I might have spoiled myself by playing Aria of Sorrow before any of the other GBA Castlevanias. To be fair, I did try Circle of the Moon for an hour before I backed out like a coward. My first few hours of playing this, I kept thinking to myself" Man, I can't wait to replay Aria of Sorrow". That thought soon dissipated after unlocking a few of Juste's abilities, and I was able to enjoy myself a bit more. Even the music, which I wasn't really into initially, grew on me.

I brought up Aria of Sorrow a few times, but really the game I should be bringing up is Symphony of the Night. I was reminded of Symphony a lot, like how you just accumulate a bunch of crap in your inventory that you can't get rid of (not as much as Symphony, mind you). If there's one aspect of this game I'll say is better here than in Aria, it's your dash ability. In Aria, Soma only has a backdash, which has a significant amount of cooldown. Meanwhile, in Harmony, Juste has no cooldown on his backdash (just like Alucard in Symphony) while also having a forward dash. But by far the biggest comparison I can make to Symphony is the second castle.

I had no idea this was in the game, so it came as a nice surprise, but this is also where the game started to lose its steam for me. I just don't think "Castle B" is nearly as interesting as the inverted castle in Symphony. Another castle means more ground to cover, and while I think dashing feels great, all your other movement options feel a bit lacking, especially compared to Aria. I know comparing this to a game that came out afterwards is unfair, but I can't help it. Exploring both castles felt arduous towards the end, so much so that I beelined to the end even though I was around 190% map completion. I also found it quite easy to get lost, but I'm also dumb as rocks, so take that point with a grain of salt.

Despite growing a bit tired of this game towards the end, I still came away enjoying it. With how mixed the reviews are for this game, I went in expecting nothing more than a slight improvement over Circle of the Moon, but it's more than that. I will show Circle of the Moon some respect and finish it, but not now. Instead, I'll say this: don't skip this so you can jump right into Aria like I did. You might appreciate it more.

What a fantastic game. Ketsui has all its elements just fall into place perfectly throughout its 5-stage run, where everything feels tightly designed and memorable.

The core gameplay element in Ketsui is the scoring system, where the player earns multiplier chips from 1 to 5 based on the proximity of the enemies destroyed. The closer you are, the higher the multiplier. Everything is designed around this scoring system and to that extent, it's what brings out the addictive and satisfying gameplay loop in Ketsui.

The game is really brutal but never unfair. Ketsui is one of the finest examples that arcade games are meant to be replayed and learned, where every second throughout its runtime is meant to be mastered. Ketsui keeps this process of learning interesting as every enemy layout is designed with the aforementioned scoring system. To play effectively, you have to be aggressive and keep in mind how the scoring works. And there are no cheap surprises, alongside minimal random factors that can sneak up behind you, any mistakes you make all feel like it's your fault rather than the game being underhanded.

Hesistation and playing it safe can actually lead to more errors and bigger obstacles over time as the enemies can pile up even more and lead to your potential death.

Each stage is also completely distinct, with its own set of enemies and completely unique patterns, which works well in creating both a challenge and a great way to make each part of the game distinctive and aid in memorization.

The attack patterns themselves feel organic, and once you learn how to get through them, it feels really good to just go with the flow and weave through them with like it's no effort. Coupled with the way you go through enemies as you rack up high multipliers consistently feels rhythm-like.

I clocked over 100 hours already with this game just to get my first single credit clear, and I'm still not tired of it. There's still a 2nd loop of the game that can be accessed, two different 2nd loops even. One where it requires the player to die or use bombs less than six times. And the even harder one, where it requires no deaths and no bombs while attaining at least 120 million in score, on which this more difficult loop features the true final boss of the game, which is also a genuine challenge on its own.

Ketsui quickly became one of my recent favorites. Alongside the strong gameplay design, there's also the great soundtrack that compliments the intensity of the game, and an excellent presentation that makes good use of pre-rendered models alongside its cohesive visual design of a grounded near-future military backdrop.

If you're a fan of shmups, or even just challenging games that you can replay over and over and find enjoyment in mastering well-designed levels and mechanics, I highly recommend checking out Ketsui.

Ketsui's scoring mechanic is my favorite so far, and it synergizes perfectly with how the game is meant to be played. I much prefer it over collecting gems (mushihime), or trying to chain kills and/or colors (ddp, ikaurga...). It's all about getting close to the enemies and killing them, particularly smaller ones, to increase your multiplier and then use your laser on bigger ones to cash in on it. Laser also has a lock-on mechanic apparently unique to this game, sadly. And the closer you are to an enemy, the faster you can lock on it as well. While your laser will always shoot in front of you, you also shoot bullets aimed to the target you locked onto. Though in a way it makes certain bosses and minibosses a bit easier, knowing where to target big enemies and knowing when to switch to standard shot, in order to get chips during long battles makes a big difference.

Like I said, it really rewards aggressiveness and encourages getting up close, high risk/high reward gameplay which eclipses those games that focus just on being bullet hell. It definitely has a lot going on in later stages, but still I'd say Ketsui retains a nice balance. Groups of fodder enemies even when you're up top, are easier to move around with macrododging, while the bigger bulkier ones will throw more dense patterns that you will have an easier time fighting with your laser (which lets you move slower, more precisely) and auto target (helps you focus on the bullets and not so much in hitting). I wouldn't say it's easy though.

When things go well, the game looks easier than it actually is, because often the best strategy is to kill stuff up close before it has a chance to overwhelm you. It does expect you to be pushing constantly and if you fall behind things can go wrong quickly. It's not as easy to remain up close to enemies and clear the screen when enemies start to pile up and there's a lot more bullets and targets onscreen that there should be. There's always using a bomb as a last resort, which I find not really as punishing as in other cave games (unless going for ura loop but i'm not doing that lol), lives always count more than bombs and there's no other penalties.

During my first hours of the game my problem was actually dying without using my bombs, my deaths being mostly due to playing kamikaze style and running into bullets without looking, rather than getting caught in patterns. In retrospective, it's actually very funny that the story of this game is about some pilots getting sent on a suicide mission. The difficulty curve in stages is gentle and ramps up very naturally, you may run into walls but never feel that the game is suddenly throwing bullshit at you. Because it builds up so nicely on previous stuff, you only feel even more determined to face new challenges in harder stages. And because they're so well designed, going through earlier stages again does not become a chore as you get better; they are also nice warmups where you can improve your chaining skills. By the end stage 5 feels basically like 2 stages rolled into one. Still, to me there's the same drawback as with all other shmups, there's some parts where you have to play a bit until you learn the stage no matter what, but there's a lot you can get away with if you do well.

Bullet patterns are great. It has a lot of unique stuff and often it leans into compositions that move organically and are able to overwhelm a lot without clogging up the screen, giving you a challenge but also room for moving around and getting close to different enemies. Bosses in particular are just mesmerizing. While for some the visuals may be a bit generic, everything else in the presentation is wonderful, especially the music. Plus, the new UI on PS4 is really gorgeous and in-depth even if you won't be looking at it much. I really hope they port this to PC sometime.

In short, I love Ketsui's philosophy. Fairly straightforward, it only has two ships differing in shot type and speed, and practically a single approach. It doesn't need any more because it achieves perfection in simplicity and accomplishes what it sets out to do. Only thing I'd say it's missing is that bosses turning into giant anime girl robots like in dodonpachi resurrection.

I've spent the past few days playing through a whole bunch of shmups. A big problem I have with shmups, as I do in life, is that I can't sit still for two seconds and take things in. Learn the patterns, only move when I need to? That's for dongers mate. Never stop rushing in and just instantly react to everything like a Real Gamer. The jury's out on life but in shmups this has historically led me to pretty poor results.
Ketsui is different. Ketsui wants me to rush in. Ketsui wants me to keep moving. Once the game really got going I felt like the threat of being overwhelmed was constant, that if I stopped fighting against the tide for those two seconds then it would waste no time in washing right over me. In most shmups I find it very easy to weather a storm, get cocky during a quiet moment, and then fly directly into the nearest bullet. That was a lot harder to do here because very rarely did I ever feel like the storm was not still ongoing. And it's good! It's absurdly fun! The game probably isn't quite as relentless as my perception of it in the moment was - there definitely is a clear difficulty curve as you progress - but man, I don't think I've played any others this past week that had me shitting it for such extended periods. Awesome.
The only real complaint I can level against it is that the colour palette and really the overall presentation is a bit bland compared to the other Cave stuff I've played, but I'm having way too much of a good time to really care. In a weird way this ridiculous onslaught has made me appreciate the other games I've played a bit more. Maybe I'll revisit those. Maybe I'll even try to play them properly!
None of this is to imply that I was inherently better at Ketsui than the rest, by the way. Finished it with 17 continues (EDIT: 14 on second run). Absolutely embarrassing. Great game though.

I've seen a lot of talk over the years about game preservation. The fact is that a lot of games older generations like myself grew up with just aren't available today unless you still have working hardware but in a lot of cases that won't last forever and disc rot is equally a thing. Some companies have begun porting their titles as a way to promote their series and get steady income, and some companies like Hamster porting arcade classics for cheap to multiple consoles help keep some of these obscure titles alive. Even with backwards compatibility and these token efforts there are often issues though like lost source code (Panzer Dragoon saga I'm looking at you) and in this case I suspect, it's license issues. The fact that Capcom released a cool little beat 'em up bundle yet didn't release The Punisher, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs and this on it is a real indication of that. It's a real shame too because Aliens vs Predator is great.

The aesthetics at work here are wonderful. Capcom's pixel art and use of bright colour mixed with the alien and predator designs make a weird blend but it all comes together in a perfect cohesion. The animations are smooth and the constant franchise nods as a fan of both series were really satisfying. It is more Alien heavy of the two with Weyland Yutani corporation, space marines, power loaders, face huggers, APCs, pulse rifles and smart guns in abundance. Speaking of which the sound for those guns feels ripped straight from the Aliens film in a surprisingly authentic way that even newer games have yet to get right and I really appreciated that detail.

For an arcade beat 'em up it does attempt to tell a story between these franchises and I prefer the plot here to the Aliens vs Predator movies that have come so far. Aliens have broken lose in a city and two marines are fighting them off when some predators arrive to help. Eventually when subduing the queen you discover Weyland Yutani corporation was behind it all trying to turn them into weapons and you need to stop them. Initially I thought it was hilarious these human marines are able to punch acid blood aliens and sometimes behead them without taking damage and also having the strength to do it. Turns out they are both cybernetically-enhanced enhanced though so that's that covered. Interestingly this was meant to be part of a tie in film that never got released:

"The game was based on an early draft of a script for a film adaptation of the Alien vs. Predator comic book series and was intended to have been a tie-in to the movie. Although the draft was later rejected in favor of a different script, Capcom had already completed the game intending for the film to be released around the time of the game's completion"

Shame. Would have preferred this.

So I've rambled enough, how does it play? The animations are nice as I mentioned before and there is a good variety of move sets between the 4 characters. You have three main moves and some sub moves from them. Melee attack, jump and ranged attack. The ranged attack of guns is extremely powerful but you either have to reload or overheat cooldown which can leave you vulnerable. The melee attack has some moves you can pull off like a slide kick, jump throws, grabs etc. as well as a special move you can use to clear the area around you. You can combo some of these together really smoothly almost like a fighting game once you learn what you are doing and you may need to as the game throws a lot of enemies at you to compensate for your powerful attacks. Most of the characters have melee weapons they start with that they drop if you get hit and have to repick up, if you don't then during that time your special attack is a bit weaker.

This is where my one criticism of the game comes in with the controls and clutter. You see the back up secondary special is hardly weak. Instead of a spear spin the predator jumps up and fires his shoulder cannon down for example, no what it does is cause interference. Visually on the screen an item with a large indicator as a distraction in itself isn't a problem but when you mix in the amount of grenades, smart guns, pulse rifles, knives on certain levels that the Weyland Yutani marines drop and it becomes an issue. when you melee attack you pick up the guns, melee attack is also to fire the disposable weapon you hold meaning quite often when simply wanting to attack I was standing there just picking up several items in a row then getting beaten up forcing me to use my ranged attack I didn't want to rather than the weapon I picked up.

It's a small design flaw and by the end it had annoyed me a little bit but hardly gets in the way of what is otherwise a super cool looking, nice playing beat 'em up. Honestly this feels like an arcade classic that if I had played in the 90's arcades would have blown me away I'm sure. It's a real shame this one will most likely be lost through time due to licensing tie ups but if you get the chance I highly recommend giving it a go. This is 90's Capcom at their best.

Completed as part of the Nintendo Wii release of Super Mario All-Stars and played in front of a live studio audience (LordDarias, Jenny, MagneticBurn, and Xenon.) I bring this up only because sheer obstinance and a desire to prove something was the main motivating factor in completing this baneful piece of video game "entertainment," and were it not for that I'd have probably dropped this around world 5 and played the good Super Mario 2 instead.

The history of The Lost Levels is extremely well documented, but to quickly recap: Takashi Tezuka took over the directorial role of Super Mario Bros. 2 from Miyamoto, who was busy on The Legend of Zelda, and set about designing the game with the philosophy that Japanese players mastered the previous Mario and needed something more challenging. Worried that he maybe went a little too far in some places, Tezuka slapped the tagline "for Super Players" on the box as a warning, and marketing was crafted around the game's high difficulty, featuring footage of Mario getting his shit rocked and children screaming at the TV. The more well-known beats of this story follow from Howard Phillips rejecting the game after being bewildered by Miyamoto's sadism (misattributed), and a reworked version of Doki Doki Literature Club releasing soon after as a proper follow-up to the original Super Mario Bros.. Arguably one of the most significant decisions in game history, and one that the Mario franchise as a whole owes a considerable amount of its identity to.

Not that The Lost Levels hasn't left its own mark on gaming. The entire concept of Kaizo hacks and similar brutal-by-design platformers originates here. The kind of intentionally malicious software designed for people who either loath themselves, have too much free time, or who suffer from speedrunner brain and actually enjoy making pixel-perfect jumps as part of a well-practiced routine. Although I think games don't necessarily have to be fun so long as they're trying to evoke another reaction by design, I do, you know, like to enjoy myself as a matter of personal preference. Trolling the player with deadly power-ups, hidden blocks, and fake exits is funny up to a point, but like any joke that gets stretched out for too long, it gets tiresome.

The Lost Levels' infamous level of difficulty is borne from incredibly rigid game design. The player is given progressively less freedom in how they approach the game, to the point that it imposes a narrow set of rules to complete each level and actively punishes the player for stepping out of line. Mario getting brained on the bottom of a hidden block and immediately eating shit because he had the audacity to jump over a hammer bro a few pixels later than what the game expected of him stops being amusing when you're experiencing it on world 8. Maze levels - the worst part of the original Super Mario Bros. - show up in greater frequency, as if to cement this design philosophy of "screw you, play the way we want you to." There are no checkpoints in castle levels, which are always designed to be the most sadistic in a world's batch of four, but by around world 7 the concept of check points are about as dead as God. They cease to be. Do the level right or don't do it at all. Thankfully, All-Stars throws the player a bone and lets them retry a level they game overed on rather than restart the whole world, a kindness the original version of the game does not afford.

Now before anyone reads all of that and just assumes grandpa and his arthritic thumbs suffered from a case of the "not-skilleds," I'd like to point out that I am a Super Player™. That's right, I beat this without save states. I could say I did this because I had originally intended to play it on real hardware, but the truth is... I couldn't remember the save state hotkeys in Dolphin and was too lazy to check. Or that was the case for about half of The Lost Levels, because after a certain point it was absolutely a matter of not letting the game beat me. I've extolled the virtues of quitting games you don't like, but The Lost Levels felt like such a personal attack I went back to being the old me.

I did it, though! I learned the game and I beat it on its own terms... Its very specific terms, where every level is like its own contract. As something of a Lost Levels expert, I will say the game is not without its positives. Actually overcoming a level you're stuck on and executing with a level of precision that appeases the beast results in a profound sense of satisfaction. There were moments after some of the crueler levels where I started to understand what people see in Kaizo games. It's the sense of accomplishment, the feeling of all that tension melting away, perhaps even the cheers and encouragement of your friends hitting you like a drug. But it is also undercut somewhat by the fact that you're celebrating never having to do any of that bullshit ever again. I made that impossible jump, I can die now without doing it a second time. That's my reward.

I think Jenny put it best when she said "this game sucks."

This is without a doubt the best NES game I've ever played. It's crazy how NES games evolved so much within the console's lifespan, going from games like Super Mario Bros, Ice Climbers, and Excitebike (all of which felt like nothing more than simple arcade games) to this amazing gem. Fire n Ice may not be that much of a spectacle when compared to games beyond the NES, but it's definitely peak quality for the console. This game has great gameplay, challenging puzzles, a cute story, and an adorable art style. You can even make your own custom levels which is so cool for a game this old. It's such a big jump in quality from Solomon's Key, and, in my opinion, it even rivals modern-day puzzle games like Box Boy and Pushmo. I love this game and it's definitely my new favorite NES game. I only wish there were more games in this series.