so far, stellar blade might be game of the year for me. the combat, once upgraded and refined with the five different skill trees, feels surreal. one of the most fun combat systems i’ve experienced in quite a while. i get vibes from a few different games, ranging from nier, soulsborne titles, tomb raider and a bit of resident evil with some of the infected areas and secret research labs. the soundtrack is phenomenal and has become one of my favorites in gaming as well. eve herself is an entertaining character to watch grow and develop— even if i was a bit uninterested in her at first. the customization is really unique and the outfits are gorgeous, and as a girl, its clothing consists of styles i could see myself cosplaying in the future. the exploration alongside can/outfit collecting is never dull and feels so rewarding.

please consider playing this game, and don’t listen to the coomers on twitter that ruin the experience for casual gamers looking for a fun, new experience. there’s quite a bit of fan service but never does it in a distasteful way.

You’re trying to tell me these are mechs? They look like potential rayman characters

One of the last games released for the famicom during the shift to the super famicom in Japan, joy mech fight was nintendo’s last attempt to create a fighting game for the famicom (like what they did with urban champion). This game was actually never brought to the west until Nintendo switch online a year ago so uhh…good job Nintendo. Good to see the game finally got a localisation! Oh wait-

So because I can’t read what’s going on, I’m currently going off of what it says on the Wikipedia page. Dr. Emon and Dr. Walnuts create these really cool robots until walnuts steals them and plans world domination. Thankfully, Emon brings a robot called sukapon and turns him into a military robot to fight back against Walnuts and all his robots. Pretty simple plot.

Gameplay is your typical fighting game, though it has quite a lot of charm to it. In the story mode, you eventually get 36 available fighters, each with their own abilities that you can use. These can also be played in the multiplayer modes, and some are extremely easy to master. The story mode consists of beating 7 fighters per level until having to face a boss at the end. After finishing the boss, you move onto the next level.

Overall, whilst not the best game on the famicom, I must admit that joy mech fight has a really nice charm to it. And as one of the last famicom games, it has a really nice presentation that I love and it doesn’t feel stiff at all. It is probably one of the best fighting games on the famicom, but whether it is on a similar level to that of street fighter 2 or tekken is possibly a very big stretch.

Fun gameplay, really nice presentation, neat music, rayman if it was a fighting game

First off, can I just say how much I LOVE THE LOOK OF THIS GAME?? THIS IS SUCH A COOL LOOKING GAME THAT I'VE NOT SEEN DONE IN A LONG ASS TIME. If you weren't already charmed by this games visuals you'll be happy to hear that it doesn't slack on anything else either, how the fuck is a game that looks better than most Triple A titles on the market only 30 DOLLARS?? But i'm getting ahead of myself here, Hi-Fi Rush is a unique game because instead of following the conventional action game mechanics they decide to have a focus on rhythm based fighting. What does that mean? Well everything in this game is tweaked to sync with the in-game music, so when a beat happens you know exactly when an enemy will strike or move. All you have to do is get with the rhythm of it and plan accordingly, now this may seem like it'd be complicated but I assure you this game is very accessible when it comes to people who suck at rhythm games. So even if you're having trouble the game is not shy to throw you a bone, but once you get it, holy shit it's one of the most satisfying combat systems i've ever had the pleasure of playing with. This games levels aren't just combat though they also like to put a spin on it by having it be like a mini 3D platformer with puzzle elements and I appreciate that a lot. It's not just boss to boss as you'd think.

Main characters are extremely likeable, Chai and the others have some fun interactions between them, the story is pretty enjoyable and for a rhythm based game the music is rad as hell. It uses a lot of licensed music but you have the option to turn that off to listen to this games actual ost which i'd also recommend before you start. This game has endless loads of replayability because for starters its not a long game, so beating it will net you possibly the biggest post-game i've seen especially with the DLC add-ons in the newer versions of this game. I played on the PS5 and it was a perfect experience, no frame drops, everything ran well, and little to no bugs.

Yeah I mean if I haven't made it obvious, just buy this game, if you got a PS5 or an Xbox Series X you're doing yourself a disservice by not playing it, this used to be an Xbox exclusive but then they realized how peak this game is and they NEEDED to bring it to other consoles cause they were missing out on it. So happy it did finally come and I got to experience a new personal favorite game of all time. Will definitely be playing this one for weeks after I finished it.

This is what you're buying the Castlevania Advance Collection for, probably the most solid game in the series because can you believe after 2 attempts with Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance they would give us Aria of Sorrow. Everything about this game just hits and I think the soul mechanic is the best to date, the map is fun, there's tons of customization with Soma and his kits, and the replayability factor is huge because of it. It baffles me how good this game is after the previous 2 like seriously, they really cleaned up their act and locked in when making this one. It's so good it stands toe to toe with Symphony as the best Metroid Castlevania style game. If you were turned off by the previous two entries you gotta play this one, you'll be pleasantly surprised by its quality.

Well it's in every sense of the word a downgraded version of Rondo of Blood, cutscenes are removed, maria is no longer playable, alternate paths are gone, level select is gone, basically anything that made the original rondo so great is gone. What we have is a Richter who has a mid air control jump but also feels pretty stiff to control in general. Level design has seen a big hit in how they spam every level with those spear enemies and if you were to do a drinking game based on how many spear guys they plaster on the levels you'd probably die. The final dracula fight sucks, bottomless pits everywhere for the sake of making the boss challenging when in reality its just annoying.

Yeah this one just kinda sucks maybe don't play it.

Buckshot Roulette is a short and simple game of shotgun Russian Roulette between you and a… thing that calls itself “The Dealer”. The Dealer loads up the shotgun with a random number of shells and blanks, and you each take turns shooting the shotgun at either yourselves or your opponent. If you opt to shoot yourself, your opponent’s turn is skipped. You’re each hooked up to a defibrillator with a certain amount of charges that will bring you back to life if you get shot, but there is a limited number of times the defibrillator can be used. The game ends when either you or The Dealer run out of chances to use the defibrillator.

The game does spice things up a little bit by giving you items at the beginning of rounds that you can utilize to help yourself get an advantage. You can get a knife to saw off the end of the shotgun which causes it to do twice the amount of damage, a magnifying glass which lets you peek and see what round is currently loaded into the gun, handcuffs that prevent your opponent from taking a turn, a can of beer that lets you eject whatever round is currently loaded, and a pack of cigarettes that will restore a chance to use the defibrillator. However, The Dealer is also given these exact same items. This adds another layer of strategy to the game, where you’ll have to think about when you want to use the items you’re given, while also considering the items The Dealer has and when they will use them as well.

The game has a pretty cool, yet measured concept. Despite how intriguing The Dealer and the setting are, there isn’t really a narrative to speak of. If you win, you get a results screen and a case full of money. That’s all. The game itself can be figured out pretty easily and beaten in about 30 minutes. The core gameplay, while decent, doesn’t make for something that’s especially replayable in my opinion. I love its low-poly artstyle, and I really dig the techno track that plays in the background. Its presentation in general is really strong and immersive, especially given the game’s setup.

There’s just not a whole lot to this game, which is its only real issue. I had managed expectations going into Buckshot Roulette. I didn’t think that it’d be anything mindblowing considering it’s on sale for $3 on Steam (actually, I guess it technically is mindblowing now that I think about it…). I expected a short, but decent time and that’s exactly what I got. It’s a fun little flavor of the month type of indie game that I do think is worth the $3. Just know ahead of time that you’re really not going to get a whole lot of mileage with it.

The first Devil May Cry has simple but satisfying combat, a fun and overly edgy story, and really, really cool atmosphere. This is a good first entry to a series, it's rough around some edges in terms of game design and mechanics, but we can cut it some slack since it invented a genre. The world for this game is sick, I loved the atmosphere the entire way through. The music is awesome too. The only really big downside is that camera. It SUCKS. Very clearly was a reworked Resident Evil game. But, I got used to it, and when I did I was having a really fun time with this game.

I'm so excited to play the amazing future entries!!! Wait what? A really bad sequel? Oh yeahhhh, guess I gotta get through that first.

I thought this game would be funny bad but it's actually just the most offensively boring game ever. The combat is bad, the levels are bad, the story is bad, the pistols are infamously broken, the camera is even worse, nothing is good. The enemies and bosses are completely braindead, but they have the biggest health bars so the fights are just extremely boring. The only single good thing about this game is Dante's design, it's pretty cool. But even Dante in this game is boring as a character. I was begging for it to end the whole way through, I'm just glad this game is short.

I was born too late for the SEGA Dreamcast, but I was born just in time for the Nintendo GameCube, and one of my favorite games growing up was Sonic Adventure DX: Director’s Cut. I loved this game immensely growing up, and I played and replayed it over and over again, to the point where the disc wore out and stopped working. As the years went by, and I got older and came to play a wider variety of games, I eventually stopped enjoying Sonic games as much as I used to when I was little, to the point where nowadays I view the franchise with nostalgic indifference. It’s something that I definitely used to love and I might check in on occasionally, but it rarely occupies a space in my brain these days. Recently, those feelings of nostalgia took hold of me when I learned about how the DX version of Sonic Adventure was apparently a lot worse in comparison to the original. I read that it introduced new bugs and glitches, and it changed the game’s overall visual style for the worse. So, out of curiosity, and because I wanted to be reminded of old times, I decided to emulate the original Sonic Adventure to see how much better it actually was in comparison to the allegedly maligned DX version, and in all honesty, I don’t really think that DX is as much of a downgrade as I was led to believe. The game itself wasn’t as much of a fun nostalgia ride as I’d hoped it’d be, either.

Dr. Eggman has returned with a new plan for world domination, and this time he’s in command of a creature known as Chaos, a liquid monster who grows more powerful and changes shape after being fed the legendary Chaos Emeralds. Sonic and company all get involved with Eggman’s plot in some fashion, as they attempt to stop him from feeding Chaos all seven emeralds and wrecking untold havoc upon the world. You play as Sonic and five other characters, each with their own style of gameplay and personal narratives that occasionally crossover with one another.

I have to admit, reviewing this game is rather difficult for me. I played DX growing up so much that I know the game like the back of my hand. I’m used to the physics, I’m used to the boss fights, I know where I’m supposed to go and when, I can quote so many voice lines… basically I can play this game almost without thinking. There may be aspects of the game that I find easy that other people might struggle with. Sonic Adventure is a bit of a finicky game, and getting acclimated to how the game feels and controls may not come as naturally to others as it comes to me. Once you get used to it though, the whole game is very much a walk in the park. Each character shares the same core controls, but they also have their own abilities which make them unique.

Sonic’s campaign is by far the most fun in the game, and clearly where the most attention was given. His stages simply take the speed focused platforming approach of the 2D games and apply it to levels made in 3D. Sonic’s stages are often long and made up of multiple sections with a variety of different environments and music tracks for each section. Sonic for the most part feels pretty good to control, especially when you manage to get him going at higher speeds. The biggest problem that I have both with Sonic’s stages and with the game in general is easily the awful camera. The camera often acts like it has a mind of its own, and when Sonic or other characters go at high speeds, it often can’t keep up with them, or it’ll get stuck on level geometry, freak out, and prevent you from seeing where you’re going. The only times I ever died during my replay of this game was when these camera issues happened, and they happen most frequently when you’re going at high speeds through tunnels like in Sky Chase or Speed Highway. Sometimes to get the camera under control, you just gotta slow down and give it a second to catch up, which can be annoying, but it’s not the worst.

As mentioned, the rest of the cast all have their unique styles of gameplay, but for the most part, they all reuse various sections of Sonic’s stages. Some characters have sections of stages unique to them, and there is one stage (Hot Shelter) that Sonic doesn’t have that other characters do, but 95% of the other characters’ stages are reused or slightly edited sections of Sonic’s stages, and their gameplay for the most part isn’t different or interesting enough to really feel substantial. Playing as the other characters can feel rather repetitive and boring as a result.

Tails is easily the best example of this. His stages involve racing an AI-controlled Sonic through chopped up sections of Sonic’s stages. Tails can’t run as fast as Sonic, but he can fly, and there are these booster rings he can fly through that allow him to take shortcuts that Sonic can’t utilize himself. It’s never a challenge to outpace Sonic, and Sonic can sometimes get stuck on level geometry and not even advance forward at all until he rubber bands and teleports right next to you in order to catch up.

Knuckles’ stages have him searching for broken pieces of the Master Emerald. His ability to glide and climb walls allows him to explore stages in a way Sonic can’t, making the stages themselves a lot more open and exploration focused. His gameplay is different enough from Sonic’s that replaying stages isn’t really that big of a deal. His stages are my next favorite after Sonic’s.

Amy’s campaign is surprisingly fun. Amy has to flee from an invincible robot called Zero, which chases her across all of her stages. Amy’s on the slower side, but she has her own special movement abilities and attacks she can perform with her Piko Piko Hammer to make up for it. She also has the most unique content compared to the other playable characters that aren’t Sonic, as she has sections of Sonic’s stages that he doesn’t get to experience himself, such as the fun house in Twinkle Park. My only complaint is that she has the least amount of stages in the game (three in total).

Then there’s Big’s campaign… Big has always been rather infamous when it comes to discussions surrounding this game. As opposed to every other character’s gameplay, which is generally focused on exciting action, or high speed setpieces, Big the Cat’s gameplay involves fishing for his pet frog named Froggy. There are pools of water in stages that are occupied by Froggy as well as other fish, and you have to catch Froggy in order to clear Big’s stages. I think it’s pretty understandable why people don’t care for Big’s campaign. His gameplay is so different from everyone else’s, and if you want to complete the story, you have no choice but to do them. The fishing itself isn’t especially fun either, and it can be confusing because the game itself doesn’t really explain how fishing works. I remember being so frustrated and angry with Big’s levels as a kid because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, and didn’t realize that you needed to flick the control stick down whenever Froggy bites onto the lure in order to actually hook him onto it so that you can start reeling him in. To the game’s credit, fishing is explained in the game’s instruction booklet (both this version and DX’s), so it’s a bit hard to blame it for not telling you what you’re supposed to do. That doesn’t change the fact that the fishing itself is still not particularly engaging. At the very least, it’s not difficult at all once you figure out how it works.

Finally, there’s E-102 Gamma’s campaign. Gamma is a robot built to serve Dr. Eggman. His stages involve running and gunning, blasting enemies and obstacles and defeating a boss at the end of each stage. I don’t really know how else to describe Gamma’s stages other than braindead. That might sound a bit harsh, but I genuinely can’t think of any other way to put it. You hold down the action button to target obstacles, wait to target as many as you can, and then Gamma will fire auto-homing shots to destroy targets. It’s also hilariously easy to just stun lock all of the bosses at the end of Gamma’s stages and keep them from fighting back at all.

The story, much like the gameplay, is ambitious, and I do actually think it’s executed well enough. However, the horrible dialogue and the stilted 90’s voice acting can really knock the wind out of its sails. It’s charming enough to find it funny, but very much in a “so bad it’s good” kinda way. Eggman’s voice actor is an exception though. Deem Reginald Bristow actually kills it with his performance. It’s really lively compared to every other character in the game, and he sounds like he’s honestly having a lot of fun with the role, as opposed to everyone else, who just sounds like they’re phoning it in.

By far the best part about this game is its soundtrack. God, to this day nothing really hits me like this game’s soundtrack. It’s honestly pretty damn close to perfect. Each track just adds so much to the immersion of each stage, while also being immensely groovy or electrifying songs on their own. Some of my favorite tracks include Run Through the Speed Highway, Red Hot Skull, and Pleasure Castle, but in all honesty, pretty much every single song is a banger, and aside from maybe some of the vocal tracks, it’s really difficult to find a song that isn’t great in this game.

As for how this compares to the DX version, I think that visually, environments look a lot more appealing in comparison. The textures in the Dreamcast version are a lot more colorful, and places like the Mystic Ruins look far more lush and appealing. Other than that though, I’ll be honest: I don’t think that this version has much else that makes it worth playing over DX. For the sake of making a good faith comparison, I did play through a chunk of Sonic’s levels really quickly in DX to see if I could run into any obvious bugs or glitches, but I didn’t encounter anything, and I don’t ever recall running into any particularly notable glitches in the DX version during the several playthroughs of it when I was a kid. If anything, I feel like I still prefer DX a bit more because it has a free camera option you can turn on during stages, which is a huge blessing since the auto camera is so terrible. You can also skip cutscenes in DX which is super convenient. I feel like the glitches and bugs of DX are overblown, it seems like you really gotta go out of your way to experience them. You could argue that since I didn’t play DX from beginning to end that I’m not making a fair comparison, and y’know what, I won’t argue with you. I just really don’t have it in me to play this game from front to back a second time.

It’s clear that there was a lot of passion and ambition that went into Sonic Adventure and I have nothing but respect for that. I feel like this is one of the most experimental games I’ve ever played, especially for its time. It’s just that not all of its ideas pan out very well, and it causes the game to feel bloated and boring at times. Sonic Adventure, no matter which version I play, is always going to be a big source of nostalgia for me, and I’ll definitely treasure those memories I had of playing the game as a kid. But it’s impossible to deny how rough and flawed the game truly is.