Turquoisephoenix
I played this in the Cowabunga Collection, so I actually had some conflicting feelings calling this "completed". I didn't so much "beat" the Genesis version of Tournament Fighters as I did "endured" it, I thought. They gave me the tools necessary in which to see the end credits (a rewind feature) and by god, I used it until the CPU thought I was some sort of inhuman anime protagonist capable of reading all the minute movements of my opponent.
Then I realized "You know what? I shouldn't feel bad. If the CPU can cheat and one-shot me with four cheap combos, why not do the same and also cheat?". I didn't want to use the well-documented Casey Jones cheese strat - I wanted to get to the credits as Sisyphus the mutant dung beetle, damnit. Casey can become invulnerable indefinitely but Sisyphus shouts "BUG!" when he wins and his name is a reference to the fact that his species rolls around giant boulders of shit. Casey Jones may have infinite I-frames but Sisyphus has charisma.
The phrase "Wow, I don't think anyone play-tested this!" gets tossed around a lot when talking about badly balanced video games as a little cutesy insult, but I firmly believe that either there was no QnA process beyond "well the game doesn't hard-lock or give anyone seizures when I do this" or the guy they got to playtest this was some sort of futuristic cyborg who assumed that humanity had reached the same level of dexterity and cat-like reflexes in 1993. This game hates you in such a comical supervillain fashion that I picture the I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream monologue whenever I'm projectilelocked into oblivion.
"Okay okay but what about the rest of the game?" you might be asking. Well, even if you get past the fact that the CPU wants your fleshy appendages to bleed and decide to play with someone with a pulse, you're still playing a downgraded version of TMNT: Tournament Fighters. The SNES version just looks and sounds better. Sure, you and your friends probably didn't know any better in the 90's when you were playing this game on the Sonic Console, but now it feels like you're eating stale crumbs from Nintendo's pizza box when you sample the multiplayer.
But there is one redeeming factor. Man Ray (sorry, Ray Fillet as this game coins him) and my boy Sisyphus are only playable in this game. In fact, this is the only appearance of Sisyphus in the entire franchise. Godspeed, Sisyphus. You're punching angels in heaven now.
Then I realized "You know what? I shouldn't feel bad. If the CPU can cheat and one-shot me with four cheap combos, why not do the same and also cheat?". I didn't want to use the well-documented Casey Jones cheese strat - I wanted to get to the credits as Sisyphus the mutant dung beetle, damnit. Casey can become invulnerable indefinitely but Sisyphus shouts "BUG!" when he wins and his name is a reference to the fact that his species rolls around giant boulders of shit. Casey Jones may have infinite I-frames but Sisyphus has charisma.
The phrase "Wow, I don't think anyone play-tested this!" gets tossed around a lot when talking about badly balanced video games as a little cutesy insult, but I firmly believe that either there was no QnA process beyond "well the game doesn't hard-lock or give anyone seizures when I do this" or the guy they got to playtest this was some sort of futuristic cyborg who assumed that humanity had reached the same level of dexterity and cat-like reflexes in 1993. This game hates you in such a comical supervillain fashion that I picture the I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream monologue whenever I'm projectilelocked into oblivion.
"Okay okay but what about the rest of the game?" you might be asking. Well, even if you get past the fact that the CPU wants your fleshy appendages to bleed and decide to play with someone with a pulse, you're still playing a downgraded version of TMNT: Tournament Fighters. The SNES version just looks and sounds better. Sure, you and your friends probably didn't know any better in the 90's when you were playing this game on the Sonic Console, but now it feels like you're eating stale crumbs from Nintendo's pizza box when you sample the multiplayer.
But there is one redeeming factor. Man Ray (sorry, Ray Fillet as this game coins him) and my boy Sisyphus are only playable in this game. In fact, this is the only appearance of Sisyphus in the entire franchise. Godspeed, Sisyphus. You're punching angels in heaven now.
It really does show how much the early Game Boy games were advancing on the new technology in such a short amount of time when Fall of the Foot Clan, released less than a year after Castlevania: The Adventure, feels and plays leagues better when they both have the same gameplay of "hero slowly walks sideways and hits enemies until they reach the boss".
I still wouldn't call this a great game by any means, and like Castlevania: The Adventure you can really feel its age as an early GB title, but it's at least playable. They gave you enough reaction time for the countless enemy spawns so deaths didn't feel cheap, which almost feels like a blessing for games this old, and the sprites are nice to look at too. I love that they gave Michelangelo a little nunchuck twirl for his sprite.
Also hearing the TMNT theme song in the Game Boy sound font rules. This game may be old and crusty but that song still slaps.
I still wouldn't call this a great game by any means, and like Castlevania: The Adventure you can really feel its age as an early GB title, but it's at least playable. They gave you enough reaction time for the countless enemy spawns so deaths didn't feel cheap, which almost feels like a blessing for games this old, and the sprites are nice to look at too. I love that they gave Michelangelo a little nunchuck twirl for his sprite.
Also hearing the TMNT theme song in the Game Boy sound font rules. This game may be old and crusty but that song still slaps.
1980
Playing several hours of this game to get a "reach level 10 in the original Pac-Man" trophy in the Pac-Man World remake actually gave me a brand new appreciation for this game, especially with the enemy AI. While there are some very reliable paths to take that allow you to cheese most of the dot collection, I eventually found myself learning enemy patterns and was able to react to the ghosts a lot better. And they had pretty different patterns! Neat little piece of programming history, and getting to level 10 made me feel like a Capital G Gamer.
However, I do not appreciate the later cinematics that reveal that the "ghosts" are actually wearing clothes and underneath their fabric sheets are sentient blobs of human flesh. Gotta dock a star for those scenes where Blinky's sheet gets caught in a nail and his iconic ghostly form falls apart until he's pathetically crawling along the ground like a depressurized deep sea fish.
However, I do not appreciate the later cinematics that reveal that the "ghosts" are actually wearing clothes and underneath their fabric sheets are sentient blobs of human flesh. Gotta dock a star for those scenes where Blinky's sheet gets caught in a nail and his iconic ghostly form falls apart until he's pathetically crawling along the ground like a depressurized deep sea fish.
2018
As a bisexual, I'm very grateful that this game didn't come out during my Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and Greco-Roman Mythology phase in middle school because I don't think my grades would've survived the impact.
2008
My favorite part of this game is how you can create infinite money by finding a man with a hand puppet in the city, buying the random item that he's selling below market value, and selling it back to him over and over until you have enough money to buy souvenirs for some old college professor and multiple stacks of 99 steaks for Sonic to eat to gain XP.
Sonic Unleashed is great because it's just full of useless mechanics like this. It's also terrible for the same reason.
Sonic Unleashed is great because it's just full of useless mechanics like this. It's also terrible for the same reason.
Sure, this game is exactly what you'd picture in your head when you read the phrase "a GBA port of Zapper: One Wicked Cricket" but something about a handheld game imitating the same one-hit-kill and save point starvation gameplay as its console predecessor feels bad. This is supposed to be the version of the game that you take on a car ride to Nana's house and it wants you do these grueling yet boring 30 minute maze gauntlets in one go while the soundtrack is digitally farting into your ear.
1994
My opinion of this game constantly fluctuates between "this game gets too much hate and I've played so many other Genesis/SNES Disney games that were far more unforgiving than this" and "I've owned this game since I was five but only managed to get to the end credits when I was in my twenties so yeah maybe it's a little too hard...".
Still one of the better 16-bit Disney games, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view.
Still one of the better 16-bit Disney games, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view.
"Okay, team. We need a flashy game mechanic will set us apart from the other 2D platformers on the Game Boy Color. Any ideas?"
"What if we made timed gate puzzles...but you have to carefully aim llama spit into a spittoon to activate the gate?!"
(the entire room erupts into cheers)
"What if we made timed gate puzzles...but you have to carefully aim llama spit into a spittoon to activate the gate?!"
(the entire room erupts into cheers)
When you think about it, this game is a perfect metaphor for having depression in your twenties. The world's falling apart around you, staring into the mirror gives you suicidal urges, you're unsure if conversations are real or figments of the past, time seems ephemeral, you're wearing cat ears in public...
1994
"These four minigames are okay but I'm getting pretty bored of them. When am I going to unlock the rest of the game?"
"..."
"..."
"...oh. Oh this is the game..."
"..."
"..."
"...oh. Oh this is the game..."
This is one of those scenarios where the sequel is mechanically better than the first game in a lot of ways but that first game had that special something about it, you know? Will of the Wisps has far better movement tech and locales but the tradeoff is that a lot of the new additions like the sidequests and the currency system feel a little undercooked and the story feels weaker.
Ah yes, the story. Not gonna lie, the story is a bit of a mess that feels like it's trying really hard to hit those Oscar Award highs that the first game did but instead events just kinda happen without much impact beyond "this is Sad and Meaningful I Guess". The main villain in particular just felt like a less interesting version of Kuro from the first game, and the cutscene where they explain her backstory - instead of leaving a super strong impression like the scene with Kuro's nest in Blind Forest - almost came off as comical from the way they overdid it with the judgemental owl heads looming over her. At one point the game throws in an ancient prophecy complete with murals hidden in some desert ruins which...kinda makes a crucial moment at the end of the game less impactful because it feels less like a choice made by the character and more like something the character has to do to move the story along, and really, the game's writing is like that the entire game.
Also, gotta say. It really sucks that Blind Forest's big story theme was about Family and then this sequel immediately separates Ori from their family for the entire game save for the opening and ending cinematics. At least have Naru and Gumo hanging out in Wellspring Glades giving out words of encouragement instead of sticking them on a raft for the entire game, come on.
Of course, I really only have a beef with the story. The rest of the game, where you gradually give a glowing bunnydog enough jump abilities until they can launch themselves through mazes of spikes without breaking a sweat because you saw a glowing purple rock at the end, is a hell of a lot of fun. Ori's jumps are floaty, but the adjustment period from "damn I fell into some spikes" to "I just wall-jumped through a corridor of lasers" felt shorter than in Blind Forest. They try a lot of new movement mechanics in this one and they all feel great.
Just try not to think too hard about the story or question whether or not you're actually having fun constructing that one town, you'll only hurt yourself.
(Also this game has minor performance issues including annoying loading times when opening your map on the Switch but that's to be expected)
Ah yes, the story. Not gonna lie, the story is a bit of a mess that feels like it's trying really hard to hit those Oscar Award highs that the first game did but instead events just kinda happen without much impact beyond "this is Sad and Meaningful I Guess". The main villain in particular just felt like a less interesting version of Kuro from the first game, and the cutscene where they explain her backstory - instead of leaving a super strong impression like the scene with Kuro's nest in Blind Forest - almost came off as comical from the way they overdid it with the judgemental owl heads looming over her. At one point the game throws in an ancient prophecy complete with murals hidden in some desert ruins which...kinda makes a crucial moment at the end of the game less impactful because it feels less like a choice made by the character and more like something the character has to do to move the story along, and really, the game's writing is like that the entire game.
Also, gotta say. It really sucks that Blind Forest's big story theme was about Family and then this sequel immediately separates Ori from their family for the entire game save for the opening and ending cinematics. At least have Naru and Gumo hanging out in Wellspring Glades giving out words of encouragement instead of sticking them on a raft for the entire game, come on.
Of course, I really only have a beef with the story. The rest of the game, where you gradually give a glowing bunnydog enough jump abilities until they can launch themselves through mazes of spikes without breaking a sweat because you saw a glowing purple rock at the end, is a hell of a lot of fun. Ori's jumps are floaty, but the adjustment period from "damn I fell into some spikes" to "I just wall-jumped through a corridor of lasers" felt shorter than in Blind Forest. They try a lot of new movement mechanics in this one and they all feel great.
Just try not to think too hard about the story or question whether or not you're actually having fun constructing that one town, you'll only hurt yourself.
(Also this game has minor performance issues including annoying loading times when opening your map on the Switch but that's to be expected)
Absolute bottom tier Puyo Puyo clone. When you exist in a world that already has Mean Bean Machine, you gotta do more to justify your weird animated show branding by being interesting or fun and Wacky Stackers does neither.
The puzzle mode is at least fine but I'm not sure how I feel about it replacing the more traditional 1P vs COM missions as a story mode.
The puzzle mode is at least fine but I'm not sure how I feel about it replacing the more traditional 1P vs COM missions as a story mode.
I have played flash games made by 14-year olds on Newgrounds in the year 2005 that had a better understanding of how side-scrolling beat-em-ups were supposed to play than this game.
The only reason you're going to hear about this game nowadays is because it's one of the rarest Game Boy Advance games of all time and, let's be real, if you're going to spend $150 on a GBA cartridge, the better option is Urban Yeti.
The only reason you're going to hear about this game nowadays is because it's one of the rarest Game Boy Advance games of all time and, let's be real, if you're going to spend $150 on a GBA cartridge, the better option is Urban Yeti.
2015
Tearaway is one of those games where the developers took a perfectly charming narrative-driven 3D platformer that they just made and decided "hmm the run time is a little low, we should add more collectables to pad out the gameplay" so now it's a collectathon against its will.
This game works in direct conflict with itself. The art style is gorgeous and I love this papercraft world, its paper foldout inhabitants, and its deliberate use of stop motion-esque animation frame delays to give it that tactile feel. I'm even finding myself invested in the whimsical "fix the hole in the sky to stop the newspaper scraps" plot. The problem is, while I'm in this world, the game wants me to pick up every piece of tiny floating confetti or else the giant numbers on my multiple pause menus are not going to read 100% and I'm not going to get the shiny papercraft medal next to the level's name.
I'm not a person that hates 3D Collectathons. My favorite games are colorful, bouncy 3D platformers where I collect all the things so that the save file reads 100%. I gave Donkey Kong 64 a 4/5 on this very website. You know things are dire when I've been forged in the fires of the most asinine N64 and Gamecube-era collectathons and even I'M looking at these confetti requirements and going "Really..? We're doing this?"
The main reason is the bugs. Similar to Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet, this game has a rich, wonderful art style full of paper scraps, wind physics, and billowing pathways that sadly also means that level geometry isn't as solid as you would like. I've gotten myself stuck on at least ten separate occasions during my playthrough for doing things like "Jump in the wrong place and land where I'm not supposed to", "Accidentally push an enemy into the wall with a gust of wind and the door will not open since the enemy didn't die so I have to reset a checkpoint", or even "accidentally holding onto the control stick during a cutscene only for my character to instantly die from a bottomless pit because they somehow phased through reality during a camera cut". I like it when collectathons are, you know, not buggy.
When I'm just bouncing around in a level and not paying attention to weird little collectables, I'm also not going to pay attention to things like a slightly unforgiving camera or my little guy regularly getting stuck on level geometry because the game is charming enough that I forgive a few minor glitches. But this game makes me pay attention to these things because I have to do escort missions that tell me "you have to physically go into the start menu and restart the level if you die at all during this escort mission", only for me to get trapped in the walls and then plummet through the ground because the game wants me to hold a gopher with separate physics in my hands.
This game puts a fun emphasis on crafting the world around you, but then revisiting certain things in case you want to change the designs means sitting through a lot of unskippable events and talking. If I want to re-customize the Escort Mission Gopher, I have to replay half of a 30 minute level and then hope I don't screw up the Escort Mission I get one shot at. I just wanted to give the gopher dragon wings. Why is this so weirdly tedious.
It sounds like I'm complaining a lot for a game that I'm giving 3 stars, but that's because I really like the game that's buried underneath the garbage. It's just buried under a lot of garbage and makes me look at things within this game and going "Man, Donkey Kong 64 did this better".
Ending still made me cry tho.
This game works in direct conflict with itself. The art style is gorgeous and I love this papercraft world, its paper foldout inhabitants, and its deliberate use of stop motion-esque animation frame delays to give it that tactile feel. I'm even finding myself invested in the whimsical "fix the hole in the sky to stop the newspaper scraps" plot. The problem is, while I'm in this world, the game wants me to pick up every piece of tiny floating confetti or else the giant numbers on my multiple pause menus are not going to read 100% and I'm not going to get the shiny papercraft medal next to the level's name.
I'm not a person that hates 3D Collectathons. My favorite games are colorful, bouncy 3D platformers where I collect all the things so that the save file reads 100%. I gave Donkey Kong 64 a 4/5 on this very website. You know things are dire when I've been forged in the fires of the most asinine N64 and Gamecube-era collectathons and even I'M looking at these confetti requirements and going "Really..? We're doing this?"
The main reason is the bugs. Similar to Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet, this game has a rich, wonderful art style full of paper scraps, wind physics, and billowing pathways that sadly also means that level geometry isn't as solid as you would like. I've gotten myself stuck on at least ten separate occasions during my playthrough for doing things like "Jump in the wrong place and land where I'm not supposed to", "Accidentally push an enemy into the wall with a gust of wind and the door will not open since the enemy didn't die so I have to reset a checkpoint", or even "accidentally holding onto the control stick during a cutscene only for my character to instantly die from a bottomless pit because they somehow phased through reality during a camera cut". I like it when collectathons are, you know, not buggy.
When I'm just bouncing around in a level and not paying attention to weird little collectables, I'm also not going to pay attention to things like a slightly unforgiving camera or my little guy regularly getting stuck on level geometry because the game is charming enough that I forgive a few minor glitches. But this game makes me pay attention to these things because I have to do escort missions that tell me "you have to physically go into the start menu and restart the level if you die at all during this escort mission", only for me to get trapped in the walls and then plummet through the ground because the game wants me to hold a gopher with separate physics in my hands.
This game puts a fun emphasis on crafting the world around you, but then revisiting certain things in case you want to change the designs means sitting through a lot of unskippable events and talking. If I want to re-customize the Escort Mission Gopher, I have to replay half of a 30 minute level and then hope I don't screw up the Escort Mission I get one shot at. I just wanted to give the gopher dragon wings. Why is this so weirdly tedious.
It sounds like I'm complaining a lot for a game that I'm giving 3 stars, but that's because I really like the game that's buried underneath the garbage. It's just buried under a lot of garbage and makes me look at things within this game and going "Man, Donkey Kong 64 did this better".
Ending still made me cry tho.
While I'm not going to go out of my way to call this "underrated" or "a secret hidden gem in the GBC library", I'm stunned at the fact that there is a Disney's Beauty and the Beast Mario Party clone on the Game Boy Color and it's actually okay. This is a decent 90's Mario Party clone. There are three absolutely wretched 2D platformers on the SNES and Sega Genesis that bear this movie's license but somehow the handheld pulled through and gives us a Beauty and the Beast game that's actually playable, and it manages to do this while having a spittoon minigame where you control the strength of Gaston's tobacco-stained spit.
A Board Game Adventure really does feel like a game designed to be picked up and played during a car ride. The save feature is very generous, the boards are small, and the focus is on the minigames, with there only being a small handful of them but with high scores attached to all of them. The actual story mode isn't all that exciting (you know you're in for a very short experience the moment the first board is themed around the mob scene) and you just get three game boards that all travel in a straight line with the goal of racing Gaston to the end, but this definitely feels like it was designed for a kid playing this in the car while their parents drive to Disney World. There's even a Challenge Mode feature where you try to get high scores on all the minigames so if you're thinking to yourself "gee, I'm playing that Maurice's minigame a lot", it's because the game wants you to bounce those logs from now until infinity.
It's a game designed to entertain children for a short period of time, and you know what? That's definitely more than I can say about Roar of the Beast or Beauty and the Beast for the SNES.
A Board Game Adventure really does feel like a game designed to be picked up and played during a car ride. The save feature is very generous, the boards are small, and the focus is on the minigames, with there only being a small handful of them but with high scores attached to all of them. The actual story mode isn't all that exciting (you know you're in for a very short experience the moment the first board is themed around the mob scene) and you just get three game boards that all travel in a straight line with the goal of racing Gaston to the end, but this definitely feels like it was designed for a kid playing this in the car while their parents drive to Disney World. There's even a Challenge Mode feature where you try to get high scores on all the minigames so if you're thinking to yourself "gee, I'm playing that Maurice's minigame a lot", it's because the game wants you to bounce those logs from now until infinity.
It's a game designed to entertain children for a short period of time, and you know what? That's definitely more than I can say about Roar of the Beast or Beauty and the Beast for the SNES.