Turquoisephoenix
2017
I'm genuinely saddened by the fact that this is a Nintendo IP because I just know that's going to end up like StarTropics and just languish forever in Nintendo's company portfolio as "that weird thing that failed" rather than receive a sequel/spiritual successor that irons out all of the rough spots. There's some great ideas here! The execution is a little rough and the combat is boring, but hey, I appreciate the spirit.
It's pretty clear that the people developing this were hoping that this was going to be a smash hit, right down to a species designed with the specific purpose of becoming marketable plushies. Someone really wanted those Noot birds to be on phone cases and keychains.
I also love that Nintendo has an IP where the main story is "the apocalypse happened, most of the cities are dead, humanity is also dead, and the wilderness is a bleak wasteland of sand". They tried to soften the blow by having a localization where the words "Squee" and "Rawr" are honest-to-god used in a 2017 release, but man, we could've had a Nintendo franchise where the premise was "global warming fucked us all over, go time manage your desert survivor town and hope that this named character doesn't die like the other named characters".
It's pretty clear that the people developing this were hoping that this was going to be a smash hit, right down to a species designed with the specific purpose of becoming marketable plushies. Someone really wanted those Noot birds to be on phone cases and keychains.
I also love that Nintendo has an IP where the main story is "the apocalypse happened, most of the cities are dead, humanity is also dead, and the wilderness is a bleak wasteland of sand". They tried to soften the blow by having a localization where the words "Squee" and "Rawr" are honest-to-god used in a 2017 release, but man, we could've had a Nintendo franchise where the premise was "global warming fucked us all over, go time manage your desert survivor town and hope that this named character doesn't die like the other named characters".
2008
This game came with a coupon for a free fish taco from Wahoo's that I still haven't redeemed because it turns out this game became a bit of a collector's item over time and I don't want to depreciate the value of an over 100 dollar Wii game by trying to cash in on a promotion from over ten years ago. Decent remake otherwise though (as long as you're not playing the English voice track).
1995
I was having an okay time until the game had the audacity to say "This is a puzzle piece! You need 8 to access the boss door!" and spit in my face. Fuck you too, Jelly Boy.
This was the last thing I ever rented at Blockbuster before it went bankrupt and every location in my state shut down and part of me wishes I kept the game and its iconic Blockbuster case as a tragic little memento.
I wouldn't be replaying it in this scenario, mind. This game works far better as a morbid conversation starter than as a video game you play.
I wouldn't be replaying it in this scenario, mind. This game works far better as a morbid conversation starter than as a video game you play.
I love that this game answers the question "Do the other creatures cook and eat the anthropomorphic food in Cuphead?" with "Yes they do, and it's a horrifying act of murder".
2005
This is one of those uniquely bad games where I both hate it but also feel like more people should experience it. It's just such a weird fit for this franchise that also kinda flies under the radar when people talk Spyro. I mean, look at the box art. Look at Spyro's superhero pose and the muted painterly style combined with his 90's era platformer hero design. The whole game's like that.
Shadow Legacy tries so hard to be a love letter to all the previous Spyro games with constant reminders to earlier games while also throwing the charm and story tone of the previous games away in favor of more muted color palettes and a darker story with spiky tentacles and void monsters.
In some ways, you can call this game the bridge between the Classic Spyro era and The Legend of Spyro era, which is why the game feels like an awkward mishmash of two different flavors that just don't taste great together. All of your loved ones are pulled into an alternate shadow dimension and drained of their life force in this game where you also help an armadillo dressed as a cowboy find true love, which would sound interesting if done right but instead both of these scenarios have the most boring by-the-numbers writing and lack any charm that never revels in any of the absurdity. Red, the main bad guy from Spyro: A Hero's Tail, gets a redemption arc in this game and not a single Spyro fan cares because the script is as muddy and dull as these muted purples I'm constantly being bombarded with as I play this game.
As for the gameplay, it's bad. You need to draw a triangle on the touch screen to open the map. The X button is used for opening doors, activating portals, and attacking enemies, which will backfire on you multiple times. Combat is mindless. The perspective issues of the GBA games are even worse here.
And yet...I feel like this game needs to be seen by more people. This is crap but every Spyro fan needs to see the awkward attempts at new Spyro lore like "Hunter's father is losing his eyesight from The Darkness" and "Moneybags has a wife and four sons, and his four sons might be a reference to DuckTales". Bad game, gets a higher score than it deserves for being this bizarre mix of dull and fascinating.
Shadow Legacy tries so hard to be a love letter to all the previous Spyro games with constant reminders to earlier games while also throwing the charm and story tone of the previous games away in favor of more muted color palettes and a darker story with spiky tentacles and void monsters.
In some ways, you can call this game the bridge between the Classic Spyro era and The Legend of Spyro era, which is why the game feels like an awkward mishmash of two different flavors that just don't taste great together. All of your loved ones are pulled into an alternate shadow dimension and drained of their life force in this game where you also help an armadillo dressed as a cowboy find true love, which would sound interesting if done right but instead both of these scenarios have the most boring by-the-numbers writing and lack any charm that never revels in any of the absurdity. Red, the main bad guy from Spyro: A Hero's Tail, gets a redemption arc in this game and not a single Spyro fan cares because the script is as muddy and dull as these muted purples I'm constantly being bombarded with as I play this game.
As for the gameplay, it's bad. You need to draw a triangle on the touch screen to open the map. The X button is used for opening doors, activating portals, and attacking enemies, which will backfire on you multiple times. Combat is mindless. The perspective issues of the GBA games are even worse here.
And yet...I feel like this game needs to be seen by more people. This is crap but every Spyro fan needs to see the awkward attempts at new Spyro lore like "Hunter's father is losing his eyesight from The Darkness" and "Moneybags has a wife and four sons, and his four sons might be a reference to DuckTales". Bad game, gets a higher score than it deserves for being this bizarre mix of dull and fascinating.
I told a kid on my block back in grade school that there was a secret bad ending in this game where Luther gets killed in an underwater avalanche and he believed me, so imagine my surprise finding out almost two decades later that there's a hidden cutscene in the game's files where Luther gets killed and eaten by Eddie the Eel. I guess I was telling the truth all those years ago but just got the method of death wrong. Childhood vindication.
This is a showcase of baffling business decisions. I really want to know how the creators of this game landed on the final decision that was "Sparx the Dragonfly needs to be voiced by David Spade - and yes, we WILL spend the money in order to have a celebrity voice our dragonfly - and he needs to look like a creepy little human with weird bug abs". There are blogs dedicated to how Spyro Reignited ruined the Playstation games' aesthetics with their design changes (and honestly, not knocking the existence of said blogs since the PS1 Spyro games are visual works of art that carefully chose the most effective color palettes) but those are nothing compared to the lawless land of the early 2000's where a bunch of people in a board room gathered around and were like "what if the little bug from the old games is the one-liner spouting comic relief and he's voiced by an SNL cast member".
"Well surely the rest of the game makes up for it, right?" No, it's painfully mediocre. Like every other aging platformer star trying to release a game in the mid-2000's to show that they're still relevant damnit, this game has a combat-based fighting system! Hell yes, just like Crash of the Titans, Sonic Unleashed, Pac-Man World 3, and god knows who else, I have to sit there and watch Spyro repeatively smack an enemy like an idiot while enemy fights constantly interrupt level flow because Gameplay, I guess. The one saving grace is that it becomes extremely easy to cheese the combat system with certain breath abilities so that you can just breeze through this game and admire the two things that aren't embarrassing, which are the soundtrack and the environmental design.
Also, the fact that this game opens with Spyro's egg drifting down the river like the story of Moses from the Bible while DAVID SPADE, ELIJAH WOOD, AND GARY OLDMAN AS IGNITUS dramatically flash across the screen and as the orchestra swells is...incredible. There are many cutscenes in this game that almost feel like parody but no, they are taking this Chosen One Born Special Magically Purple shit 100% seriously. Kids on DeviantArt ate this melodramatic story up at its release but I can't help but look at it and go "you were so lazy in penning this Chosen One story that you tied Spyro's Heroic Specialness to his skin color".
At least the music's nice and it's a very purdy Gamecube game. I just wish it had actual substance.
"Well surely the rest of the game makes up for it, right?" No, it's painfully mediocre. Like every other aging platformer star trying to release a game in the mid-2000's to show that they're still relevant damnit, this game has a combat-based fighting system! Hell yes, just like Crash of the Titans, Sonic Unleashed, Pac-Man World 3, and god knows who else, I have to sit there and watch Spyro repeatively smack an enemy like an idiot while enemy fights constantly interrupt level flow because Gameplay, I guess. The one saving grace is that it becomes extremely easy to cheese the combat system with certain breath abilities so that you can just breeze through this game and admire the two things that aren't embarrassing, which are the soundtrack and the environmental design.
Also, the fact that this game opens with Spyro's egg drifting down the river like the story of Moses from the Bible while DAVID SPADE, ELIJAH WOOD, AND GARY OLDMAN AS IGNITUS dramatically flash across the screen and as the orchestra swells is...incredible. There are many cutscenes in this game that almost feel like parody but no, they are taking this Chosen One Born Special Magically Purple shit 100% seriously. Kids on DeviantArt ate this melodramatic story up at its release but I can't help but look at it and go "you were so lazy in penning this Chosen One story that you tied Spyro's Heroic Specialness to his skin color".
At least the music's nice and it's a very purdy Gamecube game. I just wish it had actual substance.
2019
It's so satisfying to play a once-popular meme game long after the Youtube/Twitch spotlight has faded and finding out that it's a really charming little experience that still holds up on its own.
Also this game is way more British than I was expecting.
Also this game is way more British than I was expecting.
Mario & Luigi is a Shakespearean tragedy of a game series, where the sequels to a fantastic take on the RPG formula slowly get worse (except for Bowser's Inside Story, which miraculously dodges the curse) until the tail end of the franchise feels worn out and tired. I both miss AlphaDream but also acknowledge the diminishing returns. Dream Team believes itself to be a solid game because it's getting up in your face and shouting "Here's Bowser's Inside Story again, but we changed Bowser's guts into Luigi's brain! Look, we even brought back the Giant Battles because that was also a feature in that game! We brought back those block guys from Bowser's Inside Story! Don't you just love Bowser's Inside Story?!" like a desperate ex-lover but instead it's just. Boring.
I wanted to like this game! I really did! For a while, Antasma and the stuff with Dreambert and the Pi'illo Kingdom fooled me into thinking I was in for an engrossing tale of rebuilding a lost civilization. It's when I realized - either by helping yet another uninteresting block person or that section of the game where I had to keep expanding a dream world by talking to some seahorse only to find out that haha, it was all a time-wasting ploy by the bad guy heehoo - that the game was just here to waste my time rather than tell a story that the colorful candy coating started to rub off. Dream Team thinks it's funnier than it is, and feels like a series of disconnected quirky scenes designed to be screencapped and shared on Miiverse as a "haha funny quote" moment rather than actually being funny and moving any sort of plot forward. Dream Team wants to be the source of a meme so bad. You can just feel it in its DNA.
This game's biggest crime (besides it just being uninteresting and for being a 40 hour RPG with no plot) is that it feels all over the place in terms of difficulty. The tutorials are relentlessly everywhere and the game refuses to let go of your hand but, inexplicably, the battles in this game are some of the hardest in the entire franchise. Why am I receiving a tutorial that tells me that circle pad moves Mario 30 hours into a playthrough in the same game that also gives me a final boss gauntlet where multiple bosses have the ability to heal 200 HP a turn. Is this meant to be baby's first video game or am I expected to be a veteran to Mario & Luigi because, despite what the game believes, I can't be both!
I will give the game some credit where it's due - this game is probably one of the more impressive uses of the 3DS's 3D on the entire system. The combination of character sprites juxtaposed on 3D environments works way better than you'd think and makes for an impressive art style and a very fleshed out battle system. Yoko Shimomura is also putting her heart and soul into this soundtrack and making the speakers burst into flame during every boss battle. I just...wish these graphics were in a better game. One that respected my time better.
P.S. Fuck the gyro controls. I get it, Nintendo. You just love your waggle. But also I shouldn't have to be left to the cruel, unfeeling whims of the motion control gods in a game where the battle system will punish me for poor timing.
I wanted to like this game! I really did! For a while, Antasma and the stuff with Dreambert and the Pi'illo Kingdom fooled me into thinking I was in for an engrossing tale of rebuilding a lost civilization. It's when I realized - either by helping yet another uninteresting block person or that section of the game where I had to keep expanding a dream world by talking to some seahorse only to find out that haha, it was all a time-wasting ploy by the bad guy heehoo - that the game was just here to waste my time rather than tell a story that the colorful candy coating started to rub off. Dream Team thinks it's funnier than it is, and feels like a series of disconnected quirky scenes designed to be screencapped and shared on Miiverse as a "haha funny quote" moment rather than actually being funny and moving any sort of plot forward. Dream Team wants to be the source of a meme so bad. You can just feel it in its DNA.
This game's biggest crime (besides it just being uninteresting and for being a 40 hour RPG with no plot) is that it feels all over the place in terms of difficulty. The tutorials are relentlessly everywhere and the game refuses to let go of your hand but, inexplicably, the battles in this game are some of the hardest in the entire franchise. Why am I receiving a tutorial that tells me that circle pad moves Mario 30 hours into a playthrough in the same game that also gives me a final boss gauntlet where multiple bosses have the ability to heal 200 HP a turn. Is this meant to be baby's first video game or am I expected to be a veteran to Mario & Luigi because, despite what the game believes, I can't be both!
I will give the game some credit where it's due - this game is probably one of the more impressive uses of the 3DS's 3D on the entire system. The combination of character sprites juxtaposed on 3D environments works way better than you'd think and makes for an impressive art style and a very fleshed out battle system. Yoko Shimomura is also putting her heart and soul into this soundtrack and making the speakers burst into flame during every boss battle. I just...wish these graphics were in a better game. One that respected my time better.
P.S. Fuck the gyro controls. I get it, Nintendo. You just love your waggle. But also I shouldn't have to be left to the cruel, unfeeling whims of the motion control gods in a game where the battle system will punish me for poor timing.
2021
My PS Plus Extra subscription is inspiring me to make bad decisions and a friend did tell me that the PS5 version is "the best one".
Well, I did it. After abandoning the Switch version, I finally beat Balan Wonderworld. I got every costume and beat the extra acts too, just for good measure. I have 41 out of 47 trophies and that's where I'm stopping because I sure as hell ain't getting the Platinum and those Balan Bout statues can kiss my ass.
What are my thoughts? It's bad! It's bad for all the reasons that people say it's bad but the most frustrating thing to me is it doesn't even fully commit to the bit! I wanted to fully immerse myself in those goofy musical theater flash dances and they reuse the same four songs! The game wants to be whimsical so bad but feels like it stops itself before it gets too weird and this game of all games needed to be weirder.
BUT there's more to it than that.
After putting 20 hours of my life into this thing, I truly believe Balan Wonderworld is one of those bad games that needs to be experienced, albeit very cheaply (I've seen this game hover around the five dollar price tag) or with a subscription service. Watching a review or stream of this just isn't enough. You need to live through Balan's Wretched Wonderworld. You just don't know how bad the Balan Bouts are until you try to make a serious effort in getting all the statues and you screw up the last button input in a 6 prompt QTE. You just don't know how bad the grinding portion of this game is until you have to fight a boss again and again just to reset a world so that raindrops, minibosses, and eggs respawn. The Tower of Tims needs 24,000 spins of that Tim Wheel for a trophy. I hatched and bred 100 Tims for another. It took me 25 soft resets for the Tim of Legend. Balan Wonderworld is not just bad, it's relentless.
This was an accomplishment in just how much I can endure before I call it quits, but this game truly earned its reputation. My time on this planet is finite and this is how I used it, and I do hope others do the same because sometimes, consuming bad 3D platformers make you better appreciate the decisions made in better games like Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko, Vexx, Ice Age: Scrat's Nutty Adventure, and Dr. Muto.
Well, I did it. After abandoning the Switch version, I finally beat Balan Wonderworld. I got every costume and beat the extra acts too, just for good measure. I have 41 out of 47 trophies and that's where I'm stopping because I sure as hell ain't getting the Platinum and those Balan Bout statues can kiss my ass.
What are my thoughts? It's bad! It's bad for all the reasons that people say it's bad but the most frustrating thing to me is it doesn't even fully commit to the bit! I wanted to fully immerse myself in those goofy musical theater flash dances and they reuse the same four songs! The game wants to be whimsical so bad but feels like it stops itself before it gets too weird and this game of all games needed to be weirder.
BUT there's more to it than that.
After putting 20 hours of my life into this thing, I truly believe Balan Wonderworld is one of those bad games that needs to be experienced, albeit very cheaply (I've seen this game hover around the five dollar price tag) or with a subscription service. Watching a review or stream of this just isn't enough. You need to live through Balan's Wretched Wonderworld. You just don't know how bad the Balan Bouts are until you try to make a serious effort in getting all the statues and you screw up the last button input in a 6 prompt QTE. You just don't know how bad the grinding portion of this game is until you have to fight a boss again and again just to reset a world so that raindrops, minibosses, and eggs respawn. The Tower of Tims needs 24,000 spins of that Tim Wheel for a trophy. I hatched and bred 100 Tims for another. It took me 25 soft resets for the Tim of Legend. Balan Wonderworld is not just bad, it's relentless.
This was an accomplishment in just how much I can endure before I call it quits, but this game truly earned its reputation. My time on this planet is finite and this is how I used it, and I do hope others do the same because sometimes, consuming bad 3D platformers make you better appreciate the decisions made in better games like Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko, Vexx, Ice Age: Scrat's Nutty Adventure, and Dr. Muto.
Day 25: Morale growing low. Still hunting for Wiggler segments. I enter yet another dark-poison-pond-and-tree-trunk-with-Snifits-and-Ninjis themed level. What was once scoffed at for being the same dull Mario grassland and desert levels have now become bittersweet memories. I no longer remember the sun as I take 2 more damage by accidentally running into yet another poison puddle. God help me. God help us all.
I thought this game was going to do what previous DQM games have done by having Psaro be transported into a wacky alternate dimension to have his little Pokemon adventure but no, Dragon Quest IV just starts happening during gameplay. Psaro will lay waste to a village as The Manslayer and then go "Excuse me, I gotta frolic in a candy and gumdrop wonderland with my girlfriend now" and I'm supposed to just accept it as canon now. Which I will, because I'm not a coward.
It's a short and harmless game that's easy to platinum, but I can't help but feel that it leans a little too hard on the "it's meant for kids!" excuse to explain its own mediocrity.
The best part of this game? The fact that none of the voice actors from the TV show bothered to show up, so a bunch of English anime dub talent had to fill in.
The best part of this game? The fact that none of the voice actors from the TV show bothered to show up, so a bunch of English anime dub talent had to fill in.
Sunsoft made two Beauty and the Beast games for the Sega Genesis and, somehow, the game where Belle slowly walks through some mazes and awkwardly ducks to avoid bats and small birds is a better Beauty and the Beast game than the one where you control the Beast and fight through crowds of wolves and villagers.
"How did they do it?" I'm glad you asked! All they had to do was make the Beast control like shit (he can't even run!) and for all of his attacks to have really wonky, small hitboxes after a very long wind-up. Get used to seeing that random bear in the castle dining hall because it's going to be a major roadblock in your adventure.
Also this game has the sheer audacity to do the Lost Levels thing by having poison food floating around the levels - I think the manual refers to it as "deadly nightshade" - only the poison food also has the same color palette as the first level, making it nearly invisible on most TV displays. For the first ten minutes of this game I literally did not know why I was taking damage during a very specific jump and thought the game was bugged. Nah, it was just nearly invisible poison food floating near the top of the screen. You know, that very famous scene from the Disney movie.
However, while this game is, as they say on the Internet, "very bad", it's at least very entertaining. I finished this game just because I wanted to see what stupid thing it was going to do next and honestly, that's more than I can say about some titles. I wish the Sunsoft Beauty and the Beast games were more well-known in bad video game circles because they're the true cream of the crap. Bubsy has nothing on Disney's The Beast getting his entire day ruined by this random asshole bear hanging out in his dining room. These games deserved a better fate than complete obscurity.
"How did they do it?" I'm glad you asked! All they had to do was make the Beast control like shit (he can't even run!) and for all of his attacks to have really wonky, small hitboxes after a very long wind-up. Get used to seeing that random bear in the castle dining hall because it's going to be a major roadblock in your adventure.
Also this game has the sheer audacity to do the Lost Levels thing by having poison food floating around the levels - I think the manual refers to it as "deadly nightshade" - only the poison food also has the same color palette as the first level, making it nearly invisible on most TV displays. For the first ten minutes of this game I literally did not know why I was taking damage during a very specific jump and thought the game was bugged. Nah, it was just nearly invisible poison food floating near the top of the screen. You know, that very famous scene from the Disney movie.
However, while this game is, as they say on the Internet, "very bad", it's at least very entertaining. I finished this game just because I wanted to see what stupid thing it was going to do next and honestly, that's more than I can say about some titles. I wish the Sunsoft Beauty and the Beast games were more well-known in bad video game circles because they're the true cream of the crap. Bubsy has nothing on Disney's The Beast getting his entire day ruined by this random asshole bear hanging out in his dining room. These games deserved a better fate than complete obscurity.