poor design. The game also doesn't control that well. The player character's movement feels slippery, and midair control isn't good. The ladders are jank. It's influential and an important piece of gaming history, but I didn't like playing it all that much. It's alright, but it's no masterpiece.

If you noticed my rating of this game, Rango for Nintendo DS surprised me. It’s simply a solid top-down action game.

You control Rango as he makes his way to find meteor shards and rescue Beans' missing father, and fighting Bad Bill and his goons. Rango can switch between his different roles, by holding R and pressing one of the 4 directions on the D-Pad. At the beginning, Sherriff and “out of character” personas available. As Sheriff, you posess a peashooter, which is used to shoot at enemies and even flash enemies with a badge to stun them, which is unlocked pretty late in the game, and in casual stance, you can get more close and personal, as well as run fast, which is useful for traversing long distances, and also useful for timed switches. You can also block melee attacks with any persona that isn’t Sheriff if you hold the R button and lock onto an enemy. The game automatically locks you onto them so you can strafe, of course, just holding R also makes you strafe, and potentially lock onto enemies if you haven’t attacked them beforehand to do that, and press the R again to undo the lock-on. In a way, this game feels like a massaged Monster House GBA. Later on, you unlock more personas, and other items that can be used in combat. Excavator persona with a pickaxe can be used to uncover treasure, there are also some spots that are marked with a red X that only appears when you’re in that persona, and hitting that area yields lots of rewards, and counts towards a 100% completion. The pickaxe itself is slow to swing, but has a surprisingly high damage output. Lastly, there’s a Duelist persona, you can do a roll to quickly get away from enemy attacks, though it doesn’t give you invulnerability. You can also quickly dash towards the enemy if you lock onto them to give in some quick hits... seriously, you can upgrade that persona to hit pretty fast, aside from overall damage output, but I’ll talk about upgrades later. Also, Duelist persona can jump over some small gaps, usually leading to secrets. As for the items, there are homing golden bullets that can be shot as Sherriff and it can be aimed manually. It can be used to hit far-away levers and can also be used to scout areas ahead and potentially clear out enemies. Firecrackers can be thrown as Excavator, and, well… it’s good against enemies, and can be used to blow up walls for secrets, though be careful not to get hit by your own firecracker, your health can drop significantly. There’s a level of strategy when using different personas, and I found myself making use of all of them in different situations, even normal Rango who, even fully upgraded, is outmatched by pickaxe or a sword, but is still useful for running ability, and making a quick run from one area to another. Of course, to make traversing less of a hassle, there are 4 roadrunner points, which act as fast travel.

There’s not that much enemy variety, but there is some. Naturally, there are enemies that shoot their own projectiles, and those that get close and personal. There are enemies that hurl firecrackers at you, or those that charge. There are rodents that jump on top of you, trying to squish you, that only appear in the first few areas. Thare are also giant charging rodents can even stun you, disabling the ability to change current persona and defaulting you to normal Rango. There are also annoying flies that swoop into you and seem to damage you even when they die, for some reason. There are also lizard eating plants, though they can also eat other enemies. Coming near them is ill advised, unless you can roll past its attacks, and its invulnerable to normal peashooter shots. Using firecrackers or gold bullets can be beneficial. There are also big pickaxe enemies, that are also invulnerable to normal shots, so, getting close and personal is it. Admittedly, that’s not a whole lot, so the combat can feel a little bit repetitive at times. The bosses, on the other hand, are actually a highlight, featuring interesting patterns to learn, and are just engaging. For example, the rattlesnake jack, the second boss of the game, sees you chipping its health away, while it slithers about and occasionally shoots at you. It would be a pretty easy fight with all the firecrackers lying about (btw, I’m going to call them dynamite from now on, because c’mon), but when its health is seemingly depleted, phase 2 begins, where using dynamite is required, and it moves about faster. When it sits on one of the four wooden panels, you need to throw dynamite at it to crack that panel. Crack the same panel twice, and the boss is toast.

Throughout the game, you’ll find the game’s few collectibles, like metal bits (gold) used to buy stuff, and upgrade tokens to upgrade Rango’s roles, stuff like damage, item capacity or other things. There are also power-ups, depending on the color, enhances one of Rango’s roles (except for out of character one for some reason), stuff like increasing peashooter’s fire rate or making pickaxe swing around and excavate in a 3x3 grid, or making duelist’s roll damage enemies, though these effects are temporary. There are chests to be found pretty much everywhere which usually contain aforementioned upgrade tokens, and, in specific chests, fruit that gives extra health. It’s much easier to buy all the fruit from the salon to upgrade Rango’s health up to 17 hearts, though if you die, you always start with 3, as if this were Metroid for NES. There are also a few side quests, which usually involve killing specific enemies and only one that sees you picking up crates in the desert, lost merchandise. While not much, they do provide a little bit of a distraction. Did you know that there are achievements in this game? Something that's not very common for the platform. They’re called feats, and involve stuff like upgrading your roles fully, or killing enemies with golden bullets or dynamite, stuff like that. I was invested in this game, that I went for 100% completion… I would’ve liked to say I succeeded, but I missed a single chest and about 6 red marks for excavation. I really wish the game had a way to track how many of these things are left to be found in a particular area. The map at the top only provides the layout of the area and maybe a marker to tell you where to go if you’re still going through the story. As much as I like this game, I'm not going to wander around figuring out where I missed stuff.

The graphics are quite solid, and the music is pretty good. The plot doesn’t actually follow the movie, and it genuinely feels like a fever dream. I mean, there are aliens at the end and everything. It opens up with Rango incinerating some guy with a metor shard. There was a vision from Mr. Timms in the dessert, Beans says something about “defensive mechanism kicking in again”. I was sure that the game would be written off as a stroke, but uhh, that doesn’t happen. There’s also a mention of zombies, which is called out as something that didn’t happen, but it does seem to be exclusive to the Home Console versions of the game.

Of course, Rango is not without faults, aside from others that I've mentioned previously. For one, I found it way too easy to accidently jump down ledges and having to climb up the place I were in before, Monster House GBA had you push against where you wanted to jump down for a little longer, but I also don’t remember many instances where I could’ve accidentally jumped and reset my progress. There are also box-pushing “puzzles”. As excavator, you can push and pull objects onto switches, and there’s only one that I found to be interesting, the rest felt like a time waste. Another issue with these, is that you can accidentally undo your progress – if you die, and press the switch, the opened gate will close back, which means you’ll have to push those boxes back where they belong, since they reset to their original positions. Lastly, there are a few enemies that are burrowed in the ground that only appear when you get close, which can feel a little cheap.

Overall, Rango for Nintendo DS ended up being a pretty enjoyable experience. It’s one of those elusive “good” licensed games for the handheld that I may even pronounce a “hidden gem”. It’s not flawless of course and far from great, the combat can be a little repetitive at times, and it probably could’ve used more enemy variety and a little more polish, but I do like its overall design, and it’s a surprisingly fun time. I can actually recommend giving this one a go.

The most fun I've had with a video game in a while. Incredible high-pace action, shooting and moving around feels satisfying and performing those sweet sweet glory kills. The game was so fun, I actually thought it was short and wanted more, even though it ran for like, 8+ hours. But, there are loads of extras. You can play classic maps, that are modeled like classic Doom (1993) levels, with modern gameplay. You can revisit old levels to do challenges or find secrets you missed. You can new game+ and upgrade Doom Slayer to the max and so on.

Also, this game made me realise that maybe I'm underestimating my new laptop. I thought this game was a benchmark for good PCs, I mean, I already know that I can run A Hat in Time or Slime Rancher on highest settings with great performance, but I thought Doom (2016) would be quite intensive. But it ran smoothly. Or maybe the game is not as intensive as I thought, I dunno. In any case, the graphics are great. And the music... well, y'know the deal. It's intense during combat and makes you feel like a badass.

The game is not perfect of course, there were a few times, where an enemy would just stand still and not do much. There were also a couple of instances where I had to search for the last enemy to end the combat encounter, in big arenas, on top of occasionally faulty AI. There was also one time, where I performed a glory kill and clipped out of bounds, and died. Thankfully, it seems it's very rare to encounter casually, and it does make for a neat speedrun trick. But otherwise, I didn't notice many technical faults.

Overall, the game is pure fun, a high recommendation for First Person Shooter fans.

Rune Factory 3 is a game that practically started it all, acting as a base for the future Rune Factory installments. The overall pacing and speed has been significantly increased. You’re constantly improving in-game skills, even by simply walking and sleeping. The combat has been overhauled to be far more action packed than before, making it more satisfying. The NPCs are now dynamic, making the town feel more alive. Speaking of NPCs, the game features a wacky cast of characters with unique personalities and dynamics, though perhaps too over the top, and future games will tone down the quirkiness, but they’re still fun in their own right. Overall, Rune Factory 3 feels like a different game compared to Rune Factory 2, bringing a lot of innovation. And that’s a good thing! Rune Factory 2 was fun in it’s own right, but Rune Factory 3 cranked fun factor even further, and that meant the series could keep on growing and refining the mechanics, which is what Rune Factory 4, and to an extent 5 and Tides of Destiny do. That being said, even if future entries would massage and improve upon this third installment, it still remains a solid entry not completely obsoleted by the successors, that’s how solid the underlying mechanics are. So you’ll likely enjoy Rune Factory 3 if you played 4 or 5 or even Tides of Destiny.

The game still has the same core mechanics of farming, combat, interacting with NPCs and doing quests, but it’s the way the game iterates and improves upon them that makes this game stand out. Farming is now quick and painless so you can get into action faster, and you don’t lose your seeds when you try to plant something and miss the field. Items won’t disappear into nothingness when you try to put them down, they’ll actually lie on the ground, and you can throw items, be it at NPCs, enemies or throwing away unneeded items. Item stacks now show how many items are in the same stack while you’re holding them, instead of always showing 1 item in previous games, and you can run around with these towers in your hands which is kinda silly. As I mentioned the combat is faster paced and more satisfying than in predecessors, with a variety of skills and spells to utilize. The game also introduces a new wooly transformation that you’ll obtain after beating the first boss, which unlocks brawling skill, which adds another playstyle. It’s a hand-to-hand. One unique aspect is that you can pick up enemies and throw them at other enemies, and do a slam against the ground if you pick them when they’re in the air. It’s a fun addition to the series, which is kept in future entries in a form of fist weapons. Speaking of skills, the game has increased the number of skills significantly, including some for the most mundane of activities, such as simply moving around, sleeping, eating, and eating damage. You can now invite other people to aid you in combat if you so choose (and invite girls on dates that way) although I admit I haven’t really used this in either this game or RF4, only in 5. Maybe it’s because RF5 introduces a new OP link attack move that can wreck bosses, and your partners actually feel more competent in that game or because raising friendship in that game is pretty slow, or simply because I enjoy fighting enemies solo without the need to worry about companions in 3 or 4. It’s still a neat addition that can make adventures more exiting. There’s no game over state in this game, at least not that I’m aware of. Any time you get knocked out, you’ll respawn at the apothecary with a money cost. The trusty L Pocket is now much more convenient. Simply press L, and that’s it. No need to hold A or B or X or Y to bring it. Crafting system is handled slightly differently. Instead of going to school and playing a little mini-game, you have to eat magical recipe bread to learn, well, recipes based on your corresponding crafting level, which makes learning more straightforward. Moreover, you don’t have to actually learn a recipe, if you meta game, you can craft something without the main character having learned about it. The crafting itself is still chance based however, the lower your skill the lower percentage is, with each missing level deducting 10%. With the exception of cooking that gives you failed dishes, there’s no real punishment for failing to craft something, aside from losing RP, which isn’t very difficult to recover later in the game. You still gain a little bit of experience per failure, so I found myself bruteforcing low chance recipes, and they have the same RP cost of a certain percentage from your max RP. You can also enhance your weapons and stuff with materials that give stat boosts or some other effect, such as being able to seal or poison your foes. Overall, the amount of little and major improvements to the gameplay is kinda impressive, and those improvements make this game a major leap forward for the Rune Factory series.

The writing of Rune Factory 3 deserves a special mention. I think Rune Factory 3 is the funniest entry in the series, and my god I forgot how funny it is. While Rune Factory 4 and 5 have their share of funny moments, events and humorous text, Rune Factory 3’s comedy is absolute gold thanks to the characters’ quirky personalities and them bouncing off each other well, there were a number times were I laughed out loud (LOLed). There are absurd jokes, a few fourth wall breaks, even the main character gets confused about what townsfolk say. There’s even an innuendo joke that caught me off-guard. There are also a few lines about Micah’s girly side, which managed to spawn a “Lesbian Weresheep Edition” ROM hack that turns Micah into a proper female character. I’m not making this up, it’s a real thing that exists, and you now too know that it exists. There are a few humorous lines in Rune Factory 2, but RF3 simply has a higher density of jokes and gags. I think this is the right direction to take the series in, making the adventure more silly and less generic. That being said, I do think toning down the quirky aspect for Rune Factory Tides of Destiny onwards is perhaps for the best. The characters still have quirky personality, but aren’t over the top, making them feel more like actual relatable people. I think it’s good for Rune Factory 3 to stay the way it is to make it perhaps the most unique entry in the series. That’s not to say there aren’t serious moments or even emotional moments, but in my opinion the emotional moments aren’t quite strong in this game, and I think Rune Factory 4 (and especially 5) would improve in that regard, not only thanks to the more heart-hitting writing, but also music that evokes more emotion. I think it isn’t just about of writing being less serious, I think the dramatic element hasn’t quite developed yet, and I don’t remember RF2 being particularly dramatic either. Except I guess the ending after you defeat the final boss is emotional, but I’d argue it still doesn’t hit that hard and it’s the only moment that I would call emotionally impactful. One thing I like is how you can affect the characters in the game by doing the requests. For example, Monica stops biting and turns into a nice little girl, Rusk becomes a little more tolerable to vegetables, Karina becomes more enthusiastic about running the shop, and using appropriate voice clips when browsing the inventory. It really feels like your character has influence over others with your actions, I think this is something that is sorely missing from the future games, that extra bit of character development. The main story is kinda decent, but does have its flaws, mainly, you’re required to romance and eventually marry a girl to progress, which is a holdover from Rune Factory 2. Your fiancée is locked behind the final dungeon, which itself is locked by proposal. At least it’s not half or even 2/3 of the content locked behind marriage, but this still isn’t amazing. Although it is rather easy to raise friendship levels if you’re like me and actually interact with NPCs, like talking to them every day and doing their requests, which makes sense, because of said requirement for beating the game. If not, there’s always a love potion speedrun strat you can learn. And for putting much emphasis on romance and marriage, there’s not much to the marriage. The girl you married moves in your house, and provides you with a daily snack and gives a birth to a child. And that’s it. Really. The kid in this game isn’t even a proper character. He or She always stays in the house, you can’t invite them out on an adventure, they have limited dialogue and they don’t even go to bed at night. Poor soul. Future games would make the kid feel more like a character, rather than an asset, so it’s more justifiable to get excited for getting a child.

Onto the graphics and audio. I think the graphics were never really Rune Factory’s particularly strong suit, even when the series transitioned to 3D for the 3rd time with Rune Factory 5. However, I don’t think the graphics need to be a strong aspect as long as the game is actually enjoyable. I’m not the type of people who focuses on graphics or framerates, for me, the most important aspect is how fun the game is. I consider good graphics a nice bonus, and I won’t really judge the graphics, unless they hinder my enjoyability. That being said however, I do want to say something about the presentation so my reviews feel more complete, even if it’s usually not very constructive. I think Rune Factory 3 is a decent looking game. The 2D art in general looks pretty good, with backgrounds offering a great amount of detail and variety. The 3D models look decent, all characters and monsters are well animated, and while human characters don’t look particularly amazing, the monster designs are distinct and fairly detailed and varied. If The Models Resource is to be trusted, the textures on models are improved, and it’s slightly easier for me to make out details on the character models. The soundtrack, in my opinion, is probably the best in the series, offering most memorable music tracks of all games, from peaceful town theme, to jazzy night in-doors theme, to epic Skelefang boss fight theme, and the final dungeon with the final boss, the soundtrack offers a nice variety of hummable tunes that have stuck to me even after having not played the game for years.

That being said, there are a few flaws in this game that I want to address. First, the movement. I’m not just talking about the D-Pad, which was there from the first game, and it can’t be helped being on DS, I’m talking about how slippery it felt at times. The protagonist doesn’t immediately stop once you stop holding the direction, making precise positioning difficult, which can hinder farming or picking up items, and I found myself accidently throwing away items in my hands fairly frequently. It was especially noticeable to me during a particular mini-game, the bean throwing festival, where you have to get hit by the beans, and they’re pretty tiny, so precision positioning is vital. The movement made it much harder than it should’ve been. The game introduces a double tap dashing. I’m not a huge fan of double tap dashing, because of how it’s usually implemented, it can be easy to accidently dash when you didn’t mean to if it’s too sensitive, like in Monster House GBA. But, if it isn’t, it can be difficult to trigger when you want to. Rune Factory 3 falls into the latter category. To double tap, I really need to mash the d-pad’s direction to get my character to dash. Except in aforementioned bean throwing festival where I accidently dashed for seemingly no reason, and I’m not sure why. Regardless, it can be hard to find the right sensitivity for double tap dashes, which is why I always prefer it to be a dedicated button, which is where RF Tides of Destiny onward improve. While the game can run at 60FPS, it can be easy to throw off. If there are multiple characters in the same area, the game can lag quite a bit. It’s especially noticeable during unity festival, where there are so many characters, even the dialogue box slows down. It’s a minor issue for me personally, but I know it bothers some people, so here you go. I have to wonder how much of processing power goes into touch screen functionality. You can move main character with a stylus and interact with objects just like in previous games on the same system, offering an analog movement, but it doesn’t feel amazing in this game to be honest. I think I prefer touch screen controls in Rune Factory 2 because its a simpler game and isn't as action packed. Lastly, the game is pretty short. I thought it’s more content packed than I remember, but that’s mostly because I’m going for 100% shipment which artificially extends my play time (because I’m enjoying the game that much). In reality, there are only 5 unique dungeons, and the story is fairly short, and there’s not that much to do. It’s easier to run into repeating dialogue from NPCs because there aren’t many unique lines, thanks to the space restrictions of a mere DS cart. Needless to say, Rune Factory 4 smashes those restrictions, filling the game with much more content, more dungeons, unique dialogue and so on.

Overall, Rune Factory 3 is still a really good game, featuring massive gameplay improvements over its predecessors that will be refined even further in the future games, the game has unique characters and the setting and offers lot of good comedy, and while it’s not very content rich, its gameplay manages to hook me in and continue playing the game. It’s good in any way you slice it, be it as a sequel, as a prequel, or on its own right, and I can highly recommend it, be it the original DS release, or its Special rerelease, it’s simply a quality game.

Littlewood is a fairly enjoyable life sim game. The gameplay is engaging, each in-game day I was asking “What to do today?”, the progression system is straightforward, you can chop wood, mine rocks farm crops or fruit from trees, fish, catch bugs, craft, and even play a card mini-game. The characters are likeable and memorable. You can customize your town, and decorate houses. And there are useful items you’ll uncover as you progress, such as an OP item that gives you infinite stamina basically. Speaking of stamina, the time flows differently, instead of just ticking down like normal, your actions will decrease the available time, which means you can do a consistent amount of stuff per day, which is pretty unique. Sounds like great time, right? Well… kinda. I do think the game is good, but I also feel it has one fatal flaw.

I think the game is severely lacking in replayability and content. I’m going with an obvious comparison here, Stardew Valley. With Littlewood, I can’t imagine my new playthroughs playing much differently, or sticking with the game for much longer. I would still fix up the town, max my skills, unlock other locations, and so on. The ONLY thing I can imagine being different is a marriage candidate, but at that point I’d rather just backup my save instead of starting over. What’s different about Stardew Valley? Well, for one, there’s simply MUCH more content and depth. The game is more sizeable in terms of the number of areas, activities, and is filled with secrets that I have yet to uncover, and I’ve player around 70 hours of that game (as of writing this). In comparison, I’ve played about 50 hours of Littlewood, and unlocked roughly 90% of the game’s content, and I have all but two achievements. It isn’t just about content. Stardew Valley gives you more replay value by offering different farms you can start on, making the game fresh. Lastly, modding, baybeeeeee. Now, modding isn’t necessary to make your game insanely replayable, I played hundreds of hours of Rune Factory 4 on both 3DS and Switch without any mods, which is a testament to its fun factor, but I do think modding is a nice extra that can breath new life into games. I really think the devs should’ve stuck with Littlewood for longer, maybe add a few new things, or aforementioned modding support for the fans to do the dirty work, instead of going straight to the sequel. At least there's hope that the sequel will be bigger, faster, and stronger too.

In the end though, I do still think Littlewood is an enjoyable enough game. It may not be as content rich, but it's simple, and it’ll still provide many hours of fun content. That is, if you don’t mind some repetition. I can recommend this.

Happy Feet for the Game Boy Advance is not very good. The game mostly consists of very basic platforming that's pretty easy. The only real platforming threats are icicles that are easy to avoid and rare bottomless pits. The game is also basically a fetch quest simulator, as almost every person asks you to bring something for them. At least the game has decency to bring you back to the sender once you collect stuff so you don't waste more time getting to them. The game also features swimming mechanics, that are pretty decent, the controls are modern, which means you swim in whatever direction you're holding on the D-Pad. The swimming segments themselves aren't that fun though, you have to locate fish or some other food source and watch out for oxygen and enemies. There are a couple underwater chase sequences that are kinda decent, though I found the last one quite frustrating.

There are also a couple mini-games. Dancing, which is a simple rhythm game where you press buttons or D-Pad directions on-screen. These use actual licensed music that sounds really good. That's impressive, but unfortunately, the mini-game drags on and it's just so basic. The other mini-game is sliding, with autoscrolling sort-of isometric point of view. It's alright, the only issue I have is that sometimes there are narrow paths across pits you gotta follow, and these are marked when they appear, but due to the perspective it can be difficult to discern where.

The graphics are alright, and the original soundtrack is good, as usual. Seriously, I can't praise Shin'en enough.

Overall, a pretty bland licensed game. Aside from impressive sounding licensed tracks, it's nothing special.