What the fuck.. I thought the 3DS was for Pokemonsters and Mario... What is this SOVL....

The vibes are impeccable. The atmosphere is unmatched. The press turn system is, obviously, good. The crits are brutal. The first dungeon is harder than probably all of Persona 5 (random stray slander I haven't played it). The monsters are... PNGs.... The world map... uh.. anyway

The story is mid, but the worldbuilding saves it. It's at least always interesting, but I mean, the overall plot is just SMT like, again, so not much room there. I appreciate the allegories and symbolism and such as always, but it's not exactly a character driven franchise. That's fine.

Surprisingly great English voice acting, particularly Burroughs. I miss her

I might’ve said this in my review of the PSP remake but the sad truth with this game is it was made to be an ambitious and bold experiment in an era of looking forward for the future of Megami Tensei. This has become evident to me (a “megaten maniac”) with the fact that no video game company nowadays would throw away a system they built upon to make a spinoff that boldly would try and do something so risky like being cinematic (based on interviews this seemed to be the main goal). Sadly this creates a tedious gameplay experience that hides a genuinely good story and one I feel like is the most “wow I need to go outside and live my life now” Persona game I’ve played honestly. Whether it’s having the best use of a hidden video game character for legitimate thematic relevance, the crawling darkness of peering deeper into the mind, the absorbing darkness and coolness of the music, or the inner reflection on loneliness in a genre that’s kind of all about playing a long as game by yourself. I think Megami Ibunroku Persona was a great and interesting experiment.

https://youtu.be/2DYqwhSTeGQ?feature=shared

(Part 1 of the Half Century Challenge, created by C_F. You can read their first review here)

For today’s review, I wanted to take you all back, and I mean WAY back, all the way to 1970, when the Apollo 13 launched into orbit, the US was given the “gift” of PBS, and a band nobody knows of known as The Beatles would break up, with all of the members going on to doing their own thing. Yes, it was a magical time in history, one full of many ups, downs, and surprising developments for the future, lacking the bullshit we face now on a day-to-day basis, and there were plenty of things for people to do and experience, even involving the world of video games. These were a rare breed around this time, certainly nowhere near as universally known and praised like they are today, and none of these titles could ever come to match the quality of what has managed to come out since, but every once in a while, it is nice to take a look back at some of the most primitive ages of video games, seeing what developers could get away with at the time and use to make a simple, yet very memorable experience. This can be seen with some games such as with today’s example, Highnoon.

In general, I’m not really one who is too into text-based adventure games. Not to say that I have anything against them, but whenever I go to play any video game, I typically like to have… you know, SOMETHING to look at rather than just a wall of text, hence why I have only played, like, one or two of them throughout my entire life. I have wanted to check out some more of them though, as there are quite a lot of them, and there has to be some special elements they bring to the table that most other games couldn’t, otherwise why would they have persisted for so long. So, I decided to pick this one, which I had never played or heard of before, and based on my experience, I would say that I had a good time with it. You definitely aren’t gonna get much more then what is initially presented to you, but for being one of the earliest text-based adventure games, it manages to do its job well, while also adding enough charm to make it an enjoyable title to mess with for around 10 minutes or so.

One of the most appealing parts of this game, as well as any game made in a similar manner to this, is the fact that, for the most part, your imagination is the key tool to helping you paint the scenario laid out in front of you. You have already been spoiled enough with all of your fancy-schmancy new video games that have GRAPHICS and SOUND and CONTROL, BLEH! Who needs that shit, anyway?! All you need to have a grand ol’ time is just a bunch of text telling you what is going on, and you can just form the scenario around in your head. It’s almost like reading a book, except this has way more interactivity then a book, and you can make your own adventure out of it, rather than just simply reaching the same, predetermined conclusion every time.

But of course though, you gotta have a basic set-up to get you moving on the road ahead, and the set-up for this game is simple: it’s 1889, and you have been challenged to have a showdown in the Allegheny Mountains, facing the nefarious Black Bart, who will make sure that you end up as a dead man by the end of the day. You then meet up on a deserted road, and it is up to you to get the upper hand on Black Bart by moving forward, using your trusty pistol at precisely the right time, and to hope that luck is on your side so that Black Bart doesn’t end up taking you down and continuing his reign of terror. It’s a premise we have all seen and heard of before, but now, instead of watching it play out in front of you, or possibly even pretend-playing this scenario out with friends, you are now in the line yourself, and you have to take out your computer opponent before it is too late.

From there, you have very limited options for what you can do next, but they are enough to get the job done. All you can do is move forward, fire your gun, jump to the side for cover, give up, run away like a little bitch, or just do nothing at all, with each of these commands being assigned to specific numbers on the keyboard. You can then go about inputting these numbers one by one, seeing what the program does in response to this, and then continuing on from there. A lot of it is, obviously, randomly generated, as you don’t know what will happen at any time, or whether or not Black Bart will shoot or not, or even if the shots will hit you, but there is also a bit of strategy that comes into play, as whatever move you end up making at specific times could be the difference between life or death, so it is always wise to consider your next movement and choose wisely, which not only creates some pretty exciting tension, but also a good ol’ helping of satisfaction when your next move turns out to be just what you needed.

Aside from the main premise and how the game works, a lot of the appeal from this game can also be seen in the way that the game not only describes what events play out, but also how it reacts to your moves. While it mostly types things out in the way that you would expect it to, a lot of the time whenever something happens, or whenever you do anything specifically, it will throw in a snappy or snarky comment to emphasize what happened, such as “Good idea there”, or “You aren’t gonna get too far by doing that.” There was one part in the game that really stuck out to me and made me laugh, which was when I ended up getting killed by Black Bart, and how the game chose to describe what happened, where it basically said “Black Bart fires at you, landing a bullet right in your back, and then he fires again, with him shooting you right in the ass. You aren’t gonna be resting peacefully after that.” I dunno, seeing something like that in a game that is this old feels oddly refreshing, and it makes the game much more memorable as a result.

However, with all that being said, I still can’t say this game is anything more than just good because of how limited it is. It is a text-based adventure game after all, so there is only so much you can get out of it, with just one scenario to go through and the several outcomes you can get out of it, mainly either “you win” or “you die”. It is definitely only for the crowd of gamers like myself who has the love and patience for these kinds of games, but for those of you who prefer a little more interactivity, playtime, and, y’know, things to look at in your games, then this is definitely gonna be one of the last things that you ever end up deciding to check out for yourself. That doesn’t lower the game’s quality, mind you, it just affects how approachable it is in 2024.

Overall, despite being very basic and offering little more than the base concept, Highnoon is both very impressive and very charming for a game that came out back in 1970, providing you with a simple, yet descriptive scenario that you can paint in your head and have fun with, plenty of options to choose from to change the course of the game in however way you’d like, and giving off enough charm to where it feels like it stands on its own compared to what very little else was on the market at that time. I would recommend it for those who are a fan of these kinds of text-based adventure games, because while it may not give you that much to do, it is still a neat example of where these kinds of games were around that point, and it is fun to mess around with even over 50 years later. And for those of you who actually sat here and read all of what I just typed about a text-based adventure game from 1970, thanks for sticking it out to the end, as writing this one was much harder than you think it would be. Also, go check out C_F’s first review up there as well. Tell them that Mega sent ya.

Game #565

Most people nowadays that pick up Xenogears go in knowing it's going to be a good game, a great one, even. Word of its quality has spread gradually over time, primarily due to the success of its descendants; Xenosaga and Xenoblade. What people don’t seem to know is how ambitious it was.
The game having a good story is practically a given thanks to the names behind it, but it's the rest of the game that really impresses. Not only does the game have a ‘normal’ form of combat, in which up to three of your party members use their three attack types to combo their opponents into hell, there’s also gear combat. Gears are the mechs in this game, and unlike the normal characters, gears need to build attack level to combo, rely on fuel, and can’t be healed normally. The game switches between these two combat forms depending on the situation, and each of them are remarkably fleshed out, making it much harder to tire of combat than it is in most jrpgs.
Besides the main combat forms, there are also side modes and mini games such as gear combat. Not the same gear combat as before, the battlin’ gear combat is a lot more comparable to an arena fighter (albeit much less fleshed out) giving the gameplay even more variety. There’s even a speed minigame, a goddamn fully built card game that looks pretty good even now.
Xenogears bleeds creativity and is fully deserving of its legacy. The game is far from perfect - there are some glitches and some party members feel a tad underdeveloped, for example - but it's a truly one-of-a-kind experience worth anyone’s time.

I know that marking this as ‘Completed’ when I’ve only seen two ensign-difficulty medium-galaxy campaigns through to the end is a bit like saying I ‘completed’ Chess after playing a few rounds with my Uncle Jerry at Christmas, but I feel like I’ve seen enough to close the book.

The Dune novels were my impetus for finally checking out the grand strategy genre, and it’s funny that Stellaris kinda has the same problem Frank Herbert did when he wrote all those sequels - nothing can match the initial excitement of starting out in your world, watching statecraft through your awed junior eyes, becoming a man and starting a galactic crusade of your own with nothing but good intentions. Castro famously said that the true revolution begins when the enemy is overthrown and you have the seat of power; the story of Dune begins to lose itself when the grand idea of “Paul Muad'Dib“ has to sit on a throne and run a government.

The early game of Stellaris is fun because of - and in spite of - its truly insane insistence that you micromanage every element of the universe you dream of. When things began, I was clicking on menus and tabs and fleets of ships like I was playing fuckin Starcraft on semuta, dealing with ethical and moral dilemmas left-right-centre-to-infinity-and-beyond like I was fuckin Jean-Luc Picard on spice melange… It was awesome! But inevitably in the mid-game and late-game (I assume my definition of “lategame” here is like a tiny fraction of what a pro Stellaris player can simulate with political campaigning and trade deals and military management), things bottom out and the universe becomes a static blueprint of starlight that resembles a classic European trade map more than the endless expanse of new possibilities you wanted to explore - I didn’t expect that the Year 3500 would look so much like today. I understand from reading online that the expansions flesh things out more, but dude… that’s like £100! And this game already kinda feels like the spreadsheets I fill out at work!!

Towards the end of Dune: Messiah, Paul Atreides internally remarks that being God Emperor of the universe - an all-knowing superhuman across space-time - is the most boring thing imaginable to his perfect Mentat Bene Gesserit intellect. In that sense, Stellaris was able to fulfil its role as the Dune-like experience I was looking for.

I’ve recently gained a platformer addiction over the past month, to be more specific, with PS1 platformers. I’ve played the Spyro & Crash remakes multiple times but I thought it might be worth playing through the originals, seeing how much they got right and what changes were made in the future re-releases. And beginning with the one that started it all, Crash Bandicoot is a fun time, but not a well polished one in terms of its collecting, difficulty & movement.

At its core, Crash is a very simple game. You go through the course, hit as many boxes as you can, finish the level, rinse & repeat until you get to the end. To mention the goods, I think the original has a lot more charm which you don’t really see in the remake; the limitations of the hardware works in its favour and environments have beautiful colours and vibrancy alongside a catchy soundtrack and crunchy sound effects (that live in my head rent free). I also enjoy how it tries to create some sort of journey between each level, rather than what the series became known for afterwards, the hub worlds, which feels more disjointed. I think the Jungle/Tech/Castle themes all fit really well and the designs of each of the characters are just as goofy as Crash!

Crash himself feels okay to control, though maybe having the option to play with joysticks on later controllers would’ve been a nice touch as sometimes on the harder courses the d-pad only movement makes it all the much worse. To coincide this, the lack of movement options does make him feel very rigid. Compared to 2 & 3, there's no slide kick, ground pound or unlockable powerups, just a simple walk, jump, hit & Aku-Aku for extra defence. This setup paired with some of the awkward depth perception issues results in stressful gameplay, especially if you’re trying to get all the boxes on say the bridge levels. I’d say the level design and environments themselves are great! But It’s that camera and movement that turns it into a nightmare for completionists.

Speaking of a nightmare, the difficulty spikes. The base game wasn’t too bad to get through, even with the problems with the perspective, but OH LORD trying to 100% this is an entirely new beast. So, not only do you have to hit all the boxes without dying (which is a big ask considering how long the harder levels are), but then some require a coloured gem to unlock secret paths which you get through specific bonus stages in levels. There's also extra levels you need to unlock by getting keys… and none of this is ever properly explained to you, you’re just meant to figure out where they are. It’s a fun challenge to add for replayability, but some levels can be downright grating to finish, and once you finally collect everything the secret ending doesn’t add much value, so it's not really worth it. I also found the boss stages to be easier than any of the platforming levels, even Cortex, so the balancing is really mismatched, you’ll never know when the next hardest challenge is.

This does start to show a general lack of polish throughout the game. It’s like how you can only save when you’ve completed a level for the first time or doing a bonus area in a level, but once you’ve used that bonus it doesn’t return so you have to find another to go to??... or how lives reset every time you boot the game back up… or how enemies can sometimes be hidden until the last second, ruining the principles of planning where you want to go (this was extremely noticeable in the ‘Fumbling In The Dark’ level). There's just a certain threshold it passes when it's more annoying than difficult.

I’d say that if you were to check out this game yourself, then probably just play the remake version as it does add more QoL improvements that make 100%ing the game much more enjoyable and the definitive way to play. The controls feel better, you can die in a stage and still get standard gems (just not coloured ones), you can save at any point & there's even a box counter so you can see how many you have left to get instead of having to guess and hope that you’ve gotten everything. There's also the addition of time relics too that weren't in the base game however, so take that how you will as me personally, im terrible at them.

I think the only things I’ve ended up preferring in the original is the style & music. Crash Bandicoot is still a good platformer, but it hasn’t aged as well as say Spyro. It shines best with its design, story & general silliness and less-so its controls and progression. Anyone CAN pick up and play it, but depending on how your experience goes with platformers you might just end up pulling your hair out trying to fully complete it if you don’t get along with it well.

The original Castlevania is probably one of the most iconic games ever made, period.
From the amazing boxart to the monsters you fight, to that classic Belmont strut, Castlevania has a lot to make the famous (or maybe infamous) game that it is today.

Playing through Castlevania years ago was definitely a fun experience. While at the time of this review, I haven't really touched the NES version, thanks to the Anniversary Collection, I played the Famicom port they released a few years later, since this game originally released in Japanese markets on the Famicom Disk System.

The Famicom version of this game is pretty much the same as the original, but it includes an Easy difficulty, which is how I experienced the game a lot back then, since it made it extremely easy to pick up, play and beat in around half an hour.

I do wanna try the NES version eventually, to see its difficulty, but in terms of gameplay, the original Castlevania is pretty fun!

It can be a bit punishing, with you not being able to control your jumps in mid-air, but the act of whipping enemies and using sub-weapons to your advantage (especially the Holy Water and Stop Watch) never gets old.

And the music is really awesome, from tracks like Vampire Killer, Heart of Fire and Out of Time, it really gets you pumping for the quest to kill Count Dracula!
And for an NES game, the game looks nice. It has a nice contrast of colors, with Simon's sprite being mainly orange, with many of the backgrounds having a nice dark blue sky.
Complementary colors!

Overall, Castlevania is a classic, and it's really fun to play, even with its short length.

Super Mario Galaxy is the game that made me love video games.

It wasn’t the first game I played, or even the first Mario game (that honor goes to Mario Kart Wii), but it was the first to make me see games as an art form. It’s been over 15 years since I first sat down to play it at the tender age of 4 years old, but that first play session is burned into my brain. The transition from a quiet, somber storybook into a joyous festival instantly invokes a sense of childlike wonder and turns the remotely interested into the completely invested. Then, Bowser’s attack on the Star Festival and Mario’s defeat lets veteran Mario players know this adventure will be something special, while also making the basic elements of Mario clear to new players.

Speaking of basic elements, Gateway Galaxy is a fantastic tutorial. The Star Bunny segment seamlessly introduces the game’s gravity mechanic, as well as the concepts of bushes, pipes, and craters. Rosalina’s introduction introduces a sense of mystery and quiet contemplation, and the next few planets establish the game’s phenomenal sense of epic adventure and even more gameplay elements: spinning, crystals, Launch Stars, Star Bits, enemies, Black Holes, Star Chips, Flip Switches, and electricity. And all this culminates in the rescue of the Grand Star, giving 4-year-old willn46 his first chance to save the universe and make it back home to the beautiful Comet Observatory.

But even beyond its importance to me, Mario Galaxy is simply an incredible 3D platformer. Right from the outset, Mario controls like a dream. Every input is immediately taken into account, with jumps, ground pounds, and everything in between being perfectly tuned to just feel good to use. But I’d be remiss not to mention the crown jewel of Mario’s moveset: the Spin Move. Not only is it a fantastic use of the Wii’s motion controls that feels both significant and unobtrusive (unless you have a disability that renders the controls unusable for you, in which case I am incredibly sorry), it’s also an incredibly versatile tool that’s easy to use, but has nearly limitless potential. First and foremost, the momentum-halting midair jump lets players easily recover from mistakes and adjust their positioning on the fly, giving newer players a safety net that eases them in to platforming in a 3D space. Additionally, the extra jump is great for getting places that seem just out of reach, horizontally or vertically, enabling the game to set up interesting platforming challenges and fun opportunities to skip past sections if the player is good enough. But the Spin Move isn’t just for platforming; it’s also the player’s primary means of interaction with the game. It’s used to defeat enemies, break objects, collect shells, swim faster, and so much more, and every interaction is completely intuitive (Ceave Gaming has a great video on this exact topic).

I’ve seen some people criticize the Galaxy games for not having as much movement tech as other 3D Mario games. While, yes, the movement here is much simpler than 64, Sunshine or Odyssey, I actually think it works to the game’s benefit. Not only is it much easier to learn, requiring the player to understand a few basic moves rather than a plethora of complex maneuvers, but the more limited moveset lets the game be carried entirely by its level design.

And said level design is top-notch. Like 64 and Sunshine before it, Galaxy spreads its 120 stars across multiple worlds for the plumber to tackle. But it trades their handful of levels holding a few collectibles for a supercluster of memorable locales, each one bearing a unique mechanical, visual and auditory identity. Fully committing to Sunshine’s separation of individual objectives lets the designers get the most out of a single Galaxy by introducing multiple ideas while still maintaining the level’s core themes, and splitting up the action across multiple planets allows for great variety within missions as well as between them. Plus, the introduction of mid-level checkpoints allows for longer levels that don’t feel like they drag on and gives the designers more time to play with a level’s gimmicks. The more linear level design even means the game’s limited camera rarely feels limiting. And the generous amount of Power Stars gives players plenty of freedom in choosing which levels to tackle.

This would all mean nothing if the levels themselves were boring, but luckily they couldn’t be further from that. Galaxy takes basic level tropes like Ice, Beach, and Desert levels and pushes them to their absolute limits: combining ice and fire mechanics in a lava-skating course, hiding the path to a deadly obstacle course behind an underwater cave, and navigating sand streams and tornadoes across an ocean of quicksand. And that’s not even mentioning the more original levels, like HoneyHive Galaxy, BattleRock Galaxy, or Toy Time Galaxy. Besides a few stinkers like the ball-rolling levels and some of the race levels, the level mechanics on display are consistently excellent in a way I think is only matched by this game's own sequel. Interesting obstacles like altered gravity, throwing Bob-Ombs, and launching from Sling Pods are expertly paced and explored to the fullest. Cool enemies like spinning tops, bugs that need to be ground-pounded, and giant eels combined with interesting spins on classic enemies like Goombas and Boos work wonders both from a mechanical and aesthetic standpoint. Plus the bosses are great tests of skill, utilizing a level’s mechanics in their battles on top of being tests of basic skill. Power ups are pretty fun too (besides the spring), with their own unique attributes, interactions with level gimmicks, and hazards to deal with.

And do I even need to mention the visuals and music? The artstyle is vibrant, yet the locales are consistently stunning, with great attention to detail both in the actual levels and in background elements. The character designs are excellent, both with how returning characters look and how the new characters perfectly fit in with Mario while still standing out. Plus, there are tons of cool little details and secret areas that, while they may be a little pointless, give the levels tons of personality. But even more impressive is the game’s music. The confident, orchestral themes give the game an almost cinematic feel, and yet each one perfectly fits within the level and the Mario series. There are so many standout pieces in this regard, like Good Egg Galaxy, BattleRock Galaxy, and Buoy Base Galaxy. However, the game also knows when to be more subdued and reflective, with pieces like Space Junk Galaxy and Gateway Galaxy.

And on that note…besides sparking my love of video games, there’s another reason this game means so much to me.

Back in late 2016, I made some mistakes. The details are personal, but long story short, I was a stupid 12-year-old who took his friends for granted and ended up losing them all. And for the entire month of November, going to school was absolute Hell for me because of it. In every class, I would argue with people, get teased, or get laughed at, and since a lot of it was my fault, I didn’t want to ask any teachers or my parents for help. Luckily, Thanksgiving Break rolled around eventually, and I was home safe. But at this point I realized something horrible: I had no one to turn to. All my friends left me because of my egotism, and my parents wouldn’t understand enough to help me. For that entire week, I was more or less left to think about my actions, angry at myself and at the people who hurt me. I didn’t know if I could go on, and before long, my mind went to some…dark places.

Then, on Sunday, the day before I had to go back to school, I thought I would boot up Mario Galaxy so I could at least have a little fun. I played around a little, going through some of my favorite levels, not really accomplishing much. But I enjoyed it. The game didn’t judge me. It didn’t try to hurt me. It didn’t care what I did. It was just there for me, and it was there to make me happy.

And…suddenly, I wasn’t alone anymore.

Not only did that moment save my life, not only did it bring me out of the hole I dug for myself, but it made me realize the true power of a good video game. Some people might say video games are silly little things, that they’re hunks of digital junk to give to a kid so they’ll shut up for a bit. But I think they’re more than that. Like any form of art, they can lift a person up, give them a new perspective on life, and help them move forward even when nobody else will. That moment is why I wanted to become a game designer. Because I wanted to help someone feel like someone cared for them, the same way Super Mario Galaxy helped me. Sometimes, when you’re feeling hopeless, that’s the only message you need to hear:

“Thank you so much for playing my game.”