anyone else here for the Nintendo Switch icons?

for a lot of people this port holds some nostalgic value to them as maybe it was their first venture into Donkey Kong, but for me NES Donkey Kong will always be that one game in Brawl's Masterpieces section where you only get 30 seconds to play it before you're booted out

this is like Diet Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong doesn't throw that much barrels at you in 25m, there's less Fires in 100m and they're not as aggressive, that's not even mentioning the complete absence of the main man the PIE FACTORY or 50m. granted there's a Donkey Kong Original Edition that actually adds 50m back (as well as the additional scenes of Donkey Kong taking away Lady and climbing the ladder, something that's missing in the vanilla NES version), but this version is difficult to come by so good luck finding a 25th Anniversary Edition Wii! anyway all these factors make NES Donkey Kong an easier, faster, and more boring experience than the Arcade version, I don't even think it gets around to the Arcade's difficulty until the 4th loop and by that point, why are you not playing the Arcade version instead?

UPDATE: right after I typed that last paragraph, I went back and switched over to the "Game B" selection in the title screen and okay nevermind the difficulty here is a bit closer to the Arcade version here. Game B is the way to go for this version but there's still a reason why the Arcade version is better which I'm going to mention right now.

if you're not playing this on actual hardware never reset the game because once you do, your scores are GONE. damn it's already bad enough that there's no in-game leaderboard but the game can't even properly save the scores when the game is turned off? what's even the point of going for scores in this version? is a kid back in the day supposed to take a picture of their score in their old ass 80's camera and show it off to their friends in school? almost all of the game's replayability is destroyed from that alone.

if there's something this port does have going for is that compared to all the other ports at the time where they all tend to look like bootlegs in some shape or form, the graphics are actually really close to the Arcade version outside of a few nitpicks like the darker color palette, more boxed aspect ratio, only using white for the HUD, and the replacement of the Jumpman life sprites with a simple number count instead. on a less nitpicky detail, likely due to the boxy aspect ratio, 100m is missing the platform above Donkey Kong which after he falls down into the ground, the platform drops which allows Jumpman and Lady to reunite together. since it's not there in this version I'm going to assume Jumpman quickly built an extra platform to reach her instead, also the two maintain their distance in this version for some reason, I guess Lady smelled too much like Donkey Kong for Jumpman to get any closer. also this version introduces the iconic title theme that would later be used as a part of Donkey Kong Country's title theme, it's kinda weird to think that this iconic tune wasn't even in the Arcade version.

anyway just play the Arcade version, it's on Switch, you can probably get it to work on your PC, it has the PIE FACTORY without you having to patch the game or find a rare special edition, don't have much else to talk about besides go check out my Arcade review where I actually go into a little more detail. most solid 4/10 game ever.

donkley cough

It's still kind of fun. Like in beta, stringing combos together and figuring out how to play each character is satisfying. It feels good to create custom combos in this game. BUT, there are some awful changes on release:

Characters are floatier than before and feel worse to control, character currency is WAY too hard to get, requiring a friend to play a world of light type PvE for 100% completion is bogus, THIRTY FRAMES OF INPUT BUFFER, server issues are still up in the air, the new menu UI is awful compared to the last one, and most of all they REMOVED THE FEATURE THAT ALLOWED YOU TO TRY CHARACTERS OFFLINE/IN TRAINING. Now you have to pay 20 bucks or grind for 40 hours if you want to try the new joker character lol. Whoever at WB decided this change I hope you have to spend all your extra money on hospital bills. I wish physical and mental harm on you. NAME ONE CHANGE THAT WAS POSITIVE BESIDES NEW CHARACTERS, YOU CAN'T.

There's an alright platformer fighter underneath all this shit, but with how things are looking so far it's not looking very good for the community. I have been praying for a good fighting platformer ever since the dogshit game nintendo put out, but this is not it. The game is NOT worth spending hours of grinding to be good at. Will be a fun commodity for about a year at most I would say, like NASB. I guess I wait for Rivals 2.

Soul Hackers 2 is like the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull of Megaten. I don't think I've fully processed that it exists, even like a year and a half after finishing it. I think of this game often. It just confuses me - it's like the ultimate monkey's paw. They made a sequel to a 1997 Sega Saturn game that offers basically nothing to someone who loved the original, aside from some terminology carried over.

This game is fine - and I think that's what makes me so bitter towards it. They specifically selected one of the most unique, rough around the edges Megami Tensei games and sanded all of the interesting features down into something more digestable for general audiences. Things like demon loyalty and zoma fusions had so much more potential, but instead of exploring that they were just stripped and replaced with a combat system reminiscent of modern Persona. Dungeon design is repetitive, as is the music. They added in a pointless mascot character, there's nostalgia baiting content locked behind a paywall, and even the game's special Jack Frost variant was only obtainable by pre-ordering.

So many things about this game just reek of marketability and someone in a suit making the decisions, which is pretty funny considering it spends time critiquing capitalism and exploiting nostalgia.

Ringo is a very cool character. There are some standout tracks in the OST too. It's just not enough to justify the rest of the game for me. Some people see that this game is functional and has characters and argue its reception was unfair. I also knew people who saw Crystal Skull as their first Indiana Jones movie who said the same thing.

The dev for this game, potemki11, just woke up one day and decided to make one of the best Shin Megami Tensei clones and make it even better by adding Touhou characters to it.

Difficulty is perfectly balanced, there is nothing in here that's as frustrating as most other SMT games or even Touhou RPGs, except maybe the Secret Boss? Which is debatable as it's really easy to cheese if you've been paying attention to your stats altering moves.

The developer isn't even done with this game btw, he's still adding new content to it to this day, including a customizeable level/map editor, so I will probably go back to this in the near future.

Friends, loved ones, we gather here today to remember our good friend Hi-Fi Rush

The cliche saying "life comes at you fast" is apt to describe Hi-Fi Rush. It simultaneously announced and released at the end of what I would generously describe as a very mid Xbox game presentation in January 2023 to the delight of half-asleep gamers watching everywhere.

Hi-Fi Rush is rhythm-based character action game that had unique gameplay. It was forgiving to casual audiences so as to acclimate them to rhythm aspects of the game, but had aspects about it that made it the most hardcore character action game out there if you wanted it to be. If you wanted the highest ranking. If you wanted Chai to be holding a real guitar, you had to earn that shit in blood.

The game embraced a fun cast of characters. Embraced a saturday morning cartoon setting and story. It made Xenogears references when half-jokingly describing running out of budget for the last act of the game. It had licensed music from bands like Nine Inch Nails. Hi-Fi Rush was truly a hi-fi rush that made thousands of people think the game was tailor-made for them. Simply by being more in line with what people actually like. It was nice to see as such cases of personality and life being that it was rare to see such on a major publisher level.

Hi-Fi Rush was pushed out into the world to be loved, and to help boost a rapidly dying gaming platform, but actually mostly that first thing...

But mostly that second thing, actually.

The cancer of corporate consolidation and power, a time when optimal financialization is the only language those unrightfully holding the reigns of the industry speak. That is what killed a moderately successful game studio. Lack of passion or enthusiasm didn't kill Hi-Fi Rush. A financial officer running numbers and determining a sequel would make X amount of dollars less than a Call of Duty skin killed Hi-Fi Rush.

So as we lay them down to rest, we celebrate Hi-Fi Rush as it reminded gamers of a time when all games both big and small were released to be enjoyed unconditionally; with the upfront price tag of exceptional games were the beginning, middle and end of what was asked to own it.

Sadly, those days are snuffed out. You must now rent and subscribe to begin to be pumped with complicit, tedious gameplay trends that feel more diluted with every repackaging. Will we die with capitalism? Probably. Shit crazy out here, b.

Whether or not you cherished the life of Tango, or it's products like Evil Within or Hi-Fi Rush, you must understand that gaming on consoles is dead. Dead until the console platform holders release their own Steam Deck and it's probably going to be lame as fuck compared to a Steam Deck if your name is not Nintendo, but whatever.

Rest in peace, Hi-Fi Rush.