+this is pretty much mario 64 in its entirety... and it looks good as hell. if anything this was an excellent showcase of the DS's 3d chops, and even if the psp beat it out in terms of raw horsepower, this game proved the ds could do 3d games justice
+there is one major flaw the ds has when playing 3d games though, and that's the lack of an analog stick. however, I highly doubt anyone who's interested in playing this now isn't going to play it on a 3ds, which has the circle pad. using the circle pad makes this game control much more decently, especially as nintendo stil managed to add a surprising amount of nuance to the original digital controls. it can certainly still be frustrating, but in certain situations it offers more control than the original, esp since the original's controls haven't held up amazingly either
+the way that the separate characters are handled is a little odd but you almost always have options to switch when you need to, and the different abilities that each offer make certain tasks from the original game much less frustrating. for example, the stars where you must fight bullies are very aggravating with the stiff controls until you get wario and the task is made much simpler thanks to his strength
+there are brand new areas added and they're pretty great overall. they're usually limited to just a star or two, but overall I enjoyed being surprised by them in a game that otherwise hewed pretty close to the original
+there's QoL changes here and there: the big one that I can remember now is that the stars where you have to guess which order to open various chests in have been made much less annoying by never having more than three chests.
+I'm not going to spoil it but the way that you save wario is perfect; it expands on the "find the snowman's land painting in the mirror while it's invisible in the real world" gimmick beautifully while clearly telegraphing what it is that you're supposed to do
+I didn't play the minigames this time around but when I was a kid the minigames here and in NSMB were so fun with friends

-a lot of the new stars are "press the switch and then get to the star in time" or "find five silver stars", which overall are not that interesting. I did a few of them but I ended up sticking to stars from the original game for the most part
-perhaps I didn't explore the late late game enough but it seemed like a lot of the later stages didn't get full additions (ie new subareas) like the earlier ones did. the only one that comes to mind is the igloo in snowman's land getting renovated
-occasionally the new partners break the game a bit... for example in shocking arrow lifts and quick race through downtown in wet-dry world, it's very easily possible to skip the main challenges of each just by using luigi and his backflip (though the latter star was already broken by the changes in the powerup system)
-fighting bowser sucks so bad thanks to the lack of an analog stick. it shouldn't be this way, since the game offers the ability to draw a circle on the touch screen to throw bowser, but I found that this worked very poorly

this game has gotten a lot of flak for potentially being worse than the original, but I'd say it's certainly on-par overall thanks to the new content and QoL changes it has. on 3ds this game has been made much more playable, and while I don't think it will blow the mind of anyone who's played the original, it's still a nice little portable romp from the days before nintendo had actually released the original on a handheld console.

a really impressive small twin-stick shooter with interesting wave design and a good deal of content. not really a lot of changes in environments outside of player customization, but the game looks cool enough that I didn't really mind when I was playing it. most waves center around hitting certain ships that will cause all others in its group to destruct, as well as hitting specific bomb ships that will blow up others in the vicinity. beyond that, there didn't feel like a lot to do other than memorize patterns. it doesn't overstay its welcome at all though, and for the few hours I spent with it I had a blast.

I have a review over on the dreamcast entry that delves into my thoughts on the actual gameplay, but why do I dislike this version versus the original? long story short, this port is rather poor in its original incarnation. I suppose the original's graphical engine (specifically the Lantern Engine for lighting) was so tied into the dreamcast hardware that it simply could not make a smooth transition to the gamecube, but that's speculation on my part. nevertheless, this port has downgraded graphics in many instances, particularly with its poor lighting that gives many objects a plastic-like quality. there are also extra bugs; even the newly-skippable cutscenes can occasionally crash the game due to their sloppy implementation.

on the flip side, you get an unlocked framerate (tho it struggles to maintain 60 on gcn), high-poly character models, game gear titles, and some added content here or there. your mileage may vary on whether these make it worth it; personally, I had more fun playing on dreamcast. however, it is worth noting that on the steam version (which is how most will likely play the game) the mod scene is extremely active and a simple fan-made loader can fix many issues and restore the graphical parts of the dreamcast release that make this release such a bummer. you'll also get a solid 60 thanks to modern hardware, making this probably the best choice for someone looking to try this game out.

I was first exposed to the concepts laid out in this game when I was a kid and had lego rock band on the ds. rather than going the guitar hero ds accessory route (a wise move, as those were rendered obselete once the gba slot was removed from the dsi on), harmonix's handheld rock bands followed in the footsteps of the original amplitude, where each instrument was given a separate track of notes, and the game encouraged you to switch between tracks at the end of each measure (or phrase). since I really enjoyed that rock band game (heavily compressed and truncated tunes aside), I was eager to give this title a go after getting it as a ps+ freebie.

after playing it.... it's fine really. I was a little surprised that this wasn't a remake of the original but instead a reboot of sorts, with a concept album about neuroscience(?) serving as the solo campaign and half of the tracklist. there are flashes of brilliance in the music here but it has an oddly anachronistic mid-00s electronic sound to much of it, which I suppose is fitting for a reboot of a game from that era. regardless, while I found it interesting on a first playthrough, I quickly realized I had no intentions on going back for more if I could help it. on the gameplay side, it's again fine but feels somewhat shallow. there's certainly much more time I could spend practicing to get up to higher difficulties, but given the shallow nature of the mechanics I didn't feel pushed to after a few hours of play.

certainly not a terrible game, and it accomplishes what it sets out to do, but nothing really phenomenal here either. there are another set of songs beyond the main campaign as well, but these aren't any better than the normal tunes, with no big licensed tracks as in the original. I don't see myself redownloading this to try it out again anytime soon.

+the overall concept is pretty good I think, wandering around saving the kids by looking inside everything in sight and cleaning out all the enemies. simple, but effective. the implications of michael jackson going around looking for little kids inside of dumpsters.... well LOL but otherwise
+michael's animations are great and his standard attack is rather useful. I didn't get much use out of his special attacks thanks to them sapping HP much like many games of the time, but I'm sure they're situationally useful as well
+decent level variety, mostly stuff semi-related to the songs, all in good fun. there's a graveyard ofc, as well as a parking garage inspired by bad, and a few other random locales
+the fm synthesis renditions of his hits are excellent. I had no problem listening to these over and over again as I tackled each level, and the voice samples are clear as well

-each level ends with a wave of enemies to fight all at once, and some of these can get really tedious. MJ does have a screen nuke as one of his specials but trying to "hand to hand" these guys is a real pain. some of the encounters are too easy and some are frustratingly hard
-the ending rail shooter section... the hell? the genesis tries its best to pull off this forward-scrolling effect but the illusion of depth is extremely poor and makes this part much more annoying than it should be
-the longer levels get boring quick trying to scour every single corner for the kids. some of the areas you can uncover are not very well defined, and it's annoying to backtrack once you realize that some nondescript bush actually is searchable and any of the ones you passed earlier could contain missing kids
-michael is tall and once you start adding gunfire into the mix, this game can get annoying really fast. big growing pain in these early days of 16-bit gaming

this definitely got tossed out quick by sega to try to pull people into the fold, and it seemed like it was semi-successful. the game itself is pretty high quality arcade action for the time and you can tell that even tho this was not a passion project for any of the devs, it still was a high-quality sega product at the end of their day that helped push their new 16-bit system at a time where sega had little brand recognition, if any

I can't really think of a full pros/cons chart because I actually played this game quite a while ago (I think late 2019/early 2020) and only just now got around to finishing the final boss. I appreciate good-feel's decision to significantly alter the gameplay of the yoshi's island series after their by-the-numbers yoshi's woolly world, but this game really does not hit the mark. the game attempts to draw from the 2.5D gameplay seen in yoshi's story on n64, where yoshi can move on paths into the foreground and background when the game allows. yoshi can also hit objects in the foreground and background with his eggs, and by proxy this means that yoshi's aiming has now become a controllable cursor rather than an automatically-moving one as in previous games. this slows down the pace considerably and can feel unreliable due to the many targetable objects on each stage. the stage gimmicks fail to use this in interesting ways and instead provide an odd mish-mash of concepts that mostly confuse rather than excite.

other than the main gameplay, the collectables endemic to yoshi's island have proliferated far beyond the bounds of reason, with some stages hitting a flower count in the double digits if my memory serves correctly. these now serve as a block for further progression, so simply ignoring them will not allow you to proceed (usual YI challenges like having full health at the end of a level or getting all red coins also give a flower). much like woolly world, the puzzles and challenges for getting these flowers are repeated often and become tired quickly. there are also several minigame levels; nothing too crazy but also not really annoying either. for side content you can play each level in reverse searching for poochies, and you can also replay levels searching for specific objects in the background to hit. neither set of missions hold any particular interest for me. otherwise this was a suitable podcast game and nothing more. I definitely recommend you listen to at least something else in the background, as the music is absolutely off-key/horrid and tracks are repeated often. not a great game to be honest.

the concepts this game introduced have had a bit of a stranglehold on square enix's further action rpg output, even all the way up to ffxv and ff7r. one thing that thankfully has been improved is mid-battle menuing - who ever thought it was a good idea to try to control a menu in a cursor during a real-time battle? otherwise much of what you'll see from more recent games exists here: AI-controlled companions who serve in support roles to you, hack-and-slash combat, and plenty of special moves. while not as impressive now, especially with how stiff the controls are, it's certainly rock-solid for a game from 2002. what it lacks in fluidity it makes up for in panache.

the game is not helped at all by its intro however, which is quite long and features little of the disney style advertised on the box. when you finally do travel to your first disney world, it's alice's wonderland butchered as a series of boxed rooms with flat decorations on the walls, and a long puzzle of sorts where you must repeatedly flip the orientation of a center room in order to proceed. this is a particularly poor beginning, but in design it demonstrates a big issue with kingdom hearts: confusing room layouts and a lack of direction. these issues wouldn't last in the series, and the environment designs get much better even shortly after wonderland ends. the disney style works wonders with early 6th gen polygons, and it helps that some of the in-game cinematics are quite good.

combat is uncomfortable much of the time, but your companions are relatively solid and can carry you a bit when needed. the difficulty is not too high and the game only begins to drag a bit around the end once all of the disney worlds are through with. I found myself diving into a bit of the post-game content as well, specifically the extra coliseum tournaments and the optional boss battles strewn across the worlds. I don't see myself diving into this again other than to stack trophies on the ps4 version, but a solid attempt at defining action rpgs in an era where fully-3d gameplay was still shaky.

+I hadn't played through a game on my actual GBA in quite some time, and god does this game look good on it (the 101 variant specifically). the screen never feels squished and every sprite has a lovely amount of detail to it.
+control here is nice and tight, and it all works well with the limited controls. I was worried I wouldn't be able to pull off wall-jumps on GBA d-pad but I had no problems at all
+the chozo statues destination indicators are a polarizing feature, but I do appreciate how it streamlines the experience. after all, streamlining experience seems to be the name of the game here... most times it probably was not necessary, but I will say I probably would have wasted quite a lot of time trying to figure out what to do after getting the hi jump (specifically returning to brinstar to get the varia suit and then immediately returning to norfair)
+adding on to the above, while you're always told where to go, you often are not explicitly told how to get there. it's useful to have a rough idea of where you're supposed to be without given a route, and a lot of the fun comes from poking around an area until you find specific items or a secret passageway that will get you where you need to go
+in a lot of ways, this feels like taking the skeleton of the original metroid and overlaying all the good things from super metroid on top of it. it's not a bad thing at all!! having a new quickie metroid on the go is never a bad thing

-the game was never going to be long given the small size of the original game, but it's still a little shocking how quickly you can get to tourian blind. this game would be much better if they had taken out the space pirate section and added a third boss/area to the game after ridley instead
-mother brain is no fun to fight... this was the only area where I died over and over again. again, it's just an element from the original recreated here, but it could have been nice to have a proper boss fight instead
-the power grip is a bit stiff. it doesn't always grab when you want it to unless you're very clearly holding a direction on the d-pad into the wall (this is especially annoying when getting chased by space pirates), and when you're actually on the ledge it can be touchy for when you're trying to jump off, jump up, or climb up.
-the zero suit section sucks so bad... the stealth is so poorly implemented and it disrupts the pacing of the game tremendously. it feels like you're really intended to run away from space pirates for most of it, like why not actually let me fight back if that's the case. once you get the suit it's not much more fun either, since the enemy variety is virtually nonexistent

I loved it up until mother brain and then didn't like anything past that. I also don't feel much reason to go back and do all of the 100% backtracking since you can't do it until right before the final boss anyway... again the pacing is very odd. other than sour ending it's a very fun mini metroidvania to blow through in a couple of days, and it was fun for me to pull out my gba for the first time in years as well.

+as an early stealth game it's pretty neat, with a small range of stimuli the guards can respond to and the ability for them to alert other guards of your presence
+obv not as good looking as the arcade original but it's still very cute, with a nice faux-3d style to it
+fast-paced and smooth with the controls, you can easily juke enemies and escape risky situations once you get used to how moving between the two planes works

-basically every gameplay mechanic is introduced in the first couple of levels and then nothing else is ever added. there's only ~3 important varieties of enemies and after you've faced them once it really isn't that interesting facing them again and again
-tldr for what this game is it's not worth it for 30 minutes of repetitious gameplay, with no story beyond a couple of small cutscenes of your characters sneaking around. very slim package

probably should have played the arcade release, but whatever

+great character design and cel-shading that works well work on wii
+killing people in this game rules, no question. pulling off the QTE and hacking someone into pieces with blood spurting everywhere is so satisfying, especially if you get multiple people at once
+the roulette system is also an inspired touch, keeping things fresh by powering up travis at random
+with the above in mind, the stage designs are well-paced with good enemy placement, and there's a few good setpieces to keep the long drab hallways from getting too boring
+the wrestling holds are also a great touch, situationally useful and fun to watch, especially when you unlock new ones
+there's not all that many different katanas, but I like how each one has a unique design and special characteristics. combos actually vary a bit between them as well
+I think the "it's empty and boring as a parody!" justification for the open world is flimsy but honestly I don't mind it that much. I never felt too put off by driving around town, and thankfully there's some collectables to sweeten the deal
+shoutout to volodarski, which is an actually cool fight. shinobu is better designed than most of the others as well, but is way too hard for third boss in the game
+amazing soundtrack, and an all-time classic theme song
+the title is a music reference, of course, and there are plenty of cute references to punk music strewn across the city
+the sound design in general is really great, with shrieking, taunts, lightsaber noises, and gunshots giving the combat a grisly feel. also the garden of madness phone calls rule

-once you get past the hack-and-slash parts, the combat is very uncomfortable, specifically when dealing with the camera and the lock-on system. travis is at an uncomfortable angle for much of the game, and the camera has a tendency to get caught on objects or confused... rolling can also be unpredictable in the same way
-there are hidden techniques that the game never alludes to nor shows in the manual, some of which seem essential for certain boss fights (dark step specifically, which isn't easy to pull off on your own)
-because of the control issues, a lot of boss fights become much more frustrating than they need to be. it doesn't help that the bosses towards the end of the game become damage sponges that mindlessly throw out combos with limited windows to chip away their health
-the jack-off motion for charging the beam katana is funny but it can be such a pain to constantly refill it (this is easier in the switch version I presume). it's especially annoying in sections with lots of gunmen, where your charge gets shredded from blocking bullets
-grinding for cash in this game is quite tedious, and since it's integrated into the gameplay (and plot) through the ranking match admission fees, you'll spend much of your playtime doing it, esp after you've already unlocked all the side jobs and assassin missions
-the plot towards the end is childish, to be frank. it's hard to tell what suda51 is trying to convey here other than "aren't endgame twists silly?" and "ultraviolence is sort of gross... but cool too!" with little actual depth or nuance compared to his other work, and it seems to think it's far more clever than it actually is
-it's also hard to see travis as a loser since he's both a working class stiff and a highly trained assassin. hell, as you move forward and your assassin rank goes up, you'll eventually work your way out of needing to do side jobs in favor of higher paying assassin gigs. sure he's an otaku, but he works his ass off (I think this might be a cultural rift that ruins this portrayal for us americans)
-the other main theme (ultraviolence) feels undercooked as well. yes, travis is a sociopath, but there's a lot of antagonizing the player for their killing sprees without much thought over who designs the games this way or why violent games are so popular
-also the fourth wall-breaking is some real try-hard shit in this game. they really love to clobber you over the head with it too, especially towards the end
-travis's gigantic pants have not aged well...

as much as I want to like this game, it really is an acquired taste. this is a budget game with limited assets and a clunky engine, and its hard for me to recommend considering that it's not one of suda's better stories and there's many frustrating sections throughout. I think it is worth playing to pay respect to a daring cult classic on a system with very few games of its ilk, but don't go in expecting the world

didn't really delve into the multiplayer at all but was very satisfied with the single-player campaign. unlike many shooters before it, the game makes it pretty clear that you aren't a god, and that you need to think carefully about your positioning instead of rushing in. where this succeeds is in tense missions like all ghillied up/one shot one kill, or any of the ones where you're clearing out houses looking for prisoners. of course this doesn't make up the entire game, and often you will find yourself in a shooting gallery where enemies infinitely respawn until you push forward into one of their respawn zones and "turn it off" so to speak. these parts can be fun as well, but can be a real downer if you're trapped, or can't tell where the respawn point is even as you mow down enemies.

thankfully the game is very manageable for the most part (other than the television broadcasting center... yuck), and to break up the corridors of enemy combatants there's little sections where you get to use some more exotic weaponry along with a few air support sections. for most of the game, you'll be stuck using some sort of assault rifle with little variation. it's a little too useful compared to the other guns, with the ability to spray-and-pray while also having high ammo count and decent damage. there's plenty of different variations of course, but these will only be noticed by those taking the game seriously online.

otherwise it's a creative military shooter with interesting missions at its best, and simply tedious at its worst. worth a playthrough even if the idea of playing online or mastering the campaign appeals to you, thanks to the campaign's relative brevity.

incredibly bland sci-fi themed beat-em-up that pales in comparison to sega's other belt scroller options. each area until the last is an unappealing and lifeless urban backdrop, and even the final alien ship stage is dull. enemy variety is very low, and there are only two bosses that I encountered, one of which you fight twice. each character has a range of punches, kicks, and weapon shots. since these are all context sensitive attacks, they can all be triggered just by mindlessly mashing the attack button. there is also a very generous roll, which is I will say is a nice touch for a game of this era, especially since you can jump out of it to perform an aerial attack. there is also the usual dash and screen nuke abilities. each mission is extremely short and only covers the span of maybe a city block. you will often find yourself clearing an area, getting the signal to move on, and then immediately running into a new set of enemies before the screen has even scrolled. I cannot imagine this was a technical restriction, since the genesis could handle large side-scrolling areas with ease, so I must assume the actual mission design was an afterthought.

breaking up the missions are short light-gun sections, which are relatively good considering that they are controlled with the d-pad. these take advantage of the console's parallax layer capabilities, though the layers and layout are roughly the same for each section. even the final boss takes place in this mode, indicating that even the developers may have known the beat-em-up gameplay wasn't up to snuff. there are also horizontal shmup sections that are serviceable, especially the second and final one which has some solid rolling obstacles to dodge. nothing completely out of the ordinary but they certainly break up the otherwise monotonous gameplay.

not a good game, but thankfully short. it may be a little more fun if you have someone next to you, and it's widely available through the many genesis compilations sega has put out throughout the years, but you should consider this a filler entry in those collections and not an essential play.

+I really like michael biehn as lead voice actor for this game, and his attempt at being gruff while sounding completely shitfaced the whole time. dunno if that was on purpose or not but it makes some of the quips more bearable
+scenario is good, with some cute setpieces and locations
+the open world is there if you wanna explore it but the story missions are absolutely accessible without having to run all over the map, which I greatly appreciated
+performance is solid on ps3, sort of an unsteady 30fps which sounds bad but in comparison to far cry 2... that game had sections like a slideshow lol
+the blood dragon aspect is neat, with these large enemies you can easily hide from and enrage to kill any enemies around them. underutizled, but still neat

-enemy variety is terrible, and it feels like everyone is a bullet sponge as well
-the world itself doesn't feel very cyberpunk... it's just far cry 3 with scanlines and red fog lol
-I've heard the newer far cry games are better pure shooters than the early ones, I wouldn't know, but to run this game on far cry 3's engine while also trying to pretend it's a fast-paced fun linear shooter. walk speeds are horrendously slow and the gunplay feels stiff and lifeless. I don't mind this as much when playing a normal far cry because those have a stronger focus on exploration, stealth, etc. but it becomes readily apparent here (especially in the arena area)
-I get the retro thing they're going for with the cutscenes but why are they so small... and why did I have to sit through a very long one with a sex scene part of the way through lol

fun for a few hours, not amazing or even really good but at least at the end it was fun to mow enemies down with the killstar laser weapon, and overall I was satisfied. don't think I'll ever touch the open world stuff but solid otherwise

+all in all as a kirby game this is a pretty solid one. there are certain kirby titles that aim to play like a "normal" kirby game, and this is one of those
+the challenge rooms to get sun stones are solid in this one, several of them actually gave me a bit of trouble
+this is one of the few 3ds games I've played where the 3D is actually useful, specifically for certain attacks or sections that are hard to judge without it on. still totally playable without it tho
+kirby fighters is a nice addition, considering how the kirby series mechanics have neatly dovetailed with super smash brothers from the very beginning. I only spent about five minutes playing it but the stage variety is nice and the hazards are neat

-hypernova is never really utilized in any interesting ways, even in the final boss battle. occasionally you'll need to spit out whatever big thing you sucked in at a specific time, but that's about as complex as it gets
-the game feels sluggish, especially when trying to use the circle pad. this would be less of an issue if I wasn't trying to play this on an OG 3DS with adult-sized hands, where accessing the d-pad can be a little bit uncomfortable
-this is a bit of a slim package even for a kirby game, thanks to the final world being padded out with boss refights. the final boss lineup is solid, but it feels a little premature

I overall enjoyed the experience but I think that's because I was playing it mostly in fits and spurts when I had free time, including during long loads for other games. it's sort of a middling kirby game overall but around the middle it feels like one of the better experiences in the franchise.