The Orochi Saga - Chapter 1
After KOF made its series debut in 1994, the first game would receive a sequel the next year with The King of Fighters '95. This was a game I've changed my opinion on multiple times. Originally I liked it, then I played the other games and I hated it, but now I like it again... sort of. This was my first KOF game actually, as it was the game Sakurai had recommended way back when during the Terry in smash direct. So what are my "final" thoughts on The King of Fighters '95? Let's begin, shall we?
So first things first, this game is a very solid improvement over 94. The controls are much more fluid and moves overall feel better to perform. Mechanically this game is about the same as the last game, but damn you can get absolutely crazy with some characters in this game if you actually toy around with the moves. Kyo especially has seen some improvement, he's still very much shoto-style, but now he has the double forward kick move which is so fun to play with. KOF '95 is definitely fun to play, just not when you're against the computer.
Ok, but once again I have to shill the presentation here. This game looks absolutely amazing. The character sprites are still in that weird pre-96 style, but the actual animations and details are splendid. For example, Terry is in much better shape this time around, with his animations being more accurate to the Fatal Fury series. The stages, however... good lord. These are some of my favorite stages in the entire series, with Neo Geo Land possibly being one of my favorites in fighting games. An issue some of the later 2D KOFs would have was the sprites looking inconsistent with the backgrounds, but here everything is a consistent art style that flows together perfectly. An eye catching arcade game for sure.
The music is undoubtedly fantastic. That being said, I absolutely adore the arranged soundtrack, every single song in the AST is an improvement, using high quality instruments and naturally adding more to the original melodies. One of the few pros of the PS1 version I played! Even if you don't play this game, definitely listen to the arranged music, it's worth checking out.
So this is actually the first KOF game where the story starts to matter. Rugal is back and meaner then ever, brainwashing Kyo's father while starting another King of Fighters tournament. This game is also the introduction of Kyo's rival Iori Yagami, iconic for his laughing victory animation. It's still a fairly simple plot all things considered, but I'll leave it to you to experience the story yourself.
Once again, the final boss is an asshole. Or should I say, two bosses. Yes, in this game you must face TWO bosses in a row with the same health bar, they are not separate stages. Yes, it is as nightmarish as it sounds. Like last time, I played rather cheap and just used a time out victory to win, I have no shame cheesing an SNK boss. Without a doubt the aspect that makes me rarely want to revisit this game, luckily the AI nor the bosses after this are as difficult... mostly.
And so that is KOF 95. A very solid sequel that I'm glad I gave another chance after playing many games in the series. If you're interested in KOF for the story, I wouldn't exactly recommend PLAYING this one first, but this is where the plot actually begins. Things are definitely looking up from here, as we will be entering the 1996 King of Fighters tournament soon. See ya all again next time for KOF 96.

It's Jak 2 if it wasn't intolerable garbage. It's still held back by some pacing issues and while it mostly resolved the checkpoint issue from 2 it still pops up from time to time, 3 proves to be a fun conclusion to the Jak and Daxter trilogy, even if I think it never should have strayed from the direction of the original game to chase a trend. While I wasn't a fan of the gloomy mood of like 90% of the game the occasional 4th wall gag as well as the entire finale was much closer to what I liked about these games.

A fitting conclusion to Jak and Daxter that fixes just about everything that made me abandon Jak 2.

Yep, that was definitely the first KOF game.
It seems almost any early fighting game franchise starts with a rather rough first entry, and KOF is no exception. That being said, I don't think that KOF '94 is a bad game compared to many other first attempts in this genre.
KOF '94 is very basic with it's gameplay. The only notable things here being you can sidestep (light punch + light kick) which is mainly helpful for dodging projectiles, and you can also charge your super meter. Gaining meter in this game is rather weird, you can get it from blocking attacks or charging it yourself. When you reach low health and your bar flashes red, no matter where your meter is you have access to as many supers as you want, which sounds broken but against the computer it really isn't.
The main thing I like about this game is the presentation. Oh my God this game looks fantastic. Each stage has this opening transition which is really appealing, the psuedo-3D wall in the Mexico stage being my favorite. The character sprites look rather goofy compared to what KOF '96-'03 would establish, but since this is the first entry it makes sense for the art style to look a bit experimental. A visually fantastic game even all these years later.
But man, this game's soundtrack. The arcade ost is pretty good, but the arranged soundtrack? Pure bliss on my ears. For an early CD quality audio video game soundtrack, the actual instruments and such used here sound fantastic, and I believe are real instruments. It's a soundtrack that unexplainably gives me joy and other emotions, please experience it for yourself. The sound design is fascinating too, games on the Neogeo always had this satisfying crunch to it, and this game is a perfect example.
The main turnoff for this game is the difficulty. The AI even on the easiest setting can be absolutely atrocious, and you're locked to teams in this game, meaning you can't create your preferred setup. Some characters may give you more trouble then others, but it's when Rugal steps in that fairness is thrown out the window. Now, if you just crouch block and occasionally attack during his first phase, you'll do entirely fine. But that second phase is a total nightmare. I got extremely lucky and was able to time him out by being very careful with my sidesteps from his projectiles and retaliated accordingly. Some people can take up to an hour on this guy which I can't even imagine suffering through.
And so those are my main thoughts on KOF '94. KOF is undoubtedly one of my favorite video game series, and seeing its roots is fascinating. I would not recommend this game to any casual player, but if you're a decently big fan of the series, you owe it to yourself to beat '94 Rugal at least once.
To everyone who has been supporting my reviews, I give my greatest thanks. I never thought I'd make it this far and I hope that you'll continue to enjoy my reviews. Once again, thank you for reading, and I'll see you when I review The King Of Fighters '95.

God of War: Ascension is a fine enough game but it struggles to earn its existence. On one hand, I think the combat is a lot of fun, more fun than the usual for these games. The chains being used more and the increased emphasis on grabbing with them makes the gameplay a lot more fast paced, very rarely did I get frustrated with it. Elementals effecting the blades also was a good feature. Im not sure how much of this is new and what was added in GoW3 but I liked it nonetheless. That being said, thats about the only praise I can give this game.

The story is well, it sure is a story. While God of War isnt known for peak story telling outside of the newest entry, I found most of the games to have pretty compelling and enjoyable stories to them. Besides this one. As a prequel it doesnt really bring anything new to the table. The characters are uninteresting, the cool set pieces are few and far between and the story is just unapologetically mid. Its not bad, but compared to past entries I was incredibly less interested in it and all the villains are completely forgettable.

I think the biggest problem with this game is how much it feels like just an attempt to modernize the series and make itself relevant. Sure, graphically its impressive for the PS3 but the art style itself looks ugly and bland like so many other games in the era, it loses most of the charm even the PSP games were able to retain. The menus look like a generic action game and lets not forget everyones favorite 2010-ish single player game feature: tacked on mutliplayer. Its dead now of course but I wager it was never very lively to begin with. All of this just makes the game feel like a bit of a cash grab. Not an effortless one, mind you but a cash grab is a cash grab.

All this being said, I still find it to be a pretty good game overall. The combat is very fluid and although there arent many, the dope moments are certifiably dope. If you've finished the rest of the series and want more God of War you are sure to get something out of this, but it might just make you long to be playing the previous entries instead.

Trophy Completion - 91% (34/36)
Time Played - 13 hours 16 minutes
Nancymeter - 69/100
Game Completion #66 of 2022
June Completion #1

*no I did not forget to change the playtime from my FFA review, they legit both have the same playtime

If you haven't played this before - stop reading and just go play it, it costs 0 of your local currency, is available on the most widely distributed platform and doesn't need too powerful of a rig to run, it isn't terribly long either, what are you waiting for. And if you aren't yet convinced:

Cry of Fear is one of the best survival horror games I've ever played, and is bar none THE scariest one, and it's thanks to all the great decisions the developers made when working on this.

Like the choice of the engine! Cry of Fear is using GoldSrc, same as the first Half-Life game - convenient for the developers, as their previous project was a Half-Life conversion mod (Afraid of Monsters, also a survival horror game), but also adds to the game, as the quirks of that engine add to the oppressive atmosphere of the game.

And I'm in love with the atmosphere of this game. Some random town in Sweden, where every step is a different graffiti on the wall and you have to make way home through cramped rundown apartment complexes, empty subways and a shitty forest - all pretty familiar places, so it made me genuinely unnerved seeing them get creepypastad. Most notable to me is the entirety of the first apartment building you crawl into to save somebody that sent you an sms begging for help earlier. And that's where shit really hits the fan - the lights are turned off everywhere, the whole complex is completely barren save for random piles of stuff blocking your way, that one door blocked by a shitload of police tape and chains where you know nothing good is happening, and when you reach your destination - a flat, whose front door is totally drenched in blood - you immediately get a message: "Come in :)". And I just, stood there, paralyzed from fear, it's that effective. That apartment complex is also where you get a real taste of GoldSrc, namely the flashlight. It sucks. And that rocks. The flashlight of your phone only illuminates the area you're directly looking at, but it is the only thing saving you from complete darkness. And whenever your flash of light hits an enemy, they're illuminated in that very specific way that only adds to their creepiness.

And boy are the monsters here creepy. Distorted, twitchy, sometimes screaming and sometimes completely silent, and sometimes just bizarre, these goons are everywhere, and I absolutely adore them. One of them is guy strapped to a flying bed that spits blood, another is literally facebook and it hurts to look at, and one is a guy wearing a sack on it's head packing heat that shoots himself if you get too close. But the aspect I like them for the most is how they're all a real threat, and one you have to deal with yourself: they’re all EXTREMELY fast, unlike your run of the mill survival horror monster, meaning the bigger problem here are the enemies, and not the controls.

And you deal with them either in close-range or long-range combat, both being more robust than you'd think. Most of the foes here specialize in close combat, so resorting to a knife can be very dangerous, but oftentimes necessary. Thankfully, Simon is a nimble guy, and can dodge away from oncoming attacks, while still delivering blows if you time things right - pretty cool. As for your long-range options, you have a bunch of weapons at your disposal: pistols, shotgun, a hunting rifle, and even an AR. You'll have to be careful when you use these, though, as ammo leans in the scarce side of things. But a big layer of added depth comes from the dual-wielding system they've got going on. In Cry of Fear, you can dual-wield pretty much anything you can hold in one hand: pistols, mobile phone, police batons, needle shots - you name it, and that has it's major upsides and downsides. The upside is obvious - you can have the necessity of the flashlight in one hand with the raw firepower of the glock in the other, or you can have an answer for opponents both too close and too far by having both a gun and a knife out, or you can become a movie hero and pull out two guns at the same time. The downside is that you cannot ADS or reload at all, because, go figure, your other hand is occupied, and there's nothing worse than running dry while there are a bunch of monsters still trying to gnaw at your ankles - and that ROCKS. Reloading your gun is still a major problem even without a ketamine shot in your other hand, it takes a deliberately painfully long amount of time to do so, and if you decide to go for a tactical reload - you're giving up every bullet you had in your currently loaded mag, Simon isn't a keeper. But don't think you can turn yourself into a walking arsenal, as Simon can't fit much into his pants.

Inventory management in this game is pretty simple, but a perfect fit for a survival game. You get six slots - that's it. One of them is always taken by your phony, so you actually get five spaces to juggle your stuff in, which means you'll always have to give up something to carry an important item, or a weapon you really like. Thankfully, whatever you drop on the ground stays there - forever, so if you change your mind at any time, you can make your way back to that spot and pick that thing back up, or even use the ground as a storage - which is pretty neat.

I haven't touched on the story at all so far, so let's change that. It's alright. The most interesting thing it does, I feel, are the two other major characters present: Sophie and Dr. Purnell. Or rather, SPOILERS I GUESS, the way they're portrayed in Simon's mind vs the way they are in real life. Dr. Purnell here is a mysterious weirdo psychopath that kills people and gets in your way sometimes, but knowing that this whole game essentially takes place in Simon's thoughts - that isn't the real Purnell, that's the image of him Simon perceives. Same with Sophie: she's shown to be interested in Simon and having a normal conversation with him etc etc, which is later juxtaposed with what actually happened in reality: Simon, on his knees crying and sobbing and shitting, in the most pathetic way telling her how much he loves her, while she's trying her hardest to leave. So Purnell is a maniac because Simon sees him that way for what he feels like not helping him at all, and Sophie's that way because he still has strong feelings for her, even though he got hard dumped. And, I don't know, this specific topic, of how you perceive people and how people perceive you compared to what things really are, is something I think a lot about, and that’s at least one topic the game brought up. Outside of that? Oomfie’s gotta hit up a therapist.

There were a lot of cool setpieces I didn’t talk about, like the school and the maintenance area in the subway, so go see them for yourselves, it’s totally worth it. It even has side modes a la Resident Evil, including a co-op mode. This game raw.

It's as if they thought people played the WarioWare games for their microgames and made a full game out of those.

A couple of minigames here are alright, most are just okay, but they do not make for a satisfying package at all.


pirates be like
SMOOTH MOVES SMOOTH MOVES
🕺 🕺 🕺 🕺
SMOOTH MOVES SMOOTH MOVES
💃 💃 💃 💃

Here's a game that kicks my ass as much as it kicks ass in general.

Doom Eternal is some of the most fun I've had with a video game in a long, loooong fucking while. Not every combat section in this game is perfect, but the game gives you a perfect arsenal of weapons and a graceful moveset to rip and tear through demons like paper. Some encounters really do kick your ass, but this game has a way of making it so that persevering through fucking chaotic demon hell makes you feel like a total badass.

On the side, while not always welcome, I thought the platforming sections were fun enough breaks from the combat. And can I talk about how absolutely gorgeous this game is? There is some raw as shit environment design to be found in this game. And I can't forget to mention the awesome soundtrack by Mick Gordon, perfectly getting you pumped to paint your surroundings a deep, crimson red.

My only complaints are that I feel the weapons are a little too overwhelming; for instance, I didn't get enough use out of weapons such as the ice bomb or a handful of weapon mods. Some areas feel either a little too cramped and make you feel like you're at a little too much of a disadvantage. and while I can respect the amount of lore this game holds, like its predecessor I don't find myself caring too much for it; thankfully, almost all of it is optional, though it also does seem like they double down on it in The Ancient Gods, which I haven't played yet.

But this game is fucking awesome, dude. There's no way more perfect to describe it. Rip and fuckin' tear.

The year is 2042. It’s the 20th anniversary of Morbius, often touted by many to be the greatest film ever made, a piece of media that influenced and changed the world around us, launching the great era often known by many as the “Morbin Era”. Yet, in spite of that, it seems one single person has not been morbed and suffered the consequences of this casualty. That person was named Jared Leto. Yes, even while he managed to successfully become Morbius, such a commitment left a massive cost to him and a gaping hole in his heart.
Here he was in a bar, somewhere in the backcorner of a New York street he completely forgot the name of, drinking his fifth glass of whiskey. He would have probably accompanied it with a cigarette, if he hadn’t already smoked the remaining eight he had in his pocket within the same night at the bar. The rain could be heard knocking on the window, overlooking the cold street, illuminated by a single cheap lamp outside the door. Such an atmosphere perfectly encapsulated the years gone by, years not kind to our hero, years that drained him of all hope, like his own character morbin his prey out of their blood.
He walked out of the bar, once again without a single penny, the drinks being added to his neverending list of debts, and started walking back home. On the way, he witnessed a mugging, heard domestic violence in the distance and could even smell the stench of a rotting corpse, probably left there one or two days ago by some big-shot thug. What seems like shocking sights to us were only an average night to him. After all, he was Morbius, he had to witness such sights in the past to commit to his role. Atleast, that’s what he kept telling himself, since his memories of those days were fractured at best and erased at worst. He never moved on from the production days. His body, face and hair all resembled the way he portrayed Morbius and his speech had been reduced to nothing more than morbwords. No one hired him as a result, and his career came crashing like the box office performance of every film that released alongside Morbius. His morbin time had long gone away. In hindsight, his memories of such days being fractured was for the best. He kept walking home, with that same walk that made you imagine him as a zombie or someone on the verge of collapsing.
An hour passed and he entered his apartment…if you could even call it that. It looked no worse than a garbage bin. Books, clothes and the remains of junk food everywhere, his bed stained with what resembled piss, but smelled like vomiting, his kitchen filled with dirty plates and the buzzing of flies and the less said about the bathroom, the better it is. The only maintained things in this “apartment” were a single TV and laptop and even those were covered with enough dust to make you cough. Posters of Morbius were hanging on the walls and you could even spot three or four scattered awards as Best Actor for his role. He sat on the bed and turned on the TV. It was playing a “making of” documentary about Morbius, and Leto could recall how the documentary was an oscars darling. Yes, the same movie that destroyed his life, was being remembered fondly by others. Something within him finally broke, yet it was not the time for him to express it. He produced a faint smile and drowned himself to sleep with pills. No one could ever expect how such a coincidental turn of event could lead to the most brutal killing spree of the Morbin Era.
5 years pass and through a joint venture between the NYPD and the FBI, Jared Leto was finally arrested. As the screams of the crowd and the sirens of the police cars drowned, he could not remember his name. For these last five years, he had ditched it and embraced his role as Morbius. He became a cannibalistic serial killer, killing whoever was unlucky enough to be close to him and feasting on them. The bodies of his victims would become completely unrecognizable, but that wasn’t the immediate sign it was him. Every one of them, without a single miss, had a calling card, preferably in a spot where the body’s limb or organ was missing. Each card contained one single word, always starting with “morb”. Some of the most famous cards were “morbin”, “morbhead”, “morbheart”, “morbcord” and lastly “morbporn”. He terrorized the streets of New York and the entire world with his vengeance, all with a disturbing smile to boot.
His apartment was raided to the bone by the authorities and deep in a closet, there laid a letter. It was written by Jared Leto, the exact day when he had made the final decision to become Morbius. It read: “It’s Morbin time! What does this mean? It’s time for Morbin. Why did I do this? There are several reasons I may deem you morbin-able to be worthy of being morbed. These include, but are not limited to: I am very Morby. I see you being morbin-able. You morbed me first. Is Morbius THE movie of all time? Yes. I don't believe I deserved to be morbed upon. Can you un-morb me? Sure, mistakes happen. But only in exceedingly rare circumstances will I put morb-juice back into my morbenis. If you would like to issue an appeal, shoot me some thick morb-milk explaining what I got wrong. I tend to respond to fucking requests/comments within several minutes. Do note, however, that over 99.9% of people gets morbed, and you are is likely no exception. How can I prevent this from happening in the future? Accept the reality that I stick my Morbenis into your morbussy and move on. But learn from this mistake. You were a mistake because I forgot to wear a morbondom whilst fucking your morb-hole. I will continue to morb your morbussy until you improve your conduct. Remember: morbing you who morbed me first is a right, not a privilege.”
The authorities came to the understanding that this letter only served to prove that Jared Leto was past the point of return and after serving another five years in prison, he was hanged in april 1st 2052, exactly 30 years ever since the release of the film.
This event could have been prevented, it really could. I wouldn’t be sitting here, penning this tragic and most disturbing story, if people first asked whenever Jared Leto was morbed or not. Everyone was busy being morbed to completion, completely forgetting the one that started the morbeting in the first place. Yet, in spite of it all, through an ironic twist of fate, Jared Leto…or “Morbius”, really turned out to be the most morbed of everyone. Let this serve as a lesson to the generation that will only witness this event through this story and others like it.

I've completed this game twice now (once on PC and another time on Series X backwards compatibility). First and foremost, it's easy to point out of course but Jet Set Radio absolutely OOZES style and personality. The character designs, the art style and visuals, the gameplay (to an extent), and ESPECIALLY the music. Mr Funky Man himself Hideki Naganuma convinced me full stop that he cannot put out a piece of bad music if he tried, pretty much every track in this game is a bop, but you likely already knew that already.

The more I think about it, it's hard to nail down what type of game JSR is. I guess it can be considered a platformer since you do a lot of platforming throughout the game, but it isn't entirely the main objective of what you do. You run around these dense boxed in arenas looking for areas to spray paint with quick time events, avoid police as they chase after reckless juvenile delinquents with guns helicopters and...tanks sweet mercy. You do this all within a time limit and are graded at the end of a stage. This format is very odd and unique but I think it works out well, it also helps that there's a map showcasing where certain graffiti tags you still have left. The police/military forces amp up the more graffiti you place down, meaning it's possible to try and strategize what areas you need to prioritize graffiti as to not run into the tougher enemies more frequently later on.

The movement overall though has me mixed. There are points where everything flows together well enough, you get a ton of speed off rails and wall riding, and when it clicks it clicks rather well. That said, when it DOESN'T (which can be frequent), then it's beyond frustrating. You have almost zero air control, turning is a struggle, trying to gain speed without walls or rails around is like pulling teeth, falling off of higher areas is very easy to do and getting back up to higher areas can often be a chore, and to make matters worse some stages just plain suck. Grind Square in general is just badly designed, confusingly laid out, not clear on how you're able to reach certain areas and if you fall off (which is very likely to happen), back to the elevator of shame you go.

There are a couple of extra gameplay styles to partake in aside from the main stages. There are gang fights, where you need to tag each of the 3 gang members 10 times to win, and this mode is genuinely abysmal. Tagging them is so finnicky in execution, sometimes it just doesn't work, and other times you tag them like 7 times in less than a second (and it can often be disorienting since the spray trigger is also mapped to the "reorient camera" trigger), but to top it off, the gang members are the exact same speed as you, meaning you can't outpace them and basically need to follow them to a point where they'll eventually stop and hope to spray them, but even THEN if you get too close to them they can actually damage you for...whatever reason, it's just a frustrating mess. There are also races against rivals to recruit them into your squad, and while on paper this doesn't sound too bad, the course itself is not really clear on where you need to go to win, nor is there a map to tell you where you need to go, so it all ends up being trial and error until you figure out the exact path to travel to.

The story though is so incredibly bizarre that I'm not really able to describe it in full. So there's this big government agency that hates the graffiti spraying punks for spraying graffiti, and when you battle other gang members they drop a piece of this record that when played can summon demons...or something? And then there's a flashback where one friend of a couple of gang members gets kidnapped (and we never hear from him again), and when the main big bad tries to play the record it turns out it was all a hoax and he was just mad with power...I think? To be honest stuff just sort of happened and I was just there to witness it happen

I was overall less frustrated and better equipped to tackle JSR again on my second playthrough, but I also think playing through it a second time made the fun parts a little less fun as a result. It's fine, super weird, but not really my thing.