LEGObrionicle
868 reviews liked by LEGObrionicle
1941: Counter Attack
1990
Surprisingly solid, doesn't 'raise' difficulty much over the runtime, felt evenly challenging through most of the game - pretty unconventional for arcade. Need to play the SuperGrafx version soon, I like this soundtrack but it could benefit from something with less bite than Sonic 1 presets on acid.
yuri has lead me places i wouldn't even go with a gun
Wario World
2003
This game feels like if they made a Mario Party 4 minigame a full game.
And I love Mario Party 4 so that's fine by me.
I had vague memories of play this game as a kid. I remember the circus level, pyramid level, and slopes level, and I remember having a really hard time with Red Brief J. I was pretty surprised to learn that I had almost beaten this game as a kid even though I only played it maybe once at my grandparents' house? Maybe it was more than once.
Anyhow, this game is pretty damn easy and not super interesting in either of its genres - 3D platformer and beat 'em up. The combat is super simple, enemies offer virtually no lethality the majority of the time, and frankly I just avoided them most of the time in the second half since they're just boring. The only way to die in this game is by getting hit enough times, falling into pits takes you to a zone where you have to break boxes to find an exit and any damage you take there will just take away money (money which you only use to buy health, yipee). The fun of this game is pretty much entirely in exploration and bosses. there are a whole bunch of collectibles in each level. Most of them are pretty easy to find, but there are challenge rooms that have you solve some kind of puzzle or complete a platforming challenge and they're the most fun part of the game. That said, they are also pretty easy most of the time. The very last level had some challenging ones (and one puzzle that I don't know how you're supposed to do, I just cheesed it a bit).
Every level has a unique boss, and each world ends in another unique boss - there's actually more bosses in this game than levels. Honestly, they don't take much to figure out how to beat, but I appreciate making each boss special, and there are some wicked designs here. A marionette cherub, a medusa with a blue stone-cold face, a bigass spider, etc. They're overall very interestingly designed, and most of them are fun to fight even if they aren't difficult. I'd say the final boss is actually the worst one since you just run around a circle and hit crystals for eight or so cycles and its attacks are predictable and easy, it was a disappointing end to the game. All in all, the designs in Wario World are cool.
This might be the best-animated 3D Wario to date, he's very expressive, and mixing that with his iconic voice lines makes this Wario actually decently stylized. The music is jamming, and the vibes are great. I definitely wouldn't call this a GameCube must-play, but it's still a good time, I don't think most people would regret playing it.
And I love Mario Party 4 so that's fine by me.
I had vague memories of play this game as a kid. I remember the circus level, pyramid level, and slopes level, and I remember having a really hard time with Red Brief J. I was pretty surprised to learn that I had almost beaten this game as a kid even though I only played it maybe once at my grandparents' house? Maybe it was more than once.
Anyhow, this game is pretty damn easy and not super interesting in either of its genres - 3D platformer and beat 'em up. The combat is super simple, enemies offer virtually no lethality the majority of the time, and frankly I just avoided them most of the time in the second half since they're just boring. The only way to die in this game is by getting hit enough times, falling into pits takes you to a zone where you have to break boxes to find an exit and any damage you take there will just take away money (money which you only use to buy health, yipee). The fun of this game is pretty much entirely in exploration and bosses. there are a whole bunch of collectibles in each level. Most of them are pretty easy to find, but there are challenge rooms that have you solve some kind of puzzle or complete a platforming challenge and they're the most fun part of the game. That said, they are also pretty easy most of the time. The very last level had some challenging ones (and one puzzle that I don't know how you're supposed to do, I just cheesed it a bit).
Every level has a unique boss, and each world ends in another unique boss - there's actually more bosses in this game than levels. Honestly, they don't take much to figure out how to beat, but I appreciate making each boss special, and there are some wicked designs here. A marionette cherub, a medusa with a blue stone-cold face, a bigass spider, etc. They're overall very interestingly designed, and most of them are fun to fight even if they aren't difficult. I'd say the final boss is actually the worst one since you just run around a circle and hit crystals for eight or so cycles and its attacks are predictable and easy, it was a disappointing end to the game. All in all, the designs in Wario World are cool.
This might be the best-animated 3D Wario to date, he's very expressive, and mixing that with his iconic voice lines makes this Wario actually decently stylized. The music is jamming, and the vibes are great. I definitely wouldn't call this a GameCube must-play, but it's still a good time, I don't think most people would regret playing it.
Final Fantasy IX
2000
honestly feel like i should preface this with an apology but ff9 is kind of exhausting to me. it feels like going to a shift to work at a theme park; it's pretty and sweet, it's whimsical, and it has nice atmosphere and sometimes you even see your favorite characters walking around, but at the end of the day it's still a day of work to get through. going to just chalk it up as this one not being for me until a few years down the line where i yet again try to beat my head against this game until i like it
Extremely underrated. Plays amazingly and gives you so many mechanics to juggle and fight the steep challenges it throws you. I don’t think the plot is quite on the level of Explorers, but it’s enjoyable and the world building is a love letter to the series as a whole. 9 years since the last truly new PMD story. That upsets me. Imo, this is how you do legacy content. Build your own story, but sprinkle references in as a bonus. They don’t inhibit it or take control of the plot ever. That’s why this is good.
Final Fantasy IV
1997
After sinking more than a hundred hours into Rebirth, I know the last thing I should do is try to bite off more Final Fantasy. I've already had too much, I'm bloated on chocobos and moogles and nearly ready to burst, and yet I've been eyeballing Final Fantasy IV and thinking "I can handle it." Comparatively speaking, 23 hours of gameplay is light, downright brisk. Rebirth's after dinner mint... Why shouldn't I indulge?
Well, back-to-back negative reviews from mutuals - both of which abandoned the game - should be reason enough for me to pass, at least for the time being.
It's so over.
Or is it? I'm Weatherby, when have I ever listened to anyone about how bad a game might be? Especially for a game I already paid my money for. The cellophane on this unopened Final Fantasy Chronicles is coming off, baby!
We're so back!
It's probably worth pointing out up front that by going with the Chronicles version of the game, I am effectively playing the real Final Fantasy IV, which originally released stateside on the SNES as a port of Japan's easy mode. For babies. I'm not a baby, how hard can this version of the game be?
Turns out very, at least in fits and bursts. Final Fantasy IV is a very inconsistent game in a lot of ways, and I think a lot of this inconsistency is born from the unique space it occupies in the overarching trajectory of the franchise. The SNES allowed Square to do so much more than what they previously accomplished with the NES trilogy, especially in regard to story, but a lot of FFIV's mechanical features feel as though the game has one foot firmly rooted a generation behind. Things like a highly restrictive inventory is just unnecessary thanks to the SNES' expanded memory space, and the encounter rate is just as bonkers as it was on the NES, sometimes sending you from one daunting battle to the next with only a mere tile separating them.
Guest characters, something Final Fantasy II leaned on with its rotating fourth party slot, are commonplace in the early half of FFIV, and a some of them feel more like a hindrance, resulting in a lot of stretches where you need to nanny idiots like Edward, who has no useful abilities, low health, and straight up runs off screen when you try to heal him up. Likewise, you'll occasionally be gifted with guest characters that are too good, creating this pendulum swing of the game being "too annoying" and "too easy."
This combination of antiquated design elements and inconsistent party composition makes the early game a drag, and it's no wonder I ditched the GBA version around Mt. Ordeals back when I originally played it in 2005.
It's so over.
Final Fantasy IV's story also struggles in the early half of the game and spends a bit too long meandering around. It is interesting to play this right off the heels of Final Fantasy III as both games feature numerous character sacrifices, though the greater scope of FFIV means you'll get to spend more time with them rather than coming upon each character briefly before they like, chuck themselves into a furnace or whatever. Each death feels meaningful, which is why it's a bit upsetting that FFIV walks back most of them, sheepishly shrugging and going "I don't know, they lived I guess."
Thankfully, both the story and gameplay eventually find their focus, and once FFIV dials things in, I found that I was starting to have a really good time with the game. Turns out a stable party of well-rounded characters who share a clear and common goal is just what you need to get me invested, even if it may not address every single problem I had with the game up to that point.
By the time the party awakens the Lunar Whale and takes a trip up to the god damned moon, I was fully in it, and I loved the way the game handles the reveal of its true antagonist, Zeromus, who is less a singular consciousness driven by focused malice and more representative of the game's greater themes concerning good and evil, its presence in all men, and the cyclical nature of war and peace. I am a noted Necron defender, so the idea that the party has to do battle with something more representative of a thought or manifestation of man's own nature is my kind of thing.
Also, he's got a sick battle theme.
We're so back
Unfortunately, actually fighting Zeromus is another matter entirely. I thought the Cloud of Darkness was a motherfucker, but this might be the most I've struggled with a final boss in any Final Fantasy game. Apparently this guy can cast Meteo, Holy, Bio, AND Flare, but you'd never know it because he spends 90% of the fight spamming Big Bang over and over again. The solution here is to let Rydia stay dead as all of her spells will result in an immediate counterattack that operates separately from the fixed timer that dictates Big Bang. This also buys you better healing as Rosa only has to split Curaja between four characters instead of five. At the 11th hour, Final Fantasy IV deigned it necessary to saddle me with more dead weight, and the constant run back through several floors with high encounter rates and ~ten minutes of mashing through mandatory dialog is a steep price for failure, which unfortunately sucked a lot of the wind out from Final Fantasy IV's ending.
it's so over. literally, i am done playing this video game
Rating games in a series can be a little tricky, but I think I've more or less settled on a curve when it comes to Final Fantasy. I gave the original game a 3.5/5, which seems a bit high when you consider how approachable, engaging, and bombastic later titles are. All qualities I would assign to FFIV even if I think it spends a little too much time playing around in the protoplasmic puddle left behind by the previous three entries. That's why it's simultaneously the easiest of these four for me to sit down with, yet it's also a 3/5.
Maybe one day I'll check out the SNES version. I am genuinely curious if the easier difficulty curve results in a more evenly paced game, or if it simply makes combat dull and predictable.
Anyway, the next game has a protagonist name Butz. We're so back.
Well, back-to-back negative reviews from mutuals - both of which abandoned the game - should be reason enough for me to pass, at least for the time being.
It's so over.
Or is it? I'm Weatherby, when have I ever listened to anyone about how bad a game might be? Especially for a game I already paid my money for. The cellophane on this unopened Final Fantasy Chronicles is coming off, baby!
We're so back!
It's probably worth pointing out up front that by going with the Chronicles version of the game, I am effectively playing the real Final Fantasy IV, which originally released stateside on the SNES as a port of Japan's easy mode. For babies. I'm not a baby, how hard can this version of the game be?
Turns out very, at least in fits and bursts. Final Fantasy IV is a very inconsistent game in a lot of ways, and I think a lot of this inconsistency is born from the unique space it occupies in the overarching trajectory of the franchise. The SNES allowed Square to do so much more than what they previously accomplished with the NES trilogy, especially in regard to story, but a lot of FFIV's mechanical features feel as though the game has one foot firmly rooted a generation behind. Things like a highly restrictive inventory is just unnecessary thanks to the SNES' expanded memory space, and the encounter rate is just as bonkers as it was on the NES, sometimes sending you from one daunting battle to the next with only a mere tile separating them.
Guest characters, something Final Fantasy II leaned on with its rotating fourth party slot, are commonplace in the early half of FFIV, and a some of them feel more like a hindrance, resulting in a lot of stretches where you need to nanny idiots like Edward, who has no useful abilities, low health, and straight up runs off screen when you try to heal him up. Likewise, you'll occasionally be gifted with guest characters that are too good, creating this pendulum swing of the game being "too annoying" and "too easy."
This combination of antiquated design elements and inconsistent party composition makes the early game a drag, and it's no wonder I ditched the GBA version around Mt. Ordeals back when I originally played it in 2005.
It's so over.
Final Fantasy IV's story also struggles in the early half of the game and spends a bit too long meandering around. It is interesting to play this right off the heels of Final Fantasy III as both games feature numerous character sacrifices, though the greater scope of FFIV means you'll get to spend more time with them rather than coming upon each character briefly before they like, chuck themselves into a furnace or whatever. Each death feels meaningful, which is why it's a bit upsetting that FFIV walks back most of them, sheepishly shrugging and going "I don't know, they lived I guess."
Thankfully, both the story and gameplay eventually find their focus, and once FFIV dials things in, I found that I was starting to have a really good time with the game. Turns out a stable party of well-rounded characters who share a clear and common goal is just what you need to get me invested, even if it may not address every single problem I had with the game up to that point.
By the time the party awakens the Lunar Whale and takes a trip up to the god damned moon, I was fully in it, and I loved the way the game handles the reveal of its true antagonist, Zeromus, who is less a singular consciousness driven by focused malice and more representative of the game's greater themes concerning good and evil, its presence in all men, and the cyclical nature of war and peace. I am a noted Necron defender, so the idea that the party has to do battle with something more representative of a thought or manifestation of man's own nature is my kind of thing.
Also, he's got a sick battle theme.
We're so back
Unfortunately, actually fighting Zeromus is another matter entirely. I thought the Cloud of Darkness was a motherfucker, but this might be the most I've struggled with a final boss in any Final Fantasy game. Apparently this guy can cast Meteo, Holy, Bio, AND Flare, but you'd never know it because he spends 90% of the fight spamming Big Bang over and over again. The solution here is to let Rydia stay dead as all of her spells will result in an immediate counterattack that operates separately from the fixed timer that dictates Big Bang. This also buys you better healing as Rosa only has to split Curaja between four characters instead of five. At the 11th hour, Final Fantasy IV deigned it necessary to saddle me with more dead weight, and the constant run back through several floors with high encounter rates and ~ten minutes of mashing through mandatory dialog is a steep price for failure, which unfortunately sucked a lot of the wind out from Final Fantasy IV's ending.
it's so over. literally, i am done playing this video game
Rating games in a series can be a little tricky, but I think I've more or less settled on a curve when it comes to Final Fantasy. I gave the original game a 3.5/5, which seems a bit high when you consider how approachable, engaging, and bombastic later titles are. All qualities I would assign to FFIV even if I think it spends a little too much time playing around in the protoplasmic puddle left behind by the previous three entries. That's why it's simultaneously the easiest of these four for me to sit down with, yet it's also a 3/5.
Maybe one day I'll check out the SNES version. I am genuinely curious if the easier difficulty curve results in a more evenly paced game, or if it simply makes combat dull and predictable.
Anyway, the next game has a protagonist name Butz. We're so back.
They iterated on the combat too much from the original release to the point where they're two pretty different games and yet, the original is still probably the more interesting experience just for the sake of being... the original. You could chalk up the attacks redirecting off dead enemies as a quality of life change but the magic system caught a stray so it feels like FF4 with no ATB or any interesting abilities and thus, lil basic.
The Pixel Remaster is slightly more faithful but it's also a mess of clashing assets IMO. And also, it doesn't have the bonus dungeons in this version. Whenever I saw people mention this, I was a bit confused on why anyone would care about playing more of FF1. Like, the base game here took me about 15 hours to complete (would have taken way longer without a guide though) and for a simple JRPG, that's long enough to see your characters meaningfully grow but not long enough for you to notice all the bosses can be killed with the same strategy. Could the bonus content really do that much to change things up. The answer is: ehh kinda but not really. The only interesting thing about the new dungeons is how they're very slightly randomized. They all have bosses from other classic FF games and drop nice equipment but the way they're set up makes it so you have to go through them multiple times to fight all possible bosses, which is real annoying if you're trying to complete the bestiary.
After you beat these you unlock this big last dungeon where you have a time limit to complete annoying ass "puzzles" to fight the big superduper boss and I'll give it to you straight, I never beat the damn thing. I did get to it, having spent a couple of hours levelling my whole party 20 levels and an additional hour going through the dungeon, but once I fucked up on the boss fight I just kinda went "what am i even gaining from this" and didn't attempt it again. Also, this particular superboss has 8!! different forms depending on what puzzles you can and can't complete under the time limit so. Christ the bestiary.
All in all, I still mostly enjoyed it and for all the trash I lobbed towards the new stuff, it's decent if you're like, a kid in 2008 trying to get their money's worth out of a 15 hour game. The base FF1 experience is still fun, even moreso if you consider it came out 1 year and change after the original Dragon Quest. But for any subsequent runs, I'll probably just either stick to either the original or like, the WonderSwan version.
The Pixel Remaster is slightly more faithful but it's also a mess of clashing assets IMO. And also, it doesn't have the bonus dungeons in this version. Whenever I saw people mention this, I was a bit confused on why anyone would care about playing more of FF1. Like, the base game here took me about 15 hours to complete (would have taken way longer without a guide though) and for a simple JRPG, that's long enough to see your characters meaningfully grow but not long enough for you to notice all the bosses can be killed with the same strategy. Could the bonus content really do that much to change things up. The answer is: ehh kinda but not really. The only interesting thing about the new dungeons is how they're very slightly randomized. They all have bosses from other classic FF games and drop nice equipment but the way they're set up makes it so you have to go through them multiple times to fight all possible bosses, which is real annoying if you're trying to complete the bestiary.
After you beat these you unlock this big last dungeon where you have a time limit to complete annoying ass "puzzles" to fight the big superduper boss and I'll give it to you straight, I never beat the damn thing. I did get to it, having spent a couple of hours levelling my whole party 20 levels and an additional hour going through the dungeon, but once I fucked up on the boss fight I just kinda went "what am i even gaining from this" and didn't attempt it again. Also, this particular superboss has 8!! different forms depending on what puzzles you can and can't complete under the time limit so. Christ the bestiary.
All in all, I still mostly enjoyed it and for all the trash I lobbed towards the new stuff, it's decent if you're like, a kid in 2008 trying to get their money's worth out of a 15 hour game. The base FF1 experience is still fun, even moreso if you consider it came out 1 year and change after the original Dragon Quest. But for any subsequent runs, I'll probably just either stick to either the original or like, the WonderSwan version.
It's actually a common misconception that this is a video game because it's instead a list of bullet points on what your new personality is going to be.
Sparkster is so cool! They tick so many random checkboxes for me!
[X] Anthro
[X] Cool Armor
[X] Jet Pack
[X] Goggles (Goggles are cool)
[X] Expert Mech Pilot
What endeared them so much to me too was actually their idle animation! They look so jovial, they're happpy to be the hero! Sparkster doesn't brood (Ignore the NA cover here), he's anxious to start the day and get to the rescue of their fair princess! He's a gallant jet-propelled knight who's a zoom zoomin' all around and beating up all the bad guys! Mr. Nutz, Punky Skunk and Zero The Kamikaze Squirrel are so angry that Sparkster is actually awesome! They are so mad! Sonic's got nothin' on Sparkster! Except merchandise apparently! What gives Konami? Where's my Sparkster nendoroid , Sparkster YGO cards, Sparkster party accessories, and Sparkster line of clothing?
Ah well, knowing my luck they'd use this look instead, and I'd be an absurdly sad rabbit. Fuck that guy, this is the boy you want.
This game rips, it's Saturday Morning Cartoon down to the empowering theme music that blares from the first stage and goes off after every victory. Sparkster's here to fuck shit up! Those damn pigs won't know what hit'em! You got that patented Konami difficulty, but thankfully they kept themselves in line and didn't Bayou Billy this one. As a matter of fact we actually got all the difficulties unlocked by default over here in NA! Thank the lord above that Konami wasn't dumb enough to make their mascot platformer harder than 90% of the Famicom library, although they were cheeky enough to call Japanese "Normal" the "Children" difficulty and cut you off from the final boss if you played on that. Couldn't help yourselves could you?
Konami: "Nope."
Easily one of the most memorable titles I ever played on the Genesis back then, you know it's memorable when I didn't even own this shit and only played on Sega Channel! I so wish I had owned it growing up though! I would've been a master at it and been Rocket Royalty of some sorts.
You're the coolest Sparkster! Look at him! AAAAA HE'S SO FUCKIN' COOL!!!
[X] Anthro
[X] Cool Armor
[X] Jet Pack
[X] Goggles (Goggles are cool)
[X] Expert Mech Pilot
What endeared them so much to me too was actually their idle animation! They look so jovial, they're happpy to be the hero! Sparkster doesn't brood (Ignore the NA cover here), he's anxious to start the day and get to the rescue of their fair princess! He's a gallant jet-propelled knight who's a zoom zoomin' all around and beating up all the bad guys! Mr. Nutz, Punky Skunk and Zero The Kamikaze Squirrel are so angry that Sparkster is actually awesome! They are so mad! Sonic's got nothin' on Sparkster! Except merchandise apparently! What gives Konami? Where's my Sparkster nendoroid , Sparkster YGO cards, Sparkster party accessories, and Sparkster line of clothing?
Ah well, knowing my luck they'd use this look instead, and I'd be an absurdly sad rabbit. Fuck that guy, this is the boy you want.
This game rips, it's Saturday Morning Cartoon down to the empowering theme music that blares from the first stage and goes off after every victory. Sparkster's here to fuck shit up! Those damn pigs won't know what hit'em! You got that patented Konami difficulty, but thankfully they kept themselves in line and didn't Bayou Billy this one. As a matter of fact we actually got all the difficulties unlocked by default over here in NA! Thank the lord above that Konami wasn't dumb enough to make their mascot platformer harder than 90% of the Famicom library, although they were cheeky enough to call Japanese "Normal" the "Children" difficulty and cut you off from the final boss if you played on that. Couldn't help yourselves could you?
Konami: "Nope."
Easily one of the most memorable titles I ever played on the Genesis back then, you know it's memorable when I didn't even own this shit and only played on Sega Channel! I so wish I had owned it growing up though! I would've been a master at it and been Rocket Royalty of some sorts.
You're the coolest Sparkster! Look at him! AAAAA HE'S SO FUCKIN' COOL!!!
Immortals of Aveum
2023
Video games and film have merged in the fact that the only way we get original IP is if it's the absolute fakest slime imaginable
49 lists liked by LEGObrionicle
by electrode |
23 Games
by theia |
10 Games
by moschidae |
6 Games
by MagneticBurn |
49 Games
by fascinator |
11 Games
by Baird |
100 Games
by fascinator |
14 Games
by faea |
16 Games
by Reddish |
35 Games
by FMTownsParty |
19 Games