It is now January 21st, 2021. I have just defeated the final boss of this game. I am numb. I have no desire to do much of anything at the moment. David Bowie is sweetly serenading me with his sultry voice as I type this out. Because as much as I don't want to put any effort into typing out a review right now, I feel obligated to before I forget. This game has destroyed me. The mental strain and frustration I felt throughout most of it is something that I hope I don't have to experience ever again. That said, why the 3/10 then? Surely, this game deserves the lowest rating possible for breaking me, right? Well, not necessarily. There's a lot to dislike here for sure, but I can't bring myself to completely hate it.

I'm not going to get into plot details here (because to be quite honest, the game lost me around Chapter 5 out of 7). I can say, however that if you are a fan of zany and some light dark humor, you might still find the dialogue and story to be silly enough to keep your attention. I was all for it at first. I liked the 'Tim Burton-esque' art design and the characters are mostly cute and likeable, with the Shadow King (shown on the cover) being a great source of comedic relief. Quick laughs and nice art direction can only get you so far, though. Almost everything else about this game fails to deliver to a certain degree.

I feel like this review would be far too long if I decide to thoroughly explain everything I found wrong with this title. Instead, I'll list some of its glaring issues:

- Boring and repetitive dungeon design
- Simplistic battle system that gets redundant real quick
- Optional overworld encounters are not so optional... (more on that later)
- Unintuative party switch system (where you have to backtrack to an inn just to switch out party members)
- Limited areas to explore which leads to...
- Excessive backtracking with an annoying quick travel system
- Ridiculous difficulty curve during later boss fights (Unless you grind a ton and/or stockpile a lot of consumables, you are at the mercy of the terrible RNG)

That last point is honestly the biggest source of my frustration with this game. Up until the 4th boss, I think, the game had been relatively easy. As long as I just fought whatever enemies I came across, it seems I was ready for anything. But then the game decided it wasn't gonna be a scrawny little 'kids' RPG anymore and became Dark Souls (please excuse the overused comparison). But yeah, it seemed that suddenly your whole adventure became a game of chance, where winning boss fights relied on obtuse tactics or sluggish grinding and item stockpiling. What little sense of enjoyment I had was gone after that. Basically, what I'm saying is that the game was enjoyable up until it wasn't...

I was actually gonna go into detail about one boss in particular... but I don't wanna spoil it. All I can say is, you'll know when you get there if you decide to play this. Good luck. I say that assuming you were playing this game casually and not grinding from the start, of course. But anyway, I finally got to Chapter 7 earlier. The final chapter. I was almost done. I felt relieved... but that didn't last. The final dungeon is one of the most complicated and annoying examples of poor level design I have ever seen. It's not fun. It requires traversing a drab maze of bookshelves and tight corridors where everything looks the same, which makes it hard to navigate. You're expected to navigate this God-forsaken place while struggling with the aggressive enemy AI. I mentioned earlier that I was gonna talk about those pesky encounters. They are especially bad here. Basically, the way that encounters work in this game is that enemies first appear as these clouds with eyes on the overworld... but they appear randomly and at close proximity. The longer you avoid them, the more aggressive they get. You'll eventually get touched by one because you have no time to react and move out of the way, and in the case of the final 'dungeon,' you often have nowhere to go because you're trapped by the narrow corridors.

By the time I finished the game, my in-game playtime was around 21 hours or so, but that doesn't account for the amount of times I had to restart battles (at one point just to get a stupid rare drop for a Playstation trophy). It would have also been less if I didn't have so much downtime trying to figure out what to do at certain points. Talking to people, walking around in circles, backtracking, blah blah. It's a shame that I had such a bad time, because again, the aesthetics and presentation were interesting in certain areas, and I can't deny that bosses could still be exhilarating whenever I was properly prepared. But the game has too many issues that make it a very incompetent RPG. To all of its fans, I salute thee. You guys are warriors and it makes me wonder if maybe this is all just a skill issue.

P.S. Ending was pretty cute, though.

Admittedly, I feel very out of place within the player base for this game. As is already known, a lot of people hyped this up, hoping to relive part of their childhood in a shiny new coat of paint. I never managed to play the original, though. Honestly, it’s kind of hard to understand why. I’ve always been fond of the show. I was probably too busy playing whatever random licensed games my parents happened to come across. As such, I have no way to compare the original with this, but regardless, I was pleasantly surprised.

I’ve played a good handful of 3D platformers throughout the years. They’re good fun, but usually don’t do anything too special for me to get heavily invested in. This one is no exception. It’s a perfectly competent game. Functional controls, fun (if a bit annoying at times) platforming, and the collectibles offer a good balance between easily feasible and tricky to find/collect. The boss battles were also a great joy for the most part (Flying Dutchman's fight was way too easy). In the end though, the main draw here is that it’s a Spongebob game. Most importantly, it’s a Spongebob game from an era long gone. Back when licensed games were still a plenty, and you could still find some quality among the surplus of them.

The charm of the show and its humor are heavily prevalent here, especially in dialogue. Patrick’s inherent stupidity is especially worth a chuckle. The developers of this remake even went out of their way to add hilarious idle animations for Spongebob tied to meme culture. Just wanted to point it out, as it got a good laugh out of me. Aside from that, the graphical overhaul is great. I did my research by looking at original footage, and I’d say they did an excellent job in recreating the visual charm in a more polished package. I can’t speak for long-time fans of the original, but as a newcomer, I recommend this to anyone who grew up with the show and even people who are just looking for a quirky collect-a-thon.

*As a side note, there were some bugs present. None of them were game-breaking, but it was weird to see the water glitching out on some occasions (particularly in Goo Lagoon). There was even a glitch that worked to my benefit near the end of the game. There’s an objective in the Kelp Forest stage where you must find 6 “campers,” but for whatever reason, I got the reward and achievement associated with it after only finding one. Mind you, I played this on PS4, so I’m not sure how the bugs compare to other consoles or PC. There were other minor bugs, but none of them hindered my experience.

Bioshock is often brought up as an example of excellent world-building and storytelling. Its beautifully eerie atmosphere hooked me in from the start. The first time you come across a Big Daddy is both frightening and surreal. I for one, was expecting many more tense encounters like this throughout the game. However, I quickly realized something. This was a shooter first, and a horror game second; but not in an overtly scary, diabolical sort of way. The horror here is subtle, mainly drawing on the story's dark themes and its gloomy ambience.

After a couple of hours exploring, its initial sense of dread started to dissipate for me, as new abilities and weapons started to become available. No longer did I feel as vulnerable, and the game became more of a standard shooter but with the inclusion of some really cool superhuman abilities (called plasmids). At first, these abilities felt more like "all flash and no substance," but after experimenting a bit, I realized it can be quite fun to take down enemies by mixing up your arsenal of weapons and plasmids. Though, I would be lying if I said switching between guns and plasmids was intuitive. Using KB+M, I found myself having constant brain farts trying to string good combinations. But when I manage to pull them off, it's pretty neat. To be fair, the gameplay itself isn't what kept me playing. It all goes back to how the game keeps up its sense of mystery.

The way most of the story is presented is pretty non-linear. There are collectible tapes you can find scattered around the environment, and there are plenty of these that help keep you up to date with the lore and provide a better understanding of character motivations and plot details. Only thing I didn't really like about this is that I would often find these in the middle of action, and it's very hard to focus on them while you're trying not to get killed. It's a bit chaotic is all.

The game has its fair share of annoying fetch quests and such, but there aren't too many of these, and they did provide an excuse to better explore new areas. I think the worst thing about the gameplay are the hacking minigames, which for me at least, sort of broke the immersion, and you have to do plenty of these if you want to find goodies or freely move around without fear of accidentally triggering an alarm. These complaints, while minor, did make certain sections a bit of a slog, and I can assure you that without a great story backing this game up, I would have found the whole experience mediocre at best.

That said, I really enjoyed unveiling the mysteries that Rapture had to offer and exploring its haunting domain. I completely understand the love people have for it. Personally, I could have done with a bit more polish in certain areas; particularly the combat. As a general tip, I highly recommend rescuing all the little sisters to get the good ending. It provides one of the most heartwarming endings I've ever witnessed in a videogame and made the effort feel worthwhile.

I vaguely remember watching Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders on VHS a lot as a young kid. At the end of the film, there was a commercial for this game, and somehow, they managed to capture my young mind's attention. I NEEDED this game!

Well, somewhere along the lines I managed to acquire it. All I remember is that I couldn't get past the first level. I thought that coming back to it as an adult meant that this game would be a breeze to get through... I was wrong. And no, I'm not saying that this game is hard, per se, but there are some factors that make it difficult to get through.

Gameplay-wise, there's not much to it. There are 4 levels in which you have to solve a mystery for each. You play as Shaggy and collect items which can either be clues or trap pieces to catch the villain... and that's it. It's basically one big game of Go Fetch! You have a "fright" meter which drops when Shaggy gets scared, which happens when touching enemies or dangerous obstacles. You can pick up Scooby Snacks to regain courage and fill the meter again, but you have unlimited lives, so there's no big repercussion for failing besides starting again from a previous area. There's some very basic puzzles to solve on occasion, but they don't add anything to the already simplistic and boring gameplay.

What makes the whole ordeal more infuriating are the controls. With the fixed camera angles, you're constantly struggling to orientate yourself after it switches. You could be moving up by pressing up, but then then you'll switch to a new camera angle and be facing downward... but because you're still pressing up, Shaggy will start running in the opposite direction and return to where you came from. It's honestly something that you should just experience for yourself to better understand it... or don't. Just don't bother.

It wouldn't be that big of a deal if it weren't for the ending sections of levels, in which you have to lure the monster into a trap by getting chased into it. It's very easy for them to catch up and have you lose all your "health" and start over simply because you're struggling to maneuver.

The game may only be about 2 hours long, but its mechanics (especially the movement) left me disoriented at times and really unmotivated to get through this slog. I didn't even mention the story, but it really isn't important. The whole thing feels like a simple cash grab. While you can say that about a multitude of kids games, I read that the developers actually worked closely with Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. to stay faithful to the source material. I guess they just forgot to make it fun. It's honestly quite disheartening that I ever had just an ounce of nostalgia for this mess.

The original Zelda title may not exactly be remembered as one of the series' finest moments, but it definitely laid the foundation for better things to come. The sense of adventure and exploration, the dungeon crawling, the item collection, and the grand bosses are all here, if only on a smaller scale.

Being immediately hurled into Hyrule, with no tutorial, and a very basic backstory, is a wonder of an age long gone. It perfectly captures the essence of what an adventure should be; an exciting trek into the vast unknown. Upon entering the first cave, you'll be greeted by one of gaming's most iconic lines: "IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS." This only further solidifies that idea.

For an NES game, the immersion is there. Hyrule is a fairly large area given the console's limitations, and the dungeons can be fun to navigate and conquer, for the most part. That said, this is a difficult game for sure, and it's what holds it back from greatness. Finding and navigating certain dungeons can be a real chore in the latter parts, and without a guide, it would amount to a lot of hassle and trial and error.

Established fans of the series should not jump into this game expecting a similar ordeal to other 2D titles, as doing so may leave you underwhelmed with its relative simplicity; and possibly even irritated with its difficulty. For anyone willing to look past its archaic design; or anyone simply looking for an old school challenge, I recommend it.