If nothing else, the atmosphere is second to none. The intro cutscene spoken entirely in German(?), the chilling choral piece accompanying the main menu, the BADASS opening with Richter fighting Death on horseback, the effects of the turbo-grafx 16, the rockin soundtrack, the cutscenes (dated as they are) as far back as 1993, the almost comic book presentation. Come ON, man! I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that its atmosphere is what's kept classic Castlevania relevant, but I would say that you'd be hard pressed to find another game of this era so atmospherically impressive and immersive.

And the central gimmick (for lack of a better term) of this game, with unlockable alternate stages, putting an emphasis on secrets both in visuals and level design, and generally diverting away from bottomless pits, is SUCH a good direction, and feels ahead of its time. And even cooler is the secret moves and ultimate attacks between Richter and Maria and the subweapons. This game is so fucking COOL!

All of this to say, it's so PAINFUL to see how it's held back by unnecessarily restricted controls. In a post Super Castlevania IV world, why in the world can Richter only whip directly in front of him!? Why can you only sort-of manipulate your direction in mid-air?!?! Why, for the love of Dracula, do you get so few I-frames after being hit?!?!?! These archaic, sloppy choices clash so hard with a game that feels like it's going even further than its contemporaries could ever dream of. This feels like it was supposed to be the magnum opus of the series, and many people do consider it that. It's the perfect difficulty, made arbitrarily frustrating due to Richter's lacking mobility and offensive capability. Maria is a godsend, I exclusively used her once she was unlocked, because sometimes this game just isn't fun with Richter.

I will likely warm up more to this game with time and retrospection. It still captures the elation of victory that Castlevania does so well, and I think this series deserves to be remembered because of that. And the atmosphere, again, can't be praised enough. But until Dracula returns, this game sits at the bottom of my Castlevania totem pole. Wie tragisch.

I think there is a very persuasive argument to be made that capsules are objectively poorly designed. They take autonomy away from the player by removing any choice of what items you can get, there's little that you can do to directly benefit yourself and even less you can do to hinder other players without exposing yourself to risk, it makes the boards have fewer unique spaces and thus less interesting things can happen on them, and overall way more risk with way less reward. More often than not all that strategy amounts to is having the chance to screw over your opponent, putting you ahead by association, rather than doing something that will put you ahead.

With all that said, I still like the capsules. There's so much fun and chaos that can come from how much is thrown onto every board, and there's still plenty of strategy that can go into them. I think the strategy comes a lot more from adapting, both to what capsules you have and what events everyone lands on, and I think each game is unpredictable and interesting because of that. And pretty much every board is really good, all except Rainbow Dream. They're all interesting aesthetically and thematically, they're the perfect size and the paths are well laid out, and overall a huge improvement from Mario Party 4.

I think the mini games took a hit though. There are a lot of stinkers, with many that aren't interesting like all of the coin collecting ones, and many that are just not fun like Dinger Derby or Fish Sticks or Berry Basket. The 1vs3 minigames are often VERY unbalanced, with many that feel like it's impossible for the 1 to win and even more that feel impossible for the 1 to lose. The rumble minigames are lame, there are too many button mashing ones.

But there are some good ones, Pushy Penguins being the easy standout, but I also like Hotel Goomba, Leaf Leap is also good I'm just bad at it, and all the ones where you're trapped in an arena and beat each other up are a good time.

I can feel my drive to play this steadily waning. It's been three months. I've died hundreds of times. I don't want to play it anymore.

I love how fast paced it is. You can make so much progress in 10 minutes, and if you die, just jump right back in. The flow is beautiful. But god damn are the mines so BORING! If I can miraculously make it to the jungle with more than some bombs, paste and a fucking baseball glove, I'll probably make it all the way down into the Temple. But 85% of runs end in the mines, with nary a decent shop in sight, and I'm so sick of it. I'd love to beat this game one day, but I think that day is far, FAR from now.

Goodbye puzzles, goodbye labyrinthian level design, goodbye ink ribbons, goodbye limited inventory, goodbye horror. Goodbye... most of what I love about Resident Evil.

It really is wild just how different this is from the classic Resident Evil style; you can barely even recognize it as Resident Evil beyond the title and a couple reoccuring characters. Even wilder, this game is somehow the fan favorite, even today after a series wide tonal redirect and a remake of this exact game.

And yet, RE4 is still so damn good. I don't know when was the last game I played when I was absolutely giddy at the start of each play session. All I wanted to do for weeks was go home and play Resident Evil 4.

Part of it is the campiness is perfect. It's the exact right type of unironic tone fused with ridiculous dialogue to make a perfectly blended horror/action smoothie. As much as I love how terrifying the isolation of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 are (and as undeniably disappointing it is that this isn't that), the cheese is hilarious and delightful, without ruining the potential for good scares. This is a script I want to quote with people forever.

The shift in tone also extends to the action. You could totally call this an action game before a horror game and you wouldn't be wrong, but it somehow fits with the series and feels like a natural evolution of how much more action there was in Resident Evil 2. There's no reason to ever run past anything, just kill everyone. Ammo drops are practically bottomless, and the gunplay is always fun no matter what weapon you choose to use. My kill count at the end of the game was 929; I think combined between RE1 and RE2 there weren't even 929 enemies total. This ends up being the main avenue that the game delivers scares: the shooting is still so fun, so just focus on that, keep the resources limited, and overwhelm the player with sheer numbers to keep the risk of failure. It could easily have become a disaster, but they miraculous strike the perfect balance of scares, difficulty, and fun gunplay to make it fun throughout (mostly, more on that later).

The biggest hurdle with the experience is easily the controls. I got used to it semi-quickly, but not being able to move and shoot at the same time makes it feel extremely archaic compared to every other shooter ever, before or since. This restriction made sense with tank controls and a bird's-eye perspective, but changing to over the shoulder and kinda-sorta tank controls limits both your mobility and visibility, and with this level design and sheer number of enemies, it's a tough pill to swallow early on. That said, I did get used to it fairly quickly, and once I did it was a great time. Plus, it's obvious to see how everything else in this game is weighted in the player's favor to make the controls more tolerable. Enemies more often than not walk super slowly, giving you plenty of time to take aim or just run away. Music only plays when there are enemies nearby, and they yell at you before attacking, so you'll rarely be caught by surprise.

The village is a great intro that really emphasizes the scares, and I like the castle too, it feels like a good setting for your now more intermediate skills. The island however I'm not really a fan of, and I think it leaves a bit of a sour final impression to end the game off. Not only are there a lot more enemies now, the military base aesthetic of both enemies and locales makes the experience feel a lot more Uncharted than Resident Evil, both in the sense of the scares being super toned down, but also in the shooting feeling much more generic. Saddler as a final boss also ends up feeling underwhelming, mostly due to the free rocket launcher you get. Also the final cutscene just feels rushed and sloppily handled with Saddler's unceremonious fight and with Ada's escape at the end. Like, Leon's really just going to water ski into the sunrise after losing the sample like that? Get outta here. I haven't finished Separate Ways yet, maybe that will help.

I guess I can throw in the token comment that Ashley sucks. I'm really glad that more often than not she's kidnapped so you don't have to deal with her, but realistically even when she's with you she's not that much of a pain. There are even a couple good sequences where you're forcefully separated from her that do a good job at making you tense.

Between this, RE1 and RE2, I think this is my least favorite Resident Evil. Partially because of the focus away from horror, but I think more so because of how chapter 5 drops the ball a bit. That said I think I could more easily see myself replaying this than RE1 and RE2, and a second playthrough feels like it'll be completely different. Still, this was a great time; an easy recommend and a must play in the series.

I don't know if this is a hot take or not, but this is easily more fun than Super Castlevania IV. There's way WAY less bullshit in this game that will cost you lives, it's not nearly as rage inducing, and I didn't save scum hardly at all in comparison to SCIV where I save scummed in every level. And in spite of all that, Bloodlines is still challenging, I game over-ed a lot, and there are a lot of memorable stage elements throughout.

I would commit sins to have more platformers be this short and focused. The music fucks, it's more energetic than the atmospheric pieces of SCIV (which fit that game really well, but this approach I think suits this game better). It's hard to decide whether or not this game or SCIV had more impressive visual effects, but both look really good and are distinct from each other. Pretty boy Eric and his spear are sick, his super jump and twirl thing are awesome.

The bosses are all really fun, and I found myself much more patient when approaching them. They whopped my ass a lot, but I learned pretty quickly to just pause and focus on avoiding their attacks rather than trying to do damage as fast as possible, and it was clear to see my attitude change from frustration to confidence and catharsis.

The trade off of this game being much easier than SCIV is that the euphoric, triumphant feeling of conquering that game's bullshit isn't anywhere close to as strong here, which I would be lying if I said that wasn't disappointing looking back, but even so this game still did a fantastic job of teaching me patience and perseverance just like SCIV, and was more fun throughout.

Also, not trying to hate on SCIV with this, that game is still great, it's just my only Castlevania comparison I can make.

This is a tough game to formulate my thoughts on because I don't have much to contrast it with. The only other games in the series I have substantial experience with are Super and 2, and this feels very in the middle between the former's universal lameness and the laters hilarious, chaotic, fun.

I played through all the maps and I think overall there are plenty of noteworthy positives amidst an overall blandness and confusion that's omnipresent throughout the game.

Starting with the negatives, I think everyone agrees that all the boards are disappointing, both visually and layout wise. I think on every map there is an opportunity to get stuck in a small loop and have to get lucky to get out, there are a lot of coin toss moments that decide which sections of the boards you can go to, and independent of the luck-based elements I feel like it just takes a long time to maneuver to different sides of the map. Every Mario Party board in the series forces you to go in a certain direction down each path, but the identical metallic paths on every board in this game with their perfect 90 degree turns make it feel more arbitrary and time consuming which directions around the boards you can go.

The production values certainly aren't great. While they definitely modernized the look of the characters, and the models and textures are objectively higher quality with the jump to the Gamecube, I've come to love the fugly, puppeteer-esque look of the N64 graphics and the goofiness and personality it brought to Mario Party. And the music is... there I guess.

And lastly the items are kinda lame. There's not much that's interesting or outside of the series staples. The mini and mega mushroom gimmicks are fine, but there are too many paths and minigames locked behind mini mushroom paths, and it's weird how they are locked to dice rolls instead of something like skeleton keys.

But on the positive side, there's a decent selection of minigames. There are definitely quite a few groaners, but even some of the rage inducing ones like Order Up and Stamp Out lead to a lot of the classic chaotic fun of yelling at your friends. SOME are bangers though: Dungeon Duos, Mr. Blizzard's Brigade, Hop or Pop, Right Oar Left, Chain Chomp Fever, and the BEST Mario Party minigame ever: BOOKSQUIRM!!! A game of Mario Party is not complete without Booksquirm!!!

I had a lot of laughs and good memories with my friends playing through this, it's definitely a decent baseline for Mario Party. But I'm also happy to move on to hopefully more consistently fun games in the series.

The mixed reception to this game confuses me, I don't understand what's not to like here. The dungeon-crawling is pretty simple, nothing special in its clear Zelda/Rogue inspirations, but it works great in tandem with the shop management, which is super fun. I thought initially that it was lame to have to guess the prices on my own, but then it quickly became the most satisfying part of the gameplay loop. Also the game is gorgeous, the lack of outlines gives a striking look. If anything, I could've asked for a better soundtrack; it's pleasantly catchy, but I don't think a single track will stick with me.

IMO this game really excels in 200cc. The high speeds are thrilling on nearly every track, and it sparks this desire to master the way it moves and nail every turn perfectly. Short of 200, while there's a lot to love in the visuals, music, courses, etc., it mostly feels so slow to the point of boredom. The A.I. even on 150 is so incompetent that you will have a monstrous lead 95% of the time.

And while I'd never slander this game on amount of content, especially with the Booster Course, shockingly few of the nitro courses feel like series defining staples to me. I jam with Mount Wario, Toad Harbor, Wild Woods and Animal Crossing, but most of the rest all hover around an equal level of good that it's hard to get attached to them like with many courses from games past.

A product of its time, and I mean that in the most positive way, because it's so endearing. I have a nostalgic love for point and clicks because of all the edutainment games I played as a kid, and this one has such wit and creativity (not to mention gorgeously animated whether that's in the remastered artwork or the original sprites) that makes it a solid showcase for why the genre is so fun. Did I use a guide? Absolutely, this genre has a reputation for a reason. I was ok with accepting that and not getting needlessly confused or hopelessly lost, and my experience was better for it.