(I don't really know how this stuff works on IGDB/Backloggd, but the PS1 and N64 versions of this game should not be under the same entry, they are completely different games in every way. Just putting that out there. I played the N64 one.)

Disastrous, abysmal excuse for a fighting game. Feels like it was made in a weekend. Broken and slipshod in every way, with absolutely nothing going on. It barely exists.

Literally the only good thing about it is the voice acting from the show cast. They're great. Once a-fucking-gain, Beast Wars deserves better.

There has been a concerted effort in recent years to reframe Castlevania 64 as an unjustly maligned gem of the fifth generation. This is propaganda for the weak of spirit and mind, and if you believe these lies then you're probably susceptible to joining a cult. Hey, you wanna come over and play some Castlevania 64? It's good actually, and when we're done we can read your thetan levels. Oh sick, you have an OT of 8, I think you're ready for Legacy of Darkness!

Castlevania 64 is a very misguided and weak attempt to lift a formula perfectly suited to 2D and force it to work in a 3D space. The opening of the game might actually deceive you into thinking it comes together competently enough. For as drab and lacking in bombast as it may be, it at least plays alright. Combat is barebones but functional, platforming is still simple enough as to be moderately enjoyable. Damn, is that skeleton riding a motorcycle? Why's everyone being so hard on this game? On first impression, it's a serviceable if antiquated action-platformer.

Hey, you know what else had a good first level? That's right, Dracula X. It all falls apart just as quickly for Castlevania 64, too. As soon as you find yourself in more enclosed spaces, the camera and controls start to work in concert to undermine you with a level of determination that makes them seem like the true villains of Dracula's castle. Parts of the game feel straight up untested, like the infamous nitro sequence, though I found the garden maze and really any vertically oriented space to be pretty miserable too. However, 64's greatest sin is that it lacks one of the central pillars of the Castlevania franchise: challenge. Don't get me wrong, the game is plenty hard, but there's a definable difference between rote difficulty and challenge. Death in the 2D games presents an opportunity to get better, every failure helps you build skill until you're capable enough to overcome the obstacles the game lays out before you. It feels good, it's what compels you to hit "continue" the second you reach the game over screen rather than put it down. Castlevania 64 on the other hand just feels like someone is grinding their knuckles against the sides of your head. It's irritating and you want it to stop, but you have to keep going because you spent 15$ to get a cart off Ebay and god damnit, you paid your money and you're gonna play the rest of the game.

It is a little ironic that Symphony of the Night felt like a more substantial jump forward for the series despite keeping itself locked to 2D, whereas Castlevania 64 not only fails to evolve the standard formula beyond shifting perspectives, it botches its most important elements. I cannot overstate how good this series was between IV and Symphony, every release had its own identity while still being definably Castlevania in the best ways possible, then 64 comes along and pushes all that good will off a cliff. As far as console games goes, it marks the beginning of the series nadir, and the fact that people try to frame it such that it's a misunderstood darling of the N64's library is bizarre to me.

At least it's cheaper than Dracula X.

I've been dreading this one. It's not that I want to be a contrarian for the sake of it or anything like that, but Earthbound did not land for me the way it seems to with everyone else. I think a lot of that has to do with absorbing so much of this game via osmosis before I actually sat down to play it. Most of its gags, twists, and story beats were all thoroughly laid out to me long before I slapped the ROM onto my Retropie. So much of this game was known to me it was like I already played it, the only thing missing was actually pushing buttons on a controller, and by that point it felt like a formality.

Of course, this doesn't mean I think Earthbound is a bad game or anything like that. It's still fun, I really like its oddball sense of humor, and visually it's got a style that I think has yet to be properly matched by its many, many modern imitators. It's just that when you've seen a quintillion videos about Giygas it loses a little bit of its edge. Also, combat can feel kinda slow, definitely not my favorite JRPG battle system on the SNES, but I also understand that fighting is really ancillary to the true heart of the game: its story.

So, yeah, not much to say about this one. I never played it as a kid, in fact I don't think I was even aware of it until I saw Nes in Super Smash Bros., so I have no personal connection or nostalgia for this one. I played it because everyone hypes it up as one of the best games ever made, and I knew I wasn't going to share that opinion going in given how spoiled I already was. At that same time, this is probably the game I wish I could have a blind playthrough of. I bet if you have no idea what the hell Earthbound is, it would be an incredible experience, but in 2022 there's kids coming right out of the womb saying "Did you know Giygas was conceived due to a traumatic experience Shigesato Itoi had as a child, after walking into the wrong theater and witnessing a scene from The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty?"

I worry about the younger generation sometimes...

I have a very fond memory of playing this game at a friend's house and sharing a very crispy thin crust pepperoni pizza topped with tobasco. I don't think we ever beat the second level, but it's hard not to reflect on that and appreciate how simple a time it was. A few years ago I put together a list of 250 retro games which I committed to completing, and Altered Beast was one of the first ones I added to it. When it finally came time to sit down and fire it up again, I made sure I wasn't without another thin crust and a bottle of tobasco, just to make the experience complete.

Well, the pizza was good. The game freakin sucks, man.

It's a very early Genesis title, and as I've written about before, games of this era share a certain cheapness to them. Audio is tinny because composers were still getting the hang of the Genesis' sound, controls feel wonky, and the graphics lack color depth and detail. But where games like Streets of Rage and Revenge of Shinobi found some success in bringing the feel of arcade games into the home, Altered Beast completely flounders.

The gameplay loop is as bare bones simple as it gets: Walk to the right (and only the right, you can't go back), punch bad guys, collect orb, and turn into a sort of... beast? It's like a man beast. A beast that has been altered, perhaps. Each level ends in a boss that will probably give you a frustrating amount of crap to deal with despite levels being so devoid of challenge that you don't even need a brain your body to play them. The reason my friend and I never got past the second level wasn't because the second level was hard, it's because the boss was an asshole.

Bosses, beasts, enemies, and even level graphics repeat so frequently that it feels like they had about two levels worth of content that they stretched out. I'm being a bit hyperbolic, sure, but it is nonetheless remarkable to me how lacking the game is even when considering the unique moment in time it released. The most it has going for it is a few fun garbled sound bites and an iconic transformation sequence, but god knows you've probably seen both enough times that you've absorbed everything you need of Altered Beast through osmosis.

'Rise from your grave'? Uh, heh, how about no?? I'd rather be dead than play this game again.

Wrath of the Black Manta is barely a video game, yet it somehow has a 3.0 average here on Backloggd Dot Com. This is surprising to me considering Black Manta is essentially Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, but feels about as good to play as that game if you were to control it with your feet.

Black Manta beats up gang members in a grimy, gritty, 8-bit portrait of 80s New York while rescuing kidnapped kids hidden in various rooms and hide outs. The levels are not designed in any way to be fun, interesting, or engaging. Just rooms upon rooms, duck in and check out what's inside then go to next room. Breaking up the "action" are Ninja Gaiden-esque cutscenes that look like barf, and at least one character portrait was copied wholesale from How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. The in-game sprites don't fare much better, with Black Manta having a goofy-ass profile owed to the fact that his arms are just hands connected to biceps. I would have at least preferred more weird and downright ugly art if nobody was going to bother to put effort into this, but unfortunately the game mostly looks as drab and uninspired as its gameplay.

I'd be remiss in not mentioning that this game was changed considerably when brought over to the states. The original Ninja Cop features different bosses, an additional level, and a more anime/manga inspired aesthetic. It still looks bad, just for different reasons, though I've not played it so I couldn't really say if the gameplay is any better.

I was put up to playing this by a friend of a friend who found out about my bucket list of retro games, and I knew it was a joke request to begin with, but I'm very stupid and I played it anyway. I hope it was funny for them at least, because Black Manta is so bad that I don't even have anything funny to say about it, it just sucks.

I was generally impressed by this title. It honestly felt like a 2D MGS solid game. I can really see where MGS1 gets it's roots from. It's a really solid game. Playing it for the first time on the MGS3 Subsistence version really felt like I was missing out for so long.

Edit: 11/12/2023 Playing this title again on the Master Collection version, I really didn't enjoy my playthrough on this run. The level design and obtuse mission structure really hurt it. With some parts being extremely obscure to solve. Were they serious with that whole tap code thing? I don't know what I was thinking earlier on my PS2 Subsistence version playthrough. I can see spots of greatness and what metal gear would become but I don't think it's there yet, especially with this title. I think I might actually change the score from a 7 to a 4. Playing this without a walkthrough would be a nightmare.

Platinum #193 Master Collection version

AA5 does a lot right but does take a couple of steps back. First impressions when the first trailer dropped were incredibly good. A lot of people thought that going into full 3D would lose all the charm and expressions of the 2D sprites but Capcom showed us all and AA5 looks beatiful and animates great. I think that it resembles the 2D ones so well is a testiment to it's quality of it's talents. I also as a fan I was estatic to see Wright back as a lawyer and his old self. Even though in retrospect I really do appreciate the AA4 arc.
Although while on the subject I do feel it was the start of this game, that the delvelopers are too afraid to do anything meaningful with the legacy characters after the fan backlash of AA4 but that's another topic.

AA5 introduces new and returning characters in what really feels like the start of a new series. It's the same AA series we've come to know with some new cases and stories. I really like Athena as a new character and an upstart. Some of the new mechanics she brings are pretty fun like the mood matrix. Plus the music is stellar as always.

The cases are a bit hit and miss for me though. The second case in this game is just bad. Really bad. The worst in the series. The other cases range from decent to good. I feel this game doesn't really reach the highs of the final case as much as the other games in the series. I think the main over arching story is kinda throw away if i'm being honest so that's kinda a let down. However that doesn't mean that I think the game is not worth playing. I throughly enjoyed my time with it and I love all the character moments and I think the game does some cool things with it's new characters. I even like the DLC case too. If your a fan of the series I'd say jump in but I wouldn't jump in here for sure.