As someone who enjoyed BotW, I couldn't bring myself to buy and play TotK. Part of it is me missing the classic Zelda formula from the other 3D titles, but mostly because TotK just appears to be more of the same as BotW. I'm not sure if I'm ready to purchase this 60-70€ game and dive into another massive world that feels way too familiar. Instead, I decided to revisit one of my favorite franchises of all time and go back to its roots. I'm excited to finally explore the 2D classics I never had a chance to play as a kid!

It's fascinating to see how far the franchise has come. It has shaped countless childhoods and left a lasting mark on the history of video games. And to think, it all started here.

Having grown up with the beloved 3D titles and knowing how Zelda games have evolved over the decades, I think it's understandable not to be particularly impressed with this one. However, I can still appreciate it for what it is. Personally, I have severe fatigue from the BotW formula and wish Nintendo would reinvent it once more, as they have so many times before. Because Zelda deserves more than being just another bloated open world experience that seems to plague most modern adventure games.

Sights & Sounds
- A Little to the Left is a gorgeous game dripping with mid-century Realism. Many of the levels and their contents look like they were ripped directly from a 1950s home ec textbook
- The use of color is also nice. I liked how most levels used a restricted palette, giving each a screen print sort of feel
- While the soundtrack wasn't bad, it did feel a little out of tune with the visual style. Given the artwork that harkens back some 70-80 years, I would have expected the genre of the backing tracks to follow suit. While they are a pleasant mix of dreamy synth, ethereal piano, nicely varied percussion, and playful back-and-forths of plucked and bowed strings, the style feels contemporary and out of place
- I rarely feel motivated to mention sound design, but A Little to the Left does a great job in this regard. The various clinks, whooshes, clatters, and scrapes you'd expect to hear while shuffling various objects around are faithful and instantly identifiable. It really does capture the auditory experience of rummaging around in a messy drawer for a book of matches

Story & Vibes
- I don't wander into the "cozy organization puzzle game" world very often, but unlike the last one of these I played (Unpacking), there's not really any attempt at storytelling. Just clean, organize, and watch out for that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cat
- Although the vibes are indeed mostly cozy, I bumped into some frustration when trying to figure out some of the alternate solutions to certain levels. Those wound up crashing the party enough that I wound up using a guide when I circled back to solve everything. Some of the solutions are fairly insipid, and I don't know if I would have gotten there naturally (looking at you, pen level)

Playability & Replayability
- Your enjoyment of the game is wholly dependent on how much you enjoy this style of gameplay, and perhaps the tasks of tidying and organizing as a whole. Do you find it meditative and satisfying? Then you're probably going to enjoy this experience, especially with its pretty visuals. Do you find it boring and frustrating? Then don't even bother considering
- The gameplay can be almost wholly described as "click and drag object to correct spot". Beyond that, you occasionally stave of incursions from your luxurious Persian cat
- I don't have any compulsive need to organize, so I'm probably not gonna revisit this one

Overall Impressions & Performance
- I'm still undecided on how I feel about this sort of game (not that I've played many of them). All I really have to compare it to is Unpacking. While I liked the unspoken narrative of that title, I kinda hated the "puzzles". With so few restrictions, I found myself mostly piling up garbage into technically correct positions and moving on to the next level. A Little to the Left, on the other hand, gives you the satisfaction of feeling like you're actually solving a puzzle by adding set solutions, but the lack of any motivating pretense means that the whole experience feels a bit pointless. It made me wonder why I was bothering to tidy up my virtual cutlery drawer when my real one is a jumbled mess. Oh well. At least it motivated me to finally reorganize a few of my actual kitchen's messy cabinets
- I feel like I write this on a lot of point-and-click games that I wind up playing on Steam Deck, but the same thought applies: the trackpads are sufficient, but M/K would have been smoother

Final Verdict
- 6/10. A passably satisfying experience with some pretty visuals and slick foley work, but little more. I mildly enjoyed the organization gameplay, but if you don't, you're going to have a much worse time

What do you get?
- 30 new levels designed similarly to those you see in the base game. There's maybe a slightly stronger focus on cupboard/drawer organization and a weaker focus on your cat messing with you
- Those extra levels will take 3-4 hours to run through, but maybe a little longer if you intend to grab the 8 new achievements
- The levels aren't any better or worse than what's in the base game. Just more of the same

Is it worth it?
- Honestly, $6 feels fair for this. If you can grab it in a sale, even more so

Final Verdict
6/10. It's really just more levels. I'm giving it the same rating as I gave the base game; it doesn't detract anything from the main experience, but doesn't try anything new either

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood was the first Call of Juarez game I played, and it left a lasting impression. It's a prequel to the original Call of Juarez, following the story of the McCall brothers.

The narrative is really good, capturing the tumultuous journey of Ray and Thomas McCall during and after the American Civil War. The scenery is cool and varied, featuring American Civil War battlefields, The Appalachian mountains, Apache villages, Mexican border towns, Gold mines, Canyons and more. Each location adds to the rich atmosphere of the Wild West.
The gameplay is solid, with the feature of choosing to play as either Ray or Thomas. Each brother has distinct abilities and weapon preferences, making for diverse combat experiences. Ray is a dual-wielding gunslinger, while Thomas excels with rifles and bows. The cover system works well, and the shooting mechanics feel satisfying and distinct.
The duels, while interesting, can sometimes be annoying. Nevertheless, they add a Western feel to the game.
The graphics, though not groundbreaking for a 2009 game, effectively capture the Western vibe. They might not be the best, but they do their job.
The soundtrack is pretty good, one track that stands out is "Mexico Fight" which perfectly complements the intense action sequences.

I can't decide which Call of Juarez game I like more, "Gunslinger" or "Bound in Blood." Both offer unique experiences and excel in different areas. It's a shame that we won't see any more Call of Juarez games, as the series had so much potential.

I played A Link to the Past for like the fifth (sixth?) time for a Zelda marathon (alongside @NOWITSREYNTIME17, @Steinco, @NovaNiles, @QuentTheSlayer, @Ptcremisi, @zeusdeegoose, and a bunch of others). If you want a more detailed log, I highly recommend this one I did back in October, because my thoughts haven’t really changed (and I’m pretty proud of that review). It’s still an awesome game that improves upon everything its predecessors did well and it still holds up over 30 years later. I don’t have anything to add, it’s just a great game.

Reyn’s review: here
Steinco’s review: here
Quent’s review: here

What happened to the series I love. Seriously Mega Man X through X4 are excellent games with 5 being a very good game. Then X6 was a slap in the face money grab after the series was suppose to be finished with X5. Then X7 was one of the most abhorrently made games of all time. While X8 was a major step forward from X7 it still is a far cry from what this series was. It legitimately makes me sad that one of my favorite series ever died and in such an awful fashion to boot.

I digress. Mega Man X8 is not an awful game by any means but it definitely isn’t a quality game either. Instead of going back to the basics that made the series great they decided to give every level a gimmick. Some are ok and some are outright bad. The worst level by far was Giga Bolt Man O War’s stage. You are on the slowest floating type thing in the world with controls that make you think it’s part of X7 with no explanation on controls and it is at best bad and at worst infuriating.

I’m going to cut this review shorter than most and just say the story is ok, the music is ok, the art is ok, the gameplay is ok the game is just ok at best.

If you ever want to play this series, and you really should, just play through X-X5 like Keiji Inafune intended and not what he was against which is what Capcom ended up giving us for some extra cash.

Mega Man X Series Ranked:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/mega-man-x-series-ranked/

My 2024 ranked:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2024-ranked-1/

Something of a planned sequel, but also quite the encore title focusing this time on alot of the remaining aspects of the Mega Man franchise - most notably including the forgotten stepchild of the X series, Axl. After ZX allowed you to tranform into the various prominent “Mega Men” of the previous games, ZXA taking advantage of Axls legacy powers to allow players to transform into the Maverick bosses as well (with some exception) is a no-brainer - an aspect which also brings the ZX series in greater alignment with the power-stealing foundations of the Classic series.

While the already limited metroidvania aspects of the first game take an even greater backseat in ZXA, what youre left with is still a fairly fresh and substantial open-roam Mega Man game made naturally rewarding with the powers of Model A - boss forms provide both interesting combat and traversal variety, which impacts level design in some compelling ways. The roster of bosses itself is stacked, ranking probably among the best in the franchise. ZXA even picks the ball up from Zero's Dr Weil by introducing an even more direct Dr Wily analogue with "Albert", bringing the Greatest Hits tour full circle in Ouroborosian fashion.

I’ve been thinking a lot about storytelling in video games lately. Well, storytelling as a whole actually. What exactly makes a fictional world feel compelling to me? How should you best spin a yarn as to make the characters breathe, their struggles resonate, and their victories triumphant? Most importantly, if a writer did have the vision and the wherewithal to execute said vision, then how could they best convince their audience that their vision was worth their time?

This week, I might have come a step closer to realizing those answers by revisiting an old favorite of mine.

428: Shibuya Scramble is not just your ordinary traditional visual novel. It’s a crime thriller, a romantic comedy, and an investigative journalism drama all rolled into one. That description alone could sell the game, but the crazy part is that the narrative is just the icing on top of this deceptively layered and charismatic tale. The game's greatest strength is not just what it has to say, but rather how it says it.

As I've discussed previously, many story-heavy games have difficulty marrying their storytelling and their gameplay, often choosing to stratify their game into separate sections of explicit narrative and explicit gameplay. 428 Shibuya Scramble does not struggle with this whatsoever, for the interaction with the narrative is the gameplay and it presents its story in such a way where every detail matters. You see, 428: Shibuya Scramble operates in hourly time slots with several protagonists at once. The goal is to guide each protagonist on their separate storyline and ensure that every protagonist makes it to the end of each hour by making the correct decisions and avoiding untimely demise through bad ends. However, there’s a catch. Protagonists can reach bad ends on their own paths even if every decision they make within their contained storyline is “correct.” This is because these different storylines intersect one another in various ways, and decisions made with one character will ultimately echo throughout the hour, affecting the other protagonists in unforeseen ways.

As such, the player isn’t doing anything mechanically complex aside from reading text and picking the right options most of the time, which means that like the best detective games, 428 is really about the game outside of the game. The player has to figure out how the butterfly effect ripples across each hour, even as characters often impact one another without ever coming face to face. For example, one of the characters can become incapacitated by consuming a potent energy drink on the job; you can avoid this bad end by making sure an earlier character fails to provide his detective partner with the lethal sample. While the nature of these intersections is often unclear, 428 revels in this uncertainty. It’s not content with simply using its bad ends as punishments; rather, it grasps these bad ends as opportunities to inject additional lore and guide the player towards the truth. These bad ends are often light-hearted and comedic just as they are valuable learning opportunities, and somehow the game walks the tightrope between solemnity and levity without ever losing sincerity. Simply put, most story-heavy games are constantly asking the five Ws, but 428 Shibuya Scramble is one of the rare whimsical games that dares ask “What if?”

On a similar note, a lot of players tend to get frustrated by 428’s habit of barricading individual protagonist paths with “KEEP OUT” banners, but I find this mechanic to be a stroke of genius. In order to clear these barricades, players are forced to traverse other protagonists’ stories in the meanwhile and search for a “JUMP” point linking them back to the original blocked protagonist. By doing so, they’re often hopping around the hour and viewing events from multiple parallel perspectives, gathering more information to better grasp how the timelines intertwine. Moreover, the game fully commits to this idea of rounding out its narrative by even hiding JUMP points behind certain decisions that would otherwise have no bearing upon story events (i.e. “flavor text questions/decisions”) and certain TIPs (blue colored text that when selected, provides additional background). This keeps the player vigilant, as they’re constantly on the prowl for connections while soaking in every detail and considering every possibility to push the plot forward.

Of course, this is not to take away from the game’s multitude of other strengths. For instance, consider the game’s sound design. From hurried footsteps and screeching cars in high-speed chases to distant explosions and sirens spelling imminent doom, Chunsoft knew just how to punctuate every moment with appropriate sound effects. Another obvious selling point is 428’s reliance upon live action stills and full motion video, which aside from standing out from other sketched and animated visual novels, provides the game a sense of immersion and realism that interestingly often contrasts with the game’s over-the-top sense of humor. Finally, the actors do a great job emoting and infusing their lines with personality despite the lack of voice acting. Alongside the phenomenal character design, written in such a way where every character has obvious flaws yet remain every bit relatable, there’s a certain charm to 428 Shibuya Scramble that many of its peers fail to imitate. As a complete and tightly-knit package, its artistic decisions and gameplay mechanics do not simply capture Shibuya; they perpetuate the energy of the city, enthralling and surprising the player at every turn.

I’m often reluctant to revisit beloved titles. More often than not, giving old favorites another spin with a more critical eye or even thinking about them for too long causes them to deteriorate somewhat in my mind, forcing me to confront my prior nostalgia. It’s never a great feeling to question yourself if something you once loved was really all that great to begin with. 428 is the exact opposite of this. Don’t get me wrong; the game does have some rough points. The inability to adjust text speed and skip previously read text can be a huge ask for players with limited time (though if you’re playing on PC, the unofficial text speed patch alleviates this somewhat), and I find myself agreeing with others in that the true ending leaves something to be desired. I won’t deny that I had some apprehensions upon replaying yet another memorable classic.

Yet somehow, this game has lived rent-free in my head for over half a decade. I had intended to replay it for just an hour or two to refresh my palette, as I had already 100%ed it and wanted to move onto newer and grander adventures. In spite of that, I found myself with the exact opposite problem. I simply could not put the game down. 428 Shibuya Scramble is the rare example of a game that to me, never stops getting better. Playing through it again immediately reminded me of why I fell in love with video games to begin with, and it didn’t matter that I had seen the destination already; the thrill of the journey was enough to make me return. I’m sure that I could ponder more areas of improvement and potential fixes, though honestly, I can’t bring myself to care. There aren’t many games that I unabashedly adore and wish for more, but there are even fewer games that manage to spark my Imagination and leave me content with what I have. At the end of the day, 428: Shibuya Scramble is not just a triumph of the medium; it's a triumph of human inevitability, gathering momentum until coincidence and fate become reality. I may have become more cynical over time, but it's moments like these that prove that sometimes, it really does pay to believe.

Zelda II was one of several mainline Zelda games I had yet to play at this point. I didn't know why I skipped trying this one out when I went and beat Zelda 1 in 2020. Maybe it was because it's such a departure from every other game, or the fact I heard it wasn't good. Either way, this marathon gave me a good excuse to finally play this one. Sadly, what I've heard people say about this game is true. I unfortunately found this game to be straight up bad overall.

The story this time around revolves around the Triforce of Courage. The last game only had the Triforce of Wisdom and Power, but this game reveals there's a third. Basically, the King of Hyrule hid it far away so no evil can ever get it. The prince, aka Zelda's brother, wants it for himself. He gets the help of a wizard to have Zelda tell him where it is, since only she knows, by using a truth spell on her. When that doesn't work, the wizard puts Zelda to sleep, and so Link must get the Triforce of Courage and wake Zelda up from the sleep spell. He must do this by going to each of the six main palaces and placing a crystal there, so it opens up the Great palace, which houses the Triforce. Pretty effective plot tbh, it's weird that Zelda has a brother because he never gets mentioned in any other game (at least to my knowledge) but it's interesting.

The first thing you'll notice when actually starting the game, is the change in gameplay. This is no longer a top-down action adventure but is a side-scroller. This is unlike every other mainline Zelda ever and it really does feel off from the rest of the games. Along with it being a side-scroller now, there are also some light RPG mechanics too. There is exp in this game that you get by killing enemies (or collecting exp bags) and you can level up when you get the required amount. You either upgrade your health, magic or your attack power and the game always has a set path with whatever one you get on level up. With the magic, you can get spells throughout the game, and they can be quite useful. The life spell, for instance, is the best spell in the game since it's just a straight up heal. Same with the shield spell, since both make you survive longer. Believe me tho, you're gonna need them! Anyways, the exp system was actually one of the few things I can praise about this game. I thought it was pretty satisfying leveling up every time and it at least makes this game stand out from other Zelda games (if the side-scrolling nature didn't do that already).

The overworld in this game is more like an older RPG than how Zelda 1's was. Instead of having to bomb random locations to find secrets, this game has you progressing the world by using the items you get from palaces. Towns have NPC's that will let you in their house to get a spell in exchange for an item you find. Overworld encounters are now represented by little enemy sprites, that appear once you take a certain number of steps, and they put you into a battle scenario. They can be EXTREMELY obnoxious with how frequently they appear and with how hard it is to dodge them. If you stay on the roads that appear in game, the encounters won't appear but if you take one step off of the road (or just aren't on the roads at all which happens a lot) they will so the roads only help a tiny bit I think. All of this just makes this feel less like a Zelda game and more like an older adventure/RPG. I like the leveling up, but all of this is a downgrade from Zelda 1's formula, even if I wasn't in love with how that game did things.

The start of the game up until Death Mountain, was honestly not bad and was a solid time. Once you get to death mountain tho, this game shows its true colors. This game is incredibly difficult and incredibly bullshit a lot of the time. I know this is an NES game, so this is kinda expected, but Zelda 1 was not like this. Zelda 1 could be hard (mostly in the endgame) but it never felt like NES hard, hard for the sake of it basically. This game definitely does tho and it's worse for it. Death Mountain and the last area and palace were the absolute worst parts of the game. Both were just full of obnoxious BS and I just don't find that very fun. The rest of the game is like that too but to a lesser extent. I had to save state pretty much all the time from Death Mountain until the end, and I don't feel bad about it. It also doesn't help that when you die, there are also lives in this game because you NEED those for a side-scroller I guess, you go back to where Zelda's sleeping (aka the beginning of the game). You can unlock items that make this way better than it sounds, but if you die before you get the hammer and unlock the first shortcut, you must do all of death mountain over again. Without save states, this is very easy to have to do since this game is so brutal. If this game wasn't so hard and bullshit, this wouldn't be too bad because the general gameplay is solid. Link feels good to control and the moves he gets are cool. But due to the NES difficulty, those good elements don't mean much.

Going into the palaces, they're hit or miss. A couple of them I didn't find too bad and actually somewhat enjoyed, while the others were just hell. Palaces are a lot longer in this game and have barely any puzzles. Zelda 1's dungeons weren't super puzzle heavy, but they were more than just find key..unlock door and progress. This game focuses more on the combat than the puzzles and its worse for it since most of the enemies are just frustrating. The bosses aren't anything special, they're either piss easy or super obnoxious like Thunderbird. I always heard Dark Link (or Link's Shadow I guess) was absolutely brutal if you didn't do the duck and swipe method. I just killed him super easily by doing the jump attack method I do on other enemies. Didn't even need to use the shield spell, he was one of the easier bosses in the game lol. Idk if I just got lucky, or I'm just that good but I thought it'd be interesting to mention.

The OST is definitely not as good as the first game's. The palace theme is great and iconic due to it appearing in Smash Bros but that's about it. Every other song was okay at best to me. Nothing, not even the palace theme comes close to being iconic as the overworld theme in the first game.

All in all, while some of the mechanics like leveling up and Link's new swordplay are interesting, it doesn't change the fact this game is just a brutal, bullshit mess of a game. I said it before and I'll say it again, it's hard for the sake of it and just don't like games that do that. It also doesn't help that no other mainline Zelda game that I've played is like this lol. There are some Zelda elements here and there, but this really doesn't feel like a Zelda game to me. I'm glad I finally played this and got it off my bucket list, but I certainly will never be playing this again.

This is the second review in a marathon of reviews for “The Legend of Zelda” series. If you haven’t yet, please read my previous review here. Please also check out Reyn, Phantasm, Steinco, & ptcremisi who are doing this marathon with me. They will also be posting reviews for each Zelda game in the marathon, though not all of us are playing the same games. I will also be linking specific individuals who will be playing specific Zelda games alongside us, so please check them out also! Without any further delay, let’s get right into The Legend of Zelda II: Adventure of Link.

I have only one question… What happened?! As someone who gets mild enjoyment from the first Legend of Zelda, The Legend of Zelda II: Adventure of Link tries to do everything in its power to make it an unenjoyable experience in every facet possible. I originally played this game many years ago, but dropped it once I got to Death Mountain, an infamous area in this game where the difficulty needlessly spikes while the game feels unnecessarily unfair to the player. For this marathon, I finally decided to finish it, but the idea of dropping this game to get to A Link To The Past was very, very strong.

One of the most notable changes with Zelda 2 is that it decides to change the gameplay from a top-down adventure game, to a platformer? Granted, the overworld exploration from Zelda 1 is still here, you have a vast world to explore filled with secrets, towns, and caves for you to find. Yet it feels so stagnant and bland, exploring itself is fine, if a bit slow, but instead of enemies that you can fight in real-time, a set of three will appear randomly that can potentially run into Link and initiate a battle. Also, the Overworld itself is plain and lacking in detail, something I praised from the first game was how detailed the environments were, while here it’s all incredibly blocky and unnatural looking. Exploring the Overworld is simple enough, but it’s segmented. Usually when you enter a new segment of Hyrule in Zelda 2, you’ll be staying there for a while, the execution is always the same as well. Find a town, complete some random fetch quest for or within the town, get a new spell, maybe get a new sword technique, then head to the temple of that area. This formula gets old incredibly fast, especially when you consider the item progression in Zelda 2 being extremely weak.

In the original Legend of Zelda, every item you received within a dungeon would upgrade your capability, this included items to help you further explore Hyrule, such as the Stepladder, and the Raft. While the Raft wasn’t necessarily utilized well, the Stepladder felt like a legitimate upgrade that was continuously useful in dungeons which gave it value, it had significance far past when it was originally obtained. This is my big issue with Zelda 2’s items. In Zelda 2, you’ll get an item, it’ll have maybe one specific use in the Overworld, and then it just rots away in your inventory for the remainder of the game. Now, to be fair, items like the Boomerang and Bow in the original were probably not used extensively either, I certainly didn’t use them often. However, in Zelda 2, every item feels like this. Let’s take the boots for example. In concept, the boots are actually very interesting, allowing you to walk over water and lava in the Overworld. Unfortunately the use for this item is limited to only a few specific spots, and is never used again. It doesn’t even have a purpose within the 2D sections either, it’d be an incredible feature if these boots allowed you to walk over lava, it’d make Link feel like his items have use and that he’s becoming stronger in a tangible manner through his items rather than just being a means to reach the next temple. Other items suffer the same fate such as the Handy Glove, the Hammer, etc. They do not feel significant in the same way Zelda 1’s items did, except maybe the Candle which lights up caves, but it’s no longer a weapon you can use to dispatch enemies, it’s relegated to just one purpose, which is a shame.

The most significant manner in which the game tries to give Link progression in power is by leveling up. This to me is probably the highlight of the game. In Zelda 2, defeating certain enemies will reward you with points that contribute to your level ups. Each level up requires a specific number of points to achieve, after which a stat will be upgraded. Now unfortunately, you don’t get to choose what stat you wish to upgrade per level up, the game pre-selects one for you, which is a huge negative for me because it doesn’t allow players to tailor their builds, or prioritize a stat they deem more important in whatever specific area/scenario they’re in. This becomes especially brutal because upgrading health and magic is a free refill respectively, so utilizing that in difficult areas such as Death Mountain could’ve been incredibly helpful and made it more bearable. Now granted, you can choose to skip your level-up, which will then require you to level up again. Once you level up again, the game will allow you to choose between two stats to upgrade, doing so again gives you complete reign on which stat to upgrade. I really don’t like this idea because it makes leveling up slower and less valuable overall. Sure, you can skip your level up without the point requirement increasing to upgrade a stat you want, but from the beginning the game should allow for player freedom in how they wish to build Link for the upcoming trials ahead. The game thankfully has heart containers and magic upgrades to help alleviate these issues, but they’re incredibly well hidden on specific squares on the map that have no visual cue to tell you they’re there at all, this issue will crop up more later. So if you’re not using a guide, it’s very likely you’ll be missing out on these free level-ups essentially, which is not ideal whatsoever. Especially when you consider how valuable these resources are for fighting and progression.

Alright, let’s talk about the worst part of the game, the enemies. I have no clue what they were thinking here designing these enemies the way they did, but let’s break it down. You have a lot of rather easy enemies like “Bots” which are basically slimes that can’t do much, you just need to crouch to hit them, nothing too mind-blowing there. My real issue are with enemies who have shields. Enemies with shields are an absolute nightmare to fight because they often just block so many attacks, it takes forever to kill them, and if your weapon bounces off, chances are you’re getting hit. That’s not even the worst of it though, the best way to deal with these enemies is to jump then attack their heads, and you’ll usually land a hit. Not only do you need to space these attacks out well, but it’s just tedious. Add onto the fact you can’t necessarily run past some of these enemies due to how they move or the level design, and it gets so much worse. I think the worst offender is definitely the Blue Darknut, a fast, shielded enemy that can shoot his own sword beams at you high and low, requiring you to react quickly, and he can throw them out ridiculously fast. If you’re not playing carefully and get reckless, you will most certainly die, and Blue Darknut is just one example. Guma’s and Doomknockers are equally annoying since they throw projectiles that you need to carefully watch before striking, while there is some satisfaction to learning enemy patterns, a lot of them can just double-hit you or throw two projectiles one after the other quickly and you’ll get hit, your shield also cannot block certain thrown projectiles, yet can block others. This inconsistency feels unfair and too specific since a player will have to learn the hard way that Oh yeah, your shield can’t block this It's awful. Dealing with projectiles is even worse since all you can really do is jump over them, but that’s not always a luxury you have due to the constraints of the level design.

If you thought Zelda 1 was cryptic, well get ready, because Zelda 2 is just as bad. One of my favorite examples is the hidden town within a forest you have to reveal by smashing the forest tile with the hammer item. While Zelda 1 was cryptic, it was at least somewhat logical, “fire burns bush” and “walls can be bombed”. Zelda 2 says to hell with logic, hammer cuts down forest I guess. There’s a hidden wall in a you can just walk through, there is zero indication of this, which probably left many players very lost and confused in that temple. There’s a town where you need to use a specific spell in a specific area to spawn a tower that has an item inside that would greatly benefit you to have. The list goes on, but Zelda 2 is as much, if not more of a guide game than Zelda 1 was I think. I personally used a guide for this playthrough, because for one: I was already not thrilled to be playing this game and wanted it to be over with quickly. And two: I legit would not have figured any of this out without a guide anyway, it made the already terrible experience smoother at least, but in my mind I always thought “how were you supposed to figure that out?” Again, Zelda 1 has this issue, and one thing I didn’t touch on that applies to both games are the items you get. They have no description or instruction, so you either need the instruction booklet that came with these games, or you have to be incredibly insightful to know what they did. I think Zelda 2 gets away with this more though since most items are passive and have dedicated buttons for them in the Overworld such as the hammer and flute respectively.

Level design in Zelda 2 is outright awful as well. Link’s jump is incredibly stiff and the apex of its height is finicky to figure out and utilize. A lot of later platforming sections demand you understand this, or else you’re taking a dive into a pit or some nice warm lava. The platforming is insufferable due to obstacles such as bubbles, enemy placement where they can hit you, or requiring specific magic spells to even overcome. Since Link gets knocked back a lot in this game, getting hit near a ledge is guaranteed death. If you need a specific magic spell such as “Jump” to reach an out of reach platform, or get over a large pit, you better have the magic for it. If you don’t, you either need to pray you get a magic potion drop, or die to fully refill it for you. There’s areas in this game where as soon as you enter a screen, an enemy will already be on top of you, so you have to react instantly or you’re getting hit or worse. There’s a specific screen near the end of the game where an enemy legit spawns on top of you and you can’t avoid the damage. So if you went in there with one health left, guess you’re just dead. There’s rooms in this game with enemies constantly spawning that will overwhelm you, and it gets so much worse when you have to platform while dealing with these enemies combined with the knockback and Link’s terrible jump. It feels very reminiscent of Castlevania actually, but I’d much rather be playing that than this game. It just amazes me a lot of this made it into the game, and this isn’t an inconsistent issue, most of this game is plagued by these problems, and it only gets worse the more demanding the game gets, on top of introducing harder enemies that hit like trucks, I legitimately don’t understand how you can beat this game without some form of rewind or save-stating. I’ll be the first to admit to using save states for this game, and I’m very glad I did. Had I not, I promise you, I wouldn’t have finished this game, it’d have stayed unfinished, and I would’ve gone straight to A Link To The Past

Now for some other miscellaneous issues. Akin to a platformer, Link now has lives. You start with 3, and there’s a bunch of secret areas in the game to collect more lives, how you’re supposed to find them without a guide, I don't know, though none of them are so overly cryptic to find really, it’s just a matter of exploring in this case. My issue is the finite resources of these extra lives. Every time you die, the game will respawn you in the beginning of the room you died in, which is very generous, I will admit. Once you lose all of your lives though? Well, regardless of where you are, with the exception of the final temple, the game will respawn you at the very beginning of the game. Which means, you will have to travel all the way back to where you need to go, this includes temples. I find it… ridiculous. In Zelda 1, when you died in a dungeon, the game was courteous enough to put you at the start of that temple. In Zelda 2, no, you’re whisked away back to the very start of the game. Not only does Zelda 2 not live up to the first, but is also just regressing in design.

Link doesn’t receive important upgrades early enough in my mind. A move like downward thrust you should get earlier since it’s such an essential move to Link’s kit. Yet in stark contrast, the upward thrust is useless because it doesn’t stay out long enough to even be usable, and there’s not many enemies at the point in the game you get it for it to be worthwhile. I think the cost of the “Life” spell should’ve been reduced, because besides towns and level ups? There are no potions in this game to refill your health, all you get is the life spell. It consumes so much magic, it may not even be worth it, especially when you consider later temples require you have a good amount of magic left to use specific spells to progress like Jump, “Fairy” and “Thunder”. I think the “Fire” spell should be the first or close to the first spell you get. The soundtrack is weaker than Zelda 1’s to me, though the Temple Theme is amazing. A lot of the environments look good in the 2D sections, temples feel a lot weaker to me though. While Zelda 1 re-used a lot of rooms, all the dungeon layouts were different and the different color palettes helped distinguish them all. Zelda 2 I’d say does a good job here as well, while it does have a lot of similar room layouts like Zelda 1, it brings back the concept of each dungeon having its own distinct color. On top of this, the material the temples seem to be made of are also different, a nice visual change to help set them apart is very welcomed. Fairies felt a little too rare in temples and the overworld to be relied on, but are helpful. Towns were a drag to go through, but broke up gameplay I guess, just wasn’t a fan of the fetch-quests just to get a spell I may never use. I hated how you had to hit items like potions, keys, and point bags with your sword to grab them. I actually missed a key by not hitting it because I thought walking over it would pick it up, like Zelda 1, so once again we’re just regressing in design here rather than progressing. My last complaint is the sound design. I don’t like how high-pitched the sword beam is, and stuff like hitting shields, or your shield getting hit doesn’t sound pleasant, really a lot of the sound design in this game sort of grated on me pretty fast, which didn’t help matters by any means.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link by all accounts was a miserable experience. I truly only found the leveling system to be the only thing I enjoyed in this game, yet the restraint it places on the player to only level up a specific stat or grind more points is tedious and badly designed. The rest of it either left me infuriated, annoyed, or bored. I had to abuse many save-states to finish this game, but I honestly don’t mind admitting that because the game doesn’t play fair, so why should I? Special shoutout to the Blue Darknut for being one of the worst enemy’s in any video game ever! I did want to quit playing several times, but I kept my word, and for the integrity of the marathon, Zelda 2 is finished. Will I ever play it again? Nope, not in a million years. I’m just glad it’s over. On a more positive note, the next game in the marathon is A Link To The Past. One of my absolute favorite Zelda games, and honestly one of my favorite games period. I hope you all enjoyed this review, I don’t normally make reviews so negative, but I really had little praise for this game. Though Link To The Past will be far more positive for sure. Until then, thank you all for reading, see you in the next one!

Reyn’s Zelda 2 review - PT’s Zelda 2 review - Steinco’s Zelda 2 review

After beating Half-Life 2, I felt somewhat nostalgic about the first Half-Life, but not enough to replay it, so I decided to finally meet Corporal Shephard, and his infamous standalone DLC, and to my surprise, I actually think this is better than the original game.
Gameplay-wise it is pretty much what I'd expect, but everything now is just so much more creative and intuitive, that I'm led to believe Gearbox actually made a better job than Valve on this one: More weapons, new enemies, better bosses, less Xen, less platforming, and frankly, I'd say the short time it takes to beat it (4.5 hours) made it way more bearable, especially during the final confronts, which are still hard as fuck, but its tolerable now.

I had not heard of Valiant Hearts until less than a week ago. As I fumbled through the PS Plus section of games I saw that it was available to play through it so I thought I just heard about this I guess it’s fate to play this.

Valiant Hearts is a heavy narrative game where you explore areas solving puzzles as you navigate a few wonderful characters through World War I. The puzzles start off very fun but they do start somewhat repeating by late game. Luckily this isn’t that bad as the game only lasts around 5ish hours or so. The gameplay is fun enough but definitely nothing special.

What is absolutely special about this game is the story and the characters. It’s a good dive into war and the effects it can have on people. How most people are just caught up in hell because of choices beyond their control and doing their best to navigate the cards they’ve been handed. I quickly fell in love with Emile, Karl, Marie, Victor, Freddie, Anne, and one of the greatest doggos in gaming Walt. The love and selflessness throughout the game between them is heartwarming. There are so many emotions that I went through from genuine joy to feeling heartbreak. I have only teared up a few times playing games but there is one part in the game, if you have played the game you know the part I’m talking about, that really really got to me. It was easily a top 3 most emotional moment in any game I’ve ever played. This story and its characters are the reason you need to play this.

It is easily one of the most underrated games that more people need to know is out there waiting for them. This an easy recommendation for literally anyone no matter what kind of games you are into.

It barely made my top 100 for the time being:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/my-favorite-100-video-game-of-all-time/


My 2024 ranked:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2024-ranked-1/