If I could jump that high...would I ever find the ground again?

Is it bad to jump that high into the sky of nostalgia? To let yourself slip away and put your head into the clouds? Will those clouds of nostalgia turn you against your peers who don't see the vision? The vision of a children's playground for you to jump around to your heart's content? Planting yourself on a little conveyor and riding on it like a first-person roller coaster? Pretending to pet the non-threatening round green birds that chirp "kiwi!" if you dare to shoot them?

I wish I could jump like Robbit, I wish I could shoot lasers like Robbit, and I wish I could make funny noises whenever I took a step forward like Robbit. Why is life such a bore? Why can't it be just playgrounds and rainbows? Why can I not be just like my hero Robbit? Fighting funny evil men with funny palm tree jellyfish henchmen.

Was it my mom's fault that she bought me this during a time where I got nothing for a majority of the year due to being a poor December baby? Is she to blame for this mess? My poisonous care for a simple video game that I had played too much? The rare time where I can attach my mom to a game instead of my gamer dad? My yearning for days that I didn't need to care about getting up for work in the morning? When I didn't have a constant worry for the struggles of others? Is it truly bad for me? To just make me forget, and make me care only about smiling and struggling to hold back my emotions? To just, feel once more?

Is it bad for me to feel like a kid again? For just one hour?

Why must life be so grounded...?

Let's go Robbit, let's jump and go...for old times' sake once more....

Sonic the Hedgehog, 8-bit. I like it!

It’s not got much to it really. It’s by far inferior to it’s 16-bit counterpart, has almost no regard for designing sections around speed, and the Game Gear version has horrible slowdowns when more than a single entity is on the screen. Despite this it still feels like good classic Sonic to me somehow and is just a simple fun platformer with some cool level themes and a very charming soundtrack. (Who knew Yuzo Koshiro composed a Sonic game?)

One of the most charming things is the overworld map. A real effort was made to provide the player in-game some continuity between each zone and how the overall journey pans out across South Island. Something the 16-bit versions of Sonic 1 and 2 mostly didn’t try. You can actually see how we go from Jungle, to Labyrinth, to Scrap Brain, don’t just gotta take their word for it anymore.

Every journey has a beginning. Whether it be a monumental journey that tells of some great hero setting out to accomplish some goal or to defeat a big bad guy, or rather it be something as simple as how one decided to go to the post office that day, there is always a beginning to every story, and that definitely rings true when it comes to video games. Some of us may have played thousands of games at this point in our lives, while others are merely starting to get into the hobby, but one thing that remains consistent between all of us is that we all had a first video game, the one that would introduce us to this vast, creative and limitless medium, one that either fully enraptured us to the point of seeking out what else you could find, or leaving a simple, yet enjoyable enough impression to where you wouldn’t mind trying anything else out in the future. So, I figured, for the 600th review that I am making on this website (I might be slightly insane), I figured it was about time that I covered the very first video game I ever played in my life, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island.

I don’t remember the exact, precise details of how I ended up with this as the first game I would ever play, but I do have a bit of a brief summary based on what I do remember, which will do a good enough job at painting a picture. Back in 2003-2004, when I was around 3-4 years old as well, I was a dumbass little kid, not knowing what a video game even was, and most likely doing the things that most toddlers were doing back then, such as running around, yelling, eating weird stuff off the floor, and receiving plenty of injuries. One day, my Mom and Dad came home one day with a little present for me, which just so happened to be a gray Game Boy Advance SP, one that I still own even to this day, and one that I share a lot of fond memories with throughout my life. With this, I also managed to get two games, those being Pokemon Blue and Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi’s Island, and with all of these things in hand, I had… absolutely zero clue as to what I was supposed to do with it. After messing around with the things for a bit, most likely opening and closing them, chewing on the sides of them, and so on, I then found out I can shove that weird gray rectangle thing into the big gray brick, while also finding a power switch on the system, leading to it turning on, and from that moment on, I was never the same.

So yeah, obviously, I have a lot of nostalgia towards this game, and while those early experiences were with the GBA port of the game rather than the original, it was still pretty accurate to that of the original game, to the point where I fondly remember several memories of me playing it as a kid, including one instance where I got so angry when I lost to the second phase of the Baby Bowser fight. It was my first instance of rage… you love to see it. But anyways, you all obviously didn’t come here to listen to me babble on about the past. You all came here to hear my opinion of this game, and if you couldn’t tell already at this point, I do still hold a soft place for it in my heart, and I love it tremendously. I can’t say it is perfect by any means,as it does have problems I will get into, but it was still fantastic all the way through, not only as one of the first proper Yoshi games ever made that wasn’t a puzzle game or whatever else, but also as the game that would drag me into the world of video games as a whole.

The story is very simple, yet very charming at the same time, where one night, while a stork is delivering two baby brothers by the name of Mario and Luigi to their parents, he is attacked by an evil sorcerer named Kamek, who kidnaps Baby Luigi and causes Baby Mario to fall down into the depths of the island below. Down on said island, a green Yoshi is taking a nice, leisurely stroll, until he then finds Baby Mario falling right on his back, while also dropping the map that the stork was using to deliver the kids. After gathering with several other Yoshis on the island, they then deduce (somehow) what happened to Baby Luigi, so they all then set out, with Baby Mario alongside them, to go and rescue Baby Luigi from Kamek’s evil clutches, while he and his lackeys plot to take Baby Mario as well to succeed in their ultimate goal. It is somewhat of an odd story, considering how it de-ages the Mario bros. and shifts the focus onto the Yoshis, but it is one that you can easily get behind and want to see through, as you don’t wanna see Baby Luigi get hurt by Kamek……… he can hurt Baby Mario instead, considering how much you have to put up with him in this game.

The graphics are still absolutely amazing even to this day, being one of the best looking games from the SNES library, let alone the best looking platformer on the system, having a very unique art style and plenty of vibrant colors, wonderful character, enemy, and boss designs, as well as plenty of vibrant environments that you will travel through for your whole journey, the music is fantastic, having incredibly up-beat and iconic tunes like this one that will play throughout the game, mixed in with some more “menacing” tunes like this one, most of them being a joy to listen to even after all this time, and the gameplay/control is mostly stuff that we have seen before from the Mario franchise, but not only does it remain really fun to play, but there are several different gimmicks that are present in the game that you wouldn’t typically find in other games.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of one of many different colored Yoshis at a time, go through plenty different levels across many different standout locations amongst Yoshi’s Island, take out plenty of enemies either by jumping on them, swallowing them whole, or throwing others’ dead remains at them to drive the point home, protect Baby Mario at all times to not only prevent Kamek’s cronies from taking him, but also to make sure you won’t be listening to this sound for too long, gather plenty of different eggs to help you defend yourself, solve puzzles, and take down foes, while also gathering plenty of collectibles along the way, and take on some goofy, yet at-times threatening bosses, which range from being big, intimidating foes that can definitely give you a run for your money to……. this guy, who you defeat by just simply holding right…….. fucking flawless. Much of it is your standard platforming affair, even for those who are very familiar with Mario and his past adventures, but rest assured, despite the fact that it carries the name “Super Mario World” in its title, Yoshi’s Island manages to have plenty of unique elements that distinguish itself from Mario quite a bit, both in terms of its presentation and gameplay.

A lot of elements in this game have been done to death over and over again in many other games, such as going from left to right to the end of the level, defeating enemies, getting coins, and so on, but one of the ways that makes this feel much different than that of a typical Mario game is how you are playing as Yoshi the entire time. Naturally, he does not go about his business the same way Mario does, being able to swallow enemies and throw them around as eggs, and as such, this changes up how the game expects you to approach many situations, and it is great because of it. There are many instances in this game that can’t be cleared through just by running and jumping, but instead, you may need to figure out a different way to defeat an enemy or solve a puzzle using your flutter jump or your eggs, and while some of it can get tedious at times, most of it is incredibly solid, still feeling natural and just as fun even after all of these years.

Not to mention, there are plenty of things that this game has that expands upon elements seen in previous Mario games, all to its benefit. There are many different bonus games that can be accessed throughout the game, each granting you the chance of getting a GARGANTUAN amount of lives to use for the future, right alongside several items as well, which you can use at any time while in a level. Most of these items aren’t really all that useful, just being a means of helping you get to 100%, and the bonus games themselves aren’t anything too useful after beating them once or twice, but they can still be pretty helpful whenever you get the chance to participate in any of them, and in some instances, they can definitely get you out of a bind that you are in. Aside from that though, there are also the powerups in this game, which, rather than being the traditional ones we see all the time in typical Mario games, are instead a bunch of different transformations that Yoshi can take on for a brief period of time. You can become a helicopter, a submarine, a robot mole, and there’s even a powerup that allows you to play as Baby Mario by himself, running around and going up walls, because who gives a fuck about logic! Granted, not all of these powerups are fun to use, with some like that robot mole I mentioned earlier having some pretty awkward handling at times, but they are a nice change of pace whenever they pop up, and it is always really neat seeing just what kinds of things that they are willing to transform Yoshi into next.

So yeah, the game does have a lot going for it in the gameplay department, being very fun even all the way to now, but a lot of the reason why this game does hold up also has something to do with its presentation. The game was made with the Super FX chip, one that was able to do a whole lot more then what games like Star Fox could, and when you play the game for yourself, you can really see it working perfectly in harmony. Sprites will frequently change sizes to fit the situations, enemies will jump from the background to the foreground, there are 3D objects that can be interacted with, and the way that some enemies and sprites move around looks much more impressive then any other game from the SNES at that point. Hell, even just by watching the intro sequence, you can see just what kind of stuff this game was capable of, and while it does look a little rough nowadays, I can imagine this kind of thing blowing peoples’ minds back in the day, and it has aged pretty wonderfully overtime. Not to mention, the general art style of the game is perfect in every way, making everything look so vibrant, lively, and adorable, to the point where I want to live on this island and never come back to civilization.

However, with all of that out of the way, I can’t let my nostalgia goggles blind me for too long, because I am well aware that this game is not perfect, despite it being very, VERY close to that point. While most of the game is extremely fun to play, great to look at/listen to, and has plenty of charming elements that makes it a must-play for any Nintendo fan, there has always been one element of the game that I never really liked, and that is going for 100%. For those that aren’t aware, in order to 100% Yoshi’s Island, you have to collect plenty of items in every single level, such as 30 stars to max out your life, all of the red coins, and the five smiley flowers for the chance at a bonus game at the end of the level. That doesn’t sound that bad, but trust me, completing these tasks is MUCH easier said than done, not only because of how hard it can be in plenty of places, but also because of how tedious it is. Getting a lot of these collectibles can be quite a gamble, especially in plenty of areas where you have to have perfect precision when it comes to throwing your eggs, or even in life-or-death situations where you can’t screw up, or else you would have to die or start the level over again.

That’s not even bringing up the fact that, once you do 100% the main levels in a world, you then unlock an extra stage to play for that world, and these stages can be quite the pain in the dino-ass if you aren’t prepared for them. This can be seen even as early as the first world’s extra stage, where for most of the stage, you are riding along the back of Poochy, Yoshi’s dog companion who is also be goodest good boy of them all, while going across a lot of precarious lava and tight jumps, while also having a very small platform to go back to every time you land. All of this and more awaits you when you decide to go for 100%, and while I myself usually tend to 100% the games that I play, I just simply don’t like doing that with Yoshi games. I dunno, maybe it’s because of how it was a series I grew up with, and is near and dear to my heart, but I have always found this games to be a “chill” series, one that I could just play, run straight through a lot of the time, not having to worry about much else, and I don’t think I will ever change my mind on that stance. To be fair though, I am not saying that going for 100% in this game is a bad thing at all, because it is still perfectly doable, and quite the challenge, if you so wish to go for it, but it is just something I don’t think I will ever be likely to do that much whenever I go back to one of these games. Not to mention, the last time I did 100% percent a Yoshi game was with Crafted World, and, ah hah……………… NEVER AGAIN.

Overall, despite me not really getting into the whole idea of 100% this game at many given times, I am eternally grateful that this managed to be the first video game I ever played in my life, as not only is it a wonderful place to start for anybody, but it is also a fantastic game in many ways, having a wonderful art style, fantastic music, addicting and satisfying gameplay, and a sense of identity that the series would carry on its shoulders all the way to this day, which is all for the best in my opinion. I would definitely recommend it for those who have never played any Yoshi game before, as well as those who are just big fans of Yoshi in general, because if you somehow haven’t gotten the chance to play this for yourself, then you are clearly missing out, because it truly is one of the finest platformers from the 16-bit era. happy sigh..... man, it feels great to finally get to this game, after I had been planning it for so long. Although, now that I am done with all my gushing, I don’t have any funny gag to end the review on. Uh… obligatory Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy reference. There ya go, is that good enough? Have I won the Yoshi’s Island internet prize, and will people like me now?

Game #578

Halo: Combat Evolved is a fun but flawed game that unfortunately shows its age in quite a few ways. This game shines brightest when it shows off its unique and incredible locations, each with their own incredible atmospheres, and ties it all together with its very interesting story. Unfortunately however this game is not always at its best. A good portion of the game is spent navigating tight corridors, often seeing the same rooms copy and pasted over and over again, and fighting the same bunch of enemies. Master chief is fun to control in combat, however a few controls feel a bit outdated or awkward, such as the vehicle controls and lack of a zoom button while shooting. This game also suffers from not really having a proper waypoint system. Despite all of the levels being pretty linear it's still very easy to get lost due to the often confusing and repetitive map design. Overall Halo's biggest problem is its repetitiveness. Whether it be enemies, weapons, or maps, after a certain point you'll start to feel like you're just doing the same thing over and over again. The story is definitely still interesting however and though repetitive it is fun. Despite its rough patches I'm very glad I completed this game and would still recommend checking it out.

Dang, we had a lot of fun with this. I've never beaten Halo 1, and it's been like, four years at least since I played through Halo 2 with a friend in one sitting (similarly to how we did this today), so I couldn't really follow the plot too well. But it's Halo though, and being part of the original trilogy, I don't really need to comment too much because you know it's a great game. Guns are great and sound cool. A good amount of weapons, characters are even fairly neat, (even if it's mostly just neat to look at). No final boss really, but that ending escape sequence was really something else.

Verdict: A great 5-ish hour romp with a friend if you want to play a good couch-co-op FPS on your 360. Has aged well, and is just as iconic and fun as it always was.

Nice little bite sized treat.
I'm on a mission to finish games that were too hard for me as a small childe.
Aladdin is a good ol' platformer with fluid animation and is (for the most part) faithful to the movie with regards to the movie and the soundtrack. It's not too challenging, it's short and very sweet.

They managed to capture the overall tone and vibe of the film very well and it's cool to hear the film's soundtrack with these SNES renditions.

Halo 3 was the conclusion to the trilogy I wanted it to be. It takes everything I loved about Halo CE and Halo 2 and makes the almost perfect finale.

While I do think the story of Halo 3 isn't as strong as Halo 2's story, it does live up to the grandness of what you'd want a finale in a trilogy to be. Rather than have deep intertwining story about both the UNSC and Covenant, here it's just one big grand beeline to "finish the fight". And "Finish the fight" it does really deliver. Everything that happens here is a culmination of what the games built up. Allighning forces with the Elite, seeing all the established characters have some significant moment in the story. It's all one big payoff and the Bungie writers did a very good job.

Gameplay here is my favorite of the trilogy too. All the weapons now are perfectly balanced, and nothing feels too weak or too overpowered. The brought back the assault rifle and it is definitely the best version of the assault file, finally not feeling like SMG and having the perfect range/damage ratio. Brutes are no longer bullet sponges thank god, considering they are the main enemy you fight in this game. Flood is also back, but they weren't as frustrating as they were in the first 2 games.

The only thing I didn't like about Halo 3 was how they dialed back on Arbiter's character, he definitely should have had a bigger role in this game rather than just being the "Co-op" partner considering he is like the Master Chief of the Elite forces, and liberated them from the covenant. Also the first third of the game didn't have a really strong setting for a Halo game, it was quite a boring introduction considering all other types of settings for missions we've had. However after you leave earth, the setting excels.

Halo 3 started a fever back in the 2000s that I was never a part of, but I could clearly feel. Now that I finally arrived late to the party, I am officially a fan of the trilogy. I know the later games don't get as good as this, but I still look forward to trying those and having my own opinion.

The term demake gets thrown around kind of a lot nowadays to just mean "remake I don't like" but I always thought of it to mean remaking a game on weaker hardware. In this case, we have Ristar for the Sega Game Gear, which is far weaker than the Sega Genesis.

TBH? It's by far the most impressive deconversion of a game ever made, to the point I much prefer it to the Genesis version. All the levels I disliked such as the water levels are replaced with new more straightforward levels like a cool rainbow level (be sure to play the Japanese version of GG Ristar!) or bomb disposal level. I just enjoy not having to play with the swimming physics again.

The music and graphics are a bit of a downgrade of course, but GG Ristar punches far harder than its weight class would suggest. I could listen to its version of the OST for ages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZIuBpTd9P8

Also, even the English version retains the story from the Japanese original which was changed in the English Genesis release. Very neat! But I think the coolest technical achievement is how they managed to replicate the ending effects on Game Gear! https://youtu.be/SxdHf1xz0w4?t=2254

It's the same Ristar you know and love, only with all the filler bits removed and replaced with mostly more interesting things imo. The new collectibles are really fun to casually walk through and I appreciate how many extra things there are to grab such as enemy shields and spears. Easy rec for fans of the original.

Hearing that new video game system you’re about to buy comes with a free title designed to show off its special capabilities likely calls to mind some paltry minigame compilation à la Welcome Park on PS Vita. Sony has actually preloaded their latest home console with a full-fledged 3D collect-a-thon platformer of remarkable quality though! It may not end up being as iconic as Wii Sports, but is a very welcome member of the PS5’s library nonetheless.

It feels like a gleeful celebration of the company’s long history. Not in a supercilious, self-aggrandizing way, but in a manner more akin to sitting down with an old friend and reminiscing fond memories. Everywhere you look there’s an Easter egg or deep cut reference that’s been lovingly placed there to bring a smile to the face of any abiding PlayStation devotee while reminding them of the types of experiences they can’t get anywhere else.

As delightful as all of that is though, it’s the gameplay that matters most and if that didn’t hold up then this package would carry no value. Astro’s Playroom manages to succeed due to spacing out the stages meant to make use of the controller’s unique functions with excellent traditional ones that you can explore and grab things in at your leisure. The levels that see you tilting the DualSense and playing around with its touchpad and adaptive triggers admittedly are a tad gimmicky (especially those dang frog suit sections), but remain fun in spite of that by never outstaying their welcome.

Another aspect that really impressed me was the sheer amount of interactivity. In the starting hub area alone, you can smack all of the little Bots to have them tag along behind you and amass a huge horde of followers. What purpose does this serve? None as far as I can tell! It's just a single example of the many neat little features the devs have included that allow you to find extra amusement in engaging with your surroundings. It's something I wish more games would do.

This might also be the perfect length, striking that nice balance between charming demo you spend a little time with before moving on to the games you actually bought the console for and a more fulfilling offering that can keep you coming back for a few additional hours via the healthy amount of collectibles to hunt down. AP won't be on any top ten of the PS5's lifespan lists when all is said and done, yet is a fantastic freebie regardless that there's absolutely no reason for you to not check out if you own the hardware.

9/10