Bio
I hate video games.
Personal Ratings
1★
5★

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Organized

Created a list folder with 5+ lists

GOTY '23

Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event

Roadtrip

Voted for at least 3 features on the roadmap

Donor

Liked 50+ reviews / lists

Loved

Gained 100+ total review likes

Shreked

Found the secret ogre page

2 Years of Service

Being part of the Backloggd community for 2 years

Popular

Gained 15+ followers

GOTY '22

Participated in the 2022 Game of the Year Event

Gamer

Played 250+ games

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Become mutual friends with at least 3 others

Busy Day

Journaled 5+ games in a single day

N00b

Played 100+ games

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Gained 3+ followers

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Gained 10+ likes on a single review

Liked

Gained 10+ total review likes

Gone Gold

Received 5+ likes on a review while featured on the front page

On Schedule

Journaled games once a day for a week straight

Favorite Games

Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening - Special Edition
Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening - Special Edition
Undertale
Undertale
Persona 3 FES
Persona 3 FES
Kirby Air Ride
Kirby Air Ride
Cave Story
Cave Story

440

Total Games Played

006

Played in 2024

091

Games Backloggd


Recently Played See More

Persona 3 Reload
Persona 3 Reload

Mar 16

Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Feb 10

VRChat
VRChat

Jan 22

Kingdom Hearts Final Mix
Kingdom Hearts Final Mix

Jan 08

Super Mario RPG
Super Mario RPG

Jan 05

Recently Reviewed See More

So, does anyone else think a “Mario Party 9 was good, actually” resurgence is imminent?

I was discussing with some others a while ago about how Nintendo YouTubers have hyped up games including Banjo-Kazooie and Mario Kart 64 as the “greatest of all time” and there’s been more attention recently brought to the fact Internet users are prone to mindlessly parroting the opinions of big YouTubers until they become the standard “popular opinion” of their respective fanbase. Some of these include classic memes about Navi and Slippy Toad being the worst video game characters and the most annoying things ever, which many have now realized were overexaggerated early 2010s gaming humor. Some of which is currently ongoing nonsense about Kazuya Mishima being an obscure character and how we instead needed the “more iconic” character Geno in Smash Bros. instead, who probably owes a good chunk of his enduring popularity from people hearing their favorite YouTuber, who was actually old enough to play Mario RPG when it first came out, say Geno would be cool in Smash. And then there’s stuff I’m not sure what the consensus is at this point, pretty sure Twitter got into a fight over if the Water Temple was actually as hard as people made it out to be for decades and couldn’t come to an agreement. This even extends to things outside of the realm of gaming, such as a thread on Twitter I saw the other day about how season 4 of SpongeBob had plenty of gems and was unfairly lumped into the downfall of the series by YouTubers and critics.

The conversation eventually morphed into this question: Which Wii game is going to randomly get a renaissance of “it was good, actually?” I put my vote in for this one. The day before I saw someone whose profile bio was “the only Mario Party 9 enjoyer.” When I brought up Mario Party 9 as the game that would get a big flip in consensus, someone else in call SCREAMED at everyone about how he was saying “it was good, actually” since 2012. I brought up this conversation on another Discord server the next day, get a response saying “oh yeah I knew someone whose favorite game of ALL TIME was Mario Party 9.” I then saw it rank higher than 8 and one of the GCN Mario Parties on a tier list a few days later. Today I saw a tweet with a bunch of people proclaiming themselves as “Mario Party 9 enjoyers” which reminded me I had to publish this review.

Mario Party 9 is definitely a victim of “someone told me it was bad and not like the iconic N64 original games' so it's bad' and it gained this negative reception for a pretty notable reason, they overhauled the gameplay completely by shoving everyone into a car, and instead of everyone being able to move individually, you’re all moving together on a linear board aiming to (I do not remember what the win condition for this game even is, is it just most Mini-Stars wins?) which is widely considered a downgrade from previous entries that had codified a pretty solid gameplay loop for a little over a decade. 9 does have its positives though, the minigame selection is fairly solid, apparently held up as one of the series best. This game also adds in boss battles, each board having its own unique midboss and boss at the middle of the road and the very end respectively. You work together to defeat the boss while also trying to maximize your own individual score for a higher ministar payout. Bosses are an interesting idea and they’re fun fights (disregarding some of the really RNG ones, but it is Mario Party after all), they also have decent music, Bowser Jr.’s Mad seems to be the fan favorite but I’ve always had a soft spot for King Bob-omb’s themes.

It’s not hard to see why this game upset a lot of people and caused an endless wave of “N64/GCN Mario Party good car bad” and “when is Nintendo going to make a REAL Mario Party again?” It’s not my personal Mario Party choice, I grew up playing 8 a lot more and usually play the N64/GCN titles whenever friends want to play it. However, with the Mario Party franchise slowly slipping back into its original gameplay style, as well as the fact a lot of people who grew up with Mario Party 9, myself included, are getting older and louder on the Internet, I really think we’re going to be seeing a lot more “Hot Take: I think Mario Party 9 was good” posts on Twitter with a bunch of replies going “no yeah I agree with you I loved that game as a kid!”

I don’t know if we’ll ever see a renaissance for Mario Party 10, the other main entry using the car system, which seems to still have its reputation as “the bad one™,” is stuck on the Wii U, and widely regarded as much less balanced and much more boring. The people who grew up driving cars in Mario Party 10 are probably old enough to drive cars in real life now (I already see a handful of “Mario Party 10 was my childhood” scrolling through its backloggd reviews.) so it's probably not out of the question, you never know! Apologies if you grew any gray hairs when I said that.

I went into this one kinda expecting it to be a weird middle entry in between the acclaimed VI and IV, walked out pleasantly surprised and the game ended up being a personal favorite of mine. The characters and story aren’t the most fleshed out in the world but charming nonetheless. Gilgamesh is easily the highlight of this game, and would go on to be a recurring character in many Final Fantasy games. The main party is nice too, the smaller number of them compared to other RPG parties makes each of them memorable and they each have their little moments. Exdeath is also a cool villain, one of those antagonists from an iconic video game no one talks about but I’m weirdly fond of anyway and half of it is probably because of good theme music. The expansive job system of this game also makes your small party very customizable and the game pretty replayable, and is one of the main things everyone praises about the game. Overall, definitely don’t skip this Final Fantasy game, it’s a nice time.

This review contains spoilers

Final backloggd review of 2023, it is still 2023 here for a few more minutes don't listen to backloggd's timezone that's way ahead of me. Mario Wonder was alright, I wouldn't call it the greatest video game ever made because they bothered to spice up the artstyle but I still enjoyed it, and it is the most creative 2D Mario in a long time. I've been kind of falling off Mario this year and it was definitely a horrible time to do so considering just how much they dropped for the red plumber this year. Therefore I don't think I enjoyed this as much as I would have if it dropped a few years prior, but it's a nice game. There are a lot more playable characters this time around, not really jumping out of my seat any of the new additions but the mainstay Mario characters I care about (Bowser, Wario, DK) are either locked to final boss status or honestly better off with their own solo adventures instead of tagging along with Mario.

I really like how this game gradually builds up to the final confrontation, starting out with one of the earliest Wonder effects being the famous Piranha Plants on Parade, then gradually introducing more music themed Wonder effects until you arrive at the final level with Bowser's musical Wonder effect, go through a reprise of the previous songs from past levels before walking into a concert stage having figured out what's about to go down.