when you join a chart-centric site like backloggd or glitchwave, there's a lot of emphasis put on playing "the classics". most of the first games people backlog are titles with high averages or on essentials lists. and while that's all fine and dandy, i think equal emphasis should be put on playing trash. i'd say that many problems with modern game journos (including their chronic myopia) would be solved if we encouraged new writers to play failures, underdogs, and dumpster fires as part of "developing your taste" as much as like, team ico games or whatever. the life stage is the primo trashperience and it comes recommended. try it out! marvel at the low fps and... inconsistent sprite scaling and general wonkiness of the whole experience.

also, this game uses fireblu. it came out before doom. somehow.

Well this is a bit of a downer. Metal Slug 4 is the first entry not made by the original team at SNK, instead being helmed by MEGA and Noise Factory (who made the music of the last few Metal Slugs). And it shows. This game is a far cry from the fun as hell Metal Slug 3, which is impressive since it looks the exact same. The level and enemy design just ain't there. It's difficult without being that fun.

Remember the lil narrative bits from 1, 2/X, and 3? Well those have been toned down, this time telling of a reformed Rebel Army. The most we get is an opening cutscene and a twist during the final level. Each level also ends by Eri and Tarma from the last few games taking you to the next level. In their stead, you can play as Nadia and Trevor. While I do miss Eri and Tarma, I can't lie, Nadia and Trevor are really cool.

Now I've been a bit of downer in this review, but it's not all bad. The gameplay is still good, after all, it's still Metal Slug. Plus the final level is actually kinda good (and the music kicks ass).

I’ve always liked Super Meat Boy, but never loved it until recently. Being one of the first of the many “masocore” platformers, it’s always maintained relevance since the 2008 prototype. It doesn’t have any major gimmicks, and instead focuses on the games of old. You have a simple goal.

Dr Fetus has kidnapped Bandage Girl. Save Bandage Girl! It’s as simple as it gets. Well, what about the controls? You run, jump, and that’s it. So, where’s the fun? The controls. I firmly believe that Super Meat Boy has the best controls of any platformer released to date. Meat Boy is incredibly fast, while also having a floaty jump. Normally I’d say that this is bad for most games, but Super Meat Boy makes it work. All of the levels are designed with this high speed and floatiness in mind, stretching the controls to the furthest possibility. It’s most noticeable in the much later levels, but even then, this attention to detail is present in earlier levels. It makes the game feel truly limitless, by allowing you to speed through the levels, having an extremely high skill ceiling down to the very frame. It’s a bit unwieldy, but once you master it, it feels like you can do anything. And do everything you shall, because there's a catch. It’s called SUPER for a reason. Super Meat Boy is considered among the hardest platformers, and for good reason. It’s a relentlessly difficult game, doubly so for 100%, but that’s where the beauty of the game lies within. Sure, you may retry a dozen times just to unlock the Dark World level, but by all accounts, the game pushes you to that mastery by rewarding you for overcoming challenges. It wants you to succeed. It’s difficult, but fair, and one of the most rewarding to conquer. The levels all feel distinctive from one another, and each individual one teaches the player a different lesson throughout their short runtimes. The level progression of Super Meat Boy is nothing but incredible. It introduces a gimmick in one level, and each level builds upon it. And then suddenly, another gimmick pops up. And then another, and another, and another, until you’re working with all of the mechanics before you even know it. And then the Dark World version of the level shows how much better you can get with said mechanics. No gimmick feels underutilized, nor unfun and cheap, and no level feels forgettable at all. It emphasizes how strong the whole game’s design is. And if you really want a challenge, you can always go for the Bandages! The bandages of Super Meat Boy force you to master the level to even get a shot at them. Getting them is the easier part. Surviving is harder. If you so much as graze a saw with these babies, you lose the bandage, but succeed and the game proudly announces that you got the bandage. It's a feeling like no other. I had my shit absolutely rocked throughout the entirety of Super Meat Boy 100%. Getting the bandages really made me feel like I accomplished something, both in a metaphorical and literal sense, as unlocking bandages allows you to play as brand new characters.

Akin to The Binding of Isaac, all characters cover a specific niche. Meat Boy is your main man, with all of the levels designed for him first and foremost. The others give you entirely new platforming abilities, but typically have a stipulation, like for example, Commander Video. He gets a short float, but is pretty slow compared to Meat Boy. There's about 10 characters overall, a few of which require a secret code to be inputed. The cool thing about it is that most characters come from other indie games, making Super Meat Boy feel more like a video game which proves how far indie games have come. Even more interestingly, the console and PC versions of the game has different characters within them, each accommodating the difference in the Indie scene on PC and Consoles. The Warp Zones themselves have the same characters, so Commander Video from Bit.Trip, Jill from… Mighty Jill Off, Ogmo from Jumper, the titular character, Flywrench, and The Kid from I Wanna Be The Guy are all here and accounted for. Meanwhile, Gish, Tim, Guy Spelunky, Pink Knight, and The Ninja are console exclusive, while Headcrab, Alien Hominid, Josef, Naija, RunMan, Captain Viridian, and MR. MINECRAFT, are all exclusive to PC. In the end, it doesn't really matter which version you play, but it kind of sucks that we never got some Super Meat Boy Definitive Edition with all of the characters from both versions, but in general, the balance of characters is very solid. While The Kid is among the best characters in the game for the best double jump in the game, he is a lot slower and jumps lower than Meat Boy. And also, in order to even get him, you need to complete the 3 hardest levels in the game, back to back.

This is a perfect transition into talking about the bane of my existence. GOLDEN GOD. Is actually really fun! Super Meat Boy will take you about a weekend to complete, but GOLDEN GOD could take upwards of a month to achieve. I played on-and-off ad nauseam over the course of a year, amd Golden God completely transforms Super Meat Boy as a game. In order to achieve Golden God, you need to
- Clear all 7 Light Worlds, with an A+ Rank
- Clear all 7 Dark Worlds (aka X worlds), harder versions of the Light World, but no A+ ranks are needed
- Obtain all 100 Bandages
- Unlock every Character
- Clear all Warp Zones, sets of 3 bite sized levels with 3 lives per level
- Clear all Glitch levels (technically optional but adds to 100%)
So... yeah, any completionist certainly has their work cut out for them. The Dark Worlds alone nearly broke me, but damn did I pop off when I cleared every one of them. Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 6 are pretty manageable when it comes to their challenge, but I genuinely contemplated quitting the entire operation at World 4X. I was 100%ing each World at about 1 or 2 per day, but 4X threw off my flow by a lot. It took me about 3 days to fully beat it alone, and 5X only got more and more challenging. 5X is among the most challenging worlds in the entire game. Each level was a challenging contraption made with only the most difficult platforming setpieces in the entire game. But each time I died, the music always brought me coming back for more!

Super Meat Boy’s soundtrack is legendary, no doubt about it. Some of the most Newgrounds esque shit that you can imagine, but it’s some of that good shit nonetheless. Forest Funk was stuck in my head for months once I first conquered Super Meat Boy, Beatus Blues is an incredibly catchy tune. Can O’ Salt is a Minecraft song (described by one of my IRLs), Hell feels grand and imposing, and The Rapture feels like a goddamn military tune. The End is weirdly cinematic but also really good, and CHAPTER MOTHERFUCKING 7!

Chapter 7 is where my 100% streak really died off. I completed 5 levels a DAY at this point. There are no bandages, no warp zones, nothing. Just you, your controller, and Bandage Girl. Yeah, for Chapter 7 alone, you get to play as Bandage Girl. And these levels aren’t among the most difficult in the game, they ARE the most difficult in the game. Don’t let the happy music and overabundance of pink fool you. The Cotton Alley has some of the most pseudo-pixel perfect shit that you can imagine, but once again, it’s HARD but FAIR. I never wanted to ragequit because the game wasn’t unfair. It’s one of the hardest 2D platforming levels ever made, but one of the best. Every single piece of tech that the game taught you comes back for a spectacular finale, and a spectacular finale that is. This all culminates in the HARDEST level I’ve ever beaten. “The Four Letter Word” is IMPOSSIBLE. It’s 1 minute of straight pixel perfect platforming, easily the hardest level in the game, and it was 11 PM. I was in my room alone, with only the bright visuals of the Cotton Alley keeping me awake. But I was determined. And it took over a very long time, but after an hour, I saw Meat Boy. I was at the goal. I made the final jump, and dropped my controller. I was so satisfied, but I knew that was only half the battle. So, I got a good night’s rest, knowing that the following day would be hell.

Or was it? I powered through Cotton Alleys’ Dark World like it was nothing. I was Meat Boy. I felt the heaviness on my heart each time he died, but each victory kept me coming back for more and more. I crushed half of the levels like soda cans. But the remaining few pushed me past my breaking point. And with 4 levels to go, with just me and the game, I received... Golden God??? Welp, that was fun! Yeah, not sure why the achievement unlocked early, but I decided to leave it at that. But as the final completion reward, you unlock the Meat Ninja, who always runs and can teleport through sawblades after pressing X. You can’t use the leaderboards with him, but it’s a solid reward for 100%.

Super Meat Boy is a masterclass of game design, being one of the best platformers ever made. It has over 300 handcrafted levels, all of which test the player’s skills in the best way possible. It’s one of those pick up and play games, where you can play and clear a few levels, or complete the entire game in a sitting. It’s a fun game, to put it simply, and I can’t recommend it enough, now that the XBLA store is shutting down. Rest In Peace, but long live Steam. Welp. What is there to to cover now?

MYSELF. Yeah, I know this is pretty out of scope to cover in a controversial platforming series with a silly cube of meat, but I wanted to talk about another controversial platforming series with a Witch. A dark one, perhaps. Plus, it directly related to me and the near future of zeusdeegoose as a whole, and I’ve done so in the past with my Binding of Isaac reviews. So humor me for a bit, or, if you’ve had your fill, feel free to click off, and I wish you a good day. For many people within my Discord and other related spaces, they knew that I was re-reviewing The Legend of Dark Witch series in it’s entirety; keyword, was, and I have to upsettingly say that said review series is now canceled. Many people don’t know about it, and I think that’s a good thing. It was a series that I used to play in the past, and me and a few friends have heavily criticized over the past few years. We also have a bit of bad blood within said community itself. We were talking about it again and how the developer sucked, practically beating it down as a farce of a franchise, mostly leaving the community stuff out of it as a whole. And while I still agree those remarks about the developer, one discussion got taken pretty far as I took a jab at one of the wiki’s vandals, and that spiraled into one of the members of the server leaving. Initially, I thought it was going to be a lighthearted joke, but it was pretty inappropriate of me and for those involved, I do apologize. I won’t extrapolate anything further at the behest of the people in said chat, as the server that the discussions were held within was a private venue, and I don’t wish to share any links so said server.

Secondly, after said conversation, I realized something huge. I didn’t NEED to re-review the series. I mean, what would I get out of it? Initially, the thought going in was that this would re-introduce people into zeusdeegoose’s past by re-reviewing what got the ball rolling for the long ass review format and to bury the hatchet for the final time, but here’s the thing. I already kind of did that. I had already archived my Wiki reviews on Backloggd, and notwithstanding the occasional bias, my criticisms of each game have still held up. So the newer reviews would just be... lesser. I don’t have the energy nor the time to discuss every stage in Dark Witch 2 again when that would go against the overall message of the review series; that being that The Legend of Dark Witch is a dogshit series, aside from 1 and 2, and I don’t think it’s worth potentially burning some bridges just to prove my point. Me and other friends have already long since moved on, and potentially bringing a lolicon back into the spotlight simply isn’t worth the effort that’d I’d put into it.

Thirdly, I got burnt out. Ladies and Gentlemen, I LOVE tearing apart games I hate, believe me. Super Meat Boy Forever is one of my favorite reviews that I’ve ever made. But I can only say “This game fucking sucks” so many times before getting tired, folks. And that’s just the review side. Imagine playing 8 games back to back, 99% of which are mid, and the 1% are games that I’ve burnt myself out on and already played for hundreds of hours already (not joking, btw). I didn’t hate myself for booting up The Binding of Isaac, because The Binding of Isaac is an actually GOOD video game that I like. Wow! But whenever I boot up any Dark Witch game, I just feel disappointed.

Fourthly, who cares? I could make point after point about why NAN-A and The Legend of Dark Witch suck, but it’s fruitless. The Legend of Dark Witch is far past it’s eShop era where it was actually semi-popular. Hell, I’d bet now that the games don’t even average a sale a day, with the 3DS eShop now gone. Now, only a very small, inactive fanbase remains. Ever since me and others left, it’s a complete GHOST TOWN. Nobody cares about it anymore. I’ve barely heard anyone in my online sphere talk about it, and it remains as a niche franchise, like it should be. People got their balls blown off with 1 and 2, and then almost all of us collectively fucked off afterwards because the games SUCKED and it wasn’t active anymore. Now that the dust has settled, it’d only serve to piss people off who still give a damn about the series anymore. And trust me, they WOULD get pissed. I’ve seen it firsthand. And as funny as it would be, I don't want to act as if I'm some villain or something.

So... yeah. That’s all I got to say on the matter. Sorry to anyone who was expecting the review, and sorry to anyone who was involved in the first incident. It was a flawed idea from the start, and I really don’t have anyone to blame for the reviews except myself. Now, for real this time, I’m burying the hatchet. No more of my valuable time will be spent on a video game franchise made by some jizzer. I may edit this out sooner or later, because truth be told, it’s mostly irrelevant to a game series with a funny meat man, but I just needed to get my thoughts out, off of my chest, and announce that the series is canceled, as disappointing as it may be. Finally, I still have all of my Dark Witch reviews in a Google Doc, so if you'd like to see them, whether that be out of curiosity or otherwise, come on over. ;) Shoot me a DM to @zeusdeegoose, either on Twitter or Discord. They’ll remain forever unfinished, but hey, if people wanted to know how it would've played out, they can come and see. But now, with all that being said, lets just move on to greener fields because I don’t know what else to talk about.

Sooooo... it might be too early, but it may be time to start another review series. I’ve been playing a wider variety of games than ever before. Old games, new games, and even bear games. I’ve had good games and bad games, but it’s true love that we share! So I do have quite a few on my mind that I want to do. Blaster Master Zero, Super Monkey Ball, and Devil May Cry are all on my mind. So, I hope you’re looking out for those because they’re probably coming soon. Blaster Master Zero will probably be first up, as I’ve finished all of them, and then Super Monkey Ball and DMC will follow soon after. Again, there may or may not be a bit of a drought when it comes to reviews thanks to the aforementioned cancellation, so apologies. But, zeusdeegoose always comes back stronger than it was. So please tune in, when it’s ready of course. But in the meantime, I’m going back to the Basement so I can type more reviews. If you’ve read this far, I really appreciate your support, but please go outside. It’s almost Summer now, and the sun is good for your skin and health. Don’t be like me. Or hell, play Super Meat Boy! You wont regret it.

I would like to thank Game Freak for bringing my Switch out of retirement. Not for Pokemon, but for their actual best game. Freed from the void that is "Apple Arcade", Pocket Card Jockey finally reaches a current audience that'll actually play their game. Well, with Game Freak's reputation in the gutter, maybe that's less likely as of late, but I'll take whatever Ws I can get here. Horse racing and solitaire sounds like a very "peanut butter and tuna fish"-tier combination, but it's executed seamlessly. There's a careful balancing act between the horse racing and the solitaire, their systems constantly feed back into each other.

Solitaire is simplified down to matching your current card with one that's one step higher or lower off the play field. Here's a quick refresher on how to count, if you need it. There's an inarguable aspect of luck in not knowing what cards are coming next in the deck, but in Pocket Card Jockey, solitaire is about playing proactively. Chain together cards to clear out large chunks of the field in one swoop, leave certain cards alone so you have a higher chance of being able to make use of the next card you draw, that sort of thing. It's about working around the luck. Frantically dancing up and down the field, clearing out entire waves of cards, it's a feeling like no other. Also, perfectly clearing out the field in a Level 3 zone gives you Super Unity, which causes the dopamine receptors to fire on all cylinders (and turn your horse into an invincible card vacuum).

In between rounds of solitaire, you get a chance to move your horse. There are bonus cards you can try to pick up that accelerate your horse's growth, but you're ideally aiming for the one of three comfort zone levels. Higher levels mean harder games of solitaire, but significantly better rewards. Leftover energy not used in movement can be manually converted into "motivation", a culmination of your performance during a race. Movement can be the most luck-based part of the whole game if your motivation isn't high enough. You can try to lead your own horse to water, but if there's another, more motivated horse in your way, you can probably forget about trying to get your horse to drink. The other horse's movements are also completely unpredictable. You're given all the information necessary to make an informed move, but sometimes The best you can do is watch the comfort zone radar and pray.

Game Freak carries over their Pokemon breeding expertise by letting your horses mate, having offspring inherit stats and beneficial skills. Yep, skills. Some of them affect your horse, but most of them directly benefit your solitaire games, like one that gives you a larger card stock, or another that yoinks the last card off the field for free. With careful planning (and a bit of luck), you too can raise your very own super horse! I kinda fell out of grace with nicknaming Pokemon (along with disowning the franchise in general), but I love nicknaming my horses. The in-game names are absurd, so I don't feel too bad about letting my gamer brain let loose. Hold on, I gotta check in on Robert Cop and Doctor Meow; oh my lord, it's a filly, and she's cracked.

Game's got Pokemon-tier music courtesy of a certain primary Pokemon composer, Go Ichinose. He brings us bangers that sound like a classy gambling parlor in fast-forward, with some funky jams, and a JRPG final boss theme (minor volume warning). Again, horse racing and solitaire. The art style is simplistic, with thick, rounded edges. Everyone manages to have a distinct design, including the variety of unique horses. Love their stubby legs and huge noses. Gotta raise 'em all and fill out my Horsédex.

Anywho, G1 trophies are the main macguffin, and you get a new story scene after collecting a certain amount of them. To see the ending, you need most of them. To see the credits roll, you need all of them, which is definitely a tall order. I wasn't sure that I was up to the task of doing it all again, but I managed to do it anyways. It's really hard to put this game down! The Switch version also has a few much-needed QoL changes, like letting you put your current horse on hold to raise another, and having your funds all be drawn from the same pool. On the 3DS, winnings were tied to each horse's owner, which was absurdly inconvenient. The UI during races has more info to parse than the 3DS version while still being perfectly readable at a glance.

The one big thing holding this game back is the Switch itself. No, it's not because the game is poorly optimized (it kinda is) or that the Switch is underpowered (it is, but that's irrelevant here). The real issue is that using the touch screen is still the most natural control scheme for this game, but the Switch doesn't share the one-handed form factor of the 3DS (or an Apple device, for that matter). You thought Kid Icarus: Uprising gave you hand cramps? Try holding a Switch with one hand for extended periods of time. The button controls they implemented for this version work, but they're not ideal in a pinch. You're certainly not beating any speed records while playing like that. Buying a mesh stylus and playing in handheld is basically the only way to go, in my eyes.

I know a lot of people have recently gained a gambling addiction through games like Buckshot Roulette and Balatro, but Game Freak has done me one better(?) by causing me to relapse on an addiction that started eight years ago on my 3DS. People are about to sleep on this game again, and it's gonna keep me up at night. Pocket Card Jockey is just a taste of what Game Freak can do when divorced from Pokemon, something we always need more of.

i am so fucking tired of every game being sekiro. please god can one acton game come out where you do something besides read animations and deflect on the right key frames. can one historical game about the tokugawa shogunate have some personality to it and not be more boring than reading a book about the actual events. can one open world game come out and have shit to do in it thats fun and beneficial for more than just clearing icons and getting bigger numbers. anyway, Like a Dragon: Ishin! is available now on digital storefronts everywhere

I mean, why not? When Nobunaga ruled part of Japan, and was asked for his reasoning to go after the rest, he simply went "because it's there". I'm pretty sure he said that, I was alive for it. It was essentially the same mindset I had with finishing the Advance Collection.

Known as "Vampire's Kiss" for our PALs, "Dracula X" could only be assumed to be meant as "Dracula's Hug" rather than some attempt at the 2Xtreme movement of the 90s. You see, because in here Dracula gives you a nice little hug and a peck on the cheek, all before he kicks you down a hole in his dilapidated humble abode. It makes one wonder why Dracula would even bother with floors in general when he's more than capable of flying everywhere, especially if he's already figured out that the best defense against Belmonts is to simply either make them walk up stairs, or dare them to hop with their cement-infused boots across magical levitating platforms. Where these platforms are coming from is a mystery, but I assume it's where all those holes in Dracula's throne room came from, or perhaps that's the origin of all the gaps in the grand hallway where one slip up means Richter falling into an alternate stage that denies him the ability to rescue Maria's now completely useless ass.

"Wow, thanks Richter! Good luck on your quest, I'll make my way out now."

Bitch.

It's really intriguing how a final boss fight can completely overtake discussion, and it's quite telling what the legacy of the Dracula's Smooch version of the climactic finale leaves behind when there exists an entire guide on GameFAQs dedicated to it. A useful one at that. Part of me wishes the Game Gear version of Sonic 2 would have something like that for it's first boss, but I guess there's not much to be helped there beyond "I sure hope the balls don't hit me". To say that the fight with Dracula X is a slog would be shorting it a few hundred didgeridoos, because man I could've made some tasty pancakes in the time it took trying to wait out his ass to get into an advantageous position to hit his godawful hitbox along the pillar system he installed in his throne room prior to him calling in an assist from Devil Kazuya. Kaiser Sigma from X3 would puke at all the times I uselessly cracked my whip across Dracula X's forehead and had it not register, because Konami designed this game from the ground up with anti-blockbuster rental countermeasures instead of waiting for it to come out to us, thus destroying all potential goodwill it could have found as a demake later during the age of emulation, with an audience less upset at being bamboozled out of a more faithful and less mean-spirited retelling of the beloved PC Engine classic. Instead, Switch owners will be annoyed they have to deal with this while Requiem continues chilling as a PS4 exclusive nearly six years later.

Baffling, though not quite as baffling as the censorship where they kept the blood on the title screen, but got rid of Death's Mortal Kombat Deception-style Hara Kiri where he decapitates himself with his own scythe, meanwhile Richter in our version apparently explodes into a pile of flour for Dracula X to make his cookies from.

What cookie would Richter be? Puzzling...

My opinion was ever so slightly improved from forcing myself to replay this for completion-sake, but the most heartwarming thing I get out of Dracula's Kiss personally is seeing the font used at the bottom of the title screen for the copyright, and being reminded of a childhood banger in Konami's Biker Mice From Mars which uses the same thing, so I guess I'll go play that now instead. Ciao.

I might be willing to disrespect Yoshi's Island, but you will not see me speak one ill-word of Yoshi's Story. This is a safe space for Yoshi's Story fans, and I will sic Poochy on any and all haters who try to invade this webzone.

Since purchasing a cart several years ago, it's become a bit of a tradition to wake up at the crack of dawn on my birthday, drive to a nearby donut shop that sells the fattest, freshest, glaziest bear claws I've ever seen, and take home a few to pig out on while playing Yoshi's Story. The sickening sweetness pairs perfectly with Yoshi's Story's adorable aesthetic, and the calming gameplay puts me at ease for what is otherwise a depressing event. I don't like getting older. It reminds me of how little I've accomplished and how undesirable I am. At least flutter-jumping around and eating fruit - the streets outside cold and empty, gentle rays of blue light piercing the blinds - helps center me in a warm and relaxed place.

I guess this is what you'd call a "comfort game." It is so charming and undemanding, and it never fails to put me in a positive state of mind. I think it's important to have media like that. You don't always need to be challenged by what you consume. However, there's definitely an argument to be made that Yoshi's Story is a little too bare, that it boils out all the flavor of Yoshi's Island and reduces the game to its most basic elements. At the time of its release, it was even maligned for not being long enough, making it one of the first instances I can recall where a game's length was a detriment to its critical reception. None of these criticisms resonate with me. Yes, Yoshi's Story is simple, you're not solving puzzles or making your way through overly complex levels, and you'll rarely find yourself short of Yoshis, but I found Yoshi's Island to have a lot of dead weight and I believe the formula is better for being made more trim. It's also a game which is meant to be replayed by design, something I feel is glossed over a bit too much.

Despite all the feelings this game conjures up, it's not one I'm very nostalgic for. I have one memory of playing this game when it came out, and it was at a sleep over where the real showstoppers were Lego Island and checking out all the After Dark screensavers. But when building my catalog of Nintendo 64 games, Yoshi's Story seemed like a given. Naturally, it also went on my bucket list - as the penultimate game, no less - and I'm glad it did, because Yoshi's Story has cemented itself as one of my favorite titles in the N64's library.

I mean, obviously. I am playing it annually, it's my "Birthday Game," happy birthday to me (do not wish me happy birthday i will fucking end you, i am dead serious about this.) Look, man, I don't hate Yoshi. I have a very cute tank top with multiple Yoshi's on it, I love that little freak! I just want them to stop putting Yoshi in bad games! Yoshi's Story should be the template, but noooo, they're still trying to capture the "magic" of Yoshi's Island. I saw a magic show once, it was Criss Angel and it sucked shit! He didn't even freak my mind, he just talked about his motorcycles. That dipshit-- nobody paid to look at your sick hogs!! They came to see women get chopped in half, but your woman-chopping Contraption is using animatronics that look like they've been repurposed from a Chuck-E-Cheese, THOSE ARE FAKE LEGS, I'm all the way in the back and I can tell!!

Alright, alright, I just... I need to calm myself.

Not sure what got into me. I just get so angry when I think about aging and Yoshi's Island and Criss Angel.

"It's good, for an NES game."

I see stuff like this a bunch, and to be honest it kinda sucks. I know as someone whose first system was the NES it may be hard to take my opinion seriously on such matters, as often this horrible thing called "nostalgia" clouds our vision of the true quality of games from our childhood. There's however a massive problem with this potential accusation towards me and Castlevania. I didn't grow up with it. My dad never owned it, and none of my friends had it for their consoles. Hell, I don't think I even knew what a "Castlevania" was until I read an issue of GamePRO with Castlevania 64 news in it.

There is no demented ghost voice or evil rabbit on my shoulder to go "oooOOOOOooo, tell them the game is good tho!" to everyone like with Crash Bandicoot 1 or something, even when they list valid and fair criticism as opposed to some hack using completely fake dribble like "Crash's cry of "WOAH" upon death disrupts my Netflix viewing experience" or some shit. That just simply doesn't exist for me here, because I didn't play this until I got emulation going on my PSP. As a matter of fact, may I perhaps offer a hot take? It's a take so hot that if you have central air in your home it'll probably kick on as soon you read it.

Belmont movement fucking rules.

Loose movement is neat, but the feel of me playing as someone who seems to be made of concrete and falls like they're under the effect of ten times normal Earth gravity does nothing but satisfy me as I land from a jump like a ton of bricks. Methodical platforming is my crack, to hell with that fast bullshit, I want to slowly strut my stuff and have to deal with the consequences of my actions if I don't think five seconds ahead.

From beginning to end, from Simon walking up to the front gates in that little intro cutscene and fighting the giant bat that reminds me of Golbat, to the very end when I send Dracula's head straight to Saturn and get rewarded with the shitpost credits brightening my day with "James Banana" and "Green Stranger" it never fails to entertain and I never tire of it. To say I could replay this X amount of times and never have second thoughts on doing so is as rare as the Jackalope for me, there are plenty of games in the same high end of my "enjoyment" spectrum that I can't say that about.

"Spyro on PS1? Sorry my friend, perhaps another time."
"Pokemon randomizer nuzlocke? Not feeling it."
"Shitty fighting games? Maybe next weekend."
"...Castlevania? Sure, I got thirty minutes to kill."

It's actually slightly difficult to resist the temptation of another playthrough upon viewing my list of completely-legal-and-dumped-myself NES games on my everdrive. Is a game that is infinitely replayable and only more enjoyable as you master it not the perfect game? Maybe if it came with cup holders and a winning lottery ticket it could be "perfect", but as it stands Castlevania to me gets as close as it gets. As some people say "good things come in small packages" or something, I guess they still say that.

Legendary.

Sorry for my random ramble, it was just something I was thinking on as I was replaying this for the 700th time as I was doing my laundry. NES games rule.

I wish this was a normal game. The first two story chapters do their respective sinners wrong but each canto gets better and it doesn't stop. You get to explore the world and wonder how the next canto will top the previous one. This is a sequel hacked into gacha, if it stayed a normal game it'd be a spectacular rush where both story and gameplay get better and better and reach for the stars. Canto 6 ditches gacha dungeons from previous cantos and is the closest it gets to the experience limbus could've been. And unlike some songs mili does for other series, the limbus ones are always story relevant, sure nobody will say anything if you want to listen to them outside the game yet the ideal is to wait for context and reach the epic ruina boss. Remember to read leviathan first ofc. Despite what some people might say If you arent familiar with previous games and the comic you won't know what's really going on since the start.

And sure, it has gacha issues I won't deal with since you can probably imagine like endless grind and dailies and gambling and crap, it's awful. You are going to read about how this is the best possible execution of gacha and it's just faint praise. I guess the first things you'll also notice are autobattles and the ability to read if attacks are going to land or not, such as Dominating and Hopeless ones, which is neat qol that is not present in ruina. Autotargeting enemies is something ruina has (press P) but barely works. In limbus it works for the worst fights but it's a gacha game. It would be a good idea if this was a normal ruina sequel of a couple encounters, one against mobs to play quick and farm resources followed by some boss to spam special attacks against. But this is gacha about autobattling a dozen fights against nothing until you reach a somewhat challenging fight, then you might start reading and manually deal your clashes like in ruina. This is why dungeons at the end of most cantos are weird, it's where the plot gets good and gameplay takes even more of a dive, encounters are just not interesting, there might be some bosses who require you to read, but it's just droning through mob fights and saving a ton of resources to launch your special attacks later. Compared to ruina I hated my first 60 hours or so in limbus. Again, they just kind of hacked great ruina combat ideas into a gacha game and made it braindead enough.

This is the game for the current pm crowd and some people just don't have it in them to play games well, even though it's this braindead, because of uis, because of bad tutorials, but really some are just not good enough and will never make it past a boss. If this is you, it's still nice to watch this on youtube. But I think it's self sabotage since the ludo in limbus is actually nice to experience unlike the dumbass self flagellation of lobcorp and this side of limbus just gets cooler as it goes. I persevered through gachashit and was rewarded

tldr cool world to explore + cool ludo

we can talk in circles about the art that may have inspired fallow, we can waste time talking about the long lineage of story-driven rpgmaker games that led up to this behemoth; that won't stop fallow from haunting me.

it is infinitely more than another sob story or moody indie game. it is the metaphorical place where all of us who have been outcast from society reside, brought to physicality. stroll down the dusty hallways of the fallow residence and relive memories that are not yours - and yet they are ours.

when i hear the credits theme, "shame", i do not feel the grief i so often do for characters i've loved or fictional worlds i had to leave behind; i feel something watching me over my shoulder. a comforting kind of sadness that will cocoon me even as everything i loved crumbles away.

on the wall above my desk rests these words: "my sisters and i had a secret wish to die in a place that cared for us". i think i will remember them in those final moments.

God, this game is so fucking cool. I assumed this to be a quirky management sim with heavy handed anti-corporate set dressing, reputable yet trite. I did not expect that base to be a vehicle to probe human's perseverance and tenacity, either by way of experience when the player is inevitably crushed by excruciatingly unfair trials and errors, or through the misery of characters bound to roots of this diabolical tree. It's such a success when anti-corporate notion isn't just handed out as sermon! It's also incredible when religious mysticism so effectively informs the story as it could just be a feeble ornament for extra style points like in many ocassions before. Even with repetition issues dulling out certain story beats I found overall tapestry enchanting, I might be hooked on Project Moon.

It's just meeting LoboCorp on its own terms is an absolute waste of time. There are ways to make pre-coded failure worthwhile as some games do with robust simulation of environment (Rain World). Constantly changing rules not letting the player slide into a comfortable strategy make sense when the game accepts mistakes and lets you roll with them forward (Pathologic 2). But as it stands, LoboCorp is too rigid and rudimentary yet completely unaccepting to errors, in a system you're supposed to explore guessing and grinding your way through! And no layers of cognition filtering will aid when micromanagement of everexpanding facility must be done using the least functional strategy UI ever. I just think I got the overall point well enough to earn my "Lobotomy Corporation Complete Story Compilation" pass.

>"Welcome to Lobotomy Corporation, new manager, here you-" *restarts run*
>"Welcome to L-" *restarts run*
This is merely but a glimpse of what awaits you in the hellscape that is this company.

Lobotomy Corporation is a management game about one too many things, but what stands atop it all is perseverance. Said concept is deeply rooted in the game's core, to the point where it even ties in to the developers, Project Moon, and the rough yet inspiring story behind the game's development.

The Will to Stand up Straight
Considering an unsuccessful overseas Kickstarter funding, while at least managing to get a decent Tumblbug (pretty much a Korean Kickstarter) project reception, and similar struggles, like almost going bankrupt due to their commission of a translation, it is quite evident at times that the game is short on budget, and it's made clearer by the time you see the credits, showing the names of a bunch of backers, and a seemingly scarce development team.

But what it lacks in resources, it more than makes up with sheer ambition, given it is no easy task to release a game with such a big scope...

...yet they endured the development cycle and finally did release it, so with Project Moon breaking out of their own cycle of torment and struggles, now it's the player's time to undergo their own.

The Fearlessness to keep on Living
Managing this company is no easy task, as you're dealing with weird creatures called Abnormalities, to meet the energy quota (yes, you obtain energy working with them) and call it quits for the day. This gameplay loop will keep going for a while, so you better get used to it.

However, this game wouldn't be as unabashedly difficult as it is without trying with all its might to make your management as miserable as humanly possible. With Abnormalities that range from seemingly harmless entities (Punishing Bird is the closest thing to a toxic relationship but I still love my silly little guy) to the most absolutely despair-inducing and soul-crushing gimmicks known to man, along with enemies that will pop up along the way, this games holds no punches whatsoever.

The Rationality to Maintain Discretion
But the manager does not partake in energy collection, instead, you order your employees to do so, risking their very lives in the process. However, you definitely don't want them to die, since it costs you time and points to recruit and level them up.
If you don't manage your resources properly, you might get forced to do a complete restart of your playthrough, but some upgrades carry through between runs, so everything will go faster in subsequent runs (kiiiiinda like a roguelike).

But why is such a relentlessly evil and equally obtuse experience so good, and so alluring?

The Expectation for the Meaning of Existence
Well, the game is hostile by design, not just in gameplay but also in its story. You're presented with a brutally ruthless organization that does not stop even at the face of death to fulfill its apparently corporate goals, coupled with a setting that instills the same sense of solitude that the gameplay and music that accompany it reinforce in you.

The whole experience feels just right; it nails the feeling of a very daunting and oppressive journey through the installations that comprise this corporation.

Those who are Faithful and Trustworthy
Said installations are divided into several departments, each of them spearheaded by a Sephirah. These characters will be presented to you during this play, and all of them have a story to tell, or more accurately, to unravel through their interactions, that you unlock by fulfilling missions during each day (these, for example, also get saved between runs, so you don't have to repeat them).

As expected, these missions also get very rough sometimes, and I do mean it (and well, they're also necessary for finishing the game). I don't blame anyone for dropping this game, but it is very much worth the chance, and at worst, just use mods if you can't handle the incoming waves of frustration, rather than watching a Let's Play online. A mod I do recommend right from the start that doesn't really hurt the experience is More Detailed Info, which shows you the real statistics of work success instead of vague words, among other things, so at least you can shave off a bit of that frustration and obtuseness of its systems.

The Hope to be a Better Person
The greatest highlight of this game, rather than the gameplay, is, as expected, the story and experience it provides. It is a game where I'm not even sure I appreciate the whole picture yet (I probably need Library of Ruina for this), despite having 100%ed it after a whooping 95h of playtime, epilogue included. I'm also still unsure of neither this review in its entirety, nor the rating I've given to it, so I may alter it slightly in the future.

What I can say for sure, at this moment in time, is how good this game is, including its narrative and symbolism, and how worthy it is of your time, if you can endure all of the quirks and gimmicks they will throw at you. It is, without a doubt, one of the best ludonarratives I've ever seen in a game.

Despite being as cryptic as it can get, it slowly provides you with bits of information about the characters and the world, and when everything clicks it's just amazing in hindsight. The characters do help with this, since they all have their own marked personalities and their quirks.

What may you do for them, you ask?
Well, perhaps you can somehow help.
Help them find a resolution.

Embrace the past, and help regain the Light.

Mojib-Ribbon is one of the Japan-exclusive spin-offs that NanaOn-Sha made to the original Vib-Ribbon.
Instead of featuring the vector rabbit Vibri, we now follow the sumi-e styled Mojibri, and then later on, Mojiko and the robot Osorezan 1999.

Before I get into the gameplay, I think the game's Japanese caligraphy artstyle is absolutely gorgeous and still holds up well! It is a bit similar to a game called Okami, but this one takes a more simple approach to the use of colors.

The music was once again composed by Laugh & Peace, but they don't sing any of the songs. The beats of the songs are really good! Not all of them are bangers, but there's a lot here I do enjoy.

And this leads me into the gameplay.
See, the reason why the band Laugh & Peace doesn't sing their songs unlike last time, is because this isn't exactly a Rhythm game in the traditional sense.
Your objective in the game is to write the song according to the beat of it, and the characters will say the sentences as you're writing.
That's a pretty cool idea, but how do you do it?

Remember how in Vib-Ribbon, you only utilized 4 buttons to play through the game?
In this game... you only one of the analogue sticks, with the right being the default (you can use either the left, right, or both of them if you go to the options menu).
While you're writing a sentence, you're constantly moving, and you need to flick the stick up and immediately down to write a part of a sentence. If you do it too late, you miss. If you only flick down, you write with thin syllables, and if you flick up too early, you write the thick syllables. These get you a lower score.
And this is where my main frustration with the game comes from.

The timings for writing a sentence well are really, really, really fucking strict!
It's so hard flicking the analogue stick constantly up and down to write well, and even when I can do it, it hurts my thumb so much!

If you ever think about playing this game, please rest in between songs.
And there's way more of them this time around, triple the amount Vib-Ribbon had! I appreciate the effort in making a longer game, but levels can get really intense later on... and they hurt my thumb even more.

There are also little annoyances the game has that absolutely made me frustrated whenever I was trying to write the sentences.
For example, like Vib-Ribbon, if you miss a lot, you'll transform to a smaller form. When you transform in this game, it can mess up your sense of flow, and it fucking sucks.
I know this was the case with Vib-Ribbon, but since this game demands more from you, this really makes me lose my concentration.

Another thing that pissed me off was exactly when to let go of the analogue stick. Now, when you're finishing a part of a sentence, and there's nothing coming up right afterwards immediately, you need to stop holding the stick down. This is indicated by the clouds obscuring the syllables in the stages.
Thing is, sometimes the clouds did not have a color that contrasted too well with background color, and as such, I couldn't exactly see where I should've stopped.
Once again, messing my flow and make me less concentration.

This kind of shit happened to me all the goddamn time, and all of this added up to me not felling fulfilled whenever I beat a stage. Just relieved that it was over.

Overall, Mojib-Ribbon, while it has plenty of charm, is a game that I have a hard time recommending unless you really want a challenge.