Best Zelda gameplay-wise for me. I have minor nitpicks but the game justifies its approach so well that I feel like an idiot having problems with it.

I prefer permanent weaponry but every five feet there's a sleeping pig-billy you can rip in half for his mop so it doesn't really bother me.

Shrines are same-y but so many cool puzzle ideas.

Subtle story that's very defeatist and I adore it. All my friends who believed in me fucking died sweet love that for me.

*This game loses a half-star whenever it rains.

Fantastic map and voice acting, it's a shame I didn't have this as a younger teen to sandbox around in like I did for GTA IV because it feels better to play.

I vastly prefer IV's story though, and because I'm not cool, that IS a factor to me. The writing is clever, but in the Joss Whedon-y way where prolonged exposure to it made me want to tell it to shut up. It got kinda edgy for no reason other than to smirk and wait for you to either be offended or lol out loud. I had neither reaction. Still, a grand majority of the single-player is tons of fun and there’s a lot of interesting missions to keep the game interesting.

You get to play as three characters, but the fact that Franklin's superpower is bullet-time driving dissuaded me from playing as the other two at all beyond mandatory missions for them. Michael's high-noon slowdown power belongs in the old west, not when I've got four-billion cops teleporting in with RPGs. I think Trevor's power is crippling heroin addiction?

There's a shitton to do in this game but if you think I'm gonna go play darts or golf or YOGA I'll refer you back to Franklin's slomo driving power. Fuck outta here, yoga? All that time programming that minigame coulda went to getting Geno in here or something idk

It looks like a lotta people value this game for it's online which I absolutely hated. I play these games to run away from cops and feed my antisocial tendencies, the last thing I wanted was to play heists with actual human players who invested tons of cash in this game instead of a HYSA and whose social skills were as tolerable as the mission writing.

Maybe it would have been better with irl friends but eeeehh... I don't think this game appeals to me as a multiplayer game like it does with 99% of the rest of the world.

(https://youtu.be/35YXvmEluYc?si=6sm75qPc4hx2utk9)


I don’t really remember when I brought this game onto my PC but I am certainly glad I did take the short time to download this game. Another challenge that would be faced with this game would be the language barrier, however, the game isn’t story heavy enough to burden anyone interested in this game. Meaning that every other aspect of this game is strong enough that the barrier isn’t an issue, but we’re getting to that.

The playstyle of Duo Princess isn’t unique to itself but isn’t commonly seen in games, a platforming beat-em-up with a nice hybrid mix of Brave Fencer Musashi and some of the middle Ys titles, mainly Ys: Ark of Napishtim. The handling of the character itself, placed as a sprite, is okay but nothing special or something that regards itself more than average. Some of the beat-em-up aspects come in where the game will trap you in an area, unable to progress, unless you obliterate this horde of what can only be a group of small forest creatures of various colors. There isn’t much to the actual combat, spam attack and crowd control, you are given magic attacks charged with MP but they’re ok, except for the meteor you get on the last two levels, all bosses from there get destroyed from that.

The story, or at least what I can gather from my small amount of Japanese, is that you play a cast of two sisters and pick from either Mint or Maya, Mint uses close range and Maya is long magic bursts. Both have different sets of magic spells they unlock through the game and are useful. The cutscenes between each level lose their luster when you can’t read what’s going on, if you can, it’s just charming, not great.

Music, the music is great, charming, and whimsical at heart, makes me feel funny, like butterflies in my stomach. There isn’t a lot to it, in fact, it’s about five songs in total, and it’s not memorable, but it’s great. Some may be able to listen to the OST while listening to this review, ill link it at the top of the review.

All in all, yeah, the game is short, has some shortcomings from being made as a fan project of a forgotten Square Enix game but there’s a lot of charm and passion placed into the game. It’s short and free so I cannot see any reason not to visit this truly hidden indie gem of a game.

Everyone has to start somewhere right? Every person had to start with something that inspired them. Whether that be an event, maybe a tv show or film, maybe even a book, or maybe a 3D platforming shooter on the ps2. Or for me at least.

Ratchet & clank was a game born from the gods. If people were destined to do stuff, then this was the game that saw me in that direction. After insomniac lost spyro they needed a new big platforming series, so they borrowed naughty dogs engine which they used for Jak and Daxter and were able to create what would become the first ratchet game. After the release, the game would spawn a PlayStation staple franchise and specifically for this review: a boy with a small dream. But that’s for later. Let’s get onto the actual game itself.

Act 1:

Now I know I’ve reviewed this game in the past, but it certainly lacked the depth it needed, so why not give it that missing depth right now? The story sees you in control of a Lombax named ratchet. He’s alone on the desolate planet of veldin with the dream to escape and to explore other planes across the solar system. Meanwhile, there’s a malfunction in a robot making factory and the result of this is clank, a tiny robot. He finds out that an evil man named chairman drek is planning on destroying planets to create a planet for his own. Clank quickly begins to try and escape but is shot down by other bots and ends up landing in veldin. From there, he meets ratchet and clank helps him to escape the planet with the deal of finding captain qwark and putting a stop to chairman dreks plans. But before we continue the story: it’s time to go into gameplay.

Compared to future instalments, the first ratchet game isn’t as shooter heavy as its successors but it is still a core part of its gameplay. Considering the fact that before, insomniac’s only really major work were the spyro games, you can see that formula kind of applies to the first ratchet game. Even with this however, it still ends up sticking out on its own. You get a choice of 16 weapons all with different attributes. I’m not going to go too in depth about the weapons, because you can tell they were still trying to work out what works and what didn’t and believe me, the taunter is a big showcase of that. Some weapons include the decoy glove, whereby a small inflatable version of ratchet will stand and enemies will instead attack it instead of you. The suck cannon sucks up enemies and even crates which can then be launched back at enemies, this then brings me onto the next bit of gameplay.

The currency in the game is something that would still define its successors. These are bolts. These can be found by killing enemies or even finding them in smashable beige crates, or even surprisingly: bomb crates. Bolts are now explosive! There are different types of crates in the game. Those being the normal beige crates, bomb crates which explode in 3 seconds, metal crates which can only be opened through some form of explosion, and nanotech crates. Nanotech is essentially the health in the game and the crates can be found practically everywhere. Before I go in depth about the currency and its themes, let’s continue the story shall we?

Ratchet and clank end up crash landing on planet novalis but end up getting a ship from the planetary chairman (a very imaginative name) and end up finding…the plumber. The absolute legend. The crack of all jokes. But anyway. They end up going to different planets to try and find captain qwark. But just before I get onto that, I just want to take a minute and talk about another part of the gameplay.

Something that makes the first ratchet game certainly stand out is its non-linear progression. Essentially, in almost all levels you can take different paths to get to different things, these could be important items, important story beats, or just nice little bonuses. What I like about that is that, it encourages exploration and almost pushes it on the player to keep returning to places and just checking out everywhere they can. It’s a very nice bit of gameplay that I wish was continued and pushed a lot more in later ratchet games.

They end up arriving on planet kerwan whereby clank gets a heli pack upgrade and ratchet ends up getting a swingshot. To start off with, the swingshot is one of the gadgets that helps ratchet out with puzzles, these pop up all over the games and work differently to weapons as well…they don’t kill anyone. The heli pack is also an upgrade that helps give ratchet a lot more flexibility in terms of things like reaching hard to reach places. Clank ends up getting 2 other upgrades later on which help with similar things and can come in quite handy. I’ve never met anyone on this planet who hates the heli pack or thruster pack, and if someone does…do you really?

They eventually do end up finding qwark and he ends up taking them to his base on planet Umbris…however, he ends up turning out to be helping drek this entire time and leaves them to the slaughter, thankfully tho ratchet and clank make it out with their lives…but maybe not so much their friendship as clank fell for qwarks tricks. This then leads us into act 2 of the game! Oh wow!

Act 2:

So they end up getting a brand spanking new ship and end up having to try and track down qwark, however before they can…there’s a bunch of issues. For starters, they’re on the planet orxon and the air is very dangerous to breathe, so they are forced to try some form of gas mask to find the infobot and locate qwark. If you don’t know what it is, it’s essentially a small little robot that gives the coordinates of the next planet.

Also, just wanted to also talk about the themes of the game and I thought this would be an excellent time as any. So, if you’re following this I’m just wondering…have you noticed how expensive everything is? Well, you’ll never get what that is! Why it’s good old consumerism my favourite! The main theme of this game and the entire ps2 quadrilogy are obviously the satire and extreme push of consumerism. Stuff is advertised everywhere and practically nothing in the game doesn’t not come with a price. But that is the sort of genius of the writing. Everything has to come with a price and if you can’t pay it then tough shit. It gives the world an almost slightly depressing view. But I digress.

Eventually they get a gas mask from planet pokitaru and go to a bunch of other planets, including hoven where they thwart one of dreks plans…and clank hits on a girl??? This is until they eventually decide to confront qwark on the gemlick base. And oh man…this is where it gets good.

Come on, I had to mention the music at some point. The entire score was composed by David bergeaud and unfortunately he hasn’t returned to the series since quest for booty. His soundtracks in almost every ratchet game he did were excellent and fit with every planet they were inserted into. Whether it be the futuristic and busy landscape of planet kerwan or the desolate yet dangerous gemlick base, everything he composed for the game fits perfectly and encapsulates each world perfectly. It’s a shame later soundtracks wouldn’t encapsulate the same feeling the first few ratchet games did but, hey, we still have the work he did and it can still be appreciated today, if they put it in streaming services…

Act 3:

After attempting to confront qwark, they get into a fighter jet and he crashes onto the planet of oltanis. It’s at this moment when ratchet and clank decide to put aside their differences and actually defeat drek for the good of the galaxy. They try to get oltanis but clank can’t come out because of the lightning and dangerous conditions of the area. Ratchet is then forced to go on his own where he finds qwa- I mean Steve and gets the gagdetron pda…which I have to dedicate a paragraph to.

The gadgetron pda. What’s so good about this baby? It’s essentially the get yourself out of having no ammo card. You can use this thing absolutely anytime you want is essentially a portable vender. The only downside is the fact that the ammo costs more than it does at an actual vendor but who cares! If your loaded this is a perfect way of getting out of dangerous fights.

After getting an infobot, they travel to quartu, otherwise known as the robot factory from where clank was created. Clank ends up becoming giant in a pretty short section which I’m not going to go too in depth about. Essentially they end up getting another infobot for their trouble and end up making it to kalebo III to try and sneak into the robot factory in quartu. Kalebo III just happens to be the headquarters of none other than gadgetron, the company that has been selling you weapons and everything. They meet the chairman and end up having to participate in a hoverboard competition.

Hoverboarding is essentially a little racing game that you can be in. There’s only two tracks with those being in Rilgar and kalebo III. They aren’t that exciting but they certainly were for younger me, but nowadays they frustrate me as all hell. I also forgot to mention about some of the other important gadgets. Those being stuff like the grind rails which let you grind on railings (shocker), the magnet boots which let you walk on magnetic surfaces, the gas mask which I already touched upon. These not only help with puzzles but they also look really swag on ratchet.

After the competition, ratchet receives a remote that turns him into a robot. He decides to use this to his advantage and sneak into the robot factory on quartu. After doing so, they end up finding the exact place where clank was born. I’m not going to describe the scene because…I think it says everything perfectly. Afterwards however, it turns out that drek plans on destroying veldin as a sort of fuck you to ratchet. They decide to try and return to veldin immediately and stop drek in his tracks. Drek ends up revealing that he was the one that polluted his kinds homeworld and he was going to do it again on the new planet he was creating, just to make more money and repeat it over and over again. With this, ratchet and clank finally decide to take drek down once and for all.

The final battle is pretty excellent and cinematic. With the desperate attempt to try and stop drek at all costs from destroying veldin with his deplanetizer ray. Ratchet and clank end up succeeding and shoot drek to his own planet, destroying it in the process. The end shows ratchet and clank finally being really best buds and deciding to live with each other and just be…the best duo like come on.

Epilogue:

After everything…I still love this game. Of course it isn’t perfect but that’s ok. If it wasn’t for this game I probably wouldn’t reviewing different games at this very moment. This was the first game I ever played and I hold it really dear to my heart and hell even the entire franchise to my heart. The story of the first game and the themes it touches on are still perfect to this day. And whilst gameplay could’ve done with a few fixes, that’s what the other games would later help with. And even back then, I called it the game with the biggest heart, because that’s true. It was. It’s still well liked today and I honestly couldn’t thank it enough. And I can’t thank you guys enough either for sticking with me for so long!

Great gameplay, excellent story, breathtaking music, interesting selection of weapons and gadgets, and the plumber still has his cra-I mean back, thanks for the 100th review!

It's no secret that Mortal Kombat: Deception's Konquest Mode is one of my favorite parts of any fighting game. If you didn’t know that, you should have, but now it certainly isn't a secret.

From Shenmue to Hybrid Heaven, the illusive 1v1 fighting game/RPG is something I've been chasing for a while, and the day has finally arrived that I can say hello to the official ambassador for my beloved micro-genre. But it seemed unfortunate that such a Concept™, a Conmancept if you will, had to get its defining moment in a franchise I usually avoid. Street Fighter V didn't even launch with an arcade mode.

World Tour got me in the door, but the surprise of Street Fighter 6 is how it now has me hooked on Street Fighter gameplay. I know, truly shocking that someone who enjoys oft-derided Mortal Kombat games would see the light after experiencing kino.

My esteemed and beautiful backloggd family, I've even been playing a fighting game... online. Normally this bald boy can't make it through a single online match in MK or Tekken without ending up drenched in sweat, but starting out as such a noobie in SF I felt less pressure and therefore less critical of myself. I've spent way more time in the Battle Hub than I anticipated. The Conman has even played the daunting ranked matches (I'm only currently Bronze with Guile but I started at Iron and this is basically the first SF I've ever gotten into). I've played loads of the practice modes and combo trials, and I'm just having a blast learning and slowly getting better at the game.

This has gotta be, without a doubt, the best entry point to Street Fighter. The single player RPG campaign allows you to get to grips with the mechanics (I chose classic controls) and introduces you to the world and characters, allowing you to familiarize yourself with them and pick a main. Guile actually controls the least like the characters I'm used to in games because charge attacks are simply not part of my muscle memory, but something about him stuck and I'm in. What's even crazier is that retroactively this game has helped me break down my barrier to the other SF games: Street Fighter Alpha 2 is fire, which I discovered because it’s available to play periodically in the Battle Hub.

This is a content-rich and beginner friendly experience and I highly recommend it. For the first time ever I'm seriously doubting that the new Mortal Kombat and Tekken are going to live up to a freaking Street Fighter game in terms of personal appeal to me, a guy who hasn't even played 3rd Strike. While still based and Conmanpilled, World Tour feels slightly underdeveloped in a few areas such as the generic story, lack of environment/enemy variety, and artificial difficulty, so it can and should be expanded upon in future entries. Every fighting game should straight-up copy this. NRS, stop whatever you're doing and make Konquest 2. I saw the Krypt from 11, you know you want to.

I'm such a sucker I even went to Chipotle to get fighter points, but they didn’t just give me a tier-skip or whatever, it was enough points to get the entire fighter pass. Completing said fighter pass got me enough to get the subsequent pass. The passes also all include a retro Capcom game.

How to successfully change your E rated game to a T rated game in one easy step:
Step 1:
“I’m gonna kill praxis!”

Jak II was definitely something not a lot of people were expecting from naughty dog. How do you follow up a really quirky and silly platformer? You make it serious as fuck with guns, alcohol, and a bunch of sex references. Mario is practically pissing himself in fear right now. Basically, naughty dog were scared that a Jak sequel which was similar to the first game would not sell well, so instead of making minor changes they basically shoved Jak and his good pal daxter into a whole new world…oh and kicked daxter off the title of the franchise…until high impact came along but that’s a story for another day.

The story of Jak II takes place after the first game’s secret ending. They open this portal only to find creatures called metal heads storming their world and Jak, daxter, Samos, and Keira are forced into the portal where they are brought into haven city. The city is controlled by baron praxis, who is basically your big brother of the whole place. So as Jak, with his good pal daxter, you work with the underground to defeat praxis once and for all. On the way you’ll be joined with new characters including torn, ashelin, sig, crew, and many others. The story eventually shows you that this whole time, the city is actually the future and there are many other plot twists that are shown during the ending…but why spoil everything?

Gameplay is…probably the best and worst thing you can talk about. The gunplay is pretty good but it isn’t really the best part of the game. You get 4 weapons, the scatter gun, the blaster, the Vulcan fury, and the peace maker which is the crème de la crème of the weapons. The weapons aren’t the best and I think Jak 3 does it a lot better. The driving is also pretty annoying but feels very satisfying once you get the hang of it. The jetboard is also my favourite part of moving around. All you’ve got to do is jump up and press R2 and movement has finally peaked…can’t say that about normal skateboards. Boss fights are also not the best but are serviceable for what they are. And fuck those crimson guards…oh wait…I forgot about dark Jak. As a new ability in the game you can use dark Jak! Eh. It’s not really the best and I don’t find myself using it that much but some moves can be pretty good and it’s a decent last resort.

Jak II is definitely my favourite in the franchise. It perfectly throws you into its world and gives you some of the best gameplay I’ve experienced. And the music, oh my god the music. The music can change when you start using your weapons to a more stressed and anxious version and it flows into it really well. And let me just dedicated a moment for the best music in the entire game: haven forest. Aphex twin has nothing on this masterpiece (I’m joking I love Aphex twin and nothing can beat stone in focus). And the story is also at its peak here…how could Jak 3 improve this?

Don’t hold your breath

Best story, decent gameplay, good open world, haven forest is beautiful, “I miss pants”

My favourite game of all time. A much more linear experience than pretty much every other zelda game which isn't a bad thing, just preference no? The best story of any zelda game, most memorable iteration of zelda and link out of any zelda game. An often complaint about the game is the games use of motion controls and how they dont function as intented. I myself haven't run into this issue as much and in fact loved the games interpretation of motion controls. If it was not for the extensively long turtorial and the preety annoying partner character (Fi), I would have given the game a perfect score. But apart from those issues, the game is an incredible experience.