MagneticBurn
1995
I had the (mis)fortune of racing this with my wonderful friend Weatherby while Jenny read out a giant manifesto of Ken Penders' war crimes.
+The tether mechanic is obnoxious but I came around on it and actually had a lot of fun using it to vertically cheese the levels. With good timing you can do some fun tech like throwing your partner up, bouncing along with them, then grabbing them midair and repeating again, then chaining it into a glide to reach a wall. It took about 70% of the runtime to fully understand it, but I was having a good kick when it all made sense.
+The color palette and environmental art is super rich and inviting, very reminiscent of Ristar and Sonic CD, though admittedly a lot more directionless. You're in a lot of non-descript technological spaces that don't necessarily feel like part of a larger world, even with the carnival theme they attempt.
+The special stages are cool-looking and fun (((WHEN PLAYED WITH SAVESTATES)))
+The music is amazing, I am so sad Deflemask doesn't have 32X support
-Barely any present level design, and way too many levels
-The stage with the clocks can go to hell
-Some of the bosses were insufferable because your partner can get KO'd, and sometimes the game will just kick you out of the fight when that happens. I'm sure there's a consistent trigger that causes it, but I could not find any pattern between whether or not my partner would re-appear or I'd be sent back to the hub
-Special stages are totally uncooperative at random points in the collision that can cause you to just lose out of nowhere, it's too damning a tech issue to make these rings worth collecting, even if the stages themselves are neat.
I probably would've rated this lower if played in isolation, but whatever. This is just one beautiful mess. It's insane this was the game they tried to sell the 32X through, tho - this feels like it should be a spin-off or companion piece to a larger Sonic project with better use of the 32X's rendering tech. Really goes to show how dire things were at corporate SEGA at the time.
Ken Penders should have his head dunked in toilet water
+The tether mechanic is obnoxious but I came around on it and actually had a lot of fun using it to vertically cheese the levels. With good timing you can do some fun tech like throwing your partner up, bouncing along with them, then grabbing them midair and repeating again, then chaining it into a glide to reach a wall. It took about 70% of the runtime to fully understand it, but I was having a good kick when it all made sense.
+The color palette and environmental art is super rich and inviting, very reminiscent of Ristar and Sonic CD, though admittedly a lot more directionless. You're in a lot of non-descript technological spaces that don't necessarily feel like part of a larger world, even with the carnival theme they attempt.
+The special stages are cool-looking and fun (((WHEN PLAYED WITH SAVESTATES)))
+The music is amazing, I am so sad Deflemask doesn't have 32X support
-Barely any present level design, and way too many levels
-The stage with the clocks can go to hell
-Some of the bosses were insufferable because your partner can get KO'd, and sometimes the game will just kick you out of the fight when that happens. I'm sure there's a consistent trigger that causes it, but I could not find any pattern between whether or not my partner would re-appear or I'd be sent back to the hub
-Special stages are totally uncooperative at random points in the collision that can cause you to just lose out of nowhere, it's too damning a tech issue to make these rings worth collecting, even if the stages themselves are neat.
I probably would've rated this lower if played in isolation, but whatever. This is just one beautiful mess. It's insane this was the game they tried to sell the 32X through, tho - this feels like it should be a spin-off or companion piece to a larger Sonic project with better use of the 32X's rendering tech. Really goes to show how dire things were at corporate SEGA at the time.
Ken Penders should have his head dunked in toilet water
1996
Creating afterimages to pummel giant Persian-influenced gods and mechanoloids is something truly special, though the inclusion of checkpoints at a few select stages puts this in a weird spot where you CAN credit-feed it but you'll be burning about 30-45 minutes routing out one specific boss rematch section, very bizarre
1990
Motivation is a heavily under-discussed part of game difficulty imo. Usually I see people hyperfixate on 'fairness' as an abstraction of other assorted challenge parameters: Is the game teaching me how to play at a smooth learning curve? Are threats properly telegraphed to me in advance? And the more time passes, the more I think 'fairness' means jack shit to playability. I fucking LOVE a lot of games that are filled to the brim with categorically 'cheap' game design: Sonic Adventure 2, Slay The Spire, Thunder Force IV, Atomic Runner - to name a few. Whether or not those games are easing you in psychologically doesn't matter because they are 'motivating' experiences. The way these games are designed empowers me to tell MYSELF to get back up on my feet and try again; to experiment, to commit to unconventional solutions, to feel comfortable getting right back into it regardless of whether or not I'm having my ass handed to me.
How does this relate to Gaiares? Because I hated Gaiares for the longest time for how demotivating it is. But I've beaten it now, after trials and errors, and I think it's better than initial impressions, but overall kinda draining.
Gaiares is really big in the dad shmup community and early-Genesis boomer fandom, akin to Revenge of Shinobi and Strider. It has a lot going for it, with its intricate stage and boss designs, meaty campaign length, huge expanse of weapons to nab via a kirby-esque copy ability, Its parts come together to make something akin to a lifeline hybrid of Gradius' stage design, R-Type's pacing, and Thunder Force's cinematic flair. Its scope is highly impressive compared to other early Genesis games, and I don't even think a lot of its tangible design elements have aged bad. But it's a looooong shmup, and it's checkpoint-based, and those simple anecdotes bring out all the other cracks in its design.
Gaiares feels needlessly arduous. You're gonna die a lot, and often to shit that doesn't feel like it should've hit you. But you're not just losing lives on death: You're losing progress. There's so much distance between each checkpoint, and the game's length and challenge don't feel designed for it. My initial playthroughs started and ended at the tail end of stage 2, where you have to weave through narrow gaps in glaciers without getting shot at. The jerky scrolling fucks up the way the bullets move in this stage, and if you get unlucky, it can be impossible to pass through without taking a hit. It's just one of the many instances where it feels like the game is gatekeeping your progress to solve a puzzle that it provided without a satisfying solution. And that's compounded with all the little issues the game has with bullet visibility, awkward sine wave movements on enemy sprites, deceptive hitboxes, and bosses with attacks that are disconnected from their perceived animations. It adds up, it slows down progress to a crawl, and it all masks the fact that Gaiares... really isn't that hard? Like, very few of the bullet patterns or stage designs are gruelingly difficult, it's just that it's easy to get fucked up, lose your progress, forget your rhythm and repeat the same petty mistakes.
It's not hard; it's demotivating.
It took a fan patch that adds shields and a save feature for me to finally beat this on OG hardware, and I couldn't imagine playing through without it. It's a cool game, but learning it is such a miserable ordeal. Removing checkpoints is honestly all it would take to bump it up fro 'begrudgingly cool' to 'excellent'. As is, I love a lot about it and can see the components that make it shine above some of the more cheapishly-made Genesis shmups, but I don't anticipate myself going back to it. It tests my patience too much and shuts off my interest.
How does this relate to Gaiares? Because I hated Gaiares for the longest time for how demotivating it is. But I've beaten it now, after trials and errors, and I think it's better than initial impressions, but overall kinda draining.
Gaiares is really big in the dad shmup community and early-Genesis boomer fandom, akin to Revenge of Shinobi and Strider. It has a lot going for it, with its intricate stage and boss designs, meaty campaign length, huge expanse of weapons to nab via a kirby-esque copy ability, Its parts come together to make something akin to a lifeline hybrid of Gradius' stage design, R-Type's pacing, and Thunder Force's cinematic flair. Its scope is highly impressive compared to other early Genesis games, and I don't even think a lot of its tangible design elements have aged bad. But it's a looooong shmup, and it's checkpoint-based, and those simple anecdotes bring out all the other cracks in its design.
Gaiares feels needlessly arduous. You're gonna die a lot, and often to shit that doesn't feel like it should've hit you. But you're not just losing lives on death: You're losing progress. There's so much distance between each checkpoint, and the game's length and challenge don't feel designed for it. My initial playthroughs started and ended at the tail end of stage 2, where you have to weave through narrow gaps in glaciers without getting shot at. The jerky scrolling fucks up the way the bullets move in this stage, and if you get unlucky, it can be impossible to pass through without taking a hit. It's just one of the many instances where it feels like the game is gatekeeping your progress to solve a puzzle that it provided without a satisfying solution. And that's compounded with all the little issues the game has with bullet visibility, awkward sine wave movements on enemy sprites, deceptive hitboxes, and bosses with attacks that are disconnected from their perceived animations. It adds up, it slows down progress to a crawl, and it all masks the fact that Gaiares... really isn't that hard? Like, very few of the bullet patterns or stage designs are gruelingly difficult, it's just that it's easy to get fucked up, lose your progress, forget your rhythm and repeat the same petty mistakes.
It's not hard; it's demotivating.
It took a fan patch that adds shields and a save feature for me to finally beat this on OG hardware, and I couldn't imagine playing through without it. It's a cool game, but learning it is such a miserable ordeal. Removing checkpoints is honestly all it would take to bump it up fro 'begrudgingly cool' to 'excellent'. As is, I love a lot about it and can see the components that make it shine above some of the more cheapishly-made Genesis shmups, but I don't anticipate myself going back to it. It tests my patience too much and shuts off my interest.
2010
i don't understand why people hate this game on the basis of 'you can't die'
bro we're all gonna die! oooooOOOOooOOooOOooohhhhh!!!
bro we're all gonna die! oooooOOOOooOOooOOooohhhhh!!!
2020
This review contains spoilers
Games are always a sum of their parts, and it's very possible for a game with sub-par gameplay to be rescued by the composition of its other overlain elements. Going Under is an extremely well-composed game that ties a knot between its anti-corporate prose and systems extremely well, but its combat is so voluminously bad that it became impossible to care past a certain point.
Writing-wise, I thought Going Under would be a surface level 'capitalism bad send tweet' game, but it goes beyond just platitudes and uses every inch of the game's setting, character interactions and gameplay mechanics to convey the wasteful, discomforting nature of corporate America. From its UI choices, metaphors in items and stats, UX-drenched artstyle, even down to the fact that combat involves constantly discarding disposable, cheap weapons - it understands its subject matter far better than its salespitch would make you believe, both in terms of style and substance. Character writing is also really great, with a supporting cast that feels more nuanced than the often black-and-white interpretations that games are (in)famous for. I think the only thing I disliked about it is that the dungeon villains are extremely one-dimensional 'person I argued with on twitter' caricatures, and there's no way to make these writing archetypes look like anything other than pathetic. I also think Jackie's a pretty mediocre protagonist, it doesn't feel like the game knows if it wants her to be a blank slate to project onto or a girlboss: You get tonal whiplash where one moment she acts naive and clueless so the game can explain systems to you, and then another she'll hear to the most innocent, supportive comment possible and respond with indignant sarcasm - And I promise this isn't a 'you should smile more often'-tier complaint, it's genuinely unwarranted each time, with the only real exceptions being some dungeon characters, Marv, and Ray.
Anyway uh, combat's fuckin' terrible! I knew going into this it would have roguelike tropes that I despise, and yeah, those are there. But man, the core challenge and game mechanisms reek too. I have a shitton of things I'd like to wail on, but it'd be easier to say this: It's trying to fit the weighted feel of BOTW's combat into a genre that demands snappiness, and it causes 90% of losses to be the result of shit you cannot react to due to visual clutter and overbearing wind-up frames. At the very least, it FEELS good to hit things, and the appeal of fighting with an amassed loadout of random shit ticks off a very fun part of my brain. But it stops being fun when you take 5 consecutive hits because a wave ganged up on you, your i-frames suck, and a bomb appeared out of nowhere.
Styxcoin's re-visit was where I gave up, I realized at a certain point that there was no way to effectively win fights without just letting enemies kill themselves off of stage hazards, and that was when 8 hours of suffering finally ticked and made me say, 'why bother?' My backlog's too large to give a shit about one zelda roguelike in a sea of literally limitless options.
It's hard to be mad about this game when it's good points are so well-integrated and many of its 'bad' and 'tedious' elements also complement its narrative. But once you reach the breaking point as a player, your motivation's gone. If I took most people's advice and quit after beating Marv, I would've given this an easy 8/10, because I liked the focal parts of its game loop a lot! But, y'know.
Writing-wise, I thought Going Under would be a surface level 'capitalism bad send tweet' game, but it goes beyond just platitudes and uses every inch of the game's setting, character interactions and gameplay mechanics to convey the wasteful, discomforting nature of corporate America. From its UI choices, metaphors in items and stats, UX-drenched artstyle, even down to the fact that combat involves constantly discarding disposable, cheap weapons - it understands its subject matter far better than its salespitch would make you believe, both in terms of style and substance. Character writing is also really great, with a supporting cast that feels more nuanced than the often black-and-white interpretations that games are (in)famous for. I think the only thing I disliked about it is that the dungeon villains are extremely one-dimensional 'person I argued with on twitter' caricatures, and there's no way to make these writing archetypes look like anything other than pathetic. I also think Jackie's a pretty mediocre protagonist, it doesn't feel like the game knows if it wants her to be a blank slate to project onto or a girlboss: You get tonal whiplash where one moment she acts naive and clueless so the game can explain systems to you, and then another she'll hear to the most innocent, supportive comment possible and respond with indignant sarcasm - And I promise this isn't a 'you should smile more often'-tier complaint, it's genuinely unwarranted each time, with the only real exceptions being some dungeon characters, Marv, and Ray.
Anyway uh, combat's fuckin' terrible! I knew going into this it would have roguelike tropes that I despise, and yeah, those are there. But man, the core challenge and game mechanisms reek too. I have a shitton of things I'd like to wail on, but it'd be easier to say this: It's trying to fit the weighted feel of BOTW's combat into a genre that demands snappiness, and it causes 90% of losses to be the result of shit you cannot react to due to visual clutter and overbearing wind-up frames. At the very least, it FEELS good to hit things, and the appeal of fighting with an amassed loadout of random shit ticks off a very fun part of my brain. But it stops being fun when you take 5 consecutive hits because a wave ganged up on you, your i-frames suck, and a bomb appeared out of nowhere.
Styxcoin's re-visit was where I gave up, I realized at a certain point that there was no way to effectively win fights without just letting enemies kill themselves off of stage hazards, and that was when 8 hours of suffering finally ticked and made me say, 'why bother?' My backlog's too large to give a shit about one zelda roguelike in a sea of literally limitless options.
It's hard to be mad about this game when it's good points are so well-integrated and many of its 'bad' and 'tedious' elements also complement its narrative. But once you reach the breaking point as a player, your motivation's gone. If I took most people's advice and quit after beating Marv, I would've given this an easy 8/10, because I liked the focal parts of its game loop a lot! But, y'know.
1993
I got a scope on my yoshi
16 bits no 68k
I'm like mama-mia she's fine
wonder when she'll be mine
she jump past i pause three times
to see that-a peach so sublime
And I let's-a-go-a
16 bits no 68k
I'm like mama-mia she's fine
wonder when she'll be mine
she jump past i pause three times
to see that-a peach so sublime
And I let's-a-go-a
2005
I talk mostly about Genesis shit on here but my real B&B in early childhood were portables. My fam was homeschooled 'til college, and for most of my early childhood, my older sister was a figure skater. The skater training regimen is a pipeline unto itself, these coaches had our mom driving her 40 minutes out of town at 5 in the morning multiple times a week. So until I was 11 or so, I spent the majority of school hours sitting in a cold rink lobby, either doing 'school' or playing GBA/DS.
Anyway, if you owned a GBA and didn't have Superstar Saga, you were getting a really garbage selection of Mario things. I didn't like the SMB Advance games growing up, Mario Party Advance was this insane butchering/restructuring of traditional MP, and then there's stray sucky things like, fuckin', Pinball Land. Ew. Worst among these was Super Circuit - lots of content, sure, but the controls are non-functional and the difficulty curve was obscene, let alone for a kid. It's petty to complain about it today, but if you're a literal-ass munchkin with zero money, zero friends, and zero ability to pursue anything outside of hand-me-down hobbies, then being stuck with Super Mid-io Brothers was a fucked up situation.
I say all this because it cannot be understated just how unbelievable of an upgrade the DS was - not just as a GBA successor, but for how well Mario's mainline entries were handled. My kid brain couldn't process that there was not only a fully 3D Mario Kart on handheld, but that it controlled better than all the preceding games (and arguably some later ones), had TWICE as many courses as Double Dash, wireless multiplayer (with twice as much single-pak content as Super Circuit), and a full mission mode. To contextualize this: Imagine if Mario Land 2 was a bigger and more fleshed-out game than World. I never considered handhelds 'inferior' to console, but to see a mostly-console series shine brightest on handheld was eye-opening in ways I can't articulate.
And like, even beyond impressions 'of the time', it stills holds up. Still has as solid a drift system as ever. Hell, biggest boon for me is the map system, I fucking love having a top-down support view of the track. It's a map, rear-view camera, blooper support, and shortcut scope all in one, with no intrusion. Features like this really showed off how 2 screens enriched game design without being merely gimmicks.
I'd argue I prefer other Mario Kart games - I like the track selections in others a lot more, I like the BMX feel of Wii more, stuff like that. But every other post-64 release feels incomplete in one way or another. Double Dash controls bad, Wii's balance is garbage, 7's boring and 8 a bad roster and overly-safe game direction. Conversely, DS is the well-rounded MK: It succeeds at everything it attempts, both as a party and competitive racer. And it has ROB. And you can drive a tank.
Look out for when I eventually divulge my 'Leapster' phase, root doo doot doot doooooo
Anyway, if you owned a GBA and didn't have Superstar Saga, you were getting a really garbage selection of Mario things. I didn't like the SMB Advance games growing up, Mario Party Advance was this insane butchering/restructuring of traditional MP, and then there's stray sucky things like, fuckin', Pinball Land. Ew. Worst among these was Super Circuit - lots of content, sure, but the controls are non-functional and the difficulty curve was obscene, let alone for a kid. It's petty to complain about it today, but if you're a literal-ass munchkin with zero money, zero friends, and zero ability to pursue anything outside of hand-me-down hobbies, then being stuck with Super Mid-io Brothers was a fucked up situation.
I say all this because it cannot be understated just how unbelievable of an upgrade the DS was - not just as a GBA successor, but for how well Mario's mainline entries were handled. My kid brain couldn't process that there was not only a fully 3D Mario Kart on handheld, but that it controlled better than all the preceding games (and arguably some later ones), had TWICE as many courses as Double Dash, wireless multiplayer (with twice as much single-pak content as Super Circuit), and a full mission mode. To contextualize this: Imagine if Mario Land 2 was a bigger and more fleshed-out game than World. I never considered handhelds 'inferior' to console, but to see a mostly-console series shine brightest on handheld was eye-opening in ways I can't articulate.
And like, even beyond impressions 'of the time', it stills holds up. Still has as solid a drift system as ever. Hell, biggest boon for me is the map system, I fucking love having a top-down support view of the track. It's a map, rear-view camera, blooper support, and shortcut scope all in one, with no intrusion. Features like this really showed off how 2 screens enriched game design without being merely gimmicks.
I'd argue I prefer other Mario Kart games - I like the track selections in others a lot more, I like the BMX feel of Wii more, stuff like that. But every other post-64 release feels incomplete in one way or another. Double Dash controls bad, Wii's balance is garbage, 7's boring and 8 a bad roster and overly-safe game direction. Conversely, DS is the well-rounded MK: It succeeds at everything it attempts, both as a party and competitive racer. And it has ROB. And you can drive a tank.
Look out for when I eventually divulge my 'Leapster' phase, root doo doot doot doooooo
Can't tell if this was better or worse than I expected
1993
Why did Nintendo stop publishing arcade-style games? This is immaculate. Nintentubers need more STG in their diet.
A practically perfect revision of AW1's campaign and a new personal favorite tactics experience.
One of my biggest grievances in 1 was both the difficulty and oddly gimmicky nature of map design. Battles feel like an uncomfortable half-step between a fundamentals free-for-all while still applying curveball variables that expect unconventional counters. This leads to the game parsing its rules very weirdly, where a solution from one mission should appear to work elsewhere, but doesn't. The lengthy, hand-holdy tutorial doesn't help either.
(also, 1 has too many fucking Fog of War missions)
2 actually solves this by digging FURTHER into niche-application scenarios. Additionally, each of the continents ends with a big 'boss' mission of sorts. As a result, each map tests mission fundamentals and extreme use-cases, which are then summarized in these giant, bombastic, 20+ turn wars of attrition. Each battle is incredibly addicting, and even the most frustrating skirmishes (anything with cannons lmao) felt very empowering to learn. With exception to two missions, I never had to check a guide during my run, and even those missions were learnable with just a glance at the optimal opening move.
(also, 2 has barely any Fog of War maps, and the few here are Fun)
Some of my favorite maps included:
-Using Grit's Rockets to zone out a giant swarm of Md Tanks
-Pecking off a strain of enemies traveling through a mountainous ravine with Sonja
-Decimating a helpless fleet of ammoless Battleships
-Taking on an island of cannons and Missiles using only air units
-Any time I got to use [THE POWER OF MONEY]
-Sniping a mission objective pipeguard with indirect damage while my teammates distract the frontline elsewhere
-Murdering Sturm in the final mission by sending a single Bomber up his ass while the rest of my fleet shits their pants
I think the only thing that stings about AW2 is that it plays the 'war' aspect of storytelling straight - and by consequence, loses the satirical edge of the first game. There's a real, physical conflict with a much more serious tone. The only benefit this really brings on non-mechanical terms is that some characters get to shine brighter as their convictions and ideals are tested. But it's otherwise an ameteurish 'army vs army' flick that treats war as the ultimate solution to conflict, only implying otherwise in a few fleeting textlines.
Either way, this has been an absolute blast and the highlight of my 2023 trek so far. I'm just as hyped to play Dual Strike and Days of Ruin, but I think I'm gonna hold off for a little while longer. Need a breather and some time to find a comfortable DS solution (my 2DS died :C)
One of my biggest grievances in 1 was both the difficulty and oddly gimmicky nature of map design. Battles feel like an uncomfortable half-step between a fundamentals free-for-all while still applying curveball variables that expect unconventional counters. This leads to the game parsing its rules very weirdly, where a solution from one mission should appear to work elsewhere, but doesn't. The lengthy, hand-holdy tutorial doesn't help either.
(also, 1 has too many fucking Fog of War missions)
2 actually solves this by digging FURTHER into niche-application scenarios. Additionally, each of the continents ends with a big 'boss' mission of sorts. As a result, each map tests mission fundamentals and extreme use-cases, which are then summarized in these giant, bombastic, 20+ turn wars of attrition. Each battle is incredibly addicting, and even the most frustrating skirmishes (anything with cannons lmao) felt very empowering to learn. With exception to two missions, I never had to check a guide during my run, and even those missions were learnable with just a glance at the optimal opening move.
(also, 2 has barely any Fog of War maps, and the few here are Fun)
Some of my favorite maps included:
-Using Grit's Rockets to zone out a giant swarm of Md Tanks
-Pecking off a strain of enemies traveling through a mountainous ravine with Sonja
-Decimating a helpless fleet of ammoless Battleships
-Taking on an island of cannons and Missiles using only air units
-Any time I got to use [THE POWER OF MONEY]
-Sniping a mission objective pipeguard with indirect damage while my teammates distract the frontline elsewhere
-Murdering Sturm in the final mission by sending a single Bomber up his ass while the rest of my fleet shits their pants
I think the only thing that stings about AW2 is that it plays the 'war' aspect of storytelling straight - and by consequence, loses the satirical edge of the first game. There's a real, physical conflict with a much more serious tone. The only benefit this really brings on non-mechanical terms is that some characters get to shine brighter as their convictions and ideals are tested. But it's otherwise an ameteurish 'army vs army' flick that treats war as the ultimate solution to conflict, only implying otherwise in a few fleeting textlines.
Either way, this has been an absolute blast and the highlight of my 2023 trek so far. I'm just as hyped to play Dual Strike and Days of Ruin, but I think I'm gonna hold off for a little while longer. Need a breather and some time to find a comfortable DS solution (my 2DS died :C)
2019
DMC sheds its RE-adjacent, castle-creeping, no-rest-for-the-weak skin. In any other franchise, abandoning trunks of its series's aesthetic legacy would feel like a compromise for an increasingly stubborn western-dominated market. But for DMC, this distancing allows for a narrative and mechanical cleansing - if not just to streamline the series' combat into its absolute peak, but to exercise introspection and rebirth, culminating in a truly heartfelt send-off to Dante and Vergil's legacy.
Also you can use the megabuster
Also you can use the megabuster
1996
Subdues the simulation and precision edges off golf for a streamlined arcade experience, but bears its teeth through totally vicious course design. Behind its pristine presentation value and razor-sharp control scheme lies a hellhole with violently-stringent O.B. terrain, and endless seas of bunkers and rivers. It's one of the few golf games where the courses have a game-ified difficulty curve instead of a consistent pace across the 18 holes, so you get this tension where holes start really breezy, but become war-torn abominations by the back half. It's amazing. I hate it. This is one of the best video games ever made.
2001
"Cowboy number one
A born-again poor man's son
On the air America
I modeled shirts by Van Heusen"
[ WAR IS HELL ]
The battlefield is a handpainting canvas for the pampered bourgeoise. Spilling the blood of innocents over the most frivolous and petty of quarrels, the commanding officers jest from the comfort of a barracks table, unconcerned but not oblivious to the mortality of their pawn-like subjects. AW is truer to the reality of war than most games in how cleverly it expresses its plot's conflict as a nothing more than a slap fight: A toy-like abstraction of genocide built on the backs of selfishness, greed and miscommunications.
[ WAR IS DEGENERATE ]
AW's campaign maps are explicitly designed to leave you with worse odds than the opposition - fewer units, less favorable access to terrain and resources, compromised starting positions, and often worse CO abilities. With such stringent play limitations, war forces you to commit scumbag maneuvers: Exploiting AI, baiting enemies toward useless targets, blocking . What would ordinarily be tech relegated for high-level play becomes the backbone of your core strategy. This becomes part of the game's core appeal, but is equally as often a frustration.
[ WAR IS DISPOSABLE ]
There are no RPG staples in Advance Wars. You have a pre-assigned team for every mission (except one), and the actions of your previous encounters do nothing to affect your long-term proficiency. Your groundsmen and pilots? Unnamed nobodies. Letting weak units land fatal blows to get EXP? Not here, dude. Permadeath? Doesn't exist. Lose your strongest tank? Well, if you got a barracks lying around, spend some cash to replace it. And if you don't have a barracks? Uh, send in the infantry to capture and occupy new territory.
I should note though, that despite the disposability of your units on a macro level, you still have to exercise extreme caution over your movements. Each unit type has glaring strengths and weaknesses across its matchups, often totally unable to damage certain other unit types. Every member fills a unique role, and when one piece of the military puzzle gets killed off, you suddenly lose an integral part of your strategy. Imagine playing a fighting game where you lost your anti-airs or mixups if you played poor - that's Advance Wars' unit economy.
[ WAR IS ILLITERATE ]
Nothing is more American than tantalizing the impoverished youth to a comfortable lifestyle through military recruitment and propaganda. Such is the case with Nell, who couldn't be a worse source of education in this hellhole. The game's self-explanatory fundamentals are crammed into a multi-hour tutorial while simultaneously glossing over advanced tactics. And the game's hidden route system means you could realistically play the campaign without learning a new mechanic because you missed the mission where it's introduced to you. You always feel like the game is holding your hand while simultaneously overwhelming you with impossible odds.
And speaking of routes...
[ WAR IS CYCLICAL ]
The game's final battle against the kooky-spooky shadowy figure gives you a team of 3 armies, determined by the difficulty of the route you took - and no, they don't tell you there's multiple routes, you figure that out for yourself after it's already too late. Do the harder fights, and get a hand from previously-indomitable boss characters like Kanbei and Eagle. Wimp out, and the game leaves you with members whose specialties do fuck-all against Sturm's bulky caravan. If you happen to get stuck with, say, Sami and Grit, the map is almost unwinnable without googling an hour-long guide to learn exactly when and where to move certain units.
On my first try, I got stuck with Sami and Grit.
If this happens to you and you don't have the energy to brute-force the final boss, you have to re-do your old routes to unlock a better team. Thing is, you can't backtrack to older missions.
Long story short, I restarted my entire savefile because of this, and have shockingly learned this is a thing most people had to do too. That's... totally heinous and unacceptable for a 15+ hour long campaign.
Also, the best routes aren't labeled. None of the CO's are assigned to a diffiuclty level, and you just have to infer which one is hardest based on the map itself or plot surrounding it. Sometimes this is clever, like using Andy on the map that introduces Max so he can prove his independence, or using Sami against Green Earth because she and Eagle have the hots for each other. But without a clear game-to-player indicator, you basically need a guide to know which ones to pick.
[ WAR IS A HAZE ]
Also uh, Fog of War is fucking terrible and ruins this game, it sucks SHIT. It limits the map visibility but NOT for the CPU. These battles are where the game feels least like a tactics game and most like a trial-and-error puzzler: Constantly re-doing the same battles until you find the route. Even when following best practices with tree and reef defense, the AI WILL find ways to screw you over, forcing a hard reset.
And maybe Fog of War would be tolerable if it were treated as a side mission style - y'know, something alternative to mix things up. But depending on the route you take, you could end up playing 7 or more of these missions back-to-back. I felt like at least 35-45% of battles had Fog of War. This was soul-crushing and miserable.
[ WAR IS FINALITY ]
Advance Wars is killer on mechanics and aesthetics, but its ambition in campaign design becomes its own worst enemy when it completely fails to give the player reasonable opportunities to learn its arcane rules. The abundance of gimmick-driven missions constantly tears away the player's ability to learn mandatory fundamentals and appropriate opening moves. It's unmatched at its highest moments and couldn't be a better satire of American-cartoonish military culture, though that also seeps into is playability and frustration scale. I have no idea if this is just a rocky first attempt after moving away from the challenge mode-esque structure of the NES/SNES originals, or if this is just the identity they've chosen for themselves. Either way, I'm addicted to this, and I'll find out soon whenever I play the sequels.
"Here is a reminder of what the air attack warning sounds like
This is the sound"
A born-again poor man's son
On the air America
I modeled shirts by Van Heusen"
[ WAR IS HELL ]
The battlefield is a handpainting canvas for the pampered bourgeoise. Spilling the blood of innocents over the most frivolous and petty of quarrels, the commanding officers jest from the comfort of a barracks table, unconcerned but not oblivious to the mortality of their pawn-like subjects. AW is truer to the reality of war than most games in how cleverly it expresses its plot's conflict as a nothing more than a slap fight: A toy-like abstraction of genocide built on the backs of selfishness, greed and miscommunications.
[ WAR IS DEGENERATE ]
AW's campaign maps are explicitly designed to leave you with worse odds than the opposition - fewer units, less favorable access to terrain and resources, compromised starting positions, and often worse CO abilities. With such stringent play limitations, war forces you to commit scumbag maneuvers: Exploiting AI, baiting enemies toward useless targets, blocking . What would ordinarily be tech relegated for high-level play becomes the backbone of your core strategy. This becomes part of the game's core appeal, but is equally as often a frustration.
[ WAR IS DISPOSABLE ]
There are no RPG staples in Advance Wars. You have a pre-assigned team for every mission (except one), and the actions of your previous encounters do nothing to affect your long-term proficiency. Your groundsmen and pilots? Unnamed nobodies. Letting weak units land fatal blows to get EXP? Not here, dude. Permadeath? Doesn't exist. Lose your strongest tank? Well, if you got a barracks lying around, spend some cash to replace it. And if you don't have a barracks? Uh, send in the infantry to capture and occupy new territory.
I should note though, that despite the disposability of your units on a macro level, you still have to exercise extreme caution over your movements. Each unit type has glaring strengths and weaknesses across its matchups, often totally unable to damage certain other unit types. Every member fills a unique role, and when one piece of the military puzzle gets killed off, you suddenly lose an integral part of your strategy. Imagine playing a fighting game where you lost your anti-airs or mixups if you played poor - that's Advance Wars' unit economy.
[ WAR IS ILLITERATE ]
Nothing is more American than tantalizing the impoverished youth to a comfortable lifestyle through military recruitment and propaganda. Such is the case with Nell, who couldn't be a worse source of education in this hellhole. The game's self-explanatory fundamentals are crammed into a multi-hour tutorial while simultaneously glossing over advanced tactics. And the game's hidden route system means you could realistically play the campaign without learning a new mechanic because you missed the mission where it's introduced to you. You always feel like the game is holding your hand while simultaneously overwhelming you with impossible odds.
And speaking of routes...
[ WAR IS CYCLICAL ]
The game's final battle against the kooky-spooky shadowy figure gives you a team of 3 armies, determined by the difficulty of the route you took - and no, they don't tell you there's multiple routes, you figure that out for yourself after it's already too late. Do the harder fights, and get a hand from previously-indomitable boss characters like Kanbei and Eagle. Wimp out, and the game leaves you with members whose specialties do fuck-all against Sturm's bulky caravan. If you happen to get stuck with, say, Sami and Grit, the map is almost unwinnable without googling an hour-long guide to learn exactly when and where to move certain units.
On my first try, I got stuck with Sami and Grit.
If this happens to you and you don't have the energy to brute-force the final boss, you have to re-do your old routes to unlock a better team. Thing is, you can't backtrack to older missions.
Long story short, I restarted my entire savefile because of this, and have shockingly learned this is a thing most people had to do too. That's... totally heinous and unacceptable for a 15+ hour long campaign.
Also, the best routes aren't labeled. None of the CO's are assigned to a diffiuclty level, and you just have to infer which one is hardest based on the map itself or plot surrounding it. Sometimes this is clever, like using Andy on the map that introduces Max so he can prove his independence, or using Sami against Green Earth because she and Eagle have the hots for each other. But without a clear game-to-player indicator, you basically need a guide to know which ones to pick.
[ WAR IS A HAZE ]
Also uh, Fog of War is fucking terrible and ruins this game, it sucks SHIT. It limits the map visibility but NOT for the CPU. These battles are where the game feels least like a tactics game and most like a trial-and-error puzzler: Constantly re-doing the same battles until you find the route. Even when following best practices with tree and reef defense, the AI WILL find ways to screw you over, forcing a hard reset.
And maybe Fog of War would be tolerable if it were treated as a side mission style - y'know, something alternative to mix things up. But depending on the route you take, you could end up playing 7 or more of these missions back-to-back. I felt like at least 35-45% of battles had Fog of War. This was soul-crushing and miserable.
[ WAR IS FINALITY ]
Advance Wars is killer on mechanics and aesthetics, but its ambition in campaign design becomes its own worst enemy when it completely fails to give the player reasonable opportunities to learn its arcane rules. The abundance of gimmick-driven missions constantly tears away the player's ability to learn mandatory fundamentals and appropriate opening moves. It's unmatched at its highest moments and couldn't be a better satire of American-cartoonish military culture, though that also seeps into is playability and frustration scale. I have no idea if this is just a rocky first attempt after moving away from the challenge mode-esque structure of the NES/SNES originals, or if this is just the identity they've chosen for themselves. Either way, I'm addicted to this, and I'll find out soon whenever I play the sequels.
"Here is a reminder of what the air attack warning sounds like
This is the sound"
2023
Street Fighter 6 World Tour rules! Its ability to own the 'goofy-self-insert-in-a-serious-and-tender-plot-of-self-actualization' shtick is fucking amazing. I loved getting lost in the city, snooping out arcade machines, decking out my threads and pile driving old ladies into the concrete. Video games.
Street Fighter 6 World Tour made me miserable! World Tour is an impenetrable grind and lasts three times as long as its story should. The sense of player progression is an unbearable drag. If I am optimizing how I grind and not just beating people up willy-nilly, I should be leveling up more frequently than once per half hour, and those stats should have actually meaningful effects on my matchups. When I walk into a tournament 10 levels above everyone else with all bought supplements and still have worse damage output & defense than the competition, something is wrong. These RPG environment systems work well with the fighting game loop but not the individual mechanics, they Destiny-ified this shit to kingdom come.
By the halfway point I was continuing purely out of buyer's remorse - there were freckles of fun but it was purely a job to me. Blech.
Fighting game's good too, I haven't played much of it admittedly, not big on fighting online randos and I haven't found a character I perfectly gel with. Gotta bring my boy Necro and my girl Sakura back someday, plllllEASE.
Street Fighter 6 World Tour made me miserable! World Tour is an impenetrable grind and lasts three times as long as its story should. The sense of player progression is an unbearable drag. If I am optimizing how I grind and not just beating people up willy-nilly, I should be leveling up more frequently than once per half hour, and those stats should have actually meaningful effects on my matchups. When I walk into a tournament 10 levels above everyone else with all bought supplements and still have worse damage output & defense than the competition, something is wrong. These RPG environment systems work well with the fighting game loop but not the individual mechanics, they Destiny-ified this shit to kingdom come.
By the halfway point I was continuing purely out of buyer's remorse - there were freckles of fun but it was purely a job to me. Blech.
Fighting game's good too, I haven't played much of it admittedly, not big on fighting online randos and I haven't found a character I perfectly gel with. Gotta bring my boy Necro and my girl Sakura back someday, plllllEASE.
1998
Bad MM games hurt cause they always come down to fine ideas lathered in Inafune's awful difficulty sensibilities. I love seeing the MM8 artstyle on SNES! I love Bass being playable and having a tripped out moveset! I love the majority of these new robot master designs! I love the lounge jazz music! I love that you can just zoom call Roll on the menu and she chats your ear off!
I don't love any of this game's level or boss designs! When it's not being a pale imitation of 8, its new ideas have comparable cheapness to MM7 Wily. And every time its bad ideas are 'fun, they find a way to tarnish it.
You'll see people defend the SNES version as a good game for lacking the GBA port's screen crunch, but I'd disagree - they're equally shit to put up with. The few challenges that become worse due to screen crunch are already crunched on SNES, and the rest of the problems come down to innate design flaws. Hell, I think the GBA version actually has the better soundtrack!
Bass later got a playable redemption in 10 and the arcade games but it sucks this first outing of his is so trite. His sprite is so cool! Why was it wasted on this???
I don't love any of this game's level or boss designs! When it's not being a pale imitation of 8, its new ideas have comparable cheapness to MM7 Wily. And every time its bad ideas are 'fun, they find a way to tarnish it.
You'll see people defend the SNES version as a good game for lacking the GBA port's screen crunch, but I'd disagree - they're equally shit to put up with. The few challenges that become worse due to screen crunch are already crunched on SNES, and the rest of the problems come down to innate design flaws. Hell, I think the GBA version actually has the better soundtrack!
Bass later got a playable redemption in 10 and the arcade games but it sucks this first outing of his is so trite. His sprite is so cool! Why was it wasted on this???