not enough people mention how much of a treat this game is if you're a big fan of Castlevania
it's amusing how much trouble Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon does to invent its own versions of all the iconography when Vampire Survivors just borrows everything, bibles are bibles still, holy water is Santa Water, etc, but also goes through a lot of trouble to make sure every enemy and character still have their own flavor
and I'd love to see this developer make a game with all the Vampire Survivors iconography they've implemented but just make a Castlevania clone this time, make a Classicvania or Metroidvania-styled game with all these interesting takes on the old favorites, and make it tough as nails to prove wrong all the people who say that you "don't know how" to make a hard game, and you can make it a bit roguey still like Dead Cells or something if you're trying to justify it as still being distinct from Castlevania
I do think there are certainly moments of challenge in Vampire Survivors, maybe I'm just not good at multitasking but I can't completely tune out while playing this
There are bosses and enemies that restrict your movement like memorably the one you fight while fleeing from rising water
And it's not just "walk in a direction", there are weapons you can fire in a direction of your choosing, therefore aim does matter a lot of the time, this game is stripped-down but there's a reason people keep making the comparison to twin-stick shooters
Skip the slot machine animations with the circle button, you don't want the game to jerk you off that much, it's a bit much already even if you skip them
On Steam Deck I force a 1920x1200 resolution because the sort of downscaling that results in is easier on the pixel art than what appears to be uneven nearest-neighbor scaling by default for 1280x800
have they ever said why the game only uses a 16:10 resolution? maybe for playfield legibility as opposed to 16:9? it befits the Steam Deck perfectly but results in awkward black bars for everything else
Decent game for like 20 hours or so, idk if I'll continue it now that I've mostly ran out of new maps, enjoy in moderation and it's better on a handheld where it doesn't feel like it's sucking away time because you're sneaking in a couple games
by the way, you diskhorse fiends have gotta calm the fuck down, I don't know what it is about this game that brings such intense emotional responses out of people, maybe it's their latent bigotry towards Italians...

And where the fuck is Bisconte Draculó? You seriously telling me you never get to fight the guy on the cover?
rated 4 stars for Schedule IV

You're about to be mesmerized. It's here! It's wild! It's sweeping the planet! It's... "LACHIEMI!"

Cantoran: "Lachiemi...Like I don't know what it is but it's the coolest thing ever and I can do it!"

Hi, I'm Lunais and THIS is "Lachiemi". We're gonna show you how to unlock the secrets of "Lachiemi: the Magic Gravity Orbs". NO STRINGS! NO TRICKS! Magic? MAYBE! An illusion? YOU DECIDE! You can make "Lachiemi” defy gravity and appear to float in MIDAIR with maneuvers like the "Plasma Geyser", the "Colossal Blade", the "Lightwall", and so many more... It floats, it levitates, it will confuse the senses with its mind-blowing movements. Young or old, big or small - anyone can "Lachiemi" - from the minute they pick up "The Magic Gravity Orbs". And with a little practice, YOU can conquer "Lachiemi!"

Winderian townsfolk: "This is so amazing!" "I think it's fabulous." "I get it now!"

Everyone loves "Lachiemi"; and you don't have to be a Time Messenger. It's relaxing, even therapeutic. Best of all, it's just amazing!

Neliste: "It floats." "It's awesome!"
Queen Aelana: "Lachiemi. Hehehehehe."

From basic maneuvers to the advanced, even control more than one "Lachiemi" at a time! YOU can do this!! Mystify, amaze, and confuse your friends in just minutes! Now it's YOUR turn to master "Lachiemi".

Vilete soldiers: "LACHIEMI!" "It's sick it's so much fun I love it."

Genza: "IT'S AMAZING!"
Emperor Nuvius: "I LOVE IT!"
Genza: "ME TOO!"

Faron: "My son, he's 20, he would love one of those. I'm gonna buy it right now."

Call now to order "Lachiemi: the Magic Gravity Orbs" for only 1999 Entropy gems. And when you order, we'll send you a free memory that will teach you everything you need to know to unlock the secrets of "Lachiemi." Just pay processing. CALL NOW!

Add this game on your Steam account as a non-Steam game through RPCS3 as Yakuza Dead Souls spelled exactly like that, and boot up the game and set your in-game controls to control type B
Steam stores community configs for non-Steam games that you can easily download through Steam provided your non-Steam shortcut has the right name
Then go browse the community control configs and download my lovingly crafted input config that automatically induces a mode shift causing your right analog stick to be read as a left analog stick only when you press R2, therefore enabling Right Stick Aiming without messing with your camera controls or movement, like a modern game
I might revisit this idea for another Steam community control scheme that puts aiming on L2 and shooting on R2 respectively, relocating some of the other top inputs to make room (if I do I will also upload it to Steam, so check that space if you're interested), but for now I'm using a controller with two remappable back buttons to also put R2's aim onto the left back button, and Square's shoot onto the right back button, therefore approximating modern aim/shoot controls
And for emulating it I've found the most success and least crashes with a combination of undervolting my CPU to make it run stronger and cooler, using frequent save-states to mitigate the consequence of crashes, and setting my preferred SPU threads in the emulator to 2. I'm getting a wonderfully frame-paced 30fps in combat which is where a consistent framerate matters most, and at a beautiful 4K, using my i7-9750H CPU
Enjoy! This is a better game than people give it credit for with the control mapping issues and framerate fixed
Best played immediately following Yakuza 4 imo

shmups knock me on my ass so hard, especially R-Type, this game is like performing brain surgery with an Etch-a-Sketch, but the colorful understated body horror theming has always kept this series a favorite in my mind
where Final and Final 2 succeed is in being an orgiastic pleasure of beautiful backgrounds, alternate paths, and a long list of unlockable ships getting progressively more overpowered with all the design variation and power disparity of a DBZ roster
as sirpospin says in their review, the checkpoint system is pretty flawed, taking all your powerups away is really punishing, but if you're a shmup person you are probably used to this (I am not)
also, support Granzella who made this game
for those who aren't familiar, ever since the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami took out all-time great studio Irem and got their then-upcoming games Disaster Report 4 and Steambot Chronicles 2 canceled
I always felt bad for them after that, and seeing them come back from the dead like a phoenix in the form of Granzella a few years later, remaking their canceled game, was cool enough that it makes me want to support them on principle
Granzella is a good developer you should buy their games and support them and their head Kazuma Kujo (well, even if this game has a billion level DLCs)

I've heard this game has been an absolute hood classic in South America, again proving they have superior taste to the USA due to the mainstreaming of piracy allowing them to develop really fine-tuned taste due to all the options they have available, and a good appreciation for the past due to using older consoles a lot, importing the newer stuff was often too expensive
They give us all the best homages to retro games because they know what makes them special due to having the whole library to play with (I love you Joymasher! What a great studio)
Anyway, do not sleep on this game, it's a 4 player arena fighter on the NES and it stars my sweet precious baby Kunio-kun who I would do anything to protect
Don't sleep on Kunio either, aka River City Ransom etc, I've been playing those games since I was a kid because despite living in the USA I stumbled into piracy and emulation and all that, boy he's done it all
If you only play two Japan-only Kunio games, play this and the hockey one, they have a knack for infusing every kind of sport with rule-breaking violence, like dodgeball, basketball, volleyball, hockey, track and field, baseball, soccer, falling block puzzle, as well as all the solo adventures like River City Ransom where they have to get their girlfriends back or the Like A Dragon Ishin-esque jidaigeki spinoffs or the Three Kingdoms spinoff or River City Girls from Wayforward where the girlfriends, obversely, has to get them back
A personal favorite of mine is Shin Nekketsu Koha: Kunio-tachi no Banka, now known in the US with two official translations (localized and literal) as "River City Girls Zero" because you do get to play as the girls too, even with those two options of theirs I like the original fan translation I grew up with though because they say "fuck" and "shit" and "damn", I mean, they're high-schoolers and delinquents, so I guess they would talk like that
Just for the love of god whatever you do, do NOT play Stay Cool Kobayashi-san! A River City Ransom Story...worst mistake of my life

P.S. Yakuza is what happened when Shenmue's narrative aspirations and Kunio's bursts of dopamine split the difference
When will they follow in Kunio's footsteps and we get a Three Kingdoms Yakuza game where Majima is Lu Bu or something


Important information: if you want to play these games on modern platforms, M2 really went all out with the Double Dragon & Kunio-kun Retro Brawler Bundle, where they officially translated a whopping 11 games for the first time, including 14 total, including the subject of this review, even retranslating River City Ransom while keeping its Japanese visuals and script intact alongside the original, as well as "quality up" versions that remove slowdown, improve control, and remove NES flickering
And...they locked their roms with DRM so you can't play them on a CRT display like God intended, which is a shame