so the new watched feature has arrived and despite its not-so positive reception it got me thinking, so i figured i’d get some use out of it to write about a vaguely interesting story.

so its 1am and im chilling at a friend’s place and we’re sitting in a dark room, illuminated only by the flashing colors of his tv displaying snow bros. why was he playing snow bros at 1am? its snow bros what other time would you play it. but despite me only being the watcher i felt entranced by this silly little snow game. maybe i was just overtired but the repetitive gameplay loop of snow bros had me in a trance. a trance where i was almost drunk, just chatting it up with a buddy about stupid shit like movies, our favorite games, which ice cream i should eat, etc. 1am vibes. and like, yeah this isnt really a compelling story at all but, this kinda made me rethink the process of watching a game. tho if ur sitting down and watching a whole playthrough of like some jrpg yeah iont think ur getting any sympathy from me lol, what i mean is theres a certain vibe i get when i sit and watch a friend play games. you get the excitement and feels of the game in an almost sterilized way. the controller is like a transmitter, transferring your struggles and strengths into the game and vice versa. when you’re not the one holding the controller it alters the experience in a way where you’re getting a secondhand account of whats right in front of you despite being a primary witness. a game’s vehemence and depth is presented to you nonchalantly, where i feel you can get a grasp of its concepts more easily because of the lack of focus on the gameplay. you’re letting the game take you on a ride driven by your friend. you see sweat drip from their forehead as they struggle on FLOOR 40. their relief when that section is finally over, and then their distraught when the next part is harder than the last. it gets the mind rolling into thinking about what is this game’s deal? what am i missing or gaining by being the one without a grasp on the controller. snow bros is a game that i had no interest in playing before we hung out that night but now im curious about it.

so whats the point of my rambling? watching a game is definitely not the same or counts as playing a game but it still can be an experience depending on your approach. maybe i went way too deep into a simple act of being with a friend, maybe im talking nonsense; this is just a funny little write-up i was inspired to write by this new watched feature. to all the mfs who keep making persona fan jokes about this shit next time you step out of your house be weary of how much milk you have left in the fridge.

Oh boy, 3&K. The game everyone and their grandmother declares as “the pinnacle of 2D Sonic”, better yet, “the pinnacle of Sonic in GENERAL!”

So of course I think the opposite 😃

Full disclosure though, I don’t hate this game. I don’t even think it’s mediocre or just ok/average, I genuinely do like this game and think it has a lot going for it, but after replaying and 100%ing it again via Sonic Origins it is an incredibly bloated overrated Sonic game in my eyes.

Before I start to rag on it for being Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, let me go over what I loved about it. First off, may seem like a minor detail but the ability to control yourself in the air after jumping from rolling or spindashing is HUGE, it makes me miss this feature so much when playing the other classic games, having control ripped away from you and being at the mercy of where the ramp or whatever flung you from just never felt right, it felt restrictive. Second, the usual things Classic Sonic games get right are here and accounted for: creative zone themes, catchy af music, gorgeous spritework, tight controls, everything in this regard is as it should be. Lastly, I want to touch up on the visual storytelling, it stuck out a lot to me compared to the previous times I’ve played this game. Technically this is something they started doing more and more as the games went on but 3&K is the culmination of this multiplied tenfold. The way the environment changes throughout your playthrough of a level, the expressions of the characters, the background elements all combine into something I was actually kinda getting into more and more the more I noticed it.

I also like the instashield. While it’s not as fun or as useful as the drop dash, it works fine for what it does: make annoying enemies killable no matter what (though I do think if they just didn’t feel the need to make annoying enemies in the first place then this skill would be redundant, but I digress). I still don’t like the blue spheres special stages but I’ve gotten way better at them the more I play the game so they really aren’t that big of an issue for me, though some of the Super Emerald blue spheres stages still kinda suck.

The level design though…I’m so torn. The main gist is that 3&K segments its level design into two different factions: speed and platforming. Rarely do these 2 elements mix: you have wishy wooshy automated sections where you just kinda hold forward and watch Sonic rocket through loops, corkscrews, and so on for pure adrenaline dopamine, then on the other end of the spectrum you have really slow rather simplistic platforming sections to slow the pace down (lava reef act 2 in particular is just nothing but staircases). This type of structure works fine enough but I don’t think the levels in 3&K have a satisfying sense of flow because of it, and it doesn’t help that some of these levels just straight blow. Marble garden and Carnival Night are thoroughly unenjoyable for me and the levels noticeably degrade in quality during the & Knuckles portion of the game, so much of it just sitting and waiting in place before you can continue. I also think that the game as a whole is odd in terms of pacing, it puts me in a bit of a predicament. Individually these games are too short to be remarkably satisfying to play through but combined the game feels far too bloated to be enjoyed in a full sitting. The bosses don’t help either, they’re pretty terrible. A part of why I always go after Super/Hyper Sonic is so I don’t have to deal with these tedious waiting game bosses and can just wail on them whenever I want (apart from the lava reef final boss or the first sandopolis boss, you’re just kinda out of luck with those no matter what lol).

All in all I’m left with an experience that is certainly good, just not great. Sonic 1 and Mania still remain king of the classics for me.

Right off the bat when first starting the game Sonic 2 explodes onto the scene in an impactful way Sonic 1 couldn’t, the levels are much faster, the colors are more vibrant, the music is absolutely going off the charts, on a surface level it does a great job at showing off the good things it has in store more than Sonic 1. Unfortunately the more you delve into the game, the more cracks start to show I feel. The overly speed focused design tends to leave a lot of setpieces blend together, the enemy and obstacle placement gets extremely dickish not even 3 zones into the game, the game has a forced 2 minute autoscroller, you get so caught up in the dazzling spectacle that you start to look past a lot of Sonic 2’s flaws. While I still prefer Sonic 1 over 2, I would be crazy to not mention the things it did get right: the creative stage themes and gimmicks (casino night in particular is responsible for so many would be gambling addictions out there lol), the introduction of the spindash and the speed cap removal, fantastic presentation and music, the climactic final boss and the subsequent satisfying ending, mfin SUPER SONIC. Still though, when it comes down to which classic game I prefer, 1 will always be my go-to

impressively, all of sonic team's greatest minds have come together to fuck up remastering already great ports of 30 year old games


if you'd love to pay five dollars for expansive day one content such as... the characters moving in the menus, then this is the game for you. integer scaling? fuck you. everything is blurry, play at 320x224 for the authentic Sega Genesis experience. shitty DRM to protect these untouchable, pirate proof genesis games? check. do you like your games optimized, because we don't, god bless whatever rig you're using because it won't get past the title screen. high quality audio? nope, it sounds and loops like shit. also we couldn't get the sonic 3 songs back so here are awful rearrangements of the prototype tracks that sounded fine lmfaooooo. welcome to the museum featuring NEVER BEFORE seen content such as youtube.com sonic mania adventures part 2. it's a 2d platformer but sorry! you're not allowed to bind anything to arrow keys.

you get the idea. somehow, this isn't all of it. sucks because somewhere under the slew of baffling decisions and technical issues is a great collection, but I suppose sonic being run through a shit filter a few dozen times is par for the course now. better versions of these games exist already via Sonic 1 Forever, Sonic 2 Absolute, Sonic 3 AIR, and Sonic CD Restored, but if you want to play the last two legally, you're probably out of luck - because both sonic 3 and CD have been delisted.

at least the cutscenes are boss

Welcome to the world of Pokemon!!!! :D
Things sure haven't been the same since your dad died...

those two lines are moments a part and should tell you everything you need to know about this game's writing and I won't go further on about it.

This game was originally made by Koolboyman, better known as Strawberry Clock, so that still makes me have huge respect for it.Trainer customization in Gen 2 is impressive, and far better than Game Freak's offerings on the matter. Probably the best customization I've seen in a Pokemon game and one of the better ones in games overall, even moreso that it was put on a gameboy color cartridge.

The game itself is alright though. It has neat ideas like a few sections where you play as the Pokemon. Your starter is Larvitar which does take away some replayability since you lack choice. It has some neat ideas like adoption but then again progression really doesn't make much sense and I had to check a guide a few times to see where to go despite talking to NPCs.

Game balance is...let's just say I solo'd the second half of the game (excluding one gym because it's designed that way) including the Elite Four with a level 85 Azumarill. That I caught as a Marill on the second route. Nicely done. The exception is a poorly designed gym that takes away your Pokemon and gives you back your weakest ones first...but good luck if your two weakest team members struggle against Fire, because you're gonna be there for a while...should have thought that one through better.

Music is mostly from other Pokemon games so no notes there.

It's got ideas it just needs a better game itself to flesh it out, but I won't deny there being some parts of SBC's game that I did indeed enjoy. But if he worked on this for 8 years and then got a C&D that's a huge kick in the teeth.

In all honesty I basically just impulse bought this because “yeah PlatinumGames made this they make great games”, I’m glad I don’t impulse buy with this mentality anymore otherwise I might’ve bought Babylon’s Fall lol. But in all seriousness I do think PlatinumGames have a great track record and I do generally check out what they’ve developed as I’ve always been fond of the studio even if they’ve turned out duds. Thankfully I can confidently state that Astral Chain isn’t even close to being a dud, though it still has some issues I feel.

First and foremost though, because the Nintendo Switch is an amazing system and not at all flimsy and frustrating to manage in the slightest, I suffered through the entire game with really bad joycon drift. Now thankfully it wasn’t so bad that I was actively fighting the controls in the sense of, like, I need to push to a certain direction constantly to counter the joycons drifting in another just to move in a straight line, I could move around fine but the instant I stopped, the game just constantly moves me to the left in a circle all the time. This also made navigating menus an absolute chore. Again, not the game’s fault, this is entirely the fault of the system’s hardware, though it certainly didn’t make platforming or that ice cream/box stacking minigame any easier.

I absolutely ADORE this game’s visual style. The futuristic cyberpunk aesthetic has always been a favorite of mine, and this game is…basically nothing but that (I especially get a kick out of the different vending machines in the game and how their behavior alters depending on the location they’re at). The character and even enemy designs I feel are super creative and fun to look at, and while some areas in the game go a little overboard with how abstract they can be, Astral Chain is a very unique looking game as a whole. The story though, I’m gonna be honest I didn’t really care about the plot. Characters weren’t really interesting with a few exceptions, and I ESPECIALLY felt this with the 2 main leads.

The game’s structure can be best categorized, I think, into 2 distinct sections: you have a somewhat open area where you do side quests and help people out around the area, and after that you partake in a more linear point A to point B structure where you fight enemies, usually going in and out of the Virtual Boy tinted Astral Plane numerous times. There’s a lot of detective work you do in Astral Chain which is cool, I mean you’re a police officer so it makes sense but like you actually need to gather clues and piece them together in a logical way afterwards. The side quests are mainly just kinda whatever so in the end I opted to skip them even if it impacted my end rank (you gotta do ALL of them in order to fill out and improve the rank at the end).

The main gimmick of Astral Chain is…well, using the Astral Chain. You’re basically partnered with this creature called a Legion and you have him chained to you like a rabid dog. They can attack independently of you but you can also control both at the same time to deal tons of damage and combo, wrap around enemies and bind them in place, get the chain in the path of a charging enemy to counterattack, have the legion yoink you with the chain to cross gaps and distances or even hurl you into the air for aerial combos (which is important since you can’t jump in this game normally), etc. This isn’t a combo focused game like DMC or Bayonetta, especially considering how pretty much impossible it is to interrupt or cancel an attack you were doing to make combos flow better. It’s a very unique style of hack and slash combat, and it’s one that I think works. It’s focused a lot more on maneuvering around enemies and using the chain to try and deal damage in multiple ways. You unlock different legions with different abilities and attack styles, and you can even upgrade and unlock new abilities for them later down the line. While I’ll always prefer the action games like Bayo or DMC, this chain system is quite a bit of fun. It can even be very intriguing with the different traps and combos you can pull off with stuff like legion swapping, you can really juggle enemies that way. The enemies you fight are…fine I guess. A lot of the chimera just sort of blend together for me, both attack pattern wise and visually. You have the standard PlatinumGames dodge to escape danger but honestly it doesn’t feel as responsive as simply chain jumping out of the way of danger (the drawback being of course that you deal damage by counterattacking with perfect dodging).

Platforming is…also kind of whatever, doesn’t really evolve past chain jumping across gaps to get across with moving platforms. Towards endgame it gets more interesting but that’s also towards…the very end of the game. Platforming can get very finicky but again I’m very much sure that’s a result of joycon drift.

While I did like what I played, I didn’t really feel…impressed? I’m not sure how to word this, I had fun with what I played, but it felt like I was just kinda going through the motions near the end. It doesn’t feel like a game where I can replay it over and over again, it’s not as flexible I feel. Further accentuating this is a pretty poor ranking system. The game doesn’t really care if you get hit or how well you do in combat, it really only cares about the amount of stuff you do. You get rewarded for taking no damage of course, but you also get rewarded for pretty much doing everything, no matter how inconsequential. Dodging multiple times despite an enemy not attacking you, simply turning on IRIS (this game’s equivalent of detective mode) or not turning it on to go in blind, binding enemies, mindlessly button mashing and not even hitting an enemy, there are fights where you can take a ton of damage and perform really sloppily but because you did a bunch of different “things” the game ranks you with an S+, it’s very unsatisfying. The game also PUNISHES you for breaking the environment! I mean sure that’s a non issue and it makes sense in context of the game’s universe (“police need to set an example, not vandalize public property!”) but like breaking stuff and collecting currency is a kinda fun thing to do while you’re walking around the level you’re in, it feels off being discouraged from doing it.

Also on a technical level it’s rather poor. The game looks somewhat blurry on a handheld and in motion particle effects and flashing lights and colors absolutely flood the screen making it hard to tell what’s even going on at points. The game’s also capped to 30 fps and can often chug under that target in heavier fight sequences which is honestly a real no no in my book in regards to a hack and slash game. I’m just glad Bayo 3 is targeting 60fps. Not even the music was very memorable aside from the police hub area! Sad!!!

While I did have fun, there were a lot of odd design decisions that permeated throughout Astral Chain that kept me from loving it more than I should’ve. Perhaps a sequel could rectify most of my issues, I could be down for that.

The problem with this game in one example:

I was working with The Railroad, an underground movement attempting to take down the Institute.

The Institute made me their leader after I infiltrated them for the first time.

I thought, okay, now I can go back and relay to the Railroad that I'm now the leader of the Institute. You know, the group that our whole goal is to take down.

You can't. I felt like I was going insane when I walked back to the Railroad base and desperately tried talking to everyone to reveal this critical information about the war I was participating in. In that moment, the veil was lifted. This is not a world, it's a shooting gallery.

What is the point of even having a dialogue system if this very common occurrence that the main quest forces you down creates this level of dissonance due to a lack of options? Why even have factions? Why have dialogue? The game would not be any better or worse than it is now.

Update:
So, revisiting the game now in depth for the first time since it came out, I realize: there IS a whole side section of quests dedicated to exactly what I was talking about but it didn't trigger for me on my first run! This does make me feel less insane and I'm glad the game is more functional now, but it's insane that a bug occured nearly ten years ago and colored my perception of the entire story so strongly.

Actually, I don't even want to know how much time I've spent with Minecraft in the last ~12 years.
I still keep coming back for new adventures or just to look at interesting maps that other people have built.
Once per year I just feel like playing Minecraft and play another modpack for a few months.
It's almost become a tradition that between Christmas and New Year's Eve I download a handful of city maps and explore them.
Luckily, thanks to all the mods and modpacks and maps, that's possible and there's no end in sight.

Is it a good Yu-Gi-Oh! game? For the most part.
Is it a bad Yu-Gi-Oh! game? Partly.

The gameplay is just Yu-Gi-Oh! Finally, a game that doesn't simplify the rules.
We don't get cards through a card store where we're allowed to buy individual cards, but instead pick up booster packs at Yugi's grandpa's store, each with five random cards in them. As the game progresses, we keep unlocking new booster packs.
Hah yes. This reminds me directly of my childhood.

The duels look really good. On the touchscreen, we have our view of the field, our hand, graveyards, and decks.
On the top screen we also see the duel field. Summoned monsters are displayed as 2D sprites. A couple of the more popular monsters, for example Dark Magican and Kuriboh, even have 3D models when summoned.What bothers me a bit is that you don't have random no-name opponents, but you fight Yugi, Tea, Joey and the others very often. They have a few different decks, but after the tenth time it gets a bit boring.

The duelist search is not very intuitive. To find opponents, you have to search for them on the map on the touchscreen with a circle. If the circle turns green, someone is nearby. If it turns pink, you've almost found someone.
Unfortunately, most of the game consists of grinding, grinding and more grinding. The story progression is in bound to certain events, but not really. In order to trigger an event that advances us in the story, we have to reach a certain level and for that we have to have to duel.

If you like Yu-Gi-Oh! a lot, you'll probably be happy with such a long game.
I also had a few hours of fun with it, but after a good 11 hours I lost interest.

This happened to my buddy Silver once.

Despite me thinking it wouldn't really be my thing, I managed to gather some curiosity in the series when I saw a friend of mine go through it. In spite of its shortcomings, the first Danganronpa manages to be a stylish and engaging experience that I ultimately enjoyed at the end of the day.

DR1 excels in its presentation, from the visually striking art of the backgrounds, UI, character portraits, and groovy soundtrack to the feeling of tension and uneasiness that only manages to get worse and worse as you start to slowly unravel the mysteries of Hope's Peak Academy, and watch your number of friends slowly dwindle over the course of the game.

And that is a good enough segue into the story and writing, and unfortunately, where my problems with this game start to come through. Not every character in this game is bad, per se, a lot of them just.. aren't very interesting. There are some characters I did very much like, such as Makoto, Kyoko, Monokuma, Byakuya, and Sakura, those fellas have a ton of wonderful moments (Byakuya is stretching it because i find him funny more than anything) and for some like your time spent with Kyoko and Sakura, I can safely say were the best moments for me in the game; but a lot of the other characters I ended up just.. not really giving too much of a shit about or flat-out didn't like. Toko and Hifumi especially are downright insufferable, and I just about hated listening to them nearly every time they had something to say.

The trials in this game aren't too bad, with some really goated ones like in the first and fourth case, and some simply enjoyable, or meh, and a particularly bad one. Solving the mysteries of whodunnit are made fun by the minigames within these trials; my favorite being the Closing Arguments, where you match up everything that's happened up to that point in a comic book, with a sick ass art style to boot. Most of the mysteries are well-written (except for the mystery in Chapter 2 where characters do stupid-ass things) and there are some genuinely good plot twists and developments that happen within them; a large part of why I love Chapter 4 especially. That being said, my problems with the trials are that a large majority of developments happen thanks to three characters in particular: Makoto, Byakuya, and Kyoko. Everyone else.. doesn't really feel like they contribute too much to the development of the trials a good chunk of the time other than saying something funny, or just some flat-out stupid shit before Makoto has to put them in their place and remind them to use their brains for once, it's odd. The Bullet Time Battle minigame also seems very unnecessary and more like, again, having to force one of the chucklenuts you're arguing against to think. It's like if before you deliver the final evidence in Ace Attorney that will convict the culprit for good, you had to play a game of Dance Dance Revolution against them. It's unnecessary. And remember that particularly bad trial I mentioned earlier? I was referring to Chapter 6; the final trial, and the worst in the game. I agree with what my friend UnluckyLucky said about it; it feels exclusively like an exposition dump, and full of information that really could've been told earlier, which is a shame since that means the game fumbles right at the end.

I have a lot of negatives to say about this game, but the game's still damn good. What it does right it does more often than what it does wrong, and it what it does right, it does damn right. But I just wish it was always that good instead of stumbling so much. But hey, that's what sequels are for.. right?

By the way, my friends and I kept a count for how many times they say the word "despair" as I went through this game. We ended with a total of 194 counts of said word. And I felt like I was going fucking insane by the end of the game where it's in like, every other message.

[EDIT 07/05/22]: Oh, you have no fuckin' idea, past me. You ever hear about hope?

The Orochi Saga - Chapter 3
And so the first saga of KOF comes to a close with The King Of Fighters '97. This is the one. This is the KOF game that actually made me invested in this franchise. After KOF '95 being enjoyable to me but lacking an impact, I played '97 during an eShop sale and I was hooked. The gameplay was just.. so smooth, and the visuals were very pretty. Even now I still love this game, and here are my thoughts on it:
This game is where the "advanced" gauge originated from, and damnit I love this mechanic. For the cost of one meter stock you can temporarily deal more damage with attacks, and you can also pull off a stronger version of your super move during this mode, as long as you still have 1 or more bar stocks available. Having multiple gauge tiers caught my attention when I first played this because it reminded me of the 3 level meter in most Capcom games, except now there's more strategy to it! About everything else in this game is identical to '96 but the change to the meter system makes the pace much faster and smoother for me.
I really love the stages here. KOF '97 definitely has more emphasis on warmer colours for its stages, and while I normally prefer cool colours, this is neat. Many of them make me think of a hot summer afternoon, it's a weird almost comfy feeling for me. The best stage is obviously the one for the sub-boss, especially with the music and intensity the arena has as the battle goes on.
KOF '97 goes for a much more atmospheric approach, and as a result many characters do not have musical themes, with a few exceptions being Kyo, Iori, the New Faces team, and Athena, for example. So when the game has music, is it good? I'd say so. Esaka Forever, Cool Jam ~ Arashi No Saxophone 3 and Psycho Soldier Remix '97 were my favorites for this soundtrack. The arrange ost here is... mixed to say the least. Tracks like Rhythmic Hallucination have this annoying static moment which completely stops the song which is rather grating. The remix of Esaka Forever has some rather cheap sounding instruments here or there. But I still like the arrange ost don't get me wrong.
This is an amazing story for a fighting game. The added lore for characters like Leona is very much appreciated, and I like how she is integrated into the storyline. For the true ending you'll need to compose the Sacred Treasures team (Kyo, Iori, Chiziru), so keep that in mind. The atmosphere here is just enthralling, especially during the sub-sub-boss (yes this game has 3 scripted fights in the arcade ladder). This is another plot I don't want to spoil, definitely play these games to see how everything turns out.
I love KOF '97. It's what made me actually care about this series and the characters. This is a KOF game I can easily come back to, anyday. Even the final boss isn't overly difficult, as long as the AI isn't aggressive. It's a fantastic ending to the first arc of this series, and it deserves to still be praised today.
I'm going to take a bit of a break doing KOF reviews so that they don't end up becoming forced and stale, but don't worry I'll definitely do a NESTS Chronicles retrospective. Please be patient. That being said, thank you for reading this review, and see you next time!

The Orochi Saga - Chapter 2
KOF is once again back and better then ever, with this being where the series started to form into the gameplay style it's known for today. This was my first time actually playing this game all the way through, thanks to this retrospective, and I'm quite glad I did. KOF 96 compared to later entries seems like a rather vanilla and standard game to the average player, and you're probably right for thinking so, but going off of the last two games this entry is a phenomenal step forward in so many aspects.
The gameplay has been massively revamped here. The game speed has tremendously increased, and encourages a much more combo focused and offensive play style. Characters can now run when double tapping forward rather then a simple dash, which is one of my favorite things about the gameplay in this series. Seeing my team members run the length of the entire screen is just so satisfying to me. Short hops are also introduced here rather than having one fixed jump height, and when combined with a running jump forward offers plenty of combo opportunities. Sidestepping has been replaced with dodge rolling, which fits with the heavily movement focused gameplay this entry is going for. Hitting things also seems to just flow much smoother, and to say that this game feels fun to play would be an understatement. The charge meter from the last two games still remains, which feels counterintuitive since the new movement options are about going all out, and I think SNK realized that. This would be the last game in the series to have the charge meter (at default anyway).
This game visually is still good, but I think the stage quality has dipped some from '95. Even so, areas such as Osaka and both versions of the stadium I like very much. The stage quantity here has also decreased, with characters just sharing them (however for some teams the stages will slightly vary). However, the noticable change here is the character sprites. This is where KOF would get it's sprite art style all the way until KOF XI. The amount of detail is still present and they definitely are less goofy looking compared to the last two games.
This is, without a doubt, one of the most important and iconic soundtracks in KOF history. The debut of songs such as "Esaka?", "Arashi no Saxophone 2", and "Fairy" are attributed to this game, and their impact on the series musically is profound. While I obviously prefer the arranged soundtrack, the arcade ost is still absolutely bopping at using the instruments given, definitely listen to both if you can.
The plot of this game is pretty interesting, as many of it's plot threads are spread throughout multiple team stories: Sacred Treasures team, Hero team, and Yagami team. The main ending is the Sacred Treasures one, but the other two endings help add context to the overall narrative. And I have to say, I love this concept! It shows how ambitious SNK was with this series, they put very much work into building the lore and plot threads to make it all come together. I think this also works as it encourages players to play with different teams, maybe it could end up having a character you find really fun to play as!
Before I bring up the final boss, I thought I'd mention the villains team. As the penultimate battle for the sub and final bosses, this stage really feels like an endurance test of everything so far. Instead of having a single theme tying the team together, the three members use their boss themes from the source material, and it's really effective. It's one of the more memorable things in this game for me.
The final boss is a dick, no surprise here. I normally play overly defensive and sweep when I can, but he definitely can cheaply command grab you which does ALOT of damage. Reddish beat the SNK boss by timing it out, what a surprise! I'd say he's easier then the last two but he is still really cheap.
KOF 96 is such an important game to this series, and I can't appreciate it enough for establishing the series standards for the games to come. While it ends up losing identity because of later games doing the same things but better, this is still worth playing- possibly even a good KOF for newcomers. We'll be wrapping up the Orochi Saga in the next review with The King Of Fighters '97.

although in reflection it may seem most of the game is trapped in kinda good territory, JFA’s sincerity still shines through in every case. while the first game was a nostalgic journey set on becoming a lawyer, JFA is more concerned with the struggles that come along with being a lawyer, for better or for worse. in its stride to distinctively continue the Phoenix Wright saga, it falters and reclaims its balance many times but it does so earnestly, and eventually reaches the apex that is Farewell, My Turnabout.

“The end justifies the means, Mr. Wright. The end justifies the means.”