Sonic 2 without the 2?

This one is quite a mixed bag. Definitely a One Step Forward Three Steps Back kinda deal when you compare it to the games that came out before.

Can’t believe they had the balls to put Tails on the Title Screen even though he is effectively nowhere to be seen. You even made these cute little pictures of the two buddies together before every zone and you don’t even get to play as him at all! I did get all the chaos emeralds and I was just met with the most awkward stare down from both of the characters at the end. Talk about unsatisfying, although at least the end credits were kinda nice.

Unfortunately the overworld map is gone so we don’t see how we get from place to place. To be honest the zone structure feels really off in general. Green Hills Zone (yes, Hills, not Hill) is the fourth level for some reason?? It is by far the easiest level so I don’t know why. The first level is underground with lava pits and some very cheery music. I’ve got no problem with trying to go against platformer tropes but this just doesn’t feel like an adventure; some very stock feeling level themes just kinda slapped together.

Speaking of the music, not only do I not really care for any of the tracks (Green Hills being the exception), but they mostly feel like they could be swapped around between each zone and no one would bat an eye. Tracks don’t convey any sense of the environment you’re in (unless the environment is you sitting down staring at an 8-bit game), and hence again, remove any feeling of adventure. This might sound like a harsh criticism but I can’t really forgive it since the previous entry actually did this very well.

Playing the Game Gear version immediately allows you a free pass to use save states wherever you please because when one of the chaos emeralds is quite literally off of the screen it becomes very clear that very little testing was done for this version. And you will be punished for it, because compared to 8-Bit Sonic 1, the challenge has definitely increased. Some of the levels feel a bit more open now with multiple routes. Unfortunately the quality just isn’t quite there…

To go into detail on some of the levels, as I said, mixed bag.
Green Hills has some nice fast sections, but act 3 has horrible blind spring jumps that took me way too many tries than was fun.
Gimmick Mountain (AWFUL NAME) actually uses those spinny things from 16-Bit Scrap Brain and implements them into the level pretty well! It has some challenging platforming sections with conveyors as well. This would probably be the best zone if the Game Gear screen wasn’t cucking me every single jump.
Turns out Aqua Lake (I instinctively typed Labyrinth for a second) was actually the first Zone to introduce putting Sonic inside a bubble and moving him around in a water based stage. I think this is a fun gimmick! Unfortunately the rest of the stage is hot garbage, and I like Labyrinth Zone, both 16-bit and 8-bit. Oh no I don’t like it in Sonic 4 who tf do you think I am you sicko. Anyway it’s a very boring water level outside of the bubbles, and it also looks really ugly.
Scrambled Egg Zone has to be my new least favourite Classic Sonic Zone, it’s just pick a path. Fuck you.
Crystal Egg Zone has to be my SECOND least favourite Classic Sonic Zone! It’s not difficult or bullshit but it’s horrendously ugly and completely nonsensical gameplay wise. This is what I grabbed the emeralds for?
Other gimmicks like the minecarts and hang gliders were alright. Couldn’t figure out the hang gliders really and they seemed pointless. The minecarts were fun to try and jump out at the right time, but this was only done like, two or three times.

Bosses! Again! Mixed. Bag. A couple fun ones and a couple really god awful shit ones! Silver Sonic was by far the best and Eggman was AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WTF who tf why why why it's so bad. Starts off a little confusing and potentially challenging, but once you figure out how it works it just becomes a boring as heck waiting game. It’s also the only boss you’re likely to hear the smoke alarm segment of the boss theme. (I know this probably wasn’t made with headphones in mind but my goodness was that unpleasant to hear.)

To conclude, it’ssssss okay.. leaning towards bad really. Some good gimmicks, some underwhelming. Some good level design, some horrible. Some pretty levels, some ugly. Some fun bosses, some stupid bosses!
A mediocre time but it has its highlights... kinda.

they really put the “Fire” in Fire Emblem with this one

FE4 is easily the most ambitious Fire Emblem so far. at this point Kaga is done messing around, as of this point he now begins to showcase his full potential where it comes to this franchise. I don’t got much else to say right now so let’s just get into it.

no more Akaneia, no more Falchion, no more Marth, we’re heading to uncharted territory now; welcome to Jugdral. the story begins with the Kingdom of Grannvale, one of the many nations founded after the Holy War that took place a century earlier. although many years of peace take place, reports of the Isaach nation besieging Darna reach Grannvale and as Darna was an important landmark during the Holy War, Grannvale declares war on Issach with most of its military charging forward to deal with the situation. while this happens, the army of Verdane from another a neighboring nation invades House Jungby and kidnaps Lady Aideen (or Edin or Edain whatever translation you prefer). however Sigurd of House Chalphy (the son of Lord Byron who’s partaking in the war against Issac) has been left to defend Grannvale in his father’s absence and once he hears about this he sets forward to rescue Aideen with what little soldiers were left behind. unfortunately these events are what begin the next war of Jugdral and many tragedies will occur during this time. since it’s 2024, most people at this point are aware of the Second Generation that occurs during the second half of the game so I’ll provide a very brief summary of what happens there while trying not to delve too much into spoiler territory. seventeen years after the events of the First Generation, Sigurd’s son Seliph is now in refuge at Tirnanog, a village located in Issach (ironic huh) where after word of this hiding place is discovered by the new empire of this generation, Seliph emerges and begins a revolution to free the nations who are now under rule of this empire.

storywise FE4 feels like a more mature version of what Kaga was trying to achieve with FE3. no more long and/or crazy lore dumps outside of like two of them near the end of the game, the storytelling is very natural and delves into much darker topics than FE3, and FE3 was already darker than the first two games so you can imagine how serious it can get. of course there are some comedic moments though a majority of them come from optional conversations you can have with members of your army (a first for the series and something I expect to be in every game from this point onward) and a lot of those also come from Sylvia/Silvia: one of the only characters in the game that doesn’t take anything seriously to the point where she can have a potential conversation with another character named Alec where during the climax of the First Generation, she blames him for unintentionally getting her pregnant, and that’s not even close to being the craziest relationship in this game. besides those couple of moments this is very much the “seinen Fire Emblem”; protagonists and antagonists are betrayed left and right, children are abducted to work for the empire, other children are hunted down to appease a dark god, one of the female characters gets sexually assaulted (thankfully off-screen), another female is tortured to the point that she loses the will to live (also thankfully off-screen), and an important character is unknowingly manipulated to marry his half-sister who gives birth to the vessel of the Antichrist, no I will not elaborate on that. FE4 gets kinda wild, and for me the perfect example of the different direction that FE4 takes is none other than Sigurd, the Lord of the First Generation.

spoilers somewhat for the first half of the game, I’ll try to refrain from mentioning the big stuff since you really got to experience it for yourself but if you haven’t played the game yet you can skip this next paragraph.

Sigurd is a brilliant character since at first you’re expecting him to be like Marth or Alm and Celica from FE2, and well he is for the most part. he’s a noble, he’s friendly, he wants to do the right thing all that usual stuff. in fact he even accomplishes stuff better than the others since right away he starts off OP gameplay wise and he even gets married very early compared to the other Lords where that only happens at the end of their story, but the thing that separates him from the ones that came before is that everything he does has consequences. for Marth and the others while some bad stuff does happen to them, the things they accomplish benefit their world and they eventually get their happy ending once things are done, Celica admittedly screws up at least once during her journey though things do work out for her too, Sigurd on the other hand is what would happen if instead of having one major screw up, he’s constantly making screw ups during his entire journey. his early accomplishments are genuinely good as he rescues Aideen which in turn lets her convince another character to side with them, and then he saves Deirdre who he quickly falls in love with leading to their marriage and the birth of their son, however his rescue mission to save Aideen takes him to Verdane itself where he would get involved with the affairs there which ends with him seizing Verdane Castle. some of the heads of the neighboring nation Agustria views this as a threat so they chose to wage war against Grannvale and go after Sigurd’s army, which only leads to Sigurd getting involved over there and he ends up seizing the southern half of Agustria and uses it as headquarters as per orders. it gets to the point where Lewyn, a new recruit, calls him out for his actions and even Sigurd’s best friend Eldigan begins to think that he and Grannvale are attempting a conquest. although Sigurd has good intentions and didn’t intend for things to get so out of control, nonetheless he still plays a big part in contributing to just that. by the time you get to the end of the First Generation you realize that Sigurd has become an unwitting pawn for the antagonists and is responsible for a domino effect of war and bloodshed. it all cumulates to the point where after everything possible has gone wrong, he throws away his nobility and curses the enemy who broke the last straw.

in summary: Sigurd is a deconstruction of the typical Fire Emblem Lord that the franchise has established at this point. it’s all the more funny that the game that introduces the most complex Lord so far also introduces a basic traditional one for its second half. nothing against Celice—err Seliph by the way, I have no hatred towards him he’s a good character, unfortunately he doesn’t really bring anything new to the table like Sigurd does, Seliph’s not really that much different from someone like Marth in my opinion though I guess that’s not too much of a negative since Marth’s cool af. according to Kaga, there was supposed to be a Third Generation where characters of both the First and Second Generation would join together but it didn’t end up happening, probably because they were already pushing the limits of the SFC as is but I don’t think there’s an actual confirmed reason, anyway I think that would have been a good opportunity to flesh out Seliph a bit more but it is what it is. another character I really like is Alvis Presley, or Arvis for short. unfortunately any discussion involving this guy is major spoiler territory so as much as I’d like to I won’t be discussing him here, just know that out of them so far, Arvis is the best one at what he is from a character standpoint. okay story time is over, now it’s time to discuss the gameplay and there’s a lot to unpack there.

let’s get the obvious out of the way. this is the first map of the game. it’s also the smallest. FE4 is a big departure (pun intended) in that all the maps of the game are jumbo sized and have multiple castles to siege, essentially making each Chapter in FE4 at least triple the size of the ones in the previous games. due to this, high movement units excel here while the lower movement units will usually be at a disadvantage since it’ll take them a while to get into the action and earn themselves EXP. it’s no surprise that the best units in the game are the mounted units AKA the ones with the horses who get a very nice 8 movement speed while others like Priests and Sword Armors (they’re just Knights with a different name) only get a measly 5 movement and while that’s only 3 less than the horses those extra three movements make such a difference. to help movement go a bit faster, there’s a new terrain called “Road” that only use ups 0.7 of your movement which will help alleviate the unmounted units while the horse units become even better. flying units don’t get this movement bonus because….well they’re flying but they’re still really good since being able to fly over forests and mountains is very valuable, also roads have -10% avoid so you have to be careful during the enemy phase if you end a unit’s turn on one. now you may be wondering why the maps are so huge, and it’s that in this game you’re actually traveling through the entire country the Chapter takes place in. a detail I really like is by the time you get to the next Chapter you actually start off in the same area where you ended your previous Chapter. FE3 did this a few times but here in FE4 this occurs after almost every Chapter making the world in this game feel really connected, and it is. as cool as this is however, this makes going through the maps in this game quite annoying as a good amount of them either have slow pacing or force you to hurry to get some useful items in time, a lot of these are actually during the First Generation so it creates a very rough first impression. Chapter 1 forces you to go through a giant forest (the section over at the bottom left) where all your units are forced to have all their movement speed sapped away while you also have to send another unit to recruit an enemy unit in the forest while making sure they don’t die because they’re also surrounded by a bunch of Archers, fun. Chapter 2’s another mess where you need to quickly get your horse units (your unmounted units are not getting there) to the castle nearby to rescue a new unit as well as three green units who are protecting said unit from a bunch of enemies and if one of those green units die at any point of the Chapter then you lose out on a very important and useful item and you don’t want that to happen. also if you’re not fast enough to get to the next castle after that (Turn 11 or earlier) then you risk the chance of a Brigand destroying a village with another important item before the two playable units that appear after the castle is seized to show up in that area, that village is also the first one that ends up getting attacked, granted villages take multiple turns to get destroyed in this game but still. Chapter 4’s not too bad but after you seize the castle at the top right you need to backtrack your way down to the two castles at the bottom as the pathway is blocked before then, you can Return or Warp your units back down but it’ll cost you a lot to repair those staves (yeah you can repair weapons in this game too) and at least one unit with one of those staves will have to make their way back on their own. the Second Generation’s maps are less of a hassle though they do suffer from some annoying enemy placement like in Chapter 7 where a bunch of Dark Mages are placed nearby your starting point and later on where you have to try to recruit another character surrounded by enemy units while making sure you don’t accidentally kill said character during the enemy phase. yeah can’t say I’m a fan of the map direction in this game even if I think it’s cool how they match up perfectly with Jugral’s layout, a shame since I’d like to stream this one to my friends but those huge maps are certainly going to make it a pain to everyone watching. every other game after this goes back to the smaller maps and personally I think that’s for the better.

besides the maps there’s still a lot of gameplay changes this game does to differentiate it even further from the earlier games. each Chapter you get a sort of base of operations in the castle you start off in. here you can do a good amount of preparation before you send you characters out, most of the actions you perform here doesn’t take up any turns (besides giving gold to another unit but I’ll talk about that later) so you can take your time in these castles which you should since using their services are pretty helpful. Blacksmith allows you to visit a blacksmith that’ll repair all your equipment at a cost, a first for a franchise and probably something that won’t reappear that often because this is just way too good. Pawnbroker replaces traditional trading in this game as now you’ll have to sell your items here and have another unit buy them if you want that unit to use them, in a way this is a downgrade since you now need to cough up some cash to give items to other units (the Ring items are especially pricey) but when you think about it it’s really only a necessary evil because most of the items you get in FE4 are surprisingly overpowered and freely being able to trade them off to characters back and forth could have destroyed the difficulty balance (Sigurd gets a Silver Sword in the Prologue there’s no way trading was going to happen lol). Supply lets you store items in case you have too many items (the max you can hold has been buffed from 4 to 7) and you want to keep them on the same unit to save them for another time, it’s not something I bothered with in the First Generation but it did have its niche uses during the Second Generation where the items can start to pile up. the Arena is an area that’s actually been in FE1 and FE3 but I never brought it up since I felt it’s not too important in those games, for a summary: the arenas are an area in various Chapters that allow you to fight opponents that are surprisingly more difficult than the ones you fight in the actual maps, defeating them rewards your unit with EXP and some good old cash. however the catch is not only can you not control your unit for this (a CPU will have your unit attack for you) but your opponent can actually kill your unit off so it’s very risky. (if you’re not abusing save states), in FE1 you actually can’t back out once you start but in FE3 you at least have the option to do that by pressing the B button during battle at the cost of not getting your money back and your unit being at low health. the FE4 arena is a little different as in this game each unit has a finite seven opponents they can face rather than the unlimited amount in FE1 and FE3, failing also doesn’t end in the death of your unit but rather they’ll only be reduced to 1 HP. after every Chapter the Arena resets with seven new fighters so it makes a great place to get units EXP and gold, provided that they’re able to equip a weapon. Augury is where you can find out the lover of your unit or the one they’re falling in love with while the Second Generation also lets you check who the parents of your unit are (another mechanic that I will explain later). lastly the Armory is where you buy weapons, though this time they’re in a limited capacity so you can’t just keep buying them over and over. new weapons will get added per Chapter plus they’ll stick around so if you can’t afford it or want to save a weapon for a later Chapter you can do just that.

besides the town stuff, you can also have a character guard the castle which is a new mechanic as enemies can now invade your castle to destroy it resulting in an automatic game over, though while this sounds crazy you really don’t have to worry about it since there’s only one or two Chapters where your castle’s in genuine danger since enemy units are rarely ordered to go after them and during those moments you can easily send one to guard with a Warp and Return staff that you should have at that point. guarding a castle provides the usual evade boost as well as a small HP regen after every turn like the forts from previous games, enemy castle guards also get these boosts too so you’ll have to be careful around them compared to regular enemies. class changes have been reworked in this time to only take place in your starting castle and well as needing to be Level 20 to class change rather than Level 10, though this time you won’t need an item nor will your level be reset (the max is now Level 30). staff use and dancing can be done in the castle at the cost of your unit’s turn, though I don’t know why you’d want to do that in the castle I didn’t even you can before I did this research for this review. lastly, units can give gold to each other as in this game each unit has their own amounts of gold they can hold (up to 50,000), a neat little detail that showcases this is how a character named Beowolf is recruited if you talk to him with a unit that can pay him 10,000 gold and once he’s on your team he has the 10,000 gold in his own inventory. the gold sharing is limited though as outside of the Thief class who can share with everyone, normally units can only give gold to their relatives or lovers which is a nice Segway into possibly FE4’s biggest new feature.

units can fall in LOVE. yeah that’s right you thought Awakening did it first? nah FE4 beat it to the punch almost 16 years earlier. brag all you want about Awakening saving the franchise (for better or for worse (probably for the worse considering the FE fans that I’ve associated with)), but there’s no denying it couldn’t have done that if it didn’t take one of its most well known features from Genealogy of the Holy War. kneel to your ancestors baby, you wouldn’t be here without them. anyway let’s go back to pretending it’s 1996. many of this game’s playable characters can fall in love with the opposite gender through methods such as ending a turn next to each other or having conversations with each other at points of the game which will boost both their love points and a slight stat boost, though there are a good amount of non-lover conversations that also boost stats so you’ll definitely want to have these conversations to make things a little easier. of course you could always have them fall in love naturally but if you want to do the cheese strat then you can clear all the enemies currently on the map then have the two soon-to-be lovers next to each other while you keep ending your turns until they fall in love, though just know that this method stops working after the 50th turn of each map so it may take another Chapter for them to reach the maximum love points. the only units you can’t make fall in love are Quan and Ethlyn who are already married by the time they appear in the game, Sigurd and Deirdre who automatically fall in love with each other because the plot demands it, and a few of the Second Generation units. the reason why you want units to fall in love is because not only do lovers get small stat boosts where they’re nearby as well as a small chance to get a critical hit if they’re next to each other (something you can’t do in normal circumstances in this game), but during the Second Generation you can get access to units who are not only the children of the characters from the First Generation but these units will also inherit items, stats, and skills from their parents which will make the tides much more in your favor. if you don’t pair up the First Generation units then the ones that didn’t score will have their children replaced with substitute units who don’t inherit anything and have inferior stats, though in turn the conversations they can have will provide bigger stat boosts so they don’t die to a small gust of wind, that said I wouldn’t know what they’re like myself since I made all the females in my playthrough have children (don’t take this out of context). I heard the dancer substitute is technically better but idk I really wanted Sylvia’s daughter to inherit the Knight and Leg Ring since extra movement along with movement after an action is OP, also it helps that dancing now refreshes all adjacent allies rather than just one.

speaking of Sylvia, Kaga decided to pull a funny prank regarding her and her potential lovers. there’s a conversation in Chapter 2 that Sylvia can have with another unit named Alec where the two will get 100 love points with each other. ideally you don’t want them to fall in love because Alec is a JOBBER you do not want him to pass his JOBBER genes to Sylvia’s children because you wouldn’t want your own children to be JOBBERS would you? you can always just not have them talk or be next to each other but then in Chapter 4 you can have another conversation with her and Erin/Fury/Ferry/whatever the hell your translation patch calls her where they discuss about Lewyn. Erin and Lewyn are probably both the best pairings for each other (and apparently canon according to FE5) so this is good because it gives those two 25 love points, but then it also gives him and Sylvia 50 love points and Sylvia starts off having 200 love points with Lewyn when she first joins your team uh oh! at the end of the day though, Sylvia’s children aren’t really combat units so if you get her a bad pairing then it’s not a big deal, and later on in Chapter 4 Erin and Lewyn get their own conversation that gives so many love points that Lewyn straight up tells her “I love you” wow Kaga really wanted these two to make out

alright some of the other changes and additions I haven’t mentioned yet. this is the first game with the “weapon triangle” system where certain weapons are given a boosted hit rate when facing a foe that’s equipped with a weapon less effective than yours. the easy way of putting it is: swords beat axes, lances beat swords, and axes beat lances, though in this game it’s more like: swords beat almost everything, lances beat swords sometimes, and axes are the “I want to die” weapon. there’s also a trinity of magic which is like the weapon triangle but more balanced: fire magic beats wind magic, wind magic beats thunder magic, and thunder magic bests fire magic, unless you’re the Forseti and Mjölnir tomes in which case you beat everything because you’re OP. the weapon level system has also revised to include weapon ranks where instead of leveling up until your unit’s skilled enough to use a weapon, the weapons they can use are instead based on their class and what weapon rank the class is capable of using, for example: Cavaliers can use up to B rank swords and C rank lances (stuff like steel swords and iron lances), Priests can only use up to B rank staffs (pretty much any staff that isn’t Fortify or Rescue), Axe Knights can only use up to B rank axes (not a good thing), Sword Fighters can only use up to A rank swords (good thing), and the rare Master Knight can use A rank everything and C rank light magic (you’ll never need them to use light magic) though only two characters get this class you’ll need to get them to Level 20 for them to access it. for me this is a lot easier to understand then in FE1 and FE3 where you won’t know when a unit will be able to use a powerful weapon until their skill is high enough to where the game says “okay you can use this now”, this is a welcome feature. this game also introduces the skill system which kinda has the same function as the Ability system in Pokémon where each unit has their own unique skill to differ from one another, though in the case of Fire Emblem a unit can have more than one skill at a time. lets take a look at Alec and Noish (or Naoise some of these official names are weird), the Christmas Cavaliers of the game. these two seem identical at a first glance but the skills they have make them a bit different from each other. Alec has Follow-Up which lets him do a follow-up attack if his speed is greater than his opponent’s and Nihil which protects him from critical hits and other combat skills. The Noish gets Critical which lets him perform critical hits and Accost which lets him repeat a round of combat if his speed is fast enough. these skills give them each different niches in the game so it’s up to you to decide which one you want to use in combat more often, but really both of them are pretty mediocre and you’re better off using almost every other unit (horses won’t be saving them much). lastly (I think) there’s the Holy Blood system where characters can have minor or major holy blood depending on their ancestors or in the case of the Second Generation depending on their parents. major holy blood allows them to use the holy weapon of the ancestor or parent they came from which are basically the OP game breaking weapons though you’ll have to go out of your way to earn a lot of these holy weapons through conversations or events. minor holy blood doesn’t do this but it does provide weapon level boosts and specific growth rates, which major holy blood already does to greater effect. since most of the characters in the First Generation have various kinds of major and minor holy blood, the pairings you create here can give their children in the Second Generation their own major and/or minor holy blood depending on their parents which can help them get the growth rates and weapon ranks that they’re in need of.

oh yeah there’s this funny thing that I haven’t mentioned yet. on very rare occasions, you can access secret events by having certain units end their turns on specific places of the map. how are you supposed to know about these secret events? I don’t know! the three secret events I did was having Lex (the axe user of Generation 1) end his turn at a cliff (he also needs an Iron Axe for the event but he should have that in his inventory) so he can get a Brave Axe (Silver Axe but better), having Arden (Sword Armor) end his turn at a beach in Chapter 2 for a Pursuit Ring that he’ll pawn off to Rick Harrison because he will not benefit much from its effects, and Seliph heading south to the beach right before he seizes the final castle in Chapter 10, once again I don’t know how you’re supposed to know about these which is why I’m telling you how to access these events myself. some of the substitute characters have their own secret events but since I didn’t have any in my playthrough I can’t help you on those ones, I love Guide Emblem

the graphics got a glow up from the previous game as now the maps don’t look like the NES ones with more colors (not that that’s a bad thing). unlike the previous two games though there’s not as many cool set pieces like pirate ships or swamps or volcanos or all that other stuff as all the maps of this game take place mostly on grassy terrain with the occasional desert and one-time snow area, if there’s something visually FE4 really drops the ball on it’s that. FE4’s battle animations are also the best they’ve looked so far in the franchise and although they’re not as flashy as the GBA games with their fast anime movement and spinning weapon flex, I still appreciate the more grounded animations in FE4 while still having some cool movement on rare occasions (the pre-class change Seliph crit where he does the Final Cutter from Kirby is awesome). unfortunately it’s hard to find FE battle GIFs that aren’t from the GBA games so you’ll just have to play the game yourself to see what they look like :^))). the music also might be the best in the franchise so far and I think a contributor to that is every Chapter has its own map theme, we’ve come a long way from FE1 having a singular map theme for most of the game. here’s the Prologue theme and yeah this is fine it’s what I expect to hear from Fire Emblem nothing too amazing but it’s a nice theme to start off with. then Chapter 1 drops this banger out of nowhere and then I go “WHOA okay then”, it’s a very lovely and upbeat track which is kinda funny because this is one of the most frustrating Chapters gameplay wise and the beginning of when things start going out of hand story wise. Chapter 2 isn’t as catchy but it does have those Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and that’s always welcome, and once again there’s that mood dissonance with the calm tone because this Chapter is pretty annoying. Chapter 3 is another Mystery Dungeon-like track or perhaps Final Fantasy-like track since Kaga did take some inspiration from FF, anyway pretty chill, bad stuff happens. Chapter 4’s got those chiming bells which is a welcome instrument in my book and you can really sense the loneliness and uncertainty in this one even if you got a whole army to keep you company in this dire portion of the game. Chapter 5 is the turning point, no more positive or relaxing melodies (at least for the time being), things will go down, things will get worse before they get better, there will be bloodshed. that’s all the Chapter themes I will share here, but did you know there’s also unique enemy themes for every different army in the game? Verdane Army is the main army for the Prologue and Chapter 1 and they got a somewhat threatening theme but they aren’t so bad considering the majority of them are axe users. Agustria Army has a more militaristic vibe to it which makes sense so they’re more refined compared to the more savage Verdane Army, also these guys have horses so that helps. doot doot. doot doot. doot doot. doot doot. Silesia Army is the army theme for Chapter 4 and it’s every bit as cold and chilling as the Chapter it comes from, you know because there’s snow in this map? Thracia Army is the theme of the army that’s named after the fifth Fire Emblem game and while their theme has a slight goofiness to it, these guys are entirely composed of Wyvern Riders and they’re really dangerous, unless you got some good bow units. what a leisurely track. Neutral Army is a neutral sounding theme that plays when a neutral army begins their phase, but don’t let the name and music fool you, whenever this track plays, something bad always happens and there’s nothing you can do about it. all the castle town themes have their own unique tracks as well but I’m not going to post them all because there’s a lot of them so here’s the one that sounds like a Kirby’s Dream Land 3 map theme. here’s this game’s battle theme or otherwise known as the Silver Sword theme. personally I liked the one in FE3 more but this one gets the job done. the enemy battle theme is probably one of the weakest tracks in the game but idk I felt like including it, I don’t have much to say here other than there’s been better enemy themes. Mid-boss theme, second verse, same as the first. this theme is what plays when all the axe guys are dead and now you have to deal with the big boys (and girls), very intense track I like it it’s very much the “get serious or someone’s dying” theme. this is the first ever enemy recruit theme of Fire Emblem and I’m not sure if there’s more of them later down the line but either way it’s cool and has that “hey maybe there’s more to this enemy then you think" vibes, also this is me when I listen to this theme. ending things off here’s the Fire Emblem theme of this game that does a neat subversion with the mysterious intro before switching to the usual motif, I really like this version it’s definitely my favorite so far and I hope to see how far they can top it in later entries.

there’s still some other stuff I forgot to mention like how getting 50 kills on a weapon gives them a crit chance or how there’s a ranking of your performance at the very end of the game but god I have to stop somewhere, you could probably write a whole book talking about the stuff in this game. I’m simultaneously disappointed and impressed with FE4. there were some questionable gameplay decisions while there were some welcome ones. some of the plot twists I saw coming from a mile away but there were others that genuinely caught me by surprise. after finishing this game, I finally understand why all the other FE fans wanted a FE4 remake after news of it supposedly leak; it’s not because this game is the pinnacle of everything Fire Emblem and peak fiction, it’s because the game sucks. of course that’s an exaggeration, I really did enjoy this game, it actually reminds me of Super Mario Sunshine in that I love everything about it except for the actual gameplay (sometimes the gameplay is great though so it’s better than Mario Sunshine), maybe I’ll give it a higher rating if enough FEs disappoint me down the line. I do think it’d be cool if that remake ever happens so we can see all the gameplay improvements that the later games have probably done, also it’ll mean they can get rid of all those enemy portrait recolors of the same two sprites, all you FE4 players know what I’m talking about. I’ll be looking forward to Thracia 776 going back to the small maps because these big ass maps made this game took longer than I expected it to take, I thought I’d be at FE7 right now but here I am still lingering around back over here. I need to get a move on so instead of typing down my closing remarks, I’m just going to end the review right here, lol

if you ever think you’ve had a complicated love life, at least you’re not Lachesis

In my time using this site I never thought I'd be going through the process of getting a game added on IGDB just so I can tell people that it's cool and that they should play it, but here we are.

Castlevania ReVamped is an odd game. Odd in the sense that it dropped out of nowhere, and that nobody has been talking about it. It's a remake and a reimagining of Castlevania 1 - not as a traditional, level-based platformer but as a metroidvania - and it actually works!

Simon Belmont's first encounter with Dracula has been retold and reimagined half a dozen times by this point, and ReVamped opts to take aspects of all of them, and in so doing creates what I believe to be the definitive retelling. There's areas and music from Castlevania 1 and X68000 Akumajou Dracula (better known as Castlevania Chronicles), the diagonal whipping from Castlevania IV, and hell, really obscure stuff like the merchants from Vampire Killer on the MSX. It's a genuine labour of love for this franchise and I feel that's something that really sets it apart from most other Castlevania fangames.

Castlevania ReVamped isn't trying to "fix" something like those numerous Castlevania II fan remakes are. And it's more than just a character insertion like the many GBA and DSvania mods. It's an entirely new game made by a fan, for fans, and I can attest to its quality by saying I beat it in a single sitting; it's that good.

life might be worth living, actually

things irl have been kind of miserable lately so I desperately needed to play a game that would make me feel something. of all things a pokemon isekai game for babies succeeded at this and it's mostly thanks to a bisexual grovyle. It's the single game I've played all year (other than mother 1, but I started that in 2023 and finished literally minutes after new year) that has actually invoked a reaction from me other than just nostalgia like all the mainline pokemon replays i've done. this was also a replay so despite knowing how things were going to turn out I still wound up being moved by it all

one of pmd's most appealing aspects is the world you're transported to. my enjoyment of and how much im able to resonate with mainline pokemon games fringes on its regions, but the world of pmd specifically just has a totally unmatched sense of belonging. you're immediately thrust into a welcoming, tightly-knit community of people with similar goals and the congregation of these people serves as the game's hub area for its entire runtime. all of these people, including you, has a purpose, and your presence leaves a positive impact on all of them - especially your partner. i think it's a rare example of a game actually conveying to the player that they are a part of the game world and that they as a person matter - that the world would be different without them. even minor npcs are given constantly changing dialogue thanks in part to the narrative's episodic structure - shoutouts to the toxic-yaoi wurmple-swellow duo.

spoilers for this paragraph: the latter portion of the game's narrative is what ties all of this in a neat bow for me. i've already harped on about how defying fate and saving the future is one of my favourite tropes in fiction in countless other reviews and it's no different here. there's just something so viscerally empowering about characters like grovyle or lucina or future trunks with the resolve to push on even in the most bleak of circumstances and to fight for a better tomorrow. pmd2 is one of the better examples of this given you get to experience that future firsthand and it's one of the few examples of showing the sacrifices that have to be made when messing with timelines. i hadn't actually played the grovyle postgame episode before now so that likely played a big part in the game still resonating with me despite this being a replay. that or it's because Arata Iiyoshi's compositions never fail to give me goosebumps. such an underappreciated composer, their only vgm works are seemingly for the pmd series as well as various beatmania and ddr games, and no one ever seems to bring them up by name.

probably my single gripe with pmd is that characters aside from your custom named protagonist and partner just use their normal pokemon names. no other pokemon game will make me care as much about a loudred or a wigglytuff or the other guild members but giving unique names to important story characters would've gone a long way i think. all the character personalities are so easily distinguishable already though so it's ultimately a minor complaint. doesn't stop this from being peak fiction. the gameplay is also just kinda ok but I enjoy it and tbh it's really not what you're playing this for lol










it's a monster house

When i was younger i remember starting many videogames that i have never finished because i used to really suck at videogames, and i always gave up very easily. Sonic 1 is one of those games, so i decided to grow a pair of dingleberries and actually finish the game.

I was actually quite surprised to learn that sonic 1 is considered a mid game, because i remember having a lot of fun with it, even tho my younger self never got past marble zone.

Sonic 1 has a total of 7 zones that each has 3 acts except for the final zone. The game throws you the best zone right at the start, which is the one and only green hill zone, and why is it the best? Well its because sonic gets the chance to go fast which is yk the main gimmick of the game?

Marble zone and spring yard zone are pretty decent, sonic isn't very fast here but that's my only complaint about these 2 zones.


Labyrinth zone fucking sucks

Star light zone: wow going through this zone right after labyrinth is like eating a 5 star meal after eating school food. Sonic isn't always slow in this zone and all the acts are fun as hell. Ths is on par with green hill zone in my opinion.

Scrap brain zone: pretty fun! Honestly this zone is very underrated, and it's the 3rd best zone in the game for me.


The bosses are very very very ok, except the one in labyrinth zone fuck that one.

The graphics are very awesome and brightly coloured.

The music is obviously great as hell, like cmon is there a single person in the world who hasn't listened to green hill zone? There's other great tracks aswell such as spring yard zone and scrap brain zone.

Sonic 1 has without a doubt many problems, but i got some nostalgia for this game so i can't help but like it a lot, and it still does many things right.
8/10